Jil's Hill

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        Jil's fingertips barely brushed the clear frame, but she jerked it back. She peered through the glass plane, checking for smudges that proved her carelessness.

None. Not there, not on any inch of the eternal barrier. She sat back down on the crisp grass, the pleats of her underskirt bunching uncomfortably. She had once thought to find a rock somewhere, something to break the wall, but everything was stuck quite well to the ground.

The shoots of grass remained like tiny daggers, but her skirts had always covered them well.  Staring into space, jil noticed a slight change in color. Was the grass a little lighter, a little more yellow? Was it time already?

        Slowly she pushed up from her knees, pushing her weight into the hard soles of her shoes for balance.

There was nothing to prove her actions, no stalk of grass tilted at any other angle than it had been before. Jil walked, carefully treading up the middle mound. Her so-called house was at the base of the hill, but the pail was always somewhere else.

She knew when she had to go up, but she could never seem to remember the correct location of the pail. She always remembered a place it ought to be at, but her search in such spots was always unfruitful. If anything, it gave her a sure place not to look.

Jill decided the follow the regular course of action, a top side view from the peak of her hill, and then maybe a walk around the parameter if the pail was feeling shy.

        There really was no need to be careful. If her surroundings were unchanging, so was she. Some sheer magic might allow her to move freely, as well as her clothes to an extent, but it had limits too. Maybe it was protecting her, she decided to think after her trials against her physical well-being.

Jill ran up, spying the nearby area for any hint of small gray steel in her lonely little solace.

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