• Orange. The light was orange. Eavan watched as the light poured out of the window wondering. Why was the light orange? She had been past here many times at night when light from the street lamp shone through the window, but never had it been like this. Curious she went to go take a look, to find out what might cause this strange occurrence. As she peeked out of the window she saw what she saw every time; the house next to the church bathed in now orange lamp light, the stairs that led down the hill on which the church stood, the bell standing in solitude as it always did.

    As she looked the scene started to get blurry. She rubbed her eyes thinking there was something wrong with her contacts. She rubbed and rubbed, but it didn't help. Looking around her she realized that only the scene outside was blurry. When the scene cleared it wasn't the same. In place of the house, stairs, and bell there was a field with a grove of trees at the end. The night had changed to day, and the wind blew through the trees, waving their branches as though beckoning Eavan through the door next to the window. Cautiously she opened the door, and walked out into the daylight. She could feel the breeze as it blew across her face. Looking up across the field she saw the trees waving in the breeze beckoning her even further to the line of trees. As she reached the grove three people walked out from behind the trees. One was a woman with fire red hair and a golden crown a top her head. She was wearing a long emerald green gown that matched her emerald green eyes. Behind her were two teenage boys who were obviously twins. They wore clothing like that of medieval soldiers, and followed the woman around like bodyguards. Their hair was black as night, and they had eyes that were the same green-blue color of the ocean. The weirdest thing about the three people wasn't their clothing though, but it was something else that made them seem like they were out of a fairy tale. They had wings.

    Eavan just stood there gawking at their wings. The woman had flame red wings while the twins had grass green wings. She couldn't believe it; she was looking at real, live fairies! The woman walked toward Eavan and said

    "Welcome Eavan, the lost one."

    "What? How do you know my name? What do you mean by the lost one?"
    Eavan was hysterical. How in the world did these fairies know her name? She didn't know much about fairies, but she guessed they had used magic to find out her name. Even so what in the world had the woman meant by the lost one?

    "Eavan, calm down." said the woman, "Everything will be explained to you. My name is Fia, Queen of the fairies. The reason I know your name is because you’re a fairy. You’re one of us.”

    “Oh my god! You can’t be serious, can you? I mean that would be awesome! Is it really true?” Eavan exclaimed.

    Could it be true? Eavan had always thought of fairies as super human with special powers. She had never shown any special talent, she was just a normal person. How could she be a fairy?

    “It’s true. I’ve come to return you home and explain everything, but first to get to fairyland we have to fly.” said Fia.

    “Well, you guys have wings, but I don’t.” said Eavan.

    “Very few fairies actually live in fairyland.” said Fia, “Most live in the everyday world like you do. They hide their wings using magic. To show your wings you just have to imagine having them. Close your eyes, and imagine you have wings.”

    “All right, here goes.”

    Eavan closed her eyes, and imagined she had wings. She didn’t know what color they should be, but something inside her told her that they were purple. She didn’t know how she knew that they should be purple, but she just knew. Her wings were a deep lavender color in her imagination. As she imagined her wings she heard three identical gasps. Opening her eyes she saw that Fia and the twins were staring at her.

    “What? Why are you staring at me?”

    “Eavan--- your wings are purple.” Fia said in disbelief, completely shocked.

    “So?”

    “Oh, I forgot you wouldn’t know what that means. I’ll explain it to you when we get to the castle.”

    “The castle? We’re going to the castle? Why?”

    “I’ll explain that on the way there.” And with that Fia leapt into the air followed by the twins.

    “How do I fly?” Eavan asked.

    “Just leap as high as you can, and it should come naturally.” Fia replied.

    Taking a leap of faith she jumped as high as she could, and was soon in the air with the other three. Flying was euphoric! It felt wonderful, and so natural. She shot straight up, and flew in a circle, and then did loop-de-loops all the way back down. Flying was a beautiful thing. She felt like she could fly forever, with the wind blowing through her golden hair, and the feeling of exuberance flowing through her.

    “So, are we ready to go?” questioned Eavan.

    “Yeah, follow me.” replied Fia.

    With that they began to fly. Eavan flew to the left of Fia while one of the twins flew to the left of Eavan. The other twin flew to the right of Fia. The twin beside Eavan smiled at her, and extended his hand toward her.

    “Hi, I don’t think I’ve introduced myself.” He said taking Eavan’s hand and shaking it, “I’m Michel, and this is my twin---” He circled around, and took the spot his brother had previously occupied while his twin did the same in a blink of an eye.

    “Max, I’m his twin Max.” Max said taking Eavan’s hand as Michel had, and shaking it. “We’re the queen’s---”

    “Personal bodyguards.” Michel finished after circling around again, “We’re---”

    “Earth element fairies.” said Max circling yet again.

    “What are earth element fairies?” asked Eavan, “And could you please stop that, it’s getting on my nerves.”

    “Ok” replied Michel, “But what do you want us to stop? The circling or---”

    “The finishing sentences?” finished Max without circling around.

    “The circling. I can handle the finishing sentences.” She said, “But again what are earth element fairies?”

    “Ask Fia.” said Michel.

    “She was supposed to explain why you’re going to the castle anyway.” Max said as if to cue Fia.

