Into the Land of the Elves: The Honored Human Guest at Princess Apple Blossom's Birthday Party

The Diary of Miss Aidyn Hall, author

July 8

9:13 AM

The Honored Human Guest at Princess Apple Blossom’s Birthday Party

The path ended at a small hill flanked by bushy red cedars on both sides. In the distance, I could see several tall, jade colored towers. They blended in with the trees quite nicely; to a faraway observer, they might have been trees themselves. Cheerful chatter blended in with music from all sorts of instruments: bells, flutes, harps, drums, guitars. The music and chatter grew louder as we proceeded onward. The hill ended at another path that was much straighter, shorter and more organized than the one we had taken to get here. I could hear the sound of a rushing stream, but unlike the wild “ksshkssshkssh” of the streams in my mini forest, this one sounded like a bell: “ting ting tingle ting.” I soon learned where the sound was coming from; we were approaching a stream the color of a misty blue topaz. Across the stream, I could see the lights of villages, and every so often I caught glimpses of little green-haired people coming and going. We began crossing over a bridge made out of thick fallen logs.

“This is the Bell’s Rush,” said Apple Blossom (I could see why they call it that), “and after we cross it, we will be in the Greenwood.”

“What is the Greenwood?” I asked.

“All Jadeite forests are called Greenwoods,” she told me.

The land on the other side of that bridge was the greenest I had ever seen, the exact colors of perfect jades and emeralds (now that I think about it, a lot of the Jadeite environment could be compared to jewels). “I can see why it’s called the Greenwood,” I said to Apple Blossom. She modestly smiled at me and led me past a lush green hedge.

We passed by a small village. The houses were moss-covered triangles made from tree bark. Yellow lanterns hung from poles posted out in front of them. Upon seeing us, the people poked their heads out of the doors and windows, and the ones that were outside turned to look at us. The look of total awe on their faces was enough to make me chuckle—I know it was rude, but I couldn’t hold it back. They were gazing upon me as if I was a visiting goddess, with open mouths and bugged-out eyes. They were totally dumbstruck, but the princess was not. She smiled, waved at them all, and said, “Hello, everyone! This is Aidyn, my new friend. She’s a human! We’re on our way to the palace for my birthday party now. You all are very welcome to join us.” It was as if she was used to bringing humans into the Greenwood, though I had been the only one.

“Do you always invite random villagers to your birthday parties?” I asked, to get my mind off of being stared at and whispered about.

“Yes, I do!” she said, smiling brightly (she smiled before every sentence). “Everybody in the Greenwood is invited.”

I doubted any of these people would come now that I was there. Their gaping mouths and nervous whispers didn’t seem too ready to trust me. I felt guilty for turning away potential party guests. But I wondered just how big her palace was to be able to hold so many guests.

As it turned out, her palace was MASSIVE. “Palace” was the wrong word for it. “Castle” was the wrong word for it. The place was an estate, a compound. The actual palace, with its jade-colored towers, was in the very front and decorated top-to-bottom with streamers, banners, ribbons, jewels, tapestries, flowers, and bells of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Every window was illuminated with a light of a different color, and music and laughter played from all of them. White stone pathways and colorful gardens led to other green stone buildings that I couldn’t guess the uses for, all decorated in a similar manner to the palace. I could hear the “ting ting ting” of the Bell’s Rush and guessed that we must be rather close to it.

My first thought was, I get to hang out here? But the Jadeites were not as thrilled about it as I was. They gasped loudly and gawked at me with open mouths like the ones in the village had done. Many stepped away from me like I was leaking toxic waste, and several ran away.

“Maybe I should just go, Apple Blossom,” I said. “I’m obviously not very welcome here, and I don’t want to scare away all of your party guests.” I slipped my hand out of hers. “Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed seeing your land.”

