Chasing Sparks

Chapter 8

Celie sliced the heads off several mushrooms and wiped the blade down the side of her leg. Mushrooms were great but she was still yet to find what she really wanted.

It was Autumn. Berries and the like were becoming a little more scarce but there were still plenty of late blooming fruits to be found if you knew where to look. And Celie had travelled far from home looking for one in particular today.

She spotted a squirrel climbing a tree, no doubt filling its larder just like she was. It paused briefly to share a look with Celie before darting off into the higher branches.

Years ago, she had hunted squirrels along with all the other animals that roamed these parts but the animals weren’t in any danger from her now. Celie’s sister had forbidden her from killing a long time ago, so now she just foraged.

A patch of spinach leaves caught her eye off to the side. They would go well with the mushrooms, so she moved into the sunlight and began pulling up the leaves. She carefully shook the dirt off the roots, the way her father had shown her, and stored them neatly in her pack. Everything she knew about the forest she’d learned from her parents.

And Celie still missed them. It was nearly ten years ago to the day that her parents disappeared. Her mother had left as usual to check on the traps in the morning but she never returned. Celie’s father had gone to look for her but found only her bracelet left under a rock, along with a message scrawled in the dirt ‘Back in three days if I’m OK. Do not try to find me’.

The wasting sickness was ravaging the land at the time and both Celie and her father immediately understood what the message meant.

Her father had desperately struggled against his instincts to go after her but his love for Celie’s mother was too strong and, in the end, he packed his bag and headed out to look for her. He told Celie not to worry and that he would be home soon.

She never saw either of her parents again.

She assumed they had both fallen to the sickness and just hoped that they were together when they died. But this was only a hope, she had no idea what actually happened to them.

Celie squinted into the afternoon sun, through the leaves of a nearby tree. She thought she could see what she was looking for right at the top. There seemed to be something hanging in the highest branches.

She smiled to herself. She then dropped her pack to the floor and began quickly shimmying up the trunk, her small lithe frame clinging to the bark with ease. Reaching the top, she took the knife from between her teeth and cut some of the fruits loose.

Glass fruit was her sister’s favourite. Celie could already see the joyful look on Mara’s face as she pulled them out of her pack.

For the last ten years, Mara had been Celie’s responsibility and Celie had brought up her younger sister as best she could. But these demands had taken a big toll on Celie. She had been constantly nervous and anxious, seeing danger in almost everything at first. The forests no longer the fun playground from her early years but rather a place to be feared with threats around every corner. And she never seemed to stray too far from her sister’s side, for fear something might happen to her.

But gradually as her sister grew and matured, Mara’s caring nature and enduring ability to see the good in everything, started to rub off on Celie. Over the years, Celie started to fall in love all over again with the woods and woodland creatures as Mara’s bright smile and true love of the forest was impossible to ignore.

Celie still remembered the day she saw her sister stroking a deer in the woods. The deer was completely calm and relaxed under Mara’s touch. How this was possible, Celie didn’t know.