Hey guys, I'm back. I hope everyone is doing well and is staying safe from the virus. Please, please, please remember not to touch your face, and continuously wash your hands! I know I'm being a Mother Goose right now, but someone has to. Anyways, please enjoy the next chapter of this story and tell me what you think in the reviews.

The following day, Clary rode her bike back to the meadow with the intention of collecting more ingredients. Mr. Rothschild had asked her to make a salve of lavender for his bad back. The clear, blue stream beneath her showed her reflection, she hated looking at it longer than she had to, for she looked just like her mother, and that just brought up a plethora of emotions Clary wasn't ready to deal with.

Her hands cupped the river water and she took a long sip, taking the moment to go through her mental checklist of what she'd have to get done that day. Get lavender for Mr. Rothschild, grab seeds for the herb garden, and sketch the trees in the forest. She was planning on making a mural in her living room and needed a reference for the trees.

Reaching into her cloth backpack, she grabbed a small knife and got to work slicing the lavender bushes, grabbing the ones getting the most sunlight, for they were the strongest and most potent for a salve. She moved her hand to wipe the sweat from her brow when she heard a strange noise from not far off.

Pausing her work, she brandished the small knife in her hand like something that could inflict serious harm and tentatively stepped towards the source of the noise.

She wove through groups of trees and down winding dirt trails, with each step she took, the rustling grew louder and louder. She was almost about to give up when the woods opened into a clearing. Clary had to push aside a rather large bush to get a clearer look and what she saw stopped her dead in her tracks.

No less than 100 feet in front of her was a boy around her age. But that wasn't the strange part. It was the fact that he was standing in a rather large body of water with his hand placed over a submerged body. And also the fact that he had green skin.

Clary took a closer look, the body underwater was Gabriel's daughter. She couldn't help the gasp that escaped her and the boy turned towards her. His leonine eyes narrowed at her and his full lips twisted into a frown. "What?"

Caught by surprise, Clary couldn't think of anything to say and just stared at him, a blush heating her cheeks. With a dissatisfied sniff, the boy swirled his hands around the water, creating a spiral. The water itself seemed to wrap around him, and then suddenly he and the girl were gone. Leaving the water still in his wake. As though he hadn't been there in the first place.

She pedaled away so fast on her bike that her legs were practically rubber. He looked at me, she thought, and disappeared! Just like that! She shook her head, trying to clear the outlandish thoughts from her head.

When she arrived back in her town, she couldn't stop the word from escaping her mouth. "Hey!" she said between pants, "I saw...I saw him...I saw the one who took that girl!"

Her eyes met with the other townspeople, their expressions ones of confusion. "He drowned her in a pond in the forest! He has green skin, and blond hair, and he's quite big and…," she trailed off, not getting any response from them.

The longer she stood there, the more nervous she got. She couldn't handle all their eyes on her. She subconsciously shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Well, Clare," Mr. Rothschild spoke up, his voice rough like sandpaper. "I guess we could go to the guards and you could...this is, you could tell them about whatever you think you saw. But I don't recall anyone missing, sweetheart."

What!? Clary thought bewildered, you told me! She didn't let their disbelief stop her, "He's real! I'll prove it to you!" She turned around and hopped back onto her bike, this time with a determination to prove herself, and to get some answers.

As she pedaled away, an older woman of about the age of forty murmured to her friend, "That girl spends too much time alone after her grandmother died." The two women shared a sad look and went about the rest of their day.

By the time she reached the field again, it was already dusk, and the stars were beginning to appear in the sky. It gave the field a beautiful golden glow, almost as beautiful as the boy standing in the middle of it, his long gleaming hair flowing in a disembodied breeze.

Standing next to him was an exquisite brown horse. It's coat shone, the clear marker of it being well-cared-for and it's mane was a deep rich chocolate. Both the boy and his horse were so outlandishly beautiful that they almost hurt Clary's eyes to look at them for too long. Almost.

But that didn't stop Clary from doing what she came for. "Hey, you!" she barked, the feeling of her knife in the back pocket of her shorts comforting. The boy's hand reached for the shining sword by his side, and brandished it out in front of him.

"You'll come with me this instant!" she too reached for her weapon and held it out in front of her. Although, his was much larger and deadlier than hers, she didn't back down.

"The girl you saw earlier is fine," his voice was rich and deep, flowing over her senses like a glass of cold water. "Go home. Don't come back to the meadow or I'll take you too."

Clary's expression twisted into one of anger. "No!" She held her knife with more certainty and planted her feet firmly into the soft grasses below. "You'll come with me this instant!"

Instantly, the ground beneath her began to change shape, making her lose her footing. The clear sky above them became windy and full of large, dark clouds. Suddenly, the ground opened up and Clary tumbled through, almost like Alice falling into Wonderland.

And, as soon as it all had started, everything stopped, and Clary landed inside a strange land. It seemed that everything was made up of something different, a hodge-podge of separate things all mashed together. And nothing seemed to work or make sense.

The sky above her was as dark as ink, with not a single star blemishing it. All around her were strange trees as taller than she'd ever seen, their branches reaching in every different direction. Bits and pieces of old relics and statues lay around her, as though a mob had run through and demolished everything.

In front of her, a crystal clear black lake, appearing that way from the sky's reflection. What was strange however, was in the reflection, there were in fact stars. Clary furrowed her brow, confused, where in the world was she?