Prompt 15# "The woods have remembered you ever since the first time you got lost in them."

Sometimes when he dreamed, he dreamed of the woods.
The trees that reached up and brushed a foreign sky, and the deep, deep pools that held entire worlds. The air was fresh and strange, leaving you drifting in a hazy sea of blues and greens.

In his dreams, he lay down in the soft grass beside her, and they were children again, unanchored from the world they knew. They lay like that for hours and hours, just gazing up at the impossibly high canopy and the green light as it filtered in dappled pools and moved across their faces in lazy serenity.

In his dreams it was always serene. A serenity untouched by the worries of the worlds, of crazy uncles, dying mothers, and wars. Most of all wars. Because when you're a child you don't have to worry much about anything unless it's truly serious, and even then, it doesn't quite kidnap you the way the mind of an adult is so easily kidnapped by worries.

When the war started, and he spent all day worrying about this and that, he dreamt of the Wood Between Worlds more often. And when Polly became a nurse and he enlisted, the woods appeared every night, calling to him with their peace and promise of rest.

They called to him as his days turned into nights, and as his comrades died beside him in the trenches.

They called to him as a letter gave him the news that his father, also fighting in the war, had not lived to see the end of it.

They called to him as he shot a soldier, and he wondered if a mother had just lost a son.

He was weary of sorrow, worry and heartache, longing for the woods that made it drift away like a leaf caught in a summer breeze. As he lay beside the doorways to a thousand worlds and watched the leaves rustle with his hand in hers, his mind finally felt quiet. The woods sang a lullaby to the soul, laced within the strange, sweet air. Troubles dissolved. Perhaps the woods would remember him? It had always seemed more alive, richer than Earth, and you could feel the trees growing.

Of course, he knew it was a false peace, and the worries would come rushing back the moment he returned to Earth, but his memory of it was still strong, and peace was such a precious commodity these days.

Maybe when he was older, he and Polly could go back. Digory and Polly, explorers of new worlds. Wishful thinking maybe, but it was a good thought. A good memory to clutch at when the world fell apart. A good dream at which he could smile, despite imperfections.

Digory and Polly in the Wood Between Worlds.


Author's Note:

I've realised that I've been sacrificing quality for quantity - though I guess that's some of the cost of a month long challenge, but I'll try to do a bit better from now on :) Anyone else having this problem?

Trix