**DAPHNE**
*I flash backward in time. The scenery passing over my eyes in a blur. Suddenly I am back in the cottage of the Hadimere Forest. An old woman, dressed in leaves and brown skirts stands before me with jewelline tears in her eyes. A wild tornado of leaves floats about her, like bees around a hive and thick tendrils of her long brown hair flutter high and low, seeming alive with magic.*
*This witch, I know her and I don’t. My mind struggles, clawing through webs of dusty memories as I try and grasp a name.*
*Then, suddenly, I hear it. I have it. Her name.*
*She is the Witch of Whispering Leaves. A friend of Hidden Fae. Somehow, I know this to be truth. Somehow, I remember that she smells like tree sap and oaks, like evergreens and maple leaves.*
*“We must find another way! I will not lose you to him!” She begs me.*
*Then again, is it me? It seems that I am there, but I am not. The woman the witch is speaking to looks much like me. Long brown hair, eyes like glowing emeralds. My gaze falls upon my stomach and I gasp. That cannot be me. This woman is with child and far riper than myself. This woman is close to the end of her last term.*
*“My queen, please! I beg of you! Allow me go to the Shadow King and tell him of your plight. He will see justice done!” The witch begs.*
*“No!” The woman commands. “He must not know until it is done! You know the laws of the realms. If we are found out before the child is born, I will forfeit my kingdom and I will have nothing to pass on. No! He will need to help protect our kingdom. He must find a way. The Meadow King can never find it. He can never find her! I have seen my death and it is near, old friend, please let it be. Come, we will meet with the mortal woman this eve.”*
*I blink and we are near the river behind the house of Farmer Myrh. The cruel human man whose heavy hand has killed the babe inside of his wife’s womb.*
*The farmer’s wife is there too, tears in her eyes as she makes a promise. Isabel is there as well, however she is but a child and cannot hear my voice when I shout my love for her from my phantom mouth, amongst the winds.*
*Isabel! I love you!*
*The witch is casting upon a strange magic. Leaves are swirling in a cyclone of green. The Fae Queen and the mortal woman exchange a blood vow, sealed between their joined hands. Two children are pulled from the women’s bodies. Babies. Both are still, neither of them breathing, but… the mortal child is gray of flesh.*
*One is dead and one... is me.*
*I am replanted into the mortal woman's womb and the dead babe replanted into the Fae Queen.*
*The ceremony complete, the witch turns to Isabel, kissing her upon her brow.*
*The queen kneels at young Isabel’s feet. “You mustn’t tell her who she is. Always keep it secret. I am counting on you, dear Isabel. Can you do this?"*
*The young Isabel nods, brave even in youth.*
*"She must live as a human until the time of your passing. Do you understand?”*
*"Yes," Isabel says, her face solemn.*
*“You will care for the Fae Princess for the rest of your living days and for that you will be greatly rewarded in the Valley of Great Rest. You will come to Faery in eighteen winters. But not in your mortal form. Do you agree?"*
*"Yes," Isabel vows.*
*"Do you understand the task I have set before you, child? For your mother will not live past Daphne’s birth.” Again, Isabel nods and I begin to sob, great crocodile tears, begging her to say no, but she does not hear me. I am but a ghost. “Do you promise to tell her stories of the Fae and keep her safe from the Woodland King?”*
*“I do,” Isabel cries, falling into the arms of the queen for a long hug.*
*“Good. You are special and I will send you many stories in many dreams,” the queen sighs. “You will rule as a princess of the dead upon your passing and all will know you as a Knight of the Fae. Ruler of the Valley of Great Rest. On that day, your fairytale will be your own.”*
*Another blink and I am standing in a great clearing, the queen powerless and tied to an enormous stake in the Earth. Yet, she is not afraid. No, instead she is satisfied. Even, dare I say, hopeful.*
*A young King Hadimere stands before her, his tiny son Hayden at his feet. A tremendous number of his guard stand to bear witness to his vanquishing of this Fae Queen.*
*“Abomination!” Hadimere dreams, “Think you that I would not find out? Do you dare to breed on foreign shores? Think you that you are even more mighty than a king? You and your abomination shall warm the night with the kindling of your flesh and I shall banish your supreme evil to the darkest of hells!”*
*The Fae Queen laughs, a sound that rouses the trees, and I watch as they shed their tears and listen as they whisper goodbye. The queen speaks in a voice that trembles the ground beneath mortal feet, “My daughter will bring your demise, human king. Remember me when you take your last breath, for I will be there to watch you fall and I will pay your fare when the ferryman comes for you.”*
*King Hadimere is shouting words I do not - cannot - understand. For I am fading back and away from this time. In a rush of wind, at last, my mother’s eyes meet mine and I hover some twenty feet above the ground. She smiles at me through a sea of tears.*
*She sees me and in this moment I know that she is here and there and I am there and here. All the same, yet not. A message lost to time that has been waiting eighteen turns.*
*"Daphne," she whispers out loud, although the mortals do not seem to notice. “Find the Witch of the Whispering Leaves. She whom roams with the wildlings of the Hadimere Forest. Let her be your guide,” she says into the wind like a spell. “Find your father in shadow and let all of our kingdom know - he is not the Woodland King. And it is my dying wish that you shall rule in my stead." Then, in a softer voice, that falls on an echo, "Always remember that I was a beloved queen and that you were a beloved daughter. A child of love. Of a King and a Queen of Fae.” Then, my mother’s eyes tear away from mine as she shouts down at the humans that surround her. She laughs, “My daughter lives.”*
*The king lights the kindling beneath her feet with a torch and her body is set aflame. Fire chases up her dress in sparkles of black dust until she stops moving. The swell of her pregnant belly as dead as the child inside. They are free now, she mortal child and the queen. She burns in silence, a smile frozen upon her lips.*
*My mother. The Queen of Hidden Fae... is no more.*
My eyes flutter open.
I am awake.