Local-news.ca is thrilled to present part three of Mia Greene’s serial novel, titled Party of Misfits. In a nod to the literary traditions of the Victorian era, where renowned authors like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins captivated readers with serialized narratives, we bring you a modern twist on this classic form. Our talented writer Mia is a Burlington high school student and one of last year’s Burlington Public Library short story contest winners. Set in the contemporary world, Mia’s monthly installments of Party of Misfits will whisk you away into an enchanted fantasy realm. Join us on this literary adventure as we unfold the pages of Party of Misfits exclusively on Local-news.ca, where tradition meets the digital age, and storytelling takes on a whole new dimension.
To start from the beginning, read Part 1 of Party of Misfits: click here. For the previous installment, Part 2, click here.
Party of Misfits: Part 3
The Towel Closet, of All Places
Aarwyn’s first thought when she got up to follow Meenah and the other creatures to the entrance to their world was certainly not that the entrance would be within her own home.
Or that it would be in the linen closet.
Despite Aarwyn’s obvious surprise, Meenah opened the closet door nonchalantly, revealing the built-in shelves that stored towels Aarwyn had brought here from her childhood home back in Connecticut. One in particular stood out, its hot pink a stark contrast among the rest of the neutral-coloured towels. Aarwyn knew exactly what design was on it: a pair of blue flip-flops with orange flowers. The sight of the towel instantly took her back in time to the memory of a beach holiday with her father. She could taste the saltwater of the ocean, feel the grit of the sand on her bare heels, and smell the sickening sweetness of the melted cotton candy ice cream cone that dribbled down her chin. She could feel the comforting presence of her father, her small hand in his large one.
Interrupted by the creaking sound of a floorboard lifting, Aarwyn snapped out of the memory, eyes readjusting to the present moment. Meenah sat crouched in the closet, shoving Aarwyn’s floorboard aside with ease to reveal …a puddle?
A purple, glossy, spiraling puddle. Aarwyn found herself unable to detach her eyes from it, awestruck that this had been in her home and then by the dawning realization that it was no puddle.
It was a portal.
Meenah looked up at Aarwyn from her hunched position, the amethyst glow of the portal reflecting on her brown, leathered skin.
“This portal is the only portal that connects our world to the mortal realm,” Meenah announced. “You mustn’t tell a soul of its location. By allowing you into our world, Aarwyn, we are demonstrating a great act of trust. Trust is something that goes both ways. It is something to be respected and never broken. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Aarwyn replied, her voice coming out smaller than she expected.
“Good.”
Eager to see what was on the other side of the portal, Aarwyn took a step forward, its purple glow pulling her body forward.
“Whoa,” Meenah warned, “Not so fast.”
Aarwyn’s eyebrows furrowed in response.
“There are a few things you need to know before entering the portal to Eyuviell, Aarwyn. Firstly, when you jump in, all your eyes will be able to comprehend is purple light. Nothing else. Your throat will feel like it’s plummeting down to your stomach, and dizziness isn’t an abnormal occurrence. The portal will soon open up, and down, down, down, you’ll fall. There is no reason to be afraid, however, for a great surprise will be awaiting to catch you as you descend.”
“Is that all?” Aarwyn gulped, suddenly more nervous than excited.
“That’s all.”
Aarwyn shifted her eyes from the troll back down to the hazy glowing portal embedded under her floorboards. There was no denying her worry, though it was clouded by excitement at the opportunity to leave her own life for a while. At the opportunity to experience something, anything, new for a change.
With one final breath of her home’s stale air, Aarwyn lowered herself into the portal.
≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫
Down, down, down, she went, just as Meenah had warned.
Nothing but purple light filled her vision as she spun and spun, continuing to fall. After a grueling ten seconds of purple-tinted disorientation, Aarwyn noticed a sunny blue sky around her. She continued to fall, her throat trying to invert itself to land in the pit of her stomach at the sudden thought that she might be plummeting to her death. She tried to scream, but it was as if her fear had taken on a human form, wrapping its cold, slender fingers around her neck and squeezing to prevent her from crying out.
Please don’t let me die! Please don’t let me die! Wait — is that a waterfall in the distance? Please don’t let me —
Aarwyn let out a grunt as she landed softly. Reeling from the experience, Aarwyn lay breathing heavily as she squinted at the blindingly blue sky above, dizziness fading slowly. Regaining basic comprehension skills, she sat up, noticing the strangely soft-looking, blush-pink walls enclosing her, and the green, spongy pillow she was sitting upon. There were four yellow stem-like pillars emerging from the bottom, and Aarwyn clutched one for support as she stood, peeked out between a narrow gap in the pink walls, and scanned the area.
Tulips. So many enormous tulips. There were pink ones and red ones and yellow ones, all sprouting from the ground, which was very far down. Aarwyn was even more surprised to notice that she was standing inside one of her own. Heart racing, her eyes flicked around the spectacle in front of her.
“Aarwyn!” A voice belonging to Meenah called out.
Aarwyn’s head snapped towards the sound. She moved one of the pink petals aside carefully, revealing a smiling Meenah and most of the other fae who had been in Aarwyn’s apartment standing on the grass below the tulip Aarwyn had landed inside.
“You need to slide down the stem,” Meenah instructed. “Come on!”
Whimpering in fear, Aarwyn glanced around her once more, as if another way of getting down would simply present itself out of thin air, preferably a safer one. Apparently, the fall through the portal had dampened her enthusiasm for falling from heights. Another shout from below, urging her to come down, jolted her back into the present moment. Aarwyn pushed the delicate petal in front of her aside again, this time to examine the stem’s stability, and subsequently getting another glimpse of the drop.
