Chapter Thirteen:
Sally woke the next morning to another sunlit room. There was no sign of Gilly Gilly Goblin anywhere. She breathed a sigh and continued to think about other things. She quickly got dressed in a pretty navy blue tank top with red cherries all over it while spaghetti straps clung to her shoulders. She decided on her blue jean shorts with the sequinned butterflies on the sides.
She began to hum a tune to Santa Claus is coming to town and haphazardly grabbed her red headband and clasped it to her head. A stray wisp of hair curled near her ears and she dashed hurriedly out of her room and downstairs where the action was taking place.
She was so glad today was the last day of school. Three days ago, she had Step Up Day and visited her new classroom, met her new fall teacher, Mr. Primpton. She felt a little intimidated by him as he as really tall with short black hair and wore black wire rimmed glasses. His voice came across as really deep when he talked.
Her opinion of him changed when he began telling them funny jokes and a sparkle of laughter filled her soul. She had later told Mamma that she was going to like the new teacher so much better than Mrs. Bagley based on the fact that he was really funny.
Of course, Mamma told her that she would still get lots of homework and that seriously made her cringe in her shoes.
Sally sat down in a chair near the oval table made of mahogany. She was delighted to discover a nice little stack of three Sally sized pancake proportions with just the right amount of butter and maple syrup dredgings soaking into it.
Betsy was sitting next to her already finished and now was coloring in a pink and purple Girls Doodle book. There were paperdolls on it and she was busy using a purple marker on one of the outfits that she could later at her leisure have fun cutting out. Betsy was wearing a little gingham sundress with blues and whites in it and along the waistline there was a cute little white silk daisy attached on one side. In her hair she had two silver barrettes to keep a few wound up crazy hairs to her head instead of in chaos surrounding her.
Mamma liked her girls to look nice and neat. Sally picked up her fork and started to munch on a few bites as she watched Mamma sitting down next to them with her cup of hot coffee. Mamma's favorite cup was a picture of Sally and Betsy when they were younger. Mamma liked to linger in the good old days, when Sally was annoyed and would tell her that she's not a baby anymore.
"Mamma, guess what?" Lara carefully scooped her sugar for her wake up treat as she looked over to her beautiful daughter with peaked curiosity waiting for the tell all to come.
"What's up? Betsy, make sure you drink all your orange juice as it's really good for you."
"Why is it good for us?" asked Betsy as she set down her marker and picked out a green one to color a face.
"It has lots of really good vitamins in it, especially Vitamin C. Drink up!"
"I don't like it though."
"Betsy. Mamma wants you to start the morning off right, so you need to mind and I don't want to catch you dumping it into the fish bowl like you did yesterday."
"Blackie was hungry though." Mamma really hated cleaning that fish. Smelled something like rotten chicken soup or something of that nature.
"Betsy Wetsy, don't you know that they eat fish flakes!" Sally added her snide comment and then knew a reprimand was coming as Mamma gave her that WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY look and then the SAY YOU'RE SORRY one.
"Sally, that wasn't called for. What do you say to your sister?"
"Sorry, Betsy. But she's a bed wetter, it's true."
"Sally, she hasn't done that in a few years and she doesn't like you name calling her. How would you like it if one of your school friends called you a name you didn't like?"
"I wouldn't like it and it might make me cry. Can I tell you my news?"
"Sure, I'm listening now."
"Gilly Gilly Goblin tried to carry me and my bed into the woods last night."
Mamma looked at her as she sipped her now sweetened coffee. "He did! I bet that was scary. What did he look like?"
"I didn't get a good look at him but mean and green I would suspect. Aren't they all like that?"
"Not all."
"Did you know his grampa?" Sally was hoping for some answers.
"I think I heard him tell me something about him. Gilly Gilly Goblin did miss him, I do know that."
"Judabelle killed Gobbly Gobbly. She cursed him with her song. Is she a murderer, Mamma?"
"No, dear. I think she was only trying to protect you."
"No, Mamma. I mean when she killed Gobbly Gobbly. He tried to wreck her home in the sweet peas."
"My favorite flowers. She knew I loved them so much. I would sit for hours near the sweet peas when I was little and read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. She liked to listen to my voice, Sally." Lara sipped more of her coffee as she thought back to years ago. It was almost as if it was yesterday and it all came flooding back to her.
