~The Dye Is Cast

Now the time has come my dear for you to wander else where but here. You will see the things that might make you smile or jump in fright. Don't be afraid, don't be alarmed, for only you can allow such harm. And if you're strong and if you stay, you might just wake to see another day. You've made your choice, you've said you vows, you pricked your finger, you've heard the howls. No turning back, no second thoughts, the dye is cast, and your future is now told.

How, oh how did it come to this. Not more than two hours ago I had sat in the comfort and warmth of my grandparents house and made a choice that I was forced to make. She said it wouldn't be easy, she said that I would see with more than just my eyes, she said I would have to face things that most only dream of in nightmares, and now here I was. I was standing in the woods, deep in the dark woods that surrounded my grandparents house and I was waiting. I was waiting for what Ashlin said would be my initiation. It wasn't supposed to be me, my grandmother was the one that said she would handle it, but Ashlin remained firm in the belief that I should go, it was time for me to go.

So there I stood, waiting and watching, and wondering what I would have to contend with, what I would have to face. I sat down, and stayed firmly planted in the middle of the ring of salt that Ashlin said I should draw for protection. Nothing she said could harm me as long as I stayed in that circle. What I thought would I see? Would it be monster's from story books, trolls that sat under bridges looking for something to eat, or pleasant fairies that would take my apprehension and fear away?

The full moon was gleaming in the sky, and the air was still, and the night calm. And as I started to relax, I saw it. A ripple at first, a ripple in the air, like one that you might see in water coming at me from the trees in front of me. It drew closer and as it drew closer it became a ripple with light in it. And then I saw a figure being born from this ripple that was fast approaching. Before I could catch my breath it stood in front of me, she stood in front of me, ghastly white and glowing, and yet almost floating on the air and looking down at me with such warmth that I lost my fear and found myself more curious than scared.

"Who are you?" I said

The women looked down at me with warm eyes, and I saw what looked to me to be the beautiful women from The Birth of Venus. Except her hair was jet black, and she was as thin as a rail, and wearing what looked to be ivy.

"I am the mother of the crossroads. You have come to meet me have you not?"

"Yes" I said in a whisper.

"Well then you know why you are here, and I am to instruct you in your duty that you will meet to those that have lost their way."

"Those who have lost there way?"

"Yes, look." And with that she turned and stretched out her hand, and I saw a sight I thought might cause me to go weak in the knees and faint, but somehow I stayed alert and awake, and I couldn't, I just couldn't tear my eyes away from the terrific sight that stood in front of me.

(Please look back at old posts to start the beginning of this story. It has taken me awhile, but I promise I will finish it one of these days, it just seems to be a lot longer than I had planned. Oh well, stories once started have quite a mind of there own!!!!!!!)

The Truth Is Told.

After my initial shock, I accepted a cup of tea from my grandmother and sat down with the kaleidoscope of strange people I had just met. Never had I thought that I would be sitting next to a gnome, that was stuff of fairy tales, child's play, imaginations that couldn't possibly be real. And the women, who watched me calmly, with such interest, a witch, a witch without moles or a cackle for a laugh, a witch who brought a calm and a protective aura over me. Her name was Ashlin, and she was a local in the next town over, someone I had never heard of or seen. It was though she had appeared out of nowhere.
I sat sipping my tea hands still shaking waiting to hear what they had to say, what they wanted me to know, what I had to know. Something I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. I looked over at my grandmother, she was wringing her hands, shadows under her eyes, something I had never seen before. My grandfather was sitting cross legged in his chair, something my grandmother usually hated, but she didn't even seem to take notice. And he stared into space, as though he was lost in a thought so deep he might not come back.
Her voice brought me out of my trance.
"Child we need to tell you the truth." Ashlin said with a calm smile.
"But I do not think that I should be the one to tell you. Your dear grandparents must."
My grandmother looked at me, suddenly alert with the look I had grown up to recognize, the matter of fact look.
"Emily Jane, you have to make a choice soon, and a very hard choice, a choice that has been passed down through the generations, through all these long years."
" We are not of this world exactly, you are not of this world exactly, we've never been, you've never been."
And at the uttering of this, she broke into a soft sob held hung down.
"My darling girl," my grandfather said looking at me from his seat. We are creatures of the earth, it was mixed in with our blood when we were born. It is a blessing and it is a curse. You will be faced with things so evil and dark that you will be forced to fight, yet you will be blessed with a light so bright, at times it will be blinding."
I put my tea cup down, well more like slammed it down.
" Grandma and Grandpa, now what in the Sam hell are you talking about?" I was screaming now.
"I see a creature on the front porch, I beg for an explanation, and grandma you scream and throw a fit, and grandpa you talk to me like a poet who's hallucinated way to much!"
"And now you want to tell me, you mean to tell me, that I'm not of this world? I'm going to have to make a choice, that I was always going to have to make? Now you tell me after years of thinking you two were just eccentric hippies that never left the sixties!"
"ENOUGH!" Ashlin said with a volume in her voice that I couldn't imagine she'd have.
"You are ready, you must make a choice. It isn't any one's fault. This is in your blood. It is who you are, what you are, who you'll become."
"Well what am I choosing?" I said meekly.
"You are choosing which path you will take. Will you go with your grandfather and choose to bear wings as he does, take care of all the magical creatures, and face those that are unimaginable? Or will you choose your grandmothers path. A sight that is not only from her eyes, the ability to grow and understand the workings of things unseen. Yet also the ability to help those that are lost, that haven't passed over, and the ones that are dark and refuse to pass. Which one will you choose?"
"What if I don't choose either?" I said quietly.
"Then you will become one of the children, the children of the rain. Lost and searching forever, stuck in time, stuck in what was, without being able to touch it. Stuck in self exile, stuck in a sort of purgatory." Ashlin said as she looked at me with wise eyes.
"Your purpose is to help, that is what you are here for, that is what everyone is here for. You are just a tad bit different." She spoke again, calmly and quietly.
I looked around at my grandmother, my grandfather, Sir. Stuart, and Ashlin. I looked around at everyone, knowing that my life would never be the same again. I knew what I would choose. I'd always felt the presence with me. I looked at Ashlin with a sudden shock of confidence and said,
"how do I choose?"

