The Ugly Clay Figurine

PROMPT: Elemental spirit intrudes

Javier was out in his backyard getting the rose bed ready for the roses. First he had to dig down deep and turn the soil, and then he had to improve the soil with the one thing that roses loved most of all: chicken manure. At least that is what his mother always said, and that is how Javier has always grown his roses. And what beautiful roses Javier grew!

Now that he was in a new house in a new city he needed to start his rose garden from scratch. That was no problem for him. He loved digging in the dirt, almost as much as he enjoyed watching his prize roses grow and bloom.

It was while he was digging down into the soil to turn it over that he discovered the strange figurine. It was made of hardened clay with odd inclusions that seemed to represent facial features. Cheap crystals for eyes, a ludicrous little piece of glass for the mouth, tufts of some sort of fiber for the hair, etc. All in all it looked a bit like a child’s afternoon activity gone wrong. Around the body was wrapped some kind of foil with strange writing which Javier was unable to read or decipher. Strange characters that looked like no language Javier had ever seen.

He took the ugly little clay figurine into the house and left it on the breakfast room table. He would examine it in more detail after finishing the prep of his…