While I present this as a full-fledged bit of short fiction, this one may still be in the works so don’t be surprised if you see further iterations in the future.

Captive

“There was a creature in the wall. Probably a mouse, or maybe a rat, but I doubt it,” Lily began while tugging strands of her honey-colored hair behind her ears. Her eyes looked off into the distance following a memory that was  a vague splash to me.

“It would rise up and then fall down. You could hear its nails scraping. Mama begged Father to do something. He said: ‘It got itself in there, it can get itself out. It’s that Darwin stuff. Am I right? Just turn up the music.’”

“Mama couldn’t stay in the room anymore. She’d turn up music, but it sounded like the noises in the wall grew louder more insistent. She cried. You know she couldn’t imagine any creature in pain. It hurt her as much as the creature. She went upstairs and sewed and knitted and cleaned every cranny of every bedroom, dusted, polished, and then only came back to the kitchen when it was time for dinner.”

“’It’s just a creature got into the wrong place,’ she said and then she paused. Something cleared in her expression.”

“Is that when she left?” I asked.

Lily shook her head. “No. It was when there was silence in the wall. Before the smell. She took you and me to Aunt Claudia’s said she’d be coming back in an hour.”

“But she never did,” I said.

Lily shook her head. “No, she never did. Mama was a mouse, but a smart one.”

end