One of the things I love most about Writer In Motion is it offers writers a clear understanding of their own personal struggles. Over the last several weeks I’ve had some wonderful things happen, but it left my schedule tight, my body exhausted, and my brain a little foggy. Part of this was also due to diet as I’ve slid into eating foods again that aren’t really foods. So the last few days I gave myself a break, slept a lot, and got back on my eating real food horse again. All of these things fed into my struggle to self-revise my own story. Time and fatigue were the biggest factors, and each time I sat down to get another piece done, I honestly just wanted to go to bed.
Eventually I did, which is what helped me push through yesterday’s edits. However, as a classic underwriter (word-wise), I somehow ended up with 1,400 words. And when I went to trim back, I could no longer see which small focus points were unnecessary. In fact, even now as I unveil this 1,157 word draft, my gut is telling me that 2) this is an origin story to a much bigger tale and b) this scene needs more fleshing out.
This is where three wonderful ladies are going to run in with their Mighty Mouse capes to sing, “Here I come to save the day!”
But first . . . Emmaline Harrington’s journey into THE CLOCKS INSIDE.
Emmaline knew Henry didn’t cheat on her, but she couldn’t erase the memory of Constance pressing her lips against his. Setting her suitcase on the doorstep, she swallowed back the pain and adjusted the Time Archers pin on her lapel, a bow and arrow spearing a clock.
Rusted iron wove elegant designs over the oak door, numbers burned into the wood changing with each second. According to her grandfather, the only clock in the universe to keep true time across every world, but a knock wasn’t necessary. As soon as her knuckles hovered against the weathered wood, grandfather opened.
He never called unless something went terribly wrong, and the tired wrinkles lining his face showed the stress he carried. Emmaline almost hadn’t come at the risk of stumbling into Henry, but the words ‘final acceptance’ had her running toward the first train before she’d finished packing.
Her apprenticeship was finally over.
“You came.” Grandfather adjusted his gold wire frame glasses and retreated down the hall, shouting over his shoulder. “Another one broke and must be fixed.”
Always grateful to see her grandfather, even with his nose buried in a book like tonight, Emmaline picked up her suitcase and stepped inside the house, kicking the door closed. Dust filled the air, sconces turned low as storm light filtered in through cracks in the curtains. Grandfather hated bright light, another thing they agreed on.
Shoes loud against the wood floors, she stepped quickly onto the rugs and hastened toward the study. Clocks from every nation lined the halls—public clocks her grandfather called them. The only ones he allowed outsiders to see if they stopped by. Emmaline thought it made him more suspicious. After all, the more interesting time pieces were hidden at the back of the house.
She entered the study and took off her hat, surrounded by bookshelves lining every wall of the vaulted room. A giant glass lens in the center of the room overlooked another clock buried in the floor. Breathing in the dusty age of her favorite room, she set her case down amid the collection of hand-crafted snow globes. Thick leather tomes sat in the nook beneath each glass orb, leather spines facing outward.
Emmaline couldn’t read any of the texts, but she loved the bizarre symbols and languages each contained, histories for each globe’s interior world.
“You said one is broken?” She set her hat aside and followed grandfather to the far side of the room. Glass lay shattered on the floor. “What happened?”
“Henry came to visit.”
Her heart lurched. She wasn’t ready to forgive Henry yet. Thirty days, thirty showers until he could see her—she had to make sure there was no trace of that bitch Constance on his mouth before she ever kissed him again.
Emmaline picked up a shard of glass to inspect the edges. “Was he angry?”
“He’s still grieving.” Her grandfather gave her a pointed look, a silent cue that she was being ridiculous. “I went to fetch us a scotch. When I returned, the orb was shattered and Henry gone.”
A manic look crossed her grandfather’s face. “You must fix it, Emmaline. You’re the only one who can.”
One of the Time Archers surely could, but she met his gaze. She’d been desperate to know for years what her grandfather’s secret society was up to, why they were always in hurry everywhere they went. “Does this mean I’m in?”
Grandfather hand-crafted each globe, forging the exterior glass with intricate designs to catch the eye. He never sold them—“they’re far too valuable”—and Emmaline never understood why. Perhaps her acceptance could answer this question.
He nodded. “You’re in, once you take the oath.”
