Gwen could still remember the day she broke the bronze-wood table.
She’d been seven. Freya only two, all chubby limbs and rosey cheeks. Gwen couldn’t picture her without smiling. She used to run in and out of the table legs; still small enough to go under the table without ducking. To a two-year old - unaware of her lower body on show beneath it - it was the perfect hiding place. But Gwen was a model big sister and dutifully looked at every other potential space in the dining room before ‘giving up’ and sitting on a chair at the table’s edge, waving her legs beneath it.
“Ow!” A giggle.
“Hmm,” Gwen replied, swinging her legs again - light enough to brush her sister’s shoulder, but not so much that she’d heard her.
There was another giggle.
“That’s strange,” Gwen said to the room. “I can’t find Freya anywhere, but the table is definitely making strange noises.”
A third giggle, stifled by a chubby hand over a mouth.
“I hope there isn’t a ghost in here.”
“Whoooo!”
Gwen jumped up, so that she was standing on the chair.
“Whoooo!”
She stepped from the chair to the tabletop.
A small voice at the back of her mind told her that she shouldn’t be on there. That Mama would have a fit if she came in and saw her.
But she was too focused on Freya’s joy to pay it any notice.
This one isn't finished, so I might extend it at some point. Hopefully you can see where it's going from this brief snapshot.
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