The Mirror Fifth Edition | Page 40

her. Eliana squinted, for streaks of sunlight flickered through the cracks in the looming plants ahead of her. She took three cautious steps and stretched out her hand to slide through the wall. She slithered through, pushing leaves and branches away as to not hurt her face or eyes. Five steps later, she emerged from the skyscraping plants. Her eyes latched onto a wondrously, peaceful sight. Eliana tiptoed out into the short grass of a gigantic field. The meadow was aflame in fading autumn green grass and lacked any sort of fencing. All Eliana saw was wide-open space: no cows, no barbed wire fences and most importantly, no people. The field was utterly empty, not a soul anywhere. Eliana was purely and completely alone, but she didn’t mind, for she gazed at the beauty in amazement. How wonderful is this? She thought to herself, her jaw ajar and her eyes as wide as Kentucky. Eliana absorbed it all, but paused, for she spotted something rather magnificent in the middle of the meadow: a giant, monstrous weeping willow, but Eliana was not fearful, no, for the tree was the most exuberating thing she had seen all day. And without a second to waste, Eliana took off toward the tree, leaping into the grass like an antelope. The grass tickled and flicked around her ankles, but she ignored the itch. Finally, she arrived at the willow tree and examined it from trunk to root. The trunk was several feet around with moss littering it and tiny black ants scampering up and down in the cracks of the bark. Leafy arms sprinkled down from the thick branches in hundreds and Eliana ran her fingers through the soft leaves. How extraordinary! 40