[story] secret place

[ib_archive]

author: yoiyami (yoiyami)
email: egyptian_iris [at] gmail.com



The forest was blue and green, and on its edge stood a house. It was made out of the wood of the surrounding trees and its walls were covered in vines; it was easy to miss. In the house lived a girl and her mother.

The girl was shy and small, and spent most of her days doing chores around the house with the occasional book to read.

She was an average student and an average violin player, but she enjoyed her position in the middle of the orchestra; while the first chairs had all of the music at their back, she was in the very center of it.

Most of her classmates did not think of her much; if asked, they would have to think about it in order to remember her at all. She went to school every day, but she only spoke when spoken to, and even then she spoke softly. She did not mind going unnoticed; she enjoyed watching other people live their lives from a distance. It was like reading books.

The class bully could think of nothing worse to say of her than that she was quiet all the time. Though he meant it as an insult, someone else took it up with a laugh, and soon everyone called her Quiet. There was no rancor in it; it was simply all they could really remember about her.

There was one way in which she stood out from her classmates: she lived at the edge of the forest. The edge of the forest did not seem particularly unusual in itself, but it was known to lead into the Deep Forest, which few dared to enter. The Deep Forest was old and dark, and it was rumored to hold beasts of virtue and of guile. Though what exactly such beasts might be, no one alive remembered.

Quiet's mother had worked hard to pass on everything that she had learned to her daughter. Now they shared everything equally: household chores, the sewing that had enabled Quiet's mother to make ends meet since Quiet's father died before their daughter was born, and a love for the forest and all it contained.

Quiet did not know why people feared the forest; when she asked her mother, her mother only told the story of how she and her husband had laboured over a hot summer to build this house for themselves.

Quiet often watched the forest, looking over her mother's shoulder and past the well and the vegetable garden behind the house. This was was a busy time of the year; many of the vegetables would soon be ripe. But it was a peaceful moment for now, dusk was falling and the bugs singing to each other. The Morning Glory that curled around the window were tightly closed, and the Moon Flowers were slowly beginning to unfurl in preparation for the rising moon. Quiet's mother interrupted her musing, turning to softly ask her daughter to tend the stove.

Even her mother called the girl Quiet, and at times Quiet was a little unsure as to what her name really was.

He was the third fastest on the track team. People tended to forget that, and to remember him for other things: for his training regimes and plans, for his studiousness, for being the son of the local priest. He liked that, liked being known, liked having his advice sought, first by his track teammates, then by others among his peers, but never having to endure the fawning admiration that the fastest and second fastest boys received.

He and his brother were the first generation to be raised at the temple, though the temple had been there long before his father and mother came to town - separately - to tend it. He often wondered at that, for his father had found the temple waiting in good condition, aside from a layer of dust, though
no one remembered the family that used to run it.

His family had looked after temples for as many generations as they could trace back. His father had come to this temple with his own brother, to solve some problem that had also been forgotten. Temples were their way of life, and Temple was their name. And Temple is what everyone called him, though it was his older brother who was expected to take their father's place one day.

He couldn't tell what first bought Quiet to his attention. They were never in the same class, but he found himself looking for her everywhere. There was something that made her stand out to him. He asked the Captain and Vice about her, but they just shrugged off the questions, teasing him about his interest in a girl. So he kept his interest to himself, and watched her watching others.

He tried to protect her, though there were few chances for it. He offered to carry her things when he could, but Temple did that for many girls, and so no one noticed. It was Temple who turned the bully's jeer into a nickname, though no one else seemed to remember.

But sometimes, if they happened to be standing next to each other, he could see things. Flashes of color, bits of movement, like what his brother had seen before his Power had fully awoken. But Quiet always floated away again, drifting through the crowd and leaving Temple with only a brief glance of something and the smell of the forest.

When the English teacher caught his attention, he was unsurprised to be asked to carry a stack of papers to the teachers' lounge. The teacher was in her seventh month of pregnancy, and Temple was happy to help her, to briefly speak with her about her health, to feel the child kick and grant a small blessing.

He set down the papers on her desk, but as he turned away he noticed the small neat handwriting on the top of the page. Quiet. Did she truly call herself Quiet?

He knew that many of the members of sports teams went by their surnames, and some students used nicknames, but there was something disturbing about this. When he questioned the first teacher he saw, he was startled by the blank look he got in response.

"Isn't that her name?"

