TCE prompt 37--Fair Fraulein, Pt 4

...and the last bit is done! Errr, yeah. *smile*

Click the following to read part 1, part 2 or part 3

Fair Fraulein

part 4

The apples tumbled through the snow melt, rolling elegantly pale along the white slush. I opened the door, a woman stooped, not seeing me come out the door to help, or Donar’s watchful visage in the doorway, and began frantically pattering after them. Suddenly, we were face to face.

“Apple for your trouble, my lady,” she said demurely, dropping to a shallow curtsy.

“No thank you,” I said firmly. I’d had quite enough of strange women and their strange gifts. “I wished to but see you caught them all before they bruised.”

She rose.

“Are you sure?”

“Wherever did you get apples, this time of year?” I asked her.

“Oh, if you please, my lady, these are special apples. Apples of winter, which grow white and blush red…just like your pretty cheeks.” Smiling, an apple appeared at my right cheek. I could only just make out the crimson blush that graced one side.

Fair Fraulein, Pt 3

Numero tres! Read part 1 here and part 2 here. The final section will be up tomorrow for the Chrysalis Experiment prompt...By that time, hopefuly I'll have a proper title. Err, yeah. Promise. Scouts honor.

Fair Fraulein

part 3

Wrap wrap, wrap. The tea cups, thick cream sticky in their bottoms, slipped into the wash sink. I walked to the door, rubbing my palms on my apron. Through the crack between the door and door-frame I saw a hunched old woman…she looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Perhaps she had news from the northern nobles.

“Yes?” I asked through the door crack. It was a lovely gold and brown autumn day; dust clung to the folds of her cloak, leaves and bramble to her hems. Her hood was up.

“Ehhh, pretty child, good day, good day.”

“Good day to you,” I said cautiously.

“Eeehh, we shall see, shan’t we? Ehhh, I have good things to sell you, if you’d but have them. Handsome, sturdy things, trinkets and cloths of all shapes and sizes.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Eeeh, yes, pretty child. Would you like to look at them?”

I hesitated. We’d been avoiding strangers, but I was sure I’d seen this old one somewhere before … somewhere … I just couldn’t remember.

Fair Fraulein, Pt 2

The second installment of my latest longish short story. To read Pt 1, click here.

Fair Fraulein

part 2

“Can we keep her? Please? P--lease?”

“Shhh, be quiet. You want her to wake and see us?”

“But I—”

“Quiet, I said!”

I opened my eyes slowly. Faces hovered above me, and a roof above them. A roof. I was indoors. When had that happened? I tried to speak, but the pain in my head---I put my hand to my face.

“She’s awake,” said the second voice. I couldn’t match it to a face. Struggling, I pulled myself to my elbows.

“Careful; careful now,” warned the eldest of the faces. His was a queer, heavy-jowled head, squarish and with short white beard yellowed with dirt. “You’ve hit your head, and been too cold for too long. Be easy, Princess.”

Princess. They know who I am. She’ll find me. She’ll find me and kill me!


“Easy; easy,” continued White Beard. “No need to worry. You’re among friends.” The second voice from earlier snorted. It belonged to a little man at the food of the bed they’d laid me upon. Dwarves, I thought. The last time I’d seen a dwarf, he’d played acted from a wooden cart when one of the French lords came visiting. It thought he’d been the only one.

“I know,” said the first voice excitedly. “She can run the house for us while we sneak into the mines!” The first-voice dwarf walked around the others, and came to stand at my left, near my head. His smiled was lopsided but kindly, his chin bare.

“Pretty little princess, scrubbing our floors?” said the dwarf at the end of the bed. “I think not. Most likely she doesn’t know how. Most likely she doesn’t know how to do anything at all.”

Fair Fraulein, Pt. 1

This is a slightly longer fiction peice I've been writing; I'll post some each day until Friday, when I'll tie in the Chrysalis Experiment prompt.

And so...

