Lorelei Landan
A story I wrote more recently than the others that I posted. But I did not just write it. I will post my most recent story in my next blog. KK. Here we go!
Lorelei Landan
The Lorelai’s
Chapter 1
Lorelai
Everything started 2 weeks ago, that’s when Lorelai got the music box. She came home to our small cottage on the outskirts of Grenn village carrying it as though the plain wooden box were made of glass, and now that I think of it, it almost seemed to be.
She slipped into the house where I had just gotten home and was baking a pie, and said not one word to me before setting the box down gingerly on the kitchen table below the window and opening it. It emitted the most beautiful sound that I had ever heard, I remember. And my dear daughter closed her eyes and sighed deeply. Surprised, I barely had time to ask her what it was, when she launched into her tale that I now find is the only lie she ever had to tell me.
“I found it on my way home,” she recited evenly, but mechanically, “why someone would chuck it away, I have no idea, but it’s their loss.” The explanation, at the time, seemed believable enough, and I scarcely even thought of it until today, when I finally found one thing missing to tell Detective Louvette about. But now I think of it, I cannot believe I didn’t recognize how strange the ordeal was. But it is all in the past, something I cannot amend, not that it would actually help any.
Yesterday did not actually start out as an ordinary day, we had had the town dance the night before, and Lorelai had told me that she had been proposed to by her escort. Fletcher Marie was the village doctor, strong and reliable, all the women were clamoring to get him, but the 30 year old man didn’t show any interest in anyone except my Lorelai, and I can see why. My dear 16-year-old daughter Lorelai was as charming as anything, funny and kind, strong, yet very feminine, she greatly enjoyed the company of others and planned to be the 5th grade school teacher when she was done with her studies at St. Pondmoores. Any man would have loved to have her, and any mother would have loved to call her her own. But she was mine.
I didn’t get to do things with the other mothers that much, they were all much older than me, for they had waited till the decent age of 18 to have children, where as I had not married, and had Lorelai when I was only 15, dear, dear Lorelai. My Lorelai. So it was rather lonely for me there in the village of Grenn, with only Lorelai there for me. To be me. To live her life for me, the way that I wish I could have had a chance to live it.
So that morning I was particularly happy. I gave Lorelai sweet Sinpotetan flower for breakfast, and sent her off to her last day of school with a kiss, on each cheek, her forehead, and her new engagement ring made of gold and ocean blossom stone. She smiled at me fondly, and said the words I thought would be true as long as I lived, “I’ll never leave you mom.”
Suitcase of letters
Chapter 2
Detective John
I thought that I would always value the title “Detective”, however the words mean little to me now as I stand here watching her running away. I have had the job for 20 years and I still have not gotten that immense case to end my career, granted I haven’t exactly got a very big case yet. But all the cases that I have been in charge of, I have solved without much thought. I cant just retire, I need to go out with a bang, whether it be after a case where I screw up so badly that I have to leave the force, or a case where I do so well that I am able to always be remembered and retiring seems to be the respectable thing to do.
But on that Thursday afternoon, I truly thought that the case would be open and shut, simple enough to handle, not too out of the ordinary. Nothing about it bothered me as I think that it was supposed to. For I myself have a daughter. Though she is one that I have not seen in nearly 17 years.
I joined the force 20 years ago when I was 15, and that is when I met Trana. She was so charming, exactly what I wanted, we wed only one month after we met and had a daughter, Emily, 2 years later. That was when it happened. Trana died in an accident somehow. I don’t know what the accident was, or how it killed her. The police said that it would be too distressful to see her body and refused to let me work on the case. They wouldn’t even tell me what happened, how it happened, or even where they found the body. I became terribly ill after the accident; I couldn’t go back to work for quite a while and when I was finally ok again it was too late. Dubbing me unable to take care of my daughter alone, they took her away to boarding school before I was well enough to stop them.
But I am not alone. Trana follows me, she speaks to me in sighing strange voices, ghost like almost, yet she is not a ghost. She touches me, my face. She kisses me, yet I cannot touch her. I pretend that I cannot see her and it makes her cry. But I do not want the rest of the force to think me crazy as well as lonely. So I let her stay, I take comfort in her visits, and I am not lonely. I am nowhere near happy, but I am not lonely.
I do write to my daughter, I have no contact with her, but I write to her, and I keep all of the letters in a suitcase, I take it with me when I have to go away, and that is all that it is filled with, for I write to her every day, I wonder if she misses my letters, if she knows that they are merely lost, not gone, and that someday, I’ll be there, and she will know that I have love for her, love I carry around in the suitcase filled with letters. Lost love, yes, but still it is there.
The Beginning Of The End
Chapter 3
Lorelai
This morning after I left the house, feeling happier than I had in long time, I decided to take the long road to work, hoping to see a couple of new shops along the way, a couple of new faces down Helen Street, where most merchants, merely stopping for a day or two, kept their shops.
I didn’t see anything in particular I wanted to buy, so I moved past the street and on to Ogust ave., home to the more permanent shops, such as the bakery, and a small restaurant I had never been to.
The cobbled streets were lined with people milling about, talking, laughing, and meeting with old friends. I had to twist and turn every which way to get through them all. On the street right before I turned left and to the hotel where I worked, there was the police station. Inside I could see all the regular officers and detectives, but also some new ones with slightly different uniforms that I guessed came from Amber, a town not too far away from Grenn. Finally, I reached the Dranchanted Hotel, and slipped in the back door.
I waved to Stewart, a colleague who was the manager, and started towards the desk where I worked as a concierge. Just another day, I thought, can’t wait to get home.
In the village of Grenn
Chapter 4
Detective John Louvette
I was actually in the village of Grenn on the day it happened. I suppose it saved me a trip. I was there because of a silly case of robbery, and “they asked us to send in our best man to help ‘em out.” But I knew perfectly well I was not their best man, they just wanted me to feel important and be distracted, because it was Trana’s birthday. I never thought she wouldn’t visit me on her birthday, but now that I was in the village of Grenn, it suddenly occurred to me she might not be able to go here. But I was wrong.
“How are you today sir?” A kind waitress asked me as I sat down in the restaurant Hakentash. “Quite a ‘right thank you,” I replied in my thick Hevenian accent which I was sure the waitress noticed.
