Deleted scene: Epicenter Prologue
Good news first: I’ve finished the first draft of my next book. Look a the previous week’s post for what my editing process entails if you’re curious what happens between first draft and completion. The bad news is that I’ve officially entered EDITING HELL. For me, this is the hard part of writing.
Anyways, in the process of beginning the review of the manuscript I found that the original prologue I wrote some two years ago (I wrote it before Hench was finished) wasn’t fitting the story any more. So, I had to cut it. Which really sucks, because I love this short story, and the humor in it. My compromise; to post the cut section here as a bonus to the interested few.
Enjoy.
Cold wind swept in from the northern mountains. The northern winds were always cold, regardless if it was winter or not. It was as if the northern winds said to all of the other pathetic winds, “You think that’s cold? Well you’ve got another thing coming, buddy.” Regardless of the winds and their blowing contests, the winter in the northern Rukh forests was cold.
It was cold because it was supposed to be cold. Everyone was much happier when things were the way they were supposed to be, even if if made everyone miserable.
One such miserably cold person was Jerrick, the forester. He spent his days alone living in a cabin sitting amid a clearing in the Rukh forest. Every year, the trees around his house retreated as he felled the tall pine trees of the forest.
As he walked from the tree line, trudging across the knee-deep snow, his chest swelled with pride and regret. The clearing, his proof of his excellence, was the testament of his work. It was an occupation that sometimes gave him pause from the scores of trees lost to his ax.
The brumal wind cut through the clearing and pierced to his bones, chilling him; numbing him. He pushed away the snowdrift from the front of his door with sodden gloves and wrenched open the entrance to his cabin.
Breathing out a puff of chill vapor, he threw the game that he caught on a thick wooden table. Joints creaking with shivering stiffness, he flopped on his favorite chair and relaxed from a long day hunting in the thinning forest.
His eyes turned towards the fireplace, cold and lifeless. He sighed deeply. “More work’s to be done if I’m truly to be at ease tonight,” he muttered. Weariness weighed down on him, begging him to continue resting, but his will was a stubborn thing. He stood and set up kindling and tinder to start a warming fire.
Pulling out a block of flint, he struck it with his favorite knife to give the spark of life to the fire. The spark didn’t take though. He meticulously sharped this knife each night; it had saved his life from a wolf attack years ago and had become something of a companion to him. The only thing he invested his affection on while living alone.
“Please wait,” a smooth, breathy voice called from behind him. Spinning around, Jerrick held out his knife to whoever the unexpected speaker.
He was unused to visitors, living so far out in the wilderness. He was is only company through the long winter months and never had someone entered his house uninvited.
Blinking several times, he kept his knife pointed towards the speaker and he wondered if he had gone mad.
The figure standing in his house was surely something from his imagination: a beautiful woman with long white hair, porcelain white skin and piercing purple eyes. On either side of her head were long, blue horns tapering to a fine point that ended only a finger’s width from the ceiling. She wore a fine white dress made of layers silken fabric that was a pale blue shade.
“W-who are you,” Jerrick said. “How’d you get inside? I didn’t hear the door and there was snow piled up when I came in, so...”
The woman’s lips curled into a subtle smile. She shook her head. “I let myself in.” Her odd voice stuck in his ear with its airy lilt, reminding him of the wind. “I wanted to meet you…” She paused to look out the small, frosted window. “You are the one who clears out the trees, yes?”
Jerrick nodded slowly, sure that madness had taken a firm hold on his mind.
She turned back towards him and gave him a wide, genuine smile. “Thank you.” The lone window and the door rattled as a howling wind from the north wrapped around the house. Every hole and crack in the building whistled with several intertwining notes. “It’s beautiful. The winds can now freely pass through here and carry on along the ground further, making sweet, sonorous music.”
She approached him, her feet all but unmoving under her long dress. Her white hands reached out and clasped one of his.
He dropped his knife in shock. Two things hit him immediately; if she was touching him she was real, and her hands were really cold. Her hands felt soft and cold like fresh snow.
Was she thanking him for clear-cutting trees? That was unusual. “Your, er, welcome?” he said. She was real? Should he be afraid?
Her gaze shifted to his caught game, a pair of hares with snow-white pelts and long crimson gashes from where he cleaned them. “Are you hungry?” He asked. “I can spare some meat if you are. I just need to cook it up. Some stew will stretch out the meat.” Offering food made sense, right? Real people needed to eat food.
Brow pointing up, she looked aside at the stew pot in the soot-blackened hearth. “I’m not fond of fire…” she said.
A thought occurred to him; her warm-looking dress wasn’t warm at all. It was cold, it was meant to keep the cold in, her cold.
He walked over to the window and opened it to let some of the cold in. Pulling aside his rarely-used second chair, he motioned for her to sit beside the window. She bowed slightly and sat in the offered chair.
Walking to the fireplace, he picked up his knife and flint once more. “I’m going to start a fire here, but if it gets too warm for you, let me know. I can smother some of the flames to keep it, uh, pleasant. I need this fire to cook my meal though.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
Jerrick nodded and scraped his knife blade across the flint. Sparks leapt from his knife blade across the flint block and set the fireplace ablaze. Arranging the fuel with great care, he ensured the fire was just large enough to to make a stew. After the fire was set, he prepared the stew using rabbit meat, parsnips, carrots, and radishes. All the while, the strange woman sat across the room beside the open window, pulling in the cold northern wind. Her eyes were firmly fastened on his mealtime preparations, curiosity glittering in her odd purple eyes.
