Flour Footprints

Chapter 74 Keyra’s POV

Somehow wandering around the Rucksfolk city unsupervised felt rebellious. It reminded Keyra of the days when she had gone out into the town with her brothers. They were always so much more outgoing. “I’d rather say sorry than please” was always their reassurance to any behavior that mom or dad may not approve of. The way they would scoop up coarse flour from the mills and scatter it around the valley. How they ran through the streets leaving dusty footprints in their wake. How Keyra would eventually throw caution to the wind and follow them.

Keyra missed her family, her brothers, her sister, her parents. It wasn’t just the Outwild that made her miss them. She was used to not seeing everyone for quite a while. She hadn’t seen her sister much at all for about eight years since she got married and moved. Her brothers hadn’t been around much for about four years since her parents moved to Flourvally. They always seemed to be out of the house whenever Keyra visited, out with their friends back in the day, or now, moved out and happily living with their wives and children. Really it was as if Keyra was frozen in time as her family moved on without her. So maybe she missed the old times just as much as she wished she got to see them more often.

Maybe the sideways stares she got both back then and now were warranted. Now she wasn’t a small child covered in flour, now she was an unbelonging adult. She was still seen as a child, a strange child head and shoulders taller than everyone around. An outsider sighted at a…