DAY 2
The next morning, grant woke up on the dirt among the trees, next to an empty camp with a few stragglers and a dead campfire. What happened last night? Thought Grant, a quick memory flashed in his mind of having been eaten, but at the same time, he remembered himself eating someone. It doesn't matter, Grant reassured himself, I'm still here now, and I must pick the trail up of the two.
Suddenly, as the wind began to blow east, his nose picked up a scent stronger than any he had ever known, and with the wind came the scent of yogurt covered pretzels. Grant, upon smelling this, knew it to be Jon and Elisheva's scent. The smell brought a memory of them tossing a pretzel his way while he stood chomping on grass. Grant knew he never did such a thing, but the memory was as clear as the rest of yesterday. The scent led him down one of Yosemite's many trails.
Jon let out one of the many yawns of the morning, and although breakfast had been eaten,
his stomach still yearned for chips. The group of three now headed down a pathway under an
archway of dogwood trees and crooked pines.
"Mushrooms!" Jordan ran to mushrooms beside the road and began to catalog them, With Elisheva equally intrigued. Jon stood at the center of the wide brown pathway and looked down the eerie hallway the trees made.
"Get off the road!" Jon yelled as his spine sent a message of fear up and down his body. Elisheva and Jordan just gave out a little laugh, "guys, I mean it, something's not right."
"We're looking at mushrooms." Elisheva rolled her eyes at Jon.
"Umm, yeah!" Jordan did the same.
Jon looked back down the road, a the sudden dry yet creamy scent rushed past his nostrils. Immediately, after another shiver through his spine, Jon knew it was the jackalope he could feel. It's hunger for their pretzels rippled out and Jon picked it up.
"Get off the road!" Jon yelled this time, then crushed the mushrooms under his feet. The other two gave him a dirty look, "we have to hide! The jackalope is coming for our pretzels!"
"Relax," said Jordan, standing up with Elisheva, "it was a silly ghost story, it's not real."
Suddenly footsteps were heard from down the pathway Jon was looking, and they could see a small form growing where the edges of the road seemed to meet. They suddenly scurried to find a hiding spot. Just below one of the most crooked pine trees was a steep ramp of dirt, and the roots grew horizontally along the top of this ramp, giving a small overhang to hide under the tree. They hid there hoping for whatever they saw, jackalope or not, would pass without noticing them.
The wind blew the tall skinny trees, causing them to sway back and forth. They could hear
the pine needles flowing across the dirt floor, but the needles kept the human jackalope's foot steps and presence hidden; until, that is, they heard sniffing. It had stopped, and was smelling the air.
"It smells the pretzels," whispered Elisheva to Jon, raising both her eyebrows "the stories were real." There was a sudden crinkling of a bag, and the jackalope gave out a gasping sniff, turning it's head to our hero's hiding spot.
Grantalope bent down, hands upon the horizontal roots. The scent of the yogurt covered pretzels was strong, and he was near, his eyes scanned the trees ahead, hoping for any sign of movement.
Luckily, it was Elisheva who had the centipede on her shoulder and not Jon, for Jon would have run and given himself to the jackalope in fear of such the small creature, but Elisheva held her ground, waiting for the centipede to continue crawling up the the root above. The two looked beside them and saw Jordan sticking his hand into the yogurt bag, feeling for the perfect pretzel, and thus causing no noise from pulling his hand out. They were both afraid to move from fear of bugs, but as soon as the cetipede left her shoulder Elisheva reached over, grabbing the bag.
The centipede was on the finger of the jackalope, and the crinkle of the bag startled the creature, causing the centipede to bite, and the jackalope to give a painful scream. Using the distraction, the three got up and ran into the forest, and out of sight.
Grantalope didn't notice they're escape, for he was too busy swatting at the bug that bit him, but it did not move. At first it seemed to shrink, but he realized it was entering his skin through the finger. With just the tail left, Grantalope used his other hand to try and grab it, to try pulling it back out; but it slipped burrowing too deep to retrieve. He felt it moving for a moment, rather quickly; but it soon disappeared.
A sudden sharp pain from the inside of his back was too much, Grantalope fainted on the side of the road.
"Is that a person?" the three of them, now lost in the forest, wondered as they stared at a human figure standing completely still with a great wooden staff in hand a small distance away. At first they thought it may have been a statue, but the detail was far too great, and the clothes were affected by the wind. Jon ran ahead of the rest to investigate, but stopped dead in his tracks when that frozen man spoke with a kind voice.
"Hey," a voice came from the man. There was a silence as Jon stood staring. The man didn't move.
