A Glimpse of Home

The old woman’s fingers, gnarled like ancient roots, brushed against Elara’s own. They were so small, Elara’s fingers, almost lost in the rough weave of the woman’s shawl. But it was the object she pressed into Elara’s palm that held her captive. It was smooth, cool, and strangely heavy for its size. Elara turned it over, her brow furrowed in concentration. It looked like a pebble, but not quite. It seemed to hold a light all its own, a soft, milky luminescence that pulsed faintly, like a captured firefly.

“What is it?” Elara whispered, her voice a tiny thread in the vast, echoing silence that had fallen after the storm of noise.

The old woman’s eyes, the colour of a twilight sky, crinkled at the corners. “A pocketful of dreams, child,” she murmured, her voice like the rustle of dry leaves. “Hold it close. When the world feels too loud, too dark, too much… it will show you the way.”