A Meeting Is Made.

I awoke to a room filled with morning sunlight. I knew I was snug and tight in my grandmother's old iron bed. I looked out the window, trees swaying in the wind, still groggy and hurting from my fall. But most of all confused as ever and desperate for answers. I made my way out of bed, noticing I was in one of my grandmothers nightgowns, with her socks on my feet. I grabbed a lavender cotton robe that someone had layed out for me, and started to make my way downstairs. I stopped on the second step, I heard voices. Some recognizable and others not. I heard grandma and grandpa, that strange English accent that sounded like it was coming from a miniature man, and another voice of a women with a twang of Scottish to it. My grandmother was arguing with the Scottish women from what I could tell.
"I don't think now is the time to tell her." My grandmother said sternly.
"Well you certainly didn't think that a day ago when she passed out in the barn, white as snow from what she'd seen." The miniature English accent said.
Stay out of this Sir Stuart, you will not make decisions for the what I think is the best interest of my granddaughter." My grandmother said in a voice that would chill anyone to the bone. The famous grandma voice I thought.
"Now Magda don't you think that it is time that she knows, all the signs, all the visits, and the questions she's had, I'm surprised we weren't faced with this years ago." My grandfather said, again not in rhyme?
"I will make the decision! I will decide what we will choose to tell her!" This time my grandmother had lost that icy cool she always had, and was screaming like a banshee.
All went silent for a few minutes until I heard her talk. Her voice was calming, and filled me with a warmth and comfort and I felt safe just hearing her speak.
"The girl needs to know what she faces. The girl needs to know the truth. I've watched her for many years, and she is ready. Their is no other way, we tell her now, we tell her to enlighten her, to give her something she has always been missing, to protect her. We tell her because we must." The Scottish accent lulled me into a trance almost, and all the anxiety I had been feeling left me, and I felt light.
"We will tell her now, because she has been standing on the stairs for sometime now, and I am perfectly confident that she has heard us all. My dear child won't you come down and join us in the living room?"
I was nervous instantly, I didn't know what awaited me, who awaited me. I slowly cautiously walked into the living room, to find my grandmother, looking as though she hadn't slept in days, to my grandfather in his usually attire, looking drained as well, but with a warm smile on his face. To a strange little man, about the height of a small four year old, propped in one of my grandmothers wing back chairs with overalls and a red coat on, and a red pointed hat sitting in his lap. His hair was white and long, and he had a beard as pure and white as snow. He was round and jolly looking, reminding me of a miniature Santa Claus. He smiled at me, knowing I was studying him in shock, and when I must of looked as though I recovered somewhat, he smiled at me and said, "well hello love, a pleasure to finally meet you, I'm Sir Stuart, and from what it looks like you've gathered to answer your question, yes I am a gnome."
Then I looked to my right and faced the voice that had been talking to me, the voice that knew somehow I was on the stairs hearing everything. And I came face to face with one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her hair was as red as Mr. Stuart's coat, eyes a blazing green. She wore a green wool sweater, thick and high around her neck, jeans that were slightly faded and riding boots that came up to her knees. And dangling around her neck was a necklace with a spiral charm with a rock black as night in the middle, no not a regular rock, as I looked closer I saw movement in it, people that were moving as in another world, and I looked up from her necklace to her eyes that seemed to look right into me and I knew this women wasn't an ordinary women, no this women was a witch.

