“Are we lost?” my brother’s voice warbled.
“Of course not.” Yet as we paused there at the edge of the snow-covered woods, I wasn’t nearly as sure as I sounded. The short burst of snowfall while we were sledding had covered our way home and now all the trees looked the same, taunting skeletons leering at me as I tried to choose the right path. The lengthening shadows told me we didn’t have long before nightfall.
I chose a direction, grabbed his hand, and plowed forward despite my inner voice’s panicked warnings.
A flash of red through the trees to our right, made me pause. Was there someone there?
“What’s wrong?” my brother asked, staring hard into the trees to follow my gaze.
I turned to a gap to our left, “uh, nothing. This way, kiddo.”
A brief time later, that red flash came to the left and I turned right to avoid whoever was there.
A red flash on the right turned us again soon after and at long last I could smell the delightful scent of chili cooking on someone’s stove. Woodsmoke brought with it the warmth of a pinewood fireplace in full glow and our steps quickened.
As we finally stepped from the woods, I found our house directly in front of us. “Smells like Dad’s making chili!” my brother cheered and ran ahead, just as a male cardinal flew from the woods to our right, brushed close to my shoulder, and perched above our front door.
About the Creator
Mary K Brackett
Mary Brackett is a novelist, poet, & award-winning short story author. She has authored and co-authored articles for magazines with her husband and is currently writing a series of novels with her talented daughters.
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More stories from Mary K Brackett and writers in Fiction and other communities.
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Once upon a time, a child loved me. My child’s mom always started her stories with those first four words, and I would listen and hang on every word. I learned the beauty of words that way, as mom told her stories and my child babbled back to her in answer. My child usually fell asleep, dreaming deep, by page ten, yet mom would continue reading until the end. Perhaps she knew I was listening, tucked against my child’s chest, feeling her heartbeat against me. I would listen raptly and watch the way mom’s lips formed each word. Until she would say those dreaded final words and it was lights out until morning.
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It was warm when time stopped working. Eudosia remembered that, later. It was warm, and the air smelled like an intoxicating blend of jasmine and melting popsicle. She was laying, as usual, on her back and in her backyard, riffling her fingers across the overgrown grass and enjoying the particular way the sun pulsed behind the shifting leaves. And then time stopped. Everything stopped, all around her. The leaves stopped rustling. The breeze ceased breezing. The black ants froze their eternal march up to their nest and back again.
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Comments (1)
Well written! I like the red cardinal 🤓 great ending!