Fairytale

As Presleigh walked, she stopped every handful of yards or so and marked a tree with a pocketknife.  A simple groove that would lead her back to the town.  It wasn't unusual to be lost in the woods if you strayed off the paths.  They were deep and mostly featureless – just an endless expanse of trees.  Every year it seemed at least one person forgot to mark their path behind them, or lost it somehow, and was gone for a couple days until they came wandering back into town through sheer luck, hungry and confused.

Some didn't return.  It happened.

And then there was their blacksmith who managed to get lost collecting firewood and wandered for months until finally staggering out near a town that was a week's ride using the road and a horse.  He still told that story, late at night, when all other stories had been exhausted and the tavern hadn't wound down for the evening.

It would be quite embarrassing if Presleigh got lost.  She was a Stormrider and she had to be back in town before dawn so that her mother wouldn't know she sneaked out.  That and if the rain held off, she needed to let that boy and his friends jump her so she could beat them up.  Maybe even use some ‘mancy against them.  She may be banned from using it in the house but they'd be jumping her outside.  The thought made her grin with anticipation.

She walked for several hours under the dripping leaves before growing bored.  The woods weren't any more interesting at night then they were during the day.  Besides, she was growing tired of holding up a sustained spectramancy ball of light to see by.  It was a tricky field of ‘mancy to do on the fly and she hadn't thought to write a circle on something before leaving the house.  With a sigh she stopped and looked around dully.  Flat earth.  Damp wood.  The constant drip of water off the leaves.  Boring.

A shadow in the forest caught her eye and broke her concentration.  The ball of light vanished and Presleigh swore, blind in the sudden darkness.  She blinked and focused on the prism she held in one hand, trying to mentally prepare herself to redo the ‘mancy.  Light refracted through the prism, even when there was very little light.  Just amplify the bright light she wanted through the prism and to a location where she wanted it…

Her concentration broke again.  This time it was by the faint purple glow at her feet.  She knelt and studied it.  Moss.  Moss that gave off a glow.  Puzzled, she looked up, and as her eyes adjusted to the light she noticed that it was growing on the trees too, casting a faint luminescent glow across the surroundings.  Now this was interesting.  She'd never seen anything like this in the daylight.  The prism forgotten, she slipped it back in her pocket and started walking deeper into the woods, noting that the moss was growing thicker and brighter as she did so.  The canopy was also growing closer together, blocking out even the faint moonlight.  This must be why the moss was thriving here – plenty of dark spaces for it to grow in.  

Presleigh continued to walk through the moss-forest, watching as different shades of turquoise and blue introduced themselves and the moss grew into streamers.  Her eyes had adjusted completely to the new light and she could see without the use of spectramancy.  Every now and then she'd stop and clear some of the moss off the tree and mark it, leaving dark spots behind that were like little holes in the reality of space.  It was a funny way to look at things and Presleigh was glad she had ventured this far into the forest, so that she could see the world in a different way than she ever had before.

Then the forest gave way to the biggest hole of all and Presleigh stopped dead.  Why had the moss stopped?  She squinted and realized it was because the trees stopped too.  She could see the moonlight and in those pale beams of light she could see what appeared to be a building.  A very large building.  A mansion, built in the traditional style with outside stairs, porches, turrets, and angles that intersected each other at degrees other than 90.  The roof was shingled and the sides were wood as well.  The building itself appeared quite well kept but the yard was in disarray, overgrown so that she could barely make out the iron fence surrounding it.  The forest was going to reclaim it someday.  Puzzled, Presleigh edged forwards into the clearing.  She'd never heard of a house here in the woods before.  Maybe no one had wandered in this area before?  Most people went into the woods for firewood and hunting and moss-covered trees wouldn't be very inviting for either of these.

Presleigh pressed through the high grass, pausing when she reached the iron fence.  After a moment of consideration she stepped up onto the bottom bar, then hoisted herself up and over.  The tops of the upright bars were spikes, eerily dangerous in the faint moonlight.  With another glance at the building Presleigh saw these spikes echoed in lines along the edges of the rooftop.  Old, intimidating, architecture.  Well, whoever built this was long gone.  There was no means to sustain a manor here.  No supply lines.  No nearby sources of food, not to mention simple comforts.  Presleigh approached the front door along the remains of a cobbled path and climbed the steps.  The doors were heavy, dark wood, with silver knockers formed in the shape of wolves.  She hesitated, then squinted.  Murmured a trigger word under her breath and waited a few seconds.  The doors remained blank and silent; no ‘mancy circle swimming to the surface in response to her invocation.  They were safe then.  She grasped the wolf handles and pulled.

They opened easier than she expected.  The hinges, however, squeaked just as loud as she would imagine an abandoned house would after years and years of neglect.  She winced at the noise and let them stop with enough space for her to step through.  A line of moonlight spread along marble floors and Presleigh walked along this, stopping where the moonlight stopped and pulling out her prism.

It was strange.  The inside smelled clean and she didn't see any clouds of dust as she walked.  It was like the place had been preserved at a certain state and she remembered her small excursion outside of time.  It felt like that again and she glanced nervously over her shoulder, wondering if she had missed some sort of ‘mancy when she'd checked the doors.  It really did feel like she'd just stepped outside – or was it inside? – something strange.

"Torqueo," she whispered and with a bit of focus a small ball of light rebounded out of the prism and formed just beside her ear, casting a warm glow across the entryway.  

It was sparse.  On either side were narrow iron staircases, leading to a balcony that vanished into darkness beyond.  There was a chandelier at the pinnacle of the ceiling that was made of tarnished silver and bore the stubs of candles.  The arched windows were covered by thick green curtains.  At the back of the room was an open arch leading further into the house, where her light could not reach.  Doors to her left and right were shut.  

Presleigh studied the walls and ceiling a bit more.  Paneled wood, left unpainted.  Rich wood that didn't need any paint to look elegant.  The ceiling was plaster, imprinted with an old stylized floral pattern.  There were half-columns leading up each wall, between the doors and the start of the stairs.  At the top of these hung marble gargoyles, glistening in the light of Presleigh's ‘mancy.  For a moment she stared at these closer.  They really weren't what she was used to seeing at the Academy.  For one thing, their wings were feathered at the base before the traditional, twisted bat wings emerged.  Their horns sloped far back along their thick mastiff necks and their backbone had overlapping armor plates.  Tails were long and whip-like, like those of a tufted rat.  Very curious design.

Presleigh walked further in, towards the open arch, carrying the light with her.  She had barely made it past where the two staircases started when a multi-voiced screech echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls and ceilings.  She screamed in response and covered her ears with her hands.  The prism fell to the ground and with a crash, shattered.  Her light vanished, but not before she had one last image burned in her mind.

The twin gargoyles with their maws bared, screeching a wailing keen, and crawling from their perches and down the winding column to the floor where Presleigh stood between them.

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