Friendship by Brooklyn Peters

In a house in the woods, smoke churned and twined through the red bricks and out into the cold autumn air. A very pale girl sat on a sloping hill and watched the smoke huff and puff and disappear.

She remembers now. It does not always stay with her, like a word on the tip of your tongue. She can almost taste it but in the end it evades her, staying silent and unknowable. Today is different.

The rememberings come to her, foggy and gray, shrouded by time.

She clings to the wispy entrails.

Her father, squared glasses, and dark hair, collecting leaves and sticks in a bag. He comes in, dirt on his forehead where he wiped the sweat away. He beckons her over, putting down the bag to scoop her up onto his shoulder, and then collecting it once more, arms full.

She sits at the hearth now, watching him tend to the flames, feeding it twigs and brown crunchy leaves. She is fascinated by how a fire is fed to keep it strong. The same for all living things, said her mother. She liked having something in common with this glowing being so unknown to her.

She imagined now the orange licks of light contorting to create two eyes and a mouth, and taking up conversation.

Not wanting to remember the rest, only the security of her father’s broad shoulders, and the melody of her mother’s voice, she scrunches her face, willing them to stay with her on the sloping hill.

They do not stay. Taken by the wind, they spread out among the overgrown fern and wheat fields.

At the edge of the woods, two figures appear. To anyone around, it would look like a flick of the light bending strangely over the rolling fog.

But the girl saw their frowns, and in response, turned away, crossing her arms.

They were not allowed to come see her; she banished them to the woods where she did not have to see their crispy charcoaled faces.

#

The girl set off down the hill. She had not seen smoke come from the chimney in a very long time. Outside the house was a swing set with two swings and, in one, an occupant.

“Can I swing with you?” asked the pale girl.

“Oh please do,” said the other, who had two long burgundy braids down her back.

So the two girls swung high in the air for the better part of the afternoon. Until the girl with the braids got bored.

“Not many kids to play with out here,” she observed.

The pale girl nodded and said, “I know a good tree we can climb.”

The tree was behind the old shed. One of its long branches curved low to the ground in a misshapen U before shooting up to the sky. The pale girl went up first and reached her hand out for the girl with the braids.

The sun set on the horizon, casting a pink glow onto the sea of clouds.

The girls talked of the best spots to find worms after a rainy day and went over all the secret hideouts. There was the one in the hydrangeas by the back stoop, or the rusted, abandoned car down the dirt road leading into town, or the two large boulders that made a perfect fort if you had a blanket to drape over them.

And when the girl with the braids’ mother called her inside, they made a pact to meet at the boulders the next day. Looping their pinkies together, they kissed the O of their little fists, sealing the deal.

#         

The next day was a particularly cold one. The wind chapped their lips and rosied their cheeks as they pranced through the fields on their way to the tree.

“It is so cold today and yet you wear a thin nightgown and no shoes?” said the girl with the braids who wore a large puffy green coat that ran all the way down to her ankles, and who also wore a blue hat with a fuzzy pom-pom.

“Is it cold today?” was all the barefoot girl said.

#

Once in the tree, the girl with wine red hair pulled out a small but sharp knife, once used to cut open envelopes and boxes.

“I found this in my brother’s room,” she said, with all the fillings of pride in her voice.

“I’ve seen him use it with his friends, at our old house they signed all their names on their hangout tree before we had to leave and live here.”

The pale and barefoot girl stared on in amazement. It gleamed and shimmered and practically glowed in the small hand.

With glee, the girls scraped and carved and, in the end, looked on in wonderment at the immortal marker of their friendship. And in their hearts, they felt like the biggest of girls, atop their kingdom.

“Friends forever,” said the girl with the braids.

Just then, one of them, it is hard to tell which, had a fantastic idea.

“Let’s race to the top.”

Small hands grasped and pulled at the bark, raising themselves up branch by branch. The wind howled and whipped at their hair. The view was like nothing else, and the fields and forests swooped and swallowed the whole world. Neither of them had ever been up this high. And they stared out, feeling like they too were a part of it all, like the trees and the rocks and the bugs. Up so high, the tree swayed, dancing with the vital force of life and as they descended, it was hard to know where exactly to put your foot and how to place your hand.

One misstep and a yelp.

The pale girl reached out to the falling girl and their fingertips brushed together and then, only the wind.

And as she peered down at the small crumbled body, she remembered. And she wished she had not.

#

She had only wanted to feed it. Having been awoken from a nightmare of large spiders and ants crawling into her room and playing with all her toys, she knew it would be a long time before she could go back to sleep.

She padded down the creaking stairs, her nightgown swishing all around her. She got some crackers and cheese from the cabinets, and was even brave enough to venture into the dark night for some twigs and dead leaves, her bare feet blackened from the mud created by last night’s rain.

Satisfied with what she had gathered, she brought it inside, leaving small footprints on the wood floors. She blew air on the glowing embers just as her father had done, and it crackled a satisfied reply. She fed the fire its twigs and leaves and told the fire about her awful dream.

And she sat there, in the warmth, enjoying her crackers and cheese. So much in fact, by the time she looked up to see the fire eating away at the curtains, it was already a roaring snapping beast, devouring everything it touched.

#

The sheriff was having a bad day, as all days seem to be. A small frame under a too white blanket had long ago been taken away, trailed by the wails of two utterly broken hearts and he now stood under the sycamore tree trying to make sense of something that once his career came to its whittled end, would still be a maddening question mark. Fresh scrapes on a smooth patch of trunk, stripped of bark. He begrudgingly hauled his alcohol swollen body onto the swooping branch to get a better look. MH scrawled sharply on top and a smaller, curvier SW below it.

#

On a sloping hill two small frames sat together, giggling. Or maybe it was only the sun reflecting off the morning dew drops and the wind rushing through the sycamore trees.

Brooklyn Peters

Image – A small wood fire burning with grey ash and small yellow flames from Pixaby.com