Rainboots
A Short Story by Stew Stunes
Chapter 1: The Boy on the Top of the World
Chapter 2: Escape With Me
Chapter 3: The Light Comes to You
4. Waterfalls
Once they were above the waterfall and they could see
the light from the hallway, they wasted no time as he pointed in the
direction they should go while she flew them at top speed. Nearly
crashing into the same old woman who had scolded Elisa before, they
had arrived at their location. Ignoring the old woman’s cursing
they ran past her and charged through the closed door into a very
formal looking meeting.
“Dad!” Booker shouted as if their noisy entrance and
the screeching old woman wasn’t enough to alert everyone in the
room of their arrival. “Dad, we need your help.”
“What is the meaning of this disturbance?” The man
that looked like an aged Booker bellowed from the center of the
court. “Do you not realize you are interrupting terribly important
proceedings. If this is not an emergency that your mother has passed
away due to some freak accident then I want you to march right back
out of this room and we will pretend that this never occurred. But if
you take one step further you tempt my own and the council’s
anger.”
“Please dad,” Booker begged. “It’s not about
mom, but it is equally important.”
“Then speak like a man of age and raise your voice to
the entire council,” his father championed.
Elisa squeezed his hand for reassurance, she hoped his
father was just being hard on him, but had a sinking feeling that
they would be treated unfairly.
Booker cleared his throat before speaking to the entire
room. “We were just down near the waterfalls and discovered
something bad. The whole cavern is filled to the top and about to
burst and it will completely destroy the village below that my friend
calls home. I think we can stop it from happening but we have to act
now there isn’t much time.”’
At once Booker’s father slammed his hand on the stone
desk in frustration. “You know it is forbidden to go down there. I
will hear none of this talk of outsiders and water. You’ve
distracted us enough already. Leave this session; I will talk to you
about your friend telling you lies after we are done here.”
“It’s not a lie!” Elisa shouted and stamped her
boot.
The entire room fell silent at the sudden outburst from
the fiery young girl.
“I would like your help and it is your choice to give
and also your choice to not give aid. I pray that you do, but if you
don’t then I guess I will have no choice but to try and save my
village alone. I’m fine with that, but I will not stand for you
saying that your son is a liar. Booker is a good and honest person.
I’ve only known your son for a week now, but I feel like we’ve
always been friends. I can stand being ignored, but I cannot stand
being made out to be a liar. You must help my people. I beg you,” she cried before bowing to the council’s judgment.
Booker’s father remained silent for a moment as he
considered her words, before responding in a much gentler manner. “I
wish for a moment that the words you have just spouted at me were
remotely true. You are a person of great spirit and fire, but the
council can hear no cases rooted in fantastical villages on the
surface of the earth. All life on the surface has been washed away
ten times over. Leave now, before the council grows angry with your
tirade.”
“I need to go now. I need to save my family,” Elisa
excused herself with a heartbreaking crack in her voice.
“Elisa, I’m sor…” Booker never got to finish his
sentence as Elisa was gone with a rush of wind replacing the warm
space she had once occupied beside him. She blasted out of the
castle, this time not slowing for any doorways, passageways, hallways
or any other barrier ways that might get in her way. Going as fast as
she could, wind and rain ripped at her small body careening down the
mountain at top speed towards her village.
Just as day was breaking over the mountain tops, like a
whirlwind she blasted through the door of her home into the very
anxious and worried faces of her parents.
“Where have you been?” They both demanded at once,
but dropped all questions as soon as they saw the near-to-tears look
on her face.
Huffing and puffing, her message managed to spill out.
“There’s no time to explain, but there's a lot of water trapped
inside that big mountain and I think it’s going to burst very
soon!”
Her parent had no idea how to respond. It sounded too
preposterous to be real. Her father was the first to reply. “When
you weren’t in your bed this morning, we thought you ran away for
good. You had us worried sick.”
Elisa’s mother nodded in agreement, but before Elisa
could make an apology a deep rumble from inside the earth make
Elisa’s heart skip a beat.
“Oh no, I’m too late. Run for the hills it’s
happening now!” she shouted before rushing out the door with her
parent’s right behind her. The earth shook and thundered all around
them.
They all shouted in astonishment as they saw the mass
chaos of boulders the size of the entire village being pushed by a
wall of water. It was too crazy to comprehend as the tsunami sized
wall of water rushed towards their peaceful village.
