Quest To Find The Icewilk's Tears

• Madison Adams, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2016

"Father, may I play a song to you on my flute?" Queried Carmella to her father lying in bed.
"Of course Carmella, my love," answered the wheezy voice. Her father had been ill for some time now and couldn't work. Carmella reached into her frayed, deer skin pocket and pulled out a carved, wooden flute. She played a tune. A tune so beautiful that even the fiercest man of Alnwick would shed tears of happiness at the sound of it.
She finished playing the flute and put it back inside her frayed pocket at the sight of her father sleeping. In the kitchen of the rundown cottage, Carmella cried. Her father was sick and she couldn’t do anything.
"No need to cry child, I have a solution!” Christina, her grandmother was always there for her. “My father and his father before him knew of a magical beast. Stories from long ago tell of an animal so fierce that men would shake at the sound of its name. The Icewilk has magical tears that freeze into sapphires. One touch of them by a sick or injured person and they will be healed!" Christina told her what to take and gave her an ancient map showing the direction.
The mountains and forest were magical. Carmella had never seen anything like it before, nor had she ever been outside of Alnwick. She clambered up the mountain. Carmella's heart was pounding as she looked over the edge of the pathway at the slippery mountainside. She was exhausted, hungry and thirsty, which made it even more challenging.
"Almost there, I can do it!" Carmella told herself.
There was a cave in the side of the mountain ahead of her. The footpath narrowed. The rocks below gave way. Desperately her arms reached for anything to stop her from falling to her fate. One hand grabbed a tree root as she watched her bag and map fall down the mountainside. She pulled herself up towards the pathway and lay down catching her breath. She stumbled towards the cave.
Inside, the cave was quiet, damp and smelled like decaying wood. Suddenly, without warning, something had pounced right in-front of Carmella. A wolf with the wings of a hawk. The Icewilk! The Icewilk crept towards her snarling and baring its teeth. There was nothing she could do, nothing at all... except for one thing. In her pocket was her flute!
Carmella played the same tune she had played to her father. The Icewilk stopped snarling, watched and listened. It bowed its head. She stepped towards the Icewilk and touched its nose without looking directly in the Icewilk's eyes. Carmella saw tears trickle down its face. The tears fell on to the ground turning into sapphires.
Carmella picked them up and patted the Icewilk. The Icewilk knelt down and nudged Carmella's hand onto its back. She gently sat down, took hold of its fur and they flew off towards the village.