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Arraborough - sample chapter - all welcome

 
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Pimlico
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Joined: 17 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:07 am    Post subject: Arraborough - sample chapter - all welcome Reply with quote

I'll divide this up into a few posts. It's not big. It's Chapter 4 from Book 1; not the full chapter-- I cut out two subplots and focused on the main thread. Best to read my previous post, "Arraborough synopsis" to get you up to speed.

***

Chapter 4
“The Pilgrimage”

A car barrels down the highway, a young falcon driving as his grandmother gives directions. She tells him to pull over and drive across the fields. With quick glances all around he carefully pulls off the road and slowly drives through the grass, meandering through the scrub.

Eventually the sound of the highway and all other civilization fades completely away. The old woman looks out her window sadly at the barren landscape. A long time ago, she says, it was different here. There was life all around. Now, it’s all gone.

She gives directions to the stopping place, but as their car approaches, they are both surprised to see buildings erected in the area. The old bird is flustered. The boy parks the car at the tip of what is obviously a small patch of cultivated land. They emerge; he bends down and trails his fingers in the dirt, unearthing newly planted seedlings, and she stares around her, flabbergasted. “There’s not supposed to be anyone here,” she insists.

Slick emerges from the nearby barn, flipping out at the sight of a car parked on his new seed bed. He slithers over and indignantly demands to know who the hell they are and what they think they’re doing.
The old woman looks at him curiously and says, “What are you doing here, young man? Do you have any idea what this place is?” And Slick, who instantly realizes the land is about to disgorge one of its secrets, zips his lips and returns the old woman’s curious stare.
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Pimlico
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Joined: 17 Feb 2007
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:09 am    Post subject: part 2 Reply with quote

A hush falls over the dining room and lunch is forgotten as Slick ushers in the old and young falcons. They introduce themselves as Adella Peregrine and her grandson Neft. Adella, though still stunned at the sight of community in the area, is slowly warming up to the idea; Neft, still in his adolescence, is aloof but protective of his “Ga’Ma.”

Slither steps forward and introduces himself as the founder, and while refusing to paint himself as a leader, he will act as spokesman. With barely an invitation from the birds, he launches into the tale of how, just a few months ago, he came to establish a community out here on the outskirts of nowhere. Most of the animals, not only having lived through the story, but having been bored by Slither’s numerous recounts before, wander off. Only Slick and Hillany remain. Adella is rapt by the story, her face relaxing as it unfolds, but never losing a tinge of concern.

“Well,” she says as the story ends, “I don’t quite know what to make of it, to tell the truth. I’ve been coming here for so many years, and this has always been a barren, lonely place. Especially...” She frowns and says, “But, maybe now the ghosts can be laid to rest.”

Slither begs her to tell him the story of why she comes and what she visits that used to be here, and Hillany eagerly chimes in. Neft shuffles his feet, obviously embarrassed by what she might say, and Slick spots a kindred spirit. Adella requests they give her a tour, and she’ll do what she can.

The trio start the tour at the lodge, where Adella reveals, “I never lived in the area myself. It all happened well before I was born. I’m twenty-five years old now, you know. But my grandfather, and the few others who escaped and survived, passed down the story. When I was old enough, he brought me here, for a visit. It was like a pilgrimage. A way to pay respects. For... for...” Her voice trails off. The silence mounts, until Slither suggests they continue the tour.

As Adella politely inspects the books in the library, Hillany asks her how old she was when she first visited. “Not much older than Neft. For the longest time, it wasn’t safe.”

“Safe from what?” But the falcon’s mouth makes only a moue.

“Are we in danger?” asks a worried Slither.

She frowns, but then shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. After all, my grandfather wouldn’t have brought me here if there was any danger. And certainly nothing ever happened to me each time I came. I come every few years, you know. This might be my last, though. Twenty-five years is old, even for a peregrine.” Neft looks sadly at his grandmother, and she smiles fondly at him. “I wanted to bring Neft with me once. The stories don’t mean as much to him, though. It’s not the same, I guess. When my grandfather told me the stories, he had been there, witnessed it, even though he was only a young child when he left. The old stories don’t mean as much to this young generation.”

Neft shrugs. “It’s just... It’s not a nice story. It’s sad, and... sometimes a little hard to swallow. Sorry, Ga’Ma, but it is. And it hasn’t got anything to do with me or anyone born in the last few generations. It was all so long ago. And there’s nothing left.”

