Dream Space

Part Three - Awakenings

Crimson felt faint as she walked down the long dark hallway back to the living room. Grandma Lila was still passed out where she always sat, in her rocking chair by the fireplace. A moment of mystery made Crimson pause - come to think of it, when had she ever seen nanny awake? But the curiosity was quickly dismissed by the simple fact that her grandma had already seen all and done all, and now her eyes and body were tired. With a light kiss, she bid her a quiet goodnight and went to bed.

Sleep did not come. She struggled to flick off the button that thinks too much inside her head, but a lot seemed to scurry under her skin and surface beneath her eyes, so she could barely keep them closed. The whispers of the curtains as a light spring breeze wafted through the slightly open window, while the stars twinkled outside, endless and unfathomable. It was these and many more that kept her awake, but even moreso, the thought of her secret place, alive with fireflies ready to be caught, and visions bursting to life. She could not sleep tonight. She wanted to look at constellations as she wandered down the path that lead to her secret place, and then she wanted to play with magic.

Crimson cracked her door open a peek and was surprised to find her parents standing out in the living room and conversing in hushed voices. As soon as they heard her door creak open, they quieted. Her mother turned her head, slowly, her way.

Crimson gasped and closed the door, heart was beating like a trapped rabbit. Her mother's face... she had never seen her mother's face like this before. Swollen, blotchy, red, as if she had been crying for days on end, and her eyes-- hollow, ruined. As if the sun would never shine again. Her mother was heartbroken.

But why?

Crimson threw herself into her bed and pulled the covers over herself. May times before, she had been scolded for staying up so late, and she did not wish to be reprimanded tonight. She waited with stilled breath, breathing enough so as to sound asleep.

A light broke through the darkness, and she heard her mother's soft steps padding the carpet toward her. The footsteps paused close to her bed, but instead of leaning over and kissing her forehead as she usually did when she checked on her at night, she began to sob. Crimson was seized with fear and confusion. She didn't know how to react at her mother crying in such a heartbroken way, so she didn't move a muscle.

Her father immediately walked in and the crying receded as they left her room. She could hear her father saying to her mom, in a hushed undertone, "we have to pray..."

As soon as she heard her parents door close, Crimson sat up with the heavy feeling again weighing deep in her heart. Her friends, Roger, and now her parents? They were all acting so strangely...

The curtains blew up from a stray and frantic breeze and billowed toward her as if with ghostly intent. The opened window... I could sneak out, she realized. Back to the secret place. All these unusual moments seemed to have stemmed from its discovery.

In just her white pajamas and soft wool slippers, Crimson pried open her windows and leaped into the cool and quiet night. She raced over the abandoned shooting range fields while the rabbits darted swift around her into their burrows with tails stark white in the moonlight. The wind picked up as she ran under the acorn tree path, shaking leaves and seedlings against each other like the chattering teeth of children out for too long in the ocean. She was almost too afraid to enter the hole beneath the large oak tree; the place seemed to devour darkness like a monstrous meal at night, but Crimson grit her teeth and worked her way quickly through the hole under she was in the hideout.

There was enough moonlight captured and illuminated by mirrors to light up the darkness, and a handful of fireflies lay silent and twinkling around her. The window revealed a clear and starry night sky bordered by thorns and roses, and it wasn't long before a doomed firefly met its fate with hungry fangs and the window rolled over with a familiar memory.