Melina and the Stone Heart

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 Did I really see what I thought I had? At first, I was certain it was nothing more than a sparkling dragonfly hovering above the wildflowers beside the river. In a way, I was right. 

The dragonfly was real. It was the tiny girl riding on its back that presented the problem. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and looked again. She was still there, no bigger than my thumb, with silver hair spilling over a lavender dress while the dragonfly's wings caught the sunlight like tiny pieces of stained glass. "You're imagining things," I whispered. Or maybe I'd finally lost my mind. 

Then again, I always told myself I'd lost that years ago, so at least this wasn't entirely new territory. Grown-ups didn't see tiny people riding dragonflies. Children in storybooks did. Dreamers did. Not people like me. I took one cautious step closer, expecting the dragonfly to disappear into the meadow. Instead, he turned until both of them were facing me. The girl brushed a strand of silver hair from her face, smiled as though she'd been expecting me, and waved.

There was no mistaking it now. She was real, and somehow she knew I could see her. 

"Who are you?" I finally managed. 

Her answer came as clearly as if she were standing beside me. "My name is Melina. And this is Zephyr." The dragonfly dipped his head in what looked suspiciously like a bow. "Did he just bow to me?" Melina smiled. "He has manners." At that point, a polite dragonfly was probably the least strange thing happening. 

I moved closer to the old stone wall where she had landed. "How can I even hear you? You're barely an inch tall." Melina laughed. "You aren't hearing my voice. You're hearing my thoughts." I stared at her moving lips. "Then why can I see you talking?" "Because that's how your mind expects me to speak.

 You've been invited." "I can uninvite you, right?" Her smile widened. "We'll discuss that later." 

Zephyr settled beside her, scattering tiny sparks of gold from his wings. Melina rested a hand on his head. 

"He likes you." 

"I've never met a dragonfly before." 

"Oh, you've met thousands. You've simply never met one who chose to let you see him." 

That was both magical and slightly unsettling. Before I could decide which, Melina's expression grew serious. 

"I've been looking for you." 

I glanced behind me, just in case she meant someone else. "You've been looking for me?" 

"For a very long time." 

"Ummm... OOO... KKK. This has officially become the weirdest day of my life." 

"I've seen stranger." I believed her.

"Why me?" I asked. "Why now?" 

Melina looked at me for a moment before answering. "Because your heart still listens, and because you are needed." She explained that most people stopped seeing magic as they grew older. They became too busy, too worried, too certain of what could and couldn't exist. Apparently, I had failed to grow up properly. 

I chose to take that as a compliment. Then she held out her tiny hand. "Will you come?" 

I stared at it. "You want me to pick you up?" 

"Oh, goodness, no." She pointed to a smooth river rock beside her and told me to place one finger next to it. 

I did, after extracting a promise that I would not become a frog. Melina touched my fingertip. The world spun so violently that I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, grass towered above me, flowers stretched into the sky, and the little river rock had become a boulder. Melina now stood eye to eye with me. 

Either she had grown or I had shrunk. One look at Zephyr answered that question. His wings were wider than I was tall. "I really hope dragonflies don't eat people." 

Melina burst out laughing. "He prefers honey." 

"Oddly, that doesn't make me feel much better." 

Zephyr leaned close enough to study me with one enormous emerald eye, then gently bumped his head against my shoulder. I cautiously patted him. "Okay. He's kind of cute." 

Melina smiled. "Come. We have a Stone Heart to find."

There was only one problem. "I'm supposed to ride him?" 

"You'll love it." 

"I seriously doubt that. I don't like heights." 

Melina climbed onto Zephyr as though she'd done it a thousand times, which she probably had, and pulled me up behind her. The moment I settled onto his back, something invisible wrapped securely around me. 

"Magic," she said before I could ask. 

"I think I'm going to hear that a lot." Zephyr launched into the air, and my stomach stayed exactly where we'd taken off. But once I stopped trying to squeeze Melina in half, I looked down. 

The world beneath us was breathtaking. Flowers spread across the meadow like a brilliant quilt, drops of water clung to leaves like glass globes, and hidden paths wound beneath roots I had stepped over hundreds of times without noticing. Tiny lights glowed inside hollow trees. 

Butterflies drifted beside us, enormous and graceful, while a waterfall shimmered in the distance. For a moment, I forgot to be afraid. "It's beautiful," I whispered. 

Melina smiled. "I knew you'd see it." 

"See what?" 

"The magic everyone else stopped noticing." Her words stayed with me. 

How many times had I walked beside that river thinking about where I needed to be next? Maybe growing up wasn't about losing magic. Maybe it was simply about forgetting to look for it.

A massive shadow swept across the meadow. Zephyr's wings faltered, and Melina's smile vanished. 

"Down!" Zephyr folded his wings and plunged into the tall grass. 

We landed beneath towering green stalks just as something enormous circled overhead and settled onto the ground hard enough to make it tremble. Through the grass I saw a huge black crow, its feathers shining like obsidian. A man climbed from its back. He wore a weathered dark coat and carried a leather satchel, with tools, keys, pouches, and strange objects hanging from belts and straps. He looked less like an evil sorcerer than someone who had spent years climbing into places where sensible people knew better than to go. 

"Who is he?" I whispered. 

"The Collector," Melina answered. 

"What does he collect?" 

"Anything someone is willing to pay him enough to find." 

I looked at her. "So he's a thief?" 

"Sometimes." 

"Is he evil?" 

She hesitated. "No. But that doesn't make him safe." 

