Lady Sakura
Angela walked across the intersection of Griffin and Piedmont and into Abernathy Park. A short summer storm had made the hot August day miserably sticky. Her hair, her clothes, and the air itself seemed to cling to her.
She wasn’t even sure why she was doing this. She’d heard the stories about Lady Sakura as a child. Even as a child though, the stories had seemed so outlandish that Angela had never really believed them. Still, Janie had seemed so sure that she had seen the Lady.
The sun was dipping low on the horizon as Angela neared the pond at the center of the park. There was no one there and nothing out of the ordinary. This has been a perfectly good waste of an evening, Angela thought. She walked around the pond a few times before deciding to head back to the bookstore.
The darkening sky made Angela nervous as she walked back. She’d heard about young women being mugged, or worse, in the park at night. A rustling sound from a bush behind Angela made her quicken her pace. It was followed shortly by what sounded like footsteps behind her. Too scared to turn around, Angela began running.
As she finally glanced back to see who was following her, she tripped over an upturned stone in the path. Angela fell backwards into the old cherry tree that dominated the east side of the park.
“Hi,” said a voice in an amused and inquisitive tone.
Angela looked around without seeing anyone. Finally, she looked up to see a figure leaning out of the tree toward her. Only the person’s head and shoulders were visible. Everything past that seemed to be inside the tree. The figure was a pale, slender woman with long, dark brown hair styled up and into something of a mess that resembled the old tree. In fact, the further up it went, the more her hair resembled a tree in both shape and texture. At the tips of the “branches” were pink cherry blossoms that trembled slightly in the warm breeze. As Angela looked at this otherworldly creature, recognition slowly crept up her brain.
“Heather?” Angela said, puzzled.
“Hey, Angela,” Heather said in the same friendly and amused tone.
“What the hell are you doing in a tree?!”