It dropped itself to the ground with a thud, and quickly uncoiled itself from the heap it had landed in. It began to move off through the forest, and Mia felt compelled to follow. Now she could see how truly impressive the snake was - it was longer than she was tall, and it’s body was about as thick as her thigh. She moved silently through the forest behind it, not knowing why she was doing it. Following an obvious danger, this huge threat, deeper and deeper into a dark and tangled forest. But she was not afraid. Instead she followed curiously, into a deeper and darker gloom.
She was barely able to see through the thick darkness of the forest, and then, a few metres ahead, she saw that it was getting lighter. There was once again the green-tinged light, growing steadily brighter. Either she had passed through the entire forest, or she was approaching a clearing. She looked back towards the ground in front of her, realizing she had not checked for a while on where the snake was. She couldn't see it, and for a moment she was concerned by this. But then Mia remembered she didn’t know why she had been following the snake in the first place - the snake was not important, she decided, and she changed course slightly to head towards where it was getting brighter.
She moved clumsily through the tangled roots of the trees and the shrubs and bushes that somehow managed to grow here in this dim and gloomy light. Finally, she stepped out into blazing sunshine. After the gloom of the forest, the sudden bright light hurt her eyes, and she had to shield them quickly with her arm. Gradually, and with great curiosity, she dropped her arm and allowed her eyes to adjust to the light. It was a clearing, and not the end of the forest.
All around this circular clearing, the trees were thick and tangled, and there was darkness beyond. But here, the sun shone brightly, and the grass and flowers danced on the lightest breeze, as they had done in the open field beyond. It was beautiful, a miniature version of the endless field beyond the dense forest. Again she heard the enticing trickle of a stream flowing somewhere nearby. This time, she found it easily - a pool at the far end of the clearing, where a stream flowed out of the forest and splashed down a miniature waterfall of smooth pebbles, and into a crystal clear pond below. Eagerly, she hurried towards it and scooped up the clear cool water in her hand, greedily drinking it down as fast as she could. She splashed some of the deliciously cool water over her face, and felt better. She had not even realized how humid it had been, and that she was covered in a thin film of sweat.
She heard another sound then, disturbing the peace of the clearing and its tinkling stream - the sound of twigs snapping, off to her right. She turned towards the forest there, but could see nothing. Then, from her left, came a rustle she recognized. It was the sound the snake had made as it slithered through the tree. She turned, instead, towards that sound, and sure enough, she saw the snake’s tail vanish between the leaves of a tree bearing bright red apples.
“Odd.” Mia thought to herself, and her face scrunched up in concentration as she tried to remember seeing the apple tree before. Cautiously, she approached, and looked up into the tree, to see if she could see the snake. All she could see was the gentle movement of branches and leaves as it moved through them unseen. As Mia leaned against the rough bark of the apple tree and peered upwards again, she once again heard the sounds of something moving through the forest. It didn't sound the same as when the snake moved through the forest. This sounded more like when she had moved through the forest. Something walking, then, she thought to herself.
Curiosity got the better of her and she moved back from the tree, peering instead into the forest near the clearing’s glittering pool. A moment or two later, the branches and bushes began to move, as though something big was fighting it’s way through.
What emerged from the trees was definitely not what Mia had expected to see. Although when she thought back on it later, she didn’t really know what she had expected to see coming through the undergrowth.
What came out of those trees, looking around as uncertainly and as sun-blinded as Mia herself knew she had done mere minutes before, was a boy.
The boy seemed just as startled to see her as she was to see him. He, as she had done, lowered his arm and allowed his eyes to adjust to the new brightness in the clearing. He met her eyes and smiled shyly. She returned his smile, and tried to hide her surprise at finding him here - or rather, him finding her. He went to the stream she had just been to, drank deeply and then washed his face as she had done. She watched him, but for a reason even she didn't know, she did not speak to him. Perhaps, she thought to herself, speaking now would break the magic of this beautiful place. After he was refreshed, he looked around uncertainly and shyly. Hesitating for a moment, he bit his lip nervously before seeming to make his decision.
He walked towards Mia across the clearing, and as he approached, she was left breathless by his beauty. Was that the right word, she wondered? Did people usually call boys “beautiful”? She didn’t care. That was what he was. No other word would do. His dark hair had a slight curl to it, more like a wave in the places where it was longer. It was tussled, but in that deliberately messy way the boys wear their hair. As he drew closer, she could see his chocolate brown eyes looking back at her with curiosity and shyness. He smiled nervously, and his perfect white teeth seemed to shine in the sun.
Mia did not have any words for him, so she simply smiled back. They stood like that for a long time, just looking at each other. And then came the rustling from above, and a hiss from the snake who seemed to have grown impatient. The snake! Mia had forgotten him - forgotten everything, lost in the boys eyes. She saw the yellow eyes of the snake peering out from between the branches, and then it seemed to shake one of the branches viciously.
