Special Request of a Dear Friend…
Love you Mary…
The garden yawned awake. The sun peaked through the tree fort’s clunky outer shell. Beatrice stretched her hands above her head reaching the tips of her fingers until one of them touched the coarse wood. Her eyes widened. She sat straight so quickly her head had to swim through some turbulence to equilibrium.
The small child blinked her eyes, rubbing them with the back of her hands as if it might help her to appear back inside the house. Mother will be so upset! She thought, crawling toward the small opening leading to the rope stairs. She reminded herself to be careful of her steps. It was a long way down. And the last thing she needed was to give her mother good reason to be upset or think her unable to have overnight camp trips in the garden.
Beatrice made a face as she concentrated on finding each step with her whole foot until she came to the ground. She scampered back to the sliding glass door under the upper balcony and slide through the small opening she had created. She closed the door shut and tiptoed over the deep carpet. It was warm but only just soft enough to mask the unforgiving carpet beneath. She flinched her eyes as she remembered tumbling down the stairs, expecting the final blow to be soft with the plush carpet, but it wasn’t. It was deceptively unforgiving. She frowned.
She made her way back to the bed, taking a deep breath in as if it might make her lighter and more soundless as she climbed onto the mattress. It didn’t squeak, thankfully. Beatrice released her breath and looked up at the dark ceiling.
How about that strange dream? She wondered, thinking over the rapidly fading details. Retaining only the eyes full of fire, and water, and… Beatrice wrinkled her nose, as the image of the person… creature… ghost? disappeared from her memory. As if her thinking of it had made it magically cease to exist.
She shrugged. Her eyes suddenly tired she fell asleep breathing in the fresh scent of the garden still stuck to her hair. Beatrice drifted into sleep, part of her hoping to meet again the phantom who’d woken her in the first place. She slept so deep she didn’t wake to the heavy footsteps echoing over her head as the rest of the house came to life.
>>—–—>
To be continued…
To donate to this project please click on the link below: