October 1 • Tuesday
1:52 pm
1 New Message
To: Finnley Bale
From: Dr. Lark
"Hi Finnley,
It's been a while. I noticed you've sort of stopped writing blog posts, and I'm worried about you. Remember our deal? Writing the blog can only help you, but not the way you're doing it now. Philosophy, poetry, whatever it is that you write- that's great. Fine. But you need to start opening up about your sister. Can we talk?
Yours,
Dr. Lark"
Finnley skimmed the message and deleted it. Dr. Lark hadn't contacted him in a long time, and he wasn't interested in talking to her now. He'd thought he'd left her behind when he moved, but of course she's kept track of the blog. She would always try too hard to be motherly around Finnley; only, Finnley had a mother already. What he needed was his father. His sister.
That had seemed so huge, so entirely life consuming. And it still hurt, only now things were going completely pear-shaped, and with the existence of magic and monsters, the loss began to fade. Now Finnley was concerned about Monica, trying to find out who or what she really was. Luckily, she was at school that day, though she avoided looking at Finnley every time he tried to catch her eye.
The end of school came quickly, like how the floor seems to rush up to meet you when you fall. Finnley truly felt like he was falling; if he unfocused his eyes, he began to feel dizzy. He heard the sound of footsteps behind him as he grabbed his history textbook from his locker and he turned to see both Monica and Mia. The two were laughing and talking animatedly about something.
"You seem to be in high spirits," Finnley observed, and Monica looked away for a moment. Finnley turned to Mia. "You... are you coming with us? Did Monica tell you about Mr. Vaughn?"
"Yeah, she did," Mia said, shaking her head with a smile. "And I'm here at her request for moral support. I can't believe you didn't tell me! Well, I mean, I sort of understand why you didn't. So thanks for that. I appreciate it."
Finnley felt his face soften. "I'm really sorry, about everything. How's your mom?"
"Better; she's doing better," Mia said, nodding along to her own words. "I think she'll be home soon. I hope we'll all be home soon- they've been working day and night on our house. Luckily, the damage wasn't as bad as it looked. We should be able to move back in in a week or two."
"Do you... do you want to stay with us?" Finnley asked, twisting his hands.
Mia hesitated for a second. "I think... Well, we're still working out some things with Uncle Fred. I don't want my parents to get more freaked out about the whole magic Mr. Vaughn thing, you know? And... we don't want to be a burden on you and your mother."
She said the last part terribly quietly, and Finnley knew that it was the real reason behind it all. Not that they would be unwelcome- they would be a financial burden. What hurt the most was that Finnley knew she was right. He and Mrs. Bale simply couldn't afford to have the four of them stay at their house for weeks or maybe even months. They didn't have nearly enough space, or money for food and other necessities.
Finnley's mouth formed a small 'o', but he didn't say anything. After a few moments of awkward silence between the three of them, he said "Well, come on then," and headed out the door. Outside, the weather had turned a bit sharper, and the three friends walked close to each other. Monica was wearing a hat which looked rather warm, but was perched carefully on her head and didn't even cover her ears, giving her an artsy look. Monica and Mia had now linked arms, and Finnley, feeling left out, held out his arm to Mia. She accepted it and became the center of their little group.
Mr. Vaughn's familiar shop soon came into view, and they entered single file with Finnley in the lead. The little bell above the door tinkled, as if signaling that they were entering a world entirely different from their own. The two girls looked around the room in wonder, though Monica had taken off her hat and was twisting it nervously in her hands.
Mr. Vaughn slowly creaked down the stairs, saying nothing until he was feet away from them. "Ah," he finally said. "You must be Mia." He shook hands with Finnley's scheming friend before turning to Monica, who was closely studying a rather uninteresting old paint can. "And you... You're Monica."
She finally turned around to face Mr. Vaughn, staring him in the eye unflinchingly. He nodded slowly. "You know what I am?" Monica asked, chin held high even as her hands were trembling.
"I knew as soon as I couldn't see you in the reflecting plate," Mr. Vaughn said gently, though Monica took a step back. "Child, why are you here?"
"Because I need to be," she said forcefully, though all the while she was wringing her hat. "I'm supposed to be here."
"Hm," was all the old man would say. "I wouldn't be so sure."
"I'm helping him!" Monica cried fiercely, flinging her hand towards Finnley, and Mr. Vaughn turned his inquisitive eyes in that direction.
"She did help us to defeat the demon," Finnley said doubtfully.
"It's more than that, Finn." Monica was whispering now, and a tear was hovering at the edge of her eye. "I- there are things I'm supposed to tell you. But I'm not ready for that yet. I've hardly begun to sort things out for myself. Just seeing you completely disarmed me. These things- I can't talk about them yet." Monica's eyes were pleading, and Mr. Vaughn's face softened. Finnley felt an aching in his chest, a feeling of such empathy that it almost hurt.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hiya, Querencia. Pan dropping in for what'll have to be a super quick critique because I've got to get to bed in like twenty minutes.
