Natural Disharmony

A faint wind ran through the field that rested near the edge of Castro Woods, causing the unkept grass and weeds to sway and scrape against the moonlit air. Gravel cracked under Jamie's feet, breaking the silence that echoed through the space as she walked down the small dirt trail up to a small shrine that blended in with the heavy greenery.

When she stopped at the entrance, her stillness allowed the calm quiet to return and caused the crickets hidden beneath the field's shrubs to chirp to their hearts' content again. While the wind seemed to get a tad bit stronger as Jamie lingered in the entrance to loosen up the braid she had made with her hair, finally letting the dark strands free after a long walk out of town.

As she entered the shrine's space, Jamie gazed at a pile of crumbled dirt near the back end, her brown eyes drifting from the large crumbles of hard dirt before she sat in front of the pile.

In the moonlight, the pile looked frozen, like it had been replaced with a foam copy of itself, but Jamie's mind told her otherwise, reminding her that the random, fleeing thought wasn't respectful of the place. No one in town would ever think about replacing the shrine's dirt with a fake one, not after so many had observed the unmoving pile for decades, and to even think of the pile as fake made Jamie crush the notion with a rough mental hand.

Once she had overcome the dirt pile's odd display, Jamie drifted her eyes up it and stared at a small wood carving of an owl bird stuck in the dirt before resting a small purple flower beside it.

The delicate flower's petals withered at the edges, giving its once vibrant purple a brown and light pink tinge.

Jamie settled herself more comfortably against the dirt ground, crisscrossing her legs. She took a breath to say that prayer that had been repeated so many times by her, but before she could even speak the first letter, she heard a firm voice echoing in front of her.

"Thought I told you not to come."

Jamie jumped, sitting up straighter as the first word of her prayer rested at the tip of her tongue, and slowly looked up. She swallowed her initial words as her eyes rested on a transparent figure walking up to her that solidified the closer Silas got. His naturally affable amber eyes settled on her form before he looked away to stare across the shrine's place to scan the area.

Jamie followed his gaze but only saw the swaying field behind her and the trees' leaves falling in the wind. Then, slowly, she looked back towards Silas, whose blond hair covered his eyes for a moment before he ran his hair back into place.

"Yeah, you did…but I just wanted to see you. Just for a little bit." She softly stated as she adjusted herself to her knees to get up, unsure if she should force herself to stay like last time or actually leave.

Silas sighed and motioned her to stay as she was with his hand, huffing silently. "Forget it. You're already here," he stated firmly, slowly crouching down and not breaking eye contact with her until he sat in front of her.

When Silas broke eye contact with Jamie, he picked up the flower she had left, twirling it in his slender fingers, and smiled politely, tempted to accept the flower this time.

"You were planning on coming for a while, weren't you?" He said, observing the flower more closely. "These flowers haven't been in bloom since spring."

He noticed how stiff the flower was. It no longer moved freely and was frozen in the time when it was picked, the small veins becoming more pronounced than they should have been.

Jamie hummed in response and locked her fingers together as she rested them in her lap. "I wanted to come during the spring…" she admitted, as she once again became aware of how many months had actually passed.

Summer was starting to end, and as she looked around the shrine's space again, she could see the bright green of nature beginning to dull out.

"I didn't think you would be able to tell."

Silas raised his brow at Jamie, almost offended at her assumption. "I can. Many people have left flowers over the decades. I can perfectly tell you about the flowers in the area like a textbook. Probably even better than a textbook, if I'm being honest."

As much as he was impressed that Jamie had managed to keep a spring flower for almost six months, he was also put off because she had been planning to return. He thought she'd listen to him for once and stay away from the shrine. Silas looked around the shrine again, looking at how the breeze interacted with the plants, before looking back at the flower.

"This is more like a fertility flower rather than a sympathetic one, you know…" he said, not bringing up the flower's stiffness. "Not your usual flower choice. Or were you hoping I would help you with that?"

