Inkwell 2018-2019

A Visit to the Tearoom by Ulysses Forte Bessie sipped at her tea, driven to do so by nothing save sheer, crushing boredom. How pale the morning light that sparkled uninspiringly off the various bits and bobs of her aunt Nora’s silver tea set. How tyrannical the tea, cliché in its tepid normality. And how very long the wait, as the grandfather clock ticked away in the corner, chuckling at some private joke. Waiting for Aunt Nora was a habit of Bessie’s, though not by choice. She would wait as her aunt droned on about the weather or the garden or her various small dogs ( Yesterday Bon Bon insisted on barking at that chest-of-drawers in the den for the better part of an hour! Can you fathom it, Elizabeth? Well, can you? ). She would wait for her aunt to find just the right word, wherever it was hidden in the forest of her demented mind (Nora never seemed to settle for synonyms). And above all, Bessie would wait for teatime’s end, when her aunt would finally allow her to take the carriage into town, and, consequently, to feel as if she had any purpose in life that extended beyond that of a mantlepiece ornament. But if there was one thing that she couldn’t fault her aunt for, it was her punctuality. Each day Nora was sitting in the tearoom at precisely half past nine. Each day, save this one. Bessie glanced over at that damned grandfather clock. Ten thirty one. For an hour she had been sitting in this exact spot. She would have pondered why Aunt Nora hadn’t arrived yet if she hadn’t already pondered that very thing far too many times. Her hand jittered like a newborn fawn as she reached to pour herself what would’ve been her ninth cup of tea. All of a sudden, there came a sound that chilled Bessie to the bone. It was a brittle scritching and scratching upon the other side of the tearoom’s

Ella Warnick

wood paneled door, gnawing at her heart. She fervently told herself not to be silly. She was 15 and a half, nearly a debutante, as her aunt would often remind her, old enough not to dwell on such fancies as what might lie behind the doors of closets, or even those of tearooms. The scratching continued, a slow crescendo, almost like the gathering of kindling or how Bessie imagined the sound of a bear clawing at a tree trunk. “Aunt Nora?” She called out. “Are you alright?” She was answered with silence; the dreadful

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