The Stairs Down
One foot in front of the other, Charlie is looking around her, trying to find any flash of pink that she could follow. If she was paying more attention, Charlie would see the sky getting darker above her, feel the change in atmosphere. Charlie was so dedicated to finding the girl she had just seen for the first time earlier today, that anything else was outside of her attention.
Charlie forgot how many stairs there were going down to the street below, a bit annoyed that in adulthood there actually seemed to be three times the amount of steps than when she was ten years old. Running down the stairs, she feels the footsteps of years past reverberating against the wooden planks. Feeling as if she were not just running down the steps alone, looking for this random girl, but that, if she closed her eyes she would be back here with her brothers and her Grandpa. Charlie is suddenly sure this is exactly where she needs to be — that she is not rushing for no reason but that every moment in her life had built up to this second.
As if an answer to this sentiment, at the base of the stairs the girl is standing, facing the street away from her. Charlie is ten steps away from getting to her. It’s at this moment that she is aware she has no idea what to say to the girl. After so much work trying to get to her, she is struck that she might possibly be lost for words for the first time in her life. Five steps away, then two. Charlie is an arms reach away now and as she towers over the girl. She is abruptly hit with the feeling that once the girl turns around, Charlie will be met with a younger version of herself. That she was not just chasing a girl she wanted to save down the stairs and through the woods, but that she was running after the child she once was in the place she had once experienced that youth.
Charlie places her hand on the girl's shoulder, but the moment she makes contact she knows everything is wrong. Charlie knows it’s wrong because the girl is no longer in front of her, and she is no longer in the woods. With the second of contact, Charlie is back inside the house, looking at herself in the mirror.