Wellspring of Magic, page 2
When Rachel and Aly reached the clubhouse door, they were panting from the run. As they pushed it open, they were met with a chorus of hellos from the girls sitting around a large wooden table inside.
“Sorry we’re late,” Rachel said.
“That’s OK,” Larissa answered. Rachel immediately noticed that Rissa, as the girls had nicknamed her, had given herself a new look. This time it looked like she’d gathered random clumps of hair and dyed each one a different color. Rissa loved temporary hair dye, so the girls never knew what to expect. She gave an exaggerated yawn. “Shaylee was just making us look at another of her scrapbooks.”
“No one said you had to look,” the petite blonde said, pulling the lacy pink book away from her friend.
Kaida laughed and put down her latest project—a brightly colored cross-stitch picture of a fierce dragon. Kaida was always trying new crafts; she said she liked mastering new things. “Rissa is just miffed because there aren’t more photos of her in Shaylee’s scrapbook!”
“Well, you know I’m stylin’,” Rissa said, hopping up to strike a pose. Rachel grinned at the way Rissa’s rainbow hair matched her tie-dyed T-shirt. Rissa had never met a color she didn’t like, and she used as many as possible to decorate her clothes and make them as unique as her hair.
Always the peacemaker, Aly slipped into a seat beside Shaylee. “I’d like to see your scrapbook.”
Shaylee beamed and opened the book. Rachel glanced at the pages as she slid into a chair. Lots of pink. Lots of ballet photos. Shaylee loved two things: dancing and making crafts about dancing. Right now, she was in a very pink scrapbook phase. “I see the problem, Rissa,” Rachel said with a grin. “You need to wear more pink.”
“As if,” Rissa said, but then she leaned over to get a closer look. “I don’t see any pictures of Jacob and Connor,” she said.
Shaylee sniffed. “I see my brothers enough in person. This morning they’re putting an ugly basketball hoop above the garage door. They woke me up with all the nail pounding—nobody needs to pound nails before 9 a.m.!”
“You should get a portable goal,” Kaida said. “Like ours. That way you can take it down or move it if you need to.”
“Do they make them in pink?” Rissa asked.
Rachel slouched down in her chair as she listened to her friends tease each other. Then, remembering the odd present from the afternoon mail, she dug through her pockets and pulled out the heavy triangle. “Hey, look at the cool thing I got in the mail today. Aly got one too.”
“I got one of those today too,” Marisol said. She pulled over her huge tote bag and began rooting through it, the bracelets on her arm tinkling like wind chimes. Marisol was seriously into jewelry—if she wasn’t making it, she was buying it. “Mine has a different picture though.”
“Mine too,” Rissa said. She held out a triangle with a book carved into it. Rachel was secretly glad she hadn’t gotten a boring picture like that. So far, she definitely liked hers best.
“Mine has some kind of fairy or elf. It’s in there,” Shaylee said, nodding toward her own bag, a pale pink canvas tote with fuchsia ballerinas in different poses stamped all over on the front and back.
Marisol finally whooped in triumph, “Found it!” and pulled out her triangle. It had the weirdest picture of all, like a cross between a dragon and mermaid with a long snout and lots of wavy fins. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s very cool. I love mermaids.”
Kaida leaned forward to put her elbows on the table, and held out a triangle with a winged unicorn on it. “I bet I’m the only one who knows what these are.”
“Paperweights?” Aly suggested.
“Magnets,” Kaida answered. “I tried it on our fridge.”
Aly frowned. “But they’re so heavy.”
“It’s a pretty strong magnet. I had to pry it off with a butter knife.”
“It’s cool that we all have one,” Rissa said. “They could be our club emblem or something.” She flipped her magnet in the air like a coin and tried to catch it, but just missed. The triangle hit the table with a dull thunk—and stuck. “Hey, what kind of magnet sticks to a wooden table?”
“That’s weird.” Kaida placed her triangle on the table, then gasped as her triangle scooted across the table until one of its points touched Rissa’s triangle. When it stopped moving, it seemed to be stuck fast to the table, just like Rissa’s. “Definitely freaky!”
