WIP (a novel) pt. 2

2- Old Techniques

much love to tahra on deviantart for this beautiful art

Marie locked her bedroom door and jumped onto her rosewood hand crafted bed covered with linen and thick blankets. Marie had always wanted her room to be very cold, especially as she tried new activities that tend to make her produce more sweat than usual. She rolled off her bed onto her carpet and sprung herself upright.

She takes off her corset that had been delivered just the day before from some really obscure corset shop in western england. She has a series of tasks that she wanted to try whilst wearing a corset and she thought practising her swordsmanship skills whilst wearing the corset would help her break it in. However she had lost interest since falling on the ground and looking up at some boy.

Initially he had peaked her interest with his brown eyes, disarming smile, soft black hair and brown skin tone. As she looked at him more, she passed a judgement sufficient to her mind - he was interesting. Too interesting for her liking. She had always wanted friends that lived for their own interests and had dreams and goals beyond the imagination of the current society. But as Oliver stood in front of her in his white polo top and blue khaki shorts, she resolved that he was a mama's boy and was ultimately paid by her parents, though she thought his behaviour was a bit too peculiar for their taste.

She walked around her room in search of a novel to read,  particularly a series of unfortunate events, one of the few novels of this era that she found interest in. After she found it, she stepped out of her room and snuck through the hallway past her siblings room to hear Benji lecturing the guest on the subject of PC vs console.

She reached for the doorknob at the end of the hall and was welcomed by a fresh summer breeze wafting through the large windows. Her white linen dress flew up as she entered, she quickly flattened it, looked around wearily and closed the door behind her.

Besides her bedroom, her favourite place in the house was the small ballroom. The house is older than it looks and back in the day, galas and balls were the pique of social gatherings, and though this ballroom wasn't very large, its beauty made up for it. The beautiful details that could be found in an art museum lined the walls of the room, and the large windows framed with long flowing curtains were straight from a dream. She tiptoed through the hall towards the window, looking out at the stretched fields of grass that took her back to times, when she was younger.

Her mother would take them out to the fields to follow the butterflies and she would play the flute melodically for her children with diligence. Marie began to hum the notes from her mother's favourite piece, Claud Debussys: Syrinx , as she twirled around the room. She heard a knock on the door that startled her, causing her to misstep. She watched the door as it opened.

In walked her eldest sibling Henri, holding a bag of treats. She cocked her head at him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be listening to the full encyclopaedia of the best video game ever?” she suggested sarcastically. He ignored her comment, glancing around the room then returning his gaze back on her.

“Our guest brought one of these for each one of us, he hoped you would accept it.”

“Is he still here?” she asked. He nodded. She eyed him carefully as he started walking around the room.

“How much this time, $60, $70, ooh $80. He deserves more, he actually almost had me there.” Henri looked at her solemnly.

“You know, I wish you had stayed with us downstairs” He turned to face her. “Benji and Florence can be quite the handful, and well, Klara was being… well, Klara” they chuckled together. The two got along quite well in comparison to the others. But just as soon as she laughed, her jaw clenched.

“Maybe you guys should have chosen a different kid. Someone more like Benji and less like… me?” He stopped walking and placed the bag of candies on the floor.

“I don’t understand why you think so negatively of us… I just want to be there for you” he paused, looking through her.

“Oh, is that so?” she barked, glaring at him, but knowing that he was right. He sighed.

“The boy just moved in, he is in need of real friends. It simply isn’t plausible to assume we paid him so soon. They came today.” He looked away and started towards the door. She thought to herself, that word, need was ridiculous, the boy had said it and now her brother is trying to argue against her with it. What about what I need, she questioned internally.

She watched him, for any sign that he may be lying, maybe a nervous quirk but found nothing. She turned her back towards him and started walking towards the window.

“Don’t take your anger out at him, he meant well” He closed the door shut behind him, leaving her unsettled in the middle of the room.

Henri never lies, she thought to herself. Out of habit, she began to pick at her dress, and started to investigate the bag left on the floor. Anger she thought, though this was hardly anger in her mind. Anger for her was when she had worked 15+ hours at the store last week, and was denied the ability to visit her grandmother yesterday. Anger for her was not being allowed to read without break a month ago due to Klaras constant insufferable noise produced from her elaborate pots, pans and chopsticks. This situation provoked a different emotion in her, not anger but unbalance.

She felt like she had done something extremely wrong, and her stubbornness had blocked her from resolving this incident. But she also felt a sense of guilt, and empathy for the boy.

She concluded that it was all Henri’s fault for disarming her defences and making her question her actions which is something she rarely did. But her rational understanding of the human mind wouldn’t let her blame him (not entirely).

She decided it would be for the best that she went over to Oliver’s house the next day and apologised kindly and moved on from there. On second thought she deliberated that if she went tomorrow that it would appear as if she wanted to be friends, and she had no intentions of dingo so. Coming to a conclusion that benefitted her, she walked down the hall to see her family seated in the sun room watching television.

She yelled to them “I’ll be back in a few” her mother and father protested but Henri assured them that she’ll be alright.