She lifted her head. Bracing cold, the sound of rushing water, the delicate crispness of brittle leaves under her fingertips — the second or two upon waking felt like an eternity as her brain took in the novel stimulus of unfamiliar surroundings.
Next came barrage of questions, all at once:
How did I get here?
Where am I?
How long have I been here?
Where is Scarlett?
She turned her head to look the other way, scanned the woods for movement, for a potential threat. Seeing none, she pushed the heels of her hands into the bed of leaves below her. The small, fragile sound they made as they sank into the soft earth below thundered in her ears and set her already racing heart even faster. She slowed. Breathed. Pushed. Heard the snap of a twig beneath her. Felt her body struggle to process a fresh dose of cortisol.
Slowly, cautiously, she pushed herself all the way to sitting. Assessment: she still had all of her belongings. The necklace her mother had given her. Her boots. Her winter cloak, still affixed around her shoulders, with the silver pieces she had placed in the pocket earlier that day. No pain, except maybe a slight crick in her neck.
She looked around again. A part of the forest she didn’t recognize, but plant life that she did. She couldn’t be that far from town. It was still daylight, maybe late afternoon. No signs that anyone was here with her, or that anyone had been.
Scarlett
She shook her head and tried to pinpoint the last thing she could remember. Breakfast that morning, getting ready and leaving the house. Heading toward the market. Scarlett had been with her the whole time. They were walking along the path toward town. It was cold, but still a gorgeous day, and she had felt light. They were laughing. She held the image of Scarlett’s smile in her mind for an extra moment — wide, joyful. The wind had reddened her cheeks and whipped a tress of auburn hair across her face, across that smile. Why couldn’t she remember anything after that?
The sound of the river snaked into her awareness and brought her back. A quiet rushing to her left. She could follow it back to town.
She braced the earth beneath her as she pushed to standing — first palms, then fingertips, and then she drew herself to standing. She scanned the woods around her again — nothing. With renewed purpose, she started a slow walk toward the sound of the river. She moved in silence, kept to the trees. She felt determination, and a little bit of hope. A cold wind blew, in breezes and in gusts. She kept on walking.
The brittle leaves she left behind rustled and skittered across the forest floor. They blew up against tree trunks and rolled through the air. They obscured the place where she had lain, and covered a coin that had fallen from the pocket of her cloak. The wind settled, and so did they, in new and impermanent landscapes which unearthed the tips of three fingers (little, ring, middle), the worn toe of a winter boot, a lock of red hair.
The visitor was long gone and would never return. For a moment, the forest missed its brief audience, the feel of a heartbeat in its midst. Nonetheless, the leaves and the wind continued their dance, and the seasons and the elements continued theirs. None of them paid any mind to the newcomer, whom they accepted unconditionally, as if she had always been there. And the more that time passed, and the visitor and the day and the circumstances faded from the forest’s memory, it truly felt as if she always had been.
submitted by /u/herlipssaidno
[link] [comments]