by K T Durham
Elly blinked. “What do you mean, you were sent? By whom? And what journey are you talking about?” she demanded, panic rising by the second. Did this fox have anything to do with the goblins?
The nine-tailed fox laughed. “Do not be afraid, Ellanor Celendis,” it said smoothly. “As you might have been told, the world is vast and mysterious. There are some of us who sensed your presence the moment you crossed from the other side. Whether we are friend or foe is for you to decide.”
“How do you know my name?” she asked in a shocked whisper. “What do you want from me?”
The fox cocked its ear, as though listening for something. Then it smiled. “You may have met my comrade several days ago. Did he not warn you, saying ‘she will try to take what is yours’?”
Elly was confused. Then her eyes widened. “The… the Riddler from the school fair?”
The fox laughed. “Oh, is that what he calls himself these days?”
“You mean… he’s your friend?” Elly shook her head in amazement. “He was warning me about Carrie!”
The fox arched its back gracefully. “Let’s just say we share common interests, Ellanor. One of which is your safety. Are you ready?”
“Ready? For what?” She was afraid.
The fox raised its head and gazed upward. “Look, Ellanor.”
Elly turned her eyes back up to the sky, her breath shallow.
The full moon had eyes, and they were staring down at her.
Elly’s heart skipped a beat. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, certain that they were playing tricks on her. She looked again.
The eyes were now accompanied by a nose, a mouth, and a beard. Elly gasped and almost cried out at the sight of the familiar, beloved face.
Grandpapa!
There was a shuffling sound behind her. She wheeled around. The nine-tailed fox had disappeared.
Greymore’s voice suddenly boomed commandingly. Ellanor, take out the portal at once!
Stunned, Elly did as she was told. The portal was glowing blue, and it felt almost hot in her hands as she clasped it tightly, afraid it might suddenly vanish into thin air. If anyone had spotted her at that moment, they would have seen that her eyes burned like green flames.
They have found us!
Grandpapa’s face on the moon was now focused squarely on Elly. He raised his bushy eyebrows and smiled his dear, familiar smile. Elly’s heart leapt, and her eyes filled with tears.
The portal had now become a burning slab of silver, warming Elly’s hands as she clutched it for dear life. Then the portal started floating, gravitating towards the moon, pulling Elly up, up, and away.
Then from the moon shone a beam of light that enveloped Elly. Higher and higher she rose, until Lily’s house was so small that it looked like nothing but a small square on a patchwork quilt.
But wait! Greymore, I have not said my goodbyes! How can I leave Lily like this? She would get so worried! What about Miriam and Horace?
We will deal with that later, Ellanor. Everything will be fine. Trust me.
The wind roared in her ears as she hurtled upward, faster and faster. She screamed and squeezed her eyes shut against the dazzling light. Then she gasped as she plunged into something warm, spinning round and round as though she had been snatched up by a whirlwind. She did not even realize that her hands were now clutching nothing but her own cold fingers.
Then the next thing she knew, her cheek was pressed up against soft grass, the smell of the soil fragrant and familiar. A clamour of footsteps and voices surrounded her. Strong arms lifted her up. A beloved squawk sounded close to her ear, and she smiled weakly.
Before Elly blacked out, she looked into Papa’s smiling, tear-stained face.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Comeback
Three days later
She was standing at a grassy clearing, surrounded by a field strewn with yellow and orange marigolds. The warm breeze caressed her hair, and she could hear a strange humming in the distance. It took her a while to realize it was the chug-chugging of a train, growing louder by the second.
She had the sense that she was waiting for someone, but she did not know who.
Then a twig snapped in the distance, and she wheeled around. Several yards away stood a slender figure silhouetted against the bright sunshine. Elly squinted; she could make out that the person was shouldering some sort of bulky bag.
Then the clouds momentarily covered the sun, and she caught a glimpse of fiery green eyes and short, curly black hair before everything started greying out.
No, wait! Who are you?
