This week's prompt brought to you by something I overheard:
"... and then I'll put it in a locket and wear it around my neck."
What would your character put in a locket to wear around their neck?
Enjoy!
*******************************************************************************
My response:
It wasn't just a sense of foreboding that called me back - it was tangible, driving my feet forward almost against my will. Annye would scold me and pile on the chores if I returned without everything she'd asked for, in addition to giving me a sound tongue lashing. Still, I moved forward, hurrying back towards the cottage.
Foreboding turned to fear when I reached the clearing where Annye's cottage stood. Two months ago, when Mother first brought me to Annye, I wouldn't have even be able to see the echoes of magic in the air. Today, the lines were bright, hanging in the air as if three large spiders had warred at spinning webs. Annye's red lines splayed out from the front window, the door, and even a few from the chimney. The lines would fade within the hour. Now they were still sharp and fresh.
The door hung by its top hinge, the bottom one blasted clean away by a stream of blue magic. Whatever happened had to be over. Silence hung in the air, and there were no new streaks of magic as I stepped forward, out of the shadows of the trees. After a few timid steps, I rushed forward into the cottage.
Annye lay against the back wall, her old body barley a bump under the drape of her dress. I dropped to my knees in front of her and lowered my ear to her face. I could only just hear her rasping breath.
"Annye?" I pulled her head into my lap.
"Tharaine?" Her lips barely moved. Her eyes twitched, but did not open.
"I'm here Annye. Are you okay? What happened? Where are you injured?" My heart beat frantically. I had to save her. My training wasn't done. I still had so much to learn.
"It is too late, Tharaine. Your time ..." She paused to cough, her thin bones gouging my legs as they labored. "Your time has come early. Now you will serve as guardian. My time is done."
The whole of Annye's body began to glow red. Her spirit was dividing, separating itself from her body. I'd seen it happen once or twice in the time I'd been there, and Annye had taught me the proper songs to sing the spirit to the heavens. But I couldn't lift my voice to sing. I couldn't let her go. She couldn't leave me, not yet!
So I did the only thing I could think to do. I grasped my locket in my left hand and reached out my right. I whispered under my breath, talking to Annye, telling her much I needed her. As her spirit rose, so rose my voice. My hand glowed, a bright yellow orb enveloping it, small tendrils reaching out towards Annye's spirit.
The two colors met in the air, burning brighter than the fire. Annye's spirit lingered as my magic wrapped around it. Hope flared in my chest. Then I tore the locket from my neck, holding it towards the lights and shouting over the rushing between my ears. Both yellow and red lights dove towards the locket. The yellow stopped just shy of it, but Annye's red filled it. Her spirit bubbled and churned like smoke around the amulet, then settled and finally stilled.
My hands dropped to my sides. Yellow and red clouds of echoed magic lingered in front of me. Then my mind cleared. Annye's body lay on the floor. With every other death, we leave the body where it lies until the path to heaven disappeared. Annye didn't have a path to heaven. And when I looked, my locket glowed faintly red.
What had I done?!
By the time she started third grade, my daughter was bright, inquisitive, smart, talkative, friendly, and bored out of her mind at school. She’d finish her work quickly and then sit, looking around for something else to do while every other kid worked on their assigned tasks. The usual response from her teacher was to bring extra books to read or help the other kids. As a parent, I worried about the situation. Was it fair to my child to be asked to sit and read or help the other students when she could be more engaged in learning?
ReplyDeleteFast forward to the end of the school year. My child was tested for the district’s “gifted and talented,” or GT program. Not long after that, we received a letter telling us that “based on her performance in classroom and on standardized tests, the best placement for her was within the regular classroom.” Not the GT program.
Fine.
I struggled with that one, but I held my tongue. And we had a choice. We could apply at a local charter school, where, according to friends and acquaintances, my child would be kept busy and challenged, and would not be told to “sit and read or help the other kids.” So, we put her name in the enrollment lottery. She got a spot. Come August, we registered her in the charter school.
And in the car, on the way home from registering at the new school, I got a phone call. A bubbly, enthusiastic woman who was actually a former neighbor called to tell me that there was a place for my daughter in the GT program. When I questioned her about the letter, I found out that my daughter did indeed qualify for the program and had received extremely high test scores, but that there had not been, at that time, a spot for her in the rather small program. She’d been placed on a waiting list, but we had not been informed of that. Nor had we even been told her test scores. (A whole other issue).
I had a choice to make, so I went about making it. I called acquaintances whose children attended the charter school, others whose children or grandchildren attended the GT program. I made a list of “Pro’s and Con’s” for each. I talked and talked about the situation with my family. I prayed. I agonized. I actually cried.
Then, I realized something. This wasn’t my decision to make. This decision rested upon the shoulders of my daughter, then only nine years old.
Could she be relied upon to make the right decision? Should she have to make it? Was this not a burden too great for someone so young?
With a heavy heart, I finally told her my own decision. My choice was that she herself should decide where to attend school. Not her parents.
She agonized. She prayed. She cried. And she finally made her choice.
Over the past two years, we’ve played the “what if” game numberless times, but in the end, I feel at peace knowing that my daughter learned how to make hard decisions at such a young age. Now, she’s past any regret she might have felt and loves where she is. She is busy and challenged at school and has learned wonderful things about the world and herself.
And I have started to learn to let go of my children’s hands, figuratively and literally.
Bitter and sweet.