Historical Fiction in One Paragraph

Um, yes. I wrote this when I was fifteen, and fresh from a year of studying way too much Revolutionary War. The British soldiers sort of intrigued me, probably because they didn't have nearly as many stories about the British as they did the Americans. I never went anywhere with this, and it's probably a good thing I didn't, because I didn't do a lot of research and would probably have messed it up pretty badly. Anyways, dug this up out of Microsoft word and thought it was cute enough to put up. Sorry for the blabbing. I am slightly embarrassed about this story for some reason.

I first saw him walking through the big cemetery near our house. He wasn’t hard to miss – his coat was an eye-watering scarlet, a spot of vivid color that made everything around him look bland and colorless in comparison. It was too red to really be real.

This incredibly noticeable quality was what really caught my curiosity – that, and the fact that no one else seemed to see him. The street wasn’t all that crowded, and he was the only person in the cemetery.

I was looking for a good excuse to skip out on school – nothing was happening that day, and I wanted to be as far away from Mr. Kantz as possible after what happened yesterday – and so I gladly took this one. I broke off from the sidewalk and crossed the narrow street, and felt the hard cement turn to neatly trimmed grass underneath my grungy sneaker-clad feet. He wasn’t walking very fast – a sort of shamble, really, just dragging his feet slowly through the grass – so it didn’t take much effort to catch up to him. He didn’t notice me coming up close behind him. He didn’t seem to be taking much notice of anything, to tell the truth.

Looking at his clothes, I labeled him as one of the historical reenactment people. There were a lot of them that worked here in Boston, clad in Revolutionary War getup. It was the wrong time of year for them to be out wandering the streets, though – they kept to the museums and historical sites when it wasn’t the 4^th of July – but I guessed that since he was out in the old cemetery, he was doing some museum work or something. I never had much to do with them. In the eight years that I’ve lived here, I’d been smothered so painfully with Boston’s history that I tried to avoid even attending the 4^th of July celebrations when they rolled around.

He was very tall – I’d pin him at about 6’ 5” or more. His hair, as per 18^th century custom, was long and tied back in ponytail. He wasn’t wearing a wig, and his hair wasn’t powdered – it was black as black could get. You hear about blue-black hair – you never actually expect to look at the back of someone’s head and see a blue sheen when the sun hits it. He carried a very scratched-up looking musket propped against his shoulder, and the blade glinted in the sun, a little too shiny and sharp.

I was done with watching – time to do some bugging.

“Hey.”

The guy’s head jerked around. His pale eyes bugged out when they saw me.

“What’re you doing out here? Geneology, or what?” I asked.

He didn’t reply. He just whipped around and started walking more quickly.

“Hey, wait!” I shouted.

Weird story idea

 At first, he was aware only of existing.

He thought it the strangest thing to imagine not existing. Where would he be? Or, more accurately, where wouldn't he be? What is it like to not think, feel, smell, touch, know, see, or want anything? It gave him a headache to try to conceive not existing. He relaxed somewhat and sat down, massaging his temples. The headache didn't seem to go away.

Why not? Shouldn't it go away? But then it occurred to him that he couldn't recall having had a headache before. How should he know how long a headache ought to last? Or that massaging his temples might make it better? He groaned and massaged with greater furor. The floorboards were hard and uncomfortable to sit on, and so he stood again, which admittedly did little to alleviate the pain in his head.

Where was he, anyhow? Inside, presumably. Floorboards don't just lay around in forests or deserts, or anywhere but inside places. Or do they? It didn't seem right to him that they would, so he supposed they must not. Whatever forests and deserts are. He had an inkling, though he couldn't recall having ever seen one. The thought then began to form that he had better open his eyes if he wished to learn where he was.

He opened his eyes to find everything terribly dark. That wasn't very helpful. More helpful to him, actually, was a scent he started to realize he had actually been smelling since, well, since he had become aware of himself. However long ago that had been. It was a smell that could perhaps be called sweet, and made him think of thoughts he couldn't quite place. People, places, and feelings that seemed like they ought to be familiar to him. Oh, please, why was the headache necessary?

