by Dani Swanson
The Winding Woods
Tales from a Boggle
by Dani Swanson
Copyright © 2021 Dani Swanson
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, named by a contest winner (naming the character is the only prize) or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. It’s not about you.
All rights reserved.
Cover Art by:
Ana Ristovska
Editing by:
Jess Johnson, Lisa Swanson, and
Kaitlyn Ziegler
ISBN: 9798669417581
DEDICATION
Mike: I love you the most.
To the Bloomington Online School’s 4th and 5th grade winners of the make your own Hero/Villain contest: I hope you keep reading, writing, and creating.
One winner from each class got to name a character in this book as a prize. Thank you for giving me the names for Team Zeta:
Wyatt Sheldon - Reyna
Alexis Ernst – Jade
Sahra Ali – Zallen
Sadie Baldwin -Pan
Diego Lopez - Robin
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
i
1
It Always Starts Once Upon A Time
10
2
A Girl Named Izzie
15
3
The Dawning of The Enchanted
19
4
Camping
27
5
Fuzzy Photos
35
6
Sleepover Shenanigans
40
7
Fairytales, Fables, and Fae
52
8
Tales From 10th Grade English
60
9
Boggle Spit
69
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Frankie
A Grumbling from The Closet
Shadows of The Disco Lights
Hyde Park and The Old Elm Tree
The Winding Woods
Wandering Through the Woods
Welcome Home
Chimera and Incubus
A Start to A Horrible Joke
The Mother
Phantasma
Blessed by Sparrow’s Wings
Silver Lake
Potions and Poisons
The Magic of Cookbooks
Vincent Vale’s Vanishing Vessel
Black Goo and Bubbles Below
Teal Tipped Arrows
The Magic Within
Happily, Ever After
78
84
91
95
102
107
110
113
122
129
140
147
157
167
176
182
191
200
204
218
1: It always starts Once Upon a time
Once upon a time, or how tales of magic and mischief are supposed to start, there was a young girl. Her story may be, in fact, about magic and mischief but telling it with "Once Upon a Time" doesn't seem to fit her tale. Every tale she ever heard that started as such always ended with, "and they lived happily ever after." And that doesn't always end up being the case when it comes to magic – sometimes there is darkness, mishaps, and even pain. Nevertheless, her story will start with the grand intention of being that of a "happily ever after" ending and will properly begin as it is expected to:
Once Upon a Time……….
A young girl of the age of five was wandering the streets by herself with nothing but the clothes on her back and a small stuffed animal that looked to be a well-loved orange cat. She had been well cared for – her long auburn hair was neatly combed and tied into a ponytail running down her back. Her dress was clean – a frilly pink dress with little flowers scattered across the hem. The girl's shoes were simple black leather with a single strap around the ankle. She wore a necklace that was of a silver chain with a small purple stone sparrow charm. A simple hemp bag was over her shoulder and across her chest that she tightly held onto the strap.
The girl decided to settle at Hyde Park. She sat on a bench, watching the world go by for hours. She was talking to herself, or so it seemed, about what she saw passing the bench she was on. No one seemed to notice that a five-year-old was sitting by herself. The girl sat, snacking on the fruit that she had with her and smiling; her face was warm in the sun.
It was a typical Saturday afternoon in late June – not too hot, not too cold - families were playing in the park, and people were out walking their dogs and jogging the trails. The girl stayed on the bench and watched the world go by.
"Do you think that guy over there will let me play with his animal? What do they call it?" She was looking over her shoulder as she spoke. "A dog? It looks like a wolf to me. But it doesn't look like it's going to try to eat him. He keeps throwing that ball, and the wolf, I mean dog, just brings it right back to him." She giggled as she shoved apple slices into her mouth.
A woman sat on a bench not far from where the little girl was and took notice of her. She watched from afar as the girl carried on a conversation on her own. She looked around to see if anyone else had noticed that the little girl was alone. No one appeared to be in a panic that they were missing their daughter. She finally decided that the child was sitting there by herself and went over to check on her.
"Hi, are you here with anyone? Are you all alone?" The woman softly smiled as she bent down onto one knee to look the girl in the eye.
The little girl smiled back – she had no fear of talking to someone she didn't know. "I'm not alone….. I'm here with Zyon!" Her grey eyes twinkled as she answered the woman.
The woman looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to this small child, but she was all alone – the park was starting to empty as it was nearing supper time, and there wasn't anyone who seemed concerned for this little girl talking to a stranger. "Will you come with me? I want to help you find your parents."
