52 Week Writing Challenge

by

Chocolate Kisses | A Short Story

Zech’s got his shoulders turned away from me when we pull up to a four-way stop in the middle of Utah. There are no other cars around, but I pause for a full minute to be sure one isn’t going to blast through the intersection and into us. The rain’s so loud I can’t hear the blinker.

“Quite a storm,” I say loudly.

He nods. The reddish hair at the nape of his neck is matted and I’m certain he’s wearing the same red and blue plaid shirt he wore when I picked him up at the bus station late last night. There’s a strong smell of Old Spice and a fainter smell of chewing tobacco and I wonder if he lied to me about quitting. It’s none of my business.

Wishing I could find a way to break the tension, I glance over and find he’s twisting his hands in his lap. It’s exactly like grandma used to do, the way she’d squeeze the fingers of one hand and then the next while whispering the Lord’s prayer over and over under her breath. He’s making me uneasy. Five hours left to go.

“See any cars coming?” I say.

He shakes his head no but doesn’t look at me. He’s opening and closing his knees rapidly making our economy rental car rock back and forth. His nervous energy makes me feel like I’m five years old again and he’s yelling at me for riding my bike in the street.

“You could have been killed,” he’d scream. “Don’t you know anything?”

I never knew anything. He’d tell me the statistics of kids being killed on bikes, paralyzed on roller skates, or how likely I’d be to die in a plane crash. When I moved away to college he gave me enough pepper spray to douse the entire male population three times over.

My roommates both told me driving with my brother to our grandmother’s funeral was a terrible idea. He’d never gotten his license and we’ve not seen each other since I left for college three years ago. He calls me on Sundays to argue and tell me what’s wrong with the world. Politics and religion are his favorite topics. I still know nothing, according to him.

“Mina, you don’t have to be a hero. Your brother has been nothing but an asshole to you your entire life. You don’t owe him shit,” Megan said.

“Seriously! I know he’s all the family you have, but he makes you crazy. You always are in tears after talking to him and a nervous wreck. You don’t have to do this,” Paula said.

They offered to pool their money together to buy me a plane ticket but I couldn’t do it. He needs me and I still hold out the childish hope of having the kind of TV sibling relationship I used to dream about in our shared bed at night. We’d magically become Mable and Dipper from “Gravity Falls,” solving the world’s mysteries while looking out for each other.

The truth is, I’m not sure where my brother lives right now or if he has people in his life. He asks about my classes and my friends, but it’s mostly to assess my level of danger. We are practically strangers.

“Is it okay if I put on some music?” I say.

“No,” he says. “My head still hurts.”

Grandma used to tell us she’d be gone one day and all we would have is each other. At church on Sundays, she’d make us hold hands when we walked through the tall wooden doors so God could see we loved each other. It never made sense to me how this all-seeing and all-knowing God cared so much about how we acted and looked on Sundays. Shouldn’t we love each other every day?

“God’s watching you extra close today,” she’d say. “No wildness or wickedness on Sundays.”

We’d have to stay in our fancy clothes until bedtime. There was no outdoor playing or television. It was dominoes, reading the Bible, eating fried chicken, and having ice cream sundaes for dessert with one single cherry on top. The picture of domestic bliss on the outside, but inside it was flat and empty. I wanted more. I still want more.

“Did you hear old auntie Char will be at the funeral?” I say. “I haven’t seen her in years.”

“So?”

His voice is flat and he doesn’t turn toward me. The sunrise has begun through the haze of the misty rain and I realize today is the day we will bury our grandmother. It doesn’t feel real. I guess I figured she’d made a deal with God and would live forever. She was 92.

“Do you remember when auntie Char climbed the ladder at our Eastwood home to put up the Christmas lights and fell backward into the hydrangeas? Grandma was so concerned about her beautiful flowers, fussing and pulling the blossoms out from under her butt. Oh, Char was so mad…”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t move or smile. He and grandma always seemed to have a secret language of misery I wasn’t a part of. I’d try to be still like them and crack the code, but I’ve remained on the outside. Tapping the steering wheel with my thumbs, I try again.

“Do you remember the name of that stupid dog she had? The little white one who humped everything? It would not leave my shins alone. I swear, to this day, I can’t stand little dogs because of that stinky thing. What was it…Jasper? Juniper? Jackson?”

“Jupiter.”

“That’s right! She’d dress the smelly thing in dirty, ugly sweaters and it would shake and shake like some kind of drug addict going through withdrawals. I’m sure it’s dead now right? She wouldn’t bring it with her to a funeral?”

It’s quiet for a few minutes and then Zech chuckles. It’s the first time since we got into the car his posture has changed. He pulls a plastic bottle of water out of the faded denim backpack at his feet and takes a big swig.

“It’s been 10 years, Min,” he says. “ I’m sure it’s dead now.”

“Unless…”

“If you say unless it’s a zombie dog I’m going to punch you in the arm.”

I smile at his remembrance of my favorite childhood movie, “Frankenweenie.” I made him watch it with me at least 50 times. I’d pretend to be terrified, pulling the blankets tight around my shoulders and scooting close to him on our well-worn grey couch. He’d make fun of me, but keep his arm around me. He liked it too.

“Big baby,” he says under his breath.

He pulls out a bag of Hershey’s kisses, rips open the top, and sets it on the center console between us. I watch from the corner of my eye as he unwraps the silver wrapping, pops the chocolate into his mouth, and then folds the paper over and over in his lap.

“Want one?” he asks.

“Sure.”

He unwraps it and I open my mouth. He tosses it, but it misses, hitting the side of my nose and falling down at my feet. It’s probably going to melt there or be squished by my boots. I don’t care, but he’s back to rubbing his hands together in his lap and shaking his knees.

“I’m going to pull over and get it,” I say.

He nods. I take the next exit and follow a twisting road lined with old Birch trees until we reach an abandoned and boarded-up rest stop. It’s overgrown with tall thorny weeds and there’s graffiti on the small half-burned building which used to house the bathrooms and probably a few vending machines. The rain has finally stopped.

“I’m going to stretch my legs,” I say.

He doesn’t look at me, but I examine him for a minute before closing the door. He’s stopped moving and he’s got his arms crossed across his chest. He’s holding his neck at a weird angle. I wonder if he needs a smoke, a chew, or a drink. It’s probably hard for him to be sober around me. I consider giving him permission to do what he needs to cope, but I think it would either embarrass or anger him.

Retrieving the stray chocolate from its spot near the brake pedal, I toss it toward an overflowing garbage can and watch it bounce off the side and land on the ground. There’s a fair amount of steam coming from the engine and it occurs to me that I need a break too. Following a cracked cement path, I arrive at a small patch of dirt filled with cigarette butts, discarded soda and beer cans, and several thin pine cones.

I check my cell phone for messages, but I don’t have a signal out here. In the last few days, I’ve received a flurry of texts and IG messages from friends I haven’t seen in a long time letting me know they are here for me if I need anything. It’s hard to tell them I feel very little at my grandmother’s death. I can’t imagine what I might need.

The sound of a low meow draws my attention to a cluster of bushes off to the left I didn’t notice before. I take a few tentative steps onto the wet ground, making sure my soft brown boots aren’t going to get stuck and find the ground solid. A thin and dirty tabby cat pokes out its head and meows again—a sad pathetic sound. 

“It’s okay, kitty,” I say. “Are you hungry?”

We don’t have anything in the car we can feed to a stray cat, but it seems the right thing to say. The hair on the back of its neck raises and it limps through the bushes, disappearing from sight. How did it get out here? I can’t leave it behind to starve or run onto the freeway and be crushed. It needs me.

“Come back, kitty!”

Following it through the thick ugly brown bushes I find an area of short dying trees and piles of garbage. Judging by the amount of dog poop on the ground, this was probably once a grassy area for pets. There’s a tangle of black and orange extension cords, an old metal lawn chair twisted and broken, pieces of splintered wood, and several large shiny black bags spilling their contents onto the ground. I step around all of it.

“Here, kitty, kitty! Here, kitty, kitty!”

There’s no sign of the cat, but I hear rushing water and follow it until I reach a cement runoff ditch swollen with rainwater. A styrofoam cup floats by followed by a bright yellow kids’ bucket, the kind you take to the beach. There’s a part of me yearning to fish it out, but Zech’s voice from a long time ago booms inside me.

“Don’t get any closer,” he says. “The tide can rip you out of my arms and into the ocean in an instant. I’d never see you again.”

We are standing on the beach while grandma watches us from her old white Cadillac. She’d parked it on the edge of a cliff looking down at the long line of white foamy waves, while Zech and I scrambled over the sandy dunes to the water’s edge. I’m mesmerized by the force of the waves, terrified really, at how powerful it seems. He grabs my hand and holds it tight.

“Don’t go,” he says.

His big blue eyes are filled with tears. They fall down his freckled cheeks in lines, almost as if they are drawing me a picture. My 5-year-old self promises I’ll never leave him and I mean it. I really do.

Guilt wriggles through me, squirming and singing the song of my selfishness. I wish our parents hadn’t died in that car crash leaving my brother to have a giant scar on his cheek and the burden of worrying about me. I should have picked a college close to home. He needs me.

Stepping onto the rough cement ledge surrounding the runoff ditch, I balance so my toes hang over the two-inch space and I can watch the water rush beneath me. Grandma always wore pale pastel suits with bright colorful silk scarves around her neck. I wonder if the ladies of her church chose the mint green one. It’s my favorite.

“What in the hell are you doing?” Zech calls.

Within an instant, he’s grabbing my shirt and pulling me off the ledge. I tumble forward, lose my balance, and fall to the ground. My knee hits something sharp and I scream out in pain. A jagged piece of glass pierces my jeans and sticks out of my knee. Blood begins to pool around it. Zech stares at it with wide eyes and then begins to scream. His face has turned bright red.

“I swear to God, Min, you do these things to make me crazy. Why would you wander so far from the car? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Don’t you care at all what it does to me? You don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself, always have. Must be so nice to walk through the world with people who care about you while you spit in their faces like it doesn’t matter at all. You don’t have any idea about anything. You are a stupid little child.”

He tries to scoop me up from the ground to carry me back to the car, but I push him away and stand on my own. It hurts really bad, but I’m not about to let him be the hero again. I was perfectly fine before he showed up.

“Stop it,” I say. “Just leave me alone.”

“Leave you alone! Seriously, Min. You’re telling me to leave you alone?”

“I was fine and now I’m not. This is your fault.”

Gesturing to my knee, I begin limping toward the direction of the car. He grabs my arm and spins me back toward him. The red of his face has become splotchy and his lips are pressed tight together. He punches me on the arm, hard, and then takes a step back.

“You are such a brat. Seriously. Grandma and I protected you all this time, but you don’t give a shit. You conveniently don’t remember anything. This place…this place…this is where you pull over and pull this shit. I really don’t believe you don’t remember. It’s not like you were a baby, Min. You have to remember. It happened at a rest stop just like this. Fucking, hell. You have to remember.”

I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Searching my memories I find only one at a rest stop. Grandma pulling up in her white Cadillac, a bag of Hershey kisses on the seat between us, Elvis Presley singing “my hands are shaky and my knees are weak…”

Zech says in a quiet voice, “I can’t seem to stand on my own two feet. Who do you think of when you have such luck?”

“I’m in love. I’m all shook up,” I finish.

“What happened before the car?” he says. “Why did grandma pick us up? You can remember the car so clearly, but nothing else. For God’s sake, you were 5. I promised grandma I’d never tell you, but you were there, Min. You were fucking there. Why do I have to be the one to hold it and you get to be the carefree one, off at college? Why do I have to shoulder it alone? It’s fucking unfair. It’s so fucking unfair.”

He’s crying now. Sobbing. He falls to the ground beside me and covers his face with his hands. I watch him and try to recall the moments before grandma came to get us. Was I in the car during the crash too? Did I see our parents die? I don’t remember anything.

Then I do. It’s like blowing out birthday candles, it comes in a whiff of smoke. My parents weren’t in a car accident. They had a fight. Another one. A big one. Zech got cut when our dad took a knife toward our mother. They left us here. They didn’t want us.

Staring at my knee I remember there was a lot of blood when they fought. Raised voices. Raised fists. I don’t want to think about it, but the tourniquet has been pulled off and the blood gushes everywhere. Our parents didn’t die. They left us. Falling to the ground beside Zech I sit as close as I dare. I’m scared and shaking. I don’t want to remember.

“Are they still alive?” I say.

Zech stops crying and looks at me. His face softens and he wipes his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. He opens and closes his mouth, but nothing comes out. He scoots closer to me and I lay my head on his lap. He’s so warm.

“I’m sorry,” Zech says. “I’m so so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

He’s stroking my hair and his voice is soft and comforting.

“Are they alive?”

“I don’t know. I tried to find them a few times, but other than a few stints in jail over the years, there are no other records of either of them.”

“They really just left us?”

He doesn’t respond for a long time. I move up and down with his breathing and feel like a small child. How many times has my brother protected me and held me like this? How could I not see it for what it was? Reaching up, I trace the jagged scar on his left cheek.

I want to say so much to him; to apologize, to beg his forgiveness, but also to tell him I see it now. All of it. He felt responsible for me. I was his everything. He was only 10, a child like me. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. It begins to rain lightly, but the darkness of the sky hints it might begin to pour again any minute.

“We need to get you out of the rain and bandage up that knee,” he says.

“Okay.”

I let him help me back to the rental car and we sit across from each other in the backseat. He pulls a small red first-aid kit from his backpack and I smile. Of course, he brought one along. He probably predicted I’d get hurt and he’d have to save me. I’m grateful.

He gently pulls off my boot, cuts off my jeans at the knee, pulls out the small piece of glass, cleans the wound with alcohol, and uses a butterfly bandage to pull the wound closed. He covers the area with a clear antibacterial ointment and wraps first a soft white bandage and then a blue sticky one around and around my leg.

We climb back into the front seats and fasten our seatbelts. As I start the car he unwraps a Hershey kiss and I open my mouth. It goes in this time. The sweet chocolate melts on my tongue.