I hadn’t been to Heven in quite some time. Though it was where I grew up. There really wasn’t anything for me there. My parents died when I was 15, and that was when I moved to Sinpotet, alone, for I was an only child. I started on the police force, and haven’t exactly changed since, except for Trana and Emily. But after Trana’s death, and Emily’s disappearance from my life, I barely changed my routine at all. Except of course, that I no longer smile.
I ordered my food, a salad, and sat in a table by the window, watching the people pass. They all seemed so ugly to me, screaming children, gossiping old ladies, cigar-smoking men. I was thoroughly depressed, which was something I was getting steadily better at, when something happened. A woman passed the window. A beautiful woman. She was very tall, with long brown curly hair, and brown eyes, she was wearing a plain blue dress, and something changed inside of me. I was suddenly happier than I had been in a long, long while… wham! Pain hit me so hard I jerked back, and yelled. My face was in such pain that I felt sick, and woozy. Something had hit the side of my face so hard my face jerked forward and hit the window. Everybody in the restaurant was looking at me, and as I looked around for the source of the pain, I saw Trana standing above me. Her short red hair was sweaty and tangled around her face, and she was madder than I had ever seen her. Her entire face was red, and I could see a temple on the side of her head pulsing. She said nothing, just stood there. I saw the source of my pain; she was carrying an enormous rock in the palm of her hand, which I figured she had slammed into the side of my face. I felt my face, it hurt more than I could have ever imagined, but there was no bruise, no swelling, no blood, not a broken tooth, it didn’t even hurt to touch it. It just hurt. Trana began to cry, sobbing actually, and brought the hand with the rock in it up to her face, gently wiping her tears with the back of her arm. And then she disappeared.
The man
Chapter 5
Lorelai
It took me a while after he had already started working on the case to realize that the man I had seen earlier that day was Detective John Louvette. I am not sure how to describe him, or why I took my meeting with him to be so important. Even really why I remembered it, at least until I got home.
I met him on my way back from work (which had been pretty uneventful) walking out of one of the shops on the street where the police station was. Though he wasn’t wearing a police uniform, I guessed that he was part of the Amber force because I had never seen him before, if I had, I think I would have remembered. It was not that he was particularly attractive, just that he was…intense. He seemed to be in deep thought, and it was somehow mesmerizing, as though he were magical. He was, in fact, so deep in thought, that he slammed right into me while leaving a shop, knocking me over. I managed to not fall completely over, and to actually smile and laugh when I regained my balance. He however, did not return the smile, he looked confused, and in pain. But what really surprised me was the look on his face when he saw me, he looked surprised, his eyes darted around as though he was looking for someone, and then he set off towards the police department at a fast pace. I shrugged and continued walking towards home, never expecting to find anything there.
On my way there I ran into no one else, and talked to no one else. Normally I would have had a look in the merchant’s shops on Helen Street, but today I wanted to get home early. Since Lorelai was such a good student, and because she would graduate in July anyways, her teacher at St. Podmoore’s had decided to let her out of school early so she could marry Fletcher. Therefore they had had their school graduation ceremony just for her, and let her out early, though we were supposed to come back later for the public graduation which all of her friends were invited to. So it was important for me to get home early so that we could fix her hair and wash and dry her dress for the special occasion.
I walked past the church near the outskirts of town, and passed several merchants making their way into town with wagons full of goods, and then I stepped onto the road that led to our house. And as I walked down the street towards the house, I never expected that right then, before I had rounded the corner and saw our house, would be the happiest I would ever be, in a very, very long time…
Never, never
Chapter 6
Detective John Louvette
When I first met Trana it was in a restaurant in Amber. She was alone, eating at a table in the dark near the restrooms, which surprised me because she was so beautiful. It was when I was 15 and had just started at the police department as a helper for the captain of the homicide department Markus Draoul. Since I was only 15 it took e a while to muster up the courage to go over there and offer her a seat at my table, so I sat there for a while just watching her. She had long red hair that was slightly curly and green eyes. She had plain, pale skin, and a slender but strong body. I couldn’t see how she was dressed because it was so dark where she was sitting, but I guess I always imagined her in plain clothes, which was how she dressed after we were married.
When I finally got the courage to go over there, and ask her to sit at my table, she refused, saying she would get in trouble because she was a waitress there on her break. So I offered to sit there. Like a 15-year-old girl, she merely giggled, so I took that as a yes.
Everyday after that I would go to that restaurant and sit with her during her breaks. And every time I felt more and more as if we belonged together. After about a month we began to see each other outside of the restaurant and became much closer, and two months after we met, we were wed in the backyard of Markus Draoul’s house, where I slept in the guest room. Afterwards Markus helped me find an apartment and moved me up to being his co-captain’s partner in the homicide department, Trana was able to leave her job as a waitress and took to being a stay at home wife.
Two years after we married we had a daughter, Emily, and one week after that…I don’t know.
All I know about the night of September 24th is that Trana died, I was staying late at work because of a troubling case down in Boulderash and I do not know what happened. Trana was out with some friends and Emily was with a baby sitter. At 10:43, two fellow police officers came into my office with grave looks on their faces and delivered the news. I was shocked, and I wanted to know what happened, I wanted to work on the case, but they just told me it was an innocent accident and that the details were better left unknown. Against my better judgment I left it alone and took a break from work. About 2 days into my break I became terribly ill, so much that they gave Emily to Markus and his wife to take care of until I got better. I was sick for months and, thinking it to be best for Emily, they put her in a boarding school in god knows where, and in my delirium I made no fuss. I never saw her again.
I will never forgive myself for what I did when I was 17, I will never forgive myself for letting the case go, for getting sick, or for letter them take Emily away, never, never.
Goodbye
Chapter 7
Lorelai
Before that day in June, I had always wondered what it would be like if I didn’t have Lorelai. The girl that made all of my days bright, all of my life well, the girl that kept me alive, the girl I had named after myself. She was more than just a daughter, more than just a best friend. She was me. She was everything I had, and therefore my entire life. I didn’t really have a life at all, I was just some woman who couldn’t get married, who’s dreams had died and who’s life had been crushed by her own stupidity. But with Lorelai, none of that mattered, for as long as Lorelai was well, I was. And as long as everyone liked Lorelai, everyone liked me. In the back of my mind I think that I always knew that no matter what happened, people smiling at my daughter Lorelai, did not at all care about the Lorelai who gave birth to her. I wasn’t really anything.
