Missed part 1?
For a few minutes, Anna sat there stupidly, unable to see, move, anything.
She turned her head to one side and faintly saw the outline of some lady with
long, golden hair pick up a screaming baby. She turned her head to the other
side and saw a mangle of hands and legs and feet, all going at each other
quickly and brutally. She saw them edge near her and felt around the rough wall
until she touched the doorway of the kitchen. She pulled and positioned herself
so she could lean against the door way of the kitchen, facing the stairs. She
stared blankly at them.
The girl with the long golden hair and the hollering infant suddenly stepped
in front of the stairs. She dashed up, but as she did, another figure came to
greet her in the hallway. She jumped back, frightened for a moment, but the
figure dashed past her and to Anna.
He was close enough for Anna to see his blue-green eyes, and that’s all she
needed to know who it was. “Darell . . .”
“Anna?”
Suddenly someone was pulling her up, swooping her off the ground and pulling
her close to them. Someone screamed somewhere, but it wasn’t the person holding
her. A sobbing broke out, and Anna felt the mood of the room change drastically.
But Anna was dizzy, so tired, that she let herself be lost and fall into the
darkness of Darell’s arms.
Anna retreated from her memory, deciding it was good to stop there and begin
concentrating on the real world. It took her a few blinks and shakes of the head
to clear her mind enough to fully notice her surroundings. The first thing she
descried was that her lungs were burning like an inferno. They seemed to be
trapped, suppressed in her chest, and her heart was racing against the burning
as if somehow it could break free. Despite her constricted, searing lungs, she
felt oddly cold. It wasn’t a frigid cold, but a sort of cold that burned with
the same intensity of her lungs, yet at the same time, they seemed complete
opposites. She wasn’t sure why she felt the way she did, and neither was she
sure how exactly to describe it. For a moment she thought it was the running,
but decided it couldn’t be, because she had never felt so oddly before. Anna
wanted to call up and ask if she could stop, but she couldn’t find strength to
use her voice, especially while the three clubs were trotting along as if they
ran this hard and far every day of their lives.
The second thing Anna saw was that the trees that were once dots on the
horizon where there, towering what seemed like hundreds of feet above her and
the cubs. She questioned how long she had zoned out for as her footsteps slowed
of her own accord, and she stood there, staring up at the towering barks. The
trees were so long she couldn’t see the top, and Anna stood there in shock.
“Come on!” It was Astorial. She regretfully tore her eyes away from the
hammock and she and the small, wiggly creatures darted through the trees and
into the gorgeous forest.
She felt something in her mind which, like the way she felt, was hard to
describe. It felt like a small burst of laughter, a jump of joy. She quickly
questioned to Magic, What is it?
‘Oh,’ beamed Magic, ‘nothing.’
What? Do you know where they’re taking me?
‘I do now!’ she sang-songed joyfully.
Anna felt like pestering her about it, but at that particular moment her
lungs burned even harder. Fighting for air, she stumbled off the path and leaned
against a tree. Taking slow, deep breaths, she only moved from her pathetic
position when one of the cubs called her name.
“Missy Anna!” It was Lynaira. “Come on, we’re not far yet. We can walk the
rest of the way.”
Anna glanced up, breath-taken by her odd sort of disease. She tried to
explain that the running wasn’t the problem, but couldn’t find the words.
Silently consenting, she pushed herself off from the tree, and she and the group
of them walked a bit more.
It seemed to be midnight in the forest, for the trees were so tall they
blocked out the sunlight. However, the further in they went, the lighter it
seemed to grow. Sunlight dashed between the leaves, hopping from here to there,
and as soon as it spotted Anna and the cubs, it attacked with its golden rays.
It illuminated the creatures’ fur and Anna’s hair gleefully, giggling its silent
giggle as it fell to the ground that Anna was staring at.
There came a point when, if she hadn’t seen the shadow of one of the cubs
unmoving in front of her, she would have tripped and probably broken either the
creature or herself. She rose her vision to see that all of the cubs had
stopped. They seemed to be on the top of a hill which sloped down violently, and after making sure Anna caught up, the children dashed down it, screaming
excitedly that they were finally there and chattering about what the day’s events would bring. All Anna could do was look up and stare.
She craned her neck to see the tops of the foliage, seeming eternally far away. The large trees snaked out vicious branches upon which nearly hidden tree
houses sat. They seemed to be part of the brush, for the entirety, hold the
leafy roofs, were made of branches. Large, awkwardly grown boughs casually swung
between the five tree houses, causing a bridge. Anna walked forward in a trance,
not even realizing she was going downhill, only seeing she was moving by the time she reached the foot of the slope. She realized that while she had been able to see from the top of the hill, it was now pitch-black, and she felt trapped in darkness. The sunlight which had once been playing with her hair had been sapped away, as well as her burning lungs, which she hadn’t
realized had subsided until that moment.