“You okay?” he says.

“Right as rain,” I say.

“Right as rain,” he repeats.

Author’s note: My brother and I have had many conversations about events in our childhood that we both remember very differently. This was the starting idea of my story this week, but I allowed it to develop into this tale of siblings connected through family trauma and the roles it cast them both in. I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting Zech and Mina. We are halfway through this 52-week journey of short stories and I’m so grateful to everyone who has read, commented, or liked my posts so far. You keep me going and growing each week. Thank you for your support!

Short Story Challenge | Week 25

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story about memory editing wreaking havoc. We had to include Jupiter, chocolate, domestic, blossom, ladder, steam, extension, pine cone, sunrise, and tide.

Write With Us

Prompt: A dystopian glimpse of the future
Include: wheelchair, Labrador, throne, jungle, prescription, railroad, trunk, gulley, wasp, photosynthesize

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

by

Apple Stars | A Short Story

Mary tips the brass watering can into the small strawberry patch and watches as thirteen different streams of water flow onto the small green plants. Maybe she will have berries for the children this year. It would be nice to offer them something sweet that doesn’t come from a can.

“Mary,” Felix calls from the cab of his rusted Ford pickup truck. He’s driving slowly down the driveway. Mary knows the sound of his voice means he found another one.

He brings her the broken children. The ones he finds wandering alone—mute and shivering. Who better than the one without memories to care for those with too many.

She sets down the watering can and wipes her damp hands on her faded yellow apron. Felix pulls to a stop beside her, turning off the engine. The sounds outside the walls swell and then fade again. Leaning on the window, Mary peers into the cab. She catches a quick glimpse in the side-view mirror of her freckled nose and messy red curls.

“Morning, Felix,” she says. “How are you?”

“I’ve been better.”

There is blood, both fresh and dried, on his plaid collared shirt. By the look and smell of him, she’d guess he’s been out of the gates for a week or so. The grey around his temples has grown, as have the wrinkles around his soft eyes.

There’s no child in the cab, but piled on the passenger seat are a clunky grey satellite phone, a long wood-handled shotgun, and a rather old-looking book. Its cover is faded brown with splotchy water stains. She can’t make out the title.

Felix was an antiquarian before the outbreak, studying rare books and writing academic papers. He once had an invitation to be the guest speaker at the annual White House Historical Association conference, an honor he’s proud to say he declined because he didn’t agree with the political divide of the country. He doesn’t support corruption on any level, even if it would have brought him notoriety.

“You find something good?” Mary asks, pointing to the book. Felix’s tired face transforms into a wide, youthful smile. He lifts the book into his hands and traces the golden letters on the spine with his pointer finger.

“An Enquiry concerning Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness by William Godwin. I found it among a stack of books in an old farmhouse. It’s in remarkable condition, considering it’s a first edition published in 1793. The cover is a bit of a mess, but the pages are untouched.”

When he talks about books Mary can see a glimmer of what he must have been like before people started dying and then coming back as monsters. She wonders if the two of them would have been friends or perhaps lovers if they’d met before all this. When he’s close to her she feels a spark between them, a kind of electric energy similar to how the air feels before a storm. She’s too scared to ask him if he feels it too.

Mary doesn’t know who she is. Felix found her wandering the woods covered in blood looking for something. She has no memory of how she got there, what she was searching for, or who she was before the world descended into chaos. She owes Felix her life, her name, and her purpose.

“You find anything else?” she asks.

He knows she’s not asking about supplies, although she’d really love some fresh fruit or some cinnamon. His face changes from excitement to something she can read as distress. Yeah, he found another one.

“In the back,” he says. “Under the blanket.”

He grabs her hand through the car window and squeezes it. The intensity in his dark brown eyes reminds Mary of the world she’s not a part of. She’s happy to stay within the safe harbor of the compound walls blocking out a world she knows only from the stories the children tell her. There’s dried blood under his fingernails.

“Brace yourself,” he says. “This one seems really hurt.”

Mary takes a step back and watches as Felix drives down the dirt road to the home of the doctor. The child will have to be checked for wounds and disease before being released into her care. The process usually takes a day or two which gives her time to get things ready.

“Stephen?” she calls. “Where are you?”

“Over here!”

She finds the young boy sitting with his back against the large cedar tree eating one of the oatmeal cookies she made this morning. His soccer ball sits beside him. He’s been with her for over a year and she’s watched him transform from a terrified jumpy child to one who is prone to giggles and loves to make other people laugh.

“We have a new friend joining us,” she says. “Can you help me get things ready?”

“Yay,” he says. “Boy or girl?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He’s hoping for a kid his age he can play soccer with. It’s been hard for him only to have Tiff as a companion. She’s half his age and hasn’t spoken since arriving three months ago. A small, sweet child who scares easily but who trusts Stephen and follows him around everywhere he goes.

Mary finds Tiff sitting on the other side of the tree with a cookie in each hand. She’s got long black hair she loves Mary to brush. Today she allowed her to braid it into two long braids tied off with soft purple ribbon. She offers Mary one of the cookies and gives her an adorable gapped-tooth smile.

The three of them make their way inside their cozy two-bedroom house painted pale blue with yellow curtains and filled with lots of squishy, soft furniture. Mary loves to collect items from nature and display them in little glass dishes around the house; acorns, pinecones, dried flowers, and stones. They are her treasures—her Mother Earth fortune.

Felix cleaned out this house for her. It was supposed to be temporary until her memories returned. It’s been two years and she still remembers nothing.

A few weeks after rescuing Mary, Felix found a small blonde girl with wide green eyes and a badly broken leg. She screamed and screamed in terror night and day. The doctor kept her medicated, but the community scolded Felix for bringing her in. They were afraid of her.

“Could you take her for a bit?” Felix asked Mary. “Just until we find her another home.”

Mary agreed. It was a month before the child could leave the bed and another two months before she spoke. She found it easy to be with the silent child, to hold her as she cried, and to be a calming presence. Being around children feels natural to her as if she was made for this and nothing else. It makes her wonder if perhaps she was a teacher before, or maybe she had a child of her own.

She’s nursed a total of six kids to health. She wishes she could keep them with her, but there comes a time when they need other children to run and play with and to be removed from the new children with fresh nightmares who wake to scream during the night. Although it’s hard for her to say goodbye, each time they leave she feels a great sense of relief, accomplishment, and happiness.

Mary figured out pretty quickly the children could not sleep in a room alone, so she filled the master bedroom with three large mattresses. It creates a huge bed where they all cuddle close in order to make it through the night. Stephen has been moving further and further away from her and Tiff. He’s very close to not needing her anymore.

“Let’s wash all the bedding,” Mary says. “Help me gather it up.”

The day passes in a series of chores. Mary, Stephen, and Tiff work together to prepare as much as they can for the arrival of the new child. After washing the bedding, they gather up clean clothes and bake blueberry muffins from a mix. Tiff seems excited when Felix comes for a visit and tells her the child is a 4-year-old girl with curly red hair and lots of freckles. Stephen tries to not look disappointed.

As the day winds down, the community gathers at the old Catholic church for a town hall meeting. Apparently, some are worried the new child has “the sickness,” causing a fresh round of panic and renewed anger at Felix for his rescue missions. Mary can hear the angry voices traveling down the street toward her and the children. Using the generator, something she rarely does, she plays a King Harvest record Felix recovered for her a few months ago.

“Everybody here is out of sight
They don’t bark and they don’t bite
They keep things loose, they keep things light
Everybody was dancin’ in the moonlight”

She and Stephen hold hands and dance in the small living room, around and around the big flowered rug. Tiff sits on the green couch and bangs her hands on an upturned tin can with perfect rhythm. Mary sees her smile and it brings tears to her eyes. She’s going to be talking soon. She’s so close.

They play the record late into the night, over and over, drowning out the fear being played out by the adults down the road. Mary wishes they’d learn how to speak softly and worries about all the children living in the community. Fearful talk brings new rounds of nightmares.

The next morning, Felix arrives with two canvas bags of supplies. He’s freshly showered and shaved. Stephen and Tiff smile from their place at the kitchen table, always happy to see the person who rescued them.

“I have a special treat,” Felix says.

He pulls out a plastic bag filled with red, round apples. The sight of them makes both the children giggle with glee, and Mary rushes to Felix and gives him an enormous hug. They haven’t had fresh fruit in ages.

“Thank you,” she says. “You have no idea how happy this makes me.”

“I have some idea,” he says. 

Mary thinks he might have blushed and it makes her own face turn red. She busies herself with putting away the canned goods and offers him some pancakes and coffee. Stephen talks his ear off as he eats asking all kinds of questions about soccer, a topic apparently Felix knows a great deal about.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Felix says between bites. “You can come to get the child today. Since she isn’t talking, I’ve taken to calling her, Annie.”

After breakfast, Mary leaves Stephen and Tiff to clean up and walks with Felix down the road. They walk in silence, side-by-side, their pinky fingers brushing a few times. Mary thinks she can feel those sparks again and wonders if he notices them too.

“Felix?”

“Yeah.”

She searches for the words, but can’t find them. They feel stuck inside her, perhaps locked with her memories, safely hidden where she can’t be hurt. Felix stops a few steps before the doctor’s house and grabs her hands into his.

“I have a strange feeling about this child,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

He pulls Mary to him, hugging her tight against his body. He smells of pine and fresh air. There’s something about him that reminds her of her Earth treasures, a certain kind of preciousness she wants to keep for herself. She rests her head against his chest and listens to his heartbeat.

“I’m glad you are here,” Doctor Bains interrupts.

They pull apart and face the tall, thin frame of the doctor. He has deep black rings under his dark brown eyes and a scruffy unkempt beard. He must have been handsome at one point, but the stress of the last few years has made him look perpetually unkempt and in need of rest.

“How is she?” Felix asks.

“Stable now,” he says. “She had a deep gash along her side which required some complex stitching and a blood transfusion. She will need to be kept still while she heals. She’s very weak.”

“Has she spoken to you?” Mary asks.

“I’m afraid not. I’m sedating her to keep her calm and I’ll send some meds with you. I know you don’t like to use them, but if she tries to run away she might die. She was very close to death when Felix found her. You need to keep her calm and resting.”

“Don’t worry, Mary will work her magic,” Felix says. “She’s got her now.”

He grabs Mary’s hand and squeezes it three times, a code Mary isn’t sure what it means. She squeezes him back and she sees the skin around his neck turn red.

“Very well,” Dr. Bains says.

They follow him inside and find the small child laying on a bed in the dark back room. There are scrapes and cuts all over her thin body. Mary lowers herself to her knees beside the bed and speaks in a slow, careful voice.

“Hi, dear. I’m Mary. My home is down the road and there are two other children there who are excited to meet you, Stephen and Tiff. We are going to help you heal. You don’t have to talk to me or them, but I hope you will when you are ready. You are safe now.”

The child turns her head sharply and stares into Mary’s face. Her blue eyes widen and fill with tears. She reaches her hand out and touches Mary on the cheek—the softest of touches.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” Mary says. 

A strange sensation takes over, a kind of rumbling inside her mind which might be the act of remembering. There are no clear images yet, but it’s as if someone shook up a snow globe giving Mary silhouettes through the snowy bits. She stumbles a bit and Felix grabs her arm. He gives her a reassuring smile and she continues.

“Is it okay if my friend Felix here carries you? I’m afraid I’m not quite strong enough.”

The girl nods and Felix lifts her into his arms. She’s so tiny—a baby lost in the woods. There’s something different about her, a calmness transcending the medication. Mary reaches out and holds her tiny hand. Snippets of memory tug at her mind, straining and straining to be made clear. Annie’s hand feels sweaty and begins to shake in her own.

“Are you okay?” Mary asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m okay.”

They walk down the road in silence but the child keeps her eyes on Mary. The intensity of her stare feels a lot like longing and they arrive at the house in what feels like a moment. Felix lowers Annie onto one of the mattresses beside a bundle of wildflowers Stephen and Tiff gathered for her. She rolls onto her side and pulls the bundle to her nose.

“Welcome home,” Mary says.

“Thank you,” she says.

Mary gives Felix a hug goodbye and lays beside the small child. Annie latches herself to Mary’s arm, wrapping her small body as close to her as possible. Stephen and Tiff wander in and out of the room for the next few hours, but they understand Annie’s need to be close to Mary. 

She doesn’t speak again, but Mary expected this. She simply breathes in and out, Mary accepting the child’s need to rest and to be held. She watches the sky outside turn dark through the open window and realizes how hungry she is. In her most gentle of voices, she speaks to Annie.

“I need to cook dinner, but I don’t want to leave you alone. Do you want to come with me?”

The girl nods. Mary picks her up and takes her into the kitchen. She places the child on a wooden chair beside her and the child grabs the hem of her long skirt with her fist. Stephen and Tiff set the table and pour each person a glass of water from a pitcher on the counter. Mary pours several cans of chicken noodle soup into a large pot to cook before pulling out the bag of apples.

“These will be our dessert,” she says.

She cuts an apple in half and sees the star shape inside and gasps—the fairy star. It takes her a minute to catch her breath. The memory rings through her like a golden bell.

“Do you know what this is?” she tells the children. “Long ago there was a small apple tree, the first of its kind. It loved to look up into the night sky at the beauty of the stars. It longed more than anything to have a start for itself, to hold it within its hands. It wanted to feel it and touch it.”

Crying now, the words come easier and easier.

“One day a small fairy heard the apple tree talking to the stars and offered to go up into the sky and bring one back. It took her a long, long time. Seasons passed. Spring became Fall. Fall became Winter. Winter became Spring again and the fairy returned. She had gathered the magic of the stars within her wand and touched all the bright shiny apples with its glittery tip, forever locking a star inside each one.”

She holds up the apple for the children to see. Stephen and Tiff clap, but Annie grows silent. Mary scoops her into her arms and pulls her tight to her chest. The impossible has become real. Mary buries her nose into the child’s red curls and breaths in the truth, her memories popping and clicking into place one after the other.

