Strawberry Stone

Wind

Wisteria flinched. She glanced at the clock: 8:47 AM.

No one ever came close to the treehouse: between the rumors of the treehouse being haunted, the distance from the normal walking trails, and even more rumors about the woods. The first one was ridiculous, the second one fair, and the third one weird. The rumors said that within the woods lived a group of elves. Ridiculous. Elves didn't exist: that rumor was just to keep children away from the forest and its cold rivers and uncaringly rough bark. They'd kill any human found within their domain, the forest.

Wisteria slowly got off the chair, the creaks of which blended in with the ambiant creaking of wood. She stayed as silent as possible. If close to everyone was reluctant at best to go within the forest, that could only mean one of two things:

1, one Anna and Nina's friends had pulled up. She still regretted showing them her own world. They had probably asked one of their many friends in Ark Creek to come to her treehouse. God, having ex-friends as enemies sucked.

2, The D&D squad had come into the woods, but that was highly unlikely: their sessions went on for hours, and it had only been about an hour since she'd gone inside. Plus, Mark and Alex would have thrown a rock at her treehouse to announce themselves.

So, yeah. She was probably about to fucking die. But something stayed a mystery: what letter? Nina and Anna weren't exactly the most... letter-y people. With them, it had always been 'If you can text it, text it'. They'd never seen the point of wasting time, energy and materials on letters. Forming the text, placing it in its envelope. They'd never felt the keys of the typewriter Miss Archer owned (and let anyone use), heard the clicking of the mechanism, seen the needle slowly form the letter across the paper.

The voice was different, too: it was slightly deeper than Anna's, and more melodic than Nina's. She didn't recognize it from any of her memories of their friends.

"I'm not kidding. If I was, it'd be a terrible joke. I was walking through the forest, and I looked into the garden of one of those roundear, just for fun, and I fell over. Next thing I know, the letter's gone." The second voice was melodic. It was nicer than anything Wisteria had heard, not too quiet but not too loud. It held an american accent, and reminded her of Beach Bunny, specifically in their song 'Cloud 9'.

"Well, you need that crystal. They'll check in, you know. I'll go look around, you take it easy." The first voice sighed, and then went silent.

"Yeah, yeah. Bye." The second voice was so low in volume that Wisteria had to concentrate to hear it. A stop in the conversation followed, indicating that the first person had left. Wisteria stayed quiet, slowly inching towards the door.

I wanna drink, wanna think, wanna write a song abo-

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Wisteria quickly fished her phone out of her pocket, lowering the volume quicker than she'd ever before. The picture on the call showed her dad at Vidcon 2017, smiling at the camera with a fan cosplaying as Armin. It had been the first fan he'd ever met, and he'd been at 100 % for a full week afterwards. She quickly picked up, remembering the last time she'd rejected a call from her dad: he'd become worried as all hell, and had been almost in tears when she called back.

"Hey dad, what's up?" Wisteria whispered, as quiet as she could be whilst still being heard.

"I was just wondering - shit - if you like foxes?" From the other side of the call, she could hear what sounded like 'Heatwaves' by Glass Animals and shuffling through things.

"Uhhh, yeah, I guess..." She mumbled, confused.

"Ok! Thanks, have a good day!" Her dad hung up, leaving Wisteria severely confused. What the hell? She quickly came back to her wits, remembering what she'd been doing.