Solveig had gathered nearly everything Old Baba had asked her to bring for their midnight meeting on the strand and underneath the clear-night crescent of the new moon; the girl had yet to find the final potion ingredient, water scooped in a wooden cup, from the Silverword Cascade, a waterfall rumored to be located in the third chamber of one of the many caves on the far side of Hidden Cove. 

Solveig had nearly given up on locating the waterfall, although she’d searched every cave along the coastline of the Cove and instead discovered a host of things she didn’t need: the Mother Naiad’s scrying pool ; the Midplane Monks’ secret compendium of necromancies; cave paintings by the Old Ones that came and went with the melt and freeze of Hugomantor’s glacier; piles of bones from creatures neither human nor animal, yet not quite fey, that may have been predator, may have been prey.

Baba had hoped that her complex potion for the magical spell — make-believe as it was — would distract the girl long enough for her friends to miss her unique charm and return to close friendship, as the girl so fervently wished; Solveig was odd – true — but a sweet soul to anyone with eyes and heart enough to see.

***

Sunset bled and died across the curved line of the silent sea as Solveig clasped her fingers around the friendship charm she’d braided long-ago from locks of her friends’ hair, and opened herself to search with her inner sight for any sparkle of the Silverword Cascade. Then, to her joy, she located it…there, within her own self all along, but hidden under thick clouds of self-hatred and self-doubt.

***

Old Baba saw the change in Solveig as soon as the girl crossed the black pebbles of the strand toward their meeting place, and her heart contracted and skipped furiously at the girl’s sudden grace and glimmering glow, wondering what in the hell had been unlocked by her foolish, old-woman games.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2021)

For Part Two of this tale, please click here.

The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “CHARM”, and here’s where you join the party: Six Sentence Stories  

Additional Prompt: MindLoveMisery’s  Menagery Photo Challenge #396