this day's word goal accomplished with 1680 words! yesterday however was a 900 word day so i have to write still 1700 words to complete what i didn't yesterday. i just wrote a very interesting scene involving trolls, but you won't be able to read that until later. i'm still waiting eagerly for your comments! i'd love to have constructive criticism, so please, inform me of my mistakes and wrongs. i hope you'll be able to comment because someone have said the comment box isn't working. prove it is and please comment, and if it isn't, email me (veronica.ahonen@espoo.opit.fi).
nyt kakkoslukuun / chapter two!
Chapter Two
"Wake up, Hilary, wake up..."
Awkward. I think I could hear birds singing. And feel the wind caressing my cheeks. Ashley's voice still rang through my ears, but since when had the school toilets sounded like a zoo? And since when had Ashley's voice been so caressing, so benevolent...
My eyes fluttered open and I let out a slimy cough. I felt like I could spit blood. I had just hit my head badly. Seriously badly. How much blood had I lost? Had Ashley...
Wait a sec. That wasn't Ashley.
The woman caressing my hair had long, scarred fingers, not anything like the baby hands Ashley got by using that smelly lemon cream every single lesson. Ashley's hair had changed into a dark, ashy blonde from the usual auburn she had. Her freckles were gone. The most peculiar detail in her were her eyes. They were azure like the sky, so blue I thought I could see clouds hovering within them.
"Wake up, Hilary," she called to me. Point. Just like Ashley had been calling me a sec ago. But this woman definitely wasn't Ashley.
"Gott in Himmel!" I cussed, leaping up so fast my motion was just a blur. "Who the hell are you? How do you know my name?"
She smiled; a wise, welcoming smile. "I've always known you, Hilary."
"Are you my conscience?"
She laughed. Her laughter was like the chirping of birds – just like I had been hearing inside my head just a while ago. "My name is Aurora Ketan. I am your guardian."
"What the hell?"
"You have hurt your head. It might confuse you at first."
I shook my head incredulously, taking a quick look around. This certainly wasn't the girls' bathroom. It was a wheat field - or, to be more accurate, the field was around us. Aurora was sitting in the middle of some sort of glade, her feet crossed under her silvery, fluttery dress.
"The hell it does! After experiencing a majorly awkward lesbian experience with my nemesis and hitting my head into the toilet, I seriously am not okay with me suddenly popping in the middle of some forsaken wheat field! Instead of your puny riddles you could maybe try being explicit at once. Explain me carefully," I paused, noticing I could merely catch my breath, "Word by word what's happened."
Aurora smiled, stood up and looked up at the sun. It didn't seem to bother her eyes, as if she was some sort of übermensch. In the bright light her pale skin shone in different colors, almost like scars running down her skin – little scars all around. I glared at the way she was dressed. She wore this long, silvery robe looking a little like a Greek tunic: it had only one shoulder strap and reached down to her toes. Around her neck dangled a short silver pendant with a swirly gemstone. Looking at it made me feel dizzy, like I was staring at the eye of a hurricane.
"This is Kaiya," she began, brushing her shiny hair beneath her ear. There were three rings decorating her right hand - one in her thumb, one in her index finger and one to her ring finger. "A parallel dimension to Earth you have crossed the veil to."
I knew I should have had a serious freak out, but I didn't. I only thought about the name, savoring it on my tongue and tasting the different dimension to it. Kaiya, I thought, being pleased by the name. It sounded like Gaia. The Earth.
Aurora rose up gracefully, slowly turning her back on me and taking steps away, towards the field. I looked back and I could see a forest: it was dark and old, almost haunting. I knew I had to follow her, as idiotic as it seemed.
The sharp wheat cut through my stockings, scratching my pale skin. It was a clear autumn day, like on Earth. Aurora walked towards the slowly setting sun, her silhouette fluttering in the wind. The wind sounded different there. It was almost like whispering. If I would whisk my hands through the air it would be like cutting it. My breath whirled around me, almost material. Was I a spirit? I could still feel my limbs. No. Yet the world around me felt somehow hazy, untouchable.
“This isn’t happening all in my head, is it?”
