Between Lost & Found - Chapter 7

The girl ran through the woods. She jumped over fallen trees and ducked under low hanging limbs. She heard the thundering footsteps behind her and tried to pick up the pace. One of the dogs ran past her and the rest followed. The pack had grown but were still clumsy with their big paws and large heads.
The girl had noticed that she was changing as well. Her legs and arms had grown longer and thinner, although she wouldn’t have believed that she could get any thinner. But she was stronger than she had ever been. Her legs moved quickly and her eyes had grown keen.
The last dog to pass her cut too close and bumped straight into her leg, tumbling the girl and her long limbs to the ground.
The girl cried out in shock, but when the dog that had bumped her came back to lick her face and nudge at her to get back up, a laugh bubbled out of her.
She had never been so happy.
She lay on her back and watched as a swarm of insects flew amongst the leaves of the trees above. They sparkled blue and reminded the girl of the beetle she had once tried to save. The swarm flew downwards in a cyclone of wings. A couple of them came to rest on the girl’s chest and she had to stop the dog from pouncing on them. 
They were so beautiful. Long bodies and elegant wings. Wasps they were, but they did not sting the girl. They simply walked around on their fragile little legs and then took off again, buzzing pleasantly as they flew away. 
How improbable they were. Such tiny creatures. How was it possible that they contained the same things as she inside their bodies? Brain. Stomach. Heart. And to be able to fly with such small wings, fine and delicate and barely there at all.
As quick as the wasps had flown away, the rest of the dogs, whom she considered her brothers and sisters, came back as well, all crowding and licking and playing. The girl sat up on the soft mossy undergrowth amongst the tumble of wagging tails and boisterous bodies. 
The dog that had rumbled her nudged at her arm until she lifted it to let him under. She hugged his thick neck tightly as he kissed her face. She stroked his soft shiny coat and watched the love on his expressive face. Ears down, he crept further and further on to her lap. She couldn’t stop patting him for a moment, lest he nuzzle his way back under her hands.
‘Oh, Fury. I can’t pat you forever,’ she said to the big black dog that gently lay on top of her. 
She watched his coat gleam as she stroked his neck, but caught sight of her hands. The bones in her fingers had become pronounced, the spaces between joints had lengthened. And she had to think, how many joints are there meant to be on a human hand? There looked to be too many. The tips of her fingers were becoming pointy and her fingernails seemed to be changing color.
‘They’re just dirty,’ she thought, but something about her hands made shivers run up her spine. 
Suddenly, the entire pack’s ears were pricked and they were all staring off into the woods in the same direction. One of the dogs, she couldn’t figure out who began to growl deep in their chest. 
Out of the trees came a beautiful being, a woman, with fiery red hair and green scales instead of skin. She had black horns that rippled and curled from the top of her head. Her face was long and her eyes were large ebony globes cracked with volcanic crimson. She was a dragon. But also a woman. She was naked bar a belt with a sword in its hilt. It was the same dragon lady she had seen before. 
The black dogs continued to growl. They all stood in front of the girl, barricading her from this strange woman. 
‘Sweet girl,’ said the dragon lady in a feminine but rough voice. She then got down on one knee and bowed her head. ‘I mean you no harm.’
At this sign of subordination, the dogs stopped their growls but did not back down, did not lower their hackles. 
The girl stood up and the dragon lady looked up, but quickly put her head back down. 
‘I know you from somewhere,’ said the girl. ‘I have seen you at my home.’
‘Yes, forgive me, sweet girl. I have been …’ she chose her words wisely. ‘… Observing you from afar.’
‘Afar? You came in my home while I was asleep,’ said the girl, for she was not entirely stupid.
‘I have been mesmerized by your beauty and your voice,’ said the woman. ‘News of your crystal voice has traveled far and wide across the kingdom. I had to hear it for myself. I wished to talk to you, but I am afraid that your pack mother wouldn’t allow it.’
The girl heard the words but she was not listening properly. She had never been complimented before, she had especially never been called beautiful. Something grew inside her, a new feeling that she couldn’t quite explain. But she liked it. She wanted to hear the words again.
‘My beauty?’ she asked.
The dragon woman looked up and back down again, keeping her head bowed, horns pointing towards the pack of dogs protecting their sister. ‘Yes, sweet girl, I had heard stories of the human beauty that could sing to the forest. I had to come and see her for myself.’ She chanced another look at the girl and her dogs, but this time she kept looking.
‘And what was it that you wanted to say to me?’ The girl stood up a little taller.
‘Our queen wishes to have a meal with you, she is to have a feast in your honor,’ said the dragon lady.
‘Queen?’ thought the girl.
She stepped in front of the pack and the dragon woman stood up. At full height, she towered over the girl as a tree does a shrub.  
‘What is your name?’ asked the girl.
‘I am Lady Kavain, left hand of the queen and keeper of Dracorllia,’ said the dragon woman with an inflection a human couldn’t mimic.
‘Dracorllia?’ asked the girl, trying her best at the strange accent.
‘Yes, that is my home, where all the Dracorlla people live. It is on the other side Evermeer,’ said Kavain.
‘Evermeer?’ asked the girl.
Kavain smiled, showing her sharp teeth, glistening white. ‘Yes, sweet girl, that is where we live. That is here,’ she said with a sweep of a taloned hand.
The girl felt excitement building up inside her. There was a queen and she wanted to meet with her. She was throwing a feast in her honor. She tried to keep her decorum, but the smile touched her lips, escaping like a bug trapped in cupped hands, squeezing through the cracks between fingers. 
‘When is this feast?’ asked the girl. She may not have been stupid, but she was still young and impressionable, hopeful.
‘Why, tomorrow night, sweet girl,’ said Kavain. She said night as if that was an actual thing. But Kavain had not seen darkness since she was a child and the last human king had ruled. 
The girl laughed a little, for she had not seen nightfall either. ‘How will I know when it is night?’ the girl asked.
‘I will return tomorrow and escort you to the castle.’ Kavain looked over the girl. ‘And bring you some clothes. Maybe you should also think of taking a bath. It is rude to be in the presence of the queen smelling of dog.’ This last sentence made Kavain kick herself. She immediately saw the look on the girl’s face change. Kavain bowed her horned head toward her and averted her eyes. ‘Forgive me, sweet girl, I only wish to serve the queen and yourself.’
‘That’s okay, Lady Kavain. You did not offend me,’ the girl lied.
‘I must be off to inform the queen that you will be able to attend. Her Grace will be quite pleased,’ said Kavain, straightening up once more.
‘I can’t wait,’ said the girl.
Kavain bowed for the last time and then turned to leave. She tried not to think about the young human girl and her sweetness. She could see it on her face, her excitement at such a prospect as to meet the queen. Instead, she thought about her own daughter. Her beautiful Kavina. And all the other Dracorlla children in her home. The death of this one human child would continue to save theirs.