Fair Fraulein

part 1

Every night before my seventh birthday, I climbed atop the settee in my stepmother’s room, curled like a cat, and watched her prepare for bed until I drifted into sleep. Sitting in front of her mirror, whispering bits of song to herself, she uncoiled her braids and brushed them, pulling her long hair out from her body with a sleek horn comb. Every handful that dropped from the comb fell about her like a golden drape; she was this pale, high, shining thing, colored like the sparkling mead my father was so fond of drinking as we supped.

In short, she was nothing like me.

My days were tedious; Father — the servants whispered my mother’s untimely death had left him shaken at the fate of his kingdom — insisted I not only learn the womanly tasks of song, dance, embroidery, lace and language, but also the tasks to which he had long since grown accustomed. I sat beside him as the nobles paraded their so-called problems before him, having practically crawled to get into position, a pile of pillows balanced on a heavy chair next to Father. It was what he wanted. So every day, beginning before the dawn even, I poured over maps, listened to gray-faced men dictate accounts of the treasury, went for rides in the country with visiting dignitaries who thought the woods better for gossip than stuffy palace chambers, and sang, and danced, and sewed till my fingers bled, and mixed my Latin preterits with my Spanish, and…

Then I watched my beautiful young almost-mother comb her hair at her mirror, until sleep carried me — or perhaps it was one of my ladies — to my bed.

As I watched her the night after my birthday, I realized her mouth, always curved in a petulant little smile, had suddenly focused on my reflection in the glass, and turned into a snarl. Half asleep, I ran from the room.

The next day, the lessons with my father ceased. I thought I was to double up on my womanly duties; I swear my fingers cried angry tears at the thought of more embroidery, long before my eyes did. But no. My stepmother, standing at the window of our aviary, had said to me, “A princess — even an ugly one such as you--must be seen in grace and repose, not in work.” She spoke with her face to the window, on the kingdom. My father, busy with the doings of running a land, grew to be a stranger to me. By the time I was ten, I was kept from my embroidery and my dancing. Suddenly my days were empty. My father died that winter.

Then my stepmother ascended the throne as regent, while thick snow fell from the sky.

Vampires Anonymous--TCE 36, I think

It's as comfortable today as it was in late April *happy sigh*. It went from 105-plus to 70 with light rain in one week. Cancel that light rain bit-- I think we're getting some of that tropical storm rain. It's kind of yellow outside, and the cars are going really fast (I imagine the yellow sky is the cause) but the rain is falling straight down and the curtains--they're white and sheer and very girly, lol, are billowing all pretty in the wind. What a beautiful Friday.

Okay, onto my story. I must warn you, this is really crass, maybe the crassest (is that even truly a word?) I've ever written. I.f you don't like cursing or, err, somewhat-funnies about peeing and whatnot, don't read it. Defer, instead, to one of my more grown-up-friendly short stories.

That being said, here was the TCE prompt: "I know all the best places to hide. But there are certain precautions you need to take if you don't want them to smell you."

Vampires Anonymous

High above the two of them, the slowly baring trees stretched the black sky. The trees, thick with Spanish moss, crept close to the cliff’s edge, but not close enough for the light of the bonfire to brighten their branches. Still though, it was a vivid night, the kind with plenty of stars and a halo around the moon, so that even though the stars were small and the moon, thin, the usual gray tones of night took on tints of green and brown.

“Will they see us?”

“Of course not. They’re only human, and these ones are tourists from the city anyway. Can’t see much of anything in the dark.”

Malice pulled the younger vampire deeper into the trees, just the same. Right on schedule, the group of drinkers laughed as a frizzing blonde climbed atop the cooler and began yodeling “Black Velvet,” using a whiskey bottle as a microphone. She was clumsy and inarticulate atop the orange plastic, but no amount of slurring could hide her voice as she sang. Try as he could , Malice couldn’t remember ever hearing anyone yodel in real life, let alone a song that wasn’t meant to be yodeled. Humans. You loved them or you ate them.

