*This is a sample of my fiction writing. It’s a short scene I wrote recently to help me figure out something about my character, Aaron, who is one of the protagonists in the fantasy trilogy I’m writing. I like writing backstory scenes to help me understand where I’m going in my story. It’s unlikely this scene will be in the final manuscript, it takes place before the opening scene of the first book. I hope you enjoy! I appreciate any comments or feedback.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to tell me what you see in the caves,” Aaron said. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned away from June.
June’s expression was unreadable. Aaron was pretty sure the Sisters taught her how to look like that. Guarded. Whereas he wore his feelings on his face all the time. “Strictly speaking,” June said, mirroring Aaron and folding her arms too. The faintest hint of amusement played behind her pale, cat-like, yellow eyes, “I’m not telling you anything I saw. I’m telling you what I’ve interpreted the messages to mean.”
“And what if you’re wrong?” Aaron said. He unfolded his arms and leaned in, curiosity getting the better of him. His grandmother had always had the ability to draw him.
June stared at him. He’d known what her reaction was going to be. June was never wrong. Aaron knew that’s how she saw herself. “I don’t believe I’m wrong about this,” was her unsurprising response.
“Okay, let me hear it then,” he said.
June nodded. She always had a seriousness about her, especially when it came to matters of the Sisterhood, but this was more than that. June never gave into things like worry. Was that what Aaron saw behind her austere gaze? “Midgarden needs you, Aaron.”
Whatever he thought June was going to say, it wasn’t that. He burst out laughing. “What do you mean, needs me? I’m nothing, nobody.”
June’s gaze was sharp and countering. A shiver ran down Aaron’s spine that inserted a fragment of doubt into his mind. “You’re serious?” Aaron said, leaning even closer towards June.
“I am.”
“What could Midgarden possibly need from me?”
“Your powers are manifesting, Aaron. It’s time you go home.”
“Home?” Aaron almost shouted the words. “Home? Midgarden isn’t my home.” He felt a flood of emotion coming. And neither is the Wise Isle, he said to himself. He belonged nowhere. Years ago he’d accepted that this was his life: being alone and ignored- even scorned- on this cursed island with a Sisterhood who looked at men like useless dogs.
June seemed to sense his emotion and reached out to put a hand on his leg. “Midgarden is as much your home as it is mine. You know, I left when I was close to your age.”
“I know,” Aaron said. He brushed a spill of tears from his cheek as discreetly as he could. But June missed nothing.
“You don’t know as much as you think.”
Aaron let out a huff of agitation. “Oh yeah? Okay.” He leaned back against his chair and looked at the ceiling, praying that no more tears would come.
“Do you want to hear my story?”
Aaron sat upright and faced her. His wide eyes were answer enough for June.
“I was born on the Isle. You know that. My mother, Maya, was in a prestigious role within the Sisterhood.”
“She was one of the Three Sisters,” Aaron blurted out. He’d learned some things in his eleven years living on the Isle and he knew that the Three Sisters were most revered for their prophetic powers and oracular abilities. Another name for them was the Three Fates, because the prophecies they channeled from the depths of the cave were often profound and foretold important influences and events to come.
June nodded. “My mother, Maya, got pregnant with me by a man who was visiting the Isle. It was a scandal and the Sisterhood was furious. Someone in her role was forbidden to engage with,” she paused, unable to hide her grin, “in that kind of way with the opposite sex. She was nearly cast out, but her absence had an ill affect and there was no one was powerful as her to take her place.”
“So they let her back in even though she was pregnant?”
“They did. She was even allowed to live with my father for a time, or so I am told.” She gave Aaron a sharp look. “You think I’m hard to read, my mother was harder.”
“I don’t know how that’s possible,” Aaron muttered, but he grinned at his grandmother.
June winked at him. “My father left. Rather, Maya told him to leave. She said she couldn’t do her work with him around.”
“Seriously?” Aaron asked, his jaw on the floor.
June nodded with a pained expression. “So I was raised by the Sisterhood with the intention to take my mother’s place as one of the Three Sisters. It wasn’t a role I ever wanted. Though I’ll admit, even when I was young, I knew I was a natural. I denied it, but I could always sense my power.”
Aaron tried to hide his emotion, his stomach hollow and empty. Powerless, was a more appropriate word for how he felt about himself. How could he be so pathetic when he had grandmothers who were skilled prophetess? He pushed the thought away.
“You don’t have the same power as I do,” June said, reading his mind. She had that way about her. It both annoyed and comforted Aaron. “You have your own power, Aaron, and it’s just beginning to reveal itself to you.”
