by K. G. Duncan
The two girls watched as the troop slowly merged into the trees and the hanging Spanish moss of the bayou. Their clamor slowly faded.
“No blue-bellied lizard dance for them,” Olivia muttered, slowly shaking her head.
“Afraid not,” Abby agreed as they watched the hikers disappear. “Hey!” She slapped Olivia on the back. “That gives me an idea. I think we’re ready for this.” She grabbed Olivia’s shirt and pulled her friend along the path. “There’s a fork in the trail right up ahead.”
She jogged down the path and came to a stop in front of a halfway submerged tupelo tree. There was a small lake beyond it, and the trail split left and right bordered by nettles and river rushes and more cypress trees.
Abby smiled at Olivia before pointing with her hand, “The trail forks here and goes all the way around the lake. Now, you go left, and I’ll go right. We’ll meet on the other side of the lake mid-way… there’s an old stone bench there looking out over the water. It’s under the biggest oak tree you’ve ever seen. You can’t miss it.” She turned back at Olivia and leered like the devil.
“Here’s the catch, though,” she said, eyebrows dancing. “Along the way, see what you can find to disguise yourself. Anything goes. No limitations. We will meet on the other side in nature’s costume. You up for that?”
“Sure thing,” Olivia replied, grinning. “How long we got to make our costumes?”
“It’s only about a five-minute walk to go all around the lake, Abby said. “But I’ll give you an extra ten minutes for foraging and preparation.”
Olivia rubbed her hands together. “Ooh, I got the state-of mind-kind of solitude and sensibilities, now. There is no way you will ever guess what I will become!”
Abby high-fived her and grinned. “Fifteen minutes,” she said. “See you on the other side.”
But Olivia was already gone, darting down the path to the left. Abby laughed then peeled off to the right. She was walking quickly, surveying the land left and right. She found a clump of horse-feather nettles and plucked two, sticking them in her hair like two antennae ears. She was humming to herself, and found her mind was just racing with a million different thoughts. Her sense of solitude was filled with a clamor of different things, so she breathed deeply and tried to empty her mind.
She kept walking but found her search for costuming accessories was distracted. Her mind was still occupied by thoughts of her hidden abilities. She very much wanted—no, she needed to tell Olivia everything. Soon. Everything.
She picked up her pace and was now half jogging along the trail. She was feeling electric and full of energy, her mind still racing, fueling her along. She found herself thinking about Dancine Willoughby and her “tumor.” The thought of Olivia’s snorting analysis of that whole situation brought a smile to her lips. It actually made her think more deeply about the behavior of her mother and the other ladies. She doubted any of them ever knew the benefits of state-of-the-mind solitude. Here, all by herself in the bayou, Abby thought that the trees and the blue-bellied lizard tended to be more honest than most people. Abby had returned to her earlier observations: Folks are nosy by nature, and even though most human neighbors seem to highly value their own sense of privacy and their peculiar territorial claims, this is quickly forgotten when it comes to the business and scandalous affairs of others.
Abby was always taught to follow the Golden Rule, but it seemed to her that folks found it easier to follow this rule when it was others who were doing it unto them rather than when it was them who were doing it unto others. Now, most folks didn’t seem too keen to acknowledge the obvious double-standard of this position, but for Abby, and those like her who found themselves living in the remote countryside, where neighbors, by design, tended to be few and far between, well, they seemed to understand this and respect it more than most. You mind your business, and I’ll mind mine. And when there aren’t a lot of other folks around, well it’s a lot easier to follow this advice.
This is particularly true if you have a habit of changing into a dragon. Abby giggled to herself as she raced along. No sir, she thought to herself. You don’t want folks coming around when you are making the change.
The dragon inside of Abby rumbled in agreement.
