Chapter 2

By the time light started to break over the horizon I had already started a hunt for some herbs to try and help my mother and grandmother. They both seemed extra ordinarily weak this morning and I had no idea why. The fields were full of tall grass, herbs popping up all over the place. I quickly picked the three different ones I needed before picking a few flowers to place at home. I ran back to the house with my prizes in store and made it to the kitchen to start making a tea for them.

I could hear a few of the chickens clucking lightly, but nothing close to the normal sounds I heard around here. It made my whole day seem darker in comparison and I did not like it. I brought two mugs of the tea into my grand mother’s rooms in hopes that they could drink it on their own while I went to go check on the animals. I found more then half of them lying down in their stalls with the limbs having a semi paralytic component to them. I gave them some feed in a small bowl along with a bowl of water so they did not have to move far, but I wish it could have been more.

I walked back into the house and dampened two towels for my family’s heads and placed them over their hot foreheads. Feeling their pulses once again I felt that they had remained the same, but still pretty low. I had no idea what to do from their but I knew I had to get my mother into the other bed first of all.

I reached under her arms and pulled her up to a semi sitting position on my grandmothers bed and gently laid her on my grandmother's legs for a moment. I then moved the other bed into position next to my grandmother's so as to create a double bed. I then grabbed below my mother's arms again and pulled her into position on the second bed, pulling the covers up to her shoulders just like i had my grandmother, and repositioning the towel that had fallen off during my ministrations.

I then tried to go back outside to look for some more herbs, but my mother had grabbed a hold of my wrist. “Hey, what are you doing here? My little four year old, Azaylia is in the next room and I do not want her to cry at a strangers presence.” I almost cried at my mother not recognizing me.

“Mother, I am Azaylia, I have not been four for almost forty eight seasons now. Why do you not recognize me?”

“Oh well if you are no stranger then do you want to hear a story I tell my young daughter?”

“I am no longer four mother.” I said trying to get her to see reason, but her eyes just glazed over, not seeing me. “Sit down...person.” she said struggling for my name. I took a seat, no longer trying to deal with giving her reason and reality and giving into her delusion. “Good, now this is one of her favorites. It is about King Midas and his golden hand.” She started to sound a bit slurred and I worried that she might be feeling much worse then grandmother Yvette.

“Grandmother Yvette, are you listening to the story? I remember this as one of your favorites.” I said, feeling her cold and clammy hands.

“So Midas was not always as greedy as the stories always say, but he was very naive most of the time. Now the story I stumbled on long ago in an old desk that I had traded for an old rug of mine.” She pointed over to her old desk, that was looking a little worse for the wear these days, making it clear that it was the desk she had talked about. She seemed dazed for a moment as she thought over her well won trade.

“Midas was the King of Terrone, an ancient city that has long since been dead. He was a well bred king, taught to be well tempered, fair minded and an even kinder ruler. Under his rule his land prospered. The king was very smart, but trusted things too easily. The one thing he never trusted was the banks within his Kingdom. His father had and the banks stole from not only the people but the kingdom. He kept it all locked within the Palace so that he could better serve his people with less need of taxing them. Along came a genie who had a grudge against the King for reasons still unknown. He wanted to ruin Midas and all he stood for. He decided to trick him.” My mother’s words started to come out a bit slurred, but I could still barely understand her, and for that I was thankful. It meant that she was fighting The Sickness.

“The Genie, being very smart, knew Midas would easily believe it if someone were so thankful as to give him something, as many of his citizens did on an almost daily basis, so he decided to offer the King three wishes. ‘Hello powerful King.’ The Genie started. “Since you are so well loved by your people, I decided to reward you with three permanent wishes of your choosing!’ Midas was very thankful to the Genie and immediately started to think about what he could use them for, but his Advisers tried to warn him that maybe things were not as they appeared and the Genie might trick them. What Midas did not know was that the Advisers had seen a malicious glint in the Genie’s eyes that Midas’ kind heart was too naive to see.” My mother finally started slurring worse to where I could not understand her, but I remembered the story well enough to think it as she continued to speak, unaware of her speech impediment.

“Midas was swayed in his decision by the Genie’s silver tongue. ‘How could three wishes be dangerous? You are wise enough to have them benefit not only yourself but your people. Being a Genie I have been privy to the knowledge of right and wrong, something any mortal could only dream of. How could your Advisers think anything against it unless they conspire against you?’

Midas decided to send his pleading Advisers out even though they tried to assure him that nothing the Genie said about them was true. The Genie knew that without his Advisers the King was more vulnerable and he was now able to fully trick him without anyone getting in the way. ‘Go ahead and make any wish you choose, Midas.’ He said with glee.

Midas thought it over and decided what he wanted first. ‘I wish to be strong, fit and healthy so I can be a great leader in battle to protect my people’s freedom.’ The Genie used his magic to make Midas wish so and afterwords Midas felt as if he could climb the closest Mountain. The genie told him to try out his strength so he ended up climbing to the top of his palace and standing on his roof.

‘Your strength is indeed great, King Midas, but what would your second wish be?’ he was hoping he’d become greedy and that he could abuse it, but once again Midas thought of his people with his wish. He wished for knowledge to better help his people decide between what was right and wrong and how to solve disputes between neighbors. Once again The genie worked his magic and Midas felt as if a river had gone through him, a river filled with knowledge. The Genie directed Midas’ sight down to the gates where two women were standing.

