Inktober Days 23 & 24: Celestial & Shallow

 Chapter 19

Back in the barn, the warmth of Magda’s circlet kept growing, kept burning hotter until it was a little uncomfortable. She quickly undid her head covering to move her circlet off of her skin and found that not only was it burning, it was glowing. It was faint at first, but within a minute, it was bright enough that she could see Wendell sleeping to her side and their horse still chewing on hay in the corner.

Then she noticed something else. There was another light brightening the room where they lay. Between the rafters, through the uneven boards making up the ceiling of the barn, Magda could see a light shining in the dark.

She rose quietly, not wanting to disturb Wendell, and raced outside to get a better look. There was a star, brighter than all the others, brighter than the moon. A warmth seemed to radiate from it and pierce her brow and fill her heart as she looked upon it. 

When she looked around, back at the barn door, she noticed her circlet’s light shone toward the star, almost as if they were tethered by a shining silver rope. She felt compelled to follow the star, to go where it was leading her. Yes, she suddenly felt a confidence she hadn't felt before that it was guiding her somewhere.

She walked for several minutes over the farmer’s fields, always following that silver rope. It pulled her onward, over a hill and to the start of a dense forest. 

Magda paused here and looked up. Surely, the star would be impossible to see with the treetops occluding the night sky. But as she stepped into the group of trees, she saw to her amazement that it still shone just as bright as if the sky were perfectly clear.

And so she walked on, not taking a moment to wonder whether Wendell would wake, whether he would be worried or angry. She took no thought for the beasts that Jon and Tabitha had warned them about. She spared no energy worrying about Kandra and that hideous beast she served. The star made her feel her mother and father were near, guiding her, watching over her. 

So merry was she, following this star, that she skipped here and there, and if the star’s path were not urging her onward, she might have even stopped to dance, for she was filled with the memory of her mother’s songs and her father’s laughter. She thought of the generations that came before her, all the tales she had heard of them, as she followed this star.

    As Magda walked, the light ahead was getting brighter and Magda saw that she was approaching a clearing in the woods. She burst out from the cover of the forest and found herself at the bank of a shallow lake. There was a tower in the midst of it, not so tall as the tower castle where she was taken by Kandra, but a small fortress, secret and hidden away. The light from the evening start shone on it, making it just about the only thing Magda could see.

    The tower was set on a small island in the center of the lake. The tower itself was round, with a square base and battlements at the top.

    Magda could see no boat on the shore to use, so she began wading in the pool, testing its depth. The water was cold; even in her blissful trance, Magda could not stop the shivers that ran down her body at the iciness of the water. But she did not care. The star was guiding toward this tower, this secret place. Why?

    Her heart pounded as she neared, the silvery connection feeding warmth into her as she waded near waist-deep in the pool.

    She was nearly to the other shore when she started feeling colder and her circlet’s glow began to change. What was once a silvery light connecting her to the star above, was turning to a golden glow, and that warmth she had felt being fed into her by the stars above was growing weaker by the minute.