Within the Sapphire Forest

I checked my watch for the hundredth time and sighed, annoyed that only fifteen minutes had passed since I last checked. I grabbed another box and opened it to put its contents, mustard, on the shelf at the local grocery store. God, this day just will not end, I thought to myself as I flattened the box and stacked it with the others in a cart. As I walked to grab another box to put out, I heard the crash of glass jars behind me. I turned to see some jackasses smirking and watching me. Those four assholes went shopping about once a week and they made sure to hunt me down and make my job a lot worse for the day. It just so happened pickle jars were their new desire to throw on the ground. I f*****g hated werewolves. “Looks like there was an accident,” I sneered at them. One of the two girls, a slim brunette who’s cleavage was always on display, glared and responded, “The only accident here is you.” I glared daggers at her as her friends laughed and walked away. I flagged down a coworker and pointed to the mess at my feet. He nodded and ran to get the clean up equipment while I waited to direct traffic.  Goddess! I hated werewolves! They were all pretentious, arrogant, antagonistic morons and I so wanted to smack them down a couple hundred pegs, but wolves were loyal to each other against any outsiders. Sure, they had their little squabbles amongst themselves, but if any other creature started something with a wolf, they covered each other's backs. The guy returned with the broom, mop, and dustpan and cleaned the mess for me. He was cute, for a human, but unfortunately the whole human thing was a deal breaker for me. They freaked out too easily. I went back to stocking the shelves and counting the minutes until finally, thankfully, my watch read five-oh-two. I cleaned up quickly and hurried to clock out.  Freed from my responsibilities at work, I was quickly enslaved by my home responsibilities, and I grabbed a cart to shop. I stocked up on raw meat, mostly large steaks and rumps that were on sale. I searched for older packages of fish, but it looked like there were only the new packages, or those tiny packages of tilapia that fed absolutely no one. It wasn’t worth it so I moved on to quickly grab fruits, vegetables, noodles, the ramen variety of course, I was too busy to cook actual spaghetti, and milk. Once I gathered my groceries I quickly checked out and loaded myself up with the ridiculous amount of groceries. Maybe I should consider shopping a few more times a week just to gather fewer items each time, I contemplated, but I was so preoccupied by the heavy bags that I let the thought slip away. It was a half mile walk to my friend, Melissa's, house. She was nice enough to let me borrow her house when I needed to, which was almost every day. She was out of town for the week, so I let myself in and took a quick break at her table to check my phone.  I had a missed call from my grandmother. The fact that she was calling me at all meant she really needed to talk, since my ancient and strictly traditional grandmother hated phones.  Grandma Rose raised me after my mother died when I was eight. Mom was an amazing healer. She, and the rest of her coven lived in the forest a few miles from a tiny village. The people there, all humans, had a hard time getting a hold of medicine, so Mom would sneak down to the village in disguise to heal the sick and injured. When Grandma found out, she lost her mind, banned my mom from ever leaving the forest again, and she forced Mom to marry some sorcerer. That’s how she got pregnant with me, but he left mysteriously after Mom found out she was pregnant. Mom continued to sneak down to the village after she gave birth to me, oftentimes taking me with her. I learned a lot about healing, but quickly learned I didn’t have a talent for it the way she did. She was excellent with healing humans and witches, essentially any human-like creatures. I was only good at healing animals and animal-like creatures. Still noble, but not as great as my mom. Sadly, no good deed goes unpunished. I was stuck at home sick for a few days, but Mom had to go down to the village, a pregnant woman desperately needed her, and all she could do for me was help me sleep. So, after giving me a bit of sleeping potion, she left for the village. As she arrived, she was jumped by some men and hung in the trees at the edge of the forest. Grandma saw the whole thing but couldn’t do anything to save her. She cut her down from the tree and had a witches funeral, where I had to stand next to her funeral pyre in a white dress. Grandma told me I couldn’t cry, so I sniffled through the whole thing. When they lit the pyre and burned her body, I broke down. Grandma dragged me away from everyone to s***k me.  I lived with Grandma for the next ten years of my life. I wasn’t allowed to cry, barely learned any useful magic, only how to prepare a ritual, which I wasn’t even allowed to participate in. When I turned sixteen, and Grandma still wouldn’t teach me proper magic, I decided to follow my Mom’s path and started sneaking out to practice with some of Grandma’s books. I got pretty good too. I moved out when I turned eighteen, choosing to live alone in the forest over living with the Tyrant. I turned my adorable cottage into a sanctuary for injured creatures and took a job to afford all the things I needed to care for them. I loved my life, but every time Grandma called, I sunk down to the scared eight-year-old standing next to my burning mother. I called my Grandma back, and she answered on the second ring. “Evianna, where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you.” “Grandma, I was working. You know I can’t answer my phone at work,” I told her. “I don’t know why you insist on working at that ridiculous place. Don’t you get tired of all the, ugh, humans?” She sneered the last word as if it tasted bitter. “I need to pay for food and supplies, you know that.” “Come back to the coven, we’ll cover all your expenses, plus you’re finally old enough to join our rituals, and Beltane is right around the corner. You could take the part of the Goddess this year.” Oh, for f**k’s sake, I groaned internally. “Yeah, that’s not happening,” I said. “Oh, Evianna, don’t be like that. Jasper Douglas is the Green God this year, and he’s had his eye on you for a while. This would be the perfect chance for you two to meet and get to know each other.” “Is that before or after we have ritual s*x in front of the whole coven,” I growled. “It’s