Friday, April 10, 2009

If I Apologised

This is a short story I wrote in the YWWP (Young Women Writers Program). I was one of twelve students from all of Kentucky to get in, and had a WONDERFUL time! The prompt for this piece was "The letter said the package would arrive on Monday." And this is what I came up with. Sequels are currently being written.

The letter said the package would arrive on Monday. But she wasn’t there to receive it. She had gone walking that day, alone in the foggy park. It was the perfect place to practice her abilities, open and welcoming, plenty of sparse, grown trees to hide her if eyes became too curious. It was there that she was stolen, and it was there that she was found.
The package had been a book and a charm she had ordered from the Shelf, a collection of unusual items. On the day she was stolen, the package was stolen as well.
At first she felt welcomed in the park, the air and the water sending out its usual heartfelt greeting. Soon, though, the trees and the earth began to warn her. Of course, it was too late by then; her Stealer had found her.
The grass tried to help her as she was being stolen, tried to grow on her Stealer, but all it succeeded in doing was making the Stealer drop the package. The ground quickly sucked it up. Then she was gone.
She was gone for three days. In those three days the earth, the grass, the trees, the air, and the water learned her secrets. Questions they had never had were answered – exactly how she and no one else could speak to them, the elements. How she carried the missing element, fire, in her pocket, like a pet. They came to hate her – they had thought she was their friend, someone they could trust. But she had kept secrets from them. They were glad she was gone.
In three days she returned. They planned what to do with her, how she was to be punished for her deception. But when they found her, bleeding on the grass, they could not hate her. The trees cradled her in their limbs as water ran down the bark like tears, slowly forming into tiny leaflets. Her name was Willow, and they wept for her.

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