When I rounded the corner onto the road that Lorelai and me had dubbed April Way because it had no name, I didn’t see the police and the cars and the tears, or hear the whispers, and the screams, and the sirens, and run towards my house. I didn’t for one second think of running to the police and asking them why they were there. I died the second that I saw it all, and I stood completely still. I stood on that road like a statue that had not ever moved. A statue with no ears to hear anything but my own heart, with no mouth to do anything but open in horror, not even breathing. I was a statue with no brain to think about whether my daughter was alive or not, or what had happened, or why it had happened. I no longer had a soul. I think that is the closest I have ever some to feeling like I did not have a soul.
I was about 4 yards away from the entire ruckus and it took everyone a couple of minutes to notice I was there. Someone looked around, her eyes widened and she nudged her neighbor and whispered something in her ear, her eyes then also widened, and this began a spread of nudges and whispers until every eye was wide, and ever mouth was closed. Only then did my brain slightly begin to work again. Where was Lorelai, was she all right, what happened, questions flooded my mind and drowned me. I was just beginning to get the feeling back in my legs when a man opened the front door of my house, and wheeled out a stretcher.
In that stretcher lay Lorelai. Her arms had been crossed over her chest, and her eyes were closed. Across her neck was a deep and fatal slash. The blood had been cleaned up from her neck, and she had been stripped and was covered neatly in a thin cloth. She was dead.
Suddenly my legs were no longer frozen, they had disappeared, and I fell to the ground. There I was, kneeling on the ground, with my dress billowing out around me, my eyes still wide and staring at a spot on the ground.
I heard them fold up the legs of the stretcher and place it in the car from somewhere far away. No one approached me, no one moved. Then, slowly, everyone left one by one, until only policemen and me were left. I just sat there on the ground. I didn’t think or feel, I just sat. Then I heard footsteps coming from the village, and for some reason, I knew exactly whose they were. Fletcher Marie cam running around the corner, panting, and looking frightened. He bent down by me and, after he caught his breath said
“I heard some people talking when I was making a house call, they said that there had been an accident, they said that Lorelai…that she was…I wasn’t sure which one…is she…um…ok?” He finished weakly, a tear coming to his face.
And that is when I broke down. I burst into tears and buried my face in Fletcher’s shoulder; he knelt beside me and held me for what seemed like an eternity, until all my tears were gone. When I stopped crying, he stood up, trying to look strong and instead looking even more vulnerable and weak. “I...I think I will go and find out what happened, I am sure one of the police men can help you.”
At that moment a faceless man whom I will never meet again helped me to my feet and sat me down in the bench in my front yard, put a blanket from the paramedics over my shoulders, and offered me some tea. I sat there, not able to touch my tea, trying to stop myself from shivering, looking at my feet. I probably sat there for an hour at least but it felt like in no time at all, a nervous and deeply sorry looking policeman asked me if I could answer a few questions. He took me over to a tired and old doctor who I assumed was the one who had examined her body.
“I do not want to trouble you much today madam, only to tell you I am deeply sorry for your loss. We have determined that the cause of death was loss of blood due to the cut on her neck, though we are not sure how it came about.” I stared at him and suddenly got the courage to finally speak. “You mean she was murdered, someone slit her throat and you have no idea why.” The doctor looked sadly back and turned around, stepping into the front of the car, which carried my daughter’s body, and drove away.
The same nervous looking policeman from earlier came over to me looking even more sorry then he had the first time. “We have paid for a room for you to stay in at the hotel in Amber, we don’t want you to be hassled by anyone here in the village. We will need to do some more questioning tomorrow, but for now we think it is best for you to rest.” I nodded. But just before he could turn around I said, “If I could have just one favor? I would like to bury my daughter tomorrow morning in the village cemetery if the examiners are done with it.”
“Why I am sure that can be arranged,” he said, apparently happy to be doing something that I wanted. “I will have to speak with the morgue, but I am pretty sure that it is ok.” He smiled and walked away, and the faceless man took me to his car and I drove away from the house I would not see for a very, very long time.
Something Else Entirely
Chapter 8
Detective John Louvette
I never expected to encounter another case while I was in the village of Grenn, from what I had seen of the village it seemed to be a quiet one, a couple of rapes due to merchants stopping by for a few days, maybe some small drug scandals, and possibly a robbery or two was all I expected had ever happened there. In fact, from what I had seen, it surprised me that there had even ever been a murder.
They didn’t even call me in to take over the case until I was back in Amber, before then they had left it well alone. And when they first handed me the file on the murder I barely took it seriously. Amber was a large city, home to many murders and scandals; I had solved countless homicides, many with the same basic patterns as the one in the village of Grenn. So it seemed to me to be an open and shut case, and I barely put much thought into it.
The murder victim was a popular and sweet girl who had just graduated from the local school. She had no record what so ever and neither did her mother, who worked at the local Inn. The only suspicious circumstance was that she was to be married, and the fact that there appeared to be no motive. The house had not been broken into, there had been nothing stolen, what could the murderer have wanted? My only guess was that her fiancé’s old lover had decided she must die, or there was the slim chance that it had been an accident. Some may have believed it to be suicide, but the way I saw it, there was no chance. She was happy, successful, loved, rich (her fiancé was the village doctor)…the list went on and on. So why was she murdered? Frankly, I didn’t care. All I could think about was Trana; she hadn’t visited me since that day in the village of Grenn and I wondered if she would ever again. I figured that she had known how much I wanted to meet that girl I had seen in the shop window, and had been jealous, or just angry, or sad. Whatever it was, I really wanted her to come back. I knew I would never have that girl from the village, and if I couldn’t have her, then I knew that the only woman for me was Trana. Dead or alive, person or ghost.
Today I was to meet with the mother of the murder victim, and I was dreading it. I hated meeting with hysterical mothers who only talked about how great their daughters were and how they didn’t deserve to die. They never really helped me any and they thoroughly depressed me.
I wondered if this mother would be any different, and I doubted it. She might even be worse because she was a single mother of an only child and had nothing else. I sighed, it was sad that I cared so little about her feelings, just about how they would effect my solving the case.
I must admit that the case disappointed me a bit. When I was first told about it, I felt excited at the idea of a brutal murder in a small town. It seemed eerie, and like something you would see in the papers a lot, some thing books would be written about. Which all meant it might be the case that I could end with; the case I solve spectacularly or the case I screw up. For some reason, that made it more exciting. But now that I had seen the file, it looked like it would be something little and stupid that the press would bypass because of all that crap with some rich beautiful woman who cheated on her rich handsome husband.
I sighed, dreading the interview and started looking over another case. I dreaded the interview the next day, what a waste of time it would be. If only I had known then, that the interview the next day, would be the most extraordinary and important one I ever had.
Anger
Chapter 9
Lorelai
I do not remember if I slept or if I dreamt that night in the hotel in amber. I don’t know whether I sat up all night crying, or thinking; or if I fell into a deep sleep and dreamt about Lorelai, or just slept. All that really mattered was what happened the next morning, before the interview, before I even buried my daughter.
When I woke up the next morning I was cold. I definitely remember being so cold and wondering why. I barely brushed my hair, and then left, having slept (or whatever I did) in my clothes. Downstairs I found the nervous looking cop, (who now identified himself as Percy Kensington) already waiting for me. He took off his hat and rushed over to me, taking my arm, “The detective in charge of your case, miss Landan, has asked that you look through all the items we took from your house, and those left in, and tell us if there is anything missing.” I sighed, “And what about burying my daughter?”
“Oh, you can do that after, but it will only be a short burying, because you have to meet with the detective in charge for an interview at noon,” he looked at his watch, “and it is already nine, so lets move.”
It was rather strange to see all of the things from the living room out in the front yard. And even stranger to walk through a house full of caution tape and police. But in the end I found that nothing was missing. Kensington looked oddly disappointed, and showed me out and into his car, where I figured he would drive me to the village cemetery.
When we arrived, it was sunny and hot; I could already see the open grave, right under a tree in the far right corner. It seemed to take forever to walk across the graveyard. I refused to look at the tombstones, focusing instead, on the tree she was to be buried under and wondering if she would have liked it. It was big and bushy, a dark green color, with little yellow flowers. I decide that she definitely would.
When I arrived, it was to find a small wooden and cheap looking coffin, with a man standing next to it holding a carving tool. “Ellie,” I said simply, stating the religious symbol I wanted engraved on her coffin and her tomb.
I sat down on the grass while he carved, watching each motion of his hand, studying how he could make such a perfect flower of Empelator, using only this tool and his hands. When he had finished with the coffin, he looked at me, now standing over the tombstone. He bent down over it with a different, sharper carving tool, as I told him what to inscribe. When he had finished, I just stood looking at it, thinking of how I never expected to have to tell some one what to put on my own daughters tombstone.
Lorelai Landan
Loving Daughter and Fiancé
1432-1448
May she Dream her Dreams With me
After the inscriber had left, I stood over her coffin for a while, just looking. And then, it came almost as instinct; I bent down and placed my hand on her coffin. Sadness engulfed every inch of me, I felt like my heart was being crushed my a thousand worlds. I don’t think I ever had felt so sad, even yesterday when I was sobbing into Fletchers shoulder. Now my sadness was far beyond tears, far beyond anything I had ever felt before. I closed my eyes and just let my hand rest on the upper part of her coffin lid.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing that I noticed was the sign of Ellie, the flower of Empelator. It was so beautiful, so perfect, and so elegant. I reached for it, and ran my fingers along the petals, and the name Ellie inscribed below it, and that is when it happened. Everything left me, I was no longer sad at all, I was…angry I guess. But so much that it can barely be classified as angry, I was almost happy. I smiled a bit and something changed in my eyes, I don’t know how to describe it, but suddenly, everything looked different, not different physically, everything just had a different meaning somehow. And I stood up. I knew what I had to do. I had to find whoever killed Lorelai, and why, and then they would have to pay. They wouldn’t just have to die; they would have to suffer deeply and greatly. I found myself looking around and wondering why I was still there, I turned around and walked briskly back to the car, the smile no longer on my face.
“Lets go,” I said to Percy, getting in the car. “But Miss Landan,” he protested, leaning close to my window, “Don’t you want to stay for the burial?”
“No,” I said simply, “We’re going, and that’s final.”
When we arrived at my house I was surprised to see a table set up on my front lawn, just a cheap one with a folding metal chair set at it and a few papers sitting on the table. Sitting on the chair was a man whom I felt sure was the detective. He looked the part, with a long big-collared brown coat, a classic hat tipped to the side, and a handsome young face hidden under it, though I could see his eyes peeking glances at me underneath the brim.
Percy led me over to him, nearly tripping on his way there; it was obvious that he was the type to get nervous around the boss. “Miss Landan, this is Detective John Louvette, he will be in charge of you’re case. Detective,” he said, his voice getting distinctively lower as he stumbled towards the table.
“This is Miss Landan, she-”
“Yes, I know who she is. Well, Percy, pull her up a chair.”
Percy nearly fell over himself trying to get to a chair leaning against the side of the green house. When he set it down I did not sit in it but stood there looking at him hunched over his papers. Realizing I was still standing across the table from him, he looked up and put on a sympathetic face that looked very much practiced.
“Miss Landan, I am so sorry for you’re loss in this terrible accident, I know how you must be feeling at the moment. Please, take a seat.”
I just looked at him. “See that’s called lying Detective Louvette,” I said calmly and in even tones. He stared back looking confused and my voice became angry.
“You are not sorry, it was not an accident, you have not one damn idea how I am feeling and I do not have time to sit and chat with you at the moment, there are things I have to do.”
He looked utterly bewildered; apparently no one had ever given him an answer like that to his bored and memorized speech before.
I turned around and walked out to the edge of the small forest and the village of Grenn, reaching the gate leading into the small farming town of Miranda, heading the opposite direction of Amber, I turned around.
“You need no longer interrupt your meaningful life for this trivial case,” I shouted at him from about 30 yards away, “I will be taking control of this case from now on!”And I began running out of my yard, out of the forest, out of the village of Grenn, out of this nightmare, and into anger.
Look! I even have chapters in this one! Hee hee, it makes me so glad! I kind of like this one, although I think it lacks a lot of detail. But fuck detail, this is what I wrote, and all the fuckers who dont like it can go screw themselves.
Lorelei Landan
The Lorelai’s
Chapter 1
Lorelai
Everything started 2 weeks ago, that’s when Lorelai got the music box. She came home to our small cottage on the outskirts of Grenn village carrying it as though the plain wooden box were made of glass, and now that I think of it, it almost seemed to be.