An apple fell from the tree, and the boy caught it neatly in his hands. Somewhere in Mia's mind, she registered this image as being familiar – a bright red apple in the hands of a beautiful boy. It made her want to laugh, but laughter seemed inappropriate in this place. She stared at his hands and even they were beautiful. She looked up to meet his eyes again, and he was smiling gently at her.
The tree shook again, and Mia looked up just as another apple fell. She caught it, with reflexes faster than she even realized she had. The snake calmed then, and slithered down from its branch, winding its way around the trunk of the apple tree, until its head was level with Mia’s. She saw out of the corner of it’s eye that it was watching her. She felt the apple in her hand, cool and hard. Her mouth watered, and she realized she was hungry. Smiling shyly at the boy, she lifted it to her mouth and took a bite.
Several things happened at once then. The boy reached out to her, as if to snatch the apple away, but he was too late. She swallowed the sweet flesh and went to take another bite. The snake hissed triumphantly in her ear, and as she looked over at the boy’s face, she saw it was filled with dismay. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, but as she opened her mouth the words came out as a shriek - the apple she held mere centimetres from her face was writhing with maggots. She threw it to the ground and disgust, and thought she might be sick.
Bracing herself against the tree trunk with one hand, she grasped at her stomach with the other. She did not feel the softness of clothes there, merely the bareness of her skin. She looked down and realized, with growing horror, that she had been naked through the entire encounter with the boy. The snake slithered over the hand that was bracing her against the tree, and she screamed and pulled it back.
The boy called out to her, and to her amazement, he knew her name.
“Mia!” he called, sounding almost desperate.
She turned to look at him, to ask him how he knew her name, and why he was here. Things had only started going badly since he had turned up. As she looked at him, she was embarrassed to notice he was naked as well. She wondered if he had been naked the whole time and she simply hadn’t noticed - but surely she would have noticed?
He reached out to her, and as he did so the ground surrounding them both burst into flame. She looked up at his face, an
d noticed his eyes were devil-red now, and the reflection of the flames danced in his eyes as he stared at her, reaching out to grab her. His teeth grew longer and sharper as she looked at them, and his face became hideously distorted as she tried to back away in horror. The flames were too hot, and she felt as though she was cooking alive.
The whole forest seemed to be alight, it had seemed so humid and alive just moments ago. She had not thought there was enough dryness in the wood to fuel flames like this. He took a step towards her just then, and she felt the fire burn hotter, although she had not thought it possible. But he seemed to be the source of the fire, it was all surrounding him. As he moved, so did the direction of the flames, and as he opened his mouth the speak to her, those horrible fangs reflecting the flames just as his eyes were doing, Mia felt a physical jolt, as though someone were tugging at her arm.
She felt as though she were being shaken, and heard someone calling her name over and over
“Wake up Mia, wake up!”
Silly person, she was awake, she was awake and in the middle of a living nightmare. No, that wasn’t right. She was asleep. This was just a regular nightmare. Who was the voice? She recognized it. The heat closed in on her as the boy moved closer and spoke softly.
“Do not wake up yet, Mia. We have things to discuss, you and I.” He reached out to touch her but she recoiled.
“Wake up Mia!” came the voice again, and on some level, Mia became aware of the shaking becoming more violent. It was very strange. She knew she was being shaken, felt the sensation of it even, rattling her teeth and hurting her neck. But here, in this dream, she stood perfectly still, surrounded by flames and facing what she could only describe as a demon, who wanted her to stay here.
She didn't want to stay. She closed her eyes and focused all her energy on that familiar voice. Leonara’s voice, she thought. I must go back. It’s time for this nightmare to end.
With her eyes still shut, she felt the heat fading, and everything darkening. She knew the dream was ending. She was waking up.
“NO!” snarled the boy and she felt his fingers just brush her arm as she left the dream place.
“To level the playing field” growled a voice in the dream place, as Mia left it and returned to the waking world.
It was very dark, and the air around Mia had cooled significantly. The flames were gone, of that she was sure. It was so dark. She opened her eyes cautiously, almost afraid to see where she was. All that was above her was darkness. For a moment, she wondered stupidly if she had perhaps died in the fire. Or he had caught her and taken her somewhere. But no, as her eyes adjusted, she could dimly make out a ceiling. Her ceiling. She was at home. She remembered then, the voice that had called her back from her dream. She sat upright and glanced around the room, squinting through the darkness for any sign of the Angel. But Mia was alone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When the sun rose on the morning following the nightmare, Mia, in spite of herself, still couldn’t shake the feeling that parts of it had been real. She stood for a while trying to ‘teleport’ as she had in the dream. Of course, it didn’t work, and she felt thoroughly stupid for even trying. She pushed the thoughts of the dream to the back of her mind, and went on with the business of being a normal human girl.
