ChelseahXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
The earth was cold, and the sky was young. But as the snow fell, a new shade of white penetrated through the upper layers of the snowy ground that had, before, not been touched. But as the flakes fell more and more, continuing footsteps began to crush through it. She walked continuously, not bothering at all to look anywhere but ahead as she pressed on. Her skin was white and her garment dress shaped like a nighty of no sleeves of white, but her hair was a distant yellowy pale color. The only real intense color to be brought from this soul baring body was her eyes; which glistened green with a small hint of brown that bathed beneath her pupils.
She wrapped herself within her arms as she walked, almost able to touch the edges of her shoulder blades closest to her spine. The snow was soft and gentle to her and looked down on her face with great pity. She was a beautiful woman, her cheek bones were firm and high and her chin wrapped up the roundness of her face. Strands of her yellow hair pushed their way into her face as a silent breeze picked up over the hill and grasped her. She paused for a moment, waiting for the breeze to let her go, and once it had done so, her foot plummeted again into the snowy earth.
By morning, buildings began to appear and roads had been cleared of snow. Town’s people were walking about from building to building, wrapped warmly in their scarves and hats and winter coats. Most women were wearing their skirts really thick with their insolated boots on their feet to keep them away from the cold. As our girl with the yellow hair walked closer and closer into town, she began to look into shop windows at what pretty little things were for sale. She took longer a time looking in on a shop’s window that displayed a beautifully decorated dress that looked as if royalty from France had once owned it. The people in the shop noticed her face from outside and paused momentarily to try and recognize her. But once they could not, they eventually looked away. And just as equally, she turned away from the shop and began down the street again, her bare feet looking whiter and whiter as she went. Some of the veins in her arms began to show a faint blue color as the cold began to show from within her. When she reached the ends of the town, she turned around and looked back, into some of the faces that had just noticed her and others who were still looming with their gaze. She then looked at the building tops and back to their faces. She looked down and turned back around and began back into the snow, without words, or any sign of expression at all.
She walked for miles, never once really stopping for anything or anyone. People always gazed upon her and her wondrous beauty, but no words were ever spoken, not a word at all. As she walked, more puppet-like, she reached her fourth town. Snow was not falling as often anymore and some green began to sneak through the whiteness of the ground. But the girl of yellow hair still pressed on, her feet never hitting any of those greenly spots.
Once in this new town, she saw more faces of people than she ever had before. It was a big place with many road signs and street corners. A car then honked at her and she quickly darted to one side. She clasped both hands to her head top and looked on at the car. It was old fashion, but looked very expensive nevertheless. As she looked onto it, she noticed a mother and child staring at her. The mother hung close to the little boy as they made their way around her, analyzing the girl of yellow hair up and down and up again. The girl’s hands dropped from her head and fell limp beside her. The picking them back up again, she wrapped them around her again and continued walking. More and more people were staring but she didn’t take the time to notice them, they were not what she seeked, nor were they going to help her on that hunt.
It wasn’t until she hit the heart of the city that she began to hear people whispering, and it was then that opened her ears to listen. She heard words like “another one” or “like before”. Feeling it better to get the answers she desired, she walked into the square and stood atop of the side of the water fountain and listened to everyone’s words; staring blank into space, her attention on everyone around her.
“Just like the black haired girl” “The ghostly face” “Where are they coming from?” “She’s got some nerve going through here” “Will she go west, like the other?” “Is this one different?”
It was the last few questioning voices that gave her the answers that she so strongly willed for. She then slowly descended from the coble stone like fountain and looked into the faces of those around her. It was finally that one man approached her and said “Who are you? What do you want?”
Her gaze fell short upon this man. She looked at him long and deeply, taking in everything about him. His hair was graying at the temples, his brown eyes losing their shine that was easy to see that they had once held, his jacket at the bottom had loose threads from the sown in hem, and one of his shoes were on the verge of being untied if he had taken maybe a few more heavy steps.
“I want my sister.” She said, her voice was soft but high in pitch. It almost rang like a piccolo in the middle of a solo. Everyone fell silent as they gazed upon her, now more interested than they had ever been before, “I look for my sister. Where has she been to? Gone to? Where is Natara…” The man pulled the glasses from his face to reveal his eyes that were gracefully hiding behind them. He looked at the girl of yellow hair with a feeling of sadness and took a sigh for her before he spoke again.
“Your sister.. Natara? Was it?.. Well..., I’m sorry to tell you that you will never see her again. None of us will. She is no longer apart of this world, ma’am.”
“What do you mean!?” The girl spat back.
“You see.. your sister, I met her when she came through this town, about this time of the year, actually. I tried to speak with her, to see what drove her to what we all saw. She looked so distorted, bothered.. almost as if death was upon her shoulders and forcing her to continue moving her body, no matter where it went or what it did. When I finally realized that she had gone, I went to other towns nearby to see if they too had seen her, some refused to talk to me, others told me exactly the same things as others. I never got any real information about your sister except what I already knew.”
“So. Where. Is. She.!?” The girl paused for each word as if the man didn’t understand.
“Okay… To make this simple, if you keep walking, past the hills that look so swollen they might just burst, past the trees that look like they have seen better days, and past the valley where the sun looks as if it’s brightness will abolish everything around you, you will finally come to a series of cliffs-” The girl cut him off, but not with words or a hand gesture, but with her body. She moved away from the man, turning her back on him and everyone else around her that was looming in on the conversation. The man then followed franticly after her. Followed her up to the edge of the town’s limits.
“Please Miss! Just give me your name! That’s all I wish for.” But the yellow haired girl said nothing, nothing at all. And as the man watched her go, her figure disappeared into a patch of white that was the snow.
About a year had passed and the man finally got the nerve to travel the distance to the cliffs where he had sent the yellow haired lady. He passed all the places that he had mentioned, never really seeing them for himself, but hearing of them from travelers that had told him the direction in which Natara had gone. Early one morning, he was walking through the mist when he came across a rather large bolder that had words etched into it:
some say she walked to long some say she walked to far
but as she walked on and on she wasn’t there at all
she walked over hills she walked through towns
but she was never really there to say why she walked on and on
some say she comes and goes some say she’s left and gone
but the farther she got away from us the more she seems to go
some say she sings in happiness some say she cries a broken heart
the farther she got away from home the more she disappeared
as she walked on and on the more she feels pain and harm
some say she shivered her way to death some say she cried in pain
well I can say that that girl needed to be free
she walked over swollen hills like a puppet on a string
she walked tell she hit the vortex line to a white and shattered sting
she walked toward the sun to feel the break of life
she stood on the edge of a cliff with her arms out wide
she went to feel the break of dawn and when they finally knew her name
they found that she was gone.
For my darling sister Natara: I will be with you shortly- Chelseah
The man looked around and saw the edge of the cliff behind the bolder, for some reason, he looked long enough that faint foot impressions were still sitting in the soil. He was saying her name over and over in his head. “Chelseah, Chelseah, …Chel-se-ah.” He then looked down at his feet and saw what looked like bits of fingernail at the foot of the bolder and to his horror, he realized how the words got etched into the rather large rock. He backed away, looking from the cliff to the rock and back at the ground. He dropped to his knees, hoping to pay enough respect to heal the poor souls. But as he went to leave, at the bottom of the hill, he saw two faint images, walking hand in hand, away from the bolder.
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