Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language and violence.
The frost-covered grass gleamed a silvery green in the weak winter sunshine as a seven year old girl made her way down the path, loose gravel crunching under her pink rain boots. It was wickedly cold this time of year, and her mother had made sure that she was wearing her fluffy down coat and a scarf and mittens before allowing her outside. The girl blew out a breath, watching as a plume of white vapor appeared in the air. She hated lying, especially to her mother, but her curiosity had overwhelmed her.
As she passed the last house on the block, the dusty road ended and she was trudging through the icy grass. The tall blades brushed her legs above her boots, soaking the thin material of her jeans. She shivered and kept walking, a determined look on her chubby-cheeked face.
Soon, the tall shadows of trees loomed ahead and she felt a pang of excitement mixed with guilt. Her mother's cardinal rule rang in her ears- "Stay away from the woods". She could clearly see her mother's face in her mind's eye, long blonde hair tucked behind her ears, her eyebrows drawn together with worry, her thin-lipped mouth turned down in a fragile frown. The girl shook the image away and pushed away her guilt. She glanced up at the thick dark canopy of leaves that seemed to float above the forest like an eerie shadow being cast into the sky, and a thrill shot through her.
Just one little look. She told herself. I'll just take one look in and then I'll go right back home. Her heart was pounding in her ears and she sped up, breaking into a stumbling sort of run. A wind buffeted her face and sent her long thin blonde hair trailing behind her. Her feet slipped around inside her boots and she nearly tripped. She could practically feel the mystery pouring out of the woods.
The girl stopped right before she entered into the cool, dark forest and reached out a mitten to touch the bark of one of the trees. A grin spread across her face and she let out a squeal of excitement. She clapped a hand over her mouth immediately while her little squeal echoed through the trees. When nothing happened, she cautiously lowered her hand and swept a lock of her silvery blonde hair behind her ear. She peered into the darkness before her and then took a deep breath and stepped into the woods.
She was cocooned in a peaceful stillness that sent a chill racing down her spine. It was as though the trees with their mossy coverings were waiting for something to happen. It filled her with anticipation and a sense of dread. She shivered again and pulled her coat tighter around her slender body.
"Who are you?" The tension that had encased her snapped like a rubber band pulled too tight, and she leapt forward with a piercing scream that sent a flock of birds scattering up into the sky. She caught herself on the trunk of a sturdy tree and whirled to face whoever had spoken so close to her ear.
It was a boy. He was about her age, maybe older. He wore a woolen coat the exact same shade of gray as her mittens. The coat was too big and hung down to his knees, but it brought out some flecks of gray in his luminous green gold eyes. His hair was a strange shade of blond that seemed both dark and light at the same time, like shadows flitting over a field of wheat. His head was cocked like a puppy's and he stared at her with a faintly amused look on his freckled face. His golden brown eyebrows raised slightly as he repeated his question, "Who are you?"
The girl flicked her hair out of her eyes and stood tall before him. "Cassie." she squeaked out then cleared her throat and said in a relatively strong voice. "Cassie Wimberly."
The boy's mouth quirked in a funny way as he considered. "Mayor's kid." he mused.
Cassie raised her chin. "Yeah, my dad's the mayor. So what?" She answered a bit defensively. She noticed that there was something off about the boy's mouth; it pulled up a bit on the left side. There was a fresh looking cut above his lip and she suspected that it had something to do with the odd look to his mouth.
"You like to stare, don't you." The boy said. Cassie snapped out of her reverie and felt her face grow hot."I wasn't-" she tried to deny her actions but the boy's eyebrows rose again, so she gave up. She sighed. "I've just never been in here before," she gestured to the world of trees and mist and moss that surrounded them. "And it's just so, so different."
The boy regarded her thoughtfully. "You like it in here?" he asked suddenly. Cassie blinked at him in surprise.
"Of course I do! It's beautiful!" she blurted, her eyes bright with excitement.
"You think this is beautiful?" Cassie nodded vigorously. The boy eyed her for a moment. "What if I told you this is nothing compared to where I live?"
Cassie gave him a doubtful look. "You mean, your house is better than all this?"
The boy's face broke into a broad grin. The left side of his mouth, the side with the cut, pulled up, making his smile crooked. "Who says I live in a house?"
"Everybody lives in a house!" Cassie retorted. The boy shook his head, still grinning. She regarded this stranger curiously. Didn't live in a house? Then where did he live? In a tree? In a cave?
"Do you wanna see?" The boy betrayed his eagerness, his eyes shining with excitement. Cassie twisted her mouth, then nodded slowly.
"Come on!" he laughed, lunging out to grab her mittened hand so fast that Cassie couldn't even see him. Then he was pulling her deeper into the woods, his blond hair flopping against his forehead.
"Wait!" Cassie protested, yanking half-heartedly at the hand that was in the boy's grasp. "My mom'll be expecting me back home soon."
The boy skidded to a halt and glanced over his shoulder at her, his honey green eyes gleaming like a cat's. "You can always come back tomorrow." he said in a quiet voice. Cassie started to agree, started to turn to walk back through the tall frosty grass, but then she didn't. She thought about it. Tomorrow was an awfully long way off. She snuck a peek at the boy, at what he embodied, at the adventure that awaited her. She felt herself start to smile. Her mother could wait a couple minutes longer for her to come home.
"Let's go." She grinned and the boy grinned crookedly back. Then they were running through the woods, the cool air caressing their faces, twigs snapping under their feet. The boy led Cassie through a series of narrow passages, over shadowy green logs and under curtains of white flowered moss. Birds twittered high above and there was an occasional snuffle from some sort of wild beast in the undergrowth. The boy ignored it all and plunged ahead with Cassie in tow.
