But not Becky. Molly thought back to her dream with a pang of remorse. Becky had taken care of her when she was too little to care for herself. She didn't want Becky to die.
Molly finished the can of soup and then laid back down. She wished Aunt Samantha were here to read her a story. "Veronica, can you tell me a story?"
"Let me think, it's been so long since I had to tell one. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named Molly who had curly red hair and freckles like you."
"Really?"
"Yes and she lived in a faraway place called Seabrooke across the ocean. In Seabrooke, Molly lived with her mean little brother in a very old, very stinky castle. Then one day Molly went exploring in the attic and found an old box of things belonging to her grandmother. She tried on some pretty old dresses and looked through a box of her grandmother's old photographs. Her grandmother was a very beautiful woman who looked like her. But her grandmother looked sad all the time."
"Why was she sad?"
"I'm getting to that, sweetheart. Molly wondered why her grandmother would look sad all the time. Something awful must have happened to make a pretty lady like her grandmother sad. Then in the box Molly found a magic book."
"A magic book? Did it show her how to turn people into frogs or to make straw into gold?"
"No, honey, nothing like that. This magic book showed her how to find a golden land where she could live happily forever."
"Did Molly find this place?"
"Yes, she did, but not right away. The book didn't have a map to tell her where to find this place. To find it, she needed to solve a lot of riddles."
"What's a riddle?"
"It's like a puzzle only with words. Long ago, Molly's grandfather had asked her grandmother these same riddles, but she wasn't smart enough to solve them."
"That's why she was sad?"
"Yes, because she wasn't smart like you. She never could find the paradise the book spoke of where she could live with her husband forever. And so she was very sad."
"What about Molly? Was she sad?"
"Yes, Molly was sad for a long time. Years and years until she was an old lady like me. But every day she read the book and worked on solving the riddles until finally she had them all figured out. And so she got on a boat and followed the clues to the magical place her grandfather had talked about, where she became young and pretty again and lived happily ever after."