Unlikely Friends

Crystal

I grin as I move my chess piece to checkmate.

"Aww! You got me again! When did you get so good?" My older brother Louis teases me. We're sitting in the hospital. He has stage 4 cancer, and only has days left. You would never be able to tell, though. He's being strong for me. We're each other's only close family.

"Since I played with the expert every day," I giggled. I've been walking through some fields to see my brother at the hospital every day after school, and morning and evening every weekend.

He smiled, and leaned back into his bed of pillows. I could tell that he needed rest now, so I said goodbye and grabbed my things.

All of the hospital staff said goodbye to me as I walked by. I've been doing this for 5 months, and everyone knows me.

As I began to walk through the forest, I sighed in contentment. I just adore nature. And it seems to love me, too. There are always sprigs of flowers growing all along my path to the hospital in almost unnatural amounts. I love them.

Today, though, when I stopped to listen to a chickadee sing, I heard someone talk to me from behind me. I whirled around as they spoke.

"Hello, Crystal! How is your brother doing? And before you can ask, I'm Mother Goose, and I'm here to give you this." The strange, well, goose like lady handed me an envelope and a white feather. I began to ask what was going on, but she interrupted me.

"I know, this is apparently considered a crazy experience, but the letter will explain everything. Don't be late! Sorry it is such short notice." She vanished into thin air, muttering something like; "That went well! Must have learned from all of my failed attempts."

I shook my head in confusion. "What is going on?!?!" I thought. I stopped right then and there and read the letter.

After reading it, I stuffed it into my pocket. Really? Tomorrow morning, you want me to just leave my brother and go to some place? Using a magic feather? Yeah right!

I continued my walk home, my peaceful thoughts disturbed by this letter, refusing to leave the front of my mind.

That is, until I got the voicemail that my brother just flatlined.

~~~

I woke up and looked at my clock through over my tear stained pillow. 5:57am.

"You know, I could actually go to the castle." What, what?! But... Louis is gone... And I really don't want to go live with my crazy aunt... And it is a unique opportunity...

I jumped up out of bed and began to clean up the apartment and pack all that I could.

After two hours, I was done. I followed the instructions and sure enough, a blue magic portal appeared. With one last goodbye, I stepped through to see what new adventures awaited me, remembering something Louis once told me.

Go make the impossible possible.
Go be who you know you are.
Don't let anyone stop you from following your dreams.
Always remember that it's what's in our heart that matters.