Princess Polka Dot's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Princess Polka Dot sent three messengers to the first mayor, asking him to visit the old castle. All three came back the same way. The mayor had slammed his door. Word had spread that the Princess was digging into the twenty-year-old feud. The mayor believed she meant to drag his village's name through the mud. He would not read her letters. He would not open his hall. She needed him inside that locked room to see the truth, and now he refused to see her at all. She could not force his door. So she decided not to knock on it. Instead, she sent a gift ahead of her. She took a village banner from the castle stores, bright with layered paper shapes and cheerful dots. She loaded it onto a dotted farm tractor with an empty trailer and asked a driver to leave it at the mayor's gate at dawn. With it she sent one line: "A banner for your village festival. Not for your shame. Will you take tea with me?" The banner showed both villages' houses woven together under one happy pattern. It did not accuse. It invited. Three days later, a messenger returned, out of breath. The mayor would meet her. But only on open ground, far from her castle and his hall. He named a roadside tea house, a small place covered in paper cutouts and scattered dots, with a dotted paper tree beside its door. Princess Polka Dot arrived first. She sat, folded her hands, and waited. The mayor came in stiff, his boots loud on the floor. He was a broad man with gray at his temples. He did not sit. He stood by the window with his arms crossed. "You've been stirring up old mud," he said. "My village has nothing to apologize for. Your parade will make us the fools who were robbed." "I don't think you were robbed," Princess Polka Dot said. "I think no one stole anything." He laughed, short and hard. "We saw their float. Same dots as ours." "Because both villages built it together." She leaned forward. "I found the floats. They're whole, hidden in my castle. Each shape is carved half yellow, half pink. Two hands. One parade." The mayor's arms dropped. He studied her face for a long moment. Then he sat. "If you're lying," he said quietly, "I'll never forgive it." "Then come and look," she said. "Bring your own eyes." He was silent. He poured himself tea with a shaking hand. At last he nodded, one short nod. "I'll come. I'll see this room of yours." Princess Polka Dot's heart jumped. She had won him. But he set his cup down and added, "The other mayor won't. He hates me worse than he hates your meddling. Get him in that room, and I'll stand beside him. Not before." One mayor said yes. The harder one remained.