Chapter Eight
“Hello there. I thought you would never wake!" says a voice. I blink. The ground beneath me feels hard and cold. I put my arms behind me and elevate my back."Where am I exactly?" I question groggily. This place seems oddly familiar. It makes my stomach lurch and gives me unwanted chills. The window! I'm in the window. There is the tree. The bleeding tree. The greyness and the silence."I don't know. I don't know where we are, or why we have entered. It is a mystery, as it will remain" she says as a breeze sweeps her face. She looks familiar also, but I cannot say from where. Her face is that of porcelain, and her lips look as though painted on."I jumped. I-wha-I jumped! Am i dead?" I can remember now. The Mom, the Gabe, the tower, everything."Silly girl" she laughs, "you are not dead, but I am not quite sure you are alive either"."I want to go home" I say, backing away from her. She walks over to me and places her hand on my shoulder."It's okay, Hon. I want to go home also. It is very lonely here. No one besides you and myself. I have been here far longer than you. I have been longing for home far longer" she whispers through pursed lips. I stare up at the sky. The clouds are moving so quickly. Maybe they are also trying to find their way home. Maybe not. I drop my eyes back down. I am sitting on nothing besides dead grass. You would think that this place would be peaceful, with the soft breezes and the quietness, but it is not. For the breezes are of ice, and the quietness is shrill."Come with me". She has the most lovely English accent. She takes my hand and pulls me to my feet."Where?""You'll see".As she drags me past the tree, she takes her index finger, and transfers a tiny amount of the blood from the pale tree to her finger. She holds out her hand, the hand on which her finger carrying the blood is on, all the while we are walking. She pulls me over and across many hills. All the way, speaking not one word. All the way, not pausing once. All the way, extending her hand.Now she stops."This is The Marsh" she announces. "Go on in!""I am most defenatly not going into that! It's disgusting!" She must be joking me! It's a lake of mud. Do I look like a pig? Anyways...it is called The Marsh."No...absolutely not" I firmly tell her, shaking my head and staring at her like she is as peculiar as she seems. She laughs."Watch". She dips her bloodied finger slightly into The Marsh. Then, she steps back beside me.The water ripples and splashes. It goes wild. It startles me, and sends me flying backwards, so I land hard on the ground. She laughs, once again. It is certainly not once funny. I stare again at the water. Small sections of it burst into flame! Then, in a millionth of a second, every inch of The Marsh is calm. Every inch is pure. Though there is not sunlight, it glitters and is turned bright."Ha!" I breathe. Without removing her plain, off-white dress, she emerges into the transformed bog. Once she is in up to her shoulders, she plunges her head under. I am still in shock from what I had just witnessed. I want to know how, and why. I want to know everything else too! I want to know where I am, who she is, what I am doing here, when I will be able to leave, and how I got here.She beckons me to join her, and I jump into the liquid paradise. The water is so clear, that I can see to the very bottom. I have never, in my whole entire long, miserable life, ever had the chance to actually reach out and touch something perfect, that is, until this very moment. The temperature is perfect. It feels so strange. I mean, usually everything is 'too'. When I get into the shower, the water is almost always too hot. So, I turn down the hot water. Then, guess what! The water turns too cold. That cycle usually repeats itself, until I just give in, and accept that it is never going to be the perfect temperature. Or, when I attempt to make cookies (which isn't very often) they turn out too burnt. Then, when I cook them for less time, they turn out as piles of gooey messes. But this water, it is perfect. I'm not kidding either! Seriously, completely, flawlessly, perfect."My name is Cessy, by the way" I inform her as I push a whole lot of water in her soft face."Well, Cessy, I am Elvira" she replies with a laugh, as she returns the water back to me.