"Ah, Jacob, there you are!"
As Jacob entered the kitchen of his family's farmhouse,
he was halted in his tracks by his mother, who was holding a crate full of
loaves of bread. She quickly deposited the heavy crate into his arms.
"Could you take these loaves up to the village bakery, please?" she
asked. "They're almost out, and they have orders to fill."
Jacob had only come into the kitchen for a snack, and
hadn't expected to have such a task suddenly and literally thrust upon him.
However, he knew this wasn't a request, but a command, so he had no choice but
to comply. "Okay," he said, nodding. "I'll be right back."
"Please do," said his mother. "Make sure
you get the correct money from them."
"I'm sure I will, mom," said Jacob.
"They've never tried to swindle us before."
"Well, you never know," said his mother.
"Now go on, hurry along."
Jacob nodded, and turned back the way he had come. Having
grown up helping on the farm, carrying around heavy loads such as this and
completing other manual labour tasks, he did not find the crate particularly
difficult to carry, despite its weight. Opening the door, however, was a little
more tricky. Evidently his mother, in her rush to get the hot loaves to the
bakery, hadn't quite thought of that. Luckily Genevieve, one of the farmhands, was
on hand to open the door for him.
"Thanks, Genevieve," said Jacob.
"Don't mention it," said Genevieve, bowing a
little. "Are you heading down to the village?"
"I am, yes," said Jacob. "Do you need
anything?"
"Yes, but I suppose it can wait until after you're
done," said Genevieve. "If you don't come back with the right money,
your mother will get angry, won't she?"
"Yeah, she will," said Jacob. "Alright,
I'll be off then."
"See you later, Jacob" said Genevieve, bowing
once more. With that, Jacob headed through the open front door with the crate
of bread, and Genevieve closed it behind him. He started to make his way
through the fields, towards the dirt track that led to the small village about
a mile away from the farm. Jacob travelled there on a regular basis, delivering
fresh goods from the farm, and was familiar with most of the people who lived
there. It seemed to him like the kind of sleepy village where the only
significant events were weddings, deaths, and new arrivals; the kind of village
where you could live your whole live without anything exciting or unusual ever occurring.
As he set off down the familiar dirt track, Jacob was not
expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen at that time, either. He had
traced this route a hundred times before without incident. But today, things
would be different.
Jacob noticed a bright red gleam out of the corner of his
eye. Turning his head, curious, he saw a crimson streak, like a shooting star,
fall from the sky, arcing over the trees and landing with a soft thud in the
grass a short distance away. His curiosity piqued, Jacob decided that neither his
mother nor the bakery would notice if he took a little time to investigate. The
bread would stay hot for a while longer, after all.
Jacob trudged off into the grass, heading towards the
spot where he had seen the red streak land. As he reached it, he carefully put
the crate of loaves down to one side and bent down to examine the small crimson
object that glinted at him from between the blades of grass. It was a jewel, slightly
smaller than his thumb, and glistening with a deep-red colour. As he looked
more closely at it, he could almost see small flames smouldering within it, as
though the very insides of the jewel were on fire.
Jacob didn't know what kind of jewel it was, but he
guessed that it was probably quite valuable. If he took it to the jewellers' in
the village, he could sell it and earn a lot of money for the farm. He reached
out and gently picked it up, his fingers curling round it. It felt strangely
warm to the touch. Pleased with his find, he slipped the stone into his pocket
and stood up. Picking the crate of bread back up, he continued on his way to
the bakery at the village as though nothing had happened.
No comments:
Post a Comment