Lost Girl- Chapter One

Chapter one.

There was no rest for the wicked.

And no one was more wicked than Evelyn. The blood on her hands proved that. 

Every time she’d been left behind by prospective families, tormented by the kids at the Home, and cursed by It she’d understood they were all retribution for her fatal mistake. For what happened to Tarryn. 

For inviting the darkness in. 

It was the least she could suffer after playing with fire. Which was why she shouldn’t have been surprised by the news she’d just received at her seventeenth birthday party. It was just part of her retribution after all. A way to make her pay for her sins. For the death she was responsible for.

Except this time it was too much and she broke under its weight. 

Doug was leaving. 

Leaving her behind. 

Icy hot pain bloomed in her chest as she ran from the Recreational hall and across the blacktop towards the girl’s dormitory. The shadows chased her, and she could hear their whispered laughs over the pound of her shoes on the ground. 

Doug’s husky voice echoed and drowned them out. “Grace, stop!”

The sound of his preferred nickname for her made her feet almost slow. Evelyn had always hated her middle name. It was another riddle among the many that encapsulated her miserable life. But coming from Doug she hadn’t minded it. Because he was her best friend. And friends had nicknames for each other. Then she remembered after tomorrow no one would ever call her that again. It would just return to my being a name on her birth certificate.

“Grace, please!” 

His desperation made Evelyn pump her legs harder to get away.  If he caught her she’d have to hear his excuses. Would have to accept the truth. And she didn’t plan to do either.  

She reached the lime green door of the girl’s dormitory and slammed her shoulder into the heavy storm door, pushing it open. She didn’t let herself think; just let her body take over, her legs running straight for the narrow staircase.

Shadows raced her up the steps. Evelyn did her best to ignore Doug getting closer and the creeping chill up the back of her neck from their presence, focusing on getting to her room. 

The only place she was safe. The only place she could lock them all out. 

Doug growled. “Stop running away from me!” She felt his hand skim the back of her Cerulean dress and it spurred her feet to push harder to reach the landing.

The sound of him stumbling made her whip her head over her shoulder. But she didn’t stop running. Even when she caught a dark silhouette standing out against Doug’s shadow shaking its head. 

A whisper snuck its way into her thoughts as her white Chucks hit the fading brown carpet.

If Doug’s hurt, he can’t leave you.

She sucked in a sharp breath at the cruel words. It wasn’t until she reached her bedroom door when she realized with a sick lurch in her stomach it wasn’t the whisper’s familiar voice that said it this time. It was her own.

Her steps faltered for a second, and it gave Doug a chance to catch up again.  She shook off the dark thought and twisted the cool silver doorknob in her trembling hand, barely noting the dimly lit hall dancing with more shadows than usual.  

Chills slipped down her spine, yet she ignored them, too consumed with getting inside her room and slamming the door shut when Doug finally caught up to her. She barely turned the lock with clammy fingers when Doug twisted the knob with such violence she was surprised it didn’t break off.

He banged his heavy fist on the splintered wood and she pressed her back into it to keep him from breaking in. Air escaped her lungs in harsh gasps, mixing unpleasantly with the sounds of Doug’s huffs on the other side.

She clamped her eyes shut and pressed all of her weight into the door as he pounded furiously.  “Open the damn door, Grace!”

Tears burned beneath her eyelids. “Go away!”

“Not until you open the door!”

If I don't, maybe he won’t leave. The childish hope withered as Evelyn realized that wasn’t a possibility. Even if he was stubborn, whoever was coming for him would take him. And he’d go-

just like all of them.

The overwhelming loneliness washed over her, and it took all of her strength to stop the pressure in her chest from making her break down. 

She couldn’t lose control. Not now.

But that wasn’t going to be an easy feat when Franklin’s cruel voice telling her the news of Doug being adopted ran through her head like a broken record. His cruel laughter after he’d lowered his shaved head to her ear when Martha, Moira, and Maureen were too busy passing out her birthday cake to see him near her. 

“Enjoy tonight, Evelyn. Tomorrow your protector will be gone, and you’ll be all mine.”

He’d sauntered back to his crew, leaving her feeling like he’d punched her in the stomach, again and again. Like he’d probably do to her once Doug couldn’t go after him. 

