The Iron Ring

Do not steal!!!
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It all started that dreary Friday afternoon in March as Laurie came home from school. She was walking slowly to allow for the strong breeze still sweeping the city, when a gray cat leaped down in front of her. She stepped back, startled by the sudden appearance and the cat looked up at her as if to say
“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you!” Laurie grinned and bent down to pet it, amazed at how a strange cat could remind her so much of her mother. At once, her smile disappeared. Her mother had left last spring for an island, somewhere in the Atlantic. They had gotten the call a few weeks later, the boat she was on had sunk. There were no survivors.
Her father gone into depression and stopped working. Now Laurie was the only one in charge. A young girl trying desperately to keep her small family together. But it wasn’t working.
But that was all behind her now; there were new things ahead of her and new places to go. Little did she know exactly how right she really was.

As she crouched, stroking the cat’s soft fur, she saw something shimmering slightly by the side of the road. Laurie leaned over slowly. It was a small locket, seemingly made out of a strange kind of stone. But who makes lockets out of stone? Laurie thought. It was remarkably light, however, and it felt nice resting in her palm. She slipped its chain over her soft brown hair and let it fall down under her shirt. A small voice sounded in her head;
“This is for you” it said. “Use it well.” She looked around expecting to see the speaker, but there was no one nearby.
Just then, the cat mewed loudly in her ear, stretched languorously and stepped back between the bushes.
“Good by” she whispered, and started walking home again. This would be her secret. Her little stone locket.

When Laurie arrived home, she immediately ran up the stairs to her room and dropped her schoolbag on the floor. Homework could wait. She picked up the book that was resting on her night stand and started reading. It was called The Fairy War, and she had just gotten to the climax, when she heard the front door slam downstairs. Laurie put her book down hastily and reached for her math homework. That must be her father, home from the bar- no one else ever came in the house besides them. Oh well. She might as well get her homework over and done with; she had to make dinner soon, after all.
Ten minutes later Laurie was in the kitchen cooking the last of the pasta for their small meal. She would have to buy more; she hoped she had enough money left from mowing lawns and carrying bags to pay for it. She dumped the pasta into bowls and shook some of the grated cheese on top. She brought the dishes into the tiny parlor room and set the slightly larger one in front of her father. He was sitting in a chair, half asleep and drunk but woke as Laurie put down the bowl and immediately started scooping the food into his mouth.
She sat down on the sofa and looked around the room. She supposed that the parlor must have had color once, but now it had all faded to dismal shads of gray with some brown broken beer bottles scattered around where they had broken after being thrown by her father. Laurie's stomach growled, and she started eating, the pasta was insipid and tasteless – almost as bad as the room.
She was glad that she didn’t have to come in here much, and she would have liked to improve the room, she would have liked to improve the whole house! But there was no money for it. Laurie's mind turned back to its earlier problems of money. She would have to buy some other foods and necessities, but there certainly wouldn’t be money enough for that. Although his unemployment checks were enough to pay the bills, they couldn’t cover the cost of most other supplies. Laurie's father wouldn’t help; all he did was drink.
But those thoughts troubled her; there would be time enough for troubles, not now. To take her mind off them, she lifted the locket and started examining it. The locket had no hinge or joint, yet it opened smoothly. And it was light- light as a feather and made of stone! Just then, Laurie's father finished eating and grunted at her loudly. She stood up and immediately had to fight down waves of nausea.
Must be food poisoning, she thought, and hoped her father didn’t get it, that would certainly get him in a bad mood and she certainly didn’t want that. But her father would never feel it anyway, he was already to numb from the alcohol. Laurie reached down, picked up their bowls and brought them back into the small kitchen, wondering why she didn't run away.
No place to go, no money for food, no extra clothes…she thought morosely.
"Nothing at all…" she whispered. Her eyes started to fill and she slashed away the tears angrily. She wouldn't let herself become that weak, she hadn't cried since the call had come about her mother. She frowned and started washing the dishes feverishly
…nothing at all, nothing at all, nothing…

