Autumn's Fire

Autumn's Fire: Chapter 11

Nights passed peacefully when I wore the ring, and the night terror no longer dominated my sleeping mind. It remained a memory that wasn't relived for as long as I wore the ring, and for the first time in four years, I was no longer bound by the dread of the possibility of screaming myself awake. It was incredibly freeing and took a weight off my shoulders that I hadn't truly noticed until it was gone.

The people around me seemed to notice as well, and over the next few days, people complimented me in passing. Mum and Dad were especially happy, and Dad even joked that I had gotten better as a gift for returning from a successful trip. Of course it didn't fix everything, and anxiety and depression were still as prevalent as always, but it certainly made them easier to deal with.

With everything going so well, I often felt the urge to reach out to Thali and make up with her, but something always stopped me. Perhaps it was that I hadn't forgiven her, or that I wanted more time to sort out how I felt. But whatever the reason, I ended up pushing it off, rationalizing it by saying that I'd get the chance to see her at the harvest festival feast anyway. So, for those five days, I spent my time helping out at the shop, reasoning that it was more likely for me to run into Thali at the willow than at the shop. Thankfully, this ended up being true. Mum and Dad also appreciated the extra hand with the shop as business was busy with the ongoing harvest festival. That week was dedicated to cooking and making other preparations for the feast on Saturday, but many people were also preoccupied with finding buyers for their harvested goods. So, we often got people coming in to negotiate with my parents about either selling their products to us or paying us to transport their products to other villages and towns.

With how hectic this made business, I certainly had no issue keeping myself busy and my mind off of Thali. But after those five days, I started to lose my mind, desperately missing reading beneath the willow. So, on the sixth day, after everything had calmed down a bit at the shop, I excused myself at lunch to go read. Being among the branches was a very welcome respite from the stress caused by working at the shop during the week, and I readily sunk myself into the depths of one of the fiction books I had received for my birthday.

The book was called A Sparrow's Wings and told the story of a young Cetan woman's first journey away from her home village. Cetans were a race of people with hawk-like wings and hollow bones that lived in mountain areas throughout the world. They had fairly short lifespans, living only 50 years, and from what the book described, their culture was quite beautiful.

After getting a few chapters in, I heard a scraping on the trunk below me. I closed my book, and almost jumped out of my skin when I saw Chriol right in front of me. He had evidently climbed the tree and was still half hanging out of it, grinning at me.

"Hey, whatcha reading?" he asked casually as though he hadn't just scared the daylights out of me.

I rolled my eyes at him, and gave him a gentle bonk on the head with my book, or at least what I thought was gentle. But it was hard enough to make him lose his grip on the branch, and he went tumbling to the ground.

I scrambled to the ground as fast as I could and leaned over to look at Chriol, who was lying on his back, eyes closed. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hit you that hard," I apologized, looking him over worriedly. Just when I thought he may have passed out from the fall, he opened one of his eyes to peek at me. I narrowed my eyes at him incredulously, and he burst out laughing. "You jerk," I joked and held out a hand to help him up.

He smiled and took my hand, though he didn't use much of my strength to help him sit up. "Alright, alright. To be fair, you did push me out of a tree," he teased, and gave me a playful nudge on the shoulder. I stuck out my tongue at him, and stood up from my kneeling position, wiping away the dirt that had clung to my dress. "Anyway, are you busy?" Chriol asked, standing up as well.