Her stomach hurt as if he already had and the pressure in her lungs made it hard to breathe. 

Focus on something else. Anything else. Her latest therapist Dr. Thorpe had told her to keep her attention on one thing if she started having a panic attack. Of course, he didn’t know the reason she’d covered her ears and stared in terror during their session was that It was hovering over the nice old man, ready to strike, the familiar screams bleeding into her eardrums that only she could hear. 

Dr. Thorpe and It weren’t there now. Just the contents of her room. She glanced around it, desperate to not give in to her emotions. From focusing on Doug still banging his fist into the white painted wood.

Her room was the same as she’d left it when she’d gone down for her birthday party: the mismatched lamps covering her desk, the oscillating fan on the floor next to the sliding glass door that let her out to the small outside porch attached to her room. Where she and Doug had spent many nights sitting after curfew had started and stayed up talking. The overwhelming emptiness made her eyes stray to the small wooden desk where she kept her thick cardboard box covered in water-colored blue lilies filled with all her medications. Pills  to keep the demons and voices away. Pills to dull the pain.

Doug startled her. “Grace, answer me!” Evelyn’s heart gave a painful thump at the desperation in his tone. At the desire to let him in.

She clamped her eyes shut again before the tears could escape. Ignore him. Stay focused.

The lamps in her room flickered and made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

Doug kept pounding on the door as Evelyn took shallow breaths to calm herself. A soft pinch crept its way into the birthmark on her left wrist. She grabbed it and clenched her teeth. No…not now.

Doug continued to yell at her through the door, not sensing the growing danger. “Grace,” he growled in warning. “if you don’t open this door, I’ll break it down!”

The lights in her room flickered faster and faster, one by one. Soon it would be too late.

Evelyn pleaded. “Go away Doug!”

He ignored the fear in her tone and growled. “I’m not going anywhere until you let me explain!”

The lights going on and off were violent distractions against her eyelids. The pinch in her wrist turned to a soft burn. She was losing control. Soon It would come. 

“I don’t care what you have to say,” she began, her voice trembling. And she didn’t. He’d promised her to stay with her until the end. In one year she’d age out of Rosewood Home with nowhere to go. That had been bearable because Doug had said he’d be with her, and that they would take on the world together. 

He broke his promise. Broke her heart. 

So she said the words that she knew would break him, too. “You’re dead to me.”

Evelyn held her breath as the pounding on the door ceased, and she knew despite her best effort he’d heard the tears in her voice. It made her angry. Angry she was the one who was weak. 

Taking in a staggered breath to calm herself she hoped it would give her restraint back, but all it did was allow the building pressure to break free, the pain she’d tried to keep in escaping poured out. 

Doug was silent. The lights still flickered but all she could focus on was the sound of his harsh breaths coming through the wood, feeling the tense silence stretch as if the shadow covered her now. She waited for the sound of his large feet stomping down the hall and toward the stairs. Waited for him to retaliate and say she was dead to him as well.

Yet the silence stretched, and she wondered if he was still there. Then she heard the faint whisper coming from him. But she didn’t believe what she was hearing.

“I’m sorry.” 

Evelyn’s chest tightened as she listened to him say it over and over. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and let herself sink to the ground. Doug’s apologizing. . . to me?

She opened her eyes and felt the tears slide free, dropping onto the hardwood floor. Sobbing broke the silence, but it didn’t come from her.

“I’m sorry,” Doug repeated in a choked voice. “I’m so sorry.” This only made Evelyn cry harder. She’d never heard him cry or apologize before. After the five years of knowing him he’d done everything to not appear weak. Vulnerable. He’d said that was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

He’s crying because he’s leaving me. Because this is goodbye. The reality of this made her pull her legs close to her chest and give in to her own anguish. The burning in her lungs spread to every nerve and muscle in her body, and she knew it was too late to keep the monsters away.

Any second It would come. But come for her or Doug she didn’t know.

All Evelyn could do was sit there, her throat constricting from the effort to be as quiet as possible. Like that would stop It from sensing her suffering.

Out of the corner of her eye she thought she made out the shadow just outside her patio doors. She froze, the flickering of light cascading at different tempos from every lamp in her room playing against her eyes.  

