I rubbed my eyes as I joyfully hopped out of bed, ready for the exciting day that awaited me. I glanced around the bedroom, noticing Camille and Ema were not in their beds, making me the only one present in the room. There was also a fourth bed, but that one was always empty. I never understood why it was there given the fact no one ever used it.
“They must have already woken up.” I thought as I made my way to the living room, peeking through the large windows that adorned the hallway along the way and glancing at the breathtaking winter wonderland that the garden had become after the intense snowstorm that had begun on the evening of the previous day and had raged all through the night.
I reached the living room and sat down to have breakfast with Camille, Ema and The Fairy, who wished me a good morning with a gentle hug.
For breakfast, we usually had toasts and a glass of milk, with each one of us having her favorite way to eat it. Ema liked to eat it with honey just like she did in her home country of Yugoslavia, whereas Camille preferred having it with butter as was common in the United States of America, where she came from. As for me, my loyalty lay with the toast with olive oil, just like how my mom used to prepare them in Spain. The Fairy didn’t need to eat anything, it was one of her many perks. Sometimes, I wondered what the true extent of her magical abilities really were.
After having eaten, Camille, Ema and I decided to go outside and play in the snow.
“Be sure to bundle up,girls! And be sure to have fun! Oh, and don’t stray too far away from the palace’s garden, okay?” The Fairy said.
“Yes,Fairy!” the three of us exclaimed at once as we suited up and got ready to leave the palace and step into the beautiful snow coated garden.
The temperatures were below freezing, but The Fairy had provided each one of us with a coat made with the finest of furs complemented with a bonnet, a scarf and a pair of gloves and boots worthy of belonging in the wardrobe of a true princess, so we could play in the snow for hours on end while staying as warm and comfortable as one could possibly ask for.
After starting up with a fun snowball fight, we then decided to ice skate on the frozen lake situated on the fringes of The Fairy’s lush garden. Ema and I had gotten pretty good at it after years of practice, but Camille couldn’t seem to pull it off in the same way despite trying just as hard and she ended up bumping into Ema on accident, knocking both of them to the icy ground.
“Ow! Watch where you’re going!” Ema uttered. Camille’s eyes filled with tears.
She remembered the previous time she had been in a similar situation, she remembered her years of subjugation in that cotton plantation in Virginia. The expensive pottery shattering as it tumbled to the floor alongside her, the lady of the plantation’s reaction and insults…the blood on her back as the whip hit her again and again…The Fairy appearing before her after the escape attempt that nearly cost her her life, she remembered everything about those days of 1861 as she ran into the woods outside the garden, leaving us behind.
Ema was quick to follow behind her.
“Wait, shouldn’t we tell The Fairy? She said we must not wander off without her!” I pointed out.
“We don’t need to. It’ll only be a moment, I just need to find Camille, bring her back and say I’m sorry.” Ema replied, forcing me to follow her as well.
Perhaps her predisposition to taking the initiative had been inherited from her parents, who fiercely fought back against the german army as partisans until their whole village was massacred and torched, with Ema being the sole survivor thanks to The Fairy’s intervention.
We had only been to the forest a few times and always with The Fairy’s company. She strictly forbade us from going there alone and even when she came with us, the way she remained alert throughout the entire trip was striking.
I spotted a small figure moving between the trees in the distance.
“Hey, Ema! Wait for me!” I shouted.
“But we’re over here, Laura!” I heard Emma replying behind me. She had already found Camille and was hugging her and swearing she had not intended to upset her like that. Camille accepted her apology and calmed down.
“Wait, if that wasn’t you..” I murmured, but before I could finish my sentence, the same figure from earlier came into view again, revealing themselves to be another young girl we had never seen before.
“I’m Helena.” she introduced herself. Two other girls emerged from behind her a couple seconds later.
“I’m Nisha.” one of them said.
“I’m Karla. “ the other one followed.
“I’m Ema and these are Camille and Laura! Nice to meet you!” Ema joyfully replied.
Camille greeted them with the same friendliness, but I kept silent. There was something about them that didn’t feel quite right, something about the monotone way they spoke in, something about the way they fixedly stared at us without blinking, something…lifeless.
“We come from a place deep inside these woods. A castle full of magic that exceeds your wildest dreams. Come with us…we’ll show you.” Helena said in her unsettling voice .
“Oh, a magical castle inside the forest? The Fairy never told us about it!” Camille exclaimed.
“Yeah, I wanna see that!” Ema added.
It started snowing again, growing in intensity in just a few seconds.
“Girls! Come back inside, it looks like another storm is approaching!” we heard The Fairy yelling in the distance.
“Come with us, you will be protected inside our magical castle.” Helena suggested.
“Um…I’m sorry but the fairy who takes care of us is calling us to return home. We can’t come with you today.” I finally intervened after having remained silent throughout the entire conversation up until that point.
“Come on, Laura! It’ll only be a moment!” Ema protested.
“Yeah, and if they’ve said we can stay in their castle, the blizzard won’t be a problem!” Camille followed.
“Come with us.” Helena, Nisha and Karla eerily chanted in unison. This time, it did not sound like a suggestion, but like an order. Ema and Camille took a step forward.
“If you don’t want to come, tell The Fairy we’ll be back soon, okay?” they said to me.
“But…” I uttered under my breath, but it was too late. Camille and Ema were already following Helena, Nisha and Karla deeper into the woods, leaving me behind.
