![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Talked to handful_ofdust about my fear that Meadowville might fall between the stools of fantasy and historical realism, especially since it takes a while for things to get weird. She suggested taking some of the weird and moving it to the front; but I had trouble figuring out how to do this without spoilers, so I wrote a prologue set decades before the main action. Which is probably just confusing.
A hoop rolls along a woodland path in early summer. For a moment it seems unaccompanied; then a seven-year-old girl crests the little hill the hoop has just conquered. She chases after it as it veers off the path, loses its momentum and at last falls on its side, shining, on a bed of pine needles. The child goes to pick it up, looks just past it at something under the trees, and yells:
“NURSIE!”
Back down the gentle slope, her little sister trudges along beside their nurse. She’d complained at breakfast of a headache and Nursie had felt her forehead and given her some syrup of figs and declared that what both children needed was a good dose of fresh air.
“Slow down child, stay in my sights or you’ll get lost.”
“No but Nursie, come and see!”
Nursie grumbles but picks up her pace slightly, followed by her younger
charge. They make the top of the hill and join the first girl, who is glancing back at them excitedly. At her feet is a mass of shining white mushrooms growing in a circle as perfect as her fallen, forgotten hoop. Above, the tree canopy breaks up the sun until what finally makes it through dapples all three figures with little spots of light. In their straw hats and summer dresses, they could be a painting of the Nabi school and the mushrooms dots of flake white. The girl points at the ring:
“Nursie, look at all the toadstools!”
“Child, get back over here!” Nursie barks in a tone both girls seldom hear from her. “That’s a witch-ring."
Wincing, the younger sister glances up in surprise in time to see Nursie cross herself, but as Nursie makes the Christian sign in response to everything from an overheard swear-word to discussions of the aged Emperor’s health, she pays it no mind and steps forward. The woman catches her by the shoulder and though the touch is gentle the child cries out in pain.
“Don’t make such a fuss, darling, over a nasty thing like that that’s bad luck to see, and worse to go near—” But the little girl continues to cry and declares that her headache has spread to her back. Nursie crosses herself again and leads both girls back down the path, despite the elder’s pleas for more details.
When she gets them home her employer gets out his stethoscope, examines his daughter, frowns worriedly, and calls a colleague for a second opinion.
Nursie, on her next day off, spends longer than usual in the church, lighting a candle and praying for her charge’s recovery and her other charge’s continued safety from witches and their devilish associates. She asks the priest if she should bring the latter to be baptized, for additional protection, and he listens sympathetically, but he reminds her that according to the Church, the Devil has no power besides temptation and can work no physical effects in the world. He tells her the usual modern precautions against germs are all God requires of her, and that if it’s His will that her employers convert, they will do so of their own volition, in their own good time.
Nursie, on her next day off, spends longer than usual in the church, lighting a candle and praying for her charge’s recovery and her other charge’s continued safety from witches and their devilish associates. She asks the priest if she should bring the latter to be baptized, for additional protection, and he listens sympathetically, but he reminds her that according to the Church, the Devil has no power besides temptation and can work no physical effects in the world. He tells her the usual modern precautions against germs are all God requires of her, and that if it’s His will that her employers convert, they will do so of their own volition, in their own good time.
A week later, her charge’s illness has a diagnosis; and a surgery is scheduled to drain the abscess discovered on the child’s spine. The same day, the Emperor’s nephew and heir is assassinated, along with his morganatic wife.
Nursie reaffirms her belief in the dangers of even going near a ring of toadstools.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-14 04:33 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2020-01-14 12:37 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2020-01-14 01:24 pm (UTC)From:https://moon-custafer.dreamwidth.org/614932.html
https://moon-custafer.dreamwidth.org/620000.html
https://moon-custafer.dreamwidth.org/621952.html
https://moon-custafer.dreamwidth.org/628173.html
https://moon-custafer.dreamwidth.org/624847.html