A short story I wrote for English class - I'm interested to see what other people think of it!
“My Bracer holds my fate, you see
The Myrors told it true and fair
The Bracer knows what I shall be
It knows with whom I’ll someday pair
And I did see, by the basswood tree
A place for they who haven’t theirs.”
Most children couldn’t help but hum the Basswood Rhyme as they passed under the shadow of Agnethy Hall, and Elian was no exception. She had to walk by it twice a day, going to and from school—never by herself, of course; her elder sister, Jenna, went with her. Jenna would whistle the tune, and Elian would sing the words, both of them keeping watch on the great stone building out of the corners of their eyes, as if expecting some terrible monster to burst forth from its gates. Once the Hall was well behind them, the girls would stop their chanting, glance at each other, and laugh at their own foolishness. There was nothing to be afraid of in Agnethy Hall—and if there were, the simple repetition of a child’s rhyme wouldn’t keep them safe.
But today, Jenna was sick in bed, and Elian had to walk alone. As she passed the Hall that morning, she murmured the Rhyme and fingered the golden bracelet that circled her left wrist, as solemn and binding as a wedding band. The Bracer was a holy symbol in the secluded town of Aurgwyd Barrow; everyone wore them—they were gifts from the Myrors, given to every child on their first birthday, and worn all the way to the grave.
When a child was born, they were taken to the Glass House, where the thirteen clairvoyant Myrors lived, and they were left there to be inspected overnight. By the end of their first year of life, the Myrors would give the child their Bracer. It was enchanted to grow and shrink with the child’s wrist, and—more importantly—it was designed to signal the child, to let them know when they were steering from the fate that the Myrors had foreseen for them.
The Myrors knew what Elian was destined to grow up to be. She’d been getting prickles and prods from her Bracer all her life, pointing her in the foretold direction—typist. Unglamorous, perhaps, but Elian didn’t want glamor. She was content to practice her future craft on her father’s typewriter, and wonder what sort of jobs a skilled typist could get. That was all she could do; obey the Bracer, obey the Myrors, for they knew what was best for her, and best for Aurgwyd Barrow.
That was why Agnethy Hall was so frightening. Perched like a gargoyle on the hill at the edge of town, off the fastest route to the Aurgwyd schools, its grounds covered by a grove of the basswood trees that identified it in the nursery rhyme; a dark spot on a pure town. That was where the Chancelings went—men and women who forsook the will of their Bracers, and children whose parents were never supposed to have been together. These people had no fate. They were unclean, unholy. Monsters. And like any Bracer-wearing child, Elian feared them like she feared nothing else.
It was better when Jenna was with her; at least then she would have had someone to hold onto if the monsters came for her. And then afterwards, she could laugh, forget her fear, pretend that there was nothing but trees behind Agnethy’s gates.
But today, she had to brave it alone. The Rhyme trembled on her tongue, but she forced it out, her defensive mantra. With Jenna, the words felt like a shield—now, they felt no more protective than wet paper. The gates loomed, great spears of wrought iron lashed together with thick chains and heavy brass locks.
Normally, when Elian and her sister watched the Hall, they stared at the building itself, at the black stone and grimy, barred windows. Sometimes, they saw the white circle of a staring face behind the glass, and they would break into a run.
Elian found she couldn’t bear to look at the Hall without Jenna by her side. Today, she watched the trees.
They were ancient and knotted, with moss growing up the trunks and twisting branches crowned with bright yellow leaves reaching to the sky like arms locked in silent prayer. The ground was covered in frosted, papery mulch, both on the inside and the outside of the gates. Elian veered away from the debris, as if merely touching the leaves would infect her with wilful, treacherous thoughts. She kept her eyes on the trees, on the gnarled roots, the distorted faces leering out of the bark. Were they laughing at her? It looked like they were.
Another ghostly face joined them. Elian started and froze.
At first, all she saw was a pale circle with grey eyes, like a second moon. Then, as she stared, she made out a shock of black hair, a pointing needle-nose, a gaping mouth, shaped in such a way that she knew the face belonged to a boy. He stepped out from behind the tree and began to slowly approach the gate, never taking his eyes off of her. He was young, perhaps ten years old—Elian’s age—and as thin as a blade of grass.
Elian was too frightened to move; here it was, at last, the day that the monsters had come for her. There was no familiar prickle, no warning from the Bracer—was this truly her fate, to be killed by a Chanceling on her way to school?
