Ivy and the Wolf

Prologue: The Peculiarly Poisonous Leaf

Prologue

The first time Davy ended up in the hospital was the first time her skin touched poison ivy. Unfortunately, she had been frolicking about in the woods unsupervised.
Key word: unsupervised.
Davy, like all kids her age, had quite the imagination. So what better way to indulge in the wild wonders of her brain than by pretending she was a thief that stole different assortments of plants and flowers, or a fairy who broke one of its wings and needed healing, or even a wolf on the run from hunters.
She enjoyed the greenery of the plants so much, she spent more time in the forest than anywhere else.
Which may have been why that fateful day occurred.

Today, Davy was an herbal healer in the confines of a small stick fort she built a few days prior. She relished in the fact that she was able to incorporate her love of anything green into her fantasies as often possible.
As she was mashing up her plants, a glint of something caught her eye. She immediately abandoned her work, her excited imagination already conjuring up stories as to what it could be.
Curiosity consumed her, she was bent on getting to the bottom of this shiny anomaly. The closer she got, the brighter the leaves seemed to appear. They were small and grouped in three and unlike the larger green leaves surrounding it, its leaves were shiny and touched with red. Despite playing around in the same spot of the woods practically everyday, Davy had never noticed the long vine growing up the tree. It had merely become background noise to the child's inventive games.
Strangely, it was almost as if it called to her, setting her in a deep trance that could only be broken by one thing.
A touch.
She reaches out with one small hand and barely skims one of the three shiny leaves.
Nothing happens.
She plucks up one of its oily leaves and runs back to her fort. The leaf reminds her of what a fairy's wing must look like and she hastily adds it into her herbal concoction. Excitement fills her as she mashes away at the additional leaf, muttering to herself in that way young children do.
"Davy, Davy!" A familiar voice calls out to her.
Davy immediately perks up at the sound and glances down at her project, her eyes catching the oily shine of the new leaf. She absently scratches herself and contemplates whether or not she should take it and show it to her family, but abandons the thought when her name is called out once again.
Davy sets out on a run, dodging trees and roots and plants. When she approaches the clearing, the slender figure of a woman greets her. Davy leaps into the figure's awaiting arms and squeezes her tightly.
"I called you five minutes ago, please come in when I ask," Davy's mother pulls her away and examines her messy, grass stained appearance with slight disapproval. "Come on, let's go inside." She sighs.
Davy looks back longingly in to the forest, but follows her mother nonetheless.
When the pair reach the wooden structure of their house, they're greeted by the swinging of its tall oak door.
"Aunt Lisa says you're gonna be in biiig trouble for staying out so late," Rory, Davy's loud-mouthed five year old cousin announces to her. Davy, being three years older and therefore superior to the younger cousin, casts a glance to make sure her mother can't see and then promptly sticks her tongue out. She sourly wonders when Rory was finally going to leave as she had already been staying with the small family for three whole months.
"Rory, go inside and wake Bennett up," Davy's mom commands, ignoring the five year old's previous statement. "Davy, go wash yourself and then set the table for dinner."
Davy quickly obliged, not wanting to upset her worried mother any longer.
Minutes later, Davy discards her dirt-caked clothes and turns on the water to the tub. She tentatively dips a toe in then retracts it immediately, impatiently waiting for the water to warm up.
When the bathwater finally reaches a tolerable temperature, she gets to work scrubbing and trying not to let herself get wrapped up in her imagination. It's happened many times before and each time resulted in her getting in trouble for losing track of time.
For the second time that day, Davy notices a glint. She peers down at her skin, which is forming an odd rash. Horrified, she lets out a high pitched scream.
Footsteps soon pound up the stairs, reaching the bathroom door, which swings open to reveal a frantic face. Davy's mother, trailed by two confused and curious faces greet Davy.
"What's wrong, Davy? What happened?" Her mother rushes forward and bends down.
"This!" Davy wails, wildly gesturing to the spreading rash on her body.
"What, what I don't see anything!" Her mother rushes out, examining the writhing girl.
Davy, in an immense amount of pain, sheds a few tears, then passes out in the tub.
Shocked, Davy's mother cries out as the water from the tub splashes out onto her.

The next morning, Davy was pronounced dead, her body shipped off to the morgue the following day.

Except Davy was not dead, far from it, actually.

The day after she was buried, she woke up and it was with a simple brush of poison ivy, that she found herself in an unfamiliar world.

***

Draft

This was just an idea that popped into my head. I think it might have some potential, what do you think?

Comments and favorites are always appreciated.

Thanks for reading!