Story / Paintings - Artemis + Ambros
Chapter 1
The Pink Glowing Line and the Old Lady
They hadn’t been searching long for what they were looking for—it almost seemed to find them. Artemis and Ambros had known each other for what felt like their entire lives, and they had always believed they were destined for an adventure together.
The old woman—who was definitely more than just one person’s grandmother—sipped her iced tea in a floral-patterned dress. She pointed to the spot where a glowing pink line had appeared, occasionally flickering in and out of sight.
Artemis asked her name.
“Mind your business. What’s it got to do with that line?” the woman replied.
She smiled—not angry, just pleased to have a bit of sass in her voice.
Artemis was dressed a little like a boy again and could easily have been mistaken for one, but her hair always carried a feminine touch. It had been growing longer ever since she’d chopped it unevenly with her mom’s scrapbooking scissors.
Ambros wore his usual “old man” outfit and looked like someone out of the 1920s or ’30s. True to form, he was already climbing over the woman’s small wooden fence when she shouted, “Hold up, youngster!”
Ambros froze mid-motion. Though full of adventurous energy, he also had enough common sense to know when to stop. He stood still, gazing out over the vast open space—rolling hills covered in yellow grass swaying in the wind. He liked how he could see the wind in the movement of the land. His eyes drifted toward the two large peaks on the horizon.
Artemis tried to speak, but the wind carried her voice away. The only sound was a low humming that filled the air—like the vibrating twang of a thick wire struck with a wooden bat.
The pink line now hovered just above the woman’s fence, reaching all the way to the tip of the eastern peak. It sliced through the atmosphere with its radiant pink light.
A sudden gust blew Ambros’s hat off his head. It soared over the house and landed on a tree branch in the front yard. Still, he didn’t look back—his eyes were locked on the scene before him.
To be continued…