Forest Dream

Cory's hooked. He keeps bugging me for another chapter. His birthday's in August, so....

Garnet was reaching for her toes when she heard the sound of the web-abductor. Dressed in exercise tights, she ran over to the platform to steady Cory as he appeared- right on schedule.

“Happy birthday, Honey! I was just finishing my exercise routine. Good idea to stretch after a workout as well as before, you know.” she chirped cheerfully, giving Cory a quick, tight hug before grabbing his hand and enthusiastically leading him toward the door.

“How old are you, sweetie? Must be....” she stops suddenly and knits her brows in concentration, “Must be 23, right?”

Garnet hurries on without waiting for an answer from her hapless guest. Striding through the corridor with Cory in tow, she comes to a sudden halt in front of an unmarked door, seemingly identical to the many portals which line the halls of Garnet’s Virtual Salon.

Reaching down, she turns the handle and flings the door open. Cory sees nothing but darkness beyond the doorjamb. “Turn on the liiight, Cory!” sings Garnet mischievously.

Her intrepid guest, remembering his previous adventure in Garnet’s distinguished Salon, reaches inside and runs his hand up the wall, flips the switch- and...

Green. The portal, the corridor, and Garnet disappear in a flash of... green. As Cory blinks his eyes to adjust to the change in color and light, his other senses engage and adjust as well. Birds singing... fresh, fragrant summer air...

Garnet giggles. She hasn’t disappeared after all, she’s just... transformed a little. Exercise tights have been replaced by a frilly, flouncy sundress, and the hair that had been tied back now flows down in curls... adorned by a single pink bow.

“This way, Cory...” she says as she leads him down a shady wooded path, “Somewhere right around here...” she says as she departs from the path and peeks through the branches as if in search of something.

“There it is.” she says with satisfaction. “Follow me, sweetie.”

She leads Cory a short distance through the trees, to a grassy, sunny glade. In the middle of the glade a checkered cloth is spread out on the grass, and in the middle of the cloth sits a large picnic basket.

“Mmm!” says Garnet in delight, “I don’t know about you, Honey, but I’m hungry!”

She kneels in front of the basket & starts to dig out place settings, arranging a lovely lunch for two as Cory looks on.

“We’ll start with a toast!” she exclaims as she pulls out 2 glasses and a bottle of champagne, “To the Birthday Boy!” she giggles.

A toast, a kiss, and the afternoon slips deliciously by with sunshine, champagne, and a delicious repast.

“Don’t you just love ferns?” Garnet muses, picking a delicate green frond, “If you look at one close, you can see how they’re incredibly intricate... and they smell exquisitely like sunshine and summer...”

She closes her eyes and inhales the fragrance, whereupon she then reaches over and tickles her companion with the object in hand. Cory laughs, picks a green, fragrant instrument of retaliation, and a tickle fight ensues. The tussle ends with laughter and a kiss, followed by cuddles in the comfortable, drowsy warmth of the afternoon...

“Oh, I almost forgot...” exclaims Garnet as the sun starts to sink behind the trees, signaling the end of the afternoon, “Your birthday present.”

She digs into the bottom of the picnic basket and retrieves a small, white, square box which she hands to Cory.

“Open it.” she says.

Cory opens the box, and inside, on a bed of white cotton, lies an orb. “It looks...” he says, puzzled, “...like a small crystal ball.”

Within the mysterious orb he is entranced by the clear reflection of the glade... the grass, the trees, the sunlight...

“Bingo!” says Garnet, “A crystal ball it is. But it won’t let you see the future, or anything scary like that. It will only let you see this place, from wherever you happen to be. So in the winter, when it’s cold and snowy, or anytime when you feel cold inside- for whatever reason- you can look into the crystal and see this glade- in real time, sort of like a web cam, except that you’ll feel the warmth, and hear the birds singing... It’ll seem like magic, because....” she thinks for a second, deciding on how she can explain the phenomenon of the crystal ball, “Well...” she concludes, “because it is magic.”

“Good-bye Cory, my love. Stay safe and well.”

A kiss on the forehead and the scene disappears into black...

“And then I wake up in my own bed.” thinks Cory to himself as consciousness fades. He knows the routine by now, you see....

And indeed he does, turning his drowsy head the next morning to see a white box sitting on his nightstand.
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