Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 192

This week's picture prompt was taken by Ralf Eisenreich, a German photographer. He calls this 'Little Green World'. He has some interesting pictures across a variety of subjects. 

Tricky wanted to own this one. It was definitely one of her stories, and as is her way, it pours out, and gives me ideas as I prepare for the second book in her series. Enjoy. (Last Tricky Tale was Week 176)

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Glimpse

A flash caught her eye. Tricky spun round, but couldn’t work out where it had come from. This was a part of the forest to be wary of. The trees had decided some time ago not to play nicely with the humans that passed through.

Not that she could blame them, oh no, the history of abuse at the hands of humans was ingrained in the every atoms that made them. It might feel like a couple of millennia to humans, but to trees it felt like just last decade. It would be a while yet, and this particular group of pines had reason to be nervous; their wood was beautiful and luscious, and many desired their objects to be made from it. Lucky for them there was still plenty of waste left over from the shift that would still take decades to be used up.

There it was again! There was something here, or they were playing tricks on her. And she was the one called Tricky; tricks weren’t to be played on her, no deary, she wasn’t having any of that.

‘Stop it now, will you? Show me what you’ve got. I’m not here to do you no harm and you know it,’ she yelled out into the green.

There was a wave of susurration and the flash dazzled her, leading her to a crook in an old piece of tree stump. Either a victim of weather or of human, no one knew anymore. It had since been covered in lively moss, which found abundant living in these parts.

There jammed in a crack was a glass ball, reflecting the world around it and holding an inverted version. Now, who had left that here?

Tricky tentatively touched it and pulled it up and out, rolling it about in her hand. It was indeed glass, not crystal like those she had in her possession, and it seemed decorative rather than magical. A pretty thing, but was it a dud? Tricky didn’t trust it, as was her way – and her right.

She closed her eyes and pulled up the energy out of the ground and through her into the ball. It flashed orange. Ah hah! Not a dud, but one to dupe others no doubt.

In her mind she saw a picture of another place: a desert plain not of this world ... or at least this part of it. No deserts were known on this landmass, and it wasn’t so big to hide any before you met the unsailable oceans.

As she looked a shadow appeared to cover the lens through which she looked, and then something solid moved in front of it and an eye appeared.

Tricky cried out and dropped the ball. What was that?! Or who was that?! Her heart raced and her blood did jigs round her body. A dark sick feeling oozed its way into her stomach and every nerve in her body rang alarm bells. The trees around her rushed through another wave of leaf motion to indicate their dread too.

Was that place on this plane, or was it another in space and time? Tricky didn’t want to investigate but knew she had to; these things were down to her – they were her gift’s purpose. It was her duty, however much she liked to pretend it wasn’t.

She leant down and picked the ball up again. It had resumed its ornament status, but Tricky knew tricky things better than anyone. She pulled out a scarf from her pocket and wrapped it up tight. She didn’t want it looking through again. Not until she was ready, which she wouldn’t be until she got this back to the cabin.

She took a deep breath and sent out calming energy, grounding herself while doing so to move the awful feeling and displace it from her body. It would only hinder her investigations otherwise.

‘Thank you,’ she called. ‘I’ve got it now, and I’ll look into it.’ She chuckled and there was a rustling as though they were amused too. ‘Oh, you know what I mean.’

She walked away still tittering to herself, until her hand found it again in her pocket. Her fingers retracted from it. She had a lot of preparation to do before she uncovered it again.