Iron Quill 2012 (The Starry Road) - The Little Dove

[Victoria]

Ruth Strout’s hands were pink and cracked, and her knuckles were caked with seeping scabs in various states of healing. Apart from their diminutive size, anyone who observed those hands separate from the rest of her might have thought that they belonged to an older woman and not a nine year old girl. Six days a week the girl’s services were hired out to Mademoiselle Sophie Pierre-Louis who ran a laundry service on the side out of her brothel, The Dove’s Tail. Mlle Sophie was a stern yet kind woman, who treated the girls in her service well and fairly, whether they were painted ladies or underage laundresses. On Sundays, the Dove’s Tail closed its doors to allow the girls time for rest and religion. Ruthie hated Sundays. The girl appreciated any time she had away from her Pa, even if it meant her stinging hands were deep in water mixed with ash lye.

For Ruthie one Sunday was much like another, and this approaching Sunday was certain to be more of the same. After her Saturday shift, the girl trudged wearily home over the broken cobble street that led to the ramshackle dwelling she shared with her Pa. Pa was a roustabout, doing hard labor where he could find it, on days he was sober enough to stumble out the door. These days were growing fewer in number, and the household relied almost entirely on Ruthie’s modest wages to pay the proprietor and put food on the table. In better days, her father had worked as a miner, and the two had grown comfortably fat on as much bread and sausage they could eat. Then The Accident had happened, and something in Pa had changed, and Ruthie was left with an empty stomach on days she stayed home from the Dove’s Tail.

The door to her home was cracked open when she arrived, and the girl peeked in cautiously to judge the state of things before she entered. As usual, Pa was sprawled out in his chair, his chin pointed toward the ceiling, and his hand wrapped loosely about a dingy glass. The glass was something that Ruthie had grown to hate, because with the glass her father became a different man, and the glass seemed to have some sort of hold over him that had only grown worse in time. Soulstone Gin, it was called. Almost all of their money went toward buying it. If there was anything that Ruthie hated in this world, it was the demon called Soulstone Gin.

Pa was snoring, his barrel chest heaving upward with each breath. There was white saliva caked in the stubble covering his jowl. His limbs hung loosely toward the floor, all but the single mechanical leg, bent stiffly at the knee - the ever-present reminder of The Accident. Tenderly, Ruthie came forward and wiped the spittle from Pa’s face, then smoothed a few strands of greasy hair back from his forehead. Today had not been a working day for Harland Strout. The table against which he leaned contained only the glass and a bottle, not bread or coffee, or even cabbage. Sighing, Ruthie gave the shack a once-over, noting that Pa had urinated on the base of one wall. She opened the cupboard, seeing within it only a trifling of salt, and resigned herself to be hungry once again.

As night began to fall, Pa’s broken snores filled the room along with the sickly scent of gin. As the light began to diminish, Ruthie noticed a soft glow pulsing from deep within the brown glass bottle. Curious, the girl approached the table so she could squint one eye down the neck of the bottle. Inside a tiny sliver of milky white stone sat innocently in a bed of clear liquid. Ruthie gasped softly as she recognized what it was: something with which she could easily barter a week’s worth of food. Tipping the bottle, the girl slid the wet stone into her palm, and wrapped her fingers carefully about it. Glancing toward her Pa to make certain she was still asleep, the girl gathered her resolve, and then sat the bottle quietly back down on the table, then marched out the door.

Ruthie returned home with her apron loaded with foods: coffee, sausages, potatoes and apples, bread and oats, and even a small sack of sugar. Pleased with herself, she arranged the items in the cupboard and on the table, and then drug a thin blanket over to her father still asleep in the chair. With that, she settled down on the floor amongst a pile of ragged blankets to sleep her way toward a better Sunday.

---

The girl was awoken with a start as a potato belted her in the ribs. Her father was awake, wide eyed and furious, his long arms sweeping across the table to send food flying everywhere. The man roared in his rage, kicking over a chair with his mechanical leg and sending it splintering into the wall. “Where is it?” he bellowed, “What have you done, girl?” Then the bottle was in his hand, and he was beating her, pummeling her arms as

they covered her face.

“Pa, please!” the girl begged, squealing in pain. “I’ll get another! I’ll get another!”

Scrambling out from under him, Ruthie ran toward the door, swinging it open. As she ran out into the streets, the bottle hit her in the back and a voice sounded from inside the shack.

“Don’t come back!”

---

Ruthie wasn’t certain where she should go. The doors of the Dove’s Tail were closed, and there were few who tolerated the presence of children. She had no money, and wouldn’t be getting any until she was given her Monday wages. And so Ruthie wandered the streets of the mining town, wondering where in Malifaux she would get her hands on another sliver of Soulstone.

Morning turned to noon, and hunger once more grew in the girl’s belly. She paused her walking to drink the warm water from a horse trough, and splashed some in her grimy face. She might have continued walking then, if it weren’t for a motion that she caught out of the corner of her eye, low to the ground. Focusing her eyes to the shadowy alley alongside the general store Ruthie saw a tiny woman dressed in the bright costume of a painted lady. Blinking in surprise, the girl took a few steps forward and realized that it was not a woman, but a little wooden marionette, standing without the aid of strings.

The puppet seemed to regard the girl with unblinking eyes, its painted red lips held permanently in a white grin. It raised its hand and, fingers clacking, made a beckoning motion to the girl. With that it spun about, silk swirling, and danced down the alley in a merry prance, wooden shoes tapping the cobblestone with an almost musical thunk. Startled but intruiged, Ruthie found herself following after the little marionette, twisting her way through roads and alleys until she found herself in a part of town that she did not recognize. The streets were abandoned, all but a beautiful wooden cart drawn by a large white horse with bells braided into its mane and tail.

The marionette paused outside the cart, motioning toward the girl, and then spread its wooden arms out as if to say “Here we are! Isn’t it wonderful?” It truly was. The cart was painted a deep midnight blue, with white trim and golden wheels. Lovely white letters were drawn upon the side of the cart, which Ruthie appreciated but could not read – she had never been taught how. Best of all was the back of the cart, which had been hung with curtains. Beautiful curtains of deep blue, sewn in thread of gold with the celestial bodies of moons and stars. They were so lovely that the girl could scarcely breathe for fear that she would wake up from some magnificent dream.

The little puppet waved, and then darted up a thin wooden plank at the back of the cart, disappearing into the curtains. Enraptured, Ruthie came forward, ascending the base of the plank as if in a trance. It was all so lovely that the girl forgot her troubles, and all that she could think of was her desire to step past those starry curtains and see what wonders lay inside. Just then, a larger pair of wooden hands parted the beautiful curtains, one beckoning the girl inside.

Ruthie Stout stepped forward, and vanished into the cart, moon and stars swishing behind her.

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Sorry I didn't get this in on time I guess, I thought I had until midnight CST not EST. Ooops! Thought I'd post it anyway.

Ingredients:

The Glass Man

To The Stars

1434 words