Elveena From Somersetal Downs

Elveena from Somersetal Downs

I floated through the air as a soft, shimmery mirage, completely untouched by the wind. Even the warm rays of sunlight did not penetrate the mirage. Yet, I sensed every root nestled deep in the soil, the smile of each wildflower gazing at the sun, every beat of wings above the flora of Somersetal Downs. I distinctly knew this meadow and was bound to it.

Abruptly sensing a wrongness, my mirage’s shimmer expanded and convulsed before coalescing into the form of a young, lithe maiden.

My hair was golden, with a silky sheen that shone like sunshine off water. My skin, unblemished by the sun’s baking rays, was semi-opalescent like a newly formed pearl. Unaccustomed to this form of a lithe young maiden, I tested the body. I stretched the full reach of my limbs, deftly pointing a toe to tap the ground. Then, bending over, I cupped a little purple flower and inhaled the blossom’s fragrance.

My transformation from a shimmery presence into a physical being had not gone unnoticed. An inquisitive cat rose from its peaceful sunbath. The orange cat strolled over to the spot my toe had tapped. Seeing nothing on the ground, the cat wound its path through my legs, brushing its sides along my skin.   

I bent over and picked up the soft, furry friend.

“Hello, little one.” The lightly lyrical sound of my voice was soothing and melodious. “My name is Elveena. What is yours?”

I held the orange cat close to my ear and patiently listened for an answer.

“Mew-meow,” purred the cat.

“Meredith, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am a Leimoniad, a meadow dryad, and this is my meadow. I sensed something was not right here not long ago. Do you know what happened?” I said as I stroked the cat’s fur.

“Meooowww!” replied Meredith, yawning.

“Will you help me discover what is wrong?”

“Mew.”

“Good, I appreciate the company. I trust that you may smell the offense before I see it.” I put the cat on the ground. “My friend Pamilus is a Potameides, a brook naiad. I was on my way to visit her.  She might know what occurred in this part of the meadow, or at least point me in the right direction.”

The orange cat flicked its tail, wound through my legs and then proceeded toward the brook, pausing to look back at me and offer a “Meow-w.”

“Yes, I will follow you.”

I scanned the meadow while moving through the tall grass, occasionally stopping to examine a flower or a distinctively marked ladybug. Meredith waited patiently, grooming her fur to remove little bits of grass from it.

The sun traversed the sky as we moved across Somersetal Downs. The closer we drew to the brook, the lusher the grass was.

Meredith’s ears perked up and twitched with the sound of moving water. The cat paused and slowly swiveled its head to pinpoint the movement.

“What do you hear?” I asked my companion.

The cat did not respond immediately. Instead, the animal lowered its body closer to the ground and crept closer. The fur along the spine rose in warning as the cat continued cautiously toward the brookside.

  Meredith froze in her tracks.

Then I saw what had alarmed the cat. The brook had swirled out of its banks, flooding part of the meadow.

“Oh, my…” I gasped in astonishment. “What caused this? There has been no storm to flood the waterway.”

 I scanned the scene of an assault to my meadow. The grass was matted down, hidden under a layer of brook mud. The way the grass lay showed the swirling action of the water before it receded. The water had not merely risen and spilled over the banks. It had rushed over with a strong current, spinning the land as it made its escape.

 “Pamilus,” I called, turning to the left and scanning the banks of the brook. “PAMILUS!” I repeated as I searched the bank to the right of the matted vortex grass. I knelt to examine the gray-colored grass blades, searching for some sign.

Meredith settled on her haunches and regally watched as I performed my careful inspection.

“Oh, Pamilus, what happened here? Are you alright?” I half thought, half spoke into the wind.

Scanning the area once more for some sign of my naiad friend, I stood up. I looked at Meredith, patiently waiting for me to decide what to do.

“Alright, let’s see if we can find Pamilus,” I said, taking confident strides toward the brook. I paused to look back at Meredith, still sitting on a green patch of meadow. “Are you coming?”

“Mew.”

The cat stood, arching its back in a full stretch, then bouncing ahead of me. Meredith was determined to scout the area ahead of us, while I searched for details out of place. I looked for the fairy handkerchiefs that I knew Pamilus would strew around during her tours of duty.

