Chapter 3: The Laughter in the Mist
Chapter 3: The Frost That Laughs, the Heart That Hears
Mist pressed close, thick as old velvet, muffling even the usual clamor of jungle life into delicate, uncertain echoes. Arlo clutched the tiny vial—Essence of Inquiry—dangling like a pale star from a leather thong around his neck. As instructed by the Potion Maker’s riddle, he dabbed a drop upon his fingertip and traced a careful spiral in the air. “Follow laughter’s shimmer, but trust not your sight; the boldest path glitters just out of the light.”
At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly, a silver-blue trail leapt into being—a wavering, iridescent band hovering a foot above the ground, visible only if they stepped slightly sideways, squinting through the corner of an eye. Cat batted at it, snorting. “Looks like a ghost got tangled with a rainbow.”
Arlo stifled a nervous laugh. “Do all magical trails shimmer this much, or just when you’re terrified?”
“Only the ones that want to be found by fools,” Cat retorted, though she padded along behind the floating glow, pretenses of indifference slipping. “Keep one ear on the trees and one on your heart. Laughter here bites.”
The trail wound through strangler figs glazed with dew and beneath vines steadfastly refusing to part, each step peeling the explorers deeper into the northern glades—a region thick with stories and, if rumors were true, with moods of their own. The air thrummed with sound, yet every note seemed deliberately wrong: parrot squawks reversed, frogs ribbiting melodies that started midway through, and—most uncannily—a muffled laughter echoing with no apparent owner. It rose in snatches, childlike but uncanny, sometimes bittersweet, other times brilliant as shattering ice.
After what felt like hours—but surely was less, for the sun still hovered gold behind the haze—Arlo paused, senses prickling. The laughter now hovered in front, close enough to frost the very air. Cat’s fur puffed; she whispered, “If we’re bait, let’s act tastier than a mouse in a cheese shop.”
All at once, the fog parted and revealed a clearing chilled with impossible cold. Orbs of hoarfrost winked from blooming flowers. In the center, standing motionless beneath a canopy of weeping lianas and silver dust, stood the Living Snowman.
He wasn’t shaped like the snowmen of Arlo’s childhood stories—no carrot nose or button eyes. He resembled more a patchwork of beautiful winter—his body swirling with drifting snowflakes, skin opalescent blue-white, hair like a wild flurry of silver needles. His face, expressive and oddly regal, was split between a warm, genuine smile and an ache of sadness soft as melting snow. His laugh, when it escaped, wrapped warm and cold around the heart at once.
He watched the newcomers with a gentle wariness, arms folded as if hugging himself against more than just the breeze. “Oh. Explorers,” he said, voice trickling like water over ice, “and a cat who looks at me like I’m lunch.”
Cat flicked her tail—not quite denying it. “Depends how frosty your temperament is, winter breath.”
Arlo stepped forward, offering the tiniest bow, palms open. “We’re not here to hurt anyone. We’re searching for the Hidden Temple. Magic led us here. Are you… the one who laughs both joy and sorrow?”
The Snowman’s smile softened, almost crumbling. “That is what they call me. Every echo here will try to fool you. But my laughter is honest—can’t help itself.” He flickered, not quite solid; veils of snow swarmed his shoulders, forming and unforming tiny shapes: a bird, a chess knight, a teardrop. “The King’s spies hound me for what I know, but I stay for memories. Also…” His next laugh was nearly a sigh. “I stay for hope of friendship. Most think my frost too cold, my joy too sharp.”
Cat examined her claws. “Sometimes sharpness is what’s needed.”
Arlo bent, voice low but earnest. “I don’t know if we make the best friends, but we could really use both laughter and cleverness—your kind. We’re against the King too.”
For a long moment, the clearing seemed to hold its breath. Then, faint but true, the Snowman whispered: “I’ll help. In fact—I must. There is a riddle, a secret for the bold. But it’s not given, only earned. And it’s best heard with your ears and your heart.”
He drew closer. Breath glimmered on the air. “If you wish for the Hidden Temple, listen:
‘Where roots remember both hope and fear,
Where sun hides yet the heart lies near,
Three become more than wander or run—
Prove courage with laughter, or all is undone.’
“One must answer it within as well as aloud. But…” He hesitated, shivering. “King’s shadows are never far.”
His warning was almost too late. A pulse of sickly green light flashed from the mist. Shapes detached from the undergrowth—vague and wrong: lizard-men with slitted eyes, great moths draped in thorns and whispering with stolen voices. Magic webbed through the ground like oil upon water, and suddenly the world rippled, upside-down and inside-out. Cat disappeared with a yowl, the Snowman’s form splintered into falling flakes, and Arlo found himself utterly, terrifyingly alone.
Instantly, the hallucinations began. Trees elongated, curling into laughing faces; the vines told lies about his worth, about cowardice, about all he’d failed to become. He stumbled, desperate for an anchor. In the babble of madness, one sound rang true—the faint, indignant meow of Cat, somewhere to the left.
He squeezed his eyes shut, palms tight on his satchel, and sang the silliest rhyme he recalled from the maze:
“Magic is muddled and mazes are funny,
But I’ll find my friend in rain or in sunny!”
The laughter bit at him, but there—just there—a flurry of cold. The Snowman, half-dissolved, spilled a gust of glittering snow into Arlo’s path. He let himself laugh, even though it cracked with worry. “Maze rules: nonsense trounces nightmare!”
Following the laughter, Arlo focused on Cat’s voice, ignoring the fake ones (“You’re better off lost!” “Go home!”). Each joke he made out loud fizzled the hallucination’s grip—turning the vines droopy and making the sneering trees sprout pink flowers instead. At last, he blundered into a tuft of gray fur. Cat erupted from the thorn-maze, spitting a sticky strand, but relief sparked bright in her eyes. “Took you long enough.”
“Could do with a few less mangling nightmares,” Arlo replied, breathless but grinning.
The mist thinned under a swirling snow-dust, and the Snowman reappeared, this time shimmering and, faintly, humming a hopeful song. With a gentle brush of his frosted hand, he shaped a gleaming crystalline shield overhead—blocking a dark spell just as it whistled past.
They all ducked, but the Snowman just winked. “Nothing like enchanted snow for spoiling a villain’s aim.”
Cat dashed between the lizard-men’s legs, tripping one while Arlo called out his best silly joke—something about the King, a coconut, and a banana. Confused by the mixture of nonsense and laughter, the shadowy minions hesitated long enough for Cat to leap onto Arlo’s shoulder, digging in claws only a little.
The Snowman, now swirling with cold confidence, drew a circle in the frost. “Our courage tips the scales: laughter binds, but bravery frees. Let’s make a hasty exit.”
Together, they barreled through a break in the mist, following the trail of silver from the Essence. The laughter now rose behind—not mocking, but triumphant, an echo of overcoming fear—until the oppressive spell slackened and released them.
In the relative peace beyond, the three new allies caught their breath beneath a sky newly radiant with moonlight. The Snowman, now resolutely bright, placed his hand on Arlo’s shoulder.
“You faced the nightmare—it means you’re ready. The clue you seek is hidden beneath the oldest banyan, where roots cross and clutch at the jungle’s very heart. There, hope and fear mingle; only those who dare to trust in both will find the Temple’s secret.”
As they walked, Cat gave Arlo a sidelong glance. “You’re getting better at heroics—and at jokes so bad they might be weapons.”
Arlo smiled, feeling something brave and wonderful swell inside him. “Sometimes it’s all you’ve got.”
But up on a high, gnarled branch, another figure watched—a man draped in rags of regal red and tattered gold, crown lopsided, eyes cold as the moon. The King scowled, ambition sharpening: if the sanctuary’s heart was opening, it would be his—no matter what laughter or courage stood in his way.
Far below, laughing together beneath a thousand listening leaves, Arlo, Cat, and the Living Snowman set their course for the tangled roots.
Adventure—and the final trial—awaited where the wildest hopes dared to grow.