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“What is it?” asked the King’s soldiers.
“Oh, nothing, dears. It just occurred to me that you’re likely hungry and thirsty after your long journey. Please sit down and have a slice of hazelnut cake and some tea.”
“Oh, we can’t, ma’am, but thank you,” said a lanky soldier. He seemed to be all arms and legs, like a giant friendly scarecrow with straw yellow hair.
“Oh, I insist, good sir! The flower will still be there when you’re done. I can’t send you back to the castle with empty stomachs! What will the King think of poor old Mrs. Tiddlebottom if she sends his soldiers back with rumbling stomachs?” Mrs. Tiddlebottom took out the cake tin and opened it. “Now just look at this cake and tell me you don’t want a slice. It’s chocolate hazelnut!”
“Maybe just one slice,” the lanky soldier said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. “Can we manage some for my men as well?”
“Oh yes! And some tea! You can’t have cake without tea! I’ll put the kettle on! Now sit yourselves down right here while I make it!” She sat them with their backs to the window facing the field, where she saw a woman hovering over the glowing flower, its light becoming more pronounced as she spoke to it. Then the woman, old and haggard, saw Mrs. Tiddlebottom looking at her, so she quickly hid her face in the hood of her cloak and covered the flower with a basket.
“Now who is that?” muttered Mrs. Tiddlebottom, doubting it was Gothel as she had feared.
“Who is what, ma’am?” asked the guards, turning around to see what she was looking at. “Do you know who that is, ma’am?”
Mrs. Tiddlebottom shook her head as the soldiers ran out the kitchen door to the field. “It might be someone trying to take the flower!” she yelled, hoping if it was Gothel, she would hear her and hide herself away before the soldiers reached her.
Within moments Mrs. Tiddlebottom could see the light of the flower coming nearer and nearer as the soldiers made their way back to the house. “Ah, so this is what all the fuss is about?” asked Mrs. Tiddlebottom. “I never even knew I had it in my garden.” The soldiers seemed to be eyeing her differently than they had before. “Now that you have your flower, would you still like that piece of cake?” she asked, pretending she hadn’t noticed the change in their demeanor.
“Who was that in the field?” asked one of the soldiers. He was a hairy beast of a man, a bit like a great bear, with one long eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t know, dear!” she said offhandedly. “Come back inside and have your tea.”
“And you wouldn’t be trying to distract us with cake and tea so someone could take the flower right out from under us, would you? Trying to hoard it for yourself?” he asked, giving her the eye.
“My goodness, no! I don’t even know what the flower does or why the King would want it! I didn’t even know I had it!”
“Is that so?” asked the hairy soldier, but before she could answer, they were distracted by a terrible crash.
“What was that?” asked the lanky blond soldier, looking toward the cellar.
Mrs. Tiddlebottom started to panic. “Oh, just rats! I have the cellar locked up until I can get the rat catcher here. They’re terrible, those rats! I’m afraid to go down there!”
The soldiers were still giving her the eye. “Perhaps we’d better go down there and check,” the lanky soldier said, but Mrs. Tiddlebottom changed the subject.
“So, this is the flower, is it? The source of all this fuss. So tell me, what does it do?”
The soldier clutched it a little tighter as Mrs. Tiddlebottom went near him. “It heals ailments, including old age,” he said, looking at Mrs. Tiddlebottom’s heavily lined face.
“Ah! I wish I’d known I had it, then! I might have used it on myself!” she said, laughing, and the soldier softened to her once again. “I don’t know anything about magical flowers, but I do know a thing or two about regular ones, and I know they can die unless they’re potted properly. Let me go get you something to transport the flower. I won’t be more than a minute! We don’t want it dying before you get it to the Queen.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said the soldier, clearly feeling foolish for suspecting such a sweet elderly woman.
She returned with a flowerpot filled with soil. “Now let me take care of that!” she said as she snatched the flower out of the soldier’s hands and proceeded to tuck the flower’s roots gently into the soft soil.
“This will do fine!” she said, hoping they had forgotten about that noise they’d heard in the cellar.
“Now, who wants a piece of old Mrs. Tiddlebottom’s famous chocolate hazelnut cake?”
The soldiers had taken their time eating cake and drinking their tea. It wasn’t until sunrise that Mrs. Tiddlebottom saw them off with baskets bursting with ham and cheese sandwiches, a walnut cake, chocolate cookies, and other baked treats. “Thank you, Mrs. T!” called one of the soldiers as they started back to the kingdom.
“Good-bye, dears,” she said, waving them away with a big smile on her face until she saw them disappear over the bridge. Gothel was waiting for her at the cellar door when she opened it.
“You poor dear! Come out of that cellar!”
“You were very impressive with those soldiers, Mrs. T! You really were! I think you’ve dispelled any notions that the queen of the dead lingers here.”
“And does she?” asked the old woman. “Never mind,” she said. “I don’t want to know.”