not a big deal, everyone in the coven has partaken in the Great Rite,” she tried to counter. I laughed into the phone. “No they haven’t, and everyone that has was already thirty. I’m only twenty-two.” “Yes, but you’re special, and this is a special case. Please, just consider it. You’d be perfect in the ritual.” They probably want to sacrifice my virginity to the gods as a true symbol of the fertility of the coven. “I got to go. Everyone’s waiting for their dinner at home.” Before she could say anything else, I pressed the end button. “Why does this day have to suck so freaking bad?” I wondered aloud. I sighed and dragged my groceries to the large living room. I sat on the ground, with my groceries in front of me. I focused my energy, closed my eyes, and imagined I was sitting in the forest just outside my home. Then, my body felt light and fuzzy, before suddenly feeling heavy again. The ground changed beneath me, from the carpeted floor of Melissa’s living room to the grassy soft ground of the forest. Once I felt stable, I opened my eyes and was happy to see my cute little wood cabin. It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, an attic, high rafters, a living space connected to a small kitchen. All electricity and water worked thanks to some very powerful magic crystals. I picked myself up off the floor and hauled the bags in to put them away. It took a bit of finessing but I managed to shove the meat into the freezer. With another hour before I had to serve dinner, I decided to go fishing at the river not far from my home. Thankfully, fishing was good and i managed to catch six fish in an hour. I heard howling in the distance and suddenly felt uneasy. Wolves never crossed into my territory. I took off towards my house at top speed, hoping I didn’t run into anyone. If wolves were in my territory, there was trouble, and I wanted no part of it. Outside my  house, there was a hoard of angry and afraid creatures. The damn pixies were harassing the fairies again, the baby dragon was shooting flames at all the fairies, and the manticore was raging at the dragon, trying to swipe at her with his massive paws. “Hey!” I yelled, gathering everyone’s attention. “That’s enough, you all know better.” A large fairy with giant grey-brown moth wings fluttered over to me, followed by an angry dark skinned, tattered pixie running along the ground. The pixie queen reached my leg and started yanking angrily on my pants, so I leaned down and let her climb into my hand, her claw like fingernails stinging a bit. Once she was up to my ear level, she went off. “Those stupid fairies keep getting in our way!” she screeched at me in her little raspy voice. “And the dragon keeps trying to eat us. Put a muzzle on it, or I will.” “I don’t know how we can be in your way,” the fairy king argued. “We never sink down to your level.” They started bickering back and forth about space and food and Goddess only knows what else.  “Enough!” I yelled again to get their attention. “The rule is no fighting. You both know that. Also, Jewel is still a baby, she’s learning just like everyone else. You have to be firm with her when she acts out, and then you have to be patient.”  They muttered under their breath, but nodded anyway. I set the pixie down and walked carefully to the door to let everyone in who needed in. Manny, the manticore, stayed outside most days. He didn’t like being confined in the house, and the others didn’t like him there because of his size. With everyone back where they should be, I gathered dinner for the masses. The fairies liked sweets, so I gave miniature cookies with tiny bowls of milk on the counter. The pixies preferred anything old and rotting, so they got my fruit that went bad the week before, and my moldy bread. For being the most angry of all the species, they were by far the easiest to take care of since they liked living off my scraps and taking care of themselves.  The fairies and the pixies were in my care because of deforestation. Their homes were destroyed when logging and construction companies tore up the fields and forests that they lived in. Unfortunately, they were also natural enemies, so life with them was tense. Jewel was given to me as an egg, when the mother abandoned her nest because of poachers. Dragon scales were a hot commodity on the black market. Trolls were especially good dragon hunters, since they were as tough and vicious as dragons themselves. Dragon eggs were also top dollar items, but only to exotic pet collectors. Baby dragons had weaker, more fragile scales, making them less useful to traders.  Manny found me while I was gathering herbs in my garden. He was hurt, probably by elves who found sport in hunting manticores, so he was angry and untrusting of me at first, but he warmed up to me and quickly became a valued protector around my house. There was also a mermaid, Syline, who lived in my well, and a brownie, just Brownie for his sake, who lived in the attic. Syline was injured by fishing nets and somehow found a way to me through underground rivers. I wasn’t able to help her directly, but when she asked for certain herbs or food, I made sure she got them, and it seemed to be helping her. Brownie appeared randomly in the attic, missing a leg. He was depressed and withdrawn so I never found out how he lost his leg, but I did learn that he liked mint, and sometimes did some light cleaning around the house. I threw a few steaks to Manny outside, gave Jewel and Syline fish, while Syline angrily scolded me for being late, which I wasn’t, and left a sprig of mint in the attack. With everyone taken care of, I made myself some soup for dinner and sat on my living room couch to eat. I only took a few bites before I felt a sense of dread wash over. Something was wrong, very wrong. It felt like a knife was stabbing me in the stomach and I dropped my soup onto the floor, gripping my abdomen.  Everyone stopped their meals to stare, so I waved my hands at them and said, “Please, go away. Somethings coming.” It took two seconds for everyone to go to their respective areas. The fairies went to their nests in the rafters and the pixies crawled into their holes in the wall. I only had to coax Jewel to her room. A thud on the porch caught my attention and I hurried to open the front door. The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, casting long shadows over the earth. With how dark it was, I didn’t process what was on my porch for a couple of seconds, but when I finally did, it made my blood run cold.