04-09-2007, 02:01 AM
This is just something I randomly wrote featuring Miss Mouse of the Merry Inn, from my novel Larksong.
Everything (c) Me. No stealie.
--------
It was late in the day when the young girl entered the inn. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold wind that had wreaked havoc on her white-blonde hair, which now lay messily about her shoulders. Her coat was wrapped tight around her body but she still shivered with such strength that it seemed it should have sent shockwaves through the room.
"Oh, darlin', you look like death!" a high voice exclaimed. A short woman came rushing over to the cold girl, a thick blanket in her hands. She tossed it over the girl's shoulders, and the girl found it to be soft and warm, almost instantly penetrating the chill around her. She almost smiled for the first time in weeks - almost.
"Come here, darlin', sit by the fire. Let Miss Mouse get you some of her tea, okay? Okay. Now, just sit here…There you go, snuggle up nice and warm and I'll be back before you can realize you were waitin'!"
The girl curled up on the large, squishy chair that Miss Mouse had practically pushed her onto, and pulled the blanket all around her until she had a nest. The door to the inn opened and a man entered, bringing with him a gust of wind. He closed the door quickly behind him and removed his gloves, laughing merrily.
"Oh, the cold is certainly active today!" he called, almost to no one in particular. "I'd be careful going out, or you might get caught in one of her games - and she can't play gentle with us weak humans!"
"Stop being so loud, Thomas, really," Miss Mouse scolded as she came bustling back in. She gave the girl a warm mug. "Here you are, darlin'," she said kindly, patting the girl's head fondly before turning back to Thomas. "There are some people who like their quiet on days like this!"
"Just a warning, my dear Miss Mouse," he said lightly, a big grin on his face. "We all ought to pay due respect to the cold, and I'm sure you agree."
The girl nursed her mug, watching the two, her mind as blank as it had been for five weeks. As blank as the moment she realized…
"I do agree, but still. You can respect in silence, can't you?"
"Oh, I'm sure I'm not disturbing anyone, Miss Mouse. Like this girl here, she looks like she could use my beautiful voice around," he said, and practically skipped over to her chair, taking a seat on the arm. He grinned down at her. "I can grant wishes, you know." Some part of her mind gleaned something dark from his voice, but it was pushed back and obliterated like anything else had been. "Do you have one?"
"Thomas," Miss Mouse said warningly. The man just gave Miss Mouse an appeasing look, but the woman still came to stand close by, hovering over the girl like a mother hen.
"You can?" the girl asked finally, looking up at him with her gray eyes. Her voice was meek, broken - there was no hope.
He smiled, and gently pushed back her hair. "Yes, dear. I can. What is your wish?"
"Be careful, darlin'," Miss Mouse cautioned. "Don't just say anything that comes into your head - this isn't a place that you want to make wishes on a whim because you don't know if they really can come true.
The girl looked up at her with a sudden spark of defiance - she wanted her wish to come true.
"I can't take it anymore," she said, her voice stronger in her conviction, turning to Thomas. "He's dead because of me. I wish I had never existed!"
And then, of course…she was gone. The blanket that had kept her warm was gone and the mug she had been drinking from was gone - after all, she had never been around to use them, so they sat safely in their closet and cupboard just as they had before she had come in. She had now only existed to Thomas and to Miss Mouse, the last people to see her, and, in a way, the only people to ever see her.
Thomas rubbed his head, his brow furrowed in confusion. "You know, I didn't really have the power to grant that wish…I thought she would wish for money or something. That I could have done - but undoing existence isn't really something a low-level wish-granter can do."
Miss Mouse sighed, shaking her head and making a small clucking noise with her tongue. "Such strong words from such a small girl," she said. "I did try to warn her - the energy in this place has a mind of its own."
--------
Please don't ask why they can remember her. I know why and it makes sense to me but I don't think I can sufficiently explain it.
It sounds weird, but, I wrote it because I needed something happy. How is it happy, you ask? Well, I guess it's not. But it reminds me that no matter how depressed I am, I shouldn't wish for things that can't be undone. No matter how far-fetched it is that I would disappear simply for wishing I didn't exist or that I was dead, I shouldn't wish them, because you never know when your wishes will come true.
|
