Marigold Star

by Elise Primavera

  “Forever and ever,” Marigold promised. She took off the green cape with the big gold star that she was still wearing and gave it back to Winnie.

  Winnie gave the wand back to Marigold. It had never sparkled so brightly. “Tell it to take you home, Marigold. . . . Remember to be clear!”

  “I will.” Marigold took the wand with much trepidation, not knowing what to expect. She thanked Winnie from the bottom of her heart. Marigold marveled that Winnie seemed like an entirely different girl than the one whose room she had found herself in the night before—and what a good friend she had turned out to be. She squeezed the girl’s hand and said, “Remember to be friendly, Winnie.”

  “I will,” Winnie promised.

  Marigold gathered Boing-Boing and her Candy Land game in her arms. She took a deep breath and said, “Magic wand . . . take me home!”

  “Goodbye, Marigold!” Winnie called.

  Marigold called back, “Goodbye, Winnie!”

  SHOOSH! POP! POOF!

  15

  Magic Powers

  “Who’s Winnie?” a voice said.

  “Lightning!” Marigold ran to her dragon. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight.

  “Whoa!” He laughed. “What’s that for?”

  “Are you okay?” She released the dragon and held him at arm’s length to give him a good once-over. Satisfied that he looked exactly the same, she hugged him again as if she would never let him go.

  “I’m fine, but—” Lightning stared at Boing-Boing, who stood in the middle of Marigold’s bedroom eyeing the dragon’s bed with the comfy down pillow by the fire. “Who’s that?” Lightning asked.

  “That’s Priscilla’s cat, Boing-Boing,” Marigold answered.

  “Who’s Priscilla?” The dragon looked confused.

  Marigold was in too much of a hurry to answer. She bolted to the window and was relieved to see that outside, Bramblycrumbly appeared to be exactly the same too. “Oh, Lightning, I’ll tell you everything later!” she exclaimed. “But I’ve been on the most incredible adventure—did you miss me?”

  “Miss you?” He sounded truly puzzled. “You haven’t even been gone five minutes!”

  Now Marigold was the one to be confused. She knew she’d been gone an entire day!

  Lightning continued. “You said the Invis-O-Friend Spell, and then you disappeared like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And now you’re back.”

  Marigold didn’t understand. How could five minutes in Bramblycrumbly be the same as twenty-four hours in the Human World? Unless . . . Little waves of incredulity washed over her. “Unless . . . maybe this is the secret twist—just like Lenny predicted,” she whispered to herself.

  Lightning didn’t seem to have heard. “Where’s your star?” He wore a worried look.

  “Not now, Lightning!” Marigold grabbed his hand to pull him over to the window. “We have to go right away to talk to Granny Cabbage.”

  Lightning resisted and looked back at the big orange cat who was awkwardly climbing into his bed. “But—But what about learning the Invisibility Spell?”

  Marigold took out her magic wand.

  “You found it!” the dragon exclaimed.

  “Watch this.” Marigold took her right foot off the ground. She rubbed her stomach, tapped her head, crossed her eyes, and said, “Magic wand . . . make me invisible!”

  POOF! She disappeared.

  “WOW!” said Lightning.

  A moment later she materialized and scooped up Boing-Boing. She flung open the window and stood on the ledge.

  “Be careful!” Lightning rushed to her side just as she said the spell, leaped into the air, and shouted, “FLY!”

  He poked his head out the window. “Since when do you fly?”

  “Follow me!” Marigold called back. “And bring the Candy Land game!”

  “B-but it has a picture of humans on it, and—” Lightning stammered.

  “Bring it anyway!” Marigold shouted, and flew away into the dark night. She passed over Mrs. Moon’s tree, Bob the Woodcutter’s Son’s stacks of wood, and Baddie Longlegs’s shack under the bridge. She flew as fast as she could over Spookety Forest, not pausing until she came to the old cabbage lady’s little cottage on the other side of the woods. Before Marigold could knock on the door, it opened. There stood Granny Cabbage. “I’ve been expecting you, child.” She motioned them inside.

