The Gem – Part 9 – A Short Story

A fictional short story series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Whynn was shaken out of her finally peaceful sleep by her aunt Meg tugging on her arm.

“Come on Whynn. He’s coming. We have to leave now!”

Accompanying Meg’s voice was a deep eerie booming sound emanating from a darkness spiraling in the walls behind her in Whynn’s bedroom. It was sucking everything in the room into itself, fast.

“He knows you have the gem. He’s coming for it. Move now Whynn!”

Just then, the same ornate hourglass Meg had stepped out of earlier, appeared next to Whynn’s bed.

And, before Whynn could finish her query…

“What’s happenin….?”

In a flash of blue light, Whynn and Meg were transported across time from the present moment back into the recent past.

They arrived back in Whynn’s bedroom, a week ago, when she had the gem in her possession (Part1).

Stepping out of the hourglass with Meg—Whynn saw her past self.

Meg, holding Whynn’s arm gently said, “Hurry, you have to summon all your courage. You must convince your past self to put down the gem. Then you take it and return to my side. I will wait here.”

Just then, her mother appeared surrounded by a navy blue aura. She stood next to Meg and said,

“You can do it Whynn, you have to.”

Then, as strangely as she appeared, her mother disappeared.

Whynn asked Meg. “Was that real. You saw her too right? My mother, I mean?”

“Yes, and yes. Now please, go! We don’t have much time, Whynn!”

Whynn took a deep breath and walked slowly over to herself from a week ago. Her past self held the gem tightly in her palm. Her past self could not see her present self, but could hear her voice.

Whynn said to her past self, “You know you cannot keep that. It won’t bring mom back. That’s why you are holding on to it. Isn’t it? She is always with you. You don’t need a gem, or a talisman, or to travel the world looking for her.”

Then suddenly, Whynn’s past self was in tears as she slowly laid down the gem on her nightstand.

Present version Whynn, quickly picked up the gem just as the dark spiraling abyss from which they ran, opened. Like an invisible vacuum cleaner, it began pulling everything in the room into itself, into the dark precipice between time and space.

Present version Whynn raced back to Meg’s side with the gem. In a flash of blue light, the two were whisked away in the hourglass.

**To be continued next week**