"If you are looking for place to shop,
señorita, I believe you may like it here," the bus driver spoke with a heavy Spanish accent as he jerked his chin towards the right.
Kyla leaned forward from her seat directly behind the driver. "What's this?" she asked him.
"It is market for shopping. And to eat," he said over his shoulder. "It is popular stop for tourists. There is celebration in month of May."
Will unfolded the map in his hand and tried to pinpoint where they were. They had spent their morning browsing an enormous bookstore near the city centre and were now enroute to a small museum that Kyla had found out about on the internet before their trip. They had taken the bus from outside the bookstore, but the museum was much farther than they had anticipated and they found themselves, an hour later, still on the bus and long overdue for lunch.
Carmen looked out the window as the bus was coming to a stop. They seemed to be nearing a square of some sort. A big entrance was constructed of a log laid on top of two other logs that stood about three metres apart from each other, and bustling folk went in and out of the entrance going about their daily business. A sign nailed to the log overhead said
el mercado local, painted in red and decorated all around with depictions of fish and an abundance of crops.
Kyla turned to Carmen and Will. "Let's stop here for lunch, it seems like a nice place. Looks like we can do some quick shopping here too."
Carmen frowned. "How much further is it to the musuem? If we've come this far, we might as well just have lunch there."
Will looked up from the map and said with a raised eyebrow, "From the looks of it, we still have a good hour or so before reaching the museum, and even then we can't be sure they'll have a place for us to eat there. It seems to be in the middle of nowhere, I doubt they have all the facilities museums in the city would normally have." He pointed out where they were currently on the map and traced his finger down a series of winding roads before resting on a small white circle that marked where the museum was located.
Carmen heaved a small sigh before turning back to Kyla, except Kyla was already thanking the bus driver and making her way down the steps of the bus. Will shrugged, and tucking the map back into the back pocket of his jeans, he swung his backpack over his shoulder and started down the steps too. Adjusting the light scarf around her neck, Carmen said a quick
gracias to the driver and hurried after them, her soft, honey brown curls bouncing as she shook her head.
It was the second week of May and the three of them were fresh graduates from the University of London. The job market looked as glum as always and it didn't seem likely that any of them would be able to get a job right away with just an undergraduate degree. And so, for the lack of anything better to do, the three of them had decided to go on a three week trip to Spain before subjecting themselves to the grim task of job searching. They had taken a plane from London to Madrid, and after spending a few days there visiting historical sites, had taken another flight heading east to Barcelona before hopping on a bus to Badalona where they had hoped to relax, away from any urban areas that were all too similar to London.
"I didn't think the transportation system here would prove to be so slow though," Kyla said, tucking a few stray hairs behind her ears and smoothing out her red bob with her fingers as they walked through the wooden entrance and into the market square, her grey eyes moving left to right as she scanned the area. When they turned the corner, a surprising scene readily greeted them. Rows of lively vendors shouted from their booths, while jugglers and entertainers at the side tried to evoke laughter from their audiences through a series of simple tricks. A number of people crowded around the fountain in the middle of the square. The three of them stopped for a while to soak in the sight.
"This is a pretty neat place," Will commented, watching a man balance five empty cans on his head while riding his unicycle.
"See, this makes up for how slow the bus was going," Kyla said with a hint of smugness.
"I don't think it was particularly slow, more like the museum is rather far, don't you think?" Carmen said, her sarcasm hidden behind a tone of nonchalance. "What kind of museum are we going to anyway?"
"I don't know."
Carmen gave an exasperated look at Will, who seemed rather indifferent about all this. He retrieved his right hand from the pocket of his jeans and scratched his head, his almost black hair too short to be ruffled by this, save the fringe that kept sliding back over his left eye. "So you two want to have lunch?" he asked, changing the subject.
Kyla looked brighter at the thought. "Yes! How about that shopping centre? They must have a food court."
"I was thinking of trying one of those over there," Will replied, directing our attention towards a nearby vendor who was calling out something in Spanish in a loud voice and waving a huge sign that said
rosquillas over his head.
Kyla wrinkled her nose. "I've tried those before, they're fried."
"Actually, I'm not really that hungry," Carmen said. The bumpy bus ride had taken away her appetite. "You two can eat though."
"Why don't we split up then?" Will suggested. "Then you and Kyla can do your shopping after, and we'll meet back at the fountain at two-thirty."
"Sounds good to me!" Kyla said.
=======
An hour and a half later, Carmen browsed the clothing racks absentmindedly with ten minutes to spare before it was time to meet up with Will and Kyla. Though all the tags were in Spanish, it was an American clothing store and nothing really caught her interest, and Carmen found herself walking up and down the clothing aisles simply to kill time. A group of girls chattered excitedly near the fitting rooms and Carmen, knowing close to zero Spanish, had tuned out most of the noise until she heard her name from somewhere behind her.
She turned around and found Will walking towards her. "What are you doing in the shopping centre?" Carmen asked. "Thought you didn't like shopping."
"I don't, but there's nothing else to do," Will said. "Was just about to head back to the fountain, you ready to go?"
"Yeah. I'm not really in the mood for shopping either."
The two of them walked out of the store and back out to the market, strolling towards the fountain. Though neither of them were all that excited to go to the museum, the market square was small and an hour and a half had been more than enough time to have walked around the entire place.
Fifteen minutes later, Will sat at the edge of the fountain while Carmen paced to and fro, still with no sign of Kyla showing up.
"Where do you think she could be?" Carmen asked Will.
"Probably still in the shopping centre, I'd imagine," said Will, tapping his foot nonchalantly to the distant bagpipe music coming from the other side of the square. He brushed his fringe that was getting too long out of his eyes and got up. "I'll go look for her."
"Okay. I'll check the vendors then."
Another fifteen minutes later, Carmen had walked down the entire three rows of vendors twice, but still could not find Kyla. Walking out from the third row, she was about to walk back to the first row when, like deja vu, she heard Will calling her name again. In the distance, she saw Will waving at her from the fountain. "I found her!" he called out.
Relieved and slightly annoyed, Carmen made her way towards them. She reached where Will and Kyla stood, but before she could say anything, Kyla said excitedly, "Listen Carmen, we have to go!"
Carmen raised her eyebrows at her. "Says the person who didn't show up on time and had us looking for her?"
Kyla waved something in Carmen's face. "No no, I was having my lunch in the shopping centre when someone came up to me and showed me this, and now we have to go on it!" She thrust the pamphlet into Carmen's hand impatiently.
Before Carmen could even hold up the pamphlet to read, Kyla broke off into a sprint towards the vendors. Carmen stared after her with her mouth agape. She turned to look at Will, who shrugged and started running after Kyla.
"What in the--" And before she lost them, Carmen chased after the two.
Kyla led them straight past the vendors. It was easy enough for Will to look ahead and avoid bumping into anyone, but Carmen wasn't as tall and found herself panting for air as she tried to dodge passerbys while trying to catch up to Kyla and Will. Kyla ran past the last vendor's booth and exited the market square through a small gate built into the low fence that ran along the side of the square. Will jumped over the fence entirely, and when Carmen reached the gate, she had to fumble with the lock before it opened and she dashed through it.
Kyla was still running fast and farther and farther away from the market square. She raced over a hill, heading towards the outskirts of town.
"Where are you going?" Carmen yelled furiously. "Have you gone mad?" She received no response. "Will! What's gotten into you two?"
"I'm not sure," Will called behind his shoulder, "But whatever this is, Kyla's really into it and it wouldn't hurt to take a look."
Angrily, Carmen sprinted as fast as she could past Will, and catching up to Kyla, she grabbed her wrist. "Kyla! What in the heavens do you think you're doing?"
Kyla slowed down a little and looked at her. "Just read the pamphlet I gave you," she said, finally stopping to catch her own breath. Will slowed to a stop behind them.
Furious, Carmen smoothed out the pamphlet she had crumpled in her hand while running. The pamphlet had no pictures, only text, and the title was displayed in big, bold print with smaller font under it.
Dulce Landia
[An infinite amount of pleasure and sweets await you.]
Carmen opened the pamphlet, only to find five words, and written in English: Find me in the west.
