THE BEWITCHED WOOD

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19240, 29 November 1930, Page 18 (Supplement)

THE BEWITCHED WOOD

Elsa lay on the grass and kicked her heels reflectively. It was dusky twilight, and the scent of the young fir trees filled the air with its balmy perfume. A light wind played elfishly in the tree tops, and in the violet sky a young moon hung. Her starry children had not yet begun to show, but the sky was bright with their unshed light The world grew darker and darker. The western sky was deeply primrose, and the young fir trees stood out pointedly like fine black lace. Elsa lay on her back and waited for tfle stars to come out. The moon was as yet low, and as Elsa watched she fancied she saw a witch fly past it on a broomstick. She sat up quickly. There were plenty of bats about in the soft autumn dusk, and a few leaves when rudely shrken fell from the trees, floating like crimson argosies on the tides of air; but Elsa did not think it was either a bat or a leaf. She was sure it was a witch. Quickly she got up and ran into the wood. Here there were large heaped drifts of leaves, and on hedges purple berries and waxen white ones peeped from the tangled foliage. The trees were whispering their eternal secrets above Elsa, but in spite of the dark wood she was not afraid. Elsa felt that she could reach the Land of the Moon if only she could get there before the sun got up. On and on she ran through the thick drifts and the bush and wet grass, but the moon hung lower and lower, and Elsa knew that soon it would dip behind the hills. Tired out, Elsa lay down for a rest, and in a moment she was asleep. When she opened her eyes it was just in the magic moment between night and dawn. Everything was very still, and the eastern sky was rosy and there were great white clouds on the horizon.

Elsa started up, and saw standing by her side a beautiful girl. She was all in white and her eyes were grey and starry; she bent forward and said to • Elsa. “What are you looking for, my little one? Tell me and I will give it to you.” Elsa clasped her hands and said, *‘T am looking for Fairyland, and I cannot find it.” Her lips quivered and two tears rolled down her checks. “Look,” whispered the phantom girl. Elsa looked in the direction her finger indicated, and as she looked she saw in the eastern sky a host of fairy folk. A shadowy little band they were, and as one disappeared another took its place, and Elsa watched spellbound the fairy figures passing over the rising sun. They were dressed in all colours, that were shadowy and suggestive of a misty morning. Gauzy pink, opal blue, peagreen, and the beautiful indefinable colour that one sees in the inside of a milky shell. Elsa watched, almost afraid to breathe lest the fairy figures should vanish as quickly as a thought itself. Her consciousness was full of music, yet somehow her ears coufd not hear it. The figures marched on and on, until the sun was fully up, when they vanished, and Elsa realised that the music she had heard was the harping of the wind in the tree tops. She turned to the girl and cried, “Oh! where have they gone?” “They have gone to the Land of Lost Dreams,” was the reply. As Elsa watched the girl seemed to fade away into the morning mists. Slowly Elsa turned and made her way back home. Fairyland was gone, the moon had dipped behind the hills, * and the day, new and fresh, held no delight for Elsa. Her eyes were on the horizon and her thoughts far away in the Land of Lost Dreams.