Just a short post today with an excerpt from the beginning of my latest WIP, "The Bonded." This is my first attempt at a YA fantasy but I am thoroughly enjoying it so far. Ariel has really come alive for me and become a great new voice in my head.
Please rip this to shreds. Also, since this is relatively experimental for me, answer a couple of questions if you do have time to read it:
You know what I remember the most about our house? The laughter. Man, we used to laugh constantly at one another. My mom would start out with something serious, like, “Let’s turn off the TV and clean up,” and then my brother would crack on it in his smart-alec way, like, “Let’s turn off your mouth and shut up!” We were always laughing.
That’s why I call it, with a bitter chuckle, “The Day the Laughter Stopped.”
But who needs to laugh, right? They say it’s good medicine or some shit, but I ain’t sick. What I am is broke, but no amount of laughin’s gonna fix that.
I’m Ariel, Ariel Albemarle. I’m sure you think I’m cute. Everyone does. But don’t let that fool you. Just ‘cause my outside’s small don’t mean I can’t whoop your ass if it needs it.
Oh, who am I kidding? I’m not really that kid. Why start off lying to you about who I am, when you’re never going to believe most of my story anyway? That’s just my face for these gangbanging drug-dealers so they’ll leave me alone. It’s hard out here, has been ever since that day.
Well I wasn’t thinking about that this particular day. I had a big job that night. Some guy was paying 3Gs for this product that I picked up from Antoine the week before. This was really going to make up for a hole in my monthly budget. I hated buying things from him ‘cause the cops were always right on his tail. But, it made his prices really low. He had to unload everything he picked up fast. So I grabbed this little gem for next to nothing.
In the meantime, I headed back to the crib. Technically, it’s a dump, but I liked to call it an apartment. It was just a room in the basement of an actual apartment building, but I had a futon, a laptop, a mini fridge and a microwave, a thirteen inch TV with cable, and even high-speed internet. It was like being in a college dorm, or that’s what they tell me. The rent was only 50 a month, a steal in this town. Nevermind the grey cinderblock walls. I had some movie posters up and stuff. The landlord let me use the building super’s bathroom and shower. It was okay. I had what I needed.
I had stopped going to school a while before that. I mean, they couldn’t make me and I hated it, so why would I? I was sixteen by that time, and even then I didn’t need people breathing down my neck. I kept fed and I kept clean, and I stayed out of the way. People left me alone; that’s how I liked it.
So this particular day I went back to my place and locked all three bolts on the door, like always. I plugged in my cell, glanced at the computer monitor, and then I checked under the futon for the little red lockbox.
And there was a little man under there!
I mean, it! A man no more than six inches tall. I just about jumped out of my skin. I think I yelled something, probably a curse.
“What are you?!” I shouted.
“I’m a pixie, what does it look like?!” he yelled back. As if that would’ve been obvious to me. He hovered (yes, hovered, it couldn’t have been flying cause he didn’t have any wings) out from under the couch and onto my desk. I slid backward on the floor to stay away from him.
“Why are you in my apartment?” I said as calmly as I could manage.
“Well before you so rudely interrupted me, I was using the computer,” he said without looking back at me. He was leaned over on the keyboard, reaching to each key with a tiny hand as he typed out an address in the web bar. In the back of my mind I noticed that he had no color around him, but it wasn’t the main thing on my mind.
“You use computers?”
“Of course, I’m small not stupid.” I suppose I was starting to relax a little because I stood up and walked closer to the desk so I could see what page he was loading. Maybe my curiosity just got the better of my good sense.
It was Facebook.
“Pixies have Facebook pages?”
He just sighed dramatically and went about his browsing. It occurred to me that I didn’t know if the box under the futon was there. I panicked briefly, but I looked and it was. I pulled it out and looked inside. Everything was in its place.
“So, you just popped in to use the computer?”
“Yes, does that offend you?” Now he was pushing the mouse around with the force of his entire body.
“Um, no. Why would you come here? Don’t you know where the library is?”
He sighed again in that very dramatic way, but finally turned to face me and spoke, “If I went to a library, there would be lots of people there. I don’t want them to see me.”
“Well, first of all, no one goes to the library. And second... I’ve seen you,” I said, and I swallowed as I spoke. Would he have to kill me now?
“I’m not going to kill you that would be ridiculous. But you’re a sixteen-year-old high school dropout with no family who deals drugs on the street. Who’s going to believe you if you tell anyone?” He went back to the screen, scratching his little chin as he looked over the info page of a blonde girl, looked to be about thirty. I’d never seen her before.
“Right. Well, I won’t tell anyone anyway. I’m good at keeping secrets,” I said. I guess I was trying to get him to tell me something. I mean, this was the first supernatural creature I’d ever met. After I got over the first bit of shock I was really very curious.
“I already know that. Can you be quiet for a minute?” I nodded and sat down in my office chair behind him. He clicked from page to page to page and finally closed the internet window. He started floating towards the door and I stepped in front of him.
“Hey, where ya going?”
“I’m going to do my job, little girl. Kindly leave me to it,” he said as he dodged past my head and made for the door again. I threw myself in front of the door. I can’t really tell you why.
“Wait, can’t you… at least tell me more about you? I did let you use my computer.”
This close to him I could see his face more clearly. If he had been full-size, I would’ve said he was about fifty years old, tiny blue eyes that were bright despite their size, and salt and pepper hair in little curls around his face. He was wearing a brown tweed jacket, unbuttoned, with matching pants and a light yellow shirt. His brown shoes were carefully polished and he carried a little pixie-sized notepad in his left hand.
“I don’t need your permission to leave, nitwit!” In a little flash of light he vanished, and I saw another flash at the same time outside through my tiny window. The little man floated up into the sky and away.
The only excuse I have for my next actions is that I was 16. I was naturally curious, very excited to find something that was actually “supernatural,” plus I had time to kill before my 9p.m. appointment.
So I went back to my computer and opened my Explorer window. My small friend hadn’t thought to erase his browser history.
