Bright Blessings

Flora plunged her fingers into the warm earth, rooting around with patient dedication. She turned up nothing. Rising to her feet, head slowly turning back and forth, she heard the scream again. They were always so difficult to locate, the earth muffling their cries. She spent another hour snaking her way back and forth through the forest. All the usual spots turned up nothing but worms and mulch. Head swivelling like a satellite dish, ears constantly pricked, she worked her way deeper under the canopy, back where the elders grew, Ancient oaks, once the hiding place of kings, great pines, the ancestral homes of dryads, and none sheltering the screamer amongst their sprawling roots. Pausing to drink deeply from the clear waters of a stream which flowed in tumbling delight from the mountains, she caught the scream once more. So close she felt she could reach out and touch it. Ah, of course, the willows. Long had they deserved their reputation as often playful, occasionally sp...

“What… is that?” It was the first sign of interest Blake had shown since he and Anna had arrived to look over the house. She couldn’t figure out why he was so disinterested in a free and clear home, an inheritance from her grandma. It rankled the more because Anna had so many happy memories of summers there. Following his gaze she spotted the tiny door set just above the wainscot, the teeny ladder which gave access. “Oh wow, I can’t believe it’s still there!” she cooed, clapping her hands in delight, “The fairy door!” “The what?” “I told you I used to stay here, summer holidays and that, right?” Blake nodded, his eyes wandering the room, judging and finding wanting. “Well, Grandma had a tribe of house fairies who used to come out and do the housework overnight. She always said it was how she managed to spend all day playing with us kids and still keep the house spotless.” “And you believed that? Geez, thought you had more sense.”   To hide the hurt, Anna kn...

She sat, deep in the long grasses, listening to the world. The park had long since been abandoned, the upkeep of all those acres beyond the council budget. Green paint flaked lazily from bent railings. Weeds sprouted merrily between the stones of once pristine gravel paths. Hedges, before trimmed into prim perfection, clambered eagerly toward the skies in great clumps of crazily tangled branches.   She could hear the scurry of small things in the grass, the occasional flutter or buzz of an insect as it zoomed by her ear about its business of survival. All else was silence, stillness, suspension. Usually she headed straight for Grandmother Willow, a sprawling, drooping presence in the centre of a daisy-strewn lawn by the boating lake. A quick glance up and down the road, a dart through the gap in the fence where a rusted upright had given way, and a slow stroll towards the green haven to sit with her back to the tree, sheltered beneath drifting, billowing boughs, wa...

Cara shifted position, easing out her back, a little envious of Snaps who dozed happily in the shade of an overgrown pergola. Her spine spoke in sharp cracks, but she had promised herself she would finish cutting back the bramble patch before sunset. A glance at the sky revealed a rapidly sinking sun and the first blush of violet. Cara set to with a will. Five minutes, a pile of tangled, thorny debris and several new battle scars later, she sat back on her heels and stared at the odd little tableau her efforts had revealed. At the centre of the patch a smooth triangle of stone had been set up. Next to it, a toy-sized pickaxe sat buried in the earth. To Cara it looked uncomfortably like a memorial. Scratched into the stone were the words ‘Olla’s Gold’. The entire area was surrounded by orange flowers with vivid yellow centres. “What is this, Grace?”  She’d got into the habit of chatting to her late aunt, surprised by how often an answer to her question slipped a...