Ava crept along the floor towards the sound of her father and Professor Ronald talking, and when she came to her father she cried out with joy and wrapped her arms around him. Mr. Smith lifted his weak arms and held Ava to him, his eyes wet with tears.
As the two of them embraced, Professor Ronald noticed that the wind had stopped, and the air pressure had gone back to normal, and the night was not as dark as it had been. In fact, when the Professor returned to the window to look outside, he could see the twinkle of stars through a break in the tree tops.
This bodes well, thought the Professor.
“I can’t believe we found you!” sobbed Ava, still holding on to her father.
“I can’t believe you found me, either!” said Mr. Smith. “How did you get here?”
“You’re not going to believe this…”began Ava.
“I was kidnapped by the old lady at the end of our street, and watched with my own two eyes as Miss Potter was turned into a pug. I think I’ll believe anything,” interrupted Mr. Smith.
Ava shuddered at the mention of Miss Potter. She continued, “Well, the clock turned into our Uncle, the cat turned out to be our Professor, and we found this amazing woman with a cottage in her purse and an owl as a pet, and we met up with a pack of polar bears…”
She stopped. Now that she was explaining it to her father, it did seem ridiculous. She burst out laughing, and Mr. Smith joined her with a deep, rumbling chuckle, and because laughing is sometimes the best medicine, they laughed for a long time.
“Where are Robbie and Anja?” he asked her at last.
“They’re up in a willow tree,” said Ava, “but don’t worry, she’s a kind tree. She’s taking care of them.”
“I see,” said Mr. Smith as he stood up and dusted off his clothes. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”
And Mr. Smith helped Ava to climb back out of the window, and then he squeezed his own large body through, and Professor Ronald hopped out of the shack behind them.
“Dad, I have to tell you something!” Ava halted, suddenly remembering the compass. “I think mom is alive! I heard her – this compass started spinning, and I heard her voice! She told me to go find you.” Ava held out the compass to her father.
Mr. Smith slowly reached his hand to hers and took the compass from her, turning it over and over. He had a sad smile on his face, as if he was remembering a bittersweet memory.
“Your mother’s compass,” he said softly, handing it back to his daughter. “Ava, your mother is dead. We buried her.” Mr. Smith put a hand on Ava’s shoulder. “But her blood runs through your veins. What you heard wasn’t your mother – it was your own heart, with her inside it.”
Ava put the compass back into her pocket and nodded her head. I should have known magic couldn’t bring back the dead, she thought. But it was also true that her mother was in her heart, and always would be.
The moon shone brightly down around them. In the distance they could hear excited clamour coming from the direction of the lake, a noise which seemed to be moving northward.
“I suspect they’re headed to the door!” Professor Ronald said to Ava and Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith lowered his head.
“Ava,” he said, “there’s an entire world beyond that door, but it’s a world I can’t go to or be a part of. Your mother, she would have told you all about it before, if she had been here, but me… I can’t…” Mr. Smith’s voice trailed off. He looked incredibly sad.
Ava took her father’s hand.
“You belong with me, dad,” she said, and then, taking out the key, she showed it to him. “And if you want to walk through that door, you can.”
Mr. Smith gasped, and Professor Ronald smiled in the moonlight. Humans were a delightful breed, or most of them, anyway.
Ava and Mr. Smith followed the Professor through the Enchanted Forest to the door.
For a door that was supposed to be secret, for a door that was supposed to guard the entrance to a forbidden and hidden world, it was, thought Ava, quite obviously enchanted.
The door was carved into the trunk of an oak tree that was as wide as a house. All around the tree wildflowers grew, and their petals had unfolded in the moonlight and their sweet smell filled the air. Fireflies danced around the branches, and beams of light shone down and illuminated the keyhole, which was right in the middle of the door.
“At last,” said the oak tree as Ava walked the grassy path towards the door. The tree leaned over slightly, his braches extended as if in a curtsy. “Come, your destiny awaits!” The tree curved one slender branch towards the door. “The gate is yours.”
Ava took the key from the chain around her neck, and she held it up in the light of the moonbeam. She moved closer to the tree. She lowered the key to the door. She moved to place the key into the lock when…
There was a great crashing sound behind her, and suddenly Owlbert burst through the trees. Or rather, Owlbert’s head burst through the trees. He seemed to be missing his body. But Ava could see that it was most likely still attached, because every time Owlbert moved the wildflowers underneath him were trampled to the ground in the exact shape of his feet.
