poemtry and prose

The mechanical beep, beep, beep of an digital alarm clock stirred Cassie from her deep slumber. Groaning, her fingers fumbled around as they sought out the offending sound. The alarm stopped once her fingers slammed down on the button. Hiding under the blankets, Cassie stretches, allowing her body to slowly regain consciousness. Her arm brushes something soft next to her and she turns towards it. The small black button eyes of Bramble reflect the image of her face.

She looks up, expecting to see the white sterile ceiling tiles, flecked with holes, marking her imprisonment at Blackwell. Instead, the outlines of the big dipper, Andromeda, and Cancer glow a soft green above her head. Puzzled, Cassie sits up in her bed, holding Bramble tight. Her windows have no bars on them, her desk is naturally stained oak, not plastic painted white and her walls have trees painted on them with smiling faeries and will-o-wisps floating around. Not a trace of Blackwell exists. She is home.

Cassie slowly crawls out of bed, leaving Bramble behind. She slowly lowers one foot to the floor, half expecting it to drop, exposing a chasm leading into oblivion beneath it. Instead her foot touches the hard floor. She wiggles her toes over it, rubbing lines into the carpet.

"Was it all a dream," she says out loud.

She walks over to her bookcase and runs her hands over the spines of the books. Most of them worn fat, having been read so often. The antique smell of paper thick on her fingers. She looks back across at her desk. "I need to know what day it is," she thinks.

She goes to the desk. No calendar appears on the desk's smooth surface. She pulls open the drawers, not closing them. The second drawer revels a calendar. Important dates fill the small squares in blue and green. Red hash marks tick the previous day off. Cassie can't remember why she ever did that in the first place, as she never really had anything important for time to move towards. The last red day reads July 31st.

School hadn't even started yet. The dream of Blackwell and the autumn trees outside barred windows hadn't happened yet either.

"Was it all just a dream." she repeats. Her room is exactly how she remembered it. Everything in its proper place. Yet the feeling that something out of place haunts her, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to prickle.

She goes back over to the bed. And stares at it. The sun begins to shine through her room. A small piece of metal, shimmers in the heat. Cassie reaches over with her hand and pulls at the metal from under the pillow. It is a necklace. A heart shaped silver medallion with a Celtic knot etched into its surface. It hangs from a black cord.

Memories attached to the medallion flood back into Cassie's mind. Jumbled images of Blackwell, Hazel and Stick, a river, mountain and obelisk, something about a plague, and the power of the word flash through her brain. Something about sacrifice. Her own sacrifice.

"It wasn't a dream. It really happened. But how did? Home? Back in time?" Faerie magic, her mind reminds her. The most powerful kind of magic at all. Cassie replaces the medallion around her neck and holds onto it. It hums with energy and love. The mixed up images rearrange themselves and the storyline of her adventure and escape and discovery and loss play through her head in Technicolor, stop animation movie pictures. When she gets to the bit about never being able to return or see the faeries, Hazel or Stick, Cassie gasps and loosens her grip on the medallion.

Hastily she throws on some jeans and a shirt. She stubs her toe on the wall as she rushes to pull the door open. She steps out into the hallway of her parents house. A vase filled with daisies sits on a commode. Family and extended family portraits hang haphazardly on the walls, the still smiling images of family and friends smiling at her. Cassie runs past all this and jumps down every other stair.

The smell of pancakes tumbles from the kitchen. Her parents are cooking breakfast.

"Cassie, hunny. Is that you?" the sing-song voice of her mother calls out. "Sweetie, do you want one pancake or two?"

Cassie rushes through the dining room into the kitchen. She doesn't answer her mom. Her father sits at the kitchen table. Three place settings and three glasses of orange juice appear on the table. Hearing Cassie running towards the kitchen, her father lowers his newspaper. He's staring at her.

"Answer your mother when she is talking to you," he sternly says.

But she doesn't say anything to either one of them. She doesn't even seem to acknowledge they are there. She darts past her mother and rushes into the laundry room, where the door to the patio is. Quickly she unlocks it and opens the door. The metal blinds on the door clang as she rushes past them, slamming the door behind her.

Cassie steps outside. And stops. It's sunny out, and warm. The grass feels soft and wet under her feet. Wild, untamed forest sprawls out just beyond the perimeter of the house. She looks down at the medallion once more and runs for the forest.

Ten minutes later, Cassie hears the stream where she used to float pinecone boats down. She breathes hard as her lungs hurt, sore from the lack of oxygen. Again she looks around the forest. Pine and Douglas fur trees and rocks and random bits of bush and grass are all that is there. She walks over to a tree and places her hand on it. She closes her eyes and stills her body, pushing her energy into the tree. Words float from her into the tree. Nothing comes back to her. The tree is silent.

Cassie walks over to another tree and repeats the process. The tree does not respond. They all appear silent. Feeling rejected, she briskly walks back to the river.

"Hazel?" she calls out. And waits. A hawk cries overhead, but not in response to her call.

"Hazel? Stick?" she calls out again, louder. The shadows on the trees shorten as the sun climbs higher into the sky. She searches the nearby trees for signs of Hazel's brown pants and red hair and Stick's blue naked body.

"Where are you guys? Why aren't you here?" Panic and dread fill her. She sits down on the ground, pushing the dirt at her feet away from her. A pile of dust floats up from the soil.

"Okay," she calls out to the trees and air around her, her voice friendly but commanding. "For the rest of the day I will remain RIGHT here. I won't go anywhere. I know you guys are out there and I'll wail all day till the sun goes down for you to show your face if I have to."

She bows her head down towards her chest. Her hair flops over her forehead bobbing. Cassie cries again. The tears landing on her pants and in the dust between her crossed legs. She puts her hands over her face.

Whispering, Cassie calls out once more, "I was not ready. I am not sure I can do this alone. I need you guys. Please don't leave me all alone. I miss you. Hazel, I love you!"

A few more hours pass. She hears nothing but the sound of the river and birds. No one steps out from behind the trees, laughing. Cassie stands up, her shoulders hunched over in defeat. She turns around to face the river.

Someone left trash on the rock by the river. Cassie goes over to the rock to pick up the garbage. A smile grows on her face as she realizes that the items are not some dumb camper's trash but a present left for her. Two things sit on the rock; a red, handmade journal, closed together by a piece of leather and a purple feather quill, shoved between the leather and book's thick cover. Cassie picks up the present and sits down on the rock.

Celtic designs adorn the leather cover, reflecting the same design on the medallion hanging around her neck. The Elder's symbol. She raises the book to her nose, careful not to bend the quill. It smells of a mix of lavender and rose, just like the flowers in the vase of her room in the obelisk. Gently, she places the book in her lap and slowly unties the knot in the leather strap. The quill slips down between her legs. White handmade pages fill the book. A quick flip through it reveals they are all blank. Waiting for her to fill them with her words, her stories and her drawings.

Finally, Cassie presses the book to her chest. She turns her head around her, knowing that she won't see anyone if they are there, but smiles appreciation all the same.

She lays the journal in her lap, retrieves the quill and starts writing.

"Once upon a time.."