“Be careful where you set your feet,” Mrs. Aster said, as she got big and came to stand beside Beth. The others followed her example and Beth got to see the fairy men in their big form for the first time. They were all very handsome. Pinoak seemed skinnier. Cherry looked shorter and had a ruddy red complexion that seemed natural to his cheeks. Dogwood looked chiseled, with dark hair and eyes to match. He kept the serious expression on his face when Mistletoe came up to him and took his arm. Hyacinth looked shyly at her feet. Daffodil stifled a little, nervous laugh. Zinnia and Holy remained small, in Beth’s hair, and Holly said “Bleah!”

“Never you mind,” Mistletoe said.

“Enough of that,” Mrs. Aster said at the same time. “We need to get out of this rain.” She started to walk toward the trees that lined the stream that flowed out from the castle. Beth followed but slipped on her first step. She caught herself, but Zinnia fell off her shoulder and Holly only held on by yanking on Beth’s hair. “Careful,” Mrs. Aster continued. “The grass is slippery.”

Beth became extra careful after that, especially since they had to climb a hill to get to the castle gate. She noticed both Cherry and Hyacinth did not fare much better as they each took a step and slid back down a bit, arms out to hold their balance.

“Everyone, hold still!” Mrs. Aster cocked her head to listen for something. Eyes scanned the rainy sky, but it seemed hard to see anything clearly through that torrent. Dogwood finally identified the enemy when they were nearly on top of them.

“Harpies,” he hollered, and hands went up to fend off the beasts while everyone ducked.

All three men pulled swords which Beth hardly noticed they had. Mrs. Aster pulled a long knife from somewhere along with her wand. Daffodil and Hyacinth shrieked and Zinnia and Holy screamed in Beth’s ears, which Beth felt sure would make her deaf. Then she saw five harpies, just overhead.

They were naked women, about four feet tall, held aloft by great bat-like wings. They were a green scaly color, had little horns that poked out of their short reddish hair and sharp teeth that were barred to let out their screaming cry, like a bird of prey. They had arms and legs that ended in claws with thumbs on both their hands and feet. Beth did not see their eyes close enough to judge their intelligence, but she did see the malevolence.

 Three of the harpies attacked the three men with swords, knowing they were the greatest threat. One followed Mistletoe who scurried over to Mrs. Aster. The harpy pulled up on sight of the knife. The fifth went after Beth where Zinnia and Holly squirted out from her hair in search of help. They zoomed to Daffodil and Hyacinth who were no help at all. Beth got left to fend for herself, but she could only throw her hands up to try and keep the harpy claws out of her hair.

The harpy paused as Beth’s hands began to sparkle with blue sparks. Beth knew instinctively that it was something in the air, and not the rain. Beth felt something in the pit of her stomach that wanted to escape. It felt like the little left over she was promised by Lord Nimbus. The harpy turned away, but not fast enough. The blue sparkles congealed, and a stroke of lightning sprang from her fingertips. The harpy lit up the storm, cried out against the thunder and fell to the ground where it left a trail of smoke beneath the rain.

The other harpies abandoned the attack. The fairy men sheathed their swords, returned to their normal, small fairy size, and followed the harpies to be sure they stayed away. They disappeared in the rain as the women crowded around Beth with words of thanks and praise. Mrs. Aster knew better. She took Beth by the hand and lead her away from that place. Beth tried not to look. She prayed the harpy was just stunned but feared she made a smoking carcass.

Mistletoe and Mrs. Aster flanked Beth and walked her among the trees beside the swollen, rushing stream that came out from a spring in the castle and normally meandered down the gentle castle hill. Zinnia got big to walk between Hyacinth and Daffodil, and they followed. Holly got back up on Beth’s shoulder and held on to her hair, soaked as it was, but Beth hardly noticed until they halted, just shy of the gate where Holly gave a great tug and let out a gasp. They saw a dragon in the archway. Smoke poured from the nostrils in regular puffs that suggested it might be sleeping, but the fairies were wary.

“We should get small,” Mistletoe suggested quietly. “We could zip passed it before it could react.”

“That won’t help Beth,” Mrs. Aster countered. All the same, she got small and fluttered her butterfly wings rapidly to hold her place in the rain and wind. The wind started picking up, making flight difficult. All the same, the others got small as well, except Holly who was already in her small form and whispering in Beth’s ear.

“That is a big dragon. It looks mean, and scary.”

Out behind the castle, something exploded in the distant mountains. They could see the ash and steam rise in the air despite the dim visibility. “Avalon is collapsing,” Mrs. Aster spoke softly and then held her breath. The dragon stirred.

Beth and the fairies stood under a tree by the stream. The ground got soaked with a thin layer of water over top. Beth stomped her feet softly in her nervousness while she watched. Her shoes went squish, squish, but she paid them no attention. Then the dragon roared a great ball of flame, came out from beneath the archway, and it headed straight toward them.

The fairies scattered. Beth got left standing, again. She thought of flying up, but the dragon stretched its wings, and she knew it could catch her. Beth thought of running, but most of the castle hill was without cover. The dragon burped another ball of flame. It had not yet gotten close enough to crisp Beth’s tree, but she felt the heat and decided she only had one option. She was going to have to dive into the swift, swollen stream and pray that she might not drown or crash herself against some hidden rocks.

Beth called up her courage and got ready to jump when she spied something out of the corner of her eye. The dragon also saw and turned to meet this threat. Beth saw the knight in shining armor, and he made a charge at the dragon. How medieval, Beth thought. She felt thrilled to watch, but also a bit afraid for the knight because as Holly said, it was a very big dragon.

Dragon and knight drew closer and closer to battle. It looked to Beth like everything happened in slow motion. She began to squint against the rain, the closer they got, like her eyes intended to close the moment they made contact. Suddenly a light, like sunlight, shot out from the tip of the knight’s lance and the dragon head pointed straight up and poured a massive amount of fire into the sky. That flame, like a volcanic explosion, looked far more deadly than any fake little lightning Beth might be able to muster.

The dragon collapsed. The knight flashed bright as the sun for one brief moment, before the knight, his lance, and his horse all vanished. Beth thought how she could watch, even at the brightest moment this time. She just decided the rain must have blunted the actual brightness when Mrs. Aster flew down from the tree above Beth’s head and yelled.

“Hurry!” She yelled it downstream and again upstream, before she returned to her big form and grabbed Beth’s hand.

They hurried as well as they could toward the gate and made a wide arc around the dragon as the other fairies rejoined them. Beth walked carefully this time and found herself helping the old fairy over the slippery spots more than the other way around. She found herself thinking that, like the harpy, she hoped the dragon went back to sleep and was not actually dead. As frightened as she was to see a living, fire-breathing dragon face to face, it felt like an amazing miracle to actually see the dragon up close; and live to tell about it.

Mrs. Aster pulled her wand when they reached the gate. She tapped on the door three times, and they all heard the lock. “Push,” Mrs. Aster said, and they pushed the very heavy door just wide enough for them to squeeze in. Mrs. Aster pulled Beth behind some crates, boxes and bags that looked left to rot at the gate entrance, then she and Mistletoe began to argue about something in sharp whispers while Beth looked up in amazement.