This us actually a story I wrote a pretty long time ago. Hope you like it!
Crash! Clink! What was that? I look up from watching my dog Burr playing with a stick. Suddenly I hear a strangled cry. Wait... the only other person in the house is my sister Emma. The cry sounded awfully close. I jump up, gently telling Burr to stay. My small, obedient dog sits and I hesitantly open the kitchen door where Emma was last.
Emma is on the floor, breathing shallowly. I do not see a weapon anywhere, but no matter.
"Emma! Are you all right?" I ask, then curse myself for asking such a pointless question. I try again. "Who did this to you?"
"Alexia Underwood... " Emma never calls me Alexia. "I know it and you know it. I'm practically already dead. Run before he comes again."
"But..." I protest. Emma is almost still. Then with a final heave of her chest, Emma's last action is turning the room deathly silent. It hits me right then. My sister, the sister who taught me everything, gave me all the love she had, is dead.
What should I do? The most reasonable thing to do is mourn, but I'm doing that anyway. Literally bucketfuls of salty, gritty tears are pouring out of my eyes. After a few minutes there are no more tears left, and I get up to see the my only friend in the world now, Burr. I gather the meager food we still have on my way out. Without thinking, I also grab my trusty bow, and a huge bag of arrows. Tired and still letting silent tears fall from my eyes, I lead Burr out the door of our cottage. I almost don't see it, but Burr tilts her head toward our stream. Gratefully patting her head, I fill a canteen with cool, fresh water.
Almost to myself, I murmur, "I have to avenge Emma's death." Burr looks up at me brightly like a small, hopeful child, as if to say,
Of course, Lexy, and I'll follow you wherever you go.
*****
Burr and I have been walking endlessly and trying to survive for three weeks. I am exhausted, more exhausted than I have ever been in all my fourteen summers. I feel like falling asleep and never waking up. Well, not in the dying sense of the expression. All that has been keeping me alive is Burr, who tirelessly leads us on. On to where? As the sun sinks down behind the crest of a mountain on the twenty-second day since leaving home, I am on the brink of just telling Burr to turn around and go back to our lovely cottage. Is this what it feels like to go insane?
Finally, the sky becomes too dark for further travel, and I permit myself to begin assembling our home for the night. The trees start to seem taller and more hostile, the grass more tremblingly filled with life. Before I stop working in fear, a lone cricket tentatively rubs out a few notes, and my tight muscles relax. Just then something wet and cold nudges my shoulder. I freeze.
Burr barks reassuringly. Of course, I should have known. Turning around to see what she’s up to, I notice a scrap of soggy paper on the ground. Curious, I gently lay it over on the other side to see if, maybe, it is a sort of note. What I read makes me yelp and scramble back:
Warehouse 13, Underwood. Or do you already know, smart little girl?
*****
Of course I know where Warehouse 13 is. The docks. How could I have known, though, how far off they are? Another week has dragged by. I sometimes see other travelers wandering the roads. I never dare to speak to them. In fact, I haven’t spoken to another human being in over a month. Burr is the only one I can trust, a small, runty dog. She yaps at me more and more often now, almost like a mother: Come on, Lexy, we’re almost there, Lexy, wash your face, and things like that. Emma is gone; I still sob at night when Burr is asleep. Still, I think I will survive now. Can a month without human company do that? Or is it the fresh forest air, clearing my head? We may just settle down here, Burr and I. There is hope yet.
Burr is barking at me to hurry. It looks like she has found us another good stream to drink from. I don’t know how she does it. In the past weeks, my faithful dog has never slowed from our path. “Good girl, Burr.” I say, scratching her behind her ears. She arfs happily once, then remembers herself and gives me a stern mother-dog look. “All right, Mother.” I joke, and I glance down at my reflection in the stream.
Who is this? I guess I haven’t been paying much attention to the way I look. My brown hair is loose and tangled around my shoulders, and my “emerald eyes” (I sniff, Emma used to call them that) have dark circles ringing them. The girl who used to be “Emma’s beauty of the glade” (I sniff again) is thoroughly a mess. Aagggh. I shake my eyes free of the tears. I’ve had enough sorrowful sentiment for the day.
*****
I smell the salt air; the sea spray! Oh, joy! I rush forward to greet the new scent. Burr senses my happiness and bounds along with me. As we run, energized, Burr barks and barks; snippets of things: Warehouse 13, here we come! Isn’t that smell beautiful? Oh, Lexy, good for-I’ve just got to see these docks! With luck, we might be there in a few nights. I think I’m going to burst; I’m so happy.
