Skip to main content

The Mental Ward - Wake the House (39)


     "Alive? Yes, but maybe not for long unless you save her." Emery felt the officer's grip on her arm loosen, and she shook herself free.  "She'll die if they put her in that Box again."
     Lady Carlysle stared at Emery and tears spilled over on her cheeks.  "Alive?  My baby is alive?"
     "Lady Carlysle, if you don't mind me interrupting, this is the Clayton girl.  You remember your old gardener?  Clayton?" the gardener shook his hands by his sides, as if stirring his lady's memory.
     The butler, Antrin, shifted his weight and looked highly uncomfortable.  "Oh, yes, mmm, Clayton," he stammered.
     But Lady Carlysle didn't seem to hear.  "Where is she?" Her voice was soft, almost pleading.
     "At this moment, she lies just outside your gardens, knocked unconscious by the hands of these officers." Emery felt her voice quivering.  "She was on her way home to you, but they are taking her to lock her up again."
      The change that came over Lady Carlysle was instantaneous.  "How dare you!" she hissed, her eyes wide and angry.  The officers stumbled backwards, under her glare, suddenly fearing for their livelihoods.  "Antrin..." Lady Carlysle turned to face him, suddenly realizing he was still there.  "Where is my husband?  Why haven't you fetched him?  He will know how to deal with these barbarians!"
     "If you please, my lady, he left without saying where he was going." Antrin shifted uncomfortably, inwardly torn in his sense of duty.  "But...I believe...if I may hazard a guess...that he was on his way to the insane asylum in the city...perhaps."
      "Wake the house!" Lady Carlysle raised her voice shrilly.  "I want everyone out here.  Someone fetch my husband!  Someone get these officers' names and stations!  And someone..." She turned her eyes toward Emery and held out her hand, lowering her voice to a whimper.  "...take me to my baby Beth."

Comments

  1. Ooo, I loved this one SO much, I think it might be my favorite part out of all of them! It was really well written :).

    ReplyDelete
  2. MORE! YES! BETH IS BEING BOTH BACK!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goodbye and God Be With You

It's rather fitting that some things come to a close on this day -- the last day of the year. I submitted my last entry into the Rooglewood contest this morning.  I can hardly believe it took me until the day of the deadline to send it in because I'm usually earlier than that.  And, even with the extra time I took, I still felt a little bit like maybe I could have done better if I had more time. But there was no feeling of regret when I hit "send."  Mostly it was just a prayer that Rooglewood would hear the heart of the message when they read it and that maybe, if I win, they could help me bring the full potential out of my little story.  And there was also a feeling, after working on these stories for more than six months, that it felt good to close that chapter and move on to the next one. I did it.  I wrote them.  And I'm really proud of them. Last year, the act of hitting "send" on my contest entry catapulted me into an anticipatory state....

The Countdown: Eight Days

Eight days.  Do you know what that means?  Barely over a week.  Tomorrow will be one week from the announcement date. Are you excited? I am. So, today, I want to talk to those who wrote something for the contest, whether or not you entered it in the end. What made you start writing your story?  What was the first inkling of an idea that tickled your brain?  What was it that you liked about your premise?  As you wrote, did you have a favorite character or a favorite scene?  And are you glad you wrote it down?  Do you feel like you learned and grew in your ability as a writer as you tried out things for this contest? And, if your story isn't included in this year's Rooglewood anthology (either because you didn't submit it or because it didn't fit with the other four stories selected), what will you do with it?  Will you market it elsewhere?  Or will you lock it away in a drawer?

Wherein I Still Have My Nose and Ears

     I decided to take the plunge.  I was going to chop a plot thread out of AAM so the story would fit in the contest word length restrictions.  I saved my old version and set up a copy for me to modify.      Stories are like woven cloth.  Each plot thread is woven into the entire story.  So if I decide to cut a character or a side-theme, I have to go through the whole book, chopping out the references to it.  This leaves gaping holes and sometimes it looks like the whole story is going to unravel.  Everywhere I chop, I have to readjust the whole scene to keep the flow.  It's a rather ticklish procedure.      Over the dinner table, I mentioned that I was chopping a sub-plot.  My younger sister protested loudly (she hasn't read it, but I previously told her the general idea).  Then my mom (who also hasn't read it) offered to read it and tell me what she thought could and couldn't be chopped. ...