She turned over the pamphlet but nothing was on the back except a curious logo that resembled a raindrop within a sun. She looked up from the pamphlet at Kyla, who smiled triumphantly. Almost delusionally, Carmen thought.
"So you're heading towards the west," Carmen said.
"Yes, that's right," Kyla said very matter-of-factly.
"What is this
Dulce Landia?"
"It's a legendary place where everything is made of sweets! The man told me." Kyla looked so serious that, for a second, Carmen had an urge to laugh. This was ridiculous.
"There is no information whatsoever on what this is. At most, this could pass as a low prank that some high schooler came up with on a dull day of summer vacation!" Carmen exclaimed. She looked at Will. "And you? You saw this pamphlet?"
"Yep," replied Will, a smile playing on his lips. "She showed me when I found her in the centre, she was already heading towards the exit."
"And you're following along with this?"
"Well, I did happen to hear, before finding Kyla, something about a myth and a pilgrimage of some sort, which I'm guessing might be connected to this."
"I'm glad you know the word MYTH, because that is the keyword here," Carmen snapped. "Meaning most likely NOT REAL. And the only pilgrimage that exists around here would be towards Santiago de Compostela, not some fairytale sugar land!"
"Oh, but Carmen..." Kyla stared off into space wistfully. "A city made of candy sounds so nice. Don't you think so too?"
Carmen was about to retort, when she hesitated. To be honest, the idea of a candy land sounded extremely enticing and Carmen was intrigued. But the idea of going on a journey to find a city made of candy? That's just insanity. Wouldn't such a place be found, mapped out and marketed to the rest of the world by now? Practically everything that could be found has already been found in our day and age.
"This is insane," Carmen said uncertainly, shaking her head.
"But an adventure," Will said rather cheerfully. "Most adventures tend to be a little insane. Come on, Carmen. Which would you pick: another hour on the bus to go to that dingy museum, or a quest to find an awesome place?"
Both sounded preposterous at this point in time, Carmen had to admit. She was certain that Will was just going along with this because he was bored, and Kyla would agree to do practically anything if it sounded remotely more exciting than, say, staying at home. Hell, wasn't this entire trip a result of the three of them trying to avoid that dull, London life, if only for three weeks?
"Fine," said Carmen reluctantly. Will grinned and they both turned to Kyla, but she had gone ahead and was already a hill away from them. Carmen and Will broke out into a run to catch up to her.
This definitely didn't seem like it was going to be a fruitful journey to Carmen, but she was slowly beginning to develop a curiosity for how this was going to turn out.
=======
The three of them walked for what seemed like an entire day to Carmen, but the sun was only beginning to sink behind the looming mountain range. Carmen had expected the climate to be a little warmer since they were walking away from the coast, but over time she began to notice the frost on the grass and the crunching of their footsteps. Looking behind them, she could see the various trails of footprints they had made, overlapping one another at some points along the way. The footprints they left behind were so apparent, yet since there were no footprints ahead of them, Carmen could only assume that there were no other people but them who were crazy enough to go on this journey to seemingly nowhere.
None of them spoke much during their walk; it just seemed inappropriate to talk loudly while crossing a huge expanse of land with no sign of life, and for such a long period of time. Carmen wondered about this too. Weren't there people here, anywhere? Badalona had a decent population; it wasn't as if they were exploring an obscure island off the Mediterranean coast. She would have expected to at least come across the lone farmhouse or cottage. But there was no one, not even an animal in sight. She wanted to get away from the urban city, yes, but this was a little strange even for Carmen.
Eventually, they encountered their first sign of life: plants. At first it was a tree, then several trees, and then they started pointing out to one another flowers they had never seen before that were, though covered in frost, in full bloom. Will whistled in amazement at the occasional bush that came across their path, picking a bright purple berry off one of them.
"Dare I try eating this?" Will asked Carmen, trying to lighten up the atmosphere. But Carmen gave Will such a look of horror that he quickly added, "It was a joke."
Taking a moment to glance back at them, Kyla began humming a small tune to herself before continuing on her way. Wasn't she in a strangely good mood, thought Carmen.
Before long, they were making their way through a thin layer of snow. Of course, all three of them thought it was peculiar that there would be snow in the middle of May--but then again, they've heard stories of the Mediterranean climate, so perhaps one shouldn't be so surprised after all. And they were nearing the mountains, where they’ve heard of the occasional thunderstorm occurring in the dead of summer and other such unpredictable cases.
Carmen found it harder to hike up the hill with snow on the ground. Her flat shoes slipped constantly and she was wondering why Kyla and Will didn't seem to be having as hard of a time as she was, when she suddenly stumbled on something which caused her to topple over into the snow. Slightly disoriented, she picked herself back up and bent over to see what she had tripped over. It was covered in snow, so she reached down to pick it up with her hands.
It was a giant mushroom, about half the size of her foot. But it wasn't a mushroom one would normally find on any hillside. This mushroom was soft and translucent, and no matter how hard Carmen tried to dust the snow off, there still seemed to be a layer of some sort of powder sticking to it.
Carmen looked up to find Kyla coming towards her looking rather eager. Kyla bent over to sniff the mushroom.
"See? So a candy land does exist!" she stated proudly. "This is a candy mushroom!"
Carmen looked hard at the mushroom for a second. And before she knew it, in the spur of the moment, she took a bite.
It was a gummy candy. A very large gummy candy.
Carmen looked at Kyla in amazement, and Kyla simply winked in return and turned back to continue walking with a new, ever increasing wave of enthusiasm. Will looked at the gummy mushroom and then at Carmen. "I should have tried that berry back there," he said in a most somber tone of regret.
Carmen laughed. She couldn't believe that she just came across a mushroom made of candy. So maybe this won't turn out to be a delusional trip to the mountains after all. Could this candy land actually, truly exist?
"Look at her standing like that, gaping at the mushroom like a complete idiot!"
She whipped around, but there was no one to be seen. "Who's there?" she said sharply.
"It's true. Here's another helpless traveler oblivious to the whole world we have out here."
"It's so embarrassing, these humans have no shame in how little they know."
"Can't blame them too much, I hear they need to use some kind of a system involving metal disks and pieces of paper just to feed themselves everyday!"
"What's that? You mean they can't survive without those useless things?"
"That's what I've heard."
As Carmen squinted to see through the growing fog that seemed to come out of nowhere all of a sudden, she saw two trees, their trunks bent towards each other and branches crisscrossing. And these trees were whispering. To each other.
"Will, Kyla, these trees, they're--" Carmen tried to tell them about the chattering trees, but they were already out of earshot. Taking one last glance back at the trees, Carmen quickly turned around to catch up to the others, ignoring the whispers that continued until she, too, was out of earshot. Carmen shuddered. The whispering trees gave her an eerie feeling, and the more she thought about them, the more she was beginning to picture them as candy canes, as if her memory was playing tricks on her as well.
=======
By nightfall, it had snowed for hours already and the height of the snow had reached their knees. Even Kyla began to slow down significantly from fatigue. Luckily, just as each of them were beginning to wonder how they were going to spend the night, Will cried, "Look! I see light over there!"
Sure enough, in the distance stood a relatively large, wooden house. Its windows were brightly lit and smoke came out from the chimney off the side of the roof. As they drew closer to the house, bursts of laughter and a low rumble of many voices talking could be heard coming from inside, along with the clanging of dishes and silverware. Reaching the door, they looked up to see a sign hanging overhead that read
La Taverna Luna. Cold as they were, none of them spared a single thought on why there would be an inn here. Instead, all they could think about was simply how much they would like to get warm.
Will stepped forward to open the door and all three of them went inside, leaving the chilly air and the bright moon that night behind.
"Welcome, strangers!" boomed a deep voice that, for some reason, reminded Carmen of chestnuts roasting above a fire. A large man with a full beard and a rosy face strode towards them. "Lookin' to stay here for the night?"
"Yes, we'd like two rooms, please," Kyla said politely, flashing a smile.
"No hay problema, señorita," the man said with a wink, giving her a smile so wide that Carmen could see he was missing a tooth on both his top and bottom rows. Carmen guessed that this was the innkeeper.
"How much would that be?" Will asked, shrugging off his backpack and about to unzip the side pocket.
The innkeeper gave a brief wave of his huge hand. "Ah, let us not bother with trivial things like money tonight. You can pay later. You were travelin', si? You are tired, sit for a while in the lounge. Have a drink and be merry!"