His ranking on the track team allowed him access to the student records. Grades, personal contact information, health records were all there for him to request. He stopped at the sight of all of the filing cabinets. Though they were organized by grade year, he did not know what her last name was to find her records within their year. He had an uneasy feeling that he should just drop his search, but he opened the drawer that included 'Q' anyway. Quiet's file was the only one under the tab for 'Q,' and every paper in her file listed her name only as Quiet. It had been a long time since they had started to call her Quiet, he realized. Her file was strangely thin, and he realized why when he pulled the final file, the initial file from her enrollment in kindergarden.

The paper was covered in water damage; there was little left that was legible.

What was originally her name was now just a blue blur.

Quiet was looking out of the kitchen window, watching the wind whip the tops of the trees. They had had a quiet dinner that night, the silence heavy with something that Quiet didn't understand. She had been sent to bed early, told that she needed to rest for the next day. But a tightness in her chest soon woke her again.

She was startled by the sight of her mother outside, standing at the edge of the forest. Her mother's hair was down and she was dressed all in white, something that Quiet rarely saw. She didn't know why, but she was sure it was important that she follow her mother.

The outskirts of the forest appeared impregnable, a black wall of leaves and branches under the shadows of the tree tops. Quiet followed her mother down a winding dirt path that she had never used before. The path skirted the edge of the garden, then disappeared abruptly, leaving Quiet faced with the half-bare branches of thick bushes. She reached forward and pushed aside branches where the bushes seemed thinnest. She was in the middle when she hissed in pain and pulled her hand to her chest to cradle it. She started to reach for a handkerchief, but a sudden sense of being watched made her freeze. She held her breath, waiting, but the feeling did not go away and the branches above her, before her, behind her, seemed to blend together until she could not tell what was forward and what was back. Soon she could not stand it anymore, this crushing blindness and the dry dusty smell of long dead and crushed vegetation. She ignored the pain of small cuts and pulled hair and pushed through bushes until she fell into emptiness.

The forest was miles of tree trunks, some so ancient she could not wrap her arms around them; Quiet was venturing into the Deep Forest. She shrank back against the bushes she'd just escaped, still caught in that sense of being watched. Her eyes would not focus and she could not stop hauling in great gasping breaths. She grasped for something as the dizziness threatened to overwhelm her. The pain in her hand brought her back to her senses; she had grabbed at a branch that had broken in her hand, driving splinters into the wound. Nothing had stepped out from behind the trees and Quiet could hear all of the normal noises of the forest again, so she pulled out her handkerchief. She forced her feet to move forward, one step, two steps, until she could see her hand in a weak ray of moonlight. It hurt when she moved it, but the splinters were easy to pull out. She used her other hand to wrap the wound with her handkerchief. She would ask her mother to fix the bandage when she caught up to her.

Dried leaves crunched under her feet, but whenever she paused to listen, she could not hear her mother ahead of her. All she could do was hurry forward, guided by faint moonlight illuminating the old path and occasional glimpses of white. The residual fear faded away, but Quiet had to stop herself from jumping at every snap of a branch or rustle of leaves, and she still moved as quietly as she could.

Ahead of her, shafts of moonlight broke through tall trees. That feeling began to come back, that tightness in her chest, and only after looking behind her carefully did she step through the ring of trees into the clearing.

It was perfectly round, and the grass looked tired and withered. The silence unnerved her; she was used to the rustle of dry leaves underfoot and the normal sounds of night life. No longer could she hear the animals in the woods even behind her, and her feet were silent in their nervous shifting. Here it was just the grass, the tree, the moon... and the stones.

They were large stones, carved by human hands and set out in rings around the ancient tree in the center of the clearing, where vines had grown up to cover them. There was a stillness here that she did not want to break. She rubbed her hands on her arms, suddenly regretting not grabbing a coat on her way out.

A flash of white on the edge of her vision caught her attention. It led her to a section of stones that made an incomplete circle. The stones here were much cleaner then the stones she had first seen.

In front of the first stone, facing the tree, was a long mound. The next was the same size, engraved in the same style, and was about equally weathered, but the mound before it was more recent, the ground not yet smooth from years of rain and the wear of time.

These were graves.

And the last stone had a yawning void in front of it.

Her mother was in that void, her hands folded on her chest. Her face was serene, but her clothing was torn and spotted with blood.

Quiet was burying her mother, handfuls of dirt mixed with tears and blood. She wanted to stop, wanted to scream, but could only watch her hands pick up the dirt and drop it, handful after handful. Her handkerchief fell off her hand to cover her mother's.