“Ellanor Celendis! Get up this instant and come downstairs!”
Elly’s eyes flew open, her heart hammering in her chest. She sat bolt upright in her hammock.
Who was that girl? Why did she keep appearing in her dreams? Elly frowned, clutching her heart.
Then a delicious smell wafted upstairs, and the dream was quickly forgotten.
She sniffed; it wasn’t anything with cinnamon or maple syrup. What had Mama made this time?
Yawning, she stretched out lazily on the hammock and stroked Marlow on the head. He opened one eye and squawked happily. She was bathed in delicious sunlight, and she could hear the birds twittering, the crickets chirruping. She smiled; it was so good to be back.
Elly got up and threw some acorns to a couple of squirrels on her windowsill, who caught them deftly and started gnawing on them. The delicious aroma wafting upstairs grew stronger. Curious, she leapt down the stairs with Marlow at her heels. The ellanors were in full bloom, covering the walls like a blanket of gold.
In the kitchen, Mama had concocted a new sweet cake for her daughter’s homecoming. She had experimented over and over again ever since Elly told her about Aunty Mabel’s delicious pineapple buns. She broke into a huge smile when she saw her daughter.
“Ta-da!” she cried, whipping out a large plate laden with crispy sweet cakes slathered with golden pineapple syrup and fresh cream. The kitchen looked a mess. There were at least a dozen cut-open pineapples strewn all over the wooden countertop, several mixing bowls with contents inside that looked either too lumpy or too watery, and half a dozen rolling pins were scattered about.
“Aww, thanks so much Mama!” Elly cried, touched that her mother had put in so much effort.
She took a crunchy bite. “Hmm!” The sweet cake certainly tasted delicious… but it wasn’t anything like Aunty Mabel’s pineapple buns. Elly had discovered that boh loh bau were not made from real pineapple; the bun got its name because of the checkered pattern of the top crust.
She didn’t want to disappoint Mama, so she smiled and gave a thumbs-up. “It’s scrumptious!” she said truthfully, and Mama beamed. Marlow swiped a couple from the plate.
Papa strode into the kitchen with Luca riding on his shoulders. Her little brother bent down and uncharacteristically planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek before he leapt down and started chasing two squirrels that had just filched some sweet cake off the table.
Papa hugged Elly tightly. “Good morning, my dear. How are you?” he asked, concern in his eyes.
After Elly had passed back through the portal and appeared on the grass before the dome in the Celestan Forest, Papa carried her back home while Mama and Luca staggered along, exhausted from lack of sleep. Elly had remained unconscious for one whole day. Mama kept up a bedside vigil until she opened her eyes on the second day, dazed and confused.
But now, Elly had never felt better. It was as though she’d just woken up from a wonderfully adventurous dream, and it made her feel like a new person. She grinned and kissed her father on the nose. “I feel great, Papa! Honestly, you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be off to school now. Aron’s waiting for me!” She blew her mother a kiss and bounded out of the house.
Nidah looked out the window and watched Elly skip along. S
ereth went to stand by her side.
Nidah sighed. “She looks so happy, Sereth. Even happier than before. Do you think she’s really all right?”
Her crystal blue eyes were filled with worry. Elly’s disappearance had hit her so hard, the pain of it had been almost physical. Every motherly instinct had screamed at her to go after Elly, to defend and protect her in that foreign realm. Sereth had had to stop her from leaping through the portal.
“Do not be rash, Nidah! It’s bad enough that Elly crossed over—and you may not even survive it! We must wait and see what we can do.”
Nidah had wept, and in the end there was nothing for her to do but endure the anguish of waiting.
She sighed. “I still can’t believe our little girl had to go through an ordeal like that. Being deceived by a goblin was bad enough, but to have been stranded in the human realm for a whole month!” She shook her head. “And why can’t they just leave her alone to live her life as an ordinary elf? She’s only a child.”