Elisa jumped in the air and picked up the first few
people she could grab and rushed them towards the mountains on the
other side of the valley. She dropped them on the ground in her rush
to turn around to go back for more people.
The wall of water was moving faster than she knew she
could go. Her boots weren’t made for speed, but that did not deter
her from rushing head first and as hard as she could towards the
village. All the while hoping to be faster, to have a chance of being
able to save someone, anyone. Like watching a collision in slow
motion, she couldn’t look away as the wall of water tumbled over
her village erasing it in an instant of terrible finality.
Her flight trajectory sent her over the flood of water,
searching for any sign of life that could be rescued. Nothing but
rushing water was visible for miles around. Despite knowing that her
worst fears were coming to a reality, she circled around the scene of
destruction hoping for any sign of life.
The entire valley was now covered in deep water. A
single tree remained standing above the torrents of ragging flow.
Elisa settled on the tree, feeling more defeated than ever, numb and
beyond tears.
For a long time she sat and watched the water rush by
her. The long missing sun spilled over the valley, breaking up the
storm clouds that had hung over the valley for so long. Her skinny
legs swung in the tree and with a last look back to where her home
and village should be she was finally overcome with the grief of
losing everything.
Without any forethought of her actions she leaned back
in the tree and tugged off her red polka-dotted boots. Elisa held
them in her hands, looking at them as if she never really owned them.
“Why couldn’t you fly faster?” she asked the now
muddy looking boots. Elisa held them over the rushing waves, ready to
release them into the frothing waves below her. A tear ran down her
face, about ready to let go of it all, she heard a familiar shout.
“Hey!” A shout echoed across the valley and into
Elisa’s ears.
Refusing to believe that anything good could happen on
such a bad day, she did not turn around.
“Hey!” The boy shouted louder. “I think you don’t
want to lose those rainboots. They saved your life.”
Still half expecting it to be a dream, she turned around
to see the boy and all the people from her village in some sort of
large bubble. The bubble had risen out of the turbulent water and was
floating on top of the rough water as if it were perfectly calm.
Elisa tilted her head to the side as she noticed that
the boy was wearing his own pair of green striped rainboots. He waved
to her. “Yours let you fly so you can escape; mine make a shield
that nothing can break.”
Overcome with tears and emotion at having watched her
family be washed away in a flood and now seeing that they were all
perfectly okay was too much for Elisa as she accidentally let slip
her rainboots. Without any hesitation, she dove into the water after
her rainboots. Swimming hard with the current, she was able to grab
onto her rain boots as a wave swept her under the water.
The village and the boy held their breath, hoping that
the young girl would surface. Anxious faces looked on, unable to
cross the fast moving river to help.
Elisa rolled in circles under the water. All the while
struggling to pull her boots on; like a key finding the right lock,
her feet slid into the familiar boots. As soon as she had her
rainboots on her feet, she was above the water and already colliding
with her family holding them in an embrace that would never break.
Only when Elisa was completely convinced that this was
all real and not some part of a terrible afterlife dream, she
released her hug on them and grabbed onto Booker.
She kissed him on the cheek and whispered in his ear.
“Thank you for saving my family. I couldn’t have done it without
you, Booker.”
The young boy smiled with pride at his accomplishment
and blushed at the kiss he had received. “As soon as you ran out of
the council, my dad realized he was wrong and gave me these special
rain boots. He said that they had been a gift to our family long ago
and I was only to be allowed to wear them when I grew into them. I
guess after hearing the good words you said about me, he decided that
my feet would fit them now.”
Elisa pulled him into another deep hug, thanking him
with an expression beyond words. Clearing the tears out of her eyes,
she said to him. “Come on, now I have a promise to fulfill. Let me
show you the sea.”
Booker never had to reply as his bright smile was enough
of an answer. They leapt into the air together and flew above the
wide valley that was now filled with water from side to side. The sun
reflected off the water perfectly, giving them their own personal
sea.
“I have to admit,” said Booker. “I was expecting
something even more amazing than this the way you were talking about
the sea.”
Elisa nudged him playfully. “Well then I guess we’ll
have to fly to the real sea and find out for ourselves.”
They laughed as they sped past the wide valley, past
sunrise and sunset, beyond moonshine and turbulent skies, and onto
further adventures.
The end.
11/09/14 - Next Sunday! Official release date for The King's Challenge, my second full length novel
^Special thanks for my readers if you follow the links above
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