Verite – Magpie Tales

July 20, 2014July 20, 2014freyathewriter 9 Comments

“Why are we here, Papa? It’s so very quiet, like it’s Sunday or something.”

The man stares at his teenage daughter, his heart aching to see the ghost of Sarah lingering in her quizzical expression. He fingers the scar running along his jaw, a nervous habit he knows only too well.

“Did you and Mama work here, during the war?”

Bless her, she is as sharp as her mother, he thinks, his heart breaking slowly. He can’t believe it makes no noise in doing so, is incredulous that there is no pool of blood dripping onto the cobbles at his feet in witness to what is about to happen.

It has been ten years, since Sarah died here, in the road, outside this small magasin.

‘Not died,’ he thinks, correcting the lie he had been telling himself for a decade. ‘Killed. By me.’

He hopes his daughter is as strong as his mother had been. She will need to be, once she knows the truth.

——

Here’s my latest entry to Magpie Tales. I couldn’t quite leave my trilogy behind, so thought I would write a kind of post-script. You can read the other stories in order here, here, and here, if you like!

I hope you enjoy it – and please do visit Magpie Tales for more poetry and prose!

Deluge – Five Sentence Fiction

July 20, 2014freyathewriter 12 Comments

The raindrops pelt my hair, my face, my arms, my hands until I am drenched.

I stand in the empty street, arms outstretched, palms turned upwards, embracing the clouds above.

I know eyes are watching me from behind nets, behind doors held slightly ajar and deep in the shadows just out of reach of the streetlight’s glare.

I know they are whispering behind hands and underneath raised eyebrows – to them I am the woman who has lost her mind with grief, for nobody sane stands in the street, in the rain, in her nightgown.

But I do – it is a relief to feel something other than the weight of profound loss – it is a relief to feel so refreshed.

Cinders – VisDare 70

July 20, 2014July 20, 2014freyathewriter 4 Comments

“It’s simply not fair, Mother. She looks so elegant in that stupid, simple dress. I must have one exactly like it, made out of silk, rather than cotton.”

“Philomena, you will not ask Madame Reynaud for another dress. That poor woman has worked her fingers to the bone as it is.”

Philomena threw her fine lace shawl to the floor in disgust. “Only because you allowed her to make an outfit for that tramp as well!”

Lady Fawcett grasped her daughter firmly by the shoulder angrily. “You need to learn that graciousness and manners are what makes Eloise beautiful, not her dress. I am sad to say that you could wear her clothes all day long and you would never look as radiant as your step-sister.”

Blunt words they may have been, but Lady Fawcett feared that they had fallen on deaf ears. Her daughter was already too far gone.

——-

Here’s my latest entry into VisDare this week, the prompt run by the lovely Angela. I saw an element of competiton in this photo, with each of the ladies trying to float higher than the others! Please do pop over to her blog and read the other submissions – no two will be alike!