This was her life. Always walking on eggshells. Always afraid. Always waiting for the strike to hit. Doug had been her silver lining despite her hell. Without him she’d have nothing left but her tormentors. She’d never have respite again. 

The reality was too much. All of it was too much. 

Her watery gaze drifted back to the cardboard box as the voice of the eldest sister of the home Martha slipped through her head: “Remember life is hard, Evelyn. But living…now that’s harder.” 

The patio door rattled but she didn’t look for the cause. Instead, she pushed away strands of tear-soaked golden-brown hair out of her face, her heart beating frantically, debating.

What if living is too hard? she asked Martha’s stern face in her memory. What if I don’t want to live anymore? 

The memory of Martha gave no reply. Evelyn had hoped she would, if only to give her a second’s doubt of what she started thinking about doing. 

Ever since Tarryn’s incident she’d been haunted and attacked. Doug had been the only one who hadn’t let the rumors and bullying change his mind about her. He’d been the only one to stick by her side.

Once he’d left the Home, he’d forget about her. She’d be nothing but a distant memory as he enjoyed his life with his new family. Leaving her alone with Franklin and his gang. With the monsters. With the screams.

Evelyn slowly lifted on trembling legs, her attention unwavering on the box. The rattling of the patio door grew more frantic and the soft burn in her wrist stung. She ignored both and slowly made her way to the desk, Doug’s heart wrenching apologies covering the sound of her faded white Chucks on the hardwood floor getting closer to the desk.

All around her the lamps flickered angrily, casting her in shadows. The mark on her wrist worked its way up her arm, signaling Its coming.  But soon It wouldn’t have power over her any longer. None of them would. 

She smiled despite the ball of anxiety spinning in her stomach, reaching for the largest blue bottle in the box. It will finally be over. I’ll finally  be free.  The thought made her feel eerily calm, her tears falling still.

Doug must have heard her move, his repeated apology breaking its rhythm as he called out. “Grace, what are you doing?” When she didn’t answer he repeated in an urgent tone. “Grace-Evelyn, answer me!”

Hearing her first name coming from him caught her off guard. She turned her head towards the door. . . locking onto the pitless gaze of It. 

The shadow’s silhouette hovered against her door and shook Its head slowly. Evelyn froze. 

So… you’re finally broken.

Evelyn sucked in a sharp breath at the whisper running through her head. Before she could respond to the dim cries of Doug or It the lights all over her room flickered out. One by one.

It sighed. Poor little Evelyn. 

She couldn’t move. All around her the hum of electricity surged each light brighter and brighter before it popped. Shrouding her in darkness.  

Doug screamed. “EVELYN!”

Evelyn trembled violently, struggling to adjust to the blinding darkness, waiting for the monsters to surround her. Feeling It wrap Its arms around her like an icy cloak. 

Doug kept banging. Kept screaming. But all Evelyn heard and was the whispered chuckle of It and the turning of the thin silver crescent lock attached to the patio door.

The click sounded. And the door slowly pushed open. 

Followed with a voice. 

“Finally. . . I’ve found you.”

Author's Note

Please let me know if this captured your attention or if it made sense. Thank you so much!

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask. And since you hope to be published, and there are some things blocking that, I thought you’d want to know. Bear in mind, though, that what I’m about to say is no reflection on your talent, does not relate to how well you write, or even relates to this story.

And, of more importance, it’s a problem you’ll never notice, because it’s one you share with pretty much every hopeful writer. It’s related to what I call, The Great Misunderstanding.

Simply put, after more than a decade of writing, primarily, reports and essays to sharpen our writing skills, we make the natural assumption that the word “writing” that’s part of the name of the profession we call, Fiction-Writing, refers to that skill.”

But it doesn’t. Writing all those reports and essays made us good at writing reports and essays. Use those skills for fiction and it reads like an essay or report. Why? Because the goal of a report is to inform. And to do that the author, in a dispassionate voice, reports and explains (remember, the reader has no idea of how YOU would read the line. They have only punctuation as a guide), primarily in synopsis and overview, providing the reader with an informational experience. The goal of fiction? As E. L. Doctorow puts it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” In other words, our goal is to provide provide an emotional experience. But if we don't know we're supposed to... Nonfiction makes us know what happened. Fiction makes us live the events, as-the-protagonast.