She slipped into the house where I had just gotten home and was baking a pie, and said not one word to me before setting the box down gingerly on the kitchen table below the window and opening it. It emitted the most beautiful sound that I had ever heard, I remember. And my dear daughter closed her eyes and sighed deeply. Surprised, I barely had time to ask her what it was, when she launched into her tale that I now find is the only lie she ever had to tell me.
“I found it on my way home,” she recited evenly, but mechanically, “why someone would chuck it away, I have no idea, but it’s their loss.” The explanation, at the time, seemed believable enough, and I scarcely even thought of it until today, when I finally found one thing missing to tell Detective Louvette about. But now I think of it, I cannot believe I didn’t recognize how strange the ordeal was. But it is all in the past, something I cannot amend, not that it would actually help any.
Yesterday did not actually start out as an ordinary day, we had had the town dance the night before, and Lorelai had told me that she had been proposed to by her escort. Fletcher Marie was the village doctor, strong and reliable, all the women were clamoring to get him, but the 30 year old man didn’t show any interest in anyone except my Lorelai, and I can see why. My dear 16-year-old daughter Lorelai was as charming as anything, funny and kind, strong, yet very feminine, she greatly enjoyed the company of others and planned to be the 5th grade school teacher when she was done with her studies at St. Pondmoores. Any man would have loved to have her, and any mother would have loved to call her her own. But she was mine.
I didn’t get to do things with the other mothers that much, they were all much older than me, for they had waited till the decent age of 18 to have children, where as I had not married, and had Lorelai when I was only 15, dear, dear Lorelai. My Lorelai. So it was rather lonely for me there in the village of Grenn, with only Lorelai there for me. To be me. To live her life for me, the way that I wish I could have had a chance to live it.
So that morning I was particularly happy. I gave Lorelai sweet Sinpotetan flower for breakfast, and sent her off to her last day of school with a kiss, on each cheek, her forehead, and her new engagement ring made of gold and ocean blossom stone. She smiled at me fondly, and said the words I thought would be true as long as I lived, “I’ll never leave you mom.”
Suitcase of letters
Chapter 2
Detective John
I thought that I would always value the title “Detective”, however the words mean little to me now as I stand here watching her running away. I have had the job for 20 years and I still have not gotten that immense case to end my career, granted I haven’t exactly got a very big case yet. But all the cases that I have been in charge of, I have solved without much thought. I cant just retire, I need to go out with a bang, whether it be after a case where I screw up so badly that I have to leave the force, or a case where I do so well that I am able to always be remembered and retiring seems to be the respectable thing to do.
But on that Thursday afternoon, I truly thought that the case would be open and shut, simple enough to handle, not too out of the ordinary. Nothing about it bothered me as I think that it was supposed to. For I myself have a daughter. Though she is one that I have not seen in nearly 17 years.
I joined the force 20 years ago when I was 15, and that is when I met Trana. She was so charming, exactly what I wanted, we wed only one month after we met and had a daughter, Emily, 2 years later. That was when it happened. Trana died in an accident somehow. I don’t know what the accident was, or how it killed her. The police said that it would be too distressful to see her body and refused to let me work on the case. They wouldn’t even tell me what happened, how it happened, or even where they found the body. I became terribly ill after the accident; I couldn’t go back to work for quite a while and when I was finally ok again it was too late. Dubbing me unable to take care of my daughter alone, they took her away to boarding school before I was well enough to stop them.
But I am not alone. Trana follows me, she speaks to me in sighing strange voices, ghost like almost, yet she is not a ghost. She touches me, my face. She kisses me, yet I cannot touch her. I pretend that I cannot see her and it makes her cry. But I do not want the rest of the force to think me crazy as well as lonely. So I let her stay, I take comfort in her visits, and I am not lonely. I am nowhere near happy, but I am not lonely.
I do write to my daughter, I have no contact with her, but I write to her, and I keep all of the letters in a suitcase, I take it with me when I have to go away, and that is all that it is filled with, for I write to her every day, I wonder if she misses my letters, if she knows that they are merely lost, not gone, and that someday, I’ll be there, and she will know that I have love for her, love I carry around in the suitcase filled with letters. Lost love, yes, but still it is there.
The Beginning Of The End
Chapter 3
Lorelai
This morning after I left the house, feeling happier than I had in long time, I decided to take the long road to work, hoping to see a couple of new shops along the way, a couple of new faces down Helen Street, where most merchants, merely stopping for a day or two, kept their shops.
I didn’t see anything in particular I wanted to buy, so I moved past the street and on to Ogust ave., home to the more permanent shops, such as the bakery, and a small restaurant I had never been to.
The cobbled streets were lined with people milling about, talking, laughing, and meeting with old friends. I had to twist and turn every which way to get through them all. On the street right before I turned left and to the hotel where I worked, there was the police station. Inside I could see all the regular officers and detectives, but also some new ones with slightly different uniforms that I guessed came from Amber, a town not too far away from Grenn. Finally, I reached the Dranchanted Hotel, and slipped in the back door.
I waved to Stewart, a colleague who was the manager, and started towards the desk where I worked as a concierge. Just another day, I thought, can’t wait to get home.
In the village of Grenn
Chapter 4
Detective John Louvette
I was actually in the village of Grenn on the day it happened. I suppose it saved me a trip. I was there because of a silly case of robbery, and “they asked us to send in our best man to help ‘em out.” But I knew perfectly well I was not their best man, they just wanted me to feel important and be distracted, because it was Trana’s birthday. I never thought she wouldn’t visit me on her birthday, but now that I was in the village of Grenn, it suddenly occurred to me she might not be able to go here. But I was wrong.
“How are you today sir?” A kind waitress asked me as I sat down in the restaurant Hakentash. “Quite a ‘right thank you,” I replied in my thick Hevenian accent which I was sure the waitress noticed.
I hadn’t been to Heven in quite some time. Though it was where I grew up. There really wasn’t anything for me there. My parents died when I was 15, and that was when I moved to Sinpotet, alone, for I was an only child. I started on the police force, and haven’t exactly changed since, except for Trana and Emily. But after Trana’s death, and Emily’s disappearance from my life, I barely changed my routine at all. Except of course, that I no longer smile.
