Cara #6 (freewrite fiction)

Cara #1
Cara #2
Cara #3
Cara #4
Cara #5

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The first thing she noticed were the dead flowers. Scattered across the fields of Olympus, fallen, but there. Millions and millions of dead flowers stooped, adorning the entryway to the city, as if no one had been able to come take them away, to pick them out and clean the field. Probably because the people inside the city knew that nothing else would grow there. So, dead flowers was all they had now.
And they waited inside with baited breath, hoping some miracle would happen, that the flowers would spring up once more. That their own lives would spring out once more. But as the car rolled into Olympus, there were no miracles, no hard to believe resurrections, no sun coming out from behind the clouds for the people of Olympus. Mainly because those up there were no longer clouds. It was as if the sky had been like that for so long that the clouds had sort of melted into each other, blending, becoming this gray mist together, this nothingness that blighted the skies.
If the man was watching for this sudden change and moreover, if he was somehow disappointed at it not happening, he gave no sign of it. His eyes remained on the road straight ahead and his breathing stayed steady.

The second thing Cara noticed about the city of Olympus were the people. Clearly not dead, though not quite living either, they poured out of their houses and into the streets, staring after the car. There was one little boy, not much older than Cara, who even put out a hand and waved at her.
At her.
Straight at her, he saw her and waved. Nobody had done that before to Cara, there had been no reason to at the house. And although her fingers squeezed doll tighter, Cara smiled. Just a little. Because that’s what you do when someone waves at you, isn’t it? That’s what Christopher would’ve done, if he was here, except he was not.
And then he spoke. Not Christopher, but the man, the stranger, he said something, though Cara didn’t understand it quite right. It sounded wrong and quiet, like he hadn’t meant for her to hear and she wondered why would he speak if he didn’t want anyone to hear? Maybe he too was practicing, maybe he would meet someone soon whom he’d have to speak to. Although he hadn’t seemed to have a problem before.
But he was upset. Even worse, he was angry, and perhaps that’s what he was talking about. Maybe he didn’t want all these people to come out of their houses just then. Maybe they weren’t supposed to wave at Cara. So Cara sat a little straighter for the rest of the ride, trying hard to keep her eyes forward, on the road ahead of them and not on the people. Because if she didn’t see them waving at her, then that would be alright, wouldn’t it?
She made a point of not looking or of looking at teddy and doll, motionless in her lap, ‘cause then maybe he wouldn’t be so angry. But he still was. But then, the people disappeared. Not altogether, but slowly, one by one, they reached a part of the road where there weren’t houses and regardless if they were supposed to be outside or not, the people didn’t follow after them. They remained still, like statues in a dream, looking out after the car of sunlight.
And Cara wondered if the beast was still following them, because then, they might see it and they might be in danger. Or not. Or the beast might be in danger from them, they could hurt it, surely, if they were enough people. And Cara thought the beast must feel as strange as she did in this new place. The beast hadn’t seen so many people either, it didn’t know what this Olympus place was or if they might get out of it and it was probably very scared. Just like Cara.
She breathed. Steady breaths, trying to mimic the stranger’s rhythmical breathing. In. Out. Quiet.

And then, after a while, the car stopped and Cara wondered if this was still Olympus, but it must’ve been, because that’s where the man had said they would be going. The car stopped and Cara looked out the window once again only to see a tall building, much much taller than the house Cara lived in. Darker, too, even though Cara’s house was by no means light. It was like a monster, this building, or like a cage, worse than the room underneath the stairs and worse than the woods. Worse than anything Cara had ever seen.
‘Well, this is it,’ the stranger said, his voice decidedly un-happy and Cara could only assume this was where he lived.
He got out of the car and came around to open Cara’s door and open the strap that had been holding her in place. Not that she had anywhere else to go, though, even though she wished she did. Cara stayed in her seat, looking at the toys in her lap, slowly shaking her head,
‘Come on,’ the man said and his voice was very serious again, when he’d said nanny couldn’t come with them. But now, Cara wondered, why would nanny be afraid to stay all by herself, if the beast had followed Cara? Why would she be scared when there was no danger there for her?