And it continues....

"Grandpa I don't understand?"

"Understand what my dear? There are many things that we don't understand, we just have to believe in them, not understand them."

He looked at me over his paper with a spark of humor and knowing in his eyes.

My grandfather. The man that dressed like it was summer all year round, and spoke in rhyme. And then every once in awhile, when you thought you understood what he was talking about, he would smile and say "why yes, you've hit the nail on the head." It was a game for him really. He liked to talk in rhyme, and he loved to puzzle people.

"Grandpa why won't grandma talk with me about what I saw?"

"Maybe for your grandmother seeing is not always believing."

"But I thought it was the other way around, seeing is believing?"

"Well yes some say that, now don't they?"

I could tell I was getting nowhere with my grandfather and fast. He wasn't going to tell me anything. No this was something he was going to leave to me to figure out.

Then he looked at me and whispered, "you have to ask them why."

"What" I said. I could barely hear him.

"Oh look at the time, shall we go feed the owls?"

The owls. Good lord the owls. My grandfather had rescued every injured owl this side of the mason-Dixon line. He could hear an owl in distress at night, and often would wander in the woods in the middle of the night to find that injured owl. People from all over brought him owls. And then their were the owls that were as white as snow, with eyes so dark you thought you might be sucked in by them. These were the owls that just showed up, no one ever brought one of these, and my grandfather never found one of these, they just appeared as if out of nowhere. I liked to call them the "ghost owls."
We made our way to the barn, that my grandfather had converted into an owl sanctuary. Owls were everywhere, sitting in the rafters, flying about, perching on huge trees that my grandfather had planted in massive containers and moved into the barn. And as we walked in they started to swoop down. They knew it was feeding time, they always did when they saw my grandfather. To see my grandfather feed his owls was one of the most amazing sights I have every seen.
There he was in his bermuda shirt and shorts, sandles on, white hair and spectacles standing in the middle of the massive barn with it's huge valted ceilings and the afternoon sun drifting in. One by one the owls would swoop down and land on his shoulders and all around him. He fed them nuggets in the afternoon, and let them do their real hunting in the barn at night. And in that moment watching my grandfather with all these animals that he had healed and tamed, standing in the afternoon sun raining down on him from the high rafters, I saw poking out of a torn hole in the back of his shirt a tip of a small wing.
I lost my breath, like I'd been kicked in the stomach, and felt myself falling and falling back, and then everything went dark.

The story continues....