She caught on to my hand and looked up at me with pleading eyes. The smile left her face as if it’d been erased by a pencil. “Please don’t go!” she cried. “I am sorry that my subjects are so distrustful. They have never seen a real human before, and they’ve heard only bad things about them from other Jadeites. But let me tell them that we’re friends and that you won’t hurt them, and I know that they will change their tune.” That being said, she turned to her gawking subjects and said as casually as could be, “Everybody, this is Aidyn, my good human friend! She will be joining us for the party. I know humans can be very scary, but you do not have to fear her. Aidyn is kind and gentle and she means no harm. I trust you all will give her the welcome she deserves.” She said this last thing in that scolding voice she used with me when she told me I had disrespected the Grand Elder Guardian. It made her seem much older than she looked.

Her subjects only bowed their heads respectfully, and began to whisper conversations I could only catch a little bit of: “…friends with a human?” “…Do the king and queen know about this?” “…Has she been tagged?” I reached into my pocket for the tag and held it up to show them that I had in fact been tagged. “Number five,” I said, showing them the inscribed number. This only made them whisper more, and I shifted uncomfortably. Apple Blossom smiled kindly at me, took my hand, and began leading me around the side of the palace. “We are going to my private gardens now,” she told me. “I have a table set up there for me and my very best friends, and you can sit at the head of it if you wish.”

I was very grateful to be taken somewhere private, where hopefully all eyes would be off me. “No, thank you,” I told her. “You’re the princess and it’s your birthday, so you will sit at the head of the table.”

She smiled brightly. “All right, but if you want to switch places with me, you are very welcome to.”  I have never known anyone so sweet in my life.

We went through a bright green gate and entered a garden that looked exactly like a picture out of an illustrated version of Burnett’s The Secret Garden. Flowers of all kinds bloomed in this garden, including some that weren’t even in season this month: there were irises, hyacinths, and crocuses of all colors, mayflowers and roses, cherry blossoms and peach blossoms and apple blossoms. I wondered what the Jadeites’ secret was to keeping so many different kinds of flowers around at once, but I realized that it must have something to do with those “jade essences.” Sure enough, there were big jade stones set up in every flower bed.

In the center of the garden was a circle of lacy white cherry trees. Under them sat four small Jadeite girls at a decorated party table. When they saw me, their eyes widened and jaws dropped. The smallest one, who was so tiny that she barely would have reached my knee if she were to stand up, looked as if she was ready to flee. I tried hard to flash my friendliest smile, to show them that I was no threat, but I felt uncomfortable and intrusive all over again.

But Apple Blossom said, “Girls, this is Aidyn. She’s a human from outside of the Greenwood, and she will be joining us for the party (I wondered if she was getting tired of repeating that).” She turned to me and told me her friends’ names: Raindrop, Holly Berry, Crystalline, and Wildflower (Wildflower was the tiny one). I smiled again, said, “It’s nice to meet you all,” and took my place at the table. Apple Blossom settled in to the right of me, and to the left of me sat Holly Berry.

Little Wildflower was the first to speak: “Apple Blossom, aren’t humans bad?” She had slid three quarters of the way under the table and was peering over the edge at me. What exactly had she and the other girls been told about humans? Were we the fabled evil bogeymen of the Jadeite world? Did little Jadeite children fear humans lurking in their closets and under their beds? I wanted to set them all straight very badly.

Apple Blossom said, “Aidyn is very good. If she’s good, then there must be other humans that are good.”

“There are!” I said quickly. “There are humans that help hurt and sick animals, and humans that save the lives of children just like you girls. There are humans that save others from danger, and humans that create art and plant flower gardens so that everyone has something beautiful to look at.” Apple Blossom’s four friends looked at me as if I’d just pushed a mountain off to the side. The idea of good humans doing good things had never occurred to them until this moment.  “There are humans that dedicate their lives to protecting forests like yours,” I went on. Now I really had their attention. “They set up special organizations and sign petitions and pass laws that help prevent damage to forests.”

“That’s not true!” said Holly Berry. “Humans destroy forests! Humans are the reason our lands are so small.” So that’s why they were so distrustful of me. They thought that I would go on a forest-destroying rampage at any second. But I knew for sure that there really were people who desired to protect forests; when I was in community college, I served on an environmental board for a while, and one of the things we advocated for was the increased protection of forested areas. “I used to work for people who helped protect forests,” I told them.

“See!” exclaimed Apple Blossom. “I told you Aidyn was good!” The girls smiled at me, nodded to me, and little Wildflower picked a bright red cherry off of her plate and handed it to me. I was being accepted at last.

