#VisDare 29 - Pensive

When I saw this week’s #Visdare picture my immediate thought was “Rosa”, a character I conjured up at the beginning of the year, a story that I’ve written in bits and pieces but I have no idea where it’s going.

You can read the original stories here:-

Time to Fly, Obscure and Runaway Regrets

and now it is time for a new tale… a version of events from the perspective of the child “heroically” rescued from the fire… 

You never even looked in my direction did you? You didn’t see my face watching at the window?

The kerfuffle had woken me, I was scared and frightened. You did know he locked me in the caravan every night? I couldn’t escape so easily. All that held you back was a curtain and your own fear.

I banged on the glass desperately wanting to go with you, to be free.

Did you think I’d be a burden? That I’d slow you down on your travels?

I saw the bag you always carried tucked under your arm, where I should have been. I watched you every day, that bag never left your side. Did you think he didn’t see it too?

He wasn’t bothered that you’d left; I had a string of other “mothers” to look after me.

But I woke every night crying, my dreams always filled with your singing.

(150 words)

 I know it doesn't totally fit the picture but in my mind I saw a woman sat on the back of a cart, not looking back, a woman holding a bag tightly by her side. A woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders, unsure if she's doing the right thing....

...hopefully I'll find time to re-visit this story again because I really want to know what happens next - #WhenCharactersSurpriseYou!

Monday Mixer - Runaway Regrets

Well I still have no idea where this story about Rosa will lead but today's Monday Mixer prompts have inspired another flashback to when Rosa and Shrike first met.

Haven't tried to be clever this week, have just used the minimum 3 words, one from each list.

Well could YOU use all these words in one 150 word story?

Do you know what they all mean? I had to look up several but I'm not telling you which!

 

Locations:    1) patisserie    2) cabana    3) rill

Things:        1) cabachon    2) sclera       3) pestle

Adjectives:   1) querulous   2) bellicose  3) intrinsic

 

Rosa’s life was pretty much all mapped out and she might have been content working in her mother’s patisserie if he hadn’t come along.

She was grinding spices in the pestle and mortar when the bell tinkled above the door.

Peering through the beaded curtain from the back room she saw him.

Self-consciously she brushed down her apron and smoothed her hair before entering the shop front.

It quickly became a habit, him arriving at this time, just after her mother had left for the bank. He developed a fondness for the cinnamon cakes she baked, pecking birdlike at each morsel. 

One day he told her the fair was leaving town and invited her to join them.

Before she left her mother told her one intrinsic truth, there would always be a place for her here at the patisserie. 

She hoped after all this time it was still was true.