The blue bead

Behind the cowshed, where the ground was rough with stones and old bits of broken tiles, Nilah walked with her eyes on the earth. It was the place where useless things ended up — old sacks, a piece of rope, an empty tin bent at the edge — but Nilah liked it. She liked how the wind moved through the grass there, how sometimes a lizard darted past without warning. She liked that no one paid attention to this corner of the house. That meant anything found here was hers to find.
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She walked slowly, dragging a stick along the ground. It made a dry scratching sound she liked. That was when something caught her eye — not shiny like new metal, but soft and clear, like a piece of sky had dropped and turned solid. She bent down. It was a small piece of glass — rounded on one side, the edges worn smooth. Blue, but not a bright blue. More like the colour of her shirt when it faded in the sun.
She picked it up and rubbed it clean with her thumb. It wasn’t sharp. It looked like it had once been part of something bigger, but what, she couldn’t tell. Maybe a bangle. Maybe a bottle. Maybe something no one remembered. She held it up to the light and watched how it glowed.
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She didn’t take it to show Appa or Paati. She didn’t even put it in her pocket. She just carried it carefully, closed in her fist, and walked to her favourite stone under the jackfruit tree. There, she placed it in the middle, like a small offering, and sat beside it. It wasn’t a treasure to anyone else, but to her it felt like it belonged — right here, in this quiet place that only she cared to visit.