In the middle of the night, her toddler wandered out into the world of monsters. She woke up in a panic the moment she didn’t feel her child’s weight beside her, but it was too late. She couldn’t find a trace of her anywhere. For days and weeks, she searched for her girl, growing further and further manic with worry and despair. She didn’t sleep. She didn’t eat. She killed the monsters with a sharpened stick through the eye and kept moving. She walked and searched until her mind and memory snapped and Felix found her.

“My baby Lula,” she says. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

“Mommy, “ she says.

She kisses her face over and over.

“I’ll never lose you again.”

Author’s note: I cut open an apple this week and remembered the Waldorf story explaining the origin of the star inside. I wanted to weave that sweet tale into this week’s prompt, playing with finding moments of kindness in a time of chaos. It’s been another hectic week and I wish I had another few days to make this story better, but I don’t. Some weeks I have to allow myself the grace to walk away knowing it’s the best I can do given my schedule. I’m writing and sticking to my goals—22 weeks in a row. Thanks, as always, for reading and I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below.

Short Story Challenge | Week 22

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story about the main character having amnesia. We had to include antiquarian, satellite, cinnamon, fortune, cookie, harbor, cedar, invitation, soccer, annual, and speaker.

Write With Us

Prompt: Adult friends on vacation in the tropics
Include: scuba diver, champagne, invasion, archway, hoard, strawberry, penguin, autumnal, cease, mist

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

by

The Carrot | A Short Story

Wind whips through my long hair tangling it in the branches behind me, but I don’t care how uncomfortable I am. I’d wait in this tree forever for a glimpse of him. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

“Bloody hell,” says a smoky voice with a thick British accent.

Chills ripple down my body as he appears on the woody path, the soft moonlight illuminating his wild spiky hair. I watch from my perch above him as he fights to light a cigarette with a golden lighter, the night breezes making it nearly impossible. It’s really him, just like the short man with the crooked nose told me.

Maybe this is my chance. Should I hop down out of the tree and stand before him? The thought of gazing into his one blue and one green eye makes me dizzy and I wrap my arms and legs around the thick tree branch to avoid falling. Making a deal with the Goblin King isn’t likely going to end well for me, but I can’t help myself. I’m drawn to him-

The bell rings. I close my laptop and shove it into my grey backpack, crushing loose pieces of binder paper and more than a dozen empty granola bar wrappers. I touch the black-inked image of David Bowie’s face drawn on the front flap. I drew it on there the summer before 7th grade and hoped someone would see my artwork and strike up a conversation. Seeing as my freshman year is half over and I remain friendless, I’d say it didn’t work.

Last night I’d written my pen name underneath his chin with tiny careful letters, VioletStardust69. My secret identity is the only thing keeping me from losing it at this horrible school. It’s a good reminder I’m not what others think I am. I have a life they know nothing about. Fuck them.

A flat piece of cheese, slimy and square, hangs at an odd angle on the back of the kid who wears the black cowboy hat. Some Johnny Cash wannabe who doesn’t understand you have to dress more neutral if you don’t want things stuck to you. I consider being kind and pulling it off, but he’s walking too fast and there’s no way I’m running down the hallway and drawing attention to myself. Sorry cheese boy—you walk the line alone my fellow outcast.

A fat angry blister screams at me as I press through the crowded hallway, trying to not get jostled too hard or stepped on. I saved up $150 to buy these custom Bowie Converse off Etsy, but I should have known better than to wear them to school. I step carefully around a broken applesauce cup, its contents smeared across the brown tiled floor looking like something from my baby brother’s diaper. Half-brother, I correct myself. He’s got the new, cool mom. I’m stuck with the old, broken one. Dad doesn’t feel too bad about it either. I think his life is easier with me only half in it anyways.

I’ve got English class next with Mr. Peters. He has fluffy blonde hair and Bowie cheekbones. I’d find him super cute if he wasn’t old and if he didn’t keep trying to talk to me. As far as teachers go, he is far from the worst.

English class is the only time I can stare at Ash without being noticed. That sounds creepier than I mean it, but I guess when you’ve had a secret crush for the last three years it’s bound to get a bit weird at times. We’ve been in classes together since 5th grade, but I’m fairly certain she doesn’t know my name.

I slide into a desk in the far right corner next to a dusty bookshelf filled with blue and gold copies of “The Great Gatsby.” The large “T G G” always makes me think about “The Golden Girls”––the show I used to watch with my grandma before she died.  If F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the show I bet he’d make Blanche into a rich stalker of some mildly hot, but very self-centered, older man who works in a Miami nightclub called “The Green Light.” I start to write stupid dialogue in my head when Ash walks in.

She’s wearing a tight black dress over torn fishnets and shiny black platform docs which she somehow manages to still look adorably short in. Her hair, I’m happy to see, has returned to black. She slides into the seat beside her two best friends and they all begin laughing and talking about some senior boy with huge gauges that Mazie likes. She’s got purple hair this week. I try to pretend I’m busy, but I can’t stop looking at Ash. I wonder what it would be like to sit next to her and have her laugh when I said something.

I look down and see I’ve scribbled Ash’s name in the margin of my paper several times with some cheesy hearts around it. I quickly scribble it out, but I use too much force and tear the paper. It doesn’t matter. Nobody notices.

Mr. Peters takes the roll and when he gets to me I nod, which luckily he accepts today. I hate when he makes me say “here.” He begins talking about the Odyssey and I suddenly get an idea for a storyline where David Bowie interacts with sirens and sea monsters, eventually falling in love with a young outcast Goddess. I scribble down a few lines.

Standing on the bow of his ship, Captain Bowie surveys the rocky shoreline ahead. His loose cotton shirt blows around his body revealing a large golden medallion resting on his smooth chest. He’d been warned against entering these choppy waters, the call of the siren drives men to their deaths, but shouldn’t they really be worried about him-

“Vera,” Mr. Peters says. “I asked you what the island of Ithaca represents to Odysseus?”

I shrink in my seat and chew on the end of my pen. One of the basketball boys in his ugly yellow jersey snickers and I consider throwing my wet pen in his face. Although I know the answer, I’m never going to speak in class. My face burns hot and I slink further into my chair and stare at the laces of my shoes. I hope Ash isn’t looking at me.

“Fine,” Mr. Peters says. “Anyone else care to answer?”

Cheeky bastard, I think. For the rest of the class I say nothing, but I don’t write either. I allow the storyline to play out in my mind and realize it’s dumb. Nobody wants to read something related to a book they have to read in school.

Last year I started getting a lot more attention on my stories, and it makes me nervous it could all go away. My latest Bowie story has been ranked number one for three weeks and has over 10.4k reads and 400 votes. I don’t want to write something that will make them all suddenly stop reading. I have to be careful.

I know Wattpad is like an amateurish writing thing, but it’s important to me. My fans are my friends, they check up on me when I’ve gone silent for a day or two, and they hype me up when I’m having a bad day. I don’t want to lose it by writing something they hate.

The bell rings and I slowly pack up my things, making sure Ash and her friends leave before me. I don’t want them watching me walk by. Mr. Peters makes his way to me with a look of concern on his face.

“Vera,” he says. “Can I have a moment of your time?”

I nod because it’s not really a question. He sits at the desk beside mine, the one just vacated by some red-haired kid from the marching band who always taps his pencil on his desk. Maybe he plays drums.

“I’m worried about you,” he says. “You do very well on the writing and the tests, but I don’t see you interacting with the other students and it troubles me. I wonder if you might be interested in starting a little writing club with me.”

I don’t know what to say. The idea kind of sounds cool, but I doubt I’d get anyone to join it. I’m nobody and what would we do…write together?

“You don’t have to answer me right now,” he says. “I filled out the paperwork to start the club, but I wanted to find my president and you are the best writer in the school.”

He sets a piece of white paper on the desk in front of me. It’s a form and I see he’s written my name under “Club President.” My stomach hurts at the idea. What would he expect of me? Would I have to recruit people? Would I have to give speeches or wear some kind of t-shirt with a typewriter on it? Scanning the form I don’t see any of the answers there.

“I’d walk you through the whole process,” he says. “So, think about it. It would start after winter break, but we have to turn the form in by the end of the week. Promise me you’ll consider it.”

I nod and leave the classroom. My thoughts begin to spiral and I see all the awful ways this could play out in front of me like a horror movie. I put in my earbuds and play “Wild is the Wind” from the Live at Glastonbury album. I get chills when the crowd begins to cheer. I imagine I’m seeing Bowie stand on the Pyramid Stage at Worthy Farm in his lavender shirt and incredible floral jacket. He wore his hair long and wavy then, similar to mine now.

You touch me, I hear the sound of mandolins
You kiss me, with your kiss my life begins
You’re spring to me, all things to me
Don’t you know, you’re life itself?

I slam into someone hard and look up to see a tall, thin girl with a dark green beanie. She’s talking animatedly to me with a lot of hand movements, but I can’t hear her. There’s a bunch of stuff on the floor between us. I pause the music.

“… it’s going to be that kind of day, man, where things like happen and I’m going to have to simply accept I can’t like reorder my life. I mean like, what is life anyway but chaos, right? You can’t control anything, you know. Like it’s all a big lie. You know what I mean?”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I nod. She talks fast, but it’s almost melodic. She grabs my right hand and sandwiches it between both her hands and shakes it up and down. Her grip is firm and she’s smiling at me.

“Sequoia,” she says.

“Huh?”

“It’s my name. Like the tree. My parents are like wicked hippies—they dance around the full moon and shit. They actually are cool. You’ll like them. My mom makes these little muffin things out of cacao, which isn’t quite chocolate, but she adds honey and chia seeds and I don’t know what else, and they are good. I think I have one somewhere…”

She bends down and starts rummaging through the pile of stuff I knocked out of her hands. There’s a canvas bag with a bright red mushroom on the front, several books, a paper bag full of what appears to be multicolored carrots, and a lot of paper. My mom hasn’t ever baked for me.

“You were holding all this?” I ask.

She laughs and it’s such a funny sound like maybe a cartoon cat who smokes a lot of cigarettes would make. A kind of wheezy sound that doesn’t match up with her frenzied energy. I’ve not met anyone like her before.

As she digs through the canvas bag, I notice she’s wearing scuffed brown Mary Jane docs, knee-high, knitted forest green socks, a flowing patchwork skirt, and a tight brown tank top. She’s got black inked writing up and down her arms, little drawings of mushrooms, flowers, and trees.

“Here we are,” she says.

She opens up a mustard-colored Tupperware container filled with squashy little muffins roughly bite-size. I consider for a moment they might be laced with pot but decide I don’t care. I pop one into my mouth. It’s crunchy, with bits of nuts and granola in it, but they’re also really sweet and good.

“Thanks,” I say. “These are good.”

“If you like these, then you have to, have to, have to come over to my house after school because it’s mom’s baking day and she’s super manic and makes like far too many things and then freaks out if we don’t eat them all because of planetary waste and people starving and I DO NOT want to have to go down to the river again and feed the homeless her hippie food and hear them all be like ‘what is this’ over and over.”

She smiles at me and I see she has thin wire braces. I don’t know what to do, so I stand perfectly still and hope she doesn’t suddenly realize I’m not the person she thinks I am and reconsider all her offers of baked goods and coming over. She’s staring at the Bowie on my bag and her eyes get super wide as she screeches. I jump back and she begins to laugh.

“No freaking way! Are you VioletStardust69? Tell me you are and I will die right here.”

I smile and nod. She pulls me into a hug and my face gets smashed into her breasts because she’s a lot taller than me. It’s somehow not awkward though and suddenly I find I’m laughing too.

“I love your writing! I read all your stories. I can’t write anything myself, but damn girl, you can write some good shit about Bowie.”

“Thanks.”

“I can’t believe I’m standing in the hallway talking to VioletStardust69! My mom told me the tarot was hinting at big changes for me, and damn this is it. You are it! Violet freaking Stardust 69 ate my mom’s muffin. Wild!”

“It’s Vera.”

“What?”

“My name’s Vera.”

“Well, Vera, you are rad and now my best friend. Help me pick up this stuff because the bell rang and we are late to class and I have Ms. Johnson and she’s going to for sure make me try and explain why I’m late in Spanish and I don’t know how to say anything but ‘como estas’ and ‘muy bien.’ I think she seriously delights in making people struggle. I think it like makes her day or something. She’s so weird, you know? Who wears purple sweaters every single day?”

I help put all her stuff back into her bags and I can’t stop smiling. I’ve got monotone Mr. Montgomery next period but it somehow doesn’t matter anymore. I have a friend.

“Meet me after school by that creepy statue in the quad of the dead old white guy…you know the one covered in bird shit? We shouldn’t be honoring dead white guys who owned slaves and hit women anymore, but I guess he owned this land so we have to honor his memory or some nonsense. How about we honor the Tolowa tribe he probably gave smallpox to? Asshole. Ugh.”

I can’t stop smiling. She pulls a small crooked carrot out of the brown bag and hands it to me. It’s a dark purple color and smells earthy and sweet.

“In case you get hungry,” she says.

“Thanks.”

“See you after school, Vera!”

“Bye, Sequoia.”

I take a large bite of the carrot and walk to class.

Author’s note: This was an emotional week for me in so many ways. My daughter graduated last night from the school our family has been at for 13 years. She’s been with her teacher and many of her classmates for 8 years. It was a week filled with tradition, beauty, speeches, and parties. I had very little time to write but when I did finally sit down this story came to me pretty quick. There’s nothing new or revolutionary here, but I sure do like Vera and Sequoia, and hope you did too. Thanks as always for reading.

Short Story Challenge | Week 21

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story about high school hierarchy. We had to include pyramid, cowboy hat, amateurish, angle, ripple, cheese, jersey, blister, odyssey, and reorder.

