Things live between awake and asleep. In the moment after your eyes grow too heavy to stay open, but before the dreams take you.
The Increasingly Transparent Girl
by Matthew Stott
Missed a chapter? Click the link first to catch up:
~Chapter Two~
By the time Melody was sat at the table and swirling her gravy into her mash, she had quite forgotten about her disappearing left hand.
‘What’s that tune you’re whistling?’ asked Mum.
‘Was I whistling?’ replied Melody.
‘You were definitely whistling,’ said Dad. Melody shrugged and glugged more gravy onto her plate. Mum always made her gravy extra thick, so that it looked more like chocolate sauce than gravy. As it slowly oozed over the mountain of mash, something tickled at the back of Melody’s mind. It was a tune—a tune that was sharp and hypnotic, weaving between tree branches as she ran and danced and jumped.
And a shadow....
A shadow....
Slithering and—
A gasp from her Mum snapped Melody out of her thoughts. ‘Your hand! What’s happened to your hand!’
Melody lifted her left hand. Just like the fingers, the thumb was now completely invisible. What remained of the hand was now becoming translucent. Melody held it up to her eyes and peered at the shocked faces of her parents through it.
‘This is what I was trying to tell you earlier, but you were both too busy,’ said Melody. ‘I went to the woods and must have fallen asleep—’ Melody whistled for a few seconds at this point in the telling, though she didn’t seem to notice ‘—and when I woke up, these fingers had turned invisible. Now my thumb’s gone, and the rest of the hand doesn’t seem too far behind. It’s really a very strange thing.’
‘Did you eat a wild mushroom?’ asked Dad.
‘A wild mushroom?!’ said Mum ‘Her hand’s almost gone!’
‘Well that’s what I mean; strange things can happen if you eat the wrong sort of mushroom. I saw something about it on TV once.’
‘I didn’t eat a mushroom,’ replied Melody.
‘You’re very sure? Didn’t fall face first into a pile of odd mushrooms and accidentally gobble one down?’ said Dad.
Melody shook her head.
‘Well, then, I’m stumped,’ admitted Dad, scratching at his stubbled chin.
Mum ran to Melody and hugged her tightly, before pushing her back and examining her left hand. ‘It’s still there,’ said Mum, feeling Melody’s missing fingers and thumb, ‘just invisible. I can feel it, I just can’t see it.’
‘Well, that is a relief,’ said Dad.
‘How?!’ replied Mum.
‘Well ... it’s still there at least. It’s not been bitten off or anything. That can’t be a bad thing.’
Melody nodded in agreement.
After they’d finished their tea, Dad took Melody back up to Carsters Wood, whilst Mum stayed behind and scoured her medical books and the internet for any ideas about what might be happening.
‘This was the tree,’ said Melody, pointing to the large and twisted oak tree that had probably been old when her Great Granddad played here as a child.
Dad took out his camera and began taking pictures, then scribbling notes into a little pad of paper. ‘Best to do a thorough investigation, then we can go to the doctor with all the facts at hand. All the facts at hand about your hand.’
Melody laughed and held up her now completely invisible left hand. Dad took a picture of it.
Together they then proceeded to take samples of the tree’s bark, of the surrounding soil, and great handfuls of the crisp, brown fallen leaves that lay all around. They piled them into plastic Tupperware boxes and then carried them on home.
‘Any ideas?’ said Dad to Mum as he pulled off his coat. Mum was at the kitchen table, flicking though a 4000-page medical journal whilst simultaneously searching through very boring looking websites.
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘Not yet. How many leaves did you bring back?’
Dad held up the four Tupperware boxes he’d saved exclusively for leaves. ‘Oh, a few hundred at least, I’d say.’
‘Good, good,’ said Mum, pulling a pencil out of her hair and scribbling a note onto a pad.
‘Yes, the doctors are sure to find some sort of answer in all this lot,’ said Dad, proudly patting his leaf haul.
Melody nodded her head and took off her coat. It was quite hot in the house now, after all the work of collecting and carrying back the samples, so she pulled her mustard-yellow cardigan off, too, and draped it over a chair.
‘Oh dear,’ said Dad, shaking Mum by the shoulder and pointing to Melody. ‘That really can’t be good.’
Mum looked up. ‘Oh dear.’
‘Yes,’ said Dad. ‘Yes, that’s what I think, too.’
Melody looked at her bare arms. Only there was nothing to look at. They, too, had disappeared.
***Hey there! Authors get paid when readers upvote their posts. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up and vote for it. Thanks, Matthew.
©Matthew Stott, 2016. Reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Become a Stranger! Keep up to date and receive FREE books, just hit the link:
FREE BOOKS
This is an amazing little tale, you should advertise it in the chat some, I bet you'd have quite the following that way. Either way, good read, I'm rather enthralled.
Hey, thanks so much! I didn't even know there WAS a chat.... I'll have to check it out. :)
Anytime! Also you should do an introduction/verification post, especially since you're posting a published work, people are going to want to see a picture of you holding a sign with the date and steemit on it, just so you dont get flagged for plagiarism. Intro posts also tend to get a fair number of visits and conversation on them, so you can let people know who you are any why you're here :)
Congratulations @matthewstott! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!