Shelby flicked her twin’s nose. “For all but ignoring her. Then we are going to ask her if she wants to talk about anything. After that, we’re going to treat her like normal.”
She kept her finger tapping on Irene’s nose. “For you, that means treating her like before Halloween. I will be very cross with you if you don’t. You’re not a cruel person, I know you better than anyone. Being afraid or hating someone because they saved someone else is not your style.”
Shelby bounced off the bed and rounded on her sister, pointing a finger at her face. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes mother,” Irene pouted.
“Good.” Shelby turned back and sat down on her own bed. “I am your older sister and it is my job to set you straight. Call me mother again and I’ll turn you over my knee until your rear turns red.”
Irene stuck her tongue out before flopping over on her bed, shutting off her light as she did so.
With a sigh, Shelby did the same.
Another day like today couldn’t happen again. It felt too gross. Everyone sat around stewing in their own thoughts.
It was a good thing Juliana went after Eva during alchemy. If they managed to talk a little, perhaps that would help in the morning. She’d been surprised that Juliana didn’t say anything during classes or lunch. Juliana, at times, seemed just as awkward as Max.
Shelby doubted that either of the girls had any friends before coming to Brakket.
All the more reason to be friends now.
And that’s that.
Book one closes.
Thanks for reading. I do hope you enjoyed, I certainly did.
Book two will continue as scheduled. No intermissions, no interludes. Tune in next time for 002.001.
My main goal with book one was simply to finish. And I’d say I did so. It is a coherent story, at least from my position. I do hope it was coherent for you as well.
For book two, I am going to try to give some limelight to other characters and develop some of them a little more. Eva might take a short backseat. We’ll see more non-Eva characters as POVs. Probably. Still hammering out some details though I have a few chapters written already. It is a little something of an experiment so I suppose we’ll see how that goes.
Book two will finish out the remainder of the school year and then on to book three where Eva will be the unquestionably main character once again. But that’s a ways off yet, so I won’t promise any details I might change later.
As for book one, it took a little while to get off the ground, I’d say. I can already see things that I would change were this not a web serial. The early chapters especially.
Chapter six, I do believe is the weakest chapter. Few things actually happen that progress much of anything. Devon is made to look like a buffoon a bit too much, though I may blame that on Eva handing him potions that don’t mix well. At least in my headcanon.
It wasn’t until after I finished the entire thing and started on book two that I realized Eva fell victim to the ‘main character runs off alone despite nefarious people being around and after her’ cliche. It seriously didn’t even register with me until just now. I’m going to claim that Weilks had her stalked by ghosts and they were purposely waiting for her to be alone. Maybe that will alleviate some of my worry.
I do like the end of the book, that is to say the last few chapters. In my original plan, Eva was simply to be captured by Sawyer. A capture she promptly escapes from in a manner similar to how she actually escaped. At some point, I realized that these big bad necromancers were treating her with kid gloves despite killing several people during the Halloween chapters.
Halfway through writing that chapter, I decided that had to go. This isn’t some story with ineffectual villains. Sawyer and Weilks are unrepentant murderers who kill for their own gain. They’re not going to just leave Eva in some cell somewhere.
So the Sawyer torture scene came about.
I had a table set out full of injuries. Some were very minor, such as Eva’s hair. Others were more severe than her eyes. The eyes was probably the worst along side a full limb being removed. In the end, I decided on her fingers and eyes. After I decided on torture being a thing, she was always going to lose her toes.
The removal of her eyes caused quite a few changes, though nothing too specific. I had already alluded to her being able to sense blood, so I didn’t think it was too big a jump for her to sense blood within people. I’m always nervous about ‘eleventh hour superpowers’ as I don’t think they’re done well too often, but I thought that might be a reasonable.
No more talk about her eyes, though. There will be more on that in book two.
