The Forgotten Spring

Just something I wrote my sophomore year of high school. Nothing too spectacular, but thought I might share it.

The Forgotten Spring

By

Carrie Hurlbut

“Finally the search has ended. After numerous search parties have scoured the mountains surrounding the west side of the valley for nearly a month the search for Margie Chase has come to an end. Her shoes were found tied to a bottle at the bottom of the Falls. The contents of the bottle were a single sheet of paper that recounted the trip she took and what she saw when she was captured, and the necklace she always wore. The local sheriff believes that Margie was hallucinating due to dehydration and starvation and her “spring dwellers” were actually a group of convicts who escaped from the prison two weeks prior to her disappearance. Monday there will be a memorial service at the town hall, so please join us in offering our condolences to her family as we remember the good times of her life.” (Excerpt from the Verde Valley News, “The Search Has Ended At A Dead End With The Mystery Of The Forgotten Spring.” The coverage on the disappearance of Marguerite Chase, August 10, 2001)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s warm out, but still cool enough for a hike. As I head up to the Falls a soft breeze blows, carrying the sweet scent of unfamiliar flowers. The pine trees tower over my head, occasionally I see a stray oak or maple tree. As I near a point where the trail heads to the right, I see a new branch that veers off to the left. Finding it strange that I had never noticed this branch of the trail before on my numerous trips on this path, I stray from my objective and head up the new trail. For a mountain trail it’s unusually flat with hardly any obstacles in my way. Along the path I see strange looking flowers that I had never seen in these mountains or in the valley below. I realize this is where the unfamiliar scent was coming from. I find this very strange knowing that I would have seen them at one point or another. After all, I’ve only lived in this valley for my entire life. I notice too, that the trees have a slight color difference from the ones along the other path. I can hear the songs of the birds in these odd trees as I pass. I can also hear scampering rodents in the dry leaves and underbrush below. As I move further along the trail the air begins to vibrate with unknown excitement; the breeze is cool against my face as I go.

The trail starts to get steeper and I have to use my hands to keep my balance or I’d end up at the bottom in a very painful manner. The further I go the louder the sound of water gets. I see an opening ahead. Once at the opening I look down into a valley and see a creek that slices through the center of the valley floor, it’s a small creek, but it appears to be deep. There’s an old rope bridge that goes across the north end of the valley to a small dirt path that leads in to the valley on the far side of the creek. On the floor, near the creek, I see what looks like small farms, I can see movement, but can’t tell what it is. The looks of the old worn bridge scare me, so I turn my back on the mysterious valley and follow the newfound trail upward.

At last I reach the top, unlike the falls, where I never seem to reach the top. As I emerge from the trees I can see a lake or a spring, or some small body of water. Upon further inspection, I realize that it’s a fresh water spring that is supplied by an underground source, which I see bubbling up at the center. Looking around I see all the animals in the vicinity watching me. But something’s strange about them, I know what they’re supposed to be, but yet the rodents look like birds with paws, and the birds like rodents with wings. Either I’m dreaming, or I have just discovered a very strange land with rodentbirds, and birdrodents! As I slip off my shoes and walk into the water, the animals, or what ever they are, dash back into the woods like something terrible is going to happen, but there is no danger in sight.

I dive down in the water, it’s so clear that I can see every thing perfectly. There are strange flowers that have odd-looking blooms and the rocky bottom is as clear as a full moon on a clear summer night. The water is clean and devoid of any water life (except for the flowers) as far as I can see (and I could see a long ways away), it’s nice and cool against my hot skin. As I swim, I wonder why none of what I knew about the valley’s history ever said anything about this mysterious spring and the river valley it fed with its fresh water. I pondered on this question for a while but dismissed it as the sun from the world above catches something on the floor below. Wondering what could be shining on the floor of this magical spring, I decide to go investigate.

Drawing near unto the shining object, I discover that it is a window of a rudimentary house of some sort. Peering through the window, I see a group of people, two men, three women, four children and an infant. All ten of these spring dwelling people have hair as translucent aqua as the water around them, and their eyes are the color of a clear July afternoon sky. Before I can leave, one of the children points towards the window where I had been watching them and the two men reach through the window, which quite literally shocked me, and pulled me into the house. Fighting with all my might, I find that there is no water within the house, but breathable air, and I run to the window, but it is as solid as a rock.

