"I have a story," Chayton said, as she stood up. She pulled back the hood of her sweatshirt, revealing a face worn beyond her years. "It's also about misunderstanding, but not in a bad way. Sometimes a misunderstanding can lead us to discover something important about ourselves and others."

She began her story.

TRESPASSERS

By @ChayAvalerias

Zimm tugged at my sleeve, and I rolled over on my sleeping mat. I pulled the blanket over my head. "Leave me alone."

"But I need to show you something, something important." His words bounced around my consciousness.

"Go to sleep." I felt myself on the verge of drifting away again.

"Elleth," he whined. "You need to wake up or it will be too late."

"Be quiet. Do you want to wake up father?" I sat up and wiped my eyes, adjusting to the dim light that filtered from the hut's open doorway. Behind the curtain, father slept in the back part of the hut.

He pulled on my arm. "Elle, I really need to show you something important. We are running out of time. Please."

My little brother had been acting strange ever since the accident. He stared at people in the market for long moments. He talked nonsense in his sleep and carved odd figures and shapes into the bark of trees.

"What's gotten into you, Zimm?"

"Please, please." The boy pleaded with such desperation.

The accident occurred three days ago when Zimm went fishing. He had just turned twelve and the elders assigned him to the fishermen as an apprentice. No one knew how he got caught in the fishing net. When they finally pulled him from the waters and untangled him, he had stopped breathing. The men rushed him to the medicine woman who chanted runes about his body and blew the breath back into him.

When Zimm arose from the dead, he told them, "The spirits are nigh."

"Don't mind him," the medicine woman said. "He'll talk gibberish for a while until he has fully recovered."

I guess I shouldn't be so hard on him. He could have died after all, just like mother did five years ago from that strange disease.

"What is it you have to show me?"

"I can't tell you. You won't understand. You just need to see for yourself."

I sighed. "Okay, fine, Zimm, but I don't want this to take too long."

"Hurry, we don't have much time."

He beckoned me to follow him outside. I grabbed my cloak and sandals. We crept through village careful to avoid being seen. Eventually, he led me on the down the dirt path and closer to the forests. The moonlight illumination the way just enough.

"This way."

"Wait!" I pulled him back. "We can't go in there." The elders had warned against entering the Forbidden Forest. Some said it harbored monsters. Others said it was the hiding place for thieves and outcasts. A few of the oldest women in the tribe referred to it as a spirit realm, saying that soon they would be resting there.

"But that's where we need to go. I know the way." He grabbed my hand. "Come on. We are running out of time."

Before I could protest, he pulled me deep into the depths of the forest, around fallen trees and over rocks and across a small stream. We sprinted through rows of thin trees with increasing speed.

Zimm stopped instantly, and I nearly fell over him. "Shhh." He whispered in my ear. "The spirits are nigh."

"What does—"

He clamped a hand over my mouth. Before I could push him away, he pointed at three luminous orbs that floated in the distance. "Those are the guardians. We can't let them see us."

I watched, terrified by their magical glow, regretting with all the bones in my body having entered the Forbidden Forest. How did Zimm know what they were? Had he been playing in this forest against the ruling of the elders? If we ever get back, I swear I'm going to tell father. I am going to make sure he gets punished for playing in the forest. I felt my blood boil that he would do something so foolish.

"They are gone," he said.

"Have you been playing in this forest, Zimm, against the law of the elders?" I pointed a finger at him. "We shouldn't even be here. We need to go back right now."

He looked up at the moon. "We don't have enough time. We need to go now before it's too late."

"Don't tell me what to do. I'm your elder sister." I was just about to turn sixteen. I was just about to undergo the Initiation and participate in the Maiden's Ceremony. "We need to go back."

I grabbed him by his scrawny arm and forced him to follow me a few steps.

"Elleth, please."

"Don't, Elleth please me. We need to go back."

He struggled out of my grip. I was stronger than he was, but he was wiry, and I couldn't hold him.

"I need to show you something," he said through clenched teeth. "Something important."

"Zimm, if you don't go with—"

"It's about mother."

"Mother?" The anger left me completely. I sat by her bed as the disease took her last breath. I begged her not to go. I asked father to make the disease stop. The medicine woman said that sometimes a person entered the spirit world too early, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Zimm wrapped his arms around me. Somehow I had fallen to my knees, and somehow the tears dripped down my face. "I miss her."

My brother squeezed me tightly and laid his head on my shoulder, like he used to do when he was baby. "She longs to see you. She misses you too."

I sniffled. "How do you know, Zimm?"

"I saw her," he replied, his voice filled with a soft astonishment. "She said she was happy to see me, and that she really wanted to see you too. She told me that she loved us very much."

I remembered her last words. "Remember how much I love you when I am gone."

Zimm pulled away and stared at me. "She's here, Elleth—in this forest. I am supposed to take you to her. This is what she wants." His eyes gleamed with a deep intensity.

"But how?"

"I saw her when I passed into the spirit realm, when I drowned. She showed me how to find her." His eyes fell. "But we are running out of time."

Finally, I understood why he had awoken me. Zimm knew how much my mother's death affected me. He knew I longed to see her again, at least one last time to tell her that I was sorry. I wiped my face and stood up. "How far is it?"

"Just a little longer. We can still make it if we hurry."

"Let's go then."

