In the time only two years before the Ring of
Reversal had been used, Colleen met Stanley in the meadow, looking for what, in
this timeline, would be her second leprechaun. She was more convinced than ever
of their existence now. Stanley invited her on the date again and agreed to
come for her that evening. (The events
of chapter 1 are now being altered in this new timeline). Colleen went up to
her house, and Stanley walked out of the meadow, when he was approached by the
leprechaun princess.
“You can’t keep
your date with Colleen,” she said, “She has been after us for years, but she
only ever caught one of us in the gardens in the village, as far as we know.
She’s invented a machine for reducing the size of her boyfriends. She’s going
to eat you in a day or two.”
The princess explained what had happened in the
previous timeline.
Stanley thanked her for the warning and headed down
into the village to buy the candy man and the flowers, and to write his poem.
The warning was nothing trivial, but neither was his love for Colleen. He would
simply not go into her house on any dates, so that she never had the chance to
aim her reducing machine at him. He thought about everything that the princess
had told him. He was flabberghasted at the way Colleen, in the previous
timeline, had set up a leprechaun hunt using him as bait, only to announce at
the end, that she had planned to make him the main meal all along.
He took her to the restaurant, and invited him back
to his own home to kiss her instead. He went on several more dates with her,
but kept finding excuses not to accept her invitations to her own home, where
she kept the reducing machine. One day she invited him on a picnic in the
meadow, and turned up with everything she needed, and took out a small device.
The leprechauns were watching invisibly.
“She’s adapted it into a portable version earlier
in this timeline,” whispered the prince, “She must have done it because Stanley
wouldn’t go into her house. We don’t even have time to warn him.”
Colleen shrank Stanley to tiny size and used him to
search the meadow for leprechauns, just as she had done in the previous
timeline. For Stanley, the difference was in knowing what she was going to say
and do, when the leprechaun hunt proved fruitless. He tried to sneak out of
sight, as they combed the meadow, but she was too alert, fast and attentive for
him.
Then he saw a leprechaun pop into visibility under
a flower that concealed the leprechaun from Colleen.
“Pretend you’re chasing me,” said the leprechaun,
“Don’t worry about me. I can turn invisible again before SHE gets me. If I get
the chance to lead her away, you make a break for it, without letting her know
that you’re trying to get away from her. Get to our tunnel to the underground
kingdom.”
Stanley chased the leprechaun towards Colleen, and
then saw Colleen crawl into view and sit towering above the leprechaun.
“You’ve done well, Stanley,” she said.
“Has he indeed?” called the leprechaun and ducked
under a flower, and then turned invisible.
Colleen reached for the flower, while the
leprechaun invisibly ran to the far side of the flower patch, then turned
visible and called again.
“I don’t know how you got past my scrutiny that
well, but here I come to get you. I’ll have you in my stomach yet. You can be
sure of that,” said Colleen.
She pursued the leprechaun, who kept playing the
same trick, every time a suitable flower came along to conceal the sight of her
turning invisible.
Stanley took his opportunity and ran away through
the meadow in the opposite direction, where another invisible leprechaun took
his hand and led him to the tunnel. Colleen was unable to capture the first
leprechaun and wondered where Stanley had gone to. She called for him and
searched for him until the sun went down, and then had to return home in the
dark.
It began to dawn on her that she’d been tricked,
but how? Had Stanley guessed what she’d been planning to do with him?
Stanley went to live with the leprechauns in their
kingdom under the meadow, and never stopped thinking of Colleen.