Prologue ~ Legends of Arboria

Ch. 3 ~ Legends of Arboria

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he took his hand away and the light began to fade. They were in another clearing that looked exactly like the one in front of the tree.

"Wait, did we just walk through that tree?" he balked sarcastically. "Couldn't we have just gone around it instead of under it?"

"We are not where you believe us to be, child. Turn and look at the way we came. Stop and listen," she said softly with a gesture of her hand.

Lief furled his brow and did as she said. To his amazement, the tree that stood before him was nothing of the tree they walked into! Instead, it was a large white oak with a gaping dark hole where they had exited. His jaw went slack. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He spun around quickly and walked past a patient Brook out into the clearing.

The dense vegetation and unlevel terrain was gone and in its place was a seemingly endless grove of various-sized white oaks. They were scattered in no particular order as if they grew that way naturally. He looked back towards the tree they came from. The forest on the other side of the tree was the same also. He felt a knot of panic begin to force its way into his throat and he suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. The woods started spinning and then everything went black.

He awoke with a pounding in his head. A muffled voice was saying something that he couldn't understand. He sat up, his eyes still closed, and grunted. "Aagh what a dream! What happened this time?" he asked, with his hand on his head as footsteps came toward him.

"You took a fall, child. It is common with one's first passing. Nothing to worry about. I'm sure you have a bit of a headache, though."

He opened his eyes and realized it all hadn't been a dream. He was still in the clearing with Brook, only now there were birds singing everywhere and a light breeze was wafting through the trees. He could hear the skitter of little creatures in the brush. The sky above was cloudless and bright blue. High up he could see shadows of birds ... some little, and some disproportionately large. Their high-pitched calls echoed off of the trees as they scanned for potential meals below.

He felt very small there, wherever there was. There seemed to be more eyes than Brook's watching him and it made him uneasy since there was really no place to hide besides behind a tree. It felt almost as if the trees themselves were watching him. The breeze drifting through the leaves made it sound like the trees were whispering to one another as it had back at Brook's house. It also brought a familiar smell to his nose, the same powerful ambrosia that he smelled there as well. Where was it coming from though?

Aside from all that, the whole place was very serene and peaceful, like it was right out of a story book. He looked around and noticed another strange butterfly dipping about, a few feet away that looked an awful lot like an oak leaf. It started getting closer; and without thinking Lief held out his hand and, to his amazement, it landed lightly there on his finger. He smiled and wondered how many more of the leaves in the trees were something camouflaged. The butterfly flew away into the canopy and disappeared. A grin spread across his lips

He looked beside him on the ground and noticed a twig in the grass.Picking it up and putting it in his palm, he looked at it closely. As helooked, spindly legs emerged from the twig along with a set of antenna. It rosefrom his palm and started crawling up his arm. He picked it up again betweenhis index finger and thumb and put it back in the grass. The little stick bugpicked its way over the blades of grass and eventually up a tree where it alsodisappeared into the actual twigs.

He looked up at Brook who was standing silently with a smile on her face as if she were reading his thoughts again and letting him get his bearings. He quietly searched his thoughts for the words. Looking at her again he felt that comfortable calm come over him once more.