hippogriff

Golden Door Chapter 12 Beth through the Mist, part 2 of 2

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Beth felt very shy in the presence of these perfect specimens of the female nature. All the same, she smiled. She felt she could hardly help it, though it came as much from relief as anything else. She could not imagine these women meant her any harm.

“I said she was nice,” Daffodil reminded the others.

“Yes, you did.” Mistletoe spoke before the others could respond, and she smiled to match Beth’s smile, but that made Mistletoe’s beauty almost too much for Beth to bear. She nearly fainted and only got hold of herself when a thought crossed her mind.

“But where is Holly?” she asked.

“I’m up here!” Holly’s sweet little voice came down from an upper tree branch. Beth looked, but she could not find the girl. “Mistletoe says I can’t show myself unless I get big.”

Beth looked again at Mistletoe with the question written all over her face. “What does she mean, get big?” Mistletoe turned to the treetop and the look on her face appeared stern. Beth’s eyes wandered down the row of other girls, but they betrayed nothing, except Daffodil, who tried not to giggle. Beth remembered Mrs. Aster and realized that these must be more fairies. “I don’t mind if she stays little,” Beth said out loud.

“Goody!” Holly shrieked and a flash of light shot out of the tree to hover between Beth and Mistletoe. Beth got a good look. Holly appeared a pretty little fairy, and more fitting with Beth’s imagination, having bumble bee type wings and being about seven or eight inches tall. She fluttered her wings with a speed too quick to see except as a blur. “I don’t mind if you don’t mind,” Holly said, joyfully.

“Holly!” It sounded like Mistletoe’s scolding voice, but Holly whipped around and faced the woman. She placed her little fists on her sides and spoke defiantly.

“Just because you’re the big sister, doesn’t give you all the say so.”

“But wait,” Beth said. “Mrs. Aster. The hippogriff.”

“We made this mist to hide you from the hippogriff,” Hyacinth said.

“Lady Alice came to us in the night and told us you were coming. We are to go to the Castle above, I believe.” Mistletoe spoke graciously. She tried to keep the seriousness in her voice, but the joy which she embodied could not be kept down. Beth looked up once again and collapsed because of the vision of loveliness.

“What is it?” Holly asked in sudden concern and fluttered right up to Beth’s ear.

“You are all so beautiful,” Beth breathed to the little one. “I feel so ordinary.”

“Is that all?” Zinnia heard every whispered word.

“Why, that’s easy,” Daffodil said.

“It is a cloak we wear,” Mistletoe said. She stepped near to lift Beth by the arm. “We hardly think of it unless we are traveling on the earth. We take it off then for our own protection.”

“It does strange things to human men,” Holly said, as she came to rest on Beth’s shoulder like it was the most natural thing. She held on to Beth’s hair in case Beth should move suddenly.

“It drives them mad with desire,” Zinnia confided, and she and Holly giggled a little like any young girls might. Beth knew then that they were the youngest.

With Beth standing again, Mistletoe took a step back. “Let me show you.” She did, and she changed in some imperceptible way, but when Beth looked, to be honest, she hardly noticed a change. Mistletoe looked as beautiful as ever which Holly confirmed with a whisper in Beth’s ear.

“Isn’t she a stinky-stinker.”

By then, the other girls crowded around. Hyacinth had already picked up a leaf of some sort and Zinnia had picked up a stick. “All right,” Mistletoe said and let her cloak come back. She reached for a flower, but Daffodil made them wait while she retrieved a little water from a nearby stream.

“Goody,” Holly shouted. She vacated the shoulder and pelted Beth with some kind of dust. The others touched her and pressed up against her with their things while Daffodil anointed the top of her head; and they sang the most lilting, sweetest tune which made Beth want to cry and smile for joy at the same time.

“Okay,” Mistletoe said suddenly. “Done.”

“Oh, yes.” Holly hovered up in Beth’s face. “Now you are very beautiful.”

“But can I take it off?” Beth wondered, thinking of what Holly and Zinnia said about the strange things it did to men.

“Of course, you have to decide is all.”

Beth took a deep breath and tried. It worked, and she could put the beauty back on as well. Then she let out her breath in a great exhale while Holly clapped in joy. The others seemed equally delighted until Mrs. Aster showed up. Then all together, the fairies dropped their eyes and curtsied, Holly curtsying in mid-air.

“Well,” Mrs. Aster said sternly. “I see you have shared the important thing with our young charge.”

“Yes, mum.” The girls echoed each other.

“And this cloak of beauty is going to take us to the castle in the sky?”

“No mum.” They echoed again after they thought about it.

