Hidden Magic

Chapter Twenty

I wake up staring around me in confusion, wondering how I got here, forgetting for a moment that I had been stargazing in the night gardens, where I must have fallen asleep. Every part of me stiffens as my eyes lock onto suspiciously familiar bushes, the bushes from my dream if I wasn't mistaken.

I glance past them, at the glowing pink vines that covered the wall, the boundary to the night gardens, and supposedly the border of Sira Branch, where only illusion was past that wall, but my dream alluded to something else, that it was not an illusion at all, but a place, hidden from everyone but the people who already know it is there.

Did I dare? Could I just walk through the door? I was already standing and walking towards the bushes before I even fully made up my mind, for in truth, I already knew that I had no choice but to push forward, if following my dreams was the only way to get them to stop, then I had no choice but to go through that door, to see if it was truly real or not. My fingers scrape against the stiff but soft leaves of the bush, I glance back hesitantly, wondering if I should let my friends know about what I was about to do, but if it had to do with my dream, would I even be allowed to say anything about it, or would I just have to stand there silently, like all the other times I had desperately wanted to say something and hadn't been able to. I hear the laughter and general happiness going on around me, knowing most of my friends were apart of that, no, it was better if I figured out what this was first, I didn't want to make there night go bad, not when they were probably having so much fun.

I take a deep breath and push through the bushes, but I see only vines on the wall before me, no door at all, I remember how much the door blended in with the wall, I orientate myself until I am standing right in front of where I think the door should be, knowing the door stays hidden until someone already knows it was there, maybe even though I had been shown it in the dream, I needed to act like it was there. I reach forward, anticipating my hand touching a door handle, was that a handle or just weirdly shaped vines, my hand closes around cool metal, and the door is suddenly, very obviously before me, I didn't know how I missed it before.

I push open the door and walk inside, hearing it shut behind me with a soft click, a glance back shows me the door was very obviously there, I would be able to get back in with little difficulty. It was strange being on this side of the wall, it seemed so high and foreboding on this side, especially when I knew now that it had been meant to keep those not worthy out of this place, whatever this place was.

It was beautiful, like a fantasy forest come to life, with glowing flora all shapes and colors, how they gently moved as if they were alive, but as I looked closer, I realized they very well may be alive, the animals were both familiar and not, I had certainly never seen a squirrel glow pink with bioluminescence before, neither that owl glowing a soft white, and it was most certainly a glow and not just moonlight reflecting off its white feathers. Then there were animals I didn't recognize so easily, beautiful creatures that stared at me curiously, but not as if I was a threat, the purple birds I had seen on my first night here, that left glowing streaks of color trailing behind their long tail feathers and wings, they looked almost like a peacock, and yet like no peacock I had ever seen before.

I wandered through the forest in a daze, knowing I should be looking for something, the reason why I was out here, but every little thing was catching my attention, a glowing butterfly there, a glowing fish swimming in that small creek. There were colors everywhere, even when it was the dark of night, not that it was all that dark, with the glowing flora and fauna and the large full moon in the sky, this forest seemed brighter than it ever would during daylight.

I draw my gaze away from the moon and look down with a frown, why did those trees seem so far away from me, the more I looked down, I realized I was in some sort of clearing, my heart stutters in my chest, as I see what lies in the center of the clearing, a very familiar scene was laid out before me, one I had been seeing in my dreams for a week, but never when I was awake. The five wooden posts placed strategically around a single post in the middle, the burned ground barren, scarring the ground with black lines, making a circle around a five pointed star, a pentagram, burned in place.