The Memoirs of Light

Chapter 5- Crossroads

 Chapter five- Crossroads

            No nightmares troubled her while she slept. She was surprised to realize it when she woke next. It had been so long since she had spent a night without terror that the sudden lack of it felt like pure paradise. For the first time in her life, she felt refreshed in the morning. 'I suppose you're always resting when you're dead.'

                Maybe that was why, as she looked out at the forest around her, the world seemed less threatening than it had the night before. The fire was gone, but it was no longer needed. The sky was strangely cloudless and the sun streamed down, making the new-fallen snow sparkle in its light. A few birds chirped in the trees. Jaylin looked out at the forest and couldn't help smiling as she stretched her arms and looked around. She didn't feel dead. She felt inexplicably alive. Maybe the strange boy and the strange fire last night had only been a dream. Yet the green blanket still covered her, so was she dreaming still?

                She dismissed the confusion from her mind. The day was so beautiful that she didn't want to think about difficult things.

But no matter how cheerful her peaceful surroundings were, she realized, she still had to decide what to do.

                She stood up and began to pace slowly in the snow as she thought. 'I could go back home. If it still is my home...' The villagers would still be hostile toward her. As it was, the only thing keeping them from banishing her-or worse-was Caldor's reluctance to let it happen. Still, it wasn't a very sturdy hope. No matter what he said, they might just go ahead and hang her anyway. And after drinking that much last night, he probably wouldn't be in any condition to say anything. If he could speak, but the alcohol wasn't fully out of his system, he might still be angry at her.

                "Might. Maybe. Could be. Probably. If," she muttered in frustration, then shouted into the silent mountain air, "Why can't any of these be a "definitely", huh? Why not! So my choices are I can either die here, die there, or go back there only to be sent back to die out here?! Absolutely wonderful! Why didn't I think of this sooner?!"

                She kicked angrily at the trunk of a huge pine tree and yelped first in pain from the jolt spreading through her toes, then in surprise as heaps of snow dislodged from the branches above her head and knocked her down with a muffled "thwump."

                'I suppose I deserved that,' she begrudged and freed herself from the pile. She began to brush the wet, sticky snow from her clothes, a losing battle, when a noise came to her ears and she froze.

                It was a rustling, snuffling sound emerging from behind a thick clump of trees and bushes. Jaylin's pulse raced and terror zipped through her nerves. Who knew what her shouts had disturbed? A bear? A coyote? A pack of wolves, even? It probably wasn't wolves; they would be howling up a storm by now. It didn't sound big enough to be a grizzly, but it might be a black bear. Even if it was a coyote, she didn't stand much of a chance out here without even a log from the fire to protect herself with.      She stood stock still, half bent over, trying to decide how to protect herself. Play dead? Run away? Stay still and hope it couldn't smell her?

                'Oh, Maker. What if it's a boar?' she thought in horror. A wild boar could gore her in seconds, just for the fun of it, or because it had nothing else of particular interest to do that morning. She had always speculated that boars were so violent because they had so little else to occupy their time. Idle hooves and all that...

                Her musings were cut short by the swaying of the branches just in front of her.

                'I'm dead meat,' she thought, and cringed, preparing for the end. 'Caldor, I'm sorry I left the stove on so many times. I hope you find another orphan to do the house work for you. And all you in the village, I'm sorry I was such a disappointment. Maker...well, you know what I have to be sorry for-.'

                But she did not have a chance to finish her last prayer. The branches rustled violently, something growled behind them, then they parted to reveal her doom.

                A fox.                                                                                                                                                             

                'Wait, what?!'

                Yes indeed. Another look from between her fingers showed that the object of all her fears was, in fact, a fox.

                It wasn't even a big fox. He couldn't have been more than a year old.

                'Well, maybe it's vicious anyway,' Jaylin thought. She watched the fox a moment as he sniffed at a stick on the ground, growled, pounced at it, and then yelped and darted to hide behind her.

'Maybe not.

She knelt and hesitantly held out her hand to the small animal. "Hey, little buddy," she murmured, "Don't bite my fingers off, alright?"

The fox apparently decided that no hand-smelling was necessary and leapt with a happy bark into her arms, nearly knocking her over into the snow. Jaylin recovered and held him out at arm's length to get a better look at him. His fur was bright red, almost the same color the boy's hair had been in her dream the night before. His thick, brush-like tail swept back and forth, brushing the snow beneath him. He tried excitedly to lick her face.

"Are you a fox or a dog?" she wondered, dodging his tongue.

The thought of her dream last night had sobered her. Going back to the village was risky, but did she have another option? What if it hadn't been a dream?

The fox seemed to sense her change in mood and curled against her chest. She stroked its fur absentmindedly as she thought.

What if it wasn't a dream? That question spun around and around her head. The blanket was still there. That had to mean something. And she remembered every detail without the fuzzy, broken feeling of a dream.

So it actually happened. But did that change her options? Was it any less foolhardy to rush off, away from everything she had ever known, than it was to return to a possibly hostile mob? She didn't know who that boy was or even what he had been talking about. Could he be trusted?

What if she did go back to her home? Even if they didn't banish, imprison, or kill her, if they just took her back, nothing would be the same. She would still feel estranged and unwanted, just as she always had, only more so. She was surprised to realize that she had never even been happy in the village, doing her chores, looking after Caldor, and trying to forget the nightmares that came when she slept.

Would she be happy if she went down the mountain? Maybe. Maybe not. She sat, torn between decisions, turning first to the right, where she knew the village lay by the telltale streams of smoke rising above the trees, and then to the left, down the steady slope that led to the base of the mountain.

Left or right?

Familiar mediocrity or an unknown fate?

She sighed and looked down at the fox, which was looking back up at her with its wide, brown eyes. "What am I gonna do, buddy?"

To her surprise, the little animal sprang out of her arms and darted to the left, then paused and turned back to her. She stared at him in shock. How could a fox somehow understand her dilemma? Then she shook her head. "Don't be silly, Jaylin," she said to herself, "If it's anything unnatural, it's a sign from the Maker." The idea of the fox having some sort of higher intuition was dispelled when he ran past her again and startled a few quail from beneath a bush and into the air.

Jaylin sighed. It didn't look like she was going to get any outside help on this one. But, she resolved, if she returned to her old life, she would never forgive herself for what she missed out on. She stood slowly, gave one last look to the rising smoke, and headed left.