*
“What is it?” Beruka twisted herself around to look in at Chandra. Though she tried to stretch herself out to fill in the opening of the little tree nook Beruka could not keep the storm from seeping in around her. Chandra was scrabbling in the muck at the bottom of the nook, scrapping her legs through the mud as she tried to push herself deeper into the shallow indent at the foot of the tree. She was gathering her breath to scream again but looking into Beruka’s face and watching the rain pelt against her back Chandra swallowed her breath.
“I saw a ghost. I saw it fly right by just now. It didn’t stop though. I didn’t see it good.” Chandra said before wrapping her arms around her legs and hugging her knees close.
“Yeah. I saw something too.” Beruka replied, glancing back over her shoulder into the storm. “But it was probably nothing. It was probably a trick of the storm.”
“Or maybe it was the Sorceress Queen.” Chandra turned away as she spoke, embarrassed by her own growing fears in the face of Beruka’s calm talk. “Maybe she is right outside with her ghosts and goblins and she is going to get us.”
“Well if she wants you she will have to come through me first.” Shifting her shoulders to the side Beruka turned herself around again to face the forest and the storm. She tipped her head over her shoulder to speak back in to Chandra. “And you would be awfully easy to catch if it weren’t for me.”
“No I wouldn’t!” Chandra stood up so her head hit the tree. The jolt sent her right back down into the muck again. “No way…” She continued as she rubbed the back of her head and tried to see if there was any blood on her fingers between all the mud. “I would be brave even if I was all by myself! And I rescued you when you were caught by the bush bandits remember? I’m tough.”
“Well, maybe.” Beruka grinned and turned her attention outwards again.
“I’ll show you!” Chandra shouted. “We are going home and I don’t care if the Sorceress Queen comes right out and hits me on the nose! I’ll take care of her. I’ll box with her just like daddy showed me how to do and then I’ll knock her down.”
Pushing her way past Beruka the girl stomped her way back into the fuller storm, her feet squishing and squashing in the mud as she went. But she had hardly gone four steps before she stopped and stood still. Her fingers curled up into two tight balls. The rain soaked into her hair and droplets circled round and round each strand before dripping off the ends. She did not look into the forest or onto the ground but seemed to be starring at some point in between them, trembling, unwilling to move even to escape the rain.
“Chandra?” Beruka put a hand on the child’s shoulder but her touch was almost as cold as the rain. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to go home?”
“I…I’m scared.” Anger flashed across her face while the rain mixed with her tears and carried them away unseen. “I’m scared of ghosts. I-” And she stamped her foot so hard the mud sprayed nearly over her head.
“But ghosts can’t hurt you you know, not like bandits can.” Beruka knelt in front of Chandra and let her hands pass over the child’s arms until she held either elbow. Chandra struggled to remain rooted and still but Beruka could feel the girl’s body quivering. Though Beruka looked full into the child’s face, seeking for their eyes to connect, Chandra stared resolutely over Beruka’s left ear refusing to meet her gaze.
“But I might see him.” Chandra nearly whispered as her eyes grew fierce. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to. I’m scared of it.”
For a moment the two stood still in that half-way embrace. Chandra forced the features of her face to bend further and further into an angry scowl until they were as scrunched and tight as she could get them. Her face hurt with the effort and she could not hold it together for very much longer. Her bottom lip began to tremble and her face melted into tears. She fell into Beruka’s arms like a bent branch finally snapping and there she cried with deep moaning cries that Beruka could feel vibrating through her own chest just as much as she could hear them. She wrapped the child up tight in her arms and whispered little calming words into Chandra’s ears, the sounds of her voice hardly audible as the rain still beat against the tree leaves and dribbled down onto their heads.
“If your father came back to visit you it wouldn’t be so bad.” Beruka said as the child’s voice slowly quieted.
“It wouldn’t…?” Chandra asked sniffing deeply through her nose, the tears slurping back in again.
“No. Because your dad loved you very much. He would come back invisible so that you wouldn’t see him because he wouldn’t want to scare you, and then he would stay and watch you grow up. Or he would come back very small so that you wouldn’t be afraid because you would think he was a mouse. Or he would come back and speak through a friend of yours, someone maybe who is not so afraid of ghosts, and he would tell you all about what it was like to live in Heaven.”
“I… I wonder what Heaven is like. I would want him to tell me about that.”
“If you come with me and you are brave maybe you will see him and he will be so proud to see how brave you are and then he would make the rain stop and he would sit with you and tell you all about it. He would tell you how much he missed you. Now, let’s go little June-berry. Let’s go home.”
Chandra pulled one foot and then the other out of the mud and wiped a sopping wet sleeve across her face.
“My dad used to call me that.” She said.
“Well your dad was good with names too I think.” Said Beruka as she stood up. She held out a hand and Chandra took it and the two of them began to make their way through the storm together.
