Sage heard her mother calling her name from downstairs. She opened her eyes and looked around her room, disoriented from the dream. She realized she was drenched in sweat and sat up. As she brought her hands up to rub her face, she noticed she was holding something. She opened her hand but couldn’t believe what she saw. It was the same deep black stone from her dreams. Perfectly smooth and almost reflective, it fit perfectly in the palm of her hand. It was warm to the touch. She could feel her mind reaching out for any possible explanation, but drew a blank. She stared into the stone as if it might show her the answer.
“Sage! So you are awake! I’ve been calling you for a while now, are you feeling okay?” Sage’s mother, Sofia frowned with concern and sat down on the edge of the bed. Sage tore her eyes away from the stone.
“Yeah, I feel fine.” Sage surprised herself when she realized it wasn’t a lie. She felt well-rested and clear-headed. Just sweaty.
“You don’t look fine, you’re drenched in sweat! Did you sleep alright? You know I was worried about you being out so late last night, that isn’t like you.” Sofia reached out for Sage’s hand and noticed the stone. “What’s that?”
“Oh, just a river stone I picked up on my walk last night.” Sage spoke without thinking and slipped the stone into her pocket. Ordinarily, Sage was a notoriously bad liar. But this one came out so naturally. She felt a mixture of excitement and confusion. Her mother’s frown deepened.
“Are you sure you feel up to going to the festival tonight? You know you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Sofia squeezed Sage’s hands reassuringly. Although Sofia couldn’t relate to Sage’s solitary nature, she did her best to support it. Sage smiled and squeezed her mother’s hand in return.
“I’m sure, mom. I’m fine, I just had some weird dreams is all. Can you braid my hair for me today like you do yours? I never got the hang of doing it like that.” Sage enjoyed spending time with her mother even though they didn’t have much in common. She really only took after her mother in appearance, with the same olive brown skin, thick wavy black hair, and hazel brown eyes. Everyone in town insisted they had the same nose and lips, but Sage didn’t see it. Their noses were similar enough, but Sofia had more rounded, full lips compared to Sage’s asymmetrical fuller bottom lip and more pronounced cupid’s bow. Sofia grinned and reached out to pull Sage’s long hair, still in a single messy braid, over her shoulder.
“I can braid your hair for you if you wash it first.” She plucked a small leaf out of Sage’s hair. “How you can be my wildest child and the quiet one, I never understood.” Sage suppressed an eye roll as Sofia kissed her forehead. Sofia rubbed Sage’s cheek gently. She looked like she wanted to say something but changed her mind. Instead, after a long pause Sofia stood and said “I know you had mentioned wanting to look for that flower again this morning, right? Why don’t you eat something before you run off back into the woods. Then when you come back, you can wash your hair and I’ll braid it for you.”
Sage’s eyes went wide. “Yes! I’ll be down in a minute!” She scrambled out of bed, still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. She couldn’t believe she had almost forgotten about her search. Her father had told her about a rare flower he had only been able to find once before in the forest one morning at this time of year, when he was a boy. He had said it was one of the strangest and most beautiful flowers he had ever seen, growing tall and alone like a sunflower, with large thorns and a single bloom like a rose the size of a person’s head. She wouldn’t have believed him at all, except he had plucked a single, giant petal from it and pressed it. It was thin, and somehow a bright shimmery reflective white and translucent at the same time. If this was how it looked, dry and withered after decades hidden in between the pages of a book, Sage couldn’t imagine how it must look in person. Ever since he had told her about it, Sage had made it her mission to comb through the woods at every opportunity for the month before and after the Autumn Twilight Festival. She hastily changed her clothes and rushed downstairs, all worries from the previous night’s strange dreams displaced by her single-minded focus. As anxious as she was to get on with her search, Sage forced herself to slow down while eating the simple breakfast her mother had prepared for her - hot tea and warm bread with jam. Sage knew that her mother worked hard to make everything from scratch, including the blend of tea leaves and mixed berry jam. She had noticed over the years that Sofia felt the most appreciated when her family took the time to enjoy the results of her labor, not through compliments.
Sage waded her way through the gauntlet of endless questions about where she was last night, what she was doing, how late did she stay out, was she meeting up with anyone, tell us more about who you’re going to the festival with… by tuning it out and giving vague non-answers to all the siblings she encountered on her way to the forest. Mostly she was saved by their engagement in half-finished chores around the garden and herbalism work shed that prevented them from following her. With light streaming in, the forest lost any lingering mystery it held from the previous night. Sage felt at home, listening to the song birds and small animals of the wood as she walked unfamiliar paths through the enormous trees. She passed by the occasional creek, rocky outcroppings, a dramatic overlook of a huge swath of forest below a sheer drop, with no sign of the unusual flower she was looking for. She took the opportunity to gather any additional herbs, roots, leaves, and flowers she happened across that she knew would be useful for the herbalism stall. She had been starting to suspect that foraged wild ingredients were more effective than the garden variety. Her mind wandered idly through the list of decoctions, extracts, and balms she could make with the ingredients she had gathered thus far. A large twig snapping under her heel brought her attention back to the present.
