By Christie Megill

14,100 words

Not too far from you, but maybe farther than you can see, is a forest. You would find this forest on a map, and it even has a name that humans have given it. This forest is also a place where magic exists, where mythical creatures are real, and where a dream can be made into reality with no more than a wish. You may call it one name, but to others, the forest is called Everwood, and it is a fantastical place.

It was Poppy Dell who saw the first changed leaf of autumn that year. She was a young elf, only three years old, and she was the one to see the bright flash of autumn red, high in the maple tree closest to her home. Every year, every season, it was an elf child who first noticed the changes: the first changed leaf, the first snowflake falling, the first sprout reaching up from the ground, the first warm breeze. The elven adults were paying attention, of course, but never quite as much as the elven children.

The red leaf was large with five pointed tips and it stood out from its green brothers and sisters, as if it were a little red boat in the middle of a large, green ocean. Poppy looked up from the grassy clearing and shrieked with delight. She stood almost exactly in the center of the Common, a large circular meadow with worn dirt footpaths coming and going from every direction. Her sister, Fiona, was nearby in the theater, playing on a stone bench.

“Fi Fi!” Poppy yelled toward her sister. “Come here!”

Fiona was accustomed to Poppy yelling her name hysterically, whether Poppy had fallen and hurt herself, or had gotten lost and was frightened, or had simply seen a firefly and was excited. Fiona did not run over to Poppy, but she looked over, rather sleepily, to see Poppy running, her wispy skirts billowing up and her wooden shoes nearly flying off.

“What is it, Poppy?” Fiona asked, still not moving an inch.

“It’s Autumn, Fiona!”

With that, Fiona Dell’s eyes widened and she sprung up from her seat. She put her hands on her hips and looked upward, to the sky. She was searching for the leaf that Poppy had seen. Everyone knew that a red leaf was the first sign of fall in Everwood, and Fiona herself was the one to spot it only four years earlier.

“Where is it?” Fiona asked. Poppy pointed to her left, and Fiona looked. In the distance, she saw a very small speck of red, but it was unmistakable. It was the first changed leaf, and it meant that Autumn was here.

The fact that it was now Autumn was very important to the elves. The first day of Autumn was just as important as the first day of Spring, or of Winter, or of Summer, for that matter. It meant that there was a change in the seasons, and that something new needed to be done. With the changing of the leaves, the elves needed to start working to get ready for the cold weather coming – they would need to harvest their gardens, and chop firewood, and put the finishing touches on knitting their cozy sweaters. And, for the elven children, it meant that school would be beginning again.

The first day of school was always a week later than the first day of Autumn, and the first day of Autumn was always the day that the first leaf changed. Though they studied the seasons and the weather in school, and though very important text books have been written about Autumn, there was always a moment when the text book, or the teacher, would stop and tell everyone that the first changed leaf of autumn couldn’t be explained by science or by facts, but it was one of those things in the world that had to do with magic. In the elf world, there were many, many things that had to do with magic, and weren’t so easy to explain with logic.

“So you get to start school now, right, Fiona?” Poppy asked. The two elf children were still looking up at the little red leaf.

“That’s right,” Fiona said.

Fiona had started classes at the Elven Academy when she was five years old, and this would be her fourth year. She would be starting class again after a whole month off, and she had the same teacher as she had last term – Mr. Pendragon. She would also be in class with the same elves she had been at school with for the past two years. Fiona liked most of her classmates – there were only twenty-two of them, in all – but she loved three in particular: Lyric Sagewood, Walden Alderhill, and Clover Piper were her best friends.

The four elves were eight years old and they had known one another since they were little elven babies. Their parents were friends – a couple of them even worked together – and their pet bugs and snakes were friends. Their houses were all within running distance of one another, and most nights during the school year, they might all be found having dinner together at one elf’s house, or another elf’s house. They had sleepovers and adventures together, and all four knew that they would be friends forever.

The houses were lit up by candlelight in the darkening evening. Though these elven homes were not the type of house that a human might live in, with windows made of glass and walls made out of bricks: these homes were really more like elaborate burrows within the trees, complete with rooms and staircases and specially made wood stoves. In TK, like in any elf village, there were hundreds and hundreds of trees, more than a person could try and count. As elder trees fell, young trees grew bigger and stronger.

There were always plenty for the elves to carve and empty out, where they created bedrooms and kitchens and playrooms, doors and secret passageways and hallways – an entire home inside the tree. Windows and doors were plentiful in these homes, though they were carved-out ovals and circles in the trunk of a tree. From far away, or to human eyes, they likely looked just like little animal holes.

If a human ever came across an elf home – and they rarely every do – that person probably would not recognize it as an elf home at all. That person might stop and look at the tree, and think that they tree looks a tiny bit unusual, what with all of the holes and grooves, and of course, the strong feeling of magic coming from the it, but then the person would most likely keep walking on, and forget all about the tree.

Elves are very good at hiding themselves, even in a forest where humans hardly ever walk. Between skills in camouflage, expertise in building, and a good amount of magic, elves can hide quite well.

“Lyric!” Fiona called to her friend. She saw his bright blue wool cap down the lane. From a distance, it was the only thing that made him stand apart from the other little elves. It was the color of robin’s egg, with large white spots all over. Fiona often wondered if any robins ever flew over the village and spotted Lyric from above, confused and ready to land, thinking it was one of their friend’s eggs.

Lyric stopped and turned, then gave Fiona a big, toothy grin. He waited for her and gave her a hug before they continued walking together toward the tree where the Elven Academy lived.

For a bird, or a fox, or definitely for a person, the distance from home to school wouldn’t be so long – a couple of minutes walking from one side of the village to the other. But for the elves, it took a little longer. They have much shorter legs, along with much shorter bodies, so walking to school really was quite a stroll.

But when Lyric and Fiona arrived at the very old big-leaf maple tree of the Elven Academy, it was like coming back to a second home. The large tree trunk had several openings and doorways, and had been hollowed out just enough to make space for a school, but still keep the tree alive and sturdy. Elven magic had played a key part in carving out the rooms and staircases and windows just right.

“Where’s everyone else?” Lyric wondered to Fiona as they stood outside of the main doorway.

“I don’t know,” Fiona said. “Maybe they’re already inside.”

Together, they nodded, then linked arms and walked inside.