The next day you would have been able to find Laurie, if you had wanted to look, a few streets away, mowing the lawn of an old man who was, at that moment, drinking a glass of lemon-aid in his air-conditioned kitchen. It was getting to be a hot day, but the thought of a drink didn’t even cross her mind. She would be getting twenty dollars for this job, more money than she could remember having in a long while! Laurie was almost done when suddenly; the lawn mower made a loud clirp and stopped. She groaned and switched off the machine; it wouldn't do her any good to get hurt if the old thing turned on suddenly, and bent down to see what had happened. There was something stuck in one of the gears, and at first it seamed to be just another piece of trash. But when she pulled it out of the mower, some of the dirt crumbled away and Laurie saw that it was actually a ring. It was made out of some hard metal, maybe silver, more likely iron. She slipped it in her lone pocket; maybe she could get something for it at the pawn shop the next day. The old man stuck his head out the door and hollered at her
“If you finish in three more minutes I'll double the pay!"
“Almost” she replied and switched the mower back on.
When Laurie was done and had collected her money, she went immediately to the grocery store, to buy food for the next few weeks.
“One can of meat sauce, one bag of pasta, one loaf of bread…hope it's on sale…” Laurie repeated to herself. She hoped she had enough money for it all. She would have to find some more jobs she could do…
When she got home, she packed all the food she had just bought into the refrigerator-her father's unemployment bill paid for the power- and went up to her room to fall exhausted onto her bed. She fell asleep as soon as her head hit her pillow to drift through confusing dreams of winged, Elvin-like creatures… a boy with tousled brown hair grinning at a girl that she could almost see… there was a land made of nothing, all rainbow colored… and there was her locket, floating through the mist, but where?!... And the Iron Ring, surrounding it all, somehow holding it all in… protecting it…

When Laurie woke up it was late and she could hear her father throwing beer bottles in the parlor again. She sat up and combed back her long brown hair with her hands and tied it with an old rubber band that she found on the floor. The room was a mess, she would have to clean it, and the whole house very soon. She had felt bugs in her bed before and she didn’t quite fancy feeling that again. Suddenly she wished very strongly that she was somewhere else. Anywhere else, just not here, in this house, in this life. Her locket swung open slowly and suddenly in front of her there appeared a door. She stared at it in disbelief. Door... locket... ring... dream... wish... all of a sudden, her mind snapped itself together.
I wanted to leave, this is my chance! Laurie urged herself. Go! Just walk through that door there. Just Go! Her mind, blank of any knowledge except the urge to leave, reached out her arm and slowly pushed open the door. It was like stepping into a dream.
Laurie was standing in a hallway, a tunnel, but there was no ceiling to be walking under. This place, as tall as eternity, as far as forever, as deep as infinity. For she wasn’t standing, after all. She must be floating, because there was nothing to stand on, nothing at all except rainbows. This whole world must be made of rainbows… stretching on and on…dazzling and soothing and mesmerizing… it was amazing! Better than knowing, even, that nothing bad could happen to her there was the knowledge that she was, indeed, there!
When Laurie had gawked at the place for a considerable amount of time, she figured that she would have to leave.
But you can always come back! She told herself reassuringly. As long as you’ve got that door, you can return.
Laurie turned around to step back through the door and found with a abrupt shock, that the door wasn’t there! She looked around frantically, it must be here somewhere! Maybe she had moved without knowing it, she should go back the way she came. Which way was that? Suddenly, Laurie noticed another tunnel branching of from hers a little farther ahead, if there was such a thing as distance in this place. She ran towards it as fast as she could, if speed existed, hoping all of a sudden that she would find, at the end of it, her own room within her own house, with her own drudged up life to go with it.
However, that was not to be the case. Yes, at the end of the tunnel there was a door, and behind that door there was a life waiting ready for her, but it was certainly not the one that she longed for at that time.

