novel excerpt - Lightning Droplets

Saturday Snippet: NaNoWriMo Day 20

This is the place. I have been feeling the memories of trees all over the forest, but this is the tree that I want for this child.

I set to work peeling the bark. I have only done this in early summer and the tree feels like it has tightened itself against winter.

“I choose you to watch over this child, to help me find my way back to this sapling. I choose you to be the dark signpost amidst white trees and white snow that will guide me any time I want to make my way back. To show me the way when I want to come back to my little seedling and give her thanks.”

I keep talking to the tree while I work the bark slowly off.

I slit down the trunk with a knife and then carve around the sides. I push the knife gently under the paper leather of the bark and peel slowly around the tree until the bark lets loose in one large sheet.

It is only when it releases that I realize that I am bleeding again. That my fingers are frozen, numb, and so are my cheeks. My tears have frozen in small lakes under my eyes.

The sheet of bark curls in on itself, aching for the curve and structure of the tree. I place the swaddle in the embrace of the bark, letting the natural shape coil like a hug.

I wish there was more I could give this sapling, this life. But this was where our physical journey together ended. I chant over it before burying it as well as I can in the snow.

The ground is too hard, frozen solid, so a little nest in the snow is the best I can do. All I can do is hope that something beautiful will grow from the destruction.

As I am falling, I can tell there is more than snow. There is the supple bend of life, clouds of green that I pass through as I fall, and the uneven jaggedness of growth. But the snow consumes me anyway, pulling me into its murky thickness. It is so dense that I cannot breathe the air between the snowflakes.

And then I hit ground. Real, hard, brown frozen ground. It seems impossible. When was the last time my feet touched ground? My hands touched the earth?

But the snow is slipping. It’s sliding down toward me and I move away from it, against the middle of the space.

And then I realize. It is a trunk against my back, the brittle familiarity of its mottled bark. It clings to me, to my clothes, as the snow rushes toward me and stops. I turn to look at the tree, and there is something odd about it. A wave around the trunk is darker than the rest of the blackness around me, darker than the brown of the trunk itself, darker than the ground, darker than the snow refracting light from way above. I can still see the sky. But this wave of black is deep.

I reach out and touch the soot. I bring my fingers close to my eyes and even in the darkness, I think I can see it. It is familiar, this wave of soot. The way it hugs the tree into a crest. The sharpness of the curve in the trough. I know this tree.

I step around it and my foot snaps on a twig. I look down to see one of Cole’s manufactured friends. And as I bend to reach for it, the snow comes tumbling again. I can feel myself being pulled under, the bubbles rushing away from me, and the light is getting further and further away and I am boring into the water droplets looking for something to hold on to or some kind of answer.

Note:

This is a snippet from the novel I am working on for NaNoWriMo. I hope you enjoy it. I’m documenting my journey each day.

Here’s yesterday’s stats:

Progress:

Day 5 Word Count: 420

Total Word Count: 7107

Where I Planned to Be: 8000

1667 words per day: 8335

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of rest, but an idea came to me and I needed to get it down. Yay for momentum!

How is everyone else doing?

Tag: novel excerpt

Saturday Snippet: NaNoWriMo Day 20

Saturday Snippet: NaNoWriMo Day 20

Note:

Novel Excerpt from the WIP: NaNoWriMo Day 6

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