Apple Blossom fixed a plate of colorful berries, bright green sprigs, a deep red pudding, and some meat that I was sure was deer. She placed the plate in front of me. I thanked her and began to examine the contents thoroughly—rude or not, it was possible that Jadeites could eat things that humans could not, and of course Apple Blossom wouldn’t know that. “What kind of pudding is this?” I asked, giving it a few pokes with the wooden fork. It bounced and jiggled.

“It’s cranberry,” Raindrop said proudly. “It’s my mama’s.” She looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to taste. I love cranberry, so I took a mouthful of it. It was not like the canned cranberry sauce I have with my family every Thanksgiving and Christmas, nor was it like the sugary supermarket cranberry juice. It was both sweet and bitter at the same time, and it had a pleasant silky consistency with little bits of berry pulp here and there. I liked it, and I took another mouthful once I’d finished the first. I gave Raindrop a thumbs-up, and she looked at me quizzically. I guess the thumbs-up isn’t a widely used gesture among Jadeites. I clarified for her: “That means I like the pudding very much.”

“Thank you,” she said politely.

I looked over the pile of berries. There were cherries, cranberries, and blueberries, all of which I love. But there were also holly berries, some glossy red berry I didn’t know the name of, and the juniper berries that grow from red cedars. I wasn’t so sure if those were meant for humans to eat, and I was about to say so to Apple Blossom when the garden gate opened with a creak.

The entire time I’ve been writing this entry, I have been nagged by guilt for not finding a present for Apple Blossom. If an elf princess invites you to her birthday party despite her subjects’ negative opinions of humans, you must thank her by giving her a birthday gift. That’s common courtesy, really. I’m sure I can find a gift for her somewhere. I know, I’ll make her a flower crown like the one she was wearing for the party. This will take quite a bit of time, and I cannot guarantee that I’ll be left with any more time to journal when I’m done. I’ll save the rest of my account of the party for tomorrow morning.

I wonder if Apple Blossom would like a crown of cedar boughs and roses…

Into the Land of the Elves: Today I Met Apple Blossom

The Diary of Miss Aidyn Hall, author

July 7

5:24 PM

Today I Met Apple Blossom

            This morning after breakfast, I went back to the magnolia archway and found it still unblocked. I proceeded down the path, expecting to run into the daddy longlegs and his web after ten steps. But this time around, there was no daddy longlegs and no web. It sucked for the spider, who I figured had gotten his web demolished by some careless oaf. But how lucky for me!

            The path remained straight for about ten more steps, and then it made a winding turn. It reminded me of Dorothy’s yellow brick road, and I hummed the song to myself as I walked. I was starting to wonder if I really would see Oz at the end of the path, and how I would react to seeing all those munchkins coming out from under hedges and behind buildings. And with that thought firmly in my head, what else do I see but a little green haired person coming my way? She was not a munchkin, but a little girl who looked to be around nine or ten. But munchkin or not, she was certainly odd; she was very small, but not quite munchkin small. She had hair the exact color of a well-tended summer lawn. She was wearing a crown of pink and white blossoms, and a pink and green dress that looked like a big flower—the bodice was a flower bud and petals, the skirt formed the leaves. I wish I had a cool dress like that.

            The girl smiled brightly at me. She had a very pretty smile that used all of her pearly teeth. She was one of those people whose eyes got really wide and whose eyebrows rose all the way up when they smiled. I smiled back, tipped my head, and said, “Hey!”

            “Hey!” she cried. “Hey! Hey!” She bounced on her feet, which made her mossy curls bounce. “I saw you!” she cried. “I saw you! I saw you out here yesterday!”

            That was weird. I hadn’t seen her (if I had, I would have written about her, of course). She must have been hiding, or had blended into the trees. “Is that so?” I said, as I continued walking. “When did you see me?”

            “I saw you when you met with the Grand Elder Guardian,” said the girl, “and I saw you get lost in the shrubs. I felt very, very sorry for you, and I wanted to help you out, but it was very naughty of you to disobey the Grand Elder Guardian!” She said this as if I were a kid who had gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “Who is this Grand Elder Guardian,” I asked reasonably, “and how did I disobey him?”

