Family Saga

The first door Melissa came to had signs all over it; Keep Out, Turn Around, No Mothers, and many more. She opened the door to a room that should have been a bedroom but it was not one by any means. The room had no bed in it.

Many years ago, it did have a bed but the owner of the room destroyed the bed. Not telling anyone. That was until Melissa and Keith happened to see the bed was gone.

Melissa slowly opened the door. The smell of the rotten food hit her fast. She had tried many times to find where it came from but she had no luck. She did know why.

The floor was covered with rocks. This was why she had the wooden boots on. Also for traps. Some years ago, Melissa saw a grass spot in the rocks. the grass spot was large and the right size for one of her feet. She knew best not to step on the spot but to use a broom handle instead. It went off fast, a bear trap was hidden under the grass.

There were many more traps in the room. The clothes on the floor had unknown traps. She never did try to learn the type.

The walls were different. One had wooden swords, axes, knives, and much more. Another was full of pictures of different kinds of creatures. The wall by the door did have a bookshelf full of books. They were of one type of creature that once lived on the planet.

The last wall had an opened window. It was not a normal size one but was a foot higher than the floor and went to the ceiling. It was eight feet wide.

The reason was one that scared Melissa a lot. The window was for the owner of the room to jump out and into the room. Through the window, sleeping away on a tree branch was her ten-year-old daughter, Sandra.

Five years ago, for some odd reason Melissa felt like checking on her kids. It was very late. When she opened Sandra’s bedroom door, she saw the window opened. It was smaller back then and she thought nothing of it.

Melissa did not turn the bedroom light on but used the hallway light to see in the bedroom. She slowly walked over to the bed and saw no Sandra. Her mind thought the worst. Sandra was kidnapped. Why else was the window opened.

Melissa yelled out, “Keith!!! Sandra is gone!”

Through the window Sandra called out half asleep, “I am not gone. I’m trying to sleep.”

This truly worried Melissa, because they were on the second floor. The only thing outside was a tree. She moved fast to the window. There she saw Sandra laying on a tree branch. The tree branch was about five feet away.

“Sandra don’t more. I’ll find a way to save you.”

At that moment, Keith ran into the bedroom.

“Did you find Sandra yet?”

“Yes, Keith,” answered Melissa. “She is sleeping on the tree branch outside.”

Keith ran to look and said, “How did she get out there and on the branch?”

Sandra turned over slowly to face her parents. This frightened both. They were sure she would have fallen off. Luckily, she did not. It was not that wide of a branch. Just strong enough to hold her.

With her eyes still closed, she said, “I jumped from the window. It was very easy.”

“Don’t move, Sandra. I’ll get the ladder and get you down.”

“Go fast, Keith. Save our daughter.”

“I will.”

As Keith took off out of the bedroom, Sandra said, “For crying out loud I’ll just come back in.”

Without being worried, Sandra stood up on the tree branch. It seemed so easy for her.

Melissa looked back out of the window at Sandra, “Sandra don’t move. Your father is going to get the ladder to get you down. How did you even get up there?”

“It was easy. I’m being like the troll hunters in my books.”

Melissa took a deep breath to be careful of what to say.

“You are not a troll hunter. You are a normal girl. A human girl."

“I’m not normal, mother,” and she smiled like she knew something.

Without another word, Sandra smiled and lowered her head to look at Melissa. “This won’t be a problem.” She leaned down to get in a good jumping start and then jumped off the tree branch towards the window.

Melissa did what any mother would do. She moved fast to lean out of the window. As far as she could. She did not want her daughter to get hurt or worst.

This was something Sandra had hoped for and she did plan for. Because she had been sleeping on the tree branch for some nights now. She knew she would have made it easily, but she wanted her mother to be scared.

Sandra jumped right into Melissa’s arms. In doing so, she did make Melissa start to fall out of the window. Luckily Melissa did bend her legs ageist the wall. She pulled Sandra right into the bedroom.

As the days passed by, Sandra kept on sleeping on the tree branch. They did try to stop her, but she always found ways to sleep on the tree branch.

As Melissa saw Sandra sleeping away, she knew what was about to happen.

“It’s time to get up, Sandra.”

Sandra just learned up to look at Melissa, the night sky, and answered, “It’s too early.” Then she laid back down.

“You get out of that tree now or I will have your father cut it down today.”

