'How must I show that I deserve to leave this enchanted forest?' The Princess asks Omar the Oak. 'To whom must I prove it? What must I do to 'deserve'?'
'The rustling gets louder, and we hear again, 'You must deserve to make your way out of this enchanted, tangled forest. Be ready.' The rustling is very loud. 'Be ready,' the words repeat and fade away.
''What do you mean, Omar?' the Princess repeats her question, 'what has 'deserve' to do with our leaving the forest?'
'But the tree is silent. The leaves stop rustling, the twigs stop twitching, and the branches no longer wave. Omar, the enchanted oak, will say no more.
'We turn away from the friendly, but mysterious tree and move on along the narrow, twisty trail.
'The trail gets narrower still, and the leaves in the trees pack so close we hardly see our way. We trip over roots curling out from the squishy ground, and our clothes are snagged by the sharp thorns of slimy vines hanging from trees. The deep silence of the enchanted, tangled forest is all about us.
'Ahead, the trail takes a steep drop into a hollow with huge gray rocks on each side. The rocks are shiny with wet, green moss. We slip and slide about as we try to make our way down and across to where the trail curves up again to drier ground.
'But wait. We cannot make our way through this rocky hollow. The trail is blocked. Yes, blocked, and I mean really blocked. There, in front of us, completely across the narrow, twisty trail with its huge wet, slimy rocks on each side, stretches a huge, glittering, lacy-braided, closely woven spider's web.
'That isn't all. In the center of the huge web, waiting for us, is the Spider.
Oh, the size of that spider! Enormous! Its legs are long and bent, and
covered with jagged spikes at the ends of which are curved, red pincers.
The spider's eyes, big as dinner plates, glare at us.
''We must fight that spider,' I say, 'or we won't get through.'