Indeed, the three of them were very tired. So they sat down at a table near the fireplace, feeling slightly out of place. The innkeeper went through a swinging, wooden door at the back of the room and soon came back with three plates, each with a thick slice of bread rich in nuts and grains with a steaming, baked potato next to it. Next, he brought out three large glasses of wine, and with a very grand flourish of his hands and a "buen provecho", he left the three to their meal.
The lounge seemed to be connected to a small bar. The entire place was lit by dim, yellow light bulbs hanging overhead, and several lit candles on copper candle holders were placed near the windows. Guests at other tables chattered energetically over pitchers of beer; one man even had an entire bucket of mead to himself.
"Well, that was easy," Carmen said, delighted at the food in front of her. She was especially hungry since she hadn't eaten anything for lunch that day. She picked up the fork and stabbed open the potato, which released a big puff of steam and brought a delicious waft of potato and happiness to her nose. Will took a huge bite of the bread first and Kyla bent over slightly to take in the aroma of the wine.
"So you are travelers!" A man wrapped in a thick coat wearing a beret on his head came and sat down at their table, his meaty face pulled into a grin. He was quickly joined by two other men.
"Oh, yes! We're here for vacation," Kyla said, putting down her wine glass and picking up her bread.
"Vacation here in the countryside?" one of the other men with a rather long and crooked nose questioned. "Didn't think we’d ever get to see any new faces around here!" He chuckled to himself.
"You mean none of you gentlemen are travelers?" Will asked diplomatically, though by no means did he mistake any one of them to be a fraction of a gentleman even for a split second.
The third man who sported a short, gray moustache guffawed. "Oh, by golly, no! We're locals around here, you see--been visiting this place since my early days." He scratched at his moustache. "In fact, everybody here is a regular. Strangers are a rarity!" He gave another raspy guffaw.
"Locals?" Carmen inquired, a tad confused. She didn't question what he meant by 'early days' since he seemed pretty well into his years, though she couldn't imagine how one would be able to spend every night, at any point in their life, at this inn in the middle of a snowy wasteland. In addition, Carmen thought their English to be quite excellent and wondered how they were about to speak it so well if they had spent the past few decades on the outskirts of a Spanish city.
"Yep, live right around the corner myself. These two are about five minutes away from me."
Kyla cocked her head slightly to the left. "I don't remember seeing any houses on our way here," she said. "Do you remember coming across anything, Will?"
"Not really," replied Will. He looked at Carmen, who also shook her head.
"You just weren't looking hard enough," Crooked Nose concluded. "Well, since it doesn't seem like you were here for sightseeing--” He laughed at this idea, “--what else might bring you three out here?"
"We're in search of
Dulce Landia," Kyla explained. "We heard about it at a market square in Badalona and it's supposed to be in this direction." She said this confidently as if she knew this for certain. "Would any of you be kind enough to point out where it is exactly? It might save us some time, I'd like to arrive there as soon as I can."
To Kyla's surprise, all three men and the innkeeper who happened to be passing by let out a roar of laughter, oddly in unison. "Well, aren't you an adventurous bunch of young'uns!" Beret said, beads of sweat forming on his brow from laughing, yet he still kept his coat on. "Last time someone told us that, he was traveling alone and looked rather weary of his life. We thought it was because he was getting to that age when you don't know what little else you can do with the remainder of your life and had just decided to set out on a final, make-believe trip to the mountains."
"If there was a candy land around here, why, I'd try eating my house right this minute!" Moustache cried.
The innkeeper wiped his hands on his apron and chuckled. "We've had a few travelers that have told us they were on the same type of quest," he explained. "Don't know where you've all been gettin' this from, but there's no sugar land around here last time I checked, and I was outside just five minutes ago."
"If you're talking about
Dulce Landia," a plump lady called from the next table, making everyone turn and crank their necks to look at her. "That's a story mi abuela told me when I was a wee little girl. Nothing more than a myth if you ask me," she added while wagging her finger at Carmen and taking another swig of her beer.
Carmen frowned. It wasn't her that had been totally thrilled about this trip. Still, she responded, "But on our way here, I came across a mushroom made of gummy candy. And candy cane trees that could talk." She didn't want to believe it either, but having seen those two things with her own eyes, she found herself arguing in view of those. "How would you explain those?"
She received another round of laughter from the men at her table. The innkeeper looked at her sympathetically. "I know you are tired, it must be hard travelin' in the snow and findin' nothin'. I will see to it that you at least receive a good night's rest at my inn." He gave Carmen a hearty pat on the back. Carmen turned pink with aggravating embarrassment. He thought her to be making things up to comfort herself on their profitless journey!
"Can't say I've seen anything quite like a city made of candy myself, although I'd certainly like to," commented Crooked Nose.
Carmen, Will and Kyla all looked at each other, and they made a silent decision to say nothing more. Just as the innkeeper had said, they were tired, and although they were irritated by the fact that no one seemed to be providing any help on their quest, it didn't seem worthwhile either to continue arguing about it. After finishing their meal, they politely listened to the men's conversation as they sipped on their wine, and when it seemed to them that the conversation wasn't going to end anytime soon, they excused themselves and retired to their rooms early, where they fell asleep soon after.
=======
The next morning, the three of them opened their room doors to find the inn very deserted. The long, wooden tables that had been littered with wine jugs and beer glasses last night were now clean, with six chairs flipped and neatly resting on top of each one. Will walked over to the swing door leading into the kitchen, and sticking his head in, he called out, "Anyone there?"
There was no response. Carmen peeked out of one of the windows to see if the innkeeper was outside at the back, but she could see no one. Kyla walked to the front door and turned the knob, flinging the door wide open. "Well!" she said, turning back to us with one foot already out the door. "Doesn't look like anyone's around, they probably went back to their homes before the morning. We should get going too!"
Uncertain, Carmen said, "But we still haven't paid or thanked the innkeeper yet."
Kyla replied impatiently, "But he's not here right now, is he? And we can't wait around for him like this, goodness knows when he'll be back! Looks like he's been out for quite a while too, seeing how quiet and untouched everything is. We might as well get going."
Carmen felt a slight pang of guilt from the idea of just leaving like this. She thought about the excuse of needing to get some breakfast first when Will said, "C'mon, let's go" and followed Kyla out the door. Carmen had no choice but to follow suit, slipping her arms through the straps of her backpack and securing it behind her. She stepped out into the cold, shutting the door behind her as she did so.
Kyla was a few paces ahead of her, walking in the direction they had gone yesterday. It was easy to recognize which way was west because it was marked by the mountain range that seemed to be closing in on them. Closing in, Carmen thought, because the mountains seemed a lot closer to her than they were last night from what she remembered, and the inn certainly hadn’t and can't move. But neither can mountains. So which would be more likely? Carmen didn't want to think about it.
Walking closer, a thick forest came into sight. Seeing that there was no other way to go but through it, the three continued trudging through the snow and into the forest without pause--and surprisingly, without complaint from Carmen. Carmen herself felt too tired to protest, which was a problem, because the sun was still barely high enough in the sky to mark mid-day, and who knew for how long they would be walking today.
The snow was crisp and untouched, very characteristic of snow that had fallen overnight and been left for a few hours before being discovered. The branches hanging overhead from the numerous, evergreen trees were laden with clumps of snow, and save for the occasional, soft thump of snow falling from a branch to the ground, the forest was as quiet as could be. There was not a chirp from a bird or snap of a twig from a nearby squirrel that one might expect to hear in a forest. But the sunlight peeking through the thick branches and the crunch of the snow as they walked were comforting sounds, if not the only sounds, and it gave the three travelers peace of mind--something they hadn't experienced for perhaps too long.
A while later when the sun had risen to well above their heads and even the tips of the tallest trees, they saw something small on the ground a few metres away from them. Drawing closer, they saw that it was a brown rabbit ensnared by a metal trap, and it must have been caught quite some time ago, Carmen figured, because it laid completely still and the blood from the wound in its leg had seeped well into the snow around it. It was a terrible sight; yet somehow, it was relieving to see that this forest turned out to be an ordinary one after all, or at least one with animals inhabiting it too.
