The Flower Fairy Quilt Part 1
This is the first part of my novel, I though if someone pops by they might tell me what they think of it. This is my first year entering Nanowrimo so I'm not quite sure of what the protocol is..
Any way, Enjoy!
Beginnings, or, How the would became so topsy-turvy
This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.
Neil Gaiman
Tuesday Morning - Kathy’s home
Kathy’s mum had always told her - there is a reason for everything, sometimes you just can’t see it. Her parents had sayings for every kind of situation, from the most mundane every day activities to when ever something spectacular happened like a fireworks display. It was one of the times that made her and her brother Nathan roll their eyes when they went out as kids (and still did now), the way their parents could never act like normal people, they always had to be their own home-brand of crazy.
But despite all that Kathy loved her life. Well, most of it, she thought. Kathy worked in a café in town since finishing school. While she could have gone to university with her results she didn’t really have the motivation to enroll. This meant she was still working there two years after she’d left school for a small Indonesian woman who intimidated her while being a full head shorter and twenty years older.
“Are you ready?” Kathy heard her mum shout from the bathroom in the process of getting ready for work. Kathy’s mum Maeve worked as a counselor at a local social services agency, conveniently right around the corner from the café so the too of the left for work in the same car every morning. Kathy stayed at the computer, too engrossed in checking her Facebook to respond. “Kathy?” Her mum poked her head around the door.
Kathy’s mum was short. Not unbelievably hobbit sized or a primordial dwarf or anything, just your basic shortness. Kathy had become taller then her mum back in the year she turned 15, but not by much. The small stature was one of the few things Kathy had inherited from her mother, the other being the need for glasses, though both sides of the family could make a claim for that she supposed. She flicked her eyes away from the screen up to her mum. Standing in the door way with her black hair wet against her shoulders and halfway down her back, her mum looked only half ready but Kathy knew by the daily timetable that within another ten minutes she would then look like a professional woman, ready to take on the world.
“I asked if you were ready Kathy.” She said with a smile, pulling the wet hair up and around her hands. A quick flick with a pencil held between her teeth and the hair was in a tight bun at the back of her head. Small half rimmed framed glasses completed the look, perched on the end of a nose that obviously belonged to Italian heritage. The shape of her hazel eyes however, showed the Irish roots for her own mother’s side which shone through with every other feature of her face. Kathy’s father sometimes called Maeve his raven, for the piecing look in her eyes when she was angry or startled. Maeve’s skin was pale, almost like paper, a result of too much time inside trying to sort out other peoples problems in life. This only made her hair and her deep red lips stand out even further from her skin.
“Yeah, pretty much.” Kathy replied. “Just waiting for you.” She teased. It was a family trait to be late for anything important, Maeve’s dithering and branching off into TikiTours was an in joke. Her parents also used to joke that Nathan would be late to his own funeral. Yet another of their weird sayings which she loved them for.
“Switch off; I want to go in a few minutes early.” The second half of this sentence was heard from out the door, Maeve having already left the room but still trying to hold a conversation.
Kathy just shrugged. Her mother was always doing that, a habit that they ribbed her about from time to time. She logged out of the computer and shut the laptop down, going through her mother’s pedantic procedure for saving power. Picking up her bag with a sigh she found her mother again in her bedroom.
Kathy’s dad Sean still asleep in the bed, possessing the remarkable ability to sleep through anything that happened in the room unless it concerned him. Kathy assumed it was the kind of selective hearing old people developed just to be irritating to their offspring, mush like that grandparents perform when you tell then you didn’t really want a woolen jumper for Christmas - especially since you live in New Zealand. Her dad was pretty much the opposite of her mum. Tall, almost six feet high where Maeve was short, a shocking head of red hair where Maeve was dark. Nathan joked once that the reason they had kids was to see which of the pair had the stronger genes. Maeve had won out in Nathan who carried on the strong Irish looks while Kathy took after Sean, ginger locks and all. Kathy always wished she had gotten her mum’s hair at least, jokingly cursing the Irish/Scottish inter breeding of her father’s side of the family.
“Nathan said to tell you he was planning on coming down this weekend by the way. He posted it on Facebook.” She commented to her mum. Maeve brightened.
“That’s good. I was planning on calling him later to see what his plans were. 21 is a very special birthday to be celebrating, I’m glad he’s decided to celebrate with us rather then his friends.” The distance that Nathan was always became an issue when ever he was down. The fact that it took a good hour and a half to get from Auckland to Thames meant that Nathan had been spending fewer weekend making the trip, especially this close to University exams.
Maeve glanced at the clock in the corner of the room and swore. “Bugger, we better get out of here. “ She bent down to kiss Sean on the forehead, he murmured something which Kathy was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear and the pair of them left him to his sleep.
P.S. Yay! Awesome banners and buttons!
