The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is a attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Day 179: They stopped in front of her statue.
They stopped in front of her statue. Brother Fertamosan looked at them. Even he had grown weary of the litany by now and was ready for the lesson to end. Anya remembered he always looked towards the back of the church at this point as though ready for his end of lesson relaxation. All of them knew that once they were released he would settle himself in the garden for an hour or so with a board of cheese, sausages and wine.
“And this one?” he asked.
“Bendeasa,” they chorused.
“And her address?”
“Hunt the darkness and prey upon the predators of the night.” The group of them said. Anya remembered thinking it odd, but by then Brother Fertamosan was glassy eyed and most of the others were casting eyes at the door.
Brother Fertamosan nodded. “And those are the fifty saints,” he said. “Remember them well for the next lesson.” Then they were released. Brother Fertamosan walked towards the back door and the children streamed out of the front ready to be free of lessons in the church. She always thought it amusing that after he reached the final saint he always said there were only fifty saints even though they all had to recite fifty one. Anya remembered looking back at the statue and feeling a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach as she did. It was almost as though the statue was looking back at her.
Sitting by the fire in the hidden spaces of the House of the Star, Anya still remembered the feeling of the statue watching her. She remembered the saint’s address and even now thought it strange. In her mind she tried to compare it to the statue from her dream but only a wild stretch of the imagination could link the twi. The statue of the saint was smaller, but very old and most of the features in the stone had been worn into vagueness by the passing years.
‘Bendeasa was even older than the other statues too,’ Anya recalled. All of the statues had been of varying ages. There were some statues that had been rescued from a previous church. It had been destroyed by earthquake. A few of the statues had not been new to that church and had in their turn been rescued from prior churches as well. Only a few of the statues had been carved anew when the church Anya knew was built.
Ten til Midnight 