A Royal Rose

Chapter Three

Rose was sat down on the couch, rubbing her forehead in confusion. “Fae powers?” she asked. The bird’s voice confirmed she’d heard him correctly. This was beginning to hurt her mind, maybe I’ve been knocked unconscious by Lee and this is all a hallucination?

“Yes, now listen to me Rose, your mother is desperate to see you! Please, repeat this word. Say it how you would a commandment. Hold the locket whilst you say it. The word you need to repeat is small” the bird told her.

Rose was now beginning to wonder, I’ve been stabbed rather than knocked out and I am hallucinating wildly due to my injuries, she pinched herself and hard. It hurt considerably so she knew she wasn’t dreaming it. Figuring she had nothing to lose, she repeated the word like the bird had told her, “SMALL!” she said firmly as she held the glass locket in her fingertips.

The room spun around her whilst it got bigger and Rose shrunk down. When the spinning and shrinking had stopped the bird flew down to the floor to meet her. His little orange legs were so vivid and long now. Rose was just a little smaller than the blackbird, and the contents of the room were bigger than anything she’d ever seen before in her life.

“Climb on my back Rose, it is time for you to meet Aine!”, the blackbird urged. He hopped about on the carpet, seemingly in excitement. Rose couldn’t help but smile at the once small bird, was now the equivalent to the size of a horse to a human. At this size, she could admire his bright orange beak in all its detail and how strong his body was. She didn’t have a clue how she was going to climb on the birds back. Where would I put my feet? I don’t want to hurt him she wondered.

The bird’s voice filled her head “Grab some feathers, you won’t hurt this old bird!”. Rose got closer to the bird, running her hand down his soft jet-black feathers, it felt like silk.

Placing her fingers in between the bird’s feathers, she climbed onto the bird’s jet-black feathery back and gripped onto some sturdy feeling feathers either side of his neck. The blackbird moved under her body and Rose tightened her grip, he walked a little forward and suddenly his wings flew open. The noise was deafening, the bird flew around the room two or three times, dived down and then they soared out of the open window. The air was crisp, and Rose wished she’d put on a coat before she left. The bird carried on ascending into the grey coloured afternoon sky, the terraced rows of housing got smaller behind her and the fields beyond the town boundary stretched out in front of them. It was all she could see for miles, the air whistled around them making her cheeks numb with the cold. Rose had never been too bothered about heights before but being this small and as high as the telegraph poles up in the air made her head spin.

The blackbird started to descend, and Rose looked down, it was the area that she’d seen online. The rolling hill to the left, the circle of trees and the nearby country lane. As they got lower, the trees looked like a sea of leaves as they flew over the tops. The blackbird flew over the wood and then turned back around. In front of them, there was a pink shimmering curtain of light, between the opening of the trees. It sparkled in the late afternoon winter sun. The shimmering of the curtain reminded Rose of the way a ray of light looks when the dust dances in it.

“We are passing through the veil of the faeries now!” the bird’s voice told her and within seconds the pair went through the shimmering curtain of light. The world around her seemed to change and even though it was the same place she saw through the opening in the trees, now they were inside the trees, the sky was pitch black.

“What’s happened to the sky?” Rose questioned.

“Time moves differently here,” the bird told her as he descended towards a clearing. Rose slid off the back of the bird’s back and onto the floor of the wooded area. The floor was covered in soil and the roots of various trees, on closer inspection, she could see one large tree ahead of her that one of the trees had a crimson red door and little windows on it. The wood was lit up with various lanterns, there were little stone paths, lined with pebbles and little fences. The tree with the crimson door had a little twig fence around the front and a little front garden filled with flowers. Rose was fascinated with the world around her, it reminded her of Victorian painting, “What should I do next Mr Bird, Sir?” she asked. I hope that’s the correct way to address him she thought.

“Go knock on that red door Rose, the lady inside, your mother has wanted to meet you for nearly 30 years now. She was so upset on your eighteenth birthday and you didn’t put the necklace on. We couldn’t find you!” the bird told her, shuffling her towards the tree with his wing.

“thank you. I’m so nervous!” Rose said as she straightened up her clothes, her hands were cold, but it was warmer in the wood than it was outside of it, she rubbed her hands together to warm them up. Walking towards the door at the foot of the tree, admiring the sheer size of the world at a different height she wasn’t looking directly at the tree until the door swung open to reveal a white blonde-haired woman with a bob style haircut. Without any introduction, Rose knew this was her mother because something in her heart told her so.

“Rose, my sweet darling Rose,” her mother said as she hugged her tightly. Rose was so shocked, her mother pulled away from the hug and touched Rose’s cheeks with both of her hands.

“We look so alike!” Rose said, her eyes drinking in her mother’s familiar looking features.

“You look just like me as a young woman!” Aine declared. Rose looked at her mother’s soft baby face and couldn’t imagine they were much apart in age. The confusion must have shown on Rose’s face, “Us Fae don’t age at the same rate as humans” she smiled, paused and called “Thank you Merula! Welcome to the Holt, Rose. Welcome home!” she ushered Rose inside her home.