Etta’s Lantern for Later — Behind the tool shed, the wheelbarrow gave a wooden creak as Etta tucked the tiny brass key under her mitten. Read the full story →
Behind the tool shed, the wheelbarrow gave a wooden creak as Etta tucked the tiny brass key under her mitten. She wanted to keep it safe until the festival bell, when she would unlock her little lantern and carry it down the garden row. The pumpkins smelled of earth and dry stems, and every bump made their curly vines tap the boards like fingers asking, “Now?”
At the far fence, silver frost had settled over the last flower bed. Etta’s mitten snagged on ivy, and the key slipped out, pinging into a pile of crisp maple leaves. She knelt in the cold grass, waiting for the wind to hush. “Not yet,” she whispered, though her cheeks felt hot. When the leaves stopped skittering, the key shone beside a pumpkin stem.
Etta unlocked the lantern before the bell. Its amber light warmed the flowers, the pumpkins, even the wheel’s muddy rim. She came home slower, with no key hidden away, but with a glow that had waited for the right dark; can you spot where it first began to shine behind the tool shed?
