Save the Seven Glades

By Michele Townsend

Gus is an only child desperate for a best friend and some excitement. One day he follows an odd smell to the corner of his garden and discovers a charmed world on the edge of ruin. The Seven Glades was created centuries ago by the four Kings of the Fae Court as a place to send especially unusual magical folk to keep them safe. The four Kings left the Fissure Man, Lock Lands and the Magical Thread Maker Lisic to repair the tears that keep out the curious and sometimes not very nice visitors and to keep the world safe and sealed.
Now the unthinkable has happened, the tree that the magical thread comes from is missing and without the thread to repair the tears, their world is no longer safe. Their only hope is to find something extraordinary enough to enter in the competition to win a wish from the Sylph King, and then along comes Gus, and even though the competition includes an ointment that can grow wings on cakes, they think Gus might just be unusual enough to win the wish that will save their word.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michele Townsend
• Release date: May 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310475047

Michele Townsend

Hi,I've got a super power and I'd like to share it with you.I say irreverent things and sometimes make my point in a fairly blunt way and I find that this can render me invisible. That's my super power...It suits me really, I get away with all sorts.Here's an example: I say things like, "This cake is awful, what made you think you could bake?" "Don't make it again because you're ruining cake for me."At this point I'm immediately outside the acceptable range of behavior. To protect themselves people will pretend you don't exist.Viola....Invisible.Of course there is a side effect, I have plenty of time to write because I have very few friends.Don't feel sorry for me though, I'm getting really good at writing and the friends I have are the ones worth having. Find your Super Power.PS:I'm always grateful when anyone reads what I've written and I love that you took the time to read this...Thanks xYou can follow me on instagram. M1ch3l3 T0wn53nd

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Save the Seven Glades

Michele Townsend

Copyright 2015 by Michele Townsend

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorised use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited. This book is licenced for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer: The persons, places, things and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this book are figments of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional. Fiction, it's fiction.

For Darren, Angus, Mom, Dad, Mike,Kat,Shane and the Olsen kids.

Chapter 1

A flash of sunlight glinted off her gossamer wings as she straightened. She had spent all morning looking for any sign of it. She wrung her hands and then ran them through her long, diaphanous hair removing twigs and leaves. She’d gone as far as searching through the undergrowth looking for the barest hint of a shoot, but it had been such a long time since anyone had even heard of, let alone seen, an elementree come into existence – she wasn’t sure how she would recognise it.

How could it have disappeared and not replaced itself?

It always replaced itself. She sat down heavily, legs outstretched; the long grass softening her descent. Grass seeds rippled all about her at eye level, but something larger caught her eye – it moved across the tips of the seeds … a wood nymph running fast toward her. He ran on the unstable seed as though it were a solid forest path. Upon reaching her, he lit upon her toes.

"Looking for the elementree, huh? Are you looking for her?’ His voice sounded like the rat-a-tat of lead pellets bouncing off tin.

Yes, replied Lisic in an anxious, hopeful tone. Have you seen her?

Yes, yes, yes! I have.

Where? Where is she? Has she moved? Lisic was on the verge of tears, relief – someone had seen the elementree!

Passed she did; went poof! Well, whizz, pop, really. Gone, gone now; very old, very old. Her time is over now. He looked at Lisic, his head moving from side to side expectantly.

Lisic began to cry, Oh, no! Oh, no! What will I do? Suddenly, unable to breathe as realisation dawned that, without the tree, there would be nowhere for the filament beetles to make their cocoons – and that meant no way to make the thread that Lock needed to mend the world and keep out intruders. She had let them all down. The Seven Glades was in grave danger – and it was all her fault!

I don’t even know where to begin, she sobbed.

Easy, easy-peasy – wish it, wish it!

The wood nymph jumped back up onto the grass seeds and ran to Lisic. He took her face in both his tiny hands and said earnestly, Do it now, understand? You must do it now, before the next blue moon ends. With that, he kissed her quickly on her forehead and retreated across the grass seed out of sight.

Wish it? she said to the breeze, Where in Faet will I find a wish?

Just out of sight of Lisic’s world, Gus asked no one in particular, What is that stink!? He jumped down from the tree. The paper he was using to make planes fell from his lap and was caught in an updraught and swept into an arc, slicing through the air and falling silently all over the yard. Gus looked toward the kitchen window scrunching his shoulders in anticipation of his mother’s voice, which was attached to her all-seeing eye. I’d better pick all that up, he thought when, suddenly, he got a really big whiff of that smell again. Paper forgotten, he just had to see what was making it.

Gus followed his nose, which was surprisingly effective at finding the source of foul smells, mainly because smells happened to be one of his all-time favourite funny things. His nose took him to behind a frangipani tree where a small shed sat in the corner of the second level of his terraced garden.

There can’t be anything there, he thought. There isn’t anywhere small enough to get stuck – the shed isn’t even right against the wall.

The smell was the strongest right behind the shed, so he went around to the side to see if he could spy what was making that awful stink. He peered into the inky blackness between the rock wall and the back of the shed and decided that it was too dark to see anything, so he went down to the house for a torch. Mum was in the kitchen making dinner. She looked out the window when she saw Gus coming and said loudly, Angusarrillious! That’s what she called him sometimes; she’s a big fan of Russell Crowe and Gladiator. How did all that paper get in the yard?

Gus’s mum was always interested in ‘how’ and waited for an explanation, whereas Gus’s dad was only interested in when it will be fixed, and ten seconds ago was the best time to start fixing.

Gus really had to get that torch, so he just said, Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up in a sec.

Now! said his Mum. Before it blows into the neighbours’ yards.

Okay … Gus said, a little bit too forcefully, while rummaging through his stuff looking for a torch. When he couldn’t find one, he went to get his Mum’s torch. He was in a hurry, he’d been looking for the source of that smell for a week and Mum’s torch had no batteries. Mum, where are the batteries? yelled Gus.

In the draw, mate, said his Mum in a tone he recognised as the four-things-at-once tone. He rummaged through the draws one by one … nothing. And then he remembered the batteries he’d found in Mr Dade’s yard. They probably wouldn’t work because he’d found them when he was digging under the fence between his place and Mr Dade’s – and usually things buried in the ground in a box were put there because you loved them and didn’t want to throw them away, so burying them gave you the option to retrieve them if you absolutely had to have them back. Gus had buried a few things himself, but mostly his burials consisted of little plastic soldiers and shiny things he’d found on the ground that he desperately wanted to keep. Gus’s mum said that sort of thing was rubbish and she would put them in the bin if she saw them. The batteries were a bit peculiar. He’d been very excited when he’d dug up the little silver coloured metal box, and even more excited when he found that the box contained some really old looking coins. The batteries were weird though, because they looked like new. Worth a try, thought Gus, as he ran to his room and got the box out of his secret hiding place and put the batteries in the torch, noticing for the first time the writing on them. Batteries from another country, he thought, reading ‘Revelio – Verita’ etched on the sides. In the box he found a small daisy brooch with the coloured stone centre, this might come in handy he thought putting it in his pocket. Gus flicked on the torch expecting the worst – and, against all odds, they worked!

Torch in hand, Gus forgot totally about the papers all over the yard, and climbed the stairs to light the space behind the small shed. He shone the beam at the