  Lightning pointed to the blank space above Marigold’s head. “Her star is missing, Granny!”

  “I can see that,” she said with less concern than Marigold thought she should have had.

  Marigold hurried indoors. Lightning followed behind, so flustered that he knocked a bunch of dried oregano off one of the rafters. He turned to pick it up and his tail caught several garden shears, which clattered noisily to the floor. Granny seemed to take no notice.

  It seemed like ages ago since Marigold had sat in the same chair by the fire with her feet tucked under her, but now she had Boing-Boing on her lap. Lightning once again plunked himself down on the cushion. Marigold hardly knew where to begin. “Oh, Granny! Bramblycrumbly almost crumbled! And I lost my wand—even though you warned me not to—and I gave my star away! What will my parents say? What will everyone think?”

  The wise old cabbage sat in her stuffed chair like before, with her feet up on the burlap bag of wood chips. “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”

  Marigold took a deep breath to calm down. Then she told Granny how it all began with the Invisibility Spell and how it had actually worked—but on her wand, which had vanished.

  Granny raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “The spell book said that it was easier to find an invisible magic wand if I was invisible. Right away, I found the Invis-O-Friend Spell that I could perform without a magic wand.” Marigold leaned forward earnestly. “Granny . . . the next thing I knew I was in the Human World, where I met a human girl named Winnie, and she had my magic wand.”

  The old cabbage lady betrayed little emotion, like a stern judge listening to someone on the witness stand.

  “Winnie wouldn’t give it back, and then something really bad happened. . . .” Marigold looked around before she even uttered the awful word. “Seepage,” she hissed.

  Granny closed her eyes and nodded solemnly.

  Marigold pressed on. “Winnie wished for ghosts, and with them was a shadow boy. He snatched the wand away from Winnie to make the ghost children visible so they would like him, but as soon as they saw his scary shadow they were afraid and flew away.”

  Granny rested her elbows on the arms of the chair, and her fingers touched to form a little steeple. She listened intently. Lightning, on the other hand, was full of questions. “Did you chase after them?” he asked.

  “Yes!” Marigold told him how Winnie had ordered a magic carpet earlier while she had the wand and that they’d flown on that, but it hadn’t been long before she’d lost Winnie because her star began to blink.

  “Again?” Lightning said with disbelief.

  “I said the Invis-O-Friend Spell, thinking it would take me to Winnie, but I ended up in the bedroom of a boy named Lenny!” Marigold explained her entire adventure—about Spookety Forest appearing everywhere she went, meeting Priscilla, and finally ending up in Spookety Cave. As she spoke, Marigold knew her story sounded altogether absurd, as if she’d dreamed it or made it up. She was glad for the Candy Land game because wouldn’t that at least be some evidence that she’d really been in the Human World?

  “But how did you lose your star?” Lightning wanted to know.

  Marigold glanced at Granny, who sat quietly observing her.

  “I gave my star to the shadow boy—but he’s not a shadow at all, Granny. He’s a terribly nice little creature. My star lights him up so that the ghost children can see he’s not scary, and now they’re all friends.” Marigold tilted her head. “Do you believe me? Because if you don’t, I brought that.” She nodded to where Lightning had set the Candy Land
game as far away from himself as he could, on top of a barrel of chestnuts. “It’s a game from the Human World called Candy Land.”

  Granny’s face crinkled with astonishment. “My word!” She heaved herself out of the chair and crossed the room to get a better look. “I’ve been trying to find that for years—wherever did you get it?”

  Marigold was equally astonished. “It was given to me by the shadow boy. He found it here in Bramblycrumbly under some brambles, but it’s really from the Human World—you can see the picture of the humans on the front. But why have you been trying to find it?”

