Lucia was floating through the air again. Although she had hoped to return to the airfield when she jumped from the airplane this afternoon, it was not going to happen. A fierce wind was blowing her many miles away now. She remained in the air, above those forests and farms and small towns, for a long time.
As she came down slowly, below her was a church. Then she saw some pigs, and an old carriage. Lucia was glad she had wool underwear, because the air up high was very cold. She landed softly in a field on a small farm, with the rays of sun coming through the forest trees around. She felt safe at last, upon the firm ground. However, almost as she touched down, a group of men ran out from the trees.
"Where am I?" she asked, taking the elastic lines from her arms, letting go all the silky material that had held her in the sky.
"She sounds like an enemy to me," said one of the men, quickly pulling her arms behind her.
"I don't understand this," cried Lucia, surprised.
"Trying to explode our town," said another man.
"We'll show them, sending women to explode our town."
"We will heal the woman," said one nice man.
"She's not a woman," said a woman behind them, pointing to the sky. "She's an evil god from up there."
"Should we burn her?" said another man, lighting a match. "We have to burn her to heal her evil ways."
"No, not yet."
"Not YET?" said Lucia. "Can we maybe just TALK about this?"
"Not yet," said the firm woman to the group of men. "There may be others."
The men looked at the woman, not knowing what to do next. Upon her finger was a special ring, with a glass jewel pasted in it. She pointed with that finger to the sky.
"Are you deaf ?" she said, pointing upward. "We must watch the sky."
All of the men looked up in the sky for a few minutes. There were no others up there.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I just came down here…What can I say?" asked Lucia. The men still held her arms.
"You can say nothing we will hear," said the woman. "Evil spirits never tell the truth."
They continued holding her arms, and walked her along a dirt road for about a mile. They pushed her through a doorway into a small house. Then she remembered her cell phone. She had not called Karl since her night jump a few months ago, but she still had his number. Lucia had thought she might call him again when it was important.
"Here," said Lucia, pulling one arm free, and taking the cell phone from her pocket. "You won't listen to me, but here…you can talk to my friend Karl."
"She's going to warn her masters," said one of the men, roughly.
In the small room, the men gathered around a large one-gallon pan. The each took about a pint of drink each, in tin cups. Their eyes had become very glassy. Bottles were on shelves on the wall. Each had a cork in it. They had some kind of system for making the drink in large amounts.
"Nice little business you have here," said Lucia.
"I want to talk with your evil masters," said the woman. She was the only one without a tin cup.
Lucia put in the number Karl had given her. Would he be home? Would he remember her? How could he help now?
"Hello, Lucia, " said Karl said, reading on his cell where it showed her name. "How are you?"
"Not so good right now."
The woman came to grab the cell. Lucia pulled away and turned away from her.
"Can I help? Where are you?" Karl said.
"Yes, and GPS signal," Lucia said quickly as the woman took the cell from her.
"We know your kind," said the woman to Karl. "If you come, you will be burned just like your evil woman here."
"She's not evil. She is probably just lost," said Karl.
"That is what they all say," said the woman. "And that is all I have to say."
"Wait, wait…" said Karl, "We can explain things."
"Evil always has a good argument. But your reasons are always hollow: we will hear none of those."
"May I say goodbye to my friend?" Karl asked.
"No, you have said enough," said the woman, who put the cell on a nearby table. She seemed afraid of touching any more of the buttons on it. She turned back to Lucia, without a smile. "And now, my pretty, we will watch you burn."
"You think the others want to watch?" said one of the glassy-eyed men with a tin cup.
"The others MUST watch, so they learn what happens to evil strangers from the sky."
"What did I DO that was evil?" cried Lucia as they pulled her toward the door.
The woman held up two fingers. "According to our rules you dropped from the sky uninvited. Only evil women riding sticks do that. We will find your stick, and burn it with you."
"And what else?" said Lucia.
"You warned your evil master to stay away. We know you did it, with the evil G-P-S language you spoke."
A few minutes after they shut the door, the cell on the table started shaking and ringing with a popular song. The shaking cell "walked" off the edge of the table, and fell hard on the rock floor. The cell was not made of rubber. It lay there on the floor, broken and still. With no signal to follow, Karl could not find her to bring help.
It took about two hours to tell all the townspeople about the burning. In that time they took Lucia to a hilltop, and tied her to a small tree. They put dry wood around her, and other dry grasses that would burn quickly. They had gas in cans that they would use when everyone had arrived.
"We are gathered here to show that we obey the rule to burn those who use forbidden practices, like floating from the sky." She signaled to the men with the gas cans. They poured the gas over all the dry grasses.
"I was right. She warned her evil masters to stay away. So let her BURN now!" the woman shouted.
And the men started lighted their matches, to drop into the dry grass around Lucia.
"Wait a minute, just WAIT A MINUTE." shouted Lucia.
The men held their matches burning, waiting for her last words.
"You must burn my riding-stick!"
The men turned their heads to the woman with the ring. The wind blew their matches out.
"Is that right?" said one of the men.
"It's what you said," said another of the men.
"It was one of the main reasons you said she was evil," said the nice man.
"Don't tell me what I said then. Do what I say NOW."
"IF YOU DON'T BURN THE STICK, IT WILL GROW INTO A HUNDRED LIKE ME!" shouted Lucia to the men.
All the heads turned to the woman. "Is that so?" said one. "Then we must go and find that stick!" said another. "Yes, yes, we must find the stick she flew in with," another man, starting to run back to the field where Lucia had landed.
"It's not just any stick," Lucia said, still tied to the tree. "It is a rare wood, and it flies by itself. You must find that exact stick."
"SHE'S TELLING YOU AN EVIL FALSE THING!" shouted the woman.
"But it is what you told us yourself," said the nice man. "We heard you tell her you would burn it with her."
"Do not listen to evil!" The woman said taking out a match. She started to light it, and the people around stopped her.
"We must find the stick. We must burn the stick with her," they said.
The woman with the ring struggled free, and walked close to talk only to Lucia. "You ARE a little trickster. Evil always has tricks."
"No trick," Lucia said quietly to the woman with the ring. "You know there's not a stick that flies by itself. So: No trick. No stick. No burn. Sorry to ruin your day…."
Ready-to-Use
a.
business:
run a business
b. according: according to someone
c. without: without something
d. around: gathered around someone