In a Very Roundabout Way, or How I Met Death, and the Nightbearer, and the Seamstress of the Clouds

By Elizabeth Spring

A short story (5,000 words) about a beggar girl from the slums who gets transported into a magic land. When she returns to the real world, her experiences shape her new reality in ways she never could have imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Spring
• Release date: Oct 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215658505

Elizabeth Spring

Elizabeth Spring is a pseudonym, behind which lives a creative soul who loves languages, travel, different cultures and learning. I write poetry and prose, flash fiction and long novels, mostly fantasy, though I read all kinds of genres. I enjoy nature and art, and they never fail to recharge me. My personal motto: "If you are not happy, you cannot spread happiness around yourself." Also: Be kind.

Book preview

In a Very Roundabout Way,

or How I Met Death, and the Nightbearer, and the Seamstress of the Clouds

by Elizabeth Spring

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Spring

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Table of Contents

Start of the story

Author’s Endnote

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Prologue

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a forest. It was not an ordinary place, for it contained grand old trees, huge and ancient, of deep green colour except for the tips of the leaves, which were silver, so that in the height of summer it seemed as if frost covered all. Those silver-tipped trees grew only there; and no other tree had admittance. Those who lived nearby named it the Snow Forest. The legend said that an ice fairy had made it her home, which is why silver adorned the green.

But humans are forgetful and so they like to repeat stories they’ve heard over and over, and in those retellings sometimes a word is changed, sometimes a name, and at times even whole parts of a tale. Thus, I cannot claim that events happened exactly like this, but the truth always remains underneath all the layers added by different storytellers. There was a forest, and in