CHAPTER TWO
The Secret Portal Opens
The girls stared at the two triangles on the table. Kaida reached out and tried to nudge one, but it was stuck. “You’d think I could slide it a little,” she said.
“Well, magnets have poles,” Rachel said, remembering something from her science class. “That’s probably what made them move by themselves, and, if they’re really strong magnets, they could be really trying to keep those poles touching.” Her voice trailed off a little as she added. “But magnets definitely aren’t attracted to wood.”
“Maybe the table is magical,” Marisol said, smiling.
“Oh yeah, that’s got to be it,” Rissa laughed.
Marisol grinned. “OK, maybe the table’s made of metal sandwiched between wood?”
“And those dinky magnets are sticking that hard right through the wood?” Kaida asked. “I still say that it’s seriously freaky.”
Rachel put her triangle on the table near the other two, and it also slid until it touched only one point of Kaida’s triangle. Without saying anything, Marisol and Aly added theirs and watched them slide into place, making a hexagon with one empty spot.
“Where’s yours?” Rissa asked Shaylee. Shaylee rummaged through her bag until she found it. She laid it on the table at least six inches from the other pieces, and it practically flew into place, completing the hexagon. The six triangles opened like a flower and the circle of wooden table between them vanished. The girls could see through the table. But they didn’t see the worn gray carpet of the clubhouse floor. Instead, they saw dirt and moss and rock.
“Whoa!” Rissa breathed.
Rachel ducked down and looked under the table to see if there was a hole in the floor, but the floor looked perfectly normal, as did the underside of the table. Whatever they were looking at through the hole, it wasn’t really there.
“It looks like you could reach right in,” Marisol said in an awed voice.
“Yeah, sure, I would totally stick my hand in there—never!” Rissa shook her head so that hard a clump of purple hair fell over her eyes.
Kaida leaned forward, chewing on her lip as she stared into the hole. Then she unclipped a barrette from her thick black hair and tossed it into the hole. It fell to the ground below. They watched it bounce off a rock before landing in a patch of moss. “It’s a real hole!” Kaida exclaimed.
“I vote we all go home now,” Shaylee said, scooting her chair away from the table.
Rissa looked at her. “You can go home if you want, but I want to see what this is.”
Shaylee’s lip crept out as if she might cry, and Aly slipped an arm around her. “If you’re scared, I’ll go with you,” Aly said. Shaylee shivered slightly, but she shook her head.
Just then a girl’s face appeared in the hole, looking as if she were twisting nearly upside down to peer up at the girls above the table. Shaylee screamed and jumped back from the table, knocking over her chair. The face vanished.
“OK, I’m definitely ready to go home now,” Shaylee said to Aly, backing away from the table so quickly she nearly tripped. By now, all the girls were on their feet, and clearly Shaylee wasn’t the only one who thought leaving might be a good idea.
Then the face popped up again, but this time, it appeared that the strange girl had stepped under the table and thrust her hands through the hole and somehow pushed the hole open to make it bigger. A second later, her head popped through the hole. She squirmed a bit and the hole grew large enough for her to pull herself through to the shoulders and then to the waist. Then she pulled herself up so that she was sitting on the edge of the hole in the table with her legs dangling into it. She didn’t look scary, but seeing her wiggling up out of hole in a solid wood table in their ordinary old clubhouse was too much for all of the girls, and they ran for the door.
“Don’t go, Princesses!” the strange girl begged. “Please don’t go.” She reached out a hand beseechingly.
Aly stopped, her hand still holding the handle of the half-open door. “Princesses?”
Rissa was the first to take a small step back toward the table. “Who are you?” she asked. “What are you?”
One look showed that the girl was something unusual. Her skin had a slightly green tint, and she had dark green hair—if you could call it hair. Her head looked like it was covered with downy green feathers that lay close to her head, exposing finely-pointed ears. Her slightly slanted eyes were green as well. “I am Eidermoss of the Folk, Princess. We need your help. Please, please, don’t go!”
