Seasons Within Box Set Read online

  Her name was G, or at least that’s what everyone called her. For twelve years she had been living in the Truckee children’s home in Northern California. She had no memory of who she was, where she came from, or how she got there. She only knew that, for some strange reason, she had the same nightmare every night and that no matter what she did, or what she tried, she could never take off her necklace.

  The girl opened her gray eyes and stared at the ceiling as she caressed her silver necklace. Her finger ran over the engraved “G” on the locket over and over again.

  Sometimes it’s dangerous not knowing who you are, what you’re capable of, and what future awaits for you, especially when the darkness that slaughtered your entire family and world is about to find you.

  * * *

  G was still lying on her bed when her worn-out cellphone vibrated. Instead of answering it, she covered her face with her pillow. The noise of the vibration and the light were making her head hurt. As far back as she could remember she had suffered from migraines. When she was little, it was bearable, but the older she got, the stronger the pain became.

  G hugged the pillow and turned around, making her hair slide from the back of her neck.

  For a second time, the phone rang. G picked it up without looking at the caller ID. “Hey, Priy.”

  “Wake up, loser!!!” Priyam screamed.

  G cringed in pain over the loud shriek, wiggled to her other side and peered at the empty bed next to hers. “What are you doing out of bed?”

  “I needed to get your present before your doctor’s appointment.”

  “Priy-” G complained.

  “I know,” Priyam interrupted, “you hate anything related to birthdays, but it so happens that I don’t care.”

  “Whatever.” G remembered the time Priyam crafted a fake driver’s license and drove herself all the way to San Diego just because no one was able to take her to Comic-Con. There was no point in arguing with her. “Still, my doctor’s appointment isn’t until 9.”

  “It’s 8:30,” said Priyam. G felt a rush of anxiety course through her veins, leaving her skin tingling.

  “No, it’s not. I set my alarm for 7.” G covered her head with the blanket to block the sunlight.

  “You mean the one you smashed while I was leaving the room?”

  G quickly looked at her nightstand…nothing. Peeking down to the floor she found it; the alarm clock shattered to pieces. “No! No!”

  Priyam laughed over the phone. “I’ll meet you in front of the coffee place in five minutes.” G hung up and dragged herself to the closet.

  Their room was divided in two. Priyam’s side was full of color, fabrics, Lord of the Rings collectables, Star Wars posters, computers, computer gadgets she used for her hacking and programming side jobs, and Hindu decorations. G’s side had no decorations except for a wooden closet, dozens of pots with different kind of plants, a bunch of books and a huge window next to her bed.

  Outside of the window, surrounded by a fluffy white coat of snow, was the First Tree, only this time it wasn’t in her nightmare. It was alive and full of leaves. Over the years, one of the branches of the First Tree grew through her window, into the wall and across half of the ceiling over G’s bed. It looked like a protective cocoon, giving her side of the room a rustic, whimsical feeling.

  Throwing on her jeans, a t-shirt, and an olive green duffle coat, G left the room and rushed outside.

  Truckee was small, even by small-town standards. Some of its best selling points were the always welcoming town folks and that the town was completely immersed in nature. The place was a mix of houses, roads, and acres of forest. Next to G’s children’s home was one of the forest sections and, right across it, downtown. Being in a hurry, G took the shortcut through the forest.

  A faint crying growl caught G’s attention as she skipped over roots and forest shrubs. She stopped a moment of hesitation, and looked towards the noise.

  From the time she was little, G’d had an extraordinary gift for getting into trouble. When she was eight, she broke her leg after falling from the neighbor’s roof while trying to save a crying baby bird; another time, the orphanage had to be evacuated because G shoved a beehive inside the house to keep the bees warm and out of the freezing snow; and last year, it took two nights for the fireman to find her after she got lost trying to help a wounded coyote find his pack. Stop wandering around! Miss Brown, the manager of the children’s home, used to scream. But as always, G ignored the old lady’s sermon and walked into the forest.

  The cry became louder and louder as she walked. And then the noise was gone. G stopped and closed her eyes to concentrate on finding the noise, but this time she didn’t hear the growling, it was more like…breathing, heavy breathing, and it was coming from something right behind her.

  G slowly turned to face the source of the breathing and found herself a few feet away from a full grown wolf. Damn you, Miss Brown, she thought.

  In a flash, the wolf growled and swung its massive paw towards G. Luckily; she managed to duck before it hit her. Instead, the sharp claws smashed against a tree. Chunks of bark, small tree limbs, and leaves fell on top of her.

  G seized the moment to escape. She bounded back, sprinting as fast as she could away from the wolf. Suddenly, she stopped. Something was wrong… Why isn’t the wolf following me? It couldn’t have been protecting anything because there were no cubs or nothing around them to protect. There had to be another reason.

  G clenched her fists, took a big breath. “Don’t,” she told herself. “Just keep running…” But the pain of leaving a potentially harmed animal was stronger than her fear of the animal itself. Against all common sense, she returned to where the wolf was.

  For the second time, the wolf saw her and growled. This time she didn’t react to it, instead, she walked slowly towards the wolf in order to see what the problem was.

