When Dr. Grabengon awoke, he was lying in a field of beautiful flowers. They were giant and shone translucently in the sun, moving about gently in the warm breeze. For a long time, he just lay there on the ground, watching the flowers swaying high above.
He wasn't sure what had happened, or how he got to be here, or exactly where "here" was. Also, to his great surprise, he was completely clear headed, but the pink elephants were nowhere in sight. He raised himself up on one elbow, and noticed that there were two discs up in the sky: one crimson red, and one pale salad-green. He shook his head, but the discs remained where they were.
Small clouds of luminous, transparent insects flew about, sometimes forming into miniature cyclones just above him, then dissipating.
"Where am I?" Dr. Grabengon asked no one in particular.
Through the tall grass, a figure was approaching: it was about seven feet tall and had black wings. Dr. Grabengon jumped to his feet in horror. He tried to run away, but it was as if he were glued to the spot.
"Don't be afraid," the tall figure said and raised its hand in an odd greeting.
Dr. Grabengon waved back timidly, without thinking, and sank to the ground.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am Miranda, the Dark Fairy," Miranda said, and sat down in the grass next to him. They sat like this for a while without speaking. It was incredibly cold to be in her long shadow, and Dr. Grabengon shivered uncontrollably from time to time.
"What is this place?" he finally ventured to ask.
"It is the Garden of Enchanted Flowers," Miranda replied, and Dr. Grabengon looked up at the flowers above his head with dread.
"You mean they're all enchanted?" he said incredulously. The Fairy laughed and shook her black wings like a bird. Her neck was very long and covered with scarlet rings.
Dr. Grabengon suddenly got up. "Can I please go back now? I'd like to go home," he said, and folded his hands.
The Dark Fairy turned to him (they were at each other's eye level, now that he was standing). "Why?" she asked. "You don't like it here? This is Otherplanet. I thought that all of you wanted to come here."
"Umm…no offense, ma'am, but I feel more comfortable in my usual setting," Dr. Grabengon said, adjusting his necktie made of artificial giraffe. The Dark Fairy shrugged her wings. "To be honest," he continued, "that flower's brought me nothing but trouble. Maybe it is enchanted, but in the opposite kind of way." He looked into the distance: an endless sea of alien flowers stretched on for miles ahead. "I miss my friend. Can you bring him back?"
The Fairy shook her head. "No," she said. "But you can."
"How?"
"Just wish for it. I told you that this garden is enchanted."
Dr. Grabengon looked up at the flowers with concern. They seemed to speak, their silky white stems brushing against each other, whispering. One of them rotated its head and looked directly at him with one big eye made of kaleidoscopic bits of glass, and then it laughed, sending out clouds of colorful pollen into the air. Dr. Grabengon sneezed, and the flower was delighted. It giggled like a girl.
"I wish," said Dr. Grabengon, "I wish that we had never gone to the Templomuseum or tried to steal that flower. I wish to be back home, traveling from town to town with Eagle, selling fake potions."
Before he knew what happened, Dr. Grabengon was back at his desk. Eagle was reading a newspaper in a chair next to him, squinting through his gold plated glasses.
"Eagle!" exclaimed Dr. Grabengon happily.
Eagle looked up from his reading. "What?" he said, and dropped his eyes down again to the paper.
"How long have I been away?" inquired Dr. Grabengon.
"Away?" said Eagle, with a bewildered look on his face. "But you haven't gone anywhere!" He then folded the newspaper, and Dr. Grabengon read the headlines: all routine news about the current war. Well, perhaps with one exception, which caught his eye: it was an announcement about the grand opening of the Templomuseum. He snatched the newspaper out of Eagle's hands and read the article, but, to his surprise, the museum was not to open for another week. He shook his head. Eagle looked at him quizzically, blinking his yellow glowing eyes.
"Are those elephants bothering you again, Doctor?" he asked.
"No, no…" Dr. Grabengon was at a complete loss now. "Tell me, Eagle, did a Peddler of non-toxic perfumes come by earlier this afternoon?"
Eagle blinked again and took off his gold plated reading glasses. "Yes," he said.
Dr. Grabengon became instantly alarmed and moved to the very edge of his seat. "What did he say? Did he say anything about a flower in the Templomuseum?"
"Oh, that! Ha ha ha!" Eagle laughed for a long while, squinting at Dr. Grabengon happily from time to time.
"What's so funny? Did he mention anything about that flower or not?" Dr. Grabengon rubbed his head and checked his coat pockets just in case. To his utter amazement, he drew out two tickets to the Templomuseum. "What?!" was all he could say.
Eagle was still laughing, when Dr. Grabengon pulled himself to his feet. He looked very unwell. Eagle stopped laughing then, and said in a serious voice: "Calm down, Grabengon. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. It was just a dream. I have it all figured out. That Peddler was selling tickets to the Templomuseum and had hypnotized us with his perfumes. If I ever see him again, I'll break his head like an egg with my mighty beak."
Dr. Grabengon was much relieved. He rubbed his eyes and reached for the Gravat. "I'd dreamed that we were inside the Templomuseum," he mused, taking a drink.