The smell was definitely a lead, though. It tickled his memory, and the more he dwelt on it, a feeling seemed to spread within him, starting just below his sternum, a sweet, excited feeling. Interesting. A person, he thought – the smell definitely brought his mind to a person.

The more he blinked in the murkiness, the more he was able to make out. First he could see a rectangle only slightly more orange than black. He stared at this rectangle until he realized that he was looking at a window. He was inside a room of some kind. A kind that had floorboards.

With time, his eyes adjusted more and more to the light, and he was able to see a form close to the window. Just an outline at first, a blacker black inside a less black black. Black was quickly becoming his least-favorite color. Perhaps it always had been. How long had he existed, he wondered. Had he always existed and just not been aware? He knew it couldn't have been more than a few moments since he could remember anything, but those few moments seemed like an eternity. After all, it was the only life he could remember living.

The form became more defined. He realized over time that he was looking at someone asleep in a bed. His heart leapt. Somehow he knew this person. This was the person the smell made him think of. The feeling that had spread continued to ripple through him, growing more exciting and causing him more happiness than he had ever known, for what it was worth. He walked over to the bed and knelt by it, looking into the face of the person. It was a girl – the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

His mind was split between recognizing her and trying to remember who she was. He had seen her before, he was sure, except for the fact that he couldn't remember anything up till a few minutes ago. Had he seen anyone before, though, he was sure it would have been her.

“Alice,” the name escaped his lips and shattered the silence in the room, giving him quite a start. Though he hadn't spoken in much above a whisper, it was the first sound he was cognizant of hearing, and was therefore the loudest thing he had heard before.

He watched, his body frozen and his heart racing, afraid of whatever it was that happened when girls awoke up to find people in their rooms. The girl stirred in her sleep, but didn't wake. All good and well, then. He tried to relax, but found he couldn't. For some reason, a part of him wanted her to wake up. He wanted to talk to her again. Or for the first time. Whichever it was, he wanted to talk to her. Something about her seem to hold him captive, and his heart was still pounding.

“You love her,” came a voice from above his shoulder. He really did jump this time, and spun around with a yell. The voice that addressed him came from a person, apparently of the female persuasion. It wasn't immediately apparent, as her face was shrouded by a white mask over a black veil. This would have perhaps been alarming, if he had known that masked and veiled people opt on the alarming side in today's society, but instead her odd apparel came off as an interesting contrast from Alice, who was the only other person he had met. Apart from the odd head-wear, she wore a thick-looking covering, checkered diagonally, which was fastened shut by a long row of double-breasted buttons from the collar down to the floor.

“You startled me,” he said off-hand, and then remembered in horror that Alice was supposed to be sleeping. He turned to find her undisturbed.

“Oh, she won't wake up,” said the woman-person, “But anyway, you love her.”

“I guess I do,” he said, thinking. “I don't know if I've ever loved anyone before, so it's hard to say.”

“Well, you see,” she replied, “You, as you know yourself, are new to this world. You came into existence some hours ago.” He frowned. This was most disconcerting news. The whole concept of oblivion came flooding back, and with it his headache, which seemed to have come back with a nasty vengeance, rather put off at having been forgotten about.

“What does that even mean?” was all he was able to ask, sitting down on the floor again and massaging his temples harder than ever. He wasn't sure it would actually help, but it felt better to be doing something about the pain rather than taking it like a war hero.

“Let me show you,” she said, and she walked over to where the girl lay sleeping. In an instant, he was back on his feet – the woman-person was too close to Alice for his comfort. He instantly determined that no one was to come that close to her except for himself. This rule was to come into effect immediately. He opened his mouth to tell the woman-person so, but she was already away from the bed, now with a piece of paper in her gloved hand, which protruded from a slit in the cape she wore. She gave the piece of paper to him, and said,

“Read this.”

He looked at it, and though the room was dark, he could see letters on the paper, as if they were on fire, burning red and, if it could be said of letters, passionately.

The first letters spelled out DRAKE.

