Author's Note: This story was inspired by several different things. It was first inspired by the movie Pan's Labrynth, which I have yet to see but from the previews I found some inspiration. I also got some inspiration from the songs The Bird and The Worm by The Used for all the 'horror' parts and Wake Up by Coheed and Cambria for all the romantic parts. I also used some lyrics from Wake Up after the 'prologue' and at the end of the story. I hope you enjoy it, and please comment.

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I could feel his breath on my cheek. His touch on my waist sent a shiver down my spine. I didn’t look at him though; I wouldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to seem vulnerable to onlookers and, being heir to the thrown, it was important that I was strong, or at least I thought so. Father wanted me to be much more relaxed. He said no man was attracted to women who restrict themselves as much as I did. I wasn’t worried about being attractive. Having a husband, I thought, would only weaken me. Father says I need to learn to love but with love all I see is disappointment and sadness. He was my proof of that. When Mother died he wasn’t a great king. As the years went on he learned to cope. If that ever happened to me could I do the same? The emotion was unpredictable and I hated unpredictable.

But no matter how hard I tried to avoid it, love found me. Even though I’d deny it, I loved Lucas. Even though I’d deny it, Lucas knew I loved him. I’m not sure if he was teasing me or was serious about ever loving me back. He was very handsome with light brown locks that fell over his forehead and in the back just cut off at the nape of his neck. He had bright blue eyes that made my heart beat faster just looking into them, perfect, long lips that weren’t too plump but weren’t too thin and a wonderfully chiselled chin with a cute dimple in the middle. The way he’d look at me, touch me or kiss me was different and so amazing I can’t describe it.

“And God said, ‘It is good,’” I read. Why am I reading the Bible? I asked myself. I wasn’t even that religious anyways. Lucas pulled me closer to him. My heart fluttered. “‘…for in the day that you eat of it you shall die,’” I skipped a few lines. His lips touched my ear.

“Put the book down, Eloisa,” he said quietly.

I shook my head. “I-it’s a good part, I can’t stop now!” I lied.

Lucas looked down to the thin pages of the “Good News”, as the Christians called it, and frowned. “You’re reading the Bible. Is that more interesting than pressing your sweet lips against mine? I assure you, you’ll enjoy it,” he flirted. “Please, Eloisa. You’re killing me, killing me.”

I finished the page I was reading, which took a while because the font is so small compared to the page, and shut the book and turned to him. “Fine,” I agreed. Kissing wasn’t exactly showing that I loved him and no one else was around. Of course Lucas, being as stubborn as he was sometimes, slid to the other side of the bench we sat on and crossed his arms.

“I don’t feel like it anymore,” he stated, looking to the sky.

“Aright,” I said, getting up with the Bible in my hand. “Well I’ll be going now, have fun not doing anything.” With that I turned and began to walk toward the castle, my home. But I was stopped mid-second step. Lucas had stood up and taken hold of my arm. I turned back to face him.

He smirked. “Wasn’t it obvious that I was joking?” he asked and pulled me in toward him, forcing me to drop the Bible, and gave me such a passionate kiss that I felt it through my whole body. And when our lips parted, Lucas held me for a bit. I closed my eyes and nestled my head onto his chest. We stood like that for a while until I opened my eyes. Not ten meters away from where we stood was the most hideous creature I had ever seen. It glared at Lucas and me with its large and only blood-red eye. Its eye took up most of its face on its circular head. The creature’s ears were large and stuck out. Not a hair grew on its head but the rest of it was covered in thick brown. It had two legs, both with feet, attached to the head and a single arm stuck to the top of its left thigh. It moved to ward us breathing heavily. I pushed away from Lucas and pointed to it.

“What is that?” I asked him, my heart beating fast, but not in a good way. I clutched onto the sleeve of Lucas’ jacket. He started walking backward, taking me with him. The creature started moving faster, making a grunt noise every time one of its feet hit the ground and its arm bouncing up and down.

“Run, Eloisa,” Lucas said, ripping me off of his arm.

“But—” I made to protest but before I could say anything Lucas ran in the direction of the forest, far to the right of the creature.

“Run and hide, Eloisa!” he shouted behind him. The creature began to follow him.

“Lucas!” I screamed after him. What was that creature? And how did this happen so fast? Lucas had reached the forest at this point and I couldn’t see his figure amongst the trees. I began to run the opposite direction, toward my kingdoms well and, not thinking, I jumped into it. A sharp pain went through my leg, causing me to collapse when I reached the waterless bottom, but I didn’t care. I knew something bad was going to happen to Lucas and to me it was the end but the truth is, it was just the beginning.

So leave yourself intact,
'Cause I won't be coming back;
In a phrase to cut these lips,
I loved you.

