“Come on, Lettie. It’s getting dark. The Wisps will be out soon.” Emerson looked around the thick forest, her blue eyes wide.
“Stop with the toddler-tales,” Lettie groaned and plucked another jacaranda blossom from a tree. “You’re almost eight. You don’t really believe all that fairy nonsense, do you?” She sniffed the flower and walked deeper into the woods.
Emerson tried to swallow but it ended up a hiccup. She scuttled after her sister. “But Lettie! What if they’re true? What about Nora-Mae?”
Lettie tossed her curled blonde hair over her shoulder with impatience. “Grow up, Em. That story’s been around since Granny was born.”
“But Daddy said it was true. Nora-Mae disappeared long ago when she followed the lights, the ones that bounced along the path.” She curled her fists tight. “This path, Lettie.”
“It was just a story. Momma yelled at Daddy after he told you. I heard her in the kitchen when I was supposed to be practicing piano.”
“But Lettie….”
“It’s not true, Em.” Her voice rose an inch higher.
“Nora-Mae heard voices, too. The fairy voices that called her to come and play. The ones that led her away and got her lost, so she never got found again.”
Lettie huffed. “Fine. We’ll leave. Only to shut you up!”
She stomped back toward their home, her little sister close behind. Along the way they passed Charlotte, one of Lettie’s school-mates.
“Watch out for the Wisps, Char,” Lettie teased. “They might get ya.”
Charlotte laughed. The sun sank another few feet into the ground, trickles of faded light on the path. She only needed a handful of blossoms to complete her bouquet for the supper table. She’d be gone before the forest was dark.
Giggle.
She turned at the sound just beyond the trees to her left. Had Lettie and Emerson come back?
Giggle.
A light twinkled just over the small mound of earth that took the path in another direction. But then it was gone. What could it be?
Charlotte looked back toward her home. It wouldn’t hurt to look, right?
Then she followed the light as it bounced and danced across the ground and into the trees.
©Laura L. Zimmerman 2017
Photo credit Pixabay