Challenge 11: Fin's world

The evacuation started around midafternoon. Cowie took me with her to their little hideout - an open alleyway between tall brick houses, which was blocked up by detritus on either end. Bits of wood, a rotting garbage heap, a dead dog and piles of sacking. She was most worried about her man, who still wasn't back. "We're good here," she told me. "They're all caught up in their own business."
"What about Fin though?"
She acknowledged that this was a problem.
They'd had an argument the night before. She thought he wasn't there enough for the boys. He thought the boys wouldn't have anything to eat if it weren't for him. The boys - Et and Ley - and I sat aside in the bedroom while they argued. "They want Ley to get married," Et told me, "but he doesn't even get to go out and work, so I dunno what he'd do with a woman."
Ley said, "It's only Cowie. Since when does Fin care? He'd take me to work if he could."

"We'll never agree," sighed Cowie as we lazed in the corner furthest from the dog. "Fin's such a linear, practical view of the world. Work, marry, children. I want them to grow up in an exciting world!"
"It seems pretty exciting to me," I said wryly.
"But Fin doesn't see it that way! This is my point. His world is just there to be dealt with. He sees a difficulty, he deals with it. Ack, this is not like him." She climbed onto the sacks - not clambering, although she should’ve been. She just climbed right up no problems, peered over. "He sees a difficulty, he should turn up. We're gonna miss the evac, is what. Oi, boys."

Ley put aside the wind-up clock he'd been playing with. "We going?"
"No sign o’ Fin yet."
"We've only been here seven minutes, sheh!"
Minutes don’t mean much here, and I’d never heard any of them asking the time before. Cowie sat next to me again, wrinkling her nose as she moved aside a bit of soggy newspaper. "I want them to experience everything. To enjoy it. To absorb it. To see it through different eyes every day!"

I wasn't sure what to think of this, because Cowie didn’t have a job, and given that attitude in this place, if it weren't for Fin she probably wouldn't have anything to eat either.
Ley and Et started to hit one another. Nothing major – Cowie just ignored it. “Their names are short for Finley and Finnet. I was hoping they’d look just like him.”
“Well, that’s not so exciting, you’ve already got Fin,” I pointed out. “Didn’t you want your boys to be something different?”
Cowie didn’t answer this. “How long’s it been?”
“Eight minutes. We really have to wait in here?”
“No, I want you boys to go down to the ‘port. Me’n Fin will come when he gets back.”
Ley puts his clock in his pocket. “Ya sure?”
I know just as well as Cowie does that they won’t go down to the ‘port. They’ll go uptown where Fin works – it’s a couple of kilometres from here – and try to find him.
“No...you boys stay here and I’m’na look for Fin. You can come if you like,” she added to me. “But, Cowie,” protests Et. “What if neither of you’n Fin come back?”
“Well...you got that clock. Give it...uh...an hour. Give it an hour, ‘n if neither of us back you should go for the evac.”

I didn't know how far away the 'port was, but Cowie didn't know what an hour was. In our mutual ignorance, we left the boys behind and climbed – well, she climbed and I clambered – out of the alley. The city was dead quiet, apart from occasional yells where someone was still home. We had to duck out of the way a couple times to make sure we weren’t spotted. “I wonder if Fin’s gone to the port without us.”
“Leave the boys behind?”
“He’d take them to work if he could!”
I shut up then, because it was cold and she was upset. We went along like that for a while. And that’s how I ended up being with Cowie when she got to where Fin worked and found all of his stuff, scattered around. All the furniture upside-down. “They must’ve come through here already...”

“Hey Cowie, we’d better head back to the boys,” I say, grabbing her arm. I don’t know what it means, and here I was thinking the walls were holding during the evac, but Cowie’s shaking and sits down on the underside of the upside-down table, staring around like she can’t see anything. I’ve never been here, but I recognise Fin’s favourite pin-cushion with the stuffing coming out. “He’s got it too...my Fin!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Word count: 805

Challenge 11: My Mistress' Secret

My mistress is not sleeping well. Many nights, she murmurs, rustling sheets and beads of sweat on her brow. Sometimes, she wakes with a cry, eyes wide, heart pounding like a skittish gazelle.

