The Last Green Spot In The Entire World

Boy POV. Yes i'm afraid it is the same snail as chapter three... :(

The snail was dead. It lay all shrivelled and dry in the sun on the wall next to where Mother had tried to grow daffodils. The daffodils had all died, and now the snail too. I dug a hole for it in the mud under the shade of the last leafy plant in the garden and placed a small rock over the place where it lay. The rock shimmered with silver snail trails and it was just the right size. The perfect stone.

I wanted to cry because of the memories it brought of Freya’s funeral  - only she had been cremated, you weren’t allowed to bury bodies anymore, there wasn’t enough space – her ashes had been put in a special box and we’d had to say goodbye to the faded photograph that had been stuck to the top. I didn’t know what had happened to the box with Freya inside after that, Father took it somewhere and I didn’t see it again.

When we’d got home I had run into the tiny garden – it had always been Freya’s favourite place despite all the dead and dying plants – and found the biggest flat stone that I could and a smaller sharp stone. I wanted Freya to have a proper grave so I carved her name into the flat stone and stuck it into the dry soil.

But when I told Mother she had burst into tears and shouted at me. She said that Freya didn’t have a grave; she wasn’t buried in the ground, and certainly not in the garden, and it was very naughty of me to go playing silly games.

I didn’t see the Freya stone again. I was Seven at the time.

I had never understood why my Mother had been so angry with me then, but now eight years later I was finally starting to understand.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve; I was far too old to cry over a snail. And fixed my face into the happiest smile I could manage without it looking obviously fake. The smile’s the doorway to the soul I reminded myself, You can make people think they know you while still holding the truth behind closed doors. If you smile you draw people away from the window where the real secrets can be found. So smile and no one will know you’re just as broken as them. But it was so hard to smile.

I looked at the last green plant in the garden, and I imagined her standing beside me for a moment. Freya was as young as she had been then; my older sister trapped forever in the ghost of her child self. She smiled, and it meant keep on going.

I took her hand and we stood together, my sister and I, standing in the last green spot in the entire world. And I found I could smile, as long as I held onto her.

 

 

Author's Note

Please tell me what you think...

Reviews

[Eira Anchor]

i think wiked. though i cant believe shes 15, she seems younger

[Beatrice Mars]

wow.....love it...what happened to her? freya? and whats the other girls name?
and why did the snail die? (it's not the same one from earlier?....is it?)