Caffeine and Magix

sThe sun is hot on her shoulders, warm rocks beneath her feet and a crisp breeze in her hair. In a few hours it will be too hot to stand here with bare feet and the wind will have dissolved until the chill permeates the air as the sun disappears.

She will not be here in a few hours.

Her eyes scan the valley below. She’s more than halfway down the mountain, close enough now to hear the burbling of the river that winds through the woods and into the plains. Black spots from high up have burst into cattle further down, the small herd grazing and drinking with easy grace. 

The turn of the seasons hasn’t quite caught them out here–the grass is a deep green, lightened with yellow, red, and orange clusters of flowers. The creep of fall, however, is apparent in the woods. The trees–birches–are yellow, their trunks sinking into a white blur in the face of the vivid color. Detritus litters the forest floor, a thick blanket that obscure her path.

That’s alright. She always knows her path here.

The stone path is smooth ahead of her, gently winding like the river below. It is never steeper than she can manage, never too smooth or too rough for the comort of her feet, nothing but warm beneath her. The further she walks, one switchback after another, the more flowers appear on either side. Bouquets of red, orange, and yellow. Fire colors.

Her first step onto the grass makes her stop, eyes fluttering shut as she takes in this new sensation after so long walking. The grass is cool, soft, and each blade gently tickles the sole of her foot before her weight bends the tips away. She can feel water in the dark soil, a pleasant chill and and pleasant sensation. The ground is rich and full here, the smell of it apparent now that she’s in the valley.

She takes her next step and her next, eyes still closed. The sun is warm on the crown of her head and she imagines its light sinking down through her spine, through her pelvis to her femurs and her tibia and all the way through her feet where the cool earth greets it.

She opens her eyes just as a breeze rolls through the grass, sending wave after wave of shining light over the field, filling her ears with the soft whisper of movement. The flowers flicker in and out of sight amidst the green, the cows comforting ships in the sea.

She keeps walking.

The river blooms ahead of her, crystal clear water rippling and dancing. The water is cold from the mountains and she takes a moment to stoop, planting one knee in the chilled clay on the blank. Her hand pushes into the shallows, paler than the moon with the aid of the water and already shining with the power the river holds. She imagines she can feel it all connect–the earth to the water to the sun above her.

She drinks from the palm of her hand, the cool of it shocking against her warm lips and  more than welcome sliding down her parched throat. When she has had her fill, she stands, nodding to the swirl and rush of the water. It had been what she needed when she needed it, just as everything her had been and will be.

It does not mean she does not owe it her thanks.

She steps to the flat rock closest to her, watching as the grey stone divides the rush and pull of the water. The next is slate, the third granite, the fourth basalt, the fifth quartz. They thrum as she uses them to cross the river, each charged and content under the sun.

She jumps lightly to the opposite bank, disturbing the cattails that grow thick there and continues to the woods.

There is only what there is amidst the white, peeling trunks of the birches. She will never need it to be anything more.