12xlost

(i-iv)

fiction by Kevin Fanning

We dragged our boats up onto the shore and stopped for a moment to breathe, hunched over, hands on knees, gasping. The forest extended along the beach in both directions as far as we could see. We quickly started walking away from the water, away from the wooden ship anchored offshore. As soon as we entered the forest we became separated and never saw each other again.

(i)

There were clearings deep in the forest, where we burned fires at night. I remember my mother's face, between the flames and the nighttime sky, as she braided my hair. She told me the story of a small girl who followed a tribe of nomads to a city hidden in the middle of the vast desert. The girl had to steal flowers from the marketplace to undo a curse. She took the flowers outside the high city walls and buried them in the sand, praying for a forest to rise up out of the desert.

But why? I asked. What was the curse she had to undo?

My mother held her hand up, listening to the noises in the forest. In our tribe, she was the best at picking apart the sounds and finding the one that didn't belong. She closed her eyes and listened.

There were paths like mazes through the forest. We used them to spy on other villages. Each village had their own system of mazes for this purpose. Where the mazes met became the city.

 

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