"But my world was ancient," Veretity said,"much, much older than yours, and was coming to an end. In those times, everyone was leaving Adania and traveling to the sister world of Mystifa. Once in while a summons would come from Mystifa and someone would leave.

My family and I were awaiting our summons in our large mansion by a forest. I was dreading the day the message came. I loved our house; it had been built by elves and was really more of a castle than a mansion. Many stories and legends revolved around it, for it had many secrets. One legend said that a terrible monster slept below it, and would awaken on a certain day.

The day the summons came, I was up in the highest tower of the castle, painting pictures. My family is very large, consisting of ten children, not to mention my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmothers and grandfathers and distant relations. So in the confusion of leaving the house, I was forgotten. I didn't realize that, however, until I heard the monster.

A deep, resounding roar came from within the bowls of the earth and the whole castle vibrated. I dropped my painting and ran down stairs. There was no one there. The bellowing came again and darkness overcame the atmosphere. I ran. I did not know where I was going, for I could see nothing, hear nothing, except the legendary monster that apparently was not so legendary after all. I could hear its hot, heavy breathing and, looking behind me, saw a pair of lightning eyes that pierced the shadowy black.

I faced forward again and crashed into a wall. My hands flew over the wall and my fingers found the handle of a door. I clasped it and yanked it open. It was also dark outside, but not as much as inside the house, for a ghostly white full moon hung in the misty sky overhead. I slammed the door shut and ran around the side of the building. I knew trying to escape the castle grounds would be dangerous and foolish. I could not outrun the monster and, with Adania on the edge of ending, the whole world was in imbalance, with earthquakes, dream-creatures and flash-storms being rampant.

I decided the best place to go would be the "extra room". This was a small room that popped out from the rest of the house and seemed a little out of place from the rest because, though it was a second-story room with a bottom "story" that served only to support it, it had no third layer. And since you could enter from the outside by climbing up a rickety pile of stairs, it looked even stranger. Anyways, it would be a good place to go, since the monster most likely wouldn't be able to climb up those stairs, and the door was rather thin and it probably wouldn't be able to fit through it.

I raced up the stairs, tripping as I went, when the door I'd just come through shattered into a million tiny splinters and out burst the monster. I heard it; I did not see it. I yanked open the door at the top, bolted in, and slammed it shut. Even though the beast probably wouldn't be able to get through, I still wished there was a lock.

The interior of the room was richly furnished, but very small. An open archway led into the rest of the house. I knew I still had to do something. If the monster went back into the castle and wandered around a bit, it might find the second-story hallway that ended with the open archway that led to the room I was in. I wondered why no door had even been built into it.

I went to the back wall and moved the secret panel there. I hoped I could still fit into the small opening that led into the hidden passageways within the walls. My brothers and I used to play in them when we were small. But that was very long ago. And these weren't your ordinary hidden passageways in walls that you read about in your books. These were magical. It could actually be a little dangerous, for sometimes the tunnels would change, and where you thought was an entrance to another tunnel at one time would be a blank wall the next. It was very easy to get lost and there were others things concerning it which we didn't know about.

I crammed myself into the opening and shoved the panel back into place. I could hear a muffled clamoring and growling as the monster was no doubt attempting to climb that abominable staircase. It suddenly occurred to me that if the beast was big enough it could easily reach the door and, if it were strong enough, could tear down the door and part of the wall in order to enter. I desperately hoped that it wasn't, for if it started tearing down walls, it wouldn't be difficult to uncover the hidden passageway were I sat, since the room was so small.

A loud, rasping, tearing sound of wood came to me through the panel and I began crawling forward as quickly as I could. It was pitch-black in the tunnel, but I just kept going straight ahead. A blur of rainbow-colored lights shimmered through the passageway, lighting it up for a brief moment. This was normal; as I said, they were magical. In that one moment I saw that there was a branch in the tunnel. I decided to take the right-hand one, making mental calculations that it must end somewhere at the other end of the house, of course taking in no account of the changing nature of the tunnels.

If my calculations were correct, then I would end up near the front of the house and would as far away from the monster as I could be. I could wait there until it left, though how I would be able to tell when it did leave, I wasn't sure. I could exit the passageways there and leave the castle by the main entrance, but I didn't like the idea of venturing into the imbalanced world of Adania alone. It seemed much safer in the house.

