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.
