Rowan's Rising Journey

Chapter 6: Purple

Rowan’s body swayed to the rhythm of Huntresses’ steady gate, their horses clopping hooves the only echoing sound in the cave. Hawthorn was tired from asking Donnelley questions about the Otherworld, in which Donnelley had responded mostly with vague, cryptic answers. Rowan’s mind wondered yet again to memories, some buried beneath blurred years and some as fresh as a few weeks ago.

This time it was their mother’s face that appeared. Rowan got his looks from her: wavy, almond brown hair and deep, almond brown eyes, light olive skin, tall. She had a gentle, caring soul, and the kind of voice that made you feel safe around her. Her name was Meara. Three years ago, on a cold day in December, they saw her for the last time.

But June was the month they found themselves in now. Hawthorn always told him that the seasons can influence behavior if you listen to them and let them in. The “season fairies”, as Hawthorn liked to call it. Rowan would usually just raise an eyebrow at him.

“What’s Summer’s influence?” Rowan asked suddenly.

Hawthorn, surprised by the question, paused in thought. “Summer is associated with sunshine, which means coming alive in a new light,” he said with a slightly smug smile. “Why do you ask? You’ve never seemed interested before.”

Rowan shrugged. “I was just curious.” Huntress impatiently sped up her pace. Rowan slowed her down. “And I’ve run out of other things to think about.”

Hawthorn sighed and looked down at Champ’s ears.

Donnelley whipped his tail at Rowan’s face. “Stay alert, you two. These long tunnels might seeeeem like they lack much in them, but you should never stop paying attention to your surroundings.”

Hawthorn took that personally. “I’ve been paying attention this whole time! It’s Maylin’s Prince here who’s distracting all of us,” he said, waving a hand dismissively up at his brother.

“Hawthorn, be quiet. I can’t hear the humming coming from ten tunnels away,” Rowan said sarcastically, yet his voice suddenly grew a little deeper.

“Okay, I’ll be quiet for now. But as soon as we get out of here-“ Hawthorn paused. “Hey, does it look like it’s getting lighter up ahead to you?”

“It does!” Rowan said. There at the end of the tunnel was a shimmer of light. Dust floated angelically in the warm hue, as if telling them to go toward it. He smiled without hesitance.

Sure enough, an opening appeared around the corner. He sighed with relief, then felt a stab of pain in his eyes. He winced and covered his eyes. Hawthorn did the same.

“It might take a minute, but it’ll be a little painful while your Black Sight adjusts to the daaaaylight,” Donnelley said.

