I’m sweating in my poncho. I am wearing it more to keep my pack dry than to protect myself. A pair of girls on horseback pass. One of them stares as she passes. I think it is because the horse I am walking beside doesn’t have a halter. As if I could control her with a halter.

My phone goes off. It has been trying to get my attention all day. There is no coverage out here and I have not been introduced to any of the folk in this area. I am more than a little scared to answer it. I am a good six hours from the nearest road so I wouldn’t be able to help if there were a real emergency anyway.

The rain starts pouring down. There is a relatively dry spot under a large tree limb so I get under it. My horse decides to join me and crowds in close.

I am pushed against the trunk with my horse's face right next to mine. Her hot breath isn’t helping. She is wet but I hug her anyway. My phone goes off again. I ignore it. It is probably dead from getting wet.

There is a man standing in the rain looking at me with a harsh expression. I have my arm around the neck of my horse that is between me and the man. I don’t know what the man is capable of but if a fight is about to start, I am betting on the horse.

I nod and look back at the horse. I keep the man in my peripheral vision.

He offers a cylindrical leather case to me. It looks like a bottle might be in it. This is a bad situation. I don’t want to refuse his hospitality. I don’t want to drink gossamer. I really don’t want to get drunk, drugged or whatever.

I take it from him. He is watching me as I open it. It has a document in it. I look up at the rain and then at the document. I don’t want to get it wet. It looks official somehow.

The rain stops. I glance at the man. He is in old formal clothing, the sort of thing a man might have been buried in a hundred years ago. He is also dry. He is looking at the case he handed me. My horse shifts closer to me. Now if I let go of her I am going to fall over in front of this fine gentleman. I only have one hand free, so I tuck the case under my arm and awkwardly pull the document out with my free hand.

The document starts off with the words, “You have been summoned to appear in --”

#

I am no longer under a tree in the rain. I look around at the courtroom set up in the middle of an apple grove. At least my horse is with me. I am in a large and delicately carved enclosure, I fear I may be on trial here. I let go of my horse and examine the document. The names are all blurry, but it looks like I have been called as a witness and not as a defendant. I glance up and see a group of gentlemen walking to a table.

Now I recognize the folk I am with. There are more apple trees here than there were when I first came here. This is not a court I want to be in.

I don’t recognize the judge. I don’t stare. From my glance she appears to be a young human girl, at most 20 years old. Appearances in these places are usually deceiving so I can’t really guess. She is wearing an old fashioned judge's wig. She has long braids of brown hair that are not covered by the wig. She is small with delicate features. My impression is that she is rather cute, but I don’t get a good look. Good looks are dangerous. In front of me is an actual Fairy with wings. Really cute. I smile and then remember to look away.

The Fairy nods to me. I take another glimpse at her again. Very pretty, like a porcelain doll.

My horse and I are standing on a raised platform with railings. A Fairy, one tall enough to look down at me, is standing in front of my platform. He asks, “Doest thou pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, lest thy powers be turned against thee?”

I look up and say, “If I say anything, I will labor to tell the truth.”

The Fairy says, “'I do,' is the expected response.”

I say, “No disrespect intended. Yet I must be clear and straightforward. As one who is not a citizen cherished and protected by this authority, my fealty is to another lord.”

The judge asks, “Is there aught that might keep thee from telling us the truth unvarnished?”

I look over and on the other side of her is the one that cursed me when I first met him. He leans on the railing around his stand and gives me a cold stare.

The judge notices my look and glances back at the man I am looking at.

I say, “The balance of protecting things dear to me does battle with my desire to be sincere. For the sake of those I am kin to and beholden, I cannot be as free with my speech as thou might desire. Without knowing the relations and conflicts that might exist between thy kingdom and those I have connection to, there are things that I will not reveal or discuss.”

The judge looks toward the front of the court and says, “This witness, we think, will tell true but little. Thou canst proceed, inquisitor.”

I look away, the judge is definitely pretty. In my moment's look, I noticed stray hair. Not artfully stray hair. Accidental stray hair. I think she is a mortal.

The small Fairy with wings dips up and down in the air in front of me and asks, “Wouldst thou identify thyself before the court?”

I nod and say, “I am still human so I will not complain if thou callest me, ‘Danny.’ I have no property in Fairy or Real. All I can claim is a steed and what she can carry. I play a violin and I am sometimes called 'Prophecy.’”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The small Fairy points at the man that cursed me and asks, “Doest thou know this individual?”

I answer, “This lord has given me lesson and taught me to be an honest man. It is to him that I owe the name, ‘Prophecy.’ Barring an accident or other ill fortune, he is also the one that will have ended my life.”

One of the men at the table in front of me stands and says “Objection, your honor. Speculation.”

The judge says, “Since I am judge and jury, I suppose I must order myself to ignore that statement. This witness is too much of a hairsplitter anyway. Councilor, please try to make thy surprise witnesses more interesting.”

The Fairy with the wings pulls a wand and turns me into a purple pig with tentacles and asks, “Is this better?”

The folk gathered around laugh at my disorientation.

The judge says, “Much.”

The Fairy with wings asks me, “Canst thou describe thy meeting with this gentleman?”

I squeal.

The judge says, “Change him back. There is no point in his being here if he can’t talk.”

The Fairy dispels the enchantment and I return to my original form. The Fairy smiles and winks at me like she and I just got away with something.

