I had a dream last night...
I saw the golden bird flying through the cool night air, carrying the precious apple in its beak, passing over hill and forest, as the sky began to lighten to its right. When on the horizon, there appeared a great castle, hidden from the morning sun by the shadow of a great mound of earth just to the east of it.
But as the bird got closer, I could see that the castle shimmered in the same way as the bird and the apple, seemingly made of gold!
This golden castle had a pair of tall, pointed towers at its middle, joined almost all the way to the top, with shorter towers on each side, and a thick wall all around.
As the bird neared the castle, it turned down, and flew over the front wall and into the lawn, where everything long lay withered and dead.
Next, the creature’s golden wings took it to the right, around the side of the castle, and across the courtyard in the back. And there, lying beside the back door, was a human skeleton half-burried in the ground, with little sign of what happened so many years ago.
The fowl flew back around to the front, and up towards the tallest tower on the right, making its way for a window near the top. Gently alighting on the windowsill, the Golden Bird watched as something stirred inside the dark room. And there emerged from the darkness a hideous old woman, approaching the bird with an outstretched hand.
“Finally, the last one!” she said, placing her hand beneath the apple, and letting the bird drop it into her palm. “I send you out four nights, yet only receive three apples! So what did you do with the first?” she asked, yet knew she would receive no answer.
The dimly-lit room was filled with strange and hideous artifacts, animal skulls, and twisted dolls of moss and fur, among unsettling vats and pots bubbling with vile concoctions.
The old woman took the golden apple to the far side of the room, to a small table where several brightly colored potions were churning and bubbling. And holding the fruit by the stem, she carefully dipped it into a liquid that was as red as blood, before raising it back up and letting the excess drip off its sides.
Setting the apple down, she turned back to the bird. “It is almost time. The princess will be reaching the age of her destiny. The destiny that you foretold!” turning back to her vats and trinkets as she added “But I will stop her. I will keep it from happening.”
She picked up the apple, and dropped it into a sack with two others. “This! This! Will certainly stop her betrothed! Whichever of those foolish princes it may be.”
Pausing for a moment, she cocked her head to one side, as if listening for something.
“Yes. Yes. In fact, I believe my errand boy is here now.”
The old woman stepped back up to the window, and stuck out her head, watching as a man on a golden horse came trotting up through the front lawn. But in looking down, she seemed to notice something wrong with the bird on the windowsill beside her.
“What’s this? A feather you have lost!” She stepped off to the left to think, rubbing her crooked chin. “Then the princes will likely seek you out. I will have to head them off before they get too far.”
She waved her hand before the bird’s face, causing its eyes to flicker with a purple light. “Now go! Return to your false master!”
And the Golden Bird took off, heading to the south-east, with the man and his golden horse looking up at him as he flew off.
–Charles M Warren