"This little guy looks pretty stiff," said Will as he looked at the rabbit, then glanced around. "It's probably been here for a while. Doesn't look like whoever snared it is going to be coming back for it anytime soon."
Kyla looked a little hesitant. "Do you think it's edible?" she asked slowly. "I'm actually rather hungry right now, but I've never cooked rabbit before... or any other animal, really." Or anything at all, for that matter. Kyla came from a family that was a little more than fairly well off and had a housekeeper that also cooked every meal for them.
Will said, "I'm pretty famished myself without breakfast in my stomach, and I wouldn't mind having some rabbit. Tried it when my family went on vacation to Portugal, though I can't say I remember how it tasted."
Kyla looked a bit more hopeful. "Well, if you've tried it before, I'm sure it's fine! I don't suppose any of you know how to properly, er... roast?... rabbit on an open fire?"
Will shrugged.
Carmen didn't say anything. She had grown up on a farm with her grandparents in Ireland, where she watched her grandmother take eggs from chickens' nests in the morning while her grandfather milked the cows before slaughtering them for dinner a week later. She grew up accustomed to the fact that, sometimes, animals were just a means of survival for humans; nothing more, nothing less. She had never thought it to be cruelty, or abuse of wildlife, until she met activist groups at university who, on the contrary, might have slaughtered her instead if they had known the environment and mentality of her upbringing.
Still, Carmen felt uneasy as she and Kyla watched Will take a few steps closer to the dead rabbit, until Will suddenly exclaimed, "Why, come take a look at this, will you?"
"What's the matter?" Carmen asked, a little alarmed.
Will paused, pondering. "Let's just say... this rabbit is definitely edible."
"How do you know?" Kyla asked, taking a few steps forward in curiosity. "Have you remembered how to cook--oh!"
Carmen walked up to where the both of them were crouched over. "What's going on?"
Kyla braved a poke of her finger at the side of the rabbit. Then she leaned closer to sniff it. "Carmen, I'm pretty sure this is chocolate!"
"What?" Carmen asked incredously, despite having had heard Kyla just fine. "That's impossible, then what's with all the blood?"
Kyla swiped a handful of snow stained with red and licked it. Carmen started giving a cry of horror when Kyla laughed and told her, "It's all right! This isn't blood at all, unless blood takes like strawberry sauce!"
Will grabbed some snow and shoved it in his mouth too. "You're right, this is strawberry flavoured," Will mumbled through his mouthful of melting redness, wincing slightly from how cold it was. "This is really good! Totally giving me a brain freeze though."
"We're having chocolate for lunch, hooray!" Kyla dropped down to a cross-legged sitting position and broke off the rabbit's ear.
"Wait, Kyla, don't put that thing in your mouth yet, you can't just eat whatever you find in the--" Carmen's comment fell on ignorant ears as Kyla bit into the broken piece of chocolate.
"This is really milky chocolate!" Kyla exclaimed in delight. "Better than when I visited the huge chocolate factory in Belgium last year!"
Will also sat down on the snow and broke off the other ear before putting it in his mouth. "This tastes like dark chocolate if you ask me," he said thoughtfully. "I think I taste a hint of coffee in it too. Which is good because I really cannot start a day properly without caffeine in my system."
"Guys!" Carmen said frantically, her skepticism from yesterday coming back to her. "This isn't right, we don't even know where this is from or what it's doing here, and a chocolate rabbit of all things... don't you find this even a tad strange?"
Clearly not, by the lack of response from Kyla and Will as they continued munching on the rabbit. This continued for another ten minutes as Carmen remained standing at the side watching them, while the other two polished off the rabbit. It had looked like a rather huge chunk of chocolate at first, but they soon found out that the rabbit was filled with a sweet, strawberry inside that had Kyla and Will eating and eating.
"Carmen, are you not going to eat at all?" Will asked after a while, sparing her a glance after remembering that they had a third companion aside from the rabbit they were eating.
Carmen just shrugged in slight disgust. Kyla chewed on, oblivious. After she was done, Kyla flopped over in the snow and patted her stomach. "I'm full! That was good stuff." Will nodded in agreement, putting more snow in his mouth and waiting for it to melt for the lack of water.
Few minutes later, Kyla picked herself up from the snow and stretched. "All right! Shall we continue? We've got to be pretty close by now, I have a feeling we're going to find it today!"
"Already?" Will asked. "How do you know?"
Kyla shrugged. "Women's intuition?" she suggested, cocking her head to the right. Carmen snorted. More like nutcase intuition.
Will picked up his backpack from the ground and dusted off the snow. Looping his fingers through the handle at the top, he swung his backpack over his shoulder and put on an energetic look. "Well, the sugar definitely helped me wake up! Let's get going."
Carmen grumbled and stalked past them, this time taking the lead. She didn't know what to think anymore, so there was nothing else to do but to keep going. Or at least have Kyla burn off that energy from all the chocolate, because that goofy grin on her face was really getting to Carmen.
=======
The chocolate seemed to have given Will and Kyla enough energy to last a few more hours of walking after lunch, but Carmen had yet to eat anything today and was completely famished by the time the sun started to descend ever so slightly. The three of them walked in silence. The time that passed today seemed so much longer and so much less eventful, and the prints they left in the snow showed the ever increasing drag in their steps. They did not even bother looking around anymore, their eyes fixed straight ahead and slightly unfocused.
They eventually reached another small clearing, where Carmen stopped and squinted at what she saw, despite it being still fairly bright outside. "Hey, is that a mailbox over there?" she asked, turning to the other two behind her and pointing ahead. Her two companions also squinted to see.
"I think so," Will said, frowning slightly. "And a lamppost?"
They walked closer, and the mailbox and lamppost grew bigger and taller in their sight. Despite it still being daylight, the lamppost was lit. Will studied it closely, and saw that it was an electric lamp, one that they would use in an urban city nowadays, despite what the landscape and the inn that had suggested otherwise. The mailbox was a typical, metal one that you would see in front of a decent house with a perfectly trimmed lawn, in that nice, bright red colour and complete with a little flag attached to the side.
They all stood and stared at the mailbox for a moment. "Well, are we going to open it or not?" Kyla said, reaching for the handle and yanking the lid of the mailbox open. It just seemed like the appropriate thing to do--what else does one do with a mailbox in the middle of a forest? The lid opened vertically, facing them.
Inside was a single letter. Kyla picked it up, and they saw that it was packaged in an expensive-looking envelope, the kind that glinted in a pearly, rainbow colour if you tilted it in the light. The letter was addressed, To those who hail from London. "I guess that means us?" Will said, his frown deepening in confusion.
Kyle flipped the letter over, and on it was a golden seal with the same raindrop mark as was on the pamphlet. Kyla carefully pried the seal off the bottom half of the envelope, reached in and drew out a parchment-like paper that was cleanly folded into a rectangle. Unfolding the paper, the three of them bent their heads over the letter, which read:
"You are cordially invited to tonight's royal banquet.
Transportation, attire, and any other needs will be provided for.
If you would kindly look to your left, you will see a wall of rock marking the side of the mountain. On this wall is a narrow hole the size of a walnut. It is said to be difficult for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, but I trust that you are, in fact, human beings and not camels, and thus only need to close your eyes and wish yourself through the crevice!
We anxiously await your arrival."
The three of them looked at each other, then Kyla pointed to the left to a layer of rock barely visible behind a clump of pine trees. "I suppose they mean those rocks over there?" she asked.
Carmen and Will turned to look, and the three started walking towards the rocks. "This must be the edge of the mountain range," Will commented as they reached the wall, brushing his hand against the rough surface. "No thunderstorm like I had anticipated!"
Carmen was beginning to think this whole setup to be some sort of prank again. She tried to look upwards, but the top of the wall of rock was hidden from view by the overlapping layers of pine branches, laced with patches of white. "I didn't realize we had already walked all the way to the mountains," she said slowly, frowning. "Weren't we still quite a while away from the mountains last night? I remember being able to see the snowy peak before we went into the inn."
"Well, it's here whether you saw it from up close or afar last night," Kyla said, rolling her eyes. "Now what did the letter say about the hole in the rock?"
She started studying the rock, and her fingers found a deep opening in the rock. Sure enough, it was approximately the size of a walnut.
