"What is the matter?!" Her nanny hollers as the door swings open and all she sees are feathers and smoke scattered about the room! Sophie hops up, tries to wipe away her tears, and brushes wrinkles out of her nightgown. Sophie hangs her head low, for she knows she will be scolded again.
"Really, I say, you are becoming more and more impertinent child! You are getting too old for these sorts of things now. I know your father..." She hesitates, but continues sternly. "Your father encouraged this nonsense when you were young, but really..."
She suddenly stops scolding Sophie because she sees even more feathers and smoke flood the room. Sophie's nanny begins to become extremely irate because she thinks Sophie has destroyed the pillows again, but the incense-like smoke puts this nanny in a trance, as if she is a cobra being charmed; she quietly leaves the room and shuts the door gently behind herself.
Sophie finally lifts her head because she does not know what's happening and did not see when her nanny left. Surprised, she quickly runs to her bed and jumps in, because she fears flogging awaits her. Sophie slides down into her bed. Alone. Scared. Heart-broken.
Blitz flies through the hallway like a haunting lamp and enters the study. There is a woman writing at a desk. "Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn." The sprite-like creature whispers and the woman abruptly turns around. Her beautiful face hasn't lost its radiance. Her youthfulness cannot even be hidden by the lines and wrinkles life has tried to mar her with. She is exquisite, lovely...
"Charles, is that you? Tell me it's really you!" Gwen covers her face with her hands as to silence the tears before anyone hears. She cannot see Blitz, but she hears him. The grandfather clock startles Gwen! "Oh it is midnight again and I am awake." She shakes her head and weeps!
Blitz broods over the room like a comfort and torment, because it is too painful for Gwen to hope that Charles is possibly alive!
"Oh Charles! You, with your fairy tales and adventures have ruined us! How foolish I was to believe your silly stories? Oh and poor, little Sophie... If she doesn't dream of you, dream of all that nonsense you enchanted her with, unicorns and fairies that look like seahorses, she can't eat! She can't sleep! She can't..." Tears flood down Gwendolyn's face and onto the parchment. She pulls herself together before anyone else in the house realizes she is still awake. "Well, why am I still talking to you Charles as if you are here, as if you can actually hear me now Charlie?"
Blitz floats down and rests on the letter and Gwendolyn sees her tears and ink become like a moving ship at sea. She touches the page, and her hand magically slips through. Gwendolyn gasps in horror and thinks she is quite delirious and gone mad!
The door to the study squeaks and Gwen turns, frightened as if she has seen a ghost! "Oh Sophie! Oh, it is just you my darling! Come here my little angel, come. You have been crying again too haven't you? Come over here quickly before anyone catches us." Sophie's mother always knows how to calm her, even though Gwendolyn cannot give herself the same peace...
Blitz knows he is running out of time, because there is one story Gwendolyn cannot deny and he intends to show her. "Mom! Mom! Blitz!" "What is it Sophie? What did you say? What is it you see?" Puzzled, Gwendolyn urgently listens to her daughter, because she yearns to believe--to believe like her little child! "Look, he is there! Blitz is there, glowing inside of your letter!"
TO BE CONTINUED...