Whisper of the Wind

I am a little girl, five years old. Skipping through the woods. Mummy says I was pretty, just like the wood, my secret glade. Golden blonde hair to just past my shoulders. A fringe that comes to my eyebrows and grey blue eyes, the colour of a stormy sea. Every day I would venture to my secret glade in the wood next to our cottage. My glade was lined with bluebells, my little flowerbeds. A fence of trees, my wall of secrecy and random bushes and shrubs covered in berries or flowers. In the Summer I'd collect Blackberies and Raspberries from my bushes and water my flowers. In the Winter, when the snow fell, my flowers would become sparkles on a stalk in the cold sun. When the leaves fell in the Autumn, I'd kick them into piles or spread them around to make a carpet. But every Spring, I'd listen to birds sing and help any chicks that fell out of their nests. Mummy always said I was a nature-girl. 

One Springtime, when I was six, I was in my glade and saw a patch of toadstools, I knew they were poisonous, so I didn't touch them. I had heard tales of girls and boys stepping into them and becoming fairies. I imagined frolicking fairies, dancing above my head, I had always wanted to know what it would be like to become a spirit of the forest but I didn't try, I didn't want to be a fairie, too girly and pretty, I would rather be a spirit of the forest, a Whisper of the Wind.

That evening Mummy gave me a rosehip tea and settled me down in bed, to tell me a story. Snuggled up in the pretty vintage quilted floral bedspread next to the cosy fireplace, I forgot all about my glade, this was home. Mummy read me the story of a ballet, Giselle, all about a girl who dies of a broken heart and becomes a Wylie in the haunted forest, her lovers come to visit and although Giselle tries to save them, they get killled by the Wylies who are all bitter from broken hearts. It became my favourite story and reminded me of how I wanted to be a spirit of the forest, just like a Wylie, though not evil.

In the night I dream about my forest, the glade, spirits, faieries, Giselle and the Wylies. I don't know what's happening when I get out of bed and start walking. I feel like I'm half awake, or half asleep, I'm not sure which one it is. I can't stop myself from walking down the stairs, if I tried I might even fall down them. When I walk to the front door I am really scared. I desperately try to stop but I am paralysed, I have no control over my limbs. When I realise I am heading for the forest I calm down a bit. I find myself in the glade and I relax but I do not stop. I am taken to the centre of the forest, the lake.

I realise what is happening, I am sleepwalking, I am about to step into a lake. Who knows how deep it is.

The next day a mother phones the Police, her six year old daughter has gone missing in the night. A search party is organised to head to the woods. They discover evidence of someone walking to the lake in the heart of the forest. The tracks stop at the edge of the lake. 

They search the Lake but find no body. They search the secret glade, and even the whole forest, but no sign of a little girl. She is presumed drowned.

I am a Whisper of the Wind, freely roaming my grounds-the sea, the sky and the forest. I will live there forever, happily, yet only half alive, for I am a Whisper of the Wind. I hear other Whispers, I dance and play with them, I am safe, they look after me.  There are Whispers among the forest of a weeping mother living in a cottage, on the outskirts of the forest, grieving the loss of her little girl. I cry out in pain and realisation, my Mummy, missing me. I now have my wish. I am a spirit of the forest. 

Though I want to return.