Discoveries

3

My bare feet led the way. I let them go.

My head had cleared itself, finally. What madness had told me to trust these people, had gone.

They must've drugged me. And Jasmin too. Why otherwise would I have followed those strange women? But with what?

The candles.

It must be. What else?

But before? With Flynn?

My thoughts went on and on, thinking up endless plots and schemes. They all ended up on my Fly betraying me and being kidnapped. Then another possibility popped into my head. This was all one big play. For my birthday. Something to make me ready to rule, of that sort. It must be. If it wasn't... I didn't let myself think of that. In a week or so my parents would be–

In stead of feeling the softness of grass based by solid earth beneath the sole of my right foot, my heel went straight through the surface, dragging the rest of my body with it. For a moment I was utterly baffled. How could this be possible? Then it dawned on me. I had run into water.

I spluttered and tried to swim, but my foot got tangled in something. After a few hard pulls it shot loose, and I swam to the surface.

I was soaked and shivering when I clambered onto the side. Gosh, that pool was deep. And somehow I had walked straight into it.

Drip drip drip. The splatters where damped by the soft moss under my toes. The ringlets of my hair hung down beneath the thick water's weight.

I stood there, panting.

The dark water still sloshed about, seemingly angry from the disturbance. When it stilled, a girl looked at me. Her clothes stuck to her body and her tangled hair to her face and back.

The girl was me.

And yet she wasn't.

#

The girl had wings.