Wind poured through the woods churning the tree branches together. The rain soaked everything to mush so that even the bark on the trees seemed to peel off like loose mud. Still Chandra and Beruka marched along with as much spirit as their weighted clothes and their weighted hair would allow. Chandra’s eyes darted from one side of her head to the other as she walked, letting Beruka’s gentle pull on her fingers guide her along. Every swaying of a branch, every splatter of a drop of water, all the motions of the storm and forest drew the child’s attention. She kept her lips straight and set in a tight line but her rolling searching eyes betrayed her nervousness. Her face began to ache and her eyes slowed until she kept a solid stare at the ground right in front of her feet. A frown tugged at the edges of her lips until the weight of that feeling became too much and she gave up any pretense of bravery. She just plodded along with her guide in front of her towing her along and the constant unwanted undeserved applause of the storm all around her.
A flash of white flickered across the corner of Chandra’s eye and her head snapped in that direction. But there was nothing to see, only the dulled colors of the forest. She fell into her mindless marching again. One step, two step, one step, two step she counted in her head and mouthed the number as she went. Lightning flashed bringing the forest back to full blinding daylight. In that moment of fresh light Chandra saw the silhouette of something too short to be a tree. She looked towards it as the normal gloom of the storm settled down again. It was a white form that seemed to be floating over the ground with two arms wavering at its side. Water soaked even through the clothing of the ghost so that its sleeves slapped at a tree beside it, clapping with every wind and then peeling off the tree’s trunk again.
“Beruka!” Chandra squeezed both her hands into Beruka’s palm and she jumped up close so that her nose pushed into the middle of Beruka’s back.
“What is it?” Asked Beruka, placing her free hand on Chandra’s head. “Did you see something?”
“It’s a ghost!”
“Ah, I see it. Come on, let’s go this way.” Beruka began to walk again, directly away from where Chandra had seen the white wavering form. Chandra hardly let Beruka get a step ahead of her before she ran right up behind. They would have tumbled down together into the mud if Beruka had not been so mindful of the child’s feet, dancing and hopping to avoid tangling their ankles togeth
er. They rounded a bush and nearly walked into the embrace of yet another ghost reaching out with long thin arms. Chandra could not stop herself in time and stepped into Beruka’s back sending them both sliding a step closer. Chandra screamed and began to claw into Beruka’s spine.
“Okay! Easy now!” Taking Chandra’s hand Beruka sprinted off away from the ghost pulling Chandra along hard enough so that the child’s feet seemed to skip over the soggy soil hardly leaving a toe print behind. When they had escaped Beruka dipped down onto one knee and turned her face over her shoulder to Chandra.
“Hop on.” Said Beruka.
“But I’m too heavy. You can’t carry me.”
“Get on!”
“But… But you’re just…you’re just a doll! You can’t carry me!”
“Get on Chandra. You won’t know until you give it a try. Trust me, June-berry.”
Chandra wrapped her arms around Beruka’s shoulders and hoisted up her legs. Beruka took hold of the child and stood up again making a little hop just to settle Chandra on her back properly. Stooped under the weight of the child Beruka began to run through the forest. A ghost appeared before them and another at the side. Chandra tightened her grip until she was sure that Beruka couldn’t possibly breathe but Beruka kept on running straight ahead.
“Close your eyes!” Beruka commanded, shouting over the storm.
Chandra squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in Beruka’s hair. She heard only the rain and felt only the rhythm of Beruka’s pace beneath her. The rain pattering onto her back and the jostling of As time passed Beruka’s jogging could not keep the exhaustion from seeping into Chandra’s eyes and spreading out through her arms and legs until all the corners of her body eased and grew warm with the coming of sleep. Just as her eyes finally slid shut Beruka ground to a stop. Chandra’s nose bounced off of Beruka’s spine so that in a single moment the girl’s head was erect again and her eyes opened wide.
“Chandra.” Said a woman with a throaty voice. She spoke low but Chandra could hear every word through the rain. “Chandra. Where are you going? You know you can’t escape from me. I will get you and you will never see your home again.”
A woman with a long white dress and a white crown stood in the path of Beruka and Chandra. The gloom of the storm gathered and pooled into shadows across her face and neck so that only the ghostly glow of her clothes could be seen with any certainty. Perhaps she was a ghost herself, though she was the first ghost to speak to them.
“Chandra. I know you. Do you know who I am?” Asked the woman as she moved towards the child. She seemed to grow ten feet taller with every step.
“You are…” Chandra searched the shadows of the woman’s face trying to find her eyes but there was only darkness. “You are…”
“I am…?” A liquid flash crossed the face of the woman as her eyes, those cold and piercing eyes, finally emerged from the shadows of her face.
“You’re the Sorceress Queen.” And Beruka suddenly disappeared from under Chandra so she found herself kneeling on a rag doll. Without taking her eyes off the approaching woman Chandra dug her fingers into the forest floor searching through the dirt and leaves until she took hold of her doll. Hugging her doll with both arms around her chest Chandra scrabbled backwards away from the woman, kicking her legs and scrapping along her bottom through the mud.
“Where are you going? You know there is no one who can save you.”
Chandra shut her eyes, jumped up to her feet, and turned away from the Sorceress Queen. She ran through the forest, opening her eyes though they were overflowing with tears and the endless rain. Trees rushed past. Bushes parted. The forest moved by in a blur.
“Over there! A cave!” Shouted Beruka as she suddenly seized Chandra’s hand. She pulled the girl to a skittering stop and yanked her in a new direction. The two of them pushed themselves into a hole in a low pile of rocks until they were lost in the darkness of it.