to rule?” The dwarf continued slyly.
He knows how to flatter! He’s right at the heart of it, like a knife through her heart. One dreams of love and beauty. She dreams of common sense.
Estella nodded slowly.
“So, he will be your mind!” The dwarf proclaimed and disappeared.
Who did he mean? Estella took a step toward the chest. It looks like it’s locked. No, the key is in the keyhole. Estella turned it. The lock gave way easily. There was gold shining through the crack under the lid. The chest seemed to be full of gems, ingots and coins. But where’s the Counselor? Or was the dwarf speaking metaphorically? She wished she were smart enough to understand it all! Was the gift really just a trick to mock the stupidity of a gullible princess?
“What should I do?” Estella opened the lid, which was heavy.
Suddenly a monster the size of a monkey jumped out of the chest. She wanted to scream as it nestled onto her shoulder, but it was suave.
“The Fair Lady has been expecting me!” It cried out in a human voice. “You are as pretty as a rose. You should never wait long.”
It was clearly a compliment, but it wasn’t the compliment that startled the princess. It wasn’t even that the creature’s claws were caressing her cheek, repeating the caress of a lover.
“Can you speak?” Estella opened her mouth in amazement. “Oh, yes!”
“I can do many things!” He boasted as he wrapped his black tail around her neck like a noose.
“Get down! I can’t breathe!” Estella complained.
“You can’t really live without me! I must always be near you.”
“Who are you? And why were you sitting in the box?”
“The better question is not why, but who locked me in?”
“That’s right! That’s what you should have said. I’m not thinking straight. Thanks for the tip.”
“From now on, you will think like a great sage!” The monster promised.
“I don’t think so! I can’t think at all. That’s what they all say.”
“Well, you’d better take my advice,” he advised her kindly, running his black claws tenderly across her forehead. “I am your lost mind. You have just rescued me. The trunk was stuffy and cramped. I am much more comfortable with you, my lady.”
“Am I your lady?” That’s what servants usually call their masters, but the beast acted as if it owned her. Is that how a mind is supposed to behave?
“I’ll call you Reason.”
It wriggled.
“But my name is Gloom.”
“It doesn’t suit you.”
“It sure does. If you’ve noticed, I’m as black as the darkness of night.”
“You are like a firebrand from a furnace!”
“I can see why they call you a fool.”
“It is a simpleton, not a fool. It’s a little different.”
“And you’re smart, too. And you’re not stupid. Aren’t you ashamed not to trust your intelligence?”
“You mean you?” She glanced at the monster on her shoulder.
“Who else could it be?”
“They say the mind is in the head, not on the clavicle.”
“It’s harder to get into your head, though it’s empty, but it’s not much room.” He scratched her shoulder as if he were putting a stamp on it.
“Oh, I wish you’d gone into my head and got lost there.”
“Do you know how hard it is for those who don’t listen to their wits, but do things their own way?” Reason quipped.
“That’s what all the duenna’s told me! I didn’t think you’d be so tedious.”
“Go ahead!” Reason commanded. “Take some of the gold from the chest and hide it in the hatch beneath the throne.”
“There’s a hatch under the throne.”
“You have to push the dragon-shaped carving on the back of the throne, and the hatch will open.”
Her mind raced her like a servant girl until she had dragged almost all the contents of the chest into a deep recess beneath the throne steps.
“Look, is living with your mind, I mean being smart, always so hard?” Estella sighed, exhausted from her work as a loader.
“Shut up!” The mind on her shoulder weighed itself like a chest of jewelry. Her shoulder stiffened.
“Why should I be silent?”
“The more silent you are, the smarter you look.”
“It sounds smart.”
“Trust me, and they’ll stop calling you a simpleton.
“They’ll call me Wise?”
“They’ll call you a star. Your name means North Star, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t know that! I thought I was just a star.”
“You are a fool,” said Reason, spitting ash on the floor. Why is there ash in his mouth instead of spit? His black spit sealed the treasure-filled hiding place.
“What did you say?” Estella was offended when she heard the word “fool.” Who was he talking about?
“It’s all right, my dear, go ahead. We must get out of the throne room.”
“But my coronation is coming up!”
“It is no coronation for sure yet,” Reason glanced around. “You need to take me to the north tower. Come on!”
Estella felt like a coachman. It was as if the Reason were pulling her by the reins. And so they went. It guided her, showed her the way to her home castle. He was getting into her head. It’s cheeky of him, but convenient for someone who doesn’t want to think about anything herself. He thinks for her.
Reason’s claws were almost lusting over her curls.
“How beautiful you are, Princess.”
“What good would that do?”
“What do you mean? Don’t you value your beauty? Careful, it can be stolen by evil spirits.”
“Everyone laughs at me because I’m stupid.”
“What does a beautiful woman need a mind for?” He laughed suddenly. “It turns out that she does!”
Estella suspected something wrong when she looked at him in the wall mirror. Her mind pressed against her cheek like a gentle pussycat, but it looked like a demon.
“If you are my mind, why are you so ugly?”
“It is because beauty and intelligence are incompatible! Smart people are never beautiful.”
“But then you’re not my mind, you’re someone else’s. You were wrong about me.”
“You are fool,” he swung at her with his claws, but held himself back. “I am yours, you know!”
“And how do you know?”
“I can feel it.”
“You feel it? What do you mean?”
“Like you can feel your leg or arm, I can feel you.”
“But I can’t feel you unless you’re sitting on my shoulder.”
Estella grimaced. The small-sized Mind proved to be heavy. Her shoulder ached from