Chapter Text
It was beautiful, of course. The sweet warmth of late spring had finally done its work in reviving the sprawling hills and lush forests. Every morning, the rosy sunlight dappled the ground beneath towering trees and brushed away the fog of early dawn. Songbirds fluttered through the hedges and lent their songs to any passersby who could hear them. Wild fruits grew in abundance, as an orchard of sorts had been lovingly crafted in the center of the tamed wilderness. Anyone who grew weary of being rooted to the ground needed only to reach up and find the waiting branch of an ancient evergreen, with limbs like ladders to the heavens.
It was beautiful.
But she couldn’t escape it.
Not even the highest branches of her favorite trees gave her the illusion of freedom anymore. When she was a child, perhaps. Her imagination had been stronger then. But young adulthood had swept her up on weighted wings and left her aching for something unknown to her. Something beyond the desire to leave the immaculate world she’d been sheltered in her entire life. A nameless pining, a restless tapping. She didn’t know what she couldn’t know, but that never stopped her from wanting it.
-
There was love in her family’s house, undeniably. They were a small family, but there was always so much love. Even the walls and hedges that surrounded her and her older sister were built and grown by love. Their father spent so much time arranging and hosting gatherings of other families in their home, so they would never want for connections. Any activity or skill that either sister expressed an interest in would be taught to them by the best mentor that their father could find; or, if they so desired, they would be given the resources to learn it by themselves.
And they were given work. They learned every trade they could from the people their father hired to aid in caring for the estate. All were expected to contribute equally, family included. If there was anything the daughters didn’t know how to do, there was never any question that they would learn. The days were busy and fulfilling. When rest was needed, it was given without question and taken without guilt.
For many, it would have been heaven on earth.
And yet, here she perched on a limb of one of the tallest trees on the estate, looking out over the aged stone walls and towering hedges that kept her in. Here she could sit for hours, seeing past the boundary of her life and forever wondering what lay on the other side.
-
“Want to go for a walk?”
“Sure. Where to?”
“The western hedges? I want to see if the honeysuckle has bloomed.”
“You know, if we were just a couple years younger, you would have told me to race you to the honeysuckle.”
“I thought about it, but I wasn’t sure if you’d be in the mood to eat my dust.”
With a silent laugh and a rude gesture in response, the younger of two sisters took off like a shot, bare feet pounding into the soft earth. The elder sister followed in less than a second and matched her pace with ease. Flying past the orchard, racing over lush hillocks, dodging between the trees.
There were no sounds besides the pounding of feet and the panting of breath, but there was laughter in their eyes.
It wasn’t long before the thicket of honeysuckle that had wound itself into the boundary hedges was visible. The sisters had been neck and neck for the entire race, but at the last second, the elder sister took the lead effortlessly. She skidded to a stop in front of a spray of fragrant white flowers and threw her fists over her head in triumph.
The younger sister stopped just shy of colliding with the tangled honeysuckle and flopped down into the grass, panting with fatigue.
“Hopefully the smell of the honeysuckle makes up for the dust,” the elder sister signed with a grin. She received another rude gesture in response.
-
“Did you hear that some of the fruit from the orchard went missing?”
“No. When?”
“Last week I think, for a few days in a row. A few baskets have disappeared, too.”
“Maybe someone needed them. Is Dad upset about it?”
“Oh no, not at all. He thinks the same way you do. Someone probably needed it. It’s not like we don’t have more than enough, anyways.”
The two sisters strolled leisurely along the hedgeway, heading back toward the house. A shroud of grey clouds had hidden the sun, and a light breeze carrying the scent of rain had begun to stir the long grass.
The younger sister reached out her hand and ran her fingers along the leaves of the hedge absentmindedly, thinking about the rain and hoping it would catch them.
She almost missed the small gap in the thickly tangled branches. But, as if fate itself wanted her to see it, she felt a pull in her mind and stopped in her tracks, staring at the gap.
She’d never seen one like this before.
The branches were parted, some of them broken. There were no visible tracks on the ground, but the dirt was scuffed and the undergrowth flattened in some places.
The younger sister crouched down and peered into the gap, curiosity prickling at her mind. Immediately, she was mesmerized.
There was a tunnel through the boundary. All the way through to the other side.
-
Her sister believed it had to have been made by some kind of animal, and she agreed. It was a fairly small tunnel, and it certainly hadn’t been made with shears or anything of the sort. It was rough and scraggly, and upon further inspection, there were what looked to be a few small claw marks in the dirt.
“There’s not much we can do about it. The hedge will have to grow itself back, obviously. We can let Dad know about it the next time we see him. He should be back in a few days.” The older sister stood from where she had crouched to inspect the tunnel and brushed her hands on her skirt, seemingly unaffected by the breach in the boundary and ready to continue back toward the house.
The younger sister found it difficult to leave.
That night, as she lay tossing and turning in her bed, it was all she could think about.
Whenever she closed her eyes, she found herself haunted by visions of the tunnel through the leaves.
When she finally fell asleep, she could dream of nothing but what lay beyond it.