Act I, Chapter VI

Rey leaves the cottage in Leisure Fields to investigate Jolly Woods, but gets more than he bargained for...

Act I "Peace and happiness awaits you."

Lilly awoken and rose from her bed, stretched her arms and yawned. Sunlight shone through the window at an angle, which made her wonder when the polyester blinds had been opened. She looked towards the bed across from hers’ and realized Rey was not filling the bed. She climbed out of bed, and slipped on her slippers, and slid out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. April was up early, making breakfast, as usual.

 

              “Mom,” Lilly said. “Have you seen Rey? He wasn’t in bed when I woke up.”

              “He’s probably with your dad. Why don’t you check in with him, kay sweetie?”

Lilly drug herself to the front porch to find August doing yard work. “Daddy,” she said. “Rey wasn’t in bed this morning and mom told me to check in with you? Do you know where he is?”

“What do you mean he wasn’t in bed? Where is he?”

“I don’t know. That is what I’m asking.”

 

August dropped his rake and marched inside, with Lilly following in behind him. He entered into the bedroom to find that Rey was, in fact, not in bed. He turned to make way for the kitchen and addressed April. “Honey, have you seen Rey this morning?”

“No. Lilly asked me that same question…Why? Was he not with you?”

“…No.”

 

April dropped whatever dirty dish she had in her hand into the sink and followed August outside to patrol the fields around the cottage. The looked as far as they could the horizon and saw no sight of Rey. August and April returned to the front porch of the cottage, where Lilly was waiting with Rey’s books in her hands.

 

“Look what I found in the bedroom,” Lilly said.

“Those are from the burned cottage at Happy Springs,” April said.

“What has he been doing with those,” August asked. “He…He didn’t.”

“What? What is it?”

“He may have gone to Jolly Woods.”

 

April shot an expression of anxiety at August, before the two stormed inside. August marched into the master bedroom and collected a travel bag and his wallet, then marched into the kitchen for some sustenance. Lilly decided to sit on the living room couch, but could not help but feel as worried as August and April. By the time August got back to April, he had found her in the attic. She was sitting, leaning by the vanity set that August had put away, and was holding the vase that contained the two roses. The roses were wilting and were near to death. April stared at them with wet eyes and whimpered with quivering lips. August stood in place from the other side of the attic and looked down briefly, before addressing April.

 

“Let’s go, April,” August said. “We need to find our son.”

 

Meanwhile, Rey had arrived in the parking lot of the Sunshine Mall, which is located in the South District of Tranquility Town. The building was completely painted in bright orange, with diagonal yellow cones spreading across the walls. The whimsical cars of mallgoers occupied much of the parking lot that formed a perimeter around the Mall. Just south of the Mall is a tree line that borders Tranquility Town and Jolly Woods. Rey trekked across the large parking lot in order to reach the tree line.

 

Rey did not make route to Jolly Woods without some of the people at Sunshine Mall taking notice.  In fact, one man tried to stop Rey, offering a “Hey, kid! Don’t go in there!” but Rey paid no mind, instead going about his way no matter what anyone else thinks. Rey crossed the tree line and entered the forest, leaving the fashioned pavement of the Mall’s lot behind him.

 

Lilly, August and April found their way to the parking lot of the Sunshine Mall, and stepped inside. They asked numerous people about Rey, like they have been doing all over town. Their main corridors of the mall was covered in red wallpaper with blue dots in varying size. Stores expressed their own aesthetic flare, but were not much different from each other, save for a few fast food joints in the food court, which sported yellow and red colors. It was in the food court where Lilly, August and April met the man who had seen Rey in the parking lot.

 

“Aye, I saw him go into the Jolly Woods, alright,” the man said. “He didn’t stop. He just went straight for the tree line. I tried to convince him to stay away from the forest…I’m sorry.”

“That is okay, sir,” August said. “Thank you.” August stepped away from the man with April and Lilly. “Great.”

“What are we going to do know,” April asked.

“We’ll have to go into the forest.”

“We can’t just go into the forest, August. We’ll be caught.”

“…So than, we are supposed to just leave him to his fate, then?”

“If I may, sir,” the man interrupted. “The sailors at the Pleasant Bay Docks have been having a pirate problem lately and suspect that the pirates are headquartered in Jolly Woods. If you ask them, they may be willing to help you with your son.”

“Thank you, sir,” August said. “We should probably go to the docks and find seek out Sailor Boy.”

 “Really, August? Sailors? Can you really be sure they would help us?”

“It’s either we get their help or we enter the forest, ourselves.”

 

Lilly, August and April made haste to the Pleasant Bay Docks, located in the East District of Tranquility Town. The docks were pristine and colorful like the rest of the city, even if it was an industrial section of the city. Lilly held on to April as August led the group along the fashioned, cobblestone road between the piers and a row of buildings. The road was painted turquoise, and the wooden piers were painted orange. The buildings, as common in Tranquility Town, all sported their own base colors from one another. Lilly wondered at the hearty and colorful scenery of the Docks, and wondered why port cities can’t be this pretty back in her own realm.

 

Lilly, August and April found the Seaside Pub, where Sorley and his crew are known to hang out. The three stepped one-by-one through the short, double doors, into the large dining area. Several round tables were scattered across this room in no particular pattern, each surrounded by 4 or more chairs. This was indeed the place to find the sailors, as they were occupying much of the space in the dining area. Some of them were sitting at the bar, at the back end of the room, and others were enjoying their seafood meals at the tables, and others were dancing in no particular place proper for it.

