A Book of Shadows

The Harbinger

Hidden. Remote. Untouched. A soft light flickers over a black lake. The light wind flutters through the tall trees though no noise can be heard. The moon is shrouded in mist and disappears behind a pearly white cloud. No light pierces the starless sky. A young woman stands. A sense of movement where there should be none.

Reaching high to the heavens, two tall towering trees witch deep green leaves disguising secrets delved deep beneath the oddly twisted and gnarled trunks and great sheer lines meeting at the branches to form sharp crooked points like dark knifes hiding in the dark. The branches stretch out to the inky black starless sky like hands desperately reaching to grab something lost long ago. Upon one tree, a circle. A ring. deeply embossed into the bark as if it grows with the tree. Like a brand upon fresh. Little else grows in this strange place.

The ground that surrounds them is cracked and untouched. No footprints are imprinted upon it. Small shoots sprout from this barren land: the first a dogwood with gentle pure white petals cupping a tiny light green bulb. It is not alone; a green stork stands diagonal with a lilac delicate flower placed a top it with a tiny saffron bulb inside, protected from the outside world – an Acadia. A third pant stands erect with a darker green thicker stem than its companion, a larger flower rests upon it, a lily, with bright white leave and a much larger bulb.

Across the lake, a dark wall of pine trees, almost impermeable as a divide it seemed. Blocking the way ahead. The leaves camouflaged deep secrets that would be left undisturbed in this strangle place. There. Little balls of soft blue light hovered above the lake as fireflies dancing in the subtle wind which didn't appear to create sound. The odd luminance seemed to be in slight motion, like the flame of a candle caught in a draft.

The lake itself was almost still. Black. Its depths unreached by those of the world of the living. A dying ripple flickered to the edges. Upon looking closer at the reflection in the water, it became clear that the balls of light weren't balls at all; they were pixies, with tiny delicate mothlike wings and stretched distorted faces, if you could call them that. They certainly weren't human though they did have some resemblance. Some likeness. A soul perhaps? Surely such a vague concept couldn't connect two such different forms of life. Adjacent to the pixies, three dark voids. Columns. Podiums perhaps? Their form and purpose remained unclear. Yet this as no reflection. No one where in this place were there three columns. It couldn't either be the depths of the body of water, the water was far too inky black to be able to see more than a few inches into it. No sound emanated.

A young woman stands silently on the bank beside the trio of plants. Her fiery red dress falling to the cracked floor a black belt at her thin waist. Gentle curls of dark brown swept to her belt down her pale unmarked back. Black eyes, with a strange blue luminance to them stared blankly into space. Her blood red lips shone in the light the pixies posed. High set cheek bones showed well with oddly stretched skin masked over them. Her arms, long and slender, bright white against the blackness of the night. Dripping.