Touching Treasure

Jestin awoke with a start. The first thing she heard were screams. She jumped up and ran out of her room, out of the house and into the centre of the village. There was chaos. Everyone was running around trying to escape. The village was burning to the ground. Jestin stared around, watching as everyone ran as fast as they could to the next village. Why was the village burning? Everyone had always been extremely careful with fire. She looked around, searching for the source of the fire spreading wildly through the village. There were men starting the fires. They rode through the village on horseback, setting the houses in the small village alight. Why would anyone hurt this tiny village? Jestin couldn’t understand it.
Jestin’s mother appeared beside her. “We have to go!” she shouted. “We have to go to the next village.”
Jestin shook her head. “I know a faster way.”
Jestin’s mother disagreed. “We don’t have time for your forest adventures. This is an emergency. We have to go with everyone else – the usual way.”
Jestin’s mother was soon swallowed up by the crowd of people running towards the next village. They did not wait for Jestin. She was knocked to the ground, and lay there unconscious.

When Jestin woke up, the village was overrun by the men on horseback. Jestin could not escape to the next village – the usual road was blocked. If the men saw her, she knew they would kill her. No one was left in the village beside her, and the only way left unguarded was the path to the forest. Jestin ran into the forest, comfortable in its environment. She knew a quick way to the next village from there. Unfortunately, some men saw her.
She ran as fast as she could, and eventually the sound of the horses’ hooves faded into the distance. She had lost them in the trees. But now she too was lost. She did not know this part of the forest. Her clothes were ripped and torn by the trees as she had run blindingly, desperate to escape. The trees hid her, but their branches had scratched at her face and ripped her clothing. She had to find her way to the next village.

Jestin sat down to rest for a few minutes, and then stood up again. She moved forward, tripping on a large branch and falling face down. She shook her hair out of her face, and stood up slowly. She looked at the branch she had tripped on. It had broken as she tripped over it, and noticed something wedged under the large branch. She lifted the decaying branch and threw it a few feet away. The object she had seen was buried in a mass of dried leaves. Jestin scrambled through the leaves, looking for what she had seen. She found it again and studied it as it rested in the palm of her hand. It was a fragile, extremely old piece of parchment.

Jestin instinctively knew that this was what the people on horseback had wanted. She was determined that they should not get it. She tried to rip it to shreds, but it would not tear. She guessed that it would not burn either. She then tried to read the words etched into the paper. It was a note that someone had made to remind themselves of where a prince had hidden his greatest treasure. “This must never be lost. To be safe, it is hidden in a secret panel in the statue standing in the centre of the smallest village on the east coast of the land.”
The men on horseback were suddenly all around Jestin. They took the piece of parchment she had been holding, and forced her to follow them, throwing her onto a horse.

The statue that stood in the village had not been destroyed by the fire. The men clustered around the statue, looking for the secret panel. They could not find it, and threw Jestin before the statue, demanding that she find the panel. Jestin had no choice but to try. Besides, she was curious as to what was in the secret panel. There had been stories of the royal people. They had enormous wealth and treasure. The prince was said to have fallen in love with a maiden from the village Jestin lived in. The maiden was killed by the prince’s father, as the prince had to marry a princess, or lady of high stature. The prince, in turn, had run away from the kingdom, never to be heard of again. It was believed he had died in the forest. The royal empire had slowly crumbled to the ground thereafter. It was a tragic story, and Jestin had always hated the ending.

Jestin found the secret panel without much difficulty. The statue was of a lady carrying a sword, holding it in front of her chest, pointing it heavenwards. Jestin had been thrown to the ground beside the statue, and so she had a perfect view of the top of the hilt of the sword. There was a little button on it. Jestin pressed the button, and a scroll slid out of the hilt. Before she could open the scroll, the men pulled it away from her. They read the scroll with murderous expressions. They threw it to the ground, and then rode away from the village, never to be heard of again.

Jestin picked up the scroll and began to read. The scroll was a letter written to the prince by his beloved maiden. It told the prince that she was not dead, as he was lead to believe. The poison his father had given to her was cured by the village healer, her brother. She was hiding in the village so that no one would know she was still alive. She told him to meet her in the forest, and they could start a new life together, far away.

So that was the prince’s greatest treasure. The letter sent to him by his beloved that pulled him out of his misery and grief and gave him happiness and hope. The prince wanted to know that the cause of his greatest happiness was safe and would never be lost. Jestin clapped with joy. So there was a happy ending to the old tale after all. The prince and the maiden had run off together, to start a new life, probably in some far away village.
Before running to the next village to tell everyone what had happened, Jestin rolled the scroll up, and pushed it back into the secret panel. The panel sprang shut, holding the scroll once again.