Eliza's Fancy (A Faery Romance Part One)

by Zachary Harper

  floating with glee, and landing with much chagrin;

  and where they touched, tiny flowers would begin

  to peek out from between the brown and green,

  yawning their bulbs,

  stretching their leaves,

  and finally looking up toward the sun, serene.

  The forest you passed! How the magic shimmered,

  a pale luminescence you felt, but could barely see,

  like a candle around a corner,

  or a glacier amidst waves in the sea;

  and in that forest the leaves fell up, not down,

  making a cloud above the branches

  like a gold-red crown;

  and one by one the magical leaves

  would go floating back to the bare-clothed trees,

  landing where beautiful white birds

  would joyfully dance,

  and where bright blue birds

  would happily sing.

  But in the shadows out of your sight

  watched a crow, three-eyed and covered in blight;

  he watched with two eyes and slept with the third,

  then would fly and fly higher than a kite

  and settle down to spy some more,

  this terrible beast filled with hate and spite!

  He saw where Eliza and her friends were headed,

  and with that knowledge,

  at first dark fled to the West;

  flying far past the Faery-land,

  to a mountain all good things dreaded;

  into a cave, he didn’t stop,

  into the pitch black cave at the very top.

  Inside even the crow’s third eye was no use,

  for evil envelops light with glowering abuse;

  yet two blood-red eyes still pierced through,

  and in those eyes pure evil brewed.

  In whispers, the crow told how Eliza did travel,

  in whispers muffled by cold, dank, wet stone,

  in whispers, the crow told of the road to the castle,

  in whispers still and stiff as raw bone.

  The Daemon listened, the Daemon thought,

  and the Daemon plotted and planned;

  and the two blood-red eyes dreadfully rose

  when the Daemon did finally stand.

  He stood, and the crow bowed low, beak on the floor

  listening to the Daemon tell him to “Go.”

  “Go,” said He, “Go and watch what they do,

  and when they reach the castle

  find the Cyclops that lives in the hills,

  find the Cyclops and tell him you were sent by Anu.”

  Thus, the three-eyed crow fled ever so swift,

  for not even the mischievous black bird

  could long bear

  the portal to Hell that sat in the rift

  behind the blood-red eyes

  that sat in the darkness, adrift.

  Eliza's Fancy

  To follow the progress of Parts Four through Nine, periodically check at:

  https://unrevealedcreatures.wordpress.com/

  Leviathan

  The day Leviathan, Serpent of the Heavens, sent Death to collect Beauty's soul, the vengeful Hero is swayed to confront God himself and demand payment for the wrong done. A parable of modern man's response to the guilt and pain of death, Leviathan is an old story but retold.

  “Leviathan” is a different form of fantasy in this modern age, but no less vivid or important. It takes a different kind of talent to cut away the superfluous “fluff” found in some fantasy books and write in this form by driving straight to the main points and heart of a story. - Red Haircrow

  https://flyingwithredhaircrow.wordpress.com/

  During Hero’s journey to avenge his loss, he affects change in a number of ways. His mind focused on his mission, he doesn’t even notice whose lives are altered by his actions. When Hero eventually finds his way to Leviathan, the meeting doesn’t go quite as planned, leaving the reader to think about what it all was for. It also offers the opportunity to think of how Hero’s journey relates to your own life, as I found myself reflecting on my own journey. – Grace Krispy, Motherlode

  https://gracekrispy.blogspot.com/

  About the Author

  Zachary Harper attended the University of Iowa, receiving degrees in Classical Chinese and Linguistics. Having studied Greek, Hebrew, and Chinese, he immersed himself in the faery tales and folk lore that fired the imaginations of the great early writers and served as the foundation of literature for thousands of years. Now he, too, draws from the well of the muses, writing parables and fables meant to both educate and entertain, hoping for nothing more than to inspire conversation on the ideas too complex to fit into anything other than simple stories.