The Spell

• Ciara Ferguson, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2012

Sara crawled, almost noiselessly, along the meandering path, her gangly knees pulled up, scratching along the coarse grass. Her straggly hair blew in front of her face in the gentle zephyr, and her hand instinctively reached up to push it behind one of her elfin ears. She smiled wryly to herself- Sara’s hair had been a constant source of worry to her perfect mother, but here in the picturesque English countryside with no one but Grandfather and some sheep for company, she had almost forgotten about it.

The gentle breeze soon became a harsh wind, but Sara crawled doggedly on, glancing every so often behind her until she reached her safe haven. ‘Idlewild’, as she liked to call it, consisted of a towering cedar tree surrounded by crumbling monuments of solid rock. It often had a magical feel to it, as though there had been a spell cast upon it, and today was no different. Even the air smelt sweet, and Sara felt herself lying down, succumbing to the beauty and magical lull of ‘Idlewild’. She dozed off.

When Sara awoke, minutes later, she realized that something felt different, stranger perhaps. The rock monuments looked more upright, and did not crumble away at the edges when she placed her hands upon them. The sky looked bluer, the sun looked brighter, and Sara herself felt stronger than she had ever felt in her life. She had landed in a different time.

When she came to this revelation, she was not quite as surprised as one may expect. She had read and loved hundreds of stories about magical places and times long gone, so she simply felt as though she had become a character in one of her dog-eared, worn novels. Not in the least bit afraid, Sara glanced around at her beautiful surroundings, and at once set off at a brisk trot in the direction of a beautiful hill.

She stopped short when she reached the hill, for what she was greeted with was out of any girl’s nightmare.
It was a dinosaur.

Cruelly curved claws accentuated the tough, scaly skin of the monster, whose jaws were, at that moment, gory with the dried blood of another unfortunate animal. Sara ran, faster than she believed was possible in the opposite direction, all the while wondering how a dinosaur could be in the same era as a human being such as herself? She could feel the dinosaur’s putrid breath down her neck, and hear it’s thunderous footsteps gaining on her every second that she slowed down.

When she could run no further, she collapsed on the ground in a shaking, sweaty and sobbing heap, waiting for the inevitable moment when the dinosaur would mercilessly pick her up in it’s strong mouth, when it would all be over………..

Sara felt the brush of matted wool, and opened her eyes. Staring into them were the wide ones of her favourite sheep, Pickles, and she heaved a sigh of relief. It was only a dream.