Write With Us

Prompt: The main character has amnesia
Include antiquarian, satellite, cinnamon, fortune, cookie, harbor, cedar, invitation, soccer, annual, speaker

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

by

The Child | A Short Story

Crawling out from a hollowed-out cavern at the base of an ancient tree, the small child stretches her pudgy arms up toward the warm rays of vertical light peeking through the wide yellow leaves. Two tiny birds peck the ground and hop around her, pulling at piles of dead leaves looking for something to eat. Her belly growls.

“Hi birdies,” she says.

Startled by her small voice, the birds jump and take flight, landing on the thick branches above her. They squawk and she mimics the sound. Her head hurts and she stumbles in a circle. Mother isn’t coming back. She’s a bad girl.

Beside a fallen log in a shadowy space between two trees, a scruffy rabbit appears. It sits on its hind legs with its front paws held daintily in the air as if waiting to catch something. The sunlight peeks through its long upright ears revealing snaking purple lines streaked through light pink ovals.

“Hello rabbit,” she says.

Its nose twitches, but it doesn’t move, so she takes a step toward it. The rabbit spins and hops into a moss-covered log, a movement so fast the girl barely sees it. She runs after it, peering into the log just as it hops out the other side and disappears into a tangle of thick bushes.

“Wait,” she says. “Come back!”

She scurries after it in dirty, pale pink converse. Both the off-white shoelaces and the turn-downed lace of her socks are covered in round grey burrs. Her ankles are red and itchy. She catches a glimpse of a furry brown tail jumping from one bush to another and follows it through thick vines, climbing over several fallen tree branches.

She loses sight of the rabbit in a field of yellow and purple flowers, wispy weedy things which stand as tall as she does. The brightness of the morning sun without the trees to dilute it makes her eyes burn and something causes her to sneeze. She stops.

“Rabbit!” she calls.

Several blackbirds take flight around her, but there’s no sign of the furry friend with the big ears. She picks a yellow flower and holds it out in front of her watching how the sun seems to be inside it when a fuzzy bee lands on the soft petals. She remembers sharp stabbing pains on her arms and face, and the burning red welts her mother had to cover in pink medicine. No, she wants no part of bees. They hurt.

“Leave me alone,” she cries.

She throws the yellow flower, covers her face with her small hands, and runs through the field of wildflowers. The loud sound of the buzzing bees surrounds her, but the tiny insects don’t land on her or sting. The ground slopes and she tumbles several feet before landing on her butt at the base of a tall pine tree. She cries.

It’s darker and colder here. Her thin purple leggings and soft pink princess t-shirt, dirty from sleeping on the decomposed leaves under the tree and now ripped from the fall, are thin and damp. Shivers travel through her like convulsions and the cries turn to sobs.

“Mommy,” she whispers, knowing there’s no use in calling for her anymore.

She wipes her wet nose with the sleeve of her shirt and sniffs loudly. The brown rabbit hops out from behind one of the squat trees and stares at her. He twitches his ears and she laughs.

“Oh,” she says. “Hi!”

Its deep black eyes look watery and she wonders if its mother left it in the woods too. It turns and begins hopping slowly down a small, dirt path. The girl follows although it’s becoming harder and harder for her to walk. Her legs don’t seem to want to move and there’s a strange pounding sound making her head feel as if it’s blowing up like a balloon.

The path ends at a beautiful cottage of reds, greens, and blues. Its sloping roof looks made of cookies, the windows of spun sugar, and the air smells of carnivals and bakeries. The girl giggles.

The red door sits partly open and the rabbit hops inside. The girl follows. It’s a small cluttered room filled with colorful items, none of them as interesting as the steaming wooden bowl of porridge sitting in the center of a round, blue table. She takes another step inside, looking for any place someone could be hiding.

“Hello?” she calls.

There’s no sound except for the rabbit munching loudly on a carrot it found on the floor. Her stomach growls and she crawls onto a large wooden chair and puts her finger into the warm porridge. It’s just right. With dirty hands she scoops it into her mouth, eating and eating until it’s gone.

There’s a bed along the far wall covered in colorful pillows and soft blankets. She takes off her shoes and sets them carefully on a rainbow rug beside a pile of books. Climbing under the warm blankets, she curls into a ball and falls asleep.

***

Alita carries a wicker basket in the crook of her left arm filled with the treasures of a morning spent forging; ginkgo biloba seeds, blackberries, mugwort, and aloe. She’s taken to wearing long dresses of faded blue, soft brown moccasins, and braiding her long hair into two thick braids. Today her hair is bright red, warring with the cardinals for the brightest in the woods.

She’s humming a song and when she realizes it’s “Singin’ in the Rain,” she smiles. Her last daughter was an avid moviegoer, a regular cinephile who could tell you the makeup Vivian Blaine wore in “State Fair” and the plot of “Superman and the Mole Men” with George Reeves. She’d stay up late at night, clicker in hand, eating popcorn and watching everything she could. Alita misses her.

After three hundred years, Alita has given up on the world of people. She’s had all the humanity she can stand. Her Fortress of Solitude suits her well, a tiny home in the middle of a temperate forest she can change at will. Maybe she’ll bring back snow tonight and turn her home into a log cabin, she misses the fields of white and the crackling sounds of the fire.

One of her rabbits hops out of the open door of her candy house to greet her, a brownish thing with comically large ears. There’s a bit of orange around his mouth. She sets down her basket beside the door and sits on the ground.

“Hello Ralph,” she says. “You are early today.”

The rabbit hops into her lap, but before she can pet its soft fur, he hops out of her arms and back into the cabin. He stops on the threshold and looks at her with twitching ears. She’s not seen him do this before, and the odd behavior puts her on alert. She heightens her senses, seeking out what might be different, and finds it. There’s someone in her cabin.

The impossibility of this knowledge brings Alita to the brink of fury within moments. She’s not ready to interact with humans again. Her barriers have worked for decades; a field of stinging bees to the West, rushing rivers to the North and South, and an unclimbable rock field to the East. What could make them falter now? Whoever it is, they might be dangerous.

Alita shrinks herself, gaining wrinkles and grey hair, before entering her cabin with the use of an old yardstick turned walking stick. A small child lays on her bed, curled up beneath the quilt she made herself over 50 years ago. Thumb in mouth, the child looks no older than 4 or 5. It’s impossible, yet there she is.

The rabbit has curled into the space between the child’s feet and knees. Alita takes in the fresh cuts on the child’s cheeks, the empty bowl of porridge on the table, and the careful placement of the dirty shoes beside the bed. She backs out of the cabin.

Throwing aside the staff, she transforms into a snowy white owl and flies into the cool morning air. Following the trail of the child, she traces her journey back through the field of bees, inside the hollow of an old tree, and to a dirt road on the edge of the woods. There, Alita finds the tire tracks of the mother’s car. She circles the scene three times before landing.

In the bright light of the empty road, she retakes human form, giving herself a sweeping robe of bright purple and long ringlets of hair as golden as the sun. A young ground squirrel scampers to her, his tail twitching up and down.

“What did you see and hear little one?” Alita asks.

“She, she put girl here,” he says. “She, she says nothing.”

He runs across the tire tracks and back.

“She, she cries,” he says. “Cries and cries.”

Alita touches the tire tracks with human fingers and a jolt of icy pain stabs through her. A universal story, one which mirrors her own, sings out through the faint connection left behind. The mother left her child to protect her from someone who would kill them both. Desperation skews logic, transforming the impossible into hope. She had no other choice.

Alita stares at her human hands; long, thin fingers covered in silver rings. She presses them together in prayer as the mother did.

“Save my child.”

Did her own mother say this prayer when she left Alita? Her early memories are foggy and unclear. She can recall a mother with greying hair who seemed frightened all the time. There are flashes of angry men and terrible fires, but none of these images hold still long enough for Alita to examine them closely. Her first clear memory is of crows circling her in a field and Alita discovering she could become one of them.

It was a decision she found wild and exciting. She tried out all the creatures of the Earth, moving from place to place to experience the richness of the world through the form of any creature she liked. Dainty butterflies fluttering from flower to flower, sleek lions stalking prey, eagles with giant wingspans who can soar high above the clouds, enormous blue whales gliding through deep cool waters, and humans.

She learned to conform to the seasons, to the limits placed on what humans could be and understood, and lived among people for decades. Her many lives and loves took her around the globe. She’s been married, a doctor, a performer, an archeologist, a teacher, a soldier, a sailor, and a mother. Everything always ends in heartache. Everyone she’s ever loved has died.

In all her travels and experiences, she’s found nobody who can transform like she can, and she quickly learned most can’t handle the information. It would inevitably become about morality or spirituality—both things Alita has no use for. She’s connected to everything and yet they see her as connected to nothing.

Although she feels most comfortable in human form, her inability to experience time and death makes her feel like something else entirely—a creature separate from everyone and everything else. Alone.

She likes living in these woods and caring for the creatures who live within them. The space allows her to transform her environment to match her mood and to play games to amuse herself. She loves being a witch or a wizard, playing with wands or flying broomsticks. It’s the way she’s found happiness, but this child changes everything. She can’t let her stay. It will only end badly.

Alita decides to walk back to her cabin on the same path the small child walked. A family of mice tells her of the child sobbing all night beneath the tree and the bees tell her they couldn’t sting her because she wasn’t a threat. The journey takes her several hours, a meandering path leading her straight to her own candy front door. She peels off a piece of licorice around the doorknob and takes a bite.

“Hello,” the little girl says.

She’s sitting at the round table with a paintbrush in her hand and a small uneven piece of paper before her. The rabbit sits beside her on the big chair, snuggled beside her legs. She dips the brush into the blue paint and continues.

“You found my paints,” Alita says.

“Ralph showed me,” she says.

“Ralph?”

“He’s funny!”

“Indeed he is. Can you talk to him?”

“When I’m a rabbit.”

Alita sits on the edge of her bed and watches the small child paint. She could have sworn the child had blonde hair before, but now it’s the same shade as Ralph. The color in her cheeks has changed too.

“Did you say you could become a rabbit?” Alita asks.

The child sets down her brush and frowns.

“Mommy gets mad…” she says. “She says I’m bad.”

Alita sits down on the edge of her bed across from the child and takes a calming breath. She’s playing a game. Children make up stories all the time. There’s no way, after all this time, she’d find someone like her. The hopefulness comes without permission though and it takes Alita a moment to be able to speak.

“Can you show me how you become a rabbit?”

The child frowns and looks at the floor. Ralph presses his nose into her hand and tickles her with his whiskers. Alita runs her hand through her hair changing it from loose golden ringlets to tight red curls. The child’s eyes widen and she giggles.

“I like red hair too,” she says.

She pulls at a matted curl beside her ear and turns her hair the same shade.

They both smile.

Author’s note: This story began with the idea of a child lost in the woods who stumbles upon a witch. As I started writing, little fairytale elements began to emerge and I decided to go with them and even embellish them a bit on the rewrite. It wasn’t until I began to tell Alita’s story I realized she wasn’t simply a witch. I loved the imagery of her being able to transform into all the creatures of the Earth, yet she wasn’t like any of them. It might be an “X-Men” situation or perhaps she’s from some deeper part of the world connected to it in ways humans have lost. I’ll leave that up to you to decide. When I wrote the words “Ralph showed me”—I realized I’d found my ending. I love giving both Alita and the child this connection and I hope you did too. Please let me know what you think in the comments. 

I’d also like to introduce you to a new writer of our weekly challenges, Angelica. I’ve known her since her birth and I’ve watched her grow into an incredible human capable of creating amazing stories. I know you will fall in love with her words as much as I have. Check out her version of the week’s prompt and give her some love.

Short Story Challenge | Week 20

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story about a young child making a discovery. We had to include Superman, ginkgo Biloba, cavern, clicker, aloe, moviegoer, stretch, fury, yardstick, and makeup.

Write With Us

Prompt: High school hierarchy
Include pyramid, cowboy hat, amateurish, angle, ripple, cheese, jersey, blister, odyssey, reorder

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

by

Playing Games | A Short Story

The Shadow can hear the wet sound of a tongue licking a dry lip or the tiny flick of an index finger scrapping the cuticle of a thumb. With no eyes and no nose, it relies on its heightened hearing to track its prey. It flows like liquid smoke back and forth in front of a small rocky waterfall, its arms and legs are sweeping willow branches made of darkness.

Faven’s knees and thighs ache from sitting cross-legged on the cold, wet stone floor. It’s been hours since she’d run into this cramped spot, hiding within the sound of the rushing water. She can see the Shadow moving through the blurry wall, its distorted blackness plunging her from light to dark as it paces. It knows she’s nearby.

Soaked from the icy mist, Faven knows she can’t stay here much longer. She presses her translucent wings, tied close to her body with a piece of soft white rope, hard into the jagged rocks behind her to stop them from quivering and giving her away. She shouldn’t have come here.

A loud ripping blast, the sound of wood being shattered, roars through the night. The Shadow’s inky black shape stops moving and its elongated body stands silhouetted by hundreds of dancing red sparks. The fragrant sugary smell of burning petals floats into the cave, the smell of the pink lyndol tree, and Faven covers her mouth to prevent herself from coughing.

The Shadow presses its hands onto the place hips might be, a stance Faven would find comical if she wasn’t so terrified. Two more explosions echo around her, followed by a blast of hot wind which roars through the cave and singes her eyebrows. She needs to cough but swallows it back. Her throat burns.

The Shadow slinks toward the fire, roaring in all directions. Faven watches it swallow up the smoke as it goes, sucking it up with big gulping sounds, the hungry eye of a tornado. She crawls on her hands and knees keeping her eyes on its black shape until she can push her hot face into the cold water. Pulling back, she catches the icy liquid in her cupped hands and takes several long gulps.

Faven removes a three-inch green knife the shape of an elongated leaf from her leather belt and swipes up to cut the rope. Her wings spring out and flap back and forth swirling the pink vapor until it forms a whirlpool around her. She presses through the smoke and the water, out the entrance of the cave, and straight up into the still night sky. Stars shine above and around her, wishes made into balls of brilliance to twinkle for all time as beacons of hope.

