NaNo '12 Prep Journal

Day 20: Setting #2 Description - Elven Hollow

Saturday, Oct. 20 - CONTEST ROUND: SETTING #2 DESCRIPTION
Describe Setting #2 with words. Use all five senses and make your reader experience the setting as if he or she were there.

*Submit your BITEM or ENTRY link by 1200 noon WDC time on Sunday, Oct. 21 to compete. If you miss this deadline or choose not to compete, you may still post your assignment completion for the grand prize per the standard Challenge guidelines.

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         Mattie pushed through the last of the scratchy thicket and ambled into the misty and silent meadow. In the distance, the shimmer of a river was a welcomed sight to her weary eyes after the tumultuous journey through the forest. The whole way, Mattie’s mind had been consumed with the thoughts of the odious box and the haunting memory of the feeling she had when she first opened it back on the ship, miles away in Umop Valley. The feelings still haunted her. Would she find Captain Chet’s daughter alive? Could anyone even live without . . . without what was in the box? She couldn't bare to even think the girl's name. Shivering, she tried to shake the feelings out of her mind. The sack that held the box tucked inside rustled. She’d almost forgotten it had been her turn to carry it, and it now hung heavy from her sweaty palm.

         Thane stepped out of the thicket behind her and reached for the sack. “It’s my turn to carry it.”

         The soft green eyes of her friend somehow eased her. “Thanks,” she said as she slipped the rope handle off her wrist.

         Mattie’s brother, Brian, tripped over a moss-covered rock. “Ouch, dumb rock,” he complained as Thane helped him back to his feet.

         Behind them, Phippin wobbled onto the soft grass of the meadow on his hands—as all palmwalkers walk in the Upside Down World of Umop. With clusters of brown bur-stars now stuck in his dangling hair, he pointed toward the river. “Where are we?”
Cyprus trees grew along the bank, pointing up, toward the deep-clouded sky like shadowy arrowheads. Only a narrow line of golden-orange remained at the horizon, marking the ebb of daylight. Above the trees, a greystone tower loomed across the gentle flowing river.

         “Where are all the people?” Brian’s eyes darted across the meadow as they walked toward the riverbank.

         Mattie hadn’t noticed the grassy mounds here and there—the ones with closed shutters and latched wooden doors.

         “Elven Hollow,” Phippin announced.

         “What?” Mattie turned in the direction of Phippin’s awry index finger.

         “That’s where we are—“

         “Elven Hollow,” Mattie read aloud the words etched in a boulder at the edge of the meadow. A fresh-water spring gurgled up among the rocks surrounding it.

         “Elfs live here?” Brian asked.

         “Elves. And it doesn’t look like anybody lives here. Where are they all?” Mattie said.

         Thane placed a finger over his lips and whispered. “Elves use magic.”

         Phippin’s knees began to knock. “Good magic . . . right?”

          The quiet, the emptiness of the meadow, the dark tower across the river . . . an ominous feeling shuddered through Mattie. And the smell . . .

         Brian winced and covered his nose. “Ughh. What stinks?”

         A sudden gusty chill bit Mattie’s cheeks and tossed her hair. The wafted dank odor made her gag like washing Brian’s sweaty, mud-crusted, and stale toe-jammed socks after a game of tackle football in the rain.

         “Whatever it is, it’s not good,” Thane whispered and held back a cough.

         “The box . . . I feel it again.” Mattie’s hazel eyes glazed over and she turned to her friends. “Captain Chet’s daughter . . . Chelsea is close.”

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