The exercise:
Write about: the babysitter.
Took the boys to the park for the first time in a long time this morning. So nice to have fresh air to breathe again.
It was quite busy, which wasn't at all surprising, but not overly so. Miles had fun walking around and going on the swing and Max was climbing here, there, and everywhere.
I wish I wasn't writing this Tuesday night so that I could be more enthusiastic about the lack of smoke. You'll understand when I get Tuesday's post published.
Oh, before I forget - aiming for Wednesday for the yearlong prompt. Might be a bit ambitious for my first day back at work, but I'm going to try.
Mine:
"Um... is your brother allowed to play with that?"
"With what? Oh, yeah, that's fine."
"Really?"
"Yeah, Mommy says he can have it as long as it keeps him out of the kitchen when she's trying to make dinner."
"Oh. I see."
"You can call her if you don't believe me."
"No! It's not that. I trust you."
"What's the problem then?"
"I'm just... I don't know... I'm not super comfortable with the way he's swinging that mace around the house..."
2 comments:
That sounds like a nice day out, though why has it inspired "babysitter" as a prompt? I don't think you can babysit your own kids....
I was waiting the whole essay to find out what the child was playing with, and I'm pleased to say that you didn't disappoint me! I wondered if it might be matches at first, as a nod to the smoke, but the mace was a much better choice :) I hope they've got a good decorator to fix up the walls though...
The babysitter
Out of two-acre field there was a road that had been paved at some point in the past. The slabs laid down were huge, 4 metres square, two set side-by-side running between Westpoint on the coast and Havering, a three-hour cart-journey inland. The stone was a greenish colour unlike anything quarried nearby. A passing wizard had stopped in the Talsker Inn a year back and sat with Helberg for a while and told him that the stone looked a lot like it came from the Mournhold cliffs. Helberg had shrugged, the name meaning nothing to him, and the wizard had delighted in telling him tales of the haunts and ghosts that occupied the cliffs and how the stone was used in the surrounding towns for grave-markers and building tombs. Night had fallen and the wizard had gone to bed, and Helberg has noticed on his way home, for the first time, that the stone glowed faintly in the dark.
He sighed, wondering if it was Seraphim, Nephalem, or Shedim that had laid this path down and what their motivation was. There were symbols inscribed on some of the slabs, but he'd never learned that script. He hesitated to step onto the slabs, as he had ever since that night, and then continued. The crossbow wielding men behind him might be honourable demon hunters or they might be renegade Templars and he didn't want to chance finding out.
He stepped off again at the first copse of trees he came to, the skin on his back prickling like he was lying on a freshly-stuffed palliasse and grabbed the waist-thick lower branches, hauling himself up until he was high enough from the ground that he couldn't be reached even by jumping. He lay along a branch, watching.
A few minutes later the crossbow-wielders came into sight, and they were moving slowly, looking around them as though they too were uncomfortable. One glanced into the trees but it was cursory and he didn't see Helberg lying there.
"Can you feel it?" he said to his companion. He was speaking Yoddadim, a language derived from the Shedim tongue and Helberg automatically identified him as a demon hunter.
"Something's waiting," said his companion, his voice lilting and merry. Helberg thought he sounded like a singer. "There's-"
He was cut off by the demon hunter's cry.
"Babysitter!"
Four crossbow bolts ripped out of their bows towards a sickly white apparition: the demon rose up from the ground like late evening mist, its flesh writhing and forming faces like angry babies. Stubby arms and legs protruded out from a chubby central mass, and then the crossbow bolts tore through it. Black ichor spilled on the stone roadway and a scream split the air. Helberg had, as a child in the city of Azerdune, heard the screams of the victims of the Jaquilian Zealots and memories of broken men crushed into wooden cages ready for burning came flooding back into his mind. He clutched the tree branch tightly and concentrated on not making a noise.
Greg - we've started getting babysitters for the boys, just for a few hours a couple times a week. Though now that school is starting back up we're having a bit of trouble matching schedules. Either way, the boys have enjoyed having new playmates come to the house.
Glad you liked mine :)
This is quite the scene you've crafted for us. Fascinating details and an intriguing ending. I feel as though I would be pleased should Helberg make a return appearance to the blog.
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