She had only time for one final thought—if my fate is to die here, then why was I told to type?—before the boy reached the gate. She screwed her eyes shut and waited for him to slip through the iron spears and murder her.
“Hello.”
The word startled her into opening her eyes again. The boy’s fingers, long and thin, were curled around the gate’s bars, and his face was pressed against the metal, eyes popping madly against his white skin. He was smiling at her.
Elian didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She stared at him, a deer-in-the-headlights, caught in the beam of his dark grey eyes.
“My name’s Lind. Short for Lindel,” he said. His voice was high and clear, and it trembled at the edges.
He stared at her expectantly. There was still no warning from Elian’s Bracer. Was she supposed to stay? Was she supposed to talk?
Lind’s smile began to fade. “Say something, please!” he all but begged her.
Elian made her decision.
“My name is Elian,” she said, trying to force a smile of her own. Lind beamed at her.
“Hello, Elian,” he said. “Do you have school today?”
Still no prickle. “Yes.”
“I want to go to school. But it isn’t allowed. Will you be late if you stay here long?”
“Probably.” Elian was inching towards the gate. Still nothing from the Bracer. She sucked in a small breath and walked straight up to Lind. His smile widened, then fell.
“So I guess you won’t stay,” he said.
Elian felt a small sting of guilt, like a needle in her gut. She wanted to leave—her Bracer wasn’t indicating danger, and she knew she should trust it, but oh, how frightened she was! And yet, Lind didn’t feel like a danger; he simply felt lonely. Sad. She didn’t want to upset him.
“I won’t stay… long,” she said finally. “I’ll come back later. At ten-past-three. I have to walk this way again to get home.”
The boy’s face lit up. “I never have visitors,” he said. “It’s very lonely here.
There are other kids, of course, but they like to stick with their families.”
“What about your family?” Your fate-cheating, Bracer-defying family?
Lind shrugged. “My mother is dead, and my dad likes the cooks’ sherry more than he likes me.”
Elian couldn’t decide which was more upsetting—what he had said, or how indifferently he had said it.
“And your family?” he asked. “I’ve seen you walk by with another girl before.”
His white cheeks blossomed pink as he realized that he’d just admitted to spying.
Oddly, Elian didn’t mind. Chancelings were supposed to be strange.
“She’s my sister,” she told him. “Jenna. She turned thirteen last month. And at home, I have two parents and a cat.”
He smiled again, this time wistfully. “I always wanted a cat. Or any pet with fur.
Once, Mrs. Petre—the caretaker’s wife—brought us an aquarium with six goldfish. It wasn’t the same, though; you couldn’t pet them or tell them apart or anything, and they were all dead in three months, because Mrs. Petre forgot to buy us more fish food. Her daughter, Lily, made us have a funeral in the bathroom.”
Elian laughed. Lind blinked in surprise, then laughed with her. He had a good laugh, clear and strong and infectious. It shook his thin frame like a quivering drum-skin.
A moment passed in the aftermath of their laugh, the brief silence bubbling with connectivity. Elian found that she didn’t mind Lind—he was a nice boy, despite his blasphemous origin.
The silence stretched on, and Lind looked at her shyly.
“You should probably go to school, if you don’t want to be late,” he said. “Do you promise to come back? I’ll be out here at ten-past-three.”
Elian hesitated. “Will anyone else be out, then?”
He grinned mischievously. “Our outdoor time is from ten-o’clock to lunch. I’m not even supposed to be out now.”
She smiled back, a bit more tentatively this time. So he was a rule-breaker. She wondered if he would’ve followed his Bracer if he’d had one.
“… I’ll come back,” she told him finally, and started as one thin hand darted between the bars to grip hers.
“Thank you,” he said. His hand was cold from touching the gate. She could feel the blood beating in his palm.
Still no prickle from the Bracer.
Elian held his hand for a moment longer, then dropped it and turned away with a wave. He waved back, unsticking himself from the gate and retreating into the basswood trees. As Agnethy Hall grew smaller and smaller behind her, and the two schools loomed up in her sight, Elian felt a chill pass through her bones.
She feared her return to Agnethy Hall. Feared the punishment she would receive if she were found fraternizing with a Chanceling. But her Bracer hadn’t told her to stay away. No matter that it made no sense; Lind and whatever he had to offer her was part of her fate.
Besides; she had promised him she’d come back. And she so wanted to hear that wonderful laugh again.
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