Drabble Challenge 25, 27, 45!
I wrote 2500 words today for the sequel to the Autumn Door so let’s get some of those characters up in here for these drabbles! (Also I may or may not be addicted to writing this series. oops.) I was going to do these all as a connected Big Drabble but these silly little one-shots happened instead so enjoy!
25. Aren’t you supposed to be the adult?
“Uh…” Zelda rested her hands on her hips and surveyed the room Cai had claimed as his own. She had never gone in the mysterious guest room that Justin used for a secondary office, under the pretense that he needed even more room for his flowers. Now it looked like someone had painted it with a brush dipped in rainbows and dragged it through a craft store.
“It’s great, isn’t it?” He looked up from the nest of hobby materials that made up what she guessed was supposed to be the bed. Knitting needles and crochet hooks cascaded from the pile of yarn and wicker, spilling under the sturdy table he had conjured to put the sewing machine on. The pocket knife he had used in his brief obsession with whittling was strewn on the floor next to quilting squares and only-worn-once boxing gloves.
Zelda’s own room wasn’t the cleanest in the world, but it was almost bare compared to this. She had boxed up most of her found things in preparation for someone else moving in. “Aren’t you supposed to be the adult?”
Cai huffed. “Sure, blame me. It’s not my fault you’re boring.” He laid back on the nest and twirled his fingers in three different colors of yarn. “You just can’t appreciate my genius.”
“Sure. Let’s call it that.”
27. I swear, I’m not scared.
Jovian stared at the basement door.
Something had been making noises behind it. For quite some time now, he had heard clanging pipes and rattling chains, typical signs of a paranormal infestation. He’d read all about them in his mother’s books. He’d never seen a ghost himself, in person, but he could imagine them.
He could imagine them really, really well.
“Jo?” His sister peered around the corner from the kitchen. She was always getting into his business. Just because she was older than him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not scared.” He mumbled it under his breath, so low he could only imagine hearing it himself. He held a book in his hands—it wasn’t a Bible, but the ghosts wouldn’t know that. Ghosts couldn’t read. He thought.
The pipes clanged louder, like whatever it was had started walking up the stairs towards him.
Jupiter took a step into the laundry room. “Jo…”
“I’m not…” His voice died away. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to look taller. “I’m not scared. I’m not scared.”
“Is there something to be scared of?”
He reached out for the doorknob. “I swear I’m not scared. I swear…”
Swearing is a sin, a cruel voice laughed in the back of his head.
He gripped the book tighter and barreled down the stairs, ready to face whatever awaited him.
45. If that makes me a child, so be it.
“You’re such a kid, Zee.” Scott laughed and playfully pushed her away from him. “Come on. Let’s be serious.”
“I am serious!” She couldn’t help but laugh with him, but her eyes flickered towards the window. The rumble of thunder had just faded from the glass pane. “I really don’t…like…lightning. It freaks me out.”
“It’s just lightning.” He rolled his eyes in the way well-meaning people did when they didn’t understand.
Zelda searched for a comparison. The only one she could come up with drew on his worst fear—the one they had sworn never to speak about in public, or else Scott’s JROTC classmates would use it against him. “It’s like if I filled your bed with spiders or—”
“Let’s back the fuck up a minute. We are not filling my bed with spiders. Ever.”
“You’re such a kid,” she fired back in the same tone of voice he’d used on her.
Scott gave her a perfectly serious look. “I am afraid of eight-legged hell-beasts that wear their skeletons on the outside, and if that makes me a child, so be it.”