Aaron let out a disbelieving huff.
June ignored it. “I grew tired of the strict regimen of the Sisterhood,” June continued. “Long hours in the dark weighed on my young spirit. I wanted adventure. I wanted life. And so, one day I told my mother that I was leaving to find my father in Midgarden.”
Aaron’s eyes widened. He’d known pieces of this story, but not that. “And what did Maya say?”
“At first, she screamed at me. Told me how selfish I was. That I was abandoning the Sisterhood and my role in the bigger picture of things.”
Aaron leaned forward.
“I told her, not everything revolved around the Sisterhood and that I had a life to live.” She looked at Aaron. “I felt that in my heart.”
“What?” Aaron asked, wondering if he’d ever felt something like that.
“That there was something I was meant to do beyond this island. I felt a pull. I didn’t understand it. In fact, it made no sense; everything pointed to me staying. This was my life. These were my sisters. But I’d been feeling the tug towards something else and it became too strong for me to ignore.” June got up to add a log to the fire. Aaron hadn’t noticed that it was mere embers. “I didn’t know what it would lead to, if anything. I didn’t know if I would be allowed to come back here if what I was searching for didn’t find me.”
“That sounds terrifying,” Aaron said.
“It was.” June smiled.
“So you left? You went to Midgarden?”
“You know I did.”
“And you met Jacob, my grandfather.”
June nodded, a smile that contained both joy and grief filled her face. It was the same expression she always had when Jacob was mentioned. “I met my father too.”
Aaron’s eyes widened. “You did?”
“He was a Vaelo too.”
Aaron gaped at her. Something like excitement and anger stirred in his stomach. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
June’s face remained expressionless. “All things must be revealed in their right time.”
Aaron gritted his teeth. He hated when June talked like that, like a Sister. “Why now?”
“Because the wind says it’s time.”
Aaron rolled his eyes.
“It’s time for you to go to Midgarden, Aaron. I know you’ve been feeling the pull.”
“No, I haven’t.” he said it automatically.
June eyed him.
Aaron gaped at her. “I haven’t. I’ve resigned myself to this place.” His stomach felt hollow again.
“But it’s not your place.”
Her words cut like the blunt edge of an ax into his ribs. Before he could stop anything, a flurry of angry tears spilled down his face. “I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in Midgarden. I don’t know anything about Midgarden. No one wants me anywhere.” He sucked air in angrily and turned on June. “And now you’re, what? Kicking me out?” He was on the verge of thunderous sobs he couldn’t control. He didn’t want to break down in from of June. He gulped air and tried to stuff them down.
“Sit down Aaron,” June said. Her tone was infuriatingly calm.
Aaron circled the living room, his fists balled, and stopped in front of the fire and stared into the now jumping flames.
“Aaron, please.” June’s voice cracked.
Aaron turned.
Her expression was pleading. “I love you, Aaron. Please come sit.”
He sat down in his chair.
“Your dreams. Tell me about them.”
Aaron should have expected this. What he wanted was a hug or an explanation, or for her to say that she wanted him and that everything was going to be okay. Instead, he was being treated like her student. A teacher checking in to see if he was doing his work. “You know what dreams I’ve been having,” he said without keeping the irritation from his voice.
“You’ve been dreaming of her more and more,” June said.
“You know I have.”
“Have you been doing your practices with the dreams?”
Aaron gave her an incredulous and annoyed look. “Yes, you make me.”
“I don’t make you do anything, dear boy.”
“Fine. Yes, I’ve done them.”
“And?”
“And, nothing revealing has come up.”
“Have you done the heart practice?”
“The heart practice?” It had been so long that June had taught him that. He’d nearly forgotten. “No,” he admitted. There was no point trying to lie.
“Do it. Do it tonight.”
“Okay, but I don’t think it will do anything.”
June eyed him. “How do you feel when you dream about the girl?”
Aaron relaxed and considered her. “I feel like…” he didn’t want to say it. June’s crystal eyes bored into him. he made an awkward face. “It feels like she’s me,” he blurted out. “I’m sure you have some mystical interpretation of that.” He felt foolish saying it.
June made no indication that he’d said anything strange. “What else do you feel?”
“Good,” Aaron said. “Good, I guess. I don’t know. Sad too, sometimes. She seems sad. It’s probably my own sadness I’m dreaming about, right?”
“Dreams can be literal,” June said.
Aaron gaped at her. “What do you mean?”
June shrugged. “It’s your dream. Only you can know what it means.”