Aru Shah and the Land of Lost Hopes and Dreams

We climb a very VERY tall tree.

Aru's POV

We stopped and a sort of cliff jutted out over the ravine. The view from up here was breathtaking, a panoramic view of trees, mountains that went so high that they had snow on the top. I stepped closer and looked over the edge. If anyone were to fall over the edge, they would for sure not make it out alive. I took a step back and took in the rest of my surroundings. There were a few trees in the clearing, including a huge maple tree. I frowned.

I looked over at Brynne. "Where is the house?" Brynne rolled her eyes and pointed up. I looked up to see a treehouse in the maple tree. It was covered in so much ivy that it was hard to tell where the tree ended and the house started.

Aiden called over to us. "Come here!" Brynne and I jogged over to Aiden. He moved some ivy aside and revealed some ancient looking planks of wood nailed to the tree, creating a ladder that zigzagged haphazardly up the huge tree. Brynne walked forward and tentatively took a step onto one of the planks. It held. She climbed up a few more then looked down at us.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" She kept climbing up the tree. I held onto one of the planks and started to climb. Aiden followed behind me. We started up the tree in silence, but to my brilliantly unfortunate luck, halfway up the tree, I slipped on one of the planks and nearly fell. Panic seized me and I started to flail, trying to find something to grab onto. But thankfully, Aiden was right behind me and he caught me before I could fall to the ground.

Aiden grunted and helped me back onto the ladder. He looked up at me, with a smirk on his face. "Falling for me already?" I blushed, and looked away. "You wish. Now look who is making the corny jokes! That's my job!" I pretended to pout. Aiden laughed.

Brynne shouted from farther up the tree. "Come on, you two love birds. We haven't got all day!"

"We aren't love birds." I shouted back. It must have been my imagination, but Aiden's face fell a little, looking hurt. We started climbing again. When we reached the top, there was a small platform that we stopped and sat down on to catch our breath. I looked over the edge over the ground. "That is going to be fun to climb back down."

Behind us the door to the tree house flew open and out came a little old woman that looked like she was one hundred and forty- two years old and she stood at about four foot two. She didn't look like much. It seemed as if a light breeze might be able to knock her over. But when she yelled at Brynne, Aiden, and I all flinched away from her.

"You nasty little children better have a good reason to be up here. Or I'm going to cook you alive!"