Something Amiss: Friday Flash

Today’s story explores the beginning of a new adventure for Amanda, the fairy life-coach in the soon-to-be-published An Extraordinarily Ordinary Life.

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Amanda ran through the underbrush. She could hear the dogs behind her, no closer at least. She was upwind of them so she couldn’t smell them, but that meant they could smell her. And her fear was making her generate a lot of scent. Fear tended to do that kind of thing. She should try to get downwind of them and then it would be just a matter of confusing her trail.

That should be easy.

Then again, she should also just be able to hop home easily enough, but she couldn’t. Not only was she stuck on Earth, but she was trapped as a rabbit. If she could just get a breather she might be able to turn back into human form. But the dogs wouldn’t leave her alone.

How could she be so stupid? She was a fairy godmother. Fairy godmothers don’t get themselves cursed! They got rid of curses!

The Reynards had to be behind this. The Lapini/Reynard feud was getting worse. Those foxes thought they were so smart, but just wait until she got home. The Council would finally have to do something about them.

Distracted from her running, she stumbled over a root. Great, now she was a clumsy rabbit too. What next?

Amanda checked her paws making sure she hadn’t sprained anything. She noticed the silence. The dogs were gone. Where? How? Then she realized that the woods had vanished as well. It wasn’t the dogs that disappeared. It was her. She didn’t recognize where she was. She was in an open field of short grasses. It wasn’t Earth and it wasn’t home. Grass wasn’t blue in either place.

Then the scene shifted again, melting in a way that was oddly familiar. She looked down the hallway she was now in. A clock hung at the far end of the long door-lined corridor. She couldn’t see the time, but she knew she was late. Very late. The exam had started a long time ago and she had missed it completely, which meant a big fat F for her. Now she’d never graduate. She felt like crying.

Mike woke up from his dream.

“That was weird,” he muttered to himself.

He’d had the missed exam dream before – who hadn’t? But never as a rabbit, especially not a female rabbit named Amanda.

Hopping carefully inside Mike’s subconscious, Amanda wondered how she had gotten there and how she was going to get out.