Savoring the feeling of the wind pressing into the curves along the thin membranes of her wings, Faven circles above the burning trees. Her long brown braid has come loose and thick strands of hair whip at her cheeks and eyes. She searches the forest for her friends.

Apollo, dressed in his favorite green argyle suit, presses through the forest blasting trees with a long, twisting staff made of dark redwood. It looks too big for his small hands and Faven wonders where it came from. He’s pale and chanting something under his breath. His short black hair, wet with sweat, sticks to his head.

Luz runs beside him holding a small hand mirror of tarnished gold, an object Faven has never seen before. Streaks of yellow light flow from its shimmery surface to create a crisscrossing web around the two of them. She’s wearing a pinafore of pale pink and her curly blonde hair has been pulled up into two puffs at the top of her head.

Both of their wings are tied back with a white rope to conserve energy. They are moving further into the woods, away from the Fae towns to the West and East. Faven can’t see the Shadow but knows it’s not far behind.

“Up here!” She calls them, but they don’t hear her.

With a burst of energy, she flies ahead, landing in a field of weeds and wildflowers just a moment before her friends appear through the tree line. They smile as she tucks in between them, running in a line together across the field and down a small hill toward the foul-smelling waters of the brine lake.

“I told you to go home,” Faven says.

“You’re welcome,” Apollo says.

“Hi!” Luz says.

“Where did you get those?” Faven says.

She points at the items her friends clutch in their hands, the gnarled staff, and the antique mirror. Although all three of them have portfolios of skills far greater than most 10-year-olds, nobody would trust them with such powerful magical artifacts. They are the orphans of the temple, the forgotten children of the Fae, and nobody gives them such expensive gifts. Apollo laughs.

“Stole them,” he says.

“Borrowed them,” Luz says. “From the Fae High School.”

“Nobody saw us,” Apollo says. “We were stealthy little rats.”

“I’m no rat,” Luz says. “More like a colorful chameleon or a snowy owl.”

A sudden sharp crunching sound causes them to spin around. The Shadow, free from the smoke and fire, moves toward them with impossibly long strides. Streaking, sneaking, sliding across the ground, closing the gap between them within moments with slick untiring movement. The clicking sound of its gnashing teeth comes from the center of its black body, making all three of them shiver.

“Go!” Faven says. “It only wants me.”

“There’s no time to argue this again,” Apollo says. “We aren’t leaving you.”

“We fight together,” Luz says.

Faven appreciates their loyalty but wishes they’d simply go home. She’s the one who woke up the creature and she’s the one it wants. It was her stupid idea to draw the pentagram in the forbidden woods and call forth the Shadow. They were simply witnesses to her incredible foolishness.

She grew up hearing the bards sing of her mother—a raven-haired beauty who fought with twin golden blades while her baby suckled at her breasts. She defeated packs of horned drooling beasts from the center of the Earth with a fierceness said to have been forged by her years of solitude within the forbidden forest. She died when Faven was two-years-old, poisoned by a former lover.

Faven wants a chance to do something brave, to be something more than the orphaned trouble-maker the Elders make scrub the stone temples with wire brushes to keep her small hands busy. Everyone expects more of her, yet no matter how hard she tries, she’s the one who ruins everything.

She tried to create a fantastic dessert made of strubel berries harvested under the full moon for the summer feast but ended up setting fire to the kitchen when her cooking spell backfired. She collected an assortment of exotic and strange-looking flowers for her crown at the spring dance, but a seed pod exploded a few minutes after the music began and the smell made everyone sick. Last week she’d been showing off her flying skills in the garden and thought it would be impressive to fly through a large open window into the great hall, spin around, and come back out. She accidentally knocked over a magical corked vase. It broke and filled the hall with rainbow-colored rain. They still haven’t been able to stop it.

Faven didn’t think the stories of the Shadow were real. She’d heard them for years but believed they were told by the Elders as another way to control her and keep her grounded. Her mother lived in the forbidden forest alone for over a decade, so the story goes, and she thought maybe the Shadow would know her. Really, if she’s being honest with herself, she thought the Shadow might be her. It’s why she took the risk and performed the summoning spell, but now she’s ruined everything. Her friends might die because of her. The thought instantly fills her with dread.

“What do we do?” Luz says.

Without slowing, Faven removes her knife and carefully slashes the ropes holding back their wings. She grabs their hands and as they reach the edge of the lake and all three of them rise into the night sky as one. Apollo blasts the ground below them and Luz holds the mirror out to cast the net of protective light.

The Shadow, confused, circles below them making its horrible clicking sound. It won’t hesitate for long and it can fly. Faven has seen it spiral around the forest, swirling like an autumn leaf, sniffing for her. It won’t give up and it’s faster and stronger than all of them.

Apollo and Luz are red-faced and sweaty. Faven can feel them trembling and she tightens her grip on their free hands. They are getting tired, the magical weapons are draining them of all their energy. They are running out of time.

“Where do we go?” Luz says.

“We can’t go home or to the villages,” Faven says. “It will follow me wherever I go and put everyone in danger.”

“I know a place,” Apollo says. “But I don’t know if I can make it.”

“Show me,” she says.

On Faven’s 9th birthday, after blowing out the candle the Elders put in her morning bowl of oatmeal, she reached out and touched Luz’s hand. An image of a package wrapped in pink cotton flashed into her mind. It was sitting under the sink in the kitchen beside the big blue bottle of cleaner. She jumped from her chair and ran into the kitchen and pulled it out.

“Hey,” Luz said. “That was supposed to be a surprise for tonight!”

“But you wanted me to have it now,” Faven said.

“I did!” Luz said.

A feeling, like a blush, rushed through her body—she could read minds! After experimenting with her friends, she discovered it wasn’t mind-control or a way to captivate the mind of others, but rather a one-way guidance system allowing her to retrieve information given freely by someone she trusts. So far, she’s mostly used it to gossip and pass math tests. However, right now, she hopes it will allow her to lead her friends to safety.

Apollo nods and presses an image through their connected hands—an abandoned Eagle nest perched high in one of the ancient rendel trees. It’s covered with fertile tangry mushrooms, strong and pungent. If they can make it there, the scents will protect them for the night.

“I’ll get us there,” Faven says.

Flapping her wings as hard as she can, Faven pulls her friends away from the lake and back into the dense trees of the forbidden forest. There’s a sweeping sound behind her and she’s certain the Shadow has taken flight. She dips and dives, pulling her friends with her, using all of her strength and skill to swerve up, down, and around. 

The nest sits exactly where Apollo showed her and she swoops down into it landing on a smelly pile of discarded eggshells, layers of white bird poop, and hundreds of the fat dark brown tangry mushrooms. The fetid stench makes all three of them gag as they lay on their sides catching their breath. The Shadow swoops past them and disappears into the forest.

“You saved us,” Luz says after a few minutes of silence.

“For now,” Faven says. “He won’t give up. Go home! Please. I can’t be responsible for your deaths. I won’t be able to live with myself.”

“This again?” Apollo says. “We aren’t discussing it. There’s no home without you and we stick together. There’s no other way. We are one.”

“We won’t leave you,” Luz agrees. “You can’t get rid of us.”

Faven nods but doesn’t agree. Her friends curl up beside her, three tiny children folding into one another as they do every night in their tiny bed at the top of the temple. Fatigue overpowers the smell and the fear, allowing the warmth of their bodies to melt into the oblivion of dreamless sleep. The rendel tree, the oldest of the trees in the woods, rocks them gently as the night wind sweeps across the fairylands.

Dreams swirl in and out of focus for Faven, gentle sweet images of honey, flowers, and tiny butterflies dancing between her fingertips. Her mother’s face appears above her, bronze-skinned with wide eyes the color of the deepest part of the sea. She hovers with thin milky white wings, flapping them slowly, creating a sweet-smelling breeze Faven feels like kisses upon her cheek. She wants to cry out to her mother, to speak to her, but she’s unable to do anything but look at her. Her deep black hair flows around her face, waves of dark strands flowing nearly vertical from her now unsmiling face. Inky blackness swirls into her hair, mixing with it.

With a flash of panic, Faven opens her eyes and finds it’s still night. She’s not too late. Peeling herself from her friends, she moves to the edge of the nest, hangs her legs over, and tries to remember the story of the Shadow. 

Birthed at the dawn of time, it is made out of the hallowed madness left in the wake of its mother—death. A cousin of torment, it was captured by the ancient forest and allowed to dwell below the roots of rotten trees. It can be woken, brought to the surface, by those knowing the ancient ritual and calling its name. Once called forth, however, it won’t return to the soil until it kills the soul of its summoner.

Faven must die. There’s no loophole and until she dies her friends are in terrible danger. She stretches her wings out behind her, flapping them three times to allow blood to flow into the soft folds before falling out of the nest head first. Swooping over the trees, she calls the Shadow forth using its sacred name. It appears within moments and she swoops to the forest floor to greet it.

“No!” Apollo screams.

She sees Apollo spiraling down behind her and watches as the Shadow twists and changes directions in mid-air. Within seconds, hardly a breath, it reaches Apollo and dives through his small body. The color instantly drains from his face and Favin screams. She takes flight and catches his falling figure, the impact causing them both to crash land into a pile of soft brown bark.

Luz lands without a sound on a low tree branch near the sobbing Favin. She hangs upside down by her knees, a silent bat in a cave. Teary-eyed Favin runs her hand through Apollo’s black hair and kisses his soft cheeks.

“It’s all a game,” she says. “Just a game.”

The Shadow lands beside her and when she turns to face it the long, low sound of a bell rings through the air. It lasts several moments, and as it vibrates through the forest, the trees disappear leaf by leaf. Luz jumps down from the green metal bar and lands beside her.

“The bell rang,” she says.

Apollo stands and laughs. He grabs Favin by the hand and pulls her from the bark. She blinks, tears still in her eyes.

“I didn’t really die,” he says. “Because I’m not done playing the game. It’s not fair.”

“We can figure it out next recess,” Luz says. “Maybe we find a rejuvenation spell or something.”

“Yeah.”

Favin stops and looks at the two kids in front of her. Apollo’s wearing faded blue pants and a green shirt with some kind of creature on the front with big teeth and tiny arms. Luz wears a dress of bright yellow with rainbows covering her legs. Both are wearing shoes with metal circles and crisscrossing white strings.

“Are you okay?” Luz says.

“I don’t know,” Favin says.

“I’m not dead,” Apollo says again. “Okay, guys? It’s not fair.”

“Okay,” Luz says. “We heard you the first time! We wouldn’t kill you off, right Favin?”

“Right,” she says.

The three of them hook arms and walk across the hard, cracked grey earth toward short buildings painted blue and white. Kids stand in lines talking, pushing, and laughing. Favin doesn’t mind this new game at all.

After School | A Triolet

she’s waiting for me when the bell rings
faded yellow sweater smelling of home
unknown to me except in dreams, no wings
she’s waiting for me when the bell rings
my name upon her lips she does sing
with bluest eyes framed by glasses of chrome
she’s waiting for me when the bell rings
faded yellow sweater smelling of home

Mother’s Love | A Nonet

my mother knows every inch of me
her child from any time or place
we fold into each other
her arms a warm blanket
of protection from
the bad dreams of
shadowy
death
my mother heals every inch of me

Author’s note: If you’ve been around this blog for some time you’ve probably realized my love of fairies and fantasy. This week, my story was inspired by the elaborate games I watched my daughter play with her friends at school. They had one storyline they played for over a year, adding more and more backstory and adventure. I thought, what if the game was real and the main character wished it to not be and was instead transported to a playground. It’s a bit of a twist on the “it was all a dream” plot, and one I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading, and as always, I’d love to know what you think in the comments below.

Short Story Challenge | Week 18

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story where a child’s dream literally becomes true. We had to include the high school, captivate, portfolio, argyle, witness, fertile, eyebrow, pentagram, thirsty, and guidance.

Write With Us

Next week’s prompt: An alien in disguise among humans
Include: Aurora Borealis, paintbrush, cornfield, cluster, lineup, overlook, suspect, bridge, dome, dash

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

by

Dani and the Queen | A Short Story

“I’m very into science-fantasy, that kind of swordfights and magic and technology thing.” -Gary Numan

“You know you can’t be here,” the guard says.

He stands wide-legged with his left hand on the hilt of his long sword. Dani tries to remember if she can recall his name and if she knows something about him she can use it to her advantage. Coming up with nothing, she tries another tactic.

“You know me,” she says. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

Taking a step toward him with her right sandaled foot, she presses into the slit of her silken dress so the entire length of her muscular leg shows from calf to thigh. She watches his eyes travel the length of her body, his voice wavers a bit when he speaks.

“I’ve strict orders,” he says. “You aren’t allowed anywhere near the Queen.”

His hand tightens on the hilt of his sword, steadying himself, as Dani leans forward allowing the tops of her breasts to become candlelit, the gold medallion between them catching the light and gleaming brightly. He shakes his head and takes a shuffling step back.

“I can’t,” he says. “I really can’t.”

Dani flows towards him, closing the space between them within seconds. She reaches for the guard’s rough right hand held rigidly at his side. She pulls it into her soft one and turns it over, running her thumb along the callouses. His breathing pattern changes and his shoulders and knees become soft. She presses her lips to his ear, allowing her body to fall heavily into his. He swallows loudly and she can see goosebumps prickle on his thick neck.

“I’ll be right back,” she whispers.

Slipping her body around the trembling guard, like smoke blowing from gently parted lips, she disappears into the shadows and up the wide stone steps. She’s learned to use her power like this, to lure and to distract. It’s how she befriended the Queen, and also why she’s been banned from the palace. The guard won’t follow her, and he won’t remember why. A heaviness makes her pace slow, followed by the familiar feeling of regret.

The monsters are coming. Her vision from the fire dances before her, an afterimage half in darkness and half in light. She has to warn the Queen. The ticking of a clock she can’t see surrounds her, whispering it may already be too late. She stumbles sideways and presses her palms into the cool wall to steady herself. The Old Woman told her she’d have a vision and it would change everything. She’s spent half her life waiting for the moment to occur, and when it did earlier tonight, it wasn’t at all what she imagined.

