The island of mutation

The Girl With The Flowers

I weave the beautiful, multi-colored flowers into a crown and set it upon my head. I then weave more of them into my hair and make a tiny bracelet out of them. I haven't seen the cottage lady, nor the redheaded dreadlock girl in 3 weeks. My supply of flowers is running thin, I grab my lavender cape to cover my shoulders as I walk down the steps.

'Where are you going?' My father signs to me, I nod my head to the door and past the cliff. His face hardens, but he sighs. 'Fine, But you are to be back by sun-up.' I nod and hurry out of the door. I skip up the hill, excited to see my favorite place and as I reach it I slow to a walk and look around, admiring the beauty. I sit down in the patch of flowers and silently think about how I would sound if I was normal and had a voice. I imagine a beautiful, silky, velvet type of voice to match my lightly dusted skin. The girl in my head is popular and beautiful. Her smile brightens up every room she walks into, her hair is silk and her eyes sparkle with every opportunity. Her laugh is the start of fights. I feel a tear tread down my cheek, and I quickly wipe it with the back of my head. I open my mouth to try to talk and I keep forming words in my throat but they will never reach the outside air. My throat constricts as I feel the tears coming on and I get up fast and start walking down the path to the blind ladies cottage. I reach it and the tears have dried up. I knock on the door. It swings open to the blind lady, she grabs me and presses me to her breast.

"Hey, Adriel." I nod and smile even though she can't see and step into the cottage. "Back for more flowers, huh?" I grab her hand and shake it so she knows I'm nodding. We go through the flowers and I end up with baskets upon baskets of them. I grab my bag of payment, filled with bark hairpins and little wooden figures. I hand the bag to her and she reaches inside and feels around. "Oh, Adriel, you didn't have to do that." She tries to hand the bag back but I press it more into her hand. I grab her other hand and shake it as a farewell and leave the cottage and stroll down the path to my wooden house. As I enter the house, I feel a light breeze whirl through the house and twirl around my hair. I run up the stairs to my room and I begin sorting through the flowers. Hours later when the sun is more set then up, a knock sounds on my door. The door opens and in steps m father.

'We need to talk about something.' I nod my head and he sits in my chair across from my bed. 'I've noticed that you've been going to the village and the cliff more often now, and I want you to stop. They think of us as gods. We cannot have them seeing you around and think of us as petty folk as they are.'

'They are not petty, nor are they below us, we are on this island because of the same people, we should be equal, not treating other people like we were treated by the normal people.' A whistle sounds downstairs as we are called for dinner.

'Let us go and have dinner and we will not speak another word of this.'

We walk down the stairs and I sit down at the table. They bring the sliver platters out and I grab mine and walk out of the door. I run up the hill to the cottage and to the blind lady. I knock on the door and when it opens, there's the girl with the red dreadlocks. She pulls me inside and looks at me surprised for a second then brings the blind lady to me before, again, rushing out of the door. I hand the plate to her and she smells the plate. "You brought me food?" I pull her hand down to the table and sit her down. I hand her a eating utensil and she digs in. After she finishes she looks to where I am sitting and gropes the table for my hand. When she finds it, she squeezes it and smiles. "Thank you so much for the food, I shouldn't have taken it but thank you anyway." I squeeze her hand back before walking out of the door and  up the hill to the cliff. I walk up to the cliffs edge and stare into the open water for a second. Then I feel eyes on me and turn around. On the edge of a patch of grass sits the most beautiful flower I've ever seen. I walk over to it and I grasp the flower in my fingers and then I pluck the flower. Suddenly the patch of grass moves into a sitting position so fast and I quickly realize I plucked a flower out of a person and not the meadow.

"Oh my god!! Did you just pull my flower out?" I look down at my hands and the flower tucked between my fingers. I sniff at the tears forming in my eyes as I hold my hand out to the dread girl.

"I'm sorry." I sniff and put the flower in her hand and turn around, white dress swinging around my ankles. Then fingers grasp mine and I turn back around.

"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell. It just hurt, you kind of ripped it out of my cheek, ya know?" A wet giggle slips past my lips and she hands the beautiful flower back to me. "Hey, your Adriel,"

Im confused why she knows my name, "yes?,What's your name?"