Welcome to the start of something new. I started this tale as a short story. At the time I thought it would be about 500 words. Then I thought it might grow a little longer. It's heading towards novella length at this point (somewhere between 20,000 - 50,000 words). I'm going to release it in episodes as the sections are work shopped and edited by our crack team at the PALnet MSP Fiction Workshop at Discord. But wait, there's more!

Make a Minnow Project

If you have somehow not heard about it, MaM is a project created by @sammosk (a living legend), and supported by the MSP community where SBD is delegated to lift one very special minnow up to the level of a 10k SP Dolphin for a period of 4 weeks. This is a way for us to say thank you for their support and contributions to the community and a way to offer our gratitude.

I hereby pledge to donate the SBD income from the upvotes

on this first episode to the Make a Minnow Project. The donation will be made to @msp-makeaminnow.

My nomination

My nomination for Make a Minnow is @rhondak. I am nominating her because if there's anyone in this world who is more deserving, I have not met them. @rhondak works tirelessly (literally, like she just does not get tired...weird...I know, right?) to make our beloved #fiction-workshop a place where we can get together and write and talk writing. It's inclusive, it's fun and it's about stories and books and friendship. And it's about all those things because of @rhondak.

Now while I'm all teary-eyed, here's the story I pledge in @rhondak's honor. I hope you enjoy the start of The Mask of White and Red.

The Mask of White and Red

I

Ilsa’s first memory was of fire. Everything before that was a blur of light and sound and color, just fragments and shards. Like someone else's memories, they were distant, pale shadows, full of might-have-beens.

Little more than ten years old, she huddled in a wicker basket beneath a bundle of blood-soaked sheets from her father’s surgery. Screams from adjoining rooms and the roar and crackle of flames as their house burned filled her ears, and seared themselves into the bones of her mind.

At some point during that long night, she’d closed her eyes and surrendered to the flames and the darkness, but when morning came she woke to outstretched hands as neighbors pulled her from the embers. The joy she'd felt at the rescue blossomed in her heart like a spring rose, but beneath the elation hid the dark certainty that her parents must now surely be gone.

Ilsa cried until there were no more tears, then sipped at some warm milk somebody had shoved into her hands. At some point someone draped a blanket across her shoulders.

“Ilsa.”

She looked up at the face of their neighbor, the widow Kerrie Craig. Kerrie’s deep-set eyes were red. Tears stained her face, leaving long rivulets of barely-dried soot along her cheeks. Kerrie shook her head, eyes brimming with tears, and Ilsa felt her throat constrict as if the Serpent itself had hold of her. She raised a hand to her neck but it did nothing to stop the sensation.

“It's all gone, child.” Kerrie sniffed, and wiped her face with the back of her arm, leaving a glistening trail of snot and tears. “They’ve taken it all. Your house, most of mine.” Fresh tears dropped from the point of her nose. “Sorry. I suppose I’m meant to be the strong one. It’s just— Well…” She spread her hands, gnarled fingers shaking. “Some good news for you, though. They’ve found your folks. They’re alive.” She smiled. “But dear, they've been hurt. Is there someone you might stay with tonight? Anywhere you can go? Living by you all these years and I'm ashamed I don't know if you have other kin hereabouts.”

Alive? They were alive. Looking around the devastation, the smoldering beams and broken tiles, the smell of fresh blood and smoke, it seemed impossible that anyone could have survived. Was she even alive? Yet the pain was too great for her not to be. Surely if she were dead her chest would not feel like it was about to give way at any moment like a cracked dam.

“They’ve been taken to the church. Pastor Beckford will look after them ’till they’re better. But with no surgeon…” She gave Ilsa a pat on the arm. “Well, I’m sure they'll be fine, but you’ll come stay with me tonight. I’ve a room at my son’s house, though that wife of his is a right piece of work. They’ll not turn you away. Not if they don't want to hear about it every day until I meet my maker.”

I hope you enjoyed the very first edition of The Mask of White and Red. Stay tuned for the next episode to be released soon. If you did enjoy this, please do upvote, resteem and comment.

-- @thinknzombie

---

---

---