  Clinging to the wolf’s bloodied foot was a metal trap. G’s head pulsed with anger. She couldn’t understand why people would do this to animals.

  Ignoring her pain, she took a step forward. The wolf growled. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said as she reached one of her hands towards the wolf. Without lowering her hand, she kneeled down next to the trap and studied it to open it. She touched the metal, and the wolf moved its leg.

  “Stay still, you stubborn wolf,” said G with a soft voice but the wolf growled louder.

  With delicate movements, she pulled the strings to release the trap. G took hold of the metal and raised its teeth out of the wolf’s leg, then closed it back so it couldn’t happen again.

  Now released, the wolf stretched and turned to face G. She smiled and, out of instinct, lifted her hand towards the animal. To her surprise, the animal pressed his forehead against her palm. Without fear, G slid her hand to the wolf’s head and leaned her forehead against the wolf’s. She felt nothing except the freedom of the animal and herself. She knew it was impossible, but in a way, she felt like the wolf understood her, the same way she understood the animal. The moment was pure perfection, at least until she remembered Priyam was waiting for her.

  “Be careful,” she whispered to the animal and continued on her way.

  G ran across the street, shaking away all the dirt and debris on her clothes and in her hair until she reached Priyam Singh, a seventeen-year-old East Indian with glasses and long black hair, who was staring at her with amusement.

  Priyam took a piece of bark from G’s hair. “What was it this time? Missing cat? Sick dog? Hurt fox?”

  “Trapped wolf,” G said, running her hands all over her messy coat.

  “Wolf…Getting exotic, aren’t you? Chai frappe?” Priyam handed her friend a cup of spiced tea.

  “You’re an angel!” G hugged Priyam and took a sip of her delicious treat as they both walked to the doctor’s office.

  On their way, G rubbed her forehead. A painful expression crossed her face. She squinted her eyes, and her mouth twitched at the sharp pain.


  “How is it today?” asked Priyam. G shook her head. The pain was already killing her, and the wolf trap doubled it. “That bad?”

  “Worse. Not even Bobby helps now.”

  “I still think you need to change that name,” Priyam laughed.

  “What’s wrong with Bobby?” G cradled her chai.

  “It sounds like an uncle with a beer belly, not exactly the name for a tree.”

  “Well, Bobby likes it.” G smiled since this wasn’t the first time Priyam complained about Bobby.

  At age six, after waking up alone in the forest, G was sent to the orphanage. Prospective parents would ask about her background, and when the caretakers told them there wasn’t any information, the smiling couples with their fancy cars and big dreams moved on to safer choices. The way G hid in the corner away from the other children probably didn’t help either. She could still feel the sting of the last time she asked a child to play with her. The little-dimpled girl with curly blonde hair pointed at G’s strange birthmark and stuck out her tongue.

  G had no name, no identity, no family and no friends. She only had herself and the enormous tree that kept getting inside her room no matter what anyone tried to do.

  Every day, G used to cuddle against the First Tree. To everyone else, the First Tree looked like a regular tree, but to G that tree was different. She couldn’t tell how, but the leaves seemed detached from the branches. They floated around the tree creating a breathtaking illusion. It was there, leaning against the tree, where she felt safe, relaxed. She felt like she was home. She used to close her eyes and dream about distant lands with golden trees, singing people and magic. A place where she knew who she was and was loved for it.

  G fantasized that the woman in her dreams was her mother. Since G didn’t have a father figure, in her dreams or real life, when she turned seven she decided to give her tree a male name.

  “Stuart? Or what about John?” she spoke to the tree….Nothing. She’d spent four days trying to pick a name, but none of them felt right. “Bobby,” she whispered… and just then, a subtle breeze hit the top of the tree making a few of its leaves fall on G’s lap. “Bobby it is! Hello, Bobby!”

  “Who are you talking to?” said a pitchy voice.

  G turned around and saw Priyam for the first time. Six-year-old Priyam was quite similar to her current self, except for the uneven ponytails and the thick plastic glasses that covered most of her chocolate brown eyes. Priyam looked at the tree then giggled. “Are you talking to a tree?”

  G nodded shyly. Over her years in the orphanage, G learned that her unusual behavior was considered a problem, especially when making friends. Like the time everyone made fun of her for reading a book to the house dog, or when she tackled one of the neighbor’s kid after he stepped on some flowers. But to her surprise, Priyam didn’t run away. Instead, she smiled.

  “You are weird!” Priyam said as she took out a chocolate cookie from her oversized jumper’s pocket. “I like you.” She extended her hand so G could grab the cookie. “Here, eat it all.”

  G took the cookie and Priyam sat next to her. “My name is Priyam, and my mom and dad are dead.”

  G choked on the cookie. She had never met someone as direct as that little girl.

  “But you also live here so yours might be too, right?” Priyam asked lifting her eyebrow.

  “I don’t know,” said G.

  “Interesting…” Priyam whispered to herself. “And you are?”

  “G”

  Priyam giggled for the second time. “Your name is G?” G nodded and Priyam took her hand to shake it. “Nice to meet you, G.”

  “This is Bobby,” said G.

  “That’s a horrible name.”

  “G!” shouted seventeen-year-old Priyam to snap G out of her trance.

  G shook her head and smiled at her friend. “Sorry, I spaced out.”

  “No kidding.” Priyam stopped walking. “We’re here. Are you ready?”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “No, thanks. Every time I see your doctor it makes me wanna punch him,” Priyam said, grinning ear to ear.

  “Fair enough. See you in fifteen then,” said G opening a big glass door before walking inside the hospital.

  * * *

  Doctor Murie turned off the machine and checked the results. His sky blue eyes read the unusually long paper while his white eyebrows frowned. G slid her sweaty hands across her jeans. She hated how clammy they turned every time she got anxious, or in this case, scared. After coming for check-ups every two months over the last twelve years, G had become an expert on reading his expressions. She was positive this wasn’t going to be a day with good news.

  The blonde nurse helped G to stand up and escorted her to Doctor Murie’s office, “I’m sorry G, there is nothing we can do. The gray mass is covering your entire brain now.” Doctor Murie gave the test results to G so she could see it for herself.

  G understood what she was reading, but she couldn’t understand how the tumor could’ve doubled its size in a few weeks when it took it years to grow a few inches before. “But last month it was only half the size.”

  “It’s growing faster than anything we’ve seen.” Doctor Murie placed his hand on G’s trembling shoulder, “I’m sorry G, there’s no way we can operate now.”

  G felt the room spinning as if she’d just chugged five shots of tequila. “I don’t understand,” she said while holding the results.

  “Neither do we. With that amount of gray space covered you shouldn’t be alive, and yet, you are here with a perfect response from all of your organs and-”

  “-my crappy memory?” interrupted G.

  “You have an outstanding memory; it’s only your childhood you can’t remember.”

  G took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She wasn’t as scared about the results as much as she was bothered by not knowing the reason this was happening. Another unanswered question in her life. G faced Doctor Murie, “What can I do?”

  “There is nothing you can do.” His upper eyelids dropped as he stared directly at his shoes. “We don’t even know what that grey space is…I’m sorry.”

  G left the office and walked outside the hospital where Priyam sat waiting for her. “How did it go?”

  “They don’t know what it is anymore.”

  Priyam scoffed, “Anymore? G, they’ve never known what it is. It literally took them twelve years to get to the same conclusion they had in the beginning.”

  G said nothing. Her friend was right. “You seem worried.”

  “I am.”

  Priyam patted G, “Don’t be.”

  “But the doctor said there’s nothing he can do now.”

  “I honestly think your doctor is an idiot.”

  “You think everyone is an idiot,” G pointed out feeling her shoulders relax.

  “True, but your doctor takes the cake.” Priyam grinned to calm her friend down. “Trust me; you are perfectly fine. Besides the migraines and the fact that you can’t flirt to save your life, everything about you is in perfect condition.”

  G gave Priyam a friendly nudge. “Geez, thanks.”

  Priyam opened her bag and began rifling through it. “Don’t thank me, until you see your precious little gift.”

  “Priy, how many times have I told you, today is not my birthday,” G complained. Priyam ignored her and took out a small box wrapped in crumpled newspaper, taped with a dozen kids’ Band-Aids.

  “Well maybe it’s not, but your brain can’t remember when it is, so this is better than nothing.”

  G took the gift and opened it to reveal a pair of gold aviator sunglasses that had a small moon connecting the rims to the sunglasses’ temples. G was extremely happy causing Priyam to smile at her achievement. “You’ve been whining about how the light affects your migraines, so I took it as a hint.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “I can take them back,” suggested Priyam.

  “No! I love them. Thank you,” G said as she t
ried them on. “How do I look?”

  “Classy!” Church bells range in the distance. Priyam checked the time. “Ready for school?”

  “Am I ever?”

  * * *

  Once inside the Truckee High school grounds, G leaned her bag against her locker and searched for her medication so she could take the sunglasses off without feeling the excruciating pain the light caused her. She placed the sunglasses on their case and took out a bottle of water from her locker. While opening the bottle, G thought again about the doctor’s appointment. She knew Priyam was right about her being healthy since she could still function and her life could be called normal to some extent.

  “Oh no… not this early,” whined Priyam.

  G turned around and looked at Synthia Kearney, an eighteen-year-old whose face already looked older than a college senior and dressed in clothes two sizes too small. Synthia was barely 4’8” tall, but her eight-inch clear high platform heels elevated her to be a few inches taller than G. Whether it was pouring rain or the streets were covered by ten feet of snow, it was always a hot summer when it came to Synthia’s clothing options. Like a pair of obnoxious lap dogs, Alma-Loo and Diana followed Synthia everywhere. Two brunette wannabes with a little more sense of the weather changes.

  “Hangover on a Wednesday?” giggled Synthia. “Oh, sorry,” she said flicking her plastic, platinum blonde extensions with the back of her hand. “I forgot you don’t have friends to go out with.” Synthia and her two minions giggled in a high pitch tone.

  G ignored Synthia and proceeded with taking her medicine, but Priyam couldn’t let this moment pass. “She does have friends, but they all left in search of the rest of your skirt.”