I was crawling along steadily when suddenly the tunnel opened out and for a moment I thought I had exited already, when I saw that it was very, very white.

After a while, the white cleared, and I saw I was in an enormous white room with a huge vaulted ceiling. The tunnels never transported you to a completely different place. As I looked around, I saw a girl a little older than me was standing in the center of the room. Other than me, she was the only other person, much less object, in the room. She was dressed in a simple white dress and a simple gold circlet was on her head. From under the skirt peeked bare feet. Her eyes were silvery-gray. And she just stared at me, unmoving, as if she were a statue. She didn't even blink.

"Where am I?" I asked, rather startled. The girl didn't move.

I reached out to touch her and she started, as if she had been asleep.

"Veretity, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"How do you know my name?"

"You shouldn't be here," she said as if she hadn't heard me.

"I didn't mean to come here," I said indignantly. "I was in this tunnel when suddenly it - "

"Come with me," the girl interrupted, and, grasping my hand with a bone-breaking grip, pulled me away after her.

The farther we went, the faster we went. Rooms, doors, hallways all came and disappeared, until they became indistinguishable from each other. Soon we were flying up long flights of stairs and soon we were in a largish room in a very tall tower. The girl brought me to the window and I tentatively looked out. I gasped.

I saw a ragged, boulderous landscape with many chasms, ridges, pits, piles of rock and mountainous ruins. And scattered over the jagged land were black dots, shining in the light of a glowering sun that shone too bright in a gray-torn sky.

"What are those?" I asked, my voice shaking a little.

"That is the Black Army, come to destroy the Castle."

"The Castle? Is it in Adania?"

The girl nodded. "It lies at the north-east corner of it."

"Why did you bring me here?"

But now a terrible look crossed the girl's face; her face became gray, and her hair turned blood-red. Her eyes grew enormous, with tiny pupils and yellow ringing them.

"You must leave," she said in a voice of thunder. "You must leave! YO
U MUST LEAVE!" She started screaming, and then suddenly, without warning, cast herself over the windowsill and down to the barren land below. I stared; my vision faded, and I felt as if I were being tossed about, this way and that way. Everything became black, black, black . . .

After a thousand years, or what felt to be a thousand years, the blackness faded, and a soft, yellow light filled my eyes. I saw a huge precipice, and on it, a gigantic city, with thousands of towers and buildings and banners and windows and balconies. But the most shocking thing about it, was that it was a multitude of overly bright colors and hues. As I stared up at it, something brushed my shoulder. I turned around and saw a white horse. Standing around its legs were at least hundred dogs, mostly large and shaggy, all eyeing me suspiciously.

The horse nudged my shoulder. I lifted my hand to stroke it, but it moved aside and nudged me again, only harder. I took a step away from it. It came closer and shoved me, hard. I toppled to the grassy ground. The horse and the dogs whirled around as if something had spooked them, and galloped off across the wide grassy plain that stretched out in front of me. Shadowy purple mountains loomed in the distance.

I turned to look back at the city. The cliff shuddered and gave way with loud crack and roar of rock and earth, and the whole thing, city and all, collapsed into a colorful heap of rubble and dust where the cliff had once been. A distant rumble filled the air a moment after, and, looking back toward the mountains, saw one of them crumble into nothing. I coughed with the dust, which smelled like earth and tasted like vanilla. I wondered if I was dreaming. Then I wondered if the world of Adania was so close to ending, that because of the imbalance, places and situations and things kept changing and switching, for no apparent reason.

In that case, I could do nothing. The world of Adania was vast, and I didn't know everything about it and all the places in it. I wouldn't be able to find the Departing Place that sent out the summoned to Mystifa. I could only wait and hope the next change would take me somewhere I knew and recognized so I could make my way to the Departing Place and join up with my family.

But nothing happened. I was extremely frightened, but I decided to follow the white horse and the dogs, or at least head in the direction they had gone in. I walked and walked and walked. The mountains never seemed to get any closer. The clouds never moved. The wind never blew. Nothing happened except me walking. I felt I was breaking the normal flow of the world. Nothing was supposed to happen in the world, I felt, and I was going against it.

"Veretity . . ."

I jumped at the sound of a female voice. I felt as though I hadn't heard another human voice for years. Even so, I carefully turned around and faced a golden-haired woman in a lilac dress. She wore a silver crown on her head. She had a worried look on her face.

