I wasn’t going to write anything at all this week. It is hard to find a story when reality presents you with its own ugly narrative, louder than anything you have in your head, and you’re avoiding all media and don’t even want to turn on the computer. However, the rule is to write, and so I write. Normally I do minimum a thousand words, but I gave myself a break and said five hundred. I managed a hundred more. I cheated and reused last week’s characters – no rule against that in the Kettle – but I’m finding that I rather like this Jaycelyn person. Faery dust doesn’t touch her, but magical boots? Maybe yes…
“salvation”
T.S. Davis, ©2012 The Cracked Kettle.
The boots had been in the front closet for weeks before Jayce even noticed them. It was only the advent of the first snow and an impending trip to the market which prompted her to delve into the mess of Topher’s castoff snowboards and her own outgrown puffy coats.
“Ma.” Jayce pulled the boots from the embrace of a moth-eaten wool scarf and looked them over. “These boots yours?”
“Mm.” Her mother was leaning into her laptop screen as a brunette actress with pancake foundation and false lashes glared at a tall blonde and then slapped her face.
“Hey, Ma?”
“Hmm.” Her blood-shot brown eyes had achieved the glazed effect that only hours of watching a screen at close range in a dim room could give them. Jayce lost her patience.
“Ma!”
“WHAT?” Her mother jerked, then stabbed a slim brown twig of a finger at her keyboard, pausing the action. “Jaycelyn, what? I’m busy.”
“Are. These. Your. Boots.” Jayce bit off each word. “Just answer the question, and I’ll stop bothering you.”
Ma squinted at the boots, then frowned. “Don’t know why those are still here. Glinda sent ‘em for Mabry. I told him to throw them right out.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
Jayce’s mother pressed her fingers against the corners of her eyes, and sighed. “What happened to you not bothering me? They’re Mabry’s boots, not mine. That enough for you?”
Jayce rolled her eyes and flapped a dismissive hand. “Thank you, Mother Dearest. Please, return to your ancient escapism.”
Her mother shot her a look and leaned back, propping her feet on the coffee table. “Watch that smart mouth,” she replied, and the shrill bickering of the women on the screen started up again.
Jayce finally located the scarf and gloves she’d been after, and brought out the boots, too. Jayce didn’t have to share her clothes – not with Ma, whose razor-thinness would be lost in 2XL shirts, and certainly not either of her brothers, although Mabry had come downstairs looking slightly odd a time or two in her too-short sweats. Two older brothers meant double the wardrobe, so she pulled out Mabry’s boots and set them aside, donned thick woolly socks, and slid one on.
Her leg twitched.
Frowning, Jayce stood. The boot seemed to stand with her, lifting her heel unexpectedly. Jayce, off-balance, stumbled into the wall.
Ma glanced over, then sighed. “Jaycelyn, not in the house. You know better.”
I do? Jayce did not say. “It’s just the one,” she defended.
Her mother grunted, eyes glued to the screen. “For the gods sakes, out.”
Jayce grumbled, yanked off the boot, and tossed it and its partner out onto the porch. She suited up to go out – a sweatshirt, a coat, a snug woolen hat, two pair of socks – and kept up a running commentary in her brain of all of her grievances. Why couldn’t Ma act like a mother and go to the market, just once? Why couldn’t her brothers do anything but leave up the toilet seat and leave piles of clothes, crumbs, and dishes? Why did Jayce have to do everything?
“What if I weren’t here?” Jayce groused aloud. “What would you lot do then?”
Jayce slammed the door behind her and stepped into the mudroom, shivering in the cold dampness. Someone had left the door open again, and the boots, no longer where she had left them, were outside…
Outside, it seemed, and ready to run.
Jayce stared. Looking like her salvation, the boots stood poised to fly down the porch, through the neighborhood and away, seven leagues to each step. Temptation sifted down like snowflakes and clung wherever it landed.
Gracious thanks to Flickr user lanuiop for his strange little picture Trying To Sneak Out.
The Cracked Kettle site is UP! Please check around and see what the rest of the gang is up to this week.
Nice. Intriguing and interesting.
Appropriate for us in WNY right now, as we are on the very verge of snow.
LOVE. More, please!!