It was Aladdin who
found her the next morning.  She had fallen
asleep curled up on the floor of the storage room.  Her hands
clutched the
painting, in the same way a child keeps a blanket held close. 
What is she
doing here? Aladdin wondered.
         He bent down toward
her and with his hand brushed strands of lose
hair away from her face.  "Jasmine," he whispered.
         She jerked awake,
and the first thing she saw was Aladdin's face above
hers.  "Aladdin, where am I?"  She recognized the room but
knew it wasn't
her own.  Then she noticed the pain in her fingers and realized
they were
tightly enclosed around the golden frame of the picture.  Stiffly,
she let go and
remembered everything.
         She had to know her
mother, and she could only think of one person
who might be able to tell her what she wanted to know.  She sat
up quickly,
her body aching from sleeping on the hard floor.
         "Jasmine,"  Aladdin
was asking, "why were you sleeping in here?"
         She didn't know how
to explain it to him.  "Come on, Aladdin,"  she
said instead. "We have to talk to my father."  She scrambled off
the floor and
picked up the portrait.  Then she walked out of the storage room
and into the
hall.
         Aladdin followed her,
not understanding.  "What do you need to talk
about?"  he asked as he caught up with her and began to walk alongside.
         "My mother," she answered
quickly.
          "Are you sure
you want me to come along?"
         Jasmine nodded. 
Aladdin didn't ask any more questions.
         "Father!"  she
called when she saw him coming down the hall. "I need
to talk to you."
         The Sultan looked
relieved.  "Oh, Aladdin, you found her!  Where was
she?"
         "In one of the storage
rooms,"  Aladdin replied with a shrug.
         "What were you doing
in there, Jasmine?"
         "Father, I need to
talk to you."
         "Of course, my dear.
Let's go downstairs."
         They descended the
staircases until they arrived in the Sultan's throne
room, and he motioned for them to sit down.  Then he turned to
Jasmine.
"Now, Jasmine, what is this about?"
         Jasmine handed him
the painting.  "I . . . I . . . want you to tell me
about my mother,"  she admitted nervously.  She knew he didn't
like to talk
about her.  If he did, he would have told Jasmine about her already,
and there
would have been no need to ask.
         As he looked at the
painting in his hands, the Sultan sighed.  He was
silent for a while before quietly saying, "I knew that one day you
would want
to know about her."
         "Don't you want
to tell me?"  asked Jasmine.
         "My dear, it isn't
that.  But, you see, sadly, I know little about her
myself,"  he said.  There was  sorrow in his voice.
         "But Father, she was
your wife!  How can it be that you know so little
about her?"
         "We didn't take a
lot of time to get to know each other before we were
married.  We were so much in love, we didn't want to wait. 
We made no
mistake in our decision to be wed.  We were very happy. 
But you must
remember, we were married less than two years before . . ."  His
voice trailed
off.  Jasmine knew what he was going to say.  It just hurt
too much to let the
words leave his lips.
         "H-how did she die?" 
Jasmine asked.
         "Let's not talk about
that."
         "But I need to know!" 
she persisted.
         "She was young, she
was weak, that's all.  She wasn't strong enough to
go on living . . ."
         "But people don't
die just from being weak!"  cried Jasmine.
         "Amaranth did!" 
The Sultan's voice rose..  His anger
surprised Jasmine.  Was he trying to hide something?
         "How old was she?" 
asked Jasmine.
         "Seventeen," 
he answered.
         Jasmine looked at
Aladdin, and their eyes locked.  She knew they were
both thinking the same thing: That was younger than she was now! 
Her
mother had been married, had a child, and died, all before she even
reached
the age of twenty.  She didn't ask anymore about her death.  
Instead she
simply said, "Tell me more, Father."
         "She was beautiful,
you can see that in the painting . . . she was kind
and loving.  Fun, and full of laughter," he answered.
         "What did she like?"
         "Flowers . . . she
loved flowers.  Your menagerie, Jasmine, was her
favorite place to be when she lived here . . ."  the Sultan replied. 
"She named
you, you know.  Jasmine.  Her favorite flower.  She
loved the fragrance . . .
the beauty and elegance of it.  She tried to explain it to me,
but I couldn't tell
a blossom from a weed."
          "Father, how
old was I when she died?"  Jasmine couldn't help
bringing up the subject again.
         "Very young," was
his brief answer, and he would say no more.
         "Did she ever rock
me to sleep?"  Jasmine knew the question was silly,
but she had to ask it.  "Did she love me?"
         "Did she love you? 
Jasmine dear, how could you ask such a thing?  Of
course she loved you.  She was a very affectionate person. 
I never knew her
to speak badly of anyone . . ."  Once again he stopped talking.
         "Father, tell me more,
please,"  she begged.
         "I don't know what
else to tell you.  There is nothing left,"  the Sultan
said.  There were tears in his eyes.  Jasmine felt he wasn't
telling her
everything.  She also knew that he honestly didn't know much about
her
mother, and this bothered him as well as her.   She didn't
know enough about
the woman who gave birth to her; she still seemed a stranger. 
But where
could she turn for more information?  Then she remembered her
mother was
royalty, and asked, "What kingdom did she come from?"
         Memory flashed across
her father's eyes.  "Astaseez,"  he whispered.
"Astaseez kingdom."
         Jasmine took a deep
breath and made her decision. "Then that's where
I'm going," she said.  Her father and Aladdin both stared at her,
dumbfounded.
 

