Birds twittered and a warm, comforting breeze blew in this never before seen landscape. The whole impression was one of visual perfection. Grass and leaves were perfectly green, tree trunks were perfectly straight, the sky was perfectly blue, puffy white clouds were perfectly white and puffy, and the surrounding air was the perfect temperature.
Unfortunately for Billy though, the confronting confession from Cetra was that none of it was real. Apparently this sacred dominion held the ability to capture the thoughts and desires of all who entered it, allowing them to see what was on their hearts, and then in turn, where possible, perfecting it. In the case of Billy’s thoughts and desires, they were in the woods outside his home in the south of Yorkshire, running to his mother’s call for supper.
Billy suddenly remembered he needed to get home.
“I must be getting home, Cetra.”
“Where is home, Billy?” she asked, a concerned look on her face.
He paused to think.
“Yorkshire.... England.... Earth....” and his answer trailed off into nothing.
Cetra looked as though she was processing his words. “No. I have never heard of any of them.”
Billy wondered where the heck he had landed, whose story had he unwittingly become a part of. Maybe he was in a dream, though it all seemed too real for that, in a manner of speaking, considering that he was actually in an unreal place.
Billy was suddenly confused even more so than before...
They stood together in silence for some time, gazing out at their own individual ideas of perfection. Billy took inventory of himself; he was definitely here, his jacket was still tied around his waist, his boots were still on his feet and he could still see his khaki cargo pants and dark brown shirt. Most importantly his leather box was still hanging at his side, the strap remaining cast over his shoulder.
Cetra took hold of Billy’s hand again and awkwardly side stepped along the stone verandah towards the stairs which led down to the wonderfully lush green grass. There she suggested they sit for a while.
Billy watched the girl’s lower lip drop, her mouth looked sad all of a sudden, although her eyes continued to sparkle.
“I will not be able to answer the questions you might want to ask, Billy,” she explained solemnly, “And I do not know where you have come from, but I do know where you need to go.”
Suddenly she was happy again. She slapped her knee excitedly, the crack coming off louder than anticipated. “I can help you Billy. I am glad. I do know somebody who is very smart, so that is who I will take you to.”
Billy smiled to himself, he was terribly satisfied with the very idea that Cetra would stay with him longer. “So where do we go from here?” he asked expectantly.
“We sleep. I am tired,” was her reply.
It was not quite the answer he expected to hear. Yes, he certainly was a little worn out, but he wanted to crack on, wanted to start a new chapter in the story he had fallen into. Tally-ho and off we go. Jump into the journey. He opened his mouth to protest but Cetra quickly slapped a hand over it to silence him.
It was a few moments before she removed it.
Billy looked around for a distraction and found himself staring at her feet. Upon closer scrutiny he discovered that she was wearing two left shoes, the right side being at least two sizes larger than the other. It was somewhat bizarre.
“What’s with the shoes?” he asked, interrupting her in mid yawn.
“What do you mean, Billy?” She said after quickly composing herself.
“I mean,” he started, “you are wearing odd sized shoes.”
Cetra stretched her legs out over the stairs to display her feet, she flexed them in the air, side to side, forward and back.
“That is because I have odd sized feet,” she claimed.
Billy wasn’t sure if he was up to hearing the answer to his next question.
“Ok, but you are wearing two... left shoes.”
Cetra giggled. “That is because I have two left feet, silly.”
And that was it, the answer he feared most. Why hadn’t he simply left well alone? How does one respond to such a claim?
“Why do you have hair on that one?” he managed to ask while leaning across to point at the line of hair above her sock.
“That one is not my foot.”
“Huh?”
“That one is a boy’s foot. I lost my one.”
As incredulous as that sounded, Billy found himself listening intently to her story. Apparently, when Cetra was much younger she had fallen into an accident with about six others of her kind. Upon their collision a mess of feet and hands had flown every which way and dispersed randomly about them across the dirt. Racing against time to avoid the embarrassment of being discovered in their unusual predicament, they each scrambled around on the ground in an endeavour to retrieve their own appendages. Time had quickly run out for them though, and to this day Cetra was still unsure as to how many of them may have ended up with the wrong hands and feet.
“I have detachable hands and feet,” she mouthed slowly at his silence.
Billy stared blankly... What?
“What?”
“My hands and feet, Billy, they come off.”
“What?”
“Do you want to see?”
“NO!” was his instant response.
The twittering of birds penetrated their silence and the sound of a breeze rustling through the trees calmed him. A few moments and he would speak again.
“So what’s the point in having.... detachable.... things?”
Cetra looked puzzled, “I do not know, I have never really thought about it.”
“I mean,” Billy continued, “feet... ok, but hands...? You couldn’t exactly take the second hand off once the first one had been done, could you?”
She grinned, thinking for a moment. “You know Billy, you are right.”
“And what are you supposed to do if both your hands have come off? How are you supposed to put them back on then, huh?”
Cetra giggled and pushed Billy at the shoulder, knocking him over onto his side.
“You know,” she said, “the same day I lost my foot I tried to retrace my steps, but I was unable to do so because it was not my foot.”
Both laughed and fell backwards onto the warm stone verandah. Billy bathed in the glow of the day, rejoiced in its warmth and peace. He still wanted to go home and he was certainly hungry, but this was ok too. As Cetra would say, he was here, so what else could he do?
When their bodies began to relax and drowsiness swept over them, Billy asked one more thing before they drifted off to sleep.
“What perfect thing do you see here, Cetra?”
“A beach,” she said, “and in the distance a big pier with a fun park on it.”
CHAPTER SIX