Just a quiet day at home, hurting my brain with the New York Times crossword puzzle. (Maybe it’s just me, with my on-vacation brain, but it seemed kind of hard this week.)
I think my parents brought the rainy weather with them from England, since this is the first rain we’ve had all week, and the weather is starting to cool. Then again, it is already mid-September, so I guess we were due.
Went to my writing group again. This week, this is what forty minutes of free-writing produced:
One hour later, it still didn’t work.
“You might as well give up,” Samuel told her. “After nightfall, the incantations aren’t going to work, even if you do chance upon the right one. We really should start looking for shelter.”
“The temple is shelter,” Tabitha said. “I just need to — ” she glanced at the weathered spell book in her hands — “‘pierce the obsidian veil of…’ It has to be on one of these pages.”
“For all we know, Amos was a fraud,” said Samuel. “He said he was part of the Order, but that didn’t save his life at the pass. And if we’re still out here when it gets dark, we’re risking our own lives.”
Tabitha sighed. “That’s just an old wives’ tale,” she said. “Nightwalkers, moonwraiths…”
“Trust me,” said Samuel, “they’re real. And nothing in that book is going to protect us from them if they decide to attack.”
“There’s nowhere else for miles,” she said. “These are the northern wastes. If we can’t unlock the temple, where do you suggest we go?”
He hefted his pack to his shoulder. “I spied some caves to the east. Maybe an hour’s hike. We should start moving.”
She held out the book. “I think that’s a mistake. We’re really close. And Amos die to protect this book. He died protecting us from — ”
“Amos died because he was an idiot. If he was a real sorcerer, he never would have been exiled. We never would have been saddled with him in the first place. We’d still be living in Bartertown. We’d still — ”
“They almost killed you in Bartertown.”
“Yeah, well, that was a misunderstanding. If you’d seen the magistrate’s wife, you’d have thought she was half orc, too.”
“Face it, Samuel, it’s the temple or nothing.”
“Then I’m afraid it must be nothing,” said a voice from behind her. A robed figure appeared from the side of the building, a pair of short swords sheathed at her hips. “The temple is cursed. None of the Order’s prayers will unlock the doors now.”
“And who are you supposed to be?” asked Samuel. “The Order’s last guardian, left behind to guard their outpost?”
“Not quite,” said the woman. “I’m the one who killed the last guardian. And I’m here to make sure the curse is never lifted.”
She smiled. “So,” she said, “which of you would like to die first?”
And that’s about it. It’s weird to think I have to go back to work tomorrow. I haven’t been there since the Friday before Labor Day, and even that was only a half day. I’m hoping I can get back into the swing of things pretty quickly, getting to work on the same train I was taking during summer hours, but being able to leave at 4:30 instead of 5:15 every day.
I haven’t glanced once at my work e-mail in all the time I was off. I wonder if that was a mistake…
We’ll see tomorrow.