Between Lost & Found - Chapter 3

She awoke to the gentle splatter of rain on her face. For a second she thought that the roof in the orphanage was leaking again, but then she felt the grass beneath her and the aching in her feet and she remembered what she had done.

She opened her eyes to the new day and found herself in a place that was very unfamiliar. The sky was a clear, deep purple-pink, like that of a glass marble. It seemed so close that she might reach out and dip her fingers into it. She sat up and looked around. She was in a forest, dense and thick with trees and shrubs and ferns. Everything shone with a kind of silvery sheen as if it had been freshly polished.

Insects of all shapes, sizes and colours flittered around the trees and the girl stared at them in wonder. Little pink orbs of light like tiny balls of cotton candy floated around. The girl stood up to get a better look at them. A group of them came down from the tree she had slept under, they circled the girl’s head gracefully, more floating than flying. But she could see them no more clearly up close, but they made a sweet twinkling sound as they moved. The cluster of them got closer to her face, tickling like feathers on her skin, making the girl giggle. They swirled around her once, twice and then they were off.

Then she remembered the black shape, the dog. Was it a dream? The girl had never been much of a dreamer. Daydreamer yes, but night dreamer, not so much.

The girl began walking. The ground in this place was soft like moss below her feet. She looked down and saw that with each footfall the moss sent shimmers of glittering green light off in all directions like glowing roots stretching from her feet. 

