Anna Stasia's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Anna Stasia woke under a canopy of pink blossoms, and she was an elf now. She knew this because her ears came to points, her hair fell red past her elbows, and her old human life had ended a heartbeat ago. She had wished, dying, for a world with real magic. Something had listened. Now she sat up in the grass, laughed once, and reached for the power she was sure lived inside her. She waved her hand at a fallen blossom. Nothing happened. She tried again. The blossom stayed on the ground. She needed a teacher. That much was clear. Someone in this world could show her how magic worked. But she had no map, no name, no direction. Then she saw the stones. Flat markers stood between the trees, each carved with runes. Anna Stasia crawled to the nearest one and traced the marks with her finger. The symbols meant nothing to her. She circled the stone, hoping the other side would help. It only held more runes she couldn't read. She checked three more markers. Each carried the same strange writing. Without it, she could not tell which way led to a village, a school, or anyone at all. A snuffling sound broke the quiet. Anna Stasia turned. A blue basset hound waddled out from the blossoms, low to the ground, its skin folded in loose rolls. It had three heads. All three noses pointed at the same stone she had just touched. The center head pressed against the runes. The left head barked twice. Then the whole lumpy body turned and shuffled a few steps away, stopped, and looked back at her. "You want me to follow you," Anna Stasia said. She did not know if that was foolish. She only knew the dog understood the stone, and she did not. She followed. The three-headed hound led her through the trees, past marker after marker, never once slowing at a wrong turn. It sniffed each stone, huffed, and chose a path. Anna Stasia stopped fighting the runes. She let the dog read them for her. The blossoms thinned. Ahead stood a small cottage with a curling, shingled roof and tiny windows lit from within. Vines climbed its walls. Warm light spilled from the door. The hound trotted straight to the step and sat, all three heads facing the door, waiting. Anna Stasia caught her breath. She had solved nothing about the runes herself. She still could not read a single mark. But she no longer needed to. The dog had carried her past that wall to a door, and someone lived behind it. She raised her hand and knocked. Footsteps moved inside. The latch turned.