"Okay, okay, no," I say to no one in particular. "Moon Haven is not real," I say, a little laugh in my words. "Moon Haven is just a story. A tale my mother and grandfather told me when I was little." "It wasn't a 'tale', Lotus," Mom said. I look at her. Her face was serious. "This... This is all a dream," I say to her. "Right now, I'm still in the forest, temporarily unconscious because I probably ran into a low branch. It is still May 15 and-" "It's May 16," Ronin tells me.

I stop in my tracks. I reach down into my bag. I feel the smooth screen of my phone, it had shrunken with me. I sigh in relief as I pull it out. I turn it on. It still has full battery. I barely used it today...Or yesterday, if Mom is right. My eyes are wide right now. It is May 16. Not only that, but it was 11:37 A.M.! When I had left school and went into the forest it was 3:26 P.M. I've been unconscious for seven hours and eleven minuets! Correction, seven hours and sixteen minuets if I faint now.

I look back at the queen. She just smiles. I slip my phone back into my bag and step in front of her. "If this whole thing is real, then what am I doing here?" The queen turned around gracefully and walked down a hallway. "Come with me," she says. I look back at Mom. She nod's. I look at Ronin and Nod. They do the same. I look at Flores, Nabil, and Davul. Flores just smiles and mouths 'go' while shooing with her hands. Nabil gives me a thumbs up, and Davul acts like he doesn't care, which annoys me for some reason.

I turn back around and run to catch up to the queen. I quickly fall in step with her. I have always been good in the sports category, but I don't know if I like it. Something tells me that I'm gonna find out what I like in a few days. Notice how I'm saying only like and not dislike as well. Even if I hardly know my mom and never met my father, it was easy for me to find out what I don't like.

I don't like when people mistreat nature, I hate when I see trash anywhere other than a garbage can or recycling bins, I hate the smell of cigarettes and alcohol, despised non-environmentally safe landfills, horror movies(when I'm watching them alone). I also don't like pepper jack, bologna, mayonnaise, very short skirts and shorts(unless wearing leggings under them), and tattooed people. And piercings anywhere other than your ears .

The queen stops in a room full of flowers that hadn't bloomed yet and some that were dying or already dead. "Touch one," she said. I look around and notice the flowers facing me. And as I'm walking, the seem to follow me. I wonder why. I look to my right and spot a small, dried up flower. I walk up to it, feeling sorry for it. This was probably the most beautiful flower in here, I think as I stretch my hand out to it. I picture it fully bloomed, blue at the center, turning purple at the ends.

When my hand is on it, it's like it's life had been reversed. It turned into a giant, beautiful rose, just like how I imagined it. I gasp as I step back, amazed. It all makes sense now. For as long as I can remember, plants seem to connect with me. It's like they know me, obey me, worship me. Okay, I'm exaggerating. They seem to look at me in their own way. And some actions and feelings , even the smallest ones, seem to effect them.

One time, in kindergarten, my science teacher, Mrs. Johnson, took us to took the class to the zoo. It was going fine till we went to the butterfly sanctuary. There were a bunch of plants around with butterflies resting on them. There was a blue one on a daisy and I wanted to touch it. But it flew away when my index finger and thumb pinched the stem of the flower softly. Seconds later, the flower and it's bush had grown as tall as the roof and had wrapped itself around me.

The next year in summer, I was dared to climb a giant oak tree near the house by a mean girl that had forced Pam to take her to my house. Pam said that the girl wanted me to get hurt because we were both trying out for the soccer team, and she knew that I would outrank her. But it didn't work. I would've broken a few things, but it was like the tree wanted to save me because one of its branches reached out and snagged my shirt when I had fallen after climbing halfway up.

And just last semester, when I was hanging out in the back lawn of the school during lunch, I had leaned against the wall where a small patch of vines with flower buds on it was growing. The instant my back hit the patch, the vines shot up to the top of the wall and spread about fifteen feet wide on both sides of me, flowers fully bloomed. When I told my mom she said that I was imagining, but I could tell it wasn't my imagination. I didn't imagine much stuff because I don't know who I am.

But that was just when I made contact with plants. One time, when I was five, I was throwing a tantrum because my mom wouldn't let me get a real flower necklace at this farmers market. And, like sensing my emotions, a nearby tree had it's branches pull back my mom as another got one of the necklaces and put it around my neck. My mom said nothing, she just brought me home and locked me in my room, only coming in to bring me my dinner.

But then something my mom mentioned in the stories made me think something. "But only the queen can have this kind of power." The queen nodded. "That's true, but for some reason my rein of being queen was destined to end early. There is to be a pod ceremony later today." I remembered what my mom said about pod ceremonies. That they normally happen once every hundred years. Where the lily pod the recent queen chose blooms under the light of the full moon to find the new queen. But if it blooms in darkness, it will give birth to a dark ruler. I shudder at that thought.

"So, I'm the next queen?" I ask her as I touched more of the flowers, each blooming. "It appears so," she replies as she leads me out of the room and back to the throne room. "But I'm... What your world calls a 'Stomper.'" "Don't believe everything you know," the queen said as we stepped back into the throne room. "We need to get to the ceremony," Nod said as we entered.