If she had been a bit older, a bit more cautious, than she might have been worried, scared even. She was being led through the woods by someone she didn't know. And nobody else knew where she was. But Cassie was only seven and definitely not cautious, so she followed the boy without even the slightest flicker of fear.
Finally, he stopped in front of a clump of bushes with pale lime green leaves. He turned his head in Cassie's direction. "Are you afraid of the dark?"
"No." The words had barely escaped her lips before she was thrust towards the bushes, and then the ground disappeared and the light was also gone and she was falling. The blackness twisted around her and then she landed in a pile of leaves. She pushed her white blond hair out of her face and struggled to her feet, shaking bits of dirt out of her coat. Then she glanced up and realized where she was.
In front of her was a tall rocky cliff with hundreds of green-capped ledges randomly carved here and there. A great thundering waterfall roared down the cliff in a foaming white sheet that fell into a wide deep-looking pool. Cassie stared in awe at the magnificent sight. She could almost feel the icy cold spray against her face. Then she realized that it was a wet leaf stuck to her cheek and she quickly wiped it away with a look of disgust.
"Whaddya think?" The boy had appeared next to her in a flurry of dead leaves and there was one in his unruly blond hair. Cassie automatically reached out and plucked it off his head then turned back to the waterfall with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
"This is where you live?" she answered his question with one of her own. The boy paused, grinned crookedly and proudly.
"Yep."
"It's amazing." Cassie breathed, still scrubbing at the leaf slime on her cheek. She could feel the boy watching her and her face felt warm despite the frigid air. She shyly shifted her gaze to meet his. "What?"
"Noah." the boy said. Cassie blinked.
"What?" she asked again.
The boy smiled, his green-gold cat's eyes dancing in the light of the waterfall. "That's my name. Noah."
There was a small silence as the two children locked eyes. Then Cassie sucked in a deep breath, gathering her courage, then twisted her mouth, considering. She nodded to herself and then stuck her hand out solemnly.
"Friends?" Noah stared at her outstretched hand in what seemed like surprise. Then his crooked smile was back and he was grasping her hand.
"Friends." Cassie grinned excitedly. That was the last time she ever saw the mysterious boy named Noah who lived in a waterfall.
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,841 Reviews
WHAT? WHAT?
Come on, now. Why would you do that to me?
That is just cruel.
Okay, so I normally don't like prologues. Like, at all. The reason being that they are often completely terrible because the writer is only using them as a hook that's needed because the first chapter is going to be a bunch of backstory or otherwise boring junk.
Needless to say, I was a bit apprehensive when I clicked on this, but you far exceeded my expectations of prologues in general. From that last line, we can see that this prologue is not for the aforementioned use. Rather, you've set up a meeting that will obviously turn out to be important to the story later, but since this is the only time Cassie ever meets this boy (and since it's so long ago), it makes sense to use it as a prologue rather than showing it during the main action of the story.
The description was well-done and set the tone quite nicely. Although there was very little dialogue, especially at the opening, the story seemed to move at a reasonable pace; I didn't feel bored reading it. I particularly liked the description of Noah's hair, this bit:
If you had left it off with his hair somehow being both dark and light blond, it would have been confusing, or, at best, left me with a picture of someone who tried to get highlights done but had it done really badly. But once you added the bit about the shadows over a field of wheat, I knew exactly what you meant.
The only complaint I have about this prologue is in regards to the weather. So it's winter, right? And it's frigid and snowy. At least, that's what I get starting off.
Wait, okay. I just reread the opening, and I see that it's not snowy, per se--just frosty. Somehow I think the repeated mention of it being that cold (plus the winter I've just had in real life) put me in mind of snow. Plus the fact that Cassie's wearing boots. So then when they're running through the woods "over shadowy green logs" and past "white flowered moss," that was a bit confusing, because it put me more in mind of spring time and warmth.
(Plus there was an earlier mention of a "dark canopy of leaves"--is this a deciduous or evergreen forest? I automatically picture all forests as deciduous unless I'm told otherwise, but leaves in that case would mean a warmer time of year.)
So I would just suggest figuring out exactly what time of year you're thinking for this scene (if you don't have the specific time of year in mind already), think about the qualities of that time of year (temperature, plant life or lack thereof, animal life or lack thereof), and then incorporate that better into the trek through the woods and the description of Noah's waterfall. That way, your readers will have a clearer idea of the setting.
~BlueAfrica
Hey, aud290! It's wisegirl22 here for a review!
Well, first of all, this sentence kind of overdoes it with the "and"s. So, instead of writing and, maybe you could put commas, like "It was wickedly cold this time of year, and her mother had made sure that she was wearing her fluffy down coat, a scarf, and mittens before allowing her outside."
"It was wickedly cold this time of year, and her mother had made sure that she was wearing her fluffy down coat and a scarf and mittens before allowing her outside."
That's the only thing that you need to fix. I need to compliment you severely, though, because you used such vivid description that a painting was drawn in my head. You could beat anyone with that technique. I mean seriously. I also like how well it was planned, and enjoyed the chapter all in all. Happy writing, and keep doing it!
-wisegirl22
This is a well written story in my opinion. It is well structured and easy to read, which is very important. Spelling and grammar wise, I could not find anything wrong with it. Then again, I might be wrong or the mistake(s) might have been so trivial that I did not even notice it.
This is a good length for prologue in my opinion, as it is not too long. Also it did not feel like an info dump where you try to cram as much information as possible into it. I felt that it flowed smoothly.
Cannot wait to read the chapter once it gets published. Curious to see who is this boy who lives in a waterfall.