The Power of Words

http://5pages.net/2008/08/12/words-create-worlds

This week, I'll be posting a few short stories from students.  This first one comes from Bronwyn, entitled "The Power of Words".  If you've ever found yourself sucked into the world created by a good book, you'll appreciate this story.  It's about a young girl who discovers an ancient family secret connected to the mysterious statues her mother has collected and keeps in their home.  Enjoy!

             The Power of Words 
I am not normal. I am just different, and everyone knows it. I live with my mom in the middle of nowhere, in Maine. Well, there was my grandpa, but he died a year ago. Right now, I am waiting. Waiting for mom to wake up, so that I can go outside. Waiting….waiting…

     
Finally, she woke up. I started at a brisk walk into the beautiful spring morning. Rounding the bend of the forest trail, I saw the little creek where I go to think about grandpa. He used to sit here with me. He would teach me all about the plants that he knew. He would point his gnarled finger at each plant, shrub and tree and ask, “What’s that one there, over by the rock?” “A golden maple,” I’d reply. He would close his eyes and nod his head. But now, he is not here to talk and think, just the two of us. Now, all I have is a little bush, a rhododendron, to remind me of him, and the poem, engraved on a little stone nearby.

   
I stopped walking and bent down to pluck the small green clovers that were growing around the base of it. I cleared away all the leaves and stepped back to admire my handiwork. The bush looked beautiful in the crisp, still air. The white rocks circling it sparkled, the buds were starting to unravel, and the air smelled of earth. Satisfied, I turned and walked back home.

    
As I walked through the peeling back door, my mom waved and said, “I am leaving for my meeting. I’ll be back in a few hours. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
    
I shook my head, and replied sarcastically, “I’ll be all right. There is nothing that can hurt me, unless you count the statues.
     
She gave me a look: an I know something that you don’t know look. Then she walked outside.

     
I ate my breakfast and sat down to read my book. I must have been reading aloud, because when I paused, the echo of my voice saying, “kismet,” rattled through the empty house. I reminded myself that at ten years old, I shouldn’t get nervous about things like quiet. I buried my head in my book again.

     
Then out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a small, stone dwarf twitch. My mom keeps many stone statues, I don’t know why, but I have never been afraid of them. There were dragons, centaurs, Egyptian gods, and many more. But, I felt fairly certain that the dwarf twitched.

Scared, I clamored to the top of the stairs. On my new perch, I could see all that went on down in my mom’s study. I was just starting to wish that I had brought my book up with me, when there was a whisper. I did not know what was said, but I knew who said it. The small dwarf, now in a green tunic and purple pants, was standing in front of a once marble dragon. Whatever the dwarf said was effective, because it now was jumping and thrashing wildly in the too-small room. After breaking just about everything, it smashed through the window and flew off. Now, chaos reigned.

The pot-bellied dwarf kept whispering odd strings of words, and now all types of once inanimate creatures, demons, and ancient beings were tearing apart the downstairs floor. There were centaurs and ghouls, giants and dragons. There were so many beasts destroying my house and running outside, that I fled in horror. I ran past the bedroom doors, at the end of the upstairs hallway, where I pulled on the thin, white cord that allowed the step to unfurl from the ceiling, so I could climb into the dusty, cobwebbed attic.

The attic had only one dingy light bulb and a small window. It was full of old boxes, bags and trunks - all with a thick film of dust on top. I slogged over to the grimy windowsill and sat down, nervously waiting for mom to return. I watched sadly as the fire-demons ignited my beloved forest, and laughed as sparks started to fly from their fingertips. What could a ten year old do to stop fire-demons?

After an hour, I grew frustrated from watching the chaos outside. I decided to rifle through the contents of the misshaped cardboard boxes at my feet. The first few had typical contents found in any attic: old dusty volumes of out of print books, photos, and a scrapbook of people I am sure I have never met. In the fourth box however, there was a small red book. This, unlike the rest of the contents of the other boxes, had no dust on it.

Intrigued, I picked up the book and brought it to the windowsill where I could read it better. It was a journal! There on the front cover was grandpa’s name. Quickly, I skimmed through the book until I came to a page that caught my eye, not in my grandpa’s handwriting. Before this page, the journal had been normal, with writings about trips and school. But, this new information was full of colorful, intricate diagrams, and long words that I could barely make sense of.

As I read, I discovered that what I thought were statues innocently scattered by my mother, to make our home more interesting, were real beasts and mythological creatures! She turned them to stone. Even more surprising, every one of them could be now controlled by me!

My control over them was not possible with muscle, but with words. I had the power to use what I knew about literature and language, to control all the evil things in the world. Mom had done the same thing and grandpa before her. Now I was going to follow in their footsteps; this explained the look she gave me this morning- she knew that the statues could come alive and I would learn to control them. I eagerly read about many adventures she and grandpa had together, risking their lives, so that the world could be a better place. She moved us to our secluded home with the statues, in order to reduce the likelihood of one of them being released by an unknowing person. And now I would do the same.

I recognized from the journal sketches the dwarf, the fire-demons, even the cyclops. In the back of the journal, was a list of chosen words to control all of the now released statues. I quickly discovered that since they had activated each other, and since I had activated the dwarf, all I had to do was say one of their assigned key words and they would all return to their stony fate- like a chain reaction.

“Xanthareel!” I shouted, and to my amazement, the demons and creatures froze and hardened, standing as if to decorate the forest. THE FOREST! It was burning! Immediately, I opened the trap door to the attic, jumped down, and sprinted down the hallway, down the stairs, past the trampled back door, and into the garden. I grabbed the extensive hose that grandpa once used to water his gardens.

I set the tap at full volume, and sent a jet of water into the flames. I worked my way past my beloved rhododendron into the forest, extinguishing everything in my reach.

That was where my mom found me two hours later: her, with a knowing look on her face, and me putting out fires.