We ran through forest and until we came to a clear, glassy lake. It shimmered in the moonlight, and I gasped at its beauty. Zimm stopped to get his bearings and scanned the horizon beyond the lake.

I walked to water's edge and peered into my dark reflection. My hair had grown longer, and my face seemed so much older. A few days before she died, she had yelled at me for not doing my chores. She forbade me from playing in the river with my friends. I told her that she wasn't being fair. I told her that I hated her. I wish that I hadn't said that. I wish I hadn't hurt her like that.

"There." Zimm pointed to a mountainous pass.

The hike up the rocky terrain winded both of us. "How much farther?" Now, I started to doubt that my brother knew the pathway. Didn't the medicine woman say he would be speaking gibberish? Had he gone crazy? Was it too late to go back to the village?

"I see it. Don't you?"

I sighed in frustration. "What? See what?"

"The light."

I followed the line of his eyes and squinted. I saw the smallest speck of light. It could have been anything, but then it flickered. "Candle light?"

"Let's hurry."

We scurried up the remaining mountain trail until reaching a plateau where a house made of stone stood. The light danced from a window cut into the wall. Smoke from a chimney floated into the sky. A fire burned inside the home.

When we reached the wooden door, Zimm grinned in triumph. He knocked on it, and I drew him closer to me, fearful of what might happen next.

"Yes?" a voice spoke.

My mouth dropped open. "Mother?"

The door swung open, and she stood there. "Elleth! Oh, Elleth!"

"Mother!" I ran into her arms, feeling the warmth of her embrace. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," I sobbed.

She wiped my tears away and held me. "Sorry for what? I'm so happy to see you again."

"I love you, mother." I remembered the stern look of disappointment in her eyes when I screamed at her. What child tells her mother that she hates her? How horrible I was! "I never meant what I said. I never hated you."

"I know, dear. I know," she said in a soothing voice.

I couldn't stop the tears from falling. "I made you leave. I didn't love you enough." Those words just fell out.

"No, Elleth," she said. "I always knew how much you loved. I can't tell you how proud and grateful I was to be your mother. Both of you." She reached out for Zimm and held us both close to her.

A silence surrounded us. I lost myself in her arms, feeling like the world was right and that I had been forgiven for my transgression.

Finally, mother sighed. "So, what happened to you both that led you here in the spirit realm?"

"I brought Elleth here," Zimm said, straightening up with pride. "So you can see her again."

"Brought her here?"

"Yes, through the forest. I remembered the way from last time."

"Wait." Mother looked confused. "You mean she didn't die? And. You didn't die?"

"No," Zimm said. "You said you longed to see Elleth."

"Oh, son, you misunderstood. I didn't want you to bring her to the spirit realm before her time. And you? How is it that you still lived?"

I answered this question. "The medicine woman breathed life back into him."

Mother nodded. "Yes, Ursella, was good to do that. She knows about the passage to the spirit world." Mother gasped and then burst through the door and stared at the moon. "There's time left. You can make it out if you rush."

"What? I had just got here," I replied, not really understanding why she wanted us to leave so soon.

"Yes, dear, but when that moon fades away, you will be lost here in the spirit realm forever."

"But we want to be with you," Zimm protested.

"The guardians won't allow that. They will take you away from here and cast you into the dark place. You need to return to the living as soon as possible." She embraced each of us quickly and kissed us on our foreheads. "Now, run! Run as fast as you can!"

We nearly tumbled down the mountain path. At the lake, Zimm took only a second before choosing the correct direction. Branches scraped against my arms and legs. The trees hid the moon from view.

"This way." We turned sharply through the thick wood.

"Down," he whispered. We both stumbled to the earthly floor. "Guardians."

Three orbs floated across the horizon, but then stopped. They realigned, facing our direction. The orbs sprung in circles and then shot toward us.

Zimm stood up and yanked me to my feet. "Run!"

We jumped over fallen trees and flew up over the rocks. We sprinted through the woods.

The orbs chased us the entire way, illuminating the surrounding trees.

I could see the outskirts of the village. So close. Then Zimm fell over, his foot caught into the wild root of a tree. "No!" I grabbed for his arm.

"Leave me!"

"I can't!"

I stared up at the orbs as they raced at us. We had run out of time. I wrapped my arms around Zimm. "We go together."

"I love you, sister," he uttered.

I forced myself to keep my eyes open as the orbs came at us.

Then a shrill voice screamed, "Trespasser! You cannot cross!" The medicine woman?

A bright blue light blasted from a gemstone that had been affixed to an old wooden staff that she yielded. "You cannot cross!"

The orbs reared from the blue light.

Seizing the moment, I pulled Zimm backward behind the medicine woman who kept the orbs bay. Finally, we collapsed on the dirt path that led back to the village.

The medicine woman also walked out of the forest. The blue light faded, the orbs floated in the woods, but soon retreated.

We all caught our breaths.

The medicine woman knelt beside us. "Let's not tell anyone about this. Do you agree?"

"Yes," Zimm and I spoke in unison.

"Good." She stood up. "Oh, don't ever trespass into the spirit realm again."

We both nodded.

We survived that night, but the reality of it hit us when we settled back to sleep. Zimm wanted to sleep beside me like he used to do when he had a nightmare, and I let him. After he had drifted into his dreams, I leaned over him and kissed him on the cheek the same why that mother used to do when I was young. "Thank you, Zimm. Thank you."

Host's note: This story was chosen as the winner for Day 4: Misundertanding.