Ring of Nature

One day I was walking through the forest near my village looking for some cool rocks for my collection. There’s a small lake in the woods where sometimes me and my friends would go to cool off. It was on the edge of the lake where this story begins.

There was a really big flower bush growing on the edge of the lake where I had never seen one before. The leaves were the darkest shade of hunter green I had ever seen before and the flowers were just huge. The petals were each about three inches long and they were a really pretty shade of pinkish red. As I walked up to the bush I could smell the nicest odor in the air. It was like a combination of rose and jasmine – maybe honeysuckle. The smell made me want to breathe deep and even made my stomach rumble like the flowers were maybe edible. I just knew my Mom would love to have some of those flowers. Gripping one of the flower stems by the base I pinched it off at the point where it came out from the main plant. Curious, I raised the flower to my nose and took a deep breath. The smell was great! Cupping the flower in my hand I looked at the petals. Imagine my surprise when, on looking closer, I saw a glowing ring. Yes, a ring – you know like jewelry. It was just sitting there right in the center of the flower. This was just way too cool to believe!

Carefully, I plucked the ring out of the flower and looked at it. It looked like gold. My heart was jumping in my chest I was so excited. This was the neatest thing that had ever happened to me. Turning the ring over I looked at it. It wasn’t too big and it was basic round but it seemed to glow. Thinking the glow was probably just from the sun shining off of it, I slipped it onto my finger. A jolt ran right up my arm! It was like being shocked like when some kid would rub their feet on the carpet and then touch you. Mom says that is called static electricity. “Ow!” I cried and shook my hand. I then tried to remove the ring from my finger but it wouldn’t come off. “What the heck” I said and looked closer. The glow was fading from the ring and now I could see that the ring wasn’t really just a plain band. There was a faint design on it that looked like traces of leafs and flowers. As the glow kind of dimmed out I saw that the metal was more silvery than golden. It was very pretty. I just couldn’t figure out why the heck I couldn’t get it off.

“What do you have there?” said a voice from behind me.

I jumped a little bit and jerked my hands behind my back. “Nothing,” I said. “Just thought I felt a bug on my hand. Where have you been Fiana?”

“Just stopped to look at some pretty flowers back over there Stendal.”

By the way, that’s me: Stendal Martin. Twelve years old and always in trouble. Fiana is my best friend but don’t tell her that. She lives down the road from me and her mom makes the best apple tarts in our village. Fiana thinks that’s the reason I hang out with her but actually I like her. She’s pretty cool for a girl and kind of pretty too, but don’t tell her I said that.

“Let me see your hand” said Fiana. “Did you get bit?”

With a sheepish grin I held my hands up and Fiana gasped as she saw the ring. “That’s gorgeous. Where did you get it?”

“I found it in a flower.”

“In a flower? What flower?”

Picking up the flower I had dropped by my feet I showed it to her. “This flower. It was right in the middle of all the petals. Just sitting there.”

“Ooohhh. That’s really pretty.” Bending down Fiana smelled the flower. “MMmm. Nice,” she said. Taking the flower from my hand Fiana tucked it over one ear where it set prettily in her hair. “Can I hold the ring?”

“It won’t come off. When I put it on it sent a shock or something up my arm and now I can’t get it off.”

“That’s weird,” said Fiana. “Let’s go show it to your mom. Maybe she can get off with some soap.”

As we walked up the trail toward home I noticed Fiana looking behind us all the time like something strange was back there on the ground. “What’s up? What are you looking at?” I asked.

“Everywhere you’ve been stepping the grass is greener than in other places. Check it out.”

Turning I looked back down the path. Sure enough, there was the expected trail of pushed down grass blades slowly springing back that marked where Fiana had walked, but behind me, stretching back toward the lake, there was a line of darker green patches of grass spread out about a footstep's distance apart from one to the other. Each dark green spot was vaguely foot shaped. “Wow! Awesome. What the heck is going on?” Looking at my hand I turned the strange ring in a slow circle around my finger.

“Maybe it has something to do with this ring. Show me the flowers you were looking at.” Fiana took me over to a bush which had a bunch of little white flowers on it. I reached out to pick one. When my hand touched the bush all the flowers suddenly bloomed open like they had just gotten a jolt of super fertilizer. It was way neat. “Wow!” I said. “I wonder if this thing works on all types of plants.”

When we got close to my house, which was on the edge of town not too far out of the woodline, I stopped Fiana for a moment and asked her not to mention the ring to my mom. “Hi Mom” I said as we walked in the door.

“Hi Stendal. How are you Fiana?”

Just as I started to ask my mom for some soap to get the ring off my finger she said “By the way, did either of you see the strange woman that was here earlier?”

“Woman?” I said. “No, I haven’t seen anyone we don’t know. Why?”

