“I love this little story I wrote in 2022 for a literary competition. It didn’t place, but I’m still proud of it. Enjoy” – Mary Grace van der Kroef
Sunbeams are curious things. There is nothing they love more than slipping through cracks and exposing secrets. Trickle was no exception. She lived in the lace curtains of Mrs. Halfway’s house and flitted through the holes to dance on the polished wooden floors. Her particles mimicked A Midsummer Night’s Eve ballet to the click click of knitting needles.
One bright summer morning, it wasn’t Mrs. Halfway that pulled back the curtains. No, it was someone very different. His dirty fingers left smudges on the white fabric of Trickle’s home, but his eyes held their own light, and she immediately loved him.
“Would you come in? Morning?” He whispered as he pushed the curtain aside. “Please?”
He didn’t hear Trickle’s shimmering laughter as she accepted his call. He has already turned away to dash across the room and down a dim hallway. Trickle would have followed him if she could have, but her dance stopped just past the heavy beams of the door frame.
Instead, Trickle spread herself out across the sunroom. Her light casting restful shadows behind the couch, pillows and coffee table, while bringing the warmth of morning cascading in. She waited for Mrs. Halfway to start the orchestra of her industry. But Mrs. Halfway never came.
The great orb of the sun rose higher and higher before another soul joined her in the sunroom. When they did, it was all a busy, muddled mess. They moved furniture, boxed away the soft textiles, and even rolled up the rug to expose a deeper cherry red than where Trickle’s light had sun-bleached the floorboards.
He came back with the crowd. Helping hands stowed away tiny trinkets he found on the wall shelves. A woman with Mrs. Halfway’s dimples, but not her eyes, showed him how to wrap memories in bubbles without popping too many.
“Henry, you are such a good helper today.”
“Aha!” was all he replied.
The great orb curtsied its way towards the horizon, a slow goodbye. As Trickle shifted up the walls, she smiled down at her new friend.
“Will you welcome me back tomorrow, since Mrs. Halfway can’t?”
“Yes!” He promised as he waved at the dust particles she exposed before retreating to the windowsill, and her home of white lace.
“Gloria, are the curtains staying?”
“No. The new owner asked for only the rods. I’ll take them down in the morning before we clean. They told me it’s best to set up Mom’s room with familiar items. Do you think they could be re-cut and hung there for her?”
“That’s a thought.” The man down the hall replied. His cell phone clutched to his ear and his eyes half glazed over.
It was early when Henry returned the next morning. The great orb was just waking up. Trickle stretched across the sun-room’s glass-panes in a lazy line. Yawning as the rays gained strength.
Henry had brought a book to read while the adults moved the heavy boxes and removed the curtains. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple as Trickle kissed his skin.
Once the adults moved to the next room, he stretched out across the warm floorboards and traced the wood grains with a curious finger. Trickle followed him, jumping from groove to groove until she slipped through a crack.
“Oh! What’s this?” she cried.
Henry’s deft fingers pulled at the boards and they lifted on tinny hidden hinges.
“Be careful.” Trickle cautioned as he stuck his head down the hole.
The ground was thick with dust and bits of debris. A lost coin glinted as Trickle smiled at it.
“Treasure,” Henry said as he reached for it. Chubby hands staining to reach his find.
The floorboards down the hall creaked, and a startled Henry dropped the hatch door on his own head. Tears welled in his eyes and Trickle watched him crumble headfirst into the space under the floor. The hatch banged shut and Henry whimpered in fright.
“Oh Dear.” Trickle comforted as she drifted across his shoulder. A bright line in the darkness. “I am still here, friend. It will be okay.”
The boy had flipped and lay on his back in the dust. The boards above him a hand span above his nose. Disturbed particles sticking to the moisture on his face and hands.
“Henry!” A man’s voice skimmed across the hiding place as Henry’s eyes fluttered. A welt on his head growing to eggs size and added to the warmth, making him drowsy.
“Henry?” the woman called this time. Her footstep inches from little Henry’s head. “Here’s his book. Where did he go?”
“I didn’t see him run through the hall. Did you hear that bang? I told him to stay in the sunroom while we moved the bed frame.”
“Henry!” The woman’s voice rose an octave. Her distress rising like a bubble and popping on the popcorn ceiling as a tear slid down her face. “He was right here, I am sure.”
Henry’s little head shifted to the side, his eyes bobbing as Trickle’s beam drifted into his vision.
“Come now, look! Can you catch me?”
Trickle jumped from dust particle to dust particle. Flashing across their sharp surfaces as Henry blinked and lifted a hand to catch the glittering fragments.
“Higher! Can you reach me?”
His knuckles knocked on the wood above him as Trickle jumped about. A giggle escaped his lips as his eyes tried to follow Trickles’ dance.
“Again!”
His knuckles darted up to knock against the planks under the woman’s feet.
“Did you hear that?”
“It came from the floor.”
The woman burst into tears as she found the trapdoor and pulled it up to expose the little boy. He lifted his arms and swatted the dust as Trickle laughed in delight.
“They found you!”
Gloria scooped Henry from the hole and examined him, stifling her tears.
“Is he concussed?” The man asked.
Henry’s eyes refused to focus on his rescuers.
They left the hatch open and Trickle waved to her friend as they whisked him away. His fingers still searching the air for her glitter.
Henry never came back to pay in Trickle’s beams, but the next day filled with fresh faces. A man cleaned under the trapdoor and the chatter, though the house was constant after he found more coins under the deep layer of dust. Trickle enjoyed a frolic across each pressed profile. There were more treasures in a box pushed beyond the hatches opening. It was as if someone stowed it, knowing it would be safest at the back of the hole, with the coins scattered in the opening. A distraction. It held black and white photos, letters, and an old pilot’s pin.
“Why Mrs. Halfway, you look fine in uniform.”
The photo exposed in Trickles light boasted brown edges, a water-stain running through the middle, and a very young Mrs. Halfway sporting a stewardess’s uniform with a handsy pilot on her arm. The gleam still apparent in Mrs. Halfway’s eyes despite the fading photo made Trickle smile.
“I’m so glad they found you, too.” She whispered.
“What a gem!” the man with a broom said. “Don’t worry, I will make sure the former owner gets her box back. More treasure in here than just silver, for sure.”
Then came more chaos as they brought in new furniture. People bumped against each other. There were yelps and half joking shouts. They left the hatch exposed, but hung new curtains of thick material, the kind that blocked Trickle from dancing on the floorboards as she wished.
“It’s okay,” she told an infant, carried in on her father’s shoulder. “We all need our privacy sometimes. I will be here when you’re ready to invite me in for a play day.”
The baby squirmed and raised a hand to tug a much loved ear. Her mouth forming an O, with bubbles blowing through her happy giggles.
Someone closed the curtains, shutting out the daytime heat and Trickles’ curious rays.
“I wonder how long it will be until she finds that trapdoor?” Trickle giggled to herself and danced across the window-glass in bright flashes. Waiting just added to the adventure, and Trickle was curious, but also patient.
©2026 Mary Grace van der Kroef