Chapter 2

In Which Many Things Are Explained

I slung the heavy brown bag over my shoulder and climbed into the car beside my mom. We were on our way to the airport. From where my plane landed I would be taking a boat, then I'd have to catch a bus, then I'd be walking to granny's from the outskirts of town. Fun, no?

When I got off of the bus, I looked around for an old flower shop. My mom had described the direction that I should take and the landmarks to look for. The bus had let me and another passenger, a blonde man in his twenties, off at an intersection near a boat dock. Old women with flowery hats and long dresses shopped at stalls near the harbor. I smelled fish, fruit, and something resembling the boy's locker room at school (although I've never been in there!). A group of young children danced about the water's edge, having found a small toad in the crystal clear shallows. They were all dressed in simple clothing. Not one of them wore shoes. I supposed that there wasn't much point for shoes since there were obviously no cars (the streets were much too narrow) and the town itself was a dwarf in comparison to the crystal buildings and large structures that I could see to the east.

"You new around here?"

I spun around to face the man who had disembarked from the bus at the same time as I. He wore black jeans into which a short-sleeved red and white striped jersey was tucked (rather sloppily). The jersey read WELSH RUGBY diagonally across the front in chunky white letters.

I was a bit taken aback, but I tried not to show it. "How'd you know?"

He laughed and flashed me a brilliant grin. Squinting his cerulean eyes and ruffling his shaggy fair hair, he looked toward the sun and explained "This place is so small that nobody new comes here without getting an awful lot of attention."

Oh. 'Great', I thought.

"So what's your name?" He asked.

If everyone in the town knew each other that well, I didn't think I would give out my real name. You know, for privacy. Or whatever. After thinking for a while, I came up with "My name's Molly."

He nodded. "You don't look like much of a Molly."

I fired back with "Well, what's your name?"

That got him. He stopped in the middle of stretching out his arms and opened his mouth.

"MEGANNE!"

Way to blow my cover, you old hag.

The old woman who I presumed to be Grandma Sophie launched herself at me from my left, throwing me off balance. I careened sideways and my feet slid out from under me. A cloud of dust from the road floated in front of me and I stretched my arms out, hoping for something – anything – to grab on to. I felt two strong hands gripping the undersides of my arms, slowing my descent. One of the hands must have had a ring on it because I felt something rounded near what must have been a finger digging into my arm. The hands set me down gently and I heard a pleasant, light laugh as I flopped onto my back. From my position on the ground, I looked up and saw the upside-down grinning head of the man who had been about to tell me his name.

"Get up, girl." Sophie ordered in her crackly old granny voice.

I hurriedly sat up and tried to brush the dust off of my clothes. As I attempted to beat the dirt out of my jacket, the man held out a hand.

"May I?"

He took the jacket from me, held it up, and gave it a pat. The dust was gone. Just gone.

Sophie took the jacket from the grinning man with a troubled expression. "Oh dear, I don't think that Meganne's ever seen magic, have you honey?"

The man's grin disappeared and he turned and bowed deeply to me. "My apologies, miss." He said forlornly.

"Oh, um, it's okay…" I said, half shocked by the whole 'magic thing', (that was just a figure of speech, right?) and half in awe of the guy's strange airs.

"Come along." Sophie said and started off up the road again.



Chapter Two Song:

Once Upon a Dream

I know you
I walked with you once upon a dream.
I know you
The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
Yes, I know it's true
That visions are seldom all they seem
But if I know you, I know what you'll do
You'll love me at once
The way you did once upon a dream