Christmas Eve was cold and chill, a sparkle of promise in the frosty air, a festive future unseen.

Anna turned over in bed, restless, tomorrow teasing her brain with messages of Christmas cheer. Sleep slowly claimed her heart with starlit snow scenes, festive flakes that played with her dreaming mind.

Snowflakes faded to reveal a beautiful forest glade, a floor of fresh snow, a fountain frozen in time, trees in cloaks of dazzling white.

Anna turned round in delight, as other children appeared, wanderers of this quiet winter dreamscape. Anna held out her hands, and the snow started again. Cold drops kissed her fingers.

The children began to sing, a chant of hope in the cold winter air, a melody of magic. Anna stuck out her tongue and swallowed a snowflake. In Gemstone Glade, the snow is imbued with fairy kisses, and is the substance of happy ever after tales.

As the snowflake melted in her body, it sung in her brain and lodged in her heart. Her innermost dreams took on life, a tiny fairy inside, there forever to bring her deepest wishes in to reality.

The other children copied Anna, and soon all were singing their wishes to life in the expectant winter air, in the glade where all dreams begin and end.

(c) Can Stock Photo
 

A giant ladybird flies into Gemstone Glade, and perches on the edge of the fountain. Her red body is radiant, black spots dancing over it like planets rotating in a galaxy of burning light.

Slowly she drinks from the fountain, and her wings grow longer, changing colour, glittering green, sighing in a gentle wind.

Satisfied,the ladybird flies in to the sky … and straight in to Andy’s dream.  Andy is running from his own shadow, furious to outrun it: that part of him that gets bullied daily at school, a shadow he discards as soon as he arrives home. But in his dreams it catches him.

The ladybird carries Andy to Ladybird Land, towers in the clouds under a red sun flecked with black dots. The sky is alive with ladybirds. Their wings create a song of sweetness, nectar to the ears as Andy is soothed and falls in to a deeper sleep.

In the morning, he awakes to the taste of contentment on his lips, heaven in his heart. There is a safe place to return to, night after night. The shadow will not catch him there.

A red ladybird is on his windowsill. He sets it free, to fly forever, as his dreams dissolve to dust.