Memory
I sit reading the last page of "Society", my mother's book, she does not know that I have it. I only read it when I am in my tree-house.
A clap of thunder surrounds me and I jump.
Oh no, it is raining!
I peer out of the tiny window to see that the blue sky has turned a dark grey.
I have to go, my tree-house is quite far from my house and my mum does not know that it even exists.
I found the tree-house last year while wandering through the woods.
It is nice, quite big and spacious, whoever built it does not use it anymore. It has a bookshelf, a stool, a window and a ladder. I have put in books, snacks, blankets and pillows to make it cozy.
Mum is probably getting worried about where I am!
I snap the book shut and climb down the ladder, I will come back when the rain stops.
The rain is plummeting down hard, I run towards the trees for shelter. My tree-house is in a lone tree in the middle of a meadow, the meadow is surrounded by a forest of trees, through the forest is my house.
The rain is hitting me through the trees, I can see my house but it is far and the storm is getting worse. Wind howls around me. I am scared and I shiver from the cold. I am going back to the tree-house where it is dry and warm and when the storm calms down I will go home and explain to my parents.
I run for the tree-house.
Halfway across the meadow, halfway to my tree-house, pain hits me as I hear another clap of thunder - much louder than before - bright light invades my vision and the pain pulses through my body as I fall to the wet ground. I cannot move, I cannot see, I cannot scream.
But I can feel the rain on my skin, I can hear the thunder around me and I can see the bright lightening behind my lids. I feel my body move suddenly, someone is shaking me.
I force my eyes to open and look into the bright green eyes above me.
"Oh thank God!" the voice says, I just blink. "Are you alright?" I don't answer, I can't, I just stare into the pools of green. "Okay, let's go..." the green eyes move away and the voice seems distant, but now I can see the body.
The person is young - probably a few years older than me, maybe twelve years old - but tall and tan with a hint of muscle. His black hair is shaggy and clings to his face and his clothes are dirty and soaking wet. He comes close again and grabs my hands, pulling me to my feet. I stumble because I cannot feel my legs, or anything body part for that matter. The boy puts his arms around me, supporting me while we walk in the direction of my house, when we reach the forest we stop.
"Oh boy..." the boy mutters under his breath. "Try stand," he tells me and slowly moves away but I sway and next thing I know he has picked me up and is cradling me in his arms.
Maybe he isn't twelve if he can pick me up!
He begins the walk through the forest, his footing perfect on the tiny path I created, not once does he stumble.
"Wh-what happened?" I finally choke out, barely audible.
"Lightening hit you." He tells me, his voice smooth.
I nod, I thought as much...
"But you are okay now, you are almost home, your parents will help you. Try and relax, you body is in shock." He instructs but I can't close my eyes.
I move my arms and wrap them around his neck, "Thank you." I whisper into his ear.
"It's not a problem Princess." He says back just as we reach the other end of the forest, my yard.
"What is my hero's name?" I ask as he gets closer to my house.
"Call me Styne," he flashes a quick smile at me.
There is a loud noise and a scream.
"My baby!" mum screams.
"What happened son?" dad takes me away from my hero even though I didn't want to let go. My hero explains what happened and then dad turns around and walks away. "Go home boy!" he throws over his shoulder.
I cling to dad and watch hero, his green eyes glow and he gives me a small salute, mouths "bye" and blows me a kiss.
The door closes, blocking him out, leaving him in the storm...
I jolt awake in bed, covered in sweat and gasping for air.
It was the same dream again, the one I have been having for a week now.
I rub the scar on my shoulder, apparently I fell off my bicycle when I was younger. I do remember falling off my bicycle but I don't remember hurting myself.
I climb out of bed and begin getting ready for school.
It is my final year, I only have a few months left and then I am off to College in another part of the world.
At breakfast I had to say something.
"Did we always live here?" I ask randomly, pushing my cereal around in my bowl.
"Yes!" dad grunts.
"No..." mum says at the same time. My parents glare at eachother. Dad throws his newspaper down and stalks away.
"She has to be told some time!" she shouts after him before turning back to me.
I stop breathing.
