The last meeting of the Writing at the Ledges group was small but productive. The group wrote to the prompt “A Pile of Pebbles.” The next story, by WATL member Kathleen McKee Snyder, is the result of that prompt. We will feature a few more of the responses in upcoming blogs.

A Pile of Pebbles

She walked through the woods, not seeing the trees soaring above her, the wind bending them toward the ground like soldiers before a queen. Neither did she see clouds, swirling, spiraling down on the horizon, a destructive force headed for the forest. She sensed the impending danger, but it wouldn’t distract her from her mission. Her eyes stayed glued to the ground, except to dart to the ragged paper in her hand, a paper with a crude map etched upon it that might just save her sister’s life.

The wind’s velocity increased until she was leaning almost horizontally into the maelstrom, until it took all her strength to just put one foot in front of the other. She started to lose hope that she would find the spot marked on the map when a massive gust of wind knocked her off balance, sending her flying, face first, off the trail into a pile of leaves and pine needles. She lifted herself onto her hands and knees, looked at the sky for the first time in hours. Finally, the imminent danger of the storm invaded her consciousness and fear for her own safety competed with that of her sister’s, a safety that depended on her completing her mission.

She studied that map as the wind tried to pry it from her hands, and she realized that she must be close now. She crammed the paper into her pocket and crawled back onto the trail. Hail rained down upon her, and she willed herself to ignore the sting of each marble-sized ice ball. She crept half-blind along the trail, squeezing her eyes almost shut to keep out the blowing dirt and debris. Suddenly her right hand landed on a small pile of pebbles. This was the marker she sought, the marker that brought her one step closer to her sister’s salvation.

She reached into her backpack and drew out a small trowel, the one she used to plant flowers and vegetables in her expansive garden. She pulled out a length of rope and tied herself to a nearby tree to steady herself in the gale-force wind. Then she swept aside the pebbles and began to dig. She had only cleared a few inches of dirt when her trowel hit something solid. She kept digging while the storm swirled around her.

She finally liberated a small wooden box from its grave and opened it. At the same time the storm seemed to slow a little. Maybe this was a good omen. She opened the box and found a small velvet bag. She tipped out its contents on her hand, and she caught her breath as much from what she saw as from the storm.

“Hang in there, Sarah,” she breathed as she looked at the glittering jewels in her hand. “I’m coming, and now I have something to bargain with.”

©2013 Kathleen McKee Snyder

No tags