“So?” It was Astorial’s bright, piercing voice, but it sounded like it was
from far above. “What do you think?”
“I--” Anna was confused, and so many easy questions filled her mind: Did the
children find or make the houses? And how? How would they get up there? And--
“Where are you?” she whispered, voicing her thoughts.
There were three thumps on the ground, the last one taking a lot longer than
the rest and from much further off. The noise of leaves scattering filled Anna’s
ears, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt the cubs’ warm bodies
against her legs.
“We’re here, Missy Anna,” murmured Lynaira.
Anna nodded, her throat very dry in the darkness. She had always been a bit claustrophobic, and not being able to see her surroundings made her feel as if she had been stuffed in a small box. She tried her
shot with words. “It’s . . . it’s dark.”
“Astorial, would you?” There was a smile in Lynaira’s voice.
“It would be my honor.” And in his, too.
There was a slow harmony that sounded almost like a soft singing. However, it
was an empty noise, a song without a voice. Though she heard it, she felt
the melody had no volume, and rather than focusing on who had started singing,
she tried to find the voice in the song, as one searches fruitlessly for a
needle in a haystack.
A light. That’s all she thought at the sight of it. It was a small ball of
light, seemingly unstable, as if it was burning itself out. It inched along
through the darkness, reflecting off of the cubs’ and Anna’s eyes. Without thinking, Anna reached out her hand to it, and it began to move away from outstretched palm. She guided it towards a tree, unsure of what exactly she was doing. The small light bounced off the bark. It glowed brighter and split in half, bouncing off in different
directions, the speed slightly increasing. Anna chased one of them into a tree, listening to the almost harp-like sound she heard as it resonated off the bark. This piece too split apart, growing faster and brighter. She glanced behind her and saw that the cubs had already chased the other lights around--there were odd fifty balls of lights they were shepherding, between giggles, at the trees. Anna grinned and ran after hers too, laughing at the sound she heard as they hit the trees, running faster and faster as the light increased intensity and speed, the harp being strung higher and higher, Anna getting further and further away, until--they stopped. The lights hung all around her, like a huge sheet at waist length. She saw the cubs a few yards away and moved back towards them, pushing the balls of light out of her way, letting them split across at her waist and fall back into each other like water. She felt as if she was walking among the stars, and felt, for some indescribable reason, wildly happy.
Just as soon as she stopped next to Astorial, they floated wobbily, like bubbles float to the surface of water, and rested up some seventy feet above the ground, caught in the branches of the
surrounding trees. The area was as well lit as a ballroom.
Anna laughed--she couldn’t help it. The children were pleased with her laughter. When the odd, joyous feeling in Anna dimmed enough for her to force words out, she whispered, in an awe-stricken voice, “What was that?”
“They’re called sun spots.” Astorial studied her eyes. “Like them?”
“Like them? I--” She beamed brightly, staring at them. Suddenly, a thought entered her mind, and she frowned, suddenly serious. “I . . . I don’t understand.”
“Sun spots bring out the best in people,” said Lynaira quite factually, studying Anna’s face. “Some say they can bring out the best memories in the world. They can scare away the worst of demons.”
“If they’re so good, why did they run away from us?” She watched them, almost longingly. “Why can’t we touch them?”
“Happiness is unattainable. You have to find it for yourself.” Astorial stared up at the sun spots curiously. “At least, that’s what Mam always says.”
“How did they get here?”
Cyldaminnie looked directly at Astorial. She glanced up at Anna, winked, and then with a flick of her tail, scattered away behind some trees. The cubs followed her silently, and out of curiosity more than anything, so did Anna.
Behind one of the trees, large vines sloped along, going back and forth like mountains sloping back and forth against each other, forming Vs all the way up the trunk. The kids jumped up like little monkeys, effortlessly scaling the trees. As Anna placed her first hand on the vine and carefully hoisted herself up, she could not chase away the memories of Darell easily climbing a tree, laughing as Anna slowly crawled up after him. “With a spirit like yours, I’d thought you’d be able to soar to the top of the trees!” he had always teased. Anna, however, was never very fond of heights, and after quietly confessing this, he climbed down to her level and helped her up, holding her pale, shaking hand every inch of the way. Anna looked longingly up at the branches, the sunspot’s light whispering gently through it. She felt her heart twist in wild, burning desire, and couldn’t help the small sob that escaped from her mouth. She wanted more than anything for Darell to appear, laughing. “Come on, Anna! We’re near to the top.” She could hear his voice, resonating. She wanted to feel his smooth, cool hand grab hers, pull her up gently. She wanted when she stopped, said she couldn’t go on, for Darell to whisper in his poet’s voice on the gorgeous landscape that awaited them at the top of the branches. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything.