She was remembering back to those carefree days, the summer breezes blowing into her mother's garden, watching Judabelle twirl around the lush green stems of her bluish, pinkish sweetpeas. And her life was that of a vivid oil painting rushing in to form her legacy of what would someday be.
Judabelle seemed to know so much more about Lara than even she knew, herself.
"I was jealous of her.
"Do you know she's 150 years old? And Flavia said she's 204. How can they live that old? Is there really a fountain of youth?"
"Yes, there is. They know about it and drink it, yet they won't tell any of us where it is."
"Why?"
"They're worried if they tell someone about it, Mother Nature will take away their precious garden and then what would happen to them?"
"OMG. What can happen, Mamma?"
"They'll die. Without their gardens, they will perish. Do you realize that when they go to visit the Fountain of youth they bring with them a special glass vase with them. It's a finely crackled clear vase kind of like mine on our table, but extremely small. They fill the vase with the Fountain of Youth and bring it back to their garden and there they water their beautiful homes so that it will always grow."
"Mrs. Bagley said the plants are dormant in the winter, that they go to sleep. Will I not see my fairy friends then?"
"I can't tell you for sure, Sally. Just know that they will try if they can."
"Have you ever heard of magic string?"
Mamma laughed and almost spilled her coffee with her sudden amusement. "Is that what Flavia is calling it now?"
"Yah huh!"
"That's a hoot. She used to call it Twilight String."
"Why Twilight string, Mamma?"
"Because, years ago when mothers had babies and they didn't know too much about what was happening, my mother used to refer to the term, Twilight Sleep. Remember, that Gramma knows Flavia too and when she was younger, Flavia told her it was Twilight string because it tended to work it's magic late at night when the goblins were very active."
"Where did the string come from? They said if I am awake the magic string won't listen to them."
"It won't and you know why?"
"Why, Mamma?"
"Because Gramma knew Flavia's mother, Venetia. Gramma got a little sarcastic once with Flavia and Venetia heard what she said and cast a spell on the Twilight string. You know what happened next?"
"What." Sally was in awe with all that Mamma was telling her. She really wasn't paying much attention at all to Betsy drawing a tattoo on her face with a black marker. Even Mamma was too entranced in her story telling to notice."
"Venetia told that Twilight string to wrap up Gramma in it. Before she knew it, she had fallen to the ground and was struggling to free herself from her binds."
"How dare Flavia's mother do that to my Gramma!
"Well, Gramma did ask for it. She told Flavia she was going to follow her to the Fountain of youth and steal some for herself."
"Gramma wouldn't do that!"
"She did. But she had to say sorry to Flavia and vow that she'd never follow her or else the fairies would never speak to her or help her ever again."
"What happened after that?"
"Venetia wanted to leave her tied up, which made Mother Nature really angry. Suddenly it begain to thunder and lightning. Gramma was frightened of getting struck by lightening and she started to cry for her release so she could go inside to your great grandmother, who had prepared a special bowl of soup for her. She remembered the wrath of the violent swaying daisies and to this day, Gramma will tell you she doesn't like daisies. She had nightmares about them for a long time as a little girl. Did you know that she was about your age at the time?"
"What happened, she obviously was let go as Gramma is still here."
"Mother Nature got angry with Venetia because she wouldn't tell the Twilight String to untie her. She punished Venetia by telling her she was to be banished for the rest of her life to Old Moss Lady's Secret Garden. Gramma watched as the Twilight strings loosened their magic hold on her and then she saw the shocked look that settled upon Venetia's dismayed face as she took her last look at her daughter before being whisked away by the storm which simply vanished with the fleeting moment."
"Oh, that's terrible."
"There was I'm sure lots more to the story, but that's the only part that Gramma decided to tell me. Flavia told me years ago that my mom never told me all that went down and I never pried further."
"Do you think if I asked Flavia what happened, would she tell me the rest?"
"Well, enough. Finish your breakfast and you really don't have much time left. That bus is going to come for you and you don't want to miss it on your very last day."
"Look, Mamma," said Betsy gleefully. "A pretty ladybug climbed onto my face! Ain't she pretty?"
"Isn't Betsy. We don't say ain't."
Mamma knew she had a wipe up job ahead of her. All she could think of now was of the onset of a terrible headache. She hated getting migraines.
Jennifer Jo Fay
Copyrighted September 8, 2012
