Magia Forrest

"Hey, Stevie!" I yelled as I saw him walking across the street to go into the general store. He turned and looked at me and waved. I ran over to him to see what he was doing and ask him how his day was going. It was just an ordinary day for him. I walked with him through the store as he grabbed the items his mother had sent him to grab for that evenings dinner.

The next day, would be the best day I ever had with Stevie. I woke up early and ran to Stevie's house first thing after I got dressed and ate breakfast. I had a whole day planned out for us. It was sure to be a day I'd never forget, and it was. Just not in the way I expected it to be.

"Hey, Stevie! Are you ready to go?"

"You bet I am! Let me finish gathering my things, and I will meet you at the front door!"

I darted off, waiting eagerly at the entrance to Stevie's home. I almost couldn't contain the excitement as I thought about our day we were going to have! We had talked about it for months, and we're finally going to do it. We're going to go explore the Magia Forrest out past the east side of town over close to Mrs. Murdaws house. We've heard stories about the forest being home to some of the most mystical creatures and beings you could imagine.

"I heard talk of people seeing fairies, will-o-the-wisp, gnomes and even griffins out here!" I exclaimed to Stevie.

"Oh yeah? I've heard stories about unicorns, basilisk and even dragons!" Stevie said. He always did have to try and one up me. I thought to myself with a smile.

"Oh man, Stevie! I hope we really do see a dragon!" I said excitingly. "Can you imagine what the people in town would think once we told them?" I asked eagerly

We spent the whole day exploring through the Magia Forrest. We ran, lept and crawled under logs, stumps and boulders. We spent hours looking and hoping to see something, anything, that we heard stories of. It was almost dark and we had all but given up in our search of mystical beings of a land thought of as non-existent. We stopped to take a breath.

Looking around, I noticed we were in a beautiful circled garden of flowers I've never seen before. Flowers that were a purplish-pink in color. They looked almost like a bell, but they were purple, with black and white cheetah-esque spots on the inside of the 'bell'

"Have you ever seen flowers that looked like this, Stevie?" I asked.

"I feel like I-" Stevie began to say as he started flipping through his book he had brought.

"The Book of All Things Magical. Where'd you get a book like that, Stevie?"

"Do you know that little store on the corner of Mystiker and Geheimnis? I happened up on it while looking around in there one day and bought it."

Stevie, flipping through the book, found the page he was looking for. "Ah-ha!" He hollered "I knew I had seen this somewhere before! It was in this book!" He continued " The digitalis purpurea. The common name is the foxglove flower. This flower is know for it bell shaped petals and black and white cheetah print markings on the inside. Can be found in partly to fully lit areas in soil that is moist and easy draining. Known to attract butterflies, bees hummingbirds-" He stopped.

"What, Stevie?" I asked "What else does it say?"

Stevie began to smile "- in some rare cases, can also attract mystical creatures such as fairies!"

We could hardly contain our excitement as we started to search immediately. We had our fairy nets, magnifying glass and, just in case, hearing protection. We've been told that fairies can use music to lure you into a trap and capture you.

Me and Stevie looked high and low. Over and under everything within the circle of flowers. "Nothing at all" I said to Stevie disappointingly. "I really thought, maybe."

"Me too." Stevie said while holding back tears. "Maybe we should camp out and start over again in the morning?" Stevie had asked.

"I say we give it one more go!" I said eagerly. And with that, we sat up camp. Stevie set up the tent while I used what little daylight we had left to gather up some fire wood. I came back to camp and together, me and Stevie cleared out an area for a fire. We placed the rocks in a circle and placed the logs in the shape of a teepee. It took us some time, but we finally got a spark on the fire and before we knew it, we had a full, roaring fire.

I had packed some small cans of beans and found a river not far from us that I was able to get some water in order to boil us some tea. After tea and dinner, we rolled out our mats under the night stars. We had a clear view of the night sky. Not a single cloud in site. I had never, even now, seen so many stars so clearly. It was as if God had know we would be there that night and He wanted to give us a show.

We talked for hours about the stories we were told about the mystical sightings that various people in the village had either seen for themselves, or heard from other people who had seen. Before long, we started counting the stars as we lay there. Quietly, I counted. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... Before I knew, I was startled awake by, what sounded like, the scream of a 1000 little bells. All shaking in a melodic sound. I was entranced. Unable to stop staring as I saw little stars swarming all around Stevie and I.

"Thomas? Thomas!" I snapped out of it. I turned and looked at Stevie.

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" He asked nervously. "I've heard of some truly terrifying things happening to those who do"

I turned back to look at the forrest, then back to Stevie. After thinking for a few seconds, I turned my eyes on the forrest once more.

"Stevie, do we have earplugs?" I asked

Stevie replied "Yeah."

"Be sure to wear them"