Smiling Widow - part 2: Age (cont.)

< PART 1

AGE (cont.)

“Well?!”

Horrifed, Maria realized she had been dozing off. “Yes, yes ma’am – right away, ma’am”, she stammered. What was she asked to do? She had no idea. She stood there for a moment, considering her next move.

“Are you stupid, girl?” rasped the old lady incredulously. “Why are still standing there? I told you to hurry up!” She snatched the jug of water that stood beside the bed, and thrusted it toward Maria. “I’m thirsty!”

Hiding her relief as best she could, Maria took the jug and practically flew downstairs. She filled the jug with fresh water. As she did so, she realized her hands were trembling. Then she realized her whole body was trembling. Then she realized that her very soul was trembling, too. Whether it was rage, fear or just exhaustion, she was unable to say; all she knew was that she was starting to fall apart. But she couldn’t fall apart. Not now; she had to keep herself together, if not for her own sake then for Betty’s sake. They had no one but each other, and it was now up to Maria to hold on and help Betty as best she could.

She heard the bell again as she climbed up the stairs. She entered the room, placed the jug in its original place next to the bed, and turned to leave. The widow suddenly clutched her arm and pulled her towards the bed.

“What’s in the jug?” She croaked. Her eyes were narrow and she was sneering slightly.

There was a pause. “Water, ma’am”, said Maria. The smell of staleness and decay coming from the old lady was suddenly so overwhelming, that it was all she could do to keep herself from covering her nose.

“So you say”, said the widow. “Nothing else?”

“No ma’am”, said Maria, utterly perplexed. “Did you want anything else?”

“Don’t play games with me, you imp!” the widow suddenly roared. “You think I don’t know what’s going on? You think I don’t know what you’re up to?”

The widow had clearly interpreted the shock on Maria’s face as a clear sign of guilt, because her expression grew almost jubilant.

“Drink the water!” she ordered. “Then we’ll see. Drink!”

Maria said nothing. She poured some water from the jug into the goblet beside it, and drank. She was suddenly seized with an almost unbearable thirst; she drank greedily. When she put the cup down, the old lady was looking at her with a strange mixture of disappointment and doubt. There was a long silence. The widow’s lip gave an involuntary twitch.

“Right,” she said. “Now leave.”

Maria turned to go.

“You are not allowed to have dinner tonight. Is that understood?”

“Yes ma’am”.

It never even occurred to Maria to ask why.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Smiling Widow - part 1: Age

And now for something completely different...

I'm writing a short story, and have decided to upload it in chunks. Later on I plan to post some creative process notes  on my other blog - The Mechanics of Inspiration. If you don't know it, you're missing out on some great stuff...go have a look!

I'd love to hear your thoughts about the story. Also, if you find any grammar or spelling mistakes, please point them out.

So, without further ado...

SMILING WIDOW

AGE

It was one of these boisterous April storms, with howling wind and furiously rustling branches. The old house was croaking and moaning, and the din from the roof, pounded heavily with the steady rain, was deafening. It therefore took Maria quite a while to hear the angry ringing of the widow’s bell; when she did finally catch it, she sprang to her feet in alarm. She hastily hid the box she had just pulled out of the chest in the drawing room; a pointless act, driven more by her sense of guilt than by the necessity to protect her secret. After all, Maria and the old lady were now the only people living in the large house.

She hurriedly washed her hands clean. The bell rang again, and she thought she heard the old lady shout something, too. She hurried up the steep stairs, careful not to miss a step in the darkness. At the door she took a deep, steadying breath. Just as she opened the door, the widow rang again.

She was posed in her usual half-sitting position, a book opened at her lap. She stopped ringing and slammed the bell onto the chest of drawers. It gave a loud THUD and a last wimpy jingle.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” bellowed the widow. Her voice was even hoarser than usual, and her shriveled face was red with fury.

“You called, ma’am?” said Maria, lowering her eyes.

“Damn right I called! I’ve been calling for hours, you impudent girl! I could have died here, I could have been caught in a fire, I could have drowned in this blasted rain, I could have…” a coughing fit stopped the stream of possible fatalities. The whole thing was a wild exaggeration, of course: Maria had replaced her reading candle less than an hour ago. The candle was still almost 10 inches tall.

Maria knew better than to point out this fact. Proving the widow wrong was one of the many sure ways of getting punished. There was also no point explaining why she couldn’t hear the bell. Whatever the situation, Maria had learned that the best tactic was always to keep her head down - and endure.

 “I’m sorry ma’am”, she said.

“I’m sorry ma’am”, repeated the widow, quite grotesquely. “You will be sorry indeed before I’m done with you! Fell asleep, didn’t you? Didn’t you?!”

“No ma’am”.

“A likely story!” roared the widow. “I should have kicked YOU out instead of that other thief of a girl. You think being lazy is better than stealing? You think I’m paying you to be asleep, you ungrateful brat?”

The “thief of a girl” was Maria’s younger sister, Betty. Her crime was that instead of throwing away a half-empty bottle of the widow’s wine, she gave it to a delivery boy she had a silly crush on. How the widow found out about the whole thing was a mystery, but the grim outcome was that poor Betty was promptly sacked. The two weeks that had passed since then had been a nightmare for both sisters: Betty had so far been unable to find work and was coming to the brink of starvation, while Maria had to keep the large house - more than a handful even for the two of them - all by herself. She had been doing her best, working more than 15 hours a day; but she knew it wasn’t sustainable. She was so tired these days, she actually DID sometimes fall asleep while working.

“Well?!”

Horrifed, Maria realized she had been dozing off. “Yes, yes ma’am – right away, ma’am”, she stammered. What was she asked to do? She had no idea. She stood there for a moment, considering her next move.

PART 2 >

My first iPad drawing!

Procreate (suspiciously similar to 'procrastinate'!) is an awesome drawing software for iPad. If you have an iPad, you should definitely check it out. Drawn with a Wacom Bamboo pen for iPad. This, by the way, is the romantically horrible view from my living room window.