Only her mother's face was left uncovered now. The dirt was piled high enough that she knew soon it would roll down to bury her mother's face, and soon after that it would just be a pile of dirt with grass and vines and moss that would grow when the rain poured down.

She wasn't here, Quiet thought, this wasn't her!

The more she struggled to make her hands do something else, the more disconnected from them she felt. She was hot and all of the stones were glowing and there were things outside of the trees and still she picked up dirt but it wasn't her IT WASN'T HER

She sat up and threw off the blankets. There was no dirt on her hands. She walked downstairs and there was freshly cooked food on the table. Her mother had allowed her to sleep in; this happened occasionally when Quiet had exams. But there was no exam today, and the jam on the table had been reserved for special events and guests since Quiet was very young, when she had sometimes gotten to eat toast with jam to make a belly-ache feel better.

"Eat up. It is All Hallows' and we have a lot to do today." Her mother smiled in front of the kitchen window.

There was no dirt on Quiet's hands, she had no scratches, and her mother was alive. She picked up a fork and dug into the pancakes, her favorite breakfast food.

Her mother looked tired, Quiet thought, and immediately felt guilty; she knew they had been sewing more than usual. They were saving up for something, probably a Solstice surprise. Quiet was old enough now to be picking up more of the slack, and here she was letting her mother make pancakes while she slept. She would have to start working harder to help her mother. Quiet had gone on eating distractedly as these thoughts played out in her mind, and so she didn't notice the jam wiggling down her fork until it plopped onto the table. She quickly scooped up as much as she could, then reached for her handkerchief to get the rest.

He watched the newest members of the team run past him, shoes thumping on the track like a herd of horses. They were doing well, much better than he had expected from try-outs.

When he heard the Captain's voice rise raising his voice over by the hurdlers, Temple gave his group of runners another set of stretches and ten more laps, ignoring their grumbles as he made his way toward the hurdlers. He knew the Captain had been having a hard time getting some of the hurdlers to understand it was not just jumping.

He was halfway across the field when he noticed tendrils of fog curling around his sneakers. Glowing fog. When he looked at the forest behind the school, there were things moving in the shadows. He turned around and Quiet was standing at the gate, her bag held in front of her. A woman was walking towards her, appearing out of the mist like the stories of the elves of old. Temple was frightened, but Quiet took the woman's proffered hand willingly, and followed her out through the school gates.

She kept on seeing things out of the corners of her eyes, movement and light glinting off things that were gone when she turned to look.

Her mother was ill.

Quiet had been doing everything around the house: the cooking, the cleaning, the sewing. She worked as much as possible by her mother's bedside, sitting closely to hear stories that her mother had been told by her own mother. She tells Stories of the creatures of the forest and the Forest Mother; of creatures of the sea, though neither Quiet nor her mother had ever been there before; of a desert beyond the mountains and those who inhabited there who lived in the hot heat of the sun and the cold light of the moon. She told of battles and truces and tributes, protection and respect. She reminded Quiet of the dances they used to do together when she was a child, though Quiet could not remember when they stopped doing them together.

Her mother got out of bed only to meet Quiet by the school gates and walk her home, though Quiet felt that she should be staying home to rest. Quiet no longer argued with her about it.

She danced around the house while her mother slept, memories slipping through her mind like shadows. This will protect you, her mother used to say.

But the more she danced, the more that she saw things, the more her mother slept.

As winter crept down the mountains, Quiet became thinner, and sometimes Temple saw her looking furtively over her shoulder.

He began to see things, creatures that he had been sure were just fairy tales. And always they were around her and only her. He heard things too, voices on the wind that he could never quite understand.

Somehow, he could not talk to her. There was always someone else there who needed to talk to him, she was never in one spot, he never could figure out what to say. It was frustrating; he felt he should talk to her. At least he could ask her if there was something wrong.

Temple stood on the steps of the school, looking up at grey clouds building in the sky. He could smell frost in the air, and see his breath even with a scarf wrapped around his face. A storm was building, and there would be snow when it broke.

He was halfway down the path when he noticed: Quiet was standing by the front gate alone.

She hesitated at the gate of the school, unsure what to do. Her mother was not there to pick her up. Quiet just wanted to curl up in a ball. The bright flashes of light were giving her a headache and the constant whispering grated on her ears. Her mother's presence had helped keep it all at bay. She pulled her hat down tighter over her ears and fought against the tears that threatened behind her eyes.