Abby came to a sudden stop along the path. Unaware that she had picked up her pace, she found herself standing by the old stone bench. It sat, slightly tilted, beneath a very large oak tree. The limbs of the oak were gnarled and massive, and they spread out above her. She gazed up at them and found herself feeling some butterflies inside of her belly. As she looked up into the leaves of the tree, her vision began to blur slightly. It began as a fuzzy distortion that moved from the right of her peripheral vision and across her line of sight. It looked like a force field of energy, a sort of blotchiness, like the air itself were made of plastic bubble wrap that was expanding and contracting, distorting shapes and colors.
Like the whole world is breathing.
The dragon voice rippled up from somewhere inside of her. Abby drew in her breath sharply. These physical and visual sensations were a sign that the dragon change was imminent. She looked down at her fingertips but could not see any scaling or feel any itching. She looked up at sunlight coming down through the oak tree, and it was dancing, full of color and different intensities of light. The limbs of the tree seemed to merge and melt together, then the leaves themselves started to spin and spiral, left and right, as they filled with light. They were glowing geometric shapes that were transforming into fractals of light. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Shoot! Abby almost panicked as she thought of Olivia, who would be arriving a mere matter of minutes from now. Abby didn’t think that a full-on dragon was the kind of “costume” that Olivia would be expecting. And it wasn’t fair, either. Olivia would probably accuse her of cheating and rigging their little game in her own favor.
The blurry field of vision in front of her, cleared momentarily, and the rainbow patterns of color returned to the greens and browns of oak tree. High above her, one solid limb looked particularly inviting.
Safe. Up high.
The dragon’s voice rumbled again. Abby turned to study the tree, and as she examined more closely, the blurry vision returned. Somewhere not so far away, a bird, (or maybe Olivia?) called out in song, its melodic notes warping and blending into sustained echoes and vibrations of tintinnabulation—like bells ringing in slow motion. Abby focused on the trunk of the tree and the lowest limbs, and like a 3-D map of color and light, a pathway up the tree appeared before her. One step there on that knot, where a footprint glowed indigo, then faded quickly, winking out. Next a violet hand-print flashed on and off not far above it, an easy reach to that first branch, then up the trunk with this now shimmering branch then that one—more hands and feet winking so blue and hot pink, then indigo again, now green! A trace of light remained where each print appeared—the pathway up was so clear!
It was no time for thinking.
She reached out with her hand and grabbed the trunk of the tree. It seemed to coil and slither as she stepped up, and whoosh! She was climbing. Hopping, then grabbing, then lightly criss-crossing, now swinging, one step, two steps, now leaping—all the while she was following the multi-colored pathway that appeared again in sequence in front of her. A flash of indigo, then violet. Now pink… Her body moved sure and easily, a quick wrap around the trunk and a shimmy, then two little hops, one more swing, one more step, a little drop and finally, a sliding butt scooch to the left. And plop!
She had made it. Her little perch amidst the rainbow hum of the majestic oak. Her safe haven engulfed by fractals of geometry and light. She was hardly breathing, not even one little gasp for breath. The climb had been effortless.
“AAH-WOOO!” she bellowed from the depths of her belly core, elated and feeling very much alive. From her new vantagepoint she could look out over a huge section of the bayou. She could see all a
round the little lake—the glowing hues of all the cypress and tupelo trees, their erect trunks seeming to shiver and hum with blue and red sparks bursting from their tops. There was a blue and red vein of light, like that of a leaf, spread out and over everything. Abby reached out with her hand and she could see it flowing to and from her fingertips. It was the energy of the earth. Mother Gaia’s qi had gone electric. It was dragon vision at its best!
Abby waved her hands in front of her and the threads of blue and red light wove tracer patterns like spirals in the wake of her fingers. In and out. In and out.
Yes. Like the whole world is breathing.
Abby turned toward the sound of the Voice. It hadn’t come from inside herself but seemed to be coming from inside the tree. She stared at the trunk of the oak to her right and watched in fascination as the mottled bark of the tree shifted and writhed. The trunk itself seemed to be coiling and sliding, slithering up and clockwise like a strange vine or rope that had suddenly come to life. She watched as the brown of the tree seemed to merge into the blue and red veins of the light. The coiling rope twisted and turned going up, then it slowly came to a stop.
