The Magic Coffee Pot
To My Cousin Robin, for being Robin
This Quilt is a WIP (work in progress) or UFO (unfinshed object). Pictures will be posted after the quilt is completed.
Once upon a time in a faraway land, there were two beautiful princesses. The eldest, Rianna, was in line for the crown since her father had died when she was just a baby. Her younger cousin, Beatrice, was always a little troubled. Rianna never understood her young cousin, though she loved her dearly. The girls grew up never really knowing each other. Beatrice took her first opportunity to escape the royal family and moved abroad to study. The princesses wrote to each other as family obligation dictated, but the letters never really moved beyond the surface of niceties.
The queen’s health began to fail. Rianna wrote to Beatrice about their grandmother’s heath and begged her cousin to take a break from her studies to come home and spend some time with her family. Beatrice agreed, but on one condition–she wanted to stay with Rianna and her family. Rianna was thrilled and relieved.
Beatrice arrived a week after her letter. She was exhausted from her travels and headed straight to bed–much to the dismay of Rianna’s three rambunctious boys who wanted to hear all about life outside their village. But Rianna hushed the boys so her cousin could sleep. She promised the boys that there would be plenty of time to talk and play with Cousin Beatrice.
Beatrice awoke early the next morning to find her cousin already at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. Rianna invited Beatrice to join her. Beatrice was never one to refuse a cup of coffee. She poured herself a cup, sat down, and asked Rianna to tell her about everything that was happening in the kingdom–including the failing health of their beloved grandmother.
Two hours passed too quickly before anyone else in the household awoke. They spoke easily of the kingdom, their family, and their lives. The boys eventually awoke and begged Beatrice for stories of travel and faraway lands. She indulged them, all the while keeping her eye on Rianna, wondering why they had never been able to connect like this before.
Later Beatrice went to visit her beloved grandmother. They took turns telling stories about their lives–Beatrice catching her grandmother up on all of the details of the last years and the queen leaving a legacy of stories with the young girl. The queen tired and needed a rest, but before she let Beatrice leave, she asked how things were going with Rianna. Beatrice told her grandmother about the wonderful morning they had over many cups of coffee. “Good,” replied the Queen. “You girls have much to talk about.” Beatrice kissed her grandmother’s forehead and returned to her cousin’s home for a quiet evening with Rianna and her boys.
The next morning Beatrice awoke early again. She headed upstairs to the kitchen, hoping her cousin would be waiting with the pot of coffee. She was. The princesses chatted for several hours again. This morning, though, they delved into their hopes and dreams for themselves, their family, and the kingdom. While talking about their hopes and dreams, they shared stories from their childhoods, giving each other understanding of the other. For the first time, the cousins really began to know each other. They were so different, yet so much the same.
After spending some time with the boys, Beatrice headed back over to the castle to spend some time with her grandmother. This became the routine for several weeks–coffee with Rianna, then visiting with the Queen. While Beatrice treasured the time she was spending with her grandmother, she coveted coffee time with Rianna. As the weeks passed, Rianna and Beatrice moved beyond their own lives and understanding to reframing how they saw the world, based on what they had learned from each other and their lives. Beatrice began to comprehend why someone at Rianna’s level in society would want to be a housewife; Rianna began to grasp why Beatrice longed to see and experience the world, learning and healing along the way. They gave each other understanding of life and the world that they would have never gleaned on their own. They taught each other to love all of humanity and work to see other’s differences as strengths and a place to start negotiating for a better world.
Time passed, and the queen failed considerably. The entire family gathered in the queen’s sitting room while the doctors and nurses attended to her in her last hours. The queen asked to see the princesses. They came into her room and sat on each side of their beloved grandmother, each holding a hand. The queen looked at each of her beloved granddaughters and said, “My dear girls, I have brought you together in these last months because the survival and growth of this kingdom depends on both of you. Rianna, soon you will be queen, but in order to rule this kingdom you needed better understanding of the world and the pain of the world. Beatrice, you will be an asset to Rianna in the coming days, and you needed to be able to see Rianna as the leader and amazing woman that she is.
“Several months ago you each received a gift from me–a coffee pot. Your coffee pots are identical and were commissioned from the local wizard. The coffee pots are magical and connected. Beatrice, I know you will want to return to your education, and you shall. I also know that you two will want and need your morning cups of coffee together. That time has brought you both great understanding of each other and the world, which will be vital in the coming times. Each morning the coffee pots will connect you girls for your talks. You will sit across from each other at Rianna’s kitchen table for two hours and discuss whatever is on your mind. The coffee pots are your connection. Never break your connection, girls. The world depends on it.”
The queen took the girls’ hands and placed them together, then drifted into her final sleep. Rianna and Beatrice were saddened and confused, and wondered if their grandmother had lost all sanity in her final days. They hated to think that this connection they had made, and now desperately craved, was due to a magical spell.
Beatrice returned to university sad and emotionally exhausted. She waited a few days to use the coffee pot her grandmother had sent months before. In those days she wrote letters to Rianna to see if their connection could be sustained without magic. On her third night back at university, the queen came to Beatrice in a dream with a message: “My dear granddaughter, do not be afraid. The connection with your cousin is real. The only magic in the coffee pot was to bring you girls together and then make it possible for you to stay connected once your own connection had been made.”
Beatrice awoke from her dream and ran to the coffee pot. The coffee brewed, and she poured a cup. She was still in her own kitchen and became more and more convinced that her grandmother had gone crazy in her last days. Eventually she laughed at the thought of her grandmother’s looniness, and took a sip of the coffee. Suddenly she was in Rianna’s kitchen. The princesses hugged, laughed, then cried. They walked over to Rianna’s kitchen table, sat down in their spots and started their morning ritual–solving the world’s problems in two hours over many cups of coffee. The queen was right after all. Their connection was real and had to be maintained–not only for the survival of the kingdom, but also for the survival of the girls’ sanity. The once distant cousins became each other’s best advocate, listener, and friend, all thanks to a pair of magical coffee pots and the grandmother that brought them together. And they and their kingdom lived happily ever after…
The End
