The Wisp, Chapter Four, Fiction and Digital Art

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The Wisp

Chapter Four

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Amy’s breathing told Bara she was in her dorm room, but Amy hadn’t woken her. There’d been a sound. Now there was only silence, silence and the low hum of Amy’s snores. Bara closed her eyes once more. There it was again, a tapping, something tapping very insistently against the window. There’d be no sleep until she figured out what it was. She had her suspicions. KColin … If that is you, I’m going to murder you.</>

A sleep-heavy torso lifted and she rested on her elbows. The blanket fell from her shoulders. The cold bit at her bare skin. Temptation. Lay back down, pull the covers back up, and ignore whatever was outside. Instead, she slipped from beneath the blankets and stood. The wooden boards were ice slats on her bare soles, and the air revealed her breath on the exhale. Dragon’s breath, her mother called it. She fumbled through the darkness to the window, drew back the curtains, and peered into the night. Outside the storm still raged. The heavy weeping of rain had stopped, but the wind was still angry, picking up fallen leaves and branches and throwing them at the window. Tap tap tap. The fury reached through the glass pane with invisible, icy hands. The cold coaxed a return to bed, but something else held her back. As Bara looked out into the storm, she felt someone was watching. And someone was. She’d been right. It had been a woman in the library, and that woman now stood on the edge of the forest, looking back up the window.

The Wisp was tall and thin with long limbs. Her skin was pale and glowing. Even from a hundred yards away, it glistened like waves in the moonlight. Her hair was long and silver, not grey, but metallic silver. She stood motionless; then like an iridescent dove taking flight, turned into a blur of silver and white and disappeared into the woods … only to reappear seconds later.

Amy stirred and broke Bara’s attention from what was outside. She went to the bed.

“Wake up!” she whispered.

Amy had no intention of waking-up. She lay still, seemingly able to sleep through a hurricane in a drum shop. Bara tried again, shaking her this time.

“Go back to bed,” Amy answered groggily. “Tell me in the morning.”

“There’s someone outside.”

Bara met with silence and then Amy answered with a snore. There was another tap. Bara returned to the window just in time to see the Wisp disappear into the woods. Seconds passed. She didn’t reappear. There was no losing this chance. Bara grabbed her house-coat from the back of the door and fled the room. She didn’t bother with slippers.

The corridor was deserted. She ran down the hall to the stairs but then stopped. Something suddenly occurred to her. Patsy’s story from dinner sounded a lot like what was happening now. Would morning come to find her lying lifeless at the foot of the stairs? No. Patsy was always telling those stories. The one at dinner was no different. But still! Go slow.

Bara made it to the bottom of the stairs safely. Slowly, she drew back the lock on the door. There was a small click heard only by her. She pushed open the door, stepped through, and carefully guided it closed … and then almost went right back in. The wind lifted the hem of her pajamas and the icy ground reminded her quite sharply she didn’t wear any shoes. Then the major flaw in her haphazard plan became clear. Her keys were in her coat—in her dorm room. She couldn’t go back in. Okay, what now? She lacked Colin’s superhuman climbing ability. Maybe throw pebbles at her window? Amy wasn't likely to wake-up. A dim light framed the curtains of Patsy’s window. Bara groaned at thought of having to explain to Patsy why she was outside in the middle of the night and without any shoes or coat. But Patsy was better than Den Mother. Bara shrugged. She’d figure a way back in later. Instead she crossed the wet grass and stopped at the forest edge. She peered through the dark night and into the darker woods. Nothing. Then the clouds cleared from the moon. Bright beams lit up the lawn and reached into the black abyss of the woods. Fallen rain reflected back like shards of a broken mirror.

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Something was moving through the dark? It was glowing and floated through the trees at an unbelievable speed. Catch it. Bara ran but covered far less ground than what she chased. She sped up. The faster she went, the farther away the light got. The earth tore at her feet. Rough branches slapped at her face and shredded her robe. Her lungs burned. Her muscles ached. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep it up, but then suddenly the trees no longer blocked the way, and she was out of reach of their pitiless limbs. The ground had changed to moss and soothed her mistreated feet. She’d entered a clearing.

The easing of the way didn’t inspire the strength to go on. Rather, the soft earth called to her. She collapsed to her knees. The moss was every bit as soothing to her knees as it had been to her feet. She sank further down and onto her back. She didn’t care anymore if she caught the Wisp. She’d found relief and bliss.Sleep came close to claiming her again, but there was a small sound. A boy came into the clearing and stood above her. He was tall and lean with broad shoulders and long limbs. His face was broad but not round. He had a strong nose, slightly hawkish. Dark wavy hair gave him the look of a young Roman god. But his eyes. Against the almost glowing white of his skin, his eyes shimmered like cut blue glass. It wasn’t the Wisp. It was the dark-haired boy. Bara realized she was dreaming and then forgot just as fast.

“Who are you?” she asked.

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