Once upon a time there was a beautiful land called Ogg.  Everyone who lived there knew that it was the most beautiful place in the entire world.  It was filled with big colorful flowers, and lush green meadows, and many big trees that were so tall they actually reached up and touched the sky. 

     The sun shone brightly on Ogg every single day.  Except on Tuesdays of course.  But then everyone knows that it rains every Tuesday.  And it rains hard.  And it rains all day long!  But all the rest of the time, the sun shone down brightly on the entire land, and everyone who lived there absolutely loved Ogg’s glorious beauty.  Even on Tuesdays – when it rained.

     In the beautiful land of Ogg, there lived a fairy called Soulflower.  And like all magical fairies, she was very tiny and very beautiful.  She had long gossamer wings like a dragonfly that beat the air so fast that her wings were nearly invisible when she flew.  And every morning, she loved to sprinkle tiny glistening dewdrops on her long golden hair, where they shone and shimmered all day long.  And of course, since she was magic, the dewdrops never dried up or even got her hair wet. 

     Like all fairies, Soulflower absolutely loved her job.  Every day she would visit flower after flower, spreading as much love to them as she possibly could.  Because everyone knows that it isn’t just some dirt and some rain that makes flowers grow.  The thing that really makes them bloom and be pretty, is love.  Without it, the flowers may grow a little bit, but since the flowers feel unloved, they wither away and die.  So the fairies visit all the flowers every single day, because that’s what fairies do.  They bring all the flowers as much love as they possibly can.  Even on Tuesdays – when it rains.

     Like everyone in the land of Ogg, Soulflower knew that Ogg was the most beautiful place in the whole wide world.  There was no place in the entire land that wasn’t beautiful.  Well, mostly.  There was that one little place she knew that wasn’t as nice.  The one place in the entire land that everyone knew was dangerous.  That place wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the rest of Ogg because the fairies were all too afraid to go there to spread love to the flowers.  And the wood nymphs who brought love to the big trees didn’t like to go there either.  So nothing in that place was as pretty as things were everywhere else in the land.  All the fairies wanted to go there to bring love to the flowers, but it was simply too dangerous.  Only the very bravest fairies ever dared to go there now.  And so the flowers there barely had enough love to survive anymore. 

     It broke Soulflower’s heart that the flowers couldn’t get enough love.  So every few days, she would sneak into that dreary place and try to bring the flowers at least a little bit of love, then she would fly out again as fast as she could, because she didn’t want to get eaten – by the monster!

     She had seen the monster with her own eyes.  She had seen it come out of the dark round cave where it lived – the cave that Minke the mouse claimed that he had been into once.  But Soulflower wasn’t sure if she believed him.  Because Minke the mouse had claimed that the cave led all the way out of the land of Ogg.  And why would anyone ever want to leave Ogg? 

     The first time Soulflower had seen the monster, she had been going from flower to flower in that bad place, trying to give a little bit of love to them all very quickly.  And that’s when it had appeared.  It came right out of its dark round cave.  She froze with fright at the sight of it, hoping it wouldn’t spot her on the tiny yellow flower where she was sitting. 

     The monster was big and it was mostly all black, except for a bit of white all around its mouth and its black nose.  Each of its four feet were white too.  And so was the very tip of its black tail that seemed to twitch back and forth and back and forth.  The monster had two big triangular ears on top of its head, and they were each nearly as big as Soulflower.  And Soulflower knew that those ears could hear even the tiniest of sounds. 

     And then she had heard the monster make a sound that was unlike anything she had ever heard.  “Meeeooooww.  Meeeooooww.”  Oooo!  A shiver ran up Soulflower’s spine every time she even thought about it now.  It had to be the most frightening sound in the whole world!

     So like all the other fairies, Soulflower mostly stayed away from that bad place.  But she couldn’t stay away all the time because it broke her heart too badly to think of all the flowers there that needed love.  So every few days she tried to be brave enough to go back there and quickly spread just a little bit of love to as many flowers as she could.