“Bring my kit.” Excitement spiraled in her gut as she pointed to her case. An engineer by trade, Emmaline could fix almost anything with a little solder or glue. Her grandfather’s prized globes had always been a challenge as glue would ruin glass, she she’d created a handheld glass blower to weld the pieces.
Once grandfather set down her suitcase, she opened the lid and pulled on a pair of thick gloves designed by the great D. Ragon Hyde and a pair of welding goggles. She arranged each piece in a circle around the central base and tucked her legs beneath her.
“Did Henry say anything before he left?” She wanted to keep her grandfather busy while she worked, otherwise he’d hover over her shoulder and wring his hands together.
The conversation seemed to relax him as he closed the book. “Only that he’d bought a train ticket to come after you.”
Her heart dropped. Henry knew her rules—if he tried to contact her before thirty days were up, she’d add another week.
Emmaline grasped the handheld glass blower and clicked it on. Setting the base upright, she held the first shard to the edge and squeezed the flame’s trigger. White-hot fire melted the glass seams together. “Water please.”
As if he’d read her mind, grandfather set the bucket down almost immediately. With the two pieces fused together, she dunked the orange-hot glass in the water.
Heat—cool—repeat. Emmaline chatted as she worked, avoiding topics about Henry, but grandfather always steered the conversation back.
As the last piece cooled in the water, steam rose off the water. Emmaline pulled off her gloves and held the base, most of the heat diffused by now. “Do you know the history of this one?”
A clock chimed and a faint smile touched her grandfather’s lips. He opened the book and adjusted his spectacles. “My dear Emmaline, why don’t you ask Henry?”
She whipped around, expecting to see her fiancé against the door frame, but a stone platform stretched to a giant stone clock, more than thirty unknown symbols circling the hands.
“Grandfather?” The globe disappeared from her hands, replaced by a stiff wind howling across barren rock. A line of black flags whipped across the cliff face. “Grandfather!”
Her heart raced in panic. “Grandfa…”
Drum beats filled the air and a strong hand gripped her shoulder.
Emmaline jumped, turning to meet a pair of deep-set brown eyes, shoulder-length hair framing a familiar, bearded face. “Henry?”
But it couldn’t be. She’d seen him less than three weeks ago, his hair cropped short. It would have taken him a year to grow it long, and her Henry never let it past his ears.
Strong arms pulled her close as a familiar, husky voice whispered in her ear. “Take me home, please.”
Dried blood caked his shoulder across line of freckles Emmaline knew like the back of her hand. Forget the thirty days. She clutched Henry tight, a thousand questions whirling in her mind. “Where are we?”
Her gaze roved across the sparsely dressed inhabitants wielding spears. Their chant halted and one figure raised her head, long dark hair so familiar, Emmaline dug her nails into Henry’s skin. “Constance.”
That’s it for today!
I’m probably going to put up two mid-week posts this time around since there are some other points I need to document. The first is what to do when you want the story to go one way, and your readers want it the other way—another struggle I faced this week. The second will be how I digest feedback from the lovely: S. M. Roffey, Ellie Doores, and Monique Ocampo.
As you can see from the feature image, I added another layer to the blend. This one doesn’t really give a sense of completeness to the piece, but I thought it offered an interesting depth, and I really like how the number II becomes a focal point with a slight overlap on the number III. This is something I’d definitely like to unpack in Emma’s larger tale.
If you want to get a taste of how I envision Emmaline’s worlds, you can visit my Pinterest wall. Be sure to check out www.writerinmotion.com for all the juicy details on how to participate with your own short story. Or you can follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #WriterInMotion.
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K.J. Harrowick is a freelance web developer and graphic designer with more than a decade of industry experience on a diverse range of projects. As a child, she fell in love with fantasy worlds like those found in the books of Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey, which continued well into adulthood with the worlds of Ivan Cat and Rand & Robin Miller. She began to world build and create fantasy languages in 2004, and in 2014 it became a full-blown passion to write and publish her own books. Currently she resides in the rainy Pacific Northwest where she works with a broad range of client projects, plots how to destroy her characters’ lives, and occasionally falls down rabbit holes. |
I was excited to see which path you’d choose from last week and got a fun surprise to find this new twist! I definitely like this third option best, especially with Constance in the globe world, spiking up the tension. Nice work!