Page 5 of Where Broken Wings Fly

I didn’t want to admit it, not to myself or to the witnessing world beyond, but I was feeling something other than crippling darkness.

Dreams have a purpose, right? This emergence of my subconscious mind in front of me was asking me what I sought. Maybe I no longer sought anything, but a younger version of myself did. One filled with hope and optimism that there would be an end to this tunnel.

So I whispered the one and only true desire I had allowed myself, “I want to see the light.”

He cocked his head at me. “I have no idea what that means.”

There wasn’t judgement in his eyes. All that lived within that dark-green was an intense curiosity as he watched me, unblinking.

“I’m shrouded in darkness,” I admitted, still pretending in a way that I had fallen asleep on this hillside and that I was speaking to my guardian angels. They looked far too ragged and of-the-dirt to be angels, but I wasn’t one to judge.

The corners of his lips pulled tight before a smirk flashed pearl teeth at me. “I’m not sure that I am capable of removing that from you, but perhaps I can give you something better.”

I could only stare at him.

“Ask me to show you something magnificent.”

That wild, unruly grin was contagious. As the seconds passed by of us staring at one another, I felt it transfer to me and wrap around everything that I was. Nodding, I let my intrigue spark behind my eyes. “Show me something magnificent.”

3

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“Raegan is not going to be pleased, Killian,” Niamh huffed from where she watched us as Killian offered me a hand, pulling me up to my feet.

“Who is Raegan?”

All three of them ignored me, Killian going so far as to ignore Niamh, too. Instead, he turned to face me and frowned. “You truly know nothing of pixies?”

“I know that they are not real,” I grumbled, then straightened my back and used a cough to cover up my ignorance. “And that they wear green hats, are the size of a mouse, and act as mischievous little gremlins.”

“Wow.” Shea grinned as she stepped to Killian’s side. “Not a single one of those things are factual.”

“Maybe one of them,” Killian said, his grin so mischievous that I didn’t have to question which he referred to.

Folding my arms over my chest like a petulant child, I matched the frowns on each of their faces. “Who are you all? Really?”

“It might just be easier to show you.” Killian winked as he extended a hand to me.

I glanced over my shoulder, to the absence of human life that surrounded us. If these three were indeed psychopaths — and that was looking more plausible with each second that ticked by — I would be murdered on this hillside and no one would know for days. Weeks, even.

Wasn’t that the statement of my life?

With that thought in mind, I pulled my chin high and let my fingers touch his. As I did, the space around us erupted with a burst of purple dust and the world changed.

Instead of standing on a hillside beside St. Michael’s Mount, the four of us were placed in a forest composed not of towering bark and tangled, green canopies, but of straight emerald trees. From the base of their roots to the sharp tips that hovered overhead their shapes were continuous and straight, the shade of green not changing from one end to the next. They were everywhere. It was as if we had been deposited in a maze of the strange, grass-like trees around us.

Something far too similar to a gong rang out, forcing my hands to either of my ears as the vibration rattled my entire being. Along with the sensation was the physical shaking of the earth I stood on. A shadow built over my whole body, forcing my attention to what, exactly, had hit the earth with such vigor.

It was a spoon. Not just any spoon, but a spoon larger than a car. It rebounded off of the ground ever so slightly, before it finally settled behind us and crushed a collection of the trees.

On the tip of the spoon was…

“No,” I spat out, my eyes widening as I looked at the metallic sheen that had been interrupted by dried porridge. “No way.”

“Yes.” Killian squared his shoulders as he watched me blossom with realization.

The world hadn’t changed around us — we had. Killian, somehow, had shrunk us all down until we were no bigger than–