At the sound of her sob, the cubs had come scurrying back, confused. “Missy Anna?” Lynaira called down, from the lowest branch, which was only ten feet from the ground. “It’s easier once you get up to the branches, I swear.”
She nodded silently, pulling at the vines, which nearly pealed completely away from the tree under her weight, until she reached Lynaira’s branch. It was wide enough to stand on, and gently she eased herself up and stood. She found a small, snake-like branch near her waist, and grabbed hold of it to steady her balance.
Anna could hardly remember what happened after that. Though she knew there was difficulty in climbing the tree, and that the cubs comforted her, her mind was far away, in a place where Darell hid in trees with her every night, where he’d light a candle and hold it close to the bark while she protested. When he’d whisper to her stories, such gorgeous tales, and she’d carve pictures on the trees to the words he was saying. When in the dead of night he’d wake her, tell her to look; “How beautiful they are, Anna!”; and they’d sit there, staring at the bright light thrown on the velvet sky. It seemed like a world ago, and not two weeks, that he’d hold her hand and name the stars, constellation by constellation. It came to the point when she could whisper along to his words, where she knew every story about every planet he pointed out in the sky. Where she’d fall asleep somewhere in some constellation belt, and wake up in the morning to a low, soft singing. And then he’d apologize, like he never should, and he’d take her bag and her hand, and they’d be off, on another adventure, making more stories, stories Anna could never remember. She’d watch him at the end of the day as he scribbled them down in his journal, his hand racing, but the words so precise and clear. “Draw pictures, Anna!” he’d encourage. “Remember this?” he’d gesture, “Or that? Remember, and draw!” And she did, on the margins of his pages, on sheets he bought specially for her, with watercolors she stole from her sister or charcoal pens that Darell could craft. It was a fairytale. It was dangerous, and exciting, and beautiful. There were times, so many times, when she cried, or was scared, but Darell had always been there. He’d hold her, and stroke her hair, and hum quietly to her. And now she was crying, and now she was scared--and he was gone. She absently touched her hair, pulled her curls apart carefully, and hummed the tune, softly, nearly silently, until drowsiness sunk in, and--
“What’s that you’re singing, Missy Anna?”
She nearly screamed at the sudden, abrupt voice. Lynaira had spoken it slowly and carefully, as she said everything, but the words invaded her thoughts like a nuclear bomb. It startled her so much she nearly fell off the tree, and then realized, with a bit of a holler, how tall she had climbed.
Sunspots surrounded her head, and looking down below, she could see the light thrown on bits of leaves that had lost grip of the branches. She herself tightened her hand on the bark and looked around her, feeling the warm, humid air burrow beneath her thick hair and restricting frock.
“Anna, behind you!”
She absently dragged her eyes away from the ground. Pivoting gently on the twig that contained her, she saw the startling sight of the shack once again. She examined it carefully.
It stood proud and strong, yet was bent slightly from years of rain and disuse. Lovely vines holding the nicest purple
flowers shivered silently to its leaf-ridden, holey roof. Anna noticed almost immediately that all of the main branches, including the one she was on, sloped down to the shack. It was perfectly hidden beneath a hammock of trees.
The cubs had already run into its dark restraints, save for little Clydaminnie, whom stood staring at Anna’s reaction. She seemed to be waiting for Anna to say something.
“I don’t get it.” She didn’t. “Did you build this?”
Clydaminnie shook her head.
“Astorial?”
Shake.
“Lynaira?”
Nod.
“How long ago?”
She carved marks in the bark. Five years.
“How old are you all?”
She drew how many moons they had lived. Anna counted them, adding it up silently.
“Three months?”
Nod.
“I don’t get it.” Even with all her wits, Anna couldn’t make sense of it. Magic? What’s going on?
There was that feeling again, the giggle. Anna felt it useless to be for an answer fruitlessly, so she turned to the cub
who was giving her answers. “Cyldaminnie? What’s going on?”
Anna felt a change in the area; large, yet somehow small. She felt, and not saw, the sunspots racing towards her and the cub, and she looked up in surprise. The unheard song chimed loudly; hysterically vicious laughter ripped Anna’s head apart. The melody and the giggles increased in speed. The walls of the forest spun rapidly. The sunspots were running, taking Clydaminnie, taking Anna. She instinctively stepped back--
The air rushed by her. She could feel her skin being grabbed and torn. She impacted and leaves flew up; something bit her head. She felt her body has a whole almost . . . crack. Her head was hot. She touched and saw red.
A human voice screamed her name. She had just enough time to identify the voice before the world blacked out.
