The Frog Collector
Chapter Five

“Think, think…”, said the princess to herself as she walked towards the other witch. “If she can’t get out of there, it’s because she has bad intentions. I can’t be the one to free her”.

The princess walked a long way. Despite not feeling thirsty because of the many lakes and rivers along the way, she began to feel hungry. She also regretted having left the castle so quickly that she didn’t eat or bring anything to put the flowers she intended to pick. So she ripped off part of the outfit she was wearing and decided to use it to put the flowers on it.

As he wondered how he would deal with Mirian, she heard a beautiful song of a bird there in the silent forest. This reminded her that she had probably walked for an hour and found no sign of the other witch’s wooden house. “I hope I didn’t get lost”, she thought.

She was tired and decided to stop for a while. She sat down on a log and contemplated the place. The place where she was now was a not very dense forest and there were many birds around. It was then that in the distance she saw a wooden house. The ground around the house was completely black. The princess got up happily and proceeded to that place. As she got closer she saw two birds fighting, one of them hit the air with a thud and fell.

“Another invisible wall? The king didn’t mention this one…”, she said in amazement.

The young woman went to try to help the little bird, but it was fine and flew away. Then she contemplated the place she was standing. To her surprise the ground around the wooden house was lined with the black flowers.

“So they really do exist… And there are a lot of them! I’m glad I won’t have to look far”, said the amazed princess, filling her clothes with the flowers.

She didn’t spend much time harvesting when she heard a scream:

“Hey you!”

The princess was terrified and dropped some flowers she had picked. “I was careless… Just a few more and it will be enough”, she thought as she desperately picked up the flowers. Soon she saw a woman leave the house and come towards her. The princess grabbed as many plants as she could carry and before she could be attacked, she left that environment stumbling along the path.

Already distant, she looked back while still running and heard a faint voice:

“Don’t go, wait! Don’t give the flowers to Mirian…”

For an instant, the princess thought the ground she was running on was shaking. “It must be because of the fright I got”, she thought. The witch’s voice became smaller and smaller.

“The witch cannot cross the invisible wall”, reflected Agatha and stopped a little relieved.

Then, panting, she started to take out of her clothes the flowers she picked and count them.

“…Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight…”, she stopped suddenly and looked for some more. “No, please…“, she said, trying to replace some, but couldn’t.

Agatha was very sorry that she didn’t have enough flowers and after a while she pondered:

“I can pretend that I am sorry and that I want to know more why she doesn’t want me to give the flowers to Mirian and thus get the flowers when she is distracted. But I must be careful with her convincing magic!”.

So the princess put everything away and went back to that other invisible wall.

Upon arriving near the place, the princess saw the witch who was a very beautiful woman, much younger than Mirian and seemed to have a familiar countenance. The woman said:

“You are back! That’s great! It’s very dangerous for flowers to fall into Mirian’s hands. You’re looking into my eyes... You can see me, can’t you?”.

“Yes”, answered the princess.

“How nice! Then I won’t need to remove the illusion magic that surrounds this place. Good because I don’t remember the spell for that anymore”.

The princess couldn’t understand.

“My name is Lilian”, continued the woman.

The princess almost said her name, but got to the point:

“Why did you tell me not to give the flowers to Mirian? How do you know about her?”

“Well, because she wants to bring back the age of magic. After all the problems we had with it and how hard it was to get rid of it. She wants to come back with that. Actually, she has never given up since that time”, answered the woman.

“So the story I heard is really true. About Mirian being in that prison since Isra’s time”, reminded Agatha.

“Yes… But I didn’t think you or anyone else was supposed to know about Isra”, exclaimed the surprised woman.

“I... I heard all about it”, said the princess gloomily.

Lilian smiled and invited her:

“Come on! Let’s sit down. You don’t want to stand there all the time, do you?”

“How do I know you won’t attack me?”, asked Agatha.

“It’s true… Mirian must have spoken ill of me. Well… if I wanted to attack you I would have already done so with so many plants at my disposal”, said Lilian pointing to the field of black flowers she had and continued: “But here’s what we can do: Surely you know how these walls work, don’t you? You can help me through the wall and see how I only have good intentions”, said the woman extending her hand to the princess.

Agatha thought for a while, she was reluctant, but she extended her fingertips, crossed the invisible dome with them, held Lilian’s hand and brought her out slowly. Lilian came out of the place sane and sketching a timid smile said:

“Did you see?”

The princess was impressed and was still trying to digest all of this. The woman took a deep breath looking at the trees.

“Wow… It’s been a long time since I’ve been out here…”, she said, but soon turned around and addressed the princess: “Shall we go inside?”

Then the two entered the invisible dome.