This is the first half of a prologue. I have the second half written, but I figured it would be better recieved in smaller portions. Anyway, the timeperiod is supposed to be kind of vague, though definitely before the 1900's. As well I'm leaving the location up to your interpretation.
Incidentally, Freeda thought as she rolled over one morning to see a yellow envelope with her name on the front, I’ve nowhere to be.
Invitations such as the one sitting on her armoire seemed to appear at only the most convenient of times, though she figured that wasn’t too much of a surprise, as she never had anywhere to be. But these invitations, unlike the usual ones one might receive bore no addresses, return or otherwise, postage, decoration or R.S.V.P date (Respondez-vous s’il vous plait, if you didn’t know). Not at all. In fact, perhaps invitation was the wrong word to describe them. These invitations were more like scribbled notes, almost like after thoughts, suggestions, left for Freeda just in case she was looking. It seemed as though the sender knew Freeda and her habits as well as she did. Always they would come in envelopes, sealed with wax and with Freeda written on the front in neat calligraphy, but inside was always different. At first the invitations would come on plain parchment, different shades of course, but seemingly uniform. But as time moved on they became increasingly odd.
Once it came on a tiny square that was of the brightest orange color! When Freeda had opened the envelope she had nearly torn the paper with surprise. The only nearest to the color she could think of would have been oranges, but they too literally paled in comparison. And on the back of the square there had been a rectangle shape that was inexplicably sticky…though she didn’t dwell on that. For nearly fifteen minutes Freeda had admired the small piece of paper before she had even remembered to read it.
Appreciate color, it had read on the front, Look out the window.
Freeda had fairly jogged to the window of the bedroom and pulled the drawstrings which pushed back heavy fabric curtains. Reds and yellows spilled onto the bedroom floor. She turned to face the sunlight which at first sent a piercing pain through her eyes before they adjusted to the brightness. Outside the sun was setting over rolling hills and a distant crucifix of a church building. Blooming colors burst from behind the horizon and mingled in the evening air—if Freeda had not known better she would have thought it were sunrise, rather than set. Shades of colors curled about themselves shooting in arrow points in all directions, reaching to every possible corner.
Most astonishing of the sight though, was not the brightness, but a dazzling color orange which Freeda fancied twinkled in the sky, matching the square of paper in Freeda’s hand. Realizing this Freeda looked down and lifted her hand with the paper up to the window, level with the color and gasped with delight—exactly the same. While she admired the color she noticed something on the other side of the paper and flipped it over.
Not quite the same, it said, but nearly.
Other times the paper would be a large white sheet, folded many times covered in what Freeda supposed were lyrics, circling towards the center where it would say something like:
You’ve been quiet recently. Sing some.
Or others it would be white with blue horizontal lines which seemed to be a guide for writing in a straight line, and it would maybe say:
The flowers are feeling neglected, followed by a sketch of a tulip. Go visit them.
And once, and this had only happened on her birthday when she was turning thirty, she received an invitation with embossed writing of her name and birth date at the top. Along the sides vines wound themselves into decorative shapes before curling into a bed of lovingly drawn sunflowers at the bottom. In the center of the page the familiar scrawl wrote in green ink:
Happy Birthday, Freeda! Visit the bakery today. You shouldn’t lose your sweet tooth along with your youth.
Secretly Freeda supposed that whoever had been writing these had been saving that comment. And that brought about Freeda’s present dilemma. While it had been going on nearly a year that Freeda would find these mysterious—though lovely—invitations the sender had not at any point tried to come into direction contact with Freeda nor given any indication of who they might be. And though nearly immediately, Freeda admitted to herself with embarrassment, she had ignored any qualms she had of someone following her and breaking into her house fairly frequently, eleven months later it was a different story.
Now, Freeda wanted to meet this stranger. Needless to say Freeda was intrigued to find out who would care enough to go on for this long, know what Freeda liked and disliked, what she did most days, and could find and afford the magnificent types of paper by which they sent her the invitations, for surely they cost a fortune. Only considering these qualities the stranger was already fantastically interesting, but putting into account the fact that they had been able to do all this without being caught was a feat in and of itself. Simply put, Freeda’s curiosity was at the end of its leash.
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I realize that this is a rather abrupt place to end, but there really wasn't a better place to in the prologue. I'll post the rest later if there's interest.
Thank you for reading!
-Maggie
If I'm wrong, I'm sorry.
haha. I don’t mind where you go with it, as long as you have nicely developed characters. While a woman who likes flowers, singing and sunshine is sweet, it’s not exactly interesting. Make sure your character stands out. By this I don’t mean make her quirky or “individual” or “weird”, I mean give her little traits and things that make her worth reading about. Good luck!
Freeda's character is freaky. I like it!
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