We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what to do next. While Ulula thought I was a little insane going after whoever had taken Meera, she understood and agreed there was no real choice for me. Of course I would have to find her.
In the end we didn't come up with anything. It was impossible. We didn't have any leads. The only thing we did have was the small silver key I had found in the fireplace. None of us knew what it opened. None of us knew where it had come from. It might have been in the house when Meera moved in, or she might have picked it up working in the town. Probably with what ever it opened. Rosa mused that maybe she had burned what ever it opened, and that would explain why the key was in the ashes. Or partly burned, since something had been dragged out of the fireplace. Or maybe she had hidden the key there. Or maybe something completely different. There was no way to know even if the key was relevant to anything, and if it was, what it meant.
We didn't know what to do next. I was itching to get out of the house, to go after her. The only problem was we didn't have any idea where "after her" was. There was nowhere to follow, only to wander aimlessly in the hopes that I happened to run into where ever she was. And given the size of the world, that wasn't very likely. If we only knew something about who had taken her, we might know where to look. Or even narrow the area down from simply anywhere.
"If you don't now where to go, head east," Ulula said. I stared at her for a moment, not really understanding what she was saying, until she continued: "That's something my mother used to say," she explained with a wise-old-woman-smile across her face, "She said she'd always lived by that rule, and everything worked out perfectly for her. Or course I don't know what would have happened had she gone some other way. Maybe everything would have gone perfect going west just as well."
"I don't think that's going to help me much," I muttered and put my head down on the table.
We let the issue drop and went to bed early. It took me forever to fall asleep.
~x~
I am running after N in a dark forest. Or rather, the world around the forest is dark. The forest itself is alive with light, the trees, ferns, and mosses glowing faintly around me, the light fusing together to make the forest bright. The sight is breathtakingly beautiful, I think, but I'm in too much of a hurry, trying to keep up with the fox flying in front of me with a speed that makes me absently wonder how I'm keeping up with it at all.
The pennafox brakes into a small clearing and I go after her. She flutters around for a moment, slows down, and lands in the middle of the clearing. I recognize it as the same one I woke up in. It's snowing slightly. I look back and see I hadn't left any footprints in the snow. I walk to the fox and pick her up, carefully. She growls. I'm startled and almost drop her, before I realise she isn't growling at me. I hear a faint sound coming from the forest. From all around me in the forest. Like someone walking towards me, very quietly, so the only sound they make is the shuffle of the fabric as they move. The sound is coming from all around me.
Hooded figures appear from the woods, illuminated from behind by the glowing forest. I feel small, and helpless. The pennafox in my arms growls louder and kicks her way away from me. She's circling me slowly, growling at the hooded figures around me. She's trying to protect me. But I know it won't help. She won't be able to defend me, not against them. No one can protect me against them.
A shout comes from the forest. From somewhere far away, like it's echoing. But I know it can't be from far away. It doesn't echo in a forest like this. You need a more open space. I recognise the voice, even though I've never heard it before. So does N. She leaps into air, still growling, and disappears into the forest in the direction where the shout came from. Probably. It is so hard to tell.
I slump to my knees. There is nothing I can do. About anything. Complete hopelessness takes me. I stare at the hooded figures around me, then lower my face.
There is nothing left of the world.
I fall. It becomes dark all around me. I hear the growl of the pennafox somewhere, at the edge of my hearing. Everything fades away.
My eyes snapped open. It was too hot under the blanket. I dug my arms out from underneath it, and the cool air of the cabin greeted my skin. A part of me wanted to pull the arms back in, to curl up into a ball and just wait motionless until it was all over. I didn't know what the all was I wanted to be over. I hated nightmares. I rolled over and tried to fall back asleep, but the images were too vivid in my mind. I rolled from side to side, staying still for only short times, then rolling again, restless. I tried to empty my head, but it was impossible.
I was too overwhelmed. It was all too much. I got up and dressed quietly, as if to not wake anyone up, even though Rosa was sleeping with Ulula in the other room now that I was here. I had to get out. For just a moment. To clear my head. I glanced at N, curled up by the chimney on top of the fire place. A part of me wanted to touch her slightly, to wake her up and take her with me, but an even bigger part of me wanted to be alone. So I left the room, silently pulling the door closed behind me.
