I belong to which a writing group hosted by Stuart Nager who lives in New York. The basic link is pw.org/groups. After you join the group, you will need to create a profile and join A Prompting of Writers: Your Challenge to Imagine. This group meets every Saturday morning online at 10:00 AM EST, but I have to get up at 6:30 AM PST to join at 7. It is worth it to me. Stuart gives us a challenge and then we write and share what we wrote. I am challenged to write things I never thought I could or would write.
Last Saturday the writing challenge was to write a piece of flash fiction, including the character arc of an antagonist from something we had written previously. I chose to write about the villain in my three middle-grade novels: Maryalise and the Singing Flowers, Maryalise and the Stolen Years , and Maryalise and the Snatched Fairy. I liked what I wrote. I’m not sure what I will do with this bit of backstory for Villiana. Maybe I’ll put it on my website at RosetheStorylady.net. But while I’m deciding, I’ll share it here.
Villiana’s Backstory
“I’ll get that little meddler. Who does Maryalise think she is? What right does she have to call me Villiana? That’s not who I am. I am Violetta.”
Violetta sat in a rickety wooden chair. She leaned forward, elbows on a weathered table. in a rare moment of introspection Violetta remembered.
A small girl danced her way down the forest path, violets clutched in her hands, violets tucked in her hair. The only music she heard was the warbling of birds in the trees above her head.
“I was happy then,” Violetta murmured. And remembered more.
A young woman wandered down the path, stopped by the forest pool, and looked at her reflection—violets clutched in her hands, violets tucked in her hair. She lifted her eyes and saw him there. He was just as she had imagined him. It was hard to believe he was real.
She smiled. He smiled.
“He loved me then, took me as his wife. We were happy.”
Oakleaf, she remembered thinking. What an unusual name. Why not Tom or Dick or even Harry? Why Oakleaf? He had magic—magic that went beyond the joy of being in love. Whatever she wanted, he provided. The revelation that he was a fairy, living in mortal form, was not a surprise. Of course, she thought. Of course.
“I had magic, too. A little bit of mortal magic.”
Years slipped by as she dabbled in magic, learned the spells in the magic books Oakleaf gifted her with. Violetta often returned to the forest pool, verifying that she was still beautiful for him. She tucked a violet in her hair and found a gray strand there—a single gray hair in the midst of her black tresses. She plucked it out, sank to her knees and bowed her head. She was aging. Her hair would turn gray. Her face would become wrinkled. The beauty he loved would slip away. Oakleaf was a fairy—immortal. He would live forever. She would not. She buried her face in her hands. His love would die as her beauty faded.
“I could not let that happen. I could not.”
Her frantic search for a magic spell consumed her. There must be a spell somewhere that would preserve her beauty. She requested more magic books. She demanded more magic books. She shut him out when he asked what spell she sought. He will live forever, she thought, while I grow old and wither and die. He watched as she turned the pages of each book. His smiles became less frequent. She ignored him when he asked what was wrong. She feared that his love was slipping away. She often smoothed her face with her hands, hoping she could keep the wrinkles from forming.
“Then I found it,” she said.
It was the Transference Spell. She could transfer all his fairy magic to herself, and he would have her little bits of mortal magic. With more magic she could surely find a way to preserve her beauty. Violetta shook her head. No, she couldn’t do that to him. He would be trapped in his mortal form. How could he be happy with his fairy magic gone? No, I won’t do it, she thought.
She closed the book, put it on the shelf. Placed more books on top of it. Walked away. Violetta fled from the book, from her thoughts. She stopped by the forest pool. Was she looking older? Was more gray hidden in her hair. I would be doing it for him, she thought.
“So, I used it.”
Violetta found that she liked the power that his magic gave her. She would return his magic—later.
She lifted her head. “But I am still Violetta,,” she said. “Why does that little meddler call me Villiana?”