  Granny hobbled over to the shelves along the wall, where trinkets and all sorts of odds and ends sat. She smiled at the touch of each object. She finally chose a child’s stuffed rabbit with part of its ear missing and showed it to Marigold. “This belonged to a girl who woke up on the morning of her ninth birthday with the chicken pox.” Granny shook her head and laughed softly as she put it down. She straightened and arranged items on the shelf carefully as she spoke. “There was one child in particular. She was a lonely little girl but full of mischief. I put my wand down for a second and she grabbed it.” Granny looked off into space as if she were witnessing it all over again. “It was in the nick of time that she felt bad and gave me back my wand.” Granny reached over to the barrel and picked up the Candy Land game. “She also gave me her favorite toy.”

  “The Candy Land game?” None of it made sense to Marigold. “But how? Did you visit the Human World too, Granny?”

  Granny gazed at Marigold with a mysterious twinkle in her eye. Marigold waited for an explanation. The fire burned brightly, and the cottage had the not unpleasant tangy smell of vinegar. All seemed so right—even Boing-Boing purred contentedly in her lap—but no explanation came. “And what about my star, Granny? My parents were so sure that I was marked for greatness—that I was special and would become something rare and wonderful.” Marigold searched the old cabbage’s face, desperate for an answer.

  “You are something rare and wonderful, Marigold,” Granny said gently.

  “What?” Marigold held out both hands with no idea of what Granny was getting at.

  “Don’t you know?” Granny said, surprised. “It’s right there, child—in the book—or maybe you missed it?”

  “Missed it?” Marigold’s eyes went wide. How could she have missed it—unless it was missing from the book? The missing pages! Marigold leaped out of the chair and Boing-Boing toppled off her lap. She showed Granny the spell book. “I looked and looked, but there are some pages missing—see?”

  “Oh! I am an old cabbage!” Granny exclaimed. She grasped her shawl with one hand while the other loosened the rusty thumb tack that stuck several sheets of yellowing pages to a wooden beam. “Of course you didn’t know!” She chuckled and handed the pages to Marigold.

  Marigold eagerly read:

  MAGIC POWERS can take any number of forms. Here are just a few:

  Magic Healing Power

  Magic Seeing Power

  Magic Hair Styling Power

  Magic Large Watermelon Growing Power

  Magic Soup Making Power

  Magic Finder of Lost Things Power

  Magic Friend Power

  Wait. What? Marigold stopped. . . . Magic Friend Power? She read the description:

  Magic Friends (also known as “Imaginary Friends”) are extremely rare and have the ability to come to the aid of a friendless human or even non-human residing in the Human World who, for whatever reason, has exhausted all other avenues of companionship. Oddly, Magic Friends usually have little talent for magic—this would seem contraindicative, but in fact, this feature makes it easier for the Magic Friend to relate better to those in the Human World. . . .

  Marigold looked up from the pages. She had finally discovered her magic power. It all made sense. “No wonder I’m so hopeless at doing spells, Granny!” she exclaimed. “I’m a Magic Friend!”

  “Also referred to as an Imaginary Friend, child,” Granny replied.

  “Yes!” Marigold nodded. “I’ve heard of them but—”

  Granny held up a finger to interrupt. “I had the same magic power as you—I too was an Imaginary Friend when I was your age. Years ago, I tore those pages from the spell book. I kept them here with all my friends’ gifts as reminders of what a rare and wonderful magic power I possessed.”

  Marigold was stunned into silence—mostly because she and the wise old cabbage shared the same magic power, but also because imagining Granny as her own age was utterly impossible. Marigold turned back to the missing pages to read:

  Magic Friends are usually warned of the friendless in need residing in the Human World through a variety of signals. These signals may be confusing at first, but the Magic Friend soon realizes the meanings of the signals, which can range from a “chirping” or “beeping” sound to a slight pressure on the right pinky toe or even to a blinking star over the head.

  Marigold gasped. A blinking star? She had given hers away! How was she going to be a Magic Friend without her star? What had she done? “But, Granny, I lost my magic power when I gave away my star!”

  “Roach pudding!” Granny replied firmly, and her eyes flashed in the firelight. She shook her finger at Marigold. “You can’t lose your magic power . . . but it will go away if you ignore it, and the best way to do that is to not answer the call.”

  Marigold and Lightning exchanged puzzled glances. “What call?” they said at the same time.

