Anger and frustration fed Ivy’s whispers last night. Causing her to lash out at Damon and visit a remedy she hadn’t taken in a while. Part of her felt like he deserved it. Three months she’d waited to avenge her family. For three months she endured pain, pain Damon had admitted he purposely put her through. For what? To fail!
He lied to you. The whispers said. He had the power to give us what we’ve desired all along. But he’s greedy; he wants it all for himself.
Ivy listened to their poisonous words, convinced that what they were saying was true. But part of her was doubtful.
She hushed the whispers before continuing through the cemetery. She had come to see her family, yesterday had reminded her how much she missed them. Scruff accompanied her, she seemed happy to be out in the fresh air, she hadn’t taken her on a walk in a while.
Ivy’s outfit was casual, grey joggings and a sweatshirt, her family wouldn’t mind. She could have reunited with them if only Damon hadn’t kept back what was rightfully hers. She was his Master; therefore what’s his is hers.
Ivy froze in her tracks. Scruff looked at her curiously. The whispers had done their magic. “Stop it, it’s not entirely Damon’s fault.”
Yes it is! He’s a coward and his cowardice stop us from uniting with mother, father, Adam and Rose.
She shook her head like a dog shaking nits of its fur. She didn’t want to believe their lies. But were they lies lying?
After walking for a few minutes, she finally reached their graves. Damon had kindly paid for the funeral with money he’d gotten from his job (yes Damon has a job, an immoral one in her opinion. But he quit before they went to visit Valafar).
After he promised us that it’d soon be over. Liar!
Eva, her mother, had a statue of an angel embracing a heart shaped headstone. She knew her mother was nothing like an angel but she wanted to remember her as the person she thought she was. Scruff lay on top of her grave and shut her eyes. It was as if she was in her arms, cradling her till she fell asleep.
The other headstones were simple but Rose, Ivy’s twin sister, had hands in pray with a cross hanging from their wrist engraved in the stone. Ivy wanted to respect her religion even though she disagreed with the idea of their being a God. What had he done for her? Besides cursing her with life when her family was dead.
Her father had a knife engraved in his stone, symbolising the knife he cherished, the knife he gave her – the knife she lost.
Ivy crashed on her knees, tears pouring from her eyes. “Father, I’ve failed you. Failed you all. I promised you revenge and I’ve come back empty handed. I promised you Father, I’d keep your knife safe and I’ve lost it. Please don’t be upset with me. I’ll find it, I promise you. Right now, I just need your help. Help me Father. Tell me what to do.”
Then a memory entered her thoughts.
Luciem, her father sat legs crossed in the garden. His black hair was closely cropped and his beard neatly groomed. He wore a black tee and sweatpants. Ivy was sat opposite him, her eyes fixed on the beautiful golden hilted knife in his hand. She too wore a sweatpants and tee but they were grey. Ivy was ten years old.
“This knife is very precious to me,” Luciem said his words hard as if he wanted them to linger in her mind, never to be forgotten. He traced his finger over the engraved Ls entwined together like vines on the golden hilt. “Don’t lose it.” Ivy marvelled at the knife as he handed it over to her, she held it tightly. “If you lose it, I’ll be very upset.” Ivy eyes filled with fear. “You don’t want to see me upset.”
The memory ended but the panic racing in her heart didn’t. Her eyes darted over the cemetery, no one but her was here but her father’s words made her paranoid to think that was true.
Find it. Find it. Find it. The whispers echoed, swarming through her head like flies. Find it! Find it! Find it!
Scruff barked at Luciem’s grave as if she knew he was the cause.
Ivy squeezed her head in her hands. “I will, I will!” Her words full of determination. The whispers seemed to believe her words and maybe her father too as they faded into silence. Ivy put her hand on Luciem’s grave. “I promise you Father, it’ll be my upmost priority.”
As Ivy made her solemn vow, someone watched from a distance. They sat on a bench, legs crossed. Their eyes were covered with black tinted glass and they wore a black three piece suit. After Ivy planted a kiss on her family’s headstones and left, they approached their graves. They knelt and their lips curled into a smile.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
Oooh, cool. This might be the strongest chapter ending I've come across in this story so far. We just have to wonder who this man is, if he's a danger to Ivy or plans to help her, if he knows something about her family she doesn't, if he was at the cemetery to spy on her or to visit her parents himself.
Oh, wait. You never said it was a man. Just "they." Well, you can probably go on and specify a gender, unless this person is nonbinary and would actually go by "they."
Internalization of the patriarchy there that I read a person of uncertain gender automatically as maleANYWAY.
