Disney Cautionary Tales, page 1
A special thank-you to cultural consultant Rhonda Ragab at SILA Consulting for reviewing story and art for “ The Cave of Wonders”
Copyright © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Disney Press, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Press, 1200 Grand Central Avenue, Glendale, California 91201.
Design by Gegham Vardanyan
First Hardcover Edition, October 2022
eBook Edition, October 2022
Hardcover ISBN 978-1-368-06228-2
eBook ISBN 978-1-368-09562-4
Visit disneybooks.com
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1 The Cave of Wonders
2 The Spirit Hunter
3 The Heartless Pig
4 Billie and the Beast
5 The Rabbit Hole
6 Headless
7 A Witch’s Trial
8 A Gem of a Tale
About the Author and the Illustrator
The stranger’s piercing eyes flash in her direction. Her clothing, covered in sand and dust, suggests weeks if not months in the desert. Maha feels chills in the midst of the heat. She moves through the crowded market and away from the woman toward an apple stand. Her pregnant tummy hangs heavily, slowing her down. “Haatim,” she whispers, as if her husband might hear her. But he is with the veterinarian tending to their horse that had gone lame as they’d approached the funduq, a roadside inn for travelers. Haatim cannot hear her, and she knows it. She is alone in this busy swarm of strangers.
Maha digs into her satchel, feeling for a small leather pouch that contains the piece of jewelry she brought with her. A lovely thing, it resembles one half of a scarab—a sacred Egyptian beetle—and shines like gold. It was given to her by her great-grandfather, who got it on a trip to Egypt. It’s a prized family heirloom. She hopes to find a leather string in the village market so she might fashion the bauble into a necklace. “Always keep this near,” her great-grandfather had said.
The mysterious stranger cleverly keeps her attention elsewhere. She pretends to shop for pottery, then oil, her head trained down and away from Maha. But Maha feels her watching. A pit forms in her stomach. Another chill runs through her. The woman knows exactly where Maha is at all times. “Haatim,” she murmurs once more, hoping her husband might hear her in his thoughts.
She buys a small sack of almonds and another of hazelnuts. All the while she steals glances, tracking the movement of the stranger. Two can play this game, she thinks. As an ox-drawn wagon passes, Maha ducks, using the wagon to shield her. She moves toward and past the stranger, who is now looking for her in the wrong direction.
She has a better view of her. The woman wears a beautiful scarf, sometimes pulled up over her mouth. Such scarves are worn to keep out blowing sand, but on this day, there is no wind. She is hiding her face so she won’t be remembered.
Change is coming like the winds that carry desert sand. Sometimes the winds uncover treasure. Sometimes they bury one alive. The woman looking for her could be bringing news, but is it good news or bad?
The stranger is gone in an instant. Maha loses track of her. She is four steps from a melon stand when a person bumps into her. It’s her! She feels a hand pull for her satchel. The strap does not break and does not come loose. It pulls at Maha, leaning her forward, connecting her with the stranger.
“Excuse me, miss. I’ve been looking for you.”
Maha steps back, unsure how this woman knows her.
“Don’t be afraid,” the stranger continues. “My name is Azza. I’m a historian of sorts. Of objects. I’ve come to warn you. You don’t know the power you hold.”
“What are you talking about?” Maha asks.
“The scarab,” Azza replies. As she speaks, she reaches into her pocket and takes out an object, revealing the mirror image of Maha’s scarab.
A chill runs through Maha. There was more to what her great-grandfather said when he gave her the heirloom: “Always keep this near, my dear. And never make a half a whole, for its power is one to fear.”
Azza steps closer. “Can I see your half?”
Something in Maha’s gut tells her not to trust this woman. “No, leave me alone,” she says firmly.
“I will have your half of the scarab!” Azza says, now brandishing a curved knife the length of her forearm.
“You will not!” Maha cries.
One moment Azza is standing there. The next she is not. Haatim has swept in and is wrestling to get the knife. The blade flies. A child screams. Market-goers stand back, forming an open circle around the scuffle.
