Cats in the Cradle - Chapter two

“This is humiliating!”

“Honey, it's not that ba-”

“Don't look at me!” I wailed, covering my face with my hands. Just this morning I had loaded my little brothers into the backseat of my car and drove all the way from Stockholm to Copenhagen, and now I was sitting on the couch at my uncles' house stuck in the body of my four-year-old self while everyone remained clueless on what to do.

In the immediate aftermath of my sudden age reduction there was phone call to Romania asking if he had any idea on what to do (and of course, he didn't answer) while I attempted to kick Arthur in the knees, Mathias coming in and grabbing me before I could actually do any actual damage. Nobody knew what to do, and Arthur didn't even know how he cast the spell. Two hours of me screaming at the top of my lungs and frantic searching, my parents arrived, assessed the situation, and now I'm sitting on the couch, a fuming total of three feet in height.

“Well, until we can figure out what even happened, it looks like you're going to be stuck like this for a while.” Lukas said as he hung up the phone after finally getting through to Romania. “Until then, we can just hope that it will eventually wear off.”

“I can't wait that long, I have work to get done! I'm an adult for Christ's sake!” I cried, uncovering my face.

“This will take some getting used to, kiddo, but we'll pull through.” My dad said, sitting down and putting his hand on my head like he used to do back when I actually was a child. “How hard could it be?”

“Very hard! I can't drive, won't be able to go anywhere on my own...shit, will I even be able to take my sleeping pills?” I wailed, recovering my face with my tiny hands that only frustrated me even more. I had been dealing with insomnia since the mid-eighteenth century, and medication was the only way I could ever sleep without jerking awake at the smallest noises every hour.

“She has a point,” Berwald said quietly, as usual. “There's goin' to be a few major changes needed now.”

“No more sleeping medication, no more driving...Can I still drink at least?” I asked in desperation, looking up at my dad, an angle that I hadn't used for years. When I finally hit my growth spurt in the 1950s, I went from being small for my age to suddenly taller than him. Now I was back to looking up at pretty much everyone, and I didn't like it one bit.

“No, you can't. Sorry.”

“...someone kill me!” I whined, toppling off of the couch and landing flat on my face.

“Don't be such a drama queen, Kirsikka.”

%$%$%$%

I was standing next to a lake watching the fish jump. There was a group of men a relatively short distance away, fishing, and I wanted to help. Wading into the water, I reached out to try and catch one. They kept getting away from me, so I went farther and farther into the lake until I was up to my neck in water. A lone fish swam near my foot, and without thinking I tried to lean over and grab it.

Everything after that was blurry, both literally and in my memory. The fish got away and I tried to get back above water, but I couldn't. I was too small and couldn't figure out which way to move. I remember looking up and watching the greyish sunlight try to get through the water around me, as if it were dancing in the small waves on the surface. I don't know how long I was underwater, but I could feel the lake current dragging me out farther and farther from shore. My head and chest hurt as I slowly began to sink, the dancing grey light around me fading away into darkness. I saw the sun one final time in the form of a very bright circle hovering almost directly above me, and then it started to overtake me. The feeling of floating in water went away and was replaced with a sensation of flying as everything around me brightened until it was completely white, the color remaining when I shut my eyes. After just a few seconds of my eyes being shut, everything went pitch black and I felt nothing.

The next thing I knew, I was laying at the base of a tree and the moon and stars were hanging in the sky above, very gradually going from dark blue to light blue.

I quickly sat upright, finding myself surrounded by unfamiliar trees and a strange kind of berry laying around me. Where was the lake? Where did all of these trees come from? Even the stars were in different positions than from what I remembered...

%$%$%$%

“Förbannade serbiska skrothög!”

I jolted awake and nearly panicked when I realized that I was hovering off of the ground. I quick tightening of my grip onto whatever was holding me up revealed that I was in my dad's arms, Peter and Ivar standing next to us playing video games as if nothing was going on. The streetlamp lit up the road enough for me to make out Berwald crouching near the back corner of my car, changing the tire and muttering angrily to himself in Swedish. I let my head flop back down onto Tino's shoulder, suddenly wondering where we were and how I had gotten to sleep in the first place.

“Dad, what's going on?” I asked sleepily, tugging on his jacket.

“Just a flat tire, nothing to worry about.” He said, hoisting me higher up on his hip so that I wouldn't slip out of his grip.

“Where are we?”

“A half hour from Stockholm.”

“When did this happen?” I asked, lifting my head from his shoulder. I remembered everyone except for me calming down back at Mathias and Lukas's house and conversation finally starting like it should have. Mathias had gone out to play in the snow with Peter and Ivar, while I stayed behind with the others and whined about how I was a kid again (and was ignored after a few minutes). I must have dozed off, but actually sleeping without a problem for at least seven hours?

“You fell asleep and Ivar and Peter were also half asleep, so we decided to bring you guys home. Mathias had a spare car seat since he babysits for their neighbors occasionally, so-”

“You put me in a carseat.” I stated.

“You're four, Kirsikka. If you actually thought we'd let you just sit in the backsea-”

“You put me in a car seat.”

“I'm not arguing with you about this right now.” He said sternly, looking me in the eye. I just glared back, irritated. Arthur was in for a beating as soon as I was an adult again!

“Fixed.” Berwald grunted, slamming the trunk shut. Ivar and Peter barely looked up from their video games as they climbed back into the backseat, but I wasn't going to go back into some carseat without a fight, especially in my own car.

Before I could protest, my dad had already put me in the seat and was in the process of buckling me in. The door slammed shut, and I was left to stare through the rear window at the clouds.

“Rear facing?!” I cried, trying to sit upright. “I get that I'm four years old again, but do we really need to go to these lengths?”

“Go back to sleep, Kirsikka. We'll discuss this in the morning.” Tino sighed as the car engine whined at being turned back on.

“But-!”

“Quiet!” Berwald snapped as we got back on the highway. I could have sworn that I heard Peter and Ivar giggle at the tables being turned against me, the one who dared take their video games away. Folding my arms, I glared up at the dark sky, determined to find a way to get out of this thing once and for all.

...though, it was hard to feel so determined when I already felt so tired. I didn't have any problems sleeping when I was really young, so maybe I wouldn't have to worry about my medication after all. Too tired to keep my irritation flowing, I let myself doze off for the rest of the ride home.

%$%$%$%

I suddenly became aware of just how hungry I was, and the confusion flew from my mind. Eying the berries at my feet, I picked one up and swallowed it whole. A strange string-like piece that it was attached to scraped against my throat and I could feel a very hard part in the middle of it all, but it was sweet and all that I had. I spent several minutes picking them off of the ground and eating them, some of them much softer and having a bad taste than the others (I spit those ones out). Eventually they were all gone, but I was still hungry.

Deciding that I should probably look for the others, I began to stagger away from the tree and make my way up a gentle slope. The unfamiliar trees were pretty much everywhere, and there were even more once I made it to flat land. I turned around to look out at the area I had just been in, the basin looking a lot like the shape of the lake I had just been floating in.

The stars vanishing as the sky lightened, I started to walk through the forest (Forest? Where did I get that word? It just suddenly popped in...) to try and find something. None of these trees were here just a few minutes ago, but my hunger kept the confusion at bay. I just wanted to eat, strange trees be damned.