“How could it?” Daffodil asked.

“Indeed!” Mrs. Aster scolded, but Beth could tell that she really liked the girls. “Beth, dear, there is nothing as flighty and frivolous as the mind of a fairy, and rather shallow when it comes to young fairy women.” The fairies all cringed a bit; even Mistletoe. “And I ought to know since I am a fairy. And I was young once too, believe it or not.” Beth hid her grin, but the other fairies all looked up with expressions of surprise on their faces. They had been responding to Mrs. Aster like a grumpy schoolteacher and never thought that she was a female fairy too.”

“Were you really young once?” Holly asked with appropriately big eyes.

“Yes, Holly dear,” Mrs. Aster said in a voice that Beth thought sounded remarkably like Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. Beth only avoided saying, “Toto too.”

“And now that we are all here.” Mrs. Aster looked around to be sure all the girls were paying attention. “We must release Beth’s wings.”

“Wings?” Beth started and Zinnia and Hyacinth reacted with the same word.

“I think she means we must give her flight,” Mistletoe explained, and looked at Mrs. Aster who nodded her approval of the explanation.

“Please get little,” Mrs. Aster added and suddenly Beth became surrounded with a troop of flitting, fluttering little ones who began to sing again, a chanting song, while they pelted her with gold dust, or fairy dust, or anyway, something like dust. Beth sneezed because they used so much of it, and she started to protest, but fell silent when she lifted two feet off the ground, and she did not even have to think a happy thought.

“Come on-y,” Holly chirped, and raced up to the treetops. Hyacinth and Daffodil were already ahead of her, and Zinnia spun happily around Beth’s head. Beth rose more slowly and Mrs. Aster stayed right beside her. Mistletoe kept back as well. Beth could not hold back the smile that came to her lips. The feeling of being weightless, or rather being able to fly felt like a heady experience. Then again, when they started to rise above the treetops, Beth decided not to look down.

“Bring her along, and don’t dawdle,” Mrs. Aster said. “I think I better go ahead and see if the way is clear.” With that, Mrs. Aster shot up and off like a rocket and Beth watched until the little fairy vanished in a cloud. It did not occur to her then just how sharp her eyes had become. She thought instead about being left with a bunch of flighty fairies. She looked at Mistletoe, but Mistletoe simply smiled at her and said nothing.

Golden Door Chapter 12 Beth through the Mist, part 1 of 2

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Mrs. Aster fluttered by Beth’s ear as Beth stepped into the forest. The fairy allowed her butterfly wings to gently undulate against the slight breeze. The trees in that place looked widely spaced, and there were flowers and soft grass more than leaves and prickly bushes beneath Beth’s feet. It looked to her like a haphazard orchard rather than a natural wood, and Beth expected the trees would peter out altogether not too far along. She imagined they would give way to some flower filled meadow if not a field of grain.

“I do not like that sound,” Mrs. Aster said quietly, after a short way. “I do not like it at all.”

“What sound?” Beth asked with a bit too much volume, and as she said it, she heard it, not by the sound, but by its sudden absence. Mrs. Aster just looked at her, sternly.

“And I don’t like the fact that our way is bringing us closer,” she whispered. “Perhaps I had better look ahead.”

“No?” Beth did not know what else to say, but now that she recognized the heavy breathing in the distance, she had no desire to be left alone.

Mrs. Aster nodded, and Beth wondered if the fairy felt some of the same desire to stick together. “Hush!”

Beth stopped and turned her eyes from the fairy to look ahead. It took a moment to piece together what she saw. Unlike the lion-dragon-goat thing that Chris had ferreted out the night before, this creature appeared mostly horse, though the head and claws looked more like an eagle as did the wings, obviously, since horses normally did not have wings.

“Mutant,” Beth called it. She was at that time first wondering how she could get to the castle in the clouds, and she briefly imagined that this might be the answer, though she hardly imagined herself as being comfortable on the back of such a creature.

“Hippogriff,” Mrs. Aster named it. “A meat eater,” she added as she appeared to want Beth to back away, slowly. Beth had already decided to do that very thing, but somehow the creature detected the motion and turned one big eye in their direction. “Fly!” Mrs. Aster shouted as the hippogriff broke into a run and headed straight for them. Beth ran. Mrs. Aster was the one who flew, and surprisingly, she flew straight at the beast before she veered off at the last minute. The eagle head took a half-hearted snap at the fairy, but then its wings opened-up and it took to the air in pursuit.

