They left the beautiful forest behind and headed into the swamp. They had stopped and filled five bottles from the stream before leaving. They reached the top of the hill that looked out over the forest stopping to take one last look before walking on. They walked for hours not feeling tired because of all the running they had done,
Tim on the other hand was lagging after two hours. "Silvia…. Please can I ride Lilly? My legs are killing me." Silvia looked at Lilly. "If we all have to walk then you do…" Silvia said as they stopped beside a body of black murky water sitting down to take off her shoes. They waded through and once they got across, they made camp on the other side. They ate some of the dried meat and then lay down on the ground to sleep.
Lacey awoke and soon was followed by the others; they ate a little before beginning the journey again. They walked through the swamp; at the end of the day it was dryer as they came closer to the mountain. They slept that night with little water left in their bottles. The next day they were headed for the base of the mountain.
"So where is this place where we can get through the mountain?" Asked Silvia when they were getting breakfast, Lacey was away, behind a bush changing into her dress, she had been wearing her small deer skin dress for the last two days. When she was finished tying her skirts up, she joined them around the fire they had built to cook their breakfast.
"Well I don't know if it goes all the way through the mountain, but it's on the left side of the mountain, its hard to spot without knowing where it is." Ray said. "You brought us up here without knowing if its goings all the way through." Silvia said disappointed, Ray smiled sheepishly while rubbing his neck.
"Well let's go see if it goes through. I'm ready for some adventure." Tim stated and got up. Silvia just shook her head and got up too. They headed out again and a couple minutes later reached the base of the steep cliffs of the mountain and headed left following Ray. They walked alone the cliff, finally Ray stopped.
Lacey came to a stop beside him as Silvia and Tim followed. "Who wants to go first?" Ray said pointing to the crack in the cliff that was a little bigger than enough for a person to walk through, Lacey stared not knowing how she had missed it when she had run the side of the mountain. "I will." Silvia said moving into the crack followed by Lilly, who barely fit inside. Tim immediately followed her, Lacey hesitated but when Ray motioned for her to go ahead, she stepped in too.
Lacey followed behind Tim as they headed into the small hall in the cliffs and was followed by Ray, the crack seemed to go up slowly and steadily as they walked, after a little bit it came to more of a cave. they stopped, and Silvia unpacked the torches off Lilly which they had made a few days before and lit them. Handing one to each of the others they then continued.
As the small cave curved, it continued going up. They had been walked for a good part of the day. Suddenly the cave opened and began to get bigger in size. Soon they could walk side by side, but they continued in a line. The cave seemed to begin to go down as it got bigger. They came to a spot where the cave opened into a room, it had another cave on the other side. "What's this place." Lacey asked. "No clue." Ray said. The room was filled with writings that covered the walls. They left the room and continued going through the next cave, continuing down in a small decline, with twists and turns along the way.
They walked for awhile longer before they saw light at the end, it was spotty like it was coming through rocks that covered the entrance. "There's something blocking the entrance." Silvia said coming to a stop, everyone stopped behind her, then she started again. Lacey stared at the site of a dark pink mist as it fluttered like butterflies around Silvia, then as fast as it appeared it was gone.
Silvia jolted then bent over and coughed then straitened. "Wow…" Silvia exclaimed. "What happened?" Tim said stepping to stand beside her. Silvia shook herself. "It's nothing." Silvia rolled her shoulders. "Came on. I will get the rocks out of the way." Lacey nodded, this must be where the barrier stopped. She followed Silvia as she headed for the entrance, but stopped as the safe feeling washed over her, she looked down at her dress, it was blue then it deepened, then changed to the soft pastel green, then yellow, then red, then pink, then back to green then blue again.
All while the color was changing the skirt that was tied up, started to undo, and now she stood in her full-length skirt, then sleeves to her wrists. The dress then turned yellow, lacey turned to looked at Ray as he took a step towards her. Her eyes went wide as she got a sense, they were all in danger.