The Fairy asks “Once again, canst thou describe thy meeting with this gentleman?”

I say, “When I was eight and my sister six, we were chased by wild dogs and got lost in the woods. We wandered hungry with nothing but blueberries to eat. Then we chanced on a stone stairway in the woods. I wanted to climb it to see over the trees and maybe find our way home. Something made me fear it. As I turned away, my sister ran past me and up the stairs. I called for her to come back. She paused on the stairs and said, 'It might be to Heaven.' I did not run after her. I was afraid she might fall from this stairway to nowhere.”

The man who objected earlier says, “Objection, your honor. This Fairyland is not named 'Nowhere.' ”

The judge says, “Objection sustained. Nowhere is the name of one of my brother's Fairylands and it can't be accessed by a stairway in the woods.”

They all look at me so I continue. “Standing far enough back to see her on the stairs and close enough to hopefully break her fall, I saw her run to the top and disappear. I had little choice. I raced up the stairs and after her. In this same grove I saw my sister crying. She insisted that she had been here for hours before I joined her. I went to pick an apple but my sister said that I shouldn’t. It was then that a man who looked to be made of bark and wood said, ‘The Good Book says that eating from trees in another man’s orchard is not theft.’”

I pause as the men at the tables whisper to each other.

I continue talking, “My sister still did not want me to pick an apple. I ignored her warning and picked one anyway. Neither of us had eaten anything substantial in far too long.”

I look over at the one who cursed me.

I say, “I was trying to convince my sister to have the first bite when the lord in question approached.

“His grace didst ask me, 'For what purpose didst thou pick fruit from my orchard?'

“I said, “It was ripe and I thought I could collect them for you.

“The Lord of this grove said, ‘I could have forgiven a child speaking so roughly. But I would be remiss if I did not teach thee to not lie to one's betters.’”

The judge stands and climbs down the stairs at the back of her platform.

She walks over in front of me and makes a step stool appear before my stand and climbs up it until she is eye to eye with me. I glimpse a flash of green eyes as I glance down.

She says, “This is rough justice indeed.”

The Fairy flying beside her asks, “Canst thou cure it?”

She says, “If not, then my brother probably can. Sadly, we must preserve evidence until the inquisition is over. More sadly, the wheels of justice in Fairy are the slowest wheels I know. Still, it would be even sadder if our evidence disappeared entirely.”

She jumps down from and picks up her step stool. I look away as she walks towards the lord who cursed me.

I glance back as she climbs the step stool and says, “Such justice to a lost eight year old that quite likely was lost due to thee. Let me warn thee that if this evidence disappears, then thou wilt follow soon behind.”

She jumps from the step stool and it disappears. She climbs back up to her platform and sits down.

She looks out at the crowd and says, “Thou doest know that when a judge stands, thou art supposed to stand as well. Three demerits to all of thee.”

There is a groan.

She says, “If there is another outbreak like that then thou wilt lose brownie points as well.”

I smile. I don’t think that most of the crowd understood her.

She says, “Continue with thy witness.”

The Fairy flying in front of me says, “For now, I am through with the witness.”

The judge asks, “Does the defense wish to cross-examine the witness?”

A thin man with pointed ears gets up from beside the man that was making the objections. He walks up in front of me and regards me for a moment.

He asks, “Can thou prove that thou art cursed?”

I say, “There wilt be less of me if I do. I would rather not.”

He asks, “Furthermore, since thy story is from when thou wert a child, canst thou prove that this is the lord that cursed thee?”

I stand as tall as I can and say, “My curse has an odd benefit to it. When I tell a falsehood, I shrink by a half inch, even if I don’t know it to be false. In this manner I can indeed prove what thou doest ask. Since I can use this to answer questions that none know the answer to, some call me Prophecy.”

I notice something as I stand tall beside my horse. I am nearly a foot and a half taller than I was. I may have had the curse removed somehow. I smile. I may have just lied to the man and not suffered from it.

The man with the pointed ears says, “I am through with this witness.”

The judge says, “The witness can step down. We may need him later, but for now he is free to go as he pleases. Please escort him to the gateway and call the next surprise witness.”

I am led a distance into the orchard and a doorway opens. Making sure I am holding the mane on my horse, I step through.

#

We are at the top of the stairway where at one time I followed my sister into Fairy. They are a solid and broad stairs but I am crowded by my horse.

I say, “You first.”

My horse walks down the stairs and looks back at me. I walk down the stairs. I have finally found the stairway in the woods where it all started. I can find the house where Karen and I lived. It has been too many years. There is no chance that our parents still live. Not much chance that there is any family left around. No chance at all that anyone would remember Karen and me. Still, if the house is still there, I want to see it.

I carefully draw landmarks on a map as I head downhill and then downstream. This is the one way I know that is almost sure to find civilization. We come to an old one lane bridge that crosses the stream. We go down the road until we get to a gate. My horse backs up and runs to the gate and jumps it. It looks back at me. I climb the gate by the hinges, and my horse comes close to me so that I can climb on its back.

I ride until we get to another gate by a paved road. I get off and my horse runs and jumps the gate. It turns back into my car and starts the engine. I get in the driver's seat and sit back for a moment.

I say, “This changes everything. My search for stairways in the woods is finally over.”

I feel myself shrink half an inch.