Alright, so this is a ROUGH (ragged, sand-paper-like, etc) draft of my first real venture into original fiction in a very long time. The entire story was inspired by the first series of prompts, and it was really difficult to narrow down the scope to just these scenes since I'm still developing the overall plot (details, right?).
I would appreciate any and all thoughts. My main issue right now is tenses because of how I'm writing it... In other news, being new to IJ, I hope I did this right. >.>
The Roses are Dead
He looked at them woefully, the tattered remains of her White Diamonds. Dead leaves and yellowed petals laced the ground near the brown, lifeless stems. It had only taken two days for the plants, specially ordered and delivered hale and healthy from three states away, to fall to total ruins. There was only one possible explanation. He couldn’t tell her this over the phone. She’d tended her roses for twenty years. They were the one vanity in their garden, the one place on their small property that no one else touched. (The loss of the original roses had brought a dark sadness to her body that he hadn’t seen in years, the drama that had captured him when they were younger.) How could he tell her that the vandals who had slashed her Diamonds had salted the earth beneath them as well? That the fresh roses she’d labored silently over for hours had been doomed before they touched the soil? That her sacred place had been so thoroughly defiled? The morning after the vandals struck, Lexy sat in front of the rose bed for an hour. He may not have loved the roses, and had complained for years about the carrots and radishes he could have been growing there, but he had never wished this on her flowers. Everything else in the garden had been left untouched, not even a twig out of place. But the roses had been slashed, torn, and covered with black feathers, the remains a twisted confetti. Today was not the stark colors of carnage, but the yellows and browns of decay. Sick at heart, he thinks. I won’t do that to her. Lexy had left the day after planting her new roses. Far away in Puget Sound, Emma was moving into her first apartment. She and Lexy were shopping, decorating, and building Ikea furniture, going out to dinner and taking pictures. They’d already sent him one of the two of them at Ikea, on the most ridiculous couch they could find. In long running tradition, they were sitting side by side in an identical upright pose, legs crossed and noses in the air. They’d taken this photo for years, on every vacation and every hike. These days, Lexy’s posture wasn’t as strong as it had been, and her hair had become more silver than brown. Emma had changed dramatically as well - she’d grown into her skinny frame, his little girl grown into a lovely young woman with blonde highlights and makeup. And his little girl was making her own start, and their family of the past 21 years was... not ending, but changing. So he ordered replacement roses, and paid entirely too much to have them delivered the next morning. Today, he was digging. He couldn’t know how deep the salt had permeated. If they’d realized a week ago that salt had been rubbed into the dirt under the shredded roses, they could have removed the top layer then and the new Diamonds probably would have been fine. But she had dug and replanted the soil, watered the new roses - there was no way to know how deep the poison went. So he was going to dig out as much of the four-by-six foot patch as he could and replace it with fresh potting soil. Tomorrow, the new Diamonds would arrive, and he could have them planted by the time she returned that evening. He could explain it then. And maybe... maybe it could be their patch of roses. He could stop joking about planting pumpkins there, and she could let him help with the weeding, and maybe they could... After twenty minutes of digging, he had cleared the top six or seven inches of the patch and had begun deepening. Tomorrow he would work on throwing out the tainted soil, but his first priority was replacing her beloved flowers. It crossed his mind that she would be angry at him for invading her space, that she would see his act of love as an intrusion. Of course she would know that it was an act of love, but it wasn’t often that their little rituals were so blatantly disregarded.