Dani was at the tavern performing one of her frequent concerts on her golden clavichord, a spectacle of purple-layered silk. The packed crowd came to hear Dani sing of the beauty and tragedy of Andromeda, chained to a rock because of jealousy. She’d begun to sing the part about the serpent slithering toward the princess when she’d glanced at the fire.

That’s all it took—one single glance. There, as if waiting for her always, was the future displayed in all its horrid brilliance. It danced within the flames, vivid and terrifying. She’d stopped playing and screamed, the drunken audience clapping as if it was part of the show. Pressing through the crowd, she’d rushed outside and run all the way to the back entrance of the palace. The fate of the entire kingdom rests on her convincing the Queen to believe in this vision, but she isn’t sure she believes in herself or if it can be stopped.

Dani feels a panic surge like bile within her gut and forces herself to continue up the dark staircase. Memory comes to her as she steps up and up in the dark on silent steady feet. She considers the nature of time and space, like old friends or playmates who either haunt or beguile you with visions of happiness or tragedy. It seems to Dani the older she gets the thinner the fabric of time seems, and the harder it becomes to distinguish memory from the truth. Words float around her. Words like crazy and cursed. She begins to think this might all be for nothing.

Perhaps what she saw in the fire had already been, a vision of evils far away and long ago. She wants to believe it more than anything, but a tugging in her chest, her heart perhaps, tells her what she saw will happen and will happen soon. Only the Queen can stop it, but after what happened between them, Dani isn’t sure she’ll listen. To hope feels childish, but it’s all she has. It’s all anybody has. 

As she nears the top of the staircase she imagines the Old Woman waiting for her dressed in her tattered brown cloak, her long silver hair flowing around her, leaning on her crooked staff and singing. She’s been gone for so long, and yet the memory of her hasn’t dulled. 

She’d found Dani in a mushroom patch, a dirty blonde baby smiling in a single ray of sunlight.

“My bright dandelion in the dirt,” the Old Woman called her.

As she grew, she taught Dani to play the clavichord, the instrument of wistful poets and star-struck lovers. The stringed keyboard would come alive in her tiny hands and she’d play for hours each night while the Old Woman stared into a roaring fire to read the flickering flames as if they were an open book. Dani would play and the Old Woman would sing of prophecy, destiny, and magic.

Dani smells her earthy scent and imagines her love like a mist or fog filling the dark staircase. She rushes up the final three stairs, to find not the Old Woman waiting for her, but an unfamiliar soldier in a bright, silver suit of armor. He holds a thick metal lance in front of him—a clear stop sign. She halts.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

His voice sounds echoey and deep from within his shiny helmet. Dani can see how small she looks in the reflection and tries to square her shoulders and stand straighter. The soldier presses the sharp iron lance into the flesh above her left breast. She feels the sharp point pierce the skin.

“I need to see the Queen,” she says. “It’s a matter of life and death. Just one minute with her. Please.”

“You aren’t allowed here,” he says. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

She can’t reach him through the metal, can’t touch the part of him open to her. He presses the sharp lance harder and she feels it slide further into her flesh, warm blood runs down the inside of her dress, making the purple fabric darken and stick to her body. Prickles of sweat form on her forehead and she sways slightly. She summons all her strength to stay upright.

“I must speak to the Queen,” she says. “It’s urgent. Please. Please!”

The soldier presses harder, the lance becoming thicker and thicker, widening the hole in her fabric and her body. She can feel the warm blood now on her foot and hear it dripping onto the stone floor. This man will kill her. The certainty of it emboldens her, breaking free a surge of power she usually keeps still and controlled. It whips around her, like a fierce wind, blowing out the nearest torches on the wall.

With closed eyes, she grabs the lance with both hands and spins with it still inside her body, freeing it from his grasp. He grunts in frustration and reaches for her, but she dodges him spinning and spinning in circles. She can feel his energy faintly but focuses on her own. With all she has, she pulls the lance free of her body with a sickening wet sound and a scream of pain. She staggers back from the soldier and holds the heavy lance out in front of her. Her hands and body vibrate and she opens her eyes.

“I need to see the Queen,” she says. “Please.”

“Never,” he says with a laugh. “Just look at yourself. You’re shaking like a leaf. You don’t have it in you, Dani.”

“You know me!” she says. “Please. You have to listen.”

He laughs again and she realizes he must be the Queen’s personal guard, the one who turned the Queen against her. The suit of armor and the iron lance are to protect himself from her, to make her power useless. It makes her furious, but there’s no time. She has to reach the Queen.

She lowers the lance and runs at the soldier intending to flick off his helmet, instead, the sharp point sinks into flesh she can’t see between his helmet and chest plate. Roaring, he stumbles back, teetering for a brief second, and then falls down the steps. The clattering of metal hitting stone over and over lasts for a minute and then goes silent. She can’t see the bottom.

For several breaths, Dani doesn’t move. The monsters are coming. The words slide like an iceberg inside her stomach and she spins from the staircase and into the torch-lit maze of hallways. As she walks, she tears a strip off the bottom of her dress and presses it against her bleeding wound, using the tight fabric of her bodice to hold it in place. She’s amazed that, after all this time, the path to the Queen’s room is as familiar to her as anything.

The Queen’s wide bedroom door sits ajar and Dani steps inside to find the formerly exquisite space has been transformed into a crude workshop. Gone are the beautiful paintings, the racks of dresses, and the ornate bureaus covered with sparkling jewels and crowns. Instead, long tables crowd the room in a haphazard way, filling the space and giving it a confusing and dirty feeling. Metal, wires, bolts, springs, cogs, and weights litter the tables and the floor. Dani steps carefully around the debris toward the center of the room.

Sitting in the place formerly occupied by the Queen’s four-poster bed is a wide metal barrel filled with bright orange coals. The Queen stands before it with enormous brown leather gloves covering her hands and forearms. Her golden hair, dirty and dull looking, is tied at the nape of her neck with a piece of leather. She’s wearing a soiled pair of dark pants and a matching shirt.

As Dani watches, the Queen pulls a rectangular piece of hot metal heated to a dull red color from the coals and carries it to a curved piece of black iron sitting on an old tree trunk. She grabs a wood-handled hammer and begins pounding the hot metal. She turns and hits, turns and hits. Dani inches a few steps closer, and the Queen looks up. Her eyes widen for an instant and her mouth looks about to form words, but instead, she looks away and returns to her pounding.

Dani feels weak from the heat, the acrid smell of the burning metal, and her recent blood loss. Her power is completely drained, she steps carefully through the chaotic room until she finds a pile of dirty furs laying in the far corner. They smell of wet dogs, but she lowers herself onto them anyway. The Queen continues to work for several more minutes before suddenly slamming the metal onto the floor and kicking it across the room with a loud clatter. It lands inches from Dani’s face.

The Queen pulls off her gloves, throws them on the floor, and walks to Dani with loud, heavy steps. Hands balled into fists at her sides, she towers over Dani and presses her lips tight together. The Queen’s eyes, as blue and beautiful as Dani remembered, sweep over her bloody wound but the expression on her face doesn’t change.

“What do you want?” she says.

Dani tries to stand but finds her entire left side is now weak. Instead, she attempts a smile, which isn’t returned.

“I miss you.”

Dani regrets the words the second she says them. The Queen makes a strangled sound and takes a step back. She grabs the material of her pants and twists it in her hands. There are tears in her downcast eyes and when she speaks it’s a low hoarse sound spoken through a tightly clenched jaw.

“Get out. I don’t want you…here.”

The pause between the words feels important, and when Dani answers she speaks softly and carefully.

“I’m sorry…I didn’t come to fight with you. I’ve come because…well, I’ve come to warn you. The kingdom’s in great danger.”

“It was, when you were here,” her words come out in an angry rush. “ You have no power now and I have no use for you. Get out!”’

She continues to stare at the floor and her hands are fists again.

“No, you don’t understand. I saw a vision in the fire…”

She’s told the Queen of her days with the Old Woman and her prophecy, and they make eye contact for a brief moment. It’s a flash, a slight lowering of the defenses Dani used to live behind, a softness of her features, and a small parting of her lips. Dani reaches a hand toward her and the Queen kicks it with her heavy booted foot and spits on the floor. It hurts. There’s no love left and Dani wishes she’d never come back to the palace. She should have gone far away like she asked. This has been a terrible mistake.

Sobbing, Dani manages to pull herself into a seated position. The pain radiates across her body to her right side. She swallows sour sickness in her mouth and tries again. She must make her understand.

“Please,” Dani says. “I know I hurt you and I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am for all of it, but this isn’t about us. The kingdom is in great danger from…”

“From what?” the Queen says looking at the floor.

“Monsters…”

The Queen doesn’t shift or even look up. Dani realizes she has no words to describe her vision and feels the horror of it rush through her. She should have thought of this, of how she’d have to convince her, what she’d say. She’d expected a flicker of love to be there, a tiny flame she could blow on and use to get the Queen to listen. She didn’t count on the iron lance or the Queen to look and act so differently.

She’d fully underestimated her heartache, the pain she’d caused with her betrayal, and the way it has transformed the once young and trusting Queen into this strange woman in front of her. It had all happened so fast and she’d not had a chance to explain. Now, it’s too late. The monsters will come and so will the piles of bodies. She can’t stop any of it.

The Queen stares at the floor for a few minutes further, sighs loudly, and then stomps across the room to one of the long work tables. Dani tries to summon something within herself to move, to get out of here, but there’s nothing left. She’s never felt this empty and helpless before. She’s numb and terrified.

There’s a series of flashing and popping sounds across the room followed by a loud creak and stomp. Steam fills the already hot room, smelling of oil and metal. Dani can’t see anything until the Queen returns with an odd-shaped soldier at her side.

He’s roughly the size and shape of a man but covered in darkened curving brass. A bright yellow dandelion is stamped in the center of his chest, the stamp the Queen would press into the letters she’d write and stuff under Dani’s pillow at night. The stamp was created to represent their love and friendship. For a brief second, she thinks it’s a message of reconciliation. A symbol of hope.

Then she looks at the face of the soldier and where the eyes should be are giant slats looking into the darkness, a void of nothing. Realization hits her and Dani covers her mouth in a silent scream. The Queen’s lips curve into a chilling smile.

Fear beats within Dani like a second heartbeat. She can feel the two rhythms warring within her chest, a battle for her body. She begins to shake violently, and her breath comes in tiny raspy gasps.

“The monsters…” she whispers.

Looking around the room she can see what she didn’t before. The piles of metal and debris are parts. Body parts. There’s a pile of bronze legs on one table, several heads on another, arms and torsos scattered here and there. The Queen’s smile widens as the metal guard bumbles toward Dani with rigid, robotic steps. With much creaking, the bronze soldier lifts Dani into its hollow arms. Peering into the dark slats, she can see there’s no man inside the machine.

“The monsters…” she says again.

The Queen laughs as the metal man carries Dani’s limp body out of the room and into the maze of hallways. Dani touches the dandelion stamp with her fingertips and watches it disappear and reappear as they pass the torches on the wall. If she’d understood earlier, maybe she could have done something. If she’d patched things up years ago, maybe she could have stopped it. The Old Woman told her the vision would change everything.

Dani’s realization has come too late.

The monsters are here.

She will be the first to die.

The bodies will be piled in the courtyard.

Author’s note: Science fiction and fantasy are my two favorite genres. I mixed them together this week with this strange little fairytale of visions, monsters, and lost love. The idea for the robotic soldier came from years of exposure to Steam Punk and researching the story of the Ancient Greek robot Talos. I also researched the oldest instrument with a keyboard and was happy to find the quiet beauty of the clavichord. If interested, you can watch someone play music on a clavichord from late 16th or early 17th century Italy. Thank you, as always, to everyone who takes the time to read my short stories. Your comments make my day and keep me going on this crazy journey. I wouldn’t press so hard to find the story if it wasn’t for you. Your support means the world.

Short Story Challenge | Week 14

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story where something bad is about to happen but nobody believes the main character. We had to include the words Andromeda, stop sign, dandelion, iceberg, spectacle, poet, candlelit, keyboard, bumble, and robotic.

Write With Us

Prompt: A writer with noisy neighbors
Include: dentist, rainbow, explosion, horizon, cactus, palm, Saturday, latte, beets, and sample

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

by

The Old Man | A Short Story

My neighbor left a slip of lined paper under a rock on the front doorstep at 5:35 p.m. I watched him on one of the four grainy black-and-white video monitors in the furthest corner of the old barn. From my perch on an upturned crate, I saw him look in the windows and knock on the front door for more than five minutes. I haven’t been able to breathe properly since.

I don’t understand why people can’t leave me alone. I’ve put up signs and made it clear the property is monitored but still they come and pry. Last Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. a uniformed man from the city came to the door with a clipboard and a long, black flashlight that he shined through the windows. He walked around the property calling my name, upturning several boxes and looking through them. I felt sick.

He left behind a bright yellow notice stuck to my front door saying I’m in violation of a bunch of city codes, which translates to them wanting to chase me from my home. I have no doubt it’s some bored politician looking to make a name for himself by picking on an old man. My father designed and built this house before I was even born. It’s his house and I won’t budge. I’m not hurting anyone and I simply want to be left alone with my stuff.

I check the monitors one final time and, finding no sign of my neighbor’s return, I stand and shake my legs back to life. Using an old rope strung for this purpose, I pull my way outside, into the dark, through the cramped backyard, and into the house. My breath begins to normalize when I stand inside, the walls of stuff surrounding me like shadowed friends. I touch everything I can with outstretched hands and feet. It’s all here.

I press between two large boxes to reach the light switch, sucking in my gut as much as I can. My pants slip down to my hip bones and I blink for a few minutes until the familiar shapes and patterns come into fluorescent focus. The visit by the neighbor affected my routine and I curse at the lost time. I don’t like when people interrupt me.

