Isabella's Earth Chapter I - Sneak Peek

Walking alongside the wall, Isabella peeked and prodded her way until reaching the large knotty tree in the corner of the large yard. The tree was almost as wide as it was tall, with full green leaves filling in every gap of space in between the branches, until there was not a speck of light or blue sky that could peer through the thickly leafed tree.

Unusual as this was, the blossoms on it were even more unusual, producing iridescent pink blossoms, something that looked like a cross between a magnolia and a cherry blossom. Most people would just say it was a hybrid of some kind, dismissing its uniqueness in every way. But Isabella, was more than intrigued and continued to scour the library for books on trees, flowering, fruit and otherwise, but had yet to discover its true nature.

“Look Linguini, there are some new blue flowers here this morning!” The unusual blue color caught Isabella’s eye as she was completely behind the huge tree now.

“They weren’t here yesterday and look how unusual they are! I’ve never seen these before, and I’ve never seen such a strange blue color on a flower either. More like a periwinkle really, I wonder what they are? I’ll have to check the book later, but I’m sure I’ve never seen them before.” Isabella exclaimed with surprise.

Linguini came over and rubbed against Isabella as she crouched down near the ground to get a closer look at the unusual flowers. Linguini pointed his nose at the flowers but got no closer than an inch away when he jumped straight up in the air with surprise! A sudden spray of periwinkle iridescence squirted out from within the flower surprising both Isabella and Linguini! The waft of sweet aroma that reached both their noses was also surprising, and something Isabella also did not recognize.

“What was that?” Isabella exclaimed to Linguini. He looked quizzi- cally at Isabella as he sat a few feet away.

“Oooh, didn’t that smell beautiful?” Linguini just starred at Isabella, sitting a safe distance away from the unexpected squirt, still not convinced it was safe to return to Isabella’s side.

“Come on Linguini, it’s okay.” Isabella coaxed. Linguini was not budging from where he stubbornly sat.

Isabella took a closer look at the flowers, trying to identify where the iridescent spray could have possibly come from. As she bent down to get a good look, a sparkle of blue light flew past her nose and disappeared into the stonewall!

“Now, what was THAT?” Isabella exclaimed. She took a step closer to the wall and looked for evidence of where the blue light had gone. Isabella saw there was a small smudge of iridescent blue powder just on the edge of a stone as it creased into another stone next to it. Isabella touched the blue powdery substance and inspected it closely in the early days’ light.

When she looked at it more closely, it was like she was looking at a thousand tiny stars that lay on her fingertip, all made of not just that periwinkle color, but she could see pink and purple and silvery white and even some deep ruby red! Isabella blinked hers eyes open and shut a couple times, thinking it must be the sunlight hitting the blue powder just the right way to make her see what she was seeing.

She rubbed it between her index finger and thumb to get a feel of the texture, and as she did this, tiny little sparkles swirled up from where the blue powder sat on her finger, twinkling in the air just a few inches from where they lay a moment ago, and then disappeared in a poof, like tiny little fireworks exploding in the air! That smell again! Like blueberries with a hint of tangerine at the end, fresh and clean yet with a hint of sweetness to it. The strange aroma filled the air and wafted its way up to her nose, making it tickle all the way up to her forehead.

Isabella sneezed. “ Aaahhhchooo! Aaahhhchooo! Whew, that one got me Linguini! What is this strange little flower?” Isabella looked over to where Linguini had just been sitting but he had moved from his spot of safety and disappeared from the yard. Probably found a sunny spot to take his morning nap, Isabella thought to herself.

Isabella looked around the edge of the wall for more of these strange little flowers, hoping to catch another sparkle of light escaping into the wall. There were more of the flowers that reached the width of the tree, but no further. At the edge of the large tree, lay the last little blue flower, safely hidden behind the tree.

As Isabella searched for more flowers beyond the great tree, it wasn’t more than a foot more when she first noticed something was out of place. A small stone, maybe only four inches wide and about the same in height, had fallen out of its place in the wall and was lying on the ground, inches below. Strange, Isabella thought. How could this little stone fall out of its place? She knelt down to pick up the small stone and looked to see how she could carefully place it back into its rightful place.

As she lowered herself to the ground, trying to get the proper view to place the stone back into place, again and for the third time this morning, something strange and unexpected caught her attention, but it happened so fast, she was sure that she was seeing things!

She could have sworn she just saw a little person run past as she was about to place the stone back into the hole in the wall! The surprise of it caught her off guard and she lost her balance and fell backward onto her butt!

“What was THAT?!” Isabella said out loud with surprise! She was really perplexed now and rubbed her eyes this time. She peered back into the small hole again to make sure she wasn’t just imagining things.

“There, another!” she caught her self saying out loud, even though there was no one around to hear her or respond. Another appeared suddenly, and then another! One by one, two by two, then there were three tiny little beings running past her! It looked as though there was a small tunnel that ran through the old stonewall! Isabella blinked hard again, closing her eyes and reopening them again...to take yet another look...there! She saw one again, and then more all at once, running past her. She sat there in disbelief at what she knew she was seeing clearly with her own eyes!

There were little beings of all sizes, but not one that was more than three inches tall. There were little people that looked like men, and women and even little children, all dressed in vividly colored clothing. Isabella noticed something else about the vast array of colors; that they all had a similar look and feel to them; in fact, they looked just like the colors of the flowers, blossoms and leaves of her yard. There was something else about these strange little people that Isabella kept seeing but couldn’t quite make out as they ran past her in a flurry of excitement and uproar! Isabella said out loud, not quite realizing she was actually speaking to these little creatures.

“Are those wings on your backs?”

One little childlike being stopped dead in her tracks, and grabbing her mother nearby screamed; “Momma, there’s a human out there!”

Her mother stopped as quickly, causing every other little being to stop in their places, creating a rear-end crash effect.

“Whoa, what’s happening up there?” One voice came, with several others expressing their pain of having their toes stepped on, or their backs suddenly bumped into, or worse.

“Ouch! Watch out there!” “Oh, my foot, you stepped on my foot!”

The resulting little-being-crash-up landed several more on their butts along with a large smashed-together line up of at least twenty of these little people standing, totally exposed now to the opening of the wall. The exclamations of pain suddenly stopped, with a hush coming over the crashed crowd as they all sat, or stood in their present positions, now staring out of the wall and directly at Isabella.

Isabella stared back, dumbfounded by what to make of the strange scene in front of her. Just as the chaos and commotion became perfectly still, a very faint, yet deep sounding voice emanated from somewhere out of sight within the tunneled interior of the wall. Whomever the voice belonged to, it was quite apparent to Isabella that it was approaching the opening in the wall. Isabella could barely make out what the voice was saying, as she was staring, still in as much surprise and shock, with the little smashed-up crowd staring back out at her.

Isabella could hear the deep voice growing more clearly now, as it continued in its apparent approach; “Scusa me, Permesso, permesso.” Finally, the voice appeared in the form of an exceedingly short and particularly round little ‘man’, if she could call him that.

He had about him a very official air and posture that matched his more formal attire than the others. Wearing a long robe made of what looked to be fine linen with a purple satin sash and a royal looking gold embroidered crest. Isabella noticed that his wings were of the same color as his robe but otherwise looked like all the others.

The robust little being quickly adjusted his slightly askew sash as he came to a full stop in front of the backed-up parade of littlest beings. He cleared his throat, and pushing his robe aside, he placed his hands on his hips and speaking with a very proper sounding British accent, said;

“Just what do you think you are looking at, missy?” He said indignantly. “Are you responsible for this hold up in the procession? I certainly hope not, as we have a very important date with the Queen, and we cannot have any interruptions or unnecessary delays!”

Isabella didn’t know what to say, was this little man, being, whatever he is, actually speaking to her, her thoughts stuttering out of her bewildered state of mind?

The little man stood there, with his arms crossed and was now tapping his foot as he impatiently waited for her reply. Now, with the look of obvious annoyance on his face he boomed, “Well, what do you have to say? Or are you going to just sit there and stare at us all day?”

Isabella snapped out her bewildered paralysis with the realization that she didn’t like the way this little creature was speaking to her! She especially didn’t care for being referred to as ‘Missy’! This little ‘man’ had quickly gotten on her nerves!

“My name is Isabella, and no, I am not responsible for keeping your procession from wherever it has to be! I was about to replace this stone into the wall, and then the little girl, or whatever you call yourselves, stopped and caused the crash up of all of your, your, well, whatever you all are!” Isabella realized she was explaining herself to this little man, when it should be the other way around.

“Wait a second! This is my backyard and my stonewall you’re running through, and who are you, and what are you doing in there and, and, and...I think I must still be sleeping, and this is just a dream!”

The little ‘man’ looked at her with a wry grin on his chubby little face, and Isabella could see that as he did so, his pointed little ears moved up on his head just a bit, which she thought was funny, almost cute, in a way. Her mood of annoyance relaxing a bit, she smiled to herself.

“Well, Isabella, I can tell you that you are not still asleep, as we are very much real, and if you don’t know a Faerie when you see twenty of them all smashed up in front of you, then I can’t say much more to help you, now can I?”

With a humpf and obvious exhale of indignation, the little man continued in his rant. “We are preparing for a very important visitor and we do not have time for some little human’s disbelief in what she’s actually seeing. If you don’t know the difference between being fully awake and dreaming, then there is not a thing that I can say that will help you! Good day! Continue on folks, we mustn’t be late for the Queen!”