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 94: She wasn’t certain why the thought hadn’t occurred to her before.
She wasn’t certain why the thought hadn’t occurred to her before. It somehow changed things. Made her sad as well as angry. Penelope took a deep breath. It hurt more than she thought it would. ‘I suppose it is just him agreeing to whatever Jeanette wanted,’ she thought. She doubted he came up with the idea to purchase things for Trinity, that had to be Jeanette.
‘But he didn’t stop it.’ Penelope drew in a deep breath and let it out. The books on the library shelves began to shake. She felt something moving but didn’t care. She wanted a moment of misery. ‘It’a not like I can stop an earthquake anyway,’ she thought morosely.
Then a book shot off one of the shelves and smacked her in the head as though it was thrown at her.
Penelope jumped up, yelling and rubbing her forehead. It didn’t hit with enough force to cause damage but it had hurt. She looked around. The books were still shaking on the shelves but nothing else was. The pendulum light was hanging straight and still without a single wobble. It was just the books.
Looking at them Penelope thought they were each jumping up and down on the shelves as though imploring her to read them. ‘At least they aren’t launching themselves at me,’ she thought. She bend down to look at the book too impatient to wait for her to choose it from the shelves. She bent down and picked it up. As she straightened the books stopped moving.
All was quiet in the library.
Penelope looked at them. She wondered if they were quiet because she had a book selected or if they were simply done. ‘I wonder what would happen if I tried to put it back on the shelf.’
Penelope studied the shelves and decided she wasn’t brave enough to risk it. Instead she looked at the book she held. It was green cloth, linen or something very much like it. The corners of the book cover had little silver metal corners. There was no name on the cover or on the spine. She opened the cover and looked to the title page.
‘Finding yourself in your element,’ the title page read.
“Why do I think this isn’t a book of inner peace,” she muttered as she took the book to her favorite reading chair. She set Amelia’s journal to the side and began to flip through the pages. There was no table of contents or index. The chapters were numbered with inch high decorative numerals but nothing else was added to the page to indicate what the chapter was about.
Figuring out she might want to figure out why the book launched itself at her head before any more books tried the same feat, she began to read. The book proved to be exactly what she needed. It discussed ways to figure out what sort of magic you possessed without causing a great deal of property damage. From the tone of the book Penelope was certain she was not the only one who wondered about houses collapsing under the weight of suddenly growing plants. ‘Or something similar at least.
The key factors seemed to be causing no destruction and drawing no outside interest. The second Penelope found interesting. She knew that it was only recently, or relatively so, that magic could be used in the open. While the book seemed intent on helping beginners hide from the world at large, it also insisted that magic be hidden from everyone else until it was mastered. It hinted at factions within the magical community.
Ten til Midnight 