Faerie

                                                    Prologue

“ The witch hunt is spreading.”

 Opal looked up from the map, and silently repeated her solemn words.

 “The witch hunt is spreading.”

 Tracing her long, skin and bones fingers across a dotted red line on the old map, blank eyes staring absentmindedly, she kicked the dressing table chair she was sitting on. The wood echoed a faint thump across the ancient bedroom. Where her feet are, dust crawled across like mice, and the faint glow of her oil lamp will soon diminish its ember sparks, But that shall not matter, for even if the orange-gold rays that shine like fireflies dim down, Opal’s tea-stained map emitted the same slightly radioactive like light, which stood out like an angel’s halo.

Although the map shone, it didn’t shine the sandy color the oil lamp produced, but it shone a faint blue, like the color of the young witch’s ring. Magical. Enchanting. Shocking. It was as if Vines of a harp’s chord were dancing around the tingling blue glow. Any man, woman, or child would be mesmerized by it’s beautiful and mysterious light. It seemed so potentially dangerous, but at the same time beckoning like a loved one’s embrace. The map was tempting anybody to go near it, as if saying “Come with me, come with me!”

 Opal hissed. Her usual smooth voice cut by the sound of crackling tin foil, she was startled by a certain point. A point in the creased old map that she struck a finger on. “No…” She whispered. “Never, no ,no ,no ,no!”  Two Bleak emerald colored orbs widened, straining her muscles, the anxiety gripping at her heart. “NO!” She screeched. Knocking over the chair,  she rushed to a pale forest green writing desk. With one swipe, she cleared the whole table.

 Globes, papers, objects that Opal has gilt with unspeakable magic, all fell down to the floor, forming an Egyptian pyramid. The fair young lady snatched up her map. “Yes….”Opal Grey stopped denying it. The point was here. There was no running anymore, nothing to grip for, no spell she could wave around and send it’s million pieces in the air. They are here. They are here.

 They are here.