Chapter 1 Excerpt from, In the Company of Elves

 

(An excerpt from the first chapter of In the Company of Elves)

As she walked along the path, she sang a tune from a song she heard on the radio:

“Hey, soul sister
Ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio, stereo
The way you move ain't fair, you know
Hey, soul sister.”

Melissa walked east from the patio towards the old oak tree and spotted a white rabbit sniffing along the wall’s bottom edge. She paused and gazed intently. Her brow furrowed, and a perplex look crossed her face. When she moved nearer to the rabbit, it glanced up at her and began to dig wildly, as if trying to burrow beneath the wall. “What is it doing and how did it get into the yard?" she mused.

“Hey little fellow, what are you doing here? Where did you come from?” The rabbit stopped and stared at her. Its nose twitched, and the rabbit went back to digging, determined to get to the other side. Melissa scratched her head. “You must be one of the neighbor’s pets. How curious,” she said. As she inspected the wall, she noticed a door obscured by vines.

 "Where did this door come from? I never noticed it before." The rabbit froze, its black eyes looked up at her. She leaned in closer and started pulling the vines off the door and uncovering it.

Her hands ended up with a few scratches, but what she found was amazing. Her eyes widened; her mouth dropped. “Wow, this door looks ancient,” she exclaimed and touched the door. An unsettling realization washed over her as she beheld the indiscernible writing etched across the upper edge.

“This is weird, maybe grandma didn’t know about this door, I guess,” she pondered.  “This door seems to be pretty old little fellow," she said as she looked down at the rabbit. The rabbit looked up at her and twitched its nose. Suddenly the rabbit scratched the door, as if it was trying to tell her to open it. She got the impression that it understood what she was saying, and she sensed intelligence behind those black eyes. Melissa spotted a lock on the ground, picked it up and looked at it carefully. “Wow, how weird!” she paused.

 “I wonder how old this is?” she said and sighed, “I guess someone must have unlocked the door. But who? This is truly a unique lock.” She had butterflies in her stomach and felt a little uneasy, though she couldn't quite put her finger on why. A wave of dread washed over her, but it was tangled up with a strong sense of curiosity. Melissa raised her eyes and stared at the door for a moment. It beckons her, coaxing her to open it. Something about it piqued her curiosity even more than normal. She gulped, "You know, I wonder what’s on the other side," she said out loud. One of the rabbit’s ears twitched as Melissa slowly opened the door.  

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