Not Past Twenty

Sometimes a thought dies on your tongue before you can even recall it.

Chapter 1: Not Past Twenty

She wasn’t going to live past twenty. That was the first thought that sprang into the mind of the girl who woke up covered in mud and leaves. The forest seemed to rustle above and beneath her and then still when she finally lifted a dirt-encrusted hand off the damp earth. She reached for her crown. It wasn’t there. And she couldn’t remember where she had last seen it. The girl couldn’t recall a day where her crown’s new hiding place wasn’t the first thought that popped into her head and she also couldn’t recall a day where her crown had been on her head. A large bump on the back of her head told her that she was going to have trouble recalling for a while.

“Princess,”  a somber voice pleaded her to notice an offered hand.

Princess glanced up, past the hand, at lips that kept on twitching downwards to conceal a sly smirk and again, past the lips, at eyes that appeared to be melting with concern. An odd combination.

“Princess Seil,” the odd boy called down, again, his patient hand still outstretched impatiently.

“You need to get off my turf.”

Princess Seil rolled her eyes backwards and craned her neck to spy a young girl, around twelve years old, crouched in the overgrown bushes, whispering colorful threats about a pagan god.

“Hi, I’m Princess Seil,” Princess Seil smiled at the wild child who shuffled suddenly behind a tree.

The hand that had been offered so kindly now gripped the princess roughly by the arm and hauled her to her feet. The little girl was gone.

“Have you lost something?” the boy grinned pointedly.

Lost something? Princess Seil jumped forward, until she practically towered over her interrogator. He didn’t flinch.

He didn’t flinch - well, of course he didn’t flinch! He didn’t flinch because he knew.

Oh, but she had never seen this person before and he already knew so much!

Princess Seil whistled frustration and began to walk away from the freckled stranger. The freckled boy who knew her name. He knew her name before she could recall it herself. He knew that she had something…and wasn’t that suspicious enough? She wondered what else he knew that she didn’t.

And then she stopped, halfway down a downtrodden dirt path that led to a greying lake. Mere wondering had caused her to realize that she had absolutely no idea where she was. Or why she had a rip in her jeans that revealed an awful-looking, itchy scab over her right knee.

Perhaps the boy would know.

A flock of birds rose noisily into the air as Princess Seil turned around to ask, the questions on the verge of tipping out of her mouth, only to find that he, too, had disappeared somewhere into the rustling forest. An unidentifiable, mud-colored bird flapped crookedly above her and away, trying to catch up to the rest and reminding her of absolutely nothing useful. Its feeble squawks sounded oddly like the phrase that died on her awakened tongue.

The world itself seemed to be reminding her of the one swear she didn’t forget. Seil, forgetting she was a princess, scrambled down the dirt path as if a madman with an axe was coming for her head. A town emerged as the woods shrunk back. The second her faded black Converse hit concrete, she grabbed the nearest person by the shoulders and turned the bewildered lady to meet her terrified eyes.

“How old am I?”

Author's Note

I've completely changed the style of the three story threads I've combined and even gave it a slightly satirical twist. Feedback would be appreciated.

Reviews

[PaintedBirdy]

hey Monica, i like what you have here so far. seems like a half-fantasy coming-of-age story of the girl. to me "not making it past twenty" seems like the narrator won't be a girl anymore past twenty (then she'll be an adult), and that the "odd boy" and maybe others know stuff about her, particularly that she's about to grow up pretty fast (especially because she ran into town wondering about her age). Seil, as a name, seems intentional to me because it is "lies" spelled backwards, and i wonder how you'll fit that into the story further too (if it is intentional, that is). i like the clothing details: a lost crown (seems symbolic), then jeans and faded black converse. it's intriguing imagery. good start!!

[Monica Chen]

Thanks so much for the review! And you'll find out about whether or not these are intentional symbols and signs later on xD haha