Lightscript Legends Episode 5
“2020 Starlight Trail”
Invisible forces, an ex-writer, and a Hinterland home stirring with stories…
Toward the base of the mountains forming the valley’s jagged edge, where the forest grew thick and the bandwidth thin, a weather-beaten sign peppered with bullet holes welcomed the turbulent trio to Hinterland.
Past that slightly foreboding sign, a tumbledown convenience store, and a bridge in mild disrepair, Elina turned her truck onto the unmarked road of Starlight Trail. It was a narrow dirt road splaying off from the broad gray trunk of the highway and twisting toward the mountains like a crooked branch. A handful of driveways zigzagged off to either side of it, leading to a characteristically mismatched assortment of Hinterland dwellings.
Nestled between a sprawling estate boasting an elegant three-story house and a forgotten farm scattered with broken-down vehicles, a curious square of land lay enwreathed by a living wall of evergreens. The trees were laced together so closely that barely a glimpse could be caught of what lay behind the fence entangled in their branches.
“Evidently our human will not be the first eccentric recluse to live here,” Dravial remarked when the truck stopped at the only gate breaking the thick border.
The gate was fashioned from hand-hewn logs and sturdy metal bars, but the padlock that once secured the secret behind the trees lay rusting on the ground beside a broken sign. The address burned into the graying wood barely peered out through a thin blanket of moss…
2020 Starlight Trail
Skyvior glided through the truck’s closed window and landed on one gate post, followed by Dravial perching atop the other. They stood erect with wings folded, facing off like guardian statues at the entrance of a castle.
Elina stepped out of the truck and approached the gate with the cautious curiosity of a voyager nearing an unexplored island. A gust of wind, moist with the promise of coming rain, rippled through the wall of interlocking branches as she lifted the latch. She gave the gate a hard shove, and it swung open into an overgrown yard that had apparently mistaken itself for an enchanted forest and gone wild.
Meandering trails spiraled off in every direction, winding through trees holding tender spring needles and half-unfurled leaves out to the sun hidden beyond the clouds. Between the stumps and roots of past trees, new green shoots were pressing through the brown blanket of grasses and ferns bent over by the weight of the past winter’s snow. Atop stumps, against tree trunks, and around the grass-filled fire ring, rocks were imaginatively arranged into constellation-like designs.
One could almost believe the land was inhabited by mythical creatures…and the same could be said for the tin-roofed cabin in the clearing at the heart of the property.
The cabin was surrounded by a screened-in porch with a tiny tower of wood and stone rising off one side. Just large enough to enclose a narrow spiral staircase, it rose out of the rolling sea of wild grass and ferns like a miniature mountain lighthouse crowned by a railing of gnarled branches.
Elina got back in the truck and pulled into the rutted dirt driveway. After closing and refastening the gate behind her, she turned to face her future with a deep breath of clean, wild air. She was standing on the threshold of the first dream she had ever seen come true ~ a home of her own.
She should have been feeling…more. But instead, Dravial’s numbing shadows crept around her heart like a web of black spider silk.
Skyvior glided away from the gate post, circling overhead as Elina approached the cabin. Somewhere out in the tangles of broken branches and waist-deep weeds, a frayed rope swing swayed on the wind stirred by his unseen wings. Flecks of gold and green light trailed from his feathers, drifting downward to settle gently on the ground ahead of her.
Somehow, when her worn sneakers crossed that light-dusted earth, her trudging steps became a little lighter.
At the dirty glass door of the covered screen porch, Elina fumbled with her keys while taking in all of the work that lay ahead. A lamppost crowned with a seven-point metal star stood to one side of the door, its burnt-out light shrouded by cobwebs. Every board in sight was thirsty for a new coat of finish. Every window was dulled by a thick layer of rain-spattered dust. What might have once been the garden was already yielding an abundant crop of early spring weeds. And, inside, the working order of just about everything was as questionable as her handywoman capabilities.
Still…something stirring in that forgotten fragment of Hinterland called to the heart of its less-than-confident new keeper. The entire place seemed to have fallen from a storybook and landed hard on the rough ground of reality, where it lay lonely and out of place, in a world that was not its own…just like her.
She looked from the lamppost to the little tower rising against the darkening sky and sighed. Maybe it was destiny…maybe it was providence…maybe it was just Elina Rune getting in over her head with a place no one else wanted for good reason. Whatever the case, the lighthouse without an ocean and the girl who’s ship never came in, belonged together.
Skyvior and Dravial returned to their perches on Elina’s shoulders as she crossed the porch to the sturdy cabin door. Its ornate lock was nested in the heart of one wooden star and a peephole was tucked inside another. No lights were on inside and no sun rays pierced the clouds outside, yet a golden glimmer glinted through the peephole, as if the home itself were peering out at its new dweller with warm curiosity.
Elina slipped her key into the lock and a gentle thrill tingled through her veins. Then, a gust of wind tore a large cobweb loose from the corner of the doorway. At the same moment, a crack of thunder rumbled through the sky.
Elina shrank back as the dusty gray web waved before the entrance to her miniature castle like an ominous warning flag, making Dravial laugh.