Maha reaches into her pouch, feeling the reassuring cold touch of her half of the scarab. She holds it close to her chest. At the same moment, a piece of jewelry flies from Azza’s hand. Then, as if by magic, Maha’s half of the scarab mysteriously lifts from her palm and joins its companion. The scarab is now whole. It glows a vibrant yellow. The crowd gasps, and many run away out of fear. Others stand, not moving. They are entranced. Haatim and Azza stop their fighting. They, too, watch in amazement as the golden beetle shimmers, its metal wings moving as it hovers three feet off the ground. Several people faint at the spectacle.
Screams and finger-pointing announce the arrival of another object flying low in the sky. Children jump for joy as their parents rush to protect them and hide their eyes.
Haatim rolls away from Azza, trying to avoid this new flying object, but its aim is true. It comes right at him. It knocks Haatim in the knees, and he falls onto the flying object. Maha is scooped off her feet and finds herself next to Haatim. They fly behind the blinding scarab up and over the buildings and harnessed horses walking in circles to grind corn into flour.
Maha struggles to sit up, holding either side of the flying thing. Wind whips her hair. Her husband is . . . smiling. “Why are you smiling, Haatim? What is happening to the two of us—the three of us?” She clutches her tummy.
“Maha, look! We’ve been saved!”
“How? What is this spirit we’re riding?” she cries over the roar of the wind.
“Spirit? No, Maha. Not a spirit at all. Think of the stories and fables our parents and grandparents have told us!”
“A ghost?” Maha sounds terrified.
“Not at all!” shouts Haatim. “We are riding atop the most fabled of all carpets: the Magic Carpet of Agrabah!”
The rippled desert sands appear calm and peaceful from above. The scarab flies before the carpet, as if leading it. When the scarab darts left, the Magic Carpet follows. A dagger of fear shoots through Maha. What could there be to fear about the scarab? But she pushes the thought away, reminding herself she is riding the Magic Carpet!
Laughing loudly, Maha and Haatim grab the edges and hold on tightly. “I am a bird!” calls Maha, letting go and lifting both hands while she giggles.
“We move like the wind!” shouts Haatim.
The scarab flies lower, the carpet close behind. Maha can identify clumps of cactus and wavy rivers in the distance.
She sings loudly. It’s an old song about a bird whose broken wing is healed by the sun. Haatim joins in as he points out the sights below.
Suddenly a tassel on the front corner of the carpet lifts and reaches back and takes Maha’s hand.
“Haatim, look!” Maha kisses the tassel, and it holds to her more tightly.
“This is amazing! I will never forget this moment!”
“It’s a whole new world!” Maha cries out. “And this wonderful carpet saved us—our family.”
“I only hope our child will one day see the world as we do now.” Haatim smiles, a roguish glint in his eyes.
The scarab suddenly breaks into its two pieces. One flies or falls to the right. The other, to the left. They skid across the ground and stop as the front of the Magic Carpet lifts and slows. It lands softly on the ground as the scarab halves glimmer some ways apart.
The two lean away from the glowing, swirling cone of sand that spins between the two halves of the scarabs. “Haatim?” Maha murmurs.
“What is this?” he whispers. His wife quickly fills him in on her family’s warning about the scarab. Concern fills Haatim’s eyes.
The sand itself appears to take shape. Fuzzy at first, it forms into long waves of hair—a mane? A chin appears. Two teeth as tall as a giraffe! An enormous head, nearly as high as a mountain, reveals itself. It’s the head of a . . . tiger!
“The fables,” utters Maha. “I know this one. It is also from my childhood.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I. It is the Tiger of the Sands. It guards the Cave of Wonders.”
The Tiger speaks in a voice that could hold back the sea. It is low and rumbling. It is demanding and confident. “WHO . . . DISTURBS . . . MY . . . SLUMBER?”
Maha and Haatim shake so hard they nearly fall off the carpet.
