Stacy--Part Four

Splog # 11

Four

   When Stacy reached the pile of rocks, the butterfly was sitting there and, to her imagination, it seemed to be waiting for her. She walked right up to it and again slowly put her right hand out to see if it would alight there. And the butterfly did!

    Stacy brought her hand close to her eyes and drank in the sight of the lovely creature, so fragile and delicate. She whispered "Butterflies and sunshine eyes". As if on cue, the butterfly lifted off her hand, but instead of meandering around her or fluttering off among the trees, the insect made a circle around her head and then started spiraling straight up into the sky. Stacy watched the floating speck get smaller and smaller and soon there was only a tiny dot of white circling above her. She squinted to keep it in sight, then tried climbing the rock in front of her so she wouldn't lose it. The rock, being oddly shaped and having ledges and crevices, was easy to climb but, when she balanced herself on the top of it and looked up, the butterfly was nowhere in sight.

    Stacy searched all the corners of the sky, hoping to see a movement of white. Then she looked all around, in every direction. Maybe the butterfly had descended out of her view and was flying around in the woods again. She sat down on top of the rock and noticed that she had climbed higher than she'd realized. The rock was taller than she was, so she had a good vantage point to look for her butterfly. It was her butterfly, just like her parents were her parents. It had come to her and then it had led her into the woods. Right to this rock. But then why would it disappear like that? She had never seen a butterfly fly straight up before, especially in a spiral pattern. Butterflies always skittered around and landed for a moment and then flew off again, seemingly at random. But this one had behaved differently.

   She sat musing and rubbing her hands on the rock she was sitting on. She let her legs dangle over the side, placed her hands on top of her thighs, and called out, "Sunshine eyes and butterflies". A slight echo brought back the word "butterflies" from behind her and, when she turned, she noticed that the rocks she had thought were scattered aimlessly actually formed a rough circle. And there was an open space in the middle. She started to move around the circle, going from one rock to the next by climbing to wherever they were close to one another or jumping from one to the next, if a jump were possible. The rocks were of various sizes and they all had lots of crevices for hands or feet to grasp or step on. The tops always had somewhere she could stand but they weren't just flat. There were obtrusions or declivities that she had to be careful to avoid. And she noticed that, although the rocks all seemed to be of various hues of grey, when she stood on one and looked at it for a time, it would start to assume a shade of a more vibrant color. She first discovered this when she was looking into a small crevice that seemed to go deep into the rock. She was trying to see if there were any bugs or lizards or other inhabitants, when she noticed that the crevice seemed to be shining redly. She looked at the other areas of the rock she was standing on and the whole thing had a slightly reddish hue to it, as if it were caught in a setting sun. But the sun was still fairly high overhead. She looked over to the next rock and found that, by squinting slightly and holding her gaze on it for a time, a copper color seemed to emerge. Repeating this process, she examined the rocks around her. After the copper one was one of a golden hue and the next was a very pale green.