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Today’s Sunday Snippet is from Christie Valentine Powell’s novel The Spectra Unearthed. Christie Valentine Powell wrote her first story in second grade and has been writing ever since. Her other hobbies include making toys, hobby farming, and eating at Asian buffets. She lives near the sunniest city in the world with her husband, four children, and five sheep.
The Snippet:
Keita tried to run on ground that swayed like water. She had gone only a few feet when theinsane mass of sliding rock overtook them. Dust filled her nose and eyes as she stumbled on. Then something slammed into her stomach. Her fingers tightened around rough bark and she heaved upward, while rocks behind hammered her back and shoulders. Gasping, she clambered onto the branch.
The tree she’d landed in was holding its own against the onslaught. The first wave of rocks had past, but pebbles and dirt still poured down the slope. A smear of reddish hair appeared above the surface, and was gone.
Keita took a deep breath. She couldn’t go back in there without more bulk, more power. She reached for her energy, like a white core inside her, and concentrated. Coarse black fur sprouted along her arms and through the folds of her skirt. She hooked new claws into the dipping branch as she finished her change.
The bear leapt. Claws sank through streaming dirt, and she stumbled. Gravel ripped her skin, and dust clogged her nose and eyes. A human cry, a smell of fear gave her direction. She lunged downstream, tripping and stumbling but ever moving forward. A scrawny arm broke the surface, and she caught warm flesh in her mouth. The head emerged, the girl screaming. The bear positioned herself behind the girl, taking the brunt of the impact.
The current of earth thinned, streaming around her legs and belly. A fist-sized rock crashed into a foreleg, and she stumbled. The girl shrieked once more. Past the rolling, sliding earth, straggly trees stood unmoving, out of the avalanche. The bear stumbled toward them, shuffling at an angle, slipping but still moving.
Claws found solid ground. The bear heaved one more time, and she and the girl collapsed onto motionless earth. Pain pierced her mouth. She roared, and the arm in her mouth dropped. The girl scurried back. She met the bear’s eyes, a clear challenge. Small, dusty, and in rags, she did not look dangerous, but the bear knew better.
In a flash of light, Keita returned to her true form. She weaved for a moment—her body felt unearthly light—and then spat. Large gray objects, spattered with blood, fell into her palm. Bear teeth, she realized, turned to stone.
