Breathe Me || Completed

11.2

11.2 - The Woods

When we were young, Samantha and I spent hours upon hours playing fairies. Fairies, fairies, fairies, all the time. We made wings by bending metal coathangers and sculpting Saran Wrap around the shapes. We made wands out of unsharpened pencils and cut up construction paper, pink and purple hearts, butterflies, stars, and jewels that we waved and flicked in the air and at each other until they became broken beyond repair. Then we made new ones.

Since there was only the two of us, we each had to play more than one role in the story. Samantha would be the fairy princess trapped in a tower and the evil witch who cursed the whole kingdom while I played the brave knight fairy who came to rescue her along with the queen of the realm, switching back and forth between my plastic crown and my paper armor-mask. We both played the town-fairies who showed up every once in awhile to provide a helpful potion or a bit of convenient news.

Since we made up the plot as we went along, anything could happen. A little life in a life, choices under all our choices.

In the morning when I wake up alone, all the pillows from the futon and my bed stacked up against my back like a turtle shell. I can't help but be reminded of a game we played once in which the lovely fairy princess was drowning (very slowly) in quicksand and I, the valiant knight, had to ride through the realm to save her. The quick sand was comprised of every pillow and blanket we could find in the house. When I did finally reach the sand, Samantha, who had just been playing a pesky goblin, had to jump back inside of the pillow mess and drown again. The pile swallowed her up like she had fallen into the mouth of a ravenous beast. She poked her fingers through the cracks in the pillows and yelled, "Help me, o brave knight!"

But we're not kids, and we're not playing fairies, so instead of drowning in the pillows I cast them aside and sit up. My bed is full of blankets and pillows but empty of Samantha. So, pointless.

I sit up and rub my eyes. I feel like those girls in the movies, waking up alone after their one night stand, feeling all betrayed and abandoned. But I get over it when I see the note on my nightstand, fluttering gently in the air conditioning.

Sally, says the note in Samantha's scrawl, a barely readable interpretation of the letters of the alphabet, here, I wrote you a fucking poem.

Your hair is as dark as the twilight sky

Your eyes sparkle like midnight stars

Your heart is a fragile organ that could shut down at any time and give you cardiac arrest

I'm in the fucking woods

Come find me

Love,

Sam x

Well. The first half is very nice. I blush and fold the note in half, tucking it underneath my pillow for later.

When did she leave? I didn't hear anything. I get dressed and brush my teeth in a sleepy stupor -- it's only six. The sun is nodding over Stone Harbor, drifting off and snapping back on again like a tired student in class as the clouds flit in and out of its path.

Going for a walk w/ samantha I text my mother. Downstairs, I pull an uncooked waffle out of the freezer. Just in case. I step out of the house into the dewy morning air and start down the familiar route toward the woods.

What is Samantha doing in there, I have to wonder? Probably burning down trees. Making the local squirrels into her slaves with her animal-mind-control powers. Stone Harbor is still around me as I walk, like I'm passing through a plastic diorama.

I walk through the park, silent except for the trills of the birds in the approaching woods. The wet grass squelches under my sneakers. When I reach the picnic table that has my initials carved into it, I unlace them and leave them on the bench with my socks tucked inside. My bare feet absorb the shocking cold and dampness of the grass, sending shivers through my body. I'm awake, now.

At the mouth of the woods, the ground changes from wet grass to stone cold dirt. I watch the path for twigs and roots, slapping my feet down for one step and then the next. The little pains of it, the pine needles and acorns under my feet, remind me that I am alive. I'm a real person.

Find me. Well, how difficult can it be?

I don't call for her -- I just listen. My footsteps are nearly silent on the dusty ground as I amble down the trail with my hands in my pockets. The waffle has thawed inside my jacket pocket, leaving a cold wet spot next to my stomach.

As I push deeper into the woods, I recognize the little-known path that leads to my secret place. Suddenly, my heart beats ten times faster. There's a rustling in the woods, just far enough back that it has to be in the clearing.

A chipmunk, surely, or a fox. The noise continues.

I lead my bare feet one after the other over the underbrush that obscures the path. My feet land in the mess of sharp branches an dead leaves that cover the forest floor. I trip through the littered roots and shrubs with my heart thumping like someone is frantically hammering nails into me. Who, who, who--?

It is, of course, Samantha.

My footsteps are quiet enough that she doesn't hear me coming. I stop suddenly right before the clearing, leaning into a thick-trunked tree for cover. And there she is in my secret, safe spot, walking with slow steps back and forth around my little fairy village. She has her hands jammed into the front pockets of her skinny jeans as she skulks through the little paths between the houses, some of them cobbled with pebbles, others patted down to a smooth dirt road. Her shoulder blades stick up under her tank top like she might sprout griffin wings and fly away.

I swallow hard. I step back to retreat, but a twig snaps under my bare foot. I freeze, sweat condensing on my skin.

Samantha looks up. She catches sight of me, her eyes widening. "Sally!" she calls. "What're you doing in there, you creep? Get over here! Look what I found."