Tears Left Uncried
Raye: Have we gotten to the part about me yet? I’m tired of waiting. *yawns*
KB: Again, impatient. I’m redoing the chapters so it’s going to take a bit. You do appear in this chapter though.
Raye: Really?! *grins*
Lee: For like five seconds.
Raye: Seriously, KB?! Five seconds? That’s it?
KB: What? At least you show up! I’m trying to keep to my original storyline but fix some things. Take a chill pill.
Raye: There’s no such thing.
KB: Yes, there is. It’s called a breath mint.
Raye: Just what are you trying to say?
Lee: …Um, girls. The story?
KB: Right! Sorry!
-KB
Tears Left Uncried
Chapter 2:
The Crossing Through Time
“Okay, class, stick together. These are holy grounds and I won’t have any of you dishonoring me.” Sensei orders the group of excited kids. Again, Lee is found at the back, barely an inch from the edge of the steps. If someone turned around to glance at her, she’s sure she’d tumble down the long fall to her death. Her mouth goes dry.
“Where’s the gift shop?!” A girl yells.
“Yeah! Shopping!”
“Good morning, students.”
Lee glances up from swirling the toe of her shoe on the pavement in time to see a short, old man come hobbling towards the ground from inside the shrine. A taller woman with short, dark brown hair, smiles at them at his side.
“Welcome to Higurashi Shrine. It is here that-.”
“Wait, is Kagome Higurashi your daughter?” A taller boy at the front of the group interrupts the old man. Lee had heard of Kagome Higurashi, even seen her around school a few times, but had never thought about talking to her. She was always off with her friends or sick from school.
“Yes,” The woman beside the old man answers, “Sadly though she is sick again today and was not able to go to school.”
Bingo, Lee thinks.
“Is she home? Can we go visit her?” A girl asks. Lee wonders if she’s one of Kagome’s friends.
“Uh…she is at the hospital right now. Her back is giving her more trouble.” The grandfather hurries to answer. Lee notices the sweat building up on his brow. What’s up with that?
The girl at the front of the group groans in defeat. “Well, give her our best will you?”
“We will.” The woman smiles before touching the old man’s shoulder. “Father, why don’t we show them inside the shrine now?”
The old man lifts his chin proudly. “Ah, yes, this way please. As you can see, this shrine is very old, but it has its share of mysteries and gifts that have been passed down from generation to generation and-.”
“Ah! Gift Shop!” The class starts yelling in excitement, cutting off the old man once more. Lee shakes her head, pausing just outside the door.
Going in there would be asking for a death wish, she decides, turning on her toe and going in the opposite direction over the grounds. Lee passes by a beautiful pond and a few old buildings, but nothing as majestic as the tall, proud tree surrounded by a cute, tiny fence. The bark is smooth and graceful even for its age; Lee can tell it’s been here for a long time. The tree gives off a wise feeling, even without the string of paper charms encircling its base.
It’s then that she notices the bare spot in the bark, like a scar in the wood, as if the bark refused to grow there. She lifts a brow.
“That’s weird.”
“No, it’s our sacred tree.”
Lee spins around, squeaking in fright, and nearly trips over the small fence. The woman who had been beside the old man, Kagome’s mother no doubt, stands behind her quietly with a soft, welcoming smile. She practically glows with goodness and kindness.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disrespect you…or…uh…it…I-I…um…” Lee gives up on trying to speak, she sucks at that too, and sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no. Don’t be. It is perfectly fine.” Kagome’s mother laughs softly. “I just saw you out here and thought maybe you’d like to tie your wish on the fence too.”
Lee tilts her head to the side in confusion before glancing down at the fence around the tree. She hadn’t noticed it before, but small little paper strips were tied in knots along the fence around the foot of the tree where people had paused to pray. How had she not seen that?
“Here.”
Lee faces the woman again just as she hands her a piece of paper and pencil. “What makes you think I want to make a wish?” Lee asks curiously.
The woman smile wider. “It’s been my experience that we all need help every day during our lives, do we not? Even if it’s small and not a constant worry in our thoughts, we all need help with something. It couldn’t hurt to ask, right? The worse that could happen is nothing.”
Lee lets her gaze fall to the paper and pencil in her hands. “True.”
Kagome’s mother pats her shoulder affectionately. “Well, then, why don’t you ask? Good luck.”
She walks away and Lee waits until she’s out of earshot before turning back to the wise, old tree and kneeling before it. She finds a nice, empty spot on the fence and then prepares to write down her wish. She stops.
What does she want, though? Lee hadn’t really thought about it before, ever. All she can really recall right now is how she had fallen on the bus, how clumsy and awkward she is, how she can’t do anything correct.
That's it then, she thinks. Scribbling her wish down on her paper, Lee folds it up, ties it to the fence carefully, and then looks up at the tree silently. She thinks about her wish, mentally whispering it to the bare spot in the tree as if it can hear her.
Please help me do something right.
There!
Lee climbs to her feet suddenly when she spots it. A purple sheen, like a flicker of light, flashes from a small, almost unseen hole in the center of the bare spot. Going against her better judgment, Lee steps gingerly over the fence, her shoe touching the soft grass there, and reaches up towards the purple sparkle.
The flash gets brighter as if it’s coming towards her and then everything turns to chaos. The wind picks up around her and shoves her towards the tree. The purple sheen becomes a flare of bright light that explodes from the small hole in the tree and she’s sucked into it.
Lee’s scream echoes across the shrine grounds but is quickly cut off as she disappears into the old tree and the light vanishes. One minute she’s standing on cement, the next she’s floating in a dark space with swirling blue, red, and darker violet streams of light. It’s like a foreign dimension, cloaked in creepy strangeness.
Lee is so unsure of what to do. She wants to scream bloody murder, gasp as the pretty lights, but also try to turn around and find out what just happened to get her here. She’s sure to find the escape door that she fell through behind her, right?
Yeah, that’s it. She’ll just turn around and climb back out. She’ll just tell everyone what happened and… No, that’d only get her laughed at more. No one would believe her anyway, especially about all this.
A man eating tree than swallows people into a black, space-like, void of a stomach. Ha! She didn’t even believe herself.
I'm just tired, Lee nods. I did stay up late last night reading.
The soundless, gentle wind around her suddenly picks up into a strong gale and forces Lee to close her eyes and raise her arms to protect her face. Then it just stops. When she opens her eyes again, there’s a figure not far off.
Oh, good. Someone I can tell and they'll believe me. We can both go back and explain and no one will think I'm crazy. Lee opens her mouth to call out to the figure, but it turns around and she gasps. The sound echoes freakily around her.
It’s a woman. A strange looking woman totally different from her, but there in her eyes Lee sees something so familiar. She’s never seen this woman in her life and yet in her heart she knows her. The woman looks back at her, her cat-like green eyes holding the same thought Lee has.
What the heck is going on?! Lee wants to scream.
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