Spring Maiden

    The day she disappeared began as any normal day. Elana woke up in her canopied bed to the sound of swallows chirping in wistful echoes at her windowsill. The first days of spring had arrived in Rivendale, bringing longer days and spindly dandelions. The strawberry bushes bloomed outside her window and their delicate scent drifted to her bedside.
     There was a knock at her door followed by the usual breakfast call as her maid servant, Gilda, checked in on her.
     "  I'll be right there,"   Elana called back, taking time to feel the sunlight glisten on her skin. She reluctantly relinquished her previous night's dreams, allowing them to dissolve into fond remembrances. Elana stretched her limbs languorously and sat up, her hair falling around her shoulders in waves of shining auburn. She enjoyed languishing in each moment, whittling away her time in wistful daydream. The rest of the world could wait for her to attend breakfast.
     Elana stood and walked outside onto her balcony. The morning breeze flowed around her, lifting stray strands of her hair and rustling her nightgown. While her eyes savored the sight of the gardens that spread below her, she spotted a redbreast patrolling the freshly grown stubble of green for worms and berries. She yearned to sing to it, and whistled a questioning tune.
     To her surprise, the bird turned a black eye in her direction, staring at her as though regarding her in a sudden whim of acquired intelligence. It responded with a haunting coo that sent shivers rippling through her body. She felt like her heart's wish had come true only to discover that it was not what she wanted at all. In a heartbeat, it was just a bird again, hopping along on a quest to find food.
     Elana wondered if her imagination had momentarily usurped her reason. Her stomach rumbled and in a change of heart she felt eager for human companionship. Breakfast wasn't such an inconvenience after all.
     When Elana descended the steps to the main dining chamber, she heard strange voices mingling with those of her parents. She paused, a foot on one step and the other a step above it. She should have dressed in something more formal than a tussled nightgown.
     The sound of light laughter wafted up the stairwell. Elana leaned forward, balancing on the carved woodwork of the banister. If she strained her ears, she could barely hear the words being said.
     The first voice was her father's, "  I must say, this is a most beneficial arrangement."
     The next voice was low and rough, an older man's perhaps, "  Yes, well, I thought we could work out an agreement. You know, with our new-found fortune my son will inherit acres of land in just three months on his twenty-first birthday."
     Elana's nerves started to bubble throughout her body. Was this the day she was dreading? Had they really succeeded in arranging a marriage for her? She winced at the thought of change. Elana relished her life in her family's mansion in Rivendale and her idle days of roving around the gardens with no set purpose or agenda to adhere to. If she had a say in the matter, she'd stay here forever. But she was not the firstborn, and her older brother stood to inherit the estate on the eve of his twenty-first birthday.
     She listened further.
    "  Have you consulted Barrow on the matter?"
     Elanas' eyes flared in shock. Anger followed next, surging through her body like a tidal wave. Barrow Tiln was a farmer's son, a local mooncalf of a man that squandered his time in studying old legends and, of all foolish pastimes, roamed through blizzards in bare feet. While she savored spring;s gentle caress, he craved winter's cold embrace. He was the exact opposite of anyone that she would choose for herself.
     "  He eagerly awaits her answer."
     Elana fell back against the banister. The world was spinning around her, as if she was marked For Sale, a glinting vase twirling on a potter's wheel. Her life flashed before her; a life of farming, chores, and servitude.
     "  Where is Elana?"  Her mother's voice was concerned. "She is late this morning."
     The murmur of her maid servant came after, "  I'll go fetch her."
     Elana felt betrayal pierce her heart. Her servant knew her better than to hasten her unwanted destiny. Gilda was well aware of Elana's abhorrence of arranged marriages. Unless, Elana thought with a tinge of anger, the servant was exacting her revenge for all the times that she was forced to wait for Elana's lavish delays.
     Elana picked herself up, collected the sheer fabric of her nightgown in her hands, and scuffled back to her room in her satin slippers. She shut the door behind her, bolting it with the silver hinged lock. Eyes darting around her room, she searched for a avenue of escape. The spring winds from her balcony beckoned to her, lifting the curtains with their floating breeze like long arms reaching to embrace her.
     An expectant knock came from her door. "  My lady, you are needed in the main audience chamber."
     Elana breathed deeply, trying to keep her voice calm. "  Yes Gilda, just a moment."   With hasty steps, she stumbled to the balcony. Dizziness grabbed hold of her as she peered over the railing. The drop was over thirty feet. She couldn't possibly leap that far without spraining an ankle, breaking a leg, or snapping her neck. She needed a ladder, a rope, something to lower herself.
     Elana's bed sat like a throne at the head of the room, rumpled sheets spilling onto the marble floor. Elana scooped up the sheets, filling her arms, and threw the bundle over her shoulder. With a tug that sent her teetering on her ankles, she stripped her bed to the mattress beneath. In a double knot, she tied the mattress shift to her bed post. It reached all the way to the balcony. Yanking hard, she knotted the cover sheet to the shift. It stretched half way down. Considering the distance, fifteen feet was not far.   Back to Spring Maiden

