It’s #BookQW and Fern is a typical ‘girl’ who doesn’t understand magic!
More from Chapter 8:
They hiked, not over the ridge as Fern had expected, but along a mountain stream. “That’s a nice little cabin,” she said to make polite conversation. “Yours, too?”
Beri nodded.
“Why couldn’t I have stayed there while Willow removed the rip magic?”
He tripped. “Spells, no,” he choked out in a deep voice. “You can use the loo, but I’d be in a heap of trouble if a lass stayed there.”
At his obvious horror, Fern couldn’t stop a particular grin from stretching over her face, the one Mom called her obstinate look. “I thought you lived on your own. Are you telling me you’d get grounded for having a girl in your house?”
He looked skyward and shook his head. “Where you live must be verra lenient. No tracing or quashing?”
She didn’t know those terms, but they sounded like grounding. Lots of kids were regularly threatened with it. Her mom hadn’t grounded her in years. “How would they know? There’s no one out here.”
He rolled his eyes. “Magic.”
Magic. He said it matter-of-factly, but Fern stopped to see if he was serious.
He was.
~~~
Plant yourself in the delightful coming-of-age story that begins The Windborne series.
Buy The Witch of the Meadows on my Payhip store and everywhere ebooks are sold.
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On a personal note:
I’ve taken the summer off of book social media, and most of the fall, too. I hope to be more present in the coming months. We had a busy summer in Colorado at our cabin and with my mom who is also spending summers in the west. As I age, it’s become important to visit with family while we can.
Ironically, I have also chosen to visit with the dead relatives more the last year–genealogy. This led my mom and I on a roadtrip to attend the opening of an exhibit dedicated to her pioneer family who settled in Washington Territory.
We drove some of the same route Henry Clay and Elizabeth Temple traveled on the Oregon Wagon Trail in 1862, and reminisced at many of her old haunts and visited cousins, one who was completely new to my mom. We had the same experience viewing the exhibit–some photos and family items were familiar and some never seen. Clearly, no one actually uses the good glassware.
The best parts for me were visiting the cemeteries and hearing the stories my mom told while I drove. She directed me down many side roads and remembered exactly who climbed on the school bus at each stop. Her grandparents’ house, where she also lived as a child, is still standing. Gus Temple filed for his own homestead after moving as a 15-year-old with his family to the Davis Lake Valley, near what would become Morton, Washington.
To move into this mountain valley in 1885 was quite an undertaking. Then to clear the land of huge timber, build a cabin, live there and grow crops, all to meet the homesteading requirements. But look at the beauty of their land and the Davis Lake Valley!
My great-grandfather’s account of his first trip with his father is documented on History Link as Journey from Puyallup to east Lewis County (1885): A Reminiscence. Gus Temple wrote it for the Lewis County Advocate on August 26, 1937.
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