“Ava!” called Owlbert happily, and then, turning to Mr. Smith, he said “and you must be Ava’s father!” Mr. Smith leaned his head back and looked up at the floating head of Owlbert, who was grinning beakishly at him.
“I am,” said Mr. Smith to Owlbert’s head.
“And I’m Owlbert! Please to make your acquaintance!” Owlbert extended a talon to shake Mr. Smith’s hand, but because neither he nor Mr. Smith could see his body, Owlbert instead accidentally knocked Mr. Smith onto his back. “Sorry,” said the giant owl. “Hard to shake hands when I can’t see where I end!”
“And where is the rest of you?” asked Ava.
“It’s where it’s supposed to be, it’s just invisible,” said Charlotte, coming through the trees. Robbie and Anja were right behind her. They ran to the fallen Mr. Smith and threw themselves on top of him.
“Daddy!” shrieked Anja, glowing. Mr. Smith looked slightly surprised to see his daughter shining, but he had seen a lot of strange things, and this was sight was a welcome one.
“Where have you been?” Mr. Smith said to his youngest children.
“Oh, we were in Mrs. Willow, watching the fight. Although Anja made quite a storm, didn’t you, Anja?” Robbie smiled at his sister.
“She certainly did!” said Tempo, stepping into the clearing, followed by Old Noir. “What a fight! The bears sent the wolves howling into the forest, their shaggy tails between their legs! And Owlbert had a ton of fun with the crows, once Charlotte sprayed him with her invisibility potion. None of them knew where he was coming from! Sent them all scattering through the wind like a handful of dried-up chicken nuggets!”
“Great,” said Ava, a little confused. “What happened to Wraithlana?”
Charlotte and Tempo looked at one another, and then Charlotte said, “She’s been defeated. Anja distracted her with her spectacular display of weather, and we managed to chain her to a large rock and…” Charlotte stopped. “I don’t like discussing violence, especially when talking to children,” she said.
“We threw her and that rock into the middle of the lake!” boomed Tempo, smacking his open hand on his thigh and laughing. “Hope she knows how to breathe underwater or she is d-e-a-d!”
Ava couldn’t help but smile. The witch had been defeated, her father had been found, and nobody had been badly hurt.
“Ava, it was a pleasure to meet you,” spoke Old Noir. “But my pack and I have to return to Churchill. We can’t be in warm climates for long, and we need to go home. It’s almost the end of the seal hunting season.” He turned to go. “But, if you ever need help defending yourself, for any reason, you know where to find me. Friends?” He held out his paw to Ava. She reached out her hand and grasped one of Old Noir’s toenails, and they shook on it. They were friends.
Everyone was silent as Old Noir turned to le
ave, except for Owlbert, who shouted, “Hey! I recorded the whole fight with my go pro! I’ll send you a copy! Or I’ll upload it onto YouTube!”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “I should have made a silencing potion,” she said to Ava.
But Ava had turned to face the door once more.
“Charlotte, if you’ve been banished, does that mean you can’t get back in at all?” asked Ava.
“It means I can’t get back in until someone lets me in,” said Charlotte.
“So, if I open this door, you’ll be able to go through it?” Ava wondered.
“I honestly don’t know. This has never been done before. I think we’ll just have to try it and see.” Charlotte replied, a little nervously.
Ava inched towards the door, and everyone crowded around her, including Owlbert, who was more and more visible by the minute.
“Let’s see what’s on the other side,” she said, and then she put the key into the lock and turned it.
The door rumbled, and creaked, and then slowly opened. Ava removed the key from the lock and held the door so everyone could see.
The door was a portal to another world. Sunlight spilled out into the night time of the Enchanted Forest, covering the speechless group that stood in the doorway. They looked out onto a vast field of buttercups, boarded by a towering forest full of pink and red and yellow trees, which crept up a mountain capped with purple clouds, atop of which sat a magnificent glass castle.
Everyone gasped. It was breathtaking.
Then the ground shook, and there was a rushing sound, and in an instant Ava and everybody behind her disappeared.
The door swung closed and nothing was left in the Enchanted Forest but the giant footprints of a great owl on the ground in front of a smiling oak tree.
The End.
Abigial Elizabeth is a Canadian and Witsuwit'en (First Nations) fourth-grader who lives in Nova Scotia, Canada. She loves ice cream, Harry Potter, horses, and her cat, Ronald Weasley. When Abigail grows up, she dreams of joining the Navy and saving the world.
The Adventures of Ava Smith: The Secret of the Enchanted Forest Page 12