Summer Sprite

    It was the finest work Kira had ever accomplished. A playful smirk touched the corners of her vibrant lips. She mused . . . a hunter paired with a Lady of the Forest, and a lowly farmhand with the Queen of Snow. Her meddling was crafty toil indeed, and much to be proud of.
   Waves collapsed against the shore, spraying sea foam into the misted air as Kira skipped barefoot across the black sand beach. The sea lent her a rush of freedom as the waning tide drifted off to meet the horizon.
   But with feelings of success came the usual tinge of melancholy. It wasn't easy being a love sprite, pairing couple after couple to return to a lonesome cottage, perched on a jagged cliff's edge by the ocean side. Love was always around her, but never her own. Her parents warned her when she ran off to spread her magic across the world, but heedless and headstrong as she was, their words fell on insolent ears.
   "  Love sprites are the lone stars in the grand scheme of love,"   her mother would advise. Her copper eyes were watery and luminous as her wrinkled hands brushed Kira's sunshine hair. "  They spread so much of it they never have any left for themselves."
   "  Love isn't for me, Mom,"   Kira would reply in whimsical nonchalance. "It's a burden, a hindrance that weighs you down. I prefer to be free. Besides, it seems like more fun to stir up mischief and guide others to a path they wouldn't otherwise find for themselves."
   Her mother sighed, "  The day may come when you will hunger for change, for a companion to walk with you on this earth."    Back to Summer Sprite

Winter Queen

   She was used to extravagance. In order to gain access to the bridge, some men masked their desires in bribes. They arrived with roses in their arms, plucked from the bowers in the south where winter could claim no steady grasp. They brought beaded trinkets from exotic civilizations, strung by thin fingers in dusty sand dunes, or worse yet, poems that eloquent poets were paid a lofty price to write, describing her illustrious beauty in fascinating turns of speech. She knew all too well how fickle they were once they had the gold in their hands. Their paltry favors were a transparent cover to the greed that lay beneath.
     Yet others tried to impress her with their valor, bravery, and fortitude. They brought bleeding heads of Minotaurs, horns plucked from unicorns, or stray feathers from a harpy's wing. They shouted until their lungs burst, boasting of their heroic deeds, feats of strength, and illusions of grandeur. She saw past their shallow gallantry to the violence that spurred its propagation.
     Others came with weapons to fight her, wielding magic swords, amulets of power, or the axes of grand warriors forged in the dark caves of the cavern dwarves. At least these men were honest, the Queen thought, as she defeated them one by one by freezing their grandiose weapons in their very grasp.
     But this young man stood empty handed like a beggar or a fool. He had no present to entice her, or weapon to fight for his life.
     "  Go on,"   she whispered to the ice-covered evergreens, "  try to cross the bridge."
     But the young man stopped at the foot of the mountain expanse, looking around him as if he waited for someone. But who would meet him in such a place?
     The Queen leapt from bow to bow, watching, waiting, and biding her time. Her mind played with options like a lion preying on a deer. She could not decide what deadly destiny to deal him. If he did not try the bridge, there would be no frozen misstep or gusty gale to sweep him off the edge. His stubbornness aggravated her. She would have to find another way to claim his soul.
     "  Lianna,"   he called out, "  Are you there?"
     The sound of the name spurred a rush of melancholy that washed over her, clouding her confidence. It could not be, the Queen thought in shock. She stumbled over, almost falling off her high perch in the evergreen.   Back to Winter Queen