After the meal preparation were complete, he settled down and tended the anemic fire. While waiting for the stew to cook he looked to his guest. What should I do with her? Is she real? The awkward silence piled atop of them like snow. “Er,” he said, breaking the stillness of the small room. “I guess an introduction would be appropriate. I’m Jerrick Phia, it’s nice to meet you… Whoever you are.” His voice trailed off into the intertwining sounds of the wind lightly blowing against the building.
The woman tilted her head up and stared at the ceiling with distant eyes. “I. I have never had a name… Let me think.” She closed her eyes. Jerrick noticed her eyelashes and eyebrows were pure white, just like the hair on her head. Her eyes snapped open, her piercing violet eyes narrowing on the forester. “Yuki. From now on, I want to be called Yuki.”
“Miss Yuki then, where are you from?”
“There.” She reached out a slender arm from her dress and pointed out the window to the northern mountains. “I live up there, but for about a quarter of the year I come down to explore. Because you have removed so many trees in this area I can more freely move about. I’ve never been so far from the mountain before.”
Looking out to the persistently snow-capped purple mountains, he wondered how anyone could make a home up there. It was hard enough for him to live at the foot of the mountain, never mind the top. “So, do you have a house up there?”
She shook her head and looked around his house. “This is the first time I have been inside a building. It’s nice, like a snowdrift.”
The awkward silence piled back into the house. Jerrick took a moment to count his fingers to make sure he had the same number he was used to having, he needed something to make sense. “I, uh, should check on the stew,” he said. “It should be ready about now, I reckon.”
Reaching out, he grabbed the handle of the stew pot to pull if from the fire. The hot handle burned the palm of his hand and he jerked back while hissing in pain. His odd guest made him careless and he forgot to use a rag as a pot holder. Fanning his hand, he tried to assuage the pain as the burnt flesh flushed an angry red.
Standing up, Yuki glided to him and held out her hands apprehensively, as if she desperately wanted to help but, was unsure how. “What happened, are you intact?” She asked, a note of panic in her voice.
“Yeah it’s fine, I just burned my damn hand.” Jerrick seethed a few breaths through his teeth as he clenched his hand.
Yuki nodded and clasped her hands over his burnt palm. “See? Fire is a poor friend…” Her soft hands pulled out the pain and swelling from the burn, leaving numbness and a gentle cold.
He flexed his hand a few times and was surprised to find the pain and swelling absent. “Thanks…” He mumbled. She smiled and bowed slightly to him.
They stood there for a moment, still and unsure what to do when the scene was interrupted by the grumble of Jerrick’s stomach. He laughed nervously and looked aside from Yuki’s odd eyes. “Uh, I should go ahead and serve the stew.”
Grabbing a thick rag, he pulled the stew pot from the hearth and proceeded to ladle out two servings of stew into wooden bowls. He placed one bowl in front of his guest. “Since the pot was hot enough to burn my hand, I’m pretty sure that it’s ready to eat now.”
He sat back down in his favorite chair and proceeded to eat a few warm spoonfuls. Glancing over the top of his bowl, he surreptitiously watched his guest. This was his ultimate test; a figment of his lonely mind may be able to do all sorts of odd things, but surely a figment couldn’t eat food. If she ate and the food disappeared, then she was real. Ghosts and loneliness do not eat, everyone knew that.
However, she merely stared at the bowl before her, and inscrutable expression on her face. “Something wrong miss Yuki?” Jerrick asked. “Do you not like hare stew?”
The white woman stared at her bowl, then back to Jerrik. He made an exaggerated show of how to use a spoon. Yuki tilted her head and picked up the wooden spoon like a club in her fist and ate a small spoonful of stew. Her expression froze for a moment before she experimented with chewing, and finally swallowing. Her eyes widen as she stared at the warm bowl. After her pause she immediately ate larger spoonfuls.
“Have you ever eaten hare stew before miss Yuki?” Jerrick asked. She shook her head whilst chewing. “Do you like it?” She nodded after plunging her spoon into the stew, preparing another spoonful.
An odd sight caught his eye; a small chunk of ice floating her in bowl. She continued to eat until scraping the bowl clean with her spoon.
“Would you like more?” Jerrick asked.
Thrusting out her bowl, she nodded several times. “Yes please, I quite like food. I didn’t think I would.”
Taking the bowl from her, he turned it upside down. Sure enough, no mind tricks, the bowl was empty and cold. Using all of his powers of deduction, Jerrick concluded that she was, in fact, real. He ladled out the last of the stew and handed back her bowl.
She resumed eating with great aplomb, but paused halfway through her second bowl. “Jerrick? Can you tell me more about these sort of things?”
“What do you mean?” He asked around a mouthful of warm food.
Holding up her spoon, she says, “like this thing.” She points at her bowl. “And this.” She waved her spoon. “And that, and those, and… and, you?”
For some reason she didn’t scare him. Her large, blue horns, the way snow blew in from the open window and sat on her shoulders, and her piercing, almost luminous eyes didn’t frighten him. In this bizarre guest, he had someone to talk to, someone who wanted him to talk. In that moment her conviviality was more valuable than his fear and suspicion. Loneliness could kill out in the desolate north, and she had an antidote.
So, he talked, and talked, and kept talking. He spoke of bowls, and trees, and rabbits, and pine cones, and fire, and everything he could think about. He talked until his voice was hoarse, until the moon hung high in the sky, casting its light onto the white snow. The whole time Yuki sat in rapt attention to his every word, occasionally shifting her position like snow falling from a tree branch.
After Jerrick finished speaking, he found he throat raw and eyes heavy. Yuki leaned forward and smiled. “Jerrick, I’ve become very enamored with you. May I live in your house and eat your food?”