“Wait, right here, I was right here!” yelled Allen. He seemed to be spazzing out, so I ran to catch up to him. He was running around, pointing at my house.
“What the heck?!?!” shouted Elizabeth, running out of the house carrying Robby with her. Elizabeth was my foster mom, but not in a million years would I call her mom. Robby was her own child, but her only real child. Elizabeth and her husband Edward went crazy and adopted five kids, took in three foster children, including me, and had Robby. Amber was the oldest at twenty-two, followed by Jacob and Jessica who were twins at nineteen, then there was me, Emily was twelve, Danny was eight, Tommy was five, Olivia was three, and Robby was going to be two in three months.
“Who’s he?” Elizabeth asked. She turned her head to the side as she watched Allen run around the house a few more times. As he started to shout louder, obviously trying to get my attention, Robby started crying and Emily ran out. As soon as Emily saw Allen, she stopped dead in her tracks. She took one look down at her baggy hand-me-downs and ran inside.
“Just a... friend, from school, I’ll take care of him,” I said right as he ran into the woods.
“You better, go get him and bring him inside before you do your chores, I have a list for you on the refrigerator.” Elizabeth said before walking inside. Oh, she was always so smug with whatever she did and she always made me do all of the chores. Do you see Emily or Danny doing anything? And heaven forbid Jessica should lift a finger. I started to run out into the woods, I was going to tell Allen I would come with him, I wouldn’t have to do any chores if I was a queen! As I ran into the woods I saw Emily run out of the house dressed in one of my dresses, the dress that I saved up most of my work money for!
“Allen wait,” I shouted and tried to see in the partial darkness of the woods. I couldn’t find him anywhere, I looked high and low and he wasn’t anywhere. But the weirdest part of all was that the woods weren’t usually that dark, and they weren’t that big, but it was taking an awfully long time to go through them. Where was the Peterson’s fire pit? Where was the Mobley’s cat that always walked around back here? Then all of a sudden, I stepped out, and was greeted by the most brilliant light ever. It was dark here, even though it was still mid-afternoon before I walked into the woods. The light I saw was more of a street lamp, but instead of a light bulb, it looked like a million little fireflies. I turned around but saw no openings in the woods. Where was I?
“Lilly!” I heard someone say and I turned around so quickly I felt dizzy. It was just Allen, but he was wearing a total different outfit, a white outfit that looked something like what the prince in Cinderella wore.
“I was getting worried,” he said and took my hand, leading me to what sounded like a celebration.
“How did you get dressed like that so quickly?” I asked him and he laughed.
“You just went through the Woods of Time, or otherwise known as the Woods of Travel, as I recently found out. Time passes more quickly when you’re in there, and it’s also how I got to your world, or how you got to mine,” He explained, but I still didn’t quite get it.
As soon as we stepped out of the woods fully, we were greeted by a loud noise of celebration followed by Allen saying, “Everyone, this is Lilly Petal, but soon she may be your new queen!” And everyone shouted louder. I looked around at the crowd and saw not only normal people but fireflies and some squirrels, not to mention an old lady looking at me weirdly.
“Excuse me, but I must leave this morning to tell my parents about this extraordinary girl. Petunia, Peony, Rose, could you please get my dear Lilly into some different clothes,” he said addressing the fireflies. I gave him an Are-You-Crazy look but he just smiled and watched my eyes grow wide in wonder as the fireflies turned into regular people, only with wings.
“We’re fairies, now come along, we must get you fitted for some new clothes,” said one girl coming towards me while the others took my hands and pulled be forward.
“Allen, I don’t understand. Shouldn’t I be going to sleep right now, isn’t it the middle of the night?” I asked, but before he could answer the old lady grabbed me and turned me towards the horizon, where there was the sun coming up. “Oh, sorry.”
“I must go now, darling. Once you get a new set of clothes, a carriage will come and bring you to my castle. I’m going to have my parents plan a ball to introduce you to my people,” said Allen as he bent in to give me a kiss, but I turned my head so he only got my cheek.
“Um, dear, can I, uh, speak to you for a sec?” I asked him and I pulled him aside from all the hustle and bustle.
“What is it Lilly?” he asked, very sweetly I might add, but no, I would not take it.
“I never told you I would marry you!” I said, trying to keep my voice low so people wouldn’t hear me.
“I just, I just figured since you, well, since you came through the woods, that that was sort of your acception,” he said. He looked kind of nervous and I looked behind my back but there was nobody there. I had never made anyone feel nervous before, it made me feel sort of sad.
“I didn’t know I was going to end up in your world!” I said and the old lady who had shown me the horizon earlier looked over at us, I settled my voice down to a hush. “I’m just eighteen Allen, I can’t just decide to get married to a total stranger in one day, no matter how royal he is. I have my whole life ahead of me, I don’t want to ruin it with two small words!”
“Two small words?” he said more than asked.
“I do!” I said and some people started to clap behind us. “Damn,” I said under my breath. I turned around and started to smile while Allen put his arm around my shoulder.
“Listen, I get what your dilemma is. I promise, if you will be my queen for a year or two and after that we can kill you off before you go out into the rest of the kingdom and live out the remainder of your life,” he whispered into my ear. I looked up at him and nodded and he smiled.
