Crystal Falls

Chapter 1 In A Moment

My family and I do almost everything together.  We are never alone.  For being alone you are at a greater risk of something terrible happening to you.  You never know what lurks beyond open doors or shut windows....Or so I thought.

I'm running through an open field, wearing my long white flowy sun dress that I made.  The light linen is blowing in the breeze, twirling around me as I spin in circles.  It's a sunny day, so I have my straw hat on.  A white lace ribbon tied around it with a flower inside the bow.  My long strawberry blonde curls are hanging lose around my face.  Sweet smelling flowers surround me as I dance, doing a leap every now and then to avoid getting stung by bees collecting nector. 

I love this feeling, being caught up in the wind.  No one has their hold on me, no one can control me, no one can imprison me.  

I'm not alone.  My family is off in the distance enjoying a nice brunch, near a meadow of beech trees.  Red leaves cover the ground that they are sitting on, while yellow and orange leaves fall from the tree onto them, every now and then from the cool breeze.  I glance over at them and laugh.  It's so funny thinking about us eating at this time of day.   It's not that often we have anything to eat before lunch.  We sleep so long in the morning, due to the hot weather. I have no idea what it is my mother packed for us to eat. 

   "Where is my fork?  You better not have forgotten it!", I hear someone say.  My eyes are closed, so I can't really tell who is saying what.  All this twirling and spinning and jumping makes it difficult to hear.

 I stop spinning in circles, and just start to walk around, to catch my breath.  I wish I had someone to dance with...someone to carry me away afterwards, when i'm too tired too walk.  I'm not actually that tired at all really, not right now anyways. 

   "Come on!", my sister Jane says in her zelda voice.  Makes me laugh every time.  "It's lunch Ezra, and your salad is getting cold".  Hah, she doesn't like cold salads, but I love them.  What is she talking about anyways.  It's so hot out here.  I start laughing again.  I love our sense of humor.

I start walking over to them, when a gust of wind pulls my hat off.  I jump up into the air, trying to catch it.  I'm too slow, it's already a few feet in back of me by now.  I turn around, and almost trip on my dress, so I hold it up, running for my hat. 

This reminds me of the time my dads hat almost got away.  A strong wind swept it off his head, but it didn't get far.  Our van held onto his hat.  Funny huh, a van holding onto a hat.  I'm almost to my hat, and then another gust of wind carries it even farther, into the meadows. 

   "I shouldn't go into the meadows by myself", I say to myself, looking over at my family.  This won't take me long though.  I'll just get my hat, and then come back.  I'll be back eating lunch with them by the time they know I'm even gone.  

 I take a step into the meadow.  The leaves are crunching beneath my feet as I walk.  It's cooler than being out in the open field.  Looking around at the different color trees and the flower paths around the bottom, I see my hat nowhere.  I walk a little further, reaching a wooden bridge.  The wood is old, making creaking noises as I walk onto it.  There is a stream of water underneath, a small waterfall to my left, surrounded by the greenest grass I've ever seen.  Small lavender wild flowers line the edge of the creek, leading to the enclosed water fall.

My family and I have been picnicing a few times before around this meadow, but we've never been inside to walk around.  Winter has just left us, so maybe that's the reason.  Silly reason, would've been amazing to walk through this meadow in the snow.

 My feet are a little sore, so I sit down on the bridge, with my feet dangling over.  The bottom of my dress gets wet, while I splash around.  My arms are to my side, holding onto the edge of the wood.  I start swaying back and forth with my eyes closed. 

I imagine I'm on a wooden swing, looking up into the sky, rocking higher and higher as my hair blows in the wind.  My feet are kicking harder, and faster and before I know it I'm rocking so fast, I'm flying off the bridge.  I open my eyes and take a deep breath, as I see myself flying a few feet ahead into the stream.  My hands shoot out ahead of me and I end up catching myself before I go head first into the water. 

The front of my dress is completely soaked with water, along with my hair.  I stand up, try to sqeeze the water out of my dress.  I shake out my hair while walking over to the land along the edge of the waterfall and lay down, trying to find a sunny spot of grass to lay down and dry off.  I don't mind being soaking wet, but with this breeze coming and going in here, I might catch a cold, or worse.

I haven't been laying down long when another gust of wind comes.  I hear something fly by me.    I sit up real fast, startled,  looking towards the small waterfall.  I decide to get up and see if I can find whatever it was that flew by. 

I'm so tall I have to duck under some of the trees leading over to the waterfall, where I heard whatever it was fly by me.  "I hope it's not a crow...or some scary bird waiting for it's next meal", I say under my breath, my eyes darting here and there and everywhere. I hear blue birds chirping and see little nests above me in the trees.  There are berry trees too, with so many bugs chirping so loud I can barely hear the birds. 

   'What the heck?!'..I say with a laugh.  Reminds me of the time my sister and I went outside to our front yard to just walk around and the bugs were chirping so loud on our berry and fruit trees.  They drowned out the so called "music" that was going on at the park a few blocks away, thank goodness.

I'm walking over to the waterfall, and I see a pathway behind it.  I can't reach it that easy.  There is a small creek between me and that waterfall, with a few rocks here and there leading to it, and I'm not going to let a few rocks get in my way. I take a step on the first rock, holding my dress up as I jump from rock to rock. 

   "Aahh", I let out a gasp.  I slip on one of the rocks, and catch my balance real fast.  My heart is beating fast right now, and I let out a sigh of relief.  Luckily the water isn't moving very fast, otherwise, I would end up crawling along the rocks. Wouldn't be the first time I've done that. 

   Thinking back to that time when I was at the river, a mile from our town house, down a dirt road.  The water was so fast, my brothers and sisters and I just decided to sit on rocks right in the middle of the river.  It was so fun, scary at the same time.  We just laughed the whole time, each one of us still trying to show off to one another.  They let themselves go and actually let the water take them a few feet.  "Don't do that!"  I yelled at them, while I laughed under my breath, "You're scaring me!  How can you move so fast in this water?!"  I don't think my brothers and sisters could hear me when I asked them.   The water was so loud.

I jump off the last rock and onto the grass.  I see the pathway, and I walk over to it.  There is grass along the pathway with little dandelions everywhere.  To my left is a rock wall and surprise lilies to my right, along the edge of the waterfall.  I'm walking for a few seconds when I see my hat, and I start running. 

   "How did that get way over here!?", I say laughing.  "That's what flew by me so fast!".  I forgot about my hat, until now, being so drawn in by everything I've seen in the meadows.  I slowly stop running and then I reach down to pick my hat up.  I pull, and pull, and finally I pulled on it so hard I fall over. 

   "Woah!", I yell as I go falling backwards.  I Hold my hat as tight as I can while trying to stop myself from falling into the waterfall.  "Dang It!" I say sadly, looking at my hat.  There are small rips all over it.  I look back towards where the hat was laying, and I see something I've never seen before.......a flower.