the backyard

The kids were scattered throughout the backyard, if you could call it that. The girl with the bouncy brown hair was climbing to the top of the rock formation that inhabited the left center of the four-acre backyard. She was halfway to the top. There were two younger blonde children already sitting on top of the rock, having come up the more gently sloped side. They were peering at the brown haired girl, waiting for her to make it to the top.
There were a boy and a girl swinging in the big elm tree to the left of the rock. They weren't actually in the swings that hung from a massive limb of the tree. They were swinging through the tree much like monkeys, right down to the high pitched chatter. The woman watching from the basement window could see those five and hear the rest.
There were several children playing hide and seek at the very back of the yard. The group alternated from yelling to whispering. It sounded like a great deal of fun. Two girls were sitting under a maple tree creating necklaces from daisies and dandelions they had gathered from the yard. The woman in the basement window couldn't see the girls making necklaces, but she could hear the quiet murmurs of their conversation. The basement window was set up high and the woman wasn't tall enough to see above the slight rise the ground made on its way to the woods.
It was a beautiful day. There were a few puffy white clouds periodically passing overhead. An occasional breeze stirred the leaves of the trees and the taller flowers. The scent of lilacs floated around the yard as if seeking out individuals to bless with their comfort. Birds of all shape and color were still building nests and filling the air with their song, a pleasant backdrop for the sounds of the children at play.
Food and drink appeared at seemingly random intervals and always at a different place from the last time. Breakfast today was in the gazebo in the western corner of the yard. Warm, soft croissants whipped butter and strawberry jam. A juice made of blended fruits and chilled to perfection. Slices of cantaloupe and honeydew melon were heaped in glazed ceramic bowls the color of the sky at sunset.
A morning snack was found on the picnic tables in the southeast corner of the yard. The children enjoyed the celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins, raspberry yogurt, lemon water and milk while feeding the bags of bread crumbs to the fish and fowl in the pond. The swans always waited until the ducks and geese were done eating before gliding closer to the shore for their share of the treats. Only the youngest of the girls cried when she discovered there wasn't any milk. Yet when she returned to the tables from her turn at feeding the water birds, there was a small, frosted pitcher gleaming and full of milk. The young girl drank her fill and offered the remainder to the others. Several children shared the last of the milk.
Lunch usually showed up in the covered courtyard adjoining the bathhouse. Selee, the oldest girl, reasoned that this was so everyone could easily wash up before they ate. One must always wash before having lunch. Afternoon snacks had to be hunted down as though one were on a treasure hunt. Dinner also showed up in the covered courtyard, ostensibly so that the children might once again wash before eating.
Every day after lunch, Selee gathered the other youngsters around her and read from the only book that they ever found. The stories in the book changed almost every day as well as the pictures, but the book itself remained the same. Life the Way We Know It was the name of the book. Each story explained some aspect of the life the children led in this yard. Selee had already figured out that if someone asked a question, it would be answered by one of the stories in the days to come.
Selee wondered how people knew what questions to ask. Or how the book knew what to teach them if no one had asked a question. But she never quite made it to the next level of questioning. Something always came up that diverted her attention.
Today's story was about bees pollinating the flowers to make them more beautiful. Bees were those fuzzy black and yellow things that flew around. Mavis, the little girl with very long, brown hair had wondered yesterday why the bees spent so much time tending to the flowers. She liked to pick the flowers. Mavis had said that her momma used to grow flowers, but nobody knew who that was. Not even Mavis could explain who momma was, but she remembered someone who grew flowers. Every time she thought of her, she thought momma.
The story told about the different kinds of bees, workers or drones, the queen bee and all. Marilee remembered the story about the ants. The group agreed that the stories were very similar. Elcik, the only red headed boy in the group, wanted to know why their group didn't have a queen.
"We don't have a queen `cause we don't have any workers!" Mavis said this with all the authority only a four-year-old can have. "You have to have workers before you can have a queen! Everybody knows that!"
Elcik nodded his agreement. "I think Mavis is right. But if we don't have any workers, who makes all our food?"
"Yeah," Elspeth said, "and how does it get out to where we can find it?" As the young ones began to wonder as well, the woman in the basement smiled.
A clap of thunder startled the entire group, seen and unseen. The woman in the basement shook her head, yet again repulsed by the manipulations that occurred preventing the children from investigating their situation. The children fled to the bathhouse just as the drops of rain came pelting down. This was a lesson they had learned well. Stay out of the storms when they came! It reminded the woman in the basement of Adam and Eve after they had eaten the apple.
Jeb had tried to find out what happened on the outside during the storm. All the children had watched in horror from the door of the bathhouse as he had been struck by lightning. By next morning, there had not even been a trace of ash left of Jeb. The wind and the rain had swept everything away.