The rest of it seemed wholly unrelated to these five letters. They spoke of strong features, first and foremost, and handsome ones at that. They spoke of kindness, politeness, cleanliness, of handsomeness again, and then of perfection. They then took a weaker stance on the perfection aspect, admitting a few human faults that were most likely present (although the letters took care to explain that their writer hadn't yet observed these), but then they spoke of a willingness to overlook said faults due to intelligence, respect for women, and a hard work ethic. They ended with a suggestion that perhaps the subject of the writing might perhaps become romantically entwined with the author, and that they might pursue a future together. Finally, the fire in the letters died, and they were no longer visible in the darkness. He stood aghast.

“What's this?” he asked.

“That's a love poem,” she said.

“What does that have to do with the letters DRAKE?”

“That's your name.”

It was like a slap to the face, only pleasant. It was now so clear, he felt stupid for having not made the connection before.

“She wrote this poem about me!” He said excitedly. “That means she loves me back, then, doesn't it?”

“After a fashion,” said the woman-person, “She loves a boy named Drake. She wrote a poem about him. Around the time she finished writing is when you came into existence. You are her poem.”

There was a very awkward pause.

“I am her poem,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

He contemplated this new information for a moment. In his vague understanding of the world, he didn't really think too much of poems as living, breathing things like himself. He held up the paper.

“Isn't this her poem?” he asked.

“No,” said the woman/person, “That is a piece of paper with ink sloppily arranged on it. You are what that piece of paper represents.”

“I don't quite follow,” he said.

“I don't expect you to,” came the reply, “Alice described you as smart, but not a metaphysicist.”

“That's not even a word,” he retorted.

“Is so, and don't you dare contradict me.”

They sat in another awkward silence for a moment while he tried to consider what to say next. Finally, he said,

“Okay.”

Another awkward silence.

“So,” he continued, “If I am her poem, then who are you? How do you know so much about it?”

“Knowledge is power,” she said, “and the tome that represents me is hidden away somewhere safe. No one person should have that much power.”

“You're that powerful?” he asked, out of curiosity rather than cheekiness, though her mask seemed to regard him coolly at this. Something flickered in the darkness behind the eye-holes in her mask, but as quickly as he had seen it, it was gone. She reached across the room.

Her arms were far too long. One stretched from where she stood over to the window, which shattered at her touch. The other stretched toward the door of the room, which her gloved hand opened, and continued stretching indefinitely, her masked gaze never faltering a nanometer. After a moment, her arms retracted to back within her cape, and the shattered window reassembled itself.

“I'm quite fond of you, Drake,” she said, which, though kind of her to say, did little to settle his now upset nerves, “And as such I just gave this entire house a great big hug. You were inside the house at the time, so consider it an impersonal expression of affection. But don't test my limits. I have few.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” he said.

“Humility aside, however,” she said in a light tone, “you are the newest addition to my realm. I just thought I'd welcome you personally before I left you to your own devices.”

More of Aelwys and Mother... part... what, 6?

This is up to page 11 in the Word document... from just a bit before I left off last time...

“I'm taking you to a safehouse,” said the man as they walked ever more swiftly, “We set up several in the past few weeks to make easier the journey to Ceadlund. These things cannot reach us there.”

“Cannot reach us, those things!” Came another nasty voice from beneath the drop of the cliff to their right, “Cannot reach us in the safehouse!”

“We will have to leave the path to get there,” the man warned, “But we musn't stray too far; we are being hunted.”

“Can those things hurt us?” Aelwys asked, her voice quivering.

“Yes,” the man said simply. There were no more questions. Aelwys wished she could close her eyes and run until she were safe, but she knew that she could not. She would have to endure this.

“We aren't far,” the Wygar said, “But we are being closed in on. We can no longer risk walking without a light. We must signal those at the safehouse.”

