The Harp

In a little town that you probably don't know, there sat a little cottage, run-down and broken. In the cottage lived a 13 year old boy and his mum. The mum was very sick and would not last more than a week in her condition. The boy sat by his mother's death bed and wept.

"Dont cry my child,everything will be fine.You will live with your aunt and live happily with what I can't provide you",she coughed as she pet her young son's hair.

The boy looked up at his dying mother, and shook her hand away. With tears in his eyes he ran from the room, tripping on his own feet. He ran from the house, and all the way across the small town to the little clinic at the end of the road.

As the boy ran into the room, the only doctor in the town looked up at the boy with pity-filled eyes

"What do you need young child? You know there is nothing more I can do to help your mother" the doctor slowly said, hoping the boy would understand.

"Please, is there any kind of cure? I will do anything to help my mother! She is all I have left!" the boy's eyes once again filled with tears as he looked at the doctor.

"Well... There is just one thing that can cure her illness. The strings from the magical harp of the forest", the doctor sighed and continued, "But only one person has ever attempted to retrieve them, and he never came back."

"I'll do it! No matter the danger! I will do anything to keep my mum alive!", and with that he ran from the room, not waiting for the doctor's reply. Back across the little town the boy was packing a small bag for his journey into the dense and scary forest that the whole town feared. As He finished packing the last of his supplies, he heard a weak cough come from his mother's bedroom. As he slowly walked to the door the old withering floor boards creaked under his weight. He slowly opened the door hoping not to wake his mother, and saw the worst sight a child could see. For his mother tossed and turned on the old iron bed covered in welts and boils, sweating what looked like blood.

With a scream he ran from the room determined to find that harp before the weeks end. He ran from the house, grabbing his bag as he went.

"I must go quickly! I must go quickly!" the boy kept telling himself. He ran across the deserted old road, and into the forest full of danger and mystery. As he ran he began to remember the beautiful voice of his mother as she sang him his favorite lullaby. He soon slowed to a halt, and stepped to a tree sliding his back up to it as he slid to the ground. He pulled his knees to his chest and cried as he remembered one time his mother had sang the beautiful song to him.

*Flashback- 5 years ago*

"Mummy, mummy! I dont want to go to bed, I'm not tired yet. pleeease, can I stay up, the little 8 year old pleaded. "No my darling, you must go to sleep, or you'll sleep all day tomorrow. How about I sing you your favorite lullaby, then will you go to sleep", the beautiful woman he called mother asked.

"Yes! Yes! please sing the song!"

"Only if you go jump into bed right now."

With that the boy ran to his little room and dashed under the covers waiting for his mother to come and sing to him. The woman entered the room and sat on the edge of the run down little bed. "Ready?", she asked, and the boy nodded eagerly wanting to hear he womans voice. The woman opened her mouth and began...

"Sleep, Baby, Sleep

Your father tend to the sheep

Your mother shakes the dreamland tree

and from it falls sweet dreams for thee"