A Tale That Could Not Be

The journey down the hole was numbing and yet pleasing. Selvina felt as if her body was spinning end over end, twirling around, and bouncing all over at the same time yet she only continued to fall. Goldilocks, Wendy and Rapunzel seemed as baffled as she was but they too only fell, their bodies moving in a straight line toward a bottom no one could see. Despite the odd sensation, which would normally make her want to vomit, Selvina felt wonderful. Her skin tingled and her body crackled with the aftereffects of a great rush of ecstasy. She glanced around the walls of the tunnel she fell through and saw blurry shapes pass by, too fast to see clearly. They resembled clocks, apples, cakes, muffins, pictures in elaborate frames, teapots, tables, chairs, roses, chess pieces, and all manner of things but she took it as her mind trying to clarify images it could not fully discern. They were most likely odd-shaped rocks stuck to the side of the glowing blue tunnel.

They fell for what felt like hours, perhaps even days, and during that entire time Peter Pan was laughing. Unlike the girls he was actually spinning end over end, and then twirling around and around like a top, and then after that bouncing along the sides of the tunnel, enjoying the fall as if it was a carnival ride. Selvina tried to ignore him but failed miserably. She could either watch blurry shapes streak by or witness Pan giving in to his insanity and though the latter was more disturbing, it was strangely entertaining.

Eventually, the descent seemed to slow and the multitude of contradicting sensations withered away. The walls of the tunnel turned from blue to green and sharpened into recognizable shapes. Within seconds the girls and Pan no longer hung in the air inside a tunnel but sat on the ground within a vast forest at the edge of a vibrant meadow. The forest was unlike any other, however. Everything appeared mismatched. Some of the tree trunks were colored green and the leaves were brown. Some trunks were entirely composed of leaves wrapped and piled on top of one another in a thick cylindrical shape with vine-like branches stretching out like arms and fingers and ending in leaf-shaped slices of wood. In the meadow were many brilliant flowers with colourful stems and leaves but green petals. Sometimes the petals were leaves and the leaves were petals. There were lady’s slipper flowers made of actual slippers. Anemone flowers were real anemones with writhing tentacles. There was a nearby patch of flowers that looked to Selvina like a bunch of colorful balloons stuck to green stems.

“Eww!” Rapunzel cried as she squirmed away from a long plant stem on which hung what looked very much like several bleeding hearts.

Pan, of course, laughed. “Bleeding hearts! They’re flowers! See those balloons? Balloon flowers! Over there are lady’s slippers that you can actually use as slippers! See those yellow ones that look like cups of butter? Hahaha! Buttercups!”

Wendy stood up and brushed off some dirt from her dress. “What is this place? It’s like from a dream…”

“You’ve got some bloody bizarre dreams then, mate,” Goldilocks said as she examined a group of flowers that resembled little, sleeping serpentine dragons. She was about to poke them when Pan cautioned her against it.

“Snapdragons,” he informed her. “You’ve already lost an ear, Goldy. Are you in such a hurry to lose a finger too?”

“You’re the one who rid me of this ear!” she fired back, nevertheless moving away from the snapdragons.

Selvina neared a patch of large daisies as big as her head and noticed that, other than their size, they looked like regular daisies. It struck her as peculiar that unlike all the other flowers and plants the only abnormal thing about the daisies were their size. She poked it and it felt like a regular daisy would.

“How strange,” he muttered as she moved in for a closer look.

Suddenly, in the very middle of the flower two large eyes opened up, staring directly at Selvina. She jumped in shock and fell on her backside, her mind attempting to decide whether she had imagined it all or not. The large daisy blinked its eyes, studying her closely, and Selvina soon realized that the flower was indeed looking at her. The flower’s eyes lifted slightly, as if gazing at something behind her, narrowed for a moment, and then closed.

“Enjoying the daisies?” Selvina heard Pan ask from behind her.

