The Beginning
Since there was no one to stop her, the little girl with the unruly black curls was free to roam the grounds as she pleased. Her father kept to his study, and there was only the cook to reprimand her when she returned at nightfall, her knees bruised and bloody, her face streaked with dirt. Every night, the gruff, red-faced cook scrubbed her roughly with lavendar soap, pulled a white, lacey nightgown over her head, called her a little monster and sent her off to bed.
The only light in the house came from a small lamp in the study, shedding light upon the tomes and tomes her father pored over day and night. The rest of the large mansion was bathed in shadows, and the little girl liked it that way. As long as she stayed out of the way of her father (out of the light, only in the shadows, only in the dark) she wouldn’t get into any trouble. The cook told her stories of the days when the curtains were almost pulled off their railings to the very edges of the windows to let the light from the sun flood in, and her mother’s laughter rang throughout the house, but they were merely fairy tales to the little girl. To her, it was dark, it had always been dark, and it would always be dark.
But she didn’t mind.
It didn’t matter to her if the curtains constantly shielded the rooms from the natural light, for the only time she spent inside was after the sun dove beneath the hills. In her nightgown, she crept upstairs, tiptoed along the narrow hallway past that small ray of light from her father's study to her spacious bedroom and crawled into her four-poster bed to keep her feet warm, because the rugs between her tiny feet and the cold stone floor were old and worn and didn’t do their job anymore. And she lay awake, for hours and hours, motionless, staring at the pink (in the light, but really a darkish shade of grey) canopy of her tall bed, mind still buzzing with her adventures.
For the moment the sun peeked though the tiny slit where the two curtains met, her eyes snapped open, and she jumped down from her tall bed, pulled on the first shift she grabbed and tore down the stairs to the kitchen, where the cook shoved a pastry in her hand before she burst out the back door, ready for another day of exploring.
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The start of the prologue for one of my books. It's one of those "barely an idea" ones-no title, no names, not much of a plot. But it's fun to write, and now it has no passive voice, because anthean LETTER SCREAMED at me. :D Let me know what you think!
P.S. I hate html formatting. D:
The only light in the house came from a small lamp in the study, shedding light upon the tomes and tomes her father pored over day and night. The rest of the large mansion was bathed in shadows, and the little girl liked it that way. As long as she stayed out of the way of her father (out of the light, only in the shadows, only in the dark) she wouldn’t get into any trouble. The cook told her stories of the days when the curtains were almost pulled off their railings to the very edges of the windows to let the light from the sun flood in, and her mother’s laughter rang throughout the house, but they were merely fairy tales to the little girl. To her, it was dark, it had always been dark, and it would always be dark.
But she didn’t mind.
It didn’t matter to her if the curtains constantly shielded the rooms from the natural light, for the only time she spent inside was after the sun dove beneath the hills. In her nightgown, she crept upstairs, tiptoed along the narrow hallway past that small ray of light from her father's study to her spacious bedroom and crawled into her four-poster bed to keep her feet warm, because the rugs between her tiny feet and the cold stone floor were old and worn and didn’t do their job anymore. And she lay awake, for hours and hours, motionless, staring at the pink (in the light, but really a darkish shade of grey) canopy of her tall bed, mind still buzzing with her adventures.
For the moment the sun peeked though the tiny slit where the two curtains met, her eyes snapped open, and she jumped down from her tall bed, pulled on the first shift she grabbed and tore down the stairs to the kitchen, where the cook shoved a pastry in her hand before she burst out the back door, ready for another day of exploring.
-------------
The start of the prologue for one of my books. It's one of those "barely an idea" ones-no title, no names, not much of a plot. But it's fun to write, and now it has no passive voice, because anthean LETTER SCREAMED at me. :D Let me know what you think!
P.S. I hate html formatting. D: