A Homage to Nancy Knight – Till Death Do Us Part

Back when we were doing monthly themes, my blog sister Sally Kilpatrick (who was also a Maggie finalist this year – I’m so proud of her) came up with An Homage to Nancy Knight for November. The challenge is Nancy Knight’s exercise where you write a short scene using ten unrelated items in a list she gives you.

As soon as I saw the list, I had to try it out, but my little scene has been sitting around gathering dust ever since. So since it is November, I decided to share it with our readers.

Wasn’t sure whether to spell out the items in the list, since Nancy uses this exercise in her fabulous class at the ART station, so I’ll just let you guess at the phrases.

If you’d like to select few phrases and write a sentence or two of your own as a comment, feel free to join me in the challenge.

Till Death Do Us Part

Baldwin took the half-burnt cigarette out of his mouth and tossed it to the ground. He turned to Paxton. “I’m ready.”

Without a word, Paxton stepped forward and opened the leather case he was carrying.

Baldwin stared down at the pair of French antique dueling pistols with their gilded muzzles.

His father had taught him how to shoot with these very weapons. He studied the man beside him. Morgan wore a confident a look in his eye this morning.

“Your choice.” Morgan gestured gallantly and gave Baldwin a half-smile as sweetly tart as the cook’s lemon meringue pie.

Baldwin selected the lower pistol, carefully drew it out of its sheath. It didn’t matter which one he took. Both weapons were the same fine quality. His father had cared for them, cherished them, polished them in his study every evening with a Battenberg lace handkerchief. His mother’s handkerchief. The pistols were a gift from her, just before she died in childbirth.

Baldwin’s birth. Would his father be pleased when he heard of this event?

“Places,” Paxton barked.

Baldwin strode to the center of the field and stood back to back with Morgan. As the count began, Baldwin wondered whether any of them would be arrested for engaging in a barbaric practice that had been extinct for over a century.

“One, two.”

Baldwin took his steps steadily, with purpose.

“Three, four, five, six.”

Baldwin tried to focus, but he couldn’t stop the images running through his head. The amethyst ring he’d intended to give Lily on their third wedding anniversary. The baby rattle she’d insisted on buying for the child who had never arrived.

“Seven, eight.”

The night of the party. The damasquino sword hanging over the fireplace in his father’s study. The autographed football on the mantel. Lily’s red garter strewn across the back of the sofa in that room. Morgan’s lusty moan as he made love to her. To his Lily. His wife.

“Nine, ten.”

Baldwin turned.

His brother. She’d betrayed him with his own brother. He’d wanted revenge, or thought he did. He stared into Morgan’s eyes. His arm hung at his side. He felt the warm handle against his palm.

Then, at last, he understood. At last, he saw his fate. It would not be Morgan who would end up as an urn filled with ashes on his father’s mantel. It would be Baldwin.

He  could never fire the pistol in his hand.

He could never kill his brother.