This tale has now been recorded. Let me read it to you at Madame Yum’s Insta TV @madameyum

Thanks Cait for posting these faded glory themed pics to #LuxvilleTales. Here is your story.

 THE GLORY SISTERS.

“She won’t do it, I’ll tell you that for free!”

And the door closed in Cait’s face. A bookend for words and doors earlier that day.

Cait walked to the end of the verandah of the Imperial Hotel and looked out at the lake. She took some photos of the rainmist rising and turned back to the building. Flaking paint, rusting lacework, and weeds colonising the timber floor. She stepped from the verandah directly onto the roadway that traffic had long forgotten.

Back in the car Cait went through some papers sticking out of her hard cover notebook. She turned over an image of two women, both smiling broadly. The same smile. Their hair swept up off their faces pinned with flowers. The same hairstyles. Their eyes shining with joy. The same faces. Each held in their hands a ukulele, each painted with small flowers along its curve.

Above the photo between flourishes of ink ‘The Glory Sisters’; below in cursive script ‘The Glorious Glory Sisters, for your amusement, this evening and every evening, at the Imperial.’ Cait looked from the photo back to the old hotel. She wound down the window to take a final photo.

Cait heard music. The first few notes tuning. The next few were the unmistakable sound of smiling, ukulele. Cait crept up to the verandah. Crouching she turned her phone to record the notes as they escaped under the front door.

A voice began to lilt with bold stagey inflection.

“I wanna be loved by you, just you and nobody else but you…” Cait held the phone closer to the door-saddle as the song ran syrupy sweet down the verandah and out into the street. The old place creaked louder once the music finished.

Cait turned off the recording and waited again to hear anything from inside. Nothing.

As Cait stood the wooden boards beneath her groaned loudly protesting the crouch. The front door opened quickly.

“You sneak” the Glory sister said. “Are you spying? You sneaky… SNEAK!”

“I’m so sorry. I heard you singing and came back to tell you…”

“Tell me what little sneak?”

“Well that’s just it you see.” Cait said slowly as she pruned each word before it left her mouth. “Your sister said that YOU wouldn’t do it.”

“You can’t tell me anything about her I don’t know. And you know what? She’s right about that! I wouldn’t. Whether she would or whether she wouldn’t.”

“The reason SHE said you wouldn’t, was because… you couldn’t.”

“What?”

“Couldn’t play. Not like her anyway. Apparently.”

“It was ME carried HER. Always did! Uppity little baby! She was always so blasted uppity. Nothing was good enough for her. Always needing to be doing something new. The old songs were too old for her! When she went electric I said she was on her own and I meant it. I’ll do your blasted reunion gig. When is it? Yes I will. I will do it.”

Emily Glory started pacing the front hallway, speaking to herself. “I’ll show you. Can’t play! Who does she think she is!!! Yes I will. Sure I will. The Glorious Glory Sisters. For your amusement.”

Suddenly she spun around to face Cait and raised her finger to the ceiling. “But only. Only. ONLY!” punctuating each word with a stab of her finger. “Only if Nancy goes acoustic! And she won’t. I’ll tell you that for free as well.”

A door closed on Cait for a third time that day.

She stopped the car at the Black Hill lookout to gather her thoughts on how to approach Nancy again. The locals called her place the White House; a folly built as a nightclub from her music career earnings. Now empty of everything except Nancy.

It would be tricky, she had one sister on half a hook, leverage to get the other she hoped. Cait wondered if she could go for gold with four slammed doors before night fell on Luxville?

LUXVILLE TALES with TALE BY Erin McCuskey and IMAGES BY Cait.

---

Please Note: The #LuxvilleTales are generated from reader contributed images. Post me a single image themed ‘faded glory’ and I will write you a short tale. Tag it #Luxville & #LuxvilleTales and tag me too! Love Madame Yum