Chapter 16: A Thread of Sympathy

Tilla’s outburst eliciting a crumpling of dead foliage and the frantic scurrying of four pairs of tiny feet. The startled spies scrambled over one another as they fled from their hiding place. Flying in different directions from the hollow trunk of a fallen tree. They did not pause to look back, for fear that they should be caught by the fiery red headed woman they had been surveying curiously before.

However, in doing so, the smallest and less agile of the bunch was left behind. Too occupied in his haste to see adequately his surroundings, the child had fallen victim to the upturned root of a large oak. Subdued by the rogue appendage, the boy tumbled spectacularly head over heels onto the ground. His hair left askew and nose covered in dirt, the child took hold of his wrist. Cradling it to his chest, he began to cry pitifully as he sat alone on the forest floor.

The child’s face distorted by pain and the fresh anguish of his friends’ abandonment, it evoked a sympathy within Till