The Spider's Web

Cassandra walked under the old boughs, wisps of moss hanging down like the hair of an old man. Ahead lay a small pool ringed with stones, and here Cassandra sat, by the serene waters. She glanced at the woods pressing around her, able to see little beyond the clearing, so dense where the brown and grey trunks. I wish there were animals here, she thought wistfully. There were supposed to be creatures in the forest, like rabbit's hopping and bird's singing, but instead there just the dark, silent woods watching her. She was young, she knew, compared to them, and they probably did not appreciate her youth, she thought. Cassandra did her best to not upset them, but she couldn't sing well like other girls, so it was doubtful she could do much to please them. She didn't please anyone really it seemed, not her parents, not the kids at school, not the animals and not the woods. At first this had upset her, since she thought she wanted people to like her and tell her pretty things, but then she realized she didn't much care about them all. There were better things she was good at, and didn't think the girls at her prep school could do even half of them competently.
She gazed into the still waters beside her, wondering if this might be a fairy home she sat by. Wouldn't that be lovely, Cassandra thought, wondering if she could shrink down and join them somehow. She supposed she might find a mushroom one day when the rains came, and perhaps that would shrink her down, she had heard the right mushroom could do that to you. It was unfortunate the libraries didn't have any books on the subject, or anything of interest really. It had been a disappointing realization as she grew from childhood that the world was mostly a boring place, filled with talking and reading about useless things like history and grammar. Mostly she never paid attention to such things, looking out the window of her class or making patterns with her food. Her mother disdained Cassandra's penchant for playing with her food at the age of fourteen, scolding her without end. If her body didn't require food, Cassandra Grace would likely never eat. She didn't doubt that her parents as she knew them were not the actual ones who had produced her, but that didn't change the fact she was still at least half human.
Once when she was ten she had broached the questionable aspects of her birth to her mother very seriously, but was only greeted with a condescending reply. That was until she continued to bring up the subject, and her exasperated father showed her pictures from when she was a baby. Besides concluding she never wanted to be involved with the messy business of birthing a child, she questioned how they could be sure it actually was her in the picture. She told them about changelings, taken from the cradle at birth and switched with an infant of the forest folk, but they refused to answer her questions after that.
The sun was setting across the green tops of the trees, and her parents would be getting anxious for her to return. She sighed, swishing her hand gently in the cool water; it was another fruitless day in her search, and she would have to endure five days of school before she could try again. Cassandra despised having to pray, read, clean and then have to come home to scolding, arguments and chores. At best, her parents talked about the business or politics, at least that way she wasn't required to pay attention.
It was sad to her that the sun went down earlier and earlier, because it meant she couldn't wander here anymore, even if autumn was one of the forest people's most special times. It was a time when they gathered in halls of silver bark and adorned with leaves of gold and crimson, to celebrate the dead and witness the passage of summer into winter. She had dreamed of it once, the memory crystalline in her mind compared with the blurry monotony which oozed by her most of the time.
She had been there with them, the lithe and beautiful winged race, their wise and majestic faces gazing into hers as they sat at a great table. She did not know if she looked like them, but she so wanted to return to that happy time it often ached in her. The dream, or perhaps a memory of her infancy or of another life, was only a few seconds of what she was sure had been a much longer experience. Cassandra had been eight when she had the dream, and it had been six long years lacking completely in anything of the sort happening again. Sometimes she thought she might cry, but mostly it made her angry that she was trapped by this weary world, when she had tasted one so spectacular, if only for a moment.
Cassandra speculated that perhaps this was a dream, and that the fairy land she thought she had dreamed was actually reality. It was a vibrant hope of hers, but one that was slowly dimming as the stale life she plodded through continued. She wondered if she might have forgotten some instructions given to her by the winged ones in that brief encounter telling her how to return. She puzzled over the memory, but she could only recall the soft glow of the light on their brilliant features, knowing eyes watching her with interest. It was maddening to think about, for there were no answers, only endless questions.
She rose, the knives in her pack clinking dully against one another, starting back on the small earthen path she had followed to the pool. Cassandra supposed it was a worthwhile discovery, for if she could shrink herself she might encounter water nymphs, though she longed for the forest kind from her dream.
The sun had set, and the dim light before full night sets in barely illuminated the sky. The stories her parents told her of murders and rapists wandering about in the woods had not particularly frightened Cassandra, and she was confident about finding her way in the dark, but the possibility of encountering a witch or wizard in the night would not be favorable. She was fairly sure at least one lived somewhere in the woods, for just that day she had spotted a spotted black owl watching her from a shadowy cluster of pines. In the daytime she could escape, but at night she was like to trip on a root or even be grabbed by a branch if the wizard was powerful enough.
She did not doubt she would be tortured, killed or permanently transformed if she was caught, but Cassandra speculated that a witch or warlock might hold answers for her. Eventually she would deeper into the woods, when she was ready and there was more light in the day, to seek out the black owl's true form.