Emerald and the Closed Door

Chapter Fifteen HERE FROM THERE

"Em look." Helena said as she held on to her hand. Emerald look up and saw the sky; red and purple almost like the sun was setting, the ground they stepped on was a fresh green color, almost like life flowed without hesitation. Trees surrounded them; flowers and vines, everywhere like looked life was bountiful. They walked just a few yards down past the trees following a path that had been made, "Look." Helena pointed to a white doe eating; her fur was shinny with flowers growing on her, the tip of her tail was green and looked almost like grass. "Can I help you?" A woman said as she carried a woven basket on her head, "Yes hello good afternoon, would you happen know where I can find the head leader of your coven?" Helena asked quit boldly, the women smiled "Of course, follow me."  They turned and looked at each other and followed the women. They walked down a few miles and came across a large castle, it had large black flags that blew in the wind; gardens surrounded the front with trees that lined up leading to the gates, there were two other entrances on each side of the gate on top there were man like statues with armor with large pointed staffs surrounding the above perimeter of the castle.

Emerald and Helena were confused as to why they had a castle, they wondered if they had the same kind of enemies they did. As they came closer to the front gates people came in and out some were smiling and others carrying on in conversation, "Is everyone here always so calm?" "Why yes, nothing much happens around here not sense the big war." They looked at each other confused, "Do people ever leave this realm, "Oh yes all the time." The women said so nicely. They went into the castle, as they stepped in; large torches lit the hallway. Paintings and more paintings filled the hall, most of them they knew; Helena was surprised to see so many familiar faces on the walls. They reached the end of the hall way, it turned into a small foyer and books filled the walls to the top of the ceiling large ladders that reached the top were connected to the shelves. The women then led them into a small hall way that fed into a large dining hall; they turned into another hall way that led them to the top floor. In front of them they were railings with rose carvings on them, they looked down and it was like a never ending view, they could see other halls; it was full of color and light there were over five different levels that led to different areas of the castle.

Helena looked at Emerald and almost cried, "Remarkable." She whispered, "Yes it's beautiful." The women said smiling, "The view can take your breath away" turning to the left, they went down a small set of stairs, "How do you get to the other side?" Emerald asked, "Well you could just walk all the way around but that would take too long, but one of the professors came up with a solution, the stairs rotate every other minute making it easy to get around and the castle goes down very deep too so it would only make sense." She said smiling, "What if you want to go down?" Helena said, "You take a flying carpet silly." She said laughing; they were amazed at everything they saw, the women led them to where they got on a flying carpet and took them to the Hall of Leaders. "This way ladies." The women pointed to a door; they knocked, "Come in." a voice said, the women left. Helena and Emerald entered the room.

They saw a large round table, and Helena saw an old man sitting at the head of the table, "Henry?" she said in a broken voice, "Helena?" "How did you get here?" "How did- you" "Mrs. Morningside." Henry said referring to Emerald, she smiled and hugged. "How did you...." "Come, come we have so much to discuss." "Please sit." Henry said, "Let me introduce you to the council, this is Octavius, Robert, William, August, and this is Rose, this is Crystal and that little one over there is Johnathon, he is the youngest as you can tell the rest of us are all old." He said joking, "How did you all get here, how did you open a portal?" "Well my dear, when your mother opened the portal for the first time, I was the one preparing her meals, the night before Vertimus found this out Helena had already hid and taken the books, but she, your mother; memorized it, she was smart that one, she opened the portal but she hid it in a random location so she told me to gather the ones that she trusted and go search for it, we found it in London in our old coven, out of all the places, when we got here there was nothing just field of flowers it was like a whole new world, undiscovered, so that's what we've been doing coming back and forth from here to there, brining knowledge to the coven but not revealing our sources." "How did you close the other opening?" "When you mother passed the opening closed, but it wasn't until recently that another opening occurred."