         "Are you sure you want
go?"  Aladdin asked her later that day.  She
thought he must have asked that question a hundred times.  They
were in her
room, and she was busy writing a letter to the Sultan of Astaseez,
her
grandfather.
         "I'm positive," she
replied.  "Why do you keep asking me?"
         "It came as such 
a surprise to us.  Why do you think it's so important
that you go?"
         Something in Aladdin's
voice made Jasmine think he was trying to
make her reconsider traveling to her mother's kingdom.
         "Stop trying to dissuade
me!  I've made up my mind,"  Jasmine said.
She tried to explain it to him again.  "Aladdin, I feel like by
not knowing my
mother, somehow I don't completely know myself.  Father
doesn't know
enough about her, so I have to find out from someone else."  She
sighed as
she looked up from the letter.  "Maybe you don't understand this."
         "Don't say that, Jasmine." 
Aladdin's voice was slightly irritated.
"Don't think for even a moment that I don't understand.  I know
exactly what
you're feeling.   I don't know my parents either, remember? 
Don't think that I
don't wonder about them, what they've done, and where they are, because
I
do.  What you don't understand is that not everyone has access
to that
information.  Not everyone has a place to search like you do. 
It would be
impossible for me to find out if I wanted to, which I do, because
no one cares
to keep track of a street rat's parents!  But it wouldn't be any
use for me
anyway.  Either they both died at the same time, because I remember
neither
of them, or they didn't want me.  It's unlikely for them both
to be dead, so I
know the second is what happened.  They didn't love me, Jasmine! 
They left
me to care for myself, and they wouldn't have cared if I had
died!"  He turned
away from Jasmine and faced the window.
         Suddenly she realized
she hadn't even considered how this was making
Aladdin feel.  She silently scolded herself for assuming that
she was the only
one who felt this emptiness.  She rose from her desk, came up
behind
Aladdin, and wrapped her arms around his waist.  "Don't say that," 
she
whispered.  "Don't let yourself believe your parents didn't love
you, because it
would be impossible for them not to.  They did,
Aladdin.  They had to . . ."
         Aladdin shook his
head.  Tears formed in his eyes.  "Don't try to make
it sound like a fairy tale, Jasmine.  I accepted it a long time
ago."
         "Oh, Aladdin, I'm
sorry,"  she murmured.  Aladdin turned around to
face her again.
         "I didn't mean to
get angry,"  he said.  "I think I was just understanding
a little too much.  I don't want you to rush off to Astaseez
without thinking it
over seriously first.  You may find things that you hadn't expected,
and they
could shatter the perfect image you hold of your mother's kingdom in
your
mind now."
         Jasmine nodded. 
She knew that Aladdin understood more than she had
thought, because those were the same fears she was having. Except she
hadn't
spoken them.  "I know.  But my mother is a mystery to me. 
She's shadowed
somehow, and I have to shine light on the shadows, even though they
may be
hiding bad as well as good."
         Aladdin took Jasmine's
hand, knowing her mind was made up, and led
her back to the desk.  "Let's see what you have done with that
letter,"  he
said, changing the subject.
         "I'm nearly finished." 
She bent over the paper and hurriedly scribbled
the closing sentences.  "But I don't know how to address it. 
Should I say
"Grandfather"?  Or should I address it to him by name?"
         "Maybe by name. 
He may not like being called "Grandfather" by
someone he hasn't met,"  Aladdin answered.
         "Okay."  She
wrote the name at the top of the page.   "How does this
sound?"  She read it aloud to Aladdin.
 
