All short stories

Prologue

I opened a small box, the last one of my birthday gifts. Inside was a small platinum bracelet with tiny gemstones. I took it out to examine it in the light. The sun made the ruby and sapphire stones sparkle brightly, red and blue being the colors of the royal crest. I slipped it onto my left wrist and held it out to admire its dainty elegance. Suddenly, the bracelet shrinked to the exact size of my wrist and I heard a “clack” as if it were locked in place. I felt a tiny wave of energy pass through my body.

“Ahahaha! You’re cursed! Cursed!” cackled a man. He walked forward from the crowd of guests. He was very, very old and his brown robes were very, very tattered.

“You can’t do that,” I replied imperiously, trying to pull the bracelet off to no avail.

“Don’t bother with that. It’s a cursed bracelet. You can’t take it off,” the crazy-looking old man explained gleefully.

“So I’m cursed with a bracelet I can’t remove?”

“Oh, no, that’s not the curse itself. It’s just that the bracelet IS cursed itself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ok, then what IS the curse?”

“I’m not really sure. It’s different every time,” he shrugged. “I’ll have to consult my grimoire.” He pulled out a black leather book and riffled through some pages.

“Well?”

“Hang on. I’m actually kind of new at this evil wizard thing. It says here… yes, that’s it. A most foul and evil curse indeed! It will take away two things that you hold most dear. The first one is your shoes,” he nodded towards my bare feet.

“No!” I cried. “Not my shoes! A girl’s got to have a nice pair of shoes.”

“Not just those shoes, but you are cursed to not be able to wear any shoes,” he laughed evilly.

I started crying. No shoes! What was I going to do? And my poor cobbler would be out of work, too.

“Now then, let’s have it. What’s the other thing?” I sniffled.

“It’s… well, I’m a little embarassed to say,” he looked down sheepishly.

I sighed impatiently.

“I may have messed up a little teensy part of the curse. I’m still learning, you know,” he stammered.

“I don’t CARE!” I yelled. “What did you do to me?”

“You lost your… that is… you lost your prmmmhmph,” he mumbled.

“I lost my what?”

“Your pronouns,” he said in a small voice.

“No!” I cried. “You can’t do that.”

“And if you don’t break the curse in three days – I mean months, why do I always get that line wrong. If you don’t break the curse in three months, it will last forever,” he proclaimed. And then he grabbed a pouch from around his waist and emptied dust onto the ground. The dust swirled in a cloud around him and he snapped his fingers. A few seconds later the cloud blew away and he had vanished.

I ran over to my best friend Lila. “He couldn’t have taken my pronouns away. Try to talk about me in the third person.”

“The princess was cursed on he-” Lila started coughing. “On he-ACK.”

So that was the strange energy current I had felt. I had lost my gender. And my shoes (all shoes, really). And I had three months to break the curse.

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She stood before the final door, holding the large silver key in her hand. This one was larger and more ornate than the others. The light reflecting off of the key gave it the illusion of glowing bright white. She held it within the cast of her shadow and could see a pattern made up of thousands of tiny intricate triangles and circles. She extended her hand towards the door and the light reflected glowing white from the key again. She was filled with nervous anticipation that shook the other six keys hanging off of the key ring. The sound they made together was the faint metallic twinkle of a small wind chime being tickled by the wind.

She unlocked the door and tucked the key ring back into her pocket. The door was made of solid, ancient wood but she was able to open it effortlessly. A pale lavender portal took up the space between the door frame. She reached out with both hands to touch it, and felt the wet, gelatinous substance. All the portals had felt this way, and she still wasn’t used to it. She held her breath and closed her eyes (superstitious, she knew) and stepped forward.

A second later, she opened her eyes and was back on the giant, three-toned chessboard from the beginning. The board was surrounded by giant trees that grew so tall that their tops made only a pinprick of green in her vision. The trees made an impermeable border, she knew from her last visit here.

“Is this some kind of joke?” she shouted out in frustration.

She heard a quiet sound of fabric moving behind her. She turned around and saw her guide walking towards her. He appeared to be a human of about her same height and age, but there was some illusion about him that kept her from perceiving his features when she looked directly at him.

“Well? What is going on? Why am I back at the first door again?”

He laughed quietly, as if she had made a joke only he understood. “When you have opened all the doors, you will find the way out. But the way out is beyond all doors.”

“I’m so tired of your nonsensical riddles and puzzles!” she cried. “Are you telling me that this is all just a pointless treadmill of doors?”

He stood quietly, leaving her to ponder his words. She had opened all the doors, so shouldn’t that mean she had found the way out? She looked at the space around her, at the chessboard and the giant trees. There was no other way to leave this plane besides the next door. What did “beyond the doors” even mean? By all calculations, this was supposed to be beyond the final door.

She repeated his words over in her head, and her thoughts swirled around in anger. How many years had she wasted trying to solve this impossible puzzle? Why couldn’t he just directly show her where to go, if he was such a great guide? She could feel the angry thoughts build up to the point that irrationality was starting to take over.

She pulled the keys out of her pocket and stomped over to a gray tile on the far end of the chess board where she remembered the first door to be. She unlocked it and violently pulled the door open to reveal a dark red portal. She threw the keys as hard as she could through the red, viscous substance and then slammed the door closed.

“If I can’t get out through the doors, then I’m not going to bother any more,” she proclaimed. She walked over to the edge of the board and sat down, leaning back against the largest tree for support. “I think I’ll just sit right here and do nothing instead.”

The guide gave a mysterious smile and started to fade away. He had nothing more to teach her.

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