  “When your star blinks, it means someone in the Human World needs you for a friend.”

  “So, you knew all along when I was here earlier why my star was blinking, Granny. Why didn’t you tell me?” Marigold asked.

  “Because I knew that you needed to discover your magic power on your own,” Granny said softly. “See here.” Granny showed Marigold a crayon drawing, a doll in a kimono, and a plastic horse. “These are gifts from some of my friends that they gave me to remember them by. But one gift I lost!”

  Granny still held the Candy Land game and offered it to Marigold.

  Marigold hesitantly took the game.

  Granny grinned. “The little girl who grabbed my wand wished on it numerous times, and goblins appeared through one of her wishes. I barely completed the Invis-O-Friend Spell. . . . It was a close call! Upon my return, I landed in Spookety Forest shaken and vowing that I would never let go of my wand—not even for a second—ever again. I ran all the way home, but in my addled state I dropped the game somewhere and was never able to find it—till now!”

  Marigold handed the Candy Land game back to Granny, but she wouldn’t take it. “When you visit the shadow boy—it will do my heart good to know it’s being played with again and enjoyed.” Her eyes glistened as she spoke. “I had so many friends—sad ones, sick ones, ones upset over having to go to a new school, naughty ones, angelic ones. . . .” She eased herself back down in her chair and sighed. “But what I didn’t expect was that each one had a magic power as well.” Granny paused and gazed into the fire as if she were trying to conjure up the faces of all her old friends in the dancing flames. She finally added, “And each one taught me something.”

  Marigold realized that the same thing had happened to her. Winnie had helped her work the magic wand, Lenny had helped her learn how to fly, and Priscilla had made her realize that she didn’t really want to run away from home and live in a shack or even in a little cottage in the woods. Marigold had learned something from all of them . . . except for one: the shadow boy to whom she had given her star.

  Granny held up a gnarled finger. “An Imaginary Friend—a quite rare . . . and most wonderful magic power.”

  Marigold shook her head. She sat on the edge of the chair across from the old cabbage. “But, Granny, how can I answer the call of my blinking star if I don’t even have one anymore?”

  Granny made a dismissive little laugh. “It’ll grow back.”

  “It will?” Marigold whispered. That was a possibility that she had never eve
n considered. She quickly looked up to see if maybe it had started to grow back already. It hadn’t.

  “At first it will appear like a tiny point of light.” Granny held her thumb and her forefinger an eighth of an inch apart. “Then, day by day, it will grow bigger and brighter than it ever was before.” Granny raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

  Marigold didn’t answer because she had no idea why.

  Granny continued. “Because the more you use your magic power, the stronger it becomes—never forget that.”

  Marigold was relieved, but she marveled that she would never have known this if she hadn’t given her star away to the shadow boy.

  Lightning had been pensive and quiet up till now. Marigold remembered their mutual confusion when he thought she’d been gone only five minutes when she thought she’d been gone a whole day. He must have read her mind because he asked Granny about this now.

  Granny nodded like it was a good question. “In those pages there’s a section that has ‘Rules for Birthdays.’”

  “Yes—but it was cut off.” Marigold turned to the part in the spell book and read it to Granny. “It says: ‘Be advised: It is VERY important that you know there is a—’”

  Granny finished the sentence. “‘Time difference between Bramblycrumbly and the Human World.’” The old cabbage recited the section, for she knew it by heart. “‘Furthermore, Bramblycrumbly will not crumble and turn to brambles unless two conditions are present: a lost or missing wand in the Human World and a visible friend who has turned nine years old in the Human World as well as in Bramblycrumbly. Since time moves faster in the Human World, it can be years before this occurrence manifests.’”

  “There’s a time difference—it’s the secret twist! Lenny was right!” Not that she had doubted him, but Marigold couldn’t help being amazed at the comic book–loving boy’s ability to predict that this would happen.

  “Whenever you are an Imaginary Friend, Marigold, Lightning will hardly ever miss you . . . unless you have trouble getting back home.”