The Collector had rules, she explained. He didn't harm children. He didn't kill for payment. He kept his word. U

nfortunately, he had also been hired to find the Stone Heart, and whatever he had been promised was enough to bring him here.

I asked what was so special about a stone that someone would hire a professional treasure hunter to chase a fairy across a meadow. Melina's answer surprised me. "The Stone Heart remembers."

 It didn't create courage, hope, or kindness; it reminded people those things were still inside them when fear, grief, or anger made them forget. In the right hands, it could restore what someone believed they had lost. In the wrong hands, that same power could be twisted. 

"Who hired him?" I asked. 

"I don't know." 

The Collector suddenly called Melina's name. His voice wasn't cruel; he sounded almost annoyed. "I know you're here. I don't want to hurt you." 

I glanced at Melina. "Do you believe him?" 

"Yes." 

"And he'll still take the Heart?"

 "Yes." 

"That's a terrible contradiction." 

"You'll find humans are full of them." I was about to remind her that I was one when a soft sound came from the stone wall. Meow. The Collector froze. A gray cat stepped onto the wall, sat down, wrapped its tail around its paws, and stared at him. 

The fearless treasure hunter took a step backward. I looked at Melina. 

"He's afraid of cats?" Her eyes sparkled. 

"Very." 

"Why?" 

"Because he knows what they are." 

"Cats?"

 "Guardians." 

"Of what?" 

Melina's smile disappeared. "The world of the dead."

I had several questions about that, none of which I got to ask. The cat flicked its tail, and the Collector retreated toward his crow. 

"I'll come back, Melina," he warned. "And next time, I won't be alone." 

Then he disappeared into the sky. 

"We are absolutely coming back to the dead-cat-guardian thing," I said. "Later." 

Melina grabbed my hand and ran. The Stone Heart was hidden beneath the roots of an old tree, nestled in moss and glowing with a warm violet light. After everything we'd done to find it, I expected something grander. Instead, it was simply a smooth stone shaped like a heart. 

"It doesn't look very powerful." 

"It isn't," Melina said. 

"The power isn't in the stone. It's in what it reminds us to protect." 

Before I could answer, wings thundered overhead. The Collector dropped into the clearing. 

"I told you," he said, slightly out of breath, 

"I'm very good at what I do." 

He reached for the Heart. Melina stepped in front of it. "No." 

He sighed. "Don't make this difficult." 

"Who's paying you?"

 "You know I don't discuss clients." 

"Convenient." 

"Professional." He reached again, and without thinking, I stepped between him and the Stone Heart.

"If you want it, you'll have to go through me." My knees were shaking badly enough that I was fairly certain everyone noticed. 

The Collector studied me, then smiled, almost approvingly. "You have no idea what you're protecting." 

"No," I admitted, nodding toward Melina. 

"But she does, and that's good enough for me." The Stone Heart exploded with light. It wrapped around us, warm rather than hot, and suddenly I remembered every person who had loved me, every kindness I had received, every time I had been frightened and kept going anyway. 

The Heart wasn't giving me courage. It was reminding me I already had it. 

The Collector lowered the arm he'd raised to shield his eyes, and for the briefest moment something changed in his face. He had remembered something too. Something painful. 

Then the gray cat appeared on a root above him. The Collector looked up and groaned. "Oh, come on."

 I laughed despite myself. He backed away, but before mounting his crow, he looked at Melina. 

"This isn't over." 

"I know." Then he looked at me. 

"Next time someone tiny asks you to follow them into another world, say no." 

"Was that advice?" 

"Professional courtesy." 

I called after him, "Who hired you?" 

He smiled. "Now where would be the fun in telling you that?" Then he was gone.

Melina lifted the Stone Heart. 

"It's safe," I whispered.

"For today," she answered. 

The world began to shimmer before I could object. When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting beside the same river where everything had started, surrounded by perfectly ordinary grass and perfectly ordinary flowers. I looked down at myself. Five foot four and a half. The half was important. 

For a moment, I wondered whether I had dreamed the whole thing. Then Zephyr landed on my shoulder, ordinary dragonfly size again, and flew to the old stone wall. Melina appeared beside him with the tiny Stone Heart tucked safely in her lavender dress. 

"I have about a million questions," I told her. 

"All humans do." 

"Who hired the Collector?" 

"I don't know." 

"What exactly are cats guarding?"

 "A long story." 

"How did you know me?" Her smile softened. 

"That one is longer than all the others." 

I looked toward the sky. "Will the Collector come back?"

 "Yes." 

"And whoever hired him?" 

Melina's expression grew serious. "They haven't gone anywhere." 

Oddly, I wasn't afraid. Not exactly. 

"Will I see you again?" I asked. 

Her violet eyes sparkled. "As long as your heart listens, there will always be a chance." 

Zephyr's wings began to shimmer. 

"Next time," I called, "warn me before you shrink me." 

Her laughter filled my mind. "I'll consider it." Then they were gone.

I sat beside the river for a long time before finally starting home. Halfway up the path, I heard a soft meow. 

The gray cat sat on the wall watching me. 

"Guardian?" I asked. 

It blinked once, jumped down, and disappeared into the grass. I decided I had enough questions for one day. Years have passed since that afternoon, but people still ask why I stop whenever I see a dragonfly. I simply smile, because every now and then one hovers a little longer than it should, and sunlight catches its wings in a way that makes me wonder if a tiny silver-haired rider is looking back at me. I still don't know who hired the Collector. I don't know why Melina had been searching for me, and I definitely don't know everything cats are guarding. But every now and then, a dragonfly seems to smile back, and I know one thing for certain: we're not finished yet.

The End