Magpie tale 17

Willow at http://magpietales.blogspot.com

hosts a weekly writing prompt

Using the below photo write a vignette or poem.

Here's mine.

Preparing the ground for a vegetable garden my shovel hits upon something large and hard in the soil. I strike it many times trying to move it and when I am unable I drop to my knees and begin scraping away at it with my glove clad hands. I scrape and scrape and the object begins to take on enormous proportions and I wonder in my task what could this be? It has a shape. As I scrape harder and faster I am shaken to see that I have uncovered what seems to be an eye and a nose made out of concrete. My heart begins to beat faster and my hands dig and scrape furiously. I scream when I uncover the other eye, and the matched pair take on the look of fright.

Oh Lord, I call out as I, in a state of shock, unearth the mouth of this concrete being...

a child with a horrifying look on its face, a mouth wide open in terror. My hands shoot back in quick response to the ghastly image before me and I fall backwards onto the earth behind me. Dare I take another look? Could it be a grave marker that I have uncovered or some evil object buried to contain its evil. The smell of burning wood suddenly seems to stick its finger up my nose and I become aware that night is beginning to  fall.  I look around and the woods nearby take on a sinister appearance.

Don't go out into the woods at night!  I suddenly remembered my grandmother's warning. There's wood witches out there at the top of trees waiting to find children out in the woods alone at night.

 Since childhood I have lived with a fear of dark woods and now I find myself paralyzed  unable to move away from the concrete child below me.

My mouth suddenly goes dry as a bone and I know I can hear my heartbeat in my ears... pounding away as the sound of cackling rises out of the woods. I stare down at the terrified face below me and I hear another voice, small and panicking...Wish yourself stone or she'll eat you. It is coming from the hole.

What do mean? I shout out excitedly...what do you mean?

As I lean closer to hear something more, I feel the sharp stabs of something in my back and blackness flows over my eyes in heavy fabric and the sensation of movement unnerves me.

Too late, I hear a haggy voice say, too... late

and I see myself rising above the trees

into the dark woods.