Coveted Pearl by Meghnaa Sonkar (best beach reads .txt) 📕

Chapter One

Rosanna

In the depths of a forest , there was a much coveted pearl. The natives had known about it for centuries. However, no one ever knew how to extract it from the deep river that lined the forest.
This is quite a strange story. We are at a point in Rosanna’s life when she hardly had any support from her family. Her parents were too poor to pay for even the most meager expense. No flirty dress. No lace. No Satin.

Although Rosanna was the only child of her parents, she was quite self-reliant and really brave.Her eyes were soft grey and her complexion was moon-like. Rosanna had many dreams and often wished she could live in a different faraway land in order to make them come true.

One night as Rosanna was asleep in her tiny room in her old house in the town near the forest, she heard something unusual. It was a howl. But a very strange howl it was.

It sounded like that of a wolf, and yet, it seemed as if to pierce through the dark forests with a purpose. What that purpose was Rosanna didn’t know. But, she could surely find out!

Rosanna gathered her clothes around her, hugging them, for it was a cold night. Then she quietly tiptoed out of her house, making no noise lest her parents got up.

Soon enough, Rosanna was out in the woods…wishing she would find some clue to the strange howl that had kept her awake for a while. There was no sound for a while. Only the creaking of her own feet and the crushing leaves and the little twigs that broke underneath her.

For a second she felt like she could hear the roar of a lion. But it was not until she had walked a few more steps when she realized it was the same sound that had haunted her but with a very different heart-breaking tone.

Rosanna kept moving towards the sound. Soon, she came to a clearing in the forest she had never seen before. She hid in the shadows of the moonlit trees to find out just what was so strange and strong to make HER wake up. She was such a sound sleeper!

She peeped from behind a tree. The clearing was a bare patch of land with dry grass growing here and there for the most part. The moon was shining very bright, filling the entire area with something that reminded Rosanna of daytime. What were those things in front of her? It was truly a strange sight. Rosanna stood with her mouth wide open.

Text: Meghnaa Sonkar
Images: Meghnaa Sonkar
Editing: Meghnaa Sonkar
Translation: Meghnaa Sonkar
Publication Date: 03-01-2013

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Dedication:
To forests where trees fall without a sound