Bert hated saxophones. He hated their shrill voices and their pitchiness and their refusal to pick between brass and woodwind. He hated their strange shape, curling around like a seahorse. He hated when they tried to worm their way into orchestras - such a civilian instrument had no place sitting beside sensible flutes and oboes and strings. They'd even begun to corrupt their classier cousins, the clarinets.
Bert hated saxophones, and it had nothing to do with the fact that his girlfriend of six years - the woman he'd intended to be his wife - had run off with one not half a year prior.
The instrument, not a player, to be clear. Rhonda had up and left with her tenor saxophone, after what Bert could only assume was a mental break.
What else convinced someone to break off their over-half-a-decade relationship, quit their steady, lucrative career, and take up with a jazz trio?
Come to think of it, Bert hated jazz, too. Another crime of the brashest of instruments. He'd always held this opinion - always held the saxophone hatred, too - though he'd never voiced it (or thought of it) much before Rhonda had left.
But now anyone who heard him complain about his legitimate grievances assumed the two were linked. Like he was holding a petty grudge over a whole, unholy family of instruments for one of them tucked delicately in the well of Rhonda's car.
Bert was trying to explain all this to the busker, the clarinetist taking a break between sets of mind-numbingly-inane-but-brilliantly-performed pop songs. He'd meant his ramble as a compliment, a congratulations for picking an instrument worthy of its place in the classical standard lineup.
But his response was the same glassy/slightly-doubtful look everyone gave him as soon as he brought up Rhonda. Like they were all questioning his sanity. Like he'd had the mental break and ran off with a jazz trio.
There was no point arguing his case any longer. Tossing a crumpled $5 bill into the open case, Bert couldn't resist commenting on the remarkable clarinet the busker silently ran their fingers over - it was all gold, with pearly keys. Bert had never seen another like it before.
The busker laughed as they adjusted the strap to bring the instrument closer, preparing for their next set.
"That's because it's not a clarinet," they said, raising the mouthpiece to their lips. "It's a saxophone."
Purple: Which of your characters would become your sworn enemy?
Tony hands down. Although it'd be one of those "i think you are lame and I won't bother trating you as a person" kind of hate.
Clear: Do your characters control where the story goes or do you maintain control?
I WISH I had control. My dumbass chaotic characters just straight up pulled a Mean Girls and told me "get in loser, we're going to this forsaken town necause we don't have enough gas and some shenanigans will happen there. Figure out the rest by yourself."
For STS! What would the main cast of Unshakeable say their greatest life accomplishments have been so far?
Thank you so much for the ask, and i’m sorry it’s a bit late!
Marta: The time machine she built when she was nine that definitely did work no matter what Sophie said, or the amazing yellow silk dress she sewed entirely from scratch when she was sixteen.
Andras: The song he wrote for Marta, that made him realize he was in love with her. It’s called The von Holstadt Waltz and sounds exactly like this because i can’t actually write music.
Sophie: Raising a thousand gulden for a charity fund that provides for war widows. She mainly accomplished this through Lecturing.
Ludwig: Graduating from university with sanity still intact.
Over the past few months, I've been tagged quite a few times in things and simply have let them slowly collect and fester in my notifications, but this is actually perfect because now I have enough to apply 1 tag per each WIP I'll be including in my Nano Project! So this was intentional! I haven't been neglecting my inbox! For sure!
Anyways, without further ado, idk how many I'm gonna include per post, but we'll figure it out along the way:
manuscript search tag game: Below
The words: surround, scared, shame, sun
Surround(ed):
'Nick could see thugs getting up, and soon he was surrounded. This did not bode well.'
Scared:
'Fighting didn’t bother her, [Raevin] liked fighting, but the thought of killing someone scared her sometimes.'
(please note this 14-year-old has canonically murdered a man at this point)
Shame:
Alas, 13-year-old Teri's writing was shameless.
Sun:
'Raevin woke up and blinked as hard as she could. The sun’s rays were glaring in her eyes. She realized that she had cried herself to sleep earlier that morning.'