Your reader arrives not knowing where we are in time and space, what’s going on, or, whose skin we wear. So unless you provide that reader with context, your words won’t have the meaning you intend. Look at the opening, not as the all-knowing author, but as that reader:

• There was no rest for the wicked.

Forget what you intend, because the reader has no access to your intent. What you actually said that there WAS no rest, but that’s changed. So apparently the wicked can now rest.

But forget that. You’re also saying that people YOU define as wicked get no rest. But that’s demonstrably false. Lots of wicked people sleep like babies, because no one thinks they’re wicked.

But forget that, too. You open with someone unknown talking TO the reader, telling them something that has nothing to do with the first scene.

• And no one was more wicked than Evelyn.

Seriously? She’s worse than Vlad the Impaler? Worse than anyone in history? Naa.

But again, the story has yet to begin. The only one on stage is the narrator, talking to the reader about things that relate to nothing THEY know about. So though you’re not intending it, you’re acting the part of the stranger on the bus who turns to you and says, “I think they’re terrible to do that to Nanty. Don’t you think so?” On the bus you change your seat. In the bookstore you change what you’re reading. Here, you talk about an unknown person named, Tarryn. You talk about “the death she was responsible for.”

What does the reader know? Someone named, Evelyn, who lived in an unknown place, in and unknown year, was in some unknown way responsible for the death of someone equally unknown named, Tarryn (unless it was someone else who died. No way to know.

For you, who know who we are, what’s going on, and the character’s history up to the present, it all makes perfect sense. But who did you write this for? Shouldn’t they know?

You’re thinking in terms of plot and events, and telling about them as if the reader knows what you know, so far as background. But the viewpoint is yours, when it should be hers. Readers don’t want to know what happened. If you don’t make them CARE about what happens to the protagonist they stop reading. But to care they have to know what’s happening as she does, in the moment she calls “now.” At present, she does and says things for reasons we know nothing about. She doesn’t stop and think before she acts, we’re just told what she does and says. She doesn’t hesitate, rephrase, analyze, or do anything we would do were we in her place. So instead of being our avatar, she’s the person YOU talk about, in summation and overview. In other words, we’re reading a report.

I know that’s not what you were hoping to hear. But in forgetting that professions are acquired in addition to our school-day skills, you have pretty much every hopeful writer with you. And that’s what you need to fix. Reading fiction doesn't help, any more than eating gives us the skills of the chef.

Think about it. In school did a single teacher outline the elements that make up a scene on the page, and explain what they do, and why they’re necessary? No. because their job is to ready you for employment, in general. They teach no fiction-writing skills because only fiction-writers need them. But everyone writes letters, is called on to write reports and essays. So, that’s what we’re given, and what you must fix.

A few good books on the tricks the pros take for granted is a great way to begin. And the local library’s fiction-writing section is the place. The cost is zero, you work at your own pace, there are no tests, and, no pressure. And the best book—though not the easiest—book I’ve found to date on fiction, is free at the address just below this paragraph. Copy/paste it into the URL window at the top of any internet page, then hit Return to download a copy

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

It’s an older book, one that talks about your typewriter ribbon. Still it’s the best I’ve found at pulling back the curtain on the tricks that can give your words wings, by making you know the why’s and how’s of creating scenes that sing to the reader. It’s also the book that got me my first publishing contract. Maybe it can do that for you.

An easier book is Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal, Motivation & Conflict. It may or may not be in the local library, so you’ll have to buy a copy online, but it’s the second best book I’ve found. Try The Swain book I link to, and if it’s too tough (it is a a university-level book) pick up a copy. It’s like sitting with Deb as she talks about writing. And she’s the only one I’ve found who explains why you want to avoid a line like, “Gwen laughed when she saw Frank in the doorway,” is to be avoided (In life, Gwen can only laugh AFTER she sees Frank. So this can only be the author talking to the reader about Gwen, not her living the story).

So, one way or another, dig in. And for what it might be worth as an overview, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are mostly based on those books.

