No Land for Her

There were only the possibilities of some new land hidden beyond the curve of this world, some distant place Valerie thought she could discover where she would find she belonged. This was no land for her; this was no place for her. The people here, in this narrow world, seemed cold, spiteful, too uninterested in the possibilities of existence for her.

Valerie wanted more, more than this thin cold life of stunted possibility. She wanted more than this, but what she wanted she could not say. She did not want the foolish, stumbling boys or the heavy-handed men who turned to stare as she hurried past on some essential errand. She wanted someone who had eyes that could see further than the narrow open ground that lay between the village and the forest. Someone who wondered what it was like beyond the mist-shrouded hills and snow-capped mountains. Someone who could see as far as seeing goes.

The only thing Valerie did know, and know for sure, was that she would not find someone like that here in her village.

So, when the travelling storyteller came to town carrying his heavy bag of tales, poems and possibilities, Valerie was ready, waiting for him, ready to follow him to the end of all his stories.