How do you like yours?

I love stories! Stories in all of their disguises; sharing a bedtime story with my girls, reading a great novel, writing a characters story, reading a story to a class visiting the library. But my favourite way to enjoy a story by far is to simply listen.

Last weekend we got to visit Settle Storytelling Festival and we had so much fun. We bought magic beans, hunted story tellers and exchanged our beans for stories. We ate cakes and bought notebooks and gloves at the makers market. We even had fun in a yarn maze before finishing with more amazing tales.

What I loved about the festival is they prove that sharing stories is not just a venture for children, it's for us grown ups too!

There was only one downside to the weekend. Part of the festival was a competition to write a story on a postcard which could have been picked as part of an exhibition on festival weekend. And yes, you guessed it...the story I wrote and posted did not get chosen. However on the bright-side it does mean I can share it with you guys now.

original image found here and was the inspiration for my story.

The Cottage

Water oozed around Guin’s fingers as she pressed them into the moss covering the derelict cottage. Curiosity tingled though her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Tilting her head to the right she let the barriers in her mind drop.

As she opened her eyes, the dream-like images of a life long forgotten began to take shape around her.

A young man carries his bride over the threshold. The young woman is beautiful, her red hair glowing in the evening light as she waits for him to return. The axe thuds to the floor, her giggle rings out like a peal of bells as he picks her up and swings her in a circle. The seasons pass, their love grows as they gain laughter lines around their eyes. But sorrow begins to haunt the woman’s smile, a suffocating longing for lives that will never be. Slowly the couple accept their life alone and grow old and happy together. The no longer young man still dotes on his wife, bringing her wildflowers every day of summer, their sweet sent drifting on the breeze.

But the winter is cold, too cold. The couple gets into bed for the last time, locked in the same loving embrace. Then nature creeps in to reclaim the lovers and their house, a tree growing up around their bed.

Guin knelt shivering on the warm forest floor. Looking at the damp moss where her hand lay, crying for the beautiful life with no witness but her. Today, being an empath was a gift.

So how do you like yours? Are you a listener, a writer or do you have a story to tell?

A little parting tune because his voice is yummy!!