His left hand darted again into his pouch and produced a curious item which proved to be a small candle lantern as he took the velvet cloth from it. He also produced one of the small rods Aelwys had seen Mother use, and with it he lit the candle, which burned with surprising warmth and brightness. The moonlight was now fragile and became darkness compared to the bright lantern that now blazed as it hung from the chain in the Wygar's hand. As they walked, he swung the lantern back and forth, the lantern slowly gaining speed and breadth in its swinging, until it made a full turn, when the man caught it by the top and held it still. Aelwys was amazed that it did not go out.

Aelwys continued to keep a wary eye for moving shadows, but it was too hard to tell from the writhing shadows the lantern cast on their surroundings. Her heart pounded at every flicker of the flame that caused the shadows to leap, and every now and again she thought she could catch snatches of words from further behind them.

“Help... please... safehouse... cannot reach us...”

In the distance ahead, out of the dimness that now engulfed them, there appeared a light. It, too, began to swing back and forth, and made the same full circle.

“Friends are waiting for us,” said the man, “Let us not keep them waiting for long.”

“Not keep them waiting...”

They walked with all the haste they could muster without breaking into a run, Aelwys' heart throbbing so loudly in her ears that she could hardly make out the snatches of voices behind and around them, the light before them growing brighter and larger as they drew near.

Something cold brushed Aelwys' hand, winning a shriek from her. She spun around to find the empty landscape watching her, nothing discernible in the murkiness. She could have sworn it felt like a hand trying to grab her own. She turned back around and quickly caught up with Mother and the Wygar, walking as closely to Mother as she could get. After what must have been only a few minutes but what felt like hours, the light from the further lantern and the Wygar's merged into one circle. The lantern hung unattended from a groove in a rough wooden shaft thrust into the ground, before what appeared to be the remains of a ship.

“Take the lantern,” said the Wygar man to Mother, “and the shaft with it.” Mother did so, and they approached the mossy hull, near a spot where there was a large hole in the barnacle-encrusted boards. The man rapped on the wood in an odd pattern, and after a moment, a strange sort of door opened from within the hole, and a Wygar woman appeared, beckoning them to follow her back inside. In they went, Aelwys first and the Wygar man last, until they all found themselves inside a large, warm room.

It was very oddly-shaped, with six or seven corners, but comfortably furnished and well-lit. A fire blazed beneath a small cauldron, in a crude-looking fireplace that haphazardly occupied one of the smaller sections of the wall. There were beds stacked atop one another up to the roof, three or four high, such that the room could sleep twelve or more people, and two couches flanked an old table in the center of the room. In several of the beds lay people, most of them Wygars, marked by their kinky blond hair and the thick woolen cloaks they wrapped themselves in. Two small children slept on a blanket in front of the fire, a bit of forgotten bread clutched in the nearest child's hand. The scent of spices and apples emanated from the cauldron, tantalizing Aelwys' nose.

This was the safehouse. She let out a sigh to express the relief that washed over her, followed by a wave of exhaustion that lured her to the nearest couch, upon which she collapsed, without any regard whatsoever to manners or etiquette, in an unceremonious heap, and fell fast asleep.

She did not know how long she had slept, but when she awoke, the room was considerably darker than before. The fire in the fireplace had been extinguished, and there were only candles alight within, the waxy smoke escaping through gaps between the planks that made up the ceiling. Pale light shone through these gaps, suggesting daylight without. She saw that the door through which they had come was open, and that it was made of sturdy planks and fitted with several thick deadbolts, quite different from the frail, decayed-looking construction of the ceiling and the some of the walls. It looked to have been built with haste, but careful to offer protection to those within. Few of those who had been asleep the night before were inside, except for the Wygar man who had taken them to this place, and Mother, who slept on the couch opposite Aelwys. The man was sharpening his sword with a smooth stone, when he noted that she had awoken. His broad features wrinkled into a smile, the warmth of which was somewhat driven away by his darkened face paint about his eyes.

“Good morning,” he said genially.

“Good morning, sir,” she replied, now somewhat abashed by her lack of composure the night before, “Though I beg your pardon. We didn't even ask your name last night.”

“Edyl Causyth, at your service,” he said with a slight bow of his head, “and I can hardly blame you for not asking. The hidebehinds aren't the worst things that roams in the night, but they are the most common, and they spook even the soldier-priests and magistrates with their companies of armed men.”