Beth kept running, until she came to a mist which came up out of nowhere and enveloped her. She stopped, almost afraid to continue into who knew what. Beth squinted and waved her hand, but the mist just swirled in place. It seemed thick, like a cloud come down to earth. She could barely see inches in front of her face. “Hello,” she called out rather quietly and at once saw a light through the fog. It flickered brightly for a moment and quickly faded.

Beth wanted to run to the light, but held her feet to a careful pace, even when the light appeared to float deeper into the recesses. She imagined she saw a figure too, possibly a woman. It seemed hard to tell from the shape, but it vanished altogether after her first step. Two steps into the mist and Beth had no idea where she started. She almost panicked and believed for a second that the light and misty figure might be luring her in for some nefarious purpose. Beth took a deep breath and tried to execute a full turn. After two steps, she realized she missed her target and decided to call out.

“Mrs. Aster,” she called, but again not too loud. Something about her misty surrounding required quiet and respect, like silence should be the norm and reverence the rule. There came no response, and Beth felt a little sick to her stomach at the thought that she got utterly lost after just two steps. “Mrs. Aster,” she called again with some sharpness, as if to suggest that this was not a time for fooling around, and then she had another thought. “Light? Hello, who is there?” She spoke to the figure she had seen on the chance that the figure might respond, and not want to eat her.

“Hello.” The figure did respond, and Beth jumped. Despite the hope that someone, that anyone might be there, she expected no answer.

“Who is there?” Beth asked quickly.

“Who is there?” The voice asked in return. It sounded like a woman’s voice, and Beth might have imagined an echo except the quality of the voice was decidedly not hers. This woman’s voice sounded beautiful, sweet, kind, suggestive of hidden depths, old, but quite young at the same time. It felt confusing.

“I asked first,” Beth retorted; but then she thought she ought to be more polite to a potential savior. “My name is Beth.”

“Mine is Mistletoe,” The response came, and it got followed immediately by another, sweeter, much younger voice.

“Mine’s Holly,” the voice said, and there came a flash of light which seemed to buzz around Beth’s head for a second before it vanished into the mist.

“But I can’t see you.” Beth insisted. A little concern about the mysterious flashing light crept into her voice. She felt simply fear of the unknown because she did not feel threatened in the least. It seemed as if the fog acted like a protective blanket to keep her warm and safe regardless of what might be out there, hippogriffs or otherwise. “Where are you?”

Beth moved carefully in the fog from the same fear of the unknown, but here she imagined very real dangers from being unable to see, like falling into a hole or a pit or falling off a cliff.

“Over here,” Mistletoe said. “I see you perfectly well.”

“Is she safe?” Beth heard a third voice.

“I think so Zinnia,” Mistletoe said.

“I think she’s nice.” Holly voted for her. Beth thought, Hurray!

“I do too.” That sounded like yet another voice. How many of them were there?

“Daffodil. You think everyone is nice.” A fifth voice spoke.

“I do not.” Daffodil defended herself with some grump in her voice.

“Hyacinth is right,” Mistletoe said. “You do think everyone’s nice, but Daffodil is usually right.”

“Come on-y,” Holly said. “Just a bit further.”

One step more and Beth arrived in a completely different clearing in the forest. One moment she walked mired in fog and the next she got utterly free and stood amidst trees so tall she could not see the tops. The early morning sun, colored green by the leaves, broke through here and there in streaks of light that reached the forest floor, and looked like golden streaks on a canvas. The birds, which she had not heard through the mist, were in full song and danced among the branches. Beth found herself facing the four most beautiful young women she had ever seen. She had to catch her breath because their beauty appeared almost unbearable. She swallowed hard and tried not to stare, and finally forced herself to look down at her feet where she saw stones just behind her heels. In fact, she stood in a stone circle of some sort, though she had no idea what the significance of that might be.

“Welcome.” Beth heard Mistletoe’s voice and looked up again. The woman looked about her age, or perhaps a little older, dressed in a medieval foot-length dress which fit her very well. Her long raven hair fell to her waist and gold sparkles flashed in green eyes which looked warm and welcoming as well as a little mysterious in their depths. The eyes looked as confusing as the voice, and Beth decided that while Mistletoe looked to be about twenty, there was something in her which felt much older. The same could be said for the other girls, though they appeared more like they were seventeen or eighteen, and one perhaps sixteen.

“I am Mistletoe.” Mistletoe continued to speak when Beth failed to respond right away. “And these are Hyacinth, Daffodil and Zinnia.”

“G-good to know you,” Beth stammered.

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MONDAY

Beth receives the gift of flight and just in time because David and his friends suffer an earthquake while on their way to the sea. Until Next Time, Happy Reading.

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