---

I sat in my bed. It was the middle of the night and I was tired yet I could not sleep. It had been a week since Lucas and I had seen the creature and a week since Lucas had disappeared.

My eyelids struggled to stay open. I wanted to sleep but at the same time I didn’t. What if Lucas were to come back while I slept? And what about that strange creature? I slid down onto my back. A sharp pain went through my leg when I did this, forcing me to scream until the pain ended, which wasn’t for long. My scream echoed in my chamber and probably through the whole castle. The castle’s physician had advised that I stay in bed until my leg recovered. How long that would take he did not know so he told us that he’d visit every week to check up on me.

I had been found in the bottom of the kingdoms well a day after I had fallen in. I was starving and had a broken leg. Father says I was very pale but I didn’t tell him that it was probably because of the ugly thing I had seen. When I heard that Lucas had disappeared I became starving, broken legged and bawling.

To get me out of the well a bucket was sent down and I had to sit on it as they pulled me up. It was uncomfortable and became even more so when my leg twisted the wrong way on my way up.

The castle was silent. All that I could hear was myself breathing in and out. My eyelids had won the battle so I lay with my eyes closed. Suddenly there was a second sound added with my breathing. The sound of light footsteps echoed the halls. I wondered who it was and why they were up so late. The sound got louder as it approached my chamber and when they reached it the footsteps stopped. My door swung open and revealed a glowing figure. It walked into my room. As it came closer, I saw what it looked like. It was a woman with platinum blonde hair and deep green eyes. Her lips were pursed together tightly and her skin was white. She was much too thin to be healthy. She wore a damp, white robe that was ripped at the bottom and clung to her frame. But for some reason I recognized her and wasn’t afraid.

The woman stopped to the right of my bed. She opened her mouth a bit and a goopy yellow substance began to fall from it, splattering onto the floor.

“What’s wrong with you…?” I managed to ask before I was speechless in shock and fear. The substance continued to fall out of her mouth and she fell to the ground onto her knees. She started coughing weakly and uncontrollably and covered her mouth with both hands. I do not know why I didn’t scream or slide out of bed to attempt to get away with my broken leg. When she finished, she looked up at me with her deep green and sunken in eyes and queasily smiled.

“For you…” she said quietly, holding up her hands and revealing what she had coughed up. I looked down and was stricken with disgust. In her hands she held a frog. It was much smaller than any frog I had seen before but it was still a frog, covered in what she had been spitting up.

“Take it…” she told me, pushing it close to my face. Not only did it look horrible, it smelt horrible too. The frog smelt so strongly that, before I could turn around, I spewed. My vomit covered the woman and the frog, although the most she did was flinch, remaining in the same position. Tears formed in my eyes. The woman looked disappointed. She put the frog at the end of my bed. I rolled to face the other side. The woman walked around and in front of me. She tilted her head as she looked at me and then slowly vanished. By the time her figure had completely disappeared, I was fast asleep.

“Eloisa! Eloisa! Get up, the sun is out,” a voice rang through my head. I sat up quickly, not remembering my broken leg. But there was no pain. I looked down in awe and flipped off my bed sheets. On my knee was the frog that the woman had given me the night before. Its skin was had been cleaned of the yellow substance and I saw it was a deep forest green. There wasn’t anything different from it than any other frog except for the fact that its height was equal to the size of half of my thumb. But looking down to see a tiny frog on my knee scared me and I screamed. Almost instantly a whole army of maids rushed into my room.

“Lady Eloisa! You’re awake! What has happened?”

“Step aside, I’ve known her longer, she trusts me. Let me see your leg Lady Eloisa, does it hurt?”

“Back off I was in here first!”

The maids continued to argue and paid little attention to me. I calmed myself down and flicked the frog off of my knee. It fell onto the ground with a splat.

“And this is the thanks I get for fixing your leg?”

It was the frog! The frog was talking to me through my mind. Without thinking, I jumped out of my bed and began to stomp on it violently. The maids’ attention turned back to me.

“Lady Eloisa! You monster! What a poor little…whatever that is,” one of the maids said.

Another maid smacked her across the head. “Have you drunk fresh wine? Who cares about the creature, the Lady is standing! What a miraculous recovery!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, so she is standing,” another maid nodded.

“Ah,” I began, “I guess it got better. That physician must be great. Send him flowers on my behalf. I—uh—have some things to get to.” Before anyone could question what I had to do, I ran out of the room and outside. I wanted to get out. I wanted to look for Lucas but at the same time I didn’t. The creature I had seen had haunted my dreams the night before. I knew that I wouldn’t go anywhere near the forest ever. Behind me I could hear a plopping noise.

Plop…plop…

I turned to see what it was. A small frog not even the size of my thumb was hopping toward me.

“I didn’t enjoy getting stepped on, but you won’t get rid of me that easily…”

“What do you want?” I asked. “And what are you?”

