Flashback
In a time before I knew such things could exist, I would dream of trees with portals within their roots. Slowly, as I got older, those dreams crept back to me.
It is almost dark when I awaken with the leather-bound book still open in my hands.
I snuck the copy of Frankenstein from my mother’s study and must have dozed off beneath the old hickory again.
This is a common occurrence for me during these warm days when the sun casts a soft shimmering glow that reaches down through the flickering leaves above.
The hawk sitting on the branch high over my head looks down upon me, utterly annoyed that I am here yet again.
However, I am unconcerned with his skeptical glare, because while I have spent many days here in the recent weeks, I know he has no one to tell.
My secret is safe amongst the hawk’s hard and discerning eyes.
Whispers swarm around me like summer gnats at my face, but there is no one to cast them. My head rests on the dark, soft moss-covered ground, while my eyelashes flutter up to one of the giant tree roots sitting above the surface as if it were a talon and everything beneath it were its prey.
I grasp the large claw-like root jumping out of the soil with my still sleepy hand. I can barely wrap my small, slender fingers around it, but use it as an anchor to move to my knees, bending my head down toward the muffled voices within the silky, moss-filled earth.
Leaning into a small hollow at the base of the tree, the whispers get louder, and I almost feel as if I can see a glimmer of light beneath.
But how could that be? I lean in to prop my ear against the opening, hoping the otherworldly words will become clear.
I have no such luck. Instead, my hand slips against the loose dirt.
Within seconds I am consumed in darkness, and the feeling of falling has me in its deathly grip. I claw at roots, at air—scrambling for anything that might catch me. Nothing holds.
My nails dig deep into the attached roots, but the roots release from the soil, and then they too follow me down into the void. Damp earth assaults my nose. Dirt-caked streaks smear my lace dress as I tumble deeper into the dark. My mother will not be pleased.
Suddenly, my bottom meets a very solid floor. The landing makes my head hurt as I sit and wait for the stars to pass. When I feel steady enough to catch my breath, I move to a crawling position, pressing my palms to the hard ground.
Where am I, I wonder? Tiny scrapes line my fingernails and make appearances up to my elbows. It is cold and damp under my small hands and definitely of an earthly texture.
A faint light pokes through a large rectangular structure wedged between two deep taproots.
I inch closer to see, using dangling roots hanging above to pull myself to my feet.
The space is tight. Roots brush along my shoulders like luring fingers.
I see what the structure is now, although I almost don’t believe it.
It is a door. A door forged within some sort of warren under a very large tree that I had a very different perspective of just a few moments ago. How something man-made came to be under a hickory tree is not something most can process, and I have trouble doing so myself.
Curiosity gets the best of me, and I move closer to reach for the knob. It is a heavy green stone, and I turn it slightly. The light moves across the earth, casting an illuminating shadow as I expose what is behind—a world under the world I’ve known all my life.
Tiny bulb-like lights float around the earthen burrow, mimicking fireflies on a summer night.
If I could catch one, I would swear it was a small being in human form radiating light from within.
Shimmering black and gold insects skitter to hide into deep crevices along the dirt walls as I pass by.
I am grateful for the vast openness all around that welcomes me, much different from the hollow on the other side of the door I just stepped through.
Another door comes into view, made entirely of the same green stone.
I wish I could put a name to it because I know I have seen it before.
Perhaps, a paperweight in my mother’s study?
I put my hand to it, feeling a jolt of electricity flowing from my fingers through the surface of the door in a swirl of sparkles.
It is almost as if this threshold, as if this new realm is reacting to me, but how is that so? My hand shimmers against it still, transforming my whole body in a sunlit sheen. The door releases, opening to two vibrant blue-green orbs. Oh, I have seen these before.
“Finally opening your eyes, sweet succulent,” a dark deep voice rumbles.
I attempt to catch my breath as I sit up abruptly and plant my hands upon soft, pillowy moss, which I now realize feels more like my blanket.
I tighten it into a ball, making sure a blanket is indeed what I am touching.
Those familiar eyes peer through the darkness at me, turning into the street lamps I see out my bedroom window.
I imagine the eyes again, matching them to the man who paid a visit to my shop just yesterday.
But why would I dream of him, apart from the obvious?
I brush my dark copper-colored locks away from my face and let myself fall back onto my pillow.
That didn’t feel like a dream. It felt real and, even worse, it felt known.
My nightgown damp with sweat clings to places I’d rather it not.
I jostle out of the bed, leaving the lingering whispers no one to reach.
It is five in the morning, and the sink feels miles away.
I splash cold water against my face, but my nostrils only take in the scent of damp earth—a smell I’m becoming very familiar with.
A fragrance only the roots of the hickory know.