I think I’m dead. Am I on clouds? The ground below me is soft and warm and there’s a light shining in my eyes. Is it God? Christians always describe him as bright and warm. Maybe it is.
I crack my eyes open and see a brilliant blue sky with white, puffy clouds dotted about. The sun is just going behind as a warm breeze passes by. I slowly sit up and place a hand on my ribs, expecting them to feel sore or painful.
But they don’t. “Of course they don’t,” I tell myself. “You can’t feel pain in heaven.” I look around and lose my breath at what I see.
I’m in the greenest forest I’ve ever seen. The trees are lush and full of leaves with thick trunks and many branches. The grass below me is extremely soft and just as green as the leaves overhead. There are white daisies and blue cornflowers in a circle around me. That’s… odd and mildly disconcerting. I place a hand on my knee and push myself to my feet.
I look around and run a hand through my hair. Then I realize something. My clothes are filthy. My black leggings are torn at the knees, my gray shirt is covered in mud and my red flannel shirt has a sleeve torn off. My beanie is long gone along with my shoes, making my toes sink into the soft, warm soil.
All of a sudden, I hear footsteps and soft singing approaching the clearing I’m in. I tense up. Is it God here to judge me? Will I go to heaven or hell? I'd hope heaven, I was a good person my entire life.
If it is God, they’re a lot shorter than I imagined. Though I guess they could take the form of whoever they wanted.
The young girl stops in her tracks feet from the circle of flowers. I stare at her and she stares back. She looks far too young to be God. She looks eight at the most. But she is beautiful with brown hair going to her waist and light brown skin and wide green eyes. She’s wearing a short light brown dress stopping above her knees with a brown vest over it. Her feet are also bare. In her arms she is carrying more daisies and cornflowers.
“Hello?” I say after a moment of us looking at each other. “Where am I?”
The girl breaks into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen someone make. “It’s you! I knew you’d come back!”
“What?” I ask, confusion building. “No, I’ve never been… well here before.” I spread my arms out helplessly. “Kid, I don’t know where I am.”
The girl’s smile fades and she tilts her head. “You… don’t?”
I shake my head. “No. Where am I?”
She steps towards me and lies the flowers at my feet before looking up at me. She only reaches my ribs. “You’re in the western woods of Nessaver,” she explains like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
When she utters the final word, I get an odd feeling. I’ve heard that name somewhere before. It gives me a feeling of deja vu, and a faraway memory of children laughing and rustling woods gives me chills. “I’ve heard that name before.”
“Of course you have. You used to live here.”
Then I laugh. “No, I have not.”
The girl looks hurt and she frowns. “What is your name?”
“Robin,” I tell her.
“Come with me, Robin.” The girl grabs my hand and pulls me away in the direction she came from. I don’t bother to struggle because, for such a small girl, her grip is like iron.
She leads me away from the clearing to a dirt path that looks well-worn but also well-kept. The dirt is warm under my feet and as the girl leads me, I look around. I’ve never seen a forest this lush and green before, even on the many hikes I’ve been on. There are small rocks and I try to avoid them but the girl walks on them without a single care. I heard birds and the faint rush of water. If this is heaven then it’s beautiful.
The rush of water begins to get louder the longer we walk. I’ve tried asking her where we’re going but she never answered so I kept my mouth shut. We reach a wooden bridge and cross, our footsteps echoing. I look over the railing and see that we’re crossing over a stream. I see some fish swimming in it and they look weird. A little like koi, but with multicolored scales. Like the rainbow fish from those books you used to read in elementary school!
The girl tugs on my arm again and I continue walking. It doesn’t take much longer before we reach a magnificent archway made by two trees intertwined together. We walk under and reach a large clearing protected by a blanket of leaves overhead, casting a green glow over the village.
My breath is taken away. There are wooden homes placed closely together. However, it doesn’t feel cramped. It feels cozy and inviting as the girl and I walk along the same dirt path and pass the homes. There are women cooking inside their homes and children playing together. I can’t shake the same deja vu feeling I had earlier.
“Where are we?” I ask once more. I need an answer.
“I told you,” the girl says. “You’re in the western woods of Nessaver.”
I get a chill, but there’s no breeze. “No. What town is this?”
“Springoak.”
