The Frog Collector

The next morning, princess Agatha was preparing to request an audience with the king and was thinking: “If the woman said that there were those flowers all over the kingdom, how come I never saw them? Are they so rare nowadays? But that could be because I don’t go to many places… But James surely never saw it either, because he would have brought it to me by now. I wonder if people know they can make magic with the flower?“.

After eating his breakfast, suddenly one of her handmaidens came to bring her a message. She told her:

“Good morning, Your Highness. The king requests your presence.

The princess, surprised, thanked her, got ready and went to meet her father.

When Agatha arrived at the hall to which she had been summoned, she saw the king sitting in an armchair gazing at the horizon. He looked worried and tired, as if he hadn’t slept that night.

“Your Majesty. You wanted to see me?”, said the princess when they were alone in the room.

“You know you don’t need to keep these formalities here, my little one!”, said the king.

He stood up and the two embraced.

“Have a seat. I called you here because I want to tell you something that I should have told you long ago, but never could. It’s a story that involves your mother and also something called magic”, said the king looking attentively at his daughter.

The princess was astonished by this speech and sat down trying to remain calm, despite the growing anxiety she felt. The king also sat down and began to speak:

“A long time ago, when you were little, there came a man here in the kingdom named Isra. He caused great harm, we almost came to an internal war, all because of a flower he brought with him. It was a black blossom with a yellow center. It became known here as the magic flower”.

The princess’ eyes widened, but she disguised herself before the king saw her countenance. The king continued:

“With it, people could do something called magic, create supernatural things. The man also brought a book in which he had written down everything that people could do with magic and how many flowers were needed for each thing.

No one ever knew how the man got these flowers, but it seemed that he had found the greatest treasure of his life. He told the people that anyone could use this plant and taught them how to use it. There were several and he gave them to some people who, out of nowhere, made extraordinary things appear like: gold became abundant, beautiful houses appeared quickly, and people who were ugly became slender. After a while, everybody in the kingdom was just talking about it.

Soon the fact came to my attention and I summoned the man to the palace. Then I could see with my own eyes the wonder that this flower was. There was nothing like it in the world. It was necessary to eat the yellow center of the flower and say the command words for the magic to be performed, but if the magic was too difficult it was necessary to eat more flower to perform it. The man said that this could make me the most important king in the world, because money would no longer be a problem. Practically everything was now within my reach. I was impressed by this, then my advisor warned me: ‘What did the man want with this? To give people everything for free for nothing?’. I asked Isra, and he said that he didn’t want wealth or power or anything like that. He said he just wanted to make people better, he believed that after the discovery of the flower, humans would stop hurting each other, because now they didn’t have to keep robbing and killing for ridiculous things like gold. So he just wanted the king’s permission to plant the flower in the kingdom and to allow him to coordinate the distribution of the flowers to the people. Each person would receive the same amount of plants every month. My advisor warned me that this could be a trick of the neighboring kingdom to destroy ours, but Isra, who was a smiling and optimistic person, also said that he had already tested the flowers in other kingdoms and that they were so well that they didn’t need him anymore so he left to find another place to show the wonderful flower. He said that it was his mission to go from kingdom to kingdom showing the flower. He believed that everyone could make good use of it as they were doing in these other kingdoms, and that our kingdom could be left behind by the advance of the others. And if we didn’t want it, he would go somewhere else. I thought for a while, talked to your mother. She was also amazed by the magic and I accepted his proposal. It wouldn’t hurt to try. Today I think that it happened because I didn’t want to miss an opportunity like that.

So Isra brought long roots that were planted all over the kingdom. And in a short time the flowers were born in various places. The euphoria took over everyone in the kingdom and every month each person received a flower to make magic. Your mother and Isra became close friends and she learned many things from him. She was very intelligent and quickly mastered the spells in the book and even created her own spells, so that she became more powerful than Isra himself.

But my counselor always had me on my guard about this, he worried that someone might do some magic to take over the kingdom as they became powerful, but I didn’t listen to him anymore because I had never seen anything like this in my life and everything was going very well. But as time went on, we found out that the plant was not making people better, it was making them worse. It didn’t take long before we heard reports of fights and robberies because of the flower. To contain this, the counselor had the idea to be more selective in choosing who would receive the plant, but Isra said that what was happening was natural, because people needed to get used to the new reality. He said that in other places it was like this too, but that they had learned. I still believed that the flower was something phenomenal and that it would work, so I let things continue as they were.

It was then that there was the event that changed everything. There was a terrible murder because of the flower. The dead man’s family asked for an audience with the king and Isra and brought the body so Isra could use the plants to raise the dead, but he said he couldn’t do that. That family… It was one of the most terrible scenes I have ever witnessed. My advisor abdicated when this occurred and warned me for the last time that if I didn’t take action, the kingdom would be destroyed. Violence became more and more common so that the strongest always managed to steal all the flowers for themselves. Many people died, but Isra remained adamant. Then I regretted that I had let this happen and thought about expelling Isra from the kingdom.

I communicated to the queen my intention. She had a good heart and still believed that people could use the flower for good. So she had the idea to make a test to let it be known who were the people that had a good intention in wanting the flower and she asked me to apply it before driving out Isra. So she created a small dome that prevented people from entering it or leaving if they were inside. Your mother was the only person who could enter and leave at any time she wanted, because she made her body immune to the magic of the dome. In this way only she could take people into the dome and take them out. If someone touched her, they could go through the dome, but they would only come out if they were a good person, because the place trapped those with bad intentions. The queen made this magic so that we would know who were the bad people who could cause evil in the kingdom. But she wanted everyone to be able to learn how to be good and she planned to personally teach everyone who got stuck and she would take them away when they had good intentions in their heart again. Eventually your mother wanted to make me immune too, but I thought it was better that only she was able to, and I also asked her never to tell anyone so that the information wouldn’t leak out.