The spring dwellers shut me in a room, which is bigger than most hotel rooms. I try once again with no success to go through the windows the way the spring dwellers can. I try the door, but it too will not budge. I sit on a rock that I suppose is a chair and stare at a rectangle marked on one of the walls. On it, I see everything that’s happening to everyone I ever cared about, and watch as they send out search party after search party to try and find me. I watch the weddings of my big brother and oldest sister to their high school sweethearts, and the birth and wedding of my baby sister. I watch my boyfriend as he marries my best friend and as they name their first daughter after me. Time has lost all meaning; I may only have been here for a few hours or for a few hundred years.

So now, I am forced to sit here in a room far below the surface of a forgotten spring and watch my friends and family go on with their lives. I do not know what will become of me, but I know for certain, that no matter how long it takes I will become free of this under water prison.

Marguerite Chase “The Prisoner of the Forgotten Spring”

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This story was found in a bottle at the bottom of Johnson Falls, along with the shoes of young Marguerite Chase, nearly a month after her disappearance. It is not known what happened to the sixteen-year-old girl, just that she went on a hike in the mountains behind her house and did not return. Some say that she fell and hit her head, and when she awoke she believed that she was in some underwater city and wrote this and placed it in a bottle before she fell over the falls. Others believe that what she (if it was indeed she who wrote the story which you just read, and not some lunatic that captured her in the woods) wrote is true and that some where in the mountains of the valley, there is a mystical land of the elfin people, and the dwarfen people, strange looking animals, and a fresh water spring that is home to spring dwelling people and other oddities that the young Chase described. Of course, to those who believe the later, they do not think that these are myths passed down through the generations, but real tales from their grandparents who experienced things similar to that of the young Chase, but she is the only person who has not returned, and the only one to have entered the waters of the forgotten spring. Go right on ahead and ignore me, don’t believe, but be warned that if you find yourselves in a place like that described by my great aunt, the young Marguerite Chase, do not enter the water of the forgotten spring. For as my great aunt, the young Chase, found it is not only a forgotten spring but also it is also a forbidden spring. I end my tale here, but to those believers, you are more likely to find the forgotten land that the young Chase found, and if you do, would you search for her, get help from the elfin and dwarfen people of the valley below the rope bridge. It is possible that the spring dwellers will release their prisoners to them, but apparently they do not want to negotiate with people of the known valley. She may still be a sixteen-year-old girl, or she may be a frail one-hundred-and-two-year-old woman. But I do believe that she is alive and will remain so, until the ends of eternity.

Fridge of Terror

It was a cold, damp, dreary morning when the monster came to life. For weeks, it had lay still and lifeless…always the same, unchanged, colorless substance. At first, it was simply a mixture of basic ingredients, but that morning, it had become a living entity.

When I awoke that morning I knew something peculiar was afoot. Stumbling to the kitchen to quell the monster with in, I began rummaging through the cupboards. Giving up I moved to search the fridge. A strange smell permeated my senses. A quick examination of the milk showed that it was out of date, but not far enough to create that stench. Moving aside a bottle of juice, I saw it, the hideous wretch of my creation.

The plastic bag over the top was stretched to the limit, nearing the bursting point. Quickly I grabbed the jar, placing it in the sink. Gently, I shake the jar to mix the substance as I had many time before. Removing the ring and plastic bag to reduce the pressure, I jump back in terror.

The substance, which only days before had been a placid, listless liquid, now writhed with life. It bubbled and roamed, crawling towards the mouth of the jar in hopes of escape. It appeared to me, as if the harmless white substance was teaming with millions of tiny life forms that, like hunted animals, were fleeing from their would be captor.

Shaking myself from my stupor, I began a frantic search for a new container in which to imprison the furious substance. After several stress filled moments, of trying not to wake my roommate, I triumphantly pull a large plastic bowl and lid from the forgotten regions of a reclusive cupboard.

Cautiously, I approached the sink, in hopes of surprising my prey. It was over in seconds, but to both parties involved it felt like an eternity we fought. I for capture, my creation for freedom. Finally, it was over. Drawing myself up straight, I wiped a splatter of the sticky substance from my face. It was then that my nose registered the tangy sour smell of the substance.

It had finally become what it was meant to be, but was it worth it? How many more attempts for freedom would my creation make? How many battles can I take before I give up and set the creature free?

