The Hidden Realm
DAPHNE
What happens next is a rush of sightless footsteps as each faerie zooms forward in a mad dash toward a massive tree that takes up the entire cliff’s edge.
It is one of the trees I spied from the trench on our way to The Alley. One with marvelously bright green leaves painted gold at the tips. But this one is much larger. This one is truly mighty.
The gate can’t be here, can it?
How lost and well hidden can it be if marked by the largest oak in all the realms?
As I stand there beyond the tunnels exit, surrounded by evergreens and the like, the book speaks, ”The Gate is Lost because it follows you, my child. It is in every place you are and in no place at the same time. The Lost Gate is where you choose it should be. For now, choose this… Golden Oak… for it is large enough for all to pass through in an instant. But be weary of your back and of who follows. Go! Be quick now! The false one comes!”
“Shit!” I stammer, watching as fallen leaves flutter upward with the stampede of invisible feet. “Hurry!” I scream, waiting there for every hoofbeat and every footstep to pass me before I wander toward what only I can unlock.
And how am I to do so? How in the name of all that is holy am I to unlock the damn thing?
And just like that, my body begins to glow.
“What is happening?” I say to nothing and no one as I stand there amidst the trees. “Why am I glowing?”
“Daphne!” Magda calls out. “Behind you!”
Her eyes are as big as saucers and Trielle’s whinnies beneath me as we spin in a half circle and time slows to a near stop.
My awareness brightens, reaching in a circle with arms I cannot see. My eyes fall shut and behind black lids I am able to see all that I’ve hidden… each and every faerie that I placed behind the veil of my magic. They are all accounted for. All of the little faeries await at the base of the oak.
Glancing toward them, the sight that I see behind closed eyes is truly magnificent. The cliff has disappeared and in its place is a rolling grove filled with trees that blot out the sky. Each one speckled with windows and doors, lit from within with a simple candle and flame. Winged fae stop and stare toward the Golden Oak on the other side, as a giant portal erupts behind it. Between us and them. My people… they wait.
I can see them.
I can see them all.
And I know them… deep down in my soul… I do.
Just as I know the creature that comes for me.
The Dracuum. The giant woodland spider of old.
There is no danger here. It is all a part of me.
I turn to face the beast, eyes open, and meet his eight sided gaze without fear.
The creature, the Dracuum, is the heighth of five men, with fangs as long as I am tall. She is pregnant, and a matte, dusty black with beautiful green and yellow inscriptions along her belly. She stops before me and kneels, her pointed feet burrowing into the ground as she speaks without words.
”I seek to go home.”
I feel and hear the still of all those behind me when I nod and say in a voice strong and clear, “Then you shall. Follow us.”
Klyesque’s voice sounds to my right, “Are you certain about this, Daphne? For the Dracuum have been soldiers of the False King for over eighteen turns.”
The Dracuum, lifts to its full height and I smile at my friend, closing my eyes so that I might see where she stands.
She and Delago stand to the right of me, Klyesque with her sword drawn and Delago breathing hot smoke.
“I am sure,” I answer.
A sound in the distance causes the Dracuum to squeal in warning.
The False King… he is near.
“Release the veil!” I scream, pocketing the book, even as my body glows and every other fae in my company is revealed.
A new wind breezes our war and as I gaze in its direction, I can almost feel the Meadow King’s closeness.
“Follow me!” I shout as I turn Trielle and we race toward the Golden Oak, never slowing once.
The moment I cross I feel it. Much like before, a waterfall of energy rides above my head. Faeries in a motley of size and species flood the opening around me. Some of them scream in fear, some of them shout with joy. The vision that I sought when I closed my eyes is before us now.
Copses of trees lit with welcoming windows and bridges that string from one branch to the next. Evergreens and oaks. Maples and elms. All twenty times the size of those in the Mortal Realm and each one adorned with the glow of fae lanterns. It is so magical I almost weep. In fact, it physically hurts to look away from it as I face the gate and the woods that lay beyond. Watching as the very last to cross does. The Dracuum.
Then the howl of the foreign wind dies and what lay behind it is a mirror of what we just left behind, but in a shroud of darkness that is slowly fading into a single, uninhabited, golden oak.
The book speaks, ”Welcome, my queen. Welcome… to the Missing Meadow… to the Hidden Realm. You are home. ”