Not many people could reckon with her. She was a spit-fire, and good lord the woman could move mountains if she wanted, in fact I'd seen it done a couple of times. But I knew that she would have the answers, even if she didn't want to give them to me. Their was no way of sneaking or lying or persuading her, she could see right through anybody with one look. She could go from warm and cheerful, to cold as ice if you rubbed her the wrong way, and that "she" was my grandmother. My grandparents lived in the big old house on the hill for as long as I could remember. They had a booming business in town, and were known to be on the eccentric side. But people seldom talked gossip about them, for my grandmother had a way to find out every time. Some said she had eyes in the back of her head, or ears that could hear from the next county over. Whatever it was people who did talk, talked once, and then soon quit, as though grandma had put a sour taste in their mouth, or a curse upon their head.
I knew grandma would know though, she always did. She would be able to tell me what that creature was that I had seen. Now what I would have to do to get her to talk beat me, but it was worth finding out. Now let me explain something to you here. My grandparents were known as "eccentric", because well they just were. Grandma was in love with plants. And we're not just talking your regular old house plants, we're talking exotic plants. Plants that were some of the most beautiful things you'd ever seen, but plants that were as poisonous and deadly as a bite from a rattler. She kept a greenhouse off the main house, and if she wasn't slaving away at the business, you would find her knee deep in potting soil, or pruning one of her babies. On that particular day I found grandma in the greenhouse, documenting the daily activities of her plants. The air was humid, and the smell was a collage of jasmine, damp earth, and a sweet perfume of something incense like. Plants were every where you looked. Blooms the size of watermelons, and leaves spread throughout the room like a thicket you lose yourself in out in the woods. Vines were growing all over the walls and ceiling, and every now and then you catch a glimpse of a iron table or chair. And there was grandma, nose deep in her ledger that she kept. Scribbling away, I was almost scared to rouse her, lord knows what mood she would be in today. Just before opening my mouth to catch her attention, she looked up at me over her wire glasses, as though she knew I was there all along.
"And what can I do for you Miss Emily Jane?"
Possibly a good mood I thought, she used her nickname for me.
"Well grandma I had a few questions for you, if you had some spare time?"
"Spare time, darlin' child look around, does it look like I have any spare time? I have to document today's activities, and lord willing I'll be able to do it without dying."
Now this was typical grandma, she was probably going to live to be two-hundred, the women was....well she was just too mean to die. But come hell or high water she was gonna make you think her time was coming and it was coming fast.
"What kind of questions anyhow?" She said looking right through me.
"Well I wanted to ask you if you've ever seen anything strange around the house, on a rainy day for instance?"
"Seen anything strange around this old house! Do you know this house was built before the war between the states! This house breeds strange honey. I've seen my fair share of rats the size of newborns, and creaks in the old floor boards that would convince you this house was alive! What kind of question are you trying to ask me?"
"Well, I just..."
"Well you just what? Cat got your tongue? You've seen something, and it spooked you, and you wouldn't be in here nosin' around if you hadn't, now would you? What did you come across, and get to the point, I don't have all day."
"Alright grandma."
"Don't you alright grandma me, I'll rake you over the coals if you plan of getting a foul mouth with me young lady."
"Grandma I was in the sitting room working on my research paper last week when it rained so bad. I got to feeling strange, like something was watching me. I shrugged it off at first, but I couldn't shake it. I looked up and through the window, and found myself face to face with some short of child like creature. It looked like a malnourished child covered in moss and earth."
She looked at me for quite sometime without saying anything. I could tell she was disturbed by what I had said, in fact I had never seen her look the way she looked at me. She looked spooked almost, and believe me, my grandmother did not get spooked, ever. And then I heard a voice that almost made me jump out of my skin.
"My dear girl, you've had your first meeting with the rain children."
I turned around, and sure enough there was my sweet hearted grandfather. He had blended in with the plants, because his normal attire was a flower print Bermuda shirt, shorts, and sandals. And there he sat in the old recliner that grandma allowed him to have in the greenhouse, because it was the only way to keep him there for a long period of time. Without a comfortable seat, my grandfather wouldn't even stick around for the president. He looked at me from over his paper, with curiosity.
"I wonder what you did to spark their attention, they've got an interest in you, if they let you see one of them. Did you hear the laughter?"
And that was when grandma jumped in guns blazing.
"I will not have this talk in my presence! I will not sit here and listen while you babble on about nonsense and noises and creatures that don't exist! I will not have it!"
And with that grandma slammed her ledger shut and stormed out like a tornado ripping through a trailer park.
Grandpa continued to look at me over his paper.
"Well dear, now that she's showed her colors, sit down a spell, and tell me all about it."

Please bear with me on this. These are very rough drafts, and I'm sure things will get rearranged and reworded once I read over it a couple of times. But I sure do appreciate ya'll taking a look at my stories, it really means alot to me!!

A new story...."The Rain Children"

I remember the first time I saw them. I was sitting in the main room, soaking in the warmth of the old fireplace, listening to the rain pour down on the tin roof. Sipping my tea, trying to concentrate on my current research paper. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Was it on the porch? Did I really see something through the window? Shaking a feeling of uneasiness from me, I resumed the tedious, boring task of editing my new addition to the files of research papers that seemed to never end, or ever begin. Someone must be interested I thought to myself. Some publisher, some scientific magazine, maybe the small town paper? Who was I kidding I thought. Interested in my boring papers on the indigenous native American tribes in Georgia. Then their it was again. That feeling, that movement in the corner of my eye. Was I really hearing laughter? I stopped. I suddenly knew I was being watched. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. A warmth spread down me. Slowly I turned toward the windows looking out on the porch, knowing that something , or someone was there watching me, studying me. And as I turned, I found myself looking at a face pressed to the window staring at me with what seemed to be utter curiosity. It was the face of a child, but it wasn't a child. No this was something not quite human, but something so human-like it looked like it was born out of the very earth itself. The very damp earth. Covered in moss, green and brown like an article of clothing. Eyes wide with extremely long lashes, a hint of green to it's exposed skin on its face. A creature the size of a small child, except rail thin and bony. Ears that seemed to point northwards, a delicate nose, and relaxed mouth. And what was that on its back? A hint of a wing?
There I sat, and there it stood, watching me with a curiosity so strong I could almost feel it.
And then reality started to fade back in, and I heard the distant sound of children's laughter; eerie yet soothing, just like the cold rain. And as I turned my head to find the source of the laughter, I caught movement again in the corner of my eye. Looking back to the window the creature was gone; but a delicate hand print was left on the window, as though welcoming me, asking me, wanting me, to come outside and play.

This is just a story that I jotted down in my notebook tonight. I got the idea for it this morning siting at my vanity, getting ready for work, and listening to the rain pour down. It's not to grand, just something simple. I thought I might share even though I am a tad bit timid about sharing my stories. I can't spell, and the spell check doesn't seem to want to work for me, so please excuse the errors.