Now it began to spin counter-clockwise and down, slowly at first, then speeding up till it was a blur of red and blue light. Abby gasped as the coiling trunk slowed, at last coming to a stop. Now it was pulsing, expanding, then constricting as if with a breath of its own.
Slowly, what Abby at first thought to be a stubby limb extending from the trunk of the tree, began to emerge and transform its shape before her. The limb turned toward her then the leaves of the limb rippled and gleamed, filling out like the crest of some magnificent bird all red and glowing with indigo and purple light. A face emerged beneath the crest, all glistening scales and serpent like. It was the eyes that first struck her—deep and bottomless black diamonds framed in golden amber light.
A dragon head now peered back at her, mere inches from her face. Its nostrils flared then contracted. Was it smiling at her?
Hello, little Sister!
This time the Voice came simultaneously from both within and without her, moving over her like soft ripples. Warm breath wafted across her face. It smelled vaguely like cinnamon.
Abby closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, smiling.
And then it was gone. Suddenly and without warning. Completely gone. Abby opened her eyes. She was just staring at a stubby limb on an oak tree. She looked around. It was a sunny afternoon and the green water of the bayou shimmered beneath her.
“No! Come back!” She cried, darting her eyes all around the limbs and branches of the tree. It was just a tree. Green leaves trembling in the soft breeze. No dragon.
“What in the world?” A voice sounded below.
Abby looked down. Olivia was standing some 20 feet below her, shading her eyes and looking up at her with a scrunchy face. Her auburn-haired friend had adorned her head and entire body with strands of Spanish Moss. Water cress and yellow flowers hung in random bits from her hair. She had streaked some kind of yellowish-ochre brown shade of clay or slime across both cheeks of her face with two fingers. There was an animal skin or bark wrapped around the tip of her stick, which she still carried. She looked like a swamp princess gone terribly, demonically wrong.
“How’d you get up there?” Olivia asked, now smiling at her. “And you call that a costume?”
Still somewhat shaken, Abby looked down at herself. She was naked, sitting cross-legged in the tree. She didn’t remember taking off her clothes and couldn’t quite put together how she had gotten up the tree. There was just a vague recollection of something—a pathway of glowing color?
She reached up behind her ears and felt the two horsetail reeds that were still there. She did remember putting those in her hair.
Nothing else to see here.
This time the dragon’s voice was familiar and deep within.
“Why, I’ll be…” Abby muttered under her breath. In a flash it all came back to her. A blurring distortion of shapes and light. Waves of pulsing red and blue vein-like patterns of light. Swirling spirals. The whole world breathing. A tree trunk that contained a hidden map of colored light and that somehow turned into a dragon.
She smiled despite herself. “Are my clothes down there?” She called down to Olivia.
Olivia looked around her feet and then around the base of the tree.
“Eureka!” She cried, then she dropped her walking stick and scrambled under the tree out of Abby’s sight. A few moments later she reappeared holding up a pair of pants, a badly torn shirt, and one wet sock. “I found these,” she shouted up. She glanced at the shirt which was shredded like a tiger had ripped through it. She added more quietly, “You were in a hurry to get out of this, I guess.”
“I’m comin’ down!” Abby yelled. “Do me a favor and don’t look. Make yourself useful and see if you can find the rest of my clothes. And my shoes!”
Olivia dropped Abby’s clothes in a pile at her feet and saluted like a very erect soldier, then marched back under the tree.
Abby waited a few moments, listening to Olivia scrabble around in the brush below, muttering to herself. Abby groaned to her feet and then surveyed her most likely pathways down. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she made her choice.
With much less confidence, and a whole lot more hesitation, she began to shimmy, scooch and hop her way down. The climb down was not nearly so nimble and graceful. By the time she was close enough to drop down to the ground, she was scratched up, scuffed and ornery.