I ordered my food, a salad, and sat in a table by the window, watching the people pass. They all seemed so ugly to me, screaming children, gossiping old ladies, cigar-smoking men. I was thoroughly depressed, which was something I was getting steadily better at, when something happened. A woman passed the window. A beautiful woman. She was very tall, with long brown curly hair, and brown eyes, she was wearing a plain blue dress, and something changed inside of me. I was suddenly happier than I had been in a long, long while… wham! Pain hit me so hard I jerked back, and yelled. My face was in such pain that I felt sick, and woozy. Something had hit the side of my face so hard my face jerked forward and hit the window. Everybody in the restaurant was looking at me, and as I looked around for the source of the pain, I saw Trana standing above me. Her short red hair was sweaty and tangled around her face, and she was madder than I had ever seen her. Her entire face was red, and I could see a temple on the side of her head pulsing. She said nothing, just stood there. I saw the source of my pain; she was carrying an enormous rock in the palm of her hand, which I figured she had slammed into the side of my face. I felt my face, it hurt more than I could have ever imagined, but there was no bruise, no swelling, no blood, not a broken tooth, it didn’t even hurt to touch it. It just hurt. Trana began to cry, sobbing actually, and brought the hand with the rock in it up to her face, gently wiping her tears with the back of her arm. And then she disappeared.
The man
Chapter 5
Lorelai
It took me a while after he had already started working on the case to realize that the man I had seen earlier that day was Detective John Louvette. I am not sure how to describe him, or why I took my meeting with him to be so important. Even really why I remembered it, at least until I got home.
I met him on my way back from work (which had been pretty uneventful) walking out of one of the shops on the street where the police station was. Though he wasn’t wearing a police uniform, I guessed that he was part of the Amber force because I had never seen him before, if I had, I think I would have remembered. It was not that he was particularly attractive, just that he was…intense. He seemed to be in deep thought, and it was somehow mesmerizing, as though he were magical. He was, in fact, so deep in thought, that he slammed right into me while leaving a shop, knocking me over. I managed to not fall completely over, and to actually smile and laugh when I regained my balance. He however, did not return the smile, he looked confused, and in pain. But what really surprised me was the look on his face when he saw me, he looked surprised, his eyes darted around as though he was looking for someone, and then he set off towards the police department at a fast pace. I shrugged and continued walking towards home, never expecting to find anything there.
On my way there I ran into no one else, and talked to no one else. Normally I would have had a look in the merchant’s shops on Helen Street, but today I wanted to get home early. Since Lorelai was such a good student, and because she would graduate in July anyways, her teacher at St. Podmoore’s had decided to let her out of school early so she could marry Fletcher. Therefore they had had their school graduation ceremony just for her, and let her out early, though we were supposed to come back later for the public graduation which all of her friends were invited to. So it was important for me to get home early so that we could fix her hair and wash and dry her dress for the special occasion.
I walked past the church near the outskirts of town, and passed several merchants making their way into town with wagons full of goods, and then I stepped onto the road that led to our house. And as I walked down the street towards the house, I never expected that right then, before I had rounded the corner and saw our house, would be the happiest I would ever be, in a very, very long time…
Never, never
Chapter 6
Detective John Louvette
When I first met Trana it was in a restaurant in Amber. She was alone, eating at a table in the dark near the restrooms, which surprised me because she was so beautiful. It was when I was 15 and had just started at the police department as a helper for the captain of the homicide department Markus Draoul. Since I was only 15 it took e a while to muster up the courage to go over there and offer her a seat at my table, so I sat there for a while just watching her. She had long red hair that was slightly curly and green eyes. She had plain, pale skin, and a slender but strong body. I couldn’t see how she was dressed because it was so dark where she was sitting, but I guess I always imagined her in plain clothes, which was how she dressed after we were married.
When I finally got the courage to go over there, and ask her to sit at my table, she refused, saying she would get in trouble because she was a waitress there on her break. So I offered to sit there. Like a 15-year-old girl, she merely giggled, so I took that as a yes.
Everyday after that I would go to that restaurant and sit with her during her breaks. And every time I felt more and more as if we belonged together. After about a month we began to see each other outside of the restaurant and became much closer, and two months after we met, we were wed in the backyard of Markus Draoul’s house, where I slept in the guest room. Afterwards Markus helped me find an apartment and moved me up to being his co-captain’s partner in the homicide department, Trana was able to leave her job as a waitress and took to being a stay at home wife.
Two years after we married we had a daughter, Emily, and one week after that…I don’t know.
All I know about the night of September 24th is that Trana died, I was staying late at work because of a troubling case down in Boulderash and I do not know what happened. Trana was out with some friends and Emily was with a baby sitter. At 10:43, two fellow police officers came into my office with grave looks on their faces and delivered the news. I was shocked, and I wanted to know what happened, I wanted to work on the case, but they just told me it was an innocent accident and that the details were better left unknown. Against my better judgment I left it alone and took a break from work. About 2 days into my break I became terribly ill, so much that they gave Emily to Markus and his wife to take care of until I got better. I was sick for months and, thinking it to be best for Emily, they put her in a boarding school in god knows where, and in my delirium I made no fuss. I never saw her again.
I will never forgive myself for what I did when I was 17, I will never forgive myself for letting the case go, for getting sick, or for letter them take Emily away, never, never.
Goodbye
Chapter 7
Lorelai
Before that day in June, I had always wondered what it would be like if I didn’t have Lorelai. The girl that made all of my days bright, all of my life well, the girl that kept me alive, the girl I had named after myself. She was more than just a daughter, more than just a best friend. She was me. She was everything I had, and therefore my entire life. I didn’t really have a life at all, I was just some woman who couldn’t get married, who’s dreams had died and who’s life had been crushed by her own stupidity. But with Lorelai, none of that mattered, for as long as Lorelai was well, I was. And as long as everyone liked Lorelai, everyone liked me. In the back of my mind I think that I always knew that no matter what happened, people smiling at my daughter Lorelai, did not at all care about the Lorelai who gave birth to her. I wasn’t really anything.
When I rounded the corner onto the road that Lorelai and me had dubbed April Way because it had no name, I didn’t see the police and the cars and the tears, or hear the whispers, and the screams, and the sirens, and run towards my house. I didn’t for one second think of running to the police and asking them why they were there. I died the second that I saw it all, and I stood completely still. I stood on that road like a statue that had not ever moved. A statue with no ears to hear anything but my own heart, with no mouth to do anything but open in horror, not even breathing. I was a statue with no brain to think about whether my daughter was alive or not, or what had happened, or why it had happened. I no longer had a soul. I think that is the closest I have ever some to feeling like I did not have a soul.