"We used to live on the outskirts of town for awhile. You should remember, it was only about eight or so years ago... We moved here because it was far out and... it started to get a bit dangerous." mum explains but I am too shocked to reply.
I nod and excuse myself from the table. I grab my grab and drive to school in a daze.
I pull into my assigned parking and take a deep breath, my parents have been lying to me for eight years. Aggressively I open my door.
Boof!
"Oh my God!" I jump out of my car and slam the door shut before falling over the body of the person I it. "I am so sorry!" I look over the person. He is tan and very muscular with a bit of stubble on his cheeks, his eyes are closed.
Oh no, I knocked him unconscious!
"Oh God no, no... please," I gently lift the guy's head onto my lap. "Please, please be okay, please." I whisper and his eyes flutter open.
I stop breathing.
Green, very green eyes gaze up at me. I move away as he lift his head and touches his forehead, wincing.
"I am so sorry! Uhm... I didn't see you!" I apologise again.
"My fault. I was checking a scratch on my door..." he chokes out.
"I'm sorry," I squeak, again.
He smiles slowly as he tries to sit up. He cocks his head to the side and his eyes trail over me.
"Uhm... Have we met before?" I ask, feeling a bit silly but he just looks so familiar.
He shrugs and stands up.
"Maybe, maybe not. Why?" he holds his hand out to help me up.
I place my hand in his and this feeling moves through me.
I squint at him; the olive skin, the black hair, the muscles, green eyes...
He resembles the boy from my dreams - an older version.
The bell rings.
"I'm just... I am sure I have seen you somewhere, but I have to go." I haul my bag onto my shoulder. "You should probably put some ice on that bruise." I say as I rush away.
"Bye," I hear him say and I turn around to have a last look at him. "Princess..." He drops his hand from saluting and blows me a kiss.
I stop walking and stare at him, I rush forwards and shove a finger in his face.
"Who are you?" I demand.
"What do you mean? I am me." He shrugs with a chuckle.
I push him hard and he falls back onto the hood of his car.
"Whoa!" his eyes go wide.
"You know what I mean!" I say through clenched teeth, anger flowing through me.
"Okay, okay... You - you obviously don't remember me. I doubted you would," I move away from him, the closeness suddenly feeling nice. "You can call me Harp, everyone does." He straightens himself out.
"I don't know anyone named Harp." I say, pushing a hand into my pocket.
"You wouldn't..." he brushes a hand through his dark hair. "I don't know how to explain." He says, looking into the distance. "Do you trust me?" he asks, looking into my eyes.
"No." I say bluntly, crossing my arms over my chest.
He looks down, "Of course."
My heart rate increases, I do trust him, I can feel it, deep down.
"What if I do?" I say, causing him to look up slowly.
"I'd ask you to come with me. I would show you what I can't explain. Right now, you would be back before school ends." He kicks a stone.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. This could be my only chance at finding out...
"Fine, let's go." I finally say and hitch my bag onto my other shoulder. "But I must be back before school ends." I say sternly and he smiles.
"Yes you will." he rounds his car.
"I hope I don't regret this..." I mumble.
"I hope so too." He says, surprising me. He climbs into the driver side and I slid into the passenger seat.
He drives out of the school parking lot and onto the main road.
"So where are we going?" I ask when we get onto the highway.
"To this place I know. That you know..." he says, concentrating on the road. "Just relax, it is quite far but I swear I'm not going to hurt you or do anything creepy!" he winks at me and I shake my head.
What am I doing?
"So... Harp, what do you do? You obviously aren't in High School..." I say.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he frowns.
"Come on! You aren't in High School, you're like... twenty!" I say, pointing at him.
"Thanks..." he shakes his head and smiles. "I'm studying," he glances at me, "and I'm twenty-one."
I nod and then something occurs to me.
"Then what were you doing at my school?" I turn in my seat and look at him. He doesn't answer me.
"Harp?" He doesn't answer straight away.
"Because... I met this girl and I didn't get her name, I was hoping I would see her there." He finally says. Disappointment washes over me.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Now you are stuck with me." I say bluntly.
If I had just kept my mouth shut and gone to class he would probably be with the girl he was looking for.
"It's alright. I'm sure... I'm sure this will be interesting." he turns off the highway and onto a dirt road.
