Who You Really Are

PAGE 5

“I really don’t want to do this.” Jade was standing next to the sinkhole, taking deep breaths.

“Sigh,” muttered Ivetta. “And I can’t even push you in if you back out at the last minute.”

Jade turned to her, confused. “But you grabbed that buzzard. Can’t you push and grab me?”

“No, I can only move around animals. Not objects, not people. Animals. Super annoying if you ask me,” Irvetta replied, looking bored.

Jade nodded, took a deep breath and jumped into the sinkhole. Within seconds of jumping, she landed softly on a forest floor with the sunlight filtering through the trees. Irvetta appeared moments later looking sour and bored.

Jade got to her feet and looked around at her surroundings. Evergreen trees created a canopy overhead. Sunshine shone through the leaves, lighting the forest in fragments and making it look like they were inside an emerald. A shiny, green beetle flew in front of her and she started backwards, passing right through Irvetta. She suddenly felt like she’d taken an ice bath and wanted to get back to the sunshine.

As Jade looked around, she noticed a certain flower high up in one of the trees looked unnaturally shiny, like a beetle the same colour pink had flown inside or … “The ring!” she cried, pointing up to where she could only just see the rim of gold peeking out. She had to get up there before a bird saw it and claimed the ring for its own.

“I’m going to climb the tree,” she said to Irvetta. “Can you mind my bag? Don’t leave it.” She placed the bag next to Irvetta on the tree stump that the ghost was sitting on.

“Sure, whatever,” Irvetta replied and continued to gaze around at the colourful birds-of-paradise flitting by. By the time Irvetta turned to watch Jade, she was already halfway up the tree.

From her vantage point up near the top of the tree, Jade could see where the door to the next location was, set into a tree not far from where Irvetta was watching her get the ring. The flower was right at her eye level now and she snatched it up quickly before placing it in her pocket. When she looked down, she saw Irvetta was gone and she had left Jade’s bag out in the open, where anyone could get it.

“What was that?” Jade spat at Irvetta, as she landed with a thump back on the ground.

“What was what?” Irvetta asked, clearly annoyed.

“You just left my bag where anyone could take it!” Jade snatched her bag up off the stump, dropped the ring in and flung the bag over her shoulder.

“Oh what, you’re the boss of me now? Is that so?

“Don’t you start, Irvetta! You could have just sat there patiently while I came down but noooo, you just had to go off and leave my bag alone, didn’t you?”

Suddenly, Irvetta exploded. “You are a horrible girl! You don’t care about anyone else, do you? I can’t believe I was so foolish as to come along with you! I could have stayed away from you and you would have figured it out, wouldn’t you. I’m sick of you bossing me around!” And with that, Irvetta vanished in a swirl of leaves and smoke.

“No!” Jade screamed and lunged at the spot where Irvetta had been, but she knew that even if the ghost had still been there, she would have passed right through her. She sank to the ground. She refused to let the tears fall; she refused to miss the person who had been so unhelpful throughout her mission so far. But thundering through her mind were all the times Irvetta had helped her, all the times her comments had made her want to burst out laughing even though they weren’t very helpful.

I don’t know how to get out of here, Jade realised. She glanced at the door. Still there. But don’t I need Irvetta to help me find the rings?

She had found this ring all by herself, and the last one. She’d only needed Irvetta to explain what it was that she was finding.

But she helped me get the one in the desert. What if these next ones are like that?

She pushed all thoughts to the back of her mind and pushed the door in the tree open into the next landscape.