I hope you don't mind me do this, this is the first draft of the first page of a new short story I am working on. I hope you enjoy it.
The
Faery of Earth and Water
From
the Diary of Obadiah Morticaine 24th June 1880
It
had been a troublesome day. I was bone weary and cold. I had come
from the old St Mary's Chapel on the bridge and had been given my
fill of edging my way through a building that had had little
maintenance in three hundred years. It was a sorry medieval pile in
the midst of modern soot covered brick monsters.
But
it was up Duke Street in the depths of night that I found my feet
leading me. They carried me over the cobbles, over the rails pitted
within them, that linked the dirty, high walls. Within their
confines, the dark satanic Yggdrasils still trickled black smoke into
the sky, where in the day, men toiled to stoke them to bursting
point, obscuring the light with sickly darkness from high windows
that I could see peeking at me. They watched me along my route like
some overgrown bespectacled pervert that was too afraid to move lest
he give away his devious intent.
I
heard the tap tap tap of my boot soles on the cobbles. I wanted any
distraction from the factories that closed in around me.
I
pushed on. My footsteps kept my mind focused. Much louder were they
than the wind through the chimneys, than the ticking noises from
machinery and engines winding down for the night, than the
night-watchman doing his rounds. They were louder than the call of
the owl and the ethereal whoosh of its wings. But that, I did not
mind. That, I found an immense reassurance, a reminder of the days
that had extended into pre-history, an eternity before these
terracotta blocks that surrounded me, accumulating and pumping out
filth.
I
knew I had to get away from the chapel, where my business had led me
into contact with a confrontation with souls willing to abuse the
energy residue left by the Padley Martyrs. I know I needed to get
some fresh air, to walk of the troubles that my day had given me. But
why my feet had led me along this route, I had no idea. It was
niggling at me, gnawing at my soul. There must be some purpose for
this.
