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Essay On The Story Of A Short Story

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The woods stayed dark, day and night. The only way to see was with a lantern, held high, held strong. Adyna lived there, in the dark. Every night, Adyna ventured out of her wooded home and sat, beautiful and terrible, in a clearing, close to the village. She would wait, because Adyna kept secrets.
She kept all the secrets the villagers were too ashamed to confess. When “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” became too hard, Adyna was there. Adyna collected her secrets in marbles and stones, filling jar upon jar, all glowing prettily with the villagers’ shame. She lived alone in her forest, but was never lonely. She had the villagers’ lies and secrets keeping her company.
Every night, she took a bag filled with marbles and stones to the clearing. Each night, a new marble or stone came back glowing with a lie or secret. Adyna took a piece of every villager in return for their lies and secrets—not much . . . but enough.
“Soulless creature!” they called her.
Adyna laughed, opening her hand to reveal a glowing marble. “What of all the pieces of souls I’ve collected! Surely, I must have a full soul by now.”
Adyna had taken their secrets and lies for so long, the villagers had forgotten a time before she came to the clearing. But, Carys remembered her first time spilling her shame to Adyna as if it were yesterday. She remembered the words she had spoken as though she had spoken them only minutes before.
“How can I confess if you won’t grant absolution?”
Adyna laughed her broken-bone laugh. “Absolution is for sin. Confession is for priests.”
“What am I giving you, if not my most shameful sins?”
Adyna watched her closely, fingers trailing through the bag of marbles and stones at her feet. As Carys sat down, Adyna pulled a stone from the bag. She held it out to Carys, who hesitated, and then took it.
“I care nothing for your sins,” Adyna grabbed her hand, “I keep your shame, your lies.”
Carys struggled, but Adyna’s grip was iron. “What do you take in return?”
“What you can stand to give?”
Carys gave Adyna her lies, her shame. But, Carys fled the clearing, missing a part of herself, some of her brightness gone.
In time, Carys’s only reminder of her trip to the woods was her missing piece, like an itch in her

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