(this 14-year-old cannot catch a break)
wip acrostic tag game: Hell Hath Frozen Over
Word: THOUSAND
T: The human sitting on the bench shook with fear, and possibly the cold. Because of the ventilation problems in Hell™, the air conditioning needed to be blasted a lot. Unfortunately for some who weren’t wearing proper robes, it was a bit colder than they were used to. Again, that wasn’t Lucifer’s problem.
H: He would keep pranking until he was old and grey, even though demons didn’t get old and grey, and even past then.
O: "Oh great, this is disgusting!"
U: Unfortunately, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hear the horrified screams of people who saw him when he teleported.
S: “So, Colin, I really don’t appreciate you starting riots, you know that?” Lucifer told him, giving him a knowing glance. Colin shrugged.
A: “And so the journey begins,” Yetarel said, frowning. Wormwood hadn’t expected him to be thrilled to join him on this journey. Stealing Hell’s™ fire from him hadn’t exactly made Wormwood the top of his ‘Best Friends Ever’ list.
N: Now, on a regular day, Lucifer would have shouted "Don’t interrupt me, peasant, I will have your soul!” but now he was simply too tired. Being the CEO of housing and needs of the afterlife wore him down sometimes.
D: "Do not let his unholy ways take control of your soul, my fellow citizens, or you will be swallowed up into his nastiness.” But there was a ruckus of the people agreeing with Wormwood.
wip acrostic tag game: The Fatal Choice
Word: LEGEND
L: Listening to how magic had won several wars just didn’t interest him as much as Keegan probably would have liked.
E: Excitement coursed through his veins and he took in a deep breath.
G: "Go ahead, and have some free of charge. You paid more than plenty for your stay with us."
E: "Everybody is backstabbing each other."
N: No longer was the figure paralyzed, and it lunged forwards.
D: “Don’t you know that it’s rude to stare? What kind of gentleman are you? Either come down here to speak with me or go back to your business.”
specified lines tag: Behind Closed Doors
The Lines: a line about disappointment, a line about anxiety, a line featuring a first impression, a line about travel
a line about disappointment:
Uneasily, Delroy entered his room and lay down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He suddenly didn’t feel like going for a walk in the gardens, or checking to see if any more mail had come in since that morning. A sense of dread was sitting in the bottom of Delroy’s stomach, and he knew just who to blame for it.
a line about anxiety:
But there was no getting past the feeling in Delroy’s gut. Every piece of the puzzle had fallen into place, and its picture formed a hideous corpse in an alleyway. Sir Cedric Boyd had had the Prime Minister murdered.
a line featuring a first impression:
Delroy looked up at the house looming over him. It appeared impossibly vast, three stories high and at least a hundred yards stretching in both directions. The white marble it was made of shone in the sunlight, and Delroy paused. An inner alarm was sounding inside of him. He didn’t belong here.
a line about travel:
For months, [Fayina] had traveled with nothing but her cloak, a small bag with necessities, and her walking stick. She could picture Adriana, going stir crazy inside of the house. The poor wretch could never have anticipated the outcome of her actions. She had trusted far too easily, and now it was coming back to haunt her.
manuscript search tag game: Boy of My Imagination
The words: dance, plan, kill, rest
Danc(ing):
So here I was. I tried to look through the crowd of dancing bodies, but none of them stood out as Chrys. Could she have returned to the bar?
Plan(ning):
“So I’ve heard you’ve come out of hibernation. When were you planning on telling me?”
(bro saying that to your bestie who was in a COMA for several months is fucking CRAZY lmaooo)
Kill:
Where do I even begin? Mom is going to kill Ingram, and I'm definitely going insane.
Rest(ing):
When I opened my eyes again, it was dark. No light poured through the thin curtains, and the lights had all been turned off in my room. Something felt off, and it took me a second to realize that there was a person slumped in a chair beside the window. Their head was resting on their chest, and it rose every few seconds with their slow breathing.
Thank you @akindofmagictoo and @orphanheirs for the tags! There will be more where this came from lol
And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near,
Winding down to Camelot.
...
When the moon was overhead
Came two young lovers lately wed
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott
-- Lord Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott" (1842)
Format | One-Woman Stage Play
Status | Drafting
Setting | Unnamed Protagonist's studio apartment
Characters |
Unnamed Protagonist (personally, I'm mentally referring to her as 'Elaine', but this isn't like an adaptation of Arthurian legend via Tennyson's poem so much as just kinda inspired by my reading of it so I don't think that's necessarily her name, I just need something to refer to her by) - Young woman in her 20s, love/hate relationship with her phone, distractable, loneliness and agoraphobia feeding into each other like some twisted double ouroboros, overwhelmed and underwhelmed and just plain whelmed all at once
Synopsis |
Our protagonist is, as always, in her room. While technically preparing to go out, she's actually doing absolutely anything to prolong getting ready (tidying, mostly, and narrating daydreams). As she talks aloud to herself, imagining scenarios of fame and podcast interviews and award shows, she focuses around overcoming the struggles of her mid-20s and the isolation of modern adulthood. But as her phone notifications interrupts her daydreams and draw her back into doomscrolling, she's ultimately left alone, standing in her apartment. Before she can begin to reach for that life she dreams of, she must first face the reality in which she lives.
Themes | Loneliness, Isolation, Just Get Off That Damn Phone (and why it's not that simple), Attention and Focus
The view was beautiful. Winnie couldn’t take in enough of it, darting her gaze with every twitch of a leaf overhead or a dazzlingly bright beetle underfoot.
The golden man watched her take it in curiously. “You like it.”
It wasn’t a question, but Winnie's gaze hardened in response. “It’s certainly overwhelming.”
He chuckled and repeated himself in confirmation, “You like it.”
And she did like it. The look of it, anyway. The sounds had yet to differentiate themselves from what she’d expect of Alder Creek, and the smell was simply that of woodland, which had always been pleasant enough. But this whole grove seemed washed over in an artist’s bright, yet tasteful, hand.
“So this is the Beyond,” Winnie murmured, swiveling to take it in.
It was nothing like she might’ve expected. When the book had warned her of its beauty, she thought that the world she entered would be wholly unfamiliar, an alien sort of beauty that caught her unaware and weaponized her sense of awe. Instead, she soon felt a settling calm over her nerves in its familiarity.
Perhaps that was part of the danger.
“Well?” the golden man asked expectantly. “Are we meant to stand around forever?”
Winnie rolled her eyes. “Just processing what I’m seeing. Where am I meant to find my br- the boy anyways?”
Her companion shook his head. “We didn’t agree on my guidance, only protection. Advice would cost you extra, friend.”
Well, that was going to slow them down. “But you believe you know who took him?”
“Yes.”
“So you know where he’s likely being held?”
“Correct.”
“And you won’t tell me?”
“We never agreed on sharing information.”
Winnie stared at him.
“This will go significantly quicker if you simply tell me where to go, you realize.”
“Then perhaps we should make a new deal.”
Hiding her face with her hands, Winnie let out a long sigh. This was fine. It would be fine. All she had to do was search an entire world for her brother with nothing to give her a clue to his whereabouts but a fae that refused to answer basic questions in any meaningful way.
Easy.
When she lifted her hands from her face, Winnie turned back towards Alder Creek - would this glimmering, azure stream still be considered Alder Creek? - and stepped out of the faerie ring.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that way,” the golden man said.
Winnie snapped back to glare at him. “If your world mirrors mine, this is where we’ll find signs of civilization.”
It seemed the best approach to take, anyways. But her companion was simply shaking his head again. Winnie gritted her teeth.
“This site is similar, yes. The world, less so. And unless you’d like to meet the more unsavory fae that live outside the Courts, I’d recommend staying on this side of the creek.”
