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 70: It made her feel less like she was running away from the plants.
It made her feel less like she was running away from the plants. “Not running,” she told herself as she walked deliberately slowly to the kitchen. “Just getting on with my day.” She looked over her options for dinner. She had been planning on a large dinner salad. She looked from the lettuce to the door leading to the stairs.
“I think we’re going with eggs and toast tonight,” she decided. She deliberately bypassed the lettuce, reaching for the eggs instead. She got everything together, quickly scrambled some eggs and toasted some bread. Arrange marmalade went on the toast and she set the plate of eggs and toast down at the breakfast bar, ready for dinned. She took out a fork and set it beside the plate and then poured a glass of milk to go with the meal.
Penelope settled herself and looked at the plate. It wasn’t exactly what she planned for dinner but it was all things she liked. ‘And no plants,’ she decided. ‘Although I can’t avoid them forever.’
While she didn’t want her lettuce to grow brown and slimy, she also needed to figure out what happened to the upstairs plants.
‘Maybe there is something in the list of abilities in Amelia’s journal.’ Penelope thought. She remembered scanning the list but not reading too deeply. She didn’t want to get excited about the possibility of a skill before she knew she would have it.
‘There were also a lot of them and they were written in small letters.’
Penelope took a bit of her toast, feeling herself settle. It was hard to be panicked while eating toast. Toast was not a panic sort of food. No one ran away while eating toast. No one gorged on toast after a bad day when they needed comfort food. It was comforting in it’s common and non trauma related associations. To have toast one needed a toaster. If you didn’t have time to use the toaster you just had bread, which was entirely different.
Penelope ate her toast. She was beginning to accept that magic had something to do with her as everyone else seemed to claim. It had been delightful to read about and amusing to contemplate. The plants on the roof were neither delightful nor amusing.
They were, she could admit while she ate her toast, somewhat terrifying. Plants simply didn’t grow like that. They didn’t spread out and grow healthy without care and empty pots filled with dead leaves didn’t somehow suddenly come back to life. That wasn’t how things worked.
“Right,” Penelope said as she finished her toast and turned to her scrambled eggs. “After dinner I will change and get ready for downstairs. Once ready, I will look over the list and see where this fits.”
Penelope nodded to herself as she continued eating her eggs. All of the abilities in Amelia’s journal not only listed he bloodline they were associated with, but they also helpfully had the names of people who inherited those traits.
“And people kept journals.”
With luck, whoever was listed as having the ability to make plants grow would also have kept journals. If she was extremely lucky then they would be here at the house and not out at the larger estate library.
As she finished eating, Penelope debated going out to the estate.
Ten til Midnight 