Then the Temple boy was there at her side, reassuringly solid in her falling-apart world. He looked down at her, then looked around her, almost as if he could see the things that she could. He took her hand in his large one. She couldn't help but crowd close to him as strange things glittered on the edge of her sight and words mixed with the whisper of the leaves. He did not seem to mind that she did not speak. He just held her hand and started walking. It was nice, to walk with someone in silence and not feel that pressure to speak.

Their steps slowed as they reached the outskirts of town. He pulled his scarf down with one finger and smiled wryly at her before opening his mouth. She didn't want him to speak; she didn't want the silence was broken. So she took a step forward, gripping his hand. He looked at her for a moment, then followed her forward, readily giving up the lead.

But each step forward felt like struggling through shifting sand, and then the wind began to blow, roaring down the path and throwing leaves in their faces. She tried to cover her ears against the noise, and squeezed her eyes almost shut. Temple's hand, still in hers, was a steady warmth, unlike her own hands which grew colder and colder.

A sudden weight on her neck and the smell of incense startled her into unscrewing her eyes. Temple was wrapping his scarf twice around her neck. He pulled her up against his side, using his own body to buffer her from the worst of the wind.

They turned a corner and finally her home was in view. Her mother was there, clutching at the gate post as she swayed unsteadily on her feet. Quiet tried to run towards her but Temple's hand stopped her. When she looked back in confusion, he was staring at her mother with a pensive expression. He walked with her when she tugged on his hand again, but he forced her to move more slowly than she wanted. She needed to get her mother back inside!

Her mother was just out of reach when he forced her to stop and tucked her into his side again. Quiet shivered as Temple and her mother stared at each other. Somehow, this was important, and not just to her. The wind stopped. Silence fell. He was gripping her hand hard and she could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Her mother slowly stood up straight, taller than Quiet remembered, and stern, so stern looking!

"I will take care of her." For a moment, she almost couldn't believe her ears. After the cold and the silence, his voice was raspy and harsh. But each word was steady, as steady as the arm holding her to him. Her mother's only response was to step to the side, unblocking the path to the house. A wind blew down the path, making Quiet close her eyes.

The wind did not seem to be the angry force it was before. Rather it felt to Temple like something was withdrawing in defeat. He hurried Quiet into the house, ignoring her half-hearted attempts to turn around. She only stopped struggling when her mother followed them into the house, smiling at them before moving into the kitchen. He pulled Quiet's hat off her head, and was faced with tired eyes and a red nose. But she smiled at him over his scarf, a shy smile that he had never seen before. Her fingers moved stiffly as she attempted to take her gloves off, so he pulled them off for her, then undid the buttons on her jacket. He stopped her hands when she went to take off the scarf; she frowned at him, but left it on, and allowed him to warm her hands in his own for a moment.

"Go get warm. I'll be all right." He turned and left quickly, striding down the path before taking off at a run down the road. He did not want to be caught out in the storm, caught in her anger when she thought about how rude he had been to her mother. Did not want to take away what little time she had remaining with her mother.

He lost himself in his pace, feeling the thud of his shoes on the path, the wind on his back. His lungs burned from the cold and his nose no longer felt anything at all. Occasionally a gust of wind would rush past his collar, cooling his overheated back. He seemed to be outrunning the storm, but the tiny cold feeling remained in his stomach.

It was cold, colder than she had ever remembered. Snow was falling thickly, blanketing the paths and bushes. The only sound Quiet could hear was the crunch of snow beneath her feet. She clutched at the scarf at her neck, ignoring her coat that flapping open behind her.

It hadn't been a dream.

Her mother was gone, buried in the ground for a long time now. Quiet ran from the house, followed by the things, dogging her footsteps and breathing down her neck. They moved silently and their prints quickly filled with snow, but she knew they were there, and getting closer. She was already running as fast as she could.

Her mother was gone and these things had killed her, weeks ago, and Quiet had buried her under ground now covered in snow.

How long, how long?

She passed the school, empty and dead. She ran through the town, feet slipping on the packed snow. There was no light, no movement anywhere except for her own. The moonlight cast shadows ahead of her, large shadows that surrounded her and swallowed up her own shadow. She could see more of them now, their dark shadows that bled ahead of them and turned the snow to flattened ice.

They were laughing now, taunting her as she struggled to move just a little faster. Insidious words, hateful words, there was no way to keep herself from hearing them. There was no one here, there was no one to save her. She couldn't say anything, she was already struggling just to get one more breath in, she could not call for help. Why didn't she just stop, give in already? It would be quick. There was no one else to save her.