‘What is this strange place?’ she thought. She could hear birds singing in the trees and pink light trickled through the canopy from an unseen sun, like water through holes in a roof, making the soft rain glisten like tiny captive rainbows. Was this the end of the rainbow? For surely this place was magical.

Giant pink and brown mushrooms as big as chairs sprouted up from a patch of ground where trees had not grown and light streamed through, warming the mushrooms’ backs. The girl was hungry. And she remembered being told to never eat the red mushrooms, for they were poison, but no one ever warned her about giant pink and brown ones.
She carefully knelt down on the mossy ground next to a particularly fat mushroom and grabbed at its top. She tried to break a piece off when suddenly the mushroom moved. Its shape changed, it unfurled into a stout little man with a bulbous head and a nose to match. His skin was the same colour the mushroom had been. 

‘Oi!’ said the little man. ‘Whatchu doin’? Wakin me up from me sleepin’?’

The girl had fallen back on her rump in surprise. ‘Oh! I … I’m sorry. I thought you were a …’

‘You thought wrong, human girl! Go on, git! Go to the Wastes with the other humans!’ the little mushroom man waddled over to another of the mushrooms and ratted on its hood. ‘C’mon boys! Time to be gettin’ off.’ He turned and glared at the girl. ‘The humans are out.’ 

The group of mushroom men all unfurled themselves, stretching and yawning in the rainbow shower. Then they all simply toddled off, some of them giving her evil stares over their rotund shoulders.
The girl sat on her rump a while longer as she watched the group of mushroom men retreat. She had never seen such creatures or been told about them. Also, she had never been called a human before. She knew she was a human, but in a world dominated by them, it was never really pointed out. And what were the Wastes? Should she go there? It didn’t sound like the sort of place she wanted to go.

She got back up and continued walking. There was no discernible trail in the woods. It was just an overgrown entanglement of vines and ferns and trees and the girl began to wonder how in the world she had gotten there. She remembered before this point, but it was not as if there was a yesterday and the day before that. There was only before and now. 

She must’ve gotten lost while running, but could you get so lost that you simply found yourself in another place, another world entirely? For surely that was what this place was, another world. 
Before now, the only memories she had were of the orphanage. It was a dull place, it lacked luster. The orphanage world looked washed out as if seen through a dirty window. This new world was exactly opposite. The colours popped out at her, each one of them was so vibrant it was like the colour itself had life. The light was so bright it warmed her deep inside.

Despite the beauty of this new world, she walked ahead more cautiously this time. Something told her that she shouldn’t take things for granted, she shouldn’t assume anything in this strange new place.

She walked for an unknown amount of time. Time seemed to be different there. She had always gauged time by the shadows that crept across the dirty wooden floors, but here, there didn’t seem to be any shadows. The light coming from above didn’t change.

Every now and then there would be things that seemed out of place. A broken statue of tiny naked human babies sat dirtying amongst the growth of flowering ivy vines. A group of animals that seemed similar to deer except their necks were far too long and thin, the stag’s antlers appeared to made of trees with flower buds about to bloom and leaves twinkling wet with raindrops. For a moment, she thought she saw what appeared to be a woman, but she was covered in green scales and had a face that appeared more dragon than lady, but as quick as the girl saw the dragon lady she was gone.

Eventually, the girl came to a grove of trees that hung heavy with plump fruit. The fruit was all different, each tree carried several different shape and colour fruits, none of which the girl had ever seen. Not that she had the chance to eat much fruit at the orphanage.

The thing about hunger is that after a while you stop feeling it. In the beginning, you feel it like someone had taken a part of you away. It can be painful, but after years of feeling hungry for food, it goes away. The hunger for other things becomes stronger. But now, seeing all this ripe glistening fruit just hanging there she felt hungry.

She sat back and watched for a while. There were creatures climbing the trees. They looked like cat-sized rats, but with squat smiling faces. Some climbed the trees while others waited down below. The ones up in the tree picked out the red fruit and threw it down to the ones waiting below. 

Quietly, the girl crept up to the tree and tried to reach for the fruit, but she could not reach, she was far too small. 

The emptiness in her tummy grew as she looked at the fat fruit that was just out of her reach and she tried to jump. As she went into the air she felt her fingertips brush the fruit but still she couldn’t reach and she fell back to the ground with a loud thud, landing first on her sore feet and then on her backside.

