The Final Days of Springborough

“Life is too short to wait for the storms to pass…”

That was what the Princess had said, but what Brynn had heard was the familiar sound of Jimmy’s voice, whispering in the wind. “Your brother stole my finger.”

As Princess Kyrstin took off the shiny piece of jewelry, Brynn tried to listen for more information from Jimmy, but he was gone, just as quickly as he had presented himself. Kyrstin put the piece of medal in Brynn’s hands, and she asked what it was, but still she thought of the message, of the fact J.J. was alive, and that he had taken her (dead) friend’s finger, and that both Jimmy’s finger and J.J. had to be close for Jimmy to be able to talk with her.

Brynn’s brother, Jonathon James, was close.

Her mental capacity came back in time to politely refuse the anklet that was thrust upon her, but by then it was too late. The princess had gathered up and headed off, and Brynn found herself in possession of her first piece of shimmering medal, something she always found quite useless before. Jewelry was for royal people to wear in an effort to show off their money. Brynn was the kind of girl more comfortable with mud on her than diamonds. But, alas, despite her efforts, she was now the owner of an anklet, which she had no idea how to put on. She examined the clasp, figured out its moving parts, and strung the medal anklet around her bony, but strong, ankle. The silver chain shimmered, and the Lishen family emblem, an eagle with something in its talons, flapped against Brynn’s skin.

Now, for her brother and Jimmy.

She listened hard, but other than the rumbling of thunder, the hard slaps of rain on the earth, there were no more hints of what was transpiring from Jimmy. But, through her past conversations, she did know everything she needed to. If J.J. had the finger bone, then Jage had to be at the base of the cliffs, where Jimmy’s body had fallen so long ago when he walked off into the great unknown. And if Jage was down there, the storm must have taken him there for the docks were half a days walk North from Brynn’s hut. The other alarming thought was that there was nothing else at the base of the cliffs but rocks and waves. J.J would have no safety from the storm or the sea if he was directly below her. If he was where she thought he was, he was in grave danger.

Brynn whipped the blanket off, and reached out of the hut’s doorway toward an outside shelf which held several bottles, each planted under leaves that acted as funnels, collecting rain from the thatched roof and filling the bottles with portable, drinkable water. She grabbed one and gulped it down, hoping that the fluid would squash some of the hunger she was feeling as it had been a long day without food, and it didn’t look like she was going to eat any time soon. She filled her stomach with rain water, drinking until she felt her belly get heavier, although it did little to squash her appetite. She would get something to chew on, she felt, when she got out there. She knew of a tree giving off sap which would give herself some sweetness which always helped curb her thoughts for a little bit.

Brynn tightened up her shoes to her ankle. She abandoned her hood which would just get heavier due to the rain and decided to go back out into the wild with her short pants on, cut off just below the knee, and her shirt whose sleeves she cut off as they kept getting snagged on the branches. Her skin would be exposed a lot to the rain, but she was more worried about being quick than she was about catching a cold. Time was of the essence to get down to her brother, and Brynn knew she still had to figure out just how to accomplish that task.

“Jimmy!? You there?”

Jimmy didn’t respond.

“Where are you, you goon?”

It was a loud silence when Jimmy didn’t respond, and Brynn had to wonder just how quickly the storm in the sea was able to carry J.J., Jimmy’s finger, and Jimmy’s spirit away from whatever natural perimeter was set up between spirit and body in the after-life. She hoped the distance between her and her brother was not due to the fact that her brother was sinking under the sea’s surface; that her brother was not meeting the same fate that Brynn’s only friend, the spirit of Jimmy, had.

Brynn walked from her hut to the cliff’s edge and looked down. The cliff’s wall bent slightly inward, so Brynn couldn’t see where the waves broke against the rocks. She could barely make out the brown of some of the larger boulders that had fallen at one point of time into the water, and acted like a natural barrier. But, the wind was kicking up a lot of sea mist, the clouds were exceptionally low, and the rain was so thick that Brynn could barely make out the entire sea, much less anything resembling her brother’s ship. She had a momentary thought of jumping from the cliff’s edge, of trying to aim herself just right to avoid the rocks. That instead of spending several hours trying to traverse the rocks down to her brother, that she simply leap and be by his side in less than a minute.

But Brynn didn’t jump. Upon second thought, it almost certainly brought certain death.

She began to walk North, toward the docks her brother would have brought his boat to, tying it to the pier and departing his crew, if this was a more perfect world. If her brother was several hundred feet below her, she knew that he was thinking of those docks as well. He might not know exactly where he was on the coastline, but he would know if he was North or South of the docks by how tall the cliffs were. Their family picked the cliffs because they were the highest point over the waters for Brynn to look out from, which was proving to be a huge hindrance now.

So, Brynn travelled, like her mother did so many moons ago, toward the docks, toward where she might meet J.J. She felt the new weight of the princess’ anklet down by her right foot. She continued to drink her water, every so often pulling a wet leaf off a drenched branch and chewing the leaf until she got sick of the earthy taste. What she could really go for were some berries, but Brynn was getting so hungry that she would even chomp on one of her least favorite wildly grown plants- mushrooms. Just the simple fact that they grew out of animal droppings or dead things was all Brynn had to know to know she did not like such things. Her mother, on the other hand, would always be adding sliced mushrooms to the soups and stews she would make.

Brynn’s stomach rumbled. Curious, that whenever you were hungry, your mind would always wander to meals of the past. Brynn hadn’t thought of her mom’s cooking for quite some time, and of course, even as the thrill of being reunited with her brother coursed through her veins, she was now also thinking of the rabbit stew her mother once made when they were still living in the village of Fortis. Carrots, onions, potatoes, basil, oregano, meat, and, of course, mushrooms, which Brynn always left at the bottom of her wooden bowl after the meal was over. Her mother always chastised her for not trying even one, and Brynn always reminded her that she had tried one, a year beforehand, and still remembered the rubbery texture she hated so much. Her mother would smile and roll her eyes at the same time, expressing- ’I love you, child, but you drive me mad” in her mother’s own way, and Brynn would smile back, wrinkling her nose replying with “I love you, Mom, even as I refuse you” and that was their relationship. Brynn missed her mom very much, but at the moment- she missed her cooking more.

It would take several hours for Brynn to reach the docks, and she didn’t know whether or not her brother was going to be there, but she figured that she would, at least, get down to sea level, and then maybe she could find a way, hugging the cliff wall, of doubling back to find his boat, his crew, and him. Brynn would rescue her brother like she rescued the princess.

She was having quite a day.