They were close, swiping at her jacket and leave long gouges. Their laughter racked at her ears, their smell overwhelming the cold and making her stomach roil. Still she ran, though the path was getting longer and longer.

Why didn't she do anything? But what could she do? She was alone, all alone. Her mother had tried to stop them and failed, again. They were already gone, all gone and she was the last one.

Their whispers were screams now, wails that never ended and drowned out the sound of her heart. Her heart that was out of control, stuttering, slowing.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs to the main temple, watching the storm boil down the mountain and race across the valley towards them. It was more than the storm that he felt. This had the feeling of power, roiling and building up higher and higher until the pressure flattened everything beneath it. It was like everything was being drained around him, like waves pulling out to sea.

He was watching the sky when Quiet hurtled through the gate, a small shell on the edge of the wave. She hit his chest with enough impact to knock them both over into the snow.

For a moment he couldn't breathe. All that built-up power was sitting right there, gathered above their heads. He could see it now, a swirling mass. It seemed to be frozen there, waiting for something. He gathered Quiet in close, afraid that when the storm broke it would sweep her away from him. There were things at the gate, pits of black... waiting.

"Please! Please, give me back my name!" She sobbed against his chest, twining her arms around his neck and clinging with failing strength.

They howled in rage and forced themselves in past the gate. The wood splintered then shattered, letting in a stream of darkness as the power began to fall.

What did Temple know? How could he be trusted with giving a Name, him the second son with no ability. He was just a replacement, second at everything. He couldn't do anything. He was already losing her. Why didn't he just throw her away and save himself?

Then there was silence. His father was there, a wall of strength that threw the things back. Temple's uncle was beside his father, working with him as he had not needed to do since they first came to this town. Their efforts bought Temple a single moment in which to whisper in her ear, and he seized it. Then the power hit them.

It was like being thrown into the ocean. It filled his lungs, filled his ears, blocked his sight. He whispered her name again and was surprised to hear his own name in response. He held on to her, cradling her head to his chest as they were battered by the power. And like the ocean, this storm had a pattern. He just had to stop struggling for a moment, and he found he could start move with it. But he couldn't see and when he stopped struggling he could also feel that they were sinking.

She moved, pulling him with her.

It was like a giant bubble had popped. He could see again. Except now there was more to see: the protective wards glowed, lights bobbed through the trees, and all around the temple, white fog eddied and swirled.

The ground in front of him was flecked with some dark substance. Even in death, the creatures seemed to have no form, just some pieces oozing on the ground. The gates were lying on the ground, though one hinge still clung stubbornly to the remains of a post. They had been made of heavy wood, and took two to close.

His uncle leaned down and took the limp form out of his arms. He was surprised to find that he couldn't even lift his own arms, he was shivering so hard. He gladly allowed his father to pull him up and help him into the temple.

She was already bundled up into blankets in front of the fire. He sat beside her and pulled her close, tucking her head under his chin. He signed in relief when her hand crept out from under the blankets to curl on his chest. The fire was warm in front of him. He closed his eyes, and light and shadow danced over his eyelids.

He felt he had closed his eyes only a moment ago, but there was a tray of food on the table; that was new. His uncle had changed clothing and his mother was leaning over him, concern plain on her face. Seeing his eyes open, she smiled at him and moved away to join the quiet conversation on the other side of the room. He shifted to try and get some feeling in his arm.

"Ortrun?" Her voice was as quiet as it always was, but she was looking up at him from under her bangs and leaning willingly into his side.

He blushed and looked into the fire for a moment. "I thought the name fit." A secret place...

She was looking into the fire when he next he dared to glance down at her, and a thoughtful expression was on her face. "I like it." He watched the way the fire played on her hair. She leaned forward and looked up at him, resting her chin on her knee. "I remember a lot of things now, things my mother kept from me." She looked down and frowned. "It's been like I wasn't really there, like I was just fading away." She hugged her knees tighter and hid her face. Her voice was muffled when she went on. "She's been dead for a long time. I have kept her here, all this time. But I was so tired, I couldn't keep it up any more." She looked up again at him, "She has been writing a lot over the years. There are stacks of books up in the attic, all to teach me things that my family has been doing for years. I..." her voice cracked a little as tears finally started to roll down her face, "Sigmund, I just don't know how I am going to do this alone."

It felt natural holding her in his arms through this. "I'll be here," he said, "I'll always be here with you." He did not know if she had heard him, so he whispered it into her hair as he held her, as she finally mourned her mother's death.

the end