Elsinor was leading her down the wooded path that led to her glen. “I know. That game is spooky—how it can make a story leap ahead or stop completely depending on the little card we draw. Master Simon says that game is over 4,000 years old.” She laughed. “And I guess he would know—he is probably that old himself.”
Sarah laughed too. “Not possible. Human beings don’t live that long.”
Elsinor felt her own heartbeat speed up as they came down the final slope of the path and entered the glen. “Here we are,” she said.
“This is where you heard it?”
“Yes. Right here. I was lying on my back on the grass,” she lay down, “like this. Lay down, Sarah.”
“But there might be bugs.”
“Of course there are bugs. Don’t be such a priss, Sarah. Bugs make the world go round. Why, once there was an earthworm named Spencer who forgot how to wiggle.”
Sarah was staring at her with such a crazy expression on her face that Elsinor giggled. “A story for you. Now, listen. It was like Spencer thought he was a stick and not a worm at all. When he lost his wiggle, all around him began to suffer. The soil, without his wiggle, got hard and dry because the rain couldn’t reach the roots of the grass and pretty flowers. They got so hot and thirsty they could no longer produce nectar for the bees. And then the bees got hot and thirsty.”
Elsinor paused, tumbling into her own story for a moment. Sarah, still standing, poked her side with a toe, jarring Elsinor out of her. “What?”
Sarah said, “I want to finish it.”
“What?”
“Your story. It will free me from the Great Desert of Lost Ideas. Let me finish.”
Elsinor smiled and said, “Only if you sit down.”
Sarah looked at the ground a moment and then sat down beside Elsinor and began to talk. “Just when all the world thought it could no longer endure a single moment more of heat and thirst, the tiniest of the firefly family, her name was Lucy, happened upon poor, wooden Spencer. ‘You need a little kiss of light,’ she said to the poor worm. ‘a bit of charge to get you on.’ And then she kissed him. When she did, Lucy’s whole body glowed green for just a split of a second. Spencer felt like he’d been hit by lightening, but the kiss of light zapped the wiggle back into his body, and he began immediately to burrow and dig.”
Elsinor clapped her hands. “Well done. The rains returned, the roots drank deep, and all was well once more in the world.”
Sarah sighed. “I just love happily-ever-after stories.”
Elsinor had gotten so caught up in Spencer’s story that she nearly forgot where they were or why they had come. Everyday since she had first come to live in Still Mountain Village had been like this. Although the Storyboard game was part of their discipline and training to open stories wide, they didn’t need a game to generate new tales.
She turned back to the matter at hand. “See. Bugs are good. How can you not like a friendly little earthworm like Spencer?”
A moment to reflect
Where in your own life has the wiggle gone quiet — and what might bring it back?
Where in your own life has the wiggle gone quiet — and what might bring it back?
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