His voice was harder, dropping the infuriating squeak of amusement. Winnie stepped away from the water’s edge, still careful to keep out of the ring of mushrooms. When the golden man stepped out on the opposite side, he sent her a passive glance, as though making sure she wouldn’t bolt.
Taking a couple steps away from the ring, in the opposite direction of her companion, Winnie was once again stopped by the interfering click of his disapproval.
“Will you just tell me which way to go?” Winnie demanded on her third attempt to leave the site of their arrival. The golden man had once again interrupted her within the first few paces.
“Of course not!” He sounded affronted at the idea of giving her a piece of advice for free.
“But you’ll let me know which way not to go?” She clarified.
“Sure.”
Winnie was going to tear her hair out before this conversation ended.
(PLEASE feel free to ask to be added or removed from the tag list, I just went back and found that I've been overlooking a couple people since I finished the first draft like three years ago womp womp)
I stared dumbly into the cash register. They’d been full that morning, that much I was certain of. I myself had blindly emptied several rolls in my mad dash to open the store on time.
What can I say? Even wizards sleep in sometimes.
But business had been slow, and even on heavy days, we usually didn’t get enough cash transactions to clear out the whole register.
“Natalie?” I called, hoping she hadn’t left for the night.
I didn’t suspect her of stealing, of course, but she usually handled the front during weekdays. Thankfully, she was still in the back. I watched the doors swing open, and her bun bobbed just over the tops of shelves as she made her way over.
“What’s up?” she asked as she reached the front, leaning down onto the counter to meet me at eye level. I rolled my eyes at the gesture.
“Did somebody exchange a large bill for coins?” I motioned towards the empty wells. “Because we’re all out.”
Natalie frowned as she pushed herself upright. “No. I actually had to empty a roll of quarters about an hour before closing. Why, have we been robbed?”
“If we were, it was by the dumbest thief alive.” As Natalie cocked an eyebrow, I went on. “All the bills are accounted for.”
For several moments, we puzzled over it, but it was late, and I think we both knew no questions were going to be answered without effort. And that wasn’t happening after closing. This was a problem for another day.
So I dumped a couple new rolls into the register and decided to call it a night.
The next day was a Friday, which meant more business. After a quick check to confirm that the coins were still in their place, I flipped the sign on the door to ‘Open’ and welcomed the start of a new day.
Natalie was working inventory, so she hung in the back while I held down the front of the store. Rolling up the sleeves of my cardigan, I took in a deep breath and channeled my Manager alter ego - a mix of Customer Service feigned cheer with enough of an edge to hold some of the more entitled customers at bay.
Our first customer rolled in around 9:30. My back was turned as the bell rang out, but the excitement emanating from Nathaniel as he ran laps around my back clued me into their identity.
I spun on my heel to see an old man wrapped up in dark furs and a matching cap step over the threshold. A green parrot sat on his shoulder, wearing its own tiny hat.
“Mike!” My Customer Service smile eased into a genuine grin as I greeted one of my favorite regulars.
“Ms. Kim, hello!” When Mike spoke, it was with his familiar, thick Russian accent. I wasn’t sure exactly when he had immigrated to Canada, but he’d been coming into the store as long as I could remember, back when I was just a kid helping my dad restock shelves. Even back then, he’d struck me as remarkably old.
“I haven’t heard from you in awhile. I was beginning to fear the worst.” It was a half-joke, but before the mood could darken, I shook my head dramatically. “I thought you might’ve decided to turn to one of our competitors.”
Mike chuckled as he pulled his hat from his head, but his parrot cut in before he could protest. “Enough with the pleasantries! We’re here on business!”
Nathaniel had run down the length of my sleeve and was tugging it down my arm to press closer to the bird. I leaned forward onto the counter, and the parrot eyed my embroidered dragon cautiously.
“That’s a cute hat you got there, Charon.” I shot the parrot a wink and pushed myself back up. “What is it I can get for you today, Mike?”
