Lady Thief [on hold]

~ Chapter Eight ~

(I'm so sorry for the delay of posting chapters guys!  The next one will go up early to make up for it!)

The nine year old Key sat behind her grandmother’s barn, playing around with the knife in her hand. She tilted the blade, watching as it caught the sunlight and how an image of her face was reflected back at her. Her brothers and cousins had left the scene, heading of to hunt and set traps in the fields. They hadn’t noticed when Key snuck back down the apple tree she'd hidden herself in to look at the collection of knives they’d left behind in a heap by the barn wall.

Key hoisted the knife up, holding it in a poised position, before snapping into action, flinging the blade at the wall of the barn. She prayed that it would flip hilt over blade and bury itself deep into the wood. Instead, it hit the wall with a dull thump and flopped to the ground. Sighing, Key brought up the next knife, and threw it in a similar fashion. The blade did the same thing, landing five feet away from its counterpart.

She didn’t know how long she stayed back there, throwing knives at the wall and praying each time that one of them would find a hold on the wall, but each of them clattered awkwardly to the ground. Once she ran out, she’d run over, collect them all back up in her arms, and start all over again. With every throw, she’d change her technique, adjusting her grip on the hilt or throwing it in a different way to get a good spin out of it.

“Kia!”

Key jumped at the sound of her grandmother’s voice, just as she let another knife fly. It flipped hilt over blade toward the wall, but fell down just as it usually did. Key’s grandmother came out form behind the barn.

“Kia! Put those things down!” said, pointing to the knives that Key held in her hand. Grimacing, she let them drop to the ground.

Key’s grandmother scooped all of the knives up off of the ground. “Come along, Kia. It’s time you come back in the house. Come with me now, darling.” she said, gesturing for Key to come. She did. Her stomach twisted in knots the entire time, knowing that she was in for a scolding, if not from her grandmother, than from her mother.

“Now, Kia, your mother has told you that it’s not good to play with knives, hasn’t she?” her grandmother asked. “She must have told you that, at least once, hasn’t she?”

Key nodded, almost saying that she’d gotten the idea of knife play from Henrie and her cousins, but she refrained. She couldn’t finch on them. They’d never respect her if she ratted the out at any chance she got. “I guess she has.” Key conceded.

“Then why were you back behind the barn throwing them around?” she asked. “You shouldn’t do that, you know. Knives are very dangerous. You could’ve hurt yourself, darling.”

Key fished for a lie to use, because she obviously couldn’t tell the truth, not this time. “I read a story in one of the story books. The girl in the story was a brave girl, and she fought monsters with swords and threw magic daggers at them. I thought that I could pretend to be like her, and, since I couldn’t find a sword anywhere, I thought I’d pretend the knives were daggers.” In reality, Key wasn’t that far from the truth. She had read a story in the story book about a lively young heroine who slew monsters and saved helpless people. It was one of Key’s favorites.

Her grandmother sighed. “Now, there’s nothing wrong with you using your imagination, Kia. It’s just that you shouldn’t do dangerous stuff, like throwing knives. Why don’t you go play pretend with your sisters and your cousins? They’re up in the attic right now, and they’ve found some of the old dresses. They’re dressing up like princesses. You’d like that Kia, wouldn’t you?” she asked.