The Wyching Hour
an excerpt

Chelsea frowned at her notebook. There was something not quite… Not quite right about all this. In fact, there was something downright wrong with it, and it wasn’t just that, as Noelle would no doubt remind her, that apostrophe was in the wrong place… No, there was something else, something Chelsea couldn’t quite put her finger on, but, at the same time, it was obviously quite a big problem, which Chelsea knew thanks to the fact that she wasn’t capable of ignoring it that early in the day.
Something, in other words, was up.
Or, perhaps, down… on the page.
Chelsea shook her head, trying to stop these odd trains of thought colliding in her head and making the words do even funnier – and not funny ha-ha – things than they already were.
Turning back a page again, Chelsea started reading the scene again, trying to figure out precisely where it had gone wrong. It started out quite nicely, provided very little attention was paid to some of the spelling…

Watching the bright clear water of the warmer, less travelled seas around the Vengeance Isles, Louisa felt more relaxed than she had done in quite some time. Things had been remarkably peaceful since her brother’s, frankly, insane expedition aboard the Dark Vagary. After her father’s initial outburst, things had settled down, with Reed simply captaining his ship, and leaving Ed in Doc Bell’s capable hands, Louisa occasionally assisting with the care of her brother, along with one or two of the other crew members.
Ed had said very few coherent things since Doc Bell had begun his administrations, which, according the doctor, was perfectly natural, and was just the mixture to take away the pain at work, keeping his mind relaxed while the body healed. Louisa was not sure whether or not she believed that, but as Ed was clearly not suffering too much as the broken bone in his forearm began to knit back together, she had decided, for now, at least, not to argue.

So far, Chelsea felt she had written some good stuff, if on the boring side, and somewhat long-winded. Still, it made sense, mostly, and explained what was going on nicely. Feeling more positive – perhaps she had been imagining the problem, and the strange feeling about her writing was something to do with it being too early – Chelsea read on.

Light clouds drifted across the sky far above, and the shadow of the Cutthroat Ambassador rushed over the surface of the ocean along side the real ship. Louisa leaned forward, watching eagerly for fish or dolphins, or other marine life. Some things, no matter how long she spent at sea, still fascinated and thrilled Louisa about the oceans – the aquatic creatures they shared the waters with in particular.
She knew the animals interested Ed as well – he had several of them, including certain fish, a turtle and a dolphin tattooed upon his torso. Several of these tattoos had been done on the Vengeance Isles, as well as the Revelation Isles. They had travelled the seas extensively over the years, though Louisa suspected there was more – more places to be visited, more people to learn from, and more open ocean to explore and chart…

Turning the page over, Chelsea felt the feeling of something be wrong fading. It all seemed fine. Clearly she had just been panicking over nothing, as usual, and it was just the funny sentence structure here and there that had been throwing her off. Continuing to read, enjoying where the scene was going, with Louisa dreaming of exploring further afield, as she would in the future with her cousin, Chelsea relaxed again…

Moving away from the side of the ship, Louisa began to make her way along the deck, gazing up at the sky, with the vague intention of going to Doc Bell’s cabin to check on Ed’s progress and see if he was lucid enough to tell them more about his experiences aboard the Dark Vagary.
As she progressed along the deck, Louisa noticed a bright pink balloon floating near the top of the mast—

…too soon. Chelsea stared, confused at the beginning of the paragraph, carefully reading, rereading and re-rereading the first sentence to ensure that she had not, as it turned out, imagined the appearance of a bright pink balloon… Assured that she had not imagined the mention of a bright pink balloon in her story, in her, distinctly wobbly, hand-writing, Chelsea continued to read, her feelings of unease returning, and growing…

—clear against the bright white sails. Louisa stopped, staring, transfixed by the balloon, and a new sound reached her ears: A soft sound, a flump… flump… as all around her marshmallows began to fall from the light, fluffy clouds high above her in the sky—

…and there it was. The Problem. She felt it merited a capital letter all of its own now. Because this was a serious Problem. And, though it was, more or less, clearly there, on the page, in black and white, and in her own hand-writing, Chelsea could barely believe she had written it.
Unless…
‘Did I get… drunk last night?’ Chelsea asked Max and Noelle.
‘Hmm?’ Noelle responded, her attention drawn from what was, obviously, a deeply fascinating dent in James’s door.
‘Ummm… Did I…. Did I get… you know… drunk? Like… too much alcohol?’
‘How much is too much?’ Max asked, gazing at the ceiling as he sat cross-legged on the coffee table in the middle of the room.
‘No, guys, seriously…’ Chelsea looked from one to the other, knowing that neither of them were really listening. ‘Did I drink a lot of alcohol or not?’
‘Well, you had some,’ Max said.
‘Which is to say, for you, quite a lot,’ Noelle said with a preoccupied air.
‘So… I was drunk?’
‘I suspect you fit the definition of “drunk on alcoholic substances”, yes,’ Noelle answered.
‘Right.’
‘Why do you ask?’ Noelle added.
‘Umm….’ Chelsea paused, sighing heavily and waiting for the sudden wave of nausea to pass. ‘Is this a hangover?’
‘You haven’t had one before?’ Max asked, finally paying a little more attention.
‘Well, yes, but I don’t really remember them… I haven’t had all that many and… I sort of… slept them off before,’ Chelsea answered.
‘Oh. Well. Yeah. Welcome to your hangover,’ Max said, appearing to be helpful whilst managing to be precisely the opposite.
‘Great,’ Chelsea muttered with another sigh. ‘So. I was drunk, right?’
‘What gave it away?’ Noelle asked, turning to face Chelsea at last and no longer staring at the dent in the door, pondering on ways it might have come into being.
‘Err… Well… The pink balloon was a hint, but I think, overall, it might have been the marshmallows…’