“You need our help?” Kaida replied, crossing her arms and frowning. “Help with what?”
“You have to open the Wellspring,” Eidermoss begged. “Only the Princesses can restore the magic!”
“Um, we don’t know anything about magic,” Rachel said.
“Except what we’ve read about in books,” Marisol added, “and seen in movies.”
“And we are not princesses,” Rissa said firmly. “I didn’t even do the princess thing when I was little!”
The strange girl looked at her in astonishment. “Oh, you are a princess. You are Larissa, Princess of Spellcraft.” She turned toward Shaylee and spoke softly, as if awed. “And you are Shaylee, Princess of the Folk.” She bowed her head slightly. “We have waited so long for the Princesses to open the door. Without the fresh flow of magic, my people are weak. My world is dying.” Her voice rose shrilly. “We don’t even dance anymore. You are all Princesses. Please, come and help!”
“You want us to climb through the hole in the table?” Shaylee asked.
Eidermoss looked down at the tabletop. “It would be easier if you had put the realm keys on a wall.”
“They’re stuck,” Rissa said. “Besides, we didn’t know they were keys. They didn’t exactly come with instructions.”
“Can you climb through?” Eidermoss asked anxiously.
Rissa put her hands on her hips. “Not can we—the question is will we.”
“I will,” Kaida said. “I’ll help. Besides, you’ve got to admit, this has to be the biggest adventure in Connecticut today!” She scrambled up onto the table and Eidermoss smiled. Kaida turned back toward the others. “Anyone else want to play extreme princesses?”
Rachel shrugged. “I’m game.”
One by one, each of the girls agreed. Aly held Shaylee’s hand for courage when it was their turn to crawl up onto the table and slip down through the hole. It required some undignified wiggling to get through the hole, but soon they all stood in a small, mysterious wooded clearing.
“Where’s the hole?” Rachel yelped. It had vanished after the last girl was through.
“There isn’t enough magic to hold it open on this side,” Eidermoss said. “And now that you’ve left your world, there isn’t enough magic to hold it open there, either.”
“You mean we’re stuck here?” Shaylee wailed.
“Oh, no, Princess. Once you find the Wellspring and release the magic, you can open the hole in this world or the door in your world, again.”
“So we can only get home again if we succeed?” Rissa asked.
Eidermoss opened her eyes very wide. “Yes, I think so.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Guardians
The girls stood silently for a moment, absorbing the fact that they were trapped. Rachel shuddered. Adventures seemed a lot more fun when you watched them on television—in real life, they were just scary.
“Once again, it really would have helped if this adventure thing had come with instructions or at least a map,” Rissa said. Then she sighed. “Are you going to tell us where to find the Wellspring?”
Eidermoss shook her head. “I do not know where it is, Princess. Only the Guardians know.”
“Great,” Rissa said. She dropped her voice and muttered, “Who wants to bet the Guardians are drooling two-headed monsters?”
Rachel glanced at Aly, who was acting a bit strange. Ever since she’d stepped into the clearing, Aly had been turning around slowly, looking at the trees. “What’s up, Aly?” Rachel asked.
“Everything is glowing.” She kept turning, eyes wide in amazement. “Why is everything glowing?”
“You are Alysa, Princess of the Earth,” Eidermoss said, her tone puzzled. “You see the energy of all things. It’s part of your magic.”
“Not usually,” Rachel said.
“It’s beautiful,” Aly breathed.
Suddenly the girls heard movement in the forest shadows. “Friends of yours?” Rissa asked Eidermoss.
The green girl shook her head hard. “No, the Guardians are coming.”
Six huge grizzly bears lumbered into the clearing. Their fur was almost golden, and they were as big as Clydesdales. Just as the girls were turning to run, the largest bear stopped, as did the others behind him.
“Welcome, Princess.”
Rachel was shocked to hear the bear’s deep, gruff voice in her head. “Um, thank you.”
“I am Fleet, leader of the Guardians. Have you come to restore the magic?” the bear asked.
“I guess,” Rachel said. Then, speaking more firmly, she added, “We’ll try.”
