The author of this blog has decided to end Ashenpuddle: Escape From The Wicked Knight right here and now in this post. That’s the power or writing literature: sometimes you have the {rare} opportunity to do what you want with the story.
As of now, Ashenpuddle is:
1. Motion sick. Someone has been moving the box around.
2.Well, we won’t go there.
And the woodsman is carrying the little box to:
3. A knight. Be prepared to be swept off your feet.
Keen readers will soon realize that we’ve seen this knight before. In fact, does blacksmith come to mind?
The woodsman tosses the box in front of the knight’s feet. “Mwaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” the knight exclaims.
“How much?” asks the woodsman.
The knight smirks and shakes the box upside down. Ashenpuddle and Snow White fall out. The knight undoes the diamond necklace from Snow White’s snowy neck, and hands it to the woodsman.
“I could have done that meself,” says the woodsman.
“Be thankful you’re leaving with your head,” retorts the knight.
The woodsman scowls.
“Why!” shouts Daisy with a start, “YOU’RE the, you’re the–”
“The dirty blacksmith? Why yes.”
“But you’re not dirty.”
“‘No, I shouldn’t think so.”
“You rather look like royalty.”
“Yes, I am. Aren’t I, Snowy?” he pointed to Snow White.
“Well, I never–”
“Tsst. I suppose that everyone–besides the woodsman, that is, is wondering what is going on?”
Nods.
“Alright then. Where shall I begin? Oh yes. I am terribly evil. Quite. And you’re in a different sort of universe…right?”
“Right.”
“Wrong.”
“Wrong?” Ashenpuddle burst into tears, “Why, why what do you mean, ‘wrong’?!”
“You are in, as we know it, planet earth.”
“No…no, but I fell into the water.”
“Yeah, and Grimhilde can turn into a bird,” Snow White added.
“And I was put inside a little box that was bigger on the inside!” (We won’t go there, either.)
“Yeah, and it seems to me that a long time ago, I was a lot more tender-hearted,” added the woodsman.
“You’re all right, but you’re not proving anything, really. Let me just explain and don’t interrupt. Where was I? Oh yes. I’m terribly wicked. My scheme is to destroy the kingdom. I’m actually an inventor…I mean, I tinker with things in my spare time, you know, after battles and all, and, well…I came up with this little experiment that turns the world upside down. It worked, actually. That’s a first.”
“But what about Charming? And I FELL into the water when everything changed.”
“To answer your two questions, one of them really being a rhetorical statement, Charming is fine. When I captured him, it was before my experiment. You being left out of the holdup was not intentional. I just thought if I got rid of the royal heir to the throne, my chances of capturing the kingdom were higher. You had better be thankful my experiment started working when you fell into the water, otherwise you would have drowned.”
“But what about Snow White? Why has she turned wicked, and Grimhilde good?”
“I wouldn’t say Grimhilde’s good,” someone muttered.
“Not everything is like the fairy tales, darling,” the knight smiled, “what if good turned bad, and bad turned good? What then? Then I could capture the kingdom, and everyone would would think me smashing.”
“I haven’t felt any change!”
“Yes, ma’am, you see that was the problem. The drug was affecting everyone but you. WELL, enough of this small talk! Let me kill your husband.”
“NOOOOOO!! PLEASE STOP!!!!!!!”
Suddenly, everything went light.
“Oh, oh, where am–”
“Good morning, deary!” someone exclaimed.
“What, wha–?”
“Rise and shine. You’re almost late for school.”
“School?”
“Well don’t lie their yawning. Hop out of bed. Unless you’re Cinderella, and plan to marry a prince, there will be no sleeping in for you, young lady. Come on, you’ve almost out slept the clock!”
“Grandma?”
“Your breakfast is ready.”
“Grandma. If I was to marry a prince, for our honeymoon, I would want him to tell me exactly where we were going, and we shouldn’t go on the back roads.”
“Well if you marry a prince, you just do that. Well, alright, let’s go and eat.”
“Alright.”
And so little Daisy went with her Grandmother to the kitchen, and they both ate happily ever after. And if I am not mistaken, Ashenpuddle is one of her favorite fairy tales to this day.
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