The Chronicles of Verspania

10 years passed but Iris still longed for her Mother to come home. She didn't came how long she'd been gone she just wished for someone to hold her the way only a mother can.

Iris Abebe sat on a gate with a half eaten ham sandwich in her hands and glared at a persistent pigeon before her. It cooed and edged closer. “What are you looking at?” Iris jutted her leg out, determined to win the battle against the pigeon. She pulled some cream crackers from her dark green farmers jacket and broke them up then littered them on the ground. The pigeon might have won this battle but she would win the war. She jumped off of the gate and shoved the rest of her lunch into her mouth and set off across the meadow, picking up the odd flower to add to the bouquet squished in her hands. Her journey reached a crossroad, one heading into the woods, the long way home, the other heading down a beaten muddy track, the short way home. Iris thought back to her father saying that the Twins, Maya and Toby, were making cake later. She decided that she didn’t want to be around when that disaster was happening and so took the long way.

Iris entered the familiar woods. She had grown up underneath these trees, playing imaginary games with her father and hide and seek with the twins. She knew each and every corner of these sun kissed woods. Every bunny and each bluebell and each blackberry thicket. She watched as the blackbirds and robins fluttered from tree to tree and wondered what it would feel like to be that carefree and to be up that high. She stumbled cautiously further into the woods and suddenly Iris realised she was in a part of the woods she didn’t recognise. The trees were a lot taller and they had purple wood and dark green moss covering them almost completely. The forest floor was covered in vines that ran from tree to tree and animal burrows were scattered near the bottoms of the trees.

“Hello? Who are you?” A voice called from behind Iris. She jumped round quickly with goosebumps on her skin. A woman she had never met before stood dangerously close to her. She had warm, brown skin and a wide smile plastered on her face. She looked like she was in her thirties but already had several grey streaks through her hair. The woman wore a long Edwardian summer dress and had a woollen shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her long dark hair was tied in a low bun at the back of her head and a strange ghostly glow shone around her. You wouldn’t have noticed from far away but her face just seemed too perfect. She was unnatural. She seemed absent from the conversation, like she was half asleep “You must stay for tea,” She said, “I have some gorgeous cakes and crumbles you’d love!” Iris was baffled but decided that it was rude to not accept the woman’s kind offer.

The woman turned sharply on her heels so that the bottom of her dress flew up, exposing her 60’s gogo boots, and led Iris into a clearing. It had bluebells at the edges and a cottage and a pond in the centre. It had a washing line of unusual clothes outside and a pond with strange birds that she couldn’t name, bathing with ducks and several swans. The cottage had a thatched roof and a baby pink door and windows decorating the walls. A huge cherry blossom tree and an ornate bench overlooked the pond and petals danced across the water. The smell of freshly baked bread, honeydew and lavender seemed to waft from the cottage. It was intoxicating, Iris never wanted to leave.

“If you’d just follow me” She said, the woman almost floated when she walked. She waltzed through the house dancing to a tune in her head. The inside of the house was covered in house plants and pastel coloured clocks all ticking at random times. Stacks, half a meter tall, of cakes, cookies and crumbles, all in tiny bright bowls, half-eaten and balanced on tables. Bookshelves, full to the brim crowded the walls. A small sage-green aga sat in the kitchen with delicious fumes spilling out. She put two slices of chocolate cake topped with pink buttercream on some plates and we sat down on the bench by the pond. The morning glow still hung around and lit up the pond, giving it an angelic glow.

“You must have questions. Why don’t we take turns answering them?”

“Who are you?” Iris asked.

“Well, I am the one who keeps this world running on time and the woman, who the ones up there,” She pointed angrily to the sky, “hate. But that’s a story for another time. Who are you?”

She was serious as her expression turned to steel. The woman looked at her cautiously, almost like she was scared. What she was scared of, Iris didn’t know.

“My name is Iris and I live on the farm east of here”

She looked down towards the pond, watching the birds swim up and down.

“Thank you for coming with me Iris. I haven’t had company in eons, they've been ignoring me up there. No one’s been to see me in centuries, you know. I’m getting a bit lonely down here.”

“What do you mean by centuries? And who are you?” Iris said, getting more and more confused by the second.

The woman’s gaze was focused on the pond and her cake was half finished. A single tear rolled down her cheek and she kept her eyes down.

“It's a long story, Iris.” She said, wistfully, “My name is Time.”

They sat in silence for a while letting their thoughts wander across the pond as Iris clutched Time’s hand tight. She wondered about how long she’d been alone and how she’d ended up here and overall who she really was. Iris felt for this random woman, who with no friends and with no one but the trees to talk to, it was no wonder she had turned out a bit coo-coo. Time looked vacant and she hadn’t touched a single crumb of her cake yet. She looked deep in thought.

“Would you like me to visit you? To stop you getting lonely, I mean” Iris said, thinking about how she would hate to be in Time’s situation. She didn’t care that she was a bit odd or that she knew nothing about her. She had to help. Time didn’t look at her, in fact she never moved her gaze from the ground. But she reached out her hand and squeezed Iris’ hand tight. Time’s hands were rough and coarse and her nails were bitten harshly.

“I enjoyed meeting you, Time, and I’ll do my best to be your friend too.” Iris gave her a small wave and made her way over to the gate, closing it behind her. The woods were full of life on her way home. She could hear the woodpeckers and the bird song. She could see the squirrels darting up the trees and the sunlight shattering through the trees. Iris wondered if she’d made the right choice by being Time’s friend seeing that it was almost like she had popped up in the middle of nowhere. It struck her as odd that throughout all her years in these familiar woods, she had never seen Time's friendly face before.