Chapter Nine: Never Too Old

From the moment Elizabeth read the verse in the scroll, she felt strange. She could not get to sleep and tossed and turned until she had thrown off all her blankets. When she did sleep it was not a restful sleep, but one of intense dreams. She saw Shiraz running and running, looking over her shoulder, afraid of what was chasing her. Her family appeared in another dream, their faces large and angry. They shouted at her that she was too old to believe.

Her alarm did not go off, as she had forgotten to set it. When her mother came in to wake her, she took one look at her sweaty hair and went to get the thermometer. Elizabeth barely woke as Heidi pressed the device into her ear and then looked at the reading. Minutes later she returned with Panadol, and Elizabeth didn't even remember her leaving the room.

A few hours later, with the Panadol calming her fever, she awoke to a quiet house. She got unsteadily out of bed and headed up to the kitchen to see where everyone was. Her aunt Jenny was sitting on the couch reading a magazine and drinking coffee. She looked up as she heard her niece enter.

"Hello sleepy head, feeling better?" she said cheerily.

Elizabeth didn't feel cheery. Her head felt as though something was slicing it in half. "Where is everyone?" was all she could manage to say.

"It's 10 o'clock" smiled her aunt "Travis and the twins are at school and your mum and dad are at work. Your mum called me this morning to sit with you. It was just lucky I am between clients at the moment." Aunt Jenny ran her own Interior Decorating Business and could take time off when she needed it.

Beth nodded and sat next to her aunt on the couch. She looked pale and tired. She felt as if there was something she needed to remember, but she couldn't think straight. Her aunt looked at her, concerned.

"I'm OK" assured the young girl "I'm just really tired and I have a headache." While Aunty Jenny went to make a hot drink for her, Elizabeth sat and stared into space, not really seeing what was in front of her. When her aunt returned she thought Beth was staring at the birthday card, which still lay on the coffee table.

"It wasn't one of my best birthday poems, was it?" she laughed.

Elizabeth looked at her aunt groggily, not comprehending her line of conversation. Jenny placed the hot Milo in her hands and picked up the card. She began to read the poem aloud, hoping it would cheer up her niece.

"Once a year, it's your special day,

Birthday girl in the month of May..."

She got no further as Elizabeth stood suddenly, spilling her drink.

"That's it!" she shouted "A Poem" she recited the poem that buried itself so deep in her mind that it had made her ill.

"When a friend, you find to believe,

Then the power you receive,

Crack the hard, cold, shining shell,

End the curse, break the spell"

Her aunt's expression betrayed the surprise she felt. Believing her niece was delirious; she sat her down and played along with her.

"That's very clever Beth, did you make it up yourself?"

Elizabeth's eyes were suddenly bright as the events of last night came flooding back.

"No! You don't understand. It's the secret in her chest. I opened it last night and that was the secret inside" aunty Jenny's face was still blank. "Shiraz!" cried Elizabeth, "I opened her chest". Her aunt's eyebrows rose with interest, encouraging Beth to go on.

"Grandma Himpy gave me a book on Fairy secrets. I used it to work out how to open the chest." Jenny sat very still on the couch, taking it all in. Then suddenly she was being lead downstairs to the bedroom of her niece.

On the floor was a very ordinary looking piece of paper. Elizabeth picked it up and waved it enthusiastically in her face babbling about moonlight and magic and disappearing words. It was all very fantastic, but somehow Jenny found herself taken in by the story.

Beth sighed sadly as she saw the look on the older woman's face. "I should have known you would think I was too old to believe in magic." At this remark, her aunt sprang to life.

"No Elizabeth, you are never too old to believe in magic." She took her niece's hands and led her to the doll's house. "Do you think your mother didn't believe in magic when she bought you this doll's house? Do you think Grandma Himpy didn't believe in magic when she bought you that book? Do you think I didn't believe in magic when I gave Shiraz to you because an old woman in a shop told me I should?" She picked up Shiraz and examined her. She turned her this way and that and then took her to the bay window for better light.

Returning her to the doll's house she shrugged her shoulders. "Well, she doesn't look any different, but I still think it is possible. Didn't I tell you that it looked real enough to open when I gave her to you? I wonder what the poem means? You have certainly found a friend who believes. But, power?...."

Elizabeth reached into the doll's house to examine Shiraz for herself. But the minute her fingers touched the fairy, she knew something was happening. She withdrew her hand and gasped.

As the two friends stared, the varnish on the figurine began to crack. Beginning at her tiny pink slippers, the crack raced up her body to the tip of one wing. Tiny fissured appeared along the seam and with a sudden burst, the fragments exploded outwards.

Standing just 5 inches tall, a delicate person took a long deep breath in and let it out with a rush. She dropped the chest and stretched, sighed and fluttered her glittering wings. And then she spun around to face the two huge faces she realised were watching her.