Hey all:
I'm still working on editing my first book, and I want to thank you all for taking the time and reading what I've posted. The feedback has been very helpful. I just graduated college and am on vacation down in Charleston, SC- in my opinion, the most beautiful city in America. I've been inspired to start my next work, something VERY different than the first, and I thought I'd go ahead and post what I've started. Started writing last night, so this is about as new as it gets. Hope you enjoy!!
12 Savage Street
By: Ethan Kinkle
Chapter 1
A
gentle cross breeze moved through the piazza as the boy gently swung back and
forth, gaze turned toward the street. The tepid South Carolina heat hung low in
the air, beads of humidity gathering on the railing, and the thick white
columns. The boy always managed to find his way to the porch in the late of the
afternoon heat. He never seemed to mind. Though the place he called home was a
miraculous thing of beauty, he was too young to think much of it. He had known
nothing else.
His
mother stood in the kitchen in front of the oven, waiting for the cookies to
finish baking. Always his favorite. The
smell gently wafted up out of the room, and up the marble staircase, winding
its way around the three and a half stories of sprawled splendor. Creeping into
the walls, wrapping around the furniture, spiraling up to excite the child, in
only the way a six year old can get excited.
The
buzzer on the oven went off and his mother reached down delicately with her
oven mitt, pulling out her homemade special recipe of sweet treats. She dumped
the tray of cookies out onto a large porcelain white china bowl and poured a
full glass of milk.
“Charles,
your cookies are ready?” she knew good and well he probably couldn’t hear her. Probably outside walking the cobblestone
again. She grabbed the plate to walk to bowl to his bedroom, a nice
surprise for his return from friends. Her footsteps echoed loudly in the
resonant foyer as she climbed slowly, glancing up at the framed portraits of
the family she had worked so hard to create and love. Always trying so hard to
be the best mother of anyone she knew, and as far as she was aware, it was
working.
Reaching
the top of the stairs, she glanced out at the piazza and saw him swinging
gently back and forth.
The
bowl of cookies and milk shattered on the floor as the blood curdling scream
resonated through the street.
**
They
say homes have a personality of their own. For the most part, it’s a
representation of the lives of those who have called the house home. Fairly
mundane and routine, but mostly filled with love and family. The kind that’ll
wrap its arms around you when the cold chills you to the bone and you fell you
have nowhere to go. I always though that if you put in enough love, the house
would love you back and wrap its arms around you so to speak. The soft creaking
of the floors at night, the whipping of the wind that gently rattles the window
panes late at night. Must be the house’s way of letting you know its got your
back. This is what I always though.
I
had always dreamed of living in a house that stood for something. A house grand
enough the neighbors held just an inkling of resentment. Not the kind that
would really amount to much of anything, but enough that let them know you had
your own business wrapped up handily. You weren’t going anywhere. You were
secure, and because of it, your family would definitely follow suit.