This storm lasted through the remainder of the day and into the night. The woman in the basement checked the progress of the storm every hour or so according to her reckoning. She didn't quite understand how time worked here, so she often resorted to reckoning time the way she had on Earth.
The children emerged from the bathhouse later than dawn the next morning. They did not often sleep inside in this place. Mavis had actually cried out for her `momma' twice during the night. Selee was afraid for Mavis. The little girl seemed to know more than the rest of them. She `remembered' things that the rest of the group of kids didn't know anything about. Selee thought Mavis would leave soon, if she kept doing this remembering thing. Whomever gave them food and shelter here in this place definitely did not like it when anyone remembered anything!
Breakfast was cold porridge and lukewarm water. Just as it always was after a storm or one of the kids had an accident. No one ate much, except for Mavis. She cleaned up her bowl and even asked for seconds.
"How can you stand to eat that nasty, old, cold porridge?" Shayla demanded. Shayla was six and demanded answers to all her questions. With her black, Shirley Temple like hair, dimples and enormous, black fringed gray eyes, she generally earned a response to all her demands. Shayla was very tiny, way beyond petite. Mavis was two to three inches taller than she, as well as heavier by at least twenty pounds. All this difference in size, despite Mavis being two years younger than Shayla.
Mavis smiled at Shayla because they had been friends for as long as she could remember. "I think back to when my momma used to make waffles with butter and syrup for me," Mavis said this with a peculiar emphasis on the `and', "then my cold porridge tastes just like those waffles! Its so good, I just can't get enough. But, I think I'm full now. You wanna try some of my waffle tasting stuff in this bowl?" She said all this as she held out the sunny yellow bowl toward her friend Shayla.
Shayla moved toward Mavis and sniffed at the bowl in her hands. "It does smell kinda like waffles and syrup," she said. Shayla touched the side of the bowl with her right hand. "The bowl's warm, too. Give me a clean spoon!" Shayla demanded on no one particular and a spoon was thrust into her hand. She scooped a small amount of the cold porridge out of the bowl and cautiously deposited onto her tongue. "M-m-m-m! It's delicious!" Shayla added, grabbing the bowl out of Mavis's hands.
Shayla dipped her spoon back into the bowl of cold porridge she now held and shoved a huge gob of it into her mouth. `Blech!" she growled, spitting out the mouthful of now vile tasting coldness. "The stuff tastes awful! How come ti tasted so good when you were holding it, Mavis?" Shayla shoved the bowl back into Mavis's hands and glared at her like the little girl had done something evil on purpose.
"Selee, you come try this porridge and see what you think," Shayla demanded. Despite being several years older, Selee hastened to comply with Shayla's demand. Everyone usually did. Complying with Shayla's demands had become so commonplace amongst the members of the group that no one really noticed it anymore.
Selee approached Mavis with a spoon in her left hand. She, too, dug out a small portion and reluctantly placed it into her mouth. Selee's face suffused with a warm glow and she reached toward the bowl in Mavis's hands again. Selee spooned out a bigger portion and popped it into her mouth. She did not attempt to remove the bowl from Mavis's hands or even touch it. "This stuff is delicious! I think my father used to make something like this, only we called it pancakes!"
Selee stopped talking as soon as she realized what she hadd said and actually clapped her free hand over her mouth. She looked around with her eyes wide with fear, waiting for the thunder to start. Selee hadn't even swallowed all of the porridge she had taken. She could still taste the warm, buttery flavor of the pancakes and syrup. The entire group of children waited for several minutes. The woman in the basement let a small chuckle escape.
"Finally, they are starting to learn! I am surprised that Mavis is the key to the learning process. I would have expected someone older. At long last there is hope!" The woman in the long, tailored linen dress spoke quietly to herself. She did so out of habit, not fear. No one and nothing responded to her vocalizations. No one ever had. Even when she'd broken every object in her little prison. The only time she'd received a response was when she had tried to slash her wrists with a shard of broken pottery. The woman had been immediately immobilized and blinded. She could still think and breathe, but that seemed to be the extent.
When control had been restored to her, the space in which she was imprisoned looked much as it had the day she had wakened here. Every piece of pottery, crystal and drape had been replaced, or simply reintegrated into its original wholeness. The lesson the woman had learned that day was thus: there is a limit to the damage she could do.

Kylie and Kel, the two towheads, each brought a bowl to Mavis while clutching spoons. They agreed that they tasted cinnamon toast and remembered a Memere who made it for them. They scaped every last bit of cinnamon tasting porridge out of their bowls, sharing the whole time. Raven, the girl with the bouncy, brown hair tasted crepes with a raspberry syrup that her grandmother made every Sunday. Elcik sampled and then finished his bowl of porridge held in Mavis's hands. He remembered his father cooking that butter rum muffins just for him.
Greta and Gertie refused to eat. They had, in fact, refused to eat for ever so long. They subsisted on water from the pond, flower petals, herbs and occasional raw eggs when they could be found. The two girls who looked like twins, but couldn't remember being related did not participate in the taste and remember game. Just, the oldest boy who always looked out for the younger ones, closed his puppy brown eyes while swallowing each bite of porridge. He recalled an older sister who used to make cinnamon rolls with sugary icing.
Zink, the one child and only boy with black hair, never spoke. Nonetheless, he brought his bowl of porridge to Mavis and solemnly placed it in her hands. As he tasted the porridge the safety he always felt at his half crippled grandfather's permeated his whole being. All the kids noticed and asked him what he tasted, and whom did he remember. He tasted the waffles and thumped himself on the chest and then tapped Mavis on the shoulder while rubbing his tummy.
"Did you taste waffles, too?" Shayla demanded. At his nod she then wanted to know if he remembered his `momma'. At the definite shake of his head, Shayla snorted. "How are we supposed to figure out who you remember if you won't talk?"
"He remembers his grandfather whose left arm just hung down like it was broken. His whole left leg didn't move too good, either," Mavis stated as though everyone should know just what Zink experienced. Even the woman in the basement was surprised by this.
Jareth approached Mavis with his own bowl and spoon. Mavis shook her head as though she had forgotten all about Jareth. He was the one person of the group everyone forgot. Small and mousey, his movements often reminded any whom watched him of a rather timid mouse. He ate his porridge with gusto and related the memory of his own momma making maple-flavored oatmeal for him every day.
Paden, a practical sort of boy who would indulge in great flights of fancy at random moments, politely asked Mavis to hold his bowl of porridge. He savored the taste of hot chocolate swimming with marshmallows and warm bagels with grape jelly. It was a favorite treat in his family. All the kids gasped at that. Not one `til this moment had remembered `family'.