The Witches' Treasure

She sighed heavily as the encroaching darkness slowly surrounded her, causing the sea mist to twirl around her, settling deep into her body in a bone-deep chill. She trudged on through the damp sand, the menacing cliff face at her back as she focused on her task; looking around intensely for the faint glow and sheen that was her prize, the Lightning Opal Sea Glass.

Rhea, eyes tiring from her task, tried to stay attentive as the mist thickened to nearly soup-like levels, making it next to impossible to find her target. She knew that she'd have to stop soon, her chestnut colored, curly hair was now weighed down with dew and the cold seemed to hug her through the lightweight jacket that she wore around her thin frame.

Tilting her face up to find the moonlight shining on the cliff face behind her, Rhea turned back, searching for her footsteps to guide her way to the stairs that led her back to the carpark. Her sorrow and resolve rose in her, fighting to overtake her mind. Sorrow, for she had been looking for close to two weeks with no results; resolve, that she would come back again the next night to continue looking.

The Lightning Opal Sea Glass, as elusive and rare as it was, was the last proof she needed to prove just what her grandmother had told her in that last letter; the one Rhea had found addressed to her in the bottom of a trunk of her grandmothers' things. It had been buried beneath old clothes, a pair of vintage riding goggles, some rusted but still sharp pruning shears, a box filled with what looked like dried seeds, and a picture of her grandmother on her wedding day in her old garden.

Grandma had died a few months ago, and her estate had been locked down while her siblings had tried to claim all of her belongings. Her Will had been iron-clad however, and Rhea and her mother had received their bequeaths (the trunk and some jewelry for her mum that was supposedly really valuable) a couple weeks ago. The letter seemed to have been the last thing she had written, as apparently Grandma had boxed up and sorted everything to be divided before she had passed.

The letter had gone on to tell Rhea bits about a family legacy, and to keep it secret from everyone as it would only bring harm to her if she was found continuing the family work. What was this work?, Rhea wondered, as her mum had never mentioned a legacy, nor that grandma had such expensive heirlooms.

Ancient talismans using the rarest form of sea glass. The Lightning Opal Sea glass to be exact.

The talismans that Rhea's family had made were so prized that they were referred to as the witches' treasure; as they were so intricately detailed and the materials so rare to find that people thought they could only be made in a witches cauldron, as nothing like them could ever be made by hand. Therefore, Rheas' grandmother and all her grandmothers before her had been labeled as witches, and had been driven into hiding their legacy lest they be burned at the stake during the period of the Witch Burnings.

Hence the reason why Rhea was at the remote cliff face, walking through the biting cold and ricking getting swept away with the forever rising tide - to prove to herself and her grandmother that the family legacy would not fade or disappear completely.

The instructions that had been included in the letter from her grandmother had been in the form of a small, medieval looking black leather bound book, obviously well-worn with consistent use. It had a feel of importance to it, like it held great wisdom within its ink-covered pages.

To Rhea, the last gift from her grandma indeed held wisdom, to her it was her grandma's complete trust in her to continue on the legacy of her family that had led to her trying to find the elusive and all-important item needed to create the next in the line of items the women before her had created.