Faster than their busy minds could process, they found themselves outside at last.

~~~~

The land in front of them contrasted with the dark atmosphere of the cave. It was a meadow surrounded by a lively forest, with pink and purple flowers blossoming everywhere, sparkling in the elusive sunlight. Stick-thin trees with dark green leaves stood tall like proud guardians. Woodland animals scurried about the flowing grass and silver rocks - squirrels with acorns in their mouths, butterflies of many colors flying in the air, rabbits hopping around smelling the flowers. Robins and bluebirds chirped joyfully up above in the branches.

They didn’t see the pond at first. Its clear water shone in a majestic light a short distance away near some trees. There was a wooden sign in front of it that read:

MOONGREEN MEADOW

Rowan and Hawthorn looked expectingly at Donnelley.

“Ah, I had an itch we would end up here,” he said, amused. He turned his head to Rowan, and then to Hawthorn. “This is Moongreen Meadow, your first visit to The Land In Between. As you can probably see, this is a place of little daaaanger, although you might have to look closely at things. If there is daaaaanger, it hides beneath.”

“Sounds scaaaary,” Hawthorn said sarcastically. He hopped off Champ and walked toward the pond without hesitation.

Rowan took a second to study their surroundings some more. He had never seen a more beautiful place, not in all of his travels. Though it was hard to tell what was beyond the trees, the sound of crashing waves travelled from afar, telling him they were still near the sea. The same sea as the one in their world, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t feel like a real place. Something in the air seemed different. There were scents he had never smelled before, pleasant scents that stimulated his imagination in a weird way, sort of like orange mushrooms did when he would eat them.

It was ethereal.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he leapt off Huntress - lizard feet death gripping his shoulder - and sauntered over to where Hawthorn was standing, by the glistening pond. A big frog leaped from a rock into the water, startling Rowan. He took a step backward.

Then he saw her.

A frail, freckled girl lay on a branch of one of the trees above the pond. Her small face rested on her pale arm, and her long head of curls, with shining hues of black, deep purple and green, caressed the branch like a dark waterfall. Her eyes were beautifully shaped, big and black with speckles of green like painted china glass. She wore a black and purple shimmering dress. The colors on her whole body were like gemstones - they appeared in flashes, shining brightly in just the right light.

The girl blinked her long lashes at them. “Hi. I’m Thera.”

The brothers stared at her in awe.

She smiled slyly. “What brings you boys to my meadow?”

Hawthorn began to say something but Rowan beat him to it. “My brother and I are trying to find my friend, Maylin. She’s lost.”

“Our friend,” Hawthorn corrected him.

“Yeah, our friend,” Rowan said. “She disappeared earlier today. Or yesterday.” He realized he didn’t know how much time had passed.

“She went somewhere this way and that’s all we know,” Hawthorn said confidently.

For a brief second, Thera’s sharp eyes met Donnelley’s, then she turned them toward Rowan and Hawthorn.

“Brothers. You boys hardly look like brothers," she said, her voice tinged with bitter humor. She sat up from her branch, her dangling feet causing gentle ripples in the water. She glued her eyes on Rowan. “And what does this girl mean to you?”

“She means a lot to me," Rowan said, then paused. “I’d do anything to save her.”

Thera let out a chirping laugh. “That’s the raw determination I like to hear. Though I sense something… different about you." She furrowed her brows. "More so than most of the humans that come here." She paused, studying the pond water below her. "Humans are strange."

Hawthorn gasped. “You’re… not human?”

Thera wove her fingers through her iridescent hair. “Do I look human to you, fire boy?” Hawthorn shook his head shyly. “I’m as human as the lizard on the tall boy’s shoulder," she said dryly.

Donnelley leapt down from Rowan’s shoulder onto a rock in front of them. “Thera is from the Otherworld as well,” he said to the brothers. “Here, in between our two worlds, she manifests herself as human-like.”

“I see the lizard sure knows a lot about me," Thera said, curling her finger around a strand of hair. “I guess I’m already a legend.”

Donnelley blinked at her, then continued. “Thera’s new and still has quite a lot to learn. Be patient and give her a chaaance.”

She flashed an annoyed look at him, then got up from her branch and disappeared behind the trees. She came back a second later holding a belt and a longsword, almost translucent in its brilliance. On its pommel was the roaring face of a panther.

Holding it in front of her, she cleared her throat, then said, “Green - a giant’s strength in the universe. Black - a beating heart for others. Purple - a piece of truth within yourself.” She looked at him expectingly, reaching out the sword.

Rowan glanced at Donnelley, confused. He stared back.

“…I don’t understand,” Rowan told her sheepishly.

Thera sighed. “Do you really need to ruin my grand cryptic entrance?”

Rowan rubbed a hand over his mouth, stifling a laugh.

She pretended to ignore it. “Look, this sword was smithed from my pond water. Pond water, can you believe that? You should, because I’m not one for false pretenses. This sword is magical. Now grab it, tall boy.” She inched the sword closer to him.

“Oh… okay,” Rowan said, slightly bemused that a pretty girl - or whatever she happened to be - was giving him a sword. He quickly grabbed its handle, careful to control his trembling hands.

As soon as he held it, he stepped back in awe. A tunnel of purple light shone from the tip, then sunk down into the blade, injecting it with magnificent shades of violet, lavender, and amethyst.

“Rowan, you’re glowing!” Hawthorn exclaimed.

Rowan looked down at his body. His brother was right; his torn black shirt and pants, his boots, even his skin glowed iridescently purple.

Thera looked him up and down, then said, “Well, I wasn’t expecting that one. Looks good on you.” She unbuckled a belt she was wearing and handed it to him. “Taking this with you might make your journey a little easier.”

“Agreed. Thank you,” Rowan said, taking the dangling tan sword belt from her. He was about to say something else when he heard Huntress neigh loudly. They all looked at her, but she just scratched at the ground, bent her head down at the grass, then quickly swung her head back up with a swish of her tail.

When they turned back, Thera was laying on her branch again.

“Aren’t you forg-“

“No lizard, I didn’t forget,” she said sleepily, then recited some words:

“The fighter fights, the lover loves,
The seeker seeks, tis true.
The purple answer hides within,
concealed in shades of blue.
Eyes of yellow, stripes of black,
a paradise of falls.
Rooted in the waves of wind
the wise old willow calls.
A hero in a wild land,
a journey just begun.
A shadowed soul to skies unseen
shall help to hide the sun -
for then the new Sapphire Moon
shall shine for years to come.”

Those last few words were spoken softer as Thera, eyes tiredly drooping, drifted off to sleep.

And that was that. Rowan and Hawthorn gave Moongreen Meadow one last wondrous look, Donnelley crawled back up onto Rowan’s shoulder, and Rowan walked over to Huntress, his purple sword now sheathed to his side. He reached up to scratch her mane. She nickered softly in his face, as if telling him it was effectively calming her down.

“So where do we go now?” Rowan asked Donnelley.

“Up and eeeeastward. We will keep ascending this mist-sprayed mountain until you find the girl. There are signs and paths that should be of some help to us.”

“Okay,” Rowan said quietly. “We better find her soon.”

“Get some sleeeep and that just might be a possibility,” Donnelley quipped. “You boys aren’t forgetting you’re human, are you?”

Rowan brushed a greasy strand of hair from his face. “Hawthorn isn’t, that’s for sure,” he said, looking over at his brother, who was slumped on Champ’s back with his head bent and eyes closed. Donnelley managed to laugh only the way a lizard could.

With a smiling sigh, Rowan mounted Huntress. He was tall, but not quite tall enough for his legs to reach her back, so he led her to a rock for some leverage. He trotted her over to Champ, bent down to grabbed his reigns, and led them over to a patch of dirt surrounded by grass and some trees that seemed to look a bit like the willow tree that he and Maylin shared.

“Hang on tight, Don.” In one swift motion, Rowan’s legs wheeled off Huntresses’ back. He kneeled to the ground and rummaged through their bag for the blankets Ms. Yang had let them borrow. He found them, then pulled his sleeping brother off Champ’s back, lay him gently on the ground, and tucked him into one of the blankets. A cold breeze shook the air. Rowan noticed goosebumps on his arms. He left his sword and belt closely beside him and crawled under his own blanket.

A peaceful sleep did not happen right away. The ocean’s waves crashed into the mountain cliffs in the distance, echoing his rapid heart. Is Maylin safe? Another violent wave crashed. Should I be more afraid? He shivered and huddled closer to his blanket.

The bright moon shone down like a comforting nightlight, and finally, he slept.