Adella sighs, but smiles at the trio of denizens. “I’m the last who visits. Everyone else is gone, and when I’m no longer around, no one will visit, I’m sure.” With this she casts an eye in Neft’s direction, and he busies himself digging a toe in the dirt. “But you’re here,” she tells the chicken and two snakes. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”
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Pimlico
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Joined: 17 Feb 2007
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:09 am    Post subject: part 3 Reply with quote

At the cabin, Adella coos over Taj. Arlafette is quickly filled in, and she asks the bird, “From the looks of things, this cabin is fairly old. Do you know if it belonged to the original inhabitants?”

Aldessa nods. “I believe so. My Ga’Pa would always come inside when he visited the area. I remember him looking at all the furniture, not that there’s much. Touching some. Peering at others. It seemed to relax him.”

There’s a pause, and Slick asks the question they are dying to ask but are afraid of. “So who used to live in the cabin?”

Adella’s brow crinkles in thought. “I’m not sure what my grandfather said about that. I was dying to know of course, but for some reason I felt uncomfortable about asking.” At this, the denizens squirm self-consciously. “But if I remember correctly, I believe this was the caretaker’s cottage.”

“The caretaker. Of what, the forest?” Slither inquires.

“Yes... No...” The old woman frowns. “The forest... Blackwood Forest... He wouldn’t go there. He wouldn’t step foot into it... He never told me why, but the stories... Some of the stories...” Her face flushes, and she rises quickly, upset. The animals apologize, and she settles herself down somewhat. “It’s all right,” she insists, then takes a last look at Taj in his crib. “A beautiful child. I myself was named for the area, for the past.”
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Pimlico
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:11 am    Post subject: part 4 Reply with quote

The tour threads its way through the chapel, out into the garden, when Adella squints off into the distance. “Is that...,” she asks, then decides to walk over to the object.

It is the headstone. She stops a few feet away, gazing at it sadly, the other animals coming to stand beside her. Once again, the palpable silence mounts. Finally Slither asks, “Do you know what it says?”

But she shakes her head mutely. The animals look away, disappointed. “I don’t think Ga’Pa knew either. It’s not in a language anyone I know speaks. He thought that maybe they...” She trails off, and they look at her encouragingly. “My grandfather wasn’t sure, but he thinks maybe they had a secret language.”

Slither swallows the lump of unease in his throat and asks, “They?”

Adella looks around her fearfully, almost superstitiously. “The bad people,” she explains, her shoulders shivering.

“I’ll get your shawl, Ga’Ma,” says Neft, and Slick accompanies him to the car.

Rifling through the mess in the trunk, Neft assures Slick there’s nothing to worry about. “She’s real old now,” he explains. “She still talks to Ga’Pa, and old friends, that have been dead for years. I wouldn’t take anything she says seriously.”

“But the stories—”

“The stories are just that. Stories grandparents tell their grandkids.”

Slick feels there must be some reason for the pilgrimages people make here, but Neft dismisses it. “There’s no pilgrimage. My great-great-grandparents’ generation used to come here now and then, true. To visit a place they used to live. But there’s no dark secret, no...” Slick looks at him sharply, awaiting the next word, but Neft just rolls his eyes as a signal of the end of the conversation.

Hillany and Slither are walking on either side of the old bird as she slowly circumnavigates the forest, which she glances at with suspicious eyes.

Finally, the tension seems to drain from her and she says, “He’s gone. I expected to see him again, but he’s not here. I guess now that you’re here, he’s free.”

Slither exchanges confused glances with Hillany, when from within the forest a small voice says, “Hello, Adella.”

Adella freezes in her tracks. Fespin steps out from the forest and walks around to face her, smiling pleasantly. He appears so harmless that Adella manages a faint smile and a response. “So you are here. I shouldn’t have doubted it.”

“You know Fespin?” asks Hillany.

Adella says, “I know Fespin. My grandfather introduced me to him, when he first took me here as a young girl.”

Slither and Hillany shuffle uncomfortably as Adella’s and Fespin’s eyes never leave each other’s faces. “I thought you might have gone away,” she says to the squirrel, “now that others have come here to live.”

Fespin glances at Hillany and Slither, then turns back to Adella. “Where would I go?” he asks, to which Adella shrugs helplessly.

Slither clears his throat and says, almost apologetically, “Fespin looks awfully young to have been here when your grandfather was still alive, Adella.”

The bird looks flustered as she responds. “Well, of course he would, how else would he look?”

“Is Endrift here, too?” wonders Fespin.

Adella looks down sharply at him, then closes her eyes and says softly, “My grandfather has been dead for almost twenty years, Fespin.”

Fespin’s head cocks to one side. “Really?” he says, sniffing the air as if it will tell him what he wants to know. Moments pass, until Fespin turns to Adella again and asks, “Then he’ll be here shortly?”

