One Last Book, I Promise.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Grandpa! Grandpa!” A little girl yelled from the top of the stairs suddenly, “Mum grandpa’s here!” she called for her mum. Grandpa greeted Mum and was looked to the stairs and saw her Granddaughter, Bee. Bee was very excited about seeing her grandpa, he’d only come around every 6 months or so because of how far they were from each other. “Oh, hello little Bee” he said quite tiredly. It was 10 at night and he’d been awake the whole care ride here. “Shouldn’t you be asleep Bee?” He tiredly questions raising an eyebrow. She frowns, “I stayed awake just for you! I wanted you to read me a story!” She frowns once more. A barely audible. “Okay. Go get ready for bed and I’ll meet you up there.” He says happily. Odd. He heads upstairs behind Bee who’s running like it’s a marathon. She laughs.

Minutes go past and its now 10:20pm. Grandpa has his book ready, opening it up to the first chapter as Bee gets into her pajamas and jumps into her bed. “Are you ready?” Grandpa questions, moving to a comfortable position in his chair. “Mhm! I promise this is the last book you have to read me tonight.” Bee exclaims in excitement. “Alright, one last book. Ahem, this is a story about an elf only world, a magical kingdom, and of course the rejects of the land. The goblins, the witches, and the trolls. It all started a couple hundred years ago, in a land far far away, across a sea, through a jungle and over a bridge, there was a magical and beautiful kingdom called Serenia...”

“Nixie! Darling hurry up! The festival is about to start!” A mysterious woman yells. “Yes mother!” A young voice we assume is Nixie, called out to the mysterious voice. Nixie headed downstairs to the ballroom where the festival would be held. “Finally. Now, we can start the festival.” She exclaims as she gives a hand signal to open the gates up for the magical beings everywhere. A couple hours pass, and the festival is lively! So many things happening its hard to keep up with all the activities. Nixie decides to head up to her room since it’s been a long day and she’s quite tired. As she was heading up the stairs, she sees an abnormally short shadow figure out of the corner of her eye heading towards… well… she wasn’t sure where it was heading, it disappeared after she turned back around to get another look at it. “I must be super tired to start to see things” The elf laughed to herself. As she reaches the top of the stairs, screaming surrounds the kingdom. Nixie runs to the window seeing goblins, witches and trolls setting fire to the garden of the kingdoms rare and only marigold flowers, she watches in terror as the beautiful mythical animals start to set on fire and run away, out of the kingdom never to be seen again. The ugly creatures focus on the flowers for the day, trying to get rid of them all, and unfortunately, they were successful.

A day passes. Nixie sits in her room, dried tears down her cheeks, red puffy eyes from crying all night, and eye bags under her eyes. She has no clue what to do next. “What am I supposed to do.” She barely gets out with her croaky voice. She starts to lose the rest of her hope she had for her kingdom, until she spots a gold glowing object out of the corner of her eye next to her bed on the floor, she takes a better look at it, getting up off the floor hopelessly thinking it’d be anything but good. It’s a marigold flower…? A marigold? “A MARIGOLD!” She screams, but quickly covers her mouth and puts the flower into her pocket trying not to attract attention to herself. “I promise I will protect you with my life, and others after me if there is, will do the same.” She whispers to herself, taking an oath.

She hears a horn being blown from outside in the courtyard, she runs to her window and hides her body behind a curtain so no one could spot her. Her thoughts were racing, thinking about what’s happening. Did they hear her? Are they leaving? Did they find someone? Something? Overthinking every scenario in her head that could happen. Her thoughts came to a stop when she heard someone coming up the stairs to her room, she runs to her other window and thinks about jumping down into the garden but before she could debate, her door was swinging open, so she had to jump without thinking about the consequences. She jumps down onto the grass into her secret garden and breaks her ankle. She groans in pain trying not to be too loud so they could find her. Limping away, she remembers the flower she found in her room and remembered she put it into her pocket. She had the last marigold.

It’s been 12 years, 12 years since she’s been to the kingdom. In those 12 years Nixie has discovered a lot about the flower. The flower actually does have healing powers only granted to the weak, hurt, and helpless. Huh, how original. The flowers also give off the glow they do because of its magical ancestor flowers and its healing magic. How interesting. “It’s time.” She says to herself mentally preparing herself for what’s about to happen. Nixie packs her bag full of water, food and of course, the flower. A couple days later she had arrived at the kingdom, barely in one piece but hanging on. “What happened here…” she says to herself wondering why it was still on fire. “They must be burning the ruins?” she questions herself. Nixie starts to tear up as she walks down to the underground cellar, looking for a perfect spot to lay down and rest with the flower.

There it was. A perfect spot for her to rest as the flower flourishes in the soil. “I’m so exhausted… finally, I can rest.” she says sadly, knowing deep down that she really means its her time to leave forever. She plants the flower slowly into soil, hearing goblins coming down into the cellar about to see her she hurries up. She holds onto the flower hiding its glow in her palm as the goblins finally see her and throw spears into her chest, injuring her and eventually killing her. Happy it’s all over, she stays silent as she cries with a smile on her face as her vision fades to black.

“And-” Grandpa cuts off seeing his granddaughter’s fast sleep in front of him. “Goodnight princess” he says as he kisses her head, puts something under her pillow, and leaves the room.

Later that night, Grandpa died in his sleep peacefully after finally telling the story of the last marigold, his task was completed, and he was now able to move on from the tragedy that took his family’s life all those years ago.