The Banks of River Running
Boundaries of Mirkwood
Chapter 5
"The Banks of River Running"
Dedicated to Denethor, son of Ecthelion, Ex-Steward of Gondor who with his last breath gave new meaning to the phrase “flaming mad.”
Abigail rode the elevator toward consciousness very slowly. The first sensation she felt was ‘cold,’ closely followed by ‘wet’ and ‘uncomfortable’. A dull ache pounded in her skull, and as she came to realize that the hard, icy lumps pressing into her face and body were pebbles, a jolt of panic surged through her.
Her eyes shot open to the sight of a pebbly bank and a wide but shallow river. Taking in her trembling, cold, wet, sack of a body, she found that the lower part of her was still in the lazy water. Pushing herself up and pulling her soggy weight forward onto the bank, her vision wavered in darkness from the effort. A dull throb in her head brought on a wave of nausea. In defeat, she collapsed a few inches to the ground, frightened by how weak she was and desperately trying to catch her breath, exhausted from the brief exertion.
After a time, she began to feel better. Blood had rushed back into her fingers and toes along with her memory of falling from a tree. She opened her eyes again and looked up and down the river. This certainly wasn’t the creek that ran through campus! There was no bridge and the water was too wide; this was a river. Something was amuck. Perhaps the fall had somewhat altered her memory.
She stood clumsily, rivulets of water running down into her shoes and dreading what she would find in the landscape. The surreal woods rose up as a wall. Abigail forgot to breath. Spreading out as far as the dim light would allow her to see was a half-dead forest, the grayish trees and their faded leaves towering as high as redwoods. Their branches were gnarled and bent in defeat, intertwined. They stifled the light and left the atmosphere a grayish haze. Few plants grew below with a sparse lattice of ivy. And it was near perfectly silent, save for the sigh of the wind through the wood and the rushing din of water.
“Oh God.” Abigail choked on her soft words; the air seemed so stale. Fear stiffened her throat and she trembled, chilled and panicky. Clenching her hands into a fist, she realized she yet held something. A narrow branch. The very branch she had ripped from the holly tree she’d fallen from in Wellington.
So it wasn’t a dream; she had fallen. That had not been a delusion, but neither could this be. Clinging to the stick were it her lifeline, she crept up the edge of the forest as her Doc Martins squeaked and sloshed.
A great tree stood towering over the river. It drooped a bit, but was solidly there. Hesitantly, Abigail touched the trunk, its bark as real as the chill in the air. Among the branches above her, the tree creaked a moan without the aid of wind. The sound was so loud in comparison to the stifled silence that Abigail jumped back. Was that her imagination? Trees did not moan. There it was again; this time further into the wood.
Abigail decided she didn’t want to know and retreated back to the bank only to catch a glimpse of a brown lump lying in a patch of dead leaves. Her backpack. At least she could manage a bit of luck out here. Bending over to pick up the pack, a glimmer of red from the woods behind some brush glinted. Her bike! Then misery set in. If nothing else she could get nowhere fast.
She shivered again and quickly realized she needed to get out of her wet clothes, especially the drenched wool skirt, and get a fire going. That would dry her off and the smoke would make a signal for rescuers. Setting her stick on her bag, she began to undress, shivering and letting out a string of curses at her fate until she was down to her white bra, knickers, and brown socks. She was too irritated to care if someone saw her at the moment and just as soon as she laid her clothes out on a log to dry, she began to look for means to start a fire.
Exactly why had she passed on all opportunities to learn to start one from scratch?
Dumping her bag’s content onto the forest floor, she began to sort through it, hoping to find a pack of matches she might have ganked from a bar. No such luck. There was nothing but pencils, notebooks, textbooks, and one edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Nothing to eat; nothing to get a fire going with.
A tree nearby moaned.
“Shut up!” She snapped, the sound of her own voice in the silence stung her ears. Tears of angry frustration welled in her eyes. Unbidden, they began to trickle down her face and in a childish display of temper she grabbed the closest thing, her stick, and flung it at the offending tree.