Quickly I cleaned out the sink, wiped down the counters, destroying all evidence of the battle. Turning back to the container, I glowered at the substance sitting innocent and quiet in the bowl. I sighed carefully placing the substance back in the fridge.

Turning off the light I returned to my room to recover. I have won for now, but each time I open the fridge I do so in fear. For now, it sleeps, but one never knows when the Sourdough Monster will awaken and reign in terror.

10/25/05

Poetry

Most people know I don't like to write poetry.  I love to read it, but not writing it.  I was going through my files from high school and found my poetry anthologies and thought I'd share my teacher's favorites.

 

*     *     *

 

Home Coming

 

     Come here and bring thy child

Bade the man in the shadows

     Why is it that your husbands lets

You bring this child out in the

     Chill of night?

 

     My husband is at sea and has been

For three years.  Were he here

     My child would not be out

In this sickening fog.

 

     Do you still love him or

Have you given your heart to another?

 

     Why is it you ask this of me?

What business is it of yours

     If I love my husband still?

 

     Why is it Woman that thou speaketh

To me with such vehement?

     When you know not to whom you speak.

 

     Then step forth into the light

Of the lantern and show your face

 

     The man stepped forth to reveal

A wind worn face of a sailor.

     The woman reached for the man

With tears in her eyes.

 

     I am glad you did not

Think me a lowly beggar

     And pass me by.

 

     Never!  Had I passed you by

My son may never have known his father

 

*     *     *

 

The Baker

 

The Baker

Is a strong woman

Her arms are broad

Thick from years of 

Working

With the dough

Mixing 

Kneeding

Spinning round and round

Rolling out

Rising

Turning golden brown

 

*     *     *

 

Space

 

Stars

Polk a dot dress

China doll

Grains of rice

Wedding bells

Falling sands

Changing times

Future is the past

Speed of light

Distant planets

Speckled skies

 

*     *     *

Freedom-Hill

 

Along a lonely highway

Lies a forgotten town

Half buried by vines of ivy

Half fallen to the ground

The rotting buildings lay in tribute

To those who lived and died.

 

An old man walks along the faded streets 

Weaving among the wasting rubble

He stops atop the hill

Where his beloved lies

Surrounded by their friends and family

In the ramshackle cemetery

 

On a bench he sits

Remembering how it came to be

Cholera, or maybe typhoid, 

What it was, they never knew,

The doctor was the first to go.

 

In the final light of the setting sun

Freedom Hill's last man lies down

Beside his wife and family

As the deadly disease lulls him to

His final sleep.

 

Tempest

Something I wrote for my Creative Writing class a couple years ago.  Don't remember what the exact exercise was, but...it sounds a bit like something you'd hear from Trixie's brother Mart.

 *          *          *

          The tempest heaved relatively hard, naturally formed minerals against the weatherboard building for the shelter and feeding of domesticated animals.  In the interior, obscure and tepid, crammed with the bellyaches of remonstration as the squall meandered wisps of arctic air round the cavorting hooves.  

In close proximity, a perennial woody plant having a main trunk and distinct crown, that once upon a time stood soaring and egotistical, precipitated to the soil betwixt the building for the shelter and feeding of domesticated animals and the rickety domicile that shimmied with each applaud of thunder.  Precipitation emptied at few and far between inclines.  Above your head sinister billows tumbled concurrently, in anticipation of a appendage was fashioned and, like a enamored Squamata ophidia, corkscrewed it’s way down until if locates the land.  

Moving in the direction of the despondent farmstead it gave the impression to be progress on a predetermined itinerary until it jerked disturbingly to one segment then made a terrifying jerk in the contradictory bearing, a sidewinder.   More perennial woody plants, having a main trunk and distinct crown, hurled about within the cyclone until they are spat out again, wrecking annihilation where ever they disembark.    

As out of the blue as it had started the whirlwind was sucked back into the firmament.  Evil billows carve up as emission of light plummet on the weatherboard edifice for the refuge and noshing of cultivated multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, in instances such as this, Equus caballus, battered but still standing.

 

 

Past and Present

“What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”

I look up, startled by the voice from my past that came from behind me. “People watching.” I keep my back to him as I snap a picture.

“Not much to see.” I felt his eyes scan the area around us.

