Chapter Four... A Secret Just For Me

AWC woke up this fine morning in her peace-pagoda in the middle of Heavenly Forest. It was only the previous day that the narrator had bothered to tell her the forest's name. The narrator was going to tell her sooner, but hey, narrators need lives too.

AWC: get on with it.

Narrator: sorry.

So anyway, AWC pushed her hair back and realized that she had regular ears again. Good-bye rabbit ears. She couldn't decide if she was pleased or sorry for it. She sincerely hoped that today she would not have any other random deformity, but there was no quick way to check, because in order for a pagoda to be peaceful, it is necessary to not have any mirrors.

She rose to her feet (which were and are always bare here), and wandered across the wood floors. Zen pagodas can't have carpeting either, it interferes with the zen. You have no idea how much bad energy gets trapped in carpet fibres. One wall of the one-story pagoda was not much more than a doorframe, without a door. In this way, AWC's inner mind space was connected to her emotionally influencable outer mind, which was the forest. This could get inconvenient because when it snows in the forest, the mind gets awfully cold, and AWC doesn't even have enough mental capacity to stow a coat or hat or anything.

It wasn't snowing today. The sun was shining through the leaves, speckling the trees with bright little spots of light.

She approached the doorframe, exited, and stood on the doorstep. The doorstep had a little brown mat for brushing snow off the boots she never wore. In fuzzy black letters it wrote "YOU ARE MOST CERTAINLY NOT WELCOME. LEAVE AT ONCE. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT APPLY TO JESUS"

By now she was accustomed to the nonwelcoming welcome mat. What she was not used to was the tiny white gift box that sat on it. It was a perfect cube, wrapped in thin white paper, and tied with a gold ribbon. There was a gift tag attached to it.

To: AWC
A secret just for you. To be yours always, to share with whom you will.
Love always,
Love.

"It seems someone wants me to have this," AWC said to herself, lifting the box up and tucking it into one of the super huge sleeves of the kimono she realized she was wearing. "What do you know? A secret just for me..."

No sooner had she tucked it away than immediately she was faced with Loretta the dragon lady, Paolo the foreigner, Mary-Anne the Maneater, Suzumebachi the suzumebachi, and Shadow the wolf who thinks he's an owl.

"We heard you recieved a secret by owl post today," Loretta said happily, while snorting small puffs of cinnamonny smoke out her nose. She was a pretty dragon because she was a dark shade of violet. Some dragons are just green.

Out of a nearby tree, AWC's snowy owl, Florence, flew down and landed on her shoulder, talons extended. "That she did," Florence said haughtily, closing his eyes and looking very pleased with himself. "I always bring all her packages safely. This one's from Love Himself. It's meant just for her, too."

"Just for her?" Shadow snorted through his wolfish snout. Which was strange of him because owls don't snort so there was little reason why he should've thought he would be able to. "Why would she want it all to herself?"

AWC looked back at the pagoda. Through the wide doorway she could see all of the things she kept there only for herself. All she could see was a shoebox full of embarassments she was to ashamed to share.

"Well," AWC frowned and gazed down at the little box, "I do want this one, I think."

"You don't want to share any bit of it with us?" Paolo asked. He sounded disappointed.

"I share everything with all of you," AWC said. She felt bad. She didn't want to let her friends down. She knew this was her secret, and all the other small secrets she had already told some or all of these friends. Just when she thought she had emptied her heart on the table, Love gave her this little unopened box, with the thin white paper and the silky golden ribbon. A secret.

The suzumebachi gave up immediately and flew away with her stuffed bunny.

The foreigner, the dragon lady, and the maneater all left afterwards, all certain that they would find out soon enough.

All that was left was Shadow. "So you're not going to share it at all. Not one little bit. Not even if I can help?" He asked.

"No I can't," AWC said with a sigh. "I hope that's ok."

"No it's not at all!" Shadow protested, "In fact, it's downright..."
But he got a buzz on his cell phone and had to answer. He was distracted enough by this interruption to completely forget about the secret he was badgering for, and after he had done chatting, he looked at AWC, confused. "Do you remember why I'm here?" He asked.

"Not at all," AWC answered.

"Oh. Well, just in case I haven't already told you, you've got a horn growing out straight from the center of your forehead." He nodded goodbye, turned, and left.

AWC reached out a hand and tried to rub her forehead. Sure enough, straight in the center, was a long horn, like that of a unicorn or narwhal.

She sighed again. "No more Peter S. Beagle for me," she chided herself. She retreated back into the pagoda, where there was a small coffee table that hadn't been there before. It also had a tag.

"To put your secret on. and your coffee mug. Love always, Love. P.S. Give Florence a nice treat, will you? It took him forever to carry this thing to your pagoda all the way from Higher Power Inc."

AWC blinked.
Blinked.
Blinked.
Closed her eyes.
Sat on the floor.
Opened her eyes.
Blinked.
Blinked.
Closed her eyes, just for a second.
Slept.

The little white box fell from her sleeve and landed gracefully in her palm. It was warm and glowwy.