The Kapre's Wife

Maria went into the forest one day, and she did not come back. No one really looked for her.

It was almost as if the forest had swallowed her whole, had shielded her beneath its verdant leaves and bowed branches. In another life, in another story, a prince would have gone to look for her. But all of the princes at that time were occupied.
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Maria entered the woods for the reason most young girls enter the woods: her father was sick and needed medicine. So, when she disappeared, so did he. The day the forest took her, she carried with her a robe embroidered with flowers, an empty basket, and three ribbons tied into her long black hair. It was these ribbons, yellow, pink and purple, that caught the kapre's eyes.

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