"You think it's this one?" she asked, putting her face closer. Carmen took a step forward but a lock of her hair was tangled with one of the overhanging branches. She sighed and craned back her neck to untangle it. Will went over to where Kyla was, and the two of them hovered over the hole peering at it when, suddenly, pop!
Carmen turned back around from untangling her hair just in time to see both Kyla and Will disappear into thin air.
Panic started tugging at her senses, but on the most part, she was confused. She ran to where her two friends had been just a moment ago, but there was no sign of them, not even footprints on the snow where they had been standing.
That couldn't be the case though, people don't just disappear. She should look around for them. Carmen rubbed her eyes, shutting her eyelids for a split second to make sure she wasn't imagining things.
But as she closed her eyes, she heard the familiar pop! and was already being whisked away through the hole.
============
When Carmen opened her eyes a second later, the sight that greeted her was breathtaking.
Not only was she no longer at the foot of the mountain range, she was now standing on top of a green and grassy hill, overlooking a bright city overflowing with splashes of colour in every shade possible. But the city was not like London or any other city she had been to at all. It was a city that she would have had only seen as illustrations in fairytale books, the kind that were now either at the back of her closet back home, or donated to orphanages and charities.
Rows of gingerbread houses were neatly lined at the sides of the city, and there were marketplaces where Carmen could see many people, and of all ages, bustling about. All the buildings--with all their multicoloured roofs made of gumballs--made way for a single, wide road in the middle of the city that lead to a grand castle that was covered in every sort of candy that existed. Carmen could pick up wafts of peppermint and toffee in the air, no doubt drifting over from the castle and propelled by the various chocolate windmills on the outskirts of the town.
Outside of the residential area and closer to the chocolate windmills was a river that made its way exactly around the circumference of the city, its shape in waves and loops like a ribbon as honey-like liquid flowed through it. There was a park on the right side of the town where Carmen saw children playing on a bridge made of licorice, which was near a waterfall of the same honey liquid and cushioned at the bottom by bundles of fluffy, white marshmallows.
Everything about this town was attractive, and emitted a sense of nostalgia that was somehow relatable to all its inhabitants.
"Carmen!"
Carmen turned her head slightly to the left and saw Kyla waving at her from below, near the bottom of the hill. Will was beside her, looking starstruck. Carmen hurried down the hill, the grass gently brushing her ankles, rustling in unison with the breeze. It only seemed appropriate that the sky was as blue as can be to match what was below it.
Kyla began talking just as Carmen reached her other two companions.
"Isn't this just spectacular?" she said breathlessly. "We did it, we found the candy land! I told you it existed. We did it, I did it!"
Will just gave a hearty laugh and a wide grin spread on his face. Carmen looked around speechlessly in wonder. She could hardly believe where she was. It's not possible to have the same illusions as everyone else, right? She bent down to feel the grass brush against her fingers. It certainly felt real. She sighed in relief. Although she had been half expecting everything to disappear the moment she touched it, she also had been secretly hoping for it to be real.
"Shouldn't we try going into the city?" Will asked, his eyes unsually round. Kyla nodded, having become too breathless to respond in words. Carmen also nodded, encouraged by the reality of what she touched. Excitement was finally starting to build inside her too, and she, too, couldn't help but break out into a smile, eager to see what awaited them.
They started making their way towards the huge archway that marked the entrance to the city. The arch itself was made from black licorice twisted tens of feet into the air and woven with strings of caramel. A sign carved from pink bubblegum was framed with rainbow gumdrops, with butterscotch chips forming the words in humongous capital letters:
Dulce Landia.
Kyla took the first step through the archway, naturally, this time with both Will and Carmen following suit without a hint of hesitation. Not one of them stopped anymore to think how they ended up at this place. They were too entranced with what was presented to them, the scent of caramel and butterscotch too intoxicating to the senses.
Immediately past the gate was a small neighbourhood. Adults skipped from house to house, laughing with each other and all dressed in colourful clothing made from a particular kind of material that looked light and breezy, much like silk or chiffon. A few children peered out at them from the windows of their homes, though none of them showed a hint of surprise at the presence of their new guests. Carmen spotted a little girl at the window of the house built from cola gummies, stringing what looked like a necklace of gummy cola bottles together. The little girl caught her eye, smiled sweetly and gave a shy wave before disappearing from the window.
A man from the nearest house came out and greeted them. His house seemed to have been made from candy coated chocolate, as some of the candy was already chipping off the house from the man's enthusiasm in swinging his door so forcefully.
"Welcome, trrravelers!" he boomed in a tenor voice that evoked an image of rich, dark chocolate.
"Hello!" Will replied good-naturedly, returning the man's grin with a polite smile. "I hope we're not trespassing on private property or anything?"
"You most cerrrtainly are not! Congrrratulations for making it here!" He rolled his r's in a way so exaggerated that Carmen was almost certain it was fake. It somehow diminished the fantastical element of this city for her. "How about it, a cup of licorrrice tea at my humble abode, perrrhaps? You must be exhausted, but a sip of that tea will have you currred of fatigue and rrready to go in no time! Aside from the time it'll take you to sip your tea, of courrrse." He chuckled at his own wit.
Will tapped his chin thoughtfully before turning to Kyla and Carmen. "Do you two want some tea, or did you want to keep moving for now?"
"Keep moving of course!" Kyla immediately declared. She nodded to the man with a big smile on her face. "Thank you for your offer, sir, but I think we'd like to get to exploring the city as soon as possible." She gestured down the road that lead deeper into the city. "There just seems to be so much for us to see, we'd like to get started on it right away!"
"Oh, that is perrrfectly underrrstandable!" The man sounded like he was purring now. "Marrrtha!"
A woman in a green polka-dotted apron from a few houses away hurried down the road towards them. "My oh my, are these our new guests? Look at you all, brimming with excitement! And to think that Mr. Puffin here was going to keep you all to himself for some tea!" At a closer look, the man did resemble more and more like a rather robust bird. Carmen recalled seeing some along the coast back home. Remembering that puffins existed in herds, Carmen was suddenly wary of all the other villagers, although none of them appeared remotely similar to Mr. Puffin.
Another woman that had followed Martha over chirped, "Mr. Puffin, you can't invite these guests over to your house like that, that isn't fair. These are everybody's guests!"
"Agreed, agreed!" cried a man sitting on the roof of his lollipop house. Nobody noticed him until then, and they all craned their necks back to look up at him. He looked a bit like the mascot from the game Monopoly, carrying a gigantic lollipop instead of a cane.
A clucking sound diverted everyone's attention back to eye level."If you break another lollipop off from up there, this house is going to collapse!" a woman called up from directly below the man, sticking her head out from the window of the house. She stated it as if it were a mere fact though, and did not appear the least angry.
The Monopoly man shrugged. "We can just build it again," he said before biting down on his lollipop with a firm crunch. The woman thought for a moment, then nodded in resignation before retreating back into their shelter of lollipops. Needless to say, Carmen, Kyle and Will were all fascinated by how peculiar the attitudes of the people in this neighbourhood seemed.
Martha turned back to the three of them. "In any case, if you need a guide around the city, don't hesitate to call on me, okay?"
"And me!" chimed in the second woman. Monopoly just nodded, his mouth too busy crunching.
"Thanks, but I think we're all right for now," Will said. Kyla and Carmen nodded in agreement, and waved goodbye to the villagers as they set out down the path again.
"They sure were friendly," Kyla commented.
"Maybe a bit too friendly," Carmen replied.
"Well, I'm sure they rarely get visitors here, so they must have been especially eager to be of help to us. Yes, I'm sure they were just excited! This place is hard to find after all," said Kyla, nodding to herself and picking up her pace. Carmen thought back to the indifferent expressions on the children's faces, and couldn't imagine how they would look on a normal day if that was considered excitement.
Soon they found their way into one of the marketplaces, where stalls were set up along the sides of the road selling various toys and confectionary. "Welcome, friends!" a man called enthusiastically from his booth. "Care for a pack of Bubble Me Away? One stick of it and you can float away to your heart's desire!"
"Who in their right minds would want to leave town though?" replied another man from the booth across. "Staying here is my heart's desire!" The man from the first stall roared with laughter. "True, true!" he exclaimed, no longer seeming to care if his product sold or not.
