by Sarah Earlene Shere, ©2025
(May 30, 2025) — Two men stood against the side of an old stone house, watching down the dirt road. The nervous one tapped the man in front of him. “Are you sure you have it?”
The calm one sighed as he held up a small leather pouch. “Yes.”
“And you remember what to do, what to say?”
“Yes!”
The first asked, “How can we be sure this will work?”
The second threw his cloak around himself; instantly he was transformed into an old, hunched-over peddler. “Because, children are naive. They’ll believe anything, especially if you dust it with magic. Besides, we will tell him the truth.”
“But not the whole truth.”
“No. Some things don’t need to be told all at once.”
“Oh, I’m so nervous I might cry!”
“Shhhh! Don’t be an idiot. Just keep thinking of all that treasure we’ll find once our ‘stairway to paradise’ is built.”
The first laughed. “Hehe, you mean ‘grown’. Hey, why is it, again, that we can’t do it ourselves?”
“Because, the magic will only work if it is done by a pure, innocent soul. Neither you nor I have one of those. But this kid I’ve had my eye on, I can tell, he’s the one. Shhhh, here he comes, now, with that scrawny cow he was planning to sell today.” With a toothless grin, the schemer clutched the leather pouch close to his chest as he hobbled out onto the road to meet young Jack.