The Island Princess

Once there was a girl named Marilla who lived with her mother, Zilice, on an island surrounded by dense fog on all sides.
Her mother was actually a witch who had magically placed the fog all around the island so that the girl wouldn't be able to see the world outside.
"There is nothing beyond the island", she said, "Except monsters that would eat you. Here is where you are safe".
And so Marilla grew up on the island, feeling alone with only her magical toys for company; a magic teddy bear and a magic doll.
Sometimes however, her mother would lock herself in her study and say that she was not to be disturbed and then she would travel though a secret magic door to the outside world where she would work evil and mischief.
And one day, while her mother away from the island, a ship was lost in the fog and crashed upon the rocky shore of the island and there was one survivor, a prince called Edram.
And seeing the prince lying washed up but unconcious on the shore Marilla was startled but curious.
"What kind of a creature is it?", she asked her magic teddybear and her magic doll.
"I don't know but don't go near it", said her teddy bear, "It might be dangerous".
She looked down at the face of the unconcious man.
"It doesn't look dangerous", she said, "It looks gentle and kind".
But then Edram, hearing Marilla and her teddy bear talking, woke up.
"A young woman?", he said, opening his eyes and seeing Marilla,  "Am I dreaming?".
The prince got to his feet and looked around at the island and the wall of dense fog behind him.
"What is this place?", he asked Marilla, "And who are you?".
"This is the island of my mother Zilice", said Marilla, "And I am called Marilla but where did you come from. Were you conjured up by magic like I was?".
"Magic?", asked Edram.
"Yes. I was made by magic by my mother", said Marilla.
"Well, no I wasn't conjured up", said Edram, "My name is Prince Edram and I was a passenger on a sailing ship from a land called Silesia before it sailed into the fog that surrounds this island of yours".
"But that is impossible", said Marilla, "There are no lands outside the fog and no other people. Only monsters that eat people".
"Who told you that?", said the Prince.
"My mother", said Marilla.
"Then your mother is lying", said Edram.
"Lying?", asked Marilla, "What is lying?".
The prince could see that Marilla knew as little as a child about the world and so he explained to her what lying was and told her about the many lands that were outside the fog.
"But why would my mother lie to me?", asked Marilla, confused, "It doesn't make sense".
"Ofcourse it doesn't", said Marillas doll, "And how do you know he's not lying? For all you know. He could be one of those monsters that your mother warned you about".
"Yes", said her teddy bear, "I'm not sure if I trust him either. He looks kind of ferocious to me like he could eat me".
"I'm no monster", he said to Marilla, "Honestly. You must believe me".
But then Marilla had an idea.
From around her neck she took an object, a magic compass that she wore.
"My mother gave it to me incase I ever wandered into the fog and got lost", she said, "But I always use it to find lost things because it will point to anything I ask it to find".
Then she asked her compass, "Point to the one among us who is a lying monster".
And when she said this the needle of her magic compass spun around and around in a circle because none among them was a lying monster.
"Now point to the one among us who is an honest man", said the prince.
Immediately, the needle of the compass pointed towards Prince Edram.
"Its true", said Marilla, looking at the compass, flabbergasted.
"I don't know", said her teddybear, "Maybe that thing is broken. He still looks ferocious to me".
But then Marilla heard the sound of her mother calling for her.
"Marilla? Where are you?", she heard her say.
"That is my mother", said Marilla, "I have to go to her or she'll only come looking for me".
And so, hanging the magic compass around the princes neck because, knowing he was an honest man she knew she could trust him with it, she ran to her mother.
"Where have you been Marilla?", her mother said to her, "And where is the magic compass I gave you?"
"Oh I lost it", said Marilla, "It must be somewhere in the house".
"Thats just like you", said her mother, "I give you a compass that can find lost things and you lose the compass"
But then Marilla and her Mother went back into their house and Marilla went with her teddybear and doll up to her room.
However, just then the witch heard the magic conch shell that she kept in her study blowing like a horn and going in to her study she held the shell to her ear and said,
"Magic seashell of the deep. Tell me secrets that you keep".
And the magic seashell whispered to Zilice, in a voice like the ocean, the secret that her daughter had met and talked to a man upon the shore.
And realising that her daughter had lied to her she went to her daughters room to confront her.
