Flash 500
  • Home
  • Enter Now
  • Flash Fiction
    • Flash Fiction: Overview
    • Flash Fiction: Competition Rules
    • Flash Fiction: Winners
  • Short Stories
    • Short Stories: Overview
    • Short Stories: Competition Rules
    • Short Stories: Winners
    • Short Stories Judge: Natali Simmonds
  • Novels
    • Novels: Overview
    • Novels: Competition Rules
    • Novels: Winners
    • Novels Judge: Headline
  • FAQs
  • Announcements
  • Critique Service
  • Contact Us

Flash Fiction 1st Place: Breaking the Spell by Linda Grierson-Irish

We cast spells behind closed doors. We tuck lucky charms into Mommy’s purse, into Daddy’s pockets. We forage for treasure that will transform our brittle concoctions into the right strength for magic. The forest floor snaps and sighs beneath our mud-grained boots. My sister gathers helicopter seeds, feather-moss, butterfly wings. I don’t tell her even butterflies need legs to fly. I hunt for pinecones, snail shells, lichen-jewelled bark. Macy calls to me, holds out a dead, limbless beetle. It seems like an omen. I scoop it into a matchbox lined with grass mowings from a neighbour’s garden and we carry it home. It is fragile, its skeleton-shell worn down by the damp press of continuous decay, easily crushed. “I’ll find it some legs,” I say, “to make the spell work.”

The house holds its breath, waiting for the magic to happen. Mommy stares out the front window, her hands fluttery on the wheels which move her around. Daddy has built a neat, hopeful mountain of books on the table beside her. Her favourite things, adapted. Bird watching. Self-sufficient perennials for reliable planting. Raised bed ideas for easy vegetable growing. Macy races to report to me if she thinks the mountain has moved. I don’t check. I can’t look Mommy in the eye. Can’t snuggle up, my fingers counting the freckles on her arm. The hospital said there was still a chance. I know this is the start of a process. But Macy is too young. Her world has been spun with flowers and fairy-tales and that’s a spell I can’t break.

We stir and muddle, splinter and smash. Sap bleeds from slices of tree wreckage. The house tries out unfamiliar sounds; rumble of rubber on wood, the giant-hairdryer hum of a motor, the lifting of a flightless bird from one soft cage to another.

Daddy calls me to read to Macy in Mommy’s room. Mommy idles Macy’s braids with grateful hands. Macy squints sidelong at the blanket covering Mommy’s legs. The air is slippery with expectation.

I escape after dark. Breathe in jasmine, oleander, sweet box. The house watches me. I creep into the lane and wave my torch along the toes of the hedgerow, the mini hatchet from Daddy’s padlocked toolbox swinging in my other hand. Sudden headlights etch sharp lines into the hawthorn. I want to step out, to see if the car drives straight through me. To see if I’m a ghost, stranded in a world where a mother sits in silence because her daughter distracted her from the road with too much arm waving. But the car passes, and we are all safe.

I drop the hatchet into my rucksack. Nothing I hack from the earth will grow the beetle back its legs, or make Mommy walk again. I turn back towards home, towards one truth at a time. My hands are still helpless, but I am not. These are the words the night gives me to explain.

Related Posts

Flash Fiction Winners: 2023 Q1

Flash Fiction 2nd Place: How to Say Goodbye by Victor McConnell

Flash Fiction Winners: 2023 Q1

Flash Fiction 3rd Place: If I Could Find One Word by Chris Cottom

All content © Flash 500. All rights reserved. Website designed and hosted by Gandy-Draper Web Design

Privacy Policy | Critique Service | Lorraine Mace

Flash Fiction competition | Short Story competition | Novels competition
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.ACCEPTReject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT