Page 75 of Beneath the Starlight and Storms

Something red catches my eye at the opening of the maze. A flower I’ve never seen before. I start to move toward it when Hook calls out.

“Don’t go far.” I turn to look at him.

“I won’t.” I give him a small smile before walking over to the flower. It’s right at the opening of the maze and only a few feet away from them both.

As I move closer to it, I start to see more of them. All different shapes and sizes. There’s a larger one on the bottom with a strange blue coloring at the center.

I bend down and touch it when the ground suddenly shifts beneath me.

CHAPTER19

An enchanting gardengreets me with a cool breeze. I glance around to find I’m in a sea of beautiful flowers. Even in the dark, I can see how vibrant they are.

To the side of me sits clusters of colorful trees. And across from that is an open lake that glitters against the moonlight.

Many of the flowers remind me of the Fae Realm. So many colors that awaken old memories of a time before Neverland. Scorching-oranges, burning-browns, and molten-reds. The fresh green of Summer. The vibrant pink budded blossoms of Spring.

I bend down to inspect a red flower. As soon as I get close enough, my stomach drops.

It’s a flaming butterfly. A flower that’s only native to the Lands of the Sun Fae.

Panic rises up inside me, threatening to choke me. I must have stepped through some type of portal. This has to be the Fae Realm. Those flowers only grow there.

No.No.I can’t be here. They would have sensed me by now. I had to leave. I had to get out… I— My eyes fall on a pale purple flower across from it, instantly freezing my fear.

I had seen that exact flower in a book when I was younger. I remember it because of its beautiful light coloring. Everything in the land of the Sun Fae was vivid and bright. Whereas this was soft and subtle. It’s cool coloring is so different from what I was used to seeing.

The small curling petals swirl around a powdered white bud. It is said to have healing properties when mixed with healing waters. But it was from the Land of the Moon Fae.

In all my years in the Fae Realm, I never heard of either native plants existing in the other.

My dread slowly eases as I realize I couldn’t be in the Fae Realm after all. Not if both flowers were here together.

But how are they here? Andwhereis here?

Finding a clearing with a swirling gray brick path, I move through the sea of flowers toward it and over to a grove of trees on the other side. I spot a white smoke tree sitting at the edge of it. Moving closer, I see its black branches with silver tips clawing their way up from a smoke white trunk. A tree only native to the land of the Moon Fae. Whereas the tall, deep beige tree with flecks of gold beside it is from the land of the Sun Fae.

Just like the flowers, both trees are from a different Fae land, but neither can exist in the other.

A dark tree with slithering shadow branches behind them both finally confirms my theory. I wasn’t in the Fae Realm. I couldn’t be. The shadow tree was most definitely from the Dark Realm. Lord Basilius’s Realm.

Basilius…He mentioned a hidden garden. Maybe this is something he created or had made. But how?

I walk over to the large lake and look around me. More flowers and trees I recognize from books I’ve read of other Realms or seen since coming to the Mortal Realm spread out around me. With others I’ve never seen before.

I move down the lake, but as soon as I reach the edge of it, something stops me. An invisible barrier of some kind.

I reach out to touch it and my hand hits a solid wall. Or what feels like it. I glide my palm along it and follow it around the field of flowers and back over to the grove of trees, to where I find it ends.

Turning around I reach down inside me and try to sense how far the strange barrier goes. I draw on the power around me and feel the different energies of everything here. I push further out with my senses and find that the barrier isn’t huge.

It expands to the edge of the trees, the field of flowers and lake and goes no further. Beyond it is nothing. No energy. No life. Just an emptiness, a black hole.

I open my eyes and what I see before me is all that is here. I wasn’t in another Realm at all. There is nothing beyond the trees or lake. It was just this garden. The entire space is no bigger than a quarter of the size of Hook’s Island.

Hook…How do I get back to him? Surely there’s a way just as simple as the way I came in.

“Tink?”

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