)O(

Laurie came out of the tunnel and saw, to her relief, what looked like a normal, ordinary forest. Except for the fact that it was about five long feet below her. She fell. Laurie landed in one of the many small creeks that she had been able to see- when she was up in the air.
Laurie stepped, sputtering her contempt at whoever had managed to place that idiotic door five feet up, when she relised that the door was gone. This was quite puzzling, and needed time to think about, but time is exactly what she did not have. For just then, she heard voices in the wood coming strait towards her. Without thinking, she ran.
Laurie could hear the voices coming closer, ever closer. Her mind knew that she couldn’t outrun them, but also knew that if she stopped, they would find her. Something told her that being found by those sharp voices behind her would not be a very good idea. Instinct told her that being caught would be more than her mind could stand could stand, after everything else she had been through that day.
She quickened her pace, dogging trees and bushes, leaping over vines that seamed to be trying to catch her with their leafy fingers and zigzagging her way around rocks. She turned her head, trying to see behind her without crashing head on into a tree. It was a mistake. Yes, Laurie could see where those behind her were, but she couldn’t see what was in front of her. So she didn’t see when a tall boy stepped into the space before her. Laurie looked back just in time to see a hand come up over her eyes, then something hit her head from behind, and she fell.
When she awoke, her first thought was of her bed, back at home.
Must have fallen off, Laurie though groggily, I never thought my floor was so hard! She opened her eyes to see if her blanket was still on the bed, and gasped. Laurie wasn’t in her room. Far from it, she was in a cave. A dark cave. She screamed. A hand reached out from behind her and stuck a piece of thick cloth in her mouth. Unable to scream, Laurie edged herself carefully up against a corner of the cave and looked around warily. A boy sat in the corner across from her, staring at her forcefully, as if he was trying to decide what he should do with her. Laurie stared back at him, neither blinking, both trying to figure out what the other was thinking. The boy was thinking about weather he could trust her not to scream again... She was wondering if she could trust him at all. In looks, they were complete opposites. He was handsome, wavy brown hair, tanned skin and strongly built, while she was a slight thin thing, with reddish-blond hair and a fair complexion. His coal-black eyes were troubled and he looked as though he was ready to fight.
But was he thinking?
In the end, it was the boy who finally broke the silence.
“Hello” he said, in a rough imitation of politeness. “May I ask what you are doing here?” She pulled the fabric out of her mouth and replied hotly,
"I could ask the same thing of you." Laurie hoped that she looked steady; she certainly didn't feel it inside. She felt dazed and alone, even more so than when she would sit in her room at home, thinking, for lack of anything better to do. Here she was, sitting in a cave in some strange place with some boy who would probably end up killing her. Laurie shivered; goodness knows there was enough of that in the world.
Again, the boy spoke.
“What’s your name? He asked sternly
“And what are you doing here?!
With each word she cowered back a little further, until, at “here”, she was pressed up against the wall. It took all of Laurie’s self-discipline not to brake down and cry, but it was a close call.
“I don’t know!” Laurie fairly shouted at him
“My name is Laurie, I don’t know where I am, and my life is horrible and it’s all the stupid locket’s fault! So stop asking! She glared at him as forcefully as she could, then, suddenly, the anger that had filled her just a moment before vanished and she slumped back against the wall, utterly beat.
The boy looked at her strangely and replied
“Well, you must be O.K., then.”
The words seemed to be traveling through a heavy fog; Laurie was having a hard time understanding him. A dull ache started up at the back of her skull and when she reached up to rub it, she felt a thick cotton bandage that she had somehow not noticed before, and some thing wet seeping through.
“By the hidden gate!” the boy cried
“You’re bleeding again, must have split when you hit your head on the wall.”
The world around Laurie seemed to be growing dim, and right on the edge of consciousness she herd the boy say faintly,
“Poor girl…”
)O(