I was about 4 yards away from the entire ruckus and it took everyone a couple of minutes to notice I was there. Someone looked around, her eyes widened and she nudged her neighbor and whispered something in her ear, her eyes then also widened, and this began a spread of nudges and whispers until every eye was wide, and ever mouth was closed. Only then did my brain slightly begin to work again. Where was Lorelai, was she all right, what happened, questions flooded my mind and drowned me. I was just beginning to get the feeling back in my legs when a man opened the front door of my house, and wheeled out a stretcher.
In that stretcher lay Lorelai. Her arms had been crossed over her chest, and her eyes were closed. Across her neck was a deep and fatal slash. The blood had been cleaned up from her neck, and she had been stripped and was covered neatly in a thin cloth. She was dead.
Suddenly my legs were no longer frozen, they had disappeared, and I fell to the ground. There I was, kneeling on the ground, with my dress billowing out around me, my eyes still wide and staring at a spot on the ground.
I heard them fold up the legs of the stretcher and place it in the car from somewhere far away. No one approached me, no one moved. Then, slowly, everyone left one by one, until only policemen and me were left. I just sat there on the ground. I didn’t think or feel, I just sat. Then I heard footsteps coming from the village, and for some reason, I knew exactly whose they were. Fletcher Marie cam running around the corner, panting, and looking frightened. He bent down by me and, after he caught his breath said
“I heard some people talking when I was making a house call, they said that there had been an accident, they said that Lorelai…that she was…I wasn’t sure which one…is she…um…ok?” He finished weakly, a tear coming to his face.
And that is when I broke down. I burst into tears and buried my face in Fletcher’s shoulder; he knelt beside me and held me for what seemed like an eternity, until all my tears were gone. When I stopped crying, he stood up, trying to look strong and instead looking even more vulnerable and weak. “I...I think I will go and find out what happened, I am sure one of the police men can help you.”
At that moment a faceless man whom I will never meet again helped me to my feet and sat me down in the bench in my front yard, put a blanket from the paramedics over my shoulders, and offered me some tea. I sat there, not able to touch my tea, trying to stop myself from shivering, looking at my feet. I probably sat there for an hour at least but it felt like in no time at all, a nervous and deeply sorry looking policeman asked me if I could answer a few questions. He took me over to a tired and old doctor who I assumed was the one who had examined her body.
“I do not want to trouble you much today madam, only to tell you I am deeply sorry for your loss. We have determined that the cause of death was loss of blood due to the cut on her neck, though we are not sure how it came about.” I stared at him and suddenly got the courage to finally speak. “You mean she was murdered, someone slit her throat and you have no idea why.” The doctor looked sadly back and turned around, stepping into the front of the car, which carried my daughter’s body, and drove away.
The same nervous looking policeman from earlier came over to me looking even more sorry then he had the first time. “We have paid for a room for you to stay in at the hotel in Amber, we don’t want you to be hassled by anyone here in the village. We will need to do some more questioning tomorrow, but for now we think it is best for you to rest.” I nodded. But just before he could turn around I said, “If I could have just one favor? I would like to bury my daughter tomorrow morning in the village cemetery if the examiners are done with it.”
“Why I am sure that can be arranged,” he said, apparently happy to be doing something that I wanted. “I will have to speak with the morgue, but I am pretty sure that it is ok.” He smiled and walked away, and the faceless man took me to his car and I drove away from the house I would not see for a very, very long time.
Something Else Entirely
Chapter 8
Detective John Louvette
I never expected to encounter another case while I was in the village of Grenn, from what I had seen of the village it seemed to be a quiet one, a couple of rapes due to merchants stopping by for a few days, maybe some small drug scandals, and possibly a robbery or two was all I expected had ever happened there. In fact, from what I had seen, it surprised me that there had even ever been a murder.
They didn’t even call me in to take over the case until I was back in Amber, before then they had left it well alone. And when they first handed me the file on the murder I barely took it seriously. Amber was a large city, home to many murders and scandals; I had solved countless homicides, many with the same basic patterns as the one in the village of Grenn. So it seemed to me to be an open and shut case, and I barely put much thought into it.
The murder victim was a popular and sweet girl who had just graduated from the local school. She had no record what so ever and neither did her mother, who worked at the local Inn. The only suspicious circumstance was that she was to be married, and the fact that there appeared to be no motive. The house had not been broken into, there had been nothing stolen, what could the murderer have wanted? My only guess was that her fiancé’s old lover had decided she must die, or there was the slim chance that it had been an accident. Some may have believed it to be suicide, but the way I saw it, there was no chance. She was happy, successful, loved, rich (her fiancé was the village doctor)…the list went on and on. So why was she murdered? Frankly, I didn’t care. All I could think about was Trana; she hadn’t visited me since that day in the village of Grenn and I wondered if she would ever again. I figured that she had known how much I wanted to meet that girl I had seen in the shop window, and had been jealous, or just angry, or sad. Whatever it was, I really wanted her to come back. I knew I would never have that girl from the village, and if I couldn’t have her, then I knew that the only woman for me was Trana. Dead or alive, person or ghost.
Today I was to meet with the mother of the murder victim, and I was dreading it. I hated meeting with hysterical mothers who only talked about how great their daughters were and how they didn’t deserve to die. They never really helped me any and they thoroughly depressed me.
I wondered if this mother would be any different, and I doubted it. She might even be worse because she was a single mother of an only child and had nothing else. I sighed, it was sad that I cared so little about her feelings, just about how they would effect my solving the case.
I must admit that the case disappointed me a bit. When I was first told about it, I felt excited at the idea of a brutal murder in a small town. It seemed eerie, and like something you would see in the papers a lot, some thing books would be written about. Which all meant it might be the case that I could end with; the case I solve spectacularly or the case I screw up. For some reason, that made it more exciting. But now that I had seen the file, it looked like it would be something little and stupid that the press would bypass because of all that crap with some rich beautiful woman who cheated on her rich handsome husband.
I sighed, dreading the interview and started looking over another case. I dreaded the interview the next day, what a waste of time it would be. If only I had known then, that the interview the next day, would be the most extraordinary and important one I ever had.