Chameleon's Colors

    The bulky velvet curtain rose inch by inch in a ponderous black sunrise. Kaylee surveyed a sea of glossy eyes, all staring eagerly in anticipation. She stood gracefully from her stool on the ancient night-shrouded stage and released the clasp on her black cloak. The fabric fluttered behind her like a bat’s wings before drifting to rest in a linen puddle on the stage. Music filled the tent, heightening to an ominous swell of mysterious chimes with the surge of ocean waves.
      Kaylee could feel her skin burning, as if the sun were all around her, within her, flowing like liquid gold through her veins. The screen behind her was a deep scarlet, and so that’s what her skin became.
The audience watched in a silent hush of awe as spirals of burgundy and bursts of dark crimson blossomed on her naked torso, spreading to engulf her body. In an instant, she was invisible. Every inch of skin blended with the backdrop, except the small snakeskin bikini that clung to her body and the glowing whites of her eyes.
      Next the screen softened to an iridescent indigo, and the music diminished to a lull of birdsong and the patter of rain. Kaylee danced, twirling on tippy-toe as a refreshing calm spread through her like a breath of sweet wind on a stifling day. She felt her body grow cool as swirls of cobalt and explosions of azure littered her back in fireworks. Each time she changed color was a different experience, setting off capricious patterns of hued rainbows on her skin. All at once, she was a visual masterpiece before she disappeared into oblivion.
Once totally invisible, she crept up to the front of the stage and approached a handsome young man in the front row. When the screen turned again, he cried out in surprise to find a cobalt beauty perching inches from his face. She laughed lightly and swept herself up onto her feet, lilting to the liquid flow of music and colors of the digital tapestries that flickered behind her.
      It was time for the glorious showstopper finale. The music took on a tribal beat, ancient drums pounding like bones on dried skin. Kaylee shouted a war cry and spun around to a screen of multicolored rainbows, every hue imaginable. Her body changed from gold to silver, dappled salmon to stripes of jade and back again. She somersaulted, jumped, and then spun around, urged on by the audience’s claps on each throbbing beat.
With a clash of cymbals and timpani, the screen flashed and went black. Kaylee froze in an Egyptian stance, her arms zigzagging out in front of her and her breath heaving from the exertion. A thunder of applause erupted and she released her pose and bowed ceremoniously. Before her skin turned again, she snatched the cloak and spread it around her body, the hood casting shadows on the rose-colored patterns that withered on her cheeks.
      Kaylee walked offstage quickly, ignoring the audience’s cries for more. Her skin sizzled and she needed to rest. A bodyguard guided her down the hall and into her dimly-lit dressing room at the back of the performer’s tent.
Plopping down in the make up chair, Kaylee smiled to herself, satisfied. It was another show down, another audience enthralled. She was a born performer, and had found her calling in the grand scheme of the universe, a place where she was accepted, honored, and glorified. Her life was complete.
      This was a big improvement. A year ago she was nobody, an ordinary teenager with no one to care about her, and she had risked everything to get someone to notice her. Even now the desperate scene plagued her dreams; the fateful day, the one instance of choice that would decide the rest of her life.  Back to Chameleon's Colors

