This is today's offering (day 158) for @mydivathings' #365daysofwriting challenge (click here to see her current post)
Today's picture prompt (below) is a Photo by Ronaldo de Oliveira on Unsplash
This can be read alone or, if you missed them, you can find the first five parts by clicking the links below:
Part one: @felt.buzz/outwitted-a-little-bit-of-fiction-for-365daysofwriting-challenge
Part two: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-2-a-fictional-tale-for-365daysofwriting-challenge
Part three: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-3-some-fiction-for-365daysofwriting
Part four: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-four-a-work-of-original-fiction-for-365daysofwriting-challenge
Part five: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-5-original-fiction-for-365daysofwriting-challenge
Part six: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-6-an-original-fictional-tale-for-365daysofwriting-challenge
Part seven: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-7-an-original-fiction-tale-for-365daysofwriting-challenge
There were noises from outside the room, that came and went. I could hear voices - a man, a woman (my sister? Grevyl? I am not certain) - from somewhere near, but not right outside the door. I heard footsteps approach and then walk quickly on, past the room I was sitting in. At one point I thought I heard my sister laugh, but I could have been wrong.
She was doing this deliberately, of course. To mess with my head, to try to knock me off guard. She had already succeeded. I never expected to find her tonight, and certainly would never imagined she would have been waiting for me.
The door opened again. I did not look, attempting to give the impression of being at ease. I wished I had asked the girl for more tea, now. I could have done with some props to use to make believe I was casually waiting, sipping tea. The door closed softly, and I looked up. I did so slowly, pretending I have only just noticed.
The serving girl stood in the doorway, awkwardly holding a bundle under one arm. She looked ill at ease. Uncomfortable. She put a finger to her lips, her eyes wide with what could be fear. Slowly she looked at each of the walls. She was trying to tell me something. That was being observed, or that I could be overheard if I were to speak to her. Carefully she placed the bundle down on the floor, and looked at me and then at it. Then, she turned, and softly opened the door, slipping back out into the corridor. I heard her footsteps recede and realised from the pattern of her footfall that it had been she who had approached and then run off, earlier. Perhaps, the first time she lost her nerve.
Or perhaps, this was another one of my sister’s games. Perhaps, she wanted me to think I have an ally, that I was not alone, trapped in this web. That the fly had a chance of being rescued before the spider scurried forth to devour it.
Whatever game Mathilde was playing, I was fairly sure I would not be able to guess what she was really doing.
My sister always had been very good at surprises.
My father did not die straight away, after the accident. I remember thinking as they carried his body, bound to a wooden board, up the stairs, that he was dead - why are they not taking him to the chapel? He looked so pale, so lifeless. Mrs Karn stood by me, her hand upon my shoulder.
“He’s very sick,” she said. “But the doctor will do his best for him.”
Later, after she took my hand and led me away from my father’s bedside - so the nurse would be able tend to his wounds, properly - she told me what they thought had happened. He had been found in a ditch, halfway between the Big House and the village.
“Something, must have scared that horse,” Mrs Karn said. “Perhaps a fox ran out in front of him. Or wild boar, perhaps. Whatever it was, it must have spooked that horse, thrown your father, and galloped off. The stable boys are out looking for him, now.”
I shook my head.
“Fade doesn’t scare easily, Mrs Karn,” I said. “And when my father rode him it was like they were one and the same animal. Fade would never have thrown father. Never.” Mrs Karn just shrugged, and bit her lower lip. I suspected she had heard the same arguments from the stable lads.
She had encouraged me to eat almost a full bowl of soup - I was scarcely hungry, but she told me I needed my strength, because what with my mother and father being ill, and my sister being missing I was in charge of the household.
“You have to be strong, my boy,” she said.
After supper, I took a walk, down to the bench by the lake. When he was home, my father would often sit on that bench, after lunch. I would sometimes join him, and we would listen to the buzz of insects and watch the shadows of the fish move swiftly beneath the surface of the water.
I was not tired, and I had a need to be close to my father. The nurse would not let me in my parents rooms.
“They are both resting, dear,” the woman - a thin woman, I knew vaguely, from the village - had said, her bony noise poking through the crack in the door. “Let them get some sleep, and come and see them in the morning.”
The grounds were quiet. After last night’s search for my sister, and today’s drama, it seemed everyone - but me - was exhausted, and had retired to bed. There were lights burning in the stable yard, but no sign of activity. I sat on the bench, the moon shone brightly and bathed it in light. I wondered where my sister was. What had happened to her. That might have been the first moment that I truly hated my sister. Oh, certainly I had resented her before, been jealous of the attention she got. But as I sat there, wondering where she was, why she had abandoned me, I realised that if she had not gone missing, my father would be here, well, and strong, sitting beside me on this bench.
I struggled with confused feelings of anger, loss and fear, and then decided I had best try to get some rest. Mrs Karn was right. I needed to be strong, now. As I walked from the bench, I thought I heard something. Someone called my name, I was sure of it. I turned around, but the bench was empty, nothing moved in the shadows.
“Hello?” I said. “Is anyone there?”
My voice sounded thin, weak and full of fear. If someone was out there, if someone wanted to do me harm, the would not be fooled into thinking I would be able to defend myself.
I quickened my pace, moving away from the bench, towards the stable block, towards the house.
My name was called, and I turned. Light shimmered on the bench - twinkling, then, reminding me of the sparkling cloud powder - and as I stood there blinking my sister appeared, a vague form becoming solid in the moonlight.
“Hello, brother,” she said, smiling. “Oh, my! Just look at your face. You're so pale! You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
...
Part nine: @felt.buzz/outwitted-part-9-an-original-work-of-fiction-for-365daysofwriting-challenge