“Do you have any tongue of frog in stock?” he asked as he brushed snow from his hat.
I wasn’t sure, but I promised to check in with Natalie. As I made my way back to the storage room, I found her crouched in one of the aisles, gathering some nonalcoholic liquid courage to restock.
“Hey, do you have any tongue of frog marked up on there?”
The face Natalie made answered my question. “You actually stock frog tongues?”
“Spells, enchanted items, charms - ”
“Whatever your wandering, wayfaring wizard may need, I know,” she finished, nodding along dramatically. “But frog tongues?”
“If you heard all of the ingredients that go into those bottles” - I nudged my chin towards the liquid courage - “it’d make your hair curl. Not that it needs the help.”
Natalie smacked me with her clipboard before jutting her hand out for some help up.
I had been working alongside Natalie for a few months now, but there were still areas of the store that I hadn’t acquainted her with. Some wizards would’ve scrunched up their noses at my more repellent products, so I was not keen to show them off to an unprepared Typic.
Most potion ingredients sat in a medicine cabinet towards the front of the store, but it could hardly fit everything. The rest was tucked away into a side room - a pantry, really - hiding in the back corner. Pulling my keyring from my pocket, I shuffled through several before I landed on the right one.
Dust had collected on most of the shelves in the pantry. I had no excuse for its state; there simply wasn’t enough of a reason to come back here unless someone requested it. A single, flickering lightbulb hanging from the ceiling dimly lit the small space.
I turned away from Natalie to fetch the jar labeled ‘tongue of frog’. After I’d snatched it up, I looked back to see her curiously scanning the shelves. Before I could say anything, her hand darted out and grabbed something.
Holding it out to me, I could barely make out its label: newt eyes.
“Other friends of yours?” she joked.
I brushed past her as she replaced the jar on the shelf. “Of yours, actually.”
Carrying the jar back to the front, I watched as Mike perused some of the inventory up front with vague amusement. Charon was whispering something in his ear. Evidently it was something rude; Mike reprimanded the bird harshly in Russian.
“One tongue of frog,” I announced as I stepped behind the counter.
“You have new merchandise, Ms. Kim,” Mike pointed out as he dug through his pockets. “I didn’t even know there were spells for maintaining battery life.”
“Yeah, well, some companies intentionally provide weak batteries to make you replace your phone after a couple years. This cheat seems the lesser of the two evils.” I rested my elbows on the top of the register as I watched Mike stack the contents of his pocket onto the countertop. Books, empty potion bottles, a pair of gloves. After withdrawing a black notebook with an engraved monogram and a full-sized human skull, he finally pulled out his wallet.
I had to ask him what spell he used to get that kind of pocket space.
“Working another case?” I nodded at the notebook as I rang up his order. “I thought you’d retired, Mike.”
“I owed an old colleague a favor,” Mike admitted gruffly. “The police asked him for assistance on a case, and he referred them to me.”
He sounded none too happy about it.
Mike passed me cash, and I opened the register. As soon as the drawer sprung open, I realized with a jolt that the change was missing again. Surely, nobody could’ve snatched it up without being seen. I could’ve trusted Mike with the entire store while I was in the back, and Natalie had been with me the entire time.
“Is there a problem?” Mike asked, straightening up to peer over the counter.
I unlocked the cupboard with extra change and fished out a roll of loonies. “No problem, just ran out of change.”
I handed over his change and the jar without a bag, knowing he wouldn’t need one. When he’d taken both from me, he simply slid them into his pockets. With a quick nod and a small lift of his cap, Mike stepped back out into the cold.
Only after Mike had left did I notice Natalie crouching by the first row of shelves. She clutched her clipboard to her chest, staring in horror at the door the old man had just left through.
“Was that man carrying a human skull?”
I dismissed her concern with a wave of my hand. “Mike’s a necromancer. That’s pretty normal for him.”
My reassurance might’ve eased Natalie’s nerves, but they simply shifted from fear into disgust. “Aren’t those people supposed to raise the dead and all that? Gross.”
