MABEL
Isolated for so long amidst the Grounds, their dilapidated farm, and otherwise suspicious family, his answers only sparked more questions. They laid on the back of her tongue, clenched in between teeth, snapping on fangs, pondering all the while as she ignored all the other movements around them. Trade? What did they trade? What was across the horizon, the everlasting, eternal sea? What precious things, artifacts, designs, waited along interwoven bays and crusades? How did they find their way to, and then back home? Stories always glossed over those details and finer points, and pictures could only showcase so much. Were there pirates along the coastlines, waiting for their next victims? Were their great, gargantuan animals rising from the deep? Mabel felt like one of her younger siblings, sitting there on the floor, shouting out an assortment of inquiries, mind yearning to interrupt, to fill her void with something other than ignorance.
And with nothing more to do, the notions bit, clawed, and tore at her. She rubbed her hands together, fingers interlocking, woven along the enamel of her nails, as if she were knitting or committing herself to some need for action; otherwise she was stock still, hooded, wanting nothing more than to skirt along the waves. Her attention had completely deviated from any of the work finalized, and her gaze snapped back to him, abrupt, eerie, uncanny. “Have you ever been out there?”
And with nothing more to do, the notions bit, clawed, and tore at her. She rubbed her hands together, fingers interlocking, woven along the enamel of her nails, as if she were knitting or committing herself to some need for action; otherwise she was stock still, hooded, wanting nothing more than to skirt along the waves. Her attention had completely deviated from any of the work finalized, and her gaze snapped back to him, abrupt, eerie, uncanny. “Have you ever been out there?”
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
and stretch my claws out
