The Pages of The Mind Flash Fiction

 For my  flash fiction I get to use one of Jeffe Kennedy's marvelous covers ...but it was hard because I associate them so strongly with her stories. So I've sort of compromised, keeping the fantasy feeling but offering a vignette from a different time and place of my own.            

“You will tell my story.” Her voice was low and beautiful. He wished he could see her more clearly in the swirling lavender and green mists. She extended the glowing book to him, saying, “It’s all here, all the spells, all the details.”

                “Where are you going? Why can’t I come with you? After all the adventures we’ve shared, why must we separate now?” He clenched his hand on the pommel of his sword.

                “Our destinies lie along different paths and I’m summoned home to my own place and time. Yet if you tell the story true, we may meet again. Take the book, I beg you.”

                Ignoring her outstretched hand, he shook his head. “I’m no scribe, no bard. I can’t do justice to your tale. I can’t even read - you set me an impossible task.”

                The book drifted in the evening breeze, floating from her hand and moving like an oversize butterfly, coming closer to him. Unwillingly he plucked the glowing tome from the air and tucked it under his arm.

                “You should seek help,” she said, retreating a step. “That’s allowed. Go to the city and visit the book seller in the corner of the market square. His daughter will be able to read the runes, can tell you what you must do next.”

                Taking her by surprise as he’d hoped, he leaped forward, capturing one slender wrist. “Swear to me we’ll find each other if I do this.”

                He realized he held nothing but cold mist, as she continued to back away, deeper into the forest shadows. “I did love you,” she said.