On the one hand it's always weird to me that Ivy misses her family so much when virtually every memory I can remember seeing of them is bad.
On the other hand, it's sadly normal that people in abusive or toxic situations often love the people who are bad for them, even if they realize those people are bad for them. So as much as I want to fault you for that, it actually is pretty realistic. That said, it might be nice to see good memories now and then - even if they're really pathetic good memories, like "that one time Dad said he was proud of me, even though he was really gruff about it and afterward he told me I'd messed up something else."
If this was a different story, I might expect Ivy to eventually realize how much better off she is without her parents - even if she still misses and wants to avenger her sister, who I know nothing about - but I'm pretty sure that won't happen here.
(Although wouldn't it be great if she did because Belial's all motherly and Damon - Damon, a demon - is probably better to her than her own parents?)
The memory could use a smoother transition. Rather than "a memory entered her thoughts," you could start off with "she remembered the day her father gave her the knife" or "she could picture her father sitting cross-legged in the garden, wearing a black shirt and black sweatpants."
And since we know it's a memory, you can forgo the italics. A stylistic choice, but I think most readers (and editors and agents) prefer fewer italics - and we've already got italics for Ivy's direct thoughts.
Thanks for the review. They're really helpful
Was this one written better as its in 3rd person without a pov now??
Well, it's not without a POV. It's more or less Ivy's POV - just, instead of being directly in her head, first-person, we're sort of outside of her but still privy to her thoughts (if that makes sense).
But! To answer your question, I didn't think the viewpoint had any issues this time. This was a pretty strong chapter.
Okay, thank you for the help
Much appreciated!
Well, I have to leave for work soon(kill me now), so I'm gonna make this review a bit short. Here's my thoughts on it:
I thought this was really good. I found it interesting. That being said, it does need a lot of cleaning up. Some things that can be better written, the flashback was maybe a bit too short and came about way too suddenly, some grammar mistakes, things like that. A few times I noticed that you had "mother" and "father" lower cased when it should have capitalized. The way to tell when it's capitalized and when it's not is simply by telling if it's being used as a name or not. Such as a line like this: "I wanted to go to the store, but Mother wouldn't let me." It would be capitalized there because it's used as a title/name. And if it was written like this instead: "I wanted to go to the store, but my mother wouldn't let me," it would be lower cased because it's not being used as a title/name. That rule applies for a lot of things in grammar, like: Doctor/my doctor, Sister/ my sister, Husband/ my husband, etc., etc.
Anyway, I'm gonna point out a few things that can be written better and then I'll wrap this up.
"Anger and frustration fed Ivy’s whispers last night. Causing her to lash out at Damon and visit a remedy she hadn’t taken in a while. Part of her felt like he deserved it. Three months she’d waited to avenge her family. For three months she endured pain, pain Damon had admitted he purposely put her through. For what? To fail!"
This, at least for me personally(it's your writing so do what you want, of course, lol), would sound better like so:
"Anger and frustration fed Ivy's whispers last night, causing her to lash out at Damon. Causing her to visit a remedy she hadn't taken in awhile, and part of her felt like he really did deserve it. For three months she had waited to avenge her family. Three months of enduring pain--pain that Damon himself admitted he purposefully put her through. And for what? To fail?"
The last paragraph also seemed kind of scrambled, so here's an idea of how that one could be rewritten too:
"As Ivy made her solemn vow, someone was watching from a distance. This someone sat on a bench, legs crossed and eyes covered with dark tinted glasses, wearing a matching black three-piece suit. After Ivy planted a kiss on each of her family's headstones and left, they rose from the bench to approach her family's graves. They knelt down in front of them where Ivy had just seconds ago been, dirtying their black pants, and a smile crept its way onto their face."
Something like that maybe. Also, since I'm pretty sure this mysterious character is supposed to be a guy because of the suit, I'd write he/his instead of they/their. You're actually not supposed to write they/their/they're for anything singular anyway, but tons of people still do it, including myself, lol.
But yeah, I really need to get going now so I'm cutting this short, but this was pretty good. Admittedly, it could be better, but it's not bad now. Keep it up. And if you need my help on anything, want me to talk about something specific, want me to edit or review something, etc, etc, just let me know. Also, side note, I really liked this line: "The whispers echoed, swarming through her head like flies."
And that's about it, sorry for this being so short. Good job so far!
Thanks for the review, they really help me improve. And this is a late reply but hopefully work goes well for you
You're welcome, anytime. And eh....I kind of hate my job, lol. But gotta pay the bills somehow so :/
I know, the struggle is real xD