Haatim speaks. “I am just a regular guy in search of a home. My wife is pregnant with our first child. If you please, we will move on and leave you at peace.”
“You have disturbed my peace,” roars the Tiger of the Sands. “For this, you must pay.”
Maha raises her voice. “We can pay.” She gestures to her money belt. “Take it all.”
“I have no need of your coins. The cave I guard contains much gold, gems, and treasure,” says the Tiger, “but I have never seen such a carpet.”
“Yes,” says Haatim, “this carpet is one of a kind.”
“You may take from here whatever treasure your pockets can hold. But you will leave me the carpet.”
“And we would do so, gladly. We would be honored to please the Tiger of the Sands. But this carpet is not ours to give,” Haatim says. “It has a life of its own just as do I or you. Besides, my wife and I will now be afoot in the desert. We will not last more than a single day. I respectfully refuse your generous offer.”
“YOU . . . DARE . . . REFUSE? No one refuses the offer of such treasure!”
“We choose life over treasure.”
“Very well. Provide me the carpet upon which you sit and you shall find a farm of twenty kilometers with water and livestock and trees and a mansion awaiting you on the outskirts of Agrabah.”
Maha is aghast. The Tiger of the Sands is offering everything she and her husband have ever dreamed of. “Haatim, do you hear that? It is—”
“Trickery,” Haatim tells her softly. “Unfair. We must not fall for such honey-tongued nonsense.” He strokes the carpet. “My friend, this is your choice to make. It is not for me to decide your fate.” Haatim raises his voice to the Tiger. “What good is such a generous offer if we die on our journey? There is no destination if there is no journey.”
“Be that as it may, behold what you refuse.” The Tiger’s mouth opens wide, revealing a staircase leading to mounds of gold and hills of diamonds.
Maha swoons and nearly faints. Haatim’s eyes bulge. “The temptation is very great,” he says to his wife. “Help me not let greed distract me from my sense of right.” But Maha can barely speak. She has never seen such a sight. “The carpet will fly where it chooses.”
The Tiger’s eyes shift slightly. Her husband doesn’t see it. He is so entranced by the treasure. Maha does.
“It’s her!” she cries out. “The woman from the market.”
Haatim sees the stranger from the market riding swiftly atop a quick-footed horse.
“WHO . . . IS . . . THIS . . . UNINVITED . . . STRANGER? You have betrayed me!”
“Azza is no friend of ours,” shouts Maha as she rides the Magic Carpet.
Without warning, the carpet lands in front of the Tiger’s open mouth. The back of the carpet curls and gently pushes Haatim and Maha onto the sand. A tassel reaches out to keep Maha on balance. She says a word of thanks.
The carpet then wheels around. It travels at a blurring speed straight for the woman. The horse shies as the carpet bears down on its rider. The sudden movement dumps Azza from the horse. The woman struggles to stand in the shifting sand. When she stands, the sight of the sand tiger momentarily overwhelms her.
Her eyes dart toward Maha. “Looks like I succeeded without your help.”
Before Maha can respond, Azza takes in the sight of the treasure deep within the cave. Something comes over her. Greed fills her eyes and she lets out a cackle of glee.
She charges toward Maha and Haatim, the glint of her once lost knife shining menacingly.
Maha and Haatim have nowhere to hide. “Inside!” Haatim cries.
Just as he does, their knees buckle and they fall back.
Onto the carpet!
The Magic Carpet enters the Tiger’s open mouth and dives to follow the stairs.
Azza follows on foot, hurrying down the stairs. The Tiger calls out, “HEAR . . . THIS . . . THIEF! Leave this place now! Touch nothing or you all shall suffer!”
The woman pauses in front of a towering pile of gold coins. She looks like a hungry dog awaiting a scrap of food.
“Touch nothing!” Haatim shouts as they fly the carpet over the stranger’s head.
“Something has come over her!” Maha yells back.
“Greed has come over her,” says Haatim. “She hears only the pounding of her heart at the sight of such treasure.”