This morning, she emerges from her bedroom, dressed in loosely fitting robes that only emphasize how thin she has become. She puts on her best ‘normal’ face and sips her tea, leafing through the mail. She has a visitor, Emily, and before going into the lounge, she checks her reflection in the bathroom mirror, hating the face she sees there.

I arrange the platters of fruit and cheese just so, while Emily waits, long red nails tapping on the glass topped table. There are tattoos all over her skin, dark and twisting, like vines with thorns. My lady emerges, cheeks flushed, muttering to herself beneath her breath. We are all used to the way she does this and think nothing of it, mostly.

“Sister,” Emily says, rising to embrace my mistress. They are not blood sisters, but they share one tattoo in common, a serpent encircling the sun. Emily’s is on the back of her hand. She is not afraid to show who she is. My lady’s is more disguised. It sits at the base of her spine, a place only a maid or a lover would see.

My mistress smiles, kissing Emily’s cheek. “Welcome, sister. You have news?”

“I do,” she glances at me and my lady dismisses me at once. I bow and take my leave.

The girls huddle in the kitchenette, swapping rumours. Jenifer kneads bread for our lady’s evening bread, whispering, “Emily is an assassin. She tattoos a thorn for every kill.”

Diedra is preserving fruit from our lady’s garden. “Her Holiness would not allow a servant of the Dark God into her home.”

Our mistress is a priestess. I am her student. I listen to their theories and let my mind wander. One thing my mistress does not know about my abilities – I can project my vision.

“I will confirm my suspicions tonight,” Emily says.

“And if you are right…” my lady takes a slow sip of her tea. “You know what you must do.”

“Of course,” Emily stands, kissing the silver ring on my mistress’ finger.

The day passes slowly. My mistress spends much of it in meditation. She prays more fervently than ever and the voice in her head will not give her peace. She mutters over and over, fighting with herself in the privacy of her cloister.

There is soup for dinner tonight, caught by our island’s own fishermen. My mistress does not emerge to join us. We pray for her, and Emily, whatever she may be.

Night and sleeping, screams in the distance, though too faint to wake any of the girls. I am just sensitive. I am gifted. The shutter in the hall bangs in the wind, almost masking the sound of feet, whispering over marble tiles. Ghostly eyes without a body, I watch as Emily slips through the shadows into my lady’s room. She has spatters of blood on her skin and her white, knee length dress is torn. She puts her bloodies knives down on the bedside table and wakes my lady with a kiss. Eyes flutter open and the words, “It is done,” echo faintly.

My lady arises and stares for a moment out the window, her eyes full of conflict. Then she guides Emily into the adjoining bathroom and strips off the torn dress, sponging away the dirt and blood with her own hands. In return, Emily slips the thin straps of my lady’s dress off her shoulders, helping the silk slip to the floor. They embrace and kiss, tenderly at first, then with more and more violence as recollections of their guilt overtake. Somehow, they make it to the bed again, a mess of hands and passion and groans of frustrated pleasure. I feel a heat in me, wishing, perhaps, that I could be a part of their world.

Eventually, there is nothing left in them and Emily falls asleep. It is only then, that my lady lets the tears flow. It is her secret self who grieves for fallen friends and a cruel betrayal. I know this side of her, this woman, trapped inside the body of a tyrant. She looks at the naked woman beside her, face cringing in disgust. She arises and goes to the window, watching for the dawn. She lifts one of Emily’s knives and positions it over her breast, hands trembling at the thought of driving it home. But then my lady returns to her senses, voice harsh as she says, “Keep your hands to yourself, you bitch.”

Wordcount: 782

Challenge 11

Create a narrator intimate to the story but outside it as well. The wonderful effect of a narrator who is intertwined with a story but also essentially unimportant to its outcomes is that you have more leisure to explore the complexities of the plot, the kinks in it, and the gaps of knowledge this cheerful spectator is going to have. Don't make her omniscient or even close - though she can guess expertly at the problems she is observing and can even be wrenched by the emotional logjams she is witness to.

Wordcount: 800 (+/- 10%)