Misfits and Heroes is happy to be part of the Historical Fiction Blog Hop organized by Jessica Knauss. Today’s assignment was to provide exactly ten sentences from a piece of historical fiction we had written or were working on.
Here’s my contribution, taken from the end of the first chapter of Past the Last Island, set in the South Pacific Islands, 14,000 years ago. Naia, the chief’s servant, has promised to “take care of” the misshapen baby born to the chief’s wife.
Out where the light of the old sun still warmed the flat rocks, she set him down carefully and sat back on her heels. The reddened sky seemed very close above her, arching just over her head. She knew she shouldn’t stay. This place was dangerous; people sometimes felt the sky so close here that they slipped away into it, never to return except as shapes in the clouds.
“Don’t be an old fool,” she said as she pushed herself up. “You’ve been sitting here too long. It’s time to go home.”
Bending down, she tucked the long leaves around the infant, reached one hand under the misshapen head and the other under his back, and settled him back into the fold of her sling. Above her the flaming colors of the sky dome hid the world of the spirits but she knew they could see through holes in the clouds.
“I said I’d take care of him,” she said, looking up, “so I will.”
Don’t forget to visit the other blogs in the hop:
jessicaknauss.blogspot.com
richardabbott.authorsxpress.com
elizabethcaufieldfelt.wordpress.com
kimrendfeld.wordpress.com
stephaniereneedossantos.com
jennajackson.wordpress.com
misfitsandheroes 