“Hidebehinds?” asked Aelwys, “Is that what was hunting us?”

“It's what we call them,” said Edyl, “No one has ever seen one. Not straight on, as you see me, at any rate. Nasty things, that try to lure travelers off the road and into the shadows, where they attack in packs.”

“So the Sovereign's men weren't telling lies,” she remarked, “Demons really do haunt the night.” Edyl gave a small laugh, and shook his head.

“They tell enough truth to suit their purposes,” he said, “But they bring as much trouble with them as protection. Yes, the further away you stray from the beaches and the ocean, the more dangerous the wilderness can be. The most we encounter here are simple hidebehinds – if a fellow isn't careful, he could join those foul things for supper – although the true danger lies beyond the mountains to the south and to the east.”

“Why do you call them hidebehinds?” she couldn't help but ask him.

“Did you notice how whenever you think you see one in the corner of your eye, there's never anything there when you turn your head?” The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she recalled this.

“Yes,” she said with a shudder.

“Dreadfully afraid of being seen for some reason,” Edyl said, “And it'd be my guess that one by one, they're weak and cowardly. They are hungry, though, and so they hunt in packs, and use cunning to separate parties and draw them away. I don't know how much of our speech they understand, and I don't care to find out. Just don't pay any heed to any voice you hear coaxing you to help or accept help or anything of the sort. You remember this, now, Aelwys, and don't ever leave the path or your company.” Aelwys looked at him queerly.

“How do you know my name?” She asked. He hadn't asked her, and so she hadn't told him.

“Your Mother told me,” he said simply, “And that her name is Aesydora. She's a strong woman; she'll get you both to Llynceth, and no doubts. Once again, never leave your company or the path while you're still on land. Those things won't so much as touch you unless you do something foolish like that.” It felt like the pit of Aelwys' stomach sink like a pit of quick-sand.

“But one of them did touch me,” she said, holding up her hand, “Just there, along the edge of my hand.” Edyl was silent, staring at her hand as though it were some nasty thing from underneath a stone. After a moment, he said,

“They must be getting hungrier.” He sat silent for another moment, then continued, “I couldn't say how much longer we can keep this safehouse open. My wife and I watch it and patrol the outlying paths for lost travelers like yourselves. Many of the Wygar clans are on the move. We have called a Dire Counsel in Ceadlund, across the northern sea. Never before have we congregated together on another shore, but between the Sovereign and the hauntings that grow worse each month, it must be so. To prepare for this, we have set up several safehouses of this sort along the trail, each a day's journey away from the last, until Llynceth and her neighbouring villages. The last of us are supposed to set sail in three weeks' time.”

“But aren't you afraid that the Sovereign's men will notice so many Wygars?”

“Thus far, they seem glad to be rid of us. Trouble arises when they feel we are bringing away those who are not of our clan, people like yourself and your mother. You see, there is a rumor that there is a new Oracle near Ceadlund.”

“A new Oracle?” said Aelwys, incredulously, “Impossible! The Oracle has dwelt in the great Imperial city for millenia! He was the one who taught us to beware of the demons in the night, and how to ward them away from our houses, was he not?”

“Indeed,” Edyl replied calmly, “That is true. I don't know much about it at all, I admit, but word in the taverns and in the seaports is abuzz with talk of this other Oracle. Some curious folk notice our flight to Ceadlund and hear about this pretender to the Holy Throne, and feel something big is about to happen. Some folk fear the Sovereign, and begin to lose faith in the Oracle that works so closely with his Highness.”

“Why, that's blasphemy!” cried Aelwys, cheeks burning. She had never heard such talk back in Hammon, and she was ashamed to hear it here.

“That's exactly why the soldier-priests aren't keen to let anyone who isn't Wygar by birth to leave for Ceadlund,” said Edyl.

“Surely they can't think that Mother and I—”

“They do, Aelwys,” came Mother's voice from the bed. She was now sitting up, looking regal as ever, and listening intently to their conversation, “They do.”