The Great Blooming Festival

Have you ever been apple picking in a magical forest? Well neither have I! This year is my first year going to the forest of Peridot and my big brother Olly is taking me. I’ve never been more excited about anything in my life before until I started learning about the festival of apple picking. Once a year, in the forest of Peridot, the great blooming tree bares the most delicious fruit. Travelers from across the world migrate here to harvest the sacred apples, but not before they are blessed by the forest’s guardian Thunder.

Thunder is the largest and longest living deer in the entire world! Olly said he actually saw a Thunder walking around, blessing the travelers, and now I want to see him so bad. My brother has gone a few times with my mother and always come home with the baskets loaded with apples.  Since mother fell ill this year and our father is too busy with work, I asked if I could finally go to help pick apples. Usually I get told no or I’m not old enough, but this time my brother smiled big and took me to the store to buy my own official apply picking basket. I, being ten years old, have been waiting for this moment for what seems like forever.

I wake up slowly to someone gently nudging me. “Amber, wake up.” I roll away, trying to cover myself up more with my fuzzy blanket. “Amber you have to get up or we’ll be late for the sacred apple festival.” I shoot up quickly, my body filling up with energy, and Olly stands there smiling. “Go get ready and put something comfortable on. I’ll wait downstairs for you.” He ruffles my hair before walking out. “TODAY’S THE DAY!” I scream with joy. I quickly throw a t-shirt, leggings, boots, and a jacket on while trying to brush my teeth. “Whoa! Slow down little speed demon.” My mother says as she walks into the bathroom. “Here, let me brush your hair for you.” She picks up the brush with her shaky hands and slowly gets rid of the knots. “Are you excited to meet the forest guardian and pick apples with Olly?” I nod and try to walk with a mouth full of tooth paste. I notice my mother smiling and giggling softly. “Are you sure you don’t want to go mama?” I ask. She shakes her head no. “I’m going to get some chores done while you and Olly have fun. Just remember to stay by his side and don’t run off.”

There are tales of children wondering off, getting lost in the forest, and becoming spirits. One thing that I read in the books on the forest of Peridot is that there are four guardians’ total. The fourth guardian is a large thin like cat and her name is Persuasion. She lives towards the front of the forest, at the gates, to help scared travels feel confident about going to the sacred tree. The third guardian is a huge bear and his name is Wisdom. He helps guide the visitors to their destination and gives them all kinds of wisdom, so they can write their books about the forest. The second guardian is snatcher and he is a large raccoon. He lures young women and children into the depths of the forest and steals their souls. Then the first guardian is Thunder, he oversees and makes sure the other guardians are doing their jobs and keeping peace with the humans. He does his best to keep Snatcher away and will bring the lifeless bodies to the families they belong to, apologizing for the crimes one of the guardians have committed. It doesn’t state what happens after the bodies are returned, but nothing gets done about it.   

I run downstairs, ready to go. Olly opens the door, throwing a waffle at me. “We’ll eat on the way, lets go!” I start stuffing it in my mouth while grabbing my basket. “Ok!” I muffle. We head out and start walking. “It’s going to a long walk, are you sure those are the right shoes? I’m not carrying you if your feet start hurting.” I ignore him as I continue to munch on my breakfast. Olly says he won’t carry me, but we all know big brothers lie about stuff like that. He’s the best. We’re five years apart and soon he’ll be leaving to go to school. He tries to play games with me as much as possible cause he knows once he leaves, I’ll be all by myself. We live a few miles outside of a village, so I don’t have a lot of friends to play with. The only time I get to play with kids my age is during the school year, and right now it’s closed for the winter. That’s when we have our ‘summer vacation’ is during the winter time because the snow gets so bad it takes days to do the simple chores.

We’ve been walking for a long time and I still don’t see the gate to the forest. “Olly, how much longer till we get there?” I complain. “We’re almost there.” I sigh dramatically. “This is so boring. Why couldn’t we have taken the carriage?” He slowly stops and turns to me, smiling, “let’s play a game.” I get excited, wondering what were going to play. But, before I ask what game it was, he taps my arm and takes off. Tag. I run after him, trying to catch up to him. “No fair! I have little legs!” I yell. He laughs, slowing down for me to tag him. “Tag! Your it!” I yell as I take off. But before I know it, he’s caught me. “I win!” He says as he scoops me up. I rest my head against his chest and notice his breathing doesn’t sound right, it sounds like our mothers breathing. “Big brother, are you okay? You sound like mom!” My chest feels tight, scared at the thought of him being sick. “No, I’m fine Amber. I just got done running around and need to catch my breath. No need to worry, okay?” I nod in agreement, but I don’t believe him.