Swaying in place I try to remember what I was doing when I heard the gate open and ran outside. My belly aches and I realize I’ve not eaten anything today. I shuffle sideways into the kitchen and rummage for several minutes until I find an instant rice cup with broccoli and cheese. I add some water and put it in the microwave. 

The lined note is still on the doorstep. I try not to think about it, but it feels like an intruder lurking nearby and the uneasiness almost makes me dash back outside to check the cameras. No, he’s not coming back tonight. It’s too late. He’s the kind of guy with a family who goes to bed at sunset and rises before the light to dash off to some 9-5 job. I hate that there’s still a part of me envious of men like him.

The shrill sound of the microwave timer makes me jump. I remove the paper cup and grab a silver fork from a pile in the sink. It’s not clean and I wipe it on my faded plaid shirt and move to the round wooden table behind me. My watercolors sit open beside a dry and ugly painting half-finished. I don’t remember what I was trying to do with the colors. I crumble it with my hands and throw it onto a pile of garbage, then sit to eat my food. 

My father used to sit upright and proud in this faded yellow chair before it became stained and cracked. Straightening my own back to match his I hear him calling from his bedroom for me to come and help him. I shake my head to clear the sound. I don’t want to remember him then.

Instead, I crane my neck around, popping it, until another image comes into focus of him sitting at the clean kitchen table with a starched white shirt on. He’s putting on golden cufflinks and talking about the art museum he’s designing downtown. My feet don’t quite reach the floor and my mother is still alive. There’s laughter and bread baking. He strokes her rounded belly and they kiss.

The images float away though, like they always do, like a dream you can’t quite hold onto or tiny filaments of dandelion fluff in a slight breeze. No matter how hard I try, the memory fades into the room around me, absorbed by my things until his hoarse and crackly voice begins to yell at me.

“Hey, shithead! Do something useful for a change.”

“You can’t even cook rice right you useless piece of garbage.”

“What have you done with your life? Nothing! Absolutely fucking nothing.”

“Such a waste.”

His arsenal of insults echoes around me and I can’t finish my food. Throwing it across the room I watch it splat into a pile of wires. I can wash them off when I need them, is my first thought, followed immediately by the knowledge I’ll never need them. Then an itchy thought begins to form around the idea of waste and garbage, but the sound of wind chimes outside stops it.

My body feels stiff when I stand and my legs ache from sitting on the crate for hours, but I need to be sure the wind doesn’t blow away the lined note. It suddenly feels important for me to read it, to decipher the messages from the outside world. It could be crucial.

The path to the front door has become narrow and impassable at points, limiting my ability to move quickly or even fluidly through the space. It requires concentrated effort and a bit of climbing. My breath becomes wheezy and after removing the pile of boxes stacked against the door, I begin coughing. It’s several minutes before it subsides and I grab an old t-shirt from the floor to spit mucus into. I throw it back down. I’ll wash it later.

I look through the peephole, but despite the bright floodlights illuminating the porch and front gate, I can’t see anything but shadows. I search them for movement on tip-toes for several minutes, listening to my collection of wind chimes ringing out in various tones throughout the night. The cacophony makes me smile. It’s enough to scare away the monsters, I think, and then laugh at being such a scared old man. The boogeyman died a few years ago.

There are five locks across the door, and I unlatch them from top to bottom. Pulling the door open requires both hands, as it scrapes on the dirty ground and pulls with it discarded pieces of paper and little items which have fallen out of the boxes. I spot a pair of argyle socks and an old cellphone. Both are in good shape, and I bend over to pick them up and shove them into my pants pockets to examine in more detail later.

The lined note, which I can now see is on yellow legal paper, sits folded in half longwise under a rock painted to look like a giant ladybug. The rock was a gift from a friend years ago and when I touch it I can hear her laughter twirling around me. It’s such a vivid sound and I call out to her into the darkness.

“Mabel?”

There’s no response because she isn’t here. I’ve not seen her in fifty years. The number fifty sticks in my throat, burning and itching until it causes another round of coughing. I snatch up the note and the rock through the spasms, spit bloody phlegm into a box of old tools and close the door behind me by pushing against it with my back. I slide to the floor, and the cell phone tumbles out of my pocket and lands on an old candy wrapper beside me.

I set down the rock and grab for the phone, balancing it on top so it sort of teeters back and forth for a moment before finding its stopping point. It looks incomplete, so I pull the colorful socks from my pocket and drape them across the top. Yes, that’s right.

Unfolding and smoothing the paper I find a handwritten note printed in neat, black letters. It looks like the handwriting of a woman. I pull my glasses from my breast pocket and read out loud to myself.

“Dear neighbor, 

The large beech tree in front of your house appears to be dying. The neighborhood children walk past the tree to and from school and we are concerned it could fall onto one of them or hit a passing car on the road injuring someone. Could you please remove it?

Thank you,

Your Concerned Neighbors”

Scrawled under the neat printing are a dozen or so signatures in various colors of ink. Conspiracy. Collusion. They must have spoken to the official who came here to try and take my father’s house from me. I stare at the paper and tears fall from my eyes blurring the ink, streaking it, and creating something new from something old.

Inspiration prickles through me and I twist my body so I can use the doorknob to pull myself to my feet. I fold the damp paper and put it in my front pocket with my glasses and restack the boxes in front of the door until I can’t reach to add another. I climb and crawl my way back to the kitchen table.

Unearthing rusted scissors from a pile of stuff on one of the chairs, I pull the paper note out of my pocket and begin cutting it into blurry yellow and black strips. When I’m done I arrange them on the table, tearing some pieces even smaller until they form the image inside my mind. I’ll need tape, dark brown fence paint, and one of the broken canvases in the barn.

“Tomorrow,” a voice inside says.

I push it away and shuffle through the house, touching things as I pass, making notes of other items I can combine and transform. There’s a wildness inside me roaring like it does, a beacon of need my father called crazy and my mother called art. I don’t know what to call it, but it drags my tired body into the chilly night until I’m standing near the beech tree sweating and panting.

The reddish-purple leaves glint in the moonlight. Copper Beech, I remember. My mother planted this tree and now it’s sick. I press my cheek against the rough bark and find it covered in puckered welts leaking sticky whitish residue. The leaves, once glossy and firm, are fragile brittle nothings in my fingers.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I say to it. “You are simply sad.”

I hug the bark, feeling the cancerous bumps press through my shirt into my delicate thin skin like needles pressed through or fingers thrust hard. I stumble back and suddenly recall a book I’d seen in the barn with a tattered brown and gold cover, the pages filled with colorful illustrations of plants. “The Family Herbal, or an Account of all those English Plants, which are Remarkable for their Virtues.”

“I’ll be back,” I say.

After several minutes of stepping around stacks of empty flower pots, piles of rocks, and overturned rotting boxes, I find the rough rope and use it to pull myself into the barn. Through the maze, I travel, hand over hand, until I reach my destination in the sighing darkness. I find a string above me and pull it, illuminating cobwebs and the shadowy shape of things old and new.

I begin shoveling my way through the boxes and piles, moving things as I search for the book. I try not to linger too long as I uncover tiny smiling Santas, satin dress shoes, half-eaten leather belts covered in chew marks, a box of rubber bands, a collection of gold jar lids, and my father’s old wheelchair. These items all have stories to tell, but I’m not interested right now. The book is all that matters.

Tiny creatures scatter unseen around me, their scent mixed with my own so we are barely distinguishable from one another. Dirty. Filthy. Diseased. The words take shape and then are replaced. Tree. Knowledge. Savior. There will be no need to remove the tree, for I might be old, but I still have tools and the ability to work. I have my hands. I have my stuff and my house. No, not my house. His house and my stuff.

A tall stack of boxes teeters toward me and I try to push them back upright, but I’m not heavy enough. Slowly, ever so slowly, they lean into my body until my legs give way and I slide backward tumbling. My head hits the wooden planked floor with a thud I don’t hear but rather feel—an internal earthquake. My arms are pinned beside me, and boxes sit on and around me, as the light above sways and sways.

When the light stills and stops I see a small book with a faded-blue cover that has landed beside my head, inches from it. I can smell the musty, gluey scent as if it’s trying to lure me to it—calling me to pay attention. Squinting at the faded gold letters for several minutes I eventually make them out, “Relativity.”

From somewhere deep inside the word rings and rings. My mother’s soft voice fills the barn reading to me late into the night of light, space, time, and gravity. Her voice like a thousand stars in the night sky calls and twinkles around me until I see her above me with outstretched arms. Her eyes speak of things I’ve forgotten—being called “her boy,” feathery kisses in the golden morning light, flower gardens, and midnight comforts when the nightmares came.

The stuff around me, the precious items I’ve held close to protect and comfort me, melt before my eyes and turn to colorful yellow vapor and sweet-smelling smoke. I watch it swirl around me, around her, until it floats out the windows and into the clear night sky. She pulls me to my feet, and I’m small again. Tears stream down my cheeks, but there’s only happiness on her face. The full moon shines bright behind her.

The word “sorry” wants to come, but she pulls me into her arms and pushes it away.

“Home is when we are together,” she says.

I smile and allow her to carry me home on her hip.

Author’s note: I tried to come up with a haunted house story, but since I wrote one in Week 10 I challenged myself to think about other definitions of haunted. I took inspiration from the many stories of trauma in my own family and our tendencies toward hoarding as a response to those experiences. The idea of being haunted by your past drove me to this story of the old man.

The photos in this story are mine, taken while cleaning out a relative’s home who struggles with hoarding and mental illness. I know this wasn’t a happy piece to read, but I hope you liked the ending. I didn’t know where I was going with this story, but once he was trapped under the boxes the ending came and I cried while typing it. The loving mother returning to rescue her hurt son was the happy ending my heart desired for him. If it touched you in some way, please let me know. Thank you.

Short Story Challenge | Week 13

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story about a haunted house. We had to include the words silver, relativity, watercolor, Copper Beech, limited, affect, broccoli, politician, arsenal, and cufflink.

Write With Us

Prompt: Something bad is about to happen but nobody believes the main character
Include: Andromeda, stop sign, dandelion, iceberg, spectacle, poet, candlelit, keyboard, bumble, and robotic

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

by

How’s the Writing Going? 

I’m sitting at my favorite coffee shop with avocado toast and an oat milk latte. Low-fi beats play in my rose gold headphones and I’m lost in the art of storytelling. People rush around me, blurring on the edge of my vision, but I’ve fallen into the words and barely register the ticking of the clock or the feel of my body in the chair.

It feels like magic. 

I’m an archaeologist uncovering the bones of an ancient beast buried deep within myself. I’m a wizard casting a spell upon the page. I’m the heroine discovering the power to change the world was inside me the whole time.

I’m a writer.

I’ve had this realization before, but something this time feels different. It’s not simply an identity adopted, but a feeling deep inside my bones I’m doing the thing I’m supposed to be doing.

It feels a lot like purpose.

Thank you 52-week writing challenge.

When my writing partner Anna and I sat down late last year and envisioned the challenge, we were seeking more accountability. We wanted to continue the momentum we’d experienced doing NaNoWriMo—harnessing our creative energy more consistently. We figured the more we wrote, the more energy we’d have to work on our manuscripts and the closer we’d be to following our dreams of being published.

Twelve weeks in is the perfect time to reflect on what I’ve learned so far:

  • I’ve started to see a clear pattern in the way I approach a story idea. I read the prompt over and over until a character begins to speak to me. I journal each morning, playing with possible story ideas for the character and feeling them out with many starts and stops. When I hit on the story it feels like something clicks and then, and only then, can I begin to write. If I start before that moment it will be rambling and I’ll have to start over.
  • I need the accountability of writing on deadline. My week has a definite rhythm now and it revolves around publishing on my blog and my photography. It feels comfortable and is getting easier. The first few weeks I waited until the last minute to begin and it resulted in a lot of late nights. Now, I publish on Saturday, rest on Sunday, and begin planning and thinking of the next story on Monday.
  • I find story ideas and photo opportunities everywhere. I sit still and feel the energy of the words inside me. I craft sentences in the shower, while I’m driving, and when I’m folding laundry. It feels like managed chaos—the energy has a place to go.
  • I’m making my writing a priority. I used to “try and write” around my schedule. I’d let things get in the way all the time, often seeking and finding ways to sabotage my writing time by doing things for others, cleaning my house, or playing games on my phone. I felt like I wasn’t a “real writer” and therefore I couldn’t take the time away from my family or my friends for a “hobby.” These short stories have shifted that. I write now because I must, and it is a priority.
  • My anxiety has lessened. The beauty of the weekly challenge is you have to post on a deadline so there isn’t time to short-circuit and collapse under the weight of self-doubt. I don’t have time to think too much about if what I’m writing is “good” or “good enough.” Time chases me and doesn’t allow me the space to think too long and hard about any of it. I can’t let Anna down. I can’t let myself down. I have to keep going.
  • It’s completely reframed the way I look at writing and my goals for the future. While I don’t have the time I thought I would for working on my manuscripts, I feel my writing style shifting and my skills improving with each short story. It feels like these words are necessary to keep growing my skills so when I return to my manuscripts it will be with fresh eyes and new skills. I still dream of being a published author, but I’m aware of the fact I’m not ready yet. I have more work to do.
  • I’m investing in myself. I’ve grown my readership on my blog and I’ve signed up for writing classes and workshops. I paid extra to have the ads taken off my website. I’ve not been this committed in the past, and I’m excited to see where it’s going.

The overall feeling is one of potential and growth. I don’t know why this project feels important, but it does. I’m going to keep moving forward and trust this is leading somewhere.

I’d like to thank my writing partner Anna for constantly pushing me, inspiring me, and blowing me away with her artwork and incredibly beautiful writing. I’m so happy to be on this journey with her. It’s fun to see how different we both interpret the prompt and I’m looking forward to a huge party with her at the end of the year.

Also, thank you to everyone who likes or comments on my blog. I value each and every one of you. Your support feels like a warm blanket I can slip into when the negative self-talk becomes too loud. It’s encouraging and appreciated.

See you on Saturday with my take on a haunted house story.

