Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 230

This week's picture prompt is by Turkish artist, Manolya Fumero, and she calls this What Your LOVE Means. I have actually used one of her pictures before, way back in 2017 on Week33. She does some interesting art, worth checking out over on deviant art. 

More musings on future Tricky stories this week. Last one was Week 227.

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.

Dazzling Dupe

Was that the jade again? Tricky couldn’t be sure if she was seeing things, but there was green light shining through the trees ahead. She headed towards it but found a wall.

What the bloody hell was a wall doing in the middle of the forest? It was a decayed painted brick wall, peeling in places to reveal its true red colour. She followed it left and right. Left it ended in rubble, but right she found an opening, like a picture frame where the foliage of plant life was bursting through along with the strange dazzling light.

She admired the tenacity of the shrubs; they took every opportunity to grow where others weren’t, spreading their roots and leaves as far out as they could to find some space. Old walls were no match for it. Tricky was surprised the piece of wall had lasted this long. It was clearly from before the shift.

She pushed aside the vegetation and climbed through the hole in the wall, finding a clearing on the other side. Beams of light shone out of something in the middle of it, but it was covered by ground dwelling plant life.

Tricky paused. Could it be a trapdoor to one of the underground bunkers? Was that where the light was coming from? But how could it be so bright? Nothing they could make at present could emit that kind of power. This wasn’t something manmade. It was probably a gemstone.

There was something about it Tricky just didn’t trust. She had a sense for these kinds of things. She took in a breath and hummed quietly, bringing her energy up and sending it out to inspect the area and see if it came up against anything.

Tricky knew Stanislav’s network was more than it seemed. He had access to things he shouldn’t have. His grubby little fingers were in many people’s pies as well as their pants. He’d baffled her so far because there was nothing sensitive about him. It wasn’t his own gifts he was using, but she hadn’t yet uncovered whose they were, let alone how he was managing to feed off them.

Either way this could all be a trap. She’d been caught once; she wasn’t going to be caught again. Oh no, Tricky had learnt to be trickier.

She could only perceive the incredible energy in the light. It was strong, and not something she’d come across in this time – and that was the thing that concerned her.

She took a few steps towards it, kicking about in the underbrush for a stick to help her move the foliage back. She found a nice long one that she could poke about with. Nothing like a good poke, she giggled to herself. Oh she was so funny.

She crept closer to what looked like its core, where the beam narrowed ... what was it coming out of?

Tricky swung the stick left to right under the leaves and ferns, prodding at the ground until she felt something hard. She tapped it and nudged it with the stick, getting an idea of its shape: it was square. She pushed some of the greenage aside and saw something reflective. Was that a mirror?

She bent over it. It seemed to be reflective but she couldn’t see her face in it or the sky above. She could only see green, a lot of green. But there was something in the centre of it. What was that?

She squatted down and put a hand out, engaging her senses as she did so, reaching out with her internal energy as well as her hand. Nothing had changed; there was still only the powerful force being emitted.

She touched its edge, feeling the throng of the light through the metal of what appeared to be a mirror. She put her hand under it and lifted it up. She looked into it and felt the light flood into her. It was like when she had visited the tree sprites; every part of her felt renewed and refreshed as though she was being charged. It was blissful.

She took a deep breath and absorbed as much as she could while trying to see inside. It was very far away but she was sure there was a figure of some sort.

Was this a spy glass? They came in many forms; crystal could be chiselled into many shapes. It would explain why it didn’t reflect her. Then she felt her ears pop and the clearing around her shimmered. Shit! Something had activated!

The wall and the clearing appeared in the mirror, and she found herself on a green hillside that swept away in all directions. Damn! She was in a time pocket. But who had put this here?

There was only one answer that sprang to mind: Stanislav. The slimy toad had trapped her. Blast! How the hell did he have the skill for this? And where the hell was he? She was sure she’d seen someone in here. But there was no one around. She was alone on the hillside.

She sat down. She had to figure this one out.