The Botanical Mystery Writer

Welcome to The Spot Writers. August’s prompt is to use these five words in a story or poem: besides, fishes, inn, owing, born.

This week’s story comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara dreams, reads, edits texts, translates, and occasionally writes in two languages. She also has a lot of fun.

The Botanical Mystery Writer

by Chiara De Giorgi

“If you need me, I’ll be at the inn!”

I stepped outside and strode to the car. As soon as I sat behind the wheel, I regretted my words. The whole point of me staying at the inn for a few days was to get away, to have more space, to be quiet and finally be able to concentrate and write. The twelve chapters I was owing to my editor were screaming to be written, but there was always something more urgent, more important, more… I don’t know.

It was so frustrating! I had been so happy, when my agent had called me! Guess what? I sold your botanical mystery series! It’ll be a success, I tell you! It is as if you were born to be a botanical mystery writer! Yeah, well: apparently I was also born to be the wild card for my family, especially after that fateful phone call.

The advance from the publisher was good enough for me to quit my job as an underpaid waitress at the lousy diner just outside town, and my brother and sisters were quick to take advantage of the situation, Since you’re not working, please take Mother to the doctor’s tomorrow. Since you’re not working, please be a good auntie and pick up the twins after ballet class. Since you’re not working, please go to the grocery store and buy food for everyone. And so on. I’ve been so busy with everybody else’s needs, I haven’t had the time to sit down and write, yet. And my first deadline is coming up, in just a week. That’s why I booked a quiet room at the inn in the woods. I shouldn’t have told them.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, I muttered while driving up the winding road. They had never taken me seriously, neither me nor my ambition to become a writer. This world needs people who work with their hands, not people who play with their words. Why don’t you do something useful, something worthy? Do you really think you’ll be able to live off your books? And what’s a botanical mystery, anyway?

I gripped the steering wheel and grunted. Oh, I so wanted to show them! Maybe they’d been boycotting me on purpose.

Suddenly I pushed the brake pedal. I had never noticed that sign before: a B&B right up the hill. Not the inn everybody knew about. The sign said “B&B He Fishes – The Perfect Retreat – 4 miles”. If I met fishermen, they could assist me with the plot twist I was considering, which involved the attempted murder of a fisherman. The B&B was only four miles on the left, while the inn was twelve miles up north. It would save me precious time, besides being somewhere nobody would be able to find me.

I quickly typed a message and sent it to all my siblings: “If you need me, I WON’T be at the inn”. Then switched off the phone and turned left.

***

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/