Unkept

Tulum, Mexico via Google Maps

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The piled beach rocks might have been child’s play, but I could read the Keepers’ code.  “In death, freedom.”  A command to me.  A threat to my family if I disobeyed.

The Keepers thought me a greedy noble: naïve, helpless, easily cowed.  I’d played my part well.

My public life was over, but I’d learned much. My secret life would sustain me.

What luck, that my betrayer was my size.

Dressed in my clothes and jewels, she lay crumpled on the rocks beneath the cliff, her face bashed beyond recognition. One limp arm danced lazily in the tide.

I rearranged the rocks: “In death, forgiveness.”

Later, I let myself be seen sneaking out of town, disguised as her.

With one last glance toward home, I whispered love to my sister. She would have to believe me dead, for her safety.

What luck, that she was neither greedy nor naïve herself.

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Word count: 150.  Written for this week’s What Pegman Saw challenge.  This is a fun one, I definitely recommend checking it out: each week there’s a new Google Maps image of a location somewhere interesting, all over the world.  You’re encouraged to zoom around the map — or even grab other photos of the location — whatever inspires you to write your particular story.

World building note: Not much space to explain this, but hopefully it’s clear enough: the Keepers are a politics-oriented mafia who operate in Pyann.  They do a lot of high-level scheming, and disappearances like this are distressingly common.

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