“Lilia, my dear lady, you do not want to separate a family,” Mr Bonfiley was shocked.
No! The pregnant women thought, she’s taking my Ethel. If she took Ethel away, she would not be able to live. Ethel was her youngest child, one year of age and was pretty, just like her mother.
“Mr Bonfiley, put the child in my carriage and that will be all,” Lilia said.
“But… ok my lady; I shall do whatever you asked. What about the rest of them?” Mr Bonfiley carried on,
“Kill them!” she ordered.
The golden bells rang high up in the towers. An old man stepped out of his cottage and began to walk towards his carriage. His face was round and pale. His eyes were large and scary, his lips curled up in a cunning way as he took out a letter addressed to a man named Mr Bonfiley. Mr Bonfiley was his old friend from school. They kept in touch, as Mr Bonfiley was kind enough to find a child for him and his wife. Ethel, his dear daughter, he thought. It was a shame about what happened that morning. It was not necessary for Lilia to speak of the events that happened when she first saw Ethel to her irritating friend. Ethel should not have felt the need to eavesdrop also. Now all these years of making Ethel strong and able to fend for herself were almost worthless. He now knew that Ethel would refuse to help him to win back all that he had lost. He wanted her to go to the city of Bandai, and gain the approval of the King to wed his son, the Prince named Umberto. By marrying the prince, Ethel would be able to gain the throne for him and his wife, which was taken long ago by King Vasilis himself.
While the old man was thinking about this, Ethel remained in her chamber, weeping. She couldn’t accept that the people she had been living with for the past sixteen years were not her real parents. How could they lie to me? She thought. The thing that frustrated her most was that they separated her from her family, and she did not have the slightest clue where they were. In anger, she went to her rather large wardrobe and grabbed a sufficiently big bag to empty all her belongings into. She was going to leave this small seaside cottage and begin her quest to find her family.
She started her journey by strolling through the woods. As a result of her not knowing where to start, she thought it would be best to go to the woods,as they were meant to be enchanted. It was a bright sunny day and the sun shone into the woods. While Ethel was in the woods, she saw two deer. Ethel was shocked to see such beautiful creatures; one was quite petite and the other rather tall, the colour of their fur was a golden brown, but sophisticated, with white spots. In her town of Ventura, only some of the creatures had the gift to talk. Well, that’s what Ethel had heard anyway. She had never experienced a talking animal. All of a sudden, the deers started to run. Ethel wondered what was going on.
“STOP!” she shouted, “What is going on?”
Then Ethel realised they would not communicate with her. They must be one of the animals without the talent of speaking, she thought. To her surprise, the smaller deer replied her while trying to run away.
“Watch out for the giants and ogres. They are coming this way. After an argument for five years they have decided to join up and eat all the smaller creatures. Our herd is one of their biggest targets!” and with that, both deer were out of sight. Ethel started to worry. She never knew such creatures existed right under her nose. She always thought of human life and in her wildest dreams she never imagined that ogres and giants existed, the only time she imagined them was when her mother read her a fairytale. Ethel quickly hid behind a willow tree, and heard the ogres and giants coming her way; she did not want to run into such creatures. All she wished was to find her family.
After the ogres and giants passed, Ethel carried on walking through the woods, little did she know that one giant was left behind. She heard a weeping sound and instantly went to find out what it was. She heard the sound from behind a bush.
“Is anyone there?” Ethel questioned.
“Go away.” The voice cried.
Ethel felt bad for the creature, so she walked forwards to get a closer look at its face.
She screamed.
“See. This is why I am crying. Everyone that sees me automatically screams. Not all giants are scary. In fact, I am quite sensitive, that is why my friends and family abandoned me,” the giant continued.
Ethel felt bad. Her and the giant talked things through and came to an agreement. He would help her find her family and would always treat him as an equal. This seemed fair. She took a liking to the giant anyway. It turned out his name was Bigfoot, so he and Ethel carried on the quest to find her family.
As Ethel and Bigfoot walked through the woods, they began to feel tired. They stopped under a tree and found shelter for themselves.
“This will do,” Ethel said, “We can sleep here tonight and then carry on in the morning.”
Bigfoot agreed. They slept for a maximum of seven hours and then woke up to find a gloomier day than before. Ethel wondered how the weather could change so quickly. She asked Bigfoot whether the woods were enchanted.
“Of course they are. Do you not know the story?,” Bigfoot was shocked.
“I am afraid not,” Ethel said.
“Well, there was a lady, maybe about twenty-five years of age. She was brought into the woods to be killed by a worker of the evil witch in your town of Ventura. She was pregnant at the time and had two children with her. The worker of the witch, was about to kill her, but something saved her, something in these woods. No one knows what exactly, maybe a magic lamp or something. It transported the lady and her children to a special world, far, far way,” said Bigfoot.
Ethel was shocked. Were these people her family? She would need to find out. She told Bigfoot how shocked she was and they headed off to find some more answers.