March 12, 1895
Norman House, East Veronaville
“Hal!” squeaked Desdemona, cringing anxiously at her older brother’s bedside. “Hal! Wake up!”
His response consisted of only a snore.
“Hal!” she repeated once more. “Hal! Hal! Get up!”
Finally, his green eyes flickered open. Visibly annoyed, he kicked off the covers and pulled himself to his feet, all the while sending her sidelong glares. “What do you want, brat?”
Trembling, she softly wailed, “Hal…”
“Desi…?”
She couldn’t hold it in any longer–all she could do was burst into tears.
“Desi?” Hal addressed her concernedly. “Desi, what’s wrong?”
Unable to speak, Desdemona merely shook her head, the tears continuing to run from her eyes and her sobs unfading.
“Desi, please… you don’t want to wake Albany or Goneril, do you?”
At the mention of their parents, her crying stopped abruptly; her father was the last person she wanted to see right now, and her mother, the next to last.
“There’s a good girl,” soothed Hal, gently rubbing her shoulder. “Now… what’s the matter? Did you have a bad dream? Are there rats in your room again? What happened, Desi?”
Shuddering, she gestured for him to lean toward her, a request which he fulfilled with a shrug. Desdemona stood on her toes to reach his ear, then whispered, “I heard noises.”
Hal raised an eyebrow; she knew what he was thinking, but knowing him, he would want to clarify. “Noises? What sort of noises?”
In this case, she hated to prove him right–and she knew that he himself would rather be wrong about this as well. “The noises.”
“Thought so,” he muttered darkly, his eyes narrowed. “I’d say what I think of him, but I can’t use such words in front of my kid sister, can I? Is Miranda all right?”
Desdemona shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t talk to her–I went to you, because you’d know better what to do.”
“Smart kid. Anyway, let’s go see Miranda; hopefully he didn’t hurt her too badly.”
He turned and made his way to the bedroom door. Nervously, Desdemona followed, one last question coming to the front of her six-year-old mind. “Hal?”
“Yes?” he replied as they crept into the hallway.
“Where do the noises come from? What does Father do to Miranda that makes them?”
He stopped suddenly, and did not answer for several moments, an alarming tension filling the room in the absence of his words. Then, finally–
“Something I hope against hope you’ll never know, Desi.”
And with that, they continued their journey across the second-floor landing to Miranda’s bedroom, where they found their older sister lying on her bed, still awake, simply staring into space; Desdemona doubted that she had even noticed them enter.
Sighing, Hal ventured further into the room, leaving Desdemona standing alone in the doorway. “Miranda?” he addressed their sister cautiously; pulled from her trance, she turned to look him in the eye. “Miranda, are you all right?”
Desdemona sent her an expectant glance, which was thoroughly ignored. Disheartened, she let her eyes fall to the floor instead; how could she look at someone who would rather see right through her?
“Miranda…?” Hal pressed softly.
Miranda’s gaze returned to the wall as she shook her head. “What are you kids doing up? Go to bed.”
Defiantly, Hal clenched a fist. “Miranda, did he–?”
“Go to bed, you little bastards!” she snapped. “If you aren’t gone in ten seconds, I’ll wake Mother and Father, and you’ll be in horrible trouble, you awful sneaks!”
Hal was unfazed, but Desdemona turned around and sighed as she backtracked through the door. She did not want to have to face her father–not tonight.
NEXT CHAPTER:
Sims Writers Alliance
I’m thinking I’ll only advertise this on the LJ community every fifth chapter, since I feel rather uncomfortable posting there and I’m not even sure how much it helps in the first place.
I will, however, post new chapter notifications on the SWA main page.
How extraordinarily awful!
And I have to wonder how Hal got to be so wise.
Unfortunately, the poor little guy’s had to grow up pretty fast
Dude, that’s horrible! And Miranda is going to grow up to be a horrible person if she doesn’t talk to someone soon. Sad really! And poor Hal! And Desi as well! *sigh*
And why do you feel uncomfortable posting on LJ. They have a one week posting rule but you’d be surprised how many people silently follow.
Miranda’s already a bit of a piece of work. She’s still redeemable, however–not to mention, very misunderstood. Yeah, Hal and Desi know a lot more than their father thinks they do.
Although… anyone who’s played Veronaville knows that Desdemona grows up to be considerably prettier than Miranda, so if Albany’s willing to molest Miranda, then Desdemona’s going to be prey in a few years. I think Hal realizes this to some extent, and for the most part, he thinks there’s nothing he can do
I don’t know, I just feel somewhat awkward posting on LJ. I’ll do it for every fifth chapter, but I feel kind of weird posting for every chapter just because some of my chapters are so short. Like, I didn’t post Chapter Three just because there was no way it was long enough to merit its own advertisement, I felt.
Aww, that’s horrible. Poor Miranda, and those kids do know more even if they don’t quite understand it completely.
I haven’t really played Veronaville although I did check it out once or twice so I am still getting the feel for the families here but so far I really like your take on it.
Yeah, poor Hal and even Desdemona have been exposed to a lot of ugly in that house, even indirectly. Of course, Miranda’s suffered the most at this point.
Veronaville is a weird neighborhood to play. It’s not nearly as open-ended as Pleasantview or Strangetown–from the get-go, you get a very clearly sense of what Maxis intends for you to do.
Of course, I kind of threw that away entirely here
Thanks, Gayl