I actually feel like it'd be cool if an emerging theme of this story was Finnley burying himself in magic and the mystery of the forest as a way to put off dealing with his emotions. That's kind of the vibe I'm getting at the minute, though I've no idea if you intend to actually explore it in earnest.
Generally, it's a good idea to avoid 'seems', because it always feels like it weakens the image for me. You could just have 'like how the floor rushes up to meet you when you fall'. Same comparison but more strongly expressed.
Uhhh, that seems way too quick. Remember that there's not just fire damage to consider here. Water damage from actually tackling the blaze can really wreck a house as well - it's basically like having a fire and then having a flood, which is not good news. I've just been browsing Google for the aftereffects of fires, and one person has reported that a fire that caused moderate damage to just the upstairs of their house was forecast to take 1-3 months to repair. The fire at Mia's house was substantially more serious than that, so there's no way it would take so little time to fix it up again. Remember what I said about making sure that every dramatic development in the story has a proper amount of fallout. Don't try and force things back to the status quo or the danger becomes superficial.
Envisioning this chainlink of buddies crammed onto the pavement is beyond cute.
Didn't really get this comparison. Shop bells are a common thing, so I don't see why it would feel like it was signalling their entry to another world. Maybe if the bell sounded more unusual and distinct, this line would work better, but you'd have to actually describe what it is about this shop bell that means it has an otherworldly vibe.
That's all for specific comments. Boy oh boy, what is going on with Monica? She seems so lost. I'm trusting her again now, because I get the sense that she's more unmoored and uncertain than secretly insidious. I am really looking forward to finding out her secret. It's been building up a while, so I hope it's a good one!
Keep writing!
~Pan
Lol high spirits
Hey, Querencia! Storm here for a review this fine Review Day, so let's jump right into it!
This mention of magic and monsters helped me figure out some of what's going on, but for your normal readers, it's just restating the obvious, and it's probably not necessary.
This is really tell-y. I get that you want to gloss over school and not spend a lot of time on it, but the way you're doing it here just isn't working.
Seems to be a bit formal for characters who seem like high school(?) students.
I don't usually mention things like this, but I was really impressed with this. It's very realistic, and I just appreciate this bit of realism that makes everything sadder. I can't articulate what I love about this very well, but know that I very much appreciate its inclusion.
I think 'and' would fit better than 'though' because it's not at odds with the first part of the sentence.
Is Mr. Vaughn supposed to dislike Monica or distrust her because I think you need him to have a stronger, clearer bad reaction to her presence if that's the case.
Overall, this was a pretty good chapter (especially after a lot of the other stuff I've seen today), and I'd be up for a read through of the entire story after I've recovered from the trauma of Review Day.
~Storm
Have I mentioned
a time or threehow much I love that your Terrific Trio is two girls and a boy instead of the usual two boys and a girl, and no love triangle in sight?(Although I do sense a budding romance between Finn and Monica, but I think I'm all right with that.)
Mia continues to be totally awesome and a great friend <3 (okay, I know things got out of hand in her friendship with Sylvie, but shhhh). I love the exchange between Mr. Vaughn and Monica here - I get a feeling he thinks she's bad because of whatever she is. (A witch maybe?) Even though he doesn't react that strongly to it, because that's just how he is. Plus he got the "reacting strongly" out of the way when he couldn't see her in the reflecting plate.
The last paragraph was awkward, though. I think it was because she was telling him that there are things and that she's not ready to tell him yet, like she was dancing around it a little too much if that makes sense. Like something simpler would have been better, like just a "I can't tell you right now, I'm sorry" and not this whole "there are things, but I'm not ready, I haven't worked through them yet, you disarmed me<<which was my least favorite line in the whole thing tbh." Also: "things I'm supposed to tell you." Like who says she's supposed to? She might feel like she should, because they're friends, but it was just a weird line.
Unless it later turns out that someone did indeed tell her she's supposed to tell him, I guess.
UGH WHAT IS IT.
I WANNA KNOW.
Thanks!
Ugh I%u2019m sorry about the last paragraph, I had planned it a different way but then there was this weird word, and I guess I made it disarmed instead? I was going to say something else, or add to that, but got distracted. It really is supposed to be supposed, though! Well, sort of. There is actually a reason why she is supposed to tell Finnley stuff. I%u2019m still working that part out a bit, but should make a bit more sense with the next chapter?
And I%u2019m also super excited for the reveal.
may or may not have tried too hard to line it up with Halloween