"So did I!" exclaimed Eagle, and dipped his beak into an ashtray filled with white stuff. "Yes, yes, we went into the Templomuseum's Garden at night to steal the flower, but the Willies found us and gave us chase." Eagle got up for some reason, remembering. "You got away, but they got me."
"My word, Eagle, I had the same dream as you! But how is this possible? Yes, I remember it now, the Willies broke loose, and I ran away with the Stella Mars in my pocket. Then I remember running down a long dark alley, but the Braqonieris were there, as if they knew I was coming. They tried to kill me, but the Cold Man scared them away. He was so cold it froze the air all around him, and then my heart stopped beating. He had very bad eyes, that man, all empty and black." Dr. Grabengon shuddered at the recollection. "And then…I don't remember too well. I was on another planet, and there were lots of flowers there."
"What I don't understand," said Eagle, snapping his beak, "is how I got this." He took out an empty cylindrical box. Dr. Grabengon's eyes widened a bit. He was about to say, "How is this possible?" when a quiet but very sharp knocking came at the door.
Both Eagle and Dr. Grabengon got up immediately to open it.
Outside the door stood a beautiful and strange woman, probably an Auriel. She was dressed in a long overcoat trimmed with light orange fur. Her left hand was in her coat pocket, and in her right hand she carried a small suitcase made of dark green Verdillac leather. Around her very long neck she wore bright scarlet rings made of some kind of metal. The rings clicked lightly when she moved her head.
"Who're you?" Dr. Grabengon asked, perplexed.
"My name is Miranda," the beautiful Auriel replied. "I'm trying to find Kingman," she added quietly, shifting impatiently from foot to foot.
"Who?" said Dr. Grabengon.
"Alias Kingman, the magnate of Vortex. He's stolen the Stella Mars. It needs to be returned to Otherplanet immediately, otherwise it will die. There is a considerable reward in it for whoever helps me."
"Wait a minute…" Dr. Grabengon began, but Eagle quickly interrupted him:
"Dr. Grabengon was on his way home last night when he saw Kingman sneaking through a dark alley. Isn't that right, Doctor?" Eagle winked at him. Dr. Grabengon's jaw fell open.
"Yes…" he said feebly. "A dark alley."
"I'd like to ask you some questions. Did you see him earlier at the museum? Can you describe what he looked like?"
Dr. Grabengon reached for the Gravat again.
"He was very cold," he said at length. "I don't remember anything else. But, excuse me, you can't just take the Stella Mars to Otherplanet - it's property of the Templomuseum." At this Miranda gave him a look that, for all Dr. Grabengon knew, could have been nothing short of polite surprise at the old doctor's naive question. Dr. Grabengon fell silent then, and rubbed his hands, for he was still very cold.
"I see no wrong in that," said Miranda. "The Stella Mars was stolen from our planet by the Braqonieris. If they hadn't crashed, they would have taken it with them, but their spaceship fell to Earth. That is how the flower came to be in the Templomuseum's Garden. We've asked the Templomuseum many times, but they wouldn't give it back to us. I was hoping you would have it, but things turned out differently than I expected."
"Wait a minute…It was all real?" Dr. Grabengon said dully.
"Yes," Miranda replied. "You were sent back home, just as you wished while you were on Otherplanet."
Dr. Grabengon and Eagle stood dumbfounded. Miranda stood in the doorway.
"Are you…are you the Dark Fairy from Otherplanet?" Dr. Grabengon asked, feeling extremely awkward.
"What?" Miranda said, raising one eyebrow. "May I come in?"
Eagle opened the door, and Miranda stepped inside. She looked around the hotel room for a while, as if evaluating it.
"Is…is the Stella Mars really enchanted?" Dr. Grabengon finally managed.
Miranda turned to him, smiling. She shook her head. "No," she said.
"Then why is it so special, so precious?" asked Eagle, dropping his beak again into the ashtray.
"It's just a flower, like any other flower," Miranda replied, averting her eyes. "It's special only because you think it is, because the museum thinks it is, and also because it was stolen from us. It belongs on Otherplanet, not here on Earth, nor with the Braqonieris."
"Excuse me, Madam," Dr. Grabengon ventured, "but I positively saw you before. If all that's happened is true, as you have said yourself earlier, I've been to Otherplanet, and I positively saw you there."
"Maybe," the Dark Fairy said, and shrugged her shoulders. She set her Verdillac suitcase down on the bed and opened it: a miniature forest of all kinds of exotic looking plants sprang up out of the briefcase, like a merry scene from a pop-up book.
"What's that?" inquired Eagle, eyeing the vegetation keenly.
"Look," she said, and pointed to one of the plants. It was a very crooked, wrinkled little thing that sprouted multiple branches and had eyes like a potato that had been kept for too long in the dark.
"Very nice specimen," Dr. Grabengon commented. Miranda smiled again. Within a few minutes, the ugly potato plant sprouted a few more tendrils, on the tips of which thick, viscous green buds began to form. Miranda waved her hand, and the plant's growth was greatly accelerated: it flowered, then the flowers faded away, and the buds became fruit. The fruit was shaped like oblong coconuts. The coconuts turned from white to green, to yellow, and then to a deep brown and finally cracked open and revealed their contents.
Eagle's beak fell wide open, as did Dr. Grabengon's jaw.