The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. (William Butler Yeats)
As Suzy Bell floated slowly to the forest floor, once again she was amazed to find herself dressed in different clothes. This time it was a frilly lace dress, and — holy cow! — she seemed to have wings. She tentatively gave them a little wiggle, and found she bounced a foot or so off the ground. Startled, she stopped wiggling and fell back onto the ground and lay there for a moment.
Did that mean she could fly? Was she like an angel? Did that mean she was dead? Could this be heaven? Her phoophoonikkee had never done this before.
Suzy Bell got slowly to her feet and looked around. The woods seemed very still. There was no rustling of leaves and there was no birdsong. She seemed to be the only living creature there. Except — could that possibly be the wolf’s fluffy tail she saw for a moment in the brush? But she blinked and it was gone.
Slowly she became aware that directly in front of her, the woods had begun to glow. She saw the face of a beautiful Lady and swirling golden birds. The Lady smiled at Suzy Bell, and then, crawling slowly toward her out of the glowing light was a ginormous dragonfly.
Now ordinarily Suzy Bell would have been so terrified that she would have fainted dead away. But she had been through so many unusual experiences lately, that this didn’t seem so extraordinary. And when the dragonfly opened its mouth and began to speak, she was intrigued to learn that it had a high sweet voice, sort of like what she had always imagined that an angel might, rather than the rough and tough voice of the angel-in-the-moon.
Suzy Bell couldn’t really tell if the dragonfly was smiling (since it didn’t appear to have any lips), but she rather imagined that it was. It stopped in front of her, and bowing low, it lifted one of its forepaws and suggested that Suzy Bell climb on board. There were places that it wanted to show her, it said, places that The Lady said she needed to see.
(to be continued)