The startled blonde stood up and stared at the daisy for a minute but it never opened its eyes again, apparently having seen enough. Selvina turned to Pan, a confused expression on her face. “Did that daisy really have eyes?”

“Yes it did!” Pan replied excitedly.

“But…why?”

“Well, it’s daytime and that’s when they like to see.”

“Um…”

Pan suddenly shot up into the air and exclaimed loudly, “Welcome to Wonderland, girls, but as much fun as it is to sniff the roses it’s time to go! We have a bit of a walk to make before we get to where we need to be so get your lovely selves together and let’s move!”

Goldilocks and Wendy helped Rapunzel gather her long hair, carefully pulling it off of dangerous plants and pulling out bits of grass and debris from its silky locks. Once it was all gathered in Rapunzel’s arms, despite some strands still spilling over and dragging on the ground, they joined Selvina at the edge of the meadow. Pan standing at the edge of the meadow, tapping his foot impatiently, and frowning at them.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!!!” he growled.

“What’s the bloody rush?” Goldilocks growled back.

“These woods are dangerous and the longer we stay here the greater the chance you get killed and I lose out on my bargain!”

“Oh, how I do appreciate your concern for us…”

When the girls reached Pan he swiftly turned around and walked into the forest, following a narrow path that no one had noticed until now. Selvina glanced at Rapunzel, who seemed ready to panic.

“What’s the matter?” she asked her.

Rapunzel looked at Pan briefly before answering. “It’s my hair. Pan said if I don’t keep it brushed and smooth that he’d kill me but it’s all tangled and messy and I don’t have time to fix it. I don’t even have my brush with me… I’m so scared he’ll notice…”

Selvina placed a comforting hand on the frightened young woman’s shoulder. “We won’t let him do that to you.”

“We’ve got each other’s backs,” Goldilocks added, overhearing the conversation. “That bastard is going to abuse us no more.”

“Snow White finally got away,” Wendy said, joining them. “I hope Tarzan is treating her better than Pan ever did. She deserves it.”

“That handsome piece of muscle attacked Pan so that puts him on our side in my mind. I envy that snow-haired animal whisperer. Her troubles are over.”

Selvina nodded, pleased that at least one of Pan’s kidnapped victims got away. It was only fair that it was the one had sustained the most abuse. “The Tarzan in the stories from my world was a good man. He protected the jungle and its animals from poachers and men wishing to destroy it. I hope he’s the same person here too.”

The girls and Pan followed the path through the strange forest, coming across more strange plants and eventually met their first animals. Small mice with short bob-tails that greatly resembled door knobs ran across the path, startling Rapunzel and Selvina but hardly fazing the other two women. Wendy had seen her fill of rats in the alleys of Tortug and Goldilocks had encountered many rodents during her numerous forest hikes.

“Door mice!” Pan exclaimed as a few of them ran in front of him. He stomped his foot and crushed one under his boot. He flipped it over and, with a wink at the girls, licked the remains off the bottom. “They taste wonderful when slammed! Hahahaha!”

Selvina and Rapunzel spun around and retched, vomiting all over a large, leafy plant. Selvina’s stomach felt twisted and she did not want to look at Pan for a while, far too disgusted to do so. She tried to chase away the revolting scene from her mind but was having great difficulty. She had thought that she had seen the extent of Pan’s disturbing strangeness but clearly that was wrong. She could still hear the sound of his tongue rubbing against the leather sole, slurping up the crushed remnants of the small door mouse. Her stomach heaved and Selvina gagged.

A great fog suddenly rolled in, as unexpected as Pan’s taste for door mice. Selvina gathered her senses and glanced around, exchanging a confused and worried glance with Rapunzel. The fog had a strange scent, like burned tobacco.

“It’s smoke,” Selvina noted. The implications of that suddenly hit her and she scrambled, running through the smoke in the direction she had last seen Wendy and Goldilocks. Rapunzel was behind her, following close. They ran through the thick smoke for a few feet before slamming into a tree. Both girls fell to the ground and ran in a different direction. Another tree stopped them and they soon both realized that they’d never reach their friends this way.

