Desiree_Radcliffe
Bookish Coquette
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2013
- Posts
- 1,503
It was late spring when Elaine Thatcher came upon her twenty-second birthday. The young woman thought nothing of the transition. What was twenty-two anyway? What did it matter that she had achieved yet another year in her life? She was going, she thought, to soon be an old maid. But it did not much matter.
Her family were hard workers, tenants of a farm, and thatchers, hence her last name. Her mother cooked, and sewed for extra coin while her brothers engaged in learning their father's trade. Her mother knew of many medicines that might be gathered from the plants that grew in their little village, and a multitude of people came to her for advice of a medical nature. But that was all of one to Elaine.
Elaine, young and somewhat comely, was apprenticed to her mother, and learned the lore of the herbs, but she found that, other than escaping in a book when she was able, life was dull and it made her restless. She wanted more than this rural village life, something altogether other.
So it was a surprise when she reached her twenty-second year that her mother gave her a battered old silver locket. It had no external value to it. Elaine could not even discern if it was made of silver, or perhaps another, less precious metal. But she accepted the gift half-heartedly anyway, with a "Thanks, mama."
As the day drew to a close, Elaine wandered the forest near her small village, gathering herbs for her mother's practice. The shadows grew longer in the forest, and she found herself drawn deeper into its recesses. In a small clearing stood a stone plinth, so ancient that it may have once been a statue, though it bore no resemblance to that now. Elaine regarded it curiously. Her village, Winthrope, was not known for relics of this sort. She remembered a vague warning when she was a child. "Children are now women grown. Daren't ye touch the forest's stone."
Was this, Elaine wondered, the forest's stone of which the little rhyme spoke? Was she now a woman grown? Well, there was no doubt of that one. But she felt the locket at her throat begin to warm a little, even, perhaps, to pulse. It seemed to call her to the stone in the middle of the glade. So she listened to the call, and followed it, approaching the plinth. Setting down her basket, she touched the face of the stone, caressing it with her surprisingly elegant little fingers.
It was but a moment of touching which sent her body and mind reeling. A flash of light--or had she imagined that?--and she was thrust backwards, off her feet and onto her back. She blinked several times as she came to. This, this was not the forest she knew. This was not home.
Her family were hard workers, tenants of a farm, and thatchers, hence her last name. Her mother cooked, and sewed for extra coin while her brothers engaged in learning their father's trade. Her mother knew of many medicines that might be gathered from the plants that grew in their little village, and a multitude of people came to her for advice of a medical nature. But that was all of one to Elaine.
Elaine, young and somewhat comely, was apprenticed to her mother, and learned the lore of the herbs, but she found that, other than escaping in a book when she was able, life was dull and it made her restless. She wanted more than this rural village life, something altogether other.
So it was a surprise when she reached her twenty-second year that her mother gave her a battered old silver locket. It had no external value to it. Elaine could not even discern if it was made of silver, or perhaps another, less precious metal. But she accepted the gift half-heartedly anyway, with a "Thanks, mama."
As the day drew to a close, Elaine wandered the forest near her small village, gathering herbs for her mother's practice. The shadows grew longer in the forest, and she found herself drawn deeper into its recesses. In a small clearing stood a stone plinth, so ancient that it may have once been a statue, though it bore no resemblance to that now. Elaine regarded it curiously. Her village, Winthrope, was not known for relics of this sort. She remembered a vague warning when she was a child. "Children are now women grown. Daren't ye touch the forest's stone."
Was this, Elaine wondered, the forest's stone of which the little rhyme spoke? Was she now a woman grown? Well, there was no doubt of that one. But she felt the locket at her throat begin to warm a little, even, perhaps, to pulse. It seemed to call her to the stone in the middle of the glade. So she listened to the call, and followed it, approaching the plinth. Setting down her basket, she touched the face of the stone, caressing it with her surprisingly elegant little fingers.
It was but a moment of touching which sent her body and mind reeling. A flash of light--or had she imagined that?--and she was thrust backwards, off her feet and onto her back. She blinked several times as she came to. This, this was not the forest she knew. This was not home.