Write with us

If you find yourself in a rut or could use a framework for your chaotic creativity, consider joining us on this journey. We’d love to have you! There’s no commitment, and you can start and stop whenever you like. You make the rules for yourself. The prompt for the next week is at the bottom of our stories each week. Let me know if you write one of the prompts and I’ll link to your blog.

My 52 Week Challenge Journey

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Meeting Time | A Short Story

I don’t remember driving or getting out of my car. I’m running down the narrow tree-lined trail as if speed or distance could remove his words. They stick to my body and crawl across my skin. I pump my arms and push harder. My sandaled feet slapping against the trail send up little puffs of dirt, and smoke signals to nobody. He wishes I’d leave for good. Maybe I will.

My toe catches on a twisted root and I tumble forward, landing on my side. My head smacks a rock with a painful thud. I suck in air for a few breaths until it finally reaches my lungs and burns. Lightning bolts of pain flash in my temples and down my left side. Shuddering, I blink repeatedly to return focus to my eyes.

The sudden sound of music alerts me to the fact I’m not alone and I sit straight up. It’s a wooden flute playing a soft earthy melody, calling and calling. I stand and leave the trail. Pulled and lulled I move as if half-asleep, or half-drugged, toward the gentle notes.

The trees and the music collide to hide the creatures I can now sense close by me. The veil pulled thin as if half-wanting to reveal to me what I know with certainty lies hidden in the murky darkness. I hear them as rustling leaves and cracking twigs. They play peek-a-boo in the dimness, breathing and watching me as I pass.

A fracture of light bursts through a tree branch and blinds me temporarily; the glint off the horn of a unicorn perhaps or the gleam of gold held tight in the fist of a greedy leprechaun. I squint as I feel my way forward with outstretched hands and pointed toes. Cool darkness surrounds me, wetting my clothes and my head…or is it blood?

The creatures continue to swirl at the edges of my vision, not allowing me to see their full shapes or forms. Fairies with backpacks of magical delights dance through the shadows moving with the music, taunting and teasing with giggles I can almost hear. Darker, deeper creatures of warts and madness peek out from beneath rotten logs threatening to pull me toward them, into the cool, moist ground.

I jump as hundreds of birds burst from the trees around me, erupting into a swirling, pulsing black mass of cawing and tweeting. They fill the yellow fireball sky of sunset—a dark cloud of mass exodus. Raising my arms out I wish to sprout wings and follow them into the near night, but the sound of the flute stops me. The pitch and tempo have shifted, matching the frenzy of the birds, drawing me back toward the invisible pied piper hidden deeper and deeper into the woods.

I’m drawn forward by a tugging within my body that I can’t explain, a burning cavernous flame in my core. A part of my mind feels the absurdity of it and wonders if I’m laying on the forest floor bleeding out. I think about the fight with my husband, the horrible things we said to each other and didn’t mean. Our past, our history, and our life together feel twisted and entangled. If I could unravel it, what would be left of me?

Mischief and enchantment lie covert and waiting as I step into a clearing of tall weeds and see a magnificent green willow tree before me. The source of the music hides behind its sweeping branches which move as if dancing to the sounds. Nausea punches through me and I stop as the familiar scene plays out in front of me. I’ve been here before. The air stills and I can sense him watching me with all-seeing eyes of practiced seduction.

He crawls forward through the long, dark branches, emerging first with a great bronze shoulder and a deep green eye. Swaying in place for a moment, the half-lit creature of my dreams made flesh again, I shudder. My body knows him and heat rushes through me, bringing painful longing below my belly button, a primal and ancient ache I feel in my breasts and lips.

The music slows as collar bone, second shoulder, second eye, and golden hair come into view with a seductive ooze; liquid and solid, warmth and ice. He unfolds his body and stretches cat-like to a standing position, his hands and lips continuing to play the wooden instrument, the sound slowing and slowing until it’s deep and breathy like him.

I step toward his warmth, and he lifts his chin in welcoming remembrance. The memory of hands and lips on flesh burns and burns until I’m shuddering and aware my breath now comes in tiny gasps. With snooping and pitying eyes he stares into me and I know the time for choice has arrived.

He is time itself, the choice of life continued or life restarted. The reset of all things. The wheel of life spins before me, spun by him, but the final decision remains mine. It’s been this way before and it will be this way again. I feel the truth of it course like passion, like lust, and I sway with the music to the tension of decision.

The web of choices pours from his flute singing of the doors I’ve opened and closed, connections forged or severed, moments linked by a series of yeses and noes. My husband’s blue eyes swim before me too, the link of our combined paths entwined from years of sharing decisions and bodies, for better or for worse. The tug of the past and the pull of fresh starts war within me with cannon blasts and fire.

Running my hands down my heavy body I feel the effects of eating sadness for every meal and I want to tear the extra flesh from the bones. I twist uncomfortably and see his eyes following my hands, feasting on my self-hatred and tasting my unhappiness. He swells larger and the strength of his gravitational pull increases.

Time slinks toward me with a smirk of satisfaction around his pursed lips. He feels the moment coming, the giving up of this flesh and returning to him. He circles me now as the breathy notes fall around me slower and slower, winding toward me and the moment of finality I know will come in an intake of breath. He smells of fresh starts, like a thousand showers, the deepest part of the ocean, and fresh-turned soil.

Inevitability weakens me, but at the last moment, I turn from him and run. My head explodes as I crash through the trees.

I’m not ready yet.

Author’s note: I’ve written many versions of this story, including my latest manuscript during NaNoWriMo last November. The storyline of wanting a mythical and romantic character to sweep in and take away all my troubles returns to me again and again. When the going gets tough, I dream of being rescued. My Prince Charming, however, always comes with a dash of fear, magic, and some makeup.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise my favorite film of all time is “Labyrinth.” I often like to envision David Bowie/Jareth coming to rescue me and giving me all the things I say I want. Of course, like Sarah, I’d probably refuse his offer and fight my way through the Goblin City and back toward the family I love.

I hope you enjoyed this take on the rescue story, with the “he” being the seductive personification of time. I’d really love to know what you think in the comments below, and thank you for reading.

Related blog: My love affair with the Goblin King

Short Story Challenge | Week 12

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story about a hike through the woods. We had to include the words leprechaun, covert, fireball, snoop, wart, pity, backpack, practice, nausea, and collar.

Write With Us

Prompt: A haunted house
Include: silver, relativity, watercolor, Copper Beech, limited, affect, broccoli, politician, arsenal, and cufflink

My 52-Week Challenge Journey

by

Aw, Phooey! | A Short Story

Elle leans on the black metal railing in front of the train station in a lopsided blue hat, matching blue shirt, and bright red bow tie. There are two round white buttons at her waist. She places her gloved hand on top of a small boy’s head to mess up his hair and he giggles.

Click. Click. Click.

A girl in a twirling pink princess dress runs at top speed and almost knocks her over. Elle saves the moment, catching her and doing a sort of silly dance. They turn to face the camera together, a whirl of happy motion.

Click. Click. Click.

All pacifier and big eyes, a terrified toddler hides in his stroller clutching a stuffed mouse to his face. Elle gets down on one knee and plays peek-a-boo behind her gloved hands until he warms to her. He gives her a high-five and smiles for the camera.

Click. Click. Click.

A group of teenagers in the crowd yell out they love her and Elle makes a heart shape with her hands and presses it toward them. She waves and waves as children pass by her, the joy contagious and beautiful. Smiling, she hops on one foot and then the other, until she spots Greg off to her right with a clipboard in his hand. He’s writing and she feels herself deflating.

Everyone knows when Greg comes to watch your shift it means one of two things; promotion or firing. Elle tries to ignore him, but her eyes keep returning to his dark handlebar mustache, blue pinstripe suit, and bright white cummerbund. His pen stays in motion.

She can’t help but think about her now ex-roommate Britney. Greg visited her a few weeks ago during her final performance of the day and afterward released her. He said she “didn’t have the right energy” and “looked off-brand.” In an instant, her dream of being promoted to a face character ended. It broke her.

Elle found her sobbing on the locker room floor. They took a bus to a small diner far from the tourists and Britney cried into her cheeseburger for a long time, her snot congealing with ketchup to form a stream of gross gunk down her face.

“How dare he do this to me! I’ve worked so hard!” Britney sobbed. “Greg’s a monster!”

“I know.”

“It’s not rocket science, Elle! I don’t know why he makes it out to be so difficult. I didn’t do anything different today than I’d been doing for two years. It makes no sense. I deserve to be a princess! He was never going to give me a fair shot.”

“I know.”

Elle had worked beside Britney a few times, and although she’d never say it to her face, she understood Greg’s decision. Britney felt she deserved better, begged for it all the time, and didn’t put much heart or enthusiasm into her current role. Elle felt a mix of sadness and relief watching Britney stuff her blow-dryer into the top of her packed wheelie bag and walk out the apartment door. 

Click. Click. Click.

A large family approaches and Elle lies on the ground in front of them, as she’s been taught. It’s the only way to make the large group photos work. She knows her poses are correct, but Greg writes and writes on his clipboard and she can’t imagine what he could be writing.

“Fails to be perfect.”

“Not good enough.”

Elle gets the signal and follows her handler to the cast room. She waves and does a little dance until she’s fully out of view. Although she can’t see him, she knows Greg followed. As she removes her giant head and gets a drink of water, he walks in smiling.

“Wonderful job Elle,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“You know why I’m here, right?”

Elle doesn’t want to make any guesses, so she shrugs and smiles. He smiles back.

“I know you have been waiting for this, so I wanted to tell you in person. You have done it, Elle. Congratulations. You are now friends with Snow White.”

He hands her a red hair bow and she rubs the satin with her fingers.

“You will begin your training next week,” Greg says.

Elle finishes up her shift, 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off until the park closes. It isn’t until she walks back to her apartment, the full moon bright in the sky above her, that it hits her. For as long as she can remember, her mother has dreamed of her playing Snow White at the Happiest Place on Earth. She’d told Elle it was her destiny because of her pale white skin, dark black hair, and red lips. There wasn’t any other plan for her and now she’s done it.

She should call her mom. She should celebrate. She should be happy. All the shoulds feel wrong.

She takes a hot shower, slips into soft pink pajamas, and runs her hand along her bookshelf until she finds the well-worn book of pastel drawings, the soft cloth binding frayed slightly on the edges. She flips to her favorite page marked with a red silk ribbon, a beautiful painting of a garden filled with bluebells and snowdrops. Written in her neatest handwriting along the bottom are the words, “Snow White’s Garden/My Garden.”

She remembers writing those words when she was 10 years old, the year her mother gave her the book and told her she would become Snow White. Elle loved the idea. It made her feel special and loved. She practiced singing and talking until she could mimic Snow White as well as anyone. Her mother would beam with pride watching her.

When she was 18, they drove across five states to California for the auditions. On the drive, her mother opened up a bit about her own life, something she rarely did. She told Elle she’d been a model her entire childhood and teenage years, and how she’d been on the cover of hundreds of magazines and traveled all over the world.

“But my mother didn’t protect me, Elle,” she’d said. “And people hurt me. Lots of people hurt me. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Her mother stayed for several months after Elle got hired, and pressed hard for her to be Snow White. Elle understood she had to put in time as other characters, and she didn’t mind at all. She enjoys slipping on the costumes and transforming into the beloved characters of the park. The ritual of it, the tears of joy, and the infectious laughter make Elle feel whole.

The day her mother finally left for home, she’d squeezed Elle painfully tight to her and sobbed into her shoulder. They’d never spent time apart and Elle was a bit terrified of being on her own, but also excited. She felt it was time for her to make her own decisions and friends—something she’d not done her entire life.

“Promise me you’ll be okay,” her mother said, black mascara running down her cheeks.

“I’m okay mom,” Elle said. “I’ll be okay.”

She wasn’t sure she would be, and on the first night alone with Britney in the apartment she’d spent a long time crying in the shower. She wondered how she’d manage to feed herself, work until late at night, and do her own laundry. It felt overwhelming, but Elle surprised herself. She found a rhythm, made friends, and discovered she was more than capable of caring for herself.

Now, with Britney gone, Elle realizes how much she loves being alone with her own thoughts. She’s taken up reading, painting, and baking. On her days off she meets friends at the park, goes for a run, or has friends over to play games. Her life has become full and her own.

Her mother calls her at 5 a.m. every morning, and Elle waits up for her call. It’s always the same questions, rapid-fire and breathy from her anxious mom.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you Snow White yet?”

“Why not?”

“Who can I talk to?”

Elle brews herself a cup of mint tea and snuggles under a blanket. She looks around the room at her place and feels a swelling of pride. It’s been two years since her mother left, and Elle loves her life. She thinks about how wonderful it feels to see children light up at the sight of her and how often their joy brings her to tears. Snow White may have been her original dream, her mother’s dream for her, but it doesn’t fit her. It’s not what she wants.

Elle takes a sip of tea and picks up her cell phone. It’s her life, she thinks and smiles.

“Sorry to call so early, Greg, but I’ve been thinking about the offer and I’d like to decline. I love my current role and I wonder if I might keep it.”

“Are you sure, Elle? You’d make a fantastic Snow White.”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”

She sips her tea, watches the sunrise through her front window, and happily waits for her mother’s call.

Author’s note: As you may have guessed, I spent the week in Disneyland celebrating my nephew’s 3rd birthday. It was a wonderful whirlwind of a trip! There was very little time for writing and thinking, but I did manage this short story written late at night with sore feet and a full heart. I hope you enjoyed it.

Short Story Challenge | Week 11

Each week the short stories are based on a prompt from the book “Write the Story” by Piccadilly, Inc. This week’s prompt was to write a story where the main character thinks he or she is about to get fired. We had to include the words magazine, blow-dryer, congeal, bluebell, cummerbund, wheelie bag, pastels, cheeseburger, binding, and science.

Write With Us

Prompt: A hike through the woods
Include: leprechaun, covert, fireball, snoop, wart, pity, backpack, practice, nausea, collar

My 52-Week Challenge Journey