As the darkness swirled around her, Laurie heard a voice, chanting from the depths of the shadows. “Mirror here held in my hand, show me the secrets of this land…” A face swam into view. Pale skin, without a single blemish or bruise, black hair pulled back tightly in to a smooth bun- stretching the corners of her gray eyes back, the picture of perfection. The woman stared at Laurie for a moment in shock, and then asked sharply “who are you that sees my plans? This mirror is mine- not meant for your hands!” Laurie just stared. Now the woman was positively furious. “How do know what I say now? You are not strong- just a little gal!” she screamed. But at that moment, something inside Laurie rebelled. “I am not so little” she cried at the rhymer. “You are just so brave because I cannot touch you!” and indeed it was true. The distance between them was growing by the second, and just a moment later, all was black again.
Far away- yet very close by, the worried boy who had watched her through the night saw Laurie give a small sigh, and fall finally into real sleep. Then, with one last look to make sure that the entrance escape openings were concealed from view, he lay down to rest till dawn.

When Laurie woke the next morning, the boy was already awake and watching her.
Watching. Always watching. Doesn’t he ever do anything?! She thought.
“Yes” he answered quietly,
“I do.” He continued to look at her, but his expression had changed from curiosity, to one of surprise. Laurie tried to remember if she had said anything aloud.
She hadn’t. Laurie’s stomach grumbled up at her, and she realized that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before.
“I suppose you want food.” The boy said knowingly.
“Well, we’ll have to go to my other ‘hidey-hole’. This one’s just temporary.” Laurie didn’t budge.
“Well, come on now. Get up. Or don’t you want to eat?!” She stood. It was harder than it sounded. Laurie swayed, reached out a hand to grab for balance, and end up grasping the hand of the strange boy.
“Here now, don’t fall again. By the way, my name’s Camden. But don’t call me that- call me Cad. Now come on. The exit is over here.” Cad reached up and pulled at one of the larger stones that formed the ceiling. With a dry groan, it swung down, barely missing his face.
“Just jump up there and—oh no! You’re wearing a skirt!” It was true. Laurie was still dressed in her tattered school uniform. White blouse, navy blue skirt and white ankle socks, all quite a bit dustier than they had been that morning. She groaned. There was no way she could climb through a hole in the ceiling, with a skirt on. Impossible. Totally impossible.
“Impossible!” cried Cad.
“Totally impossible! But there has to be a way… Of course! We can use the escape rout.”
Escape rout? What would Cad have to escape from?! Thought Laurie. But she didn’t get much time to ponder that disturbing question, for a moment later; she was being pulled toward another rock “door” in the wall and being told in a stern voice to
“Crawl in after me, and close the door behind you.” And then they were in the narrow, dark depths of the escape tunnel.
)O(
It must have been only a few minutes, but to Laurie, it felt like forever. The tunnel was only wide enough to allow one small person room to crawl at any given moment, and not even a speck of light was present to brighten the gloom. Their voices seemed to melt into the surrounding walls, or drift away before the other person had time to hear. By the time Cad gave her the whispered signal that they were getting near the end, she was distraught with fears and apprehensions, nearly doubled by the dark.
But soon, Laurie began to see the first faint beginnings of light, like a new dawn. It very quickly changed into a line, then; she realized that it was a crack in the ceiling - it was a door. Cad pushed on it- it didn’t budge. He pushed again, harder. Still, it didn’t move. He turned, and rammed his shoulder up against the door and it flew open, revealing three grinning faces, the color of blueberries and about the size of them, too. In actuality, they were only half the size of Cad, once he had scrambled out of the tunnel and stood, wavering, on his feet. As Laurie pulled herself out of the passageway, she found a small, thin, blue person peering up at her. She fainted. Again.
When she awoke for the fifth time that day, she was really in a sorry state.
I should have gone home when I had the chance, She thought groggily.
I must have fallen in a stream or something. My head is soaked. And the ground definitely wasn’t this soft before! Laurie opened her eyes. She was inside a small house with curved walls and a domed roof. She was lying on a soft downy bed, and she was wearing a nightgown. Everything was blue. Laurie tried to stand, and at once there was a little blue person next to her, helping her up. It had light blue skin, dark blue curly hair swishing all the way down to its ankles (though that wasn’t very far, at all.), deep blue eyes and was wearing a navy blue dress. At the moment, it was shouting in the direction of the small blue door it had come through.
