SWNOVELS Chapter 1: Broken Wings
Molly Spungle, in a terrible hurry, half ran, half stumbled across the moss-covered tree trunks. Frightened and fragile, her broken wings covered by her long green cloak, Molly looked over her shoulder. Keeping a watchful eye out for the dreaded creature that had been chasing her in this mysterious place, she increased her pace.
Molly flew high and low in her attempt to escape, finally losing the bird-like creature with the long sharp talons. Seconds later, she crashed into a large hawthorn bush. Penetrating her cloak, the thorns tore her wings as the fairy struggled to untangle them.
Swallowing a sob of sheer frustration, she stopped briefly to tuck in a few strands of the long, curly, red-gold hair that escaped the hood of her cloak.
Molly spied a small group of bushes that would hide her quite nicely and sat down on a rock in the midst of them to catch her breath. She slipped off the cloak and examined the damage to her wings. It was appalling. She only just managed to stop the tears from falling from her dark green eyes. Her family crest was gone. The once beautiful rose-colored wings hung from her shoulders, broken and ripped to shreds. Molly could not fly at all. Worse, there was not a fairy pot potion around to repair them.
The young fairy looked around in utter bewilderment, her delicate features revealing her confusion. Where was she? Who or what had brought her here? Straight ahead there was only trees and bush for as far as she could see.
Rising again, she made her way to the tallest tree, deciding to follow the path that ran underneath its broad branches. Pushing through them, Molly came across a sign nailed to an old wooden fence. Pulling away the thick vines that almost covered it, she read the words aloud, “Fielders Forest.”
The warning that followed gave her a feeling of uneasiness. She wondered who they could be talking about.
Intruders Beware
Of the wrath of red stone.
Only one belongs here.
Leave her secrets alone!
Fielders Forest? But it didn’t really exist. It was a place she heard about only in stories and tales around the fire. It was an old myth, with many tales being spun of its dangers and the strange creatures who lived there. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
“Here I am,” she cried, “right in the midst of a forest that doesn’t exist!” Now she was hopelessly lost, and it was already turning into night. “I am so tired,” she sighed. The yawn tumbled out of her fairy lips before she could stop it. “I must rest.”
Crawling inside a large pile of leaves that looked as if they had fallen from the tree just for her, Molly sighed again. Thankful at least for this resting place, she closed her eyes. Her small fingers gently enclosed the dark red stone pendant she wore around her neck. The young fairy’s father had given it to her upon his death bed. It had belonged to her mother, being handed down in her family for hundreds of years.
Jackson Spungle had been the revered chief of their colony. He ruled his clan with a wise and gentle hand, his small kingdom following him without question. “The stone is magic,” he told her, looking deep into her eyes, his own twinkling with secrets. A red robe covered his frail body, his face growing paler when struggling to speak.
“Magic,” she repeated. At the age of five, Molly was far too young to really understand what magic actually meant.
“You will find the magic in the stone when you are older,” he told her, his face growing more serious and his breath coming in short gasps.
“You have only to caress the stone three times and it will…. ” Her father’s voice ceased at that point and he passed into the Realm of Immortality without finishing his explanation of the red stone.
As Molly grew older, she came to treasure the pendant as a cherished memory of her father. Holding it between her palms each night, a vision of him appeared before her, vivid, lifelike, and smiling. Molly, grateful every day for this much of her beloved father, still grieved, wishing with all her heart that she had known him better.
She was the only child, her mother having died under the tusks of a wild boar in Molly’s infancy. The fairy was convinced her ability to see him was the magic he talked about upon giving her the red stone pendant.