Advanced For Her Age

She presses skinned knees up against her body and squats small behind the rickety door. She can hear the sound getting louder. The jar glows red between her knees and she takes her skirts and covers it over, trying to douse the light.

Just for now, till I save you. She scolds the jar for its loud raspberry jam shadow, making her skirts glow like a gypsy tent. Now she hears crud packed nails scraping on the nearby stones and her stomach does a slow roll.

She has skinny willow fingers and she snakes them up to her neck, grasping an owl shaped charm on her necklace. Instantly there is a heat felt in her palm and the glowing red settles and disappears. Last of my powers, she thinks. And it wont sleep long.

A roar shakes the dugout. Now she slaps her own mouth shut so she doesn’t scream the loudest she ever has. She knocks into the jar and bites her lip hard to reach down and steady it. It swirls slow in there, like thick liquor. There is a sprinkling of dirt that rains down and she feels the tickle of a sneeze.

A puff of hot breath suddenly shoots into the dugout, shaking the few remaining boards that she now realizes was never a door, just tooth picks glued to grass and dirt. Again, she clutches the owl, her protector, the outside trigger for the matriarchal power within.

Foot steps wander away. There is a tail dragging noise. It seems to be muttering, rapscallion!

She lets her knees drop and sits with the jar between the diamond shape of her long legs. She places her skirts on the ground and the jar cozily on it. A slow pink glow was growing and spreading. Ahh waking up, she thinks. She holds the jar by the cover and the bottom and swirls the growing red.

Oh the things we are going to do…

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