by K.S. Lewis
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(a short story)
by, K.S. Lewis
Copyright
Anna (a short story)
Copyright 2013, K.S. Lewis
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Anna (a short story)
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Anna (a short story)
by, K.S. Lewis
Once upon a time a little girl woke up in the dark and thought to herself, “I seem to have forgotten something.”
The shine from her night-light stretched long shadows across the floor and the walls, but she hardly noticed those as she climbed down from her bed. The cold floor made her squeeze in her toes and stumble on her heels over to her slippers.
“Oh Rus, I seem to have forgotten something.”
Rus, rather, Russel T. Brown, was a grizzled, old, one-eyed bear. He slept, most nights, on the floor under a corner of the bed: not quite under it, but not quite in the open. When he spoke, he spoke with a soft murmur. It was all his stitches would allow.
“Why Anna, what could you have forgotten?”
Anna pondered this for a moment. She pursed her lips, crossed her arms, tapped a foot, and even hummed a little, “hmmm.” By now most of the toys were awake and anxious to know what was going on. The Jack-in-the-Box, Paul, who could never quite grasp which way was up and which way was down said, “Perhaps you have forgotten to tie your shoes?”
Henrietta, the rag-doll, was very insulted. “She isn’t wearing shoes. There is nothing to tie.”
While this may have served her purpose in quieting Paul, it started a heated debate on the topic of shoes, and the definition of a shoe, among the giggling figurines that Anna’s mother had placed on the highest shelf of all. They were meant to be her guardian angels, but Anna had never once thought they could protect her if she ever needed protecting. They were, after all, simply made of glass.
Anna quieted everyone very quickly by sitting down so suddenly that all they could do was blink and wonder when she’d stopped standing. “Oh Rus, what could I have lost? I have all my shoes and socks, my buttons, my fingers and toes and ears and teeth. It would be so much easier if I had just lost a teeth. Then I could go back to sleep and wake up with a prize.”
“A tooth, wouldn’t it be?” Rus asked.
Anna blinked again and thought on what Rus had said. “Well, yes, it is a tooth and not a teeth. Thank you. I have to talk properly since I’m almost grown up.”
“We’ve all noticed the change. Why, you can almost reach Henrietta’s shelf without help.”
“We are all very proud,” added Henrietta.
Anna pulled her hair back as though to put it up, but with no hair tie she abandoned the motion, letting the strands fall back to her shoulders. She looked around to make sure she had examined every nook and cranny for what she could be missing, but, she found nothing. Yet the feeling remained, and it gnawed at her knuckles, worried her lower lip, and made her sit poised and then slouched over-and-over. For Anna felt like she was missing something that was very, very, important.
“Rus, what should I do? I must find what I have lost.”
“Then you must speak to Lumina. She is very wise in the ways of the world.”
Excited, Anna barely gave a short thanks to Rus for his help, as she crawled over to her bed. Lifting up the sheets that hung to the floor, she slid underneath and grabbed the flashlight she kept hidden there. Unlike most little girls, Anna did not clutter the space underneath her bed. Otherwise it would hinder her ability to add to her collection.
The ray of light bounced with every move Anna made, but it served its purpose. It illuminated the shapes that were pinned up on the wall. There were small butterflies and big butterflies, and things that were certainly not butterflies but which Anna called butterflies anyway. Some were crinkled with age, their colors muted and dull. Others seemed as though they were just recently plucked from the skies, like bits of sunlight still lingered on the edges of their wings. But Anna’s prize was a large, mottled green moth, spotted white as though someone had flicked paint at it. It was missing one antenna.
“Oh, beautiful Lumina, I am certain I have lost something,” Anna said, once she’d crawled up beside it.
“Child,” Lumina’s voice was like grey clouds. “How certain are you that you have lost something?”
“Very certain. Otherwise I wouldn’t be asking.”
Anna, who had kept the light pinned on Lumina’s head, realized that it was very rude to blind someone like that and quickly turned off the light. Lying on her back she ignored the cold that was seeping through her pajamas.
“What you are feeling is only a pang of something you have given away. Go to sleep, child, and you will not remember this feeling in the morning.”
“No! If I am feeling this then I have to know. It must mean that I have forgotten something very important. Something I shouldn’t have given away.”
Lumina was silent for a long time.
“What is given away is best left given.”
Light slammed back onto Lumina’s head. Anna leaned in close, ignoring the stinging in her eyes. She pressed one finger into a butterfly’s wing next to Lumina and peeled it off slowly.
“Once, a long time ago, I accidentally broke off one of your antennas. It was a long time ago but you haven’t forgotten. You’re just a bitter, old butterfly that doesn’t like me anymore, even though I take good care of you and love you more than any other butterfly.”
The butterfly wing she had peeled away stuck to the wall. The particular butterfly she had severed was one of the freshest of the batch. Anna ignored its tiny scream to stare rigidly at Lumina.
“And now, when I need your help the most, on a very, very important thing, you won’t help me because of a silly mistake. Well, then I will have to stop loving you, and I will take your other antenna to prove it.”
Lumina gave a soft whisper, “If you want to find what you have lost you must ask Agrippina. To reach her without being caught you should take the tunnel.”