"Sure, we'll come with you. Come on, Zyon!" The little girl gently placed her stuffed animal into her bag and started to follow the woman – taking her hand into hers as they walked down the path through the park.
"My name is Lucy. What's your name, sweetheart?" The woman questioned as she pulled out her cell phone and was waiting for someone on the other end to answer.
"Isabella." The girl did not show any signs of being afraid as she smiled from ear to ear, staring up at the woman that found her.
"Yes, hi – I have a non-emergency call. There is a little girl that was sitting on a bench in Hyde's Park by herself. She doesn't have any parents around and has been here for a couple of hours from what I can tell. Yes, I'm walking her to the entrance of the park. Thank you!" She hung her phone up and placed it in her pocket. "There is a policeman up here at the entrance that is goin
g to help you find your parents. How old are you?"
The little girl held up her hand, showing all five of her fingers to the woman. Lucy returned her contagious smile.
"What's your mom's name?"
"Mommy."
Lucy smiled as they walked up to the policeman that met them at Hyde's Park gate. Isabella would occasionally whisper something to herself or giggle but would answer with a sweet "oh, nothing." As if Lucy had asked what she said. Lucy said her goodbye to Isabella and told her to stay with the policeman to find her parents. He, too, tried to get any information on who the child belonged to. Alas, he was unsuccessful as all he got out of Isabella was that she lived in a cabin with her mom and dad, but she didn't know where that was. The policeman stated to the little girl that there weren't any cabins in the city, but Isabella was sure that she lived by many trees, just like the park, where there was a cabin.
The sun was starting to set, and the policeman had walked Isabella around the entire park finding no one that the little girl had known. The policeman told Isabella that she would stay with some people who would take care of her for the night. Isabella was brought to Child Protection Services, who had her placed for the night in a group home where she was fed and given a bed. She settled in – still not showing any signs of fear, which was unusual for the workers to see in the children in their care, especially on the first night.
The lights were out, and all the children were sleeping, well, except for Isabella. She had a cot in the corner of the room – cuddled up with her little orange stuffed cat and was whispering to herself.
"Why didn't you tell them what you said about my mommy? That you were just watching me for a while. I wasn't there by myself, and you let them think that I was."
"You know what I told you. They're not supposed to know that I'm here, and they wouldn't understand anyway. You'll be safer this way. Trust me." Zyon's voice was deep but friendly, as he spoke to Isabella.
"But they thought I was just here with my kitty. What's going to happen?" Fighting not to fall asleep, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Zyon gently pulled the covers up to Isabella's chin and smoothed the blankets out. "You're going to go to sleep and let the pieces fall into place, Izzie."
Zyon wasn't the well-loved orange stuffed cat that Izzie had carried in her bag with her. He was a little man covered with dark coarse hair; his skin was as green as grass, and his eyes were the brightest blue found in nature. His nails were long, coming to sharp points. A slight underbite deformed his jaw. He was small in height, as he was no taller than the five-year-old he was there to protect. His magic made it so that Isabella was the only one who could see or hear him, which would be a favor to them both being in this new land. He was able to manipulate his size, shrinking down to the size of a small doll or growing to the height of a fully grown human male. Unlike the Winding Woods, where humans and creatures lived together, this new land only seemed to have humans. In this new world, it was doubtful that they would understand what a boggle was, let alone allow him to be by a small child, like his sweet Izzie. He had pledged that he would do everything he could to keep her safe – even if that meant bringing her to a place that he knew nothing about. He loved the little girl as if she were his own.
She waved her finger, and the shimmers of the dust in the moonlight gathered into a beam of energy, closing the curtains, covering the light from the window. "You can't do that here, Princess." Zyon softly whispered as he pushed her hair off her forehead.
Izzie drifted off to sleep, hugging the little cat as she softly snored with all the other children innocently dreaming in the room. Zyon took his post on the edge of the bed, watching everything moving outside of the window. He would keep every person, every shadow away from his little princess. He did not sleep.
2: A Girl named izzie
Izzie's family was never found, and the older that Izzie got, the less that she remembered about her parents. Isabella spent almost two years in foster care before she got adopted. Many of her foster parents didn't know how to deal with her. Things would move about the house, and Izzie always claimed that she didn't know how it happened. She even started to tell her foster families about Zyon. They thought it was adorable – at first – that Izzie had an invisible friend. They read that many kids in foster care, have something like this to cope with the trauma they might have gone through.
