The Sara Chronicles

It seemed like they had been in the air for several hours, flying endlessly over ever changing terrain. Mountains turned to forest, which, in turn, changed to sandy beaches and small towns beneath them. They were flying now over an open field. The grass below was so bright green that it shown up at them like a rare emerald fallen to earth.


“This is very strange,” Ferd remarked. “I know this land very well and as I remember it, this land was desert just a few months ago.”

Just after Ferd made this remark, Alice and Franklin both cried out that they felt their hands burning, and they felt a strong urge to land in this spot. Olie motioned for the moths to land in the middle of the field, thanked them graciously for their assistance, and watched as they took to the air again.

The field stretched out before them with its healthy growth of grass blowing gently in the wind. Sara could see a small grove of trees growing a few yards ahead. As nothing else was visible in the area, the group began to walk toward it. As they did, Sara was startled to see that the grove of trees seemed to be growing. The closer they got to the trees, she was sure she was right. What had only minutes earlier been a small clump of trees was now an ever growing forest.

The first few trees they passed had small vines twining up the trunks. The vines appeared to be growing up the base of the tree as they passed, looking very much like little snakes as they wound upward toward the top branches. Sara could hear things growing around them as they walked into the now very dense forest. Leaves crackled crisply into place on the branches, and grass shoots squeaked into place through the moist soil unto the surface.

“Finola!” Olie called out. A small tree shot up in front of him and proceeded to grow as if a nature film had been fast forwarded. The trunk of the tree grew thicker and thicker as the branches formed first from the bottom half of the tree and ascended to the top. The tree grew to the size of a California redwood, its base as wide as a small passenger bus, and the top half of the tree was now invisible due to its enormous height.

Alice saw a movement in a thick clump of brush behind her and she quickly flickered out and reappeared directly in front of it. The brush shook violently and a short, dark girl emerged from the center of it. Her dark brown skin was incredibly smooth and she had a mass of thick, curly hair piled on top of her head that fell in ringlets down to the center of her back She looked in amazement at Alice with her big brown eyes.

“How did you do that?” the girl asked.

“I might ask you the same thing. It’s not every day I see a forest grow in a matter of minutes,” Alice answered.