“Wendy!” Selvina shouted as loud as she could. “Goldilocks! Where are you?! Can you hear me?”

Rapunzel shouted for them too, dropping her hair on the ground and cupping her mouth with her hands. “Goldilocks! Wendy! Where did you go? Selvina and I are—” she was unable to finish as the thick smoke made her cough. She glanced about in panic, turning about and walking a few feet one way and then another and tugging on her hair nervously. Her rapid breathing only made her cough more and Selvina hurried to her side, wrapping an arm around her and lowering her to the ground, where the smoke wasn’t as thick.

“We’ll just have to wait it out,” she said, hoping she was right.

“It’s a forest fire,” Rapunzel said after a cough. “We’ll die!”

“I’m not so sure if it is.”

Rapunzel furrowed her brows in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t smell like a forest fire. My brother fought fires and I went with him once when he had to deal with a small forest fire and this doesn’t smell like that.”

“This land is different, Selvina. Forest fires could smell differently here too.”

“Maybe, but it smells more like my dad’s garage after a bunch of his friends had come to drink. It smells like tobacco and not burning trees…”

A leaf on the ground before them stirred and the girls watched as a large blue caterpillar walked on its surface. It was the size of a small dog and had four small arms along with ten padded feet. In one of its hands it gripped a golden tube that was attached to a hose that connected to a type of ornate glass container that resembled a vase. The caterpillar placed its mouth over the tub, sucked on it for a moment, and then pulled it out. It then blew a cloud of smoke into the girl’s faces, making both of them cough.

“You’re hardly worth the effort,” the caterpillar said with an air of superiority, as if it considered itself better than them.

“That bug just talked!” Rapunzel said as she sat up and inched away from the blue caterpillar. “And it’s smoking!”

“The caterpillar and the hookah,” Selvina said as she waved away some of the smoke drifting toward her nose. “So he exists in this world too.”

“I exist as much as she and this world do,” the caterpillar said before taking another puff of its hookah. “Yet you do not.”

“Did you cause all of this?” Selvina asked, gesturing to the smog all around them.

“I merely exist, as you said.”

“Stop! Why did you do that? Now Rapunzel and I are separated from our friends! Make the smoke go away so we can find them again.”

“I take no orders from someone who does not exist.”

“You’re making no sense. I’m right here! I exist!”

“Not in this world you do not.”

“What?”

Rapunzel inched closer, hear fear abated. “Selvina, I think he means that you’re not from this world. You’re not supposed to be here so to him, you don’t exist.”

Selvina felt strangely hurt by that realization. It was just a stupid caterpillar but nevertheless its words held great meaning. She truly didn’t belong in Faeryum, let alone Wonderland. If she didn’t belong then did it matter what happened to her? Had her life any purpose?

Rapunzel fanned away another cloud of incoming hookah smoke before asking, “Why did you create all this smoke?”

“A bird that should not exist does not deserve the worm.”

“Bird?”

“I think he means Pan,” Selvina said quietly, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “We’re his worms.”

Rapunzel turned her attention back to the caterpillar. “So you did this to save us?”

“Hardly.”

“Then why did you help us?”

“I simply did.”

“Well, thank you, but we’re now lost and separated and we don’t know the way around. We also need to save our other two friends. Could you help us with that?”

“I could, if I so chose to, but it hardly matters.”

“Yes it does matter! We don’t want Pan to reach the queen.”

“Queen? If she is the destination then being lost is a better place than being found.”

“No! Help us! Please…”

“Dig a hole and hide, worm, before the bird returns.”

With that, the caterpillar turned around, gathered its hookah in its four arms and crawled into a hole in a nearby tree. Rapunzel tried to urge it to come out and help but it never answered. She sat back, shoved her face in her hands, and began to cry.

“Rapunzel,” Selvina said, glancing about. “Look what you did.”

“I’m sorry! I tried! I really did!”

