Malspite: The Witch of Black Forrest

Chapter 1

Daisy discovers who she really is

Prince Valiant was now a frog. He hadn’t started life as a frog; he had started it, as his name suggests, as a prince. He grew up brave and strong and had been determined to prove himself by going about in the world seeking wrongs to put right in order to make the world a better place. That is how he had crossed paths with Malspite, the wicked witch of Black Forrest.

About four weeks earlier, he was riding along the forest edge when he heard the wailing and sobbing of several frightened children. He followed the sound into the forest. When the forest got too thick to ride through, he left his horse, Braveheart, in a clearing and continued on foot.

He caught up with Malspite, still not knowing who she was, at a clearing beside a fast-flowing stream. She had three children tied to a tree in a particularly gloomy part of the forest.

As it was dark and Malspite was sleeping, Prince Valiant decided to sneak up quietly and release the children and lead them out of the forest. It didn’t, however, go as he had planned. He had stood on a branch that snapped, waking Malspite up. Malspite, in her rage, threw a powerful death curse at him. Prince Valiant, seeing Malspite waking up, threw himself headfirst into the stream.

The death curse hadn’t killed him, mainly because at birth all princes are blessed with a life-protection spell from a good witch. This, supported by the helpful natural spirits of the ferns and mosses along the creek, had mitigated the spell, and as a result rather than kill him, Prince Valiant found himself reduced to being a small insignificant life form able to survive in the cold water at the bottom of the creek.

Prince Valiant found himself a fully conscious tadpole. For the last four weeks, although still thinking like a prince, he had stoically eaten pond scum and debris at the bottom of the creek until he had grown big enough and developed the legs he needed to drag himself out of the creek. He swam downstream and stopped when he got to what seemed to be a stone bridge over the creek.

He wasn’t sure, but he thought he couldn’t be the first prince to be turned into a frog by a wicked witch. He seemed to recall that if he could get a kiss from a pure maiden, it might break the spell. He could remember when he was growing up, there were often stories about maidens kissing frogs to have them turn into princes. It must be, on reflection, thought Prince Valiant, that for a prince, being turned into a frog is something of an occupational hazard.

Prince Valiant, however, believed in turning the odds in his favour where he could. That is why he stopped near the bridge. His reasoning was that there would be more pure maidens walking along an established track with a bridge than roaming through an unmarked forest. He dreamt big, believing the currency of romance is flowers. A maiden might think nothing of a frog on a bridge but a frog on a bridge with flowers, that was another proposition entirely, so he chewed through the stem of a nearby flower, dragged it up to the top of the stone wall on the edge of the bridge and waited.

Daisy was a poor farm girl. She was the cheese maker’s daughter, but by a strange twist of fate, she also carried within herself the spirit of a princess, Princess Radiant of White Castle. It came as quite a shock to have Princess Radiant’s spirit drop in unannounced late one afternoon while Daisy was carrying a heavy pile of firewood, which she had collected, back home to her family’s humble cottage on the edge of Black Forrest. This immediately caused major issues.

Princess Radiant had grown up in a privileged household. Being pretty, educated and royal, she was not used to having her wishes denied. Daisy, however, in addition to having plain features, no schooling and coming from a poor family, had a strong speech impediment and found it almost impossible to communicate with people. As a result, most people looked down on her. Daisy learnt not to expect very much and to take pleasure in simple things. Despite that, she found when Princess Radiant demanded that she Totally hand over your body at once! it was simply too much. Also, she found that her speech impediment was not a barrier to communicating in her own head. When arguing in her head she could actually be quite convincing, so the net result was that she and Princess Radiant came to a mutual agreement. They would take turns to be in charge of Daisy’s body until such time, if ever, Princess Radiant was able to return to her own body. It was agreed that at that time the princess would leave gracefully and she would owe Daisy a favour.

Princess Radiant also found the negotiations to be a revelation. She was accustomed to having her every whim entertained. Normally, as a royal, to ask for something was enough to have people rushing to meet her every request. If asking for something didn’t work immediately then she would simply bat her eyelashes, and most of the men around her would melt into compliant jelly. If the first two strategies didn’t work, she would turn to her secret weapon, her amazing singing voice which again would cause most people to melt. However, when she attempted to sing in Daisy’s body, she found the sound that resulted was quite excruciating. So, none of her demands had withstood Daisy’s quiet and determined My body, my rules argument, and she was forced to adopt a mutually beneficial compromise. Princess Radiant, until that point in her life, had never had to consider what it was like to be the other person, nor to actually have to look for a mutually beneficial arrangement.

