Queens of the Forrest

| Chapter 9: too beautiful for human eyes |

"Touch me"

As soon as my toes touched the soft grass I sprint out of there without another backward glance.
     But it wasn't fast enough. Vines slithered up to me in an in believable speed. Pulling my ankles up until I hanged upside down.
"Ah, what's going on!" I shout. "No, no, no! Put me down! You withering thing!"
A night gown I didn't realize I was wearing pulled itself down. Instinctively, my hand shot out to shield myself so my night gown wouldn't fall out and expose myself in complete vulnerability.
      The thick jarring veins hung me upside down. Then twirled me up around as it brought me back to the room through the window.
     It dumped me in the center of the room as if I were a misbehaving animal being brought back to it's owner. The drop was rather harsh and uncalled for. And then the vines descended back whence it came like its job was complete and fulfilled.
    I rushed to the window and sure enough it burrowed itself under the earth. I wonder if it's alive... I mean it has to be. Right? But can it hear? Hmmm....I wonder if I—
     "I'm sorry. They are rather careless and unthoughtful." A velvety voice slices through my thoughts. Scattering them like butterflies in spring. I try to catch them but they're long gone.
    I twirl around needing to drink it's sound. To follow that voice that allures my senses.
     A man's leaning on the far side of the room, his face partially hidden from the flowy curtains draped around the bed.
     "Yes. They are." I find myself replying. "How did you find your way inside? I mean there's no door?"
     "I simply entered through there." He points across to his left. Where a picture frame I didn't catch earlier lay hunged. It depicts flowers and flowers of wild colors. Some that look too beautiful for human eyes. Too beautiful not to be poisons. Simply by gazing through then they have a peculiar appeal that draws you in, only to entrap like a Venus fly trap.
He sanders, slowly, calculated as if afraid I'll make a dash out of here and into the window again. "See here," he ask touching the picture frame, "if you tilt it just slightly, it reveals a door."
"And the noise?"
He arches a brow.
"Before I jumped somethings kept pounding. The whole room vibrated terribly so."
"That would be me."
     I arch an eyebrow. Challenging. How could it be him?
     "I mean the Beast." When I don't make a move or sound he adds, "my pet. He's rather too delighted to meet you. I'm sorry if he freighted you."
   "A beast, you say."
    He nods.
   "Would you like to see?"
    I know I shouldn't. Really shouldn't. My body says no but my mind says yes. That curious side of me wants to find, really find those deep hidden answers that this place demands clearly of me.
     I nod and he extends his hand out to me. I cautiously make my way to him. And accept the invitation. He smiles a soft sort of thing that melts my insides as my hand intertwined his. A perfect fit. And we enter through the door on the picture frame.