Challenge 915

Drawing Inconclusions

In Charles C. Cole’s Working With Lucy:
1. What personality traits seem to make Cliff and Lucy compatible as a couple?
2. What is the age difference between Cliff and Lucy? What might Lucy, expecially, conclude from it?
In Valeriya Salt’s Red Days, White Nights:
1. To what lengths do the conspirators have to go in order to rescue Tsar Nicholas and his family? Does the role of the mute “cousin” indicate that such a plot was never feasible?
2. If such a conspiracy had succeeded, would it have made any significant difference in our, actual history?
In Kaci Curtis’s All That Stood Between: At the end, Rose’s eyes “gleamed a startling burgundy, lit from within by a cold fire that had burned everything else away.” Burgundy eyes have been associated with the monster up to this point.
1. Does Rose plan to wreak vengeance on the raping, murdering male monster? If so, what weapons shall she use? Her witch spells have proven ineffective.
2. Or does Rose plan to join forces with the monster? Or will she strike out on her own, killing and persecuting villagers for having spurned her when she was a witch?
3. How else might the story conclude and thus avoid overstepping Bewildering Stories “Vignettes” guideline?