Mysterious land - chapter 1

I wrote a story and want to know if it's any good! This is just the first chapter - there's 11 in total. Sorry this is a bit long!!! Please tell me what you think

The sand tickles my bare feet, and I giggle splendidly. The sun is scorching my head, and it’s so hot that I have to put my hands protectively to my face. The smell is lavender and freshly mown grass, although there is no grass or lavender in sight. The waterfall ahead of me is splashing water on the rocks surrounding it; but the rocks don’t mind – the sun is their friend, and it takes the coldness of the water away. All around me I hear birds singing; but I cannot see them.

I smile as a bug crawls up my leg, and I flick it off with surprisingly cool fingers. It disappears in the sand; leaving me alone. This doesn’t bother me: I like solitude. I raise my hand, and the birds stop singing: I am in control. A slight breeze loosens my hair, and I feel free.

I’m finally here.

I am finally here!

I woke up alarmed, trembling in my own bed. This beautiful place was more than just a dream - I could feel it in my bones. I had reason to worry: this was the third time that I had dreamt about this place, and the sixth that I had been there. It was becoming uncontrollable now: during the day I would just slip into it, fall gently like a carefree feather into the softness of the sand. I felt afraid. Each time I went there I was always there for a little longer: and every time it seemed to be more and more of an effort to come back home.

My father used to tell me of a land like this: a beautiful land where fairies, princesses and dragons lived. He described the heat so vividly: I used to be able to feel it beaming down at me. He described the grass, always full of early morning dew. There was no grass where I went now, though the smell lingered in the air.

My father died when I was four.

I’d missed him at first, and I could tell that my mother still did – but little by little I began to forget him. We didn’t keep any photos. The only things that I remembered were those wonderful fairy tales: so beautiful that I drew the place multiple times; but could never get it right.

Clenching my hands together tightly to control the shaking, I slowly ventured downstairs to eat breakfast. My mother was by the table reading a newspaper, a cup of coffee in her hand. She worked as a psychiatrist; a depressing job at the best of times. Today I decided to take this as an advantage: and told her of the place that I had been going to more and more recently over the past month. When I’d finished, she smiled – but I could see sadness in her eyes – which somehow worried me even more. I stood up abruptly, too eager to escape her powerful emotions to remember about breakfast.

It happened again in maths. The smells always came first: so beautiful and beguiling. So powerful were these smells: they had more power than Kings and Queens and Presidents; the power that I didn’t even know existed. I tried to resist: but it proved impossible, as if the smells were the singing Sirens from Greek myths. I let myself fall, gently, gently; like a snowflake in the breeze.

It is exactly the same as I left it: and, afraid of the silence, I put my hand up to show the birds that they can sing again, that I don’t mind. They start again immediately, making me feel happy. I smile as a warmth surges through me: the warmth of music. I notice a feather dancing in the breeze, and look up at the cloudless sky. There are still no birds in sight. I look at the sandy ground, and notice a footprint that is not my own. I squat down, puzzled, and touch it with my finger. It is definitely there. My skirt brushes lightly on the sand, and I stand up – looking around for somebody, anybody, who might have made the footprint. I can see no one.

I looked around me, confused. I was back in the classroom, and the teacher is teaching as if nothing had happened: well, perhaps it hadn’t. I looked at the clock – a mere two minutes had passed by – even though where I had been it had felt like hours had passed. I needed to know if this was real: I simply needed to know that this wasn’t going on in my head, that I wasn’t going mental like old Ronny who visited my Mother’s clinic every week. I suddenly had an idea.

I slipped my hand along my skirt until I found the rim. I lifted it high enough underneath the desk for me to see, and there, sure enough, were a few grains of sand. I gasped. So this was happening. I started trembling, and people began to look around.

“It’s… nothing…” I managed to stutter, while the class started sniggering. I let the teacher’s comments pass with a little shake of my head, and looked across at Lola, my best friend – I called her Lo. She smiled at me, and mouthed something. I didn’t catch what she said, but nodded anyway.

I spent the rest of the maths lesson thinking of a name for this place. Really, it was just a distraction to stop it from being too real, but I tried not to think about that. What name would suit such a place? Beautiful, intriguing, yet so very frightening…My Father had called his fairy tale land Hie – though I had never found out why. I liked the name - it was a mystery – and reminded me of the far off, distant language that my Father always described whenever he talked about the land. It was the language of the dragons. Hie. I smiled.

At break I went to find Lo in the toilets, where she was washing her hands. I smiled at her reflection. She smiled back.

“Hey,” I said, trying to keep the corners of my mouth from drooping.

“So are you going to tell me what that weird gasp was about in maths? You looked really confused!” she laughed.

“Yeah, sure.” I said, trying to keep my voice confident. I knew I would have to tell her about Hie. Maybe she could help me, at least tell me what I looked like when I went there – did I just looked spaced-out, was there just the empty shell of me sitting at my desk, drooling? The thought frightened me, and Lo sensed it.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you going to tell me or what?” she said, her reflection frowning. I gathered up my courage, hoping with all the world that she’d believe me.

“It’s just… It’s just that I go to this place sometimes… Hie: I’ve been going there more and more… and today I found evidence that it existed.” I murmured, my confidence slowly slipping away as her face grew even more confused.

“Woah, slow down! Hie? How strange is that? And what evidence anyway?” she said, trying to sound jokey but instead sounding rather shocked. She turned to face me. I couldn’t stop now.

