Back To The Roots (REWRITTING)

11: Wonders in the woods

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The native language in this book may or may not be right as I am not a native speaker.

~TIA~

As soon as the sun came up Kyla was up and moving. She decided the fish should be safe from critters during daylight hours. She stacked some extra wood on the fire and went off to check her snares. She was delighted when she found a rabbit in one and a squirrel in another and she hurried back with her bounty to share their good fortune with Lily. 

She was about halfway back to camp when she stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth fell open in shock. A large group of plum trees stood before her. After a few minutes of staring at them in disbelief  she started towards them and her mouth instantly started to water. She sat her rabbit and squirrel at the base of one of the trees and started picking plums. After eating several handfuls she started filling up the bottom of her shirt to take them back for Lily and Josiah. How wonderfully surprised they’d be she thought as she picked and picked and picked. She wasn’t concerned about picking too many because whatever they didn’t eat they could store for winter. Now that she knew they were here she would try to pick and dry as many as she could before they fell off and rotted. When her shirt was full she made a mental note of where the trees were for later and headed back to the den.

When Kyla got back to camp Lily was sitting by the fire waiting on water to boil for tea. Kyla smiled when she saw Josiah nearby playing in the dirt, occasionally he would look up at the grazing horses longingly. She knew he longed to ride them but she hadn’t really had the time to try it. She was also unsure if Lily would allow it and didn’t want to give him false hope. 

“Guess what I found,” Kyla said, walking up to Josiah after dropping her the meat by the fire.

“Ummmm, some kind of new plant you want me to try?” He asked, looking up at her curiously. She was often finding new edible plants and was notorious for getting them all to try them as soon as she got back.

“No,” she chuckled. “Well yes actually, kinda,” she pulled a juicy plum out of her shirt.

His eyes lit up, “Is that-” 

“A plum? Sure is,” Kyla answered, putting a few it into his eager hands.

Lily stood up and walked over to see what all the fuss was about,” You found plums,” she said smiling.

“Yep,” Kyla said, giving her a handful. “I’m going to clean this meat and cut it up for drying, then I was going to go get some more if yall want to come.”

“No, you go ahead and you can take Josiah with you. I’ll stay here and do the meat. I don’t wanna go too far incase I get a headache,” Lily said sadly.

“Really? Are they that bad?” Kyla asked. Maybe they were a bigger deal than she thought. Maybe something was wrong. Sure everyone gets headaches but they're not usually so bad that you’re afraid to leave your house. 

Lily shrugged her shoulders and quietly walked off towards the fire. 

“Josiah you wanna come collect some more plums?” Kyla asked, dumping her shirt full of plums out into a bowl.

“Yeah, can the horses come?”

“I guess that’s up to them. Usually they do though,” she responded smiling at him.

Kyla tried to focus on picking the delicious fruit but her mind kept wandering back to Lily and how she could help her. Then it struck her, willow bark duh! Everyone knows you can use willow bark for pain, and she just where to get some. There was a big tree down by their creek.