4 March 2014

Tuesdays Tales - Pale



Welcome to Tuesday's Tales  
This week's prompt is -Pale-  and my offering is, for now, an isolated scene that will hopefully end up in a story of it's own.
Dust motes danced in the pale sunshine filtering through the mucky window. She’d never seen such a thick coating of dust on a surface before, let alone a whole room. If this was some mythical castle with a hidden room forgotten for centuries she’d understand.
Stuffing her itchy fingers into her jacket pockets Brenda stepped across the threshold. “Dust smells.” Her grandmother’s words echoed in her head, but she couldn’t deny them. The room smelled. Fusty. Forgotten. Forlorn.
Fighting the urge to tiptoe across the floor she headed for the window. Would it open? Had it been closed for so long she’d find it frozen? Under the dust beneath her feat Brenda thought she recognised a Persian rug. What kind make or brand, if they had such things, she didn’t even hazard to guess. The tattered material hanging from the canopied bed had her looking over her shoulder. Worn the material may be, but the tears in the material looked more like knife slashes to her. What had happened in here that the room had been abandoned for so long?
And, she stopped, her hands resting on the window frame, why had her grandmother left her this house in her will? She had her own city apartment close to her work place. All the amenities within walking distance, well almost. Now if her grandmother had left the place to her brother Gabe. That would have made more sense. But then, like this room, no one seemed to know what had happened to him either.
Letters from his email continued to arrive each day to her own box, but they weren’t from him. She knew. She just knew they were not coming from Gabe. At first she’d assumed he’d been in a hurry, and responded as usual, before something penetrated. Even now, looking back, she couldn’t put her finger on what trigger her concern up to worry and then outright disbelief.  Unsure how to react to her certainty that Gabe was no longer in contact with her she’d continued replying. Apparently as usual to someone who shouldn’t know the score. But the responses passed all her little tests. Small misspellings they’d agreed on if one of them was concerned for the other. Deliberate typos. After all how often had she and Gabe laughed over what she called ‘her typing dyslexia’? She could suddenly go weeks where she mistyped words. Adding in an extra letter, reverting them so ‘play’ would end up being ‘paly’. Or the words where she left off the final letter altogether.
Whoever was responding picked them up said the right things, and yet something, deep within her told Brenda her brother was not the author of his supposed letters.
Thank you for reading this week's offering, 
there are lots more amazing reads at  

14 comments:

Jillian said...

I'm very intrigued. I love that she's sensing something wrong in the emails.

V.L. Locey said...

Ooooo. I wonder what is going on with the emails??

SherryGLoag said...

:-) Jillian. The trouble with being a pantser half the time is you never know what's going to happen next! lol

SherryGLoag said...

rofl Vicki :-) I wish I knew!!

Sarah Cass said...

Mysterious. I'm definitely intrigued and can't wait to see more of this one.

Lindsay said...

Love the suspense as she stepped into the room then the mystery about the emails

J R Salisbury said...

The emails. . .curious. Love the mysery and suspense. Am intregued nd wanting more.

Iris B said...

Oh wow ... so many questions and so little answers ... I hope we'll get to read more of this story! really enjoyed it.

SherryGLoag said...

:-) Thank Sarah, I'm not sure where this is going. I was desperate not to miss a TT and this is what turned up!!

SherryGLoag said...

:-) Thanks Lindsay.

SherryGLoag said...

:-) Thanks Jamie.

SherryGLoag said...

LOL Iris, I hope I get more of it too! :-) Thanks for coming by.

Jean Joachim Books said...

I love their communication through typos. That makes her know its not him. That is so subtle, cool and pulls me into the story. Love the suspense.

SherryGLoag said...

:-) Thanks Jean