Cara #2 (freewrite fiction)

You can read the first part of the story here.

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Before she can go, there are dinners. Nanny cooks for her, but Cara doesn’t know when that happens. Sometimes, nanny leaves her alone in the foyer and maybe she goes away to cook then, but Cara hasn’t been allowed into the kitchen for a long time, not since the incident. So she doesn’t know.
Cara doesn’t remember the incident very well, because she was so small then. She remembers sitting on Christopher’s arm and she remembers whispering. Yes, Christoper carried her to the kitchen. It must’ve been a plot of his, a game. Except Christopher – not the real Christopher, because he’s with the beast, see, but the Christopher in her mind – doesn’t look like he’s playing at all. He doesn’t smile and he doesn’t really seem happy.
And Cara is quiet in his arms, it’s okay, ‘cause Christopher would never hurt her. But then something happens and of course, nanny blames Christopher when she comes back. Except nanny isn’t back just yet and Cara’s sitting on the table and she’s giggling now, because she’s never allowed to sit on the table and it’s like she’s in a secret sort of club. The on-the-table-club and Christopher’s in it too, except he’s not sitting on the table. And Cara doesn’t really know where Christopher is just then, because something’s caught her attention and she doesn’t look for him anymore. Just in a second, she’ll just touch–
But that doesn’t go as planned and suddenly, Cara is screaming and Christopher turns back to her and sees blood and he panics, forgets all about what he was doing by the door. And he picks Cara up in his arms again and runs cold water over her hand and Cara screams and cries and doesn’t understand his face because he doesn’t look angry, like maybe she thought he might. He looks worried.

Before the incident, even nanny would let her into the kitchen sometimes, while she chopped carrots and sour smelling turnips and Cara would sit on the floor – because she wasn’t in the club then, not yet – and look up at nanny and nanny would sometimes look down at her. And nanny never looked worried in her life.

There was screaming. After the incident, there was screaming and nanny was angry. She threatened Christopher, except Cara wasn’t meant to hear. She said she wouldn’t allow him to come back again and ever since, Cara’s kept well away off the kitchen. In fact, even if nanny were to come in just now, or anytime really, and tell Cara – although of course, then she’d have to speak to Cara – but if she did and said ‘Cara, you come into the kitchen now’, Cara wouldn’t. Except Christopher’s gone now. Even though Cara never went into the kitchen again, he left anyway. But no, she wouldn’t do it, because then something worse might happen, although Cara can’t see how much worse than Christopher leaving and being caught by the beast it can get.

And she doesn’t have to. Go into the kitchen. Suddenly, she sees this so clearly as if it were written in chalk on the kitchen door. Because she sits at table across from nanny and looks at the kitchen door and understands what she must do. Because nanny will go into the kitchen at some point and she will leave Cara out into the foyer Of course, nanny locks the door behind them when they come in from the outside, precisely twice, the door makes a noise and then, Cara can’t open it anymore. But Cara can open the window. Except Cara’s not supposed to open windows.

But Christopher isn’t supposed to be caught by the beast either. Sacrifices must be made.

Cara watches nanny, but she has to be careful, ‘cause otherwise nanny might get suspicious. That’s what Christopher said once. He said nanny was a suspicious old cook. Or something. Which Cara supposed only made sense, since nanny did do all the cooking in the kitchen, and maybe that’s where she was suspicious, too.
And Cara is ready, when the moment comes. She’s thought over her plan many times in her head and she knows what she has to do. So, she listens as the door makes its noise. Twice, as is, after all, its habit. And she watches as nanny sits her down in the foyer and takes off her boots and realizes that for all her thinking, there’s something she’s missed. If she is to go and find Christopher, she’ll have to get her boots, because otherwise she might get cold or the beast might gob up her feet. No, no.
Nanny walks off to the kitchen in silence and closes the door behind her, which I suppose is fortunate, as she doesn’t always do so.

And Cara waits ten seconds, except she doesn’t know she did. Cara doesn’t know how to count to three and much less to ten, but she waits. And when it seems nanny won’t walk out of the kitchen at some unexpected moment and catch her red-handed, she stands up in her socks and tip-toes over to where nanny had left her boots.
She pushes her feet in and does the laces up double, because it wouldn’t do if they came undone just as she went into the lair of the beast. And she crawls into the parlor, where she doesn’t have to walk on tip-toes, which is really quite hard with her boots on, because in the parlor, there is a carpet and she thinks how she’ll miss the carpet. She’s played on it so many times, she wonders if she ever will again.

It is as if someone knew of her plan, because the window in the parlor is already open. Just a little, but that only means it can be pushed open a little more, and then a little more and–
But something goes wrong. As Cara tries to push herself through the gap between wall and window, she comes to the conclusion that all adventurers come to at some point. She realizes, once more, that sacrifices must be made. Try as she might, she still can’t push herself out properly, since her fingers always end up squashed under the doll’s hard limbs. And she almost slipped once off teddy.
No, she decides, if she is to go and rescue Christopher, she will have to do so alone. And she might cried just now, looking at teddy and her one-eyed doll, except she understands, deep down, that if she was to start crying, she would never get going and her chance would he wasted. And worst of all, Christopher would be in even more danger.

Fighting down the swell of tears in the back of her eyes, she brings each toy up to her lips and makes the funny sound Christopher makes sometimes when he kisses her on the forehead, only she makes it really quietly, for fear someone might hear and come out of the kitchen. She leaves teddy and doll on the carpet, because it seems right, and promises in her mind she’ll come back for them, because a life without teddy and doll seems unfathomable just then. And then, she pushes herself out through the open window.

And just like that, Cara disappears.

to be continued

This is a 5 Minute Freewrite (though not quite) based on the prompt "in the club" offered by @mariannewest, who is generally awesome.

Thanks for reading,