“It’s a little more delicate than that. There’s a whole structure of ethical guidelines in that field. Full revival is prohibited, so usually it’s just gathering details on how the person died. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, though. I’ve never had the stomach for that stuff.”
“So you’re telling me there’s a whole slew of magical careers out there, and I got stuck working for the shopkeep?”
I rolled my eyes as I walked away, leaving Natalie laughing on the floor.
Saturday morning, I arrived extra early at the store. I told myself it was to make up for the fact that Natalie only worked weekdays and I would be running everything myself. But really, the first thing I did when I arrived was beeline for the cash register.
Everything had been in place the night before. After Mike’s incident, nothing had gone missing, and the rest of the day ran smoothly. I was secretly hoping that the problem would go away on its own if I just refused to acknowledge it. But I could only lose so many more rolls before making another trip to the bank, and I’m pretty sure the teller I always ran into was a vampire. Either that or there was some other reason he always stared at my neck when I was making deposits.
Either way, not an experience I was eager to have again.
My key slid into the lock for the register, and I made a silent wish as I twisted it open.
The coin wells were empty.
I let out a frustrated shout as I tore the key out of the lock. This couldn’t keep happening. My store did well - my spot in downtown Trelis earned me good foot traffic, and our regulars were loyal - but I couldn’t afford the constant losses.
There was only one answer. I would have to investigate. If I kept a careful eye on the full register, the thief would have to reveal themselves eventually.
To refill the coins, I opened up the cupboard, only to find that it, too, had been ransacked. Every roll of coins had been torn to shreds, with scraps of paper left littering the cabinet.
I felt bad for texting Natalie on her day off, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t both look into a robbery and ring up transactions. So, whipping out my phone, I shot her a text asking if she’d be able to make it down the store, preferably before it opened.
Fifteen minutes later, Natalie was at the front door, rapping against the glass. I unlocked it for her.
“More was taken?” she asked, pulling her mittens from her hands.
“Both the register and the cupboard are empty.” I groaned, draping myself over the front counter. “I’m at a loss.”
What kind of thief was this, who would ignore the higher-value bills and waste time tearing through paper to get at the coins? Who could somehow get around the store without being seen? Were we dealing with an advanced invisibility spell? Some pocket portal that could reach directly into the register? A clever magpie?
I dragged myself over the counter, nearly hitting my head against the back cabinet as I clambered ungracefully down. Landing in a heap on the ground, I found myself staring closeup at a pencil shaving. I frowned; the only pencils we kept in the front were mechanical.
Sitting up, I pinched the tiny shaving from the ground and ran it between my fingers. It was then that I realized my mistake. The scrap wasn’t a pencil shaving, it was one of the shreds of torn paper from the cabinet.
Natalie yelped as I threw myself back to the ground, eyes close to the floor. A moment passed in silence as I scanned for more shreds of paper. Though Natalie kept quiet, I could feel her piecing together what I’d found.
She found the next scrap, pointing to it with her foot. As we began to follow a small trail of torn paper, I scurried along at a crawl. Less inclined to make a fool of herself, Natalie chose to walk.
The paper led to the back of the store, into a small hole in the wall that I’d never noticed, half-hidden behind a shelf. I didn’t dare reach into it, but shining the flashlight from my phone revealed only a long tunnel. Something glinted from a distance, but it was too far to make anything out. Whatever was back there was hidden somewhere in the wall of the potion pantry.
It took a minute to find the key for the pantry, and another several to scan along the wall. But I finally found what I was looking for. Really, I shouldn’t take the credit. Natalie found it, helping me push aside a cabinet to reveal the door to a crawl space I’d never seen before.
It was easy to overlook, a tiny door tucked away into the back corner of a room I rarely entered. But I immediately recognized with some satisfaction that its lock seemed to match a key on my keyring. The only key I’d never found a use for. It had always been there, since my father had wielded the ring, but I’d never thought to ask him what it was for.