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She had made her way to a mossy glade with a simple, worn stone altar on the opposite side, shrouded in darkness and shadow despite the daylight. Sage felt floaty, as if she might leave her body if the wind blew. This was the same glade and the same altar from her dream, although it looked much older now. A light breeze tickled Sage’s neck and swirled fallen leaves around her feet. She felt dizzy. She felt the stone’s weight in her pocket; she squeezed it tightly in her hand. She didn’t remember moving it into these pants when she changed earlier. It was hotter to the touch now than it was this morning, but not quite burning her skin. She approached the altar, and saw a small pile of similar smooth black stones, but these were much duller than the one in her hand. It belongs here. Sage didn’t know where the thought came from, but it felt right. She removed the stone from her pocket and placed it gently on the altar.
Wind rushed past Sage’s face, as if the altar itself released a breath it had been holding. She looked up and stared into the large yellow eyes slowly opening high above the altar. Sage felt her throat tighten and she shivered. She watched as the eyes shifted to the side of the altar and down, closer to her eye level. Like in her dream, an arm of shadow reached out to grab the side of the altar, then a shadowy foot stepped out; as if pulling itself out of the darkness behind the altar, something emerged and took form. Sage struggled to make sense of what she was seeing, but the perception of this being slipped through her mind like water through a sieve as it slowly took shape. When her eyes were finally able to focus and make sense of what she saw, she felt overwhelmed by competing emotions of amazement and horror.
Standing only a few feet in front of her was a humanoid figure roughly seven feet tall with disproportionately long arms and legs. In some places, the creature’s skin was like bark, or covered in blooming flowers and budding mushrooms; in others it was covered in fur and feathers. The eyes hadn’t changed size, and remained huge and unblinking. There was no mouth, but otherwise the facial features of this being were angular and feminine. The most striking and horrifying feature, however, was the enormous antlers, bloodied with shedding velvet. Each of the tines looked razor sharp, and Sage wondered how much of the bloodied mess decorating the antlers was velvet and how much was gore from other animals.
“It has been a long time since I was summoned.” The voice sounded as if it was coming from all around Sage at once, but she understood it was coming from the creature. It had a pleasant melody, like a windchime in the distance, but an undercurrent of menace in deeper, inaudible tones that Sage could feel vibrating through her.
“Who are you?” Sage whispered. The creature tilted her head and Sage regretted asking such a simple question.
“I have been known by many names. The villagers once called me Ayala. Do you come from the village to request a blessing?”
Sage frowned with confusion. “Ayala? Did they name you after the town?”
A sound like a bubbling brook washed over the glade, not altogether unpleasant but it made the hair on the back of Sage’s neck stand up all the same. Ayala was laughing. “No, your town has long forgotten itself. It was once a village named Ayala’s Ridge, as tribute to me. Your people would come here and make offerings, ask for blessings and guidance. Over the years these visits dwindled, and now I hear the town has grown and calls itself Ayla’s Ridge. Your people are lost.” She walked slowly around the edge of the glade. Sage turned red and felt fear prickling down her arms as she realized she had offended the creature. “But you found your way here. And not for the first time.” Sage startled and nearly tripped over herself as she turned to face Ayala as she walked; the voice sounded like a whisper right behind her neck.
“But this is the first time I’ve been here! I mean, for real anyway. I had a dream about this place last night.” Sage failed to keep the shakiness out of her voice.
“That was no dream, Sage.” Ayala took a soundless step closer to Sage. “Once there were many villagers each season who would visit me here while they slept. But the people have grown away from me, afraid of me. It takes a rare person now to find me here. You are not lost. You have potential.” Sage felt frozen. She could easily see why people would be afraid. But she also felt amazed, and part of her desperately wanted Ayala’s blessing.
Sage forced herself not to take a step back. As much as she wanted to probe more about the potential Ayala saw in her, echoes of warnings given by visiting Wardens about the dangers of magic and monsters lingered in her mind. Sage swallowed hard. “The Wardens… they say that magic is dangerous. That anyone touched by magic will eventually lose control and become a monster, and monsters are mindless, dangerous threats to all humans.”
Sage felt a tension in the silence as Ayala considered her fears. A cool breeze passed through the glade, as if Ayala had taken a deep breath. “I am not a mindless monster. I have served as a protector and shepherd of any human that enters my domain as long as I can remember. Consider that the narrative you have been told about magic serves the Wardens and their secrecy. As a token of my goodwill, I can guide you to the flower that you seek, but you must promise not to destroy it.”
Sage felt ashamed. She had called this powerful being a monster, and yet Ayala still offered help. She reflected how much damage Ayala must have witnessed humans cause in the forest, if her only condition was that Sage not destroy this rare and beautiful flower. Sage simply nodded. “I won’t hurt it.”
Sage followed Ayala silently as she wound a path to an area deeper in the forest, where Sage could’ve sworn she had searched before. Nevertheless, Ayala stepped aside and there it stood: a single tall flower, with thick thorns and one large shimmering bloom. Sage was stunned. It was even more beautiful than she had imagined. The flower petals shimmered like the reflection of the full moon in a still pond. She approached it and gently stroked one of the petals. It was cool to the touch, and so soft that it was almost as if she wasn’t touching anything at all. She leaned forward and inhaled deeply. It smelled familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. The only words to describe it that kept coming up in her mind were cold and bubbly. Sage turned to thank Ayala for her guidance, but she was alone. She sat and attempted to focus on sketching the flower in a small journal she had brought with her, but she couldn’t distract herself from the regret of not asking more about her potential.