Abby quickly went over to the pile of her clothes, picked up her pants and quickly slipped into them, wriggling and grimacing as the blue jeans scraped against her abrasions. She buttoned them up and reached for her shirt—or what remained of it. She held it up and spread it out with both hands. There was a clean single rip right down the middle of the shirt-back, and a few of the buttons were missing. Still, it would work if she tucked it in.
She was just sitting to put on her wet sock when Olivia reappeared with both shoes and the other sock.
“These,” she announced, holding up both shoes, “I found perfectly stacked side by side behind the tree,” Olivia paused to blow a stray strand of Spanish Moss from between her eyes. “Which usually I wouldn’t find so peculiar.” She held up the sock in her other hand and said, “This one was floating in the water, nowhere near where I found the other one.” She squeezed the sock and water gushed and dribbled out for emphasis. “Sorry, no panties could be located. I think a little squirrel ran off with them. It’s a thing, you know. For some squirrels.”
She walked up to Abby and handed her the rest of her clothes. She pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes, then walked over to pick up her stick.
Abby watched her and said as she wrung out the last few drop from the sock and pulled it on, “Well, I don’t usually wear them anyways. Panties that is.” She stood up and grimaced with discomfort. “But I don’t recommend shimmying down a tree without them, actually, for reals.” She turned and the two girls faced each other. “I think I got splinters where I’ve never had any before!” Abby finished with a tight-lipped smile.
“Oh lordy,” Olivia murmured and shook her head.
Abby studied Olivia’s “costume” closely for the first time and snickered. “You look ridiculous,” she said still smiling. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose recoiling slightly. “What is that you smeared across your cheeks?”
“Don’t you make fun of my war paint!” Olivia folded her arms then continued at pace, “Oh, and little miss I’ll-just-rip-off-my-clothes-and
-sit-completely-naked-up-in-a-tree. That is anything but a little bit peculiar.” Olivia scoffed, and turned away muttering. “Ridiculous…yeah ridiculous, all right…”
She turned suddenly back to Abby and snarled. “Damn it! Yeah, okay. You win.” She threw up her hands and wobbled her head, mouth gaping in disgust. “But I want t
o cry foul! You didn’t explain all the rules clearly to me.” Olivia turned and started striding away.
Abby gasped and hopped-stepped next to Olivia as she struggled to put her shoes on and keep up.
“Rules?” Abby cried. “Now, hold on Miss Fist! I distinctly remember saying “Anything goes. No limitations.” How clear is that? Rules… You want rules?”
“Well, all I’m saying,” Olivia replied somewhat sheepishly, “is that you didn’t add in any part about climbing up trees all naked like a cherub.” Olivia caught herself, then turned to eyeball Abby next to her. “How in tarnation did you get up there? You were likely to break your neck, you crazy girl. You crazy.” Olivia smiled reluctantly.
“Oh, you just a jealous Julie! You mad that you didn’t think of it first.”
Olivia snorted at that and then they both were laughing. They went on jawing at each other and laughing like loons all the way back home.
At the end of Abby’s driveway, the two girls stood looking up at the house. Olivia’s mom was talking to Momma Bea on the porch, and it looked like they were wrapping up their visit.
Abby turned and laughed one more time at the besmirched face of Olivia. “Here,” she said, holding up the one wet sock that she still held in her hand. “Now you know why I got ‘em all wet.” She reached over and started wiping off Olivia’s “war paint.”
“Yeah, right,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes again. She winced as Abby had to scrub harder because it had dried and was caked on something fierce.
As she continued to work at it, Abby said softly, “Now, promise me. You don’t tell nobody about what happened today, all right?”
“Oh, like they would believe me anyway!” Olivia replied, then snorted again. That made Abby smile. “You are crazier than me,” Olivia added after a few moments, “and that’s saying a lot.” Olivia’s eyes sparkled as she smiled back at her friend.
Olivia then held up two fingers and stood at attention. “Your secret is safe with me, Miss A. B. Rubideaux. I promise!”