 To His Royal Highness, Sultan Amaranian,
          Allow
me first to introduce myself.  I am Princess Jasmine of
Agrabah, the only child of your daughter, Amaranth, which makes
me
your grand-daughter.  I am almost nineteen, and I am at
an age when I
feel it is important for me to learn about a mother I never had
the chance
to know.  I have asked my father about her, but he tells
me that he was
married to her less than two years, and he doesn't know enough
to satisfy
me.  I want to know my mother.  I want to know the
people she loved.
And so, I am writing this letter to request that I may visit
her kingdom,
where she grew up, hoping to uncover the shadows in my mind. 
I await
your answer eagerly.
 Love,
Your Granddaughter, Princess Jasmine.

         "I think it sounds
fine," said Aladdin when she had finished.  "Of
course, I haven't had schooling on writing letters to other kingdoms
the way
you have."
         Jasmine refolded the
letter.  "I'm going to show Father."
         Later, the Sultan
read over it, looking somewhat sad, and gave his
approval.  Aladdin came with her when she took it to the royal
messenger.
"This needs to be taken to the Sultan of Astaseez,"  she told
him.  He had
looked at her questioningly, but asked nothing.
         Jasmine turned to
Aladdin and smiled nervously.  "There's nothing to
do now but wait."
 

         Two long weeks of anxious
anticipation passed before the letter was
answered.  Now Jasmine held the carefully folded and sealed envelope
with
shaking hands and a fast-beating heart.  Aladdin looked over her
shoulder,
waiting for her to open it.
         Her fingers worked
quickly at the removing of the golden sealing wax,
all the while wondering:  Was he happy or disgusted? 
Does he know a lot
about me, or doesn't he even know I was born?  Does he want
to know me,
or does he want to forget me?  The outer paper fell to
the floor, and she saw
the elegant handwriting of her grandfather.

 My Dear Jasmine,
          I was
both surprised and thrilled when I received your letter
requesting a stay in my kingdom.  Not a moment has gone
by these long
and lonely years that I haven't wondered about my only grandchild. 
My
love for Amaranth was great, and in losing her, I lost my most
precious
treasure.  Yet part of her remains, that I may love you
still.  I will help you
in any way I can to learn about your mother, who was an extraordinarily
wonderful woman. I look forward to knowing my own young
granddaughter before great Allah wants me to leave this world. 
You
needn't send a letter announcing when you will be expected, for
you are
welcome in my kingdom anytime.  I hope we may be with you
soon, and I
am awaiting your arrival with much happiness.
      Love,
    Your grandfather, the Sultan Amaranian

         "It looks like you're
going,"  Aladdin remarked when she had finished
reading the letter.
         Jasmine nodded silently. 
I look forward to knowing my own young
granddaughter before great Allah wants me to leave this world. 
It seemed
as if there wasn't much time to lose.
         "When are you leaving?" 
Aladdin asked.
         "Soon,"  she
answered.  "My grandfather is old, which means I may
not have much time with him.  I think I'll pack tonight and leave
early
tomorrow morning."
         "Already? 
Don't you want more time to think it over?"
         "Aladdin, I have had
two weeks which seemed like two years to think
it over.  My mind is made up.  I don't have second thoughts. 
Don't you see?
This may be the only chance I have!  I am not going to
lose it!"