“He won’t cut this tree down,” answered Sandra as she turned her back to her mother.

“Do as your mother says, Sandra,” Keith called out from the ground below.

They both looked down at Keith with a smile on their faces but for very different reasons.

As Keith opened the greenhouse door, Sandra stood up as she saw her father enter the greenhouse. She had pants on with rips throughout them. Her hair was black and went straight up. They made different points as they went up. She lowered her chin still smiling to look at her mother.

Melissa knew what to do next, because she did get hurt at times for not doing it. She watched her steps to move fast away from the window.

With an uncaring voice, Sandra said, “Move out of the way mother.”

With that said to be nice for her father, Sandra just jumped. She did not give Melissa time to move. But at least she had already moved out of the way.

It had become easier for Sandra to make the jump in her room. She was even able to land on her two feet with ease.

“I missed,” said Sandra still smiling after she landed looking right at her mother.

“Maybe you will get lucky next time,” replied Melissa as she started out of the room.

“Yes, maybe next time I won’t miss,” and River took two small wooden knives out of her back packet.

As Keith had opened the green house door, the smell of fresh flowers hit him. He did not enter to pick flowers or to water them, but another reason.

He walked past dozens of kinds of flowers. Then he saw two flowers as tall as he was. They had blue stems with white leaves. One had a bright yellow flower and the other was white. This type of flower was known as skylight. Because only one in a hundred would be yellow. When seen in groups, they looked like the sky from overhead. Groups of five to ten would be white. At least eighty or more would be blue.

Sleeping away next to the skylight was a young boy. He was sleeping on the ground. He was twelve, with dirt stains on his clothes, and no shoes on.

The boy did have his own bedroom, but it was made into a garden. There was no bed in the room. It had rolls of plants. One he and his family could eat. The walls had pictures of flowers. There was a bookshelf full of books.

Keith looked down at his son. It had been seven years since the son slept in the house. It did not matter what the weather was.

“It’s time to get up, Alexander,” said Keith in a low voice.

As Alexander started to open his eyes, he stretched his body without hitting his flowers. “Don’t the flowers smell good.”

“Yes, they do.”

As Melissa walked down the hallway, she took a deep breath to be ready to wake her last child up. The bedroom door had no signs on it. She did worry her last child would not be laying in the bed sleeping, but maybe on the rooftop.

It was a year ago when she first entered her child’s bedroom and saw them missing. They had to call the police to help them find the child. It was hours later when the child called for Melissa from the rooftop.

Both Melissa and Keith were scared and worried. They had no clue how he got up there. Or even how he did not fall to the ground. The child just kept going onto the rooftop every so often.

As Melissa opened the bedroom door, she could smell a candle as it burned. It smelled like a rainy night. The room was clean with everything in its place.

The only odd thing was with the bed. Not the bed itself, but where it was. The bed was facing the window. So, the young boy could look outside with ease. He would watch as it stormed or was a nice night. He did not care.

The walls had pictures of the sky, cloudy skies, stormy skies, cloudless nights skies, and more. There was a bookshelf full of books.

Melissa walked up to the bed and saw her six-year-old son fast asleep. He had short blond hair.

“T.K., it’s time to get up,” said Melissa softly.

T.K. opened his eyes and replied in a low voice, “Hello, mommy. What time is it?”

“It’s three a.m. Do you want something to eat before we leave?”

“No, I would like to sleep some more.”

“You can on the couch until we leave.”

With that said and a smile, Melissa walked out of the bedroom.

In the hallway, Melissa saw Sandra as she walked out of her room. She had the same clothes she slept in on. They were the same ones she had on the day before.

“Sandra, go put some clean clothes on.”

“These are clean.”

“No, they are not. Now do as I say.”

With a creepy smile, Sandra walked back into her room.

With no care of what was being said, Alexander walked pass Melissa.

“I’m going to be making something for breakfast, if anyone wants some,” said Melissa.

“I will just eat grapefruit,” replied Alexander.

“I’ll eat an uncooked rabbit,” said Sandra as she opened her door.

She still had the same clothes on. Sandra made sure to open her door all the way. That way Melissa was able to see all of Sandra’s clothes on the floor covered with dirt all over them.

“You will eat what I make you, Sandra. It will be cooked. Also, you will be washing those clothes by hand when we come back.”