Fiction
Space Needed Ashley Duncan A loud pounding thundered throughout the room, startling the king awake. He sat up and grumbled as he squinted toward the giant doors. “What in the hell…” lighting up his disheveled face and making him cover his eyes. “Sorry to wake you sir, but it is urgent.” Four guards stood outside his door, two holding torches. “What do you want?” “It’s Amethyst. We lost her, again.” “Again?” The king’s eyes opened, fully awake now, knowing that his daughter was probably not within the walls of the castle. “This is the third time this goddamn week!” The king hurried back to his bed, grabbing his robe and slipping on his slippers. The king turned back towards the doors and headed out, making the soldiers part a path for him. “Gather the rest of the guards and maids and send out a search party,” the king glanced behind him, “and you
***** Amethyst slung her bag over her shoulder as she scrambled up a tree, her nightgown getting caught on branches, ripping here and there. At one point, it snagged on a larger branch and she yanked it so hard a piece of her nightgown She stared at it and shrugged. “I wasn’t a fan of this nightgown anyways.”
Amethyst carefully pulled her telescope from the bag and extended it to its full length. She peered into the bright sky and smiled at the large object smiling back. The moon was everything to her and she wanted to know everything about it.
She put the telescope back up to her eye and sighed at the sight of the moon. The mix of the surface’s colors brought joy to her; the way the light greys and dark greys blended.
dimmer, or sometimes not even there. The clouds tended to cover the moon some nights, leaving her to see the stars only. Amethyst wondered where the moon went. For a few hours, she sat there, carefully studying every aspect of the moon and sky. The next day, she would take what she drew and go to the local scientist and librarian, to see if they knew anything about the moon. She always bombarded those two with questions and they always gave her the same answers, but yet she would return. After studying the moon for so long, Amethyst put her things away and just lay against the tree, staring up at the sky. 56
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