Where Is Araminta Green? (ONC 2024)

Chapter 6: The Truth

Trying to make sense of everything, Jordan sat down on the soft moss of the clearing, amidst clusters of lilies of the valley. The lush surface called for him, promising to soothe his befuddled mind. While he couldn't put the pieces of Araminta's puzzle together he knew that they must fit somehow. Eventually, they would form a beautiful pattern. But without a template to follow, he needed more clues to see the whole image. It was like solving a puzzle without the picture atop the box and without confirmation that all the pieces were even there.

But there and then, logic and reason didn't feel important. What mattered was that Jordan felt close to Araminta. He knew she'd been here. This was a place that had been hers. A place she'd shared with no one else. But now, she shared it with him.

Jordan laid back, settling into the soft moss below and becoming one with the forest. Glimmering yellow light peeked through the tree tops, buzzing from insects sung in his ears, and the smell of wet dirt and budding flowers enveloped him. Here, no fears or guilt existed. Here, he was free.

"Mrrrhhh." Curling up next to Jordan's hip, Kiki reminded him that he was not alone. Her purring vibrations helped him regulate his breathing.

In this calm state, Jordan allowed himself to ponder why finding Araminta was so important to him. He asked himself—as he'd done many times before—if he'd been in love with Araminta. Jordan had without a doubt been intrigued and fascinated with her. He'd been scared of her. But if what he'd felt was romantic feelings was a question he'd never fully been able to answer. Because while Jordan had felt the tantalizing tingles of attraction before, when Marina, his cute locker mate, asked him about math homework or when, Cole, the handsome comics artist at the school paper leaned close, he hadn't actually been in love. Or had he? Perhaps he just hadn't realized that's what he felt for Araminta. Perhaps his obsession with finding her was fueled by desire. Perhaps he was nothing but a pining horny teenager.

But that didn't feel like the truth. Deep down, he knew it wasn't. He didn't want to find Araminta because he wanted her to be his. He wanted to find her because she deserved to have someone looking for her. She deserved to not be forgotten. She deserved to know that she mattered. She deserved a friend, even if she couldn't reciprocate the friendship.

If Jordan had gone missing, he would want someone—except for his family, who he was lucky enough to be able to rely on—to look for him and remember him. Sadly, he wasn't sure that would be the case. In that way, he and Araminta were the same, so perhaps Jordan was looking for himself just as much as he was looking for her.

With that realization, Jordan sat up abruptly, disrupting poor Kiki who gave him an insulted look. He was more determined than ever. He had to find her. He had to find himself.

Using the tree trunk for leverage, he started to rise from the cotton-soft field. That's when his hand nudged against something that wasn't bark or branch. Puzzled, Jordan turned, discovering a narrow slit wherein something black hid. It took some finagling to extract the object, as the elements had made it swell, but after using a tree branch to poke with Jordan emerged victorious with a notebook in his hand.

Rain had caused ink to fade and paper to disintegrate but the name on the cover could still be made out. Amanda? Or Araminta perhaps? Had this belonged to the girl Jordan was searching for? Had she sat here and poured her heart out in ink? Carefully, he flipped through the worn pages, filled with twirly handwriting, reminding him of his little sister's penmanship. Perhaps Araminta, if she was the owner of this book, had been about Darcy's age whenever it was left behind.

The text was difficult to read but enough words remained for Jordan to get the gist of the story that played out between the covers. It was a sad but also sweet tale of a shy witch, living unseen in a town of humans. She helped them by performing spells to help with crops and alleviate disease but her efforts always went unnoticed. So she left, moving into the woods, where a cat, a couple of rabbits, and a crow soon joined her. She took care of them and in return, they became her friends. The crow even brought her trinkets from town, making sure the witch was never lacking anything.

Caw! Caw!

As often seemed to happen these days, Jordan's was disrupted by the call from a bird. Lost in the story, he almost expected a coin or necklace to fall down, as if this crow and the one in the story were the same. But no lost treasures rained down. Still, the caws persisted, as if demanding his attention. Jordan put the notebook in his pocket as he scanned the skies for the bird, deciding that he would analyze it in detail at home, once it had dried and he could scribble down notes while reading.

Perched on a low branch of a birch tree, Jordan found the bird, which appeared to observe him. The moment his eyes fell on its slick black feathers, the crow took flight, taking over the metaphorical baton from Kiki in leading Jordan through the woods. Jordan followed with rapid strides. This time, he wanted to get a good look at this mysterious bird. Because this was the same crow as before, he was convinced of that. Unless a whole murder of crows was conspiring to play tricks on him.

The crow constantly stayed a few paces ahead of him, making sure Jordan didn't lose sight of it but also not letting him too close for comfort. Moving on narrow animal paths, Jordan and Kiki became one with the forest kingdom. Dark green pine and pale birch swallowed them in their embrace. Birds sang and bugs buzzed as civilization became left behind.

Nature was all around them, seeming endless. But it wasn't, because, in the middle of the wilderness, a house lay hidden, just like in the imaginative story he'd found. Wild roses climbed all over the frame and in the surrounding trees, several wind chimes hung, singing their melodic song as the metal pipes rattled. With a clay exterior and white details around windows and doors, the cottage looked taken right from the pages of Hansel and Gretel.

"A witch's house," Jordan whispered into his recorder, which he'd forgotten to use for the whole trek. But this discovery felt too important to go unnoted.