Page 45 of The Frog Prince

“That should be my question,” he said, looking her over with worried eyes. She seemed healthier again, with pink cheeks and clear eyes.

“I am back to perfect health,” she said, “so do not distract me from the matter at hand!”

“I’m fine, Gisela. You needn’t worry.”

“Needn’t worry?!” she gasped, hitting him in the chest. “The Frog Prince spent the night in our home and I needn’t worry! I didn’t sleep a wink!”

Otto stepped forward, trying desperately to hush her as he looked around for anyone who might overhear them. “Gisela, keep your voice down,” he hissed.

“There’s no one around. Not that they would believe it even if they did overhear,” Gisela scoffed.

“I don’t wish to take that risk, in any case. So promise me you will speak of this to no one.”

“I already promised last night,” Gisela said, exasperated with him. “I had to lie to Liesel.”

Otto winced. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you so worried about?” Gisela’s sharp eyes cut through him. “Others have gone to the Frog Prince before you, foolish as they were. Surely they would understand your reasoning if they knew? Especially Liesel.”

Otto couldn't explain the sudden worry in his heart or the need to keep the prince’s presence here secret, he just knew that the feeling wouldn’t let him rest.

“I think it’s for the best that the prince passes through this village unseen and unheard,” Otto said. “There’s no need to stir anything up.”

“Gunther died late last night,” Gisela said abruptly.

The news was like a knife in his chest. “W-what?” he gasped.

Gisela’s eyes were shiny as she nodded. “He passed after a bad fit from his falling sickness. His family is in mourning.”

Otto slumped back against the door, his mind providing him with images of Gunther’s mother on an infinite loop. Her calling out to him. Walking toward him. Her eyes sunken and framed by dark circles. Her cheeks hollow. Her shoulders hunched. She had sought him out. She had come to him for help. And Otto had been so wrapped up in his own life that he had just walked away.

Now it was too late. Gunther was gone. And more people would die soon.

“We need to tell people, Otto. What if people wish to ask him for a deal like you did? What if Gunther could have been saved?” Gisela said grasping his shirtsleeve. “We shouldn’t deny them the opportunity.”

Her words were like needles all over his skin, hurting more because they were correct. Perhaps Gunther could have asked for a similar deal—he was no less deserving of life than Gisela or any of the others. But…the idea of walking through the streets and announcing the Frog Prince to anyone who would listen made him feel nothing but pure panic.

“I do not know if that is how it works,” Otto said, thinking about the conversation from last night, clinging to some form of reason to justify his reticence. “Let them seek him out in the forest once all this is over.”

“They’re sick and starving, Otto, how will they make the journey?” she snapped. “I certainly couldn’t on my own.”

He winced, his stomach dropping as he turned his shamed face to the ground. “I know, Gisela…”

“Then why? Why keep him locked behind a door?”

“I worry what might happen!” he revealed in a loud rush.

It rendered Gisela silent for a long moment.

“To whom?” Gisela asked eventually, eyes moving all over his face before widening. “To the prince?”

Otto looked away, his face heating as he searched for the source of this terrible anxiety. “He helped me cure you. I owe him. And revealing him might put him in danger. Desperation can breed rash actions; I know that all too well. Look where it led me. And there will be those who only want selfish things. People like Henne and anyone like him, who will seek him out if word spreads from the village of everyone being miraculously cured of their ailments.”

It was a basic description of the things he was feeling, the calamitous and cloudy tangle in his heart, but not untruthful.

“People believe he is a monster, Gisela. There’s only one thing that happens to monsters in the end once they’ve served their purpose,” he murmured finally. “I can’t be the reason for that just because he…”

“Looks as he does?” Gisela finished for him.