For good measure Anna kept the flashlight pinned to Lumina’s face far longer than she needed to. “Thank you, Lumina.”
Rolling out from underneath her bed she placed her flashlight next to Rus. There was a hush in the air because none of the toys wanted to ask, but they all wanted to know. Anna paced for a moment, from her bed to her window back to her bed, before she placed her hands on her hips and declared, “I am off to see Agrippina. I will be back soon.”
The name Agrippina hung on the air in a thick unspoken way that made the toys want to block their ears and think about other things. Anna either did not notice this, or ignored it. No matter which one it was, when Anna opened the door to her closet the thickness rushed into the corners of the room to allow for an altogether different feeling to glide on the air. The closet was a place no toys ever wanted to think about. Even Rus would not dare to speak up to ask Anna to rethink things.
The darkness of the closet did not seep into the room. Instead it did quite the opposite. It seemed to start dragging all the shadows of the bedroom in to itself. The toys shivered in fear and held onto their shadows valiantly. Anna looked back at Rus for just a moment, before stepping into the darkness and shutting the door. Waiting for her eyes to adjust, she felt around with her hands. To either side of her was open air with the occasional brush of fabric depending on how deep she reached. They felt like spider webs, or bristly beards, against her skin. Above her head, if she stood on tippy-toes, she could just reach the hangers.
“The hangers keep the ceiling from falling.” It was a tiny voice that came from somewhere near her left foot.
“The ceiling keeps the ceiling fr
om falling,” answered Anna.
What she was most interested in was the small square door at the back of the closet. She always kept a clear path to it in case of emergencies. She opened it now and felt the perimeter with her hands. If she listened closely she thought she could hear a sort of thunder in the distance, and something else as well.
“The ghosts will never lie to you,” said the tiny voice.
“The ghosts always lie to you,” Anna replied absentmindedly, as she hoisted herself up and into the shaft. She began to climb down.
For a while it was just Anna and the four walls that surrounded her. But eventually whispers began crawling up her legs, pulling at her clothes, and made her arms and back itch before sinking into her ears.
Who… who… where… sleep… Sleep!
Do we… might… might… little.
Have… have… you… be… Princess’s.
Here going… should…
Should… be Sleeping!
“Stop it ghosts.”
No…no…Pina… pay… we.
Lost… lost… Agri… expect.
Some… Queen… lost… thing!
Little… Queen… lost… something.
“I am going to see Agrippina. It is important and you can’t stop me.” Her knee scrapped against a dent in one of the walls, but so long as she kept her footing she could make it safely to the end of the tunnel.
Who… who… Agri…we!
Lost… alone… lost… Sleep!
Thing… some… Queen… have.
Sleep! Here… there… where… lost.
Her slippers slipped off her feet and dropped down the rest of the shaft. Losing her footing for a moment, she dangled by the strength of her arms. Losing her slippers didn’t matter; she gripped the metal sides easier with her toes. The cold, however, was biting.
As she continued downward, she reached a point where her foot could not find the next section of the wall, and met only air. Realizing she had reached the end of the tunnel, Anna let herself fall. She heard the ‘whoosh’ of all the ghosts she was passing. The air lifted up her hair and tied it into knots. The landing was soft, but smelled like something old and dead. Finding that her slippers were lying next to her, she quickly put them on.
Agrippina lived in the basement somewhere on the other side of a maze of boxes. The boxes were stacked so high that Anna had a hard time remembering she was almost grown up.
“I shall find what I have lost!” But her declaration landed somewhere in the middle of a tornado of thundering clangs and bangs. Spying an opening in the boxes she pulled at her sleeves and walked towards it. Her slippers went “flip” and “flop” with every step she took down the path. Inevitably, she became lost at the first crossroad.
“With a name like ‘right’ how could it be wrong?” She glanced a little worriedly to the left and right. They both looked the same. She went to head right but stopped, hopped from one foot to the other and swung around to go in the other direction. But instead she stood waiting as though the answer would come to her soon and that she shouldn’t hurry, simply wait. In this case that tactic worked.
“Ohhhh, you are very big, yes, very big.” Squeaky and high, the voice of the mouse tickled her nose. Wrinkling her face to prevent sneezing she hoped the mouse didn’t think her rude.“Hello, Mr. Mouse—”
“Sir Pennywagon.”
“Good Evening, Sir Pennywagon, I am looking for Agrippina. Can you take me there?”
“Ohhh, you are searching for Agrippina. Yes, I can take you to her. Look for me along the dark floor. Hurry now!” Sir Pennywagon dashed off and she watched for his white fur next to the browns of the boxes and the grey of the floor. He dashed to the right, to the left, to the left, to the right, she lost track of all the turns and twists and trusted that Sir Pennywagon was telling her the truth. In fact, she lost track of it so badly that when Sir Pennywagon stopped she didn’t notice in time and quite accidentally stepped on the bottom half of his tail.
“Oh!” He squeaked and tried to dash away. This was not in Sir Pennywagon’s best interest for he pulled away at exactly the wrong moment and his tail snapped in half.