Midas climbed down the front of his palace and strode over to the gate to find what was the matter. The first of the women spoke of her troubles. ‘Oh mighty king, we have a problem. This woman is claiming that this boy is hers when he is mine.’ Midas recognized this problem from the holy scriptures and knew that if he hadn’t just been blessed with knowledge he would have never known what to do. The second woman spoke up just then. ‘Your Highness, this woman is delusional. Her son died in child birth and she has been wanting her son back ever since and since we gave birth within the same week, my child just a couple days after, she figured he had been reborn and she keeps trying to take him.’ The woman started to bicker and give midas a headache so he told them to be silent.

‘You will both follow me to the throne room in silence and the boy shall be taken away for a moment.’ He lead them in and told them to wait as he he went to go deal with something. He knew of a child who had recently been born still. Midas asked permission of the mother to perform something that she would most like not like, but that he was only wanting to do so to solve a feud between mothers. She agreed and asked not to see the body after and to just have him buried.

He came back into the throne room with two baskets and gave one to each mother to test their reactions. One started to heave while the other threw herself over the basket in tears over half of the dead child. ‘Give the crying woman back her child, for she is the rightful mother. Send the other one home with nothing.’ Only a true mother would have done that over her clearly dead child. The first woman was very happy to have her child alive and healthy while the other was disgruntled at having lost.

‘Very well done, Midas. Now please give me your third and final wish, for after I grant it I shall immediately leave.’ The Genie knew that Midas would only wish for something that would benefit his people as well as himself and knew that there was only one thing left and Midas wished for that very thing.

‘I wish for wealth that I can give to my people.’ The Genie put on a smug smile and used up the last of Midas’ wishes. He told him exactly what he had done which was giving Midas a golden touch. Anything he touched with his left hand would turn into solid gold, but that meant everything from cloth to a human being so he had to be careful because the effects were irreversible. The Genie knew that at some point the King would mess up and touch someone with his left hand, especially if he were in a crowd. Chaos would reign down upon him as soon as that happened.

The Genie disappeared and left Midas to test his new hand. He first grabbed the cape around his shoulders with his right hand, gently pulling it off his shoulders, not wanting to get strangled when it turns to gold, before threading it through both of his hands. His left hand turned into gold for a moment as the effect seeped through the clothes slowly. He quickly went to go see his daughter Martha, her mother having been long since dead, to tell her of his new found gifts.

When Martha heard she knew that something like these gifts were only bad for her Father. She told him to go to the Genie and beg him to take the gifts back ad they would end up corrupting him. Midas was shocked at her daughter’s words as she turned back to her prized roses. He tried to turn her around, but he made the costly mistake of touching her dress, right where it opened up to expose her upper arms. Since the effect would only go through slowly his daughter had to sit there through her final moments. She ended up making a pose, knowing her father would make a statue of her to eternally grieve and shame himself. She posed holding a rose with a smile on her face. Her final words were to tell her father not to grieve, but to leave her with her roses, for they are her now. She knew it wasn’t his fault.

Midas touched her clothes to turn them to gold, along with her shoes, and finally touched the last rose she touched so that she would forever be holding a rose. Her delicate features were forever carved, her hair forever curled, and her lips forever turned up in a smile as a small tear escaped her left eye. He slowly slipped into despair over his loss and how he could have been so careless.

Over the next forty years Midas made sure to keep everyone away from him by more then an arms length. His Despair over killing his daughter kept everyone else away until the point of where if anyone were within ten feet he couldn’t function. He tried to kill himself numerous times for being the abomination that he is, but he was immune to his own hand and the King couldn’t order himself to be killed. Before he died he bowed his head and prayed, prayed for his sinful life and deeds to be forgiven before he followed the righteous path to heaven.”

My mother slowly slipped into sleep along within Grandmother Yvette so I decided to stand up. Before I could leave the room someone grabbed my wrist. It was My mother, up and out of bed with a possessed look on her face. Her pupils were the size of pinpricks as she stared at me, her pallor a ghostly white as a feverish sweat seemed to break out over her forehead.

“Azaylia. You have to go find the crown of Midas. This is something I never told you. Midas could never get rid of the curse upon his left hand, but he was able to remove the others. Find the Crown of Midas, and you can find His gift of knowledge. The crown will help you defeat The Sickness and much more. Take the journal I was telling you about. It had much more then just the legend in it, but part of the map to the crown. You must hurry, for soon everyone will be in danger.” She spoke in a hollow voice. She walked back to the bed and gave me one more look before she passed out and fell into a lying position. I stood there shocked to my core over what had happened. Normally by the time someone is bed ridden they have lost the ability to walk, and not many people have ever come back out of the sickness once they enter that state.

Once I snapped out of it I went into action. I put my mother back under the covers and kissed both her and Grandmother Yvette’s forehead. I then went to the desk and tried every drawer to find which one the key belonged too, but it never fit. I searched throughout the rest of the house but still could not find where the key fit. A sudden flash of an image went through my head and I ran outside. I threw open the barn and found that most of the animals had fallen asleep, they’d be dead soon unfortunately so I either kissed or petted each of them goodbye, wishing I could have saved them.

I lit the candles along the wall so I could see better as I searched for the small panel in the floor. I finally found the panel outside the horse’s stall and the key fit in the lock. Pulling the hatch up I found a shallow hole about four inches deep and a square foot wide. Inside was the journal my mother had talked about under three scarfs. Papers were put inside haphazardly to where they stuck out at odd angles. I took it and ran back into the house to get started packing for my journey. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long, but even if it did, if I do not go it will have the same result. What could the risk be at this point?

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My play is over.........its bittersweet........but now ive gone up 2k in my word count!!!!! I'm now at 6941 and im not even done for the night!!!