The smiling creatures all startled and scurried away from the trees. The girl looked around, shocked for a moment before tears stung her eyes. That old familiar emptiness felt heavy inside her, like a paperweight on her heart. She put her hands to her face to hide her tears and sat there underneath the tree with fruit that was just out of her reach.

Then, she felt something fall into her lap. She peeled away her bandaged hands to see a big red fruit in her lap and one of the smiling creatures standing before her.

She stared at the creature and then down at the fruit and then back to the creature. The creature crept close to her and pushed the fruit towards her again. 

The girl couldn’t help the smile that came to her face as she nodded at the creature and picked up the red fruit. 

‘Thank you,’ she said to the creature and nodded again. 
The creature returned the gesture.

The fruit was soft and warm from the sun’s rays. The outside was slightly fuzzy but it was as red as blood.

She put the fruit to her lips and bit into it. Juice filled her mouth and spilled down her chin. The sweetness was like nothing she had tasted before. Tangy and syrupy. It tasted the same way that the colours looked. Vibrant and opposite to anything she had ever experienced at the orphanage.

The creatures began to crowd around her. They chattered amongst themselves and smiled and ate fruit. 

She ate until she could eat no more. Her belly full, her heart overflowing, she leaned back on the tree and drifted off to sleep.
She was home.


I hope you are enjoying the story. If you have any comments feel free to leave them. 

The next chapter will be posted in a week.

Hugs AMC
xxx

Between Lost & Found - Chapter 1

‘Once upon a time there was a broken girl,’ the girl thought as she scrubbed the merciless wooden floor. She hated scrubbing those damned floors. Out of all the chores she had, it was the worst. The cold, hard floor bit into her knees as she worked the brush back and forth. It would soon be filthy again. People walked their muddy feet on it. How was it ever meant to stay clean? Nevertheless, she scrubbed. 

The brown bubbles of soap and grime clung to her bony fingers. Her clothes were a similar colour to the dirty bubbles, as was everything in the orphanage. Everything in the girl’s life seemed to be a variant of brown or beige, even the sky most days. Her life was a canvas and the artist painting on it had only one colour. She longed for more colour. She longed for rainbows and light and more. 

Sometimes, when the sun was still young in the sky, she would stare out the bedroom window, down onto the street below, just to feast on the many colours of the ladies’ dresses down below. But the feast would never last long, if the sisters did not find her spying first, the feasting would soon turn to daydream, and she would start imagining that one of those ladies was her mother. And day dreaming in a place like the orphanage was a perilous undertaking.

The daydream would start out simple enough. She was upstairs in the nursery of their grand home, the noises of the other children behind her would be the sounds of her brothers and sisters. She would be waiting for her mother to come back from the market. Some days her mother would be wearing red with golden hair, other days yellow with the hair of freshly roasted chestnuts. Sometimes, if she was lucky, she would see a woman with the same midnight hair as herself. 

She had received the strap one morning for accidentally waving to one of the ‘daydream mothers.’ The woman had complained to one of the sisters. The girl’s hands had to be bandaged for weeks. 

Now, the bandages were off and she was back scrubbing floors. 
While down on the floor, on this particular day, she heard a sweet clicking sound. It seemed to be coming from under a nearby chair. She subtly scrubbed her way over to the chair and, while the sister was not looking, she peered into the gloom under the chair. A sparkle of pearly blue caught her eye. 

She reached underneath and pulled out a beautiful blue-black beetle. Its shell shone in the flickering candle light as she held it out in her scarred palm. It was as pretty as a precious stone. ‘Don’t worry,’ whispered the girl. ‘I’ll keep you safe.’ She carefully tucked the beetle into the pocket of her brown dress and returned to scrubbing.

‘You! Ebony haired girl! Stop bloomin’ day dreamin’ already and scrub!’ screeched one of the sisters. 

The girl looked down at what she was doing. She had the brush in her hand and she was moving it back and forth. ‘I am scrubbing,’ she mumbled. 

‘What did you say?’ The sister’s tone was that of an alley cat on heat.