“Why are you talking to the bear?” Rissa hissed loudly.
“He spoke first.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Aly said.
“Me neither,” chimed in Shaylee. The others nodded their heads in agreement.
“Well, I don’t exactly hear him,” Rachel said. “His words are kind of in my head. I know that sounds really weird, but that’s the best way I can explain it.”
“That’s what I thought,” Rissa snorted. Aly glared at her.
“The Guardians can only be heard by you,” Fleet said to Rachel. “You are Princess of the Guarded Forest. We have come to take you and your companions to the Wellspring of Magic. We are the Guardians.”
Rachel turned and told the others what the bear had said. The other girls still looked at her in half disbelief, and half amazement.
“Are they really the Guardians?” Rissa asked, turning toward Eidermoss. The green girl was trembling and didn’t speak; she only nodded.
“Well, at least they aren’t drooling. I guess we should go with them.” Rissa sighed.
“They’re awfully big.” Shaylee was trembling nearly as hard as Eidermoss.
“But they’re amazing,” Marisol added softly.
“Will you go with us?” Rachel asked Eidermoss.
“Oh, no, Princess,” Eidermoss whimpered.
“Why not?” Rachel asked.
“The Folk rarely enter the Guarded Forest. I only came this time because we could feel the change—we knew you were coming, and because I hoped I would not see the Guardians.” Eidermoss spoke so softly that the girls had to lean close to hear her. “Everyone knows that the Guardians eat people.”
Shaylee shrieked, “I am not going with them! I want to go home—now!”
Eidermoss grew more agitated. “No, Princess! Save us, please!”
Through the high-pitched chatter, Rachel heard Fleet’s deep voice in her head. “Have no fear, Princess. We do not eat the silly Meadow Dancers. Those tales are from their imaginations only.”
“Fleet says they won’t eat you,” Rachel said. “If we want to get home, it looks like going with the bears is the only way we’ll get there.”
Shaylee pointed at Eidermoss. “If she’s not going, I’m not going either.”
Eidermoss shook like a leaf, but she stammered, “If my Princess requires I go, I will go.”
There was a new burst of hysteria when Shaylee and Eidermoss found out that the bears intended for the girls to ride on their broad backs in order to move through the forest more quickly. Despite Fleet’s assurances, Eidermoss obviously thought she was not going to survive the day.
“What if Eidermoss and Shaylee stayed here?” Rachel suggested. “The rest of us could go and do whatever needs to be done.”
The Guardian shook his huge, grizzly head. “No, the Princess of the Folk must lead the dance during the calling of the magic.”
Rachel relayed Fleet’s message to the others.
“Dance?” Shaylee said. The younger girl sounded calm for the first time since entering the realm. “Did he really say there’s a dance?”
The bear looked at Shaylee, though he still spoke only in Rachel’s head. Rachel passed his words on. “The dance comes from inside you, Princess of the Folk. It is part of your magic, as is all creativity. When the time comes, it will flow out of you like the magic of the Wellspring, and all of the Princesses will join you in dance.”
Shaylee looked nervously at the huge bear, then nodded slowly. “OK, I’ll come.” She turned to Eidermoss, who stood beside her, trembling and whimpering. Shaylee patted her arm. “You don’t have to come. My friends will be there with me.”
Eidermoss gushed her thanks like a broken faucet even while the girls climbed up onto the bears’ broad backs. Honeyglow, the smallest of the bears, had to lie nearly flat in order for Shaylee to scramble up onto her back. Finally, the bears turned and lumbered back into the woods with the girls clinging tightly.
Fleet’s rolling gait made it a challenge to hold on. Rachel had ridden horses a few times at summer camp, but found riding the bear much more difficult. “If you lay close against me,” Fleet said, “you should find riding easier.”
Rachel passed on the suggestion to the others, and soon the girls were riding flat on their stomachs. They still clutched handfuls of fur, but the new position definitely felt more secure.
“Is it far?” Rachel asked Fleet.
“No,” the bear answered. “The Wellspring is at the exact center of the forest. We are nearly to the forest’s heart.”