“I’m not sure. There was just something about her.” There was a far away look on my mom’s face like she wasn’t seeing me and Fiana but was looking at someone only she could see in her mind. “She was very pretty, but it seemed kind of, I don’t know…. Ghostly?” Shaking her head slightly my mom’s gaze refocused on me and she smiled. “Anyway, she was asking about a silver ring. Wanted to know if anyone had found one.”

My heart jumped into my throat and I had to swallow the lump before I could reply. “Really? Where did she go?”

“I’m not sure. I think she may be at the mayor’s house.”

Fiana nudged me in the side with the point of her elbow and I glared at her, praying that she wouldn’t say anything. I placed my hands behind my back and told mom we were going to head toward the mayor’s to get a peek at the stranger.

“Okay,” said mom. “Be back by five for supper.”

“Sure thing.” Heading back out the door I turned toward our garden in the back.

“What’s up with you?” Fiana asked.

“I want to test this ring,” I said. Kneeling by the edge of our vegetable garden I leaned over and touched a head of lettuce. The lettuce immediately turned a pretty shade of healthy green and bushed out. “Wow. That’s radical.”

“I’ve got it! I know!” shouted Fiana, pointing at my ring.

“Shhhh!” I said and dragged Fiana around the corner of my neighbor’s house.

“That must be the ring of Mother Nature” said Fiana. “With that ring you can make any plants grow that you want. Wow! Imagine the harvest season we could have. The whole village could get rich.”

“You really think so?” Lifting my hand I gazed raptly at the ring which sparkled prettily in the sun. “Mother Nature? Cool. Should we keep it?” Glancing at Fiana I saw her staring at my hand with a strange look on her face. Her eyes were kind of tight and her nose was wrinkled up a little bit. She looked worried.

“Hold on,” she said. “Let’s think about this for a minute. Mother Nature has to keep plants and food growing all over the whole world, right?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“So… What happens if you keep the ring? Our village might get rich but others would starve.”

“Yeah…” I kind of saw what Fiana was getting at but - Oh man! I wanted so bad to keep the ring. Still… “And if we had lots of food and other places didn’t they might even come attack us to steal our food so they don’t starve.”

“That’s right” said Fiana. “I suppose we better return this ring to the lady then. Or else there’s no telling what might happen.”

“I suppose you’re right” I said with a glum expression. That settled we took off toward the center of town where the mayor lived. He had the biggest house in the whole village. I was inside once – he actually had three bedrooms and the bathroom was inside the house. How cool is that?

As we rounded the corner down the block from Mayor Elmont’s Fiana grabbed me by the arm and pointed farther us the street. “There she is.”

Looking where Fiana was pointing I saw a beautiful woman with long shiny dark hair wearing a shimmering green gown. The green in the dress was very light and kind of .. I don’t know… what’s the word?... Ethereal? I guess. In any case, it was a really pretty dress and there wasn’t a single speck of dirt on it that I could see. Not even where the bottom touched the dirt road. “That’s her all right” I said.

Suddenly the lady turned toward us and her eyes met mine and our gazes locked for a second that seemed to last forever. I felt a tingle run up my spine and I almost turned and ran but then the lady smiled at me. She had the most beautiful smile with absolutely the whitest teeth I had ever seen and her eyes lit up with a sparkling glint of humorous kindness. Suddenly I felt better and somehow just knew that this woman would never hurt me or anybody. I found my feet walking up the road toward her before I had even realized I was moving. When I got to her I stopped and held my hand out palm down so she could see the ring.

“Do you know who I am and what this does?” Her voice was like liquid music flowing into my ears and I seemed to hear birds singing in the distance as she spoke.

With a gulp I said “Yes Ma'am. I believe so.”

She smiled again and my heart leaped in my chest. “Are you sure you want to return the ring? I can’t force you to you know.”

“Yes Ma'am,” I said and swallowed. “I think that if I don’t return it there’ll be a lot of trouble in the long run.”

“How right you are” said the lady. Delicately she reached down and effortlessly slid the ring off my finger. “You can never tell anyone about me losing this ring. And thank you for your selflessness.” With that she leaned down and gave me a light kiss on the cheek.

My face bloomed with heat and I just knew that I was red as a beet! Trying to hide my embarrassment I turned to introduce Fiana. Fiana was standing behind me, her mouth hanging open – for once absolutely speechless. “What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Trying to catch flies?”

Mutely, Fiana just pointed behind me. When I turned back toward the lady she was gone. Just… gone! It was like she had disappeared. No puff of smoke or anything. She just wasn’t there anymore. “Awesome,” I said.

I guess that’s about the end of my story except maybe for one thing. The last couple of harvests since then (and that was two years ago now) our village has had the largest juiciest corn, bushiest lettuce, and biggest roundest peas of any village in the whole area. Neat, huh?