The Blushing Purple Princess

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. They look as though they are sparkling above as the lightning sparks through them. An ugly storm has lately been getting ready each night that looks like magic. Every magical tale can be explained by science. Magic is just the glitter or sugar that coats every part of how horrifying life can really be. We all need to coat everything in something, just like the sand before me to create a castle. There must be enough water that doesn’t dry to keep the castle together. Water is also the very thing that will wash the castle away later as the waves charge higher into it. I finish the mold of the castle right as my sister Gigi walks up behind me. “Helen, why are you creating a castle right now? We need to get inside and up. Don’t you see how the sky is warning us,” she points back to the beach house.

“I want this castle to still be here when I get back,” I pat the sides of the structure.

“There is no way,” she shook her head, “Even if you used the glue for your paper castles, it still might fall.”

“The only way for this to turn into a real castle is if I make sure it stays during the storm. Let me believe it will work.”

She laughed and ran back to the house for glue, “Alright. If this is what it takes to gain your princess dreams, then here we go. Time to use all the glue we got.” My sister was the one person who didn’t make fun of me for what I wanted in life. As we all grew up, we were asked what we wanted to be and many little girls said a princess. That changed over time though, because you are only allowed to be “unrealistic” when you are younger. I am the only one who never changed that dream or said anything “real.” I said I wanted to be a princess, so that is truly what I still wanted to be. I buy collections of crowns and dresses, so next all I needed was a castle of my own that wasn’t a paper, sand, or plastic made one. I was sent a message on my phone that if I keep a castle in the sand together after the dancing purple clouds of a storm, that I would be able to have my wish for the real deal.

This person who says I can have my wish could be anyone. A stalker, a fan, or someone just kidding me altogether to see if I would go through with trying to keep a castle together. They possibly thought there would be no way, but here as we gather up anything sticky, I will do what it takes. The person said there were no rules to it, and I remember a time in engineering class that someone won the paper bridge building contest all because they used more glue than the others. It seemed like a cheap cheat, but they still got to take the title of the victory. The glue was the key to the magic. A wish of sorts that could possibly come to life. These texts could possibly be my prince that fell in love with me at first sight. All that would be silly fairy tales though right? How could anyone ever fall in love at first sight? No fairy tale keeps going and shows how the prince kept his princess and the princess kept her prince. It was just “happily ever after” and we all had to figure it out from there.

“Alright, hope this works,” I pat the castle after we are finished with the glue while Gigi and I head inside and wait for the storm to pass. Crash! Whip! Crack! Whoosh! The storm passes and we wait to make sure it is completely finished before walking back out to see if the castle is still standing. We walked out to the devastation, and there it was still in its form! I looked down at my phone to see the message: You win, congratulations! A picture was sent to me of a castle on a hill with the clouds clearing out all around it. Where is this? I text back as I am sent a GPS pinpoint.

“I am taking you there because we need to know what all of this is about,” Gigi is suspicious, but you can tell in her eyes that she wants to go and see if this castle is actually real. She drives us about 45 minutes away from our home and there the castle stands with the sparkling purple clouds clearing out of the way. We wind up the drive and a man is waving at us from the entrance dressed as a prince. My cheeks blush pink as the car nears.

“Glad you could make it. I am Prince Tad,” he grabs my hand and leads us inside the beautiful castle with gold and crystal décor that has a blushing undertone. Hints of purple and pink in every crystal that was as beautiful as the clouds outside during the storm.

“Tad from the acai place,” I smiled in recognition of him. It was the guy I spoke to at least a couple times a week because we always ended up at the same acai and coffee shop around the same time at least a couple times a week. I always thought he was as attractive as a prince. Who knew he was setting this up for me!

“Come Helen and Gigi, we can paint the sky we saw tonight,” he leads us into an art room with three canvases already set up.

“You went through the trouble of making my sister’s dreams come true?” Gigi wondered.

“Yes, I had this castle built and wanted it to be a beautiful surprise,” he picked up a paint brush.

“Oh wow, this night turned out to be as magical as I hoped,” I started on mixing different shades of paint together to get light and dark pinks and purples.

“Glad he created some magic for you then,” Gigi giggled, “Looks like your dream is coming to completion with this romance.”

“Yes, I would like to start this all off by taking you to a masquerade. I can introduce you as a princess to be,” he started blotting beautiful clouds on his canvas.

“Prepare for people to call us silly and ridiculous for thinking we are royalty,” I stoked my canvas.

“That does not matter. They can say all they want. Nothing can stop us from introducing ourselves and going on as prince and princess. It is the same as magic truly existing. People want to tear it down by saying there is something else behind it, but we all like to really believe if we like. We will go on this journey looking silly together. It does not matter. Don’t let the sparkles die because there is a ‘realistic’ explanation. Let it light on and the magic exist,” we finished our paintings and Gigi left to go get the rest of my dresses and tiaras to settle into my newly created life.