“Oy! Moyter! ‘s wake!” Three more little people tumbled in, all wearing identical blue dresses, same as the first, and wide smiles. They immediately sat Laurie down on the bed and started introducing themselves. The first one spoke, pointing to the girl with her hair up in a bun.
“H’ my nam’s Ditty. This her’s Maggi, she’s m’ mum. A’ this' Moyter, th’ one wit th’ curled tress's. Th' las' one's Shtinti, ya, th' one wit' out da' long hairs. Gotit. Good. Now, how 'bout you ge' in dis here dress, yers s'is dirty! Imagine sleepin' in that thin' fer three days.
Maggi laid a dress (blue, what else?) down on the foot of the bed and started ushering the others out of the room. Just before the door closed on them, Ditty stuck her head back through and told Laurie,
"Win your all set, cum out fer food." Then she grinned again, waved, and was gone. Laurie lay back on the bed, exhausted by even that much activity. Three days, wow. Suddenly she felt hungry, hungrier than she had ever been before. She hurriedly stood and exchanged her old dress with the new one. Much better.
Now, what did Ditty say to do? Right. Go outside for food.
Laurie walked over to the small door, it was nearly two-thirds her height - and at just five feet, that wasn't much. She had to stoop to get through and when she did, the view was astounding. Everywhere there seemed to be humps of blue grass rising out of the ground, ones like the house she had just come out of and others, longer, shorter, square and round, they were everywhere! There were a few short blue trees scattered among them and even the birds perching in them were deep shade of blue. Those, with the small people - presumably gnomes - made the whole land appear one big blue rainbow. Of course, it was, anyway.
For a moment, Laurie stood, startled, by the house, but very soon the tantalizing scents of roasting meat drew her towards the other end of the village. As she passed, Laurie saw the other gnomes going about their normal everyday business. There was a mother gardening, there was a father returning from a larger building with a basket of fruit. There were the children playing hide - and - find, or catch - the - rope. When she reached the end of the town, she found Ditty, Cad and another gnome standing to the side while they watched a large deer turning on a spit over a fire. A table stood nearby, and that was where Ditty led as soon as she realized Laurie had come up behind them. A dish of greens were brought over, and she wolfed them down eagerly, not having been taught good manners by her father. Then the meat came. It was better than anything she had ever tasted before, sweet and savory and rich… by the time Laurie was finally done eating, her stomach was full to bursting and she was more than ready to hear a good reason as to why Cad had brought her here.
Alas, she never got one. For just then, a small yellow gnome walked out of the blue woods at the edge of the village. Laurie jumped –
I thought everything around here was blue! Apparently I was wrong...
The yellow gnome was whistling a happy high-pitched tune that made ears ache, even from so far away. He was wearing a long yellow shirt, short yellow pants and a small, square, yellow cap. All–in–all, he was bright as a canary. Apparently, the blue gnomes were used to this odd appearance, for they went about their daily chores without even looking up.
Strange… thought Laurie,
They’re usually so, so excitable…
Just then, the yellow gnome caught site of Laurie. His eyes widened in disbelief,
Probably because I'm not blue, too.
He grinned, as if he knew what she was thinking and walked over.
"Hiya!" he said,
"My name's Twinky's my name! We're gonna be the best of friends ever!"
Laurie groaned. This could not be happening. To bad, though. It was.

)O(

"What!" Laurie exclaimed.
"What do mean, he's coming with us!"
Cad was lounging in a soft blue chair, watching Laurie, who was, at the moment, sitting bolt upright in another.
"It's as I said. They don't want him coming here everyday and causing trouble - though he hasn't specifically done anything yet, it's all apprehension - and he wants to travel. Since were leaving soon, I offered to take him with us."
"Oh, great! We get to go running all over this totally bizarre land - and may I ask once more, were we are going! - With a bright yellow gnome named Twinkie!"
"Yes" Cad said simply. And it's pointless to argue with me, I always win. Laurie glared at him.
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Needs to be revised!!!