The Frog Collector
Chapter Two

It was already evening when the princess arrived at the castle. She barely had time to enter when she heard a deep, breathy voice:

“Where was Your Highness?”

It took a while for the princess to realize that it was the head of the palace guards, a tall, imposing man. He was not that old, but he had gray hair.

“Oh… Michael, what a fright! Hi… You’re sweaty… Is everything alright?”, she asked.

“Yes, it’s just that I was dying to see you arrive soon. It’s late, I thought you had disappeared... and Your Highness still hasn’t answered me”, he said.

“Keep your voice down”, she warned and continued: “I was looking for James. He didn’t show up today”.

“What? In this day?”, said Michael in surprise.

“That’s right. He never missed a day, and on an important day like this. I had to look for him and ended up being late”, Agatha answered, almost whispering.

“And did you replace him? Your Highness seems calm. What did you tell him?”, asked Michael curiously.

“I couldn’t replace him. But looking for him I found a woman in the forest who told me that he might have disappeared because of magic and said she could help me replace him”, said the girl.

Michael looked incredulously at the princess and began to sweat even more.

“Your Highness… has entered the forbidden forest? That is very dangerous princess… And this thing of magic… is a myth… Maybe something important happened in his kingdom and will come back tomorrow”, said the guard.

The princess retorted:

“You know he wouldn’t just disappear without telling me. I don’t think his disappearance is something natural. Besides, I saw the magic with my own eyes. It is real. There was a table there that makes every kind of food you can imagine. and there is also an invisible wall that surrounds the whole place and I don’t know how I got through”.

Michael was dumbfounded for a period and as he had no counter-arguments he asked her:

“What will Your Highness do now?”

Then the princess told him about the flowers she needed and then finished:

“I will try to talk to the king tomorrow and see if it is possible to replace these flowers in this kingdom. If it is not possible, I will look for them in another and in this case I will need your help again”.

Michael looked skeptically at the princess.

“Nothing will happen to you. I promise”, she said calmly.

The guard became reflective.

“Now I’m going to my room. Have a good evening”, said the young woman and left.

“Good evening”, Michael said thoughtfully, and watched her until she disappeared from sight through the rooms of the palace.

Without delay, he went to the king’s chambers, ordered the guards at the door to go elsewhere. When he was alone, he knocked on the door of the room.

“It is I, Your Majesty”, he said.

“You may come in”, said the king.

Michael entered. The king saw that he was tense and worried and asked him:

“What happened?”

Michael didn’t seem to know how to start talking, but finally he said:

“Your Majesty… the princess… found out”.

The king was amazed.

“How?”, he asked.

“She has just arrived saying that she has entered the forbidden forest and…”

“The forest? Weren’t you watching them? How could you let this happen?”, said the king raising his voice.

“Pardon me, Your Majesty. I accept the punishment! I Thought I’d leave you two alone on this important day. But James didn’t show up and the princess went in there to look for him”.

“Without warning?”, asked the king with more amazement.

“Yes… When I saw that the princess was taking a long time I went after her and I could see her by the lake alone. So I ran to the palace and then she told me what happened”.

“Has she talked to Mirian? Where is she?”, asked the king in a rage.

“I don’t know… She is resting now, she said she will talk to you tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll tell you everything”, said Michael, not wanting to tell you everything he heard.

The king sat down in an armchair and said nothing for a long time. Then he realized that Michael was still waiting.

“That’s fine. You can go. Send messengers to the neighboring kingdom. We need to know what happened to James. Tell his parents if they don’t know and start looking for him”.

“What about my punishment?”, asked Michael gloomily.

“I’ll think about it later”, said the king and remained focused.

Michael left the room.