PRINCESS BEAST by Pamela Ditchoff

rant to watch Helga diminish to a spot of light among the bulrushes, and she makes a vow to avoid men of the cloth.
     
    * * *

     

 
    Chapter Seven
    When The Bough Breaks
     

    Croesus the hound turns away from the crystal ball and flops to the floor with a disgruntled growl.
    "And your crybaby whiny-assed opinion would be?  Of course Helga got dissed--she was young, beautiful, a pagan and a virgin in Andersen Land.”  Elora raps her nails over the ball, "Yep, the priest lured her away from the happy life she might have had, and he knew--don't tell me he didn't know, how fast time passed in paradise and how much she wanted to stay with him. For the past few hundred years, the priest has dwelt in paradise while Helga's stuck in depressed adolescence as a damned night light in limbo.  Ah, now there's a slap-happy spot, all those unbaptized Christian souls weeping, wailing, gnashing teeth, while waiting for enough prayers and candles to boot them up to heaven."
    Croesus rolls onto his back and whimpers.
    "Hey, I did the max by bringing her to the bog, the rest is up to Helga.  She's the only one who can help herself and she's too depressed to figure it out.  If she had stayed true to her nature, she'd either be in a Valkyrie in Valhalla or a mummy in a tomb, her spirit visited by numerous great-great-great grandchildren. The moment that ghosty girl says,
I don't deserve this shit
, she'll be outta there."
    Croesus hops to his feet and wags his tail.
    "No, I will not tell you where.  If I gave away all my secrets then I wouldn't be the omnipotent enchantress I am, would I? Now let’s go swan hunting.”
     
    * * *
     
    Without the distraction of conversation, the sounds of the swamp grow sharp and clear:  the click clack of bog beetles, the slither of bog salamanders, the chitter of bog lemmings; sounds Rune has not heard in the forest, and to her dismay, the sun is beginning to go down over the bog lake.
No, I won’t stay and listen to one more infuriating word from Helga,
she thinks
, I need to get away from this blasted bog.
Rune takes off in a trot, her knowledge of the seasons and skies guiding her at last to a forest in Frederica. She considers traveling through the night; beasts can see quite well in the dark.  However the possibility of stepping into a sinkhole or coming upon an animal of greater size and strength, makes her reconsider Helga’s warning,
A girl unafraid in this land is doomed
. She looks about for a tall strong tree and settles on a black oak.  Halfway up, she can see across the Little Belt to the Island of Fyn, and she wedges her square hairy body in the fork of two branches.
    Under normal circumstances, Rune would make up a song to ease her worries, but tonight, she doesn't feel much like singing.  She's thinking about Helga and her priest, and even though she is an exceptionally bright beastie, she still has the emotions of a fourteen year old, which rarely view love with logic, especially after a long day of travel.
    "They will be together some day soon, just as Hans and I will be together by Christmas. The prince and his princess," Rune whispers wistfully and closes her eyes.
    "What are you about?  Slumber Land?  In my oak tree? Well, well, well now, it is known throughout this land to be true that a real princess could never sleep in a tree,” says the Fairy of Pedigrees, looking down her long nose from an acorn bed.  “A real princess cannot sleep on twenty mattresses topped with twenty eiderdown quilts if there be even a pea at the bottom, that's how delicate a true princess be.  Are you listening?"
    The fairy is answered by Rune's rumbling snore.  She bites her thumb and flies to the tip-top of the oak tree, acorn clenched between her delicate hands.
     
    * * *
     
    Beauty stops to read a large sign at the beginning of a road edged with stones: 

    Welcome to Andersen Land. 
    Please don't step on the flowers.

    She lifts the mirror and sees that Rune is fast asleep in an