The girl cringed and closed her eyes. She looked up. All the other orphans had stopped scrubbing to watch. Some even had wicked grins lurking on their smug, dirty faces. 

The girl sat up on her haunches and looked the sister in the eyes. ‘I’m in trouble now anyway,’ thought the girl. 

‘I. Am. Scrubbing,’ she said loudly, pronouncing every syllable. 

The sister descended on her like a gray bat, all flapping robe wings and scratching claws. She grabbed the girl by the ear and dragged her to the Head Sister’s office. 

The girl kicked and squealed. She never gave up without a fight.
The sister flung the door open and threw the girl inside. ‘Mother, this one’s back talkin’ again,’ said the sister, prodding the girl harshly in the spine.

The mother, a woman as plump as a Christmas ham with snaggleteeth and no neck, growled at the girl. She slid her chair over to a drawer where she kept their files, the legs of the chair ground on the wooden floor like the claws of a giant beast from a fairy tale. The girl wondered how the spindly legs of the chair didn’t give way under the mother’s mighty weight.

‘What’s your name again, girl?’ asked the mother.
The girl went to speak but received a slap to the back of her head from the sister. 

‘Ouch,’ said the girl, rubbing her head. 

‘Ahh, yes,’ said the mother, getting out a file with the girl’s name on it. ‘Silly name for such a miserable, little urchin like you. Been ‘ere since you was a babe. Think you’d know better by now.’ 

‘I was scrubbing, Mother, I promise,’ said the girl, the word mother in relation to this woman tasted bitter on her tongue. 

‘And I s’pose you weren’t day dreamin’ t’all then?’ said the mother.

The girl paused for a moment.

‘See, Mother, the girl lies,’ said the sister, tugging hard on the girl’s hair. 

‘Ouch,’ cried the girl and, without thinking, she stomped backward onto the sister’s toes. 

The sister jumped around and hollered. The mother chuckled. She was not biased with her cruelty.

‘Compose yerself, Sister!’ The mother’s face changed into a hardened stone scowl. ‘You’re a feisty one, aren’t ya? Come, let’s see if we can break that spirit of yours.’

The girl hung her head and held out her hands, palms up. The red, raised scars that crisscrossed her palms still angry from the last time. 

The girl closed her eyes.




The girl sat outside in what little sun could make it through the smog. Her bones ached with the cold and the damaged skin on her hands stung. The bandages that the sister had wrapped around her hands were grubby, the same colour as the dirty soap bubbles on the floor she had been scrubbing, the same colour as the sky. 

She felt movement in her pocket and remembered the new friend she had found earlier. Standing up to have a walk around the small enclosed yard, she took the beetle out of her pocket. Its fluffy little feelers searched around in the open air and it clicked happily.

‘I told you I’d keep you safe,’ said the girl. And she began to sing quietly to herself as she walked.

Suddenly, she felt something large and hard strike the back of her head and she was falling forward before she could stop herself. Pain shot up through her hands as they struck the cobbles and it ricocheted up her arms.

She heard laughter behind her as a group of kids came over, the ones who had thrown the large rock that now lay in the dirt beside her. 
The girl’s head swam as she tried to blink away the black and white spots that swirled across her vision. Everything became shadowy.

‘Look at her, Richard! She’s presenting like a mare! Quick, in ya get,’ said one of the boys to another uproar of laughter.

The girl rolled over onto her hindquarters. The pain in her hands throbbed and she kept her eyes on the group of kids that had come over to taunt her, least they have more than one rock.

The boy that had thrown the rock pushed his friend, Richard, towards the girl. ‘Stop it, Thomas,’ said Richard, taking a swing at the rock thrower. ‘I’ll bloody catch something.’

The girl felt the pain in her heart as they all laughed at her. ‘Why don’t you all just sod off!’ Her voice broke as tears fell out onto her dirty cheeks.

‘Why don’t you all just sod off!’ they all mocked in high-pitched voices as they jeered and turned around as if she wasn’t even worth the effort of teasing. They all walked away and the girl looked to her bleeding palms to see the beetle that she had saved or what was left of its little carcass. Silvery wings and the scattered shell, nothing more than blue glitter and entrails.

Feel free to make any comments. I hold up to scrutiny! I'll post more next week.

Hugs AMC

xxx