"Oh hi," Jordan replied with a laugh, after catching up.
"Would you mind holding on the this staff for me?" he remained still, only his mouth moves.
"Uhh," Jordan's head gave a slight tilt, then snapped back straight as he said, "yeah!" He walked up, stood beside him, and grabbed it, standing still after it fell to his hands.
The tall man let go right as Jordan grabbed, and immediately, his hands went to the sky; he proceeded to preform various stretches.
"Hi," Elisheva smiled at the tall man; He didn't answer and spread his legs on the ground, stertching further.
"Umm, guys?" Jordan stood completely still as he spoke, "I can't move,"
Elisheva rolled her eyes at him, "it's not funny," and kept her attention on Philip.
"No really, I can't," Jordan assured her, but she just shook her head.
"It's true," said the tall man.
"What?" Elisheva's eyes widened.
"I told you!" Jordan had a tone that was out of place with his absence of body language.
"I'm Philip," he got back to his feet, standing four feet taller than the others.
"Wait, why can't I move, please help!"
"There's a curse upon the staff," still standing, Philip spread his legs out three shoulder lengths, and reached his hands down to his right foot, "Any who grab the staff are cursed to a state of not-moving-ness."
"Not-moving-ness?" Jon had a slight laugh, "is that the official word for what it is?"
"Yes," Philip's hands moved to his left foot, "I was stuck for 10,000 years until you came along? My muscles are stiff as a muvva fuvva."
"Wellllll, how do I get back to moving-ness again?" asked Jordan, a small distance away from the conversation.
"Well I thought it may be obvious," Philip stood up, and keeping his legs apart, reached backwards until his hands were grabbing the floor. All four limbs held him up, and his back remained arched backwards as he stretched the entire front side of his body, "the only way to break the curse," his voice had trouble pushing itself from his lungs, due to the stretching, "is to have someone else grab the staff."
"Oh Jordy!" Elisheva ran up to Jordan, "I can take it, are you ok?"
"No! I'm not Okay,"
"Wait!" Jon stopped Elisheva from taking the curse, "I know a way to break the curse... for good."
Jordan, hoping to get free; Elisheva, hoping to free her man; and Philip, hoping to obliterate the curse that held him so long, all listened to Jon's story of the hobbits back in Curry Village. They decided that the artifact they sent Jon to get could be used to free Jordan, so they set off, Jon following because he did not want to leave his friends.
The three talked, leaving Jordan, promising to return as soon as they can break the curse. Philip spoke of the many people who lived in Yosemite all those thousands of years ago. Elisheva and Jon were surprised to hear that ancient Yosemiteans spoke English as fluently as Philip. Philip told him of the hundreds who passed, how none of them were silly enough to take his curse. They pressed forward through the constant flat ground, until they began to see fallen trees. The ground was darker and softer, and there seemed to be other small plants on the ground than just ferns, bright red flowers sat near a river, and Jon went closer to further notice the way it's small center blended with the outside edges of red, and the blending shades of orange that connected the colors on these massive flowers.
But with flowers, comes bumble bees, and with massive flowers, massive bumble bees. Jon heard the deep humming of one approaching, but could not spot it. Looking at eye level would do him no good, for the bee was at his feet. It jumped, and bit his leg with it's butt. Jon fell to the floor letting out a high pitched yelp and rolled away from the flowers. His hands grasped his leg, which was already beginning to swell by the time Philip and Elisheva investigated the
yelp, then they left him between the river and the flowers, promising to return soon with baking soda to cure the wounds. Elisheva knew where to find it naturally growing in the forest. Shortly after their departure, Jon was looking at a leg that had swelled to ten times it's original size, and decided to soak it in the river until they return.
It was near a waterfall that Jon had limped to, and after ten minutes of a soaked leg, ice cold freshwater at it's purest had worked some magic on his wound. The swelling had gone almost completely away. After an attempt to walk on it, it began to swell again and only stayed healthy in the stream.
The waterfall gave off a mist of the falling water that had bounced back into the air from the rocks, and Jon wanted to get closer, but he had gone as far as his leg would carry him. He settled for a cold face with gradually forming drops of water instead of an air so thick a man simply standing would be soaked from head to toe, hair to clothes, and socks to shoes in seconds.
Jon took a glance around to see if he could spot his friends; nothing. Scooting closer to the water, he dipped his leg deeper into the water, giving himself a slightly better view of the river's surface through the mist. Scanning every inch of the surface for fun, a pair of eyes peeked out from the river Jon hadn't noticed before, next to a boulder across the way; eyes, forehead, and hair. A frightened jump nearly slipped Jon into the the river, but he found his holding. Eye contact scared the curious eyes back under the surface, and Jon's eyes danced on the white surface of the river and it's varying depths faster and more carefully hoping to see them again.