“I simply want to be your friend and I’m a frog, if you can’t tell by my appearance.”

I opened my mouth to respond but a woman walked by and gave me a weird look. Right, I thought. It’d probably be best not to talk to the frog out in the open. I bent down and opened my hands, hoping he frog would hop into them, which it did. I brought it close to my face. It smelt a lot better than I remembered. It smelt familiar and the smell gave a tingly feeling go through my body. “Well then, what’s you name, since I won’t count on losing you too fast?” I whispered to the frog.

“Who knows?” it said. “Make up one for me.”

I knew that it was a frog, but not having a name seemed different to me. “Are you a girl or a boy?”

“Boy, I think. I don’t really know where my organs are to tell, but I’m pretty sure I’m a boy.”

“Alright,” I began, “I will name you…Alexander. That sounds like a good name, perhaps not one for a frog, but it’s suitable.”

Alexander seemed happy with the name and nestled himself comfortably on my hand. “Your hands are soft,” he complimented me.

“Ah, thanks. I think,” I replied. “But I’d rather not walk around with my hands out all day. I’d like to put them down sometime. You can go in my shoe, if you’d like.”

“A shoe? A shoe is most definitely not a fit home for me,” he said, his voice sounded disappointed. “I prefer your hands, thank you.” But I ignored his preference and put him in my shoe, which was not too tight fitting at the top and a bit big around my heels. Alexander popped his head up and out of the shoe and kept himself like that by holding the side of it. “I’ll have you know that I am not pleased.”

“And I’ll have you know that I’m not either. It’ll be hard talking to you without looking like a nutcase,” I replied. I began to walk toward the main part of the kingdom. More and more people started showing up and looking at me strangely, probably because of my fast recovery. I saw some looking at Alexander quizzically but ignored it. I also had to ignore Alexander’s comments. “It’s rude to stare,” or, “Either they’re looking at me or your legs. I must say, they’re not as hairy as any other woman’s that I’ve seen today,” and “You know, if you held me, no one would be staring at your legs.” All of his comments I wanted to reply to but wouldn’t or I risked looking like a fool.

As I got deeper into the main kingdom and closer to the forest, the less and less people I saw. I’m not too sure why I went there when earlier I vowed never to go close to the forest again. I might’ve gone because I used to go to the bench by the forest everyday to meet Lucas. When I reached the bench that day I sat down and buried my head in my hands and began to cry, paying no attention to the frog in my shoe and unaware of the presence next to me,

“It could be worst, hun,” an aged voice spoke to the left of me. I lifted my head up and turned to see an elderly woman sitting next to me. She had overly wrinkled ski and beady black eyes with a hooked nose and long white hair that hit the ground. She wore a black robe that covered her down to the feet with a hood that she did not have on her head. I scooted away.

“You needn’t fear me,” she said in her creepy old voice. “I may be seen a peculiar elderly woman, but I am much more.”

“Much more…?” I repeated.

“Oh so much more,” the old woman chuckled. “You may call me Agatha. Should you like to come to my cottage for some tea? I can see that you’re upset, perhaps you’d like to share what happened to make you feel better?”

I shrugged. She seemed like a nice woman, apart from the whole being creepy part about her.

“Don’t even think about it,” Alexander said, but I ignored him.

“Thank you, I should like that,” I said politely. Agatha nodded, but seemed to be looking at Alexander who had now hopped out of my shoe.

“Oh, such a strange creature,” she said, leaning down to reach toward it. I quickly scooped him up into my hands before she could touch him.

“I don’t like her,” he commented, but once again I ignored him.

The woman led me to her cottage and began to make the tea while I sat down at her table. Alexander had nestled himself in an empty cup on the table.

“So who was this Lucas you were so sad about?” Agatha asked, taking a seat by me.

“I never told you what I was sad about,” I said, looking at her strangely. How did she know?

“Ah, um,” the old woman began quickly, looking slightly shocked, “I’ve seen you two on that bench before. I guessed that you were sad about him since he wasn’t with you that time. Did you get into a fight? What happened?”

I let my suspicions go. Agatha seemed kind enough. “No, there was no fight. And what happened is I have no idea where he is and he has been missing for a week.”

Agatha was really nice to me and I left her cottage feeling slightly better. Alexander was on edge the whole time but I think that closer to when we left he realized she was no harm.

---

I shot up out of my bed; I had another nightmare about Lucas and my parting. A thick pallor of cold sweat covered my face. It had been a full year since he had disappeared. Alexander was now my only real friend. I rolled to the other side to face my frog.

“Good morning, did you sleep well?” he asked. I sat up and yawned.

“Sort of, it was okay, I guess,” I told him.

“Another about Lucas? It’s been a year, get over it.”