It was then a most curious thing happened. As the stick struck the tree, sparks of red and gold sputtered out one end of it.
Abigail blinked. And again. All remained still, save for a bit of distant tree moaning.
Cautiously, she crept near the tree and picked up her stick with care.
Did what she thought just happen, happen? Tentatively, she stood and stretched out her arm. The vague notion of how silly she must have looked, in naught but her underoos in the middle of a forest holding a stick crossed her mind, but she put it out.
With a swish, she raised her arm and brought it down with a flick.
*WOOSH*
Out burst red and gold sparks into the gloomy, gray of the forest as a warm sensation eased up her arm. The trees nearby moaned a bit in chorus, their cries quickly echoed by those around them, but that didn’t worry Abigail terribly much now. Carefully laying it amongst her things and keeping near the shore, she wandered through the wood picking up dead foliage. It was probably best not to touch any plants that might be living. The trees unnerved her, and she figured it was safer not to bother them if she could help it.
Bringing her load back to the shore, she found a better, slightly sandy spot to make camp. She unloaded, re-laid her clothes out, and found a tree to lean her bike against. This would be a good place to wait for help and spend the night. The currently gloomy forest was darkening and because the canopy was heavy, she doubted there would be much starlight to see by.
After arranging a neat pile of twigs and logs, she sat before the stack with her wand raised and mustering her resolve. This just had to work; she was too cold and her hair was yet damp. Growling, her stomach reminded her that it’d been hours since last she ate and had no food with her. There was only water to drink, if she dared to drink from the wild river at all.
Pushing this out of her mind, she boldly incanted the first thing that came to mind. “Lacarnum Inflamari.”
Nothing.
She cleared her throat, resituated herself, and once again, this time a little louder, commanded, “Lacarnum Inflamari.”
Nota.
Abigail examined her wand, grumpily switched the end she held, and shouted, “Lacarnum Inflamari!”
A small flame popped out of the end and landed in the middle of the heap, setting it aflame. Wide-eyed, Abigail stood and examined the slightly curving shaft. It was a little less than a foot long, and to her eyes, beautiful. Raising her head, she looked into the inky forbidding expanse of the forest.
“What is this place?” She whispered aloud, desperate to hear a voice.
Surely, it could not be. She could not be in a book. It wasn’t, couldn’t.
With one breath and with fear as the hazy twilight gave way to night, she questioningly uttered, “The Forbidden Forest?”
***
Someone cried out in the darkness.
A whisper, a murmur, a slight chorus of sobs; raised voices in an endless night.
If only they would be silent! Niobe’s head pounded with a migraine and her body ached. It was cold and numb. Slowly, her senses began to return to her along with the crescendoing incoherent voices. She felt as though she were bobbing in motion, as if, like. . .floating.
Consciousness began to creep back to her. This certainly wasn’t right, whatever was happening. William wouldn’t be far away, would he? He must be near, if only she could recognize one of the voices, the voices that would not stop. If one was his, she would know . . .
William!
He flashed before her mind’s eye, reaching out to catch her as she. . .she fell back to her death.
Tearing at the curtains of unconscious which veiled her mind, begging for the cacophony of voices to be silent, she began to flounder finding she was submerged in a liquid. Niobe tried to take a breath only there was no air and began to choke as there was no air to replace what she’d already taken. The voices clamored in her head making her dizzier than she already was. Surely she could not drown again!
Her foot found a hold in the sandy bed and she pushed off and sprung out of the meter deep water coughing and gasping for breath. She clawed at her chest, dripping wet, shaking with cold and exhaustion.
The voices did not stop.
Niobe frantically looked down the gray river. Naught but water and a smoggy air. Her eyes gaped fearfully at the enormous sentinel trees lining the bank, all the strange voices seeming to speak to her, to one another, to whisper and speak:
See, see what we see.
