The Curious Road: Chapter 3
I stood in the center of a gold and turquoise mist glowing around me inside of the trunk of the tree.
It slid along my skin like a blanket of stars. Through the mist, I could see a lake shimmering pink in the ethereal light. I took another step, and then another. I left the inside of the tree behind me. Waves crashed against the rocks at the edge and I felt the spray from the water soak my simple dress.
“Why did you come here?” The voice whispered gently. It came from the center of the lake.
“I came to save her,” I answered. “Do you have the directions?” I asked the mist.
“You know.”
I didn’t answer. I stepped into the lake. The water glowed like melted gold. The warmth tugged at me, and I took another step into the lake.
The water parted for me like air.
“You hold the cure inside of you. You took it and now you must find it and give it back.” The words splashed at me from the center of the lake.
“I don’t know how to find the cure.” I responded to the depths. “I don’t know how to save her.”
“Come closer.” A splash, then the swirl of the wind whispering over the water.
“I… I can’t come closer. I will drown.”
“Who says you will drown?” Songbirds sang to me from far below the magenta waves.
“No one told me,” I answered the waves. “I just know.”
“You know nothing. You don’t have the directions. You don’t know the color of the rain.” The waves lapped gently against my chest, my throat, then my eyes. They stayed open and I saw through the water as if I looked through air.
I sank into the pool of molten violet, my feet no longer touching the ground. I kicked at the empty space. Below me, the cinnamon owl flew through the water, wings swishing the water toward me.
I felt an invisible hand once again close around mine. It pulled me down. A tail splashed against the surface and the rosy water closed over my head.
The hand pulled me down to the sandy depths, but I didn’t stop breathing. The water swam around me but I didn’t feel it. I felt light, a balloon floating above the world. The waves pushed and pulled me, this way and that.
Below me, a field of white daisies waved and whispered, “You know nothing.”
“I want to know!” I shouted into the void.
“Soooon,” the owl fluttered by me. My feet touched the ground, the sweetly scented flowers brushed my legs. They whispered and pointed to another path, pushing me forward.
Above me, a dragonfly flew up into the copper water and through the waves into another world. I didn’t belong to that world anymore. The memories of the world I left behind unwound around me like bright yellow yarn turning gray with time.
In front of me, I saw a new path. No autumn leaves crunched under my feet. The snowy petals of the flowers covered the aisle. They fluttered as my feet shuffled over them.
“I want to save her,” I said out loud to the sighing wind.
“Yes. You love her. You want her to glow with life as she did before.”
I thought of our home before the illness came and the darkness filled her. She glowed bright and green like new spring leaves. Her life colored the world gold, an angelic aura surrounding her. I watched the sickness cover her and the light dimmed. Death reached for her with blood stained hands. I saw her lying limp, waiting for the dark fingers to pull her away. The space in between moaned with the absence of her.
“Yes,” I replied. “As before.”
I heard the nod, a sigh of a butterfly’s wings. “Now you found the path, the directions hide here.”