Thorns

Chapter One

The snow under my boots made soft noises as I walked between the trees. Thick white flakes drifted down from the gray sky. The morning sunshine streamed between the trunks and the forest was silent. I stopped, and slowly brought the black hood away from my face, holding the woven basket in my other hand. My dark waves of hair tumbled down my shoulders, and I glanced up. The bare branches of the trees above intertwined together, dark and slim, silhouetted against the coming light.

A bright red cardinal flew past and perched on a nearby oak. I stared at its brilliant colored feathers with my gray eyes, and it seemed at ease under my stare. I smiled, and it cocked its head. I turned and headed away. 

I strolled down the forest path with gentle steps, taking in the snowy landscape around me. The trunks of the trees stood tall and sturdy, some gnarled with crooked branches, others smooth and slim with branches reaching out towards the sky. The narrow path wound though the snowy woods, and in the distance, I could see smoke swirling from a distant chimney. I kept walking, faster now, and when I came to a fork in the path, I took the one that curved away from the smoke. The gentle flakes contunued to fall, and by now my head had been crowned with the delicate, half-melted snowflakes. I hurried along, picking up the pace as I went, farther and farther away from the swirling smoke. 

As I hastily made my way through the woods, the trees seemed to grow closer and closer together, reducing most of the morning sunlight into strips laid across the snow. Ravens perched on the gnarled branches overhead, cawing to eachother occasionaly as I stole by them without as much as a glance.

I soon came to a small clearing, where the shards of sky between the thick branches widened into a ragged, open circle. In the center of the clearing, the grass was darker than normal, and a giant stone sat in the middle of it all. Something was engraved into the side, but it was undeterminable what it meant or said. It was most likely an emblem or icon, not engraved with any words. Whatever it was, it was worn away by the elements over the many ages that it had spent sitting in the clearing. There was something so mysterious and yet seemingly dangerous about this small boulder, so perfectly rounded and moss-covered. 

Every time I passed through the clearing, I skirted around the edge for fear that the implied danger and power of the stone would inflict itself upon me, and so therefore I went out of my way to make sure I didn't get too close to it. 

But there was one time. The first time. I touched it. 

And something unexplainable happened.