A Grim Fairy Tale

Chapter Fifty-Seven

The next day, Millie decided to stay home with Charlotte and send Alastor to work in the mines with Moxxie and Blitzo. This was because she wanted to spend today getting Charlotte some proper clothes to wear during her stay with them. At first Charlotte thought that they were going to the nearest village to purchase clothes but Millie had something far more different in mind.
She took Charlotte to a wide, open field of vibrant green stretched out as far as the eye could see, where tapestries of colorful blossoms stood out amids the green grasses and enticed fluttering butterflies and all sorts of other flying insects. Charlotte thought it was a most beautiful and peaceful landscape, and the scent of flowers and grass was particularly soothing to her that morning.

"Gather enough flowers to fill that basket." Millie instructed, handing Charlotte one of the two large baskets she had brought along with her.

"Alright." Charlotte said. "But what are the flowers for?"

"Oh you'll see."

They gathered edelweiss, hyacinth, anemones, and carnations, until both baskets were filled. It reminded Charlotte of the Spring and Summer days she used to spend picking wild flowers with Vagatha. Oh her dear sister, how she missed her. How she wondered what she must've thought when she discovered that Charlotte was missing. No doubt she was awfully worried, terrified that she had suffered some dreadful fate. She might even believe her to be dead. She felt horrible putting her sister through such worry and fear, but what could she do? She could return to the castle and tell her that she was alive, cause then her stepmother would know and she'd kill her. Then suddenly, the worst thing imaginable occurred to Charlotte in that moment.

What if she never saw Vagatha again? Desdemona was Vagatha's mother and she wanted her dead, and with her father missing, she could easily do away with her. If the king truly was dead then Charlotte could never go home and quite possibly, have to stay away from her sister for the rest of her life. But she couldn't just never see Vagatha again yet she couldn't just go back and risk getting killed by some mad woman. What a mess.

"I think that's enough flowers." Millie said looking over the full baskets. "We need a large amount of them for this to work but I try not take too much. Pick too many flowers and none will ever grow back."

"Have you ever thought of growing your flowers?" Charlotte suggested. "Building your own garden? That's what Dolores did. She grew her own roses."

"I'm afraid the soil where our house stand is not fertile enough for flowers to bloom annually. So I have to travel all the way out here to get them. But believe me, it's worth it."

"Do any roses grow here?"

"No. Roses are rarely found in meadows. Soil is too dry."

"What a shame. Roses are my favorites, and Vagatha's. She likes the red ones though, I prefer the white."

"I don't have a favorite flower. They're all too pretty for me to like one especially."

"Does your husband ever bring you flowers?"

"All the time. Blitzo always complains that he's being too cliche by doing that, but I think some cliches can be awfully sweet."

"Me too."

When they returned to the cottage, Millie asked Charlotte to separate the petals from the flowers and put them into a pile. Then Millie took a handful of flower petals and approached her spinning wheel. She spun the wheel, dropped the petals of the wheel, and like magic they were weaved into yellow, pink, and green thread and fabric.

"How did you do that?" Charlotte asked in amazement as she watched Millie spin.

"Moxxie made it for me." Millie said. "You see I always had to make my own clothes and Moxxie wanted to make it easier for me so he built a very special spinning wheel that can turn anything into material needed for sewing. Cloth, thread, yarn, fabric, you name it. Any kind of material that can be made from anything, including straw, leaves, flowers, grass, literally anything thing."