Izzie was like any normal little girl – she loved to color, play with dolls, and snuggle with her foster family's cats while swinging on the porch swing. She watched cartoons and excelled in school, reading and math were her two favorite subjects.
Her new family was lovely – she was now a part of the Smith family. Samantha (Sami) and Jack Smith were a nice married couple who owned a beautiful Springfield house. The front of the house faced the East and always was warm in the morning from the rising sun. The blue siding was cheery with small flower boxes hanging from the windows on the upper level. Sami was great in the garden and loved to have them covered in pink flowers. They had two real live cats named Kitty and Frankie who both looked just like the stuffed animal that Izzie loved. They had one child of their own, a little boy named Nathan who was a year older than Izzie. He was a sweet boy who loved to play video games and baseball. He had shaggy blond coarse hair and green eyes – his skin had olive tones like his dad's.
Izzie was adopted by the Smiths after a year of them fostering her, the longest she had stayed in one home out of the six other families she had been placed with. As Izzie didn't remember when her actual birthday was, they figured she was now seven years old. They let Izzie pick the day she wanted her birthday to be, and she picked September 24th. After school had started and she would have a party with her friends- the weather was usually quite lovely then.
She was a great fit with their family, and Nate was so excited to have a little sister to play with. They would spend hours playing the classic Nintendo games that Jack had kept from his childhood, or spending time outside on that swing – talking about adventures that they would go on when they got older. He accepted her and never teased her for talking to herself or her invisible friend. He loved her for the charming little girl that she was.
"You are getting so good at mixing the dough by yourself, Iz!" Sami baked with Izzie every Friday afternoon; this week, they made sugar cookie cutouts in many animal shapes that they were going to decorate with colored sugars and red-hot candies.
Sami turned her head for just a moment as Frankie had jumped up onto the counter and started to hiss toward the mixing bowl. It was odd how Kitty and Frankie reacted to Izzie. Most of the time, they loved her, cuddling, and nuzzling her whenever they could, but every once in a while, they would stare toward Izzie, and all the fur on their backs would be on end, and the cats would have a throaty growl. It was one of those times that the cat seemed to be staring at the wall and looked like he was ready to attack. Izzie wasn't fazed by the cats any longer when they acted this way and was busy singing a little song to herself as she measured out the last cup of flour that was needed to be added to the mixer. Frankie jumped toward the mixer, bumping Izzie's arm, causing her to scatter flour all over the counter.
"Oh, Frankie! Get down!" Sami shooed the cat out of the kitchen, dusting the flour off her hands onto her apron. "I wonder what’s gotten into her?"
"Zyon was making faces at her again."
Sami shook her head but didn't say anything about how Izzie referred to her invisible friend. Sami's friend Nichole, who studied child psychology, told her that Izzie should outgrow it when she gets more comfortable in school and her home life. Sami wished she could figure out how to make Izzie comfortable.
Sami started to wipe up the flour from the counter and notice that tiny little footprints were cutting through the mess. "How did you do that?" She leaned her back against the counter and folded her arms over her chest.
"Do what?" She didn't raise her eyes as she was busy scrapping the sides of the mixing bowl with a rubber spat
ula.
"Make these little boot prints? Are you playing a joke on me?"
Izzie looked over to the mess and smiled, as she gestured with her head back toward the wall. "Zyon did that running from Frankie."
Sami started to tear up with frustration as she was doing her best not to react to Izzie's stories, but she felt that after being in the house for over a year, the girl needed to stop all the invisible friend nonsense so she wouldn't get teased at school.
"Izzie, honey, we've talked about this before, remember? Zyon isn't real, sweetie. You need to stop making up stories and blaming them on something that isn't real."
"You better just agree with her – she's not supposed to know I'm real, Izzie." The boggle had perched himself on the shelf in the corner, hiding his flour-covered shoes behind a plant.
“Yes, mom.” She stuttered. Izzie had gotten good at not making eye contact with Zyon when he started to talk, as she was supposed to ignore him. It was hard for her to call Sami "mom," but knew it made her happy, so she did it.
Sami smiled whenever the girl attempted to call her mom. It made her feel like they were finally making a connection. They didn't speak much as they finished making the cookies and decorating them with the cheerful sugars.
Izzie's relationship with Jack was never forced as it was with Sami. The girl greeted her brother and dad at the door with a plate of cookies when they returned from baseball practice.