Seer's Destiny

    “I need to know if she’ll be famous someday.”
    Vira’s eyes fluttered, her long, black lashes batting in the air. She tilted her head back, the rhinestones and beads glinting on her head scarf as she swayed precariously before focusing her energy and gazing into the fathomless mists of her crystal ball. Her voice seemed to resound from another dimension, solemn as an effigy.
    “There is an old farm house with chipped white paint and bricks of clay veiled in weeping willows. I see a rusty blue pick up truck and a red checkered tablecloth hanging from a clothes line, wafting on a summer breeze.”
The couple sat before her, huddling together. They leaned forward with keen eyes, eager for more. “But what of her career as an actress? What about all of the money we’ve invested in her lessons?”
    Vira peered deeper into the glass, sifting through the wisps of time. She sensed movement inside the house, a flickering motion in front of the master bedroom window and could smell the sweet tang of apple pie baking in the kitchen. Was that the outline of a woman carrying an infant?
     She pressed forward until her temples throbbed from the pressure, but the scene remained unchanged. She was losing contact with the tenuous strand of thought. As she pulled the vision closer toward her, the very boundaries that held it threatened to tear.
    “I’m sorry, there is no more that I can tell you.”
    “But you didn't tell us anything.” The man’s eyes flared and his neck bulged with irritation like an angry bullfrog. His wife covered her face with her hands.
    Vira stifled a frustrated sigh, long black nails tapping on the crystal. People only wished to hear their fondest dreams, and never the looming reality. Other tellers would stoop so low as to feed them a delusional future in order to squeeze an extra tip. Not Vira. She prophesied the truth, whether it was invited and embraced or not.
     “I warned you before we started that my visions are not complete. I can see glimpses of her future and nothing more.”
    “You’re not a true fortuneteller, then, are you?”
Vira swept one long, ebony curl away from her eyebrow and underneath the scarf. Her blue eyes filled with a sad wisdom beyond her years. “Has it occurred to you perhaps she wants a different life?”
    Sometimes she felt like more of a counselor than a fortuneteller, persuading people to accept the futures awaiting them. The frequent disappointments were the reason she had people pay up front.
    The man stood up quickly from his chair, taking his coat in one arm and pulling his wife up with the other, “Come on, honey, we’ll try someone else. This woman is obviously a fake.”
    They stormed out the front flaps of her tent, velvet curtains swishing behind them. Outside Vira could hear the toot and chime of the rickety carousel mingling with children’s laughter as it spun around another turn, gilded horses gliding over trampled grass. Although the sky verged on sunset, the festivities just began. The carnival blossomed, —even reveled in the twilight hours of the night.
    The light of the crystal died slowly until it was only an ember of white radiance, sparkling in the center and casting shadows on the billowy awnings that shut the world out. Vira tried to shake off the unpleasant encounter. Years of dissatisfied customers did not curb the sting.
    Deep down in her gut Vera knew her powers were far from fake. In fact, she was the only true seer of the carnival, her visions disturbingly real. Oftentimes, she cursed the fact her crystal ball failed to portray the world through a rosy glass. But in the end, she’d rather know the truth than paint some dreamy picture of a future that could only exist in a fairytale.
     Vira moved to check for another customer when the crystal called her back, pulsing a warning of faint light. She took her seat reverently, placing her small hands on the table beside the bronze dragon claws sprouting from the wood, holding the crystal gently in serpentine talons.
    She knew what the crystal had in store. The scene was all too familiar, yet every time she watched it run its course, her heart raced as if it were happening in that very moment and not some distant future. Every vision began and ended the same: she beheld her wildest dreams betwixt her most frightening nightmares. Worse yet, the visions were getting more frequent, occurring daily.
    Each time she found her true love, the young man who had eluded her for almost a decade. And each time she witnessed her own death, the blood running rampant until the crystal blotted red. The vision mesmerized her, turning her to stone as she observed with her eyes wide open. She wished that somehow the chain of events would magically be broken.
