“There’s no sherry in this trifle!” The first voice complained.
“Well that’s no fault of mine,” its companion replied, “you used the last of it to polish your boots.”
“How was I to know that was the last bottle? You should have bought more when you were in January.”
“Oh yes, and have to carry it all the way through March? I don’t think.” The second voice concluded his argument with a sound that might have been meant as contemptuous, but sounded more like a hiccough.
It struck Ethel, as she listened, that she hadn’t ever heard voices like these before- they were more like a collection of scratches and gurgling than words. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it occurred to her that it didn’t sound like English at all. They must be speaking in another language, she thought.
Of course, most sensible people would follow this thought up with; ‘how, then, can I understand them?’ But the thing about Ethel was she wasn’t greatly inclined to think about such things. When she had known her way to the postoffice on their holiday in Corfe, even though she had never been there before, or looked at a map of it, she had thought nothing of it. It wasn’t an inconvenience, so, why bother troubling it? These sorts of things were quite helpful without her interference- it would surely seem rude if she started voicing complaints about it now.
What did occur to her, however, was that she was no longer cold. Opening her eyes (which took a surprising amount of effort), Ethel blinked the sparks and green out of her retinas to see a churning amber glow lying a few feet away from her. It was a fire. Not one of those rickety white plastic things with the set of glowing wires, which you mustn’t touch even if the shade of red they turn is ever so appealing: but a real, smokey, spitting embers and ash fire. It was laid on something that looked like a piece of slate, except that it was green, and moved occasionally. The three of them- she, and her two voices- were arranged around the fire on a fine grey sand. At least, it appeared grey in the firelight; the pervading darkness around them declaring it to be nighttime in this wherever it was.
“Ah, so you’re with us then.” Said the first voice.
———–
The rest is over here on my new writing blog so I’m not constantly text dumping you chaps on tumblr, but I’ll let you know when I upload a new chapter. Thanks to everyone for being so encouraging, this is actually kind of new for me, so, uhm, yay.