Niobe could not be sure she didn't know the words for this peculiar language. In her mind, she held a certain, partial understanding of it, were it a language at all for speak and groan they did.
Stumbling, teetering with every step, Niobe waded through the water and made for the rocky shore.
The voices will not stop! Trepidation struck as Niobe realized the sounds weren’t coming from around her. They were coming from her own head. Surely, if she were going out of her mind she wouldn’t recognize the change, would she?
Tears blurred her vision of dying trees and gray, dismal shores for the cacophony made her dizzy and induced a headache. On an outcropped stone she tripped and fell, but the water was so shallow now it did her no harm. Panicked, fearful, her head pounding, and her body in agony, Niobe tearfully dragged herself onto the gravel, lay her head down, and gave in to the blissful black.
***
Niobe was waking again and the voices were creeping back.
They will come soon, Niobe reminded herself of the voices. I must not let them have me again. I just need to stay calm.
But what was there to make her calm? She was alone in a strange, terrible place, in pain, and utterly miserable. Back at St. Andrew’s, she would go to William. In those few moments she’d felt her way wandering, the strength for her passions draining, William was there. He had faith in her, unwavering and unconditional. She could almost see him now as she opened a door to an unused classroom. He sat reading a book, his feet propped up upon a desk in front of him. When he read, he always immersed himself, loosing nearly all cognitive abilities to identify or acknowledge anyone else in the room. Blond hair shading his clear blue eyes, he was a curious and enticing thing for her. Sometimes, she almost felt shy under his gaze. Almost.
She stepped close to him, still failing to gain his notice which, in turn, evoked a smile from her lips. With mock haughtiness she plopped onto a desk and shoved his feet off its top, startling the preoccupied young man out of his revelry.
“You should not put your shoes on the desks. They’re dirty.”
His eyes shimmered with barely concealed delight, a wicked and conniving grin spreading across his face. He looked as if he were about to toss his book, grab her, and kiss her senseless then and there.
She laughed at how easy he was to read. “No you don’t, not here.”
He pretended to be put out. “You have no sense of adventure.”
"No, none."
Easing her into his arms and onto his lap, this time without the indecent intentions, Niobe could feel faint insecurity radiating off of him and all his possessiveness as he spoke to her. “Tell me you’re not leaving.”
“Will . . .” She chided him and half-heartedly attempted to escape his embrace.“Niobe, I heard.” His voice softened. “I thought you where happy here, with me.”
In reassurance, she smiled broadly, a warm current flowing through her body sending away the chill. “I am content when I’m with you.”
Niobe opened her eyes. Stretched out before her in row upon order-less row were the ancient sentries. Their voices were muted in her head for now she realized what it was she had heard. The trees. They wept to be so abandoned. Darkness inhabited them now. Evil, scurrying shadows. The light no longer visited their wood, walked in their branches.
But now they whispered. They wept with new hope for something had happened. Niobe realized the light they spoke of. . .was it her?
I am loosing my mind! Niobe wailed to herself miserably. The voices began to thicken.
No! I can’t give in. Of all things, I’m dead. What is the worst that could happen? I die again? This . . .place is unEarthy; I cannot judge it by Earthy standards. She allowed herself a faint smile. Madness here might not be madness at all.
She breathed deep the stale, but cool air. It reached through her wet coat and raised her skin. She did not care. Indeed, she hardly noticed. For the voices, the voices prickled her every nerve. More and more did it seem to exemplify music (she touched the strap of her violin case, still slung across her back) rather than a discord of voices. Or rather, it was light. And the light tugged at her, in her mind, but not in an intrusive fashion, to go up the river. She welcomed it. In fact, if she wasn’t so sure it’d be taking the final step off the deep end, she might have said it felt like William.
Chapter 5
"The Banks of River Running"
Dedicated to Denethor, son of Ecthelion, Ex-Steward of Gondor who with his last breath gave new meaning to the phrase “flaming mad.”
