Author's notes:

Pacing is a bear, especially in a serial story. I have no idea what the tempo should be. It's like recording a song, one word a night.

Reading the previous chapters helps some. When it started, it was only a chapter, a handful, a dozen. I could read them all before starting writing. Now, it's a little unwieldy at 48k words. Oy.

Nowadays, I have a hard time keeping track of where I am, much less how rapidly I arrived here. See, that's one thing a snapshot won't tell you. It will tell you who is where, but it won't tell you what's going to happen in the next second.

That's the difference between a snapshot and a series of them in close sequence, what we call 'motion pictures.' Motion picture audiences expect some sense of consistency, some predictability in motion, direction and speed.

Does this offer any solution or hint for dealing with pacing problems? Nope. I'm just saying that it happens, that it's a pain to write around. It's just one more thing to keep an eye out for when writing, especially writing a serial story.

On top of everything else, too.

(Those of you just joining here, start with Sian 1)



Again, Sian leaned over the side of the cigarette boat. At the front of open cockpit, Melatova turned her head and mouthed something, the words themselves lost in the twin storms of outboard motors to Sian's left. Her mouth fouled with nausea and its effluvia, she wiped her sleeve across her face and shouted back, "What?"

The roiling behind the speedboat quieted. That wicked swaying and evil bouncing ceased. In its place was that slow and reassuring rocking, its motion in harmony with nature. Sian closed her eyes and focused on the soft splashing against the hull. Over it she heard the soft tread approaching. Each footfall loomed larger, but she willed herself to the endeavor of ignoring it, and failing that, to ready herself to repel it.

It stopped. She waited. In the darkness behind her clenched eyelids, she tensed, longing for something to hurl herself against. The tightness she held as long as she could, but weakness eroded it as she feared. She marshaled herself again and again, each time lasting shorter and shorter. Finally, she sighed and looked up.

Melatova was not standing over her. Instead, she sat on the opposite bench, regarding Sian dispassionately. "I said, 'It's still five miles to shore, are you sure you want to swim back?' You looked ready to dive off."

"I was getting sick. I didn't think you wanted it all over the leather."

"No, but I'd rather you didn't get sick. There's some Dramamine in the first aid kit in the bench next to you. Take two, it'll make this easier." As she spoke, Melatova flipped up the cushion next to her and extracted two plastic bottles. "Here, have some Gatorade. If you lost your lunch, you lost some electrolytes and a good deal of water. You'll need to replace that, otherwise you'll feel much worse later."

Warily, Sian chose a bottle. With a subtle salute, Melatova broke the seal on the other bottle and downed it. Sian nodded, then found the pillsand consumed them. That done, she closed her eyes again, seeking a quiet belly in the dark.

"You make a poor ostrich, you know?"

Sian opened one unfocused eye in query to those words. "Huh?"

"You fear me. You dread me. Yet, you have your eyes closed as if that will make me go away."

"No, I'm not that lucky. I'm just trying to keep from barfing Gatorade and Dramamine all over you."

"But you still fear me."

"Duh." She let just a whisper of her stored resistance escape with that insolent word.

"So why sit there with your eyes shut? It almost looks like you're standing in front of a firing squad."

That caused Sian's eyes to light open. She looked away, looked up, before their eyes locked. "And I'm supposed to do ... what?" The moon filled her view, away from this boat, this woman.

Melatova shook her head slowly. "Plot. Scheme. Hoard. Do something. Or do you like being a thrall?"

Sian fought to keep the smile off her face. "I don't recall being given a choice." That pit of energy thrummed and wanted to be let loose, but it wasn't the right time.

"And, if given one?"

That knocked her off-balance. "Are you?" Before she knew it, she was locked in Melatova's gaze again. Again, she felt those tendrils wend their way through her consciousness. Damn her!

"Good. You still do have some fight left in you." An appreciative smile spread across the other woman's face. "Some don't last this long, you know. Some are bent and broken after the first few days. By this time, some are indeed hopeless. Hopeless and helpless. Perhaps, they want to be, even. But not you."

The gambit exposed, Sian let vent. "Oh, good. Instead, you get a little bit of game with me, hm? You get to try to break me further?"

The smile widened. "Is that what you think, dear and lovely girl?"

"I think you'll find you can never own me. Not all of me. You can try, you can threaten, you can even try to sweet-talk me, but I've seen you for what you are. You're just like Lavender."

"Oh, and that is supposed to sting, child? Comparing me to my younger sister? Oh, you didn't know? Yes, Lamentine, Lavender as you call her, is my sister." She flicked her hand at Sian, then chuckled when the younger woman flinched. "And you are scared. No need to lie, Sian. No need to lie." She gripped Sian's jaw and forced their faces together. "I see... I see..." She rummaged through Sian's mind, treasures and refuse and everything on the spectrum between. "I see everything."

She let Sian go, and watched as the bench broke her stunned fall.

"I'm nothing at all like Lavender, Sian. When we get home, you'll see."

