Writing Exercise #6

I took a write-break for a couple of weeks, partly due to the holidays and holiday prep but mostly because I just wasn't feeling the writing thing. I'm still not, to be honest, but I know I need to get back into it. Because the weeks will turn into months, and I have too much work still to do to allow the break to stretch into a lull.

So I now present the return of the writing exercises. I started this prompt two other times, in different fandoms, before settling on original characters. And I think this is the first exercise where I didn't use the word itself in the vignette:

Prompt: driven
Fandom: original characters (The Witch of November)
Character(s): Lillian Blackstone

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Damn it, it didn’t work. Again.

Lillian Blackstone had no idea why the ritual wasn’t working. Lillian knew it worked all the time for Millie. She’d been there right in Millie’s parlor when the other woman performed the ritual and talked to her Caleb. After learning of the trouble Lillian was having, Millie had even tried to contact Josiah for her, but she couldn’t find him, either.

Odd, that. Why was Caleb so readily available and Josiah was nowhere to be found? It didn’t seem fair, not at all. Poor Millie didn’t have any answers to give, but then Lillian didn’t expect her to. The other woman wasn’t an expert, after all. She’d only been doing this a couple of years herself.

The two of them had an appointment in two days in Portland with Constance, the medium who taught Millie how to contact Caleb. Hopefully she’d be able to find Josiah, and if not, she should at least be able to point Lillian towards someone who could.

Failing that, Lillian would just have to start researching on her own.

Millie had more than once warned against that course of action because the forces they were using could be unpredictable. Clearly the way around that was to invite the other woman to study with her, and they could research together. Millie had been expressing interest lately in trying to see what other events she could make happen. After all, a circle of candles was all it took to talk to her dead husband. Who knew what else they could do with some candles and herbs and incantations?

And as for Lillian, all she wanted was to know that her husband was okay. Was that too much to ask?

Clearly, the answer was yes.

Lillian sighed and blew out the candles, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, Josiah,” she murmured, “where are you?”