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This failed to cross-post from Dreamwidth, it seems, so I've reposted it here. I'm more and more convinced I ought to have given Nine's mother a name back at the start, but that's what rewrites are for. Hope you can managed to know which "she/her" is which in the upcoming dialogue. Tricky thing is, this started as a fairy-tale, though I think it's since become something else, and in fairy-tales it's usually only the central character who has a name, if indeed anyone at all does.
Heavier footfalls announced another arrival, one less unexpected. Jake, carrying a jug, approached the house with caution; he peered at the lit window, but Nine’s mother had drawn the curtains. The man circled the house, then seemingly come to a decision, began splashing the contents of the jug against the outside wall.
From behind him the moon threw a second shadow on the face of the building.
“Beautiful night, brother,” came Bill’s rusty voice. “But what brings you out to these woods?”
“What have you got there in your hand, Bill?”’ The younger brother raised a pistol that hadn’t been fired since their father’s time.
“What have you got in that jug, that you were so busily dousing the house with?” Jake changed tactics. He loomed over his brother, and raised his voice as though he’d forgotten where they stood:
“That old pistol won’t aim straight enough. I doubt it’ll even fire, you find the nerve.”
“I think tonight both I and the pistol are sure of our target.” Nine’s mother had never heard Bill speak so many complete sentences in a row, but his voice cracked a little on the next one: “What did you do to her, those seven years ago?”
“I didn’t do nothing. You taking the word of a hedge-witch and her crazy girl that no one’s ever seen before last spring, over your own brother that you’ve known all your life?”
“I do know you, that’s the the thing. The other too, since we were kids, and hedge-witch or not, she’s an honest woman so far as I know. And what would she gain by putting the child up to it? and now I find you sneaking ‘round her house, pouring lighting-juice over all the boards, and what am I to think on it?”
Heavier footfalls announced another arrival, one less unexpected. Jake, carrying a jug, approached the house with caution; he peered at the lit window, but Nine’s mother had drawn the curtains. The man circled the house, then seemingly come to a decision, began splashing the contents of the jug against the outside wall.
From behind him the moon threw a second shadow on the face of the building.
“Beautiful night, brother,” came Bill’s rusty voice. “But what brings you out to these woods?”
“What have you got there in your hand, Bill?”’ The younger brother raised a pistol that hadn’t been fired since their father’s time.
“What have you got in that jug, that you were so busily dousing the house with?” Jake changed tactics. He loomed over his brother, and raised his voice as though he’d forgotten where they stood:
“That old pistol won’t aim straight enough. I doubt it’ll even fire, you find the nerve.”
“I think tonight both I and the pistol are sure of our target.” Nine’s mother had never heard Bill speak so many complete sentences in a row, but his voice cracked a little on the next one: “What did you do to her, those seven years ago?”
“I didn’t do nothing. You taking the word of a hedge-witch and her crazy girl that no one’s ever seen before last spring, over your own brother that you’ve known all your life?”
“I do know you, that’s the the thing. The other too, since we were kids, and hedge-witch or not, she’s an honest woman so far as I know. And what would she gain by putting the child up to it? and now I find you sneaking ‘round her house, pouring lighting-juice over all the boards, and what am I to think on it?”