“Okay,” Aarwyn muttered to herself, taking a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”
She hooked a leg around the stem while lowering her body until all of her limbs were gripping the stem for dear life. Her body slid down easily and quickly, the air rushing out of her and allowing no capacity for any screaming. When Aarwyn’s feet reached the grass, she could feel her heart racing in exhilaration inside her ears.
All the fae surrounded her, breaking into cheers and laughter.
“You did it!”
“Hoorah!”
“Wasn’t so bad now, was it?”
The last voice she recognized as Meenah’s, who took a step toward her and offered a knowing smirk. Aarwyn laughed in response, shaking her head no. Once she was down on the ground, it seemed less frightening and rather more exciting.
“I think that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done!” Aarwyn told everyone.
“Oh, honey,” Meenah chuckled. “Just you wait.”
Eager to follow the fae wherever they planned to take her, Aarwyn walked giddily alongside them, unable to contain the curiosity fizzing like a shaken soda through her veins. She glanced up at the gargantuan, tree-sized tulips that littered the field, mouth hanging open in awe.
“Does every tulip look like that here?” Aarwyn asked no one in particular.
The voice that piped up in answer was another that Aarwyn recognized, belonging to the smaller-than-human-sized fairy creature named Thalia.
“No, unfortunately not,” Thalia’s high-pitched voice squeaked. Aarwyn’s eyes found her in the gathering of creatures, her forest green hair and translucent sage wings blending in with the variety of other brightly-coloured fae. “Those in Tulipan are the only ones. Would you like to hear the story?”
Aarwyn smiled, nodding immediately. She would have asked for the story herself had Thalia not offered.
Fluttering the smallest fraction from the ground, Thalia left a trail of green sparkles from her butterfly-like wings as she began to tell the story of Tulipan.
“Before Elme Alora, the elf kingdom, came to be, before the entire world of Eyuviell itself came to be, that is,” Thalia started, “there lived a small group of pixies — likely some of the earliest to walk in our world. They were Flora pixies, who are responsible for the upkeep of gardens and fields, as well as the general planting and growth of all the flora and fauna. Flora pixies possess the ability to speed up plant growth by conjuring up a dust that can be blown onto the plant, and this group of pixies was experimenting with such a power. However, their experimentations took a wrong turn when one of them accidentally turned the field of barley-grown tulip buds into the tree-sized ones that stand today. The field is known as Tulipan today, because of the direct translation from Lorish, meaning ‘tulip gargantuan.’”
“Lorish?” Aarwyn questioned.
“The language of the elves.”
Wow. Aarwyn thought as they continued walking. It felt as if she was living in a dream, one she wasn’t quite ready to wake up from just yet. If giant tulips were merely one of the things Eyuviell had to offer, Aarwyn was beside herself in excitement to discover what else she might encounter.
As they walked, Aarwyn noticed something emerge in the distance. It was the waterfall she had glimpsed when falling through the sky earlier. As she and the creatures grew closer, it became clear that the waterfall was just part of a larger structure. It was a palace — a magnificent, white marble palace with shimmering gold details and massive pillars. The most incredible part was that it sat upon a floating island, almost touching the low-to-ground clouds. The glittering aquamarine waterfalls cascaded down luxuriously, and the wooden bridge that attached to one side of the island was so high in the clouds that any onlooker couldn’t see where the other side was attached to from such a distance.
Aarwyn stopped in her tracks, gaping at the palace before her. She began to head forward, subconsciously drawn to its beauty and feeling physically unable to take her eyes off it until an arm softly gripped her own and forced her to turn away.
“Wrong way, dear,” Meenah smiled warmly as Aarwyn looked back at the palace. “We’re taking you to Pasella, the Kingdom of the Pixies. That over there is Elme Alora, the Kingdom of the Elves.”
Aarwyn, albeit reluctantly, let Meenah drag her away from Elme Alora and towards the direction of a lush forest.
“We want to show you Eyuviell, Aarwyn. Though I fear that if the elves become aware of your being here, they might desire to send you back. Our Elf Queen Aelin Galanodel shares a majority ruling over Eyuviell alongside the Council of Nymphs. Elme Alora and Nalanora, where the nymphs rule, are the two most powerful kingdoms in Eyuviell. Should they discover that a human now roams their lands…well, I’m not quite sure what they would do, but my point is that they have the power to do as they please regarding the situation.”
Aarwyn nodded in understanding.
Most of the fae at that point stopped to tell her that they would be headed their own ways now, back to their respective kingdoms. Aarwyn bid everyone farewell, until it was just her, Meenah, and Thalia left, walking through a forest bursting with red mushrooms, assorted brightly-coloured flowers, and crunching leaves.
“I think you will like Pasella.” Thalia told Aarwyn, still fluttering above the ground as opposed to walking. “It doesn’t have any luscious waterfalls or a palace like Elme Alora, but I think it’s pretty great. Although I am a little biased, being a pixie and all.”
Meenah hummed in reply. “Oh, yes. The pixies do the most beautiful job of maintaining their land.”
The three females — human, pixie, and troll — shared kind smiles with each other. Though she couldn’t explain quite why she was so quickly at ease in this strange land, the sense of comfort and happiness that Aarwyn felt in that moment was one she hadn’t experienced for a long, long while.
