For those just tuning in, this challenge is about taking a story idea from bare bones idea into a fully fledged story by writing consistently every week day for fifteen minutes. The sentence I end with on one day, is the sentence I start with on the following. Part one was Bob’s story and has nothing whatsoever to do with the story below. Part Two follows a character named Penelope. I have a few basic sentences to act as road marks on her journey. I am loosely calling that an outline. We will see where she ends up by the time the story is done. For now, we start Part two of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Writing Challenge.
Day 42: Penelope rubbed her forehead and realized that as unsettling as her grocery store visit was, it didn’t change anything.
Penelope rubbed her forehead and realized that as unsettling as her grocery store visit was, it didn’t change anything. “I still have my supplies and the need to find out who the family enemies might be as well as what sort of magic I may have inherited.”
Penelope snorted and stood up from the comfortable chair.
“Who would have thought I’d have enemies,” she said to herself. Penelope thought of herself as quiet and relatively unoffensive. She knew Trinity didn’t like her because she thought of Penelope as in competition for things in the house. “And Jeanette doesn’t like me because my existence takes the focus off of Trinity as the one and only. And partially because I am not hers.”
She wasn’t sure her father remembered she existed most of the time but everyone else seemed to get along with her well. “I wouldn’t even consider Trinity and Jeanette enemies,” she thought as she walked across the living room and into the hall, turning right into the library. She found them annoying and obnoxious but wouldn’t classify them as enemies.
“Not the sort that try to kill you,” Penelope said as she entered the library. “Who has enemies that want to kill them?” She shook her head. “I suppose we better start with that and then go to the magic bit after.”
Slowly Penelope moved around the room. This time she wasn’t looking for general titles but journals. AS all of the books were either leather or cloth bound and had intricate designs on their spines it wasn’t easy. Some of the books had titles stamped on them, most did not. Finally, Penelope found a shelf with cloth bound journals on them. They too had the embossed and often gilded look to the volume but they had dates stamped on them in gold.
Penelope let her fingers trace the row of spines. The journals were all in a row. The latest one was dated the year her mother died but they went back for quite some way. Penelope wondered if she should start with the most recent one or the oldest that the shelf contained.
“Mrs. Merriweather said my mother wasn’t worried about anyone around the time she died,” Penelope mused as she looked at the volumes. “I think if she was worried about someone trying to kill her she would tell a friend. If Mrs. Merriweather is really a friend.”
Penelope ground her teeth. She hated being in such unfamiliar territory. “Older is better,” she decided. That way I can see trends and get used to the writing.”
Penelope walked down the row and realized that the oldest journal here was a leather bound one that bore the date 1825. She hesitated wondering if two hundred years was a bit too far back. “No,” she decided sticking to her plan. “If the bulk of the family journals are kept at the estate and these are the ones kept here then these are the ones to start with.”
She pulled the volume from the shelf.
Ten til Midnight 