A few days later, she felt her mind wandering back to those strange dreams she had, and how real they had seemed. But dreams are funny like that - sometimes they just feel so real, its harder to believe that the impossible things didn’t happen than believing that the dream was real.
So when she thought she caught a glimpse of the Angel from her dream, and called out “Leonara!” across the road, even starting to cross through traffic, much to the drivers’ annoyance, she felt exceptionally foolish to have a confused and bemused stranger turn to look at her. Had it only happened once, it would have been bad enough. But one week later, Mia was still catching glimpses of Leonara around town, at school, even in the street outside Mia’s house.
Finally, eight days after the dream, and having mistaken a portly balding gentleman in a business suit for the beautiful (definitely not portly or balding or a man for that matter) Angel who had visited her dreams, she decided it was time to seek help. Or guidance. Or something. Anything. She wondered why she had suddenly started dreaming odd things about who she was, how she had come to live with the people she called her parents. Why she had been abandoned. By whom. She decided the dream must have been her subconscious’ way of dealing with these unresolved issues and questions about her life. Questions she never really even realized she had, until now. The logical place to start then, was by asking her parents outright exactly how much they knew about where she had come from.
The thought of asking them made her feel sick. It felt almost like a betrayal. These people had brought her into their homes and lives, and loved her and raised her and sacrificed for her as much as any parent would do for their own child.
“Well, any parent but my own mother, it would seem. Or my father for that matter” thought Mia bitterly, as she made her way home from the park, and left the confused business man muttering away about ‘bloody weird kids’. “At least” Mia thought, with a wry smile “I don’t sit on park benches talking to myself. Not yet anyway.”
As she walked home, she pondered over how to broach the subject. Would it be better to approach her parents one at a time, or confront them both at once? She slowed her pace and walked the long way home, to give her time to work up the courage and work out what she would say. But in the end, as she sat at the dinner table with the people she called her mother and father, she was still nervous and still had no idea what to say. She pushed the peas around her plate with her fork, staring at her plate without actually seeing it, lost in thought.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” a voice broke into her thoughts and startled her back to the present. She looked up at her mother’s familiar face, which was now expectant and waiting for an answer.
“I…what?” Mia asked, not knowing what her mother had asked her, only that she had spoken to her.
“Are you feeling alright? You haven’t eaten much tonight - and you have been very quiet since you got back from school. Is there something bothering you?”
“Are you sick?” asked her father, leaning forward and studying her face with his familiar squint.
“No…I just….I’m fine. I mean….well…I have to ask you something” she was looking down at the table as she spoke, and now she took a breath as she rose her eyes to meet her father’s, then looked to her mother’s curious and mildly concerned face.
“Okay, what’s on your mind honey?” asked her mother “You know you can always talk to Dad and me about anything.”
At that moment, Mia wanted to burst into tears. Yes, she could always speak to them about things. They were the kind of parents who listened, who took in everything you told them, who considered their replies carefully. Who didn’t just yell at her when she did something wrong, who explained why it was wrong. Who supported her, encouraged her, but never pushed her or bullied her. They were, in short, textbook perfect parents. And she was about to repay them for all their love, understanding, support and kindness by asking them a question that would break their hearts, she was sure of it.
“Okay well…look…I….I don’t want you to be mad about this...” Mia said softly, biting her lip. Her mother opened her mouth to reply, but was silenced by her father raising his hand.
“Wait a minute, Mary, let her speak. Just let her tell us what’s bothering her. What is it Mia honey? Let us help you.”
“I wanted to ask you about…about me…about where…who…” the words got lost somewhere between her brain and her mouth, and she sat there in silence, returning her gaze to the peas on her plate once again, as she started pushing them around the plate once more.
“…about where you came from” her mother finished the sentence softly. It was not a question, it was a statement. She knew exactly what Mia was asking.
�
�Yes” whispered Mia, still not looking up to meet her parents’ eyes. She was, in truth, terrified of what she might find there. Anger? Hurt? Disappointment? She did not think she could bear to see any of those things.
There were a few moments of silence, during which Mia imagined her parents exchanging glances. Finally, her father broke the silence as he reached across the table and squeezed her hand gently.
“We’re not mad at you, Mia. You have every right to know who you are, where you come from. We knew you would ask some day.”
Reluctantly, Mia looked up to meet her father’s eyes. He smiled at her, as she studied his face for any sign she had hurt his feelings. He seemed fine. She chanced a look across at her mother, who was looking at her carefully, with a steady gaze. She smiled when Mia met her eyes, and pushed the chair back from the dining table.
Awakening (Children of Angels) Page 5