It looked like a shell, half-buried, but as she dug through the sand around its edges, she found it was something completely different, something she’d never seen before and thought only existed in stories. She had to be imagining--it couldn’t be what she thought it was. Digging, she knew that other people would certainly come looking if she wasn’t careful. Quickly she placed it into her bad and hurried down the beach. Best to get this put away before too many questions.
Back at the cottage, she decided she needed to do more research. After all, how could she know what was hiding at the bottom of her trunk at the foot of her bed if she didn’t do more digging?
Digging -- funny, she thought, as it was her curious digging that found her poring over books for all the information she could glean.
She could almost feel it--a throbbing in the air. A heavy pulse beating from inside her trunk.
“Now what?” she thought to herself.
She had exhausted the books on her limited shelf, but she knew they only painted a partial picture. She also understood that she couldn’t just turn up at the local library asking questions, that would only lead people right to her door. No, she needed a more subtle way to go digging for clues.
There was that word again.
She didn’t know what would next for her, but something felt destined. Almost as though it knew she would find it there, half-buried in the sand.
Having turned over all the leaves she could for one day, and before turning in for the night, she out a fire on and warmed a kettle. The copped shined firelight across the walls. While the kettle warmed she decided to take one last look at the mysterious object recently come into her possession.
She knelt at the foot of her bed and dug - again - to the bottom of her trunk. Carefully unwrapping the linen cloth she’d placed around it, she brushed off the remaining sand. She couldn’t believe what she held in her hand.
Staring, mesmerized, there came a quick knock at the door. Hastily she replaced the object, closed the trunk, and moved to open the door.
A stranger’s face greeted her.
“Hello, dear. May I have a cup of the tea you are preparing?”