Today, the sun is shining and I went for a 2 hours walk with Nero. More of a slow procession than a real stroll, but he was in the mood for sniffing at the same leaf for more than it was appropriate and I had my kindle with me. All in all, it was a success. As I feel it was the rest of this eventful week.

For this Friday’s snippet, I have decided to post a small excerpt from the original version of Linda of the Night.  As I said in a previous post, Linda’s tale was written as a bedtime story a father narrated to his daughter in my fantasy, Magical Glasses. Erratic at best, Magical Glasses was my first Nanowrimo project. I finished it at 56k words and never looked back at it. Until I remembered the story of the ugly girl who lived isolated from the rest of the world because of her hideousness. This is how Linda’s tale was introduced:

“Today, I was walking through a dusty street crowded with stalls selling all sorts of things, when I saw an old, older than old, ancient lady with a face full of wrinkles, so many of them that it looked like she had a spider web on her face. She looked at me and asked if I wanted to hear a story.” Dad paused to let Luce make her usual comments.

“And you said yes.” Luce laughed.

“And I said no!” Dad laughed too and then waited for her reply.

“Why?” Luce seized one rosette without noticing. Mom caressed her hand to relax her fingers.

“Because you should never say yes the first time a bruja offers you something. They always, always, want something back from you.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I asked her directly what she wanted for the story, and then I said yes.” Dad loved the dramatic pauses and sometimes Mom complained out loud he overused them, but Luce could never have enough.

“What did she ask that you said yes?” Luce mangled another rosette. This time Mom let her be.

“The ancient bruja asked me to tell her a story in exchange for her tale.”

“What story?”

“I told her the story of when I saw you for the first time. I described the joy I felt when you held my finger with your little hand. I told her that I’d travel to the end of the world for you.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that a love so big deserved a gift.”

“What gift?”

“She told me the most beautiful story…”