The Girl and the Guardian

CHAPTER 9.

  THE SECRET PATHS AND THE CHILDREN OF EDARTHA

  Although the portal to earth was closed, the natural tendency of the paths remained, and from time to time a bridge opened at the end of one or other of the forgotten Earth trails, but was only visible to a child mature enough to look in the right way but still pure and innocent enough to see. These children sometimes crossed over and were seen no more on Earth- or returned changed and wise, but never spoke of what they had seen. And so the Athmadites never learned that there were some -children- that had crossed over. But these children were warned of the Athmadites and of the dark Travellers trapped on our world – if they returned. For few wanted to, when they had tasted the freedom and joy of Aeden.

  OF THE PASSPORTAL LEAVES

  It is said that some children of Edartha are especially called by the Lady or the Fairies of Aeden, and then the manner of the opening of the lost Paths or Portals is this: a leaf, blown as if by chance from a tree, is noticed by the child, as having a peculiar marking upon it, as of a unicorn or the Tree of Life, or even the face of the Lady herself. This is a Passportal leaf, and it is magic. And for one reason or another the child keeps the leaf, and afterwards, perhaps a year or perhaps a day, when the child is of just the right age, the leaf leads them, and the child finds the Portal as if by accident, taking a turn into Faery that no adult can take, and the two ends of the Portal Path are aligned. Then, holding the leaf, they finds that it draws them in, and they walk the Paths of Beauty to Aeden, and depending on which path they took - to the Northern Fairy Forest, or Avalon, or the Portal Hills - the Lady or the Fairies, or a Portal Guardian is waiting there to greet them.

  For leaves call one to another, and all are called by the Tree of Life. For all have its imprint on them, in the veins which sustain them, as the Rathvala, the Tree Within, sustains the soul. And in the Autumn, as a reminder that the elixir of Life flows always, the leaves that fall to the ground are tinged with the colours of Agathra, the healing sap of the Tree, gold and red and yellow. So is it any wonder that the Tree of Life on Aeden still sometimes calls to the children of our lonely World by means of the leaf, even across the Void?

  – Ennead of Aeden, ‘A short history of the Order of the Makers’