Sylvia knew it wasn’t a good idea, but her family was so hungry. Her mother had gone days without eating so she and her sister could. And they were right there, right there! Their closeness was agonizing, so she stepped from the lush green grass of the meadow east of their village on to the dismal dried and decaying leaves beneath the enormous oak and began collecting chestnuts, hardly noticing the mist swirling down through the crooked limbs above her.
As she plucked the nutritious morsels from the ground and dropped them in the fold of her shirt, she thought of the man who lived in the castle beyond the trees, seemingly the same man who walked those cobbled halls since her grandmother was a child. How could this be? Pondering this, she felt a chill and looked up to see that she couldn’t see! The mist had swooped down around her nutbrown curls. Confused, she looked back to the ground thinking to follow the roots outward, but instead of arriving at their furthest point, she found herself leaning heavily against the tree’s massive trunk. Bewildered, she began to sob, thinking of how her mother and sister were not only hungry but also frantically searching for her now. She slumped down and suddenly found herself slipping into the earth. She scrambled for a hold, scratching at the tree and roots, but she slipped beneath regardless. Dizzyingly, Sylvia’s mother packed the remaining crusts of moldy bread into the towel and tied the top. Wren wrung her hands and whimpered. We can’t go! But she knew they must when an ominous raven lighted on the windowsill, cawing angrily. Wren’s whimpers cut short when a small brass key dropped from its beak. Wren plucked it from the dirt floor where it had landed with a thud. Sylvia peered through her lashes at the silhouette above her. She felt strong arms filled with resentment lift her, and she was carried from where she fell beneath the tree to where she was placed in a downy bed; she noticed one thing, flickering lights down a dark hallway. The shadow never left her side but when she slept, and so she pretended. She took a deep breath and shuddered. As the darkness walked out of the room, Sylvia slipped from the covers and scampered down the dank hallway toward the flickering light, thinking to escape, when the door slammed behind her. Her mother and sister stayed away from the trees and walked directly up the path to the castle—no use hiding; they would rather be with Sylvia than without—no matter what that meant. Wren held fast to the key, and her mother held fast to her. Wren noticed nothing but this until she became intrigued by the rocks that had always scattered the hillside. They weren’t rocks at all. They were dilapidated headstones. Sylvia found herself in a brightly lit and decorated child’s room: a music box chimed, a rocking horse rocked, a porcelain doll was tucked lovingly to bed, but no child. Until she realized she was the child, or would be. Those arms that held her were strong in the sinewy sense, in the same sense that her own mother’s arms were strong, from carrying children. This was not the castle of an ageless man but of an empty woman. Wren had the same realization as she scanned the dates of the headstones, all too short to amount to anything more than a child, and among them, the shortest time span, she saw a keyhole. Wren’s mother pulled her near as she leapt forward with the key, but released her when she noticed too. As the key slipped into the keyhole, the souls released one by one, curling in with the mist that shifted and swirled until Sylvia stood alone on the hill gazing in wonder down at her mother and sister smiling up at her.
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Mrs. MMThrough learning about the different genres, I discovered that I enjoyed reading vignettes like “Salvador Late or Early” by Sandra Cisneros, but when it came to writing my own story, I had a good idea for a mystery. In my story I was able to use the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution as a helpful way to structure my ideas, and I was also able to set a specifically gloomy tone for my reader. Archives |