Young Writers Society

[pre]Day 2 Monday April 16

I’ve woken up in a strange place. I wasn’t quite sure where it was, only that it was light, it wasn’t Mrs. Bradford’s house, and the mattress I was laying on was lumpy, uncomfortable, on the floor, and could hardly be called a mattress. I wanted to roll over and get off of the bed, but I started hearing a scuffling noise. I thought it could be rats, cockroaches, or mice, and I wasn’t too eager to move from the mild safety of the mattress-lump.
All of a sudden, the door opened. I jumped, and looked up. It was Eunice. He was in his pajamas. If this had been the 21st century I might have felt a little awkward, but this being the 17th, pajamas were really hideous and baggy, and had little or no appeal in them. “Mr, um, Nela – er – ”
“Nelor,” he corrected. “I heard some noise coming from your room.”
“I think there are rats,” I said, pulling a face. He shined the light on the floor, and it turned out that the ‘rat’ was a cockroach.
Not that it made a difference. I still made a fool of myself again, and squealed and cried out and yelled something along the lines of ‘kill it, kill it!’
He proceeded to step over and kick it. I cringed.
Once he had removed the cockroach from my presence, he turned to me. “All right,” he said, “I get the feeling that you want to know where you are.” I nodded. “Well, I’m not too tired, I suppose I could tell you.” He sat down on the mattress, collapsing with a terribly dramatic lack of grace. I giggled, and then covered my mouth. God, it’s people like me who make a basis for stereotyping women, I’ll tell you.
“All right,” he said, fidgeting and turning to me, “here’s the story.
“The Queen is Dead. Queen Elizabeth of England is dead, and our country is in a mourning period. At least, we should be. Legally, we are. But we – that is to say, I, Mr. and Mrs. Bradford, and some other people you haven’t met yet – are not happy with the Monarchy. It has come to our attention that this is evil. There are people living in hovels, vagabonds infesting the streets, and our country is not a good place. We need a different form of government – you understand what government is, of course?” I nodded. “Good. Then let me begin explaining. We are an underground Group – The English Light, we call ourselves – and we are placing people in the Monarchy in some way to slowly weaken it on the inside, until we can crumble it from the outside. That’s where you are, the Headquarters of The English Light. Do you understand? Good. Well, like I was saying, sometimes our people cannot come in smoothly. In which case, we use blackmail. We – I included – find things about people in the monarchy that would be rather nasty if it got out. And right now is the best time to act. The Queen is Dead, and our country’s security is very low in the meanwhile. Everyone is busy trying to organize her funeral, and the only place that is truly heavily guarded is Queen Elizabeth’s tomb room in Whitehall, which we hardly need to have access to, unless something comes out, and nothing has yet.
The infiltrations we’ve managed are set up so anyone in knowledge of this cannot write it down – no information of us is to get out before we fully take over the monarchy. We are careful. We are cautious. And above all, we are hopeful.
“We will succeed.”


We will succeed. The line stayed in my mind even after I had bid him good night and sent him away. We will succeed. He sounded so sure of himself, and yet I know for a fact that the monarchy had no alterations made by an outside source until around the 18th century. Did they manage to win? Did they do anything?
Or perhaps they succeeded so well that it never got out? The monarchy just changed gradually. That idea sounded much slower and drawn-out than the plan Eunice had given me, which sounded more like an abrupt change in the monarchy, and Eunice talked of overthrowing it, not altering it. Did their plan change, somewhere between now and Queen Elizabeth’s funeral?
I don’t know why it bothered me so much. What do I care if they did, I’m just here to collect data. I know they didn’t.
I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that something bad was related to this in some way.

It took me a few moments to realize I was ravenous. When I did realize, I stood up, pointedly looking to avoid anything on the ground, and made my way to the door. I had no idea where I was, where Eunice was, where Mrs. Bradford was, if her husband was here –
And I had no idea who the woman standing right in front of me was.
“Well, it’s about time. Come, child, we have questions to ask you and Eunices to scold.” I blinked. The Hell? I thought. She led me towards a room that looked very dark and gloomy – I realized that it was just because the curtains over the windows, thick and unflattering, weren’t open. “Eunice,” she said, “how much did you tell this child?” Well I’m hardly a child, I felt like saying.
“The basic idea.” She sighed. I noticed other people in the room. There was a man with thick, ugly scars on his face, large and brutish to match his body. A fierce woman was next to him, one that almost reminded me of an Amazon. There was another girl around Eunice’s age, only with brown hair and very animated dark brown eyes, who stood next to him, looking as though she were defending him from the woman who’d brought me in. Annabelle Bradford and a man who appeared to be her husband, of whom whose name I haven’t caught yet, were watching the battle – that is to say, Mr. Maybe-Bradford was. Annabelle throwing comments in for either side, depending on whatever she felt like saying.
“Oh, gracious child, what are we doin’, here, let me introduce you.
“That there,” she pointed to the Amazon woman, “that’s Diana Forworth, and that there horrid creature of the underworld next to him, that’s her fiancé. Jacob Rinegel.”
That thing was her fiancé? He certainly didn’t look dateable – too much like he’d choke you halfway through if you insulted his football team.
“And that there next to Mrs. Annabelle is her husband, Mr. Jonathan Bradford. And the girl insisting upon defending the wide-mouthed frog is Felicia Warrens.” I smiled feebly.
“Hi.” She nodded back, briefly smiling.
“And I’m Sarah Barnett,” she added.
I took in the lack of composure in the room, the dirt that filled everything – this is much more like the home I had been intending to land in. It made me wonder again just how much their operation would do if this was all they could manage.
“Now,” the woman said, “I suppose your hungry?” I nodded, remembering why I had wandered outside my room again. “All right then, I’ll fix you up something. You do like porridge?” I nodded. She cooked something – it didn’t really look like porridge – and set a plate down in front of everyone else, as well. It was pleasant, though everyone else seemed to hold in fascination. Lord, these people were strange.