            “The Grand Elder Guardian is the head of the guardians of my land,” the girl explained. “He is the largest spider with the largest web, and he decides who comes in and who goes out. He was going to let you in because he saw that you still held the tag, but…”

            I cut her off. “What’s the tag?”

            “You do still have the tag with you, don’t you?”

            “All I have is my notepad and this green stone I found.” I showed her both.

            “That’s the tag!” she exclaimed, pointing to the stone. “That’s the tag that my people use to keep track of those who come by my land.”

            “Your land?” I asked. “So, you’re the queen?” If she was the queen, then my visions of munchkins had surely become reality. In her little way, she did seem quite queenly. Her posture, her outfit, and the way she conducted herself just screamed “royalty.” But at the same time, she carried on like an excitable kid.

“My mother is the queen,” she told me. “I am the princess, and my name is Apple Blossom.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. Since she was a princess, I attempted a curtsy. It was likely dopey and awkward looking, but she didn’t seem to mind. “I’m Aidyn,” I told her.

“Hello, Aidyn!” She walked over to me and held out her hand. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to shake it or, as is often the case with princesses, kiss it. But I opted for the shake, because kissing it seemed too weird.

“Today’s my birthday,” she said, “and I’ve always wanted to meet a real, live human and invite one to my birthday party. Then I could introduce it to my friends and family and all of the others at my palace. But I could never find a human. They always misplace or lose their tag.” So she wasn’t human, but I guess I could’ve figured that out. It felt incredibly strange to be called “it” and to be invited to a birthday party for a little girl—a little princess—I had only just met. But if anything made for excellent material, it was this! So I said to Apple Blossom, “I would be delighted to come to your birthday party. But I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind. You can answer them while we walk.”

“I don’t mind that at all!” said Apple Blossom. She held out her hand, which I took, and we continued walking down the path. I had quite a bit more than “a few” questions, and she had quite a bit more than “a few” answers. For the sake of convenience, I will write the ones I felt were most important in a handy Q&A format:

Q&A WITH PRINCESS APPLE BLOSSOM

Q: So you aren’t human. What are you, then?

A: I am a Jadeite. We are forest dwellers descended from the tree elves, which were descended from the dryads and the ancient forest elves. We live in small, scattered, and secluded places in cedar and oak forests, though our ancestors ruled the forest in the way you humans rule the rest of the world.

(For such a little girl, she can sure talk big. I suppose it’s all part of being a princess.)

Q: So what kind of importance do jade stones hold to you?

A: Jade stones contain the essences of the forest around us, and allow us to better communicate with and form a bond to our environment. We are called the Jadeites because the years have allowed us to strengthen our abilities to harness the forest energies through the jades; we are really no different from the old tree elves otherwise, except that we prefer the ground to the trees.

Q: So could the tree elves harness these “jade forest essences” too?

A. They are the ones who discovered the essences of jades. Before them, forest dwellers thought that emeralds contained the essences of the forests. This is true in small amounts, but jades contain much larger and more powerful forest essences. After they discovered this, the tree elves began to abandon emeralds in favor of jades. By the time of the first Jadeites, emeralds had been nearly completely abandoned. So yes, tree elves could harness the essences of jades, but it was a very newly discovered thing in their time.

(By now I had taken out my notepad and was ferociously writing down everything I could catch. If Apple Blossom minded this, she didn’t show it. But this whole thing about elves and princesses and “forest essences” was a story just waiting to happen.)

Q: What does the jade “tag” do, and what’s carved on the back of it?

A: For our peace of mind, we like to keep track of the humans that come by our land. When a human comes by, a tagger is sent out to place a tag on them. The tag provides a link between us and the human, and allows us to observe the human’s ways. Most lose or throw away their tag, many remove the tags on the spot, and some return only to throw the tag back. It is rare that anybody returns with their tag in hand. The tag is inscribed with your number.

(I showed her my tag and asked what number was carved on it. She said I was number five. Four other people had come by here at some point.)

Q: Did the other four make it in?

A: Only one of them returned, and he did not make it past the Grand Elder Guardian.

