One Year Later
Usually, when children fall over during mischief, they become uncomfortably acquainted with muddy grass before they blink out of shock. Their hands are grazed, their knees are bleeding, they may be crying, but in general, all is as it should be.
Amerie Errai, ever the rebel it seems, decided to take a different approach. When Amerie stumbled on her walk in the woods she fell, but somewhat controversially, she fell backwards.
So instead of landing with her nose one inch from the ground, Amerie took the scenic route. She watched the browning grass blur up to be tall as trees, and then she saw the actual trees poke into the sky. The sky was a lovely blue, the kind only early autumn can give.
Amerie’s mind flicked back to the day she just had, the first day of school actually. There was only time for one lesson which was Physics. They had done a short introduction on the laws of gravity. Between Isaac Newton and the apples Amerie’s brain had slightly switched off but from what she gathered from her Physics teacher and her own mishaps on the playground, she knew to expect the resounding thud the back of her head was about to make on the hard earth.
Except there was no thud. There were no sticks or leaves to be picked off of her clothes. Amerie gasped as she felt the chill of a thousand ghosts swim through her. She had spun through the ground like a paper windmill and was half suspended, half standing upright on the grass. Amerie wriggled her fingers to check if she was still flesh and blood, if she was still there at all.
Her thoughts were stopped short in a blinding flash when all of a sudden Amerie saw a woman like she had never seen before, the type she had only heard of in her favourite fairy tales. To Amerie, she seemed like Rapunzel, Cinderella and Snow White all rolled into one. Her hair flowed behind her in masses and she had the brightest eyes Amerie had ever seen. In her white dress, Amerie thought she looked like the North Star.
“My darling child!” the beautiful woman cried, “My name is Miss Crystal. Allow me to help you.”
Even her voice was enchanting, twinkling like an angel.
“These woods are dangerous, and fraught with peril. The only way you can get out is with my help. I see my own child in you…” Here she hung her head, the prettiest picture of tragedy. A solitary tear rolled her cheek, which she made no effort to wipe away.
There was something in Miss Crystal’s speech that half snapped Amerie out of her entranced state. The woods Miss Crystal mentioned were the same woods Amerie had spent her childhood playing in, and while they could be quite dark and muddy, there was no other place that made her feel more peaceful. Her mother, a conservationist and biologist had shown her all the woods had to offer, how every root and every leaf was special. Amerie thought of her mother, the little laughter lines etched around her face, the silver threads that were beginning to show in her hair. Just by looking into her mother’s eyes, Amerie knew how much she was loved in this world. When Amerie looked at Miss Crystal she realised she had to squint. Beyond the fairytales, she couldn’t see her at all.
Miss Crystal stretched out her hand and smiled encouragingly. A moment before, Amerie would have taken it without thinking. But a moment was all she needed to feel with absolute certainty that Miss Crystal was not as clear as she seemed.
“My dear, take my hand and I’ll help you!” Miss Crystal was still smiling, but something about her face seemed to tighten. Her eyes seemed almost scared. She whispered:
“Aren’t you lost?”
Amerie hesitated a little, but her gaze was firm.
“No."
Crystal shattered.
Her face cracked in two and the fragments showed a burnt and scarred face with demonic symbols scratched into it, still bleeding. The tendrils of her dying hair swung around her face like wild rats’ tails and her eyes looked like curdled tar. Yet to Amerie this was not what made the woman so grotesque. It was the disgust, the contempt and hatred she seemed to harbour for the both of them that made Amerie shudder.
The woman (whose name Amerie could no longer believe to be Miss Crystal) screeched out, livid with fury.
“Curse you, child, curse you!” she snarled, “But now I know who you are, and I will not stop until -” Here her raving was cut short. It was as though an invisible hand was pulling her by the hair into the ground. The hag, the woman, whoever she was, shrieked out one last time and then disappeared completely.
Everything had happened so fast. Amerie had so little time to process that she was in danger that she could barely register the fact she was out of it. Still, Amerie was almost dizzy with questions: Who really was ‘Miss Crystal’, and why did she shatter? Why had she disappeared? She spoke like she knew Amerie but also like she had only just found her.
Amerie almost collapsed, but then realised she needed to keep her wits about her. She didn’t know what invisible force had swallowed up the woman, but Amerie didn’t want to be passed out on the ground if it decided to spit her back out again.
As she took a step forward, another thought occurred to her. Why did it matter so much that she said no to being lost?
Everything had changed after that moment, yet Amerie had no idea why. Much to her parents’ frustration, Amerie had always had a problem with admitting she was lost. She stubbornly believed that it was always her parents or teachers that had gotten lost, not her. Evidently, she hadn't grown out of the habit.
Still, none of them had that reaction before.
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