Annabelle led Eunice to the carriage. I asked if I could go along, and her immediate reply was ‘no’. I frowned. What, I was to stay here all day? Well, that hardly sounded like fun. I pulled a face, and decided to go back to the kitchen. “What are Eunice and Mrs. Bradford doing?” Felicia shrugged, and then turned to me.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello.”
“Why did you happen to be in Mrs. Bradford’s house?” she asked curiously. Damn.
“Would you like to hear a story?”
“I’d like to hear why you were in Mrs. Bradford’s house, actually,” she said, sounding mildly impatient bust mostly amused.
“Same difference. Sit down.” She complied – on the dirt, er, floor. “All… right then. I was born a long time ago – in a sense. Actually, a long time ahead. If you’re confused, it’s difficult."
And then, under the pretense of a story, I told Felicia Warrens everything. It took a lot longer than I’d thought – I may have strung in a tale about faeries or elves of the sort –maybe two – but in general I remained true to the story.
In general.

Eunice came back. He looked absolutely thrilled.
“We’ve got him!” he announced, bursting into the room. I jumped, startled. “We’ve got Charlie! Jacob, you’re in!” Suddenly, the man named Jacob looked much less threatening, much more childish. He was laughing with very boyish joy.
“Oh, goody,” Felicia murmured quietly.” I just love these days.” I looked at her, confused. “Well, now we’ve gotten another step further. I suppose I should be happy about it.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, well, nothing, it’s just that usually when something like this happens, it’s followed by something bad. And we’re barely getting anywhere,” she said bitterly, “It’s just another person in the monarchy’s circle.” I must have looked startled, because she softened up. “But ignore me, I’m as sour as they get.”
“You like reading?” She blinked. “Reading? Books, words, you know, reading?”
“Girls shouldn’t read too much,” she said. “No more than the basic, like signs. Us girls, we don’t pursue knowledge.” She sounded like she was reciting from a textbook. I resisted the urge to strangle her and whoever taught her that.

I excused myself a few minutes later, disappearing to my room. I lay down on my bed, a hand behind my head, and thought about my six remaining days. Well, five and a half. I thought about The English Light – how bitter Felicia sounded, how hopeful Eunice was, the death of Queen Elizabeth, and I realized something.
I get distracted very easily. I couldn’t keep a train of thought for very long, and sitting there until the sun went down, and not producing any results was sure proof that I spent most of the time daydreaming.
But now it was dark. And I couldn’t see anything.
Oh, goody. The door opened. Eunice – with an oil lamp. Two, actually. That was just marvelous.
“I think it’s about time you went to bed,” he said. Eunice stood up next to me and placed the lamp beside my mattress-lump. He made to leave.
“Wait!” I called. Eunice turned towards me. “What was up – er, today, what was the big event? And why does Felicia seem so upset about it?” Eunice smiled.
“Felicia’s always seeing something bad in things, that’s just her character. Women, honestly,” he said, rolling his eyes. I glared at him until he looked back at me. “And today? We’ve got another place in the monarchy. We were hoping to secure at least – well, there was never an exact number, but we wanted to put in as many people as possible before the funeral. My job is to present blackmail and, you know, use it. To get people in. And today, I got Jacob in. Mrs. Bradford went along because I’m still a minor, and she’s the only one who can handle me, or so they say.” He grinned. “I’d be an angel to them all if they’d let me ramble as I wished.” I smiled back, thinking that it would be terrible to find out he was my ancestor in some way.
“Well,” he said, after a long pause, “I suppose I should let you rest now.” Ah, I’d have to go without a bath. What’s more, without one for a week. I hadn’t even noticed the smell on him before. It blended in so well with everything else.
Shoving the oil lamp away, I made to sleep. It took a long, long time.[/pre]