The last time we saw our heroine and her trusty flying steed Pegasus she had been living in narcotic-induced stupor on a land of cotton candy clouds and sweet tea. Only when she broke the mirror did the pieces crack and reveal what truly was... or was it?
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Part Lisa...
The pieces spiralled out of the ornate frame jagged and sharp. The girl with the red hair watched them fall down, down, further and further through the cotton candy cloud. She felt weightless and dizzy and struggled to focus her vision on what was happening around her. Everything seemed to fracture at once. Cracks and chasms appeared in the sugar pink walls and the sweet grass. She heard a distant whinny – Peg was panicking as the world began to disintegrate beneath his feet.
A wild wind swirled around them. The girl saw tea cups, cotton candy and lollipops sucked into a cruel maelstrom alongside vestiges of the ‘real’ world she had left behind so many moons ago. Burger wrappers, car tyres (that’s tires for you US folk) and empty coke cans bounced off jars of marmite. What was happening? Where was Peg? Where were the Goldwaters and, what on earth had been in that tea? She felt the pull of the vortex and reached out in fear…
The girl took hold of Mrs Goldwater, but recoiled in shock as the once kindly-looking woman began to take on a new form… dark and scaly with green sinews and yellow eyes. Mrs Goldwater began to cackle as the demon within her was released. A long, pointed tail shot out the back of her flowery sun dress (quite ruining the lovely pattern) and horns ruffled her once beautifully coiffed curls. The demon sneered at our heroine and reached into the storm and pulled a bedraggled and terrified Peg towards her. Swinging her gangling legs, she climbed aboard the poor horse and disappeared in a cloud of … well…. It looked like cloud.
The girl with the red hair felt helpless as she span in the sticky mixture of cotton candy, tea and a crazy wind. In the distance she saw Panda Goldwater. He seemed to be beckoning her to him, but there was no way she was going anywhere near him, having seen what had happened to his wife. She was beginning to wonder why she’d trusted anyone called Panda in the first place.
But Panda was determined. He fought his way closer to the red-haired girl shouting an entreaty to put the mirror pieces back in place.
“You must complete the story” he shouted above the roaring wind… “she has to see her face”…
Not knowing to whom he was referring and frankly beginning to wish she’d never set out on this crazy adventure in the first place the girl with red hair made a decision.
She dived forward through the cloud to chase after the sparkling shards. She was still gripping the ornate frame which was fortunate. The clouds rushed past her face pulling at her long tresses and whispering secrets in her ear (things like why pop songs have a middle eight… and the hidden power of marmite).
Further and further she fell into the spewing foam of blue and white. But all was not as it seemed (again!). The clouds were not made of moisture, wool or cotton candy - they were made of words and letters. A thousand waiting to be pieced together and retold.
Far down below through the fairy tales she spied the glints of what could only be broken glass and she reached out , her anticipation mingled with fear… A fear that only intensified as she saw that she wasn’t the only one heading for the glass jigsaw… The demon and its unwilling mount Peg were gaining on her.
Poor Peg looked so frightened, but it gave our heroine heart. She would fight off the demon, fix the mirror, save Peg and show someone their face (but not necessarily in that order); but first she needed to take a small diversion…
To be continued...
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