Young Writers Society

My attempts at mixing in drama- which I usually fail at, because the urge to make a sarcastic crack about something is much too stong. NOTE: I'd normally put this as historical fiction, but it's laughably innacurate...

A Beginning: July 1869

The casket is closed.

It’s a beautiful thing, a work of art, really- a gleaming chestnut box with a purple quilt atop it, quite a contrast against several bunches of white lilies. A sweating violinist stands to the side of it, pulling sonorous dirges and folk tunes from its strings.

Despite his surroundings, seven-year-old Ivan Kolyavitch is not impressed. Church enough was hard enough to sit through every Sunday, but this? Four hours of lamenting about a life already over and praying for mercy for something that existed only in a heavy book under his older brother’s bed?

And to make everything worse, everyone in the room is crying- except for him.

Crying is a strange concept to Ivan: ‘when you feel sadness, your eyes leak’.

Some heavenly plumber had fixed up his eyes before he had been born; for he couldn’t remember crying of his own will before in his life. He’d always had to strategically splash his face with water when everyone else present seemed to be doing the same.

But today, he was tired and hungry and wanted to go home- certainly not the time to sneak out to the pitcher of water in the foyer and drop some upon his cheeks.

He tugs at his brother’s sleeve. “Rodya?”

Even Rodya was crying. Genuine tears spilled freely out of his reddened eyes, running down his chin and seeping into his waistcoat.

“What do you want?” he snapped.

“Why is everyone crying?”

Rodya strikes the boy’s cheek with the flat of his hand. “Your own mama’s dead, and you have to wonder?”

Ivan considers for a moment. “She got run over by a carriage- probably her own fault, in her anxious condition. Death is just…rotting of flesh. Nothing big or saddening.”

Rodya shakes his head, tears coming faster than ever. “Never understood why she liked you…” he murmured.

A quivering eulogist stepped up to a podium in the front of the room, and began to choke out praises of the recently deceased. Ivan quickly sank into his pew and fell asleep with his head tilted at a frightening angle to rest on his shoulder.

He had decided what he needed to do with his life- he needed to get these people to stop crying.

____

Pearson’s Camp For Fine Christian Boys, October 1903

Elijah’s walking stick bobbed up the path in the distance- cheerfully and overly energetic, just like the boy himself.

“The Woodsman Cabins are just up ahead!” he said, grinning to himself whilst the three others tailing behind him eagerly imagine him misstepping and bashing his head on a particularly sharp, ingeniously placed rock.

Turning to Thomas, Charles (the loudest of the boys) stage-whispered, “It’s so. damn. cold. Honestly, I think my socks have frozen…”

“Language, Scouts!” [Elijah was still smiling as he delivered his reprimand.]

Even farther behind was Samuel, who wasn’t sure which of the rest of his group he loathed more. He had quickly learned how to judge when Elijah was daydreaming and wouldn't look behind to see if he was keeping up, and when he was, he often bent down to examine an interesting mouse or bird or stepped around a patch of trees (often where the best, widest views of the terrain were hidden).

They had been marching through the forest since the morning, leaving behind the comfort of the dining hall for the ruggedness of the Woodsman’s Cabins, where they would spend two nights, learning to be men. (At least, that’s what the pamphlet had said.)

Charles had been sent on the trip so his mother could rest her ringing ears, Thomas’ father had sent him to prove how tough his son was and Samuel…well, he wasn’t quite sure why his parents had signed him up.

The sky was completely gray- the kind that hurts your eyes when you look up and when you glance round little blue dots are following your gaze- and from it, small flakes of white began to fall.

“Snow! How wonderful!”

(No one dared comment on this outburst of good cheer from the leader.)

***

The cabins were rougher than expected- small and square, with rough, unpainted exteriors and dirt floors. Elijah quickly lit a fire in the fireplace of the ‘Andrew Jackson’ cabin, and all four of them gathered around it, thawing out their hands and their noses.

By nightfall, the snow is falling thick and fast, and in the morning, it had reached just below the low windows.

The water bucket in the corner of the room is filled to the brim, except for the small bit that Charles had drunk earlier that night. It has a thin crust of ice at the top, which Elijah eagerly breaks through.

“It’s an early snow, it’ll melt soon,” he assured the boys, who were uncharacteristically silent.

Three days passed, and when the bucket was three fourths full and they had only one tin of canned meat left, Elijah announced that he was going to go back to camp and see if he could find anyone to dig them out.

It took the combined effort of all four of them to open the door, and then Thomas, who was not quite as clueless as the other two, had to relight the fire- slowly crumbling snow had blown across the floor and put it out.

When all the meat had been eaten and the bucket was half full, Thomas began to fall sick- chills and fever, it seemed.

And when it was one-fourth full, Thomas closed his eyes for the last time.

Elijah had not returned, leaving Charles no one to complain about, and as such he talked incessantly to Samuel- about nothing in particular, usually memories of Christmas and dogs he had owned that had died.

Praying feverishly, Charles took Thomas’ coat and draped it around himself and Samuel, and they huddled together in the corner closest to the fire.

“Do you know what?” asked Charles at one point, cutting the silence like he had recently kicked in the ice on the bucket.

“What?”

“We are not going to die.”

And then Charles began to laugh, mainly to fill up the emptiness.

When the water bucket was empty, Charles left whilst Samuel was sleeping, leaving a trail of snow on the inside of the cabin.

Samuel waited a day, perhaps two, and then went out after him.

The woods were silent and every step was a struggle- he was lightheaded and tired, and each time his boot sunk into the snow it seemed harder to pull it back out.

Everything was dead- the sound of silence was unbearable, and an owl’s far off hoot sounded shrill and deafening.

Beyond a small, thick patch of oak trees, there were the remains of a small stream, now thoroughly frozen over and covered in snow. Part of the snow had melted a little or been blown away by wind, and a small splatter of red was seen clearly against the white.

The red had come from Charles, from where he had gashed his leg on ice and frozen branches and had laid there.

Samuel fell to his knees and began to cry.

____

Dr. Kolyavitch’s House, 1904

Dmitri was sprawled on the floor with his ear pressed up against the door of his father’s study, listening intently, when Katerina found him.

“Follow the watch with your eyes as I move it- and though you may not feel it, it shall expose your subconscious mind for all to see. Respond to what I say…”

“What form of lunatic has he got today?” she asked, chewing on a bit of toffee. “Lycanthropist? The manically depressed?”

“Er…” Dmitri paused for a moment, thinking. “Survivor’s guilt, that’s what I think.”

“A crier?”

He considered, and then nodded. “Oh, yes.”

___