 

Sorley was sitting at one of the tables, trying to enjoy a meal and cup of coffee, before he has to plan his next journey out into the Bay. He wore a simple, rather predictable sailor outfit, being a pure white cotton tunic and slacks lined with navy blue. Sorley’s cheeks were painted with the same spotless white color as his clothing and his hair was short, black and kept relatively in place by a white sailor hat. His natural, brown eyes looked onward to the Pub’s new guests.

 

“August and April,” Sorley said. “What may I do for ye?”

“Hi, Sailor Boy,” April responded. “We came here to ask for your assistance, if it isn’t too much trouble…May we sit down?”

“Of course not! Don’t be shy. Have a seat.” Lilly, August and April sit down at the table with Sorley. “So” Sorley said. “What seems to be the problem?”

“We’ll it’s about our boy,” August answered. “We found him missing this morning and have tracked him to the Jolly Woods. We didn’t want to get in trouble by entering the forest ourselves, so we came here to seek you out.”

“I’m sorry. I’m tied up right now, with pirates on the Bay.”

“Yeah, I heard…Is it true that these pirates may be hiding out in the Woods?”

“Aye, but we have no way of proving that right now, and we shan’t just poke our nose in that place without the Queen’s consent. My sailors and I are primed for an investigation on the coast, but that is all we can do for now.”

“Sailor Boy,” April said. “Please. We need to get our son back. If pirates really are hiding in Jolly Woods, Rey could get killed. Just…please….We don’t know what else to do.”

 

Sorley looked into April’s eyes and saw her sense of desperation. He then looked to August and examined his brief nod and grin, as to agree with April’s statement. Something stirred in Sorley. He felt that he couldn’t just turn away parents trying to find their child, even if the Ballerina Queen put some ban on Jolly Woods. “Look,” Sorley said. “I’ll send a search party to the forest. They will have to go just before sundown, but listen, I am not promising you that they will find your son. That place is too big and disorienting to search completely for one child.”

 

“Yes, thank you,” April cheered.

 

August offers to join the search party to help search for Rey, but April detested to the idea and began to argue with him. The argument shifted to April deciding that she should join August and the search party, before August convinces her to stay behind with Lilly. After high noon passed and as it descended closer to the horizon, August and the search party left the Seaside Pub and made route to Jolly Woods.

 

Since, August left the Pub, Lilly and April have been sitting together on a bench in the dining area. April was feeling anxious about Rey’s disappearance, but Lilly was keeping her company and offering her long-term, childish hug. In the meantime, Sorley did his best to entertain Lilly and April. He turned on the jukebox that was standing near the wall far left from the Pub’s entrance and began to perform a jig. “Come on, why don’t ya join me, young lass,” Sorley said to Lilly. Lilly is not one to pass up a good time, so she got up from the bench, next to April, and began to do a silly dance with Sorley. This got a smile out of April, who hadn’t been feeling all too well since she left the house with Lilly and August.

 

In Jolly Woods, Rey roamed the forest in no planned route at all. He roamed, keeping an eye out for the animals that are supposed to roam the forest. In the meantime, he observed the flora of the forest. The ground plants sports green fabric in its foliage, accompanied by daffodils and margarets, blue bells and trilliums, mimosas and other fabric flowers, each set neatly near the bases of the trees. The trees themselves seemed to be identical oaks and stood rigid, but rough and flexible. The branches conveniently extended just above 6ft from the ground and beams of light shone through to the forest floor, broken from the branches that hang overhead.

 

Rey eventually found himself in a meadow, surrounded by the rest of the forest. A large stump stood in the center of the meadow. Ground foliage hugged a narrow area surrounding the stump, just as the foliage near the trees that surround the meadow. The ground in between was exposed, forming a dirt road circling the stump, much like a town circle drive would a statue and its yard. Light shone through to the meadow with very little interference and Rey could even see the clouds and sun overhead.

 

A slender, blue rabbit of orange, protruding cheeks perched itself atop the stump. It observed Rey, with its head and ears perked up. The rabbit stared at Rey with its round black eyes, colored with irises of yellow. It stood still and tall as Rey approached it. It was until Rey was face to face with the rabbit that it cocked its head up slightly to look directly into his face. “Why don’t you move,” Rey asked, knowing full well he wasn’t actually going to get a response.

 

Rey looked over to see a magenta deer, dotted and stripped with lime green, emerging from the forest as it slowly and quietly approached him. It was when the deer got face to face with Rey, like the rabbit, that it stood still and stared into Rey’s eyes with its beady, orange eyes. Something about these animals didn’t sit right with Rey, but he did not remove himself from their attention just yet, being curious in what they would do next, if they would do anything at all.

 

 The rabbit nor the deer moved in inch for about a minute, before the deer’s little jaw swung open, in a complete 90 degree angle. The sound that the deer made was not natural, and was like that of a loud fog horn bellowing from a tug boat. The deer’s cry shook the entire forest, but no startled animal cries were heard in response to the sound. Flocks of songbirds did not flee from the canopies as the sound shook the trees.

 

The deer continued to bellow the fog horn cry, as more forest creatures creeped into the meadow from several directions.  Birds, squirrels, raccoons, skunks and even more rabbits and deer were among the animals approaching Rey. Rey slowly took a few steps back as the animals closed in on him and even the perched rabbit and bellowing deer began to approach him. After making an about face, Rey sprinted out of the meadow and the animals followed in close behind him. He sprinted desperately as more animals pursued him in all directions.