Looking around for his friends, Jon doubted himself for a moment. To his right, away from the waterfall he looked out; still nobody. Relaxing himself to look straight at the river, Jon suddenly saw a woman to his left sitting just next to him, and a bigger leap of fear did send him slipping into the river, but halfway down she grabbed his arm and pulled him back to his seat; leg still dangling in the water.
"Oh thanks," Jon laughed.
"Hi," she smiled, and leaned forward, hovering her head above the water.
"Are you a siren?" Jon said, forgetting to return the courtesy of a greeting.
There was a slight pause as her legs stopped kicking the water and her eyes looked off in thought, "Do you even know what a siren is?" she giggled; just slightly.
"Ummm," Jon drew the word out as his head tilted, "women from the sea."
"Yeeeees," she drew that word out too.
"Women who lure men to their deaths!"
She laughed, "There is one major flaw to your assumption here," she continued to say through more laughing, "two in fact."
"No," Jon joked, "I'm sure your here to kill me."
"I'm from the river," she leaned back, no longer hovering above the water, "not the sea, and I'm pretty sure it was you who lured me from my home. Men have stories of water women out to take them away and eat every bit of them to their bones. But imagine us, women of the water, the stories we tell of the men from the land. Men who dangle their legs like fishing lures, taking us home and drying us out. I do believe it is I who should be fearing you. So tell me evil land golem, in what way do you plan do kill me?"
There was a moment of silence with her smile stealing what little words were left that her former statement weren't able to steal before Jon just admitted, "I'm at a loss for words."
"So your no golem I take it."
"And I'm guessing you're no siren?"
"Nope,"
"What are you then?"
Her eyes went down to the moving water, her smile never left her face, "it won't be hard to remember me, once you hear the river's song."
"Sing it to me then," Jon said excitedly, "I'm anxious to relearn where I know you from."
"I don't sing it," her eyes were still fixed on the water, "the river does."
Squinted eyes of confusion, that was Jon's face.
"Don't worry, when you hear it, you'll understand."
"Jon!" another voice came from his right, Jon turned to see Elisheva and Philip walking his way.
"Turns out!" Elisheva started her statement with a laugh, "you can't actually find baking soda in the wild, but, we found that cave you were looking for, and there was a merchant there selling three things, a heart, a fairy, and a bottle of baking soda. All we had to give him was one rupee for the baking soda."
"You didn't get the fairy?" Jon asked before turning back around to find the water woman missing. Jon quickly turned his body around to face them, and still sitting on the floor he asked, "did you see where she went?"
"Where who went?"
Jon's eyes went back to dancing on the river's surface, a dance accompanied not by and song Jon could recognize, "nobody," Jon's eyes went back to his leg, and he changed the subject before there were questions, "where'd you get a rupee?"
"Oh I had one leftover from those many years ago," said Philip, "I was robbed of the rest, but I kept one inside my sock. Lucky me eh?"
"Yeah," Jon said, "shall we go to the cave now and get the bottle that will break the curse?"
Jon thought back to the river woman he had seen earlier, and realized that his time with her was the only time since their arrival at Yosemite that Jon wasn't thinking about chips, and even now, the thought of her replaces the constant flow of chips running through his mind.
Nightfall was approaching, and the others agreed to go to the cave, retracing their steps. Standing in front was the merchant, a spitting image of Jordan. Upon their inquiry, they discovered that the merchant was in fact Jordan's twin brother, Yordan. A rain had started so light, the droplets of water on them felt misty rather than rainy. Elisheva, if she ever wondered before if her love was superficial, had realized that her love was deeper than Jordan's fine looks, for she felt nothing looking to Yordan. They asked about the curse-breaking bottle of champagne.
"Just inside the cave," he assured them. The night had fallen, and with the bravery of Elisheva and her cell phone light to guide them, they stepped into the cave. Just ten feet into the cave stood the bottle.
"Oh that was not a bad cave at all," Jon said, feeling more brave than ever. They heard droplets of rain falling heavily by this time, and Yordan began to close his shoppe.
"Shall we stay in the cave for the night?" asked Elisheva.
"What about Jordan?" asked Yordan, "He'll have a most horrible night standing out in the rain."
"We don't wanna get wet," the other three agreed that staying in the cave for the rainy night would be the best option, and with Yordan's fire, they all stayed warm until morning.
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