"What?..." She turned and run towards Silvia who had started to pick up a rock, as she passed Tim who had been shocked into stillness from the color show of her dress. Her dress pulsed red, orange and yellow as she run, the fabric of her dress moved as she pulled Silvia and Tim close to her. They were wrapped in the pulsing fabric as a burning heat hit them, then the fabric glowed even brighter.
There was an ear-splitting scream that shook the cave. "What is going on?" Silvia yelled over the sound of pure power. Lacey shook her head, they stood in complete silence a moment later. The fabric around them turned from the fire red and orange to just yellow as the fabric fell away, they stood, the ground beneath them was hot but rapidly cooling and they no longer stood in a cave.
Lacey turned to look for Ray, he stood his clothes in tatters and his eyes. They glowed gold, she stared, to see above his palms were two balls of golden light. "Are you ok?" She called letting go of Silvia and Tim and walked over to him, He blinked the light in his hands disappeared and the glow in is eye was gone. "I'm fine." She stepped closer to check him but stopped.
"What in the magic wood forest was that?" Silvia said coming up dragging Tim by the arm. "Huh. Oh.." Ray said looking around them, he spun around at an eerie crack. "CRACK!!" They looked up to see a crack in an invisible wall, just then the crack screeched then sent spider like cracks on up. "Crack." "Crack." "Crack." "Crack!" Then the sound multiplied by a thousand, that sent everyone to their knees holding their ears.
"Captain!! LOOK!!" Yelled the man in the crow's nest, the man put his spyglass to his eye looking in the direction the man had pointed. He caught a flash of light from far out on Claws island, They had to be about a hundred miles away from the place. Then the light was followed by a series of ear-splitting cracking sounds, he still had his eye glued to the glass. When he saw the huge wave that was sent from the island was headed right for his ship. He bellowed out commands as the wave came even closer. He had his ship turned around and the sails picking up wind, but the wave came upon them drenching the ship and all its crew.
Lacey awoke, every bone in her body ached, everything was still around her, she turned her head at the movement to see the others slowly sitting up. She too sat up and looked around her, they lay in a clearing a couple yards wide, big trees lay half uprooted beside the clearing and rocks and debris. The last thing she remember was holding her ears as the barrier broke.
She stood up, her dress was still blue and full-length. Tim swore as he stood. "Really! I just got better. I am not trying to kill myself. What even happened." Tim said looking at Ray. Ray brushed off his tattered clothes. "The barrier broke." He said turning to look toward the mountain, Lacey turned too. What they saw left them stunned for a few moments, there was now a huge canyon left where the cave had been.
"Well. I have my magic back." Ray said, opening his fist as his eyes glowed gold and a ball of gold light appeared on his palm, it twirled and twisted into the shape of a bird as it flew around his hand then landed on his hand, before he closed his hand and it disappeared and the glow of his eye disappeared again. "Wow…" breathed the others. Ray smirked.
"You guys weren't lying. The trees are massive." Ray said turning to look at the forest. Silvia sighed. "Yeah. Well if you guys will follow me." Tim looked surprised. "do I finally get to see your cabin." Silvia just turned and headed into the forest, going past a couple uprooted trees on the way. Tim followed, Lacey stayed were she was looking around her, her spear was not on her back it had probably got thrown when they had been thrown by the force of the barrier.
"What is it?" Ray asked, she turned to him. "My spear. I can't find it." She said, he nodded. "That's easy." He flicked his finger, then waited. She looked at him but turned as she heard a scraping sound. The spear came flying and two boulders fell from a way's away. "Here." He caught it out of the air and handed to her.
She took the spear silently, Ray smiled then headed out to follow Silvia and Tim. The skirt of her dress started floating as it pulled in Ray's direction. "aah!!" She grabbed for her pink skirts, to pull them down. "Huh?" Ray turned as she looked up. "Everything Ok?" She laughed nervously. "Yeah. I'm coming." She said as she began smoothing down her skirts, Lacey did not notice her spear drop to the ground again as she smoothed her dress back into place.
Ray nodded and turned to start walking the way Silvia and Tim had gone. "Please don't do that! And please can you turn into something more suitable for outdoors?" The dress fluttered and humbled, then turned back to blue. Then in a flash of rainbow light, turned into a more outdoorsy summer dress, with long sleeves and knee-high skirt. She smiled then ran to catch up with the others.