It was snowing lightly, though it hadn't been for long. Our footsteps from last night were still clearly visible, hardly covered at all. I started walking slowly, going nowhere, my hands tucked into my coat pockets and breath steaming in the air.
It was colder than the night before. I wasn't wearing quite enough to keep warm in a temperature like this, unless I walked fast. And I didn't want to walk fast. I hadn't come out to walk. I had come out to clear my head, and there was nothing else to do while doing that than walk, unless you wanted to freeze. The sky was clear, the two near-full moons and millions of stars bright in the dark sky.
I walked a little way, then heard the voice of running water. Not a big running water. A small enough that I was surprised to hear it still running. Maybe it hadn't been cold for long. I jumped off the road I had been walking and headed towards the sound. It was a small creek, maybe as wide as I was tall. I turned left and followed its way downstream. I made a note to turn back before I was too cold. I had to walk all the way back.
I thought about everything. Luckily, I could still do that, everything for me being a little over a day. Still it seemed like too much. And too little, at the same time. It seemed too much, because I didn't know anything, and everything that happened only made things more confusing, more messed up.
And the more happened, the more I could feel the helplessness that came from not knowing anything. I still didn't know where I was, not really. I knew there was a town. I knew there was a small house, where an incredibly sweet and helpful woman lived with her granddaughter. I knew there was a slightly bigger house, where a girl who called herself Meera had lived. A girl who called herself Meera, because she didn't know who she was either. I knew people had liked her.
No. That people did like her, I corrected myself.
I knew she was a person who stood up for others. I knew she may or may not have some powers, depending on whether the town was the kind of superstitious one to come up with things like that from almost nothing or not. I guessed she was stronger than she looked, the very least. I knew she was a good waitress. I knew what she looked like. I knew she had tamed a pennafox in her short time here...
I knew more about her than I knew about me. I knew so little about myself it made me feel hollow. Unreal. Like I had been shattered into small pieces, and I didn't know where to find even the first one of them in this world that was unfamiliar to me. A world, where I didn't know anyone. Where I was all alone.
I tried to reach inside me, to grasp at any of the pieces that had once been me. But there was nothing there. Maybe there would never be.
Maybe that's okay, a small part of me told me, trying to make me feel better. Maybe now, instead of being no one, you can be anyone you want.
I don't know who I want to be, I told that part of me.
It's okay, it told me. You don't have to know that right now. You have all the time in the world to figure it out.
I didn't know what to think about that. I was starting to get cold, so I stopped and turned around, following my own footsteps back along the side of the calmly but happily running creek. As I walked I watched how the snowflakes dropping into the creek disappeared, melting and getting sucked into the steady stream of so many drops like them.
I had come farther than I thought, and was pretty cold once I got back to the cottage. Even so, I felt a little bit better than I had before I left. I still felt hollow, and broken, and lost, that hadn't gone anywhere, but it was a less panicky feeling now, less urgent, and more calm, more a longing ache. The kind of feeling I knew wouldn't go away. Panic might. The way I was feeling now wouldn't. But it wasn't quite as overpowering as the panic that could freeze me where I stood.
I slipped out of my clothes again, and only now noticed how cold my skin had gotten. I slipped under the blanket and pulled it tightly around me and tucked all the sides under myself, so no cool air got in. The fireplace was right next to the bed, and was radiating heat pleasantly. Soon I was warn enough to sleep again.
_____________________________________________________
So I was supposed to study ecology today, but instead I did this. Also I have already had two exams in the last week, and they were both super easy even though the other one was supposed to be super difficult, so I'm a little too high in my self-confidence right now, imagining I know the stuff and will be fine without studying. Which I know is not true, but I'm having trouble sticking to that knowledge in front of what seems to be evidence I'll be fine.
Anyway.
A topic for you for tomorrow.
Damn. This is the hardest part. It doesn't help I don't remember too well what we've already used in the last two years. Ummmm....
Rooms.
Good. Ok.
~matu
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