M Book

For Martha on her 10th Christmas.

May your imagination conti nue to thrive, even among the thorns.

Now you must know that all the plants in this world walked and talked, just like humans. But in this land lived the terrible thorns who always stole the youngest princess when the queen was done giving birth (they could always tell, you see). This had happened to every queen since the beginning of time. This queen was white and toppled with pale pink. She had 11 children so far. Each was more beautiful than the one who came before them. This was expected, for the queen herself had had 10 older sisters each more beautiful than the one before them. One queen had been the youngest and the most beautiful. The only reason the thorns had not come to get her was because she had married into royalty, not born into it. The next day, very unexpectedly, the Queen (whose name, I will finally tell you, is Speckle) was found to be pregnant with a twelfth child. Queen Speckle was surprised, for the youngest daughter was already the most beautiful rose ever seen.

Once upon a Time there was a magical land ruled by the sweet roses.

On the day that the twelfth child was to be born, the Queen ordered every single person except the King Arthur to go out of the room as usual. But when this child was born, it was brown and the ugliest thing either of them had ever seen. But when the baby opened her eyes and saw her parents for the first time, she laughed with joy and the brown petals fell off. The king and queen were awestruck. This child was more beautiful than anything in the world, was, is, or is to come. She was pure with white and shone like a pearl with pale pink, pale pale blue, and dark red speckles. But the king and queen feared for their daughter for engrained on her stem was a picture of a thorn.

They all knew that this was really the youngest, and the thorns would be coming to get her on the night of her 16th birthday.

But now we will tell you about the princess. Her parents named her Sunsheen and as soon as she turned 12 young roses started asking her if she would go on a date with them. Sunsheen was not proud or vain either. In fact, she was the sweetest and kindest rose alive, as kind as her mother. But her parents worried. Their time was running out and the princess knew nothing about the thorns at all. She became more beautiful as she grew older, she also became even more kind. Her parents, however, were terrified. Sunsheen turned 13, then 14, then 15, and finally, to her parents dismay, it was the night before the princess turned 16. Sunsheen was excited for the next day she would come of age. King Arthur and Queen Speckle were very sad. The next day, they spent as much time as possible with this young daughter. That night, to Sunsheen’s surprise, King Arthur and Queen Speckle said good bye to their daughter. That night, when the clock struck 12, there was an earsplitting bang, a shrill scream, and then silence. The King and Queen ran upstairs to Sunsheen’s room, but it was completely empty. They went back downstairs with heavy hearts. That is then end of them in this story for now.

Meanwhile, we will tell you the story again from the day before Sunsheen’s 16th birthday, but in her perspective.

I woke up this morning, and I’m so excited! It’s the day before I come of age! Mother and Father seem sad. I guess they will miss the old me. At supper, Mother seems like she wants to tell me something, but she can’t quite bring herself to. I’m going to bed, but I can’t wait for tomorrow!

I’m 16! I’m of age! I am so happy. The creepy pointy thing on my stem glowed this morning. It hurt! It felt like a needle being rammed into me. Today, Mother and Father stayed with me a lot. It seemed like I was about to go somewhere where they would never see me again. It was very strange. When I went to bed, Mother and Father said goodbye to me. Why? I went to sleep thinking about what they had said.

He (or was it a she?) threw some bright red powder on me and everything went black.

When Sunsheen awoke, it was so dark as it was when she had been unconscious. Her eyes finally adjusted to the dark and she looked around. Sunsheen was hanging from the ceiling by her leaves, but she couldn’t feel or see anything holding her up. She heard something coming to the chamber she was in and saw a thing, just like the thing that had taken her from the palace. It had armor and looked like a guard or a jailer.

He came into Sunsheen’s chamber and took her down from the ceiling and brought her to a chamber full of roses like her. They were all very beautiful, but all of them were older than she and they were all very dirty. They were adding more and more things to a palace. Sunsheen, although she didn’t know it, was at the palace of the thorns and these were al princesses that had been stolen and they were forever working on the already magnificent palace. But before Sunsheen would join them, she had to be checked. I will now tell you why the thorns wanted princesses. The first reason was that the princesses would be forced to make the palace of the thorns bigger, better, and stronger so that all the thorns in the world could live there and keep making more and more thorns so that they could take over the world. The second reason was because the Thorns knew that one of the youngest princesses would be so sweet and kind that if the power of her kindness was taken out of her and stored by the thorns, then the thorns could use that power to take over the world. The thorns holding Sunsheen brought her into the palace and took her to a room that looked like a throne in the center of the room. Sunsheen was taken to a platform and placed on a chair that immediately chained her arms to it. All of a sudden, Sunsheen felt a thorn poking her and when it seemed satisfied, it walked away. It came back with another thorn, and the new one looked her over. The thorn gasped.

The thorns took her to a room and did all the things to make sure. Every one told the thorns that she was the one. The thorns were so excited that night that they accidentally left the door of Sunsheen’s room open.