Imagining Frost

(10) A Chilling Discovery

Before me set a plate of the most scrumptious, thick plate of double-chocolate chip cookies, steaming consistently in the cool air of the large cabin because they were straight out of the hot oven in my Grandma's kitchen. Those cookies were my absolute favorite; my childhood memory of them still remained, when I would come to this cabin every Sunday after Church to receive treats and milk as I played in the garden.

"Eat, luv-bug. Drink some milk and tea. I'll be right back."

Could I withstand my growing nauseous' after eating them?

My mouth watered. Of course I could! I could be on the verge of death and want those cookies! I didn't want to seem too messy in a cabin so clean, so I chose to engulfed three down like a vacuum after my Grandmother had left the room. The moistness of the cookies sent tingles throughout my body.

Oh yes!!

I had just gulped down half my glass of milk when my Grandma had called me from another room. Close. I set the glass down carefully and walked towards her voice.

When I found her, Grandma was sitting in her reading chair in the living room with the largest book I had ever seen placed in her lap. "'The Book of Wethrinaer'," Grandma announced softly to me when I approached her. She said it as if the title was the deepest secret to her heart. "Do you know what that means, luv-bug?"

I shook my head, utterly confused where she was going in with the conversation.

She looked at me over her glasses. "Wethrinaer means Deceitful. It's 'The Book of the Deceitful', Heather." Those bright, serious grey eyes stared me down.

I gave her a, And...? look.

Then you don't remember me reading from this?"

"I remember..some of it. I mostly just remember the stories you told me about yourself when you use to hike."

"That's only natural. For you to forget, that is," she said lightly. She patted the chair next to her, licked her fingers, and turned to a marked page, eyebrows furrowed as she read over the passage. "Sit," she directed without looking up, 'you will understand."

I stiffly sat into the chair next to her. The air grew frigid as she began to read.

"The Legend continues on that the mystical Gypsies were once human, she began in a narrators smooth, alluring voice. They lived as humans did, in packs--supplying themselves with natural resources at the edge of a forest. There was a particular group of humans, unnamed, that had begun to migrate to a river that was said to have the purest water to ever exist. A man, dressed in baggy materials had approached this village of people, explaining how the river could cure all sickness and that he was living proof.

Some didn't believe him--those without disease and illness, that is, which left only a fraction of people The believers followed the man and drank from this mysterious river, returning to the village as beautiful as he, as strong as he. But as they returned the small portion of the non-believers had vanished into thin air.

The believers had made a choice, yet were somewhat in a trance following this mysterious man into the forest and drinking in immortality through the river. They would live forever, but first, they had to make one more choice which would prove to be much more difficult. And to their horror, they soon discovered that some of the non-believers in their village, their family and friends, had been painfully turned into trees, or eaten alive. As the believers cried at the center of their village three more men approached the edge of the woods, all on horse, three times more stunning then the one before them.

One came forward, holding a dreadfully stunning silver talisman in one hand. The horse between his long legs was wild, with large black eyes and scars along it's legs. The man's hair resembled his horse, silver weeds of silk, and cascaded down to his shoulder flowingly. His eyes were the purest liquid silver at first, then melted into a coal black-- terrifying to stare into, like an approaching eye of the storm or hurricane. He wore a black riding cape along his back, leaking out with a silver mist. His talisman swirled with contents at his side, mystifying already some of the believers of the village.