Anger
Chapter 9
Lorelai
I do not remember if I slept or if I dreamt that night in the hotel in amber. I don’t know whether I sat up all night crying, or thinking; or if I fell into a deep sleep and dreamt about Lorelai, or just slept. All that really mattered was what happened the next morning, before the interview, before I even buried my daughter.
When I woke up the next morning I was cold. I definitely remember being so cold and wondering why. I barely brushed my hair, and then left, having slept (or whatever I did) in my clothes. Downstairs I found the nervous looking cop, (who now identified himself as Percy Kensington) already waiting for me. He took off his hat and rushed over to me, taking my arm, “The detective in charge of your case, miss Landan, has asked that you look through all the items we took from your house, and those left in, and tell us if there is anything missing.” I sighed, “And what about burying my daughter?”
“Oh, you can do that after, but it will only be a short burying, because you have to meet with the detective in charge for an interview at noon,” he looked at his watch, “and it is already nine, so lets move.”
It was rather strange to see all of the things from the living room out in the front yard. And even stranger to walk through a house full of caution tape and police. But in the end I found that nothing was missing. Kensington looked oddly disappointed, and showed me out and into his car, where I figured he would drive me to the village cemetery.
When we arrived, it was sunny and hot; I could already see the open grave, right under a tree in the far right corner. It seemed to take forever to walk across the graveyard. I refused to look at the tombstones, focusing instead, on the tree she was to be buried under and wondering if she would have liked it. It was big and bushy, a dark green color, with little yellow flowers. I decide that she definitely would.
When I arrived, it was to find a small wooden and cheap looking coffin, with a man standing next to it holding a carving tool. “Ellie,” I said simply, stating the religious symbol I wanted engraved on her coffin and her tomb.
I sat down on the grass while he carved, watching each motion of his hand, studying how he could make such a perfect flower of Empelator, using only this tool and his hands. When he had finished with the coffin, he looked at me, now standing over the tombstone. He bent down over it with a different, sharper carving tool, as I told him what to inscribe. When he had finished, I just stood looking at it, thinking of how I never expected to have to tell some one what to put on my own daughters tombstone.
Lorelai Landan
Loving Daughter and Fiancé
1432-1448
May she Dream her Dreams With me
After the inscriber had left, I stood over her coffin for a while, just looking. And then, it came almost as instinct; I bent down and placed my hand on her coffin. Sadness engulfed every inch of me, I felt like my heart was being crushed my a thousand worlds. I don’t think I ever had felt so sad, even yesterday when I was sobbing into Fletchers shoulder. Now my sadness was far beyond tears, far beyond anything I had ever felt before. I closed my eyes and just let my hand rest on the upper part of her coffin lid.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing that I noticed was the sign of Ellie, the flower of Empelator. It was so beautiful, so perfect, and so elegant. I reached for it, and ran my fingers along the petals, and the name Ellie inscribed below it, and that is when it happened. Everything left me, I was no longer sad at all, I was…angry I guess. But so much that it can barely be classified as angry, I was almost happy. I smiled a bit and something changed in my eyes, I don’t know how to describe it, but suddenly, everything looked different, not different physically, everything just had a different meaning somehow. And I stood up. I knew what I had to do. I had to find whoever killed Lorelai, and why, and then they would have to pay. They wouldn’t just have to die; they would have to suffer deeply and greatly. I found myself looking around and wondering why I was still there, I turned around and walked briskly back to the car, the smile no longer on my face.
“Lets go,” I said to Percy, getting in the car. “But Miss Landan,” he protested, leaning close to my window, “Don’t you want to stay for the burial?”
“No,” I said simply, “We’re going, and that’s final.”
When we arrived at my house I was surprised to see a table set up on my front lawn, just a cheap one with a folding metal chair set at it and a few papers sitting on the table. Sitting on the chair was a man whom I felt sure was the detective. He looked the part, with a long big-collared brown coat, a classic hat tipped to the side, and a handsome young face hidden under it, though I could see his eyes peeking glances at me underneath the brim.
Percy led me over to him, nearly tripping on his way there; it was obvious that he was the type to get nervous around the boss. “Miss Landan, this is Detective John Louvette, he will be in charge of you’re case. Detective,” he said, his voice getting distinctively lower as he stumbled towards the table.
“This is Miss Landan, she-”
“Yes, I know who she is. Well, Percy, pull her up a chair.”
Percy nearly fell over himself trying to get to a chair leaning against the side of the green house. When he set it down I did not sit in it but stood there looking at him hunched over his papers. Realizing I was still standing across the table from him, he looked up and put on a sympathetic face that looked very much practiced.
“Miss Landan, I am so sorry for you’re loss in this terrible accident, I know how you must be feeling at the moment. Please, take a seat.”
I just looked at him. “See that’s called lying Detective Louvette,” I said calmly and in even tones. He stared back looking confused and my voice became angry.
“You are not sorry, it was not an accident, you have not one damn idea how I am feeling and I do not have time to sit and chat with you at the moment, there are things I have to do.”
He looked utterly bewildered; apparently no one had ever given him an answer like that to his bored and memorized speech before.
I turned around and walked out to the edge of the small forest and the village of Grenn, reaching the gate leading into the small farming town of Miranda, heading the opposite direction of Amber, I turned around.
“You need no longer interrupt your meaningful life for this trivial case,” I shouted at him from about 30 yards away, “I will be taking control of this case from now on!”And I began running out of my yard, out of the forest, out of the village of Grenn, out of this nightmare, and into anger.
Look! I even have chapters in this one! Hee hee, it makes me so glad! I kind of like this one, although I think it lacks a lot of detail. But fuck detail, this is what I wrote, and all the fuckers who dont like it can go screw themselves.
posted by Anonymous Bitch at 10:02 PM
2 Comments:
"But after Trana’s death, and Emily’s disappearance from my life, I barely changed my routine at all. Except of course, that I no longer smile."
i really liked it. and i wanna read more! now! haha. it kept me guessing. and i still am. more more more. hehe.
"out of the village of Grenn, out of this nightmare, and into anger."
i love the "into anger" part. i just really liked it a lot. xD
this is a great mystery story. It involves the huge sadness of losing a child, the anger of wanting revenge and retaliation, and the complicated connections of realtions between characters. There could be more detail, but i love your writing in this one - very captivating. PLease continue!
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