Suspended

“Suspended”
By Connor Huenneke
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Taras’s eyelids fluttered, and he awoke. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, not knowing how long he had slept. What, he thought, did I fall asleep on the job again? When his sight had adjusted to the bright sunlight, he looked around. He was lying in a patch of tall grass, which was not so odd in itself, but gone was the barn in which he did most of his work, and the farmhouse of his neighbor and employer. As he took in more of his surroundings, he realized that there was very little he recognized. His family’s home was gone as well, and he saw none of the familiar trees and fields around which he had spent most of his childhood. His search became increasingly frantic until he saw his horse, Morana, grazing nervously a short distance away. The large grey mare was tied to a tree, but the post Taras always left her at when he started working, and the usual trough of water for her to drink were nowhere to be found. The air was unusually still, and Morana seemed to sense this as he walked towards her, tensing and shying away. Then she caught his familiar scent and exhaled when he laid his hand on her neck.

“I suppose I’m not dreaming then, am I girl,” he asked as he leaned against the horse and felt the hot sunshine on his face. She had been his for four years now, and her presence was something that comforted him, even in this strange situation. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but pushed the thought from his mind for the time being. “You must be thirsty.”

Morana gave a small snort in agreement, and he laughed. No need to rush, he thought. Perhaps he would find out more about where they were or what had happened in due time. Looking up as he untied Morana, Taras gleaned from the position of the sun that it was perhaps two hours after midday. As the boy and the horse set off toward a stand of trees nestled at the base of a hill, the unnatural stillness of the air became more obvious. It was almost as if they were the only things that were moving. When they reached the first of the trees, Morana’s ears swept forward and she raised her head, and soon Taras learned why as he too heard the faint sound of running water ahead. Only then did he realize how relieved he was to hear a sound other than their steps. The dense quiet around them had become somewhat unnerving, but these thoughts fled from his mind when they came upon the stream.

Flowing fast and clear, it was no more than three meters across, but very deep, likely a product of the quick current. The hill he had seen before was on the other side of the stream, and erosion had created a sort of cliff on the face nearest to the water. A small bend in the stream created a place for them to drink, and both boy and horse bent their heads to do so. After he drank a few gulps of the crisp, fresh water, Taras splashed a little on his face and then looked down at the surface. The reflection of a wiry, towheaded boy of fourteen stared back at him. He started to notice something unsettling about the way his face was reflected, almost as if he was looking into someone else’s eyes.

After a few seconds deep in thought, he shook his head and pulled Morana away from the water to keep her from drinking overmuch. He walked her over to an apple tree near the water’s edge, picked one of the ripe green fruits, and sat down at the base of the tree. Taras remembered the small knife he always carried in his front pocket, felt for it, then pulled it out and cut the apple roughly in half. As he offered the larger piece to the horse, he took a bite and leaned back.

Then he stopped dead. Something moved, his mind screamed at him. Since he had awoken here, wherever here was, not a single thing had moved, save the water of the stream, not even a single blade of grass. But just then, out of the corner of his eye, he had seen something move between the trees on the other side of the water. When he snapped his head around to look directly at the spot, there was nothing there. Sensing his tension, Morana nudged at his shoulder. He reached up to touch her forehead and reassured her. “Shh, it’s nothing.” Even as he said this, he felt his skin begin to prickle. As he shifted his gaze to the horse, there was another flash of movement. This time, he resisted the temptation to look directly at it, but as quickly as the movement had come, it was gone.

Taras suppressed a shudder and slowly tried to choke down the rest of his apple before giving up and offering it to his horse. She seemed delighted at the extra treat, but his stomach was in a knot and his mind was bursting with thoughts, all fighting for priority. What happened? Where are we? What or who was that? Finally he put his head in his hands and took a deep breath in an attempt to clear his head. When he opened his eyes and looked around, he noticed a small bridge downstream, made of rope and planks. He led Morana to a tree near the crossing and tied her to a low-hanging branch.

She nudged at him once again, but he just patted her and explained, “No, you can’t cross this bridge. You hate bridges anyway, and I’m just going to go across and climb the hill to see if I can get a view of anything familiar over these trees.”

As Taras stepped onto the bridge, he contemplated pulling out his knife, but discarded the thought. I don’t even know that there’s something out there, or if a tiny knife would do me any good. Nonetheless, he kept an eye on that same spot in the trees until he had crossed the bridge safely. Once on solid ground again, he took a look up at the sun, and was puzzled to see that it was roughly as high in the sky as when he first checked. His mind quickly flashed back to when he was working earlier that day, and had glanced skyward while carrying a barrel of oats. No, impossible. Some time must have passed. This thought too, he pushed aside as he began climbing the hill. As he reached the crest, he noticed two stone steps at the edge of the little cliff above the stream. Not giving them much thought, he looked out over the land. In the distance there seemed to be a sort of haze obscuring most of the view, and closer it seemed to be just bare earth with the occasional tree.

Something was nagging at Taras’s brain. He couldn’t quite figure it out until he looked down at Morana, placing his gaze directly above those two mysterious stone steps. Seemingly suspended in the air were the ethereal shapes of more steps, continuing to the other bank of the stream below. However, when he tried to look more closely at them, the steps disappeared. There it is again! While he had his eyes fixed on the steps themselves, he saw the same kind of movement in the air above. It was almost a shimmering, as if the air itself was twisting and warping. Now, useless as it might be, Taras pulled out his knife and flicked it open. He took a step closer to the invisible staircase, placing a foot on one of the stone steps. Nothing happened. More boldly now, he took another step, and then tentatively placed a foot where one of the midair steps had been.

That was when everything changed. All the movement that had been absent from the air was suddenly all around him. He tried to step back, but found that he could only move forward, further onto the staircase. Now the air around him was a whirlwind, creating a faint but terrible shriek in his ears and the sensation that there were hands grabbing at him, pushing him forward and back simultaneously. He descended the stairs as fast as he could, but missed a step at the very bottom and tumbled onto the bank, dropping his knife. It caromed off a rock and slipped into the deep water of the stream. Taras jumped up and looked back, but the staircase was gone and the air was eerily still once again.

He stared into the air until Morana’s nervous whinny broke his daze. He walked over to her and remarked, “I know girl, there’s something not right about this place.” He was reaching to untie her rope when his own words hit him like a thunderclap. This place.

A young Taras, perhaps four years old, sits on the grass looking up at his parents happily. They are lounging on the bank of a stream, with a girl he does not immediately recognize, perhaps two or three years older than he is. There is no bridge over the water, only a crumbling stone stairway spanning the gap between this bank and a hill on the other. The girl skips over to the steps and puts her foot up on one. “Serra, no playing on the steps,” chides Taras’s father.

Taras found himself sitting on the grass, absolutely dumbfounded. This was obviously a memory, so vivid, of this very place. Why then had he not found it familiar before? He was in a fog as he untied his horse and began to lead her through the trees, knowing only that he did not want to spend any more time near that stream. As they walked, he occasionally felt a cold pull; like the air was trying to get his attention, but as soon as he felt this the air went back to its usual thick stillness. He began to see an image in his mind, a narrow path through thick forest.

Suddenly the two emerged from the trees and Taras blinked at the sudden sun. As soon as his eyelids closed, another vivid image flashed into his consciousness.

He is sitting at the table, eating breakfast with his parents. The girl, Serra, is across from him and they are all laughing together. It feels natural, commonplace. She has the same blonde hair as he does, the same happy grey eyes.

Taras realized he was standing still and began walking once more, his mind racing. Was this girl in the memories his sister? Why didn’t he know her? The chair she had occupied in his memory had sat empty at mealtimes for as long as he could remember. As he kept walking, the tugs of the wind became more regular, and along with the cold he began to hear whispering, faint at first, but becoming more audible, until he swore he heard his name over and over again, accompanied by the same shriek he had heard on the staircase. “That’s it, I must be going crazy,” he sighed to the horse beside him. Suddenly it all stopped and he was struck with another memory.

He is playing behind the neighbor’s barn. It is an hour or two past midday. Taras’s parents had rushed him out of the house with them. They are inside the barn talking to the farmer’s wife. He can only make out snippets of the conversation. “…left home earlier…wondering if you’d seen her…think she might have gone into…let us know if she turns up.” The farmer makes a gruff noise of apology and agreement.

That memory was familiar. It had been about two years later than the others. Taras shivered at the image of his parents’ grave faces on the walk home, and again when he recalled the sound of his mother’s sobs that night. Perhaps he really had remembered visiting the stream when he was young, but had forgotten after years of his parents refusing to mention the place or even that path into the forest. As he and Morana neared the place where he had first awoken, the air became cold and the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. The horse wanted to go no further and refused to move past the tall grass where Taras had lain. He turned away from her to look at the tree she had been tied to, and was frozen in his tracks. There in front of the tree was the something he had seen. He was looking straight at it now, and as he stood transfixed, the shimmering, twisting space began to sharpen and form edges. The air in his lungs refused to move. Soon he was staring directly at a young girl, not standing in front of the tree, but simply there, suspended. Her white hair hung as if wet, framing her face. He was sure now that this pale silver figure was his sister.

She opened her eyes, and all the breath was driven from his body. They were no longer the happy eyes of his older sister. They were cold and empty; her face was wild and terrifying. Taras found the breath to utter one word.

“Serra?” When he said this, the wind became even colder, and he again struggled to force air into his lungs. When she spoke, it was as if the sound came from everywhere. Her voice was at once a whisper, a little girl’s laughter, and the howl of a dying beast.

“Taras.” Hearing her say his name pounded the chill of the air even deeper into his body. He caught his breath enough to speak again.

“How did I get here?” A tiny smile played across her face, so quickly that it may not have been there at all.

“I brought you here,” she said simply. “So I won’t be alone.” He wanted to ask her why she was here, what had happened, if it had to do with the water, but he couldn’t find the words. Her eyes seemed to widen and bore deeper into his, and he knew she could tell what he was thinking. Unexpectedly, her cold, angry façade fell away and a silvery tear ran down her cheek. She looked like a little girl again, frightened where she had once been frightening.

“Oh Taras, I was so scared! I was playing by the stream, and I wanted to walk up the stairs to get to the other side, but they started to break apart when I was halfway up. I couldn’t do anything, I fell. I couldn’t swim; the water was so cold and fast. I just…” At this point her voice faltered and trailed off, tears streaming down her cheeks and her wispy body racked with inaudible sobs. “I know Mom and Dad were so mad that I had run off, I never got to apologize,” she finished.

Taras was crying now too, but he managed to respond, “Oh god, Serra, no. They were never angry; they just wanted you to come home. I’m so sorry; I wish I could have done something, anything.” Not knowing what else to say, he just looked back at her. He took a step toward her and suddenly she rushed forward into his arms.

“I don’t want to keep you here anymore. I know I’m not alone now because you care about me,” Serra mumbled as he held her, and at that moment she really was a child, his sister. All the cold and cruelty fled from her thin frame. “I tried to make it so you couldn’t go back down the path, I don’t know if you will be able to get home. I’m so sorry, Taras.”

“It’s ok. Everything is ok.” He closed his eyes and stroked Serra’s hair, and with a sigh she began to blur back into the air around them. When he opened his eyes again she was gone and the air was warm. He felt a soft breeze as he started walking towards Morana. When he reached the horse, he wrapped his hands tightly in her mane and just rested his head on her neck while she nuzzled him questioningly. He looked up, and the haze which had obscured his view earlier had also disappeared. He could see the forest to the north and with one final look back at the tree where he had met his sister for the first time, he and the horse set out towards home.

They reached the edge of the trees, and Taras could see the narrow path. Only now did he realize how tired he was, and he clambered up onto Morana’s back. He had been riding horses his whole life and was confident that they could make it home. With a final look up at the sun, which still sat just as high in the sky, they set off down the tunnel-like path. As soon as the two entered the trees, the cool breeze became a bitingly cold wind, and Morana faltered.

“No, girl. We can’t go back.” Taras stroked her neck. “It’ll be ok, I promise.” A bit further on, they rounded a bend, and he saw light through the trees that he knew to be their way out of the woods. Almost instantly, the wind picked up even more, and he urged his horse into a gallop. With a horrible howl, the freezing air gripped him, tore at his clothes, his hair, and it was all he could do to stay on the horse’s back. When she started to slow, he pushed her faster. At the end of the path, a huge tree had fallen across their way, but past it Taras could see a field of wheat. As they came closer and closer, the wind spiraled around, tearing the air from his lungs and barring him from breathing at all. His vision began to dim. Time slowed to a crawl. Still he could gather no air into his lungs. They finally reached the tree. At a dead sprint, Morana gathered all her strength, everything she had left, and launched herself into the air. The two of them hung, suspended there for what felt like a lifetime, Taras heard her rear hooves clip the tree trunk, and then everything went dark.
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I'd like to thank anyone who makes it all the way through this. Let me know what you think of it!