Abigail rode the elevator toward consciousness very slowly. The first sensation she felt was ‘cold,’ closely followed by ‘wet’ and ‘uncomfortable’. A dull ache pounded in her skull, and as she came to realize that the hard, icy lumps pressing into her face and body were pebbles, a jolt of panic surged through her.
Her eyes shot open to the sight of a pebbly bank and a wide but shallow river. Taking in her trembling, cold, wet, sack of a body, she found that the lower part of her was still in the lazy water. Pushing herself up and pulling her soggy weight forward onto the bank, her vision wavered in darkness from the effort. A dull throb in her head brought on a wave of nausea. In defeat, she collapsed a few inches to the ground, frightened by how weak she was and desperately trying to catch her breath, exhausted from the brief exertion.
After a time, she began to feel better. Blood had rushed back into her fingers and toes along with her memory of falling from a tree. She opened her eyes again and looked up and down the river. This certainly wasn’t the creek that ran through campus! There was no bridge and the water was too wide; this was a river. Something was amuck. Perhaps the fall had somewhat altered her memory.
She stood clumsily, rivulets of water running down into her shoes and dreading what she would find in the landscape. The surreal woods rose up as a wall. Abigail forgot to breath. Spreading out as far as the dim light would allow her to see was a half-dead forest, the grayish trees and their faded leaves towering as high as redwoods. Their branches were gnarled and bent in defeat, intertwined. They stifled the light and left the atmosphere a grayish haze. Few plants grew below with a sparse lattice of ivy. And it was near perfectly silent, save for the sigh of the wind through the wood and the rushing din of water.
“Oh God.” Abigail choked on her soft words; the air seemed so stale. Fear stiffened her throat and she trembled, chilled and panicky. Clenching her hands into a fist, she realized she yet held something. A narrow branch. The very branch she had ripped from the holly tree she’d fallen from in Wellington.
So it wasn’t a dream; she had fallen. That had not been a delusion, but neither could this be. Clinging to the stick were it her lifeline, she crept up the edge of the forest as her Doc Martins squeaked and sloshed.
A great tree stood towering over the river. It drooped a bit, but was solidly there. Hesitantly, Abigail touched the trunk, its bark as real as the chill in the air. Among the branches above her, the tree creaked a moan without the aid of wind. The sound was so loud in comparison to the stifled silence that Abigail jumped back. Was that her imagination? Trees did not moan. There it was again; this time further into the wood.
Abigail decided she didn’t want to know and retreated back to the bank only to catch a glimpse of a brown lump lying in a patch of dead leaves. Her backpack. At least she could manage a bit of luck out here. Bending over to pick up the pack, a glimmer of red from the woods behind some brush glinted. Her bike! Then misery set in. If nothing else she could get nowhere fast.
She shivered again and quickly realized she needed to get out of her wet clothes, especially the drenched wool skirt, and get a fire going. That would dry her off and the smoke would make a signal for rescuers. Setting her stick on her bag, she began to undress, shivering and letting out a string of curses at her fate until she was down to her white bra, knickers, and brown socks. She was too irritated to care if someone saw her at the moment and just as soon as she laid her clothes out on a log to dry, she began to look for means to start a fire.
Exactly why had she passed on all opportunities to learn to start one from scratch?
Dumping her bag’s content onto the forest floor, she began to sort through it, hoping to find a pack of matches she might have ganked from a bar. No such luck. There was nothing but pencils, notebooks, textbooks, and one edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Nothing to eat; nothing to get a fire going with.
A tree nearby moaned.
“Shut up!” She snapped, the sound of her own voice in the silence stung her ears. Tears of angry frustration welled in her eyes. Unbidden, they began to trickle down her face and in a childish display of temper she grabbed the closest thing, her stick, and flung it at the offending tree.
It was then a most curious thing happened. As the stick struck the tree, sparks of red and gold sputtered out one end of it.
Abigail blinked. And again. All remained still, save for a bit of distant tree moaning.