“More than enough…if you know what to look for.” Letting my camera hang against my chest, I pull out a note pad and copy the inscription from the tombstone at my feet. “What are you doing here?” I turn to face him.

His dark hair hangs long over his smoky eyes. The fading light of day shines off his annoyingly straight teeth, making the stand out against his tanned skin.

“Saw your mom at the store…she said you were home for a few days. Thought you’d be out here.”

He falls into step beside me as I pick my way to the back of the snow-covered cemetery. It startles me that he remembers my habits so well. I’m the only one in town crazy enough to be out, laden with camera equipment, in two feet of fresh snow.

“The light was…interesting.” I crouch down trying to get the perfect angle while juggling my bag to keep it out of the snow. He tries not to laugh as he takes my bag, sling it over his shoulder, taking up his role as my packhorse as if no time has passed.

“What’s your project?”

My foray into the world of photojournalism is no secret. Not in a town as small as Mill River. Even the dairy cows of old Mr. Reynolds down in the south valley are probably in the know of the many pursuits of Rowena Tellis.

It unnerves me how easily we fall into our old routine. As I take the rolls of film into the blackroom, he pops the memory card from my digital camera into the computer. I had spent the previous night cleaning the small photo lab my dad had built in our attic. Ensuring that everything was still in working order.

“You don’t have to stay…I’m not trying to hit a deadline.” I call through the closed door as I line up the spools and canisters on the counter.

“I know, but you never answered my question, and now I’m curious to this latest project of yours.”

Scissors! Why do I always forget the scissors! It was inevitable; no matter how carefully I prepare, I always forgot them. “Hey, Nate! Are the Scis…” He was leaning against the doorframe, scissors in hand, grinning.

“It’s always the scissors.” I could hear amusement in his voice. I groan and slam the door in his face.

#1

The room was dark, despite the blinding light outside. He saw her, sitting at the bar, nursing a half-empty glass. Of all the places she could have been, here was the last place he expected. The dank stench of sawdust and stale alcohol lay heavily over the groups of patrons participating in lively games of pool; a fog of acrid smoke circled another rowdy group placing bets at the mechanical bull. The few, shady men propped against the bar eyed her leeringly. Her neatly pressed slacks and spotless blouse stood out in the dull surroundings. Cautiously, he sits on the stool beside her.

Silences encases them, shutting out the raucous laughter coating the room. The minutes feel like hours before she pushes her glass to him, eyes cast down, studying the grain in the bar surface. A quick sniff and a taste, he’s satisfied. He hands the glass back, fingers touching. She looks up for the first time since she entered, their eyes meet. A soft smile and she nodded. He settled the bill, pulling her out into the dusty street. Together, they run into the barren plane, away from the small settlement, towards the half earth sinking below the horizon.

* * *

“Is this seat taken?”

“It is now.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you…Don’t worry, it’s only seltzer.”

“May I?”

“…why are you here?”

“Why are you?”

“Did you just come to ask me a lot of questions or did you need something?”

“You.”

“Excuse me?”

“You…I came here because I need you. The ship doesn’t run as well if you’re not on board…and, despite my better judgment…I like your company. Lonnie and Clyde miss you too…”

“I’ve only been gone a day.”

“Still, I…We need you.”

“How long did it take?”

“What?”

“For you to realize I was gone. Was this the first place you looked?”

“…”

“Did you even start looking or did you come in here for a drink?”

“I’m…starting to understand now…what you hear when you listen to the ship. I woke up in the middle of the night and the ship sounded different. I thought maybe you were working on something…I went down to tell you to go to bed and you weren’t there or in your bunk…”

“I couldn’t sleep…I went for a walk.”

“I haven’t slept since. Trying to remember the last time I saw you, trying to figure out how long you’d been gone…this was the last place left to look…”

“Shall we?”

“Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

“Really?”

“Irrevocably.”

“Clyde’s waiting…we have to leave by earthset if we’re picking Ina up before we head back to the belt.”

“Now that’s a site that never gets old.”

Yes...another blog...

I was board and setting up another envelope of writing prompts, and I decided to create another blog. I love to write, but never let anyone read what I write, so I figured I could try doing my prompts on a blog and see what others think. Not sure how often I'll update, that kinda depends on school, work and other obligations, but I'm shooting for once a week...we'll see if that happens. If you like what I've written, or have any ideas for character development, or know of any good writing prompts...let me know:>)