A fragment of Sorrow's Knot -- My YA novel in progress. I know you really can't follow it, since I write out of order, and since so much is in my head or in fragments or in my notebook. But anyway, this is what's in my notebook this week -- scenes like this. The first bit, where Otter is 13, is starting to come together. This is from the second bit. Otter is 15 or so. She's become a Ranger. I renamed "Three Crows" "Westmost," following my poetry principle of "do your reporting in the title." And yes, the man here is Orca. I don't know why he didn't introduce himself. I tried to make him.
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The thing had a human shape and seemed solid, though Otter knew better than to judge before she saw the eyes. A powerful lich might wear a skin of clotted shadow, thick enough to seem real, but the dead had eyes that pulled -- pulled the way a cliff edge pulls the part of the heart that wants to fall. She'd been told that this pull could be mistaken for love, or any other longing, but of that mistake, she was not afraid.
The horse was a bigger comfort than the man: an undistinguished, shaggy grey spattered with red spots as if it had stood too close to a dye pot. She carried lumpy leather packs.
Otter held herself still. She looked and sniffed and listened.
Something swirled around him, a dappled shining like dark water. A cloak. She squinted: scales, she though, of the way the light moved, then shells. The cloak was covered with shells, of a kind she'd never seen: dim mirrors of blue filled with colour. They clicked together like teeth.
The man was close, now. If he was human she could kill him with a thrown stone. He came up the stream path, singing through his teeth. She still hadn't seen his face. Otter broke her stillness just enough to tense her fingers around her bow.
The man stopped singing. His dark head came up like a wolf's. He took scent. His steps fell silent as he edged from the stream path to the stream. The horse stamped and blew.
The man, walking slowly, swung his head from side to side, and Otter saw his face at last.
He had the look of a man who had been hungry once: his rope-looped wrist was a contraption of tendon and bone, his strong cheeks and chin suggested skull, his eyes were dark and careful. There was still a hunger in him, but it was not starvation, and not the bottomless hunger of the dead. A white scar slashed from nose to temple. His unbound hair fell down his back.
He stopped. She could see the ordinary traveler's suedes, undyed, the elbows and knees worn to black shine. A smell came off him, green as moss, but foreign, salty and shifting.
"Ho, there," he said, softly. "A trader seeks passage." His eyes searched. He cocked his head to the voice of the stream splashing against the backs of his boots, the aspens rustling.
Otter did not move.
He said something else, a slip of vowels she didn't recognize. Tried a third language, before slidding back into hers. This time she could hear the liquid language running under his words. "I know you're there. I'm harmless. Come out."
Otter thumbed the wrap leather of her bowgrip. He turned toward her, suddenly. His eyes struck into hers. "Ah, there you are." He smiled. "You're good." He made a move as if to help her up, then thought better of it, and rubbed his hands down towards his knees. "Come, Mistress. Let us have a word or two in this lonely place. My word: I am unarmed."
"Then you are a fool," said Otter. She stood.
He smiled again, and then covered his eyes with one flat hand and bowed his head. "I'm often told so," he said. "And yet, I live." His eyes flicked over her, cutting through his foolish air. "A Ranger, is it?
She said nothing. His eyes were like the shells of his cloak; dark and dancing. His horse was getting nervous, siddling back and twisting at her bridle. He yanked at her rope. "Then there is a city nearby? Westmost, of which I've heard?"
He let the silence stretch between them, longer than most wood. The dove called once, again, and another answered. "I like your hair," he said.
Her mouth opened of its own accord.
"Ah," he said. "And your smile."
It was more of a gape than a smile. Otter closed her mouth.
"How far to shelter? Will I make it before evening?"
"Downstream to Westmost," she said. "Go quick and you may beat the shadows."
"Will you not come this me, Mistress Ranger? For I am defenseless."
Otter tossed her head in answer, and as he set off -- again singing between his teeth, something lilting and foolish, she edged back into the shadows and vowed to track him. A man coming from the West of Westmost might be many things, but defenseless wasn't one of them.
woo-hoo! More Otter! I love the line "pulled the way a cliff edge pulls the part of the heart that wants to fall." It's a great scene bit. Keep up the excellent work.
I'm amazed at the way you catch a character in just a few phrases. But I was thinking about your characters, and their world, and I'm convinced that they would not speak in contractions -- even Orca. Am I wrong about that?
Woweee more Otter! I like this bit! Orca is very interesting and I still say a bit sinister. Won't you please tell me if he's a good guy or a bad guy?
Keep the contractions. Keep the mystery. Keep us guessing. So far, so great!--Love, P