The promise in that sentence didn't frighten Sian so much as the word 'we.'

===

The mansion rose from the rocky cliff like a raptor's nest, but white and alive with light and motion within its windows. Melatova slid the powerboat into it's mooring as a hulking subordinate dressed in black secured the line. "Thank you, Lackham. This is Sian. Can you show her to one of the dormitory rooms?" She stopped, her hand about to release Sian into the charge of the large man. "Hm. Lackham, did you ever clear out Valesa's old room?"

"No'M. It's as it was when she was here."

"Good. Put her there. I think her clothes will fit Sian. That will be very good. Tell the staff to set breakfast for two, please. And please help Sian into Valesa's favourite outfit, Lackham."

"Very good, Miss." He accepted Sian's hand in his, encompassing hers almost completely. "This way, please, miss." He nodded deferentially, then turned and walked, his arm negligently trailing behind. Sian's queries and protests were choked away as her arm was tugged in his wake, and he neither slowed nor turned. He seemed utterly oblivious to her plight.

Given the choice between walking or being dragged, Sian followed on foot. From her vantage point, she took him in. Broad shoulders flexed beneath the suit's black jacket, it cut to be sufficient for movement, but definitely with an eye for his shape. The matching trousers bloomed more at the thighs after starting snug beneath the jacket's rear flap, then each pant leg narrowed by pressed pleats to a neatly buttoned cuff. Sian saw others trying to wear that style with farcical results. Lackham carried it off with aplomb, flowing lines of black with the satin blood red marking where legs ended and feet began.

They rose on stairwells, first hewn from rock off the boat launch, then ancient and weather-worn wood, and finally to ones evidencing craft, formed of peach-hued marble and topped by black wrought iron finials. She was about to gasp for respite when they arrived at the main floor. Lackham guided her across the smooth surface, from the service doorway to one side of the oval room, across to the center. The grand entrance shone in the chandelier's light, every surface spotless, every pane of glass clear to the point of being almost invisible, be it window, case or mirror. The spectacle stole her thoughts, just as her breath reappeared.

As she ascended one of the opposing curved staircases, Sian caught sight of a young lady dusting a sculpture on a stand, dressed in the stereotype French maid uniform -- taffeta black and shiny under white lace, and more, finer white lace under it: a petticoat the same abbreviated length as her miniskirt, lace gloves and stockings extending along the lengths of her limbs almost to her torso, and a taffeta-and-lace ink-on-paper headband contrasting against her golden tresses.

That image stayed on Sian's mind as they finally stopped the marathon of steps. Lackham continued casually tugging her across the carpeting, stopping finally in front of an ornate door. "What did she mean?" she managed to blurt out.

"Yes, miss? What did who mean?" He turned, and Sian found no surprise to see his shirt was ruffled and bouffant, each frill ending with a thin cord of matching midnight red.

"Valesa's outfit. What is it with clothes here? Like that girl down there?"

"Girl, miss?" The soft click of the latch echoed his question.

"In the foyer. The one cleaning. The one in the maid's costume."

"That would be miss Aranea, miss. She's one of the maids. This will be your room, miss."

"No, wait! Urk!" She tried to dig in, tried to hold onto the door jamb, but ended up on the plush carpeting for her efforts.

"I'm sorry, miss. Let me help you up."

"No, you asshat!" She managed to get her legs between them, and pushed. "I will not sleep in a dead girl's room! I will not wear a dead girl's clothes!"

She wore only sneakers, but managed to get one solid strike on him. He grunted, but then flipped her onto her front and wrapped his arms around her. Ignoring her kicks against his shins, he stood them both upright and pressed her against a wall. His body trapped hers and he pulled his hands free from her midriff. One hand gathered her tresses into a ponytail, a handle. The other he kept between her shoulder blades so she was pinned against the wall less intimately. That done, he stepped back, and, using his two hands as reins, forced her into the room.

"I'm sorry to hear miss Valesa has passed away, miss Sian. She was always very quiet," he gave her hair a bit more pull, forcing her neck back beyond what she could bear. She gasped, and he relented, continuing, "and studious. In fact, I think she was Miss Melatova's favourite pupil. I'm sure she will be very disappointed to hear this news too. But, that is not the issue here."

"Wait! Ack! Wait, damn you!" Sian's words nor scrambling feet could stop him from pushing her into the suite's ornate and opulent bathroom. She stumbled forward, steadying herself on the rail leading to the sunken tub just short of falling in. She turned around and hurled a glare at Lackham.

"I'm afraid Miss Melatova was very specific in her wishes, miss Sian. You are to bathe, then dress in the outfit provided. If you have not done so within the next half hour, I am to see to it that you are bathed and properly dressed. I do not wish to do so, so I ask you to please consider your host's wishes."

With that, he bowed, closed the door to the bathroom. In the bedroom, he evidently busied himself with drawers and closets from the sounds Sian heard through the door. A second later, the soft sound of the bedroom door latching floated into the bathroom.

Then, there was silence.