    “So why am I going to the castle anyway?” Eavan asked turning to Fia.

    “Well, first I’ll ask you a question.” said Fia, “Who are your parents?”

    What kind of question was that? Who didn’t know who their parents were if said parents were still alive?

    “That’s easy.” replied Eavan, “My parents are Brian and Mary Ford.”

    “Wrong” said Fia, “They aren’t your parents. If they were your parents you would have known that you were a fairy. Your parents were Isabella and Noah, two fairies.”

    “But wait how could that be possible?” asked Eavan, “My parents have pictures of me right after I was born before the nurse had cleaned me up, and showed me to my mom.”

    “Eavan, if you look at the pictures you’ll see that the pictures from before you were shown to your mom are different. In those pictures you have brown eyes instead of the blue ones you clearly have. Have you ever wondered why your parents and your grandparents and your brother all have brown eyes, but you have blue? The reason that in those pictures of you you have brown eyes is because that’s not you. That’s the real Eavan Ford.”

    “What? There is no way that’s even possible!”

    “It’s possible. This isn’t like Harry Potter where two humans can produce a fairy. There’s nothing like muggle-borns. Two fairies can produce a fairy and a fairy and a human can produce a fairy, but two humans can’t. The people you have known to be your parents are both human.”

    “So what really happened?”

    “Months before you were born a celestial element fairy predicted that your parents, Isabella and Noah, would be killed after you were born. You are a very important person as I will explain later so we couldn’t let anything happen to you. We hoped to save your parents, but failed. The celestial element fairy also predicted the birth of a human child that would look very similar to you, but would have brown eyes. He also predicted that the child would die. In order to keep you safe a spirit element fairy took you to the hospital where the human child was born, and switched babies. She then modified the memory of the nurses and of your human parents to keep you from ever finding out. If you had known that you were a fairy it would have helped the dark fairies find you, and kill you.”

    She couldn’t take it, she couldn’t hold back. Eavan cried. As tears streamed down her face she thought of everything Fia had told her. How she had never known her real parents, how they had been killed by dark fairies, how she had to be taken to the human world.

    “Why?” she sobbed, “Why did they kill them? Why did the dark fairies kill my parents?”

    “There is and was a war going on between the dark fairies and all the other fairies. A few of the spirit element fairies wanted to use their powers for dark purposes, and so they split from the spirit element fairies. For a hundred years they have been attacking the fairy world, because they had been kicked out. A celestial element fairy predicted the birth of ten fairies that would save the fairy world from the dark fairies. They are known as The Chosen Ten. You are one of them. All nine of the other Chosen Ten members are the same age as you or one or two years older. The dark fairies only found out about you. They don’t know who any of the others are. That is why your parents were killed, and why we had to keep you alive.”

    Eavan just cried and cried and couldn’t stop. Max came up to her and gave her a hug. Immediately she felt a wave of happiness go through her.

    “How’d you do that?” asked Eavan, “One minute I’m crying my eyes out, and then after you hugged me I felt really happy.”

    “It’s magic that only me and my brother have. We can create a feeling of pure happiness. Don’t tell Fia though. She gets grumpy a lot so we use it on her to make her calm down. If she found out she’d kill us.”

    “Thanks Michel.” She said with a smile.

    “Um, I’m Max not Michel.”

    ‘Oh, I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to get you two mixed up.”

    “It’s ok. People get us mixed up all the time. There is one way you can tell us apart though. See this scar right here?” he said indicating a thin scar above his left eye. “I’m the only one who has this scar.”

    “How’d you get it?”

    “Well, it happened when I was ten. Me and Michel were using our earth element powers. Michel was levitating rocks, and propelling them at me, and I was supposed to use magic to block them. I wasn’t paying attention when Michel sent some rocks at me, and one of them hit my eye.”

    “That sucks, but at least people will be able to tell you apart.” Said Eavan, “You know Fia never told me about fairy elements even though she said she would. Fia, can you tell me about the fairy elements?”

    “I would, but we’re almost to the castle. Look it’s right there.” Fia pointed out in front of her to the clouds.

    Eavan looked where Fia was pointing, and saw the most amazing sight. On top of the clouds there was a town, and above the town on the highest cloud there was a castle. The castle looked exactly like a fairytale castle. It was made of pure white stone with the roofs made of lavender stone. It had four tall towers at the four corners and one big tower in the center. All around it there was a beautiful garden being tended to by fairies. There was also a wall around the garden with a gate at the front of the castle that led to the main doors. Fia flew to the main gate which was opened by two guards with red wings. She beckoned for Eavan and the twins to follow her. Once inside the guards shut the gate and the twins took their place as Fia’s bodyguards.

    “Follow me, Eavan.” said Fia, “You’re going to meet the other nine members of The Chosen Ten.”

    Fia led Eavan through the main doors, and into the castle. Just inside there was some type of entrance hall. The hall had many doors and passages leading to different parts of the castle. Fia turned to the right, and stopped before a door. The door was large and purple, and had the symbols for the four main elements, water, earth, fire, and sky painted on it.

    “This is where The Chosen Ten meet. Inside are the other nine. Inside is your destiny. Open the door and embrace it.” said Fia.

    Eavan opened the door and saw…