Inside the cave, Azza seems to have forgotten Maha and the scarab. She reaches out and cups a handful of coins. The effect is instantaneous. The entire cave rumbles and shakes. Gaping lines crack open on its ceiling, walls, and floor. The piles of treasure teeter and spill like rivers of gold and avalanches of jewels. Snakes tumble and slither from the opened cracks. There are so many it looks as if the walls have come alive. The woman, burdened by the weight of so much gold stuffed into her pockets, can barely walk, much less run. She struggles to climb the stairs, but she is too slow. Maha watches as the woman empties her pockets and scrambles to stay ahead of some of the snakes. Gold coins cascade down the stairs, turning it into a waterfall.
“What is that?” Haatim calls to his wife, pointing. A golden tunnel leading deeper into the cave has gone dark. It has been plugged. “That avenue is now cut off to us. There is no escape.”
“I hate to say it, Haatim, but I believe this plug is alive.”
The darkness in the hole is no longer simply black. It is hairy. It is moving. A spider pulls itself through the hole. Adjusting its eight legs, it stands taller than a building. As Maha cries out in fright, steering the Magic Carpet away, the spider spins a giant web between the walls of the cave. It happens so quickly that it, too, must be a trick of sorcery, a bit of dark magic. The net of webbing looks like an archer’s target, concentric circles all leading to a solid center now covered by the spider itself.
A golden goblet sails toward Maha.
“Duck!” she cries out. “We can’t touch the treasure!” Haatim follows her actions by pressing his face to the carpet.
The corner of the carpet lifts and swats the goblet away.
Maha pats the carpet, thanking it.
Azza shouts at the husband and wife. “That carpet is my only way out of here!” She throws another piece of treasure. Again, the carpet deflects it. “Bring it to me at once!”
Something troubling happens next. Maha’s release of the carpet changes its path. Instead of circling the cave as it has been, it runs into the spiderweb. The webbing is as thick as rope, as sticky as warm tar. The Magic Carpet stops. Husband and wife cling to the carpet, their legs dangling. “Do not touch the web!” Haatim warns his wife. “Cling to the carpet. We won’t escape the web if we touch it.”
Azza does not hear this, nor would she have listened if she had. Instead, she slices her knife through the webbing as she navigates a route to reach the arrested carpet. The sticky webbing claims one of her boots. It tears a sleeve from her clothes. When her knee sticks to the web she cuts the fabric loose. The knife flashes in the dark cave.
“She is trying to slice us in two,” says Haatim to Maha. “She cares only for herself. She will do whatever it takes to get the carpet. We are doomed.”
“But, Haatim, we have done nothing to anger the Tiger of the Sands. It is only this intruder who is to blame. I fear the worst for her.”
“You’re right, Maha. But I fear this stranger does not play by any rules.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not alone,” Maha says, daring to look above them.
The stranger swings her knife, cutting more of the web. She is too focused on her own progress to pay attention to the web’s owner. She cuts free most of the carpet. Maha and Haatim fall a few feet as the carpet partially comes loose. Only as a horrid shadow is cast does the woman pause to look up.
It’s the spider.
“No!” she cries, taking one last swing toward the carpet. The spider makes a snack of her, spinning a length of web around the screaming woman and tucking her away under one of its legs. The woman wiggles and cries out. A few stray gold coins tumble from her pockets and catch in the web. They wink at the husband and wife like interested eyes.
The carpet falls free. Holding on, Haatim and Maha scramble to lie upon the mat and steer it. The carpet flies for the Tiger’s mouth. But the mouth won’t open, and the carpet pulls up short.
“There’s no way out!” calls Haatim.
The front of the carpet folds into a large pair of lips. It smiles at the two of them. Then it frowns as one of its tassels points like a finger. It then points into the Cave of Wonders.
“No, not back in there!” Haatim exclaims.
“I believe our woven friend is telling us to leave. It is offering to stay behind. Remember the deal offered by the Tiger?”
