LJ Idol Prompt 6 — “The path is made by walking”

[flipflop_diva]

Aubrey Lane had a good life. A wonderful life actually. A mother and a grandmother and a great-grandmother who loved her. An older sister and another older sister who both adored her. And more aunts than she could ever possibly want for. They all loved her, took care of her, supported her.

Laid out expectations she needed to follow. Put down rules she wasn’t allowed to question. Trained her to replace curiosity with acceptance that her life was the best life one could ever have.

Because what else could there possibly be? How could anything be better than what they had? Everything they could ever need and want and dream of was here, in their little village, nestled beneath the canopy of trees and surrounded by bushes and vines that left no way out and no way in.

Sixteen years ago, Aubrey had been born in the middle of their little enclave, her every needed tended to by the group of women around her. And for the sixteen years that followed, those same women continued to tend to her as she grew up and learned to speak and to walk and to read and to tend to vegetables in the gardens and to sew comfortable bedding and beautiful dresses. She never lacked for a comforting bosom to lay her head or for someone to wipe away her tears. She never lacked for someone to read her a bedtime story or, when she got older, to teach her the old tongues that the wiser women in their village still spoke.

The only things she never really had were children her own age to play with — she had always been the baby of the enclave, even now at sixteen — and answers to the questions that would spring into her mind. What’s on the other side? Is there something on the other side? Is this really all there is to the world?

When she was small, she would spend hours trying to peer through the maze of trees and bushes and vines, straining to see something other than more greenery, but there was never anything but a dense blackness. As she grew older, when the other women weren’t looking, she would try to climb the trees, to make it to the top so she could see the other side, but their barks were too slippery, their branches too far apart, and as skilled a climber as she was, she could never get far enough before someone noticed her.

Their shout would drop her to the ground, almost like it was its own force of gravity, and she would spend hours being scolded for her recklessness and for daring to want to know more. It was wrong, the women would say, to need anything more than what she already had since she already had everything. That was greedy and selfish, and she should never aspire to be either of those horrible things.

And so she had learned, before her tenth birthday, to stop asking questions and to stop climbing trees and peering through the dense forestry. She learned to appreciate what she had and to be grateful for it every second of every day — at least by all outward appearances. Inside, she still dreamed of what could be on the other side — and at night, when her eyes were closed, she saw wide expanses of water and villages that were so huge they must have another name, full of so many people she couldn’t possibly count them all. Women and children and others who were not women because their shapes were different but who smiled at the women and the children and cared for them and played with them. And Aubrey would wake in the mornings, after the nights that she dreamed, and feel an ache in her heart for something she couldn’t quite explain.

There was only one place in their village where Aubrey could share her real thoughts, during those moments when they became too much to keep inside. At the north end of the enclave there was a small hut belonging to the oldest woman in their village. No one knew her real age, but Aubrey had heard speculation that it was close to three hundred. Her name was Peggy, and although she was a gentle soul, her mind had long been gone. The words that came from her lips, during the rare times they did come, were gibberish, ramblings of someone who was no longer there.

Most of the days when Aubrey offered to sit with Peggy, to read her stories, there was no one else with her. Just the two of them, and so Aubrey would hold the book in her lap but the words she would speak were the ones from her dreams. She would tell Peggy of what she had seen, and she would voice her curiosities out loud, her wish that one day she could simply walk into the forest and out the other side.

“But you can, my dear. That is your gift.”

Aubrey almost dropped the book she was holding. She turned her head quickly to see the old woman sitting up slightly in her bed, smiling at her with a gapped-tooth smile. She had never heard Peggy speak before, not even once in her sixteen years.

“Do you think we have always been here, my dear? How do you think we know the language you hear in your dreams from the other side? Why do you think we are only women?”

Aubrey kept staring. Peggy didn’t sound like she was speaking gibberish, but her mother had said …

Peggy reached out one of her old, withered hands. She placed it on Aubrey’s wrist. Her fingers were surprisingly soft, despite the abundance of wrinkles. Aubrey stared into Peggy’s eyes — eyes that seemed perfectly lucid and understanding.

“I don’t understand,” Aubrey whispered, and she wasn’t sure if she were even talking about Peggy’s words or this whole situation in general.

Peggy patted Aubrey’s wrist. “On our sixteenth birthdays, our gifts are activated. But gifts are only active as long as we embrace them. When we fear them, they are gone, and here we remain.”

Aubrey shook her head, still not understanding. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“If you want to see the world,” Peggy said, “then you just need to walk. The path will appear.”

“I don’t understand,” Aubrey said again, but Peggy removed her hand from Aubrey’s wrist and settled herself back against her pillow, closing her eyes. And Aubrey knew whatever had just happened was over.

She picked the book back up and tried to concentrate on the text, but her mind seemed to be spinning. She had never heard talk of gifts from anyone. Especially nothing of something being activated on one’s sixteenth birthday. She had heard talk of Peggy being insane, of her words not meaning anything. But Peggy had known. She had known what Aubrey dreamed about. And not just the pictures Aubrey had told her about on these visits but she knew the people in her dreams spoke the old language, something she was sure she had never mentioned.

Aubrey’s hands tightened on the book as she turned her head to watch the slow rise and fall of Peggy’s chest. What had just happened? Had it really even happened? And what did that mean? Did it even mean anything at all?

--

Aubrey couldn’t sleep. All she could hear in her mind were Peggy’s words, rolling around and around.

If you want to see the world, then you just need to walk. The path will appear.

She waited until deep into the night, when the chances of no one else being awake were high. She kept to the darkest shadows and made her way to the edge of the village where no sleeping quarters were located. She took a moment to stare up at the towering trees and the vines and bushes that seemed impenetrable.

Then you just need to walk.

It sounded so foolish. So ridiculous she felt stupid even believing it. But then she thought of her dreams — of the water stretching so far she couldn’t see where it ended, of the villages that were so large she couldn’t even fathom them, of the children who were her age and even younger.

She closed her eyes, took a long deep breath and then she stepped forward. She expected to feel the scratch of the branches upon her skin, the sharp poke of the thorns. But all she felt was the emptiness of space.

She opened her eyes and gasped. She was only a step into the dense forestry around the village, but she was in it. She looked down at her feet to see a soft glow where she had stepped, almost like magic.

She took another step, this time watching as the forestry seemed to melt away as soon as she moved, the glow from her second step adding to her first.

Not like magic, she realized. It was magic.

She felt her heart pick up speed. Her stomach seemed to flip over inside her. Her palms grew sweaty.

Then you just need to walk.

She looked behind her, through the dense night to the home she’d had for sixteen years. Was she really ready to leave it?

She turned back, took a third step, watched the path of glowing light glow.

There was no choice. She had to know what was on the other side. She had to see if her dreams were real. She could never go back knowing she hadn’t gone forward.

And so she took a fourth step and then a fifth and a sixth, heading into the foliage, into the future, away from the past. There was no going back now.







Fiction.



This was written for the new season of therealljidol. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read the other amazing entries. You can find them here. Voting should be up Saturday night!

Comments

[erulissedances]

Oh, I truly adored this. In every way.

- Erulisse (one L)

[static_abyss]

I understand Aubrey's wish to see more of the world. But the idea of being surrounded by women who love me and take care of me sounds good to me also lol.

This was such a great story. It was entertaining and it kept me hooked from the beginning. Great job!

[muchtooarrogant]

This was a nice coming of age story, with an intriguing mystery for Aubrey to solve. I really liked her decision at the end, "She could never go back knowing she hadn’t gone forward."

Dan

[fausts_dream]

Seems like the start of something grand, but effective as a stand alone too.

[tonithegreat]

Glowing steps like something fae! I wish her well on her adventure.

[roina_arwen]

I love all the details here, and for some reason a 300 year old woman named Peggy amused me! I'd love to read more about Aubrey's adventures. :)

[mollywheezy]

I loved this! Great use of the prompt!

[murielle]

Oh! I LOVE this! And if there is more I want it.

How I wish we all had a Peggy to tell us what our gifts are so we could choose the right path. ❤❤❤

[adoptedwriter]

Thus was fabulous. I hope to read more of Aubrey’a adventures.

[halfshellvenus]

The feels like an allegory of the kinds of lives expected for women (though less so, now). They're told their lives are already perfect, they don't need to strive for more. And they're perfect because other people SAY they are. So if you feel as if something is wrong or missing, you're the problem, not the gilded cage you're stuck in.

[rayaso]

This was so wonderful. "Trained her to replace curiosity with acceptance that her life was the best life one could ever have." - what a disturbing Orwellian phrase. I loved the ending.