Tessa let the breeze blow around her, whipping her hair across her wind-burned cheeks, her eyes closed, face turned upward, soaking in the winter sun. She sat unafraid of the nothingness around her, legs dangling in midair, 15 feet above the ground. The wind whispered to her, reddening her sparkling face as the sun melted each piece of cold Jack Frost landed on her nose, leaving her face wet as she sat, the world quiet around her.
Here, she could remember everything. Maybe the mystery could still be solved…maybe she could find a way to get her back...
…if only.
Maybe, deep down somewhere, there was a way to find where her only important friend had disappeared to six months to the day. She let the breeze hit her, letting her sway, unbalanced in the wind, only a limb beneath her, eyes closed. But she trusted this tree…..it was an old friend…
In the wind, a voice was forming, and before her an image rippled and took form. It was a voice she knew well…one she hadn’t heard in a while…
*~*~*~*
“Tessa, hurry and get up here!” her cousin called to her, hanging on a limb above her. Tessa made complaints of trying, wrapping her arm around a low limb, clasping her hands and interlocking her fingers for a tight hold. She scrambled up the tree, the soles of her feet scraping against the bark as she slipped and strained to get up.
“Hurry before they find us!” her cousin called, holding on to a branch with one hand, feet resting on the trunk.
“I’m trying!” Tessa called, grabbing ahold of a small chip that served as a major handhold. She pulled herself up into the tree, using the small chip as a foothold, and as she pushed off, lifting herself to the next branch, the chip broke, falling into the grass beneath her. She propped herself in a fork between two branches and rested her feet against the trunk, looking up at her cousin, a smile on her face. She was looking at a leaf in her hand, tearing it apart and throwing the pieces at Tessa. They sat there, only a branch apart, and talked.
“…I accidentally broke the foothold,” Tessa said, smiling innocently. Her cousin’s face contorted and she through a magnolia bloom at Tessa.
“Tessa! That was the only way I could get up!” she laughed and lifted herself to a higher branch, letting small twigs break underneath her feet and fall on Tessa. Tessa scrambled up after her cousin, the one that felt like her sister and called out, looking up as she climbed.
“I’m so excited! Only 23 days! [1]” she said, getting pumped at the thought of the release of her favorite actor’s newest movie.
Her cousin smiled at her, challenging her choice in actors. “It does sound epic, I’m not gonna lie; but Jeremy Renner is not nearly as beastly or sexy as R.D.J. [2] ” Tessa smiled and looked up at the sun, a cool wind blowing her hair slightly into her eyes. She looked out beyond the long limbs and branches toward the roof of her home, sparkling black shingles layered atop each other.
“Whatever,” she said, glancing at Libby before the sparkling shingles gained her attention again.
Her cousin brushed bits of moss off of her pink pig hat that covered her head and combed the bits of bark out of her layered shoulder-length hair.
“Le’s go,” she said, climbing down and jumping from the lowest branch, landing on her feet.
Tessa willingly followed her cousin, carefully making her way down the tree before letting go when her feet finally got close enough to the ground. Libby waved her over and they crossed the lonely street, into the wood line, disappearing into the thorns and wired branches, looking for solitude.
*~*~*~*.
The wind died, and when it did, the voices went with it. Libby’s voice was gone, lost with the wind, and with her voice, Tessa’s had disappeared also. Tessa hadn’t spoken for nearly six months. Ever since that night, her voice had been lost.
For nearly four hours the day it all went down she had had blinked away tears, silent and alone, hiding under the dark navy covers of her brother’s room, the red hot space heater keeping her warm as she cried. She had sat there, wondering why the woods had taken her best friend, and where they were hiding her.
Thinking about it Tessa knitted her brows together, furrowed in a thinking expression, eyes closed and leapt from the highest branch, something she had learned from her cousin…her best friend. She only stayed crouched on the dried, frosty grass for a second before running home, eyes closed and knowing the way. She pushed open the front door and strolled inside, snatching a box of cereal off of the counter, and walked through the living room, down the hallway, only waving as her younger brother and sisters yelled and tugged at her, smiling and trying as they always did to get her to talk again. She only smiled and shrugged them away, making her way to the room furthest back in the house…her own.
Freezing, with hard, wood tile floors, her room was a long L shape, her bed placed at the top of the L, a bookshelf placed on the short end, creaky and tall. Next to it was a door, white and metal that led straight from the cold hard floors of her room into the wild outside.
She set the box of Shredded Wheat on a black desk, littered with pictures and drawings, pages from notebooks and Avengers coke cans. On the end of the desk, the pitch black, shimmering piece of furnishing had a scar…a white, splotchy rectangular spot where Libby had pulled a stranded piece of tape off of it, and with it, the shiny black paint.
She ran a hand over the scarred desk, a personal reminder of her missing friend, and snatched a few things off of her bed, ready to go on a little…exploration of sorts. She fastened her quiver to her waist with a navy belt and covered it, slipping on her brown leather jacket. Flinging a scarf over her shoulder and wrapping it around her neck she fixed it, hiding her lower face, and stuck a notebook under her arm, one that she carried everywhere.
She sat on the edge of her bed and swapped her custom converse for what Libby had called her “combat” boots. After she zipped up both of her tall black boots she looked up and smiled at a piece of pink fabric stained with purple, sunlight streaming in on it from one of her many windows, dust flitting in the yellow light. She stood up and fingered the triangular piece of cloth hanging on her wall, something her and her cousin had made as a symbol of secrecy many years ago.
She closed her eyes and then opened them again, having more concentration and she slung her black and red bow over her shoulder, a gift that she had received for Christmas only two years ago. A bow she had been given so that she could shoot with Libby, who had received a wood grain long bow that very same Christmas.
Tessa pulled the scarf further over her face, pulling it up over her nose, letting only her eyes show, gleaming and blue, brown bangs sweeping across them. Tessa made sure she had the notebook that her and her cousin had shared for many stories in the past, and with her bow, she slung open the back door, the wind hitting her face, and she stepped into the cold. The door creaking in the wind behind her, she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, clutching the half heart necklace that hung under her shirt, and after the next step into the dry, frosty yard, she didn’t look back.
…
She wouldn’t until she found Libby.
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A/N: So what do you guys think? I want feedback, and lots of it. Okay, so R.D.J is Robert Downey Jr. and I sadly do not own him OR Jeremy Renner. Okay, so inLovewithaFallen is my best friend and cousin, so naturally it's dedicated to her. Tessa is my character, and so are the others, so please do not steal. Tell me what you think guys, and Jesse, if you read this, tell me if it is or isnt okay to have you missing in this one, too. Anyway, thank you guys! I really like how this one started so I may continue. Anyway, Tschuss!
Notes: [1] Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters, January 2th, Wooh Jeremy Renner!
[2] Robert Downey Jr.
