CHAPTER FOUR: THE ORACLE.
Mist swirls. A woman with a small hat with blue ribbons and peacock feathers sat on blonde curls walks confidently through an ornate floral archway up to a heavy wooden door with ornate metal hinges curling over the wood. She traces a specific pattern in the metal swirls on the door, knocks three times and says a word of command. The metal curls shine brightly, and the heavy wooden door dims and fades against the brightness of the metal. She walks confidently forwards passing through the door. She is inside the church; its walls are painted white, in-between the tall arched windows of beautiful stained glass casting their colours on to the pale flagged floor. In the centre of the church is a long low structure filled with flowing rippling water, at one end closest to her is a tall wall with many embrasures and set into each one is a lighted candle in a holder, each one a different colour. At the other end of the rippling water is a small tree, which looks to be made of glass; it’s long thin branches reaching down to the ground. The woman looks at the candles and finally approaches an embrasure containing a blue candle with a peacock feather on it. She says some words over it in reverence and places it on the water. The candle floats on the rippling water gradually travelling towards the sparkling tree, mist swirls around it.
Violet opens her eyes, bright sunlight is shining through her curtains, it must be much later in the day than she normally sleeps, she’s not one to sleep in, very unusual she thinks as she stumbles out of bed and heads towards the kitchen, and what a pleasant dream for a change, mysterious, but calming. She walks into the kitchen and notices the table out of place, the scuffed chalk marks on the floor where the pentagram had been, the bunches of burnt herbs and wax stains. Her shoulders droop and she sighs as she recalls all that had happened the night before, but rise again in determination as she vows to save Ayden from the creatures that have captured him.
An hour later she is knocking timidly at Aliya’s door. “Come in,” she hears her shout. Violet pushes open the door and walks in to a room strewn with books and maps and crystals. Clovis is sat in his usual chair pursuing his usual activity, sleep. Aliya is pouring over a map. “I know I’m early, I’m not disturbing you am I?”
“No I’ve done all the work I need to do, I know where we’re going, we’ll have to wait for sunset thou.”
“Oh good.”
“Perhaps we should talk about what you saw last night to better prepare you for what we are going to see tonight.”
“The green monsters and the balls of light and the talking cat?”
“They’re just the beginning,” laughs Aliya. “Everything is not always as it seems, and the truth is not always seen. When you first saw Ayden can you remember what I said about him?”
“Yes because it was so odd,” laughs Violet, “you said he wasn’t a man. He’s not a green monster like them is he? Please say he isn’t.”
“Oh no he’s nothing like them. What did you feel seeing them?”
“That they were horrible, disgusting creatures, evil.”
“Yes, and that is what they are, did you feel that about Ayden?”
“No, of course not, he made me feel happy, peaceful.”
“Yes, that is what his kind do make you feel like,” said Aliya with a sigh. “But you realise he’s not like you. Were you never suspicious that there wasn’t something not quite right about him?”
“Well I do now I guess looking back, like the little things he said which seemed to be a joke but which he seemed serious about, and I suppose their was the never going indoors things, and I knew very little about him really, and their was the whole magic thing with the book of course. But when I was with him it didn’t seem important or odd.”
“No it doesn’t, all part of the glamour, they’re good at that.”
“I don’t know if I want to know the answer to this question,” Violet said cautiously, “but what is he?”
Aliya reached for a nearby ancient looking book, it was beautifully bound in dark green leather embossed with gold. She opened it at a page and passed it to Violet, she took it carefully cherishing the feel of the leather in her hands, taking in its unusually woodland smell. She had never come across such an old book which smelt so fragrant. She looked at the page it was open at; it was handwritten and illustrated beautifully with paintings. The picture the book was open at showed a tall, elegant figure, dressed in flowing green robes surrounded by foliage. The figure had an ethereal look, with his pale skin, long hair, large glittering eyes and finely pointed ears. The handwritten information around the figure said he was an Elf and he inhabited woodland and was one with the trees and its natural surroundings. It described its ability to command magics and glamours, its grace and strength and agility greater than that of man. The book was like a child’s storybook of fantasy creatures, she wanted to look at the rest of the book but didn’t know if she dared. She had never been afraid to open and read a book before, it was a novel experience. She was thinking of all the stories she’d read as a child and wondering what truth lay in them.
“Are you saying Ayden really looks like this,” she pointed at the picture, “that he’s used a kind of magic or glamour to make me see him as human.”
“Yes.”
She was thinking of all the people she knew, which ones were really human, which ones something else. “How many of these Elves are there?” she asked, “Why have I never heard of anything like this before?”
“I don’t know exactly how many there are, they don’t tend to visit our world very much, and Ayden is quite exceptional there. And you have heard of them think of all the stories and picture depicting elves, fairies and witches.”
“But those are just stories and imagination not real.”
