A Metaphysical, visionary, fantasy, adventure:
“Open up, Hannah,” Beru urged me as we ran. “Accept the help that is being offered to you. Breathe it in.”
I was panting so hard I had no breath to ask her what she meant by help. I was nearing my last ounce of energy, and neither Beru nor Ruta seemed tired at all. They definitely knew something I didn’t know.
“You don’t know what I am talking about?” Beru asked.
Up ahead I heard Ruta snort in derision. He was right. I was more than useless. I shook my head. No, I didn’t know what they were talking about.
“Feel it, Hannah, just as you did before you came here. Feel the forest. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Feel what they have to give you. Reach out. Let them in.” Then Beru, sweet little Beru with the beautiful face, yelled at me, “Do it. Do it now!”
I gasped in surprise and felt a bolt of energy rush in. I was no longer running on my own. I was moving with the forest, not through it.
I don’t know how long we ran. I lost all sense of time and surroundings. The forest around me blurred into a tunnel of green that flowed back the way we had come. In front of me, I could see Ruta moving, no, gliding, almost as if he wasn’t moving his legs at all. Behind me, I could feel Beru’s eyes effortlessly pushing me forward. There was no need for her to run forward and back to check on me. The three of us moved as one. It was glorious. I wanted it to last forever.
How much time passed I don’t know, and although I had no idea where we were, I could tell that we were moving upward.
Eventually, the world slowed down as we stopped running and began to walk instead. We were on a path. Not one created by Ruta moving through the woods, clearing the way. This path was like many of the trails my dad and I used to hike together in the mountains near our home. If I wasn’t walking with Ruta and Beru, I might have thought I was home again.
That notion was blasted from my mind as we crested a hill, and I saw what appeared to be a castle. Not what I expected at all. On the other hand, what was I expecting? If I was truthful with myself, I was hoping we were going to see Suzanne’s people, the Forest Circle, and I said as much to Ruta and Beru.
“Shh…,” hissed Ruta. “Are you crazy?”
At first, I was dumbstruck to hear Ruta say more than one word. Maybe he didn’t often talk because his voice did not match his appearance. Unless he was hollow, because that’s what he sounded like: a hollow stump.
When his block face darkened, I realized he could probably read my mind, and I was in trouble. What had happened to me? I didn’t usually think things like that about people. Or did I and I hadn’t noticed? My whole world was flipping upside down.
Read Shatterskin, the first book in The Return To Erda , and fall in love with these characters that choose friendship, goodness, and faith in each other in order to defeat evil.
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BECA LEWIS coaches, teaches, writes blogs and books, plays with art, and is addicted to reading. She lives in Ohio with her husband and has kids and grandkids scattered across the country.