   I admired the brook trout and how their side-to-side motion propelled them through the rock beds at the bottom of the brook. I noticed the corky scales of the sweetgum trees and their star-like leaves. Prickly balls dangled from their branches, threatening a puncture when reaching for a green-yellow flower.

Meredith soon discovered a weeping willow tree. The dangling leaves distracted the cat from her journey. She batted at dangling leaves, hunkered down and then leapt at the thin branches, only to hit the ground without any reward.

“PAMILUS!” I called out.

We had traveled for an hour from the vortex without finding any sign of my friend.

“Meredith, I think we should turn around and head the other direction. Maybe if we cross the brook here, we will improve our chances of finding Pamilus.”

The cat looked at the brook. Approaching the water’s edge, she hesitantly dipped a paw in the water. Immediately, she withdrew the paw and vigorously shook the water off.

I picked the cat up and carried her across the brook. The cool, clear water rose to my knees as I waded through the current to the other side. Little eddies caressed my calves as I moved through the brook.

Stepping onto the dry bank, Meredith jumped from my arms and gingerly landed in a patch of creeping Charlie, releasing the strong minty aroma. Meredith held her tail straight up as she made her way along an unseen path following the brookside.

I followed behind, scanning the opposite bank, searching for some sign as to what happened, where Pamilus was—anything to ease the many questions that were forming in my thoughts.

“Meow, meowww, meow, mew!”

Meredith became quite vocal and urgent as she darted ahead.

I scanned the path the cat was on. She seemed to be headed toward a patch of bald cypress knees.

Then I saw the foot lying behind the huge tree.

Fear gripped my stomach while astonished wonder piqued my curiosity. My steps quickened to a mild jog. My eyes searched the area for any threats around me. As I neared the tree, the foot did not move. It lay there, heel resting on the ground, toes pointing toward the sky.

I slowed to a stealthy creep, not knowing who or what I would find.

I put a hand on the shreddy, fibrous bark as I peeked around the tree to determine the owner of the foot. I gasped as I recognized my friend lying on the ground, her hair strewn across the needles.

A sob choked in my throat as I dropped to my knees beside her.

Pamilus, usually as clear and effervescent as the mountain-fed streams she tended, looked spent. Her skin, typically a shimmering aquamarine, was dull and covered in a drying crust of river silt. Her gossamer hair was tangled with snapped twigs and decaying pine needles.

“Pamilus,” I whispered, gently cradling her head to lift her face from the damp earth.

Meredith trotted over, her ears flat against her skull. She sniffed tentatively at Pamilus’s limp hand, let out a low, mournful rumble in her chest, and began frantically licking the mud from the naiad’s knuckles. Meredith head-butted the hand, coaxing it to flex into motion.

Slowly, Pamilus’s eyelids fluttered open. They were cloudy, like a pond stirred up by cattle, but as her gaze locked onto mine, a faint spark of her native clarity returned.

“Elveena…help me.” Her voice sounded like dry autumn leaves rustling across gravel, a heartbreaking contrast to her usual bubbling laughter. “The stone… they broke the warding stone at the headwaters.”

“Who…who did this?”

Panic, hot and sharp, flared through my chest. As a Leimoniad, my essence was tied to the tranquil peace of the meadow, but feeling my sister of the waters so broken stirred a fierce, protective tempest within me.

“Men,” she rasped, coughing up a small splash of murky water. “With iron tools… digging in the silt near the old weir. They sought gold, or granite, or perhaps merely room to build. They did not see the glyphs carved into the bedrock or if they did, they did not understand them. They smashed the dam to clear the channel, and the bound currents burst forth all at once.”

The matted vortex in the grass made horrible sense now. It hadn't been a natural flood. Wild, unchanneled magic had burst free from its ancient bounds, and Pamilus had taken the force of it to protect the meadow downstream.

“Where is the breach?” I asked, smoothing back her muddy tresses.

“Three bends north, where the brook cuts through the black shale,” Pamilus murmured, her eyelids growing heavy again. “The wild water is still draining; it’s leaching the magic from the roots and turning the soil to poison.”

I felt the truth of her words resonating through the soles of my feet. Deep beneath us, the delicate balance of Somersetal Downs was shifting. The roots were drinking bitterness, leaves were drooping downward, and flowerheads were losing their majesty as their stalks sagged under the weight.

Meredith nudged Pamilus’s cheek, purring loudly, attempting to share her small, warm life-force. Pamilus’s hand found the cat’s head and lightly stroked the fur before closing her eyes again.

“Stay with her, Meredith,” I commanded softly, easing Pamilus down onto a bed of soft moss away from the harsh mud.

I stood up, my semi-opalescent skin glowing a little brighter as my panic transformed into quiet resolve.

I was a creature of grass, sunlight, and quiet growth, but the meadow and the brook were sister spirits. If the headwaters bled wild magic, we would both wither. I turned toward the north, where the brook twisted through the dark shadows of the shale cliffs, and began to run.

After I rounded the first bend, the landscape felt strangely heavy. The light-filled essence that usually surrounded every growing thing had weakened. The splendor of rich colors seemed muted, and the luxurious green smell was lost beneath the mingled aromas of fish and decay.

My pace quickened. I could not let this pervasive corruption swallow my meadow.

Rounding the second bend, the silence grew oppressive. The cheerful chatter of warblers and the rustle of field mice had vanished, replaced by the ominous, unholy wet churn of thrashing water.

Reaching the point where the black shale cliffs narrowed the channel, the brook no longer flowed; it convulsed.

A jagged fissure split the ancient bedrock near the ruin of the old stone weir. Out of the breach poured a churning vortex of dark, iridescent foam, thick with wild, unbound magic. The water didn't just flood; it hissed as it struck the shale, eating away at the banks and sending tendrils of oily black mist into the air. Nearby sweetgum trees slouched, their star-shaped leaves curling inward and blackening at the edges.

Standing near the crumbling edge of the weir were three men. Clad in mud-splattered wool and leather, they gripped heavy iron pickaxes and crowbars, staring in horror at the monster they had unchained.

“I told you to leave that marked slab alone, Thomas!” one shouted over the roaring foam, backing away. “It ain't natural!”

“Shut your yap! How were we to know the whole bank would give?” the larger man yelled back, though his hands shook as he raised his iron pick.

I did not pause. The sight of my beloved earth blackening beneath their feet burned away any lingering fear, replacing it with a cold, ancient fury.

I burst from the tree line, no longer the gentle maiden who had stroked a cat’s fur or cupped a wildflower. My opalescent skin blazed with a searing, white-gold light, and my hair whipped around me like flames caught in a fierce wind. The ground beneath my bare feet hummed, a deep note trembling through the soil.

The men gasped, dropping their tools as I approached.

“You have broken what was never yours to touch,” I said. My voice was no longer light or melodious; it resonated like thunder rolling over the hills, echoing off the shale.

“W-who? W-what are you?” the large man stammered, falling back onto his haunches.

“I am the Downs,” I declared.

I raised my arms, reaching down into the earth with my spirit. I called to the roots of the ancient oaks, the weaving network of rye grass, and the stubborn clay deep below.

Respond they did.

Thick, coiled tendrils of sweetgum and willow roots burst through the shale, weaving together like living wooden fingers.

Guided by my will, the roots thrust into the rushing torrent, forming a dense, woven barricade right over the fractured bedrock. The wild magic fought back, snapping smaller roots with sharp bursts of sparks, but I poured my own essence into the timber, fusing bark and soil into a living seal.

Slowly, the violent churning subsided. The iridescent foam died down, and the thrashing water smoothed into a quiet, steady current, flowing safely through the wooden channel I had wrought.

The meadow gave a soft, collective sigh. Across the banks, the drooping leaves began to lift, drinking in the cleansed water.

I turned to the three men, who were cowering in the mud.

“Take your iron,” I whispered, my voice softening as the brilliant light faded back into a warm, pearlescent glow. “Leave this place, never come back, and tell your kind that Somersetal Downs remembers those who cause it harm.”

They didn't need to be told twice. Scrambling to their feet, they fled down the bank, leaving the quiet valley behind.

I knelt by the water's edge, dipping my fingers into the cool, clear stream. Downriver, I felt the life returning to Pamilus, her strength flowing back as the pure water reached her. A gentle mew echoed from the tall grass behind me as Meredith trotted up and leapt onto my shoulder.

The meadow was safe once more.