They both agreed that Princess Radiant could be in charge for a while and that they would return to Daisy’s cottage that evening to discuss what would happen further in the morning. They set off for the cottage with Princess Radiant managing the process and Daisy being free to be in her own mind and soak in the natural beauty of the forest as they walked along. Princess Radiant, on the other hand, as she walked along, started to check out the body she now had rented. She was appalled by what she found. Her hands and body, which she freely admitted looked quite strong, were simply filthy, and her nails were cracked and broken. When she felt her face, she found it pockmarked, and when she checked out her teeth with her tongue, she found the teeth of her borrowed body were crooked. To make matters worse she was missing a tooth at the front. Her clothes were rags, and they were, if anything, filthier.

Princess Radiant also found she was experiencing a quite foreign sensation. She found that the load of sticks on her back was quite heavy. She would have left them beside the track, but her attempts to do so drew Daisy’s attention.

‘Don’t do that, or we will freeze to death tonight, and you will never get your body back.’

Princess Radiant, keen to get back into her own body, and out of Daisy’s dreadful body, picked up the load and shuffled on. Being a peasant, she realised, was not fun. This realisation was reinforced that night when, still in charge of Daisy’s body, she found herself trying to sleep on the dirt floor under a heavy dirty blanket in Daisy’s father’s small cottage rather than the soft feather mattress on which she normally slept.

When Daisy’s father started to snore, it was all too much, so she woke Daisy up and said, ‘It’s your turn, I can’t sleep.’

Daisy, woken from a pleasant dream, said, ‘Sure.’

When in charge again of her own body, she found herself safe, secure, warm and cosy in her own home. She immediately fell back to sleep and was once more enjoying the pleasant dream which was still there waiting for her.

Princess Radiant, having relinquished control of the body, found that the noise of the snoring and the hardness of the floor vanished into the background, and after a period of time spent thinking about what had happened and what to do next, also finally fell asleep. By the time she woke up, Daisy was already eating a large bowl of warm porridge for breakfast.

‘We must immediately go to White Castle and enlist my brother Prince Michael to help recover my body from Malspite,’ she demanded of Daisy.

‘Hang on,’ said Daisy. ‘That is no simple thing. Firstly, I can’t talk. I can’t explain anything to anybody. If I go off before the milking is finished, Papa will drag me back. We might be able to go after lunch when I usually collect firewood, and remember, you are in my body. Will we being in my body, not being able to talk, be able to convince anybody to help us?’

Princess Radiant thought about this for a minute before she said, ‘Good point. I don’t suppose you have writing materials in this house? I will write a letter explaining it all.’

‘No, we don’t,’ Daisy said. ‘There might be some for sale at the local village, but they would cost most of my savings, and you will have to pay me back. In any case, who is Malspite? You still haven’t told me how you came to need my body.’

‘Yes, I suppose we will have to wait until after lunch. Okay, I will tell you all about it while we are walking to White Castle,’ Princess Radiant said huffily, still not too keen on this negotiation thing.

Princess Radiant and Daisy both enjoyed milking the goats. They found they both shared a love of animals, and after some training by Daisy, Princess Radiant found she too was a dab hand at milking. After a lunch of freshly baked bread, with some herbs Daisy picked from her vegetable patch washed down with fresh goat’s milk, Daisy went to a hole in the cottage wall and retrieved the three pennies, four halfpennies and two farthings, which were her life savings, and tucked them into the small pouch that was sewn into her dress. They then set off in the direction of Black Forrest, through the woods to reach the road that led to the local village.

Once on the road to the local village, Daisy reminded Princess Radiant of her promise to explain how she came to need Daisy’s body, and so Princess Radiant began her story.

‘About four weeks ago on a glorious sunny late winter’s day, a day in many ways just like today,’ she said, ‘I was bored at home, so I decided that I, together with my two maids-in-waiting, would go and have a picnic. We walked for about an hour and a half to the edge of Black Forrest where we sat down by the stream and had our picnic. After the picnic, I thought it would be great as a dare to go into Black Forrest. Both my maids-in-waiting told me, You know we are not allowed to go into the Forrest, it is forbidden for princesses and discouraged for common people like us as it’s just too dangerous. I said, You are both a pair of scaredy cats, and if you are truly my friends, you will come with me. Besides, I order you to come. So there. With that, I turned and ran into the forest. They followed me as I knew they would. They would have been in so much trouble if they had gone back without me.

‘They were terrified, so I enjoyed sneaking up on them and jumping out and loudly yelling, boo. They became so scared that they couldn’t stop shaking and could barely walk. I grew tired of the game and decided to go home, when all of a sudden, there was a terrible screeching cackling laughter. The wicked witch of Black Forrest heard my loud yelling and came to investigate. A princess, just what I have been waiting for, for so long, she had screeched, and the next thing I knew, I was tied to a tree together with my maids-in-waiting. The wicked witch of Black Forrest, who told us her name was Malspite, wanted to take over my body, but as a princess, I had several protective spells cast on me that prevented that from happening, so she couldn’t. When she found she couldn’t, she went into her cave and collected a book of spells to see if she could disarm my protective spells.