Carmen and the others smiled politely and continued on their way, returning the constant stream of greetings directed at them and occassionally stopping at a few stalls to watch the owners demonstrate how to work their individual products.
Carmen rather liked the non-competitive atmosphere that surrounded them. It wasn't as if one booth tried to steal another's business--in fact, Carmen wondered if any of them even aimed to actually sell anything at all. Banters were only for the purpose of conversation and not disagreements, and it seemed like everyone was there for the purpose of entertaining themselves rather than trying to make a living.
As they neared the centre of the market, one man to their left tripped over a basket at his feet, knocking over a box of the chocolate oranges he was selling at his booth. The woman next to him laughed and made a comment, and the man joined in laughing as he got on his knees and started picking the oranges back up. Strangely enough, the woman did not help him but continued to talk while standing where she was. Neither did the man ask for help, continuing the conversation in a good manner while putting the oranges back in the box.
Before Carmen could think anymore on this, someone grabbed Kyla's shoulder and they all jumped in surprise.
"My dears, what are you doing here dawdling so long in the market?" the stranger cried. She was a middle-aged woman with curly bubblegum pink hair, wearing a mini red hat that matched her bright red business suit.
"U-um, sorry?" Kyla's reply faltered out of surprise and confusion.
"The royal banquet tonight, my friends!" the woman exclaimed, laughing and shaking her head in dismay. "You musn't spend all your time fawning over the market, there is entertainment much more extravagant than this for you to enjoy! You must start preparing for the banquet." She put up her hand and motioned to two people behind her, a man and a woman, who came over with equally bright smiles on their faces. "They will see to it that you are provided with what you need," she explained quickly, then nodded to her companions.
They gently pushed Carmen and the others into a tent a few steps away, where a man who introduced himself as the tailor awaited them. "I will see to it that you are fitted into the most appropriate clothes for tonight," he said in a graceful manner with a hint of elegance to his tone. The three of them looked around, and saw that they were in a space that looked like a high class studio with bright, white lights hanging overhead.
The woman in the bright red suit who had followed them into the tent nodded. "You can trust him to know all the latest trends, you know," she added encouragingly, her purple false lashes moving as she blinked rapidly.
The tailor whispered discreetly to a young man standing near him who appeared to be his assistant, all the while gesturing to several racks of clothing. The young man nodded, the large gold earring dangling from his left ear swinging back and forth, glinting under the intense lights. His eyes brightened at what the tailor said to him and he murmured a quiet response, straightening his long legs that were dressed in black and white striped tights.
After the tailor finished talking, the two girls were ushered into a room on the right by the tailor himself while Will, looking perplexed, was lead into a different room by the tailor's assistant.
Both doors closed with a firm click before any of them had a chance to protest.
==========
Before long, Carmen and Kyla found themselves dressed each in an outfit that they would have never imagined existed, less being clothed in. After much giggling and prompting from more assistants that had appeared from behind the endless racks of clothing in the room, the two girls were stripped, refitted, and now stood in front of a huge mirror on the left that covered the entire wall from ceiling to floor.
Kyla was donned in bright, royal blue dress that ended in an wide, exaggerated flare at her knees. The sleeves extended from her shoulder blades outwards in sharp angles, and the bodice of the dress complimented Kyla's figure with tight lacing running down the back. Black, sheer tights with large polka dots and bright yellow ankle boots completed her outfit.
Carmen, on the other hand, was put in a black top with ridiculously large balloon sleeves, both the sleeves and the bottom hem lined with tiny, dangling pompoms. She was given a puffy fuchsia tutu to wear over grey tights and bright green high-heeled shoes that had ribbons lacing up to the middle of her calves, only slightly resembling ballerina shoes.
"Well, I'd have to say, I didn't expect to get a makeover here!" Kyla said, her expression not unpleased. She took a few footsteps back and turned around, craning her neck to see the back of the dress. "This dress actually makes me look quite adorable, if I may say so myself!"
"For once, I agree that this is definitely not what I had been expecting," Carmen said, staring at her own image in the mirror. She took a step to the right. Her reflection took a step in the same direction simultaneously. Startled, Carmen quickly put her right foot back next to her left. Her reflection was now standing as it had been before Carmen moved.
Somehow, it was difficult for Carmen to believe that the girl reflected in the mirror in front of her was herself. Of course, the girl in the mirror moved when Carmen moved and had Carmen's face, with the same expression of indifference plastered on her face that Carmen was sure was also plastered on her own. But seeing her own image in clothes that she wouldn't even come across in London--much less try on herself--and realizing that she had somehow allowed herself to be dressed in clothes that were so unlike her, something about her struck her as unnatural, even frightening.
Taking a rather brave step closer to the mirror, Carmen peered more closely at her face that was peering back at her. She stared straight at the reflection's eyes. This is me, don't act so crazy and get over it, thought Carmen. The image in the mirror continued staring back at her, its thinking eyes rather glazed.
Perhaps fortunately, her thoughts were interrupted at that moment by one of the tailor's numerous assistants as she burst into the room, carrying a large tray over her head in one hand. She observed them for a second before giving a huge nod of assent, clearly pleased with what she saw.
"You girls look marvelous!" she proclaimed loudly. "And that's thanks to our team again, sure is!" She set down the tray on the large dressing table and waved them over. "What are you doing staring at yourselves in the mirror and not saying a word? It's rather creepy. At least do so with a snack in your hand! Come, come, have a plum cake!"
Carmen and Kyla timidly went over to the table where there were now a dozen small, pink cakes, topped with a generous flurry of whipped cream and drizzled all over in bright purple syrup. The syrup was dripping down the sides of the cakes in a rather enticing way, as if to tempt the beholder with thoughts of licking the syrup off the side and sinking one's teeth into pillows of delightful fluffiness.
The assistant grabbed one herself and, holding it in her hand, took a large bite without hesitation. Kyla took a napkin from the stack beside the cakes and reached for a cake. Breathing in the sweet aroma, she looked around for a fork. Finding none, she was about to just bite into the cake when the door opened for the second time, this time, with a parade of about six people coming into their dressing room.
Will was amongst them, dressed on a gaudy, red tuxedo with a bright green bow that was so big it constantly grazed his chin. On his head sat a tall, bright silver top hat and rainbow glitter clung to his clothes, miraculously without falling off. Will's shoes were the highlight of his outfit: five inch high platform boots that were made with a material similar to plastic, and they were completely clear so that Will's bare feet could be seen in them, giving an impression of him walking in thin air.
He was surrounded by a few more assistants whom circled him like vultures over a carcass, scrutinizing him from top to bottom. One of them fussed over the tails of his blazer, clipping three more bows on each side before stepping back and sighing to himself in satisfaction.
Will looked helplessly at the girls over the heads of his surrounding predators. The girls stared back in bewilderment. Finally, Will shrugged. "Well, looks like you two were also subjected to a similar kind of treatment," he weakly called over to them, acknowledging their outrageous outfits with a sweep of his gaze. The girls smiled helplessly and somewhat guiltily back at him.
The tailor himself then came in. He looked over the three of them over without a word while his assistants quickly shuffled back so the tailor could analyze their handiwork. Then without warning, he jerked his head around and barked at this assistants, "We're a fashion studio, not a thirft store! Why, people are going to think we have a shortage of items! I want accessories on them, ac-cess-o-rieees!" He dragged each syllable in the last word, throwing up his hands in exaggerated exclamation.
His words sent his assistants in a flurry. Two of them quickly wheeled out two big, red plastic crates from behind on of the reversible mirrors, while some other assistants passed several cardboard boxes down from the overhead cabinets.
"Necklaces, bracelets, rings, tattoos, anything and everything!" cried the tailor. Will, Kyla and Carmen once again found themselves swarmed by the assistants suddenly attaching a series of things to their arms, ankles, and necks. Kyla was given a pair of light pink glasses that had a curious glaze to it. She looked into one of the small mirrors attached to the wall and adjusted them on her nose. As she did so, her finger went through one of the lenses and the entire lens disappeared with a pop. Alarmed, she whirled around to let one of the assistants know, but a layer of glaze was already growing back over the empty space where the previous lens had been. Intrigued, she took off the glasses and poked it again. The exact same thing happened and the lens grew back.