Q: Why did the Grand Elder Guardian let me in, especially since I apparently “disobeyed” him?

A: He was not planning to. He and the other guardians didn’t like that you disobeyed him by trying to bypass his web! The only reason he did let you in is because I respectfully requested it of him, and since it is my birthday he was willing to grant the request.

Q: Because you wanted to play with a “real, live human?”

A: Yes!

Well, I’ve always wanted to meet a real live fairy, elf, pixie, or nymph because I’ve always wanted to write about fairies, elves, pixies, and nymphs. I couldn’t very accurately write about them without meeting one first. Now I finally have my chance, and I don’t even need to come up with the story. The story began to tell itself the moment I met little Jadeite Princess Apple Blossom—though really, it started the moment I was “tagged."

It sucks that I don’t have much more time to journal today. I still have so much more to say about this day. But I guess I’ll have to save it all for tomorrow. I’ll dedicate my entire morning to writing about it. 

Into the Land of the Elves: The Stone

The Diary of Miss Aidyn Hall, author

July 6

12:27 PM

The Stone

            Sometimes a writer can find her best material in her own backyard.

            Well, maybe not if she has a particularly boring backyard. But with a backyard like mine, with its mile-high cherry tree (an excellent spring and summer hotel for squirrels), its miniature forest, its row of bright orange tiger lilies (planted by the people who used to live here), and its bright green garden pond (abandoned by the people who used to live here), there really is no end to the number of great things to write about.

            But for the next few days, I will be writing about something I didn’t know was in my backyard until just this morning. Since I’ve lived here for just a little over a year, you’re probably wondering what exactly could have slipped past my radar for so long. Well, this morning after breakfast, I decided to take a nice walk through the mini forest. It really is a mini forest, with all the trimmings of a real forest compressed into a small and convenient package. The red cedars and spruces and oaks are small (for a tree) but many. They form winding pathways, lush green groves, and bright, pretty clearings just like in the real forests. There are even small lakes and streams, formed by the medium-frequent rainfall. It’s the perfect place to walk, the perfect place to relax, and the perfect place to get some good material.

            I went out there with my notepad and wandered around in the way I always do, looking for things to jot down. I jotted down everything I could think of, and I jotted down things I’d already jotted down on previous walks—the deep Christmas green of the spruces, the way the sunlight shines through the trees, and the exact sound of the rushing stream (“kssshksshksshksssh”). But when I passed by something I was sure I’d never jotted down before, I knew that I had to get a closer look.

            There was a cluster of wild magnolias, all in bloom for the beginning of summer. Their silvery-green leaves and starry white flowers stuck out at me among the usually quite somber greens of the other trees. They were arranged in the formation of an arch, and looked almost as if they formed some sort of doorway. Below the arch, brush plants and vine clusters and small shrubs grew in a haphazard mess, as if to block off the doorway the magnolia trees formed.

            This I had to write down! Already, I was seeing everything that this archway could be: it could be a doorway to another world, like Oz or Fairyland or something along those lines. It could be a quick-transport portal to another part of our world—step through the arch and you’ll find yourself in China or Japan or Africa, or perhaps even another time period. Behind it was an old house, and there lived an eccentric woman who held on to a dark secret. It was blocked off because—well, I didn’t really get a chance to think over why it was blocked off. But I wanted an even closer look. There could have been something extremely useful to me beyond that archway, and I wanted to see for myself.

            I wandered through the scratchy brush plants as well as I could. They struck my ankles and left tiny scratches and cuts, but I didn’t let that stop me. I picked the vines apart and threw them aside. Something tugged on my left pants leg. I assumed it was another brush plant and I reached down to brush it out of the way. That’s when I discovered the stone.

            It was a small, round stone, the color of a jade. It was stuck inside my sandal and resting against my ankle. I picked it up, held it in the palm of my hand, and just looked at it, taking in every detail that I could write down: the stone was a perfectly circular shape, not a sphere but a disk, like a CD. It was a jade green color that matched the red cedars scattered around the forest. Certain lights turned it the color of the silvery-green magnolia leaves…

            I turned it over in my hand. On the back was some sort of carving, which appeared to be done with a needle. It looked like this:

It might have been found by some little kid who had decided to scribble on it. But I am not the type to stick to “might haves” without any further investigation. After lunch, I’ll go back to that magnolia archway to see if I can find anything else of note.

