Posted in Posted by Blue Balliett

“AaaAAA!” The shriek pierced the air. So intense was the scream you could have seen it rip through the air overhead. Another scream was drawn out, billowing out over the dusty road, rocky and speckled with green. It dropped to rest on the heads of twelve children. The scream got faint and turned shaky. It was drawn out and ended in a breathless giggle. The laugh rippled through the sky, tearing through the cloud that had settled. A small voice called out, “I caught you Moriah!” A little girl looked up from where she sat; backside pressed up against the muddy white residence of Ms. Findley, the dame school teacher. The girl’s sleeves were soiled, though with short slightly puffed sleeves it seemed nearly impossible to get dirty. She grinned up towards the boy who had tagged her. “Fine.” She glared at him, and then broke into a wolfish grin. “But I wonder who I’m going to go after first, Derrick.” Moriah pushed herself up, making a slight leap as she caught her balance. The seven-year-old girl stepped from the cool shadows of the building. Her dark hair caught the sun’s rays, making unusual colors shine as bright as a crow’s feather. Carefully examining the scene, Moriah’s deep green and gold-flecked eyes took in the children’s faces. Their teasing expressions, daring her to try her speed against their own. She grinned at the, looking each in the eye. Her eyes lingering on Derrick, she lunged, and quickly swerved to the unsuspecting Rita. Rita uttered a little yelp that of which Moriah matched with a boisterous chuckle, and once again, laughter filled the air.

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A girl of sixteen looked out into the gloom of the early morning. She could glimpsed the outline of the particularly pruned hedges. Faint in the rolling fog. She strained to see something more, yet despite even her sharp eyes, green and gold-flecked, she could not pierce it. Moriah turned away from the window and sighed dejectedly, “Ah, those were the days.” said she, gazing idly at an empty vase. She once again went inside herself, trying to go back to the old house. Moriah sat like that for a while, when suddenly letting out a moan of despair, she threw herself onto the stiff bed; squeezing her eyes tightly, trying to shut out the images. Her efforts to close out the visions failed, and showed her yet fragments.

The carriage pulling up the dirt road. Her mother and father, calling sweetly and beckoning, “time to go!” The quiet drive back, the yells from her parents when they got home. The slap. The tears. The darkness.

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Moriah’s eyes snapped open; she was breathing hard. The utter darkness was replaced with the dim gray of her room.