Join in my daily writing prompt! I don’t promise to respond to them all myself, but will try my best! Here is my response to the latest prompt.
Use these three words in a poem or story: Chaos, nuts, wolf
‘Once upon a time there were wolves in these woods.’ Grandpa moved his head slowly from side to side, scouring the trees as if to check there wasn’t a wolf still lurking among the leafless beech trees.
An excited chill ran down Cissy’s spine. She would love to see a wolf! Like in Game of Thrones. She’d tame it and it would love her and protect her and not be killed, like in Game of Thrones.
‘Do you think,’ she whispered, staring into Grandpa’s white-bearded face, ‘there might be one or two left?’
Grandpa shrugged. ‘Who knows. If we’re very, very quiet as we walk, and stay off the main tracks, we might find out.’
‘Yes!’ Cissy scoured the path in search of one of those narrow, moss-edged paths which filled the forest and which Grandpa knew his way around so well. After all, as he told her once, he’d been tramping this forest for over sixty years.
Sixty years? ‘Have you ever seen one though, Grandpa, in all the time you’ve been tramping this forest?’
Grandpa leaned on his walking stick, tipped his head to one side. ‘There was this one time …’ He sighed.
‘Yes?’
‘I was only a boy.’
‘Yes?’
‘Close by here, up by Danby Lodge it was.’
Cissy groaned. A typical Grandpa drawn-out story. She smiled an encouragement, but Grandpa didn’t smile back. He stared over her shoulder, and as he stared, the smile came, slow and wide.
Cissy turned around. She caught in a breath.
A moment ago there had been leafless beeches. Now the forest was dense with old, gnarled trees – oak, willow, chestnut and beech – whose roots rose and fell, criss-crossing each other, camouflaging any tracks, forming a chaos of trip hazards. Acorns, beech nuts and green-brown spiky conkers lay scattered among the roots. A red squirrel scurried along a branch, stopped to stare at Grandpa and Cissy, scolded them thoroughly, and hurried on its way.
Cissy looked at Grandpa. ‘What’s happening?’ Her heart thudded.
‘I was only a boy …’ Grandpa murmured. He grinned at Cissy. ‘Don’t look back,’ he said, grabbing her hand. ‘Let’s go meet our wolf.’
Follow the daily writing prompt on Facebook or Instagram.
Find Cheryl’s flash fiction and short stories here!