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when his shovel struck something that wasn’t dirt. It wasn’t quite solid, and gave a little under his shovel. He widened the hole with a few quick strokes, and knelt down to uncover the object. It was blue plastic, flat - a lid. A few moments later he had unearthed the whole container. It was tupperware, an old one, large enough to hold a small melon, heavy, and completely encrusted with soil. He couldn’t see what was inside. His immediate thought was that it was a child’s deceased pet, buried and forgotten. That was not a tupperware he’d want to open. He grabbed a trowel and tried to clear a view, but the plastic and dirt were too old. His scratching did give him a clearer understanding of the box itself, and he realized he recognized it. His stomach sank a bit. It was one of their own, from the set he and his first wife had bought back in their apartment. There had been roses covering this spot since the first month they’d lived in this house. It had to have been buried by Alexis. But while he felt a small twinge of betrayal at the secret, he knew she had many. Much of her life before they met she’d kept from him, saying it wasn’t who she was anymore. He tucked away his hurt and instead indulged his curiosity. Perhaps the roses weren’t thorny guards, just the beautiful White Diamonds she loved. Maybe she’d forgotten the secret in this plastic bin. With a little effort, he peeled back the lid. He smiled. Inside was a wooden box, beautifully carved in a dark wood. It had an intricate design on the lid, featuring a rising phoenix. It was very Lexy, part of her dark, spiritual nature. As he lifted it from its plastic safe, he was somehow surprised by the weight of it - it was more solid than it looked. And old. Very old, perhaps a family heirloom. It had a silver clasp on the front, but it wouldn’t give under his fingers.
Emma was standing on a chair on her tiptoes, reaching up to change a lightbulb. She was wishing she’d asked her father to come after all - his height would’ve been handy getting this place ready. She hopped down from the chair, and was pushing it back under the table when a crash came from the kitchen, followed by her stepmother’s voice. “Shit...” “Lexy, you alright?” she called down the hall as she hurried towards the kitchen. “Dammit. Sorry, kid, I broke one of your plates.” Emma rounded the doorway with a smile. “Yeah, but are you okay?” Lexy was agitated and distracted. She seemed surprised by the plate shards around her boots. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about this, I’ll get it. I’m just going to step out for some air first. Hey,” she said, waving her finger at Emma as she pushed past her into the hallway, “I’ll clean it up when I get back, don’t even think about working on this.” Emma looked at the mess and sighed. This apartment was taking a lot more work than she’d expected. Her stepmother’s footsteps faltered in the hall. Emma looked around to see her leaning on the doorframe, eyes glazed over. “Emma, get your father on the phone.” “What, why?” “Just do it,” she ordered through clenched teeth. Emma started towards the living room to find her cell phone, but her heart was thumping loudly in her chest. There was no doubt in her mind that this was an emergency. “Are you alright? Talk to me, what’s going on?” she called back worriedly. “I just... something’s happening.” “Do I need to be calling an ambulance instead?” “No, your father,” Lexy said more quietly as she pulled the door open. Emma couldn’t find her phone in the mess. “Dammit,” she hissed, shoving boxes out of the way, lifting packing paper. She found her purse and began rifling through it, only to discover her phone wasn’t there. She could hear Lexy heading down the hallway. “Lexy, talk to me,” she called. “I just need to...” Emma looked up as the voice vanished down the hallway. She found her phone at last under a stray dishtowel. She tried to dial and cross the room, but slammed her foot into an unpacked box. Swearing, she lowered her phone and focused on getting to her purse, grabbing her keys, and heading for the front door. Her stepmother wasn’t in the main hallway. She headed for the front door to the building, and finally started dialing.
Dan had taken a damp paper towel to the latch, and it seemed to move a little. Enough for him to wedge his fingernail in and pry. A few more good wiggles, and it released with a snap. It took another minute or so to shake the lid free from the base. As the box cracked open at last, he felt a small sensation run through his fingers. He searched for metal on the box, something that might have given him a static shock, but found nothing. He shook it off. The phone was ringing in the other room. He put the lid down on the kitchen counter and began poking through the contents of the box. There was a strange, unpleasant smell rising from it. It looked like a spell of some sort - something more real than the “happy spells” she taught Emma as a child, which were always sealed with a gumdrop - a relic from her darker past. Based on the box, the location, and her personality, it was probably a spell of protection or good fortune or something. A small, cream colored scrap of cloth, some small pebbles, a tuft of hair, an earring, something wrapped in fabric... “Hello,” he said, tucking phone between ear and shoulder. Then he froze. “Dad?” “Em, I need to call you back.” “Dad, it’s Lexy, she’s-” “I need to call you back.” He hung up, then immediately began dialing again and put the phone to his ear. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”