Elizabeth here: This is Ch.04 of The Downhill Fey Forest. Read the other parts if you haven’t already. I hope you enjoy it: happy reading!
~~~~~ ~~~~~
At four in the afternoon, Alban heard the two fairies giggle above him again. There were trenches all around this part of the forest, and he already suspected that Sundrop and Snowdrop’s prank was going to involve them. He also dreaded the possible consequences of the prank. He had no clothing to ruin, so it probably wasn’t a harmless, clothing-soiling prank.
Alban picked up a five foot long stick and started poking around with it to hunt for illusions and invisible things. But, Alban had wizened up, and knew that they were going to try a different strategy than last time. As he kept walking forward, gently poking the ground, he wondered just what they would try, or how he could counter it.
Soon, he came to an extremely long clearing with a five foot wide ravine that stretched left and right through the middle as far as he could see. He didn’t dare approach it: not yet. This was the longest ravine he had seen so far, and prime ground for a fairy’s trap. After travelling left and right for five minutes to see if it ended anywhere nearby, he found no way around, and knew he would definitely have to jump over it.
But rather than gently prod the air and ground with a stick, Alban saw some rocks embedded in the soil nearby, and had a better idea. He picked up a smooth, cherry sized pebble and lobbed it over the ravine. It sailed over the ravine itself with ease, but hit an invisible object on the other side with a wooden
thunk
.
“Awww,” Snowdrop said from somewhere above him. “I thought you’d jump. Well, it’s a low wall, and it’s been here for a while, so you could still hop over it!”
Alban tossed another pebble: indeed, the invisible wall was only three feet high, and the area beyond was solid ground. But he wondered why Snowdrop still encouraged him to jump. He poked around near the ravine and threw more pebbles, but there was nothing there but the invisible, three foot high wall.
He crouched by the edge and peered into the ravine: it was thirty feet deep, and the bottom was filled with muddy water and small plants. Not a lethal fall, just a painful, messy, and inconvenient one.
Then just before he was going to jump, he decided to stand right at the edge of the ravine and poke directly up above the opposite edge. Indeed, when he did, he felt another invisible wooden object up there, and it moved slightly when he prodded it.
“Hey!” Snowdrop said from somewhere above. “You weren’t supposed to find that one!”
White fog appeared around the invisible wall and the object in the air, and both became visible again. The now visible wooden wall around the trench had been paired with a dozen or so logs suspended from ropes, which Alban had uncovered.
The leaves above the suspended log shook, and Sundrop flew out of a hiding spot made from sticks and leaves. She joined Snowdrop, and was soon no longer visible in the canopy above.
“Dang, he’s getting clever,” Snowdrop said.
“I know,” Sundrop said as they both flew away. “I thought I could drop the log on him and knock him in, but...” and their voices trailed off.
Alban found a good place to jump, and leaped over the ravine. Jumping was one of his strong suits. He stumbled when he landed, since he was wearing a backpack and wasn’t used to jumping in uneven terrain without shoes, but stayed upright anyway. He trekked onward, proud at having overcome a fairy-made obstacle for once.
The trenches got smaller over the next half hour, shrinking down to mere inches in width and depth, and Alban finally reached another downhill slope. Happy to escape, he followed it downhill, and the little trenches finally vanished.
Nobody bothered him while he was going downhill. It took an hour to reach the base of the slope. Alban wished he had clothes, or at the very least, a decent pair of shoes.
The foliage around him thickened, limiting his visibility. He trekked onward, and the sound of running water came from ahead: the first flow of water Alban had heard in a while. For a lush forest, there weren’t very many streams or ponds in the Fey Forest.
But when Alban pushed two ferns aside, he saw a massive, shallow lake just behind it, with crystal clear water, and sunlight glistening into it from gaps in the canopy above. There was a breeze above him, and patterns of sunlight danced in the clear water. The bottom of the lake was filled with smooth, multicolored gravel, which glistened in the shifting light filtering down from above. Massive, ten foot wide oak trees were among the few plants that grew out of the two foot deep water, and with little blocking his line of sight, Alban could see very far into the distance. The lake went on for as far as he could see, and a little nearby stream parallel to Alban’s path, the source of the water sound he heard, fed into it.
There wasn’t anywhere else to go but into the water. Alban took a step in. The water was warm, but safe, and it came to his knees. The fine gravel actually felt relaxing to walk in, since it shifted predictably under his weight, made a lovely
crunch
, and the pebbles were worn entirely smooth. He slowly trudged through the calm water, making little splashes as he walked. He kept his stick handy while he wondered if anyone lived here.
After half an hour, Alban came across a section of lake with hundreds of flowering water lilies. They gently floated in the calm water, and after poking a few with his stick, Alban walked between them, taking care not to kick the stems while he walked.
After a total of one hour in the lake, it was starting to get dark again, and Alban was getting tired. As relaxing as it was, moving through two feet of water was slow and exhausting. The dancing sunlight in the water was starting to turn orange. So, Alban was thankful when he saw the opposite shore of the lake. Thick foliage grew in a big, green wall on the shore, and it was lit with specks of orange sunset light filtering down from above.