d2 Chapter 1a

8/14/2019 d2 Chapter 1a

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Chapter 1a

“Have you seen the poppies today, Melea?”

“Yes. Aren’t they just wonderful?” My mother asked her friend back. Theypassed by me, each carrying a basket of clothes to be washed. She normally

asks me to help out, but she saw her friend Mera, and I knew that they wouldwant to catch up.

It was no secret that I was glad that she would be too distracted to get me tohelp with chores. I don’t know what I would have done if I had to listen andbe a part of one more conversation about the poppies and how beautifulthey look.

What is the big deal? They’re flowers, get over it already! With my momgone for what I hoped to be the entire day, I was left to my own devices, andI never had a problem with that. The problem was, most of my friends werehelping their parents with chores, too.

That only left one thing for me to do—daydreaming. Today was perfect forit, too. The sun was shining warm against the cool air, and the sky was thisimpossibly heavenly blue. It was the same color as the ocean according toArates, one of our village elder’s stories.

I picked a place, my favorite spot in all of Matza Pira, a round hill that’scovered in the softest, greenest grass. I lay back in the grass, letting theblades brush against my back like a soft wool brush. I positioned myself onthe hill to where curve of my back met with the curve of the hill. It wasperfect, pure bliss.

I took a deep breath and craned my head up at the sky. I was disappointed

when all I could see was the endless blue above me. The only sign of a cloudI could see was a light wisp of a cloud that barely moved.

It wasn’t long before the blue sky took on a depth of its own, and it wasbeginning to make me feel a little dizzy. Looking into nothingness gets alittle tiring, you know. A strong wind blew, tussling my short lavender

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colored hair. I had to straighten it, patting it down and smoothing it out untilthe next blast of cold air took me by surprise.

I gave up on trying to keep my hair from looking like I’d suddenly got caught

up in a windstorm. If my hair looked messy, it was too bad. My hair wasn’tthat long anyway. It stops just at the bottom of my ears.

I drifted off to sleep for a while hoping that maybe by the time that I woke upthere would be some more clouds in the sky, enough to get my imaginationgoing, I hoped. I completely forgot about that ambition the moment my eyesfell closed.

I felt light, like everything around me was spinning until it came to a slowstop. Things weren’t normal, though. Everything was lying on its side, like itwas on this tilt, and the slightest movement would cause everything to tipover, fall over the edge, and crash into this dark abyss.

It wasn’t something that I actually saw, but I felt it. There was this sense of danger and immediacy that came along with it. I had to….I had to dosomething about it. I had to….Wake up!

My eyes came flying open as if someone had been violently shaking meawake. I sat up without even thinking about it. If there hadn’t been anyonestanding in front of me, I probably would have jumped up and took off running, looking for this strange tilting land.

As if such a place could ever exist. How stupid. Then again, I’d lived inMatza Pira my whole life. I had no idea what was out there beyond the cliff that kept our valley village protected from the outside world. The idea of the

unknown both scared and thrilled me.

I’ll have to ask Arates or Thies about it later. If anyone in this village knewabout the outside world, it would have to be these two. They were olderthan old, and the wisest. Was there anything they didn’t know?

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“Take it easy, Rabbit,” Sor said, holding his hands out in front of him. “Don’thurt us. We come in peace.” He chuckled.

“Yeah, we come in peace,” Omre said, echoing the older boy standing next

to him.

I stood up and brushed myself off, wiping away a few loose blades of grassthat had stuck to my brown dress. I adjusted it and said, “What are youdoing here, Sor?”

Sor was the same age as me, and his brother Omre was a few years youngerthan him. I never got around to asking how old he was, and after a while, I

figured that it didn’t matter.

“Me and my brother were just going to go exploring.”

“Exploring? In Matza Pira? What is there to explore? We’ve all been hereour entire lives. I don’t think there’s anything left to see.”

“Omre hasn’t seen it all yet. He’s just a kid, remember?”

“We’re kids, too, remember?”

Omre cowered behind his brother’s leg. I forgot just how timid Omre was. Ididn’t mean to scare him.

“I’m not a kid,” Omre said back. He swung one of his stubby little legs tokick me in the leg, but I stepped back.

“Omre, trying to kick Rabbit in the leg only proves that you’re just a kid.”

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“I am not.”

Sor only laughed at his brother, but I could tell that he was embarrassed.Maybe his parents told him that they had to spend all day together.

I dug my bare feet into the dirt as I waited for Sor to say something. I waspretty sure that he wanted to invite me to go wherever he was planning ongoing. I don’t think he wanted to be stuck with his kid brother the rest of theday with nothing to talk about.

