Hazel Quinstrom

0 Beginning

There isn’t much Hazel could tell you about her past. Not much besides she was taken in by an elderly couple who didn’t share a droplet of blood with her. They raised her and gave her as normal a childhood they could at their age. She lost Mrs. Quinstrom first at the age of 7 from a slow sickness she had been suffering since before they adopted her. She died in a hospital bed, Hazel and Mr. Quinstrom on her side. As she grew without her ‘mother’ Mr. Quinstrom made sure she had a decent education and dedicated most of his time to her and his woodcarving. At night, almost every Saturday in a candle lit room, even before his wife’s death, he would tell Hazel stories of his past. The wars he had been a part of (even some of his father and grandfather’s war stories), the children he and his wife had raised, their happiness (and yet the mystery) at finding her, and she relished every minute of it. When she reached her preteen and teen year in middle and high school, she experimented with relationships as many kids did. Respecting her father’s wishes, she abstained from many of the temptations others tended to give in to, though she wasn’t a Mary sue. There were a select few times where she had strayed and got in a little over her head due to peer pressure.

When it came to education, Hazel excelled in recent history and her language classes, mostly due to Mrs. Quinstrom being a retired linguist and Mr. Quinstrom hailing from the border of France and Spain as a young boy. She struggled in classes such as Finance and Health, she kept her grades up, failing 1 or 2. By the time she graduated, tragedy struck and Hazel was forced to get a part time job to make up for Mr. Quinstrom’s newfound disability. A strike from a vehicle left him amputated from both knees down. The Saturday night grew in weeks from each other and the whittling fell to a figurine a month, maybe two. Hazel could only be an onlooker as the health of man who raised her slowly diminished. When the day arrived that was ready to pass on, he called Hazel to his bedside and smiled at her.

“I want you to have something.” He had gestured to a wooden box on his bedside table, “I… had just finished making these… the… day we found you…” Inside was a pair of little intricate, wooden figurines of a fox and an owl, lightly glazed with paint to make it resemble a red one. It’s eyes, despite their diminutive size, had a pair of ice blue irises. The owl resembled a snowy owl in mid-flight, the colours of late fall speckled it’s form. “Treasure them. They were our… favourite… animals. I love… you.”

“I love you too papa. I- Je t’amie.” Hazel wept as Mr. Quinstrom’s eyes closed for a final time and his chest fell as his breath left him. His will left her the estate and his fortune of over 20k. She donated the estate to an orphanage and all but a meagre $500 to random charities. From that day she lived alone in a small cabin on the outskirts of town.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Can you believe that girl? I mean, who in their right mind brings a ferret into school?”

“You’re freaking about a ferret? There was a dude who released a dozen birds in my chem!”

The pair of girls in front of her cackled as they sashayed down the sidewalk, leaving her alone in the empty area. Hazel had been in both those classes and admittedly thought both were fairly humorous. But that didn’t make her speak up. She was invisible to them and almost everyone else. Ever since Mr. Quinstrom’s death, Hazel had secluded herself from the world, the only time she came out was for supplies and the college classes she couldn’t take online. Silently, she pulled the fox and owl from her chest pocket, whispered a few small words of respect and put them away. When she looked up, her mind reeled.

She was now 21 and a fully developed young woman. She had almost mastered 5 languages and was working on a 6th. She knew for a fact that she was of a sound mind due to her very short course in psychology. Yet, there before her, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, was a rabbit. An almost Irish green (but it could have been Mint), winged rabbit. It was nibbling on the grass that was sprouting on the edge of the earth and concrete. Closing her eyes and with one hand, she rubbed her eyes with her fingers and pinched the top of her nose briefly before reopening them and seeing that the rabbit had disappeared. A quick glance and she just barely saw it bounding into the forest. Unable to stop herself, she dropped her bag and took off after it.

It was a chore to keep the rabbit in her field of view. She lost it a few times but managed to find it again leaping over a large log with the flutter of it’s wings. When the creature finally disappeared, she was left alone again. This time in the middle of a dense, dark forest. Light just barely filtered through the summer rich leaves above. The ground was littered with the dead leaves of fall, small piles of winter snow that should have melted months ago, and spring flowers that had hardly bloomed. It was as if the seasons were in an internal timeless agreement. A flash of green appeared at the edge of a cliff she hadn’t noticed was near. Curiosity stole the best of her sense and she found herself standing on the edge looking down at a thicket of brambles.

“It’s not white or a tunnel but alright Alice. Let’s follow it.” She mumbled to herself as she sat down and swung her legs over the side. Turning to her stomach, she shimmied so from the waist down was hanging and her feet had decent footholds. Slowly she worked her way down the side of the face, hands trembling every time she released the ground. When a bit of earth crumbled in her hand, she realized she shouldn’t have followed the rabbit, but it was too late. Her hand slipped from the face of the cliff and unbalanced inertia sent her falling backward.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hazel’s breathing grew shallow as the rushing air around her snagged the breathable air, very little pressure pressed under her as her body cut through it. The weightless feeling of falling grasping her as her terrors flashed around her. It was impossible to tell how far she was from falling. Impossible lights flickered at the edges of her vision as she continued to descend. Then…

Blackness. Icy cold blackness…