Another Scene from my Novel-In-Progress

Thank you for all of your lovely comments on the tidbits I have shared from my novel-in-progress. I just passed 27,000 words. It is very doubtful that I will make it to 50,000 by the end of the week, but I have a basic outline for the rest of the book so it shouldn't take too much longer to complete.

Most of the scenes I have shared so far have had some element of sadness or trauma. Here is a  happier scene for you to savor.

Enjoy. :)

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A piercing scream jolted Darva awake. She sat up in her own bed. Papa must have carried her here. She wondered who was screaming and why. She went to Papa’s room, but he was not there. Mama was not in her room either. Darva heard another scream. She decided it was coming from Auntie Mali’s little house on the other side of the wall.

She scurried down the big wooden staircase, through the kitchen and up the back cob stairway. She tried the door, but it would not open. She wrenched the handle and pounded the wooden surface, but to no avail. Her desperation was growing.

“Auntie Mali, open up! Someone is screaming and I’m all alone. Auntie Mali, Auntie Mali! I’m scared!”

The door opened, but only a crack. Darva pushed on it, but it would not budge. Papa was on the other side, holding it firmly. She saw his face through the slightly opened space.

“Everything is okay, Darva,” he said. “Mama is having the baby and she has to scream sometimes.”

“Is she dying? The voice said that she was dying.”

“What voice?”

Another scream pierced the atmosphere. Papa told Darva to go back to bed and then he quickly shut the door.

Darva plunked down on the step, her lip quivering.

“But I’m scared,” she said, though no one was listening. 

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“Darva, what are you doing there?”

Darva blinked up at her great-aunt. Her back hurt and so did her neck.

“How on earth did you fall asleep on the stairs? It’s a lucky thing you didn’t fall. Well, I guess I didn’t have to travel very far to get you.”

“Get me for what?”

“Well now,” Auntie Mali beamed, “Come and see for yourself.”

Darva got up from the stair and stepped through the door that Auntie Mali held wide open. Darva looked at her curiously. She had never seen her great-aunt looking quite so happy, though she looked tired as well.

“Come here, my darling Darva,” Papa called softly.

He was sitting on the edge of Auntie Mali’s alcove bed. Darva walked over and Papa pulled her to his side with his arm around her waist. There in the bed lay Mama and in her arms was a tiny form with a fluff of blondish-red hair. Darva looked up at Papa and he nodded, as she reached a hand towards the tiny head.

“Oooh, it’s so soft.”

“This is your little brother,” Mama said in a very tired, raspy voice.

Darva looked at the splotchy-red infant's face and then into her mother's soft amber eyes.

“Did you have to scream at him a lot to make him come out, Mama?”

All the adults laughed and Mama said, “Yes, I suppose I did.”