Our Treasured Place

Hair blowing in the wind, the young girl pulled the loose ribbon the last strands of the way, the bow collapsing. She tied the pink velvet around itself, tucking it into a hidden pocket of the matching peacoat with mud splattered up from the hem.

Deep, squelching mud pushed its way free between her toes, painting her toenails an uneven brown. Patterns of leaves compressed trailed behind her like nature's footsteps.

The tail she followed was bushier than she'd seen before, each hair so fine it couldn't be felt, its colour unseen, if not closely gathered with its kin. Gradient colour transformed the passionate red into an earthy orange, a fire of beauty and action as it rippled away from her in bounds.

Eagerly, she followed.

Every so often, the tail would flick, twitch, snap straight momentarily. She liked to imagine it was waiting for her, because her clumsy footfalls were nothing compared with its scurrying parkour. Until it disappeared round the next tree and disappeared.

Gingerly, now, she crept up to the tree that had swallowed her guide, leaning a nervous hand into its rough, flaking mask. It held steady. Eyes trying to overtake her body, she struggled to round the trunk with her anxiety-weighted heels. Would she, too, disappear? Or had she missed the unburning creature run its path up the tree, no longer waiting for her as she'd wished were true?

What she found was ultimately stranger, in her opinion, than either option. Though she was distantly aware that the possibility of disappearing should likely concern her more than the door knob growing like a waxcap from the moss.

It had been an anomaly underfoot, a deviation from the soft and spongy flesh of the woodland floor.

Against her nature, knees pressed into the earth, she gently peeled away a circle of the layer of flora concealing the path she would follow. A door, flat against the ground—built into it—grew from the paths her fingers opened through the greenery. But she stopped herself taking it back any further. Her guide had slipped away so easily, yet this moss had looked untouched before her selfish hands had torn it up.

Haunted by her own inattention, she pushed to her feet, leaning down towards the floor with no intention of unsettling a home, that wasn't hers to unsettle, any further. Small fingers wrapped around the wooden Hygrocybe, deep breaths rattling her rib cage as each exhale carried nervous patience.

She lifted the handle.

True enough, the moss held to the door, though she cringed and shrunk with each soiled flake that fell from the hole she'd made in her rush. Only after she'd laid it down gently on its other side could she shift her eyes over to the space opened in its wake. Exposing the inner workings of the woodland floor, she gazed in wonder at the interlaced mycelium decorating the doorway. More helpfully, a ladder extended away from her, the side-beams scratched in thin, repeated lines. The rungs looked less used, the gloss unbroken bar crusted mud stains. Lowering herself onto the first rung, she tested the stability with one foot first. When it held, she tried the next, and the next, until her calloused feet touched solid ground again.

Excitement dwelled in the depths of her soul as she turned to face the depths confirmed by her soles: loose gravel coalesced into wooden floorboards. Walls of compact earth, parietal art formed of fungi, grew into organised polygons of clay. She ran her fingertips through the delineations, tracing her way forward across the wall, until she could no longer see her own hand.

Instinctually, she reached for a light switch. Someone had made this place to use it, she assumed, after all. Instead, she bumped into a small table and heard the distinct wobble of a round-bottomed glass. Steadying the table, she waited for it to settle, and then swept her palms over the table's surface until she found the glass. A small box lay beside it; blindly, she struck a match with coordination she'd give herself better credit for in future.

The glass had been a candle jar, and she lit the wick. A small step away was another candle, and she lit that one too. She found candle after candle, lighting them one by one until the room was aglow with a warm, orange embrace. The number of open flames in the room would be deeply frowned upon by outsiders, she knew, already counting herself among the hidden.

A writing desk took up most of the space, the old-style typewriter in pride of place. Something was blurred across the top of the readied paper. A quill and ink pot sat beside it, ready to hand-sign each closing address. The envelopes, edges yellowed now, were waiting in the right-hand drawer. Letting go of the handle, she gently lifted the topmost envelope from the stack. It felt too friable for roughened skin to hold, and she put it back quickly. The left drawer held a few fountain pens, ballpoint pens—which made her wonder why the older stationary were still here, though she supposed they were prettier—and a locket. It rocked back and forth as she lifted it by its chain, admiring the gold plating and intricate design of the shell. Tentatively, she clicked open the latch and turned the halves away from each other. Staring back at her were two people she vaguely recognised. On the left, her grandmother's heart-warming smile beamed at her from a younger person's face. On the right, her grandfather's soft expression told her exactly who had taken his photo. They had always looked at each other like that, though she painfully admitted to herself that she had forgotten their features. She looped the chain over her head and let the locket, closed again, rest against her chest. Without realising it, one hand had come to rest protectively over the bulb, cupping it loosely against her body.

A filing cabinet sat to one side, the key still in the lock of the top drawer as if waiting for her to find it. Or waiting for its owner to return; her hand held the locket tighter against her held breath.

Instead of files, each drawer held albums of photographs. The first album was mostly in black and white, and she didn't recognise any of the cast but her grandmother, the baby in the middle of the later ones resembling its current onlooker enough to bring tears to her eyes.

By the third and final album, everyone was recognisable and familiar to her. Her own parents featured many times throughout, more often with her than not the closer she got to the back cover.

Pockets upon pockets lay unfilled at the back. She closed the album before she filled them with tears. She promised herself right then that she would finish this album for her grandparents. She would return to this treasured space with treasures of her own.

With new purpose instilled, she turned to leave, but stopped.

Eyes better adjusted to the lower light levels, she realised the letter started on the typewriter wasn't blurred, but written from a drying inkwell. The used keys the only dust-free surfaces.

My dear, I believe you will not see this, but writing here feels the best bet at getting a message to you now. I miss you greatly. Perhaps I could share this room with someone else to continue your memory with them. I have been thinking... Elle is just like you, is she not? Perhaps...

Spinning towards the ladder with tears overflowing now, she found her bushy-tailed guide perched on a rung at her head-height, gazing at her with those soft, caring eyes.