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writing-with-melon · 4 years

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Wollstonecraft (1)

Chapter 1 of a wip I’ve been calling Wollstonecraft

Ok I just felt like putting this dumb story on here. It’s awfully cliche but since it's been on my mind for months, so here is.

Summary: After the death of her paternal grandmother, Emi Alonso moves back to the town of Los Lobos, NM, after a decade of being away. There she meets the handsome Kieran Wollstonecraft who for some reason can’t stay away from her. What was supposed to be a fresh start for Emi turns into torture as she continues to get buried in secrets, family drama, and werewolves.

masterlist

HOMECOMING

Grandmother Alonso was dead.

I was there at her funeral and I didn’t shed a tear. I hadn’t seen her in ten years and I hardly remembered her. How are you supposed to connect a feeling of loss to a single Christmas card every year, with nothing more written than Merry Christmas written on it? We’d never been close, but she was family so I'd gone to her funeral nonetheless. Maybe it was because I was trying to bury part of myself with her. Maybe I'd come to this tiny old town to get a fresh start, I needed one.

I'd received a call from the funeral home and since I was her only surviving family I had to be the one to deal with the legal issues as well, all while trying to move out of my apartment since my lease was ending. How they tracked me down I'll never know, but I turned out to be her only heir.

She must have been a wretched creature, Grandma Alonso. Only four people buried her body, me included. But I did meet a woman who was presumably her best friend, a certain Barbara Andino, who was too busy crying buckets to speak to. When I hugged her she sobbed on my neck and held on so tight I thought she would break me. She was a wild, ancient woman. Her thick glasses somehow hung to the tip of her nose and her gray hair was long and unruly growing in all directions, kind of like mine, and under her long black cape black sweats and Doc Martens. She had a regal way about her, if she wasn't so crazy looking, that is. With the right clothes, she might have passed for a member of the royal family. But alas she was an old woman in the American South West, living in a small desert town whose main exports were pecans and pistachios.

The other funeral attendees were the postman who was one of the only people that spoke to her.

And finally, an old man with a large mustache in a fancy suit who stood in the back and said nothing at all and left before the priest finished speaking.

I was about to leave before I felt Ms. Barbara Andino's hand on my shoulder holding me back.

"You must be Emi." She said wiping her tears.

"Yes, that's me," I replied awkwardly trying to smile.

Barbara smiled momentarily before breaking into sobs and then captured me in a great bear hug. "I—she wanted you to know... t—that she loved you so much!" She cried in my ear.

"Oh? Thank you, for telling me." I said rubbing her back trying to comfort her.

"Are you going to stay long? In town I mean, I know you've been living out there." She said "out there" as of the world outside of the town was a fantasy world.

"I think so. She did will me her house, so I'm thinking I'm going to stay for a while and sort things out." I said.

Barbara's face lit up immediately "That's great! I'm so glad you're back in town!" She'd finally stopped crying.

The way she had said "back in town" brought shivers to my spine. It had been about a decade since I'd been here and even though my plan was to make a new start for myself, being reminded that I've once lived here made it seem like I was regressing instead of moving forward.

But I shook my head at that thought and smiled repeating my newest mantra "you're a great recently graduated interior designer and the world is at your feet" over and over again.

“I’d love it if you could stop by house sometime, I’ve got some of her things that you might want,” Barbara said taking my hands and giving them a tight squeeze. She was hauntingly strong for a woman in her eighties.

“Sure, I’ll bring you a cup of coffee,” I promised with a smile trying to counter her squeeze with one of my own. I wasn’t too keen on visiting the crazy old gal, but kindness costs nothing, and we’d both lost someone. So I did resolve to keep my promise as I made my back to my old car.

I was practically living out of my car since I decided to make the move. I sighed looking through the window and saw the royal mess I’d made in the back seat with all of my junk spread all over and boxes filled to the brim. I’d graduated from college just a month before the news hit and since my lease was ending I decided it would be best to cram all of my belongings in the car for a few days. The death of Grandmother Alonso, though tragic as is was couldn’t have come at a more fortunate time. The same day I’d received the call informing me of her death I received another call from her lawyer telling me I’d inherited her house. It seemed a bit early and heartless, since she wasn’t even cold in the ground, that I was already making plans to move into her house. But since my memories of the old lady were few and far in between, it didn’t pain me or strike me as too harsh.

After the funeral, I drove over to the address I’d been given and peaked into the mailbox for the house keys as the lawyer had instructed. It surprised me to know that she didn’t live in a tiny old house worthy of a witch, it was certainly more modern than I expected and definitely less cluttered. But, she did have an excess of little wolf statuettes that I found slightly disturbing but I paid no mind to them as I unloaded all of my junk from the car; junk, that I decided would be dealt with the next day since I was exhausted from the long road trip from Houston, TX to Los Lobos, NM.

At the very end of the trunk of my car, I saw “The Box of Doom” and I shuddered just thinking about it. “The Box of Doom” was the unfortunate cardboard cube where I kept all the things that brought me bad memories. Among them, notes my ex-boyfriend, failed projects, mementos I collected from my past relationships, and other things I wanted to put behind me.

I resolved it was bout time to get rid of all those things and suddenly an idea sparked in my mind and if my memory of this old town served me well, it would be a cathartic experience. I took out my phone and ordered my favorite pizza and after it arrived I drove myself to the store that sold all the supplies I needed to start a fire. After that, I drove to the nearest liquor store where I was almost tempted to buy my weight in alcohol but stopped at a six-pack of beer and a pair of bottles of wine. And finally when my car was void of everything except “The Box of Doom” and the stuff I’d just bought I hopped in my car and drove to the farthest patch of desert that lined the little town.

Should I even make a taglist for this?

#wip #my wip #werewolves #writing #my writing #writeblr

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