1:27 PM

           

            The magnolia archway was unblocked, just like that. The brush and vines had been cleared aside and I could go beyond the archway. I held on to the stone tightly and took one step, then two, three…the magnolias formed a neat pathway, and as I kept walking I had a strong feeling that I was going somewhere really far away, which was really silly—it was only a few steps into the woods, after all.

            On my tenth step, I ran into a massive spiderweb, complete with a massive brown spider—a daddy longlegs, from the looks of it. The web was stretched between two branches from two different magnolia trees, and I couldn’t go any further without demolishing it. It was such a big, well built web, and the daddy longlegs was such a pretty, almost regal looking spider. I didn’t want to demolish it.

            But I would really like to see where that path leads. I need to figure out an alternate route.

3:05 PM

I’m at the magnolia archway and I took my diary with me this time. I feel as if this could lead to something big, and I want all the documentation I can get. The archway is still unblocked (did I expect it to be blocked off again? I’m not sure). I’m going in. I’m going to count my steps. I should hit the spiderweb after ten.

            One

            Two

            Three

            Four

            Five

            Six

            Seven

            Eight

            Nine

            Ten

            Hello, Mr. Daddy Longlegs. You go about your business, sir. I promise I will not disrupt your afternoon routine. There’s some thick shrubbery surrounding the path. I could go around the web by stepping through that, but it’s going to cut up my legs pretty badly. Is that a trumpet I hear up ahead? Are there any native birds that sound like trumpets? Man, this brush is thick. And ow, I think I just cut my foot on a thorn! I must’ve stepped on one of those thorny vines. It doesn’t hurt much, just about as bad as getting a shot from the doctor.

            I can’t see the path anymore. How could I have lost my way so easily? I’ve explored in places much bigger, darker, deeper, and harder to navigate than this, and I’ve never lost my way! There are a ton of spiders out here, and I’ve been running into webs to and fro. Some are brown spiders, some are black spiders, some green, some white, and I think I saw a yellow one. The detours around webs must have turned me around. But still, how could I have strayed this far from the path?

            That trumpet sound is still going on. I am going to stop writing for now and start trying to find my way back.

4:40 PM

            I jotted everything down in my notepad as soon as I was able to make my way out. It took a while, and I nearly destroyed the webs of several poor spiders in the process, but here I am. I’m staying home for the rest of the day.

            That trumpet sound played until I made it back to the daddy longlegs’ giant web. It was a continuous, staccato “HONK! HONK! HONK!” and I wonder what kind of bird would make a cry like that—a forest-dwelling goose, perhaps? It sounded a lot more like an instrument than an animal.

           The stone was in my jeans pocket the whole time I was out there, and right now it’s resting in my left fist. I’ll keep it on my bedside table tonight, and I’ll keep it with me when I go out for tomorrow’s investigation. 

Secret Worlds and Fantastic Creatures: A Fairy from Space

Here on Earth, fairies are very, very elusive and rare. But up in space, where anything is possible and most everything is unexplored, there is a small planetoid that is home only to fairies. And one day, one of the more adventurous of these fairies decided that she wanted to see what other planets were like. So she had the interplanetary aeronautics department build a spaceship for her, and she set off on a voyage into space.

            An interplanetary voyage from Earth would take decades or even centuries, but that is because our spaceships are not powered by the magic of fairies. Spaceships powered by fairy magic can reach other planets in a very short time, and that is how this fairy voyager was able to reach Earth in only a matter of days.

            To the fairy, Earth looked like a magnificent blue crystal. She had once visited a cave that contained misty blue gems of all sizes, and she thought that Earth must be an enormous version of one of these gems. What a wonderful place to land! she thought, and she set the ship’s course for a landing on Earth.

            But when she landed, she discovered that it was not blue, but green; the ground she stood on was a vivid, eyecatching green, and scattered all around were tall structures covered in different shades of green. But when she looked up, she saw the beautiful misty blue she had been expecting, and it was just like the crystals in the cave. Those gems must be green inside, just like this one, she thought. I will have to break one open and see.

