Sunset Over Bethany

Chapter 8 - The Dreamer

Chapter 8 - The Dreamer

He remembered a haze, a white haze that hung over the world. The sun's light shone in rays through the fog of his mind as he heard the giggling of a voice warm and sweet but distant. Every sound was a muffle, a snowflake landing on the white snow. Out of the corner of his eye, a blur of black flew by him and was gone again. Suddenly he felt a sharp sting impact the side of his face. A rush of blood to the head brought him back as everything came into focus; a blinding whirl of reality slapping him across the face.

"Got you square on the cheek!" screamed the girl, her hair flying wildly in the fresh winter air. The wind nipped at his cheeks, colder from the snow and ice melting off his face.         There she stood, wrapped in a red coat with a dark green wool scarf slung loosely around her neck. Her black hair fell over her shoulders with bits of falling snow clinging on, painting an image like the stars against the night sky.

He laughed as he wiped the snow dribbling from his chin and scooped a large handful of snow from the blanketed hill where he stood and packed it into a ball.

The girl squealed as she began to run off to gather distance between them, but tripped on a hard patch and fell down the hill, stopping at the bottom. Laughing, she spat chunks of ice and snow that flew in her mouth and brushed the snow out of her hair. "You better not throw that snowball at me, especially since I'm already covered in snow!" she pleaded at him.

Grinning, he began moving towards her, snowball held behind his head ready to be thrown. She screamed and shielded her face with her arms. But at that moment, he saw something in the corner of his eye hiding behind a tree on that open hill. He froze, and pointed to it.

She looked at his finger with a face of realization. "A deer," she whispered as she slowly turned about to see.

Rowan silently prodded towards where she lay and ducked low, lest he should scare it away. The doe looked towards them, cream white spots speckling its red coat on its back; it stood only a few yards away from where they were. Taking a few steps away from the tree, it suddenly burst into a sprint, jumping here and there across the snow, a red blur, until it had fallen into the line of sentinels and pines of the woods, leaving footprints wide across the field.

Hot breath steamed from Rowan's mouth as he let his breath go.

"Were you holding your breath?" the girl asked.

"Yeah, I didn't want to scare it away with anything too sudden," he smiled.

She smiled back, looking down at her clothes. "I'm soaked to my underwear; I shouldn't have sat here so long," she giggled. They both got off, brushing the snow off their clothes as they began trudging back up the hill.

Walking hand in hand, he began staring at the ground, wondering why the snow appeared to glisten as a small trickle of water carved a stream into the hillside. Like a blur, the whole side of the hill began flowing, bits of green appearing here and there at an increasing rate. Soon, the hillside was a flowing river, crashing against their legs like buoys against the current. And in a flash, they were lying on the hill, cool grass on their backs and blue sky above, with faint wisps of clouds lined across the horizon.

  The sun moved across the skies in moments, sunrise and sunset becoming increasingly difficult to tell apart. They got up to chase it, running wildly down the hill and across the woods, dodging through the wooden pillars that surrounded them. They lost sight of it where the canopy grew thickest, stopping to look where the sun was falling and rising. They knew they were going the right direction when the trees started growing further apart. And suddenly they burst into the open, stumbling onto a wheat field, the soft golden shafts swaying in the wind. The sun stood across the field, fiery red, burning the clouds and wheat around it. They ran for it, the sun setting ever so slowly. And just when they thought they could hold it in their hands, it disappeared into the horizon, only to come up behind them again. The hellish heat burnt their skin and boiled their eyes as they screamed in agony, clawing at their burning clothes and hair. Rowan slumped onto the ground and faced up, with darkness to greet him.

A gentle breeze cooled his brow, the inferno gone along with his pains. Slowly, small specks of light appeared in the dark, swirling forms of faint purple, blue and red dotting the black sky. He felt where his eyes had melted and there they were again, cool and shining beneath the stars. The girl with the black hair beside him, her beauty illuminated in starlight, her eyes like pools of dew reflecting against the heavens above.

"I'm leaving you."