Finna closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. This was hard. Centering herself, she expelled her thoughts with a rush of air and opened her eyes.
The room was the same, down to the pattern on the pillowcases and the spray of flowers in the vase under the window.
“Dammit!” She thumped a fist on the mattress. The pillows jumped, just a little. She threw herself down on top of them.
It wasn’t real. She knew it wasn’t real. She had seen the nearly-bare cell with its white, featureless walls and diffuse light, just before they had shut her in. That had been six days ago, as near as she could tell. Her sense of time was guided only by the brightening and darkening of the room – simulated sunrises and sunsets.
“That was good, Finna.” A voice echoed across the room. “Very good.”
Finna rolled over on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She had never been able to figure out where the voice came from.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. She scrubbed her hands over her face, ran her fingers through her hair.
“You were closer this time. Did you see the pillows bounce?” The voice was soothing, and despite herself, Finna felt some of the tension drain away.
“I did that?”
“You did. The first step to breaking through the illusion is manipulating it.”
It was one of the core maxims. Only, Finna wasn’t very good at it.
***
When the thin man had approached her, Finna had run. She had been certain he’d seen how she used glamours and cantrips to pick pockets and swipe small edibles from the market stalls. The last thing her little sister needed was for Finna to be brought in on larceny charges. She had dropped one last orange in her pocket and strolled toward the alley, tossing a tangle of thread behind her. A thicket of brambles and thorns had grown up in the mouth of the alley, blocking the entrance, and that, she’d thought smugly, was that.
Until the thin man strode through her illusory barrier, dismissing it with a wave of his hand.
For a split second, Finna had frozen. Nobody had ever seen through her illusions so easily, let alone dismissed one. Then she ran – straight into the arms of another man.
“What would you say, little one,” the thin man had asked in that reedy voice, “if I told you I had a place for you, and your sister too?”
***
Finna could create a river from a trickle of water, darkness from a strand of her own black hair. She could turn a pebble into a stone wall. All illusions, of course, woven through with a ribbon of touch-me-not. The thin man was much better: his illusions had weight, texture, solidity. He had promised to train her; more, he had promised her a home. If she could break out.
“You don’t lack skill, little one, or determination. What you need, I think, is proper motivation.” One of the walls of her cell faded away, and she saw a room that was mirror image to hers. Her sister sat on the bed with a doll. Chandir, whom she hadn’t seen since they were brought here. Finna put one hand against the transparent wall.
The door to Chandir’s cell opened, and a woman walked in. She was dressed entirely in red. The girl looked up in alarm and scrambled to the far side of the bed. The woman barked a command, gestured, and Chandir started to cry. Placing the doll carefully on her pillow, the girl wiped her nose on her sleeve and took the woman’s hand.
“Stop!” Finna slammed her hand against the wall, but neither child nor woman heard. They disappeared into the dark corridor.
The first step is to manipulate the illusion. She had nothing to work with: no jewelry, no bits of stone. Pressing her face to the illusory wall, Finna exhaled, fogging the glass with her breath. The glass wavered and evaporated, just like mist over the river.
She stepped through–and nothing changed. The bed still had its flowered coverlet. The doll still slept on Chandir’s pillow.
Is this just another layer of illusion, then? Finna concentrated, sweeping her hand before her like dusting away cobwebs. The room was empty. Her sister – if she had ever been there – was gone.
Christine Hanolsy 
I love how the magic system relies on manipulating the things you have on hand, and how creative you’d have to be to use it. I will echo everyone’s plea to know what happens to the sisters! (Probably kicking the thin man’s ass.)
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This seemed like a slice of a novel I’d enjoy.
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I don’t read a lot of fiction, mostly because I have a hard time caring about something that doesn’t exist, BUT you made me care about these characters and the scenes were so well drawn, too. I like the rhythm here — “She had dropped one last orange in her pocket and strolled toward the alley, tossing a tangle of thread behind her. A thicket of brambles and thorns had grown up in the mouth of the alley, blocking the entrance, and that, she’d thought smugly, was that.” — and how you help us pause to process the details with the last part of the phrase. (Forgive me, everything is music to me. It’s how my brain works.) Loved this. Love you. Keep doing what you’re doing.
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I liked the vague nefariousness of the thin man: his name, the reference to the Wizard of Oz (was that intentional? I hope so.), the offer of a home and training but to what end? Finna’s skills are intriguing and you’ve certainly built enough tension here to propel me to another chapter.
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Ooo, I wish I could say that the reference was intentional, but it was, at best, unconscious. I may poke at this story a bit in the future; I’m not entirely sure where it’s going. (I’m a pantser, for sure!)
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OOh! I loved this. I’m instantly intrigued by the characters and vested in their survival. Yay!
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🙂 Thank you!!
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I think we are all frustrated by the way the word count limited you. Just when it was getting good – bam! We are left wondering whether Finna will rescue Chandir. Of course, within the word limit you made me care enough about both to hope for future success.
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Ha! Yeah, this is something I started, oh, two or three years ago. I couldn’t get a handle on who the characters were, and so I sat on it. I realized it was never going to get written at all if I got stuck on making it perfect, and decided to leave the cliffhanger for now.
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This was captivating. Finna’s skills were made all the more real because of her lack of mastery. It felt like part of a longer piece, which was both enticing and frustrating. I wanted to know more about this world, about the thin man, about Finna and Chandir. I hope there’ll be more to this.
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I like this piece. Well written. Would you consider showing, or at least, hinting at kind of background the girl came from?
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Not in this post, I’m afraid – I’m already up against YeahWrite’s word count limit of 750. But maybe I’ll expand on it in another post!
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