“Hmm, so you say.”
“What do you mean by visit our world, do they have a world of their own?”
“They do, but it is hidden away from us.”
“More magic?”
“Yes, more magic, it is contained within our own, but places where we cannot find them or would not think to look for them. They keep themselves very well hidden from us, they have been seen occasionally by us, but blind humans that we are, we perceive what we believe to be the norm and ignore what our eyes see. But the root is still there deep within our imaginations.”
“Are you human, Aliya?” Violet asks cautiously.
“Kind of,” she replies not meeting her eyes and briskly getting up and starting to stuff bits and pieces into a bag. “Right, we should be setting off if we want to get there in plenty of time before the sun sets.” Violet stares at her with her mouth open daring not to say anything else, she decides she probably doesn’t want to know anymore.
Aliya leads them through the streets towards the oldest part of the town, and down alleyways lined with ancient crooked buildings made of blackened timber with white washed walls in-between them, each floor stacked above the other to give crazy upside down steps up to the sky. Eventually Aliya stops in front of a small building hidden amongst taller buildings surrounding it. The building has a square tower over the decorative shaped archway and beautiful tall stained glass windows down each side.
Violet catches her breath, the image from her dream coming back to her, she knew she recognised this doorway. “I know this place,” she says under her breath. “This is where she came.”
Aliya looks at her sharply, “Who came here?”
“Oh it’s nothing,” she says shaking her head, “Just some strange dreams I’ve been having lately.”
“There’s no such thing as strange dreams,” she replies firmly. “Tell me about them, and quickly before the sun goes down.”
“They’re just strange images, with lots of mist, but one of them had this place in it. A woman dressed in Victorian dress entered the door, but she did it in a strange way.”
“How did she do it?”
Violet passed under the archway and walked up to the solid oak door, it was dark with age and heavily weathered, it looked as hard as the stone around it.
Curling over its surface in an intricate snaking design were the metal hinges, also dark with age, but not rusted, still holding their strength. Violet put her hand to the door, she could feel the deep groves in the wood, hard as iron. She tried the large circle handles, but the door was firmly locked. She recalled the dream to her mind, she felt she needed to attain a certain state of mind as well as the sequence in which she had to trace the design on the door and the word that had to be spoken. Thus prepared she traced the design the same as the lady with the peacock feather hat, knocked three times, the knocks echoed around the archway, and spoke the word. For a moment nothing happened and Violet began to feel a bit silly, she glanced back at Aliya who was watching her intensely. Then the curling hinges began to softly glow in the light from the setting sun, the glow gradually got brighter, so bright Violet had to shield her eyes from it. Then she noticed that the dark door was starting to fade, she wasn’t sure if it was just the contrast between the bright metal and the dark door, or it really was truly disappearing as in her dream. Violet reached out her hand to the door again, but it touched nothing solid. She took a step forwards, nothing hindered her, she closed her eyes as she took another step forwards. She opened her eyes to find herself through the door; she glanced back at the door to see if it was the same one she’d come through. But yes it was the same door, and she was inside the church, it was the same size, built of the same stone and the stained glass windows were the same. She was certainly in the building she had just entered, but the rows of wooden pews with the altar at the far end, which were normally there, were not there any longer. In their place a long low stone structure filled with clear rippling water, just like in her dream. At one end closest to her is a tall wall with many embrasures and set into each one is a lighted candle in a holder, each one a different colour. At the other end of the rippling water is a small tree, which looks to be made of glass; it’s long thin branches reaching down to the ground. Despite these strange structures the atmosphere within the church is unchanged, peace, calm and reverence hang in the air. She again recalls her dream set inside the church, and walks to the wall of embrasures and looks for a blue candleholder with a peacock feather on it. She looks into all the embrasures, moves aside some candle holders to see behind them and even thou there are many holders in many colours and designs, none have a peacock feather on them, or even seem to be quite the right shade of blue. She takes a step back, closes her eyes and takes a deep breathe, she feels calm, serene, she knows which candle to choose. She had felt herself drawn to this candle several times, thinking it was the one she was looking for although it was not blue and did not have a peacock feather on it. She opens her eyes and reaches up for a violet coloured holder with a leaf on it. She takes it to the edge of the water and trying to recall the words from the dream the best she can finds they flow naturally from her lips, she releases the candle on to the water. She watches it float towards the glass tree, which shines with gold lights as the last rays of the setting sun through the stained glass window above it catch it. Her eyes fixed on the floating violet candle, Violet holds her feeling of serenity, as the sun sinks behind the horizon its last bright burst of light through the window catches the glass tree setting the branches ablaze with light. Her candle reaches the end of the trough of water and the light from the sun finally dies. A thin shimmering arm no bigger than a child’s reaches down and picks up the violet candle from the water. It lifts it up to its small oval face and stares at it curiously with deep glittering golden eyes, it puts it head, covered with long wispy golden hair, on one side and pricks its long pointed ears as if it is listening to something being said. With a fluttering of golden wings which shower golden dust like motes caught in the sun it looks directly at Violet. She sees, sitting under the glass tree holding her candle, an illustration from another fairy story. The creature in front of her was small and delicate like a child, but also old, her hair wispy and with fine wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. She was dressed in a shimmering pale green robe and was looking quite calmly as Violet stared at her in wonderment. She smiled at Violet, and said in a voice like rain falling on silver bells, “welcome again, flower child.”