“So…do you want to come along with us?”

“That depends,” I said. I purposely tried to make myself sound grownup, andI crossed my arms across my dress, right above the hand woven turquoisebelt that my mother had made. “Where are you going?”

“Just here and there.”

“Where exactly is ‘here and there’? I’m not going anywhere with you untilyou tell me.”

Omre ran off to play chase a fly that happened across his path. He followedit up and down the hill, his hands poised on both sides of the fly so he couldcatch it.

Sor leaned in close and clasped a hand over one side of his mouth. “Don’ttell my brother, but I was planning on going to Cliff Deos and getting a closerlook at the poppies.”

I sighed. Apparently, the grownups weren’t the only ones so fascinated byflowers that grew in the same place every year. “Again with the poppies?What is with every one? People are going crazy over those flowers, morethan they were last year. I swear, I can’t stand it!”

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He grinned. “Well, don’t you at least want to see what all the hype’s about?”

I took a sideways glance at Sor’s little brother who fell into a patch of dirtthen emerged triumphantly with a dirty face. He looked like he’d won firstprice by falling.

“Okay,” I finally said. “I’ll go to look at them just this once.”

“You’re probably the only person in the whole village who hasn’t gone to seethem. Even the old people have climbed the steps to take a quick peek.”

“You don’t have to rub it in, Sor.”

“I know, I just felt like it,” he said, another grin plastered on his face.

I wish I had some clay right then. I could have stuffed it in his mouth to getthat smile off his face.

“Come on, Omre! We’re going.”

Sor led the way with his little brother behind him. I lagged behind, butmostly because I didn’t really know anything about taking the route that tookyou to Cliff Deos.

For years, I had been very stubborn about not wanting to go see the poppieseven though I live in a village where the blooming of the poppies is asignificant event in our lives and our culture. I think I’m the only one whodidn’t care much about that.

It wouldn’t hurt to get a little peek just this one time.

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Sor led us through this grassy field that had its own gravel path cut into it.Worn away by the footsteps of its many travelers every year, the grassusually grew back. This year as I followed in the footsteps of everyone else, Ilooked at the white chalk of the pathway.

I wasn’t sure that the grass would grow back this year. At least the smoothstones felt good against my bare feet, and when the wind blew, it dance inplace, waving its sharp tips against both sides of my body.

“Here we are,” Sor announced, coming to a stop. He outstretched his handto present a set of stone steps that led up. I had to tilt my head back so farthat I was sure that they connected with the sky at some point.

“Wow,” Omre said, his mouth wide open.

It was no surprise that he was amazed, but I was a little in awe of it myself. I just didn’t tell anyone that.

“Exactly how many steps are there?” I asked, squinting to look for individualsteps that led to the cliff.

“No one knows for sure, but according to legend, there’s over a thousand. If you listened to the elders’ stories about the poppies, you’d know that.”

“I’ll ignore that,” I said, but I know I said it with a big frown on my face.

“Come on,” Sor waved to me as he walked to the base of the first step.

“Oh, no. I’m not climbing that. It’ll take forever.” I turned around andstarted to walk away. I was a little curious about what it looked like on top of Cliff Deos, but I didn’t want to know that much.

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“No, don’t go,” Omre said, grabbing the edge of my dress.

When I looked down at him, he was grabbing my whole right leg.

“Uh, did I mention that it was his idea to ask you to come with us?”

Looking from Omre to Sor back to his little brother again, I took a deepbreath and finally gave in.

“Fine, but we have to take breaks.”

Sor’s little brother took my pale hand into his little hand and pulled metowards the stairs. I had to bend down slightly just to catch up with him. Ididn’t think he wanted me around. I didn’t even think he liked me.

We all stood in a line—Sor, me, and Omre still holding onto my hand—as welooked up at the stairs again. At almost the same time, we took our first step

up the stair.

Then we took our next step and our next. After a few steps—I’d already lostcount of how many by then—I turned around saw the ground, a blurry greenmass. One thing that did stand out was the pallid trail that we’d taken to gethere, meandering in big curves. For some reason, it reminded me more of asnake than a big river.

“Is anyone tired?” Sor asked. “Rabbit, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, but I don’t think he is.” I pointed to Omre. All of his energywas gone.

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“Tired already?”

Omre slowly nodded, making him look sleepy.

“You should have thought about that before you chased that fly around.”

“Come on, let’s stop and rest for him.”

“No, carry me, Sor!”

I laughed.

“I’m not carrying you. You have to walk, you’re too big for me to carry.”

“If you want, you can lean on me,” I offered. I didn’t know much aboutdealing with younger siblings; I was the youngest.

d2 Chapter 1a

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