NaNo Update: Day 5 = 363 words Day 6=444 Total so far: 1765 I can't get any writing done because of my husband and I'm about ready to give up.
--Of course she could not think of any reasonable reason for someone to be in her house, uninvited. Strangers did not usually break in just to sit and rock in old rocking chairs. Strangers broke in to steal things.
Maybe it was not a stranger at all. Maybe someone she knew had dropped by for a visit in the middle of the night.
Sure, she thought, and maybe its Nannie herself down there, sitting alone in her rocker waiting on me to come down. I will sit on her knee like a child and she will sing me lullabyes just like old times.
Appealing yet unlikely.
Below her the old rocking chair gave another hushed squeak, then groaned in protest.
Whoever had been sitting down there had just stood up. Her time to flee was running out. She tried to make her legs unfreeze so she could retreat upstairs, but they did not want to obey her.
She strained to hear footsteps, to hear if her visitor were coming closer or leaving but her carpets swallowed whatever sound might have been made.
Then she saw him. A black silhouette at the bottom of the stairs. A man shaped shadow standing with its arms by its sides, chin tilted up, looking towards her.
Did he see her?
She thought for a moment that the deeper shadows of the stairwell might keep her invisible if she could stay motionless.
Then he spoke.
“Why are you afraid of me?”
So much for him not seeing me, she thought.
She puffed out her chest and tried to make herself feel braver than she really was.
“Who are you?” she called down. “Why are you in my house?”
The man shadow took a step up the stairs towards her.
“I can smell your fear.”
“I’ve already called the police.” she lied. “They are on their way. You better get out of here.”
The man shadow moved up another step, then another. He could almost reach out and touch her. Still, she stayed frozen on the stairs.
“You smell like a trapped animal. A dainty little fox in a great big bear trap, about to chew off her own leg to escape.”
Suddenly the power was back on. She kept a dim light by the stairs so she wouldn’t break her neck in the night, but even its slim light was almost blinding.
The man below her seemed almost to still be a shadow. He was dressed in black pants and a shirt with long black sleeves. His hair was black too, and his skin a dark tan.
She could not make out the features of his face. Her eyes were drawn down to the one bright spot on his body. Below his upturned chin a clerical collar seemed to glow bright white.
He did not advance another step upwards, but reached one hand towards her.
“Why are you afraid of me?” he asked again.
Then he faded away.
This time Molly did come awake slowly, morning light softly lifting her lids.
Odd dream, she thought briefly before tucking it away in the back of her mind.
****
The forest dripped with moisture from the recent rain. Drops fell from leaf to leaf, causing tyhe greenery to talk to itself in wet whispers.
It was near dusk, the sun falling low, already unseen behind a curtain of clouds. Two boys moved among the bushes, trying to stay as dry as possible.
“I can’t believe you got us lost,”the smaller of the two boys complained. “Lost and rained on.”
“Hey!” the bigger boy defended himself, “I didn’t make it rain. Rain just, you know, happens!”
“But you DID get us lost,” the smaller boy reminded him.
“You didn’t HAVE to come, Ricky. I was gonna make you stay home, but then you would have just tattled on me.”
“Would not!”
Early that morning he had caught Simon headed towards the woods. He was wearing his hunting clothes, camouflage so old it was almost all faded to grey, and he had his bow with him.
Ricky, who was doomed to a day full of monotony, saw his chance.
“Where we going,” he had asked his older brother.
“Nowhere,” Simon had mumbled. “Just gonna shoot at some squirrels. Go back to the house.”
“Awwwww, Simon,” Ricky had whined. And he really had not planned to tattle, but Simon had quickly changed his mind anyway.
“Never mind, you can come. But you’ve gotta do what I say and be quiet.”
Ricky adored his older brother and was overjoyed to be invited on the hunt.
Except Simon did not seem to really be hunting anything. They just kept walking deeper and deeper into the woods. The squirrels they were supposed to be hunting scampered overhead and alongside them, unmolested by Simon or his arrows.
Ricky, who had hardly ever been deep enough in the woods to lose sight of their house, was lost quickly. Positive that his older brother knew where they were, and how to get them home again, he never worried.
Then it had started raining.
Neither boy had come prepared for a downpour, and soon both were soaked. There was nothing they could do but trudge along.
Ricky had stayed quiet just like Simon had told him, until he saw the shack.
“There’s a house, Simon,” he had yelled and ran ahead of his brother for the first time, into the dryness offered by the old building.
They had huddled in the door way for a while, watching the rain come down. Ricky had been the first to turn around and go deeper in the shack.
“What is this place, Simon?” He asked, but Simon hadn’t answered.
The shack only had the door way they had come in. There were two windows, neither with glass in them. Rough wooden shelves had been nailed around the walls. A bird had nested on one of them, the rest were empty.
