Marmalade's Love Potion

Prologue - Fall from the Feathered Willow

Part 1 – Stars In The Wind

The tree bark tore rough scraps from her skirt as Penelope hoisted herself into the upper branches of her favourite tree.

The feathery tendrils of the willow's foliage brushed against her freckled cheeks as the young princess inched her way along the boughs.

Though small for the age of ten, the wood creaked beneath her weight as Penelope gathered all of her daring to reach the end of the thick branch.

Clinging tight with hands calloused by rural domesticity, her brown skin bearing faint scratches from today's climb and countless others, Penelope reached into her front pocket and withdrew a folded star of rough paper.

Within its pointed folds and hidden pockets were scribbled pieces of news of her latest adventures: her bravery collecting poison caps at midnight; her courage to collect the clearest quartz from the fastest flowing tides of Faewood's narrow streams; her strength in fetching pail after pail of rich and mossy earth from the darkest shadows of the Faewood for making frilled plums grow in their singularly strange cottage garden.

With a kiss to the folded page for luck, Penelope tossed the star to the wind, very nearly losing her balance. With a gulp, Penelope inched back along the bough. The ground was so very far below.

Penelope watched her star wheel away, unsteady on the currents of a late autumn breeze. She imagined it arriving spectacularly, arcing gracefully through the throne room to land neatly on her mother's lap, or perhaps in her father's outstretched and eager hand. Perhaps they would read the letter aloud to the whole of Starwood court.

Grinning at the thought of all their admiring faces, Penelope shimmied down the tree, tugged on her socks and boots, and dashed through the forest towards the cottage she didn't expect to be calling home much longer.

This time, they would change their minds. This was the letter that would prove her brave enough to finally return home.

Morning after morning passed with Penelope waiting by her window, staring south across the gold and mauve canopies of the Faewood forest.

Far beyond the distant horizon lay the realm of Starwood and, farther still, in the cradle of the south east of Edenwood Valley, stood Starwood Palace. Penelope's first and truest home.

Yet each morning, Penelope trod downstairs to breakfast disappointed that no letter had appeared in the post box on her window sill. Over the years, she had made a habit of checking it so frequently for news of home that Sister Rosin had simply lifted it from its place by the cottage gate and installed it amongst the flowers of Penelope's window planter box.

This morning was no different. The small box, painted blue with twinkling stars of silver ink, was empty. Dejected, yet resolved, Penelope chewed her toast with vigour as Sister Rosin and Sister Heely exchanged concerned glances.

"Where are you off to today then, puppet?" Sister Rosin enquired around a mouthful of honeyed crumpets, earning her a playful smack upside the head from Sister Heely.

"Manners, love," Sister Heely admonished as Sister Rosin mocked a pout, her lips covered in crumbs.

"Sometimes manners are overrated," Sister Rosin said in a stage whisper, winking at Penelope, who giggled into her napkin.

"I'm going out to fetch some water from that little pool I found the other day, the one with all the pink coral cap toadstools around it. I have a good feeling it might help the tomatoes grow better."

"And just how deep into the woods is this pond again?" asked Sister Heely, arching a thin grey eyebrow and peering down at Penelope in suspicion.

"Not very far..." Penelope lied. "Just a little beyond the tree with the frog face and the log with the blue dragonflies..."