TCE-35 After

Well, shiznit. Every have one of those weekends you expect to be long and relaxing, with plenty of time for everything, and then WAH-BAM! all hell breaks loose and you're swamped but still in lazy-dazy mode?

Yeeeah.

So my TCE story remains at the same exact point it was on, like, Tuesday or Wednesday, I think, when I was sure I'd have plenty of time to finish. Phooey. I apologize for any typos and whatnot. *hangs head* And for the lateness... And for the whole being unfinished thing...

EDIT: I've finished, basically! Don't care for the title, but ahh well, I usually don't. This was my first foray into this genre, by the way. Happy to take crits!

Here was the prompt: "This could all be over in a matter of seconds... Should I or shouldn't I?"

After

I never had thought of myself as old, even through the last wars, when I lost my husband to the bombs. I didn’t even think myself old when, during the meteorite shower that killed half the western hemisphere and covered the rest with a winter of dustclouds, I noticed my skin was a wrinkled dead color that matched what little sky could be seen through the dirty window panes of "home."  So far, I’d sheltered myself inside some strangers' house, now little more than a hovel, just off the the 101 on the way up to Santa Barbara where my daughter and her children lived, now dead, probably. Been there since the meteors began to fall. 

As the first thundering sizzles of the meteors dropped into the ocean to my west, I wondered if maybe the kids were right and I shouldn’t be driving any more, since I couldn’t possibly be seeing clearly. But I was, and I got myself right out the car and wandered into the nearest house's unlocked front door. Who lives on the beach and doesn’t lock their doors, especially in this day and age, after the wars? There was no one home, and when the debris crushed the back half of the house and buried part of the front door, I stayed where I was.

The day I ate the last of the Cisneros’ canned goods—after it became clear I couldn’t leave, I tried to discover at least the name of the people who had lived in that house—was the day I decided to venture out of doors. When I finally managed to open the front door, the crack of light that fell through the opening wasn’t really light at all, it was merely air that wasn’t necessarily dark.

It was gray. Chilled, but acrid with the smell of salty burning, and thick. Who knew the sea could catch fire? I never; it had all been over in a matter of minutes, of seconds; the sea a roar of flames. There wasn’t much seeing to be done in it. I walked out into it, going slow, crawling over the burned bits of lawn furniture and metal car doors that had slammed into the thin yard. I moved even slower than I remembered as habit—I suppose all the months of moving so little had a greater impact on my body than I was willing to admit.

“Hello,” I called when I finally reached the other side of the 101 and stood on what should have been beach. No one answered. There wasn’t even the cry of seagulls.The air was thick, and gray, and utterly silent. The tides were wrong, and lapped near my feet. Should have been way out, unless I had my time all mixed up. Much of it is wrong; the muted tones, the acrid smell, the quietness of space between breaths. I paced up the shoreline, in search of someone alive, someone like me.

###

I am become a creature of the in-between. 

TCE 34--Enough

Alright. So right now I am multi-tasking like a sunnofagun, and only have a chance to post the opening of my Chrysalis story. I'll be taking a rather liberal view of the prompt, but I tried three different (indeed, completely different) stories, and they all fell flat on their, uh, faces. Not that they have any. Faces, I mean. Whatever. And here we are...

Anyway, I shall be posting several things today, including the next portions of this story, so if you happen across this, and it's all nice and titled and happy and shiny with completion, count yourself lucky. Everybody else, sorry! ~ 

LATER EDIT: Very unhappy with the end. MrAAaaaghHH!

TCE prompt: "The first time I walked into that classroom was also the last."

Enough

 Sometimes, there are situations that cannot be avoided. Conditions that ought to have been foreseeable, but weren’t. Waste that could have been restrained. Creatures to whom we never should have owed allegiance.


Existence is a tricky sort of situation.

I knew what the priest had done; heard the hushed suggestions