Parable of a Fairytale

By Arias

Real love and real life aren't always experienced in reality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arias
• Release date: Dec 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370262861

Arias

XoX

Book preview

PART ONE

The City: Rose

I take a step away to avoid the sound of scattered laughter as it spreads to me. Jasmine, my best friend, holds her phone out for all her friends to see the screen. The vine ends, and her friends howl. Parting until another vine begins. Jasmine’s group looks like a creature, opening and closing its mouth.

Looking around, I breathe deeply, wondering why I'm here at all in this loud and noisy place. Only young children seem to share my reaction to the mall; they scream.

I suck at my strawberry milkshake, and miss Joshua.

Shifting farther away from the cluster, I begin to walk. Jasmine notices me distancing myself. She jogs to me. Putting her arm around me, she walks with me as I look for an exit. I see the group looking lost without their leader. Quickly they pick up her scent and follow us.

Rose, Jasmine ignores her friends, and takes my milkshake, wanna go to the pet store?

She suggests this looking into my eyes and drinking the rest of my shake.

I thought you said you would never go there again, I say as Jasmine tosses the empty cup into the trash.

We could be in the Forest with Joshua right now, I think. She's trying to placate me I know, but I won't let her. My gaze is past her, then back to her, but maybe…

It smells like shit, Jasmine declares with a shrug, but I’m thinking of you. Expressing my angelic nature. You know, putting others needs before my own.

I smile as we pass by a sunglass store, and shake my head, Jasmine is always Jasmine.

She pauses, stopping me with her. Reaching for the closest pair, she balances the child’s batman sunglasses on the edge of her nose.

Rose, she tilts her head, is my halo shining too bright? Need sunglasses too? Jasmine innocently holds out another superhero pair.

I laugh at the idea of her being righteous, and push her hand aside. The group, dragging behind but not wanting to be left out of the joke, shuffles closer. Jasmine and I walk faster toward the pet store. The adolescent human herd follows.

At the pet store, surrounded by captured creatures, I worry over their fate. Jasmine, at the entrance where she declares ‘clean air still circulates,’ laughs and jokes with her troop. Passing the kittens, they open their tiny pink mouths in soundless, desperate cries. I stop, and kneel on the semi-clean checkered floor as they crawl over each other to get closer to me. Reaching in, I lift a fat one out.

Hey, Jasmine calls, looking in from around the shop door.

I pet the kitten, head down. Peeking up, I see Jasmine waving her hands crooning, Roooose. She's bored with her friends. Sticking her head in farther, she says loudly, Rose! Drop the kitten. Let’s get out of here.

Detangling the kitten’s tiny, sharp claws as they dig through my t-shirt, I say a silent I’m sorry as I place it back in the bin. Leaving the store, Jasmine grabs my hand and pulls me past her friends.

Where are you guys going?

Jasmine points in a general direction to her friends and says, See you at school.

Her dismissal leaves no argument.

Outside, the City evaporates and around us forms the Forest.

The Forest: Jasmine

I asked Rose to go back to the City two days ago, but she keeps making excuses.

The wood floor is smooth on my bare feet as I wander around the kitchen. Rose is so tied to the Forest. Even though she should be more than happy in the City, she's not.

Rose needs the Forest.

She wants to spend time with Joshua. Today, she says she needs to check on the bears. Blah blah blah…

Standing, looking for her out the cottage window, I press my pale feet into the hardwood. As I wait for her to come back, my stomach growls. The kitchen made noodles with meatballs, salad, and biscuits. They’re on the table. I grab a biscuit as I walk by.

Hurry up Rose! I want to eat…get back to the City…go to school…see my friends. These thoughts I would never share with her. She'd be hurt.

Even back in the City, she‘ll try and convince me not to go to school. Instead, she'll want us to spend the day with Clara and Papa Joe. She’s attached to them, I'm not. They’re not our birth parents. We don't know who those people are.

Papa Joe and Clara— well, they’re nice. Mainly they annoy me, always telling us what to do. Good parenting, they call it. Pointless, I say. Rose and I are 16, practically adults. We’re too old to need their constant instruction.

I eat the biscuit in big bites and crispy dough flakes fall. They disappear as they hit the ground, the kitchen’s instant cleanup.

Hey kitchen, I call, can I get a cup of coffee.

The room has no voice to answer me, but the coffee appears. I nod and take it.

• • •

Finally Rose comes home. I’m halfway through the cup as she walks into the kitchen, her shirt stained. She smells of things I don’t even want to know about.

I’m not eating with you while you look and smell like that, I say, immediately plugging my nose.

Like what? She asks, looking down and pulling her shirt out. My clothes are kinda dirty. Her fingers move to the edge avoiding stains. Rose pulls off her shirt and keeps on talking. "Jasmine the cubs are so cute! I wish you were there. Rose pauses, and looks at me from the sink as she washes her hands. Actually no, it's good you weren't because…"

I tune her out. Relax into the rhythm of her voice. I catch the gist of what she says, the birth sounds gross. Rose can get pretty rambly when we're in the Forest. In the City she doesn't say much.

Done with her story, in her bra and shorts, she sits at the table across from me, Let’s eat! I’m starving.

Suddenly I'm annoyed.

Rose, I say, taking a deep breath, you still smell. The breeze from the windows flutters the white curtains, and wafts the scent of blood and birth and.. disgusting stuff.

Her large nostrils expand, fingers on the table as she breathes in, trying to smell herself.

Don’t even bother, I say leaning back. You’re already used to your stench. Looking beyond her, I call out past her, House, fill the tub.

Rose wraps her arms around her, and stands. I'm sorry. Blushing, her brown cheeks darken.