Now, with certainty, I tugged the key loose and shoved it into the lock.
Sure enough, the key turned, and, with Natalie flashing her phone towards the crawl space, I tugged the door open.
Sitting inside, on a veritable mountain of spare change, was a dragon the size of a coffee mug.
I froze, not exactly sure how to react. Behind me, Natalie dropped her phone, and the dim lighting in the room was only enough to catch a glimpse of its sleek scales. After a second to recover from the shock, I began to move.
I’ve faced my fair share of house pests, and this was no different. Throwing my arm behind me, I latched onto the handle of a broom that had collected more dust sitting in its corner than it had ever swept in its life. Keeping my eyes trained on the dragon, I brought it forwards and prodded lightly at the small reptile.
The dragon snapped at the broom, as I’d expected. Natalie was apparently less prepared; I could hear the jars clinking lightly as she backed into a cabinet. As the little pest’s jaw clenched down, I carefully lifted it from its hoard.
“Get me an empty jar,” I whispered over my shoulder.
Natalie fetched one, and hurried out of the room as soon as I’d taken it. The jug was large enough to fit the dragon snugly, but it would hold the thing until I could find a place to let it loose.
Out in the light of the store, I inspected the little pest. He had dark, reddish-brown scales and golden eyes that shone with what I could’ve mistaken for intelligence. As I studied him, he seemed to be sizing me up as well.
Natalie, having overcome her shock and seeing that the dragon was contained, ran over. With wide eyes, she reached out and tapped a finger against the glass. The dragon turned to her, staring up with what I swear was feigned innocence.
“We should keep him!”
It was just about the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth.
“You want to keep a dragon?” I needed to get my hearing checked. Wasn’t this the woman that had nearly screamed on spotting the little guy only a minute ago?
“He’s adorable!” she insisted, reaching out to take the jar from me. “I’ve never seen a real dragon before. I was always told they don’t exist.”
What else didn’t Typics know existed? Did they think pigeons were fake, too?
“We could keep him in the shop, and he could help guard the door!” Natalie suggested, beaming like she was holding a newborn puppy. She was already tenderly cradling the jar. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
“Guard us from what?” I demanded. “The only thief I’ve had since I took over this store is him.”
But I knew from Natalie’s enraptured expression that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
I had heard of dragons being domesticated before. They were said to make excellent pets, given proper care. But there was no telling which breed this one was. Knowing my luck, he’d grow into a five-meter beast that’d fill up a whole aisle.
The chapel was already overflowing with people when they arrived.
Winnie's parents were sitting in the front row, surrounded by family, friends, and acquaintances, all offering their condolences. They had decided against visitation the night before, a choice that had been intended to gently discourage other townsfolk from overwhelming the family with their chatter. Instead, it had merely held them at bay.
Leslie was quick to disappear into the crowd, which Winnie appreciated silently. With a deep breath to steady herself, she stormed forwards, unrepentant as she nudged and pushed people aside. The mass was resistant, at first, but began to part when they realized who was coming through.
Mrs. Pewitt shifted to offer Winnie a place to sit and wrapped an arm around her daughter. As Winnie settled her head against her mother's shoulder, Mrs. Pewitt whispered, "Thank you."
The gratefulness extended not only from Winnie's punctuality, but also due to the effect her presence had on the crowds. They immediately began to disperse following her arrival, though whether this was due to their refusal to cross the young woman on such a delicate morning, or because Pastor Glynn made for the pulpit wasn't clear.
The minister cleared his throat when he reached the front of the chapel, though there was no need. His chapel had never been so packed, or so eerily silent. Every pew was filled, and still dozens of others stood in the back, tightly pressed to take up any vacant space along the wall. Winnie had taken them in at the entrance. Every resident of Bildenbey must've been present for Bran's funeral, even those she knew by face but not by name.
It should have been an honor, but their eager preying on the social gathering turned the solemnity into more of a spectacle. As though Bran was some tragic figure and not a missing child.