Lacey caught up to everyone at the base of the large tree that held Silvia's cabin. "Are we waiting for something?" Lacey said as she stepped up to them, then looked up in the big leaves of the tree. "Yeah, you." Silvia answered, she looked down to see Tim and Ray starring at her, she sighed. "Yes! My dress changes color. Oh! And shape too." She said pushing past them to jump and grab the trees branch and pull herself up.
Silvia giggled then jumped up after her. The boys were left standing on the ground stunned. It took them a while to climb to the cabin, because Tim was struggling the whole way, so they had to stop and wait for him. They finally climbed on to the porch. "Wow, how did you make this place?" Asked Tim. "I didn't make it. Mark did…"
Silvia said opening the door, the room was covered with dust. Lacey covered a sneeze when they entered, Silvia smiled then turned towards the door. "I'll be back." She said before going out the door and closing it behind her, which sent the dust flying. Lacey sighed and reopened the door to air the place out.
Silvia returned moments later with an arm load of feather busters and a bag. She handed out the dusters to everyone, and they got to dusting, when they were done Silvia opened the bag of dried meat and they sat around the table to enjoy. They talked and laughed till way into the night. "Wow! Its late!" Silvia exclaimed.
The others seemed to notice the time. "Wait... Where are we going to Sleep?" Tim said looking around. "You guys can sleep down here. We'll sleep upstairs." Silvia said getting up, soon they all were in bed the boys, one on the bed and the other on the floor, while Silvia and Lacey shared the bed in Silvia's room.
Lacey awoke it was still dark out, it could not have been more an hour or so. Lacey lay there trying not to move in case of waking Silvia, she finally got up from the bed, she walked over to the ladder before gathering up her full flowing skirts into her arms so she could descend. It took a while for her to move down, she stepped onto the lower level, and saw Ray laying on the floor while Tim had the bed.
She turned taking slow steps to not wake them and opened the door before closing it and headed down the tree, there was just enough light from the moon to navigate through the darkness. She reached the bottom and headed for the lagoon. She laughed as she run down the path, which was harder to see by moonlight, when she got to the lagoon she walked over, the moons reflection shown on the deep blue water. She smiled sighing softly, she took a couple deep breaths of the cool night air.
A soft sound behind her made her turn to see a dark figure of someone as they come out of the trees. "What are you doing up…?" asked Ray. "I could not sleep." Replied Lacey as he came to stand beside her. They stood taking in the cool refreshing breeze that slowly ruffled the leaves on the trees. Lacey noticed that her dress had turned pink and felt a tingle of pleasure run down her back as she moved a little closer to Ray.
After standing for a few more minutes Ray motioned to a Rock near the edge of the Lagoon. "Let's sit there," he said softly. Lacey walked over and sat on the Rock, Ray followed and sat down beside her. They listened to the waterfall for a few more minutes when Ray softly took her hand in his. Lacey felt a sense of comfort and let him take it. He began running his other hand over hers and spoke softly.
"You are so beautiful. From the first time I met you I have not been able to get over the grandeur of your beauty." Lacey took in a quick breath. She had not expected him to say that, and yet it felt good. There was a peace within her as they sat there together.
After a while Lacey's legs started feeling numb so she stood up. "I think I am ready to go back. I feel like I will be able to sleep now." The two slowly walked along the path hand in hand not even realizing that that is what they were doing. Once they reached the tree Lacey Said a soft good night. Ray started to lean in towards her but she turned and quickly climbed up into the tree and carefully made her way through the first room and back up to the ladder.
Climbing into her bed her thoughts began to focus on Ray and the feeling of security she felt around him as they spent the time together at the lagoon. Meanwhile Ray climbed up the tree and softly said "good night." As Lacey disappeared up the ladder. He resumed his position on the floor and lay for quite a while pondering over their time together at the lagoon and the though of what could be. "I even had the thought of kissing her." He thought to himself. "What has come over me." Soon they were both asleep again.