The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is an 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 227: ‘And it will be less chilly if it is allowed to continuously heat instead of spending so much time banked.’
‘And it will be less chilly if it is allowed to continuously heat instead of spending so much time banked.’ Anya smiled and came close to laughing aloud. Her time in the hidden places of the mountain made her feel as though she was perpetually going through a freeze and thaw cycle of her own. She would get warm only to once again go back into a cold room or hallway.
‘It will be nice to end that,’ Anya thought. ‘It will also be nice to be able to cook a proper meal.’ Thus far her meals had been limited to the sausage, chees, breads and preserved fruit that Marta provided. While Anya knew she could manage to get some dried items from the kitchen storage, she was worried that the scent of her cooking would travel and arouse suspicions. In her chilly days she thought that a hot bowl of soup would almost be worth calling attention to herself.
On one of her trips to the new courters she found the small kitchen area Bendeasa told her about. She knew it was far enough away that the scent of cooking soup would not travel back to the inhabited portions of the mountain and that the fireplace would draw all of the smoke upwards.
In fact the new quarters felt more like a place where she could live and not simply occupy. ‘For however long I am here,’ she told herself when she felt the worry of possible permanence start to worry her. ‘It will be nice to have some normality.’
While she had created her own habits throughout her time in the hidden spaces, it didn’t feel like real life. These new quarters, even without using the indoor gardening design, felt more like normal life.
While there was some threat of discovery while she moved, the laps from her old quarters to her new were routine and Anya found herself slipping into a mental fog. As long as she remembered to stay quiet near the inhabited areas, then she was fine.
Mid-day went and Anya decided to keep going. She kept her transfer going until her belly rumbled and she felt her muscles ache. Realizing that she was in danger of stumbling and making sounds, Anya called an end to her day of moving and returned to her quarters. As she was leaving her daily necessities for last, the room showed little change. It was the room where she stored the books she collected from through the other hidden rooms that showed the most difference. Large stacks of books were already moved, relocated to empty shelves that appeared to simply be waiting for the additions.
As Anya settled herself with some sausage cheese and bread her kettle beginning to heat over the fire, Anya wondered about the empty shelves. While those spaces were cleared as though everything was moved out, the rest of the hidden rooms in the mountain looked as though the occupants merely walked off expecting to come back even though they never did.
‘Maybe they stopped using the inner part of the mountain,’ Anya thought as she ate. She couldn’t think of a reason why they would stop using the space since it was a well-designed one that was suitable for everyday living. The thought niggled at her brain, but she was too tired to focus on it. Anya finished her meal and sipped her tea. She mad it halfway through the mug before her eyes began to slip closed. Before she could fall asleep by the fire, Anya decided it was time to go to bed properly and banked the fire for the night, setting her tea to the side and pulling off her clothes, exchanging them for a night dress. She crawled into bed and was asleep as soon as the blankets covered her. The next day began in the same manner.
Ten til Midnight 