Coming Home

Growing up, my mom always found sanctuary in the woods. To her, the woods were peace. So much so, when mom bought her house, she made sure it backed up to a forest. Acres and acres of woods. She spent days wandering them, truly in her happy place. Years later when she found out she was carrying me, she walked into the heart of those woods and planted a Birch tree seed. Throughout the years, that tree grew just as I did, until it grew to be the biggest and brightest in the forest. From the moment my mom could, I got to go with her to see my tree. When I was 5, I named him. Tiger. Tiger had bright white bark with deep black stripes. Exactly like what I thought a snow tiger would look like if I ever got the opportunity to meet one. Hence the name. Throughout the years, I used to play at his roots, I talked to him, and he became my best friend and confidant.Sometimes I would swear that he would respond to me. I convinced myself that it was just the wind blowing through his beautiful leaves. I showed him off proudly to my best friends, and while we were young we thought Tiger was so cool! Then high school came, we had to focus on grades and college. I started spending less time with Tiger. I mean he was just a tree right? I underestimated him.

One night in my Senior year of school, I was laying awake listening to the storm outside. The wind was making the branches of the trees creak and groan, the rain was hitting my window with such force it sounded as though it was asking for permission to enter. Every few seconds a white flash of lighting would light up my room and was quickly followed by the cavernous sound of thunder. While laying there I heard my name. I thought I may have drifted off or it was a hallucination, but then it came again. A whisper hissed into my ear and an image of Tiger flashed through my head. He was broken and on fire from the lightning. I shot out of bed and threw on my jeans and hoodie I had worn to school that day. I grabbed a flashlight and sprinted out through the back door.

Rain is pelting me in the eyes and making it incredibly painful to keep them open. Thankfully I know the way to my tree like the back of my hand. My legs are on fire, but I push my pace even faster. Sheer panic is flooding my veins, why? I don’t give myself any time to think about it. Within what feels like 5 minutes my eyes catch sight of his white trunk. I see no flames but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any damage to him, so I keep running. As soon as I am close enough I stop and place my hand on him. His bark is cold and wet under my fingers. As I try to catch my breath, a crack of lightning splits the air right above my head. Suddenly a warm breeze wraps around me, I look up towards Tiger's crown and his branches seem to shield some of the rain. “Find the door” that same sharp, airy whisper hisses into my ears. I just stare at Tiger confused. My legs start walking around him with my hand still on his bark. I had only walked about halfway around his trunk when my fingers snag on an odd piece that sticks out where it has never before. I turn and stare at my fingers and start to trace it. It feels like a hinge? On a tree? My hand keeps roaming the area and as I get lower, a knot. On instinct I don’t recognize as my own, I grab it and lift. A door swings open.

As I stare into the blackness before me, that same warm breeze from earlier wraps around me. It feels safe and familiar. Crack! A lightning bolt touches ground just a few feet behind me and the air seems to buzz. I jump and walk into the abyss without a second thought. The door swings down and slams shut behind me. Continuing to walk, the smell of wood, musky earth and rain water fill my nostrils. The outside chaos is completely shut off and only the sounds of my breathing can be heard. I can see nothing but I follow the warm breeze that seems to guide me. I must be dreaming, right?! Tiger is just a tree, he has always been just a tree. There is no way there is a secret door or tunnel in my tree! I settle on the fact that I am just having a very, very lucid dream.

After walking for what feels like forever, but I guess time stands still when you are surrounded by pure darkness, I see a tiny speck of light in the distance. It is so jarring against the black surroundings that it was impossible not to see. As I walk closer, it gets brighter and brighter and I cannot make out anything from within it. My eyes hurt from trying to adjust to the brightness, after being in the darkness for an undetermined amount of time. After a few minutes I was standing right in front of it. I glance to my feet, hoping to see dirt and nothing meets my gaze. My eyebrows furrow and I quickly look back to the light. Taking one step forward, I look over my shoulder one last time and my heart stops when I lock eyes with two yellow ones slowly fading into the background. Without hesitation I walk through. I throw my arm up over my eyes, as what surrounds me feels like staring into the sun.