But it didn’t matter, for nanny was far away now and scared or not, she could do nothing to help Cara. She got out of the car slowly, still not looking at the man, and she let him take her hand. He dragged her after him, not really stopping to wonder if Cara wanted to go and took her into the tall prison they’d build here, at the edge of Olympus.
And inside, there were...more strangers, for what else could there be? Inside the prison, the man’s friends waited for Cara and they all had grim faces and gray, serious suits and when Cara looked up at them, she saw the same sad look in their eyes she’d seen earlier, when the people had waved at her. But they hadn’t been happy and although Cara understood that you couldn’t really be happy when everything around you was dead, when there were no flowers, she didn’t understand why they seemed to be angry with her.

‘Welcome, Cara,’ a woman said. She was younger than nanny and had hair like Cara’s, though Cara had forgotten again what it was called. Not blonde. It was pulled back behind her head, like nanny always wore it, though. ‘My name is Martha,’ the woman said, feigning a smile, ‘and we’ve been waiting to meet you for a very long time.’
Still, Cara kept quiet, fidgeting with the toys in her arms, her friends, and now her only armor. Now, she was no longer afraid of speaking to someone who wasn’t Christopher. She didn’t think that’s what this was about, after all. But Cara felt pretty certain she didn’t want to speak to Martha. There was something horrible about Martha, something bleak and poisonous in her eyes, like maybe she’d spent one too many hours inside a darkened room.
‘Can’t she speak?’ Martha suddenly turned toward the man, impatient, as if it was his fault if Cara couldn’t speak.
‘I don’t know,’ he eventually conceded. ‘She hasn’t spoken to me. But she can hear perfectly well,’ he said, voice icy. The man didn’t like Martha, it was plain to see.
‘Well,’ Martha took a moment to re-adjust to this. ‘I was under the impression she was functional.’
‘Maybe she’s just scared,’ someone else said. And another suggested she might be shy.
‘Maybe she can’t speak,’ this one came from an old man, older than nanny by quite a bit, sat at the back of the room, his eyes almost closed completely and his mouth turned up in a fixed smirk.
‘There is nothing to suggest she can’t physically speak,’ the man said again, but there was noise in the roomful of people and nobody heard him.
If these were his friends, Cara thought, they didn’t seem very friendly. Yet, he continued speaking anyway.
‘As you know, Cara is not accustomed to large groups of people. She is most probably shy. She has been kept in very close confines up till now, her governess does not speak to her, as per my command. It was agreed, I’m sure you will remember, that no one was to speak to the girl. We wouldn’t want her to become like us and if the price to pay for that is that she can not make small talk with you, Martha, I’m sure it’s a price we’re all too willing to pay.’

And the man reminded Cara once more of the man on the mountain that Christopher had said sometimes came down to earth. There was something serious in this man, he was a chieftain of sorts, even though some didn’t seem to agree with that. But no chieftain can be without enemies and perhaps this man’s chosen enemy was Martha. The man on the mountain had had many enemies, and yet he’d been more important than everyone else, even than his enemies. And even though Christopher hadn’t been quite able to explain to Cara how he’d been more important than other people, she was beginning to see what he’d meant.

‘Surely,’ Martha agreed, quieter now. ‘But so far, I haven’t seen any–’
‘You will be quiet!’
Cara jumped, turning to look at the man standing behind her, who’d just screamed, louder and angrier than nanny had ever been. There had been something so horrible in the back of his throat and a little of it had escaped through his voice, into the world out here. And it made Cara want to run away, as fast as she could and as far away from this man as she could get. This was not a good man, yet he was her only link to the world back home.
‘How dare you question? How dare you say such things, Martha? You will be quiet. Cara will stay here, under my direct observation for the next twenty-four hours. And we will see then what happens and what does not, but until then, you will not speak and you will not upset our guest.’

Twenty-four hours. That was a lot. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t so much after all. And Cara wondered, if nothing happened in twenty-four hours, what then?

to be continued...

Thank you for reading,