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 167: Penelope nodded and realized Mrs. Merriweather couldn’t see her through the phone.
Penelope nodded and realized Mrs. Merriweather couldn’t see her through the phone. ‘At least she seems to know Jerome is more than likely my father,’ Penelope thought.
“Right,” she said, “But there is also a different sort of problem.”
“Is there?”
“Yesterday a man named Peter Sinclair tried to kill me. He also admitted to killing Jerome and mom,” Penelope said. There was a moment of shocked silence.
“I always knew something was wrong with that death,” Mrs. Meriweather declared. “I knew it but no one would listen to me. It was just Jerome being reckless. And then your mother. They were willing to believe that one with the cut brake line of course, but they never found anything.”
“Well he admitted it. It seems he thinks Jerome stole something from him. He killed Jerome thinking he could get it, but when he didn’t find it he assumed it was given to my mother and then that she left it to me,” Penelope said.
“And this Peter Sinclair was trying to get it back?”
“He figured that with everyone gone he could search the house.”
Mrs. Merriweather snorted. “The was a mistake. The house would pass to a distant relative of some sort if you died with no heir. Those houses always stay with the bloodlines. If there is no bloodline the house locks itself and does its own search for a worthy occupant. He would never have been able to get into the house unless he was family. Although even then, it would go to another blood relative as the fact that he killed his own family would eliminate him from ownership.”
Penelope frowned as it sounded like the house would decide who owned it. She shook her head, for the moment that was not something she wanted to think about.
“I don’t suppose you might know what it was that was stolen?” Penelope asked.
“He didn’t say?”
“No,” Penelope replied. “Agent Michaelson took him in and he might find out, but Peter didn’t say what had been stolen. He just said that it was powerful and that I would want to keep it if I knew.”
“Well that’s not very helpful is it,” Mrs. Merriweather said.
“No, but the problem is that if it is powerful, it might be dangerous and if it is in the house somewhere then I might accidentally do something to set it off when I’m just poking around.”
“Oh I see,” Mrs. Merriweather said. “That is a bit of a pickle isn’t it. Let me think. I might be able to come up with a spell of some sort to help locate this unknown object. It will be a bit of a search though and might take a day or two. I will tell you what. I will search here and send over Jerome’s old practice book so you can work on control without rummaging through things. Hopefully I will find something and we can have a search.”
“That would be great,” Penelope said. “I won’t be going anywhere for a while as my arm needs time to heal.” She wasn’t entirely sure about driving one handed and thought she should at least let the pain fade before she tried it.
Ten til Midnight 