I look around, we are far from the city. Open fields surround us.
"I... I thought you were going to say you've been stalking me." I say, looking out the window. He doesn't answer me.
The car jumps around as it tries to get over the bumps.We pull up to a log cabin and all the horror scenes flash into my mind.The log cabin is surrounded by lines of trees.
"Where are we?" I ask when we stop.
Harp climbs out of the car and walks around, opening my door for me and ushers me out.
"This is... my house. Welcome," I raise an eyebrow at him as he shuts the door and leads me up towards the cabin.
"Harp, sorry to burst your bubble, but I have no clue where we are and I'm starting to get uncomfortable." I say, standing a metre away from the door to the cabin. Harp turns to me, his face blank.
"No, no. I'm sorry, I'm... okay. We won't go inside, you can leave your bag in the car." He skips back to the car and opens the door. I pass him my bag and jacket and he places them on the seat and locks the car.
"Okay, now I guess I have to explain. Let's walk, you can run away at any moment. Here," he hands me his car keys. "If you do run, you can take my car, just don't... crash it." he smiles and a dimple reveals itself. I roll my eyes and take his keys. He's making me worry about what he is going to tell me.
We start walking through the forest surrounding his cabin.
We start walking through the forest surrounding his cabin.
"I was born here, my mother died while giving birth and my dad became an alcoholic without her. So growing up was horrible. I tried to do what I could to get money, I worked for a neighboring farm. Hard labour, I started when I was eight. I enjoyed it... It made me strong, I could defend myself from my father who got aggressive." He pauses and helps me over a fallen tree. "Basically, I didn't like staying at home. So when I was nine I built myself a tree-house. It wasn't much but that is where I slept. The family I worked for fed me so I didn't need to worry about that." He holds plants out of the way then continues. "When I was eleven my dad killed himself. I found his body in the bedroom of the cabin. So I buried him and had a funeral. I didn't know any other family and we had no friends. I started staying at home again, I still worked for the neighbors and when I was thirteen they lost their daughter who was much older than me, so they moved away. The family that moved in were nice and let me continue working, the wife could not have children so she loved me as her own and started to teach me how to read and write and soon I started living with them and she home schooled me. I loved them like I would my parents, I even called them mom and dad, I loved it there." He stops and I look at him in a totally different light.
His father used to hit him. He cared for himself. He worked hard. He was an orphan...
I have some respect for him now...
"Why have we stopped?" I ask, looking around.
"Through there... You can see the house that the family lived in, it is a beautiful house!" he smiles.
"Do they still live there?" I ask and he nods.
"Yes, they are paying for me to study. They are incredible people! Maybe we can go up later?" He asks me and I shrug, I would actually love to but I'm not going to let him have the satisfaction of knowing that.
"Let's finish first." I say and he nods.
"And over there is my little house." He moves out of the way so that I can see, in the middle of a clearing is an overgrown tree hiding a tree-house.
I gasp and feel faint. I sway and grasp his arm.
"You okay?" he asks, concerned.
I nod, "Yes, I'm fine. Can we go closer?" I ask, he nods and we start to walk towards it.
De ja vu hits me like a ton of bricks and I shake my head slowly.
This is my tree-house... The one from my dreams.
I stare at Harp.
"When I was twelve I came back to my tree-house to find that someone had claimed it, I began watching to find out that a little girl had made it her hide out..." my breath hitches.
"He pushes away branches and leaves, clearing the ladder and motions for me to climb up.
"She would come here every day and then one day she stopped, never came back ever again. And I never even knew her name..."
I reach the small door and stop, I push it open and look inside. The room had a bookshelf filled with books, a pink blanket, five pillows and on the blanket sat "Society" a book well read, the cover worn and cracked.
When I find my voice I look at Harp who is waiting in the middle of the ladder and slowly moves up and joins me.
"What happened to the girl?" I ask, my voice cracking.
The room is too small for the both of us, I'm sitting on the pillows while Harp stays by the door.
"Well, I went by her house some time later to find it empty. I asked my mother about it and she said they'd moved to the city." He looks as me. I carefully pick up the book and open it.