“No! Look!”

Rapunzel looked up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and smiled wide. Selvina stood up, brushed off the dirt from her skirt, and helped Rapunzel to her feet before giving her a hug. The forest around them was clear once again. There was no hint of any smoke left. The caterpillar had helped them one last time.

But there was no sign of Wendy, Goldilocks or Pan.

Both girls called out to their friends, shouting as loudly as they could. They were red in the face and out of breath when they finished. No calls had ever returned to them.

Rapunzel’s smile was long gone. “We can see again but where do we go now?”

Selvina had no answer. “I…I don’t know. I can’t even see the path anymore.”

“Are we stuck here?” Rapunzel asked frightfully.

Selvina searched about, hoping to find a path or a break in the trees or anything that might help tell her which direction to move. All she saw were trees, bushes, and more trees. She thought of climbing one of the trees and looking over the forest canopy but she was horribly inept at climbing trees and didn’t want to fall and break anything. Rapunzel, however…

“What do we do?” the long-haired teen asked, her fear rising with every passing minute.

“Climb.”

“What?”

“Climb a tree!”

“I don’t know how to climb a tree!”

“Use your hair, Rapunzel. I’m horrible at climbing trees but you can at least use your hair as a rope that will stop you from falling if you slip. Just climb a tree and look over the top. Maybe you’ll find a way out of this forest.”

Rapunzel seemed incredibly uncertain but she did consider the idea. It was the only plan they had and it was better than standing around and worrying. Eventually, she nodded and agreed to do it. Together, the two girls searched for a tree with enough branches to make it relatively easy to climb. It was a large forest and it did not take long for them to find one. After it was found, Rapunzel removed her shoes and wrapped most of her hair around her waist. She allowed a length of several feet to dangle and, with Selvina’s help, tied off several branches at its tip to act a crude grappling hook. Selvina then helped her reach the first branches, pushing her up with all her might. Once Rapunzel had a firm grip on the branches she continued on her own. After every few feet she would grab the length of hair still dangling behind her and toss it over a branch overhead and let the grappling hook catch. She would then pull herself up by her own hair, climbing up the tree as if it was a mountain. It was a slow process as sometimes her aim wasn’t perfect and her grappling hook would get caught in leaves instead of a firm branch but to Selvina’s surprise and appreciation, Rapunzel did not give up. She eventually did reach the top of the tree and Selvina eagerly waited for good news.

“I see a castle!” Rapunzel cried joyfully. “There’s these square bushes lined up in a strange kind of zig-zagging path in front of it but there is a castle! Pan has to be heading there with Wendy and Goldilocks!”

“Great job, Rapunzel!” Selvina shouted up at her. “Do you know how to get there?”

“I do! I’ll remember it! We’re not lost anymore!” She was so overjoyed that she began bouncing on the branch she stood on. Selvina smiled at Rapunzel’s excitement, happy about the news but happy for her as well. Not only had she persuaded the caterpillar to clear the smoke but she had also found a way out of the forest. Despite her fearfulness, there was strength and ability within her.

Coming down the tree was much easier than climbing up, as Rapunzel soon found out. The branch she bounced on eventually broke and she fell down, hitting a few branches along the way. She would have hit the ground hard had her hair not caught on one of the lower branches. Rapunzel’s fall abruptly stopped and due to the rest of her hair being wrapped around her waist she was spun in midair wildly as it rapidly unwrapped. Selvina found it strangely humorous to watch Rapunzel unroll like a tube of toilet paper. Once enough of the hair had been unwrapped she hit the ground, lightly enough, and rolled over on her back. Expecting fear or perhaps tears, Selvina was surprised even further when Rapunzel began to laugh. The mood was highly infectious and she laughed with her, caught in the moment.

The sound of the girls’ laughter travelled through the thick forest, bouncing off tree trunks and leaves and finding its way to a certain pair of pointed ears.

The bearer of those ears heard the laughter and grinned widely.