The rest of the walk is quiet. “Amber look! The gate!” He yells. I look over and start getting excited. “WE’RE HERE! WE MADE IT!” I jump down out of his arms and run over to the gate, where people are walking in. Just as I’m about to run in, Olly grabs my arm, and pulls me back. “Hey! You can’t run off. You have to stay with me, okay? I can’t lose you.” I grab his hand quickly and walk into the gate. Then a creepy feminine voice appears, “welcome to the forest of Peridot, home of the great blooming tree. Come in and stay close to your family. Wouldn’t want anyone to go missing.” I look up at Olly, who doesn’t seem to hear her, and look around. I turn to my left and practically stop in my steps when I see her. “Persuasion…” She steps out of the shadows and looks so beautiful. Her fur pattern is that of a tiger and leopard combined while her figure resembles a cheetah. “You are one special child, I can tell.” Her eyes glow brightly before disappearing. “Olly! Olly! I saw the cat guardian!” He rolls his eyes, ignoring me.

We continue you to walk and I can feel her eyes watching me. All of a sudden, the feeling of being watched goes away and to my right I hear a small whisper. I try to move closer to the thick tree line to listen, but Olly keeps pulling me closer to him. The only things I can hear are; how old the forest is, how many tree’s live here, how many apples grow on the great blooming tree. This must be Wisdom talking! I look over and tug on Olly’s shirt. “Can I sit on your shoulders for a minute?” He sighs and crouches down, putting me on his shoulders. While he stands up, I look around. The trees are so tall I would need Olly to clone himself two more times and we all sit on his shoulders to see over the top.

Just as I’m about to give up looking, the line stops moving, and Olly stand still. I look through the tree’s a little hard and to my surprise I see his outline. He’s so massive and tall! “He’s going to like you.” His deep voice rings in my ears. “Ready to get down? Your heavy.” Olly says. “Y-yes…” He puts me down and takes my hand again. We start walking and finally make it to the great blooming tree. I look up at it. It’s so big that I have to lean back to try and see all of it. “Isn’t it beautiful?” I smile big. “It’s so pretty! The tree is so tall it covers the other trees! Look at all the fruit! How do we get them down?” Olly crouches next to me and points over to where the line ends. “Thunder blesses you and the apples fall down.” I stare at the tree in aw, “What does it feel like to be blessed? Has someone ever been not blessed?” He shrugs his shoulders, “Not really sure, I don’t ever feel anything. Mom says it’s a feeling that takes the weight off your shoulders and true happiness enters your body. I think she was just saying that though. But last year she said she felt it and I felt something odd. I can’t really explain how I felt. All I know is we didn’t get as many apples, which was odd.”

He keeps talking as we move closer. But the closer we got to the front of the line, the more uncomfortable I felt. “O-Olly, let’s go home… Something doesn’t feel right…” I say as I tug on his sleeve. “Knock it off, your just nervous to be blessed. You’ll be fine.” Right after that I see something out of the corner of my eye, stalking us in the tree line. What is it? I try to focus in on it, but it keeps moving. I let go of Olly’s hand and start walking over to the trees. I start to reach my hand in and time feels like its frozen. My heart beats fast and nothing happens. I go to pull my hand away when something grabs me, yanking me into the forest. “HELP! OLLY!” I scream as loud as I can before falling unconscious.

As I come too, I notice I’m in a small patch of grass with the light shining down on me and trees circling. “Where am I?” I begin to panic when I hear Persuasion’s voice carrying through the trees. “She’s this way! I heard her!” I try to stand up but instantly become dizzy. “If you move to fast or speak loudly, you’ll pass out again.” Says the small annoying voice coming from behind me. I slowly turn to see Snatcher, the large raccoon standing there. “Why did you take me?” I ask. He tilts his head curiously. “You can see and hear me? You can hear the other guardians as well? How interesting. You must be the chosen one.” He moves closer, looking as if he wanted to maul me. “Back away from the child, snatch.” Persuasion roars. “Oh, don’t have a hair ball… I was only going to nibble on her.” Persuasion grabs my jacket, lifting me off of the ground and takes off. She moves so fast that the air hitting my face feels ice cold. “What’s going on? Why did he take me? Why did he call me the chosen one?” I ask frantically. She doesn’t answer me but stops Infront of where Snatcher took me. I see my body laying there and Olly trying to pull me out of the trees. “I’m dead?” I whisper. “No, now lay down how your body is so your spirit may return. Quickly!” She pushes me forward and I reenter my own body.

