Stacy--Part Twenty-Four

Splog # 92

Twenty-Four

 

   A burst of green light drew her head the other way and, in the cage  to  the right, she caught a glimpse of Lane.

   With the cages shrinking behind her, she turned back to the front and sighed as she wondered how she could return to them. She pushed down slightly with both hands on the form beneath her and wasn't quite surprised when the butterfly started descending towards the ground. As long as she maintained this pressure, she found herself flying lower and lower. At one point, she raised her head to see if there was any break in the expanse of white and gray around her. As she did so, she eased the pressure and suddenly felt herself once again rising into the air. So she instantly resumed her exertions and soon found herself, and the butterfly, lightly touching down on the nondescript ground.

   The butterfly's long limbs held its body (and Stacy) a few feet off the ground. So she slid one leg over and then turned onto her stomach and let herself slide down. She had hoped to touch the ground with her feet before she let go of the butterfly's back, but there was one slightly scary moment mid-slide when gravity had her in its grip but there was, as yet, nothing beneath her feet to support her falling body. To her relief, the moment soon passed and she went into a crouch as she landed to cushion herself from the fall. Then she stood up and, looking back from where she had come, she found  the cages no longer in sight.

   She took a few steps and found that she was walking over an expanse of very short grass that had faded in color to a flat dull yellow. She walked a little further thinking that, although everything had looked gray from the sky, once on the ground there was more variety of color. Here and there among the grass, she could see a small patch of earth. But these, too, looked as though most of the color had somehow been leeched from them. Instead of a rich brown, like the earth in the fields at home, the small areas bare of grass appeared more of a tan color, and quite a light tan at that. She wondered if there was a drought or a famine occurring in this land.

   Then she again thought of the cages and started walking more rapidly towards where she had seen them. She turned back once to see what the butterfly was doing and stopped in her tracks. The butterfly was gone! She looked up to see its departure but could find no trace of it in the sky. She started to turn around so she could examine the entire firmament but something held her  frozen in place for a moment. She stood where she was and looked around  by moving her head on her neck but kept her body facing towards where she had started walking. For some reason, it was important that she keep herself focussed in one direction. As she looked around, she felt gratified for the instinct that had commandeered her body and used it for a compass. No matter where she looked, there was nothing to break the expanse of sky and earth. The white sky and the faded earth stretched in all directions around her with no tree or rock or fence or plant to use as a guide she could employ in order to reach her destination.

   She turned her head back the way her body was facing. The cages were there and they shouldn't be very far. She glanced up again, hoping to see the butterfly, but the sky was empty. She took a deep breath, set her shoulders and started walking in as straight a line as she could set for herself. She tried to picture an object on the horizon. The cages. She imagined them far ahead of her and absolutely straight ahead of her. She walked steadily; she didn't want to walk quickly for fear of the ease with which she might drift off her imaginary straight line to the horizon.

   She felt very small walking through the vast landscape of nothing and, to encourage herself, she thought of Lane and Johnny and how they had seemed glad to have her to aid them, even though she was so much younger than they were. And, if that was Lane and Johny in the cages up ahead, maybe she could free them and possibly that might help with whatever was wrong with the Doolins.