The docks. How can I describe them? The air is thick with reminders of exotic places. Even the people look like they’re from somewhere far, far away. We’re walking through a market and Burr is in sheer bliss. I think she could just spend her whole life drinking in the new scents that pour in. Strange seabirds fly down from the sky. They snatch food off of merchants; it’s hilarious. The ships are the best thing, though. There is every kind of boat, from a small fisherman’s houseboat to a grand businessman’s sailing ship. Maybe I take back what I said about settling down in the forest. We’d be just as happy living here.
Enveloped in the newness of the docks, I almost miss the fact that the sun is setting. Pickpockets are coming out of their nests. The seaside is soon crawling with thieves and cutthroats. I suck in my breath. How can such a wonderful place by day be such a dark world by night? Burr and I now concentrate on finding Warehouse 13 in the diminishing light. Just as the last glimmer of sun disappears from the sky, we find it: a tall, austere building with a sloppy 13 painted on it. Just then I doubt myself. What if Warehouse 13 isn’t the place I’ve been looking for? What if the note was meant for some other girl named Underwood? Before my fear immobilizes me, Burr pushes me forward.
The large room that is the warehouse is dark and musty. Luckily, after a month in the forest my eyes are well adjusted to darkness. Afraid of calling out, I wait, shivering, with Burr by my side. Any movement now is sure to make me scream.
Just then, the lights come on with a clank. I cover my eyes. It is almost blinding. If I am ever going to see Emma’s murderer, it will be now. Burr barks once, loudly and clearly, as authoritatively as she can. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t do much good.
“Well, well, well. Is this all? The great Emma Underwood’s sister is this skimpy beggar?” says a voice amusedly from somewhere above me. Slightly offended by the insult and curious to know why my sister was “the great”, I struggle to speak.
“And who are you to antagonize me?” I try to sound arrogant, or at least confident. “Who is this ‘great Emma Underwood’?” While speaking, I look up. The light is not hindering my vision anymore. I scan the rafters for the one I am conversing with. When I cannot find him, I take out my bow. Somewhere above me, the voice laughs in a strangely mirthless way. This--whoever it is--is getting on my nerves, and Burr’s, too, it sounds like. She’s growling, deep in her throat. I step forward to be ready, in case he has a throwing knife aimed at her.
When did I start thinking like that?
“You don’t know? Your sister really was playing around with you, wasn’t she?” the voice says. “I killed her, if you didn’t know that, either, ignorant child.” Child?! He sounds no older than me! Now I’m just angry, and as if I hadn’t figured out that he’s a cheating, lying, murdering rascal. As silently as I can, I nock an arrow in my bow. Aagh. It’s too loud.
Whoever is trying to get himself killed by insulting me is chuckling, a laugh that conjures up pictures of old hags with green skin and bubbling cauldrons to match. I’ve snapped. Arrows fly inside the abandoned warehouse, none finding their mark. I hate him. More than grass snakes, more than rats who steal my food, more than being alone in the middle of nowhere. I. Hate. Him.
“Down here,” I curse. I must have heard wrong. “Tsk, tsk. Gullible, Underwood, gullible.” With a flash he has leapt to the floor beside me. What is he wearing? It’s a jester’s suit! I can’t see his face at all; it’s covered with circus makeup. “Emma Underwood is, or rather was, the rightful Queen’s Sorceress of our beautiful country, since I can’t resist seeing your shocked face at that piece of news.” the jester tells me. “Oh, look at you. Well, I’ve got to be off. Got to see people, go places, see?”
The Queen’s Sorceress is the most powerful one in the land, next to Queen Cassandra. That makes me... the Queen’s Sorceress now, right? What?! I want to both shoot him through the heart and ask him about the situation. Simultaneously I open my mouth, form a question on my tongue, and put an arrow on the edge of flying towards him. I don’t notice the doors shuddering open behind me.
“The Jester of Death, Alexia, milady, pleasure to meet you. Sadly, I don’t have my knife to cut your throat just now. Good day!” As he is chattering, I get annoyed. I still am not aware of the opening doors.
So before I can kill him or ask him about it all, the doors clank closed, leaving the room dimly lit, then with a buzz and an unfamiliar noise, completely black.
The jester is gone.
When this story was analyzed by the I Write Like software:
