excerpt from Of a Flower: Chapter 1
in-progress novel written by Kevin Liang
By the time I reached the eastern outskirts of town, the sun had dipped low enough to dye the sky deep orange. Here, the landscape gradually transitioned from bricks to fields. The interweaving streets converged into a single dirt path that solemnly snaked through the countryside, rupturing the crop fields into two halves. There were no tracks or power lines or the constant roar of engines. Only echoes of the city ever reached these parts.
The fields further gave way into uncultivated pastures of grass, where livestock lazily grazed wherever they pleased; inhibited only by their shepherds and the delineated line of stones that ran across the rolling hills. Standing a measly one meter tall, this simple wall separated civilization from the wilderness. A human’s way of leaving their mark. As it did with the fields, the dirt path split the stone structure and opened the town to the forest just a few dozens of meters yonder. A single oil lamp guarded the breach, swinging with the wind as it hung on its wooden post.
I saw, near the broken gate, three small figures sitting on the caps of these shallow walls. They were familiar faces—towns children who ventured to these outskirts in search of adventure. Since I walked by fairly often, they had come to expect me everyday, and entertained themselves with my presence.
It was the youngest who noticed me first; a girl of eight years old with short, brown hair. She laid on her belly atop the wall, her chin rested in her arms. The others sat staring out into the woods. When the girl noticed me from a distance, a mischievous expression came across her small face; a smile large enough to distinguish from where I was. She entrenched herself behind the wall, pointed my direction and cried out, “Hark! A beast approaches us!”
With this exclamation, the other two, a girl of eleven and a boy of ten, turned to face me. The older girl quickly joined her sister behind the wall, brushing aside her long, brown bangs with her hand and shield against the sun. “Aye! I sees it! Prepare the crossbow, Silas!” The boy, however, did not jump down from his perch on the wall, and instead looked across the field at me with a modest smile.
“Hey! Quit dawdling and get behind the fort! Before it notices us!” commanded the older girl. Her younger sister imitated the motions of spinning a crank.
“Nevermind him; I’ll handle the bow! Quick, load in the spear!”
Silas turned back to the girls and spoke calmly. “You hooligans, you’re on the wrong side of the wall. Furthermore, Miss Allen is an ally, not an enemy!”
I chuckled as I approached the children. “If you two yell like that, you’d scare off any beast before you could get a shot at it.”
“Drats!” said the eldest. “It reached the gate.”
“Aw, Silas!” cried the little girl. “Can’t we play a game? Nothing ever comes out from the forest.”
“I exit the forest in the morning,” I pointed out.
“We have school in the morning, however,” the older girl griped.
“Indeed, and you mustn’t skip it either—just to see me emerge from the forest.”
“Can we go with you?” the little girl exclaimed.
“I do not think your parents would be pleased if you do,” I explained with a smile. “Perhaps when you are older.”
“Ahhh, but that’ll be forever!” she whined.
The boy swung his legs around to our side of the wall, his dark hair sweeping across his eyes. “Say, Adeline was curious why you lived in the forest.”
I looked at the elder girl as a blush bloomed across her slender face. “It—it was an offhand curiosity!” she stammered, avoiding my glance and hounding Silas instead. “You didn’t have to say it in such a nosy manner!”
“Adeline’s blushing!” taunted her younger sister.
“You too, Hazel!” the eldest scolded. “It’s not proper to agitate your sister!”
“If I may,” said Silas. “I am curious as well.”
I indulged their curiosity. “It is because of my father’s cottage. He built it as a seclusion to raise his family.”
“You have a sister too?” Hazel inquired.
I shook my head. “No, I am a single child.”
“How come?”
“That’s not something you should ask,” Silas quickly nagged.
“Why not?” she protested. “You’re not my brother. You can’t tell me what to do!”
“That doesn’t change the manner of the question!”
“I don’t care; don’t tell me what to do!”
“Now now,” Adeline broke in. “Be nice, Hazel.”
Her sister briskly resisted. “You’re always defending him.” Nevertheless, she did not continue and instead pouted.
I laughed. “Perhaps I will explain another day. It is getting dark, so you three should head home now.”
This prospect was enough to satisfy the young girl. “I look forward to it!”
Silas hopped off the wall, glancing at Adeline. “Well, as she says then.”
Adeline nimbly got down and helped her sister climb back to their side of the wall, lifting her by her armpits.
The children coalesced and began to walk back home. Silas waved “‘Till morrow, Miss Allen.”
I waved back and bid them goodnight before turning to cross the threshold.