“Oh!” Cried Anna, as Sir Pennywagon began crying. When she reached down to help him he squeaked frantically and disappeared into the maze. So instead she picked up what was left of his tail and examined it closely. “While it is a shame he lost it, at the very least it was for a good cause.” Out of respect she coiled it around a finger and wore it as a ring. Perhaps, she thought, it would bring her luck later on.
The path opened up to a section of the basement that was dominated by the large, imposing, stone figure of Agrippina. The one wing she had left was piercing a box tower next to her.
“Agrippina,” Anna stepped out in front of her with her head held high and her hands balled into fists, “I have come to find something I have lost. Tell me where to go.”
“I will not.”
“You will tell me where it is.”
“I will not.”
“I shall push you over and you will lose your other wing.” Anna moved in closer.
“How,” chuckled Agrippina, “will that help?”
Anna stared at Agrippina with a big smile. She brushed her finger along Agrippina’s stone arm and along the edges of the wing.
“It is a beautiful wing.”
“It is beautiful.”
“You can say it is what makes you what you are.”
Anna stepped back and eyed Agrippina critically. “I remember being told once that without your wings you’d simply be another statue. To lose the one you have left would make you lose the last of your power.” Here was the core of Agrippina’s fear and Anna had found it, and now held it almost lovely against her own heart.
“I can tell you how to find what you have lost so long as you are willing to pay the price.”
Anna pursed her lips; she didn’t like paying prices but nodded her head anyway.
“Then bow in front of me to seal this promise.”
Anna thought for only a moment before bowing. She felt no different, but Agrippina told her to rise and said, “You will find what you have lost if you follow the path to the right of me.” It was a path that Anna could swear wasn’t there before, but she said none of this aloud and simply walked away.
The path did not wind or twist but rather went straight the entire way. A few of the box towers looked like they were close to toppling over, but she assumed that as long as she touched nothing they would stay in place. Once, she was positive she saw a familiar flash of white fur out of the corner of her eye but it was gone by the time she turned her head properly. She ran a finger along the mouse-tail ring she wore.
She found herself staring at a wall. Boxes lined both sides of her. She was so mad that for a long time she could do nothing but stare angrily at the wall as though it would change and show her what she really wanted to see. But the wall was just a wall. The boxes surrounding her were simply boxes. Even the dust she kicked around was nothing more than dust. But when her foot connected with something solid, and she heard a soft mutter, she dropped down to her hands and knees and uncovered an old, broken toy.
It was a drummer boy with a long thin nose, faded features, a broken tin drum, and paint that was slowly peeling off. His eyes were dull, black orbs that looked at her guardedly.
“Little Drummer Boy I have traveled here by Agrippina’s advice because it is here that I should find what I am missing. But there is nothing here.”
“You are right.” His voice creaked and groaned with disuse, “There is almost nothing here.”
“Should I know you?”
“Should you?”
Anna brushed away a string of cobwebs connecting his nose to his feet. She ran a sleeve over his entire face, but the dust was stubborn; perhaps more stubborn than her. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“I am waiting for someone to remember me.”
“Have you been waiting long?”
“For very
long.” And the little drummer boy cried.
“Perhaps I can wait here with you until they come. After all, there should be something here that I have forgotten as well. Maybe you can help me look.”
She picked the drummer boy up and walked around the small area they were in. She kicked more dust, she glanced into cracks, peered around boxes if she could, but she found nothing.
“Agrippina told me I would find what I had lost here, but I have found nothing but you. I don’t remember you at all though.”
“Memories can be like that. One day you know something, the next day you don’t.”
“How do you bring those memories back?” She gently placed the drummer boy on top of one of the boxes. She wrapped an old rag she spotted around his legs. It was chilly in the basement.
“I imagine it’s something like being a lion. You wait until the memory isn’t looking and pounce on it.”
“I’m not sure I agree with you,” said Anna. “If you can’t see the memory to begin with, how will you know it isn’t looking?”
“Then perhaps,” sighed the drummer boy, “the memory is not one you can bring back. Perhaps what you have really forgotten is that you sent the memory away to be forgotten.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you are almost grown up, aren’t you?”
Anna stared at the drummer boy and nodded vigorously. It was one of her biggest dreams, to be all grown up. “Why would I need to forget things then?”
“Because you need room in your head to remember new things.”
“A room in my head,” whispered Anna. “What you are saying is that the room in my head can no longer look just like the room in my house because I am making space for new memories?”
“Quite. For example, if the room in your head has dolls lining all the shelves then where will you place the new books and things you are getting as you become grown up?”
Anna thought about this for a very long time. She tried to rub the dust on her hands off, but it was no use. “Will I give up all my dolls?”
“If it is your room, wouldn’t it be up to you?”
Anna stood up and couldn’t help but notice how much taller she felt. “Thank you Little Drummer Boy. Would you like me to stay and wait for a few more moments?”
“No,” sighed the drummer boy. “I don’t think it will make any difference.”
Anna stared at the drummer boy doll before untying her mouse-tail ring and tying it around his wrist. “For good luck,” she said, and then walked away.
The door to Anna’s room opened silently. The first thing she did was take off her slippers and change into new pajamas. As she pulled the shirt