She scrambled over to where Carmen was being seated as two assistants furiously braided shiny gold threads into her hair. "Carmen, I think these are bubbles!" Kyla said excitedly, showing Carmen her glasses. "See, I can pop them with my finger and the glasses automatically regenerate another bubble! If I had this when I was a kid, I would have gone crazy over these!"
"You're still pretty crazy over them," Carmen pointed out, but Kyla didn't hear her as she was already being scolded for taking off her glasses. Someone put them back on for her and attached a few gems to the side of her face. Kyla wrinkled her nose. The sticker gems were rather scratchy and didn't feel good on her cheek, but no one took notice of her protests.
"Here you are!" said one of the assistants joyfully as he slapped on a bright orange moustache just above Will's upper lip. Will frowned and tried to the adjust it since it was slapped on rather carelessly and was crooked to the left, but the assistant proceeded to swat Will's hand. "Stop it!" said the assistant. "It looks just marvelous like that."
"But it's crooked," replied Will, his lip twitching from the hairs of the moustache scratching it. "And why must I put on a moustache when I don't actually have one?"
"Why must you question everything?!" cried the assistant, flailing his arms. "Does one question the essence of art? Must you measure exactly the position of the moustache to the very millimetre?" Will gave a look of exasperation but said nothing.
The tailor chuckled, his own dark brown moustache swinging. His appeared to be real, though heavily waxed. "Don't worry, that moustache is most definitely the latest trend. Show it off tonight and you will be a star!" He turned to the mirror to give his own moustache a quick twirl, fixing its shape. Then, spotting the reflection of his wristwatch in the mirror, he gave a shout. "Oh golly me! It's time for the ball, the carriage should be here already! Hurry up now, put on the last finishing touches and out the door they go!"
In a desperate last effort, a few of his assistants grabbed a jar of glitter off the overhead shelf and dumped it all over the three travelers.
"All right, all right, off you go!" the assistant with the plum cakes feverntly nudged them back out of the dressing room and past the curtains of the tent. The three of them found themselves back outside and, on top of that, with a grand carriage the size of a boxcar waiting for them.
Kyla gasped in delight. "This carriage is for us?!" she cried gleefully.
"It is now!" said someone to the right. The woman in the red suit was standing there waiting for them. She nodded in approval at their appearance. "It appears we match now, good sir!" she said to Will, batting her long eyelashes and flashing him a wide-tooth smile, glittering purple gems implanted into each of her two front teeth. Will smiled politely in return, taking a step back to grind his foot on Carmen's as she snickered behind him.
"Ouch!" Carmen stopped snickering. "Watch it, those shoes of yours hurt! Remember, you're not wearing sneakers anymore."
"Oh, oops," said Will a little sheepishly. "Sorry, forgot I was wearing these."
"Well, come on, Cinderella," called Kyla, giggling. "We can't keep these people waiting." A middle-aged man wearing a very tall wizard's hat jumped off from the front of the carriage and opened the door for her. "Thank you," Kyla told him. "So where are we heading now?"
The man looked taken aback, putting up a hand to adjust his blue hat that had been drooping forward. "To the ball, of course!" he replied, bewildered at her question. "What in the world else would a carriage be for?"
"Do you know when the ball starts?"
"When you arrive!"
Kyla laughed and playfully swatted the man on the arm before graciously taking his hand and stepping into the carriage.
"Go on now," said the lady in the red suit, placing each of her hands behind Will and Carmen and giving them a slight push. Will hopped into the carriage easily with one foot, while Carmen slowly went up the three small steps with the help of the man in the wizard hat.
"Careful now!" the man said good-naturedly. "You must be nervous since it's your first ball. But don't worry, young miss, you look absolutely brilliant!"
Carmen gave a quick smile in return and nodded in thanks, though that was not the reason why she was so hesitant in boarding the carriage. Once she got into the carriage and lowered herself onto one of the pink cushion seats, she looked around curiously. "Why are there no windows to this carriage?" she asked.
"Don't you worry about a thing, it'll only be a short ride to the castle!" the man said, not hearing her question. "You have your letter of invitation with you, yes? Yes, that's the one. You only need to show that at the door and they will let you in right away!" And before any of them could utter a word in response, he bowed politely and shut the door of the carriage with a snap.
After a few seconds, the carriage lurched slightly and began to move. Soft piano music began to play in the background and they caught a mild scent of floral inside the carriage. The two tiny chandeliers hanging overhead swung very softly but noiselessly. The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes, looking around and at each other, too bewildered by the bizarre adventure they suddenly realized themselves to be in.
Finally, Will broke the silence. "You girls don't look too bad," he said with a small smile.
"And your moustache is looking mighty trendy," Carmen said in reply. They all laughed.
"What do you suppose we'll be doing at this ball?" Kyla wondered aloud. Not knowing the answer to Kyla's question, the other two shrugged, and they silently sank back into their seats and closed their eyes, the sound of the piano tinkling softly away in the background like drops of water in a small pond.
About a quarter hour later, the carriage slowed to a stop and the door opened soon after. The man in the wizard's hat appeared from behind the door and greeted them again with a small bow. Curiously, he seemed to be wearing a different hat than before, for it was now bright pink with a crystal ball-like object on top. "We're here, my dear guests," he said, giving them his polite smile.
The three of them got out of the carriage, and giving them a final bow with more flourish than before, the man hopped back onto the front seat and began to drive away before any of them could thank him, all the while humming an upbeat tune to himself.
Nearing footsteps had the three of them turn around. A man in a purple, military-like uniform descended the large flight of stairs that led from the front doors of the castle and came towards them. "Good evening ladies, gentleman," he said in a formal manner, nodding to them in acknowledgment. "Might you have a letter of authorization with you?"
Kyla reached inside one of the hidden pockets of her blue dress and extracted the letter they had found in the mailbox back in the forest. "You mean this?" she asked.
The guard took the letter with both hands, and opening it up, he grinned. "Yes, very well! Welcome to the royal palace. It is our greatest pleasure to receive you at the royal ball happening tonight!" He waved his hand in a sweeping action and gestured towards the front door. "This way please, dear guests! I will show you in myself."
He began to ascend the stairs again and the three travelers followed suit. Strangely enough, the stairs only looked steep but was fairly easy to walk up, and with each step, Carmen was feeling a sense of excitement bubbling inside her.
They reached the large castle doors and with a very gentle push from the guard, the doors swung open swiftly and easily, revealing a bright light that clouded their vision for a brief moment.
============
A humungous balloon the size of five watermelons and in the shape of a sunflower floated across Carmen's vision, the face painted on its surface smiling at the newly arrived guests. It bobbed in front of them briefly before floating gently away to another side of the room, propelled by the waves of apple and cinnamon in the air.
The three of them stood there soaking in the scene. It was like nothing they had ever seen before, as if someone combined the set used in a Victorian movie with actors from a circus show. A group of women dressed in extravagant Victorian evening dresses skipped past them, giggling hysterically at what one of them said, their bonnets slightly crooked to the left not unlike Will's moustache. Two other women stood near them, dressed in bright blue with peacock feathers sprouting from the backs of their outfits. They alternated in showing each other creative dance moves, their feet moving in a complicated manner and oddly fitting with their peacock-like attire.
Kyla sneezed. It was then that they realized feathers falling from somewhere above, the lights too bright for any of them to see the ceiling above. The feathers fluttered down sparsely but steadily, piles of it scattered here and there on the floor. It didn't seem right to see the beautifully polished floor of a palace ballroom to be so littered with feathers and other accessories that various guests had dropped, but no one seemed to care.
On the far side of the room, there was a large area designated as the dance floor, where a large crowd of people in an assortment of colourful costumes danced with one another. Some danced the waltz, some the tango, some the polka, and others appeared to be fist pumping to an invisible rock concert. The live orchestra placed on the left side of the room appeared to be entirely separate from the dancing. They seemed to be playing a form of jazz, a smaller crowd of people surrounding them and clapping to their music, all the while chatting amongst themselves.
The room did not have any windows, but tall mirrors were secured frequently along the sides of the room so that it gave the room a much more spacious atmosphere, yet a sense of the room being an oddly contained dimension within many other dimensions.