            As she walked along, she heard an odd babbling sound coming from a spot beyond the tall, green structures. She followed the sound, and found a stream of clear, dazzling liquid rushing against some grey rocks. It was very boring, compared to the rich red streams from her homeland. By now she knew that this was not a giant crystal; as far as she knew, crystals did not have streams in them.

            The babbling was not the only strange sound she heard—there were strange sounds coming from the tall, green structures as well. “Peep, peep, peep,” went the tall, green structures. Were the structures themselves making that sound, or was there something inside of them that was doing it? The fairy approached one of the structures for a closer look. It was covered in flat, bright green disks that rested on knobby brown bars. She broke off one of the disks to see if it was making that peeping sound. The disk felt light and thin in her hand, and it was made out of a very strange kind of rough paper. She held it to her ear, but no sound came out of it.

            Something was moving under the green disks. The fairy took a peek, and beheld a tiny flock of feathery little creatures, twisting their heads and hopping around and peep, peep, peeping. They were just about the funniest little things the fairy had ever seen, with their black, beady eyes and their short, skinny legs. She was sure that she could watch them all day, but she had so much else to see on this strange and funny planet.

        She returned to her ship and set its course for a voyage around this big, blue gem of a planet, wondering what other interesting things she would find. And she came to the conclusion that there could never be a planet as big, beautiful, and interesting as this one.

Rainbow Ice, Sugary Castle

Sherbet stars, rainbow ice,

a sugary castle in the land of sweets—

where ice cream houses stand along

the white, creamy, milky streets.

The sky is cream, the earth is candy,

and the moon a big white sugar drop.

At the pink cotton candy fair,

the carousel has a big red cherry on top.

The pixie-dust clouds come and pass,

the lemon sun rises and sets,

the fishermen out in the lemonade sea

catch candy fish in their peppermint-string nets.

Ice cream ships blast off into

the galaxy of honey and milk.

And on the land below, the people

don apparel made from chocolate silk.

Yes, there is nowhere quite as sweet

as right here in the land of sweets,

with its rainbow ice, its cream sky, 

its sugary castle, and its milky streets. 

Cancelled: Aliss and the Rose Dragon, The Children of the House on Briar Point

I will be unfortunately cancelling these stories because I really don't feel like they're going anywhere.

However, keep an eye out for new material to be added this week and next, including a new Secret Worlds and Fantastic Creatures, new poetry, and hopefully a new tale to take the place of these cancelled ones.

The Children of the House on Briar Point: Emily Meets the Sisters

Another girl was at the door.

Rebecca and Rosalind had seen other girls before,

but only on the other side

of the big white fence.

People never crossed to their side.

They rather liked it that way,

because they found it very hard to trust people.

People were loud.

People were rude.

People stole things,

hurt things,

and always showed up where they were not wanted.

“Who are you?” Rebecca asked the girl.

“I’m Emily,” the girl answered her.

“Those are my persimmons lying

on your front steps.”

Her voice shook,

and she was looking at her feet.

“Those can’t be your persimmons,” said Rosalind.

“They weren’t on your side of the big white fence.”

“They are mine,” insisted Emily.

“They fell from my tree,

so they are my persimmons.”

“Oh,” said Rosalind.
“Well, thank you very much.

They were very good persimmons.”

“But you stole them,” said Emily.

“You stole them and I want them back.”

“I’m sorry,” said Rebecca,
“but we’ve eaten nearly all of them.

But we can give you back the ones

that we didn’t eat.”

Emily looked up.

 “Thank you, I guess.

But I don’t have much else to eat,

so please don’t take any more of my persimmons.”

“You don’t have anything to eat?” asked Rebecca.

“Nothing?” asked Rosalind.

“Not much,” said Emily.

“I live alone

and there isn’t much I can get by myself.”

Rebecca and Rosalind looked at eachother.

Then they smiled.

“We have plenty of food,” said Rosalind.

“You can have some of ours.”

They didn’t trust people,

but Emily seemed like such a nice girl.

They didn’t think that such a nice girl

should only go with such a small amount of food.