Morning all and welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Here I take the start of a story idea and work on it for fifteen minutes a day. I started with an old writing prompt that interested me, cleaned it up a bit to fit the basic outline of the story I want to write and then set aside fifteen minutes each week day to see it grow. Each morning’s writing starts with the last sentence of the day before. And so now we have the story of Kasca…
Day 106: She set her travel worn garments aside.
She set her travel worn garments aside. Today at least she thought she would be fine./ She would wear the cloak over her clothes to go into the back garden, the only place she intended to visit outside the shop today, and then slowly add more locally made clothing pieces until all her garments were from nearby. She took a ration out of her bag for breakfast and went downstairs.
She passed through the workroom and saw a large working apron hanging on a peg. Kasca nodded. Wearing it during working hours would help cover any strange details of her clothing as well. For now, there was the garden. Kasca locked the door to her private quarters, promising herself a mattress as soon as she could find one.
Then she moved to the garden door. She unlocked it and stepped into her garden. It was a pleasant place that smelled of green and growing things. The air wa still cool but many plants had gotten their growing season started. Kasca noted the location of the pump and promised herself enough water taken inside for a full wash for both her and her clothes at some point soon.
She could see the hooks in the walls showing where a clothesline usually hung proving that the previous owners hung their washing up here as well.
The space was private. The garden was enclosed by walls and there were no windows that looked over the space except her own.
‘No one to ogle my washing,’ she thought.
Kasca moved to the beds of plants. Many were too early to see more than a touch of green on black soil, but a few were advanced enough that she could get an idea of the plantings. To her relief it was what she expected and she could tell from a touch that the garden had been well turned over before anyone grew sick.
She wasn’t terribly surprised. Apothecaries like this one always needed quality ingredients and the best way to ensure both the quality and the availability was to grow them yourself. ‘It also cuts down costs.’
What she grew, she wouldn’t have to buy.
There were ways to accelerate growth, but for now, Kasca left the plants to thrive on their own. She needed to know what was stored before she chose to add to it.
Kasca moved back inside, shutting and locking the garden door. She slipped off her cloak and hung it by the door on the peg. Wanting to get into the habit of wearing it, Kasca slipped the leather apron over her clothes and tied it into place. It was made for someone bigger than her but it was still manageable.
‘And it covers more of my clothing.’
With the apron in place, Kasca turned to the stored items kept in the workroom. These were not the showy or ready made things that would be up front where customers would see. These were the smaller necessary components from the basic herbs for tinctures that became the ready made items to the wax used to seal the stoppered jars.
As she began looking, Kasca found that there were more supplies left than she would have thought. There were certainly plenty of dried and preserved items ready for use. She tested the quality, thinking they might have been set aside in favor of others, but the quality was good.
Ten til Midnight 