Chapter Text
Anika ran through the woods, leaves crunching under her shoes as she sped through the wilderness. She noticed the sound of water rushing and stopped just in time before she could fall and get wet as she found the river. Below her red Converse shoes was a blue, bubbling body of water, biting off the edges of the riverbank. Panting, Anika rested herself against a tree that was growing up from the mud. As she glanced into the blazing sun, she noticed a rope hanging from one of the tree’s branches.
Removing herself from its bark, Anika straightened her posture and reached up for the rope, following it to its origin. It led to rope monkey bars, leading from one end of the river to the other, and hardly without thinking, she began to climb. The young girl hauled herself over the river where she jumped back down onto the other side of the forest floor with a loud crunch. She continued running, her pendant slapping against her chest as her sweater flew in the wind. Coming to a clearing, Anika slowed as she felt the hairs on her arms rise, the air around her crackling and fizzing with energy. Rounding a thick tree where the dread in her stomach felt the heaviest, she gaped.
“Woah,” Anika whispered, watching as a rusted car came into view. It had yellow-stained glass windows, rusted bumper, brown hood, and a dented license plate. Green leaves and branches hung from the sides of the car, while weeds and other plants that had come to claim it were choking the vehicle. “Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Anika sighed. As she drew her finger over the car, she wondered who had driven it last. Had it been a girl like her? Had they been trying to drive away from something? She walked to the driver’s window and noticed a mirror decoration hanging, and reached out to touch it. Just then, she heard her mother’s voice calling her in for lunch, followed by their dog’s barking. “Coming!” Anika yelled. She snatched the mirror decoration and ran back the way she came.
“Look at your jeans, all tattered and messy,” her mother fretted, meeting the girl at the forest’s edge. Anika’s jeans were brown with dirt on her knees and her jacket was covered in underbrush. “Clean up out here, then go inside and change your clothes. Dinner’s in the dining room.”
“Okay, Mom,” Anika replied, smiling as her dog, Cookie, swirled around her feet. She patted her thighs twice, and Cookie placed his two front paws on her legs, licking her hands as she scratched his chest.
Anika obeyed her mother and dusted the leaves and debris off her sweater. She then ran up the stairs in her house to her room where she began to empty her cardigan’s pockets. There, her hand grasped something unfamiliar, and Anika pulled it out to reveal the car decoration that she had found. It was a dirtied sparrow, its talons gripping a rusted watch that had stopped working a long time ago. She observed it to be a clock with Roman numerals that had ended its work near ten thirty. After a few more moments of consideration, Anika tossed it onto her bed and threw her dirtied clothes into her hamper, changing to a pair of baggy gray sweatpants and an oversized black hoodie. Sliding on her slippers, she walked back down the stairs and into the dining room.
* * *
“So how was your first day exploring?” Anika’s father asked at the dinner table. Her mouth, however, was full of steaming lasagna that she savored before answering her father’s query.
“It was pretty chill,” she answered, quickly stuffing her mouth with more of her food. The meat combined perfectly with the melted cheese and warmed her stomach as she consumed more. “I found an abandoned car. A Volkswagon from maybe…1975—give or take. It’s a beetle, too.”
“Where’d you find it?” Mom asked, serving Axel a large spoonful of lasagna as he sat at the table.
“And how can you be sure it’s from 1975?” her older brother asked. “You’re not a car expert, stupid.”
“It just gives off that vibe,” Anika explained, her face red and hot. “It’s not like you’re a car expert yourself. I don’t think you’d be able to tell the year.”
“Yeah, I would,” Axel said, shoving the pasta into his mouth. He chewed it for a brief moment, then opened his mouth in front of Anika to disgust her with what he hadn’t swallowed. How immature he could act in his late, high school years.
“Yeah right,” Anika whispered under her breath. She turned back to Mom and answered, “On the other side of the river. There were these ropes I found, so I used them to get to the other side.”
“We don’t know how old those ropes are, so I don’t want you to risk climbing over the water,” Dad warned. “The rope could break on you at any moment and you could hit your head and drown. You don’t even know how to swim!”
“Yeah, I know,” Anika sighed, shoving the rest of her delightful dinner down her throat (a spoonful of pasta and a slice of garlic bread). “I’ve got some stuff to do.”
“Wash your dish!” Mom called after Anika as she disappeared into the kitchen.
There, she did as she was told and rinsed the remaining sauce off her plate before giving it a good scrub. She washed off the soap and set it to dry in the dish rack before heading back upstairs. Anika walked down the carpeted hallway to the bathroom to retrieve a Kleenex wipe, rubbing alcohol, and some cotton balls. The girl took them all to her room, set them down on her dresser, plopped herself onto her bed, and picked up the abandoned car’s mirror decoration. It was quite pretty, but it desperately needed to be cleaned.
With the Kleenex wipe, Anika began to remove the dirt and cobwebs that had built up in the crevices of the sparrow. She then grabbed a dry cotton ball and began to clean the watch as best as she could, but once she was finished it was still far away from sparkling. Anika soaked a different cotton ball with alcohol and used it to clean the watch and the rest of the bird. Once she was finished, both parts looked shiny, but neither looked brand new. However, Anika was content with her work, and so she set the bird under her pillow, just because it felt right. With that, she kicked off her slippers, curled up, and went to sleep.