I made her feel bad. Now I feel bad. I'm just cranky…hungry…and recently I've been getting frustrated with Rose.

Angry for silly things.

Don’t be, I say standing. "Anyway, don’t you want to take a bath?" I push her gently toward the stairs.

The end of her ponytail, under my hand, feels slightly smoother than the dark skin of her shoulder.

• • •

As she walks up the staircase, I consider things I like about the Forest.

More coffee, I call out to the house as I walk back to the kitchen. I need a refill.

Back at the table, I see the house has poured me another cup of black coffee. I take a sip. Perfect, rich and bitter. I like that the Forest responds to our every need, I think, pleased.

Before we found the City as comparison, we just accepted the Forest as it is. All the weird, magical shit was just normal. Now, I know the Forest is different. It defies the science of the City. There are so many unanswered questions. Like why are Rose and I the only humans with access to the Forest? The only humans in the Forest?

It used to make me feel special. Now, I just want to be in the City.

Even though the City doesn't have a cottage responding to us, like something from Disney, I prefer the passive buildings of the City.

In the Forest, everything is aware of us.

Here for us.

Serving us.

I look out the window. The sunlight is fading behind the trees. Beautiful, yes, but I want the one thing the Forest doesn't have…people. The City has plenty of those.

I can’t really remember our childhood in the Forest. Can't remember my childhood at all. I have a terrible memory. Rose reminds me of our past, us in the Forest growing up. We must have been born here, but we’re not sisters. Papa Joe and Clara tested us years ago at Rose's insistence. The results proclaimed us not even distant cousins. That bothers Rose, that we’re not related. She wants family ties.

I like it. I don’t know why.

The Forest: Rose

Water falls from the shower head. Hot enough to warm me, though I’m already full of heat because the Forest is never cold. I squeeze out a glob of shampoo and begin lathering my long, shadow dark hair. Honey scent fills the air. Steam rises, this should make me smell better.

Being smelly wouldn't have bothered me if Jasmine hadn't brought it up. She's been so weird to me lately, acting like she's mad at me for anything. It didn't used to be like this, but suddenly, it feels like she's looking for defects with me. Like being me isn't good enough to be her best friend anymore. Things have changed. I blame the City, it's come between us.

My fingertips scrub the globe of my head. My scalp is even until I reach the back of my skull where the large, lumpy scar is. This scar is our key to the City.

I can easily recall the beginning of that day ten years ago. Our world changed in the way that has created a crack of sorrow within me while Jasmine has grown more whole. In the beginning though, there was only fear of the City for both of us.

It was almost evening here in the Forest on that day, and I was climbing up a tree to Jasmine. She was flying around the tree tops.

This was soon after she discovered her gift, her wings, and I felt left out. I always included her in my gift. Well, almost always. Talking with the animals of the Forest isn't something she would like consistently. Some conversations with animals, like the sloth, don’t even interest me.

That day, I am trying to climb to Jasmine as she is flying among the clouds. A silly idea, I don’t have wings, but we are six. I am nearing the top of the tree, where the branches are not as thick or sturdy as those lower. It is the faith of the young that keeps me climbing past when I should stop.

I feel like I am so close to breaking through to the waiting sleepy sky, but instead the branch I am standing on breaks. Jasmine hears me scream and I remember focusing on her face, which is right above me, following me in my decent. I am beyond her grasp, but not beyond her words, Rose, she screams. I don’t feel my body land. I feel my perception of the world shift, and then my breath is knocked out of me as Jasmine lands on top of me.

Cold water slaps me into now. I quickly rinse, fingers pushing the last bit of soap off my hair and skin. My memories do not slip away with it, they continue.

Jasmine, usually the follower in the Forest, becomes my guide in that strange place, now our other home, the City.

I remember crying, holding my head in the City. My head feels too big in my hands and wobbles on my neck. Jasmine hugs me, under the tree I fell from, near a swing set.

Papa Joe and Clara come running through the park and lift us both up. We are lucky they are there. It is evening in the City, just like in the Forest. As Papa Joe and Clara carry us away I see other people watching us, hiding in the shadows of the park.

What if they had gotten to us first, I think now. I guess we were saved by Papa and Clara.

I don’t remember much beyond Papa Joe and Clara finding us. I was out of it for days, and so from the beginning Jasmine had a head start on understanding the City, which explains why, even now, she navigates it more easily than I.

Rose, Jasmine calls as she runs up the stairs and bangs through the door. I'm starving!

Okay, I call, turning off the water, I'm coming.

The Forest: Jasmine

Rose came out of the shower at my insistence, but I still had to wait for her to dress. Lying on the bed, I watch her move around the room. Her legs are plump and strong. Her body is filling out into the shape of a woman, while mine is still nondescript, boyish.

Rolling off the bed I stand, I'm going downstairs. Hurry up!

I’m barely seated at the kitchen table, before Rose skitters in.

So what do you want to do tomorrow? I ask, shoving food into my mouth as she sits across from me. I’m glad Rose can’t hear my thoughts. She's limited to only the animals of the Forest.

I’m thinking, let it be her idea then she won’t mope when we’re back in the City.

Rose takes a bite of salad. This is delicious kitchen. Thank you, she says.

Joshua invited us to run with his herd. The idea brings a smile to her face.

I knew it. She's trying to get us to stay longer.

I set my fork down. I thought we were going back to the City tonight.

Rose doesn’t speak for a moment, then she looks at me, hope in her eyes, Don’t you want to ride with Joshua and his herd? You can fly above and race them. You like that.

The mention of flying briefly brings my wings out of my skin. My shirt stretches as they try to unfold. I roll my shoulders, pushing them back down. Resting against me, they become my shoulder blades again.

"Liked it, Rose, past