Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the words are supplied by Lissa and can be found here.

This week's words are: a video clip with the sound of rain

and/or:

1. it's going to rain today

2. chasing storms

3. umbrellas

4. charmed

5. a long journey

6. trains

Here is my story: a fill-in chapter for something previously written

Bernice lay in bed in her cabin up on the mountain, listening to the heavy rain as it fell. Soon she would sleep, lulled into dreamland by the sound. 

(this video is very long, no need to listen to the whole 10 hours)

Bernice thought of many things as she lay waiting for sleep, but foremost in her thoughts was Detective Inspector Stanley Grace and his partner Irene Fargo. "Cold Cases in the file room," he’d said to Irene. That meant all the notes the coppers had taken on that night so long ago when she’d seen that man, the one who had been sweet-talking young Stephanie. Bernice was glad she’d decided to show them the old quarry and give them the old maps. Maybe something good would come of it. Seeing that crooked nose man again had given Bernice quite a fright. If the old notes had pictures in them, she could possibly point him out if Detective Stanley brought the pictures up here. “I don’t want to be going back down to the city,” she thought as her eyes began to close.

At the same time, Stanley and Irene were listening to the same rain, each in their room at the Cove Hotel. Irene’s mind wandered back many years, hearing her mother’s voice saying, “it’s going to rain today, make sure you and Charlotte take your umbrellas, when you go to watch the trains.” “But it’s so sunny, and we’ll be under the shelter of the platform roof,” Irene complained. They took the umbrellas anyway and were glad later when they had to walk home again in a sudden downpour. Their Dad was a porter at the station and he often walked home with them after they’d spent a couple of hours watching the trains and passengers….Irene’s eyes snapped open. Right there in her memory she saw Bernice. Younger for sure, but definitely Bernice. So she wasn’t connected with any of the cases Irene had first worked on before joining Stanley Grace. She was simply a passenger on a long ago train.

She closed her eyes again and the rest of the story came to her. Bernice had been wearing some odd clothes and Charlotte had mentioned it within their dad’s hearing. He’d told them, “she’s an odd duck that one, bit of a charmed life I reckon, always on the long-journey trains, 'chasing storms' she once said, Joe over there told me, never had much luggage, just always going where the storms were, always muttering something about a crooked nose.”

Detective Inspector Stanley Grace was propped up against several pillows making notes as the rain hammered on the roof of the hotel. They’d gone up and found the Scenic Retreat and had a chat with Ed and Sara Saunders. Ed in particular had been interested in the maps and the possibility of a granite seam under their section of the cliff. “Where did you get these?” he asked and Stanley told him about Bernice, the quarry, and a crooked nosed man, while Irene was helping Sara with slicing cake and gathering cups and plates while Sara filled the big teapot with boiling water. Irene had glimpsed Stephanie and recognised her from the photo in the cold cases file. Even after all this time, Stephanie hadn’t changed much.

Irene now decided she was in a hurry to get back to the city and really start digging around in all those notes and photos. She had a feeling the case might be about to crack a little.