Cry Of The Clouds

• Jordie Grieve, Grade 5, McKinnon Primary School
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'Read Write Repeat 2015' competition

The sky was made of pure fear. A deadly contrast of steel grey and blinding white. No sign of blue as far as the horizon. Not a glimpse. Just heavy clouds, waiting. A starving raven distressed two smaller robins, and was being pecked and chased. A beautiful, white dove flew over Agnes’ head. It was headed straight toward the invisible wall. It did know that when it passed this wall, it would turn from a creature of grace and beauty, to an animal of darkness and sacred evil. As soon as it hit the wall, the pretty bird was replaced by an ugly raven. The magical border’s power was growing stronger and stronger with every being consumed in its curse.
Nature’s sound was only the cold wind running past Agnes’s ears and sweeping her silky, black hair against her face. There was also the faint noise of the vehicles on the road behind her, the drivers, possessed by soul-sweeping spirits of the dead, stared into the slick, wet road ahead.
As if from a distance, Agnes’ mentor, Jules, coughed up further instructions to continue the impossible quest. The ravens called murderously from the trees. The leaves rustled in the branches. The gumtrees around the grass amphitheatre swayed in the breeze, all tuning in to a chilling melody.
The bark at the bottom of one tree looked like it had been used as a scratching post by a tiger’s sharp claws. It probably had .
Another was as black as smoke, as if it had been singed in a fire. It too, probably had .
The trunks of all the trees stood as still as statues, as if they had been frozen in time. The grass of the amphitheatre was littered with tanbark and dead or dying eucalyptus leaves, new ones casually falling to the ground. Two skinny pigeons were trapped in a sandpit full of gumnuts, wandering aimlessly and repeatedly bumping their heads against rocks.

Suddenly, a spine-chilling shriek filled the air with a murderous tension. The atmosphere dropped. A harpy, overwhelmed by the curse, was perched on the wooden bench marking the perimeter of the amphitheatre. Another wail stifled the air, forcing Jules to hide in the shadows and gloomy crevices of the faded building. Agnes tripped and crawled to Jules with the harpy’s sharp talons an inch from her nose. She made it to her mentor just before it was ripped off.

Once in the darkness, Agnes and Jules received the slightest relief.

But it wasn’t over. It started to rain. The cry of the clouds had begun and they didn’t have much time. Agnes and Jules knew they had to reach the oasis before it was too late...