Cautiously, she crept near the tree and picked up her stick with care.
Did what she thought just happen, happen? Tentatively, she stood and stretched out her arm. The vague notion of how silly she must have looked, in naught but her underoos in the middle of a forest holding a stick crossed her mind, but she put it out.
With a swish, she raised her arm and brought it down with a flick.
*WOOSH*
Out burst red and gold sparks into the gloomy, gray of the forest as a warm sensation eased up her arm. The trees nearby moaned a bit in chorus, their cries quickly echoed by those around them, but that didn’t worry Abigail terribly much now. Carefully laying it amongst her things and keeping near the shore, she wandered through the wood picking up dead foliage. It was probably best not to touch any plants that might be living. The trees unnerved her, and she figured it was safer not to bother them if she could help it.
Bringing her load back to the shore, she found a better, slightly sandy spot to make camp. She unloaded, re-laid her clothes out, and found a tree to lean her bike against. This would be a good place to wait for help and spend the night. The currently gloomy forest was darkening and because the canopy was heavy, she doubted there would be much starlight to see by.
After arranging a neat pile of twigs and logs, she sat before the stack with her wand raised and mustering her resolve. This just had to work; she was too cold and her hair was yet damp. Growling, her stomach reminded her that it’d been hours since last she ate and had no food with her. There was only water to drink, if she dared to drink from the wild river at all.
Pushing this out of her mind, she boldly incanted the first thing that came to mind. “Lacarnum Inflamari.”
Nothing.
She cleared her throat, resituated herself, and once again, this time a little louder, commanded, “Lacarnum Inflamari.”
Nota.
Abigail examined her wand, grumpily switched the end she held, and shouted, “Lacarnum Inflamari!”
A small flame popped out of the end and landed in the middle of the heap, setting it aflame. Wide-eyed, Abigail stood and examined the slightly curving shaft. It was a little less than a foot long, and to her eyes, beautiful. Raising her head, she looked into the inky forbidding expanse of the forest.
“What is this place?” She whispered aloud, desperate to hear a voice.
Surely, it could not be. She could not be in a book. It wasn’t, couldn’t.
With one breath and with fear as the hazy twilight gave way to night, she questioningly uttered, “The Forbidden Forest?”
***
Someone cried out in the darkness.
A whisper, a murmur, a slight chorus of sobs; raised voices in an endless night.
If only they would be silent! Niobe’s head pounded with a migraine and her body ached. It was cold and numb. Slowly, her senses began to return to her along with the crescendoing incoherent voices. She felt as though she were bobbing in motion, as if, like. . .floating.
Consciousness began to creep back to her. This certainly wasn’t right, whatever was happening. William wouldn’t be far away, would he? He must be near, if only she could recognize one of the voices, the voices that would not stop. If one was his, she would know . . .
William!
He flashed before her mind’s eye, reaching out to catch her as she. . .she fell back to her death.
Tearing at the curtains of unconscious which veiled her mind, begging for the cacophony of voices to be silent, she began to flounder finding she was submerged in a liquid. Niobe tried to take a breath only there was no air and began to choke as there was no air to replace what she’d already taken. The voices clamored in her head making her dizzier than she already was. Surely she could not drown again!
Her foot found a hold in the sandy bed and she pushed off and sprung out of the meter deep water coughing and gasping for breath. She clawed at her chest, dripping wet, shaking with cold and exhaustion.
The voices did not stop.
Niobe frantically looked down the gray river. Naught but water and a smoggy air. Her eyes gaped fearfully at the enormous sentinel trees lining the bank, all the strange voices seeming to speak to her, to one another, to whisper and speak:
See, see what we see.
Niobe could not be sure she didn't know the words for this peculiar language. In her mind, she held a certain, partial understanding of it, were it a language at all for speak and groan they did.
Stumbling, teetering with every step, Niobe waded through the water and made for the rocky shore.