‘After reading for a while, she realised she might be able to, but she would need several rare plants as ingredients to complete the required concoctions. At that point, she decided to have a meal, which she accomplished by draining some blood from my maids-in-waiting, which caused them to wail and sob uncontrollably. Malspite, then having had a good meal, decided she would look for the plants in the morning and simply lay down and went to sleep. After about four hours we spotted a knight creeping towards us. Our spirits lifted as we thought we would be rescued, but he stood on a branch, made a noise and Malspite simply obliterated him with a spell.

‘In the morning, Malspite released the maids-in-waiting. I’m not sure why, but only after draining some more blood for breakfast. She then locked me in her cave for some time. She would feed me every now and then, normally some form of vegetarian gruel. After a couple of days, my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and I could see quite well, so I started to explore the cave. In a niche below some roots, I found a weird-shaped object. It was made of an old tree root with two metal hinged flaps. I opened the first catch. There in writing were the words For the joyful life you want touch here. At the bottom of the objects was a beautiful green stone which was obviously what you were supposed to touch. I briefly thought about opening the second catch, but as I thought I heard Malspite returning, and thinking that if the object was magic, it might return me to my home, I touched the stone.

‘The next thing I know, my body collapsed underneath me. I didn’t fall with my body though. I was floating in the air, looking down on it. Then I felt a huge surge of energy, and suddenly, me, in spirit form, flew directly to you like a magnet, and I joined you in your body. So, for all I know my body is still in the cave, and, with utmost respect for you and your body, I want my old one back. So, if I am to get my old body back, I need somebody to come with me to deal with Malspite. That somebody is my big, strong and brave brother, Prince Michael, who at this moment is in White Castle, my home. That is why we are going there,’ said Princess Radiant as they walked along.

Soon they were at the village. Daisy knew that the writing implements: paper, quills and ink etc. were at the back of the village general store because the store was one of the few places outside the farm apart from the church where she went with her dad on occasion. When she got to the back of the store, she handed control of her body over to Princess Radiant who quickly found what she needed and paid two pence for them, which Daisy thought was a huge amount of money. ‘You could buy four goats for that,’ Daisy said.

The shopkeeper was very matter-of-fact, and didn’t look at all surprised when Daisy, whom I’m sure he knew couldn’t talk or read, handed over the money. They then went to the local church where Princess Radiant used the pews of the then-vacant church as a writing desk and carefully wrote two letters.

‘I think I will need your body for a couple of days,’ she said as she finished the letters. ‘I have written a letter saying you are helping me with a small problem for a couple of days and that you will be paid well for your services to explain your absence to your dad. We will get the town crier to go over to your place and read it to him. I’ve also written a letter for the guard at the gate when we get to White Castle.’

They then went looking for the town crier. After giving him the letter for Daisy’s father, they set off once more towards White Castle.

Meanwhile, Prince Valiant was starting to grow despondent. He had now been on the bridge for five days, and he was still a frog. Every night he would return to the creek to eat and rehydrate, but his plan wasn’t working. He had been kissed, three times in fact, but not by a maiden with adequate spiritual power to overcome Malspite’s spell. Two maidens with adequate spiritual power (he found he could sense the level of their power) had passed him by without kissing him. They were privileged and highborn, and they, as a result, suffered from a high level of aversion to the unsanitary. They simply couldn’t bring themselves to kiss a dirty, slimy frog, although, to give one credit, she did try before almost gagging and then fainting before she could complete the task. He had also added to his flowers, spelling out Please kiss me in small flowers on the edge of the bridge once he determined it was the highborn who were likely to be literate that tended to have the higher spiritual power that he needed. This in turn had led to the serious but ultimately failed attempt of the aforementioned fainter.

When he saw Daisy approaching, he didn’t hold out much hope. She was obviously a low-born type. Indeed, if it were possible, she was even more dishevelled than the three unsuccessful kissers he had before. As a result, he didn’t even attempt to scan her for her spiritual power. He didn’t even look at her. He was so defeated. At this point Daisy was in charge of her body. It was a glorious, partially sunny day, the best she could expect at this time of year, and she was enjoying walking on the unfamiliar track on the other side of her local village that led to the village of San Maybena, where she would find the turn-off to White Castle.

When Daisy saw the frog on the edge of the bridge, she couldn’t help herself. The frog just looked so sad. Daisy immediately leant over and kissed it. She hadn’t even noticed