The girl sighed and looked at the house behind her.  All of her bags were packed and loaded into the rickety old truck.  A year had already come and gone.  She belonged to me now.  She loved me.  I could see it in her eyes as she took in her surroundings for the last time.  Whether she came back or not, I knew that she would always belong here.   A sudden gust of wind lifted a tiny parijata blossom from the nearby trees.  The girl watched as it landed softly on the path in front of her.  She bent to retrieve it and turned it carefully in her fingers before tucking it into her hair.  She cast a longing look at the creek before she walked to the truck.  She got in for the ride to the airport.  It was long and bumpy, and she began to daydream.  I whispered to her one last story before she took to the skies.  I told her the story of A Flowering Tree.

Flower Tree

~A Flowering Tree~

The girl was glad that she was able to help her family.  She did not know where her gift came from, or even how to she knew how to use it.  It was a strange, beautiful gift.  The girl had the ability to become a flowering tree.

The flowers that blossomed off of her tree were beautiful, more rare and lovely than any other flowers in the land.  The only problem was that they came at a price.

"Juhi!  Juhi!  Mother is coming!  She will be so pleased!"  A girl's voice broke through Juhi's reverie.  "The money that we might earn from selling your flowers will be enough to save our house!"

Juhi smiled.  She hoped that her sister was right.  Gathering their earnings, she ran to meet her mother on the path.  Her mother looked at the money with surprise.  When she looked back up, her eyes were angry.  "How could you?  You have lost your honor!"  The mother dumped the money on the dirt path and walked by Juhi.  Stunned, the young girl turned and looked after her mother.

As it happened, the two sisters had sold most of the flowers that day to the royal family in the palace.  The prince of the royal family was intrigued by the flowers.  He had never seen such beautiful blossoms with such a lovely fragrance.  Unknown to the sisters, the young man had followed them to their house.

"What should we do?" cried Juhi.  "Mother thinks that I have lost my honor, when I only sold my flowers!"

"I don't know," the sister replied.  "But we need money to save our land.  We have to help!"

"We will sell my flowers again.  You must assist me to become a tree.  We will do it at daybreak, after Mother has left for work."

Meanwhile, the prince kept himself hidden by the path.  He soaked in the conversation and became even more intrigued.  He resolved to return in the morning to see for himself how the girl became a tree.

The next morning, the prince watched as the two sisters walked outside.  One girl held two pitchers of water.  The other sat down.  Slowly, the sister poured one pitcher over the Juhi's head.  The prince blinked as the girl changed into a tree.  The older girl carefully picked flowers from the branches.  When she had gathered enough flowers, she poured the second pitcher of water over the tree, and her sister reappeared. 

The prince ran back to the palace and made up his mind.  He would have the flower maiden as his bride.

Word was sent to Juhi's family that she had been chosen to be the prince's wife.  Her mother was only too glad to see her off, believing still that her daughter had sold her honor for a few extra coins.  After the wedding, the new couple retreated to their bedchamber.  The prince turned to Juhi. 

"You must show me how you become that wondrous tree," he demanded.  Juhi shrank away from him.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she cried.  "I have no special powers."

"But I saw you!  I saw you change into a flowering tree when your sister poured water upon you."

Juhi sighed.  She supposed she did not have a choice.  With a heavy heart, she explained to her new husband how to pour the water over her so that she would change into a tree, and then how to pour the second pitcher over the tree to change her back into a human.

"Whatever you do," Juhi admonished, "don't damage any twigs or leaves while I am a tree.  Please be careful with me."

And so, Juhi became a tree for her new husband.  He was very careful not to damage her, and this continued every night after.

Unfortunately, the prince had an mischevous sister.  She noticed that the prince's room always had the strange blossoms on the bed in the morning, and she soon learned that Juhi could become a flowering tree.  She coerced her sister-in-law into becoming a tree for her with the threat that she would reveal the girl's secret to the entire kingdom.  However, the prince's sister was not careful with Juhi.  She broke many branches and tore many leaves in her effort to collect the rare blossoms.  When she was done, she carelessly poured the second pitcher of water over the ravaged tree.  Juhi was left on the ground broken and maimed, her beauty marred by the terrible ordeal.  The girl managed to travel to a nearby town, where she healed as best she could.

When Juhi did not return to the palace that evening, the prince was distraught.  He searched for her high and low.  Upset at Juhi's disappearance, the young man left the palace to wander the earth's lonely paths.

One night, the prince stumbled into an inn in a town near his home.  He sat down at the table.  In the corner of his eye, he noticed a girl with a disfigured but vaguely familiar face.  He bid the innkeeper to tell him who she was.

The man replied, "We don't know, really.  She showed up here several months ago, and we have never learned who she is or what happened to her."

The prince walked over to the girl, and she looked up, her eyes pleading.  He took her to his room, and readied two pitchers of water.  He poured the first one over her and then set to work mending each broken branch and torn leaf.  Then, he poured the second pitcher of water over her carefully.  As the last drop of water left the pitcher and hit the bark of the tree, it began to change back into a lovely, whole human girl.

Juhi threw herself down at the prince's feet, grateful for his care.  He gathered her into his arms, and together they returned to the palace where they belonged.  She never changed again for another besides herself.
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Awaking from her reverie with a start, the girl realized that she was at the airport.  She pulled the blossom from her hair and twirled it in her fingers.  The girl was shaking with silent tears as she stepped onto the plane.  But she knew.  She knew that she would never have to give up her own treasures, her own memories for anyone else.  She knew, and she could now give that gift to others too.  I watched wistfully as the plane took off.  She would be back.  I could feel it.
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Epilogue
Coverpage

Author's note:  This concludes the stories of my story book, and I must say, it is a little bit bittersweet.  I chose this story, because this is the story in which the girl goes from trying to please others, to being forced to do as others ask, to finally being able to choose for herself.  Throughout the whole tale, the girl changes as a person.  Also, the prince undergoes a transformation.  At the beginning of the story, the prince only values Juhi for her flowers, but by the end of the story, he truly values her for being herself.  I thought that this was a very powerful statement, because it shows the power that Juhi had to affect the people around her.
    I made a few minor detail changes to the story in order to make it shorter and to keep the characters from becoming confusing.  I first gave the main character a name, Juhi, which she did not have in the original.  Also, I made the timeline at the beginning of the story shorter in the interest of length.  Finally, I had the prince stop at an inn rather than at his other sister's palace to find the girl.  I wanted to avoid the confusion of explaining who the second sister was and how the girl came to be at the palace.  I felt that this would both make the story shorter and more straight forward for the reader.

Bibliography:
"A Flowering Tree" from A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India by  A.K. Ramanujan. University of California Press. 1997.
"Indian Baby Names" from IndiaExpress.com.

Image:
"Flower Tree" by John Van Ness.  Web source: John Van Ness.
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