I stop walking, thoughts and memories rushing back into my mind. They’re only snippets, however. A girl and a boy playing hide-and-seek in the woods. Splashing in the stream. Lying in clearings and braiding flowers into someone’s hair while they’re humming. Being told stories by a fire and getting tucked into a big wooden bed with a stuffed wolf plush and fur blankets from a faraway land. Traveling out of the forest and to--
“Robin, come on.” The girl pulls on my arm and I have no choice but to follow her. We walk to the end of town and to a house much larger than any of the others. It’s got open windows with a warm yellow light emitting from them and a sweet smell that brings back memories of apple pies and cakes. It makes me smile. “This is my house,” the girl says and opens the door. I step inside.
I see the girl skip into a side room and I just stand in the hallway, looking around. The entire house seems to be made of wood. The floors are smooth and the walls look like they were from a tree itself with some notches and holes for books or trinkets. The hallway splits off into either a room or down a little more. I take a few steps and peer into the room the girl went into.
She’s talking to an older woman looking a lot like her. It must be her mother. She has long brown hair in two braids going down her back and she’s wearing a long white dress and olive green apron. She looks at me and her eyes widen.
“So the stories were true,” the woman whispers, stepping towards me. “You have come back.” There are tears in her eyes.
I swallow. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is Robin. I don’t understand how I got here.”
The woman, now standing in front of me, takes my hand and holds it. “Are you hungry, dear?”
Faintly, I recall someone like her. This woman does not strike me as scary or threatening. Nothing here has seemed that way yet. “Yeah, I am.”
“Come, have a seat.” She leads me to a chair and I sit down. The girl is gone and it’s only me and the woman. “You said your name is Robin, yes?”
I nod and watch her as she pulls out some bread from a cabinet. “Yeah.”
“What’s your last name?”
“Katar,” I answer. She places a plate of bread and a green apple in front of me and I take a bite of the bread. It’s warm. “What’s your name?”
“Terra,” she says, sitting across from me. “That girl whom you met was my niece, Ginger.”
I smile. “She seems very nice. But a little bossy.”
Terra laughs and nods. “She gets that from her mother, Goddess rest her soul.”
I get a sad feeling in my chest and reach out to Terra. “I’m sorry. Did she pass?”
She nods. “Yes, several years ago when Ginger was just a baby.” Terra wipes her cheek and I realize that she was crying. She says nothing for a moment and I don’t know what to say so I take a bite of the bread. Then Terra says, “So you don’t know how you got here?”
I shake my head. “No. One moment I was falling off of a cliff the next I was laying in a patch of flowers.”
“What kind?” Terra wonders.
“Daisies and blue cornflowers, I think,” I answer. “Am I dead?”
“Do you feel dead?”
“No,” I reply hesitantly. “But isn’t that the point of dying? To not feel pain anymore.”
Terra shrugs and continues. “You’re not dead, my dear. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
I place the bread down on my plate and tilt my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“My dear,” she begins. “I’m afraid that when you fell from that cliff, you were transported to this world. Our world, called Nessavar. I am not sure how, but I know why.”
“Why?” I ask, now sitting on the edge of my seat.
Terra just smiles and shakes her head. “I’m afraid I cannot tell you that, my dear. You will have to figure that out yourself.”
My heart plummets. Am I the protagonist of some epic fantasy story or something? “How will I do that?”
Terra stands up. “I’d recommend you go to the town elder. He will know you and he will help set you off on your journey. However, I’m afraid he is not here at the moment. He went off on a trip to a neighboring village to be with his granddaughter’s wedding. He will return tomorrow at dawn.”
“So I can see him then?”
She nods. “In the meantime, I invite you to stay with us until tomorrow morning. This house was my mother’s, so it has plenty of room.”
“Thank you.” I smile. “That’s very kind.”
“It’s nothing, dear,” Terra says. “It’s my pleasure to help someone in need.”
I can’t help but smile and stand. “Well, let me help around the house then. Or the village, maybe?”
Terra raises a brow and looks me up and down. “How about we give you a bath first?”
I blush and look down at myself. I am rather filthy, though I’m not quite sure how that happened. “Right. Yeah, that would probably be best…”
Terra laughs and leads me to a bathroom. She begins to draw some warm water. “I hope you can bathe yourself?”
I nod quickly. “Yeah, of course.” It would be super awkward if I had a grown lady bathe me, an also grown woman.
Terra smiles. “I hoped so. There are towels and rags over in the closet over here, and use any of the products you’d like. They’re all natural, of course.”
“Thank you so much,” I say again and give Terra a hug.
She wraps her arms around me and says, “It’s no trouble, dear.” She pulls away and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Now, go get cleaned up.”
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