Not Real. Not Imaginary.

PART FIVE: NINA. [I want to know it all]

I was still half asleep, when I felt something warm next to me; instinctively, I cuddled against it, and I heard a small and gentle protest groan in response…but it wasn’t at all the voice I was expecting to hear, making that sound. I opened up my eyes; the place was brightly lit, as always, and after taking a quick look around…I turned to my side. There she was: the little girl, sleeping at my side.

It was the first time I woke up in that place…I usually was just suddenly there…or…maybe I just didn’t remember the waking up part before…. Either way, it was a nice change. It seemed to be a more appropriate, and smooth transition from one plane to the other.

I sat up trying not to make any sudden movements, and being very careful of not waking up the little…me.

“Oh! You’re awake!” Alia whispered cheerfully. She was just coming in.

I nodded and slowly moved towards her, pointing at the door hoping she would understand me. She nodded and we both went outside.

“I am kinda glad to see you…” I blurted out, and she lifted a brow.

“Just kinda?” She pouted slightly, pretending to be offended.

“Sorry…that didn’t come out right…” I chuckled, and she did too. “I need to ask you something.”

“Oh…” She looked at me with what seemed like a little bit of caution. Then she looked around “where is our friend?” I bit my lip and she placed her hand on my shoulder as to cheer me up a little. “I guess you needed to come alone today.” She sighed deeply “What is it you need to ask?”

“I want to know everything…and I mean…EVERYTHING.” I really emphasized the word to let her know I was serious, and that...that time, I was done with the puzzles and the weird happenings.

She furrowed her brows looking at me with concern, then she removed her hand from my shoulder, and nervously played with her hair for a while.

“Things aren’t so easy…there are some processes that exist for a reason.” She seemed to be a little worried now.

“But if I was the one that hid all of the pieces, and created this nonsensical puzzle, shouldn’t I be the one that decides when it’s over?”

“I guess you’re right…but I am not the one that can give you all the answers…” She looked at me apologetically and I tilted my head confused. If it wasn’t her, then who? As if she could read my mind she added: “That would be…”

“Me.”

The crystalline voice came from inside me.

I rolled my eyes. It was too cliché to say the answers were within me, but it turns out, that assumption was partially wrong.

Alia was looking away with a worried expression for a moment. Then she sighed and looked back at me.

“I guess it is time then afterall…” She took my hand and gave a gentle tug. I followed her to the edge of the lake, and looked at the Willow. It seemed to be more alive than before, it seemed more…vibrant.

“Not again…” I complained as I realized where it was all going.

“It won’t be like that…I promise.” Alia chuckled and encouraged me to move forward.

I took on her word and started to walk over the lake, towards the Willow, that seemed to be eager for me to get there…if that makes any sense.

As I got closer, I felt waves of something that I could only describe as electricity, emanating from there, towards me…invitingly. It was like small electro-static impulses, that as soon as they hit my body, penetrated to every single one of my cells.

It might sound crazy…but I could feel this electricity permeating every bit of me, every cell in my body felt more alive. It was like…like if the energy was repairing my cells. Well, not quite repair them…it was…waking them up…little by little, and more with each step I took closer to the tree.

I looked behind, to see if Alia was aware of what was happening, but she wasn’t there anymore. I thought she might’ve gone back inside, with little me. Then, I stopped for a moment….

What would happen to Alia and the little girl when I finally got all the pieces? When I finally understood everything and was finally complete? Would they still be there? Or would they…disappear?

Even if they were just bits of me, one way or another, I felt like they were actual people in my life, like they were some sort of…family…and I didn’t want them to go away.

This worry kept me stuck in place, I didn’t want to move, unless I could know the answer…but I was afraid of the answer. What if it really was that they would be gone forever? In the little time I had been visiting that place, I already felt so much for them….

“It will be alright.” I heard the voice say, in reply to my worries.

“But how can I be sure?” I asked to no one.

“You just need to trust.” The voice replied kindly.

I kept standing there for a couple of minutes, breathing in deeply, with my eyes closed.

Trust.

As simple as that…just…trust…. It sounded so easy…but it wasn’t…not for me. In my life, whenever I wanted to trust, things always went array. There was just a handful of things that hadn’t went badly in my life, and I had gotten it all by being very cautious. Whenever I left my guard down, things went wrong, as they had recently with my…work.

So, as much as I wanted to follow the voice’s advice, it was extremely difficult for me. I didn’t even know how to begin to trust…at all.

If I kept going forward…that’d mean I am okay with the answer, and that I’d accept whatever happened next…But what if I went back? Would everything go back to the way things were before, or would I keep the knowledge I had gotten so far, and then…would something change? I sighed and shook my head; I was starting to cower back in fear.

In the end, I was afraid of whatever I would find out next, I was afraid to lose my new friends, as real or imaginary as they were…but mostly I was afraid to lose Greer. If I finally got all the answers back, and rediscovered my sanity, or whatever…Would Greer disappear?

That was the only thing that I wouldn’t be able to deal with. In that point of my life, I couldn’t see myself living without Greer. Wherever I would end up, and however I would end up, all I was certain was, that I would always need Greer by my side. Just to think of a possible future without my companion…it crushed my heart.

“Trust...” The voice repeated, and even though I was still full of fear…I kept going forward.

The walk to the Willow felt longer that time, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the energy waving around me, if it was because I had stopped for too long, or if it was because I was still afraid....

When I was there, under the droopy overgrown branches, staring up at the top of the massive tree trunk…I felt some sort of vibration under my feet, like the earth itself was happy that I had decided to keep going forward, like it was happy I was finally there.

Like the very first time I was there, there was an abnormality in the trunk of the tree…but unlike that time, it seemed to be some sort of…hand print, created from within the tree. I lifted my hand and doubtfully moved it closer to the trunk, placing it over the plain side, and slowly sliding it towards the irregularity. Once in proximity, I pulled my hand back, and then…with the slowest and most careful movements I had ever known myself to do, my hand hovered over the print. My fingers shyly touched the surface of the print, it felt warm. The warmth was a little soothing, and my hand moved on its own to rest against the ‘print’.

The hand print pushed against my hand until it felt like a carving on the tree. Then, wooden fingers entwined with mine. I should’ve been scared, but I felt oddly calm, and in response, my own fingers entwined with the wooden ones.

I took a couple steps back, still holding the wooden hand. Then a wrist formed off of the tree, and then a whole arm, and then…the wooden hand didn’t feel like wood anymore. And after I looked at it, to discover that it was now a regular hand, of flesh and bones and looked back up, I realized that a feminine silhouette was carved into the tree, and slowly stepping out of it.

A wooden foot came forth from the tree, and then an ankle and a calve…and then the foot wasn’t wooden anymore; the more the silhouette advanced, the more she became flesh and bones, and once she was entirely out, she opened her eyes…her deep dark brown eyes….

She looked at me and smiled, as she was seeing an old friend for the first time in years.

“It’s time for you to know it all…”