    And now the crystal would tell it again.
    Vira leaned in and watched, powerless. When the mists cleared, she saw a night with a crescent moon overhead, a glossy scythe dressed in wisps of black clouds. It stared at her with a bleak, covered eye, indifferent to the scene transpiring below. Beams of light shone down on the board walk, merrymakers sauntering from stall to stall. She could make out Jimmy’s dart booth, followed by the wishing well. Behind the teetering rides loomed the cage of the mythical beast captured for display, the last one of its kind. It was the true draw of the Masquerade Carnival, for in the barred depths of the prison paced the hunched-feathered aging harpy.
    A man emerged from the crowd. His face was stronger now, leaner, with crisp angles. But his vibrant green eyes held the same brilliant luster. She remembered his name, savoring it slowly on the tip of her tongue. Bravian. One night, a decade ago, when she was a young teenager, he had asked her to run away with him.
    “Trust me,” he said, pulling her hand. His hand was hot with excitement and passion. “We can escape all of this and live a normal life.” She had refused. Tempted by lust, but not convinced. The carnival was the only home she’d ever known. It embraced her talents and cherished her with a quiet dignity. The real world would mock and shun her abilities. She would be forced to stifle them or branded witch evermore. The decision was one she would ponder these ten years, rolling it around in her mind like a loose marble, eternally unresolved.
    Now there he was in her crystal ball ten years later with the nerve to stroll her boardwalk in a calm and confident stride. More importantly, he searched, scanning the grounds. Vira’s heart wondered if he searched for her.
The vision played out like a movie she’d watched a thousand times. She saw herself meet him, fall into his arms as if the past were yesterday. She could almost feel his heat against her body as she watched the mists unfold her destiny. The two of them nibbled on caramel popcorn and frizzy cotton candy, rode the Ferris wheel and kissed underneath the stars.
    They enjoyed a wonderful night until the gunshot and the sheets of red. As always, the mists of the ball were ambiguous, blotting out the murderer’s face. She could make out the gun, a shiny steel cylinder glinting in the moonlight, movement around her, and then the pop of the explosion.
    The last image that surfaced from the murky orb was of blood. She was covered in it, lying on the ground with a grimacing mask on her face. It soaked into her billowy white seer’s shirt until the fabric was a dark scarlet. There was so much blood on her limp body it could fill the dipping tank.
Vira leaned back, her head reeling. The vision had come and gone and now the crystal lay silent. She could leave the carnival, pack her bags and attempt to change her fate. But a quiet resignation and gnawing hunger, bordering on madness, kept her here night after night.
    She craved Bravian’s touch. She yearned to see him again, to feel his arms hold her tightly. Even if it meant her own demise. Part of her feared her future, wishing it would never come, but a greater part of her beseeched it each and every day.
    Logic dictated that her destiny was unavoidable. Every future she’d ever told came true. Even if she’d try to run away, fate would wind its web together and she’d find herself back in Bravian’s arms on the appointed evening at the predestined time. Why fight the inevitable when half of your soul had already sold itself to come true?
    A hopeless romantic, that’s what I am. Vira chided herself as she stepped out into the emerging night. She swung her gold painted tarot sign of the sun and the moon commingling around from Seer’s Welcome to Temporarily Unavailable. She’d had enough disenchantment for one night and was in no mood to torture another customer with the truth. A full moon hovered over her head, predicting this night would bring only more of the same. She was safe until the next crescent moon pierced the midnight sky. Her crystal ball showed no other in each vision of her future.
    Vira walked around the rides, skirting the dank cage that held the feathered harpy. The sight of the mysterious beast always unnerved her, fear and pity creeping in like ghoulish ghosts. She had too big of a heart for such complicated emotions. It was far easier to ignore and deny rather than pity.        Back to Seer's Destiny