I stopped at the very edge of the forest and slowly extended a hand towards the nearest tree. Its skin was strange—chunky, jagged, and craggy. I had never been close enough to one to see it in detail, so I was unprepared for such a texture. Fruit trees were confined within carefully secured orchards, and the few varieties of small, ornamental flowering trees—little more than bushes, really—that were allowed inside the Clearings all had skin that was more or less smooth with only an occasional bump in it.

By the end of my first day of teaching the following week, the ball seemed years ago, a distant memory buried under an avalanche of paperwork, schedules, lesson plans, grading, and assignments. Had it not been for Devorah Erren’s insufferable boasting to the other girls about the ball (she being the only one of the class whose parents had allowed her to attend) I might not have thought of it at all.
By the middle of the week, however, my thoughts had turned to the upcoming festival that I was to attend with Mira and her family.

As Raya walked along the beach she looked out to the sea; breathing in the salty air and watching the waves kiss the sand.  She stopped to watch the dolphins swimming in the cove then turned to walk up the path to her house, she did not notice the ship on the horizon.  Finn, Raya’s older brother was playing volleyball with Jay their cousin, the twins Triton and Tyde, and Adrian, Finn's best friend, as she walked up the path Raya looked up when her brother called her.
“Raya, come play with us, we need one more player!” yelled Finn.

My plans of showing Mira around Havenwing were dashed by torrential rains that lasted all day. By the time it finally relented, the sun was going down and it was time to prepare for the ball.
Mira and I declined the lady’s maid’s offer to arrange our hair for us, in favor of experimenting on each other. After hearing of our intentions Aunt Monria presented us with her entire chest of hair ornaments to choose from, offered a few casual suggestions for styles that would suit our hair colors, facial shapes, and dresses, and then left us alone.

In my hands I hold the world
A pot of gold I seek to find
My pathway: beams of sunlight, pearled
The rainbow’s end in light enshrined.

The night around me closes fast
Blue skies now deepen into black
I look up to the heavens, vast
For fear of unforeseen attack.

Look! Yonder, there a shadow road
To where it leads, I cannot say.
Dark silhouettes of creatures goad
A swifter flight by moonlit ray.

Rise up, oh land of liberty,
Against the foe and for the friend;
Under the queen’s just ruling,
Stay true to her until the end.

Through dangers, many, we shall tread,
Though some more weary than the rest,
But we shall brave them through that time
With hearts of courage and of zest.

Rise up, oh land of liberty,
To needy ones a hand we’ll lend,
And thus we will forevermore,
Be true to her unto the end.

“Who is God?” the little girl asked. “What is he like?”

I had never been asked that question before. Uncertain, I paused.

“God lives up in heaven,” I answered, then hesitated. What did one tell to a little girl who had never heard of God? “He loves us very much, I guess. He made the world, and you and me.”

“I thought Mummy made me.” Frowning, she looked up at me with puzzled brown eyes.

Kuyper grimaced. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you think it would be if—“

“At least a twenty.” The crusty old man finished Kuyper’s sentence abruptly. He threw a contemptuous glance in his direction. “Now. If you’ll leave me to my own business, I’d be glad to lock the door behind you.” He turned away, heading for the back door of the shop.

“No, no, no.” Kuyper slid between him and the door. “No. Not until you tell me who you are. And how you got that thing.”

“What thing.” His voice sounded like it was in an old can.

Ileuad pulled her mud stained cloak tighter around herself, trying not to wake Ewen. She shuddered in the cold, and cast a glance over to the other side of the cave. There Adaon lay, never to rise again. He was shrouded in his dark cloak in the very farthest corner of the cave.

I remember when we watched the sunrise over the river,
And we imagined dragons flying above, making the clouds into oceans.
The sky seemed to split apart, and fire rained down over us,
And we spilled into a new world that we made.

I remember when we walked through green hallways,
The trees making vaulted ceilings to our palace of fantasy.
We were dressed in all the trappings of wild princesses,
And we raced through the hidden tunnels of the new world we made.