Sereth put his arm around her. “Elly is much stronger than she looks, my love. Humans are not all bad, Nidah. You know that.” Then he looked into his wife’s eyes. “And you know as well as I do, that Elly’s not just any ordinary elf.” He looked out into the distance, the sun reflected in his deep blue eyes. “Big things are destined for our Ellanor,” he said softly.
After Elly regained consciousness, she pleaded with Grandpapa to fill her in on all that had transpired in the past month. So that evening, Grandpapa tucked her in and sat at her bedside, goblet of dragon-honey ale in hand, while Marlow started dozing off by the window. With a flick of his finger, Grandpapa dimmed the candle light in the bedroom. Fireflies began to wander in. They reminded Elly of the stringy lights draped over Lily’s white picket fence.
In a low voice, Grandpapa began to recount what had happened.
A throng of elves had gathered at the dome since Elly’s disappearance, including her family, Aron, Sir Jarome, and a team of protectors, who kept a vigilant lookout for goblins. Even Kaelan insisted on keeping a vigil by the portal. His father had to plead with him to go home. Aron had to be dragged back home for meals, and asked for news of Elly a dozen times everyday.
Grandpapa and Mrs Silverwinkle had teleported to the dome with a team of protectors seconds after Elly had screamed at the goblin, having just realized Gutz had been disguised as Edellina. The moment Elly vanished through the portal, Grandpapa flew like the wind back to his house, frantically trying to locate her whereabouts through the earlingrand, the looking glass, one of the four that were entrusted only to a few select elders.
Elly frowned. “Wait, you could track me and see what I was doing in Gaya? But how? Does the earlingrand enable that?”
Grandpapa shook his head. “The earlingrand only allows us glimpses of the past and the present, sometimes even the future. But it does not normally allow us to track someone from afar. No, it was only because I had secretly placed a tracking device—a secron, as we call it—on Greymore during your bonding ceremony, my dear.” At this, Elly’s eyes went round, astonished.
Grandpapa smiled. “Don’t worry. I shall explain about all that, later.” He took a sip of his dragon-honey ale.
“Even with the secron on Greymore, we could only track you intermittently while you were in Gaya, for you had entered another realm, which diminished the secron’s ability to connect with the earlingrand. But at least we could see that you had arrived safely in Gaya, and you were not in any immediate danger. We couldn’t communicate with you telepathically and tell you where to find Organoth blue amber, or warn you that the crow had spotted you out as prey. We couldn’t tell you that for the portal’s powers to work, there had to be a full moon. It was heart-wrenching watching you from afar, and we could do nothing but pray for your safety. Your mother was so distraught we had to stop her from watching you through the earlingrand.”
Elly sat up in bed at the mention of the full moon. “So that’s why the portal didn’t work immediately after it was repaired with the Organoth blue amber,” she said in wonder.
Grandpapa nodded. “The portal’s teleporting powers are enabled by the full moon, which is when the Moon is on the opposite side of Gaya from the Sun. It occurs instantaneously, around once a month. The portal remains open for an hour after the full moon. There was a full moon on your birthday, shortly before midnight, and that was when you fell through the portal. So the goblin knew how the portal works.” Elly grimaced.
“We knew you would have to endure staying in the human realm until the next full moon, which is when you could teleport back—provided that the portal had been repaired by that time. If you had not found Organoth blue amber four days ago, you would not be here with us now. Goodness knows how long you would’ve been stranded in Gaya if you hadn’t gotten the portal repaired. My one source of comfort was knowing that Greymore was with you. But you cannot imagine how desperate we all were to have you back with us.” His face was grim as he recalled the sleepless nights of anxious waiting.
Elly smiled and took his large hand. “But it wasn’t so bad, Grandpapa. Truly. It was awful being away from you all. I was so worried that the goblin might have done you harm! But I don’t regret my time in the human realm. You see, I met some truly wonderful people there. I learned so much. I learned what it means to work hard and make a living. I met people I’m proud to call my friends. I got to know a lovely married couple who nursed me back to health after the crow hurt me, and treated me like I was family. In exchange, I helped them go on their first real holiday together.”
