Second chances
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Disclaimer: see chapter 1 Feedback:
always welcome (liten_sam@yahoo.ca) Chapter 3 A/N: The Awakening is a wonderful novel by Kate Chopin She awoke with a start, wide-eyed and shivering, her heart slamming in her chest. She looked around and felt unable to orientate at first, but when she found the switch of the night-lamp the room was instantly flooded with light and falling back against the pillows, she sighed in relief realising she was safely lying in her own bed. Everything was as it was supposed to be, it was the same stormy night she had fallen asleep to. It had only been a dream. Again. She had barely managed to get a whole night sleep lately, dreams, or better, nightmares haunting her. But this was the first time someone had rescued her. The first time she’d heard Ryanna’s voice. Pushing the covers aside, she climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom sink to splash her face with cold water. She looked at the pale reflection of her face staring back at her from the mirror. “This is definitely not the way I thought my new life would start.” Unable to go back to sleep, she decided to go downstairs and get something to read. She browsed through the books on the shelf and finally picked one: The Awakening. If she remembered correctly it was the story of a woman who had decided to break out of the invisible cage society had confined her to. She had started to read it once some time ago but had never finished it. The heroine’s character somehow bothered her because she was doing something Jeanne felt she would never manage to achieve. Maybe now was a better time to read it. She was heading back upstairs when she noticed a large box lying on the floor next to the fireplace. She could have sworn she had put everything away up in the attic. Anyway, curiosity got the best of her and she walked to the fireplace to see what it was. She kneeled down on the floor; put down the book she had just got and opened the box. The first thing she saw was a pile of loose sheets with charcoal drawings by her grandma. She picked them up and looked through them. Breathtaking landscapes, children playing, fairies and elves…they all looked so real. She had seen these drawings before but every time they took her breath away. She put them aside. Under the drawings she found a stack of notebooks, some looking older, other more recent. She picked up one and flipped through the pages recognising her grandma’s handwriting. She looked at some of the other notebooks: they were full of notes. It looked like she’d just found her grandma’s diaries. Her knees had started to complain, so she got up and took the notebooks with her to the couch and put them on the table. She tried to find some order by looking at the dates on them, when she came across one that was not dated and had strange characters in it: they looked oriental or Celtic, but she couldn’t figure out what they were or even less what they said. She flipped through the pages. The whole book was full of those mysterious signs. Why would her grandma write like that? How would she know how to write like that? That is, supposing it is a real language and not only the scribbles of an old woman. She picked up another diary and fell upon something that sounded very familiar: all the fairy tales her grandma used to tell her when she was a child: the dwarves, the elves, and the orcs…everything was in there. Even some more drawings. The following had a white cover and was dated 1958. Jeanne seemed to remember that it was the year her grandparents had met. She had heard the story a thousand times. It was a rainy night. Eric was driving home after his shift at the county hospital, when he’d found Ryanna walking on the side of the road, soaked wet and wearing a dress that looked as if it had been ripped right from an old medieval painting. He had picked her up and driven her to the hospital where the doctors had taken care of the few bruises and cuts she had. What had worried them the most was her amnesia. She did not remember where she came from or what she was doing on that street all by herself. She didn’t have any documents on her that could help find out anything else about her. They only had a name: Ryanna. Eric had stayed by her side all the time and eventually Ryanna had moved in with him. He had become her family and ever since they’d been together. She turned a couple of pages and continued to read: “Sometimes I feel that my whole life is a lie. What would Eric say if he knew the truth? Would he think I’m crazy?” Jeanne frowned as she read her grandmother’s words. *What truth is she talking about? Which lies? *. Jeanne kept reading and with every new entry she read she felt as if she had never really known her grandmother. She closed the notebook and laid it down on the couch next to her. All this hiding things, all these doubts…that was not the Ryanna she had known. She had to find out more. She picked up the notebook again and skipped a few pages. “What if all my memories of Middle-Earth are only a product of my imagination, only fairy tales? But if they are only illusions why do I miss them so much: Gandalf, Meruwel, Periaht and…Elrond…All this pain I feel, it can’t be only for something my mind has made up…” And further down: “I don’t know what I would’ve done without Eric, he has become my lifeline.” Middle-Earth? The fairy tales her grandma used to tell her were set in Middle-Earth. What did that mean? Did her grandmother take those tales for reality? Had she been living in a dream for all these years? She sat there reading her grandmother’s memories of another world, wondering how much of that could be true and at the same time surprised about all the things that seemed to find a sense in the light of these writings. Who was the woman for whose loss she had shed that many tears? Just as she was flipping open another notebook to find out more, the light went out. “Not now please,” she said wandering through the dark filled room, trying not to bump into anything that could land crashing on the floor. “Ok, now think Jeanne: where’s the main switch…right, the kitchen!” In the dim light of the flashlight she’d found she got to the switch and flipped it on. A lightning fell not far from the cottage floodlighting the stormy sky for a second. And then it was dark again, rain tapping on the windows of Jeanne’s cottage. The lights were on again. ~ * ~ *~*~ Elrond was walking down the alley leading to his chambers when two elleths almost fell over him. Realising who they’d just bumped into, they started to apologise not daring to lift their eyes to face the Lord of Imladris who silenced them with one hand. “What is it you’re so excited about not to pay attention to your steps?” he asked actually slightly amused. “There is word of a stranger having arrived in Imladris,” said one of the elleths gathering up the courage to face Lord Elrond’s gaze. “Down at the creek,” added the younger one. “Where?” he asked surprised. When he reached the creek there was already a small crowd gathered around the person that had stirred up all this interest. As they recognised the elf lord, they stepped aside. When he sat his eyes upon the young woman’s face lying on the grass, he felt as if he’d been looking at a ghost. “This can’t be…” he murmured to himself. “Jeanne…” called Ryanna from behind Elrond’s shoulders. |
|