Rosalie Vezina's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Rosalie Vezina had lived three hundred years, and she still could not fly. She sat at the breakfast table, small and barefoot, her pink dress bunched under her knees. She was three years old. She would always be three years old. Her wand lay beside her plate while she chewed a mushroom cap and stared out the round window at the clouds. "I want to touch them," Rosalie said. She pointed her sticky finger at the sky. "Today. With a real flying spell." Her mother set down her book. Catherine Bisson wore her green dress, her frizzy brown hair loose around her shoulders. She looked at her tiny, ancient daughter the way she had a thousand mornings before. "Flying is old magic, Rosalie. The forest keeps that spell. It doesn't give it to just anyone." "I'm not just anyone." Rosalie grinned. "I've been tricking this forest since before you were born." Catherine almost smiled. "Then go see Simeon. He knows the old words better than I do." She tapped the window. "But his cottage is deep past the great oak. You'll have to cross the whole forest on your own feet." Rosalie slid off her chair. Her blue baby dragon uncurled from its warm spot by the door and shook out its small wings. Her rose-colored cat lifted its leafy tail and blinked. "Stay," Rosalie told them both. "This is a long walk." The dragon huffed but curled back down. Rosalie stepped outside. Glowing mushrooms ringed her cottage, and fireflies drifted around the warm windows. She waved her wand once, more from habit than need, and marched into the trees. The forest was thick and dim. Roots caught her bare toes. Twice she stopped to trick a talking beetle just for fun. But the path kept twisting, and every tree began to look the same. Rosalie realized she did not know the way anymore. Then she saw it. The great oak rose ahead, its trunk wider than her whole house. Bell-shaped fruit hung in its branches, each one glowing soft and gold. She had seen this tree before, long ago. Simeon lived past it. She had found her marker. Rosalie ran to the oak and pressed her hand to the bark. The bells above her chimed, low and warm, as if they knew her. She laughed and looked past the trunk. A narrow trail wound down into a hollow. At its end, tucked under ferns, sat a small cottage with a crooked chimney. She had made it. She had crossed the forest alone, and Simeon's home waited just ahead. But as Rosalie stepped toward the trail, the golden bells above her went dark all at once. The warm chime stopped. The forest fell silent. From inside Simeon's cottage came no light, no smoke, no sound. Rosalie stood at the edge of the hollow, her wand tight in her fist. Something was wrong at her friend's house.