I glared at Alexander the meanest I could. “You wouldn’t understand the feelings I had for him. Don’t make fun of me,” I told him.

Alexander didn’t say a thing when I got changed and headed out the door to head to our usual spot we went to everyday, the bench by the forest. Sometimes we would see Agatha there, but only rarely. When we did she’d invite us for tea and ask a bunch of questions about me.

That day was one of the rare days that Agatha was there.

“Hello darling,” she said when I sat down and picked Alexander out of my boot. She sighed. “You’ve become fond of that frog.”

I nodded. “He’s my best friend.”

“That’s a little lame. He’s a frog. Is there something more to him than I see?” she asked. I nodded again.

“He talks to me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but only I can hear him.”

“Interesting,” Agatha put her finger to her chin and nodded her head. Up and down, up and down very slowly. “Do you believe in lost souls?”

“You mean ghosts?” I said. I remembered the woman with platinum hair and pale, pale skin that had entered my room that one night, glowing. “Somewhat. I think I’ve been visited by one before.”

“I see. You know, ghosts that appear to you are normally close to you by blood or your relationship. You say your mother had died when you were young, perhaps it was her?” she suggested. “I remember the queen from many years ago. Describe this—ghost to me.”

So I described what the ghost looked like while Agatha nodded some more and when I finished she said, “That’s the queen alright.”

That pleased me. I probably recognized the ghost because she was my mother. It mad me feel a lot better after the dream about Lucas.

“Although, I think that frog is a lot more to you than you think; if it was your mother who gave it to you.”

“Him,” I corrected her.

“Hmm?”

“The frog’s a boy.”

“Oh, I see.”

She reached her hands toward Alexander and once she got close enough to grasp him, he hopped out of my hands, onto my lap and then to the ground and into the forest.

“Alexander!” I shouted after him. For a small frog, he hopped rather quickly.

Agatha stood up. “Don’t go after him, it’s for your own good.”

I looked up at her. “Alexander’s my best friend; I’m going to get him.” I ran into the forest after him.

“Well you’ll have some trouble, if I have anything to do with it,” she said behind me, but I ignored her. The foliage on the ground was thick and green, easy for Alexander to hide in.

We went deeper into the forest at a fast pace. I finally saw his tiny form, hopping through the leaves. I dove down and caught him in my hands. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Someone is calling to me,” he said.

“Don’t run away again, please,” I said.

“Fat chance, look in front of you,” he told me and then leapt out of my hands.

In front of me was a creature a lot less ugly than the one I had seen the year before with Lucas, but it was still awkward looking. It had an egg shaped head that was permanently tilted with no face at all. Its back was hunched and its arms hung down to the ground. The thing’s legs were short and it wore peasant-like clothing. I wanted to scream, but refused to lose another person dear to my heart through my fear. I tried to run past it but I grabbed onto my leg and began to drag me back.

“Alexander! Alexander!” I screamed, reaching my hands out, although I knew he could do nothing. I saw him not too far away. But I saw another thing as well. “Lucas…” I said under my breath, tears forming in my eyes as I stared at his body motionless on the ground. It was like he was sleeping, the way his skin still had its colour. Alexander hopped onto the body and once making contact with it, Lucas’ body turned to dust and my frog disappeared. The monsters grip loosened on my leg. I turned around to see what had happened.

There was a glowing figure behind him. But no, it was not my mother like before, but Lucas. He pulled the monster away from me and it scampered away like a scared dog with its tail between its legs, probably scared of Lucas’ glowing form.

“Eloisa,” Lucas said, his stare at me gave a shiver down my spine, as usual. Though his eyes weren’t quite blue for I could barely see them, that is how intensely he shone. He opened his arms to me.

“Lucas,” I cried, standing up and flinging myself into him, holding him the best I could. “Where were you? What are you now?”

“Your mother is a kind woman; I was with you the whole time, as Alexander. She did something to make it so. But now I am merely a ghost, this may be my last time seeing you,” he explained.

“But why did you leave me? Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

“I didn’t know, not until now when I have many memories with you while I was in a small form,” he looked away from me, still wrapped in his arms. “And it wasn’t my choice to leave you, if you felt that way. How could I? Your long blonde hair, the way it seemed to shine always. Your deep green eyes, they’d glisten every time you looked at me. Your freckled, smiling face was unforgettable. And you had your own mind, not like any other girl—woman—I have known before. I love you, Eloisa. I did when I died and I will always. And I will wait for you to come to me and be with me, for however long that takes, without loving anyone else.”

Tears streamed down my face. I went up onto the tips of my toes and kissed him. But when our lips parted, he was gone and at the same time, I awoke next to him…

…in heaven.

The morning will come,
In the press of every kiss,
With your head upon my chest,
Where I will annoy you,
With every waking breath,
'Till you decide to wake up.