Peek at Chapter 5

TREASURE

It happened about 1600 BCE in the southern part of what today is known as the country of Wales.

“Carys, Carys, Carys!!” Carys didn’t hear her mother’s impatient calls or feel the sting of the ocean wind on her youthful face chilling her arms where the roughly woven cape no longer reached her thin wrists. Her browned and bare feet scuttled among the small rocks and sand at the water’s edge. Deftly picking up what pieces of dry fire-feed she could find, she piled them one on top of the other until the collection in her apron would not cradle even one more fragment.

Gramps, as she was permitted to call her mother’s father in private, was going to tell the story again. She, Carys, First Granddaughter, would be chosen to hold the precious gleaming, treasure made by the gods.

Having heard Gramps’ story countless times, Carys could recite it word for word. Only Honorable Grandfather had the authority to recount the tale.  Clever and daring for her youthful age, the young lass found the twilight sky her loyal audience.  She would pause in her labor, hold tightly to the folds of her bulging apron, and regally lift her head to the evening sky. Her words would tumble out mimicking Gramps’ intonation. Occasionally she’d free a hand to dramatize with a swooping gesture.

This twilight Carys had just recited her most frightful part;

 

The night sky over the great ocean

burst into spasms of fiery orange waves.

Not even Archdruid knew this to be his grave

 

A strange moon screamed  anger at dancing

red streaks that darkened and bloated its form

Grazing earth so closely that  fireball became storm

 

Winds swirling heat, scorched flesh and bone

Tearing even the wee ones from loving arms

as the darkness revealed mistress evil her charms

 

She raised from the sea a wave

monstrously mean, gazelle-like in speed reaching shore

sucking man, beast and land’s edge through her frightful door

 

Twilight quickly turned to night for Carys had taken too long to gather the fire-feed. She ran, but carefully, hoping her bare feet would not betray her tardiness with sharp stones drawing blood.

“First Granddaughter, come, you have feed enough for the full story.  Sit!”