BLAME IT ON THE MOON

 A repentant child bargains with the moon after her jealous actions create unintended consequences.

Seven-year-old Violet Hawkins opened her eyes to find her arms pinned above her head in an unfathomable darkness that seemed to defy time and space. She tried to relieve the cramps in her arms, only to find her lower body trapped as well, by cold crumbling matter, which stank of rotted wood and damp earth. 

Any attempt to shift in the cylinder of earth which surrounded her was met with vicious pain, which shot through her oddly-positioned left leg, resting against tree-root, while the other dangled loosely. Gripped by a sudden blinding panic, her fingers scrabbled across the dank surface, which offered only inches of motion in which to wriggle free.

Where am I? It’s so dark. Why is it so dark? She shuddered...what if she slipped deeper into the darkness? What waited down below? A glance upward revealed a sliver of darkening sky visible far above. “Momma,” she whimpered, half-aloud, “Momma, I need help!”  But no one answered.                                     

Violet retraced the day’s events…Jeremiah’s birthday…Papa’s gift of a hand-carved toy, barn-red, with wheels that really turned…Violet’s burning jealousy. Papa had never, ever, made her a present with his own two hands! Momma was the one who always constructed her meager gifts out of rag-bin scraps. She relived Papa’s pride as he offered his boy the tiny vehicle. She’d never felt so left out.

Watching Jeremiah showing off his prize on the schoolyard had provoked in her a jealous fury. She’d marched over, snatched it away, and run for the river, faster than Jeremiah’s little legs could follow. Satisfaction mounting, she’d cut through the forbidden north woods, near the old Black Snake Diamond Mine, intending to circle around and taunt him with his lost toy. She was making her way through the woods when something happened, and she woke up here. 

A ghostly chill gripped her as realization struck. Papa had told her many times that good children steered clear of the north wood, and now what had she done? She’d not only ignored Papa’s warnings but broken God’s commandment about coveting her brother’s things. Was this God’s punishment? Violet began to cry.

*

It was almost dark when a harried Rose Hawkins noticed her daughter missing. “Jeremiah,” she called, “Where’s your sister?”

“I don’t know, Mama. I hate Violet. She stole my birthday present and ran into the woods. She’s mean, an’ I never want to see her no more.”

“What do you mean she ran into the woods? Which woods?”

“The woods we ain’t supposed to go in, Momma.” 

“Oh dear Lord,” Rose whispered, “Please don’t let her have fallen down one of those old mine shafts!”  She raced outside for her husband.

By sunset, Tom Hawkins had rounded up neighbors and hired hands. With night encroaching, searchers were racing the dark, the cold, and the wild beasts who follow the rising moon. Beginning at the wood’s edge, they called for Violet, listening intently for her reply.

Deeper into the woods, Violet shifted her cold, cramped body to keep from sinking farther down the hole. The waxing moon, inching across the darkening autumn sky filled her with foreboding as she shivered in her dark prison. She dug at its walls, freeing her arms in an attempt to reach the sliver of moonlight above. Overcome by shame, she prayed a Sunday School prayer for redemption.

“The moon looks sad and lonesome,” she mused, tracking the brilliant orb to its pinnacle. “Just like me,” she sniffled, swallowing earth and tears. If only she could tell Jeremiah she was sorry and kiss his baby face. Maybe then God could forgive her, instead of making her wait until he followed her to Heaven, someday. “Jeremiah! I’m so sorry!” she cried plaintively into the starry night.

Torches and lamps glittered through the pines as searchers traversed the wild landscape. At home, Rose sat silently. “What happened to Violet?” Jeremiah asked again…Rose couldn’t respond other than to squeeze his small hand.

Bit by bit the earth fell away as Violet’s fingers pried at the tunnel. She conversed with the constant moon in a feverish delirium. “Please, Moon, will you stay and keep me company, if I promise to be good? If you keep shining, God might find me and tell me he forgives evil children.” 

As she spoke, something hard and sharp scored her bloodied fingertips. Brushing the dirt away revealed a translucent stone the size of her small fist, which glinted in the moonlight, then tumbled into her hands. Moonbeams danced through its facets, bouncing pale moonlight around the darkened shaft. 

Violet smiled with enchantment, its magnificent iridescence a balm against her fright and pain. “Moon,” she whispered, her half-lidded eyes seeking its light, “Is this my sign?”

She clutched her signal of God’s grace to her heart and closed her weary eyes.

Above ground, temperatures dropped steadily and searchers were racing against time, when a call rang out, “OVER HERE!”  Tom Hawkins ran towards a man shadowing a narrow hole. “Almost fell in!” the man said.

“Violet! Violet! Are you there?” The silence terrified Tom as he lowered his lantern into the shaft. “IT’S HER!” He shouted, spying Violet’s still form dangling thirty feet below.  “HELP ME!” he screamed, raggedly.

The moon stood faithful guard over the men, who shoveled feverishly, mindful always of cave-ins and the chances of dropping the endangered child from the ever-widening hole, into the murky depths below. Tom called softly to his little girl, “Hold on, my beauty, my love. Your papa is coming for you!”

The moon stood faithful guard over Violet as she dreamed of reunions, and moonlit pathways, and searched for a safe, sunny place to call home. At long last, her father reached down to raise her small, limp form from the darkness. As he clutched her to him, a glittering stone, big as her fist, rolled from her hands into an old mine, creating a rainbow that no one saw.

…While the moon looked sad and lonesome, shining down through the trees.