“We found some other girls in the forest and Camille and Ema went with them. They said they live in a castle deep in the woods. “ I told The Fairy after returning home. Her face went pale upon hearing my words.
“I’ve told you not to leave the garden!” The Fairy exclaimed angrily. It was the first time I had heard her raise her voice like that. But before I could tell her about the incident with Camille, she was already about to leave the palace.
“Stay here, Laura. You can wait for me by the fireplace if you’re cold. I’ll be back in no time.” she ordered before leaving me on my own in the palace.
“I’ll be back in no time.” That was the last thing The Fairy had said before leaving to search for Ema and Camille. How much time had passed already? How many minutes? Maybe an hour? Or maybe even more than that…I had lost all sense of time as I tried to seek comfort in the fluffy blanket that swaddled my body and in the swirling flames of the fireplace which I stared at mesmerizingly.
I rubbed my eyes as I drowsily glanced around the living room…I had fallen asleep! The fireplace remained my only company, there were still no signs of The Fairy, Ema or Camille. They could only be seen in the portrait that hung above the fireplace, depicting all four of us in 1942, when Ema had just arrived. It was the first time in a long while I had stared at that portrait in detail…and it was then when I noticed there was something else behind it.
It took me a couple minutes, but I managed to remove it from the wall, discovering it was hiding an even older portrait! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I glanced at the hidden painting, it depicted The Fairy alongside four girls: Helena, Nisha and Karla and also a fourth girl, with long ginger curls and an unrecognizable face that had clearly been tampered with to hide the girl’s appearance and identity.
Wasting no time, I suited up and rushed to the forest, pressing against the wind and the snow. The forest seemed to have no end and the blizzard only got worse, reminding me of that dreaded January of 1939. I saw myself in the Pyrenees once more. Lost, shivering and starving, on my way to the French border fleeing from the misery and devastation that the civil war had brought to Spain, until The Fairy appeared before me and brought me to her realm.
The silhouette of a building became vaguely visible through the snowstorm. Could it really have been the magical castle that Helena, Nisha and Karla had spoken about? As I got closer, the building revealed itself to be a rundown wooden shack, a far cry from the idyllic castle I was expecting to find.
Having no other options, I stepped inside the derelict shack. At first glance, it seemed to be empty, with a small lobby and a staircase that seemingly led to some sort of basement.
“You came. Irene is expecting you…” a trio of familiar girls said in their familiar monotone voice as they ascended the staircase.
“Where are my friends and The Fairy? And who’s Irene?” I asked in anger before they advanced towards me.
I ran away, noticing a pair of figures outside the shack.
“Surrender yourself, Laura. Join us, it’s useless to resist Irene’s spell. “ Camille and Ema uttered.
“What have they done to you? Come on, girls! We need to find The Fairy and get out of here!” I tried to talk some sense into them, but all that Ema and Camille did was stare at me with their new eerie eyes.
Trying to talk to them was futile, so after swallowing my tears, I kept running.
Anywhere I went, I could feel them around me. I caught glimpses of them following me from all sides, skulking between the dense trees and bushes of that massive forest. Becoming visible for a second before blending into the environment and using the blizzard to move without being seen as they surrounded me.
I could hear their footsteps. I could hear their haunting murmurs echoing through the foliage…in front of me, behind me, on my left and on my right…
“Join us…Laura…”
“Soon…all your painful memories will be gone…”
“You’ll exist in peace without thought…like us… “
“Forever…”
I was getting tired from running aimlessly, I was running out of breath and my vision was getting blurry. I was freezing too. My bonnet fell from my head at one point, exposing my head and ears to the frigid wind and reminding me of how unbearable the storm had become.
A fallen tree branch caused me to trip and fall to the ground, feeling the snow right in my face. Five figures came into view as I raised my eyes and tried to stand up.
Helena, Nisha, Karla, Ema and Camille…they all emerged from the blizzard and encircled me as I fell to my knees, unable to continue fleeing any longer.
I hopelessly struggled to liberate myself, but they all grabbed me and brought me back inside the shack.
The girls took me to the basement where The Fairy was being held in chains by a tall female figure with long and curly ginger hair and piercing green eyes.
“Look, Fairy! Your last child is about to belong to me, and once you are without purpose, your realm will be no more! And I’ll finally be able to escape this hell you trapped me in! I never needed you to save me! I never asked to spend the rest of eternity in here! And neither did any of these other girls! “ Irene lashed out, having clearly lost her mind after years and years of isolation with the only company of her hypnotized puppets.
Irene forced me to stare directly into her bright green eyes and the spell began. The Fairy began to fade into dust as I slowly gave in, unable to resist as it became harder and harder to think.
“I…just…wanted all of you…to be happy.” The Fairy uttered before fading completely and becoming a cloud of magical dust.
Just when it seemed like I was destined to join the other girls, spending the rest of eternity as one of Irene’s mindless puppets, the magical dust that was left when The Fairy vanished flew towards me and enveloped me as everything faded into white.
I woke up feeling quite strange. Was I hypnotized? It didn’t feel like it. And where was everyone else? I wasn’t in Irene’s basement anymore!
“Do not search for my old realm, Laura. That failed place and everyone in it is lost forever.” The Fairy’s voice resonated inside my head. That environment looked very familiar, those mountains… I had gone back to the Pyrenees, back to the human realm. And was it just me, or had I become…taller?
“You are the new fairy now. It is your task to help the innocent young souls of this world. And please, do not repeat my mistakes.” the old fairy said inside my head before ceasing to speak forever as I wandered off to fulfill my mission.