“Again?”
“You have come to me before looking for your lost prince.”
“I’m looking for Ayden, can you help me find him?”
“A prince can be all powerful and all seeing and yet be blinded and risk all for love. Love must have more power than the most powerful monarch. He has risked much for you, more than he knows, the future of his world and yours is now hung in the balance.”
“I don’t understand, do you know where Ayden is?”
“It is difficult for any of our kind, even the most strong to be held captive, it is alien to our nature, without the trees above us, the earth below us, the gentle breeze around us we are like a flower in the dark without water, we wither and die, nothing can save us.”
“Is Ayden held captive then? Is he going to die?”
“We all must die, even those who can count their lives in hundreds of your years.”
“Please tell me who has him and where I can find him,” whispers Violet in a choking voice.
“But my child you have already come to me and asked me this question and the answer is the same now as it was then,” she said in a bemused voice with a friendly expression as with a flutter of wings she began to glow with a golden light. When it had faded, Violet saw that under the tree was empty and her candleholder gone also. All the light had left the church now the sun had set and the space felt empty and suddenly oppressive. Violet felt a gloom descend on her, she was no further to finding Ayden, she re-ran in her mind what the fairy had said, but nothing made sense, she was not even sure they were talking about the same person, she was not even sure she was the person she was supposed to be. She walked back to the heavy doors and unbolted them with difficulty to allow her to open them and get back outside. Aliya was stood in the doorway an impatient frustrated expression on her face.
“Well what happened?” She demanded as soon as she saw Violet, “did you see her? Did you get an answer?”
“Why didn’t you follow me in?” she replied slightly annoyed. If Aliya had been there she might have been able to ask the right questions or at least understand the answers.
“I couldn’t, it wouldn’t let me through,” she replied in annoyance. “So, what happened?”
“I’m not sure, I don’t understand, can we go back to your house so I can try and get it in perspective.”
When they were sat down in Aliya’s living room, her rigid with impatience, Violet related to her as precisely as she could what the sprite had said.
“Why do mystics and oracles, have to be so cryptic, why can’t they just come straight out with it in plain language, without all the riddles and guessing games?” She muttered, “it’s just inconsiderate, that’s what it is, it wouldn’t kill them to have a go at speaking plainly I’m sure. I’m sure they must all laugh at us behind our backs when we’ve left to spend ages pondering on their so called wise words, when it’s all probably something they got out of a fortune cookie or something anyway.”
“Yes, well, so, what else do you think about what she said?” asked Violet as patiently as she could. “What about that about me having seen her before and given me an answer then, I know I’ve never seen her before in my life, it’s not something I’m likely to forget.”
“How did you know what to do when you got inside the church?”
“It was just in another dream I’d had and also it just seemed the right thing to do, if you know what I mean.”
“Describe these dreams to me more fully.”
Violet told Aliya about her dreams again.
“This Victorian woman in the peacock hat,” asked Aliya, “what does she look like?”
“Well she’s young, tall, slim with blonde hair.”
“Yes but what does she look like?” persisted Aliya.
“Well…I don’t know, nothing out of
the ordinary…fairly determined expression I suppose.”
“Anything like this?” asks Aliya holding a mirror up to Violet’s face.
“Hmm I guess she did look a little like me, but she certainly wasn’t me, she had brown eyes for a start and mine are blue.”
“Hmm, the man in black on the horse had blue eyes too,” said Aliya almost to herself. “Hmm, I think the woman in the peacock hat has some sort of connection to you and she must have been asking the same question as you. She must have been looking for someone too and the same person must have held them captive that now has Ayden.” Aliya ended on a triumphant note.
“But was she even talking about Ayden, she just said your prince, was she talking about Ayden as being my prince in the sense that I love him or did she mean some other actual Prince?”
“No she meant Ayden, he’s an elvish prince,” said Aliya briskly, getting up and going towards the door, picking up Violet’s coat on the way. “I think the best thing to do is for you to go home and get some sleep and try and have another useful dream. Okay, right off you go then see you in the morning when you’ve come up with something more for us to go on.”
Violet finds herself stood on Aliya’s doorstep with her coat in her hand. “Ayden’s an elvish prince?” she says in disbelief to the shut door before turning around and heading home.