The Invisible Treasure

Along time ago and a long way away there lived the evilest of evil witches; a vile, repulsive, black hearted villainess named Dezmerella and Dezmerella desperately sought a fabulous magical treasure; a treasure  legend said would give its possessor unlimited magical power and which was located in a cavern of blue crystal high atop a snowy mountain at the edge of the world.

When she got to the top of the mountain and entered the cave however; looking around her she could see nothing but old bric-a-brac and rubbish.

“What is this?”, she said, angrily, “Where is the fabulous treasure that will give me unlimited power? All I see is rubbish here”.

“It is invisible to you”, said the echo of her voice coming from the cave, “Only a small child can see the treasure”.

Exasperated, the witch sighed but then, spreading her arms out she turned into the shadow of a huge crow and, screeching, flew down the mountain and over fields and villages and towns before, flying into the window of an orphanage, she snatched up a sleeping  girl; a girl called Lorina, in a pair of shadowy arms and, flying away fast as the night wind, she carried her back to the blue crystal cavern on the mountaintop before, turning back into her human form, she grabbed hold of the childs hand and dragged her inside.

“Now look around this cave and look carefully you brat”, she said to the little girl, meanly, “Tell me if you see any treasure and don’t lie to me or I shall turn you into chicken noodle soup and eat you up with a spoon, understand”.

Frightened, the little girl did as she was told but at first could, just like the witch, see nothing but bric-a-brac and rubbish; nothing that, to her looked like treasure but then, in a corner of the cave, suddenly the little girl spied a little rag doll with a tattered dress and a dirty face but, still, it was the prettiest doll she had ever seen and, picking it up, she carried it over to the witch.

However, when the witch looked at the rag doll, she only yelled angrily at the girl;

“Why you simpleton”, she said, “I told you to look for an invisible treasure. I can see this and so it can’t be an invisible and it certainly doesn’t look like treasure, does it? Go back and look again and you better find it this time or else I’ll turn you into spaghetti and eat you with a fork”.

And so poor Lorina looked again round about the cave but, however hard she looked, the poor girl could see nothing in the cave that looked to her like treasure.

And so the witch flying into a rage, pointed a long nailed finger at the little girl and said that she would turn her into frankfurters and eat her with beans.

But just then the little girl picked up the rag doll that the witch had thrown on the floor and hugged it tightly and as she did the doll started to blink its eyes, coming to life and then, in an otherworldly voice, it spoke.

“Foolish woman. I am only an invisible treasure to you because you do not see me as treasure. Only a little girl sees treasure in an old rag doll”, it said.

Hearing this the witch gasped and then, lunging forward, frantically she tried to grab hold of the doll however, the moment that her long nailed fingers touched the doll, in a flash of light and a burst of flame; screaming, the evil old woman was transformed into a piece of rubbish and bric-a-brac like the other pieces of rubbish and bric-a-brac that littered the cave.

“What did you do to her?”, asked the little girl.

“Like all the other greedy, cruel people who searched for me but couldn’t see me, I reduced her to what she was worth; a pile of rubbish”.

But then, as the little girl was hugging the doll, its eyes lit up with a bright glow and, two stars flashing brightly in them, it said, “The fondest wish of your heart is granted”.

And then, suddenly, to her astonishment, looking round about her, the little girl saw that she was no longer in the cold crystal cave on top of the snowy mountain but in a warm house with two loving parents smiling down at her.

“Oh this really is treasure”, said the little girl as she hugged her new mother and father.

“The greatest treasure of all”, said the doll, “Is love”.