Wool of the Prince-- Chapter 55

~943 words

“Sit down, sit down,” the Enchantress breezed, running her finger over the stone fountain’s smooth surface.

Jay glanced around, and, seeing no place to sit, gave the Enchantress what he hoped with an inquiring look. She sighed, waved her hand, and conjured up a few wooden chairs, two stumps, and a chaise longue. Confused at the strangely diverse seating options, Jay did not sit down right away, and in the end, he was left feeling awkward on the chaise longue. He tried to look indifferent to sitting, but he was secretly thankful that he was able to rest his weary feet.

There was fire in Shep’s eyes as he started. “We have the sheep. We’ve all been waiting long enough. Let’s end this whole ridiculous game.

The Enchantress tapped her lower lip, screwing her eyes up to look at the sky, as if she was really considering Shep’s proposition. “That’s right. You do have the sheep, and you have been waiting a long time, but I feel like I haven’t had enough time to find my forgiveness. One more task. Because you broke my rules.” The last part she spat.

Shep looked genuinely confused at this declaration, his eyes narrowed and his head tilted, as if he was trying to force a forgotten memory to slide out his ear. “What rules? What are you talking about?”

She sighed again, as if she had better things to be doing, and gave Shep a look of sheer exasperation. “Do you think I made you look that way,” she gestured to Shep’s whole body, “for kicks and giggles? I wanted you to work alone on your quest. Do you think I made the sheep invisible because I have a thing for the sound of bleating without a source? I wanted people to think you were crazy! And then you go ahead and make five friends!” She pounded the fountain and shrieked in outrage.

“He made many more than that, I’m sure,” Jay said, thinking of Salim. He saw Fleta nod in agreement out of the corner of her eye.

The Enchantress stomped a sandal-clad foot and stood up. “It doesn’t matter! Don’t you see? He had help, and that was against the rules.”

“These ‘rules’ of yours were never specifically written or stated anywhere,” Shep argued.

She went on as if she hadn’t heard him, “And as punishment for that, each of you will be given a trial. Because it’s partly all of your faults too!” She glared at Jay, Fleta, Marc, Gilfred, and Godfrey.

Jay was starting to see the Enchantress as more of a pouty toddler than a powerful sorceress.

“But you can’t do this!” Shep was shouting. “We had an agreement!”

A mischievous smile blossomed on the Enchantress’s lips. She waved her hand, and suddenly, here was not here at all.

Jay was lying in bed in his room back on earth. He blinked. Sitting up, he looked at his old Scooby Doo pillowcase. Everything in his room was exactly as he had left it. Even the papers on his floor were homework worksheets from the day before he had run away.

He stood up. He felt like something was going to explode or fall apart or something at any minute. Hadn’t he just been sitting in a chaise longue in front of An Enchantress? Hadn’t some sheep just been about to become royalty? Hadn’t he just spent several months in a fantasy world called Trevon? Jay shook his head.

No, he’d be dreaming. Silly really, to think he could run away and do all those brave things. Silly to think he could make friends that easily. Especially silly to think there was more to the world out there. Silly Jason. The sun was shining bright in the blue, blue sky. Jason glanced at the clock, which read 11:57 in dim red light. It must be a Saturday. Either that, or Jason had slept in past his alarm. It had been quite the night for dreaming.

Jason’s muscles complained when he stretched them to get the stiffness out. It made sense why they were so sore; he had just walked all around a country! Jason shook his head more firmly this time. No, he had not been in Trevon. The stiff muscles must be from his cross country meet.

He went outside to get the newspaper, since it didn’t look like anyone else had gotten it yet. It was strange, the house was empty. Maybe everyone was away on an activity and decided to let him sleep? He opened the newspaper on the way back inside the house. Good. No “MISSING” notice on the front page with his mugshot underneath. But of course there wasn’t. Because it was just a dream.

As Jason stepped into the mudroom and was about to remove his shoes like his mother demanded he did whenever he came inside, he realized he wasn’t wearing shoes. That was odd: he always put on shoes before going outside. He really was behaving strangely today.

Jason mechanically popped some bread into the toaster, got out some jam, a plate, and a knife, and quickly scanned the comics section. Unsure of where his family had gotten to, Jason went back to his room and switched on his handheld videogame console.

His fingers automatically clicked through all the opening screens hitting what should have been a racing game, but the icon was different this time. As the game started up, Jason felt like he was being sucked into the game, the picture growing wide around him as his body pixelated.

Oh no. It really was true.

I should have eaten a better breakfast.