Welcome and Excerpt #1

I'm going to be posting writing excerpts and stuff here. Maybe once a week, maybe every other week. I don't know.

So for the first excerpt, I'm posting part of Chapter 1, which most of you have read. Unfortunately, nothing I write is nearly so funny and (melo)dramatic as Ani Isilee's novel, but...

Arianna's lived all of her seventeen years at her mountain home. For like ten years she's been alone there. Now visitors have suddenly been announced....

By the time I reached the top of the stairs, I realized all this silent cursing must have turned my expression from stony to something more frightening, and I paused to take some deep breathes and force my face into an expression of pleasantness. Ideally, I should have made a few practice smiles at myself in a mirror to ensure that I looked properly gracious, but there had been no time.

As I neared the bottom of the stairs, I willed myself to stay calm and kept my eyes focused above the bright rectangle of the open doors, rather than on the black figure in wide skirts standing in middle of the block of light. The figure, however, noticed me, and skirt clutched tight in her hands, flew towards me. "Oh, Arianna!" she cried excitedly. "How wonderful it is to meet you at last!"

Automatically I took a step back, my foot securely placed on the higher stair.

The woman stopped at the bottom of the staircase. "Arianna, please come here."

I did not move.

"Arianna, please come here so that I may greet you properly." Now she sounded petulant, like she would stamp her foot if I didn't cooperate. She placed her right foot on the first stair, and I moved a step higher. She frowned, and I met her childish frown evenly, expressionlessly. Clearly she had expected a warm welcome from me. How stupid. As if I would ever give a warm welcome to a complete stranger.

"This is not funny, Arianna."

"No. It isn't," I agreed, meaning every word. It really wasn't. It was actually rather impolite, to appear without warning and then to act sentimental, as though we were the best of friends seeing each other again after weeks apart, as if she had been invited to visit and was not invading my home.

Another figure entered the entrance hall from the outside. "Are you scaring my daughter, dearest?" he asked amusedly.

My feet attached themselves to the steps; my hand froze to the railing. Fortunately, my mouth was closed so I didn't look like too much of an idiot. The woman spun around. "Philip, Arianna refuses to greet me," she whined.

"Arianna," my father said, "greet your mother."

I did not move, and the woman turned back to me expectantly, her arms lifting from her sides in a gesture meant to invite me into an embrace, like a command from my father would automatically make me obedient, turn me into the docile loving daughter I was wrongly expected to be.

"Arianna, did you not hear me?"

Finally I spoke. My mouth opened, and I said, "She is not my mother."

The woman looked taken aback, almost as if she would cry, and once again I found myself wondering how stupid she must be to have expected her reception to be anything other than this.

"Of course she is your mother. I am your father, and she is my wife. That makes her your mother."

My mind raced past all reasonable emotions and landed cold anger. Lividness seeped into my blood, running through my veins to every inch of my body, my skin itching with the tingling sensation of pure fury. If breathing had required conscious thought, I would have forgotten about it. All I could focus on was this great wrong being done to me.

"Arianna?" That was the woman. Not my mother. But my stepmother. What a hateful word. She blinked, her eyebrows raised in expectant concern. When she saw that my attention was on her, she smiled hopefully, as if that silly stretching of the lips could possibly erase what had just happened or, even less likely, make it any better.

I raised my head to stare at my father, who was still standing near the doorway. His stance was smug, overly confident and arrogant, and in that moment, I hated him. But I made myself smile and ordered my teeth to unclench so that I could at least pass as neutral about this unwanted situation. However, my father frowned slightly, unconvinced.

Angry words boiled in my mouth, but I swallowed hard to keep them inside. Now was not the time to lash out, but there was only one way to be certain of remaining civil.

"Well, I am certain you are need in some refreshments." My jaw had tightened again, making speaking difficult and painful. "Let me see about some tea."

Before either my father or stepmother could say anything, my feet had detached themselves from the steps, and I turned and marched up the stairs.

I took the servants' staircase back down to the first floor.

copyright 2008 by Anidori-Isilee