Loveday Writing

The brief of the AWC Furious Fiction—August 2018 short story competition was as follows:

Each story simply had to include the following three sentences:

• The door was locked.
• She laughed.
• It felt familiar.

***

Before the Storm

The door was locked.

Jesinta’s grand plan was just about complete with only one step left—freeing him so he could go straight into battle.

She couldn’t help but think about how long she had waited for this moment. It felt familiar.

It felt familiar as it took her mind back to when she was in a similar situation. Her parents hid her away, making her feel like she was in a prison (well she was) until they needed her to use her powers to fight against evil. She laughed.

She laughed at the irony that she was now keeping him prisoner to fight against good witches.

She laughed at how easily she fooled her “friends”, Suzanna and Zahra, into believing how good she was. She laughed at how they were so fooled, Zahra chose her to be her daughter, Zoey’s, godmother.

Although her plan is still in motion, her laugh and smile faded as she reminded herself that she didn’t fool everyone, and that’s why she was here at the door. Zoey, one of the most powerful witches of her generation, thanks to being the product of a powerful evil and good witch, found out where her true loyalty lies, after her father died. Zoey found a photo of Jesinta and her father, Peter, together back in their hey-day. Zoey recently went back in time to gather evidence, but Jesinta thinks that Zoey doesn’t know that she knows it was her. While Zoey is powerful, she is inexperienced in time travel and she couldn’t fool her.

Jesinta unlocked the door and looked at the final part of her plan straight in the eye—Elliott. She managed to pull the biggest trick of all on Suzanna and Zahra by making them believe he is dead. While he was killed by an overzealous journalist who wanted to expose magic, Elliott was suspicious of Jesinta. After his body was removed from his, Suzanna’s and Zahra’s house, it was taken to the funeral home, where it was replaced by a magical clone. One of Jesinta’s many powers is reviving the dead, which she managed to do with Elliott. She held him captive, forcefully preparing him for the battle against good witches.

She can’t wait to see the look on Suzanna’s and Zahra’s faces when her and Elliott show up…and kill them.