Short Stories and Poetry

Queen of the Forest

Annabel and her family were hidden away in a park in cold, grey Scotland. Her brother, only of three years, tottled around on chubby, uneasy legs. Annabel was too sophisticated for her young brother, so was off playing on the edge of the lighter park and the darker forest.
Before leaving for the ugly country she was in now, Annabel had asked her mum if you could take a friend, if only to save her from deadly, excruciating boredom. "No," her mother responded with while curling her scarlet hair the adorned her own daughters scalp. "No, you may not. It's a family trip, some time to connect. Your father has just been so busy..." Her mother could talk about her husband until tea time, taking time away from Annabel's playing.
It didn't matter. The blue and black small birds that flew between the big pine trees would be her companions.
Annabel looked behind her at her parents who were sitting on a wooden bench and sipping a fizzling pink liquid. The change was instantaneous, and Annabel had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness before following the birds from tree to tree. She ran on her young legs, twisting and winding and getting lost between the giants, whose legs planted into the ground before moving and clumping again again again...
Pixies and small faeries grasped onto the legs and were carried on with them. At one point they let go and tangled themselves in Annabel's blood red hair. They worked together and plaited her long hair down her back and tied it with a blade of glass. The pixies shared whispers that were inaudible to Annabel, but when a woman with skin the colour of wood - no, it was wood - and a dress the the colour of fall leaves woven together with the web of spiders, she understood. They were dressing her up.
"My Autumn child," the woman grandly said. A smile settled upon her face, and it gave Annabel the image of when bard cracks off a tree. "Come with me, babe," was said next, and she turned on her heels.
Annabel had been told often not to follow strangers, but this woman held an air of confidence, just like her mum. Respect respect respect was her mother's motto, so Annabel followed the lass. The bugs seemed to scuttled away as she walked, flowers sprouting around her feet. The forest was heaven on earth.
The lady stopped suddenly in front of a reflective, clear pool and jumped in. Annabel felt no compulsion not to stop and go back, so the girl jumped into the pool. She was sinking through, nearly at the gate when she felt her hair tug up, pulling Annabel away from the entrance, away from the beautiful lady.
The pixies still woven into her hair were drowning her, and it was working. She gasped for air, but only gulped in a mouthful of rain water. Her eyes closed as she reached up for the glass top that covered her cage but shuddered and stopped.
*****
Annabel woke up in a tight bed, covered in a paper dress. The moon illuminated everything in the room she had been resting in. A mirror had been set up beside her bed, and she saw the her hair on one side had been cut to the scalp, and a circle of the side of her head had been stitched back.
Where were her parents in all of this, she wondered. She was only ten, old enough to be respected as responsible, certainly not old enough to stay in a hospital by herself
A clipboard on the door was hung on the door of her room, so Annabel swung her legs out of the tight bed and onto the cold plastic laminate flooring and padded towards the door. On top of the paper was a logo and then SCOTTISH MEDICAL HOSPITAL. Underneath was written a diagnosis: Major seizure. Occipital Lobe removed.
Annabel felt the side of her head.