But whatever you decide to do, hang in there, and keep-on-writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Amanda Spencer]

Dear Jay,
first, I would like to apologize for responding days after you wrote this review. I suffer from migraines and was incapacitated for several days. Second, I want to thank you for the time and consideration you gave my first chapter. I do not receive much feedback if any at all, and I will take everything you wrote here to heart. Because you are right: we are not trained to be writers in school, nor are we taught how to see stories broken down in their very complex dynamics and all the components that create them. Of course, like all subject matter, we must learn the correct practices and understand their purposes in order to implement them within our writing. I will admit I have not taken many writing courses during my college career and this may have impeded that knowledge. That being said there is one part you wrote that I wholeheartedly must disagree with, and that is reading fiction does not help us learn to write. Perhaps not in the way you are suggesting but reading fiction does and can help writers perfect their craft. Writers can use books as a guide to see what authors have done, how they hooked the reader, how they express character and dialogue in order to perfect the same components within your own writing. I learned to write because I read, and it is because of reading I have learned my areas of weakness.
That is all I will say on the matter. Once again, I truly appreciate the feedback and will definitely check out the articles! And, as you encouraged, I will keep on writing!
Amanda Spencer

[JayG]

You definitely have the right attitude.

• I will admit I have not taken many writing courses during my college career and this may have impeded that knowledge.

You didn't miss anything. Creative Writing courses are pretty much useless, because, in one semester, they can give only a taste of every type of writing.

When it comes to fiction, most CW courses have the students read the chapter on writing fiction, then write a story, which is critiqued by the class, who have not a clue.

• Writers can use books as a guide to see what authors have done, how they hooked the reader, how they express character and dialogue in order to perfect the same components within your own writing.

Were that true your own story would reflect that. Reading gives us a feel for the result of the skilled use of the tools. But will you know where the author made the decision to do “this instead of that?” No. As you read about the techniques of the profession, you’ll find yourself often slapping your forehead and saying, “But that’s so…how could I have missed something so obvious?

Try this example: You’ve heard, I’m sure, the old saying that in a lover’s quarrel there are three versions of the truth: hers, his, and what really happened. So, given those three viewpoints, does it not make sense that we, as writers, tell what really happened, in an entertaining and interesting way?

I’ve asked that of many groups of hopeful writers. They invariably agree, as a group, that we must focus on presenting what actually happened. And that belief explains why the rejection rate in the publisher’s office is 99.9% or worse, because nothing could be further than the truth. We must choose our protagonist’s viewpoint and present only that. Why? Because every decision they make, and every word they speak is the result of how THEY view the situation. How can we, as readers, empathize with, or understand someone who is acting on deductions and beliefs that we’re unaware of?

So…were you nodding in agreement that we should show what really happened? If not you’re among a tiny minority. But if we learn to write by reading…

If our reader is to feel as they’re living the story, as they read, doesn’t it make sense that we must calibrate that reader’s viewpoint to that of the protagonist, so they react to events as-the-protagonist? After all, while reading, we will learn what happens before the protagonist does, and so, will react before they do. But every reader is different, and will react differently…unless we make every reader the same by making them react, and perceive as our protagonist does. Make sense?

Your reader doesn’t want to learn what happened. That’s history, immutable and boring. They want to literally become the protagonist, and live the scene as-that-character, so realistically that if someone tosses a rock at the protagonist the reader ducks.

Having that happen to us is why we read. We don’t want to know, we want to be made to CARE. And in our school years we literally spent zero time on how to do that, because only fiction-writers need that information.

If no one tells us what a scene on the page is, and why it’s so different from one on the screen, how can we write one? If no one tells us of the role of the short-term scene-goal will we make use of it? Of course not.

Yet we see it in use every time we read fiction. We’re used to all scenes ending in disaster for the protagonist, and expect it, but never realize why it happens, and what it does for us, partly, because no one explained what a scene is, and how it works.

To show you why it’s critical that we present our story from within the viewpoint of the protagonist, this article might help:
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-grumpy-writing-coach-8/

And, to learn the skills of writing by reading we would have to know the author’s intent for a given line. And to see that clearly, seeing the changes they make as they edit, would help. To illustrate that point, I took a manuscript that sold, and deconstructed it, to show my intent for critical points as I wrote the opening section, numbering them as I went. It might be interesting to see if, as you read, you caught them.
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/grumpy-writing-coach-7/