As the brightness calms down, my arm falls back to my side and I am in awe. I am standing on a grassy pasture in front of a waterfall. I turn around and the light is gone, I am just face-to-face with a bright red rose. Having no idea where I am, I start walking around and try to figure out where I have ended up. The air around me is so nice and warm, the smell of flowers and earth are in my nose, and my wet clothes start to heat as the sun is beaming down on them. I’m walking through this wooded area ,a few hundred yards away from the waterfall, when I hear hoofbeats. Lots of hoofbeats! I spin in circles trying to find the source and see a herd of horses barreling toward me. Jumping behind a tree to avoid being trampled I peak my head out to watch. As the herd runs past me, my eyes lock onto a massive, black horse with a long flowing mane. An odd sense of recognition flashes through my gut when the eye that looks my way is yellow. Once they had ran past me, I started following their hoof prints, hoping it would lead me to something recognizable. I followed them out of the forest and to a scene of rolling hills. In the middle of these rolling hills, a small village! There’s several houses scattered around in a roughly circular shape. Hope floods my body as I head towards it.

The closer I get, I start to hear music and the aroma of homemade cinnamon rolls floods my senses. My stomach growls in response and I get a pep in my step at the thought of biting into a warm roll. The road to the village becomes clear as I get closer, so I follow it. I can start to hear voices now. A young girl with bright red hair comes running from behind me. She's carrying a basket with an array of wildflowers in it. She has vibrant green eyes and such a joyful smile on her face it makes her eyes sparkle in that special way only a child’s eyes can. As she runs past me, I watch her continue to run into a bakery shop. I go the same way with hopes that this is where the cinnamon roll smell is coming from, but before I can get there, I notice that the residents seem to be watching me. Some are in their windows, some are in the doorways of their home, people of all ages watch me. The feeling of unease starts to slowly creep up my spine as I cast my eyes from side to side. A deep voice from right in front of me draws my attention. “Welcome!” the jolly sounding voice greets, “I apologize for the stares, we don’t get a lot of new people coming through our little town.”. A short, stout man appears in front of me. His eyes are the same green as the little girls, I wonder if they are related? “Come! You must be hungry from your travels! We are certainly not an easy place to get to!’ He chuckles while holding out his arm towards me. I approach cautiously. “We make the best cinnamon rolls on the entire island! Come, come, you must have one!” his hand lands on my shoulder “Once you have eaten we will get you some dry clothes, yours are soaked boy!”. I follow him and a quiet procession of watchful eyes does the same.

We walk into the little shop the young girl ran into and I am ushered to a table in the center of the room. As soon as I sit, a plate with a cinnamon roll is placed in front of me. My eyes follow the arm that just gave my plate to me, and meet the eyes of an older woman who looks exactly like the little girl. Who must be her mom. I give a grateful smile and tip of the head while grabbing the roll. It is so warm and fluffy. I take a bite and as the flavours hit my tongue , my eyes flutter closed at the absolutely heavenly taste! The icing is light and sweet, perfectly offset by the sharper cinnamon flavour. Before I knew it, I had inhaled the whole roll. At some point a warm glass of milk had been placed in front of me and I picked it up and chugged. I released a sigh of pure content, I have to try to find a similar tasting roll when I wake up! “Now lets get you out of those clothes hmm?” His voice brought me back to the now. I nod and stand up and with a final glance back to the woman and her daughter, I wave a thank you.

