witness || h.s.|| ON HOLD

fifty-two || cerro calderico ridge

the song for this chapter is "Mr. Sandman," by joe p :)

Tate 

    I think that in life, there are very few moments where you find yourself at a location from a book. Or perhaps, that was just my life. Maybe other people found themselves in places of significance so much, that they had entirely lost their meaning. But for me, as I stood with Harry at the Cerro Calderico Ridge, staring up at the twelve mountainous windmills from the world-renown Don Quixote, I could hardly stop my jaw from hitting the ground. 

     Harry looked to be a bit stunned two, and both of us seemed so small compared to the well-described "giants" that were the windmills. 

   "This is amazing," I finally spoke out, saying what both of us had been thinking for the past ten minutes we had just been standing here.

   "Yeah, it is," Harry chuckled in reply, hands on his hips and head tilted back in order to take in the entirety of the structures before us. 

    We were shockingly the only two people here. I suppose six in the evening wasn't a common time for tourists to be meandering about, which worked to our benefit. All that we knew was that this was the location. We had no idea what we were looking for now that we were here. But something deep inside me told me that just like everything else in this journey, we would know it when we saw it.

      It was rather bizarre, that somehow, even though we didn't remember our fathers, we had this sort of intuition about them. A feeling ignited within our bones that provided the connection to them in the spirit that we lacked in memory. 

   "See anything out of the ordinary?" Harry suddenly asked, as if he were reading my mind.

 I pursed my lips together and shook my head. "Not yet. Let's walk around a bit," I suggested.

    My jeans felt weird with the cool metal of the gun tucked into the back pocket. I wrapped my cream-colored cardigan tighter around myself in an attempt to hide it even more. 

    While it did feel out of character, I couldn't pretend that I didn't feel a little bit badass knowing that I could defend myself if needed. I don't think anyone who might attempt to harm me would expect me to be able to shoot a gun or throw a knife as well as I now could, which greatly worked to my advantage. 

     Another unfamiliar feeling was the burner phone lodged safely in my other back pocket. I hadn't had a cellphone in so long, I had almost forgotten what it felt like to carry one around. I honestly didn't miss my phone as much as one might think. It was kind of nice to be disconnected, even though I didn't really have a choice. The only person I truly missed talking to was my mother. I tried very hard not to wonder what she was doing, what she was thinking, and if she was alright. Luckily, I was provided with a generous amount of distractions to keep my mind from wandering too far.

     Harry's footsteps were in perfect sync with my own as we walked through the grass and closer to the windmills. Both of our eyes were eagerly scanning our surroundings, hoping to see something that made us do a double-take.

     We strolled past the first few windmills, but suddenly, I found myself stopping right in front of the fifth one, as a familiar and beloved scent filled my nose. 

   Jasmine. 

  Images of the various bottles of my jasmine and bamboo perfume flashed through my mind. I had always been so drawn to the scent of jasmine, and I remember my mother bringing in bouquets of it when I was a child. I would sit by the vases and practically press my nose to the delicate petals, inhaling it like I was trying to achieve some sort of floral-induced high.