The three travelers slowly made their way across the room, treading carefully in their new shoes. They weren't sure if the clothes they were wearing were theirs to keep, so it was best that they didn't get any of it dirty in case they were only borrowed. They were greeted frequently by other guests in the hall, sometimes even receiving a kiss on the cheek from complete strangers, much to Carmen's dismay and Kyla's surprise. Will, especially, seemed to constantly attract groups of middle-aged ladies fawning over his shoes (his bare feet embarrassingly in plain sight) or the charm in the curl of his moustache.
Since they weren't sure where else to go, the three of them decided to head over the to the long rows of tables abundant with all sorts of entrees and desserts. When they went closer to the food, though, they saw that what they thought were entrees were, in fact, a different sort of sweet. There were all kinds of cakes that none of them had every seen before; of course, there were the ordinary ones like carrot cake and other fruit cakes. But when Kyla braved a bite out of a slice of cake yellowish in colour, she discovered that it was a cake that tasted of sweet potato, like she was chewing a mouthful of fluffy, mashed potatoes.
Someone tapped Carmen on the shoulder and shoved a plate with a slice of cake in her hand. "Here, try this!" the woman said encouragingly, and left without introducing herself. She looked at Will, who shrugged and took a bite of the cake in place of her.
"Mmm, it has a taste of chicken and mushroom," Will described, chewing thoughtfully. "The cake is really moist and creamy, it's rather like a soup!"
"Hey, this cake melts the moment you put it in your mouth, like cotton candy!" Kyla happily called over to them, revealing her tongue now dyed blue from the cake she had on her plate. She proceeded to take a small slice each of the five cakes nearest to her. Carmen hesitated for a second, but the smell of pastries was so overwhelming that she couldn't help but pick up a plate herself. The image of the round, blood orange cake a few metres away reminded her strongly of the orange tree her grandparents grew in their backyard, and she felt her mind drifting away in bliss as she slowly sank her teeth into the pillows of flour, drowning in its nostalgic tang.
Kyla began to chat away with a group of girls around her age that were hovering near the differently coloured bowls of fruit punch. Will contented himself with listening to two other young men explaining the many different ways to don a moustache, occasionally helping himself to a new bowl of plum pudding or creme brulee.
"Hey, I noticed you're new here!" a young woman in her twenties danced over to where Carmen was standing, finishing her slice of orange cake. Carmen smiled, a little more energetic now that she had something in her stomach. "Yeah, we're from London," she replied, reaching for a glass of bubbling champagne-like substance.
"London! Now that sounds exotic. Not that it sounds particularly interesting, if you don't mind me saying," the woman explained. "Just exotic. I'm Hatty, by the way." She herself took a glass of green fruit punch. Hatty had heavy pink eyeshadow on with metallic purple eyeliner that complimented her violet, polka-dotted mini dress. She also had on shiny, padded silver boots, like she just came back from a space mission and only had time to change into a dress but didn't get around to her shoes.
"I'm Carmen. I'm not really used to balls like this, so what's the occasion exactly?"
Hatty looked confused. "Occasion?"
"Like, what are you celebrating?"
"Nothing yet. Or at least not that I know of. Is it your birthday?"
"No."
"Then we're not celebrating anything."
Will came over at that moment, saying a polite hello to Hatty and introducing himself. It appears he had tired of the topic of moustaches. "Nice party, isn't it?" he commented.
Hatty shrugged. "The usual! But I do rather adore the outfit on that woman standing over there, I wonder which studio she got it at." She gestured with her chin at a lady near the chocolate fountain wearing a nude suit, a blue corset around her waist and an assortment of fruit dangling in strings around her hips like a skirt.
"That's... interesting," said Will, unsure of what else to say about it.
"Isn't it? Now that's what I call creative," Hatty sighed, her eyes following the lady for a little while longer before focusing her attention back on Will and Carmen. A young couple came over to their group and introduced themselves as Hatty's friends.
"Hatty dear, there's something off about your outfit today," her friend said shrilly.
"You think?" Hatty asked, her brow creasing in worry. "Do you think it's this necklace? I told the stylist hot pink was out of season! Purple is the new pink."
"Pink is never the new pink," agreed her friend.
"So... what brings you here?" Will asked politely to the second friend, seeing the bored expression on the young man's face.
The young man's expression pulled into an expression of slight confusion. "Same reason as you, I suppose."
That made Will stop to think for a while. And what reason would that be? What is he doing here?
Carmen surveyed the crowd. "So where are the king and queen?" she asked. "Is there going to be an announcement when they show up?"
"What are you talking about?" asked Hatty. "We don't have a king or queen!"
Now it was both Carmen and Will's turn to be confused. "But you said this is a royal banquet," said Carmen.
"It is!"
"Shouldn't there be, you know, royalty at a royal banquet?"
"Not necessarily," Hatty shrugged, a little perplexed at being asked such a ridiculous question.
"A grand party must have a suitably grand title, don't you think?" Hatty's friend chimed in. "I think 'royal banquet' is a pretty adequate title for a nice ball like this. Doesn't mean there has to be royalty!"
"These banquets have me looking forward to something everyday," the other friend added. "Makes life more exciting." He nodded solemnly, holding his plate of cake in front of him like a devout Christian and his Bible.
"Exactly, what else would you do with this abundance of sweets that we have?"
At that moment, Carmen caught Kyla's eye from a distance. Kyla was standing with a new group of chattering ladies, but even she was starting to have a rather tired expression on her face that showed her overall disinterest. Suddenly, as if snapping awake from a daze, Carmen decided she had enough of this ridiculousness.
"Will, I'm pretty tired, it's been a long day," she said loudly, turning to Will. "Do you want to find a place to retire for the night? I'll go get Kyla." Will began to nod in assent, and Kyla, catching the hint that her two friends wanted to leave, began to head over in their direction when the ladies she had been chatting with suddenly stopped talking and ran to catch up with Kyla.
"Where are you going?!" Carmen could hear one of them crying to Kyla.
"Oh, I'm just going to find my two friends over there," said Kyla.
"By the way, would you happen to know of a vacant place we can stay over for the night?" Will asked Hatty and her friends. "We won't be much of a bother, I reckon we'll head back home in the morning."
"Just one night is fine," nodded Carmen.
"Oh, but you can't leave yet!" Hatty cried. "The night's just begun, and you haven't even tried the new lollipops yet! It's a new product!"
"I'm really rather tired," Carmen replied apologetically, just as Kyla and a few other ladies reached where they were standing.
"Please!" piped in Hatty's friend. "Chat with us a bit more! Come have some fun!"
Kyla tried to come to the rescue. "To be honest, we're all worn out. How about this," she tried. "We can meet up in the morning for some coffee and we can chat again tomorrow!"
"I'd like to find a hotel and go to bed earlier today myself," agreed Will.
One of the ladies from the group Kyla had been talking to stalked over. "Children can only go to bed when are sent to do so," she proclaimed.
The three travelers stared at her in bewilderment.
"But we aren't children anymore," Will said, trying to put on a smile.
Someone else replied, "Ah, but you were intrigued by the thought of candy like children, and came looking for a child's pleasure. So a child's treatment is what you will receive!"
"What's wrong with being children anyway?" A man's voice called.
"Why we're all children here!"
"Yes, that's right!"
"By staying children, we can keep out innocence and not be restricted by boring things that you folk are used to," a woman close by explained to them. "The society from which the three of you came from, we're not to be bothered by restrictions they try to impose on us!"
"Hear, hear!"
"I'd like to keep eating all the cake I want!"
"Candy!"
"Pudding!"
"Can-dy! Can-dy!"
The chanting and building enthusiasm continued to grow and the crowd suddenly became overwhelmingly loud and rambunctious. Even Hatty and her friends joined in the cheers.
Suddenly, a loud voice magnified by invisible audio speakers pierced through all the noise. "Attention ladies and gentleman!" A rich but not too deep man's voice boomed. "I am proud to finally announce the main dessert that you have all been waiting for! The highlight of tonight, my friends--come one, come all!"
All of them suddenly turned towards the far right side of the room, where a stage had been set up with large, bright red curtains shielding the center of the stage. This appeared to be a regular event, for everyone seemed to know exactly where to move towards at the sound of the announcer's voice, chattering in hushed voices but with audible excitement.
(To be continued)