I wake up right when Olly pulls me out of the trees. “Are you okay? Why did you go in there?! You scared the hell out of me!” It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him so upset, but he’s angry. Why is he angry? “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.” He pulls me up onto my feel and gets back in line. “We’re getting these apples and going home. Don’t walk off again.” He says sternly. I stand by him, silently, as we get to the front of the line. The excitement of collecting the sacred apples has vanished. I no longer want to be here.

We stand there for a minute and nothing happens. “What’s going on? Have we been blessed? Why aren’t the stupid apples falling?” Olly yells. I look at the trunk of the massive tree and it lights up. “The tree is…” He becomes silent. Before we could blink, out walks Thunder. “Are we seeing the same thing? This can’t be real; I must be dreaming.” Before I can pinch myself, Thunder speaks. “No, child. You are very much awake and I am standing here before you.” A smile forms on my face as I look up at him. “Are you here to bless us, Thunder?” Olly asks. Thunder glances over at him and looks back at me. “You had a short and interesting journey through the woods, didn’t you Amber?” He knows my name! “What are you talking about? She fell into the trees and was playing games with me.” Thunder scoffed at him. “I-I did. But Lady Persuasion saved me! And how do you know my name?” His ears twitch at my excitement. “Lady Persuasion? I’ve never heard anyone call her that before. I know all the names of the travelers that come through here. I also believe it’s usually your mother that comes with Olly to collect the apples. Is she okay? She’s been coming here to collect the apples since she was your age, I’m sad to see she’s not here this year.” An odd feeling comes over me as if I’ve spoke to him before. His voice sounding familiar. “My mother is very ill. She got sick after visiting last year and asked Olly to bring me! Why you seem so familiar if this is the first time, I’m meeting you? And how come your not answering Olly?” He looks sad when he hears my mother’s health is declining. “Olly wasn’t blessed last year and he won’t be blessed this year either. The darkness he holds in his heart grows more and more and it hurts the great blooming tree with him being here. Persuasion was told that if you were with him this year, he was to be granted access to deliver you to me. You see your mother is precious to me and so are you… I was hoping I’d get to meet you before you were all grown up and here you are.” He leans in and presses his forehead against mine and a bond between us form. All the apples on the tree turn to gold and fall.

The travelers gather as many apples as they can and leave. I grab a few and hand them to Olly. “Give these to mom. It’ll heal her illness.” He steps back, eyes all wide. “Amber your… changing. You have to come home with me!” I shake my head and stand next to Thunder. “No, I can’t go with you Olly… Mom will understand.” He runs out of the forest upset and I walk over to the pond near the great blooming tree to look at my reflection. Half of my body has changed to resemble a doe. “The year you were born your mother brought you here. You were lifeless. She begged for a blessing, so I gave you life. If it were anyone else, it wouldn’t have worked. Your mother stole apart of my heart when she was a child and seeing her devastated broke my soul. You are my child and you must remain her as the fifth guardian.

As we all celebrate, I notice Thunder is gone. I go to the gate where he is walking with my lifeless body on his back. “Where are you going?” I ask. “I’m delivering your body to your family.” I look at him, curiously. “Will they miss me?” I ask. “Once they burry you all their memories will be buried with you as well… Except I’ll make sure they don’t forget, so they know your safe with me.” He licks me cheek and leaves. “So that’s how that’s done.” I walk back to the other guardians and they circle around me, welcoming me to the ‘pack’, and I pick up snatcher as he tries to run away. I begin to hug him tightly. “You just need a little love.” He thrashes about, trying to get away, and makes everyone laugh. Eventually he calms down, giving into the fact that I won. Snatcher begins to smile softly and hugs back. He starts to become smaller, turning from a grey raccoon to a red panda “Thank you, Amber.” I put him down gently. “Wow! Snatcher you look so cute! Why did you change?” He looks at himself and chuckles. “I am at piece now, someone finally loved me.” His words made my eyes weld up. “Shhhh! No crying!” He grabs one of the golden apples and hands it to me, “you can’t cry! Today is the great blooming festival! As long as you are here, we all will be at peace, and live in harmony.” I take the apple while wiping my eyes. “Your right Snatcher. Thank you. I am so excited to learn how to be a guardian. This was the best day of my life.”