Excerpt: To Believe or Not to Believe III: The Chaotic Cousin

Mom went over to the forest wall and reached into one of the tree trunks. I blinked. Wendy’s mouth gaped open. She pulled out a book. Not even a very big one. It was well worn with a leather binding and gold lettering that simply said “Fantastic Fairy Tales” in old style fancy writing. As we came closer to mom and took a better look, I noticed a small gold lock on the side.
Mom called to us, “Come sit with me, Tim, Wendy-- I want to show you how it works.” She sat down in the middle of a comfy overstuffed couch and we took our places on either side…disappointed to be sure, but still grateful that we were going to have a story.
Mom laid the book upon her lap and pulled the chain up from around her neck. She had worn that chain for as long as I could remember and Wendy and I had speculated many times about what that key might open, but never in our wildest dreams would we have ever guessed a book!
Sure enough, mom took that chain and placed it with the key around Wendy’s neck. “This is the key that unlocks the world of imagination. I know you both have wonderful imaginations and will therefore have wonderful experiences in these books. Your uncle and I had never used our imaginations before we were introduced to this world, so it took a little getting used to.”
Uncle Eli interrupted “Come on, Em. Stop stalling. Let’s get on with it. Wendy, unlock the book please. Tim, take this.”
He handed me a card with a unicorn and a dragon on it. As Wendy got the book unlocked, Uncle Eli took it and placed it, open, against the forest wall. Mom and he stood in front of it as if waiting for something, so Wendy and I shrugged at each other and joined them. At their instruction, we read the card out loud and then closed our eyes tight as they sang this little verse. “We go to the world of Make Believe. If we can dream, then we can see. The magic’s there behind our eyes. If you believe, come on inside.”
They repeated it 3 times and by the 3rd run, Em and I had joined our voices to theirs. I sensed movement in front of us—something large, but I did NOT want to open my eyes until told I could. Our excitement grew until Mom said “Look!”
Wendy and I opened our eyes and couldn’t believe what had become of that little brown book. It was now 10 feet tall and looked as if it was opening by itself—until we saw some pixie-like creatures coming out from between the pages. The pixies took each book half to opposite sides of the forest wall and as they did so, an archway with ivory gates appeared mid wall, as if they belonged there and had always been.
Uncle Eli and mother hugged the pixies, 3 of them, and asked how all their old friends were. The pixies seemed unable to communicate, except in verse, and wanted so badly to play. Mom said they would play any games we wanted and even teach us more. They would watch over us until someone else came along. But just as she said so, someone else DID come along—a large and very old dragon who Uncle Eli introduced to us as Dandan.
Soon, Dandan had introduced us to unicorns, Princes and Princesses, Ogres, Pixies....there were mythical beings, magical woodland fairies and such, classic characters from Grimm's and Anderson and the like, and even a few chapters of modern animated creatures and beings like from Disney and such. BUT all the stories had been re-written and almost had a generic quality. They seemed to be the stories we all knew and loved, but when watching them, you couldn't quite put your finger on which version it might be.
In any case, the best part of all this was that Dandan the dragon and Unika the Unicorn became our friends too, and made sure we knew how everything worked and how to best enjoy our adventures. Like Uncle Eli and our Mother, they stressed the importance of letting the stories unfold as they must, even if we cringed at some of the events. We were to remember that all the stories worked out to a “happily ever after” just the way they were intended to do, and any interference on our part would not only ruin the story for us and the characters, but also for any other boys and girls who may travel to make believe in the future.
So off we went. Peeking in curiously and cautiously at first, then running gleefully through page after page, drinking it all in. Some stories were new to us, others old favorites. But all of them were SOOOOOOOOOOO interesting when you actually walked among the players.
Yes, we were INSIDE the stories. The best way I can explain it is kind of like watching a play, except we were able to walk and talk to the players involved. We could ask questions, make comments or even seek clarification of motive as long as we did not interfere or give out information ahead of the story.
Wendy and I got to be regulars very quickly, and not just in the fairy tale book, there were others.
Each wall inside the magic room had 2 or 3 books in it somewhere and each book had what seemed to be an infinite amount of stories.