"After all I have done for you, you ungrateful girl", said her mother, "You decieve me like this".
"It is you who have decieved me", said Marilla, "You told me that there was nothing outside the fog. No other people except you and I in all the world".
"Only to protect you", said her mother.
"But there are no monsters outside the fog, mother, only men", said Marilla.
"Men are monsters", said her mother.
But then Zilice used her magic to turn her daughter into a tiny mermaid and placed her in a goldfish bowl in her room.
"You will stay in that bowl until I have dealt with this intruder on my island", said her mother.
Then her mother went off to find Prince Edram.
But, peering out over the edge of her goldfish bowl, Marilla said to her teddybear and doll,
"You must go and help Prince Edram or I'm sure my mother will kill him".
"And what if she kills us?", said her teddybear, trembling with fear, "I'm not a grizzly bear you know or a polar bear, they're brave and ferocious. I'm just a teddybear".
But then Marilla looked over at a toy box that was in the corner of her room.
"Take my magic toy box", she said, "It contains any toy you wish for. It might help".
And so the teddybear and the doll picked up Marillas magic toy box and, carrying it, they went off to find Marilla and the prince.
And when they found them, they were outside the house fighting.
"You can't defeat me", Marilla was saying to the prince as their swords clashed, "I'm the most powerful witch in all the world".
But then the teddy bear and the doll opened the magic toybox.
"I don't know what Marilla expects us to do with this", said the Teddybear to the doll, "We'd need an army to defeat Zilice".
But then, just as he was saying that, suddenly they heard the sound of a tiny bugle playing from within the box and then the sound of tiny drummers drumming and then, to their astonishment, out of the box jumped a wooden toy soldier carrying a tiny toy rifle and then another one and another one.
And the soldiers kept jumping out of the box until there was a whole regiment of them.
Then one of the soldiers who was a tiny Sarjeant Major shouted to the others, "Company. Atten- shun!".
And suddenly, all the toy soldiers, forming a line, stood up straight and saluted.
Then, turning to the teddy bear and saluting too, the tiny sarjeant major said, "All men present and correct sir, awaiting your orders".
"Good", said the teddy bear, "Then I order you to attack that woman over there".
And the teddy bear pointed to Zilice who, just at that moment was standing over a prince who was helplessly lying on his back about to plunge her sword into his heart.
But then the tiny Sarjeant major, drawing a tiny sabre from a tiny sheathe and raising it above his wooden head, shouted, "Company, charge!".
And suddenly the tiny toy regiment went charging towards Zilice, and using her long witches cloak to cling onto they climbed up over her back just as if they were scaling the walls of an enemy fortress, sticking her with their pin-sized bayonettes.
Startled, the witch let out a shriek but then, tearing off her cloak, she hurled it to the ground and, with more of her witches magic, she turned each of the tiny wooden soldiers into hopping frogs.
Then turning and seeing the teddy bear and doll beside the magic toy box, she blinked her eyes and the toybox was padlocked shut and both the teddy bear and the doll turned to lifeless ordinary toys.
But though they had not managed to save the prince, the teddy bear and the doll had still managed to distract the witch long enough for him to pick up his sword and get back on his feet.
However, when the witch, turned back to look at the prince, she only laughed.
"You want to play games", she said, "I'll give you a game to play. A game called which witch".
And suddenly, all round about him, wherever he looked, the prince saw copies of Zilice, each wielding a sword.
"Which of these witches is the real me", he heard Zilice say, "I'll let you choose and if you choose correctly well then you may strike me down with your sword but if you choose wrongly then I will strike you down".
At first the prince just turned in circles, dizzy with fear and bewilderment as he saw Zilices grinning faces all around him and heard a choir of cackling.
But then the prince remembered Marillas magic compass, and taking hold of it, said, "Find the witch".
Immediately, the needle of the compass pointed to the witch on his right and so Edram drove his sword into her heart.
And the moment that he did, suddenly, all the other witches disappeared.
Then Zilice, the real Zilice, fell to the ground, dead.
And when Zilice died, all her evil magic died with her; the fog disappeared from round about the island and Marilla came running out of the house, turned back from a tiny mermaid into a full sized woman.
Then, using the magic compass, Marilla and the Prince found the secret magic door in the witch's study and, through it the Prince returned with Marilla to his palace where they were married and lived happily ever after.