"It's a very good book." He tells me and I nod.
I look out of the window, towards the forest. A roof of a house peeks up above the tree tops. I move and Harp moves down the ladder and I follow, I walk towards the house and he follows me - slowly.
"Did anyone move in after her?" I ask, my voice shaking.
"Not that I know of."
I look around, everything is just like my dream. I look through the forest at the white Victorian-style house.
A tear runs down my cheek. My family kept this from me. The memories. My childhood...
I collapse to the floor, letting the tears flow silently. Harp crouches beside me and put one arm around me.
"Sshh... It's going to be okay." He whispers.
"Did... did it really happen?" I stutter my words as I try breathe. Harp doesn't answer. "You... Me... Here." My voice cracks and I look up at him. "Stayne..." I whisper and touch his cheek, his eyes search mine. "Your name is Stayne, you told me... You saved me. During that storm you... you picked me up and carried me home! You're him!" I say, I remember, not from my dream but from my actual memory. "My dad didn't like you..." I say, thinking about the way he spoke to him. My eyes fill with tears again and this time his do too. His beautiful green eyes are watered with tears.
"I loved watching you. You had such an amazing imagination! You would play with imaginary people and I wanted to play with you but I was scared. I didn't have nice clothes like you did and I was dirty, you wouldn't have wanted to play with me. Then the day of the storm... The new family had already moved in and I had just finished my day's work and came down to watch you when the rain started. I knew you were inside, when the storm worsened I was going to leave but then I saw you run out and I wanted to make sure you got home safely. I watched you stand under the trees and then run back to the tree-house. I turned to leave when the bright light of lightening stuck so close and the noise so loud it scared me out of my skin. I whipped around to see you fall to the floor. I screamed and ran to you, you wouldn't answer me or move. I was so scared I thought you had died! But then I noticed you were breathing so I tried to get you to your house but landed up carrying you. When you spoke... my heart just - it just filled with so much joy that when your father spoke to me like I was a dog I didn't care, you were all that mattered in that moment." He pushes a strand of hair out of my eyes. "When I got back to the cabin that night I found the husband from the farm banging on the door with an umbrella and torch. When I reached him he hugged me and asked me to go home with him, he told me I couldn't stay out here during this alone. That night I vowed to myself that the next time you came to the tree-house I would say hello. But you never came back..." He wipes his cheeks.
"Are they the Harps?" I ask him and he nods.
"They adopted me, legally." He smiles and I smile too, happy for him.
"When I found out you had moved away my whole world shattered, I thought you had died. When my parents explained that you were fine and family just moved to the city, I was happy. When I finally completed school - which I did over seven years - I told my parents I wanted to study in the city so they sent me off and the first thing I did was look your family up. Mom had told me your surname so it wasn't too hard to find. I phoned your house pretending to be the wrong number and you answered the phone and I just knew it was you, I told you I was looking for someone named Alice and you told me I had the wrong number and we hung up." He grins and I vaguely recall the conversation, it must have been two years ago when I was fifteen. "So then one day I followed you to school and tried to convince myself to speak to you but I never knew how so I just watched you until you attacked me today!" I gasp and playfully hit him.
"I did not attack you! And you were stalking me?" I stare at him. "Hmmm... You're not as bad as I thought." I admit and he winks.
I jump up, "How about going to meet your parents now?" I ask, helping him up.
He smiles, "You really want to?" We start walking away from the forest edge and back where we came from.
"You! I want to know who rescued my Hero!" I flutter my eyelashes. He stops and I fear I've said something wrong. "What's wrong?" I stop and look at him.
"Nothing, I just liked what you called me." He blushes.
He's blushing!
"What? Hero?" I grin, "My Hero!" I step closer to him.
"Be careful. Don't come any closer." he warns.
"Or what?" I step closer and closer until I am right in front of him.
"Or this," he winds his arms around my waist and pulls me against him, pressing his lips to mine.
It is the best kiss ever and I swear fireworks went off inside me as goosebumps spread across my skin.
We pull apart.
"You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that!" he tells me and I laugh.
"You amaze me, let's go!" I grab his hand and we walk towards the huge house he calls Home.
No comments:
Post a Comment