Ellie tucked the pendant into her back pack’s front pocket and zipped it up tight as not to lose it. It was another treasure that the woods had given her and she sure didn’t want to loose it. The woods had special things to give you, as long as you were open to receiving the gifts. Ellie stood up from the crouched position she had been in, and turned towards home. This forest had the ability to make you loose track of time, and mom would totally flip if she ever caught her outside the gate, or worse in the woods. She started to walk home but as if in slow motion she felt her self slipping on the wet mossy ground near the trickling stream. The soles of her faithful boots had already been wet from leaning in the stream, and she went right down as her boots slid across the moss. Lying there on the forest floor, she felt a stinging pain on the underside of her forearm. She lifted it to see a rather large gash, blood beginning to bead at the cut, running nearly half the length of her forearm. This couldn’t be good. If mom saw this she was done for. Ellie got herself up, slowly, and washed the cut with her water bottle. She trudged home, wondering if mom was on her way home or not, and how much time she had to clean up her cut before she got home.

When Ellie was cleaning her cut, she could hear mom coming up the road. She hurriedly pulled over a sweatshirt, as the downstairs door sprung open and her mom walked inside. Luckily, it was getting late and mom got straight to cooking dinner, and Ellie was left with some time to herself to analyze the comings of the evening, and check out the pendant she had found earlier in the forest.

Ellie unzipped her bag pocket and dug around until she felt the cold smooth patch of gold in her fingertips. She took her hand out of her bag, and while sitting at her desk, examined the “D” that was engraved on a heart shaped charm. Who had the charm belonged to, she wondered. Was it a “Diane,” or perhaps “Debbie,” and who had given it to them? It seemed like something special, and although nearly half of the pendant was covered in moss, some of the gold still glinted through. Ellie figured that the pendant had been in the stream or forest for probably as long as she had been alive.

Ellie carefully scrubbed the moss and grime off of the pendant. It came right off with a little water, and she cleaned it and rubbed it down with one of her shirts. The gold glinted and sparkled, it was the unveiling of a diamond from the rough, and something in her admired this beautiful transformation. She so wished that one day, her life would take a drastic change, and someone would come along and polish her life up into its finest possible state. Ellie was destined for bigger things than the ones that her mother had planned for her. Both Ellie and her mom, Dora, knew that.

Ellie was walking back to sit down at her desk, when she saw her mom standing there. Her mom had been watching her every move. How long she had been standing there, Ellie didn’t know, but she did know that her mom’s expression meant she had some questions coming her way.

Ellie noticed that her mom wasn’t so much starring at the pendant in her hand, but rather at her arm. Then she realized she still had the sweatshirt sleeve pulled up because she had been cleaning her treasure, and her mom could see the bandage and all. Her gash had started to soak through the gauze in just a few places, but it was apparent that she the cut was serious, and she sure didn’t get it from anything in the house.

Ellie’s mom watched her as she came slowly over to her desk, and sat down, still clutching the pendant in her hand.

“What’s that you’ve got in your hand Anna?” she questioned
“And where did you get that awful cut!!!”

Ellie just shrugged and mumbled that she was always being clumsy and had fallen and scrapped her self on something sharp downstairs, something that she couldn’t remember. As for the thing in her hand, she had just found an old thing of hers and was putting it back where it belonged. But before Ellie could say another word, her mom had pried open her hand and picked up the pendant she had found. Her mother looked it over and rubbed it a couple times between her thumb and forefinger, as if trying to recall anything she knew about it. Ellie’s mom’s eyes grew teary, and she sighed,

“Ellie…” she called her by her name “ From the cut you have and this charm, you must have been outside today, but you know what, I never thought that I’d see this again.” She said, holding the heart charm up to the light.

“You see, when I was a little girl, I used to love to explore just like you. Every day, I was in those woods, trekking, camping, you name it, I had done it. But my father, who died before you were born, died of an infection from bacteria that he picked up while hiking in these woods. I never visited them since, and lost this gold heart on my last forest visit. You are so much like me, Ellie, but I lost my taste for adventure after my father passed away. I guess I’ve really been too hard on you, and I’ve controlled too much of your life and what you can do with it. I got to do what I wanted to do with it, and that’s all I really want for you. I just want you to be safe, for your sake.”
She took Ellie’s hand and kissed each finger like she used to do when she was a little girl, and brought over a chain for the pendant so Ellie could wear it. For Ellie, Life’s adventure’s had just begun.