Aurora didn’t answer instantly. She continued her walk, like she knew exactly where we were heading. “No.”
I snickered incredulously. “Seriously? So, this isn't like my spirit fluttering in another dimension while my body lay unconscious on the bathroom floor and Ashley-the-bitch keeps weeping on my face?"
This time Aurora came to a stop and turned to my direction. Her azure eyes bored onto mine. "No, it is not. It's real, Hilary, as real as your heart and your soul."
I don’t know why, but her words made me want to cry.
My thighs were burning as the wheat field came to an end and the forest swallowed us. There was no path, but Aurora knew the way. In the shadows of the woods the light scattered unevenly and revealed me light within light. I hadn’t been imagining when I had thought there was something awkward about Aurora. She was followed by tiny wisps of wind, like she was wearing an invisible cape which flashed only when hit by sunlight. I had to rub my eyes to believe I was actually seeing it. These wisps, what the hell they were, seemed to guide her way. I had to be hallucinating. I was suffering severe brain damage.
Keeping up with Aurora became harder and harder by every second as she strode through the woods. An unknown weakness hit me. As if I was having trouble managing a short walk in the woods though I was way taller than her and actually wore real combat boots instead of her… she didn’t even have any shoes! Was it about the wisp-things around her?
It had to be. It was the place.
“Aurora Ketan!” I shot my words at her so sharp she slowed down and I managed to keep up with her. I corrected my voice and tried to sound as grown-up as I could. But she only looked at me like I was a petulant child craving for more ice-cream.
“Don’t give me that look! Like I should keep up with you striding at that speed. You know this place, I don’t. This is Kaiya, isn’t it? What’s the purpose of this place? Why are you dragging me around like this? And what’s up with the weird “no shoes-no worries”-attitude? And what the hell is a guardian?”
Aurora’s laugh rang in my head as I looked through her amused eyes. But it was no glee. It was hard to believe, but I had just met her and already knew she was the most honest person I knew and would ever know. “Kaiya is a parallel dimension to Earth. It is the soul of your world. What happens there depends on the balance of our world. The instant moment balance shifted I knew you were coming. I have always known you.”
Then she paused and her laugh materialized, her ageless features spread into a smile. I couldn’t tell her age, but she looked motherly, like the age my mamma used to be. Then she gave me a quick, evaluative look. “It amuses me the way you earthlings dress.”
Groβartig. She was still as indefinite as she used to be. Natürlich.
“We guardians have instincts of things you earthlings do not. How else could I have known it was you? Of course I sensed your draw. It came strong to me.”
“Wait a sec. You’re saying you have supernatural senses? Like you… you know, felt me coming?”
“It was your draw, Hilary.”
“My what?”
“Draw,” she repeated joyously. “Every guardian senses the draw of their element in their earthlings. That is how we form our councils. We measure the strength of their draw, but not simply it. What a council member requires is wisdom, a sense of responsibility, and above all things, benevolence.”
“Draw,” she repeated joyously. “Every guardian senses the draw of their element in their earthlings. That is how we form our councils. We measure the strength of their draw, but not simply it. What a council member requires is wisdom, a sense of responsibility, and above all things, benevolence.”
As she spoke I noticed she flashed the rings on her hand, starting from the one on her ring finger. From the way she spoke and acted I should’ve known Aurora was a person of power. Yet I continued to blurt out things I shouldn’t have.
“That has to be bullshit. Like I would be the source of an element!”
Her tone was disciplined as she spoke her next words – the words which cleared it all up for me. “I am the guardian of wind, Hilary. I know.”
The wisps around her danced in joy as we treaded our last steps and broached the woodland boundaries. A setting sun painted her shiny hair with an ashy silver. It was the cawing of the crows which attracted my attention.
“I have a draw for wind? But that’s just-“
My speech came to an abrupt stop as I identified the source of the croaking. One of them flew over my head. Actually, more than one. They had been waiting for her. The sight was out of this world – or actually – out of my world. But I saw no more than a silhouette when my subconscious already threw pictures at my eyes. I recognized them immediately.
And with a single raven’s cry my forgotten dreams came back to me.
I had entered my nightmare.
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