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)
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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.