While we are walking, I start to get very tired and am dragging my feet with every step. They feel very heavy. I mentally scold myself for being so tired, but it has been a wild dream. “Almost there boy, then you can sleep” the man says. Can you sleep in your dreams? I feel like that may break the laws of dreams but what do I know? I follow him to a building with a sign on it that says Hotel. Walking in we are greeted by the young man behind the counter, who also has green eyes. Is everyone related? Or is this just the eye color that they all have here? I turn to look out the window at the large crowd out there, and sure enough, all green eyes. How did I not see it before? I feel myself start to sway and the older man grabs me by my elbow and leads me down the hall. Did I get a room number? How do I pay for it in a dream? The boy appears in front of us to unlock my door. I guess he followed us. I am led in, and it is just a single bed in the middle of the room. On the bed is a white sweatshirt and sweatpant set. I was so tired I didn’t hesitate when the man told me to change into them and go to sleep. Both of the men walked out of the room, closing the door. I fall asleep just as my head hits the pillow.

Shouting wakes me up. I start to slowly open my eyes, they feel heavy and my vision is blurry. Must be the way dream sleeping must feel. I turn my head to the side and realize that I am not in the hotel room anymore. I am laying on a stone slab in front of the townspeople, who are dressed in green shiny robes. I tried to move my legs and arms and quickly found that I was tied down. What is happening!? A voice from my other side starts “People!!! We have waited for 17 years for this sacrifice! The day is finally here! We thank our deities for this gift! Every 17 years we are blessed with a sacrifice from them! One that is handpicked to ensure that we remain safe from the outside world! Raise your voices and rejoice our protectors!” that voice! It was the old man who had helped me! I tried to beg them to stop, but having been born mute and my hands being tied I couldn’t! I whip my head from side to side looking at the man and the people of the town. Nobody is doing anything! “Bring it to me!” the man shouts, and the young girl brings a basket forward. The same basket she had flowers in when I saw her. The man reaches in and pulls out a huge curved blade with the handle wrapped in wildflowers and the same green shiny material as the robes. The wildflowers! They were the ones she had picked and put in that basket! They were planning this the whole time! Wake up! Wake up! I have to wake up! I shout to myself with no luck. The man starts to chant unrecognizable words in a sharp hissing whisper. The same sound that has been guiding me! That voice got me to Tiger, to the hidden door which led me here. Then the yellow eyes flashed through my mind! I knew I recognized the eyes of the black horse, they were the same as the ones I saw in the darkness before walking into the light! Everything brought me here to this moment. The glint of the knife snaps my attention back. It is raised above his head and his chant is getting more and more intense. I feel the tears start rolling down my cheeks at the thought of not seeing my mom again. They say if you die in your dream you die in real life, and I'm scared to die. I didn’t get to say goodbye, didn't get one more hug. I am fully crying and hoping my eyes are conveying my pleas for this to stop! The old man looks down and shouts the final word, I stare back into those green eyes. A feeling of safety, and home slices through my heart. Mom?

I left the village when I was 10, at which time I was given my mission. I was to bear a son who would be mute and he was to be sacrificed in his 17th year. Once it was completed I could come home. I wandered the woods for many years trying to find the door, without success. I had hoped buying a house with a massive forest would give me the tree to lead me back. Nothing came until the day I found out I was pregnant. A little envelope was on my pillow that night, it contained a seed and a note that told me to plant it and how to make sure a door would appear in the trunk. After my son was born he was confirmed to be mute, I took the water from his first bath and poured some on the sapling that had sprouted. This ensured that the villagers could draw him to find the door and later them. Every year on his birthday I would go to the tree and pour more of that water on the roots. Making sure the connection stayed strong.

I heard my son run out of the house, I followed, the rain is too loud for him to hear me. I hid behind a tree a few yards away while I watched him search the trunk, knowing what he was looking for. I saw him find it and disappear inside. I waited and listened. After an hour, a warm breeze lightly brushed my cheek and the word “mom” floated through my mind. I stepped out from behind where I hid and started heading towards the big Birch. As I reached the door a bright white light blinded me and my body felt like it was on fire, I was in so much pain. Just as fast as it happened the world went dark. My green eyes forever open, searching for a place I will never again know.

THE END.