The Town Of Wonders

We had moved to a town a few months ago. There was a garden where plants grew. And they grew real fast. The whole town had wooden doors which always opened when we were close to the it. But the doors never opened to the nearby plants. I had a curious mind so I wanted to know the reason for this. But I was never told the reason. They crossed the topic somehow, and then my parents never let me out after 7 p.m. We would have dinner and then go to sleep. I obviously asked mum about this odd change of rough time, all she ever said was that ‘sleeping early is a good habit, it keeps you active’, but we never did this before we moved in here. This town seriously puzzled me.

Then I got to know why.

One day I was reading a book on the swing in the garden. The time passed quickly and I didn't realise that it was already past 7. I looked around. Not a single soul in the streets around me. Then suddenly a shadow fell on me, and barely discernible, as if someone had thrown a sheet of plastic on the atmosphere and the shadows overlapped, forming odd shapes. I looked at the sky to see what was up but all I saw was ... vampires, witches and ghosts. Panic swelled through every muscle in my body. My heart crept to my throat and considered making a run for it. But brooms and flying capes versus two lean legs wasn’t much of a competition. I wasn’t sure what I was more scared of.

My mum’s angry yells for this midnight adventure, or my life being in the hands of Vampires. My hand instinctively The vampires were all wearing black capes that covered their whole body, their faces were so pale it almost looked blue, thin greasy hair swept down their impossibly long necks, their small eyes had huge eyeballs that covered most of the white, long ugly noses, mostly crooked and thin pink lips in contrast to the blue skin. The other two races seemed worse. There were mostly ghosts, all of them looked like transparent broken humanoids. Then there were witches. All of them had curly hair, mostly gray but they had more odd colors, one of them had a sickly green tint and the one beside her had hair that looked like blood... That has nothing compared to their faces. All of them probably itched their skin when they were free. They were blanketed with pinkish red skin, loads of scratches. Many of them were actually itching their already ugly looking skin. I hardly noticed the brooms they were sitting on. I tried not to look stumbled backwards.

“Oh, don’t be afraid, little one. We won’t harm you”, her voice surprisingly pleasant. “Are you new to this town?”

I hesitantly replied "Yes I am"

Then she said “Well, welcome to the town then” with a smile that seemed very out of place. She itched her nose and I flinched. “Apologies, dear, please don’t mind me! We witches can’t help it , our potions cause much of the trouble... But we can’t abandon our job now, can we?”, she said waving her hand in the air. "What your name " I decided they were harmless, and even if they weren’t, I couldn’t do much about it, I had to answer her. But somehow I was convinced they were nice people. Nevertheless, I stammered. "V-Varnika", I said.

She said liked my name and asked if would like to come for a ride. I considered this for a minute. I had always wanted to go for a ride on a broomstick, and anyways, I needed a lot of answers, and they might be the ones who can answer. I accepted the risk. I said yes, and then asked her “Why aren’t we allowed to come out after seven pm? Why do the doors open near plants? Why do the plants grow so extremely fast?” She chuckled ”Oh dear, you sure ask a lot of questions”

I really wanted to know the answers to the questions so I was all ears as she started talking

" There was a king who ruled this kingdom and he set a rule that no creature of the extraordinary, that is us, is allowed to appear before humans and frighten them. The king was blessed with 2 daughters and a son. The eldest daughter's was hosting a Halloween party and on the same night one of our ghosts had a celebration that commenced once every...100 years”, she sighed and then continued, itching her arm continuously” Of course, no one in the royal family knew of this, and we couldn’t have our celebration out in the open cause we didn’t want to break the rules, yes? But nor could we just ignore our festival, so Zen, our party ghost I was talking about, went to the palace and convinced the family to go on out for a holiday that they well deserved, but the princess didn’t leave, insisting upon wanting a party. Having no choice Zen had to tell her about our party, for which many of the ghosts were mad at poor Zen. The princess was upset about this but then she had an idea. She said we could have our party acting as decorations that are dangling from the ceiling and everyone agreed upon it”, the which- she said her name was Lily- looked pleased at the tale.

“However, in trade for her idea, the princess had a condition. She asked us if we could help her grow the plants in the garden, for the fruits and flowers that pleased her, we did as she had asked us to- we charmed the plants so they grew faster than any other plants you may see around”, she said answering one of my questions already.

“So why does everyone stay away after seven?”, I asked, tough I already knew the answer.

“Oh people are very easy to scare, you yourself were whimpering a little while ago!”, she laughed.

My face felt hot but before I could say anything she set of again ”I’d better leave you home now, it’s getting late”, she said just as we landed before my house. She tapped the doors and they flew open and before I could say anything she was gone.

I had to deal with my parents but they weren’t that mad by the end of my story. I also managed to convince them to let me out so I could make some not-very-normal friends. I learnt more about them, including the fact that lily is usually busy, which disappointed me but I have Katherine and Lucinda (the blood hair I had noticed) to accompany me. Now I spend my afternoon with ghosts, vampires and witches, Who are surprisingly like us in some matters.