The voices will not stop! Trepidation struck as Niobe realized the sounds weren’t coming from around her. They were coming from her own head. Surely, if she were going out of her mind she wouldn’t recognize the change, would she?
Tears blurred her vision of dying trees and gray, dismal shores for the cacophony made her dizzy and induced a headache. On an outcropped stone she tripped and fell, but the water was so shallow now it did her no harm. Panicked, fearful, her head pounding, and her body in agony, Niobe tearfully dragged herself onto the gravel, lay her head down, and gave in to the blissful black.
***
Niobe was waking again and the voices were creeping back.
They will come soon, Niobe reminded herself of the voices. I must not let them have me again. I just need to stay calm.
But what was there to make her calm? She was alone in a strange, terrible place, in pain, and utterly miserable. Back at St. Andrew’s, she would go to William. In those few moments she’d felt her way wandering, the strength for her passions draining, William was there. He had faith in her, unwavering and unconditional. She could almost see him now as she opened a door to an unused classroom. He sat reading a book, his feet propped up upon a desk in front of him. When he read, he always immersed himself, loosing nearly all cognitive abilities to identify or acknowledge anyone else in the room. Blond hair shading his clear blue eyes, he was a curious and enticing thing for her. Sometimes, she almost felt shy under his gaze. Almost.
She stepped close to him, still failing to gain his notice which, in turn, evoked a smile from her lips. With mock haughtiness she plopped onto a desk and shoved his feet off its top, startling the preoccupied young man out of his revelry.
“You should not put your shoes on the desks. They’re dirty.”
His eyes shimmered with barely concealed delight, a wicked and conniving grin spreading across his face. He looked as if he were about to toss his book, grab her, and kiss her senseless then and there.
She laughed at how easy he was to read. “No you don’t, not here.”
He pretended to be put out. “You have no sense of adventure.”
"No, none."
Easing her into his arms and onto his lap, this time without the indecent intentions, Niobe could feel faint insecurity radiating off of him and all his possessiveness as he spoke to her. “Tell me you’re not leaving.”
“Will . . .” She chided him and half-heartedly attempted to escape his embrace.“Niobe, I heard.” His voice softened. “I thought you where happy here, with me.”
In reassurance, she smiled broadly, a warm current flowing through her body sending away the chill. “I am content when I’m with you.”
Niobe opened her eyes. Stretched out before her in row upon order-less row were the ancient sentries. Their voices were muted in her head for now she realized what it was she had heard. The trees. They wept to be so abandoned. Darkness inhabited them now. Evil, scurrying shadows. The light no longer visited their wood, walked in their branches.
But now they whispered. They wept with new hope for something had happened. Niobe realized the light they spoke of. . .was it her?
I am loosing my mind! Niobe wailed to herself miserably. The voices began to thicken.
No! I can’t give in. Of all things, I’m dead. What is the worst that could happen? I die again? This . . .place is unEarthy; I cannot judge it by Earthy standards. She allowed herself a faint smile. Madness here might not be madness at all.
She breathed deep the stale, but cool air. It reached through her wet coat and raised her skin. She did not care. Indeed, she hardly noticed. For the voices, the voices prickled her every nerve. More and more did it seem to exemplify music (she touched the strap of her violin case, still slung across her back) rather than a discord of voices. Or rather, it was light. And the light tugged at her, in her mind, but not in an intrusive fashion, to go up the river. She welcomed it. In fact, if she wasn’t so sure it’d be taking the final step off the deep end, she might have said it felt like William.
Subtitles
- Darkness and Starlight
- Abigail of Wellington
- Niobe of St. Andrews
- Arielle of Cedar Brook
- Yumiko of Shinjuku
- The Banks of River Running
- Stiff and Stark
- Screams in the Dark
- The Red Bird
- Many Meetings
- Night Fight
- Yumiko's New Friend
- A Mind of One's Own
- Running in Circles
- The Price for Revenge
- The Coming Night
- It Speaks English!
- Fragile Things: I
- Lull