Jamie shifted her gaze as her cheeks heated up. "I just picked it because it looked nice,"

The man laughed slightly, swirling the flower between his thumb and index finger. "Right, because it looked nice…" he said, smiling softly at Jamie, but his smile never really reached her. It seemed to move past her toward the field behind.

"You never just bring flowers; you bring flowers you like. It's a rude way to offer, at least according to my predecessors." Silas said a bit fondly. "Even I know the shrine likes mushrooms and bluebells, but you never offer those, do you?"

Jamie grimaced slightly, adverting her gaze even more, knowing she never gave stuff the shrine liked. It's not like she purposely avoided those offerings; they were fine, but she could never get her hands on them. The second the usual flowers, herbs, and trinkets were available, they were sold out by the end of the day, and no matter how much she bargained, she couldn't bargain enough.

"But you're not able to get the shrine something, are you?" he asked dully, letting his small smile fade but not forming a frown even though his face was asking him to.

Jamie shifted again and pulled her fingers apart, resting their tips above the dirt, feeling the growing grass ghosting her fingers. "Why aren't you kicking me out even though you told me to stop coming?" she asked, ignoring his comment and focused on the question on her mind for months.

Silas was silent for a moment, completely fixed on the flower moving between his fingers. As he twirled the flower, the stiff petals opened up more and more. Small flicks of the withered area flew off and landed in the grassy dirt.

"Because I'm going to let you hear me one more time. You seem nice, and I do enjoy you, but you don't belong here, " he said sharply, locking eyes with Jamie.

Jamie furrowed her brows, trying to keep eye contact with Silas, but it got harder the longer she stared at him. "But -"

"You shouldn't be here. It's as simple as that." he said, sitting up straighter and leaning forward, "You drown the space each time you come. Forget those nights I let you stay and stop coming."

Jamie swallowed, feeling her cheek heat up again. She gripped the dirt beneath her fingers. "Yeah, but-"

"What could you possibly want here so bad that you ignore me?" Silas asked harshly, his jaw tightening at Jamie's familiar display.

It was the same one she always gave. Her actions and words never changed, and he knew what she was trying to say. At this point, Silas could repeat her words and their varying versions better than she could.

"I just wanted to see you and…" she said, her voice getting softer.

The man scoffed and let go of the flower, letting it fall back onto the pile of dirt as he got up. "And you saw me."

He leaned down and gripped Jamie's wrist, forcing her to let go of the grass she was gripping. "See. That's why you don't fit here. Everyone else knows how to walk calmly when they come here, but you… you're a presence that throws the shrine off." Silas coldly stated, pulling her to her feet.

Jamie's eyes widened slightly as she looked down at the ground and hesitantly stepped into the area where she was sitting. "Wait, I didn't mean to…"

"Yeah? Didn't mean to? Even children know not to pick at the dirt here."

Silas roughly pulled Jamie towards the shrine's entrance, kicking the dirt she had walked on when she first arrived.

"You don't need to be here. You were never welcomed here, and at this point, I regret ever letting you walk through here because all you are is a whirlwind that makes me tired!" He shouted, throwing her past the entrance point.

Jamie stumbled forward, barely keeping on her feet as the silence enveloped her again. When she looked around, Silas was nowhere to be seen, and she felt her stomach turning, wanting to say something. To apologize for even picking at the dirt, but her gut forced her to keep quiet as she stared into the shrine's place, which seemed to fill with a cold wind unlike before.

That was a sight that she had never experienced before. The shrine always looked so warm, even at night, but as Silas's words rang through her mind, the fantasy she had for the shrine started melting, and she realized that the warm place she liked coming to wasn't actually warm for her. This made her stomach turn more as she looked at the area where she was gripping the grass so harshly for no reason other than the fact that she was using it to make herself feel grounded.

Jamie bit the inside of her cheeks and lowered her gaze to the side, gripping her arm as guilt set in.

Had the shrine been telling me not to come all this time? And why did I focus so much on him not to notice?