Three Years later…
It was such a fine cheerful morning, When the villagers of Bramaria were gathering the village square celebrating the departing of the chief’s son and his newlywed.. Samantha , the most beautiful girl in town, and Tom ,the very lucky bachelor, would soon leave for their honeymoon. A big happy grin was shown over Tom’s face as he hugged her and waved at the crowd. The crowd cheered and sprayed a drink upon them. Everyone was happy though, except for a family that ran for Balerote farm seemed to have their own business. They had something else more important to do at home than saluting the newly weds.
Mr. Barney Beaumonde had been three years running the Balerote Farm, nurturing fresh fruits and vegetables from its soil and keeping it save from stray dogs any kind from reaching his barn. He was a very nice man and he shared the farm with Broombicks. He could work at farm all day, taking care of his sheep, horse and chickens while he’d let Broombicks family to do the farming and shared the harvestings the other day. They were quite prosperous at that time as Balerote seemed to pay them fair enough for the efforts.
“Barney!!” barked a woman coming out from the kitchen overlooking the farm.
“Yes!” He replies while giving the fork to Broombicks. He looked at his wife as He walked into the kitchen just as Julianne, the six years old girl, came out from it and bumped into him.
“Wow…wow,” he held the girl. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the river today. I want to collect some flowers for Aunt Cherie, she’ll be here very soon,” Julianne said as she looked at her father.
“No, I won’t allow. Not when your brother is gone. Now where is he?” he looked around. “Ashley! Where are you, boy! Ashley!”
“Ah! I saw him walking to the barn just about an hour ago,” said Broombicks.
“Thank you, George,” he said while walking to the barn.
“Barney!!!” barked his wife again.
“Yes?!” replied him while looking at his wife from distance. His wife beckoned him to come inside the kitchen again, meaning that she urgently needed help.
He sighed and walked back again to the kitchen. He passed by his daughter and said, “You should wake him up and ask him to go with you. Remember, don’t go alone to the river, understand?” and so he entered the kitchen.
“Yes dad.” Julianne said as she quickly ran outside.
She headed to the barn, looking for her brother who was found sleeping on the piles of hay. “Ashley!” she roused him, shaking his arm forcefully. But he seemed to enjoy his sleep very much.
Then she sighed as she gave up waking him up and went to the river alone.
It was much quieter at the river this time since the crowd was centered at the square. She picked some flowers, near the hill, until she saw something interesting at the river side. She rushed to go see what it was. There was a nest in a tree on the very far branch, not a strong branch though – that she would fall directly into the river below if it gave way. She climbed the tree up till she neared the nest.
There were three little newly born chicks squeaking. She was at awe until the sound of wood cracking interrupted the moment. The branch seemed not be able to hold her weight any longer. It was going to break quickly if she made any sudden movements. She was as petrified as she couldn’t say anything or even to scream for help.
At that moment, she heard a barking dog came near. She saw far below, the dog had very clean white silvery fur and there was also a young boy about eight, standing and looking at her calmly.
The noise of cracking wood was heard again as the branch she was sitting on, began to give way.
“Help me,” she pleaded as she started to cry.
A nearby boy heard her cried for help and immediately rushed toward her direction with his dog. He found a young girl in the tree and the branch she was sitting was giving away.
The boy climbed up the tree very fast, as if he had been trained climbing up trees since he was two. He stopped at the branch’s side and reached his hand towards her. His dog just sat and waited as the event unfolded.
“Grab my hand!” he yelled, trying desperately to reach her.
She reached out and grabbed his hand. Then begin crawling slowly to the trunk of the tree. She turned her head towards the nest and tried to reach for it. “The Nest, I can’t leave them to fall into the river.”
The boy gripped her and tries to lead to the trunk of the tree.”I’ll get the nest for you. Now quickly get down onto another branch,” he said, while maintaining his grip on her arm and making sure that she would get down safely. Nevertheless, she climbed the other strong branch next to the nearly fallen branch.
“Please, get the nest, please,” she pleaded and started crying again.
“Dang!” he complained as he climbed up and crawled carefully on the nearly fallen branch to take the nest. The Branch made cracking sound so badly this time as the branch was starting to fall down.
“Here!” he shouted as he reached towards her to try to give her the nest.
She grabbed the nest and crawled back as she began to witness the branch was falling into the river with the boy. The dog barked repeatedly in panic.
“NO!!” she screamed.
She climbed down the tree put the bird nest under, and ran quickly to the river where she saw the boy was trying to survive, for he couldn’t swim at all. The dog was too young and by its size, too little to swim down the river to save him. And so the girl, she couldn’t swim at all, all she could do at that time is just scream for help.
“See the light! See the light! I can’t swim, I’m sorry, see the light!” she cried.
He went under water for a moment then came back up again, then went back under again. He tried to reach above. He could only hear her whimpering and saying something about the light. He was barely unconscious below, as he began to sink, but her fading voice and his barking dog made him snapped him out of it and tried to reach the light. He managed to get his head out of the water, gasping desperately for air and quickly sank again. A hand reaching him, but he couldn’t see who it was as He reached for the hand. Thanks to his efforts of struggling breathing air, he managed to get close to the river side. Julianne managed to reach for him from the side of the river and grabbed his hand. She dragged the unconscious boy to the side.
“Don’t die please!! I’ll go for help.”
She said as she panicked and ran off trying to calling for her brother to help the unconscious hero. She ran fast as she could, she made it to the barn and successfully roused her brother with her cold wet hands.
“Help, someone is dying!”
Ashley was half asleep but he managed to keep up with her running as she led him to the river side. “Don’t you know, you disturbed me!” He yelled while running.
As they reached the riverside, the boy and the dog were already gone. The only trace that was left was White silvery hair from the boy’s dog.
(Copyrighted @ 2008. Listya Widyasari. Edited by: BerserkFox)