We showed the idea to Isra. He was enraged and did not accept that the queen should make this test with the people. He was even angrier that he had been outclassed in magic and wanted to know how he could circumvent the dome, because he couldn’t. He left angry and turned against us. But I ordered the people that it was forbidden to use the flowers except by those people who passed a certain test. I did not tell them what this test consisted of. Your mother then built a giant dome at a certain distance from the palace. And this time she made it invisible so that people wouldn’t know that they would be tested, but Isra told everyone what it was about, but that didn’t shake us. Some people took the test and passed, and others stuck around until they had good intentions in using the flower.

The test was a success and greatly reduced the violence in the kingdom. But some wanted to continue using the flowers without passing the test and were sought after by the army. Some of them had stolen the roots and plants for themselves and hid themselves very well, even more with the help of magic. I am sure that Isra helped them in this. But one day they all repented at once and decided to come together to the big invisible dome which made us apprehensive. Isra came as their leader to try a reconciliation with us saying that he was wrong and that he saw that the test worked. Those people handed over many roots that they had stolen and then the queen made everyone enter the invisible dome, however Isra did not enter. We found out that most of those who entered were with bad intentions and were trapped in the dome. Every day we went back to the place to see if anyone had changed their intentions. Some changed, but most stayed.

We had to have very strict control over who got the flowers. So it was difficult even for Isra to get them and he didn’t use the magic flowers anymore. He didn’t ask us for the flowers because he knew he would have to go through the test too, and he never agreed to participate even though he recognized that it worked.

He was trying to gain our trust again and trying to find out how the queen had created the dome and how she could get in and out of it. He was very wary and was always afraid that we would put him inside the invisible dome without him noticing. One day, however, he suddenly stopped looking for the magic of the invisible dome and became interested in how to get flowers without passing the test.

Time went on and it came to our attention that he tried to get some people who had passed the test to give him flowers. He also wanted to find out where the queen kept the flowers she used. We confronted him when we found this out and then he attacked her. That’s when we learned his true intentions. He wanted to take the kingdom for himself and all those people who came at once saying they were sorry were also part of the plan. Isra realized that the only place where there were no soldiers from the kingdom was inside the invisible dome and he made people go there to grow plants inside. Meanwhile he would find a way to destroy the invisible dome so that they could take over the kingdom with the plants they were growing inside the dome. But he got tired of waiting and attacked us.

It was a tremendous battle that he and your mother had. My soldiers and I could not fight with that level of power, but the queen faced him with powerful magic and defeated him. He died, but she was wounded in the battle and died in my arms”.

The princess, who had been quiet until then, fell into tears. The king embraced her and they cried together for a long time.

“In the end”, continued the king, “all the optimism your mother had was gone. Before she died, she regretted that everything had come to this point. She pleaded with me to remove all the roots of the flower from the kingdom, and not to let anyone else have contact with this flower or magic, especially you. She also made you and me immune to magic, and told me not to let those people in the dome die there. From that moment on I could go through the invisible dome as she did to take people out and take them away. You also have this power even though you didn’t know about the existence of the flower or magic.

But your mother warned me that she couldn’t pass on to us the same magic as hers. Her magic she could eat the flower and still not be affected, but with us it would be different. All spells have a weak point that nullifies them. Isra, your mother. All of them had weak point in their spells. And ours is: If we eat the plant we will lose the power to not be affected by magic. I never knew why, I think it is because she was weak and could not do otherwise.

After she was gone, I forbade any use of the flower by people who passed the test or not. All the roots and flowers that existed in the kingdom were burned. Many people who had previously used the flower recognized the evil that the magic produced and abandoned it. I made an agreement with the people that they would abandon the flowers and never speak of it again for future generations. Whoever did not accept would be imprisoned inside the invisible dome. And people accepted, because everyone had some sadness in their family caused by the flower. And so, in a short time, the flower disappeared”.

Calmer, the princess asked:

“Are there no more plants in the kingdom?”

“No, all the roots have been extinguished”, said the king and continued:

“Those people who were trapped in the dome gradually came out after I went there every month to see if anyone accepted the deal. In time they saw that what they had planned would not work. They burned all the roots and plants that they had taken inside to be cultivated. They also saw the evil that the plant brought and their hearts became pure so that they could leave the invisible dome when they touched me. There were only three women left from the same family. A woman, her daughter and granddaughter. Until the granddaughter died and the daughter left too. Only the woman remained in the dome, alone until today. I went there many times to try to get her out, but she remained adamant that the era of the magic flowers would return. Then I realized that she would not change. So I stopped going there, I forbade anyone to enter that place, which today is a forest.”

The king finished the story and the two remained silent. The princess was making connections between what she had heard and what she had experienced the day before. After a while, the king realized that Agatha wanted to say something, but couldn’t because she had received too much information. So he said:

“I knew that the day to tell you everything would come, but the time passed too fast… I am sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner. Do you know why I told you all this, my child?”

“Michael…“, she said.

“Yes… Don’t be angry with him. He was just following my orders”

Agatha was silent.

“Coming into contact with that woman, with the magic flowers, if there are any left in the world, can only bring evil to the kingdom. I want you to stay away from that place. I will tell them to look for Prince James wherever he is. Surely his disappearance was normal and not magical, it is not possible that that woman still has those ancient flowers in her hands”, he said.

The princess looked sadly at the king e then said:

“All right, Your Majesty. I will wait for the prince to be found… I am tired and I need to digest this whole story. I won’t go to lunch if I may. Can I go now?”

“Of course. Everything will be fine, he’ll show up”, said the king.

They embraced again and the princess left for her chamber.