Prompt: Dowsing rod

Jenna was seven when her father hit her for the last time. She dropped her bowl full of hot chili on the new reeds he had just laid over the dirt floor. Her tears welled and ran down her face even before he jumped out of his chair. She ran out the door, and he caught her next to the old hickory tree. The bark was scratchy, so she’d never climbed it, but she would have taken a thousand scratches to evade his anger.

He grabbed a small branch and ripped it free, whipping it down against her bare legs. Without thinking, Jenna snatched the branch from his hand, and it twisted in her fingers, pulling her off balance. She staggered to the side, the hickory switch turning slowly in her hand to point toward the ground.

Her father froze, his hand up high to strike her again. He stared at the switch. “You doing that, girl?” He asked sharply. Jenna flinched and shook her head.

“You sure?”

She nodded. The switch tugged down, pulling out of her hands and tumbling into the drought-dried dust. Her father raised his eyebrows, then turned on his heel without another word and stomped to the tool shed. He returned with a shovel and pickax.

“Better not be foolin me, girl, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

“No sir. No foolin,” Jenna whispered.

He raised the pickax high and let it fall straight into the dirt. It sank almost to the handle, and he gave it a hard tug. And another. As he reached down for a stronger grip, he froze again. Jenna forgot her fear for a moment and leaned closer with him. A dark stain spread around the buried metal spike.

Dogs in House	Houdini, Brindle
Music	Sting, “Burn for You”
Time writing	15 minutes
March word count	5,220