She thought about Lily, and wished she could have said a proper goodbye. Vanishing in the middle of the party must have been alarming. Elly had no idea what had happened to the portal either.
Do not fret, Ellanor. It has all been taken care of.
Elly blinked. How, Greymore?
Grandpapa was watching her closely. “It gladdens my heart that you made good out of a difficult situation, Elly. You have grown from your experiences. You are much stronger than you think you are.”
She smiled. “Greymore was my rock, truly. My pillar of strength. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him,” she confessed. Greymore, nestled next to her, rumbled proudly. She giggled.
Grandpapa patted her Royan with fondness. “Elly, the best teachers are those that tell you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see,” he said with a smile. “Remember that Greymore is always on your side, no matter what it seems. But it is his duty to test your strength and push you to your limits. It is the only way you will grow strong.”
Elly sighed. “Yes, he certainly succeeded in pushing me to my limits. For a while, I seriously thought I wouldn’t ever be coming home.”
Then she gasped. “Oh, Grandpapa! I am sure you know about the dreadful thing I did to Sir Jarome. How is he now?”
Grandpapa gave Elly a stern look. “He is deathly ashamed, Elly. He was very angry and disappointed by the way you tricked him. You must apologise to him as soon as you can,” he said firmly.
Elly bowed her head, shamefaced. Then Grandpapa smiled. “But he is so glad that you returned home safely. He remembers the sweet Elly who used to sing to him and deliver wild berries. He understands you had been led astray by Edellina… or Gutz, I should say.”
Elly shuddered. “I still can’t quite believe Edellina was a goblin in disguise all along.”
Grandpapa leaned back in the armchair. “Mrs Silverwinkle was the first to notice there was something amiss about Edellina. Though outwardly she looked beautiful, just like any other elfling, Mrs Silverwinkle could sense something unwholesome in her eyes. It is said that the eyes are the windows to your soul. It is quite true.”
He paused to plop some grapes into his mouth. “However, Mrs Silverwinkle could not have guessed that Edellina was a goblin, because goblins have not been known to take on the fair form of elves. They are not known to be shape-
shifters. She had speculated Edellina was an elf with a dark soul.”
He raised his eyebrows at Elly’s look of surprise. “Elves may be stronger than humans in many ways, but even we are not immune to evil, my dear.”
Elly stared at him, the hair standing up on the back of her neck. “You mean,” she said slowly, “this was the first time—to your knowledge—that a goblin has disguised itself as an elf?”
Grandpapa nodded grimly. “Yes. It was a most disturbing discovery. It turns out there really is an elfling named Edellina Rosebane in Morwen Valley. The protectors who were sent there to investigate found the real Edellina bound and dazed under some strange spell, along with her parents, in a cave deep in the woods near her home. They had been starved, and were close to death. Thankfully, they are now recovering under the dutiful care of the healers.”
He paused and stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Goblins are not shape-shifters by nature. They are foul, cunning, and destructive, but they were never endowed with the ability to take on the form of other beings. So for now, this remains a mystery. However…” He hesitated.
Elly’s ears pricked up. “Please tell me, Grandpapa.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, it is not widely known that some elves are born shape-shifters.” At this, Elly’s eyes widened. “But most tend to conceal their ability, to avoid arousing fear and mistrust in the community. Trust me, if you knew your friend was a shape-shifter, you might find yourself looking at everyone twice.”
He smiled and shook his head. “In fact, in the past five centuries, only one elf was known to be a shape-shifter. But even though shape-shifting elves are extremely rare, such a skill can be dangerous if put to evil purposes. How did that goblin—Gutz—manage to remain disguised as Edellina and elude us for so long? If Mrs Silverwinkle had not alerted me, we would probably have remained blissfully ignorant of the goblin’s true motives—until things went disastrously, of course.”