This upsets the old woman. Hillany tries to soothe her, and Slither suggests they walk over to Dovan’s house so she can sit for a spell. Fespin remains behind, looking after them curiously, until the rustle of leaves in a nearby tree diverts his attention.

“Don’t mind him,” Hillany apologizes on Fespin’s behalf. “He’s sort of strange. Like a hermit, though a young one. He’s not used to people, you see. So he doesn’t always know what the right thing to say is. He lives below, so—”

Adella starts and grasps Hillany’s wing. “Below,” she whispers. “You must never go below, child. There are terrible things— Promise me you’ll never go below.” Hillany pats her wing and assures her that none of the animals ever goes below. Adella seems to relax somewhat, but tenses up when she comes within sight of RockHouse. “You shouldn’t have taken me here,” she whispers.

Slither calls out Dovan’s name. The door to RockHouse opens and the dog steps out. He smiles at his visitors and stands near the entrance, waiting to welcome them inside.

Adella’s face blanches in fear and her wings whirl desperately, wrenching free of Hillany’s grasp. “It’s open!” she cries. “Oh, gods, it’s open! It’s not supposed to— The people— The bad people— Ga’Pa said— Ga’Pa said—” Adella faints, collapsing into Hillany’s wings.
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Pimlico
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:12 am    Post subject: part 5 Reply with quote

Adella slowly regains consciousness. She sits in her car, as Hillany crouches on the ground near the open side door and pats her hands. On the other side of the car, Neft apologizes to the snakes, reassuring them they were in no way at fault for his grandmother’s episode. Your mind plays tricks on you when you get old, he explains. She’ll be fine once she gets home, and he’ll make sure his parents prevent her from coming here again.

“I’m all right, dear,” says Adella softly. “It’s just that house, the stories...” She shrugs helplessly. “Well, maybe the stories were wrong about that house.” Hillany, only too aware of the weird stories Pimlico hinted at concerning RockHouse, shifts uncomfortably. “And seeing Fespin again. No matter how many times I see him, it’s always unsettling.”

Hillany shakes her head and insists that Fespin’s fine. “He’s my very great friend. He’s so harmless, really. He’s like a little child. He just doesn’t understand sometimes, about the things you shouldn’t say in certain situations.”

Adella grips her hand tightly. “You don’t know what he is, do you?”

Hillany looks at her closely, then answers firmly, “He’s my friend. He lives here, in the forest. He’s probably a runaway who—”

Adella denies this with a shake of her head. “Why do you think he hasn’t aged in all the years I’ve been coming here?”

Hillany can’t bring herself to meet the older woman’s eyes, but manages to say, “Ma’am, sometimes with older people, their minds... their memory... You probably saw other squirrels at different times—”

The falcon grips her hand harder, and Hillany winces from the pain. Adella leans closer and whispers conspiratorially, “I know. I remember. Ga’Pa introduced me to him. It was twenty years ago, but I remember. ‘He’s the living memory of those who were lost,’ he said to me. ‘He was the first of the many—’”

Adella stares deeply into Hillany’s face and sighs. “You don’t understand, do you, dear?” She leans closer, her beak brushing Hillany’s ear, as she explains, “He’s a ghost, dear. A spirit.”

Hillany gasps, despite her disbelief, as Adella continues. “The stories, they say that a squirrel was the first to die. Fespin, he’s... he’s the spirit of that animal. He’s tied to this place, forced to wander it... wander it forever, I suppose. It’s true, dear,” she insists, as Hillany searches for truth in the old woman’s eyes. “He’s not real. It took me a while, but I accepted it eventually. Sometimes... Sometimes, if he’s standing just right, the sunlight passes right through him.”

The moment is broken when Neft opens the driver’s side door and clambers inside. Adella gives Hillany’s hand a final squeeze. Slither and Slick watch Hillany out of the corner of their eyes, concerned, as she watches the car drive away.

After Hillany has unfolded the tale recently imparted to her, stumbling over the word “ghost,” Slick immediately scoffs in annoyed disbelief. “My fanny, he’s a ghost. The little punk eats our peanuts as quickly as we can harvest them. No, scratch that theory off our list.” He shakes his head in dismissal and glides off. Slither pats Hillany’s foot with his tail, raising his eyelids and shrugging his head in a gesture of sympathy before hurrying off to catch up with Slick. Hillany turns away and spots Fespin standing off to the side. She squints at him as he stands between her and the sun. He takes no notice of her, his eyes lost in the yesterdays of long ago, his body limned in the sunlight.
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