"Who are you? And how do you know me?" The fact that already two people knew who I was and I had never seen them before scared me.

"I am Princess Beatrice. And it's not safe here. You must go, now!"

"But how do you know me?" I cried out desperately. I found my eyes welling up with tears. Angry, frustrated, scared tears. Beatrice looked concerned and drew me close to her. She leaned close to my ear and whispered,

"Quiet now, sweet Veretity. You shall be safe. Just follow me." She straightened and, with strong, deliberate steps, began walking toward the mountains. I followed her, but in a daze, not really caring any more. Nothing really mattered. I'd never see my family again. Of that, I was certain. I did not put much trust or hope in Beatrice, this girl who knew me somehow, but I didn't know her.

And then the plains, the mountains, the blue sky and Princess Beatrice all disappeared, and I found myself in a large clearing in a wood.

"No, not again!" I whispered to myself.

In the center of the clearing was a large, strange-looking rock. It was completely smooth and had mysterious carvings all over it. Gathered around the rock were small ponies of all colors. Every single one had white socks and white muzzles and big, bright eyes. All were looking intently at the rock. A red pony standing beside me looked me up and down and said in a surprisingly deep voice,

"Are you here to see the Rainbow released, Veretity?"

"What?" I didn't ask him how he knew my name.

"In a little bit the Rainbow will be released from the Rainbow Rock."

"The Rainbow Rock?"

"Yes, that Rock in the middle, there."

"How is it going to be released?"

"It's - "

The red pony was cut off when suddenly a girl with a very long golden sword came up and drove it into the Rainbow Rock. As soon as she did so, brilliant yellow light filled the glade. All the ponies lowered to the ground, bright eyes closed. I stood standing for a moment more before the shock of the light drove me to the ground too. After a while, the light dimmed, and a spark flared up from the Rock. At first it was just white, but then it slowly turned red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet . . . and shot out of the Rock in a blaze - the Rainbow. I stared in bewilderment, and then everything was gone.

The ground vanished and I found myself falling, falling . . . Just as I had recovered from shock and was about to scream, I hit hard dirt ground. I sat up and found myself on a shadowy brown plain that was filled with thick, gray fog. Only where I sat was clear of mist. And I wasn't alone. Two tall males, a beautiful women in a gray dress and a unicorn with a long silvery-pink horn stood by. None of them seemed surprised to see me.

"We've been waiting for you, Veretity," said the older of the men. Looking closer at the two of them, I saw that they were elves.

"Who are you?" I breathed.

"We are the Keepers of the Mist," replied the woman, her voice like crystal water.

"I am the Dream Keeper," the unicorn said quickly.

I had heard of the Keepers of the Mist. They were said to be the Ones which were in charge of the Mist World, which was where dead souls went after their bodies had died. Was I dead? I had never heard of the Dream Keeper.

"What happened? How did I die?" I asked.

"The world of Adania has ended, and you were left there," said the older elf. "We cannot send you to Mystifa; it is too late. Instead we must send you to the Sleeping Place, where you will stay."

"The Sleeping Place?" I didn't like the sound of that.

"You will go," he replied simply.

The unicorn came up to me and gently touched one of my shoulders with its horn. Then it touched the other. The four figures grew blurry. Everything when gray, dark, black. And then I felt as though I was waking from a dream. And I found myself here. In the Tree. And I have been here ever since. My only consolation is that whoever comes here can only leave if they first hear of my tale and of my sorrows. The last time someone came was a hundred years ago. Thank you for listening to me, child."

And Veretity was silent.

I stared at her for a long time.

"But how long will you be here? You have to come out sometime, right?"

There was no answer.

I never got one.

The next time I blinked I found I was staring at a frame-less canvas hung in an empty room in a large, almost abandoned mansion in Georgia. And the canvas was blank. From far below, I heard my mother's voice calling me, telling me it was time to go. I slowly tore my eyes away from the painting and, as if in a dream, walked across the room, closed the door softly, went down the hall, down the creaking stairs, down another hall, down more creaking stairs, into the drawing room and out the front door with my father and mother. Aunt Margaret said something about a safe journey back to Louisiana in that horrid voice of hers. We got into the car and drove away down the old dirt road, away, away.

A year later, Aunt Margaret sold the house to a construction company, who burned it down to make way for a new modern neighborhood.