Through The Yew Hedge: A Tale of Identity Magic
by Islay Corwin
PROLOGUE
“Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild with a faery, hand in hand." -- William Butler Yeats, “The Stolen Child”
The Foretelling
Under the stark flicker of fluorescent lights, white moths flutter cryptic scripts: What does Virgo portend? The prophecy of place and time, the raison d’être? She, the child of changing seasons, was pushed into the Autumn Equinox, delivered in sorrow on the first day of fall under a sapphire sky, on the cusp of Libra, the Just.
The bus ticket vibrates in Ellen’s coat pocket, her choice like the weight of lead: an escape, a remedy, but not a salvation. She trembles as she sets the baby basket behind the farthest bench, out of the cold gusts of wind that rush across the concrete platform.
She pins her plea, penned in loss and stained by tears, to the Mercy Shelter baby blanket: Protect Ruth Ann, Sweeten her life. She places a memory, a kiss like honey and salt on the infant’s forehead.
The Taking
Three elvish figures, wearing sparkling silver and green, emerge through the ticket-booth surveillance mirror, luminous and clear in their purpose.
Ellen shudders at their chiming voices. Familiar and foreboding, they stand full height around her baby. She knows them from shiny surfaces, reflections, in the shelter where they cajoled her until, distraught, she acquiesces to their coaxing in the twilight.
Your baby will be safe, she’ll be found, assures Eleris. In the ancient garden, she’ll come into her heritage, predicts Cedra. Under the human’s care, under our vigilance, she shall blossom. She’ll bridge worlds, promises Selwyn.
Accepting she is flawed and cannot be a proper mother, Ellen turns to board the waiting bus.
Hurry! Harmful fumes! They shriek, they shape shift, they shrink. They lift the baby in her basket, disappear into the reflective portal, and float on the Winter Solstice breeze to the Garden where blue morning glories bloom in the snow.
The complete story is available as an ebook:
https://books2read.com/ThroughtheYewHedge