Magic Ahead

She couldn’t explain her fascination with paths that disappeared into the trees. It was something that had always been a part of her, like blonde hair or an affinity for the color red. She suspected it had to do with a childhood steeped in Lewis’s wardrobes that opened on magical worlds and Tolkien’s roads leading ever onward. She had to follow those trails because she could end up anywhere.

Even so, her reaction to that particular spot on that particular trail was curiously strong. She stepped over a stick that might have tripped her, looked up and stopped dead with her breath frozen in overworked lungs.

This spot held magic.

No one aspect of the spot caused her fascination. It was the combination of a dozen small things—the leaves strewn across the path, the bend up ahead that kept her from seeing where the trail led, the overarching trees that created the feeling of a tunnel. Those things alone would have been enough to make her feel the ordinary sort of magic she often felt at the start of a trail, but this spot held an indefinable something more. The sunlight falling through the leaves painted magic symbols at her feet. A scent on the breeze—cedar? pine?—promised fabulous adventures ahead.

She knew without being able to explain how she knew that this was the path she’d been searching for her whole life. This one was a portal to a magical world where animals could talk and people could fly. Adventure lay ahead, if only she stepped forward to take it.

So she did. She rushed ahead, and she could have sworn she felt the very air change as she passed through the door. The world’s fragrance sweetened. The breeze seemed to whisper words—welcome, we’ve been waiting for you.

She stopped to take it in. Everything looked the same, but she knew better. Once she moved forward far enough to see around that bend in the path, she’d know the truth. She might find a kindly beaver who offered to take her home for dinner. She might find an elf who would require close watching to discover if he was good or bad. She might find something she couldn’t even imagine.

She stood still for another moment. She drew one more breath of magical air, then turned and hurried back to the normal world and the trailhead where her car waited to take her home. She’d decided finding the spot and knowing she’d crossed over was enough of an adventure. She knew what had happened. She didn’t need to find proof.

She wasn’t afraid to discover she’d stumbled into a dangerous magical world. She was afraid to discover she hadn’t.