Elina glanced over the porch, spotting a slender branch among the fir needles scattered across it. Picking up the stick and brandishing it like a sword as another rumble of thunder sounded, she vanquished the sinister web with a triumphant grin that Skyvior mirrored.
“That’s my girl. This place is already waking up your imagination.”
“Congratulations,” Dravial’s voice dripped with mockery. “Your pet human has successfully destroyed a flimsy obstacle constructed by some long-dead bug. However shall the shadows win over such a valiant soul?”
Skyvior’s smile broadened. “I seem to recall a time when you shuddered at the mere mention of shifting into a spider yourself.”
“Only because they are too minuscule a form for dignified darkness to embody!”
“Haven’t I seen that 'dignified darkness’ of yours shift into a mouse?”
Dravial’s eyes narrowed. “It was a rat. And that was an emergency!”
Skyvior cocked his head and drummed his claws thoughtfully. “Oh, and then there was the time you shifted into a…” He narrowly dodged a whip-like shadow flying at his face before completing the sentence.
Both shifters returned their attention to Elina when she tossed her stick aside and grasped the door handle. Subtly biting at her lip, she finally opened the door to her dust-laden dream come true.
Like the abandoned treehouse of some woodland fairy, even the interior looked a part of the surrounding wilderness. The chipping paint was forest green and snowy white, with little golden rivers of wooden trim flowing through the small rooms. Each furnishing and appliance, from the wood stove to the washing machine, was quaintly small-scale. Shelves were edged with bark, railings were built from branches, window frames were arched, walls were artfully angled or curiously curved, and no two doors were alike.
Wisps of shadow and light trailed behind Dravial and Skyvior, seeping into the floorboards and skittering across the walls as Elina made her way through each room, seeing them as her own for the first time.
Dravial could smell the setting’s darkest moments. Skyvior could taste its brightest stories. Both were hungry for more.
The only lighting fixtures were strings of Christmas lights lining the ceiling and glass jars of fairy lights set about the shelves and windowsills. Most were in need of new batteries or bulbs, but the few that worked gave off a cozy glow once Elina managed to turn them on.
Elina made her way up the steps to the sleeping loft last, secretly hoping a particular furnishing she had glimpsed during the brief showing might still be there. She hadn’t gotten a good look at it while being rushed by a realtor eager to move on to more promising deals than a quirky cabin without light switches.
To both Elina and Skyvior’s delight, in one corner of the otherwise bare loft, a locked wooden chest still rested below a partially burnt-out string of lights. The lid of the chest was engraved with tiny stars forming a treelike constellation and an ornamental key with a star in its handle lay atop it.
Elina naturally assumed the key was for the chest. But when she knelt to open it, she found the closed lock had only a raised metal star where the keyhole should have been. She toyed with the strange lock for a moment, then was startled out of her puzzling by a deafening crack of thunder directly overhead. Suddenly remembering the boxes in the bed of her truck, she dropped the key back onto the chest and scurried downstairs.
Only Skyvior noticed the faint golden glimmer flickering through that key as it landed back in its bed of dust.
A strong gust of wind nearly jerked the door from Elina’s grasp when she opened it. She made several dashes from the truck to the cabin while the dark sky rumbled, as if growling at her to hurry up before it lost its temper. She was just tripping breathlessly into the kitchen, with the last box in her arms, when the downpour hit. Sighing with relief, she locked the door behind her and set to unpacking a few necessities before starting a fire.
When, at last, the satisfying crackle of successfully ignited wood mingled with the sound of rain drumming against the tin roof…and when the air was clear of the smoke from her first failed attempts…she was more than eager for her first shower of crystal mountain well water.
The narrow shower stall in the tiny bathroom was walled in by resin-encased stones, resembling a natural waterfall. With a fairy light jar set on the windowsill like bottled starlight and delightful warmth radiating from the hearth, it might have been blissfully relaxing…if not for the broken shower head, which spat out erratic streams of both burning hot and freezing cold water before falling from its wall fastener to bruise her skull.
By the time she crawled back into the loft, with a bedroll under one arm, Elina was as exhausted and flustered as she was fresh and clean. She barely had enough energy to drop her things onto the floor and spread out her favorite buffalo plaid blanket before falling onto her sleeping mat, mumbling, “What have I gotten myself into?”
“A mess,” Dravial replied matter-of-factly. “But it fits you.” He shifted into a slender, feline form and curled around her pillow, breathing out shadows to cloud her mind even as she slept.
Wordlessly, Skyvior wrapped his wings around himself like a blanket of burning leaves. He nestled against his human’s side and rested his head on her chest, listening to her heart beating with the rhythm of the rain. His gaze pierced through Dravial’s shadows, the dirt-streaked window, and the blackness of the starless night, staring toward his home on the other side of the sky ~ a place as invisible to the world of Time as he was to Elina.
And from that unseen homeland came a whisper, spoken straight to his heart by the silent voice of the Lightscript. A gentle reminder that the stars beyond the rainclouds had not stopped shining just because no one could see them.
🏔️💫Lightscript Legends💫🌲 is an ongoing series of bite-sized stories and sip-on-the-go serials. Click here for the full list of published episodes and subscribe to get new installments in your inbox!