Uriel's Machine Part 6

 by Mitzi Danielson-Kaslik

forest spring water 

But that made no sense, for I already had my eyes closed. Then I realized perhaps I had to allow the idea that none of this could be real from my mind so my sleepy imagination could take over my senses. I delicately let go of the idea that this was no reality because it was my reality now and I did indeed see it all. At first, a view of twinkling lights swan into my vision and became to focus and for blobs. Then they became more delicate and I found myself inside a ring. I turned around to see that I was in a ring of young women with knee length waves of hair and sparkling bright eyes and sweeping dresses in a multitude of shades. I was captured inside their ring and my soul was captured inside their wonderful song and I was happy. I could stay here forever. They continued to sing and I soon found myself dancing in time with their magical melody until I felt myself become one with it. It was inside me. It became the song of my soul. All thought of fear or The Shadow Master disappeared with the notes from their lips and I was truly content. The girls danced and danced in their ring around me and soon I wanted nothing more than to join them in their dance. Their hair flicked and swayed as they moved and their gowns leaped as they did. Was this heaven? Had I died in the night?

And soon I found myself rising into the air. I was enchanted and spellbound by their magic and -. One girl reached her hand out to me with her gossamer wings shimmering in the light of the moon and suddenly I remembered. I was supposed to be defeating evil not joining girls in a dance of the night. The Wild Fairie Dance. This was The Wild Fairie Dance. I snatched myself away from the girl with her hand reached out and tried to scream and open my eyes but I could not. I was trapped. The ring around me grew smaller and smaller and soon I felt I could suffocate beneath them. Suddenly, a tiny ray of a different kind of luminescence fell across the floor. It was warm and comforting, a stark comparison to the cold unfeeling light of the crescent moon. As the light fell on the fairies, they vanished. The ring disappeared and I found myself on my knees in the clearing. The ring was gone. Had I imagined it? The ray remained on the floor, so I couldn’t have imagined it all. Following the ray up, I found it was the sun. It was dawn. I was safe. Yet I was so unhappy. My soul was left empty and I sobbed that the ring was gone. It was cold within me now the music was gone. Picking up the book I opened it to the page I was on and I saw Gillidore. Alone. In the hollow tree. Searching for me. I had to get back to him for he would be worried. I stood up and grabbed all my things and trotted back towards the tree to find him at the entrance with a beaming smile to see me. “Where was thee?” he shouted rather angrily.
“I couldn’t sleep so I took a walk” I lied. I did not wish to tell him I had been stupid enough to fall for The Wild Fairie Dance.

We had slept for a little while longer until the warm morning light was fully upon us and the horizon glistened and twlinked ahead of us. As we continued along the path at the direction of the compass, we began to hear a strange sound which seemed to echo through our minds and slither into the darkest passages of our memories.  The sound came and went, and unable to discern what it was, we both pushed it from our minds. Gillidore said little to me as we walked and I suspected he was angry with me for not listening to him the previous evening and sneaking off anyway. As he stopped to shake a multicolored butterfly from the bridge of his nose, I whispered “I’m sorry Gillidore, I know I should’ve listened to you” and he nodded, gently tilting his head as he did when he drank. I felt I was forgiven. We continued at a slightly greater speed with a few more words exchanged. As we walked further and further, the forest began to change. What had started as green mossy tree trunks and great thick canopies of waxy emerald leaves soon turned into a much darker terrain with the trees growing closer together and becoming more gnarled and twisted in their desperate search for subtenants. Tiny streams ran between the trees but made no sound and soon all bird song had died out.

Uriel's Machine Part 5

by Mitzi Danielson-Kaslik

forest spring water

All dressed in flowing purest white, many tall sidhe with great wings the shape of that of an angel but the opacity and colouring of dragonfly wings slowly stepped forth through the forest along the path, leaving no trace or imprint in their wake. They all wore sweeping gowns and cloaks that brushed over the leaves regardless of gender and some wore pearly silver crowns. Halos, perhaps. They stepped silently and sung, though their mouths did not move and their pale silvery lips did not quiver. It was not long before I noticed they all had their eyes closed, perhaps the gentle lullaby had put them to sleep? I caught a last wonderful glimpse of the sidhe before they were snatched again as Gillidore pulled me surely downwards back into the cave with him. I found a tear coming to my eye for I knew that I would never see such true beauty in my life again. “Dear friend, no one has looked at the sidhe and survived for the compiled beauty of their song and their form would be too much for mortals.” He whispered “then how am I still alive? How am I not asleep eternally?” I asked. Gillidore could not answer and refused to speak anymore on the subject. Once the song had died away and midnight approached, Gillidore pulled me ungraciously onto his soft back and trotted out of the cave and back onto the path. Strangely, no animals remained on the path now, no bugs in the soil, no dragonflies in the air, perhaps they had all fallen peacefully asleep from the sweet song. It was not long before I found myself growing tired and weary from my journey and realized I had no food or a place to sleep for the night. Luckily, being inside a book, I had a simple way to remedy this. I took out the pen once more I wrote: Exhausted from her travels, she soon found a large hollow tree with a warm hearth and bed and comforting food for her to eat and a lantern hanging outside, to help her find her way. Sure enough I did. A hollow tree stood large and imperious with a tiny firefly lantern glinting outside and ornate bird cages suspended at different heights from the branches. I knocked once, twice, three times, just to be sure no one lived within. With no response, I entered and found a hammock with small thin blankets hanging just inside and bowls of nuts and sweet berries in all colours; red, violet, lilac, rose… even colours I didn’t know existed.

Gillidore lit the fire and before long I found myself fluttering my weary eyelids to a close and glazing absent mindedly into the embers as they danced and dallied up and up and up through the chimney and into the starry night sky above, thinking of everything and of nothing. As my thoughts turned to the quest it came to me that perhaps I might die or perhaps I might never get back home, it hadn’t come to me before because people in stories always win and return home in one piece, well the good ones do, don’t they? And I was trying to vanquish evil, wasn’t it? Then it came to me that Uriel might have mislead me, perhaps he was evil and the shadow master was fighting evil? Luckily, sleep took me quickly and I did not have to dwell on these thoughts any longer.

I was awoken softly by a tinkling ethereal sound that did not wake Gillidore. Carefully, I swung my legs from the hammock and took the book, the pen, and the compass out of the hollow tree, picking up the lantern as I did so. I tiptoed away from Gillidore and the tree and into a little glade to find a sudden buzzing from beneath my fingertips: the compass had started to shake again. I had not understood what this had meant up until now but I could only assume it mean danger for the first time it’d been in motion was when I arrived inside the book and the clearing was filled with shadows. Could the shadows have something to do with the shadow master? I continued forth to discover the origin of the sound.

The glade was dark with the minimal light the lantern cast and it was not long before I began to listen more closely to the song for I could not detect the direction it was coming from and the golden needle was spinning erraticly. The song was in a language I could not understand. In annoyance, I laid down the items I had stashed on the dewy forest floor and stood perfectly still, my eyes closed for a second. Then the strange language softened and the music which surrounded the words became more quiet and the words echoing throughout my mind in English. How was that possible? But then again, how was any of this possible? The words became louder and louder inside my mind until they were perfectly clear -  

If you close your eyes and you open your mind, the veil will disappear and you’ll see it all.