“Firstly, Hie isn’t a strange name,” I growled, angry - it was the name that my father had made up and I wouldn’t let anyone criticise it. I continued when Lo said nothing. “…and it’s not too hard to understand: I drift there sometimes, and I could tell you about it all day it’s so nice. Basically when I went there in maths I touched the sand with my skirt, and when I came back there were grains of sand on my skirt that weren’t there before!”

By the time I finished I was almost shouting. Lo looked put out – as if she didn’t know I was capable of shouting at all.

“Okay, daydreamer, so you’re saying that you go to a place called Hie – and the sand on your skirt is evidence? Well, I think you’ll need a little more evidence then that. Last year I sat down on a chair that was covered in sand – when I got up it was all over me. Sand is almost impossible to get rid of! I understand where you’re coming from – but… you know…”

“You don’t believe me.” I finished off her sentence for her, almost wanting to cry. Well, what else was I to expect? It sounded weird, and she was right about the sand – it was hardly evidence. It seemed I was the only person who believed in this: I was, after all, the only person who had been there. Why me?

Maybe it was in my genes.

“Anyway, didn’t you see Hannah falling asleep it geography? It was hilarious!...” Lo just didn’t seem to understand that I wasn’t in the mood for talking. It was nearing the end of break, and she had seemed happy to leave the awkward ‘imaginary’ Hie untalked about. I, on the contrary, couldn’t seem to think of anything else. Then there was that smell again… the Siren smell. I let myself fall. Seeing as Hie was the only place I could think about, I might as well be there. I let all my worries slip.

The birds are still singing, but their songs are now becoming tiresome. I decide to stop them for now. I put up my hand. They stop. I look down again at the footprint. There are now two, next to each other as though they could never bear to part. As I stare at the soft, white sand more appear, slowly at first, but then faster and faster. One by one they come, making a trail of footprints leading all the way down to the distant mountains. I do not know what to do. I look around; silence. There is nobody: but I know that there is somebody - somebody walking, far, far away. I begin to follow them, leaving the waterfall, the rocks, and the untouched sand behind. Leaving behind the Hie I know.

I found myself in science, Lo sitting next to me. How much time had passed? I looked at the clock: ten minutes. What confused me the most was the fact that I had been following the footprints and, at the same time, walking to science. It was as if my soul was planted in Hie - and while I was there, a robot with all the right controls replaced me. I looked at Lo. She looked back at me, a look of confusion plain on her face.

“You looked so spaced out just then – I was getting kind of worried!” she frowned. I wondered whether to tell her that I had been Hie again, but she figured it out before I had a chance to tell her.

“You were in that Hie place again weren’t you?” she looked at me oddly. I nodded.

“Well, I’ll just have to distract you so you won’t go back there!” she tried to make light of it, but I could tell that it was troubling her.

“Look – don’t worry about me,” I whispered.

“I’ll be okay, just don’t tell anyone else about it because they’ll think I’m a nutter!” I tried to laugh but failed.

“You already are one!” she gave me a friendly nudge, and everything seemed to be alright again: for the moment, anyway.

After school we all went to the park: Lo, Anna, Jaz and me. I was having the most fun I’d had in ages, and was myself again: the person I had been before Hie. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t stop, and didn’t care that everyone was looking at me. I didn’t know why I was laughing, I just knew that I was happy, so stupidly happy, that I just didn’t care. But then, midway through my laughs, I smelt the Siren smell. I stopped laughing and looked around me, hoping, wishing, that it was just the lavender bush to my right making the smell; which was so horribly similar to the Siren smell. My friends began laughing at me, for acting so strangely. Everyone except Lo. She knew my secret. I ran out of the park, slipping in and out of Hie. I didn’t want to become robot-like in front of my friends, they’d suspect something was up and I didn’t want that. I could hear Lo running after me, but I didn’t want to talk to her. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I ran and ran until I emerged in Hie, breathless.

I am finding it hard to breathe. I try not to think too hard about being here, in Hie. I decide that it is normal that I should be here, and tell myself not to worry. I carry on following the footsteps – which have multiplied so much since I was last here. I want to catch up with the footsteps, see if I will be able to finally see whom they belong to. I run, leaving everything behind. I run and run and run, until I am sure that I can’t run anymore. I notice that the faster I run the faster the footprints multiply. I stop to breathe, feeling the sand, a little thicker here, that sticks to my sweating feet. I carry on running, following the footprints; running to the mountainous boulders ahead.

I run.

I emerged from Hie, still running. Running and running, until I found myself in front of my house. Lo wasn’t following me anymore, but I found millions of texts waiting to be opened on my phone. I opened the first: ‘Where r u? why did u run away? Hie??? Pls call me’ I scrolled down, and counted at least twelve texts from Lo – and then one caught my eye: it was from Mum. I opened it. ‘I’ll be back about ten in the evening – friend’s party. Sorry forgot to tell you. Dinner in fridge. Try not to go to that imaginary place while I’m gone – don’t want another client!’

But Mum, I thought, you don’t know how hard it is to resist.

I am here again, still running after those footprints. I finally become closer to them, getting closer and closer and closer. They are slowing down now, so once again I can see them appearing, one by one. I walk slowly alongside these prints, looking at the empty space where I should be seeing a person. Suddenly the footsteps stop completely, and with them so do I. A figure is now becoming visible before my eyes. It is beautiful, so beautiful. I think it is a woman but no matter how hard I look at the features they always dissolve. Perhaps it’s the other way round: the harder I look the less I see. I let my eyes relax, and see a tall lady, almost glistening, with amazing pale blue eyes. She looks at me and opens her mouth. I want to touch her – but something stops me.

She has an unmistakable pair of wings.