The Disappearing Girl

Chapter 1 - Beginnings

I stood up and brushed flecks of grit off my knees, a grin was plastered over my face. I stared at the fairy ring. It was right at the other edge of the garden, on the verge between the footpath and the road. I could almost see the fairies dancing inside it, particularly if I was squinting. I was going to meet the fairies. If I thought about it again I would laugh uncontrollably in relief at finding the magic just in the nick of time. My stomach did a flip and my nose twitched in glee. The tatty lace at the bottom of my nightgown was wet, a leaf clinging to the back of the hem, the fabric tangled around my shins and stuck there uncomfortably, I didn't notice anything else. My eyes were focused on that ring of white daisies. I couldn't move yet, after all this time searching I had found them.  I wanted to bask in the moonlight. I was so right, fairies existed. Mother and Father said they didn't, but they do and they're here, for me, just for me.

The garden was still, the world had stopped moving. An empty hush filled my ears, silence reigned except it didn't, I heard a rustle of leaves and I turned slowly away from the fairy ring and stood and watched as a shadow oozed toward me. I swallowed and knots formed in my stomach as I waited for the creeping darkness to wash over me. My legs wouldn't move backward as I told them too, still the shadow slid across to me. It moved like no other shadow in the garden, condensing all the darkness around it and advanced toward me on a wisp of slithering night that very clearly seemed bad and dangerous. At this moment, being outside in the depth of night did not seem like the best idea I'd had.

A coldness followed in the wake of the shadow, the air around me was chilly and my breath plumed out in faint white puffs. I shivered, my legs were starting to numb. From the shadow a huge man stepped into the bright moonlit garden. His tall outline completely blocked out the cherry tree and the magical daisy ring. I stood still, trembling and holding my breath, gaping up at a giant. I felt a prickly and tingly feeling move across my back. My breath plumed out white for the air temperature began dropping sharply; here was magic. No ordinary man could move like that, no ordinary man was as tall. My eyes slowly scanned up the body of the giant. He wore completely black clothes and he was wearing a long black jacket of heavy and worn leather. Another plume of white breath, this time from him. It appeared to sparkle and fade away somewhere over my head. I wondered if this hugely tall man was a wizard. I decided that he had to be the guardian of the daisy ring. He had appeared at the precise moment that I had spotted it and began to walk toward it. I swallowed once more and scrunched the sides of my nightgown, but still my feet would not move backward. 

He stood as black stone before me; simply breathing. Fear turned to dismay which coiled tightly around my stomach. The fairies didn't need my protection after all. They had a giant wizard to protect them. One who appeared to have mastered their magic. Or maybe, the wizard taught them how to bend shadows and move in and out of darkness? My eyes lit up at the thought and excitement grew out of the dismay. Perhaps this giant had come to teach me? My eyes scanned slowly upward as I tried to find the wizard's face, but instead a shaft of moonlight illuminated his hands and my attention was focused on a pair of long, bony fingers covered in crawling blue pictures and lines. I bit my lip and my eyes narrowed at this peculiar sight, I'd never seen anyone with pictures drawn onto their skin. He is definitely a wizard I decided, had to be, no other person walked around all in black with lines and words and drawings all over their hands like that.

I clenched my jaw, planted my feet and resolved that the wizard would just have to answer my questions. I craned my head back to catch a look at his face but I toppled backward, losing balance as I tried to fit him into my vision. From my spot on the soft wet grass, I leaned back on my elbows  and looked into the blackness above me. I waited for him to speak, the words crawled into a question and sat on my tongue, I was just waiting for his acknowledgement and then I would launch into the million questions I had.