Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.
Links To Parts 1-14:
At the end of this post, you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.
I’m using: Illegible hand-writing ~ minimum ~ sleeves ~ exclaiming ~ measure ~ sparkler
It was submitted by: https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/
The group of travelers had decided to hang back at the river so that they could rest for a few days. The trail was always causing issues with the wagons or a thrown horseshoe so they figured while the weather was in their favor they would stay a minimum of 5 days, a week if it continued to hold out.
The women had gathered around the fire to catch up on some mending. Grace was working on the sleeves of Matthew’s shirt. It was getting so warm he had wanted to make them short instead of long. “Matthew, you’re worse than those kids over there. Hold still so I can measure your arm or it’s not going to come out right.”
“Grace you could sew that with your eyes closed,” he said smiling down at her. For the last few weeks, they had both noticed a subtle tension between them. They had become a family a little over a year ago and a lot had changed over the past 365 days. When they met she had been grieving the love of her life, her husband Patrick and because of Matthew, she had been able to grieve, have her baby, and survive a horrible tornado that destroyed everything she owned.
He had kept them safe while trying to improve all of their lives. Grace had noticed lately how much he really did for all of them. He treated her, Emma, and even little Patty who had decided to enter this world in the middle of the worse storm she had ever experienced.
She had realized a few months ago that she had started to dream about Matthew, to think about Matthew when her thoughts should have been about Patrick. She had fought with herself over it for months. It made her feel unfaithful to Patrick even though he’d been gone a year and a half.
She reminded herself once again that Patrick was no longer with them and Matthew was. He took care of all of them, of everybody really. At first, she thought her affection was of a brotherly sort, but lately, she realized she hadn’t been feeling very sisterly towards him. Especially when she watched him tease Emmy into smiling or rocked Patty when she was fighting her sleep or even working with the animals. She seemed to find herself watching him a lot lately.
She was drawn out of her reverie by one of the boys running towards camp holding some kind of sparkler in his hands exclaiming, “I found a treasure! I found a treasure!” Once he made it to the wagons she could see it was some type of bottle.
Matthew grabbed him as he ran by swinging him up in the air, “Arrrhh, pirate, what have you found there”? Playing along with the small boy. He looked at the bottle the child had unearthed. It was old and had a kind of etching on it that he’d never seen before,
“Look! It has a treasure map inside. I bet it leads to lots of gold or diamonds maybe,” he said barely able to contain his excitement. “How we gonna get the map out?” he said handing the bottle over to Matthew.
Matthew studied the bottle trying to make out any ink on the paper that was rolled up inside. He could only see the outside of the paper, BUT there was only illegible handwriting on it. He just couldn’t make it out.
“I think we’re going to have to break the bottle to get the note out,” Matthew said still studying it. He raised the bottle a short distance and hit the bottom against the wagon wheel. The bottom of the bottle broke up and into several jagged chunks. Matthew reached in and removed the letter and unrolled him.
A small crowd had gathered around. Everyone was interested in this latest drama. Could it really lead to a treasure? If you had asked every boy under the age of 13 he would have said a resolute “YES!”.
He could barely read the faint lines, “Please don’t forget me” on the top, but the next line only had a first name and a date, “Patrick 1830”. There was a third line but it was totally unreadable. Matthew heard Grace gasp behind him. When he turned around her face was as pale as the shirt she had been mending.
STAY TUNED NEXT MONTH FOR PT 16!
Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:
Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/
On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/
Climaxed https://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com/
Pat-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/
I'm a wanderer, website manager, and storyteller. I live in sunny SC with my husband of 30 years and our goldfish, "Please Survive"(long story!). When I'm not untangling CSS or wrangling PHP you'll find me writing my next tale, planning my next road trip, or just hanging out with the grandkids.
You dream I'll drive!
- Watching & Waiting…Still - September 17, 2021
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- My Dream Yard Finally Realized – Secret Subject Swap - September 3, 2021
I was hoping that something would blossom between Grace and Matthew, but now this bottle? I suppose it’s not a coincidence that the name Patrick is in there. You know how much I hate waiting so long for your next chapter!
Oh, wow, a blast from the past, quite spooky!
And there I was thinking a new love was growing ♥
Gasp!
Awesome! I think my face was as pale as Grace’s!
What voice from the past is this going to be?!
Well done, Rena!