Victor wanted to knock over the bone china dolls, the Frozen CD, and the thick blue candles that stank like sulfur. But his mentor, Mia Mathew, had spent all day arranging the offerings in front of the shrine. Biting a lip wobblier than his hands, Victor stacked Tarot cards next to the wooden offertory box. Most kids didn’t have shrines on the outskirts of Prague. They didn’t scream like a weenus if a tabby cat jumped onto an offertory box. Victor sure did, though.
He dropped the cards and fell onto his butt, scraping his palms on the stone floor. The tabby blinked big yellow eyes, belly swollen with kittens—or worms. Victor hoped she couldn’t smell fear. He was pretty sure he reeked.
Rain plip-pliped and pine trees brushed against the shrine’s domed roof. Victor almost didn’t want to breathe, afraid the smallest noise would set the cat off. When she didn’t talk, he stood, wiping his hands on his sweatpants. “Go, kitty,” Victor grumbled, shooing the tabby.
She hissed. In the evening light Victor could see incisions, crusty with scabs, under her fluffed-up fur. “You’re hurt. Um, I don’t like cats. But I’ll help.” He reached out to grab her, and other cats crept from the woods—calicos, black ones, more tabbies, ones so white they were beacons in the grass.
"Thing is, sweetie," said the cats (kinda CHORUS), "believe that humankind got any kind of dominion over felinekind and you become — immediately — a hapless phantom at the mercy of forces you can never hope to control. My advice? Shop only for supremely sugary SUGAR MICE at your supremely SUPER CLOSE sugar mice retailin' OUTLET."
The non-cats fell silent. Did some yoga. Mandala. Stuff.
It is as if some global cataclysm of change unleashed is THE ONLY THING gonna happen next.
Thankfully, in chapter 3 — musical bras!
Opening: Zombie Boy Bones.....Continuation: Whirlochre
Notes
P1: The fact that there's only one CD leads me to believe that there aren't so many candles and dolls that it would take anyone all day to arrange them. I could arrange that stuff in twenty minutes, tops.
I don't think wobbly is a good word to describe lips or hands. It's more for something with balance problems than just shaking movement.
Is this Victor's shrine? Why does he have it? If most kids don't have shrines, how can it be said that most kids don't scream if a cat jumps on an offertory box? I don't think there's enough data to state this. I think most kids would scream like a weenus. Whatever that is.
P3: Plip-plipped. Wait, he thought the cat might talk?
P4: It seems more likely, when he reaches out to grab the hissing cat, that his attention would be on the cat, who will undoubtedly try to scratch or bite him, than on the woods, from which other cats are creeping out.
Presumably this is the same book as in New Beginning 1067, but the opening to a different chapter, which might explain why we're assumed to already know Victor's age and what's going on with the shrine?
3 comments:
Dammit Whirl, now I want a musical bra.
I was expecting Bast to make an appearance. Who else would show up at a shrine where cats are hanging out?
If most kids don't have shrines, but Victor does, then I would expect the items placed there to be some kind of sacrifice for him. As it is it sounds like he raided his kid sister's room.
Yeah, it was an opening for a different chapter. I saw you could submit those, but only now do I realize it's probably too confusing.
A lot of books introduce a character in chapter 1, then introduce a character who wasn't in chapter 1 in chapter 2. That's the type of book that isn't at all confusing if you submit chapter 2's opening.
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