In The Eyes of Marissa

Once a very evil pair of witches called Crone and Hagatha kidnapped a princess, named Marissa from her bed. They cast a spell of silence over the royal palace so that no one would hear them break the window of the Princess’s chamber or, turning their hairy six fingered hands into spiders, climb up the palace walls and crawl in through it and no one could hear when the princess, rudely awakened, screamed and called out to her parents, the king and queen for help or when the two witches stuffed a spoon into her mouth full of magic shrinking potion to make her smaller and smaller so that they could easily conceal her in an old snuff box and smuggle her out of the palace disguised as pretty young serving maids.

Then, when they had flown home upon their tandem broom; a broom big enough for two witches to ride upon, restoring her to the normal size of a sixteen year old girl, they locked her in a cage that was ticklish, so that whenever she tried to squeeze herself out through its bars, the cage would start to giggle so much it would wake the witches.

Then they sent a bat that they had taught to repeat words like a parrot, with a ransom demands to the king,

“Crone and Hagatha demand half the gold in your entire kingdom, including the royal jewels and the crown upon your head and also a kiss from your son, handsome Prince Eric”, said the bat, hanging upside down from the Kings four poster bed, “Or else your little daughter Marissa shall suffer a fate so horrible that no one can imagine it, not even someone with a very horrible imagination”.

And, finally, because they could not watch Marissa night and day, having lots of evil mischief to perform around the kingdom, they cast a spell over the girls eyes.

Hypnotising her, Crone said,

“From now on, little girl. Whenever you see anyone who isn’t either me or my sister Hagatha; any handsome young man for example, who might try to rescue you, you will see a monster; a monster so horrible that you will be frightened of them and do everything you can to stop them taking you. For, mark my words, even though they may tell you they are not a monster and that they are only trying to rescue you, they really want to carry you off to their dark cave and eat you up. Understand?”.

“Yes”, said Marissa, nodding but deep in a trance.

Now it happened that, the next day, while the two witches were out, flying about upon their broom for two, a young peasant boy, Albert, driving a haycart went past the tower where Marissa was being kept and overheard her lonely sobbing.

“Why is that poor maiden weeping?”, he wondered.

And, plucking a red rose that was growing nearby and, using the cracks and jutting bricks of the old rickety tower to grip onto, the young man climbed up the side of the tower with the rose to give to Marissa.

“I’m sure this flower will cheer her up”, he thought as he climbed towards her window.

But then, when he reached her window and crawled in through it, Marissa did not see a young, handsome peasant boy at all but an ugly, frightening monster with sharp claws and long fangs and blazing, red eyes. Even the rose he had picked for her seemed like a monstrous red fly-trap to her eyes.

“I wanted to give you this because…”, he started to say in a voice that, because of the spell that the witches had cast upon Marissa, sounded like a frightening growl.

But, before he could finish his sentence, Marissa; terrified of being carried off by him and eaten up, picked up a poker from the fireplace and flew towards him with it, swinging it at his head.

“Go away and leave me alone, you monster”, she said as she aimed the poker at his head.

And poor Albert, fearful of being brained with the iron poker, was driven back towards the window of her tower and might have broken his neck falling from it if his haycart, filled with hay had not been tied up below.

Leaping from the window onto the soft hay of his cart and landing with no more than a few bumps and bruises, he looked back up and saw Marissas face at the window but it was looking down upon him with fear and anger for in her eyes his cart horse looked like a black scaled dragon and his haycart, a monsters cart full of bones.

“I wonder why she was so afraid of me?”, thought Albert, “And why she called me a monster?”.

But then, Albert saw the two witches, Crone and Hagatha, flying back home upon their broom.

He saw them fly straight in through the window of the tower and it dawned upon him,

“Those witches must have cast an evil spell upon that girls mind, making men appear like monsters”, he thought.

“But you can’t rescue a person who doesn’t want to be rescued”, he thought, “Who sees you as the enemy and attacks you with a poker when you hand her a rose”.

And so, sadly, he turned his cart homewards, vowing to forget about the girl in the tower.

But that night, while he was lying upon his bed and looking up at the moon, he could not help but think about her; in fact he even saw her face appear upon the moon; not an angry face but a face that was sad and weeping and begging for help.

“It is not her fault”, he said, “If she cannot tell friend from foe”.

But how could he save her, he wondered.

Just then, in front of the moon, a horrible monsters face appeared.

“Boo!”, it said.

Albert, who had been dreaming, was startled but then he realised that it was only his younger brother Raymond wearing the mask he had made for Halloween;  a horrible looking devil mask with horns and a long nose.

“You gave me a fright”, he said to his brother.

“I hope I did”, said his brother, “I meant it to be as ugly and frightening as possible”.

But, just then, his eyes lighting up like lanterns, Albert had an idea.

And the next day, borrowing his little brothers mask, he went back to the tower where Marissa was being kept and, putting on the mask, he climbed up the side of the tower, carrying a rope wound around his shoulder, and leapt in through the window.

And he wasn’t sure at first whether Marissa would attack him with her poker again but she didn’t, as he had hoped and reckoned, because she had been made to see all handsome and good things as ugly and frightening, she did not know how to see his frightening and ugly mask and, in fact, instead of seeing it as frightening and ugly, she saw it as good and kind.

“I’ve come to save you from those witches”, he said, “Don’t be afraid”.

“Afraid”, said Marissa, “Why would I be afraid of someone with such a kind and gentle face”.

Then tying the rope to the firmest and heaviest thing in the room he could find, the handle of the witches large black cauldron, made of lead and filled with some strange bubbling liquid and telling Marissa to hold on tightly to him, he climbed down the side of the tower with her clinging his back.

Unfortunately, just as they were getting near to the ground, the mask came loose and fell from his face and, looking at his real face, Marissa shrieked, crying out, “A monster”.

And, so frightened was she that she let go of him and might have fallen to her doom had Albert not caught hold of her hand.

“I won’t let you fall”, he said.

“Why do you care if I fall or not?”, she asked, looking up at him.

“Because I’m not a monster”, he said.

And then, looking at the hand struggling to hold on to hers, she saw it change from one that was green and scaly with claws to one that, while strong, was soft and gentle and  very human.

Gripping hold of him, she pulled herself back up  onto him and they continued the climb down the tower.

But then, just as they set foot upon the ground again, they saw the witches Crone and Hagatha appear in a puff of purple smoke and black lightning.

“Ha”, said Crone to Marissa, “Did you really think you could leave the tower without us knowing. Now we’ll show you what happens to naughty girls who try to run away from us, won’t we sister?”.

“Oh yes”, said Hagatha, cackling, “Indeed, we will”.

And then Albert and Marissa saw the two witch’s squeeze and squash themselves together so that, rather than being two witches, they became one giant witch, their long witch’s broom transforming into a large spiky club which the giant witch raised over her head.

“What are we going to do?”, asked Marissa, hugging Albert tightly, terrified of the gigantic witch.

Just then, however, Albert remembered the lead cauldron that he had tied the rope to.

“Pull on the rope”, he said the Marissa, “Pull with all your might”.

And they both pulled as hard as they could and when they did, the cauldron that was in front of the window above them tipped up, all the strange bubbling contents within spilling out over the head of the giant witch.

And the moment that the bubbling mixture touched her it made the giant witch shrink smaller and smaller, just as Marissa had shrunk when the witch’s had put the spoon full of potion in her mouth but, not only that, then the huge cauldron came crashing down upon the head of the shrunken witch, squashing her beneath it.

“You saved me”, said Marissa, happily throwing her arms around Albert and hugging him tightly.

“Now would a monster do that?”, asked Albert.

“No, you’re no monster”, said Marissa, “You’re a prince charming”.

So then, sitting next to him on his haycart, they rode back to the palace of Marissas parents, the King and Queen, and for every single strand of hay within his cart, the King gave him a bar of gold and, because she had fallen so deeply in love with him, his daughters hand in marriage then Albert and Marissa lived happily ever after.