"Mom," I said, breathing hard. "You know Maya's mother? How?"
"Yes, I know her," she replied calmly. "We're old friends. It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
"Yes," Maya's mother said, smiling. "Several years."
Maya and I stood frozen in the doorway, both of us shocked, both trying to make sense of it. Then my mother took us by the shoulders and steered us inside.
"How long have you two been standing outside?" she asked.
Neither of us had an answer.
That night, our house was full of laughter and food and noise. It was a party, a celebration of a reunion between two friends who hadn't seen each other in years. My father brought out the good dishes. Maya's mother helped in the kitchen as if she had never left it. And Maya and I sat side by side at the end of the table, glancing at each other whenever the adults weren't looking, both of us thinking the same thing.
Our mothers knew each other. Did that mean the rings were no accident?
Under the table, I turned my ring with my thumb. Maya noticed. She said nothing, but she turned hers too.
Later, when the plates had been cleared and the adults had drifted into their own stories, I caught my mother watching us from across the room. She wasn't smiling like the others. She was looking at the two of us, and at our hands, with an expression I couldn't read.
Then Maya's mother touched her arm, and my mother looked away, and the moment was gone.
I didn't ask about it. I was five years old, and it had been a very long day.
But I remembered it.
Days passed, and our friendship grew stronger. Tales of our adventures spread across the kingdom. Here is one of them.
It was early morning when we went fishing at the river outside the kingdom. As kids, we tried to catch a single fish, and after a two-hour battle between us and the fish, we finally caught one. It was a small one, but we were proud of it. We put it in the pot, and that was when we noticed a strange cat watching us from behind.
What happened next took less than a minute. But I remember every second of it.
One second. We looked away from the pot, only for a moment, to argue about who would carry it home.
Two seconds. A flash of fur. The pot was empty.
Three seconds. "My fish!" Maya screamed.
Four seconds. The cat was already running toward the kingdom, our two-hour battle hanging from its mouth.
Five seconds. We were running too.
Ten seconds. The river was far behind us. The gate was ahead, and so were the two guards.
Eleven seconds. The cat slipped past them so smoothly that neither guard noticed.
Twelve seconds. We did not slip past. They saw two kids sprinting in from the wild, screaming, straight toward the gate.
Thirteen seconds. "Monster!" one of them shouted. The emergency alarm rang. Weapons rose, aimed at whatever they thought was chasing us.
Fourteen seconds. We just smiled and ran straight through them.
Fifteen seconds. Behind us, the guards turned around, searching the empty road for a monster.
Sixteen seconds. There was no monster. There was only a cat's tail disappearing into the trading area, and two kids following it.
Seventeen seconds. A fruit stall. Apples everywhere.
Eighteen seconds. A fabric stand. We went straight through the cloth, and it went with us.
Nineteen seconds. Behind us, whistles. The guards had worked it out, and now they were chasing us too.
Twenty seconds. The cat leapt onto a rooftop.
Twenty-one seconds. We climbed after it. Maya's hand was almost on its tail.
Twenty-two seconds. Almost.
Twenty-three seconds. The guards appeared in front of us, with very stern faces.
Twenty-four seconds. The cat turned left. We turned left with it and called back, grinning, "Thank youuuu!"
Twenty-five seconds. The cat dropped from the roof. So did we.
Twenty-six seconds. We caught it.
Twenty-seven seconds. We looked up. We had caught it right in front of my mom.
We stepped back, smiling nervously. Maya's mom was standing behind us, with a deadly smile.
It was the longest second of my life.
Another day, we decided to go to the forest, because we had heard so many stories about a certain flower. Some people said it was not real. Others said it showed the future, or the past, or someone's dreams, and so on.
We were finally ready to explore the forest. I had taken an adventurer's gear set from my father's workshop, one he had made as a test piece, and I had taken it without telling anyone.
They called it the Miracle Forest. It tested the fire in an adventurer's spirit, and those who passed received a reward equal to their feat. But I had heard something else too, something the older kids only whispered after dark: the forest itself was alive. It had a consciousness of its own.
It watched.
The path inside was beautiful, and that was the first wrong thing about it. Flowers and butterflies lined every step, and a lovely music drifted through the trees, guiding us deeper. But there were no birds. No insects. No wind. Only the music, which never paused, not even to breathe.
The butterflies drifted in the same direction we walked, always one step ahead of us, as if they were leading us somewhere.
Maya's hand found mine. Neither of us said a word.
Once, I felt something touch the back of my neck, like a stare. I turned around. The path behind us looked narrower than it had a moment ago.
I didn't mention it.
At last, the music led us to a huge tree known as the Legend Tree. Its roots spread across the ground like fingers, and around it lay a garden of wonderful flowers of every kind. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. I will never forget that moment, one in a million. I have also never been so afraid of something so beautiful.
Like a rune, a pair of twin flowers bloomed in the middle of the garden, under the tree.
Every other flower in the garden turned toward them. There was no wind.
We both noticed the twin flowers at the same time, and without knowing why, we ran to see them. An inner feeling told me to touch them, and without a second thought, we touched them.
A loud noise came from nowhere, echoing inside my mind.
"Help me... let's try again... this is our last wish... maybe..."
"Mmmmm..."
Then came a cracking sound, as if space itself were cracking and crushing, bending into itself. The garden bent with it. The light bent. I felt my own body being folded.
We blacked out from the sudden change and the overwhelming sensation.
When we woke up, the music was gone. The butterflies were gone. All that remained was a rustling in the grass, and half conscious, we saw slimes pouring out of it. They were not fleeing from us. They were fleeing past us.
Something large was breathing behind them.
A red tiger stepped out of the tall grass, furious, its eyes fixed on us. Its growl came up through the ground and into my legs. We tried to move forward, to escape, but our legs would not obey us. The oversized gear clinked uselessly with every shaking breath.
And then, by the grace of the gods, we met adventurers.
Fire and ice tore across the clearing. They faced the tiger in a five-minute battle, five minutes that felt like an hour, and finally they saved us. Then, with angry faces, they scolded us.
We said "Thank you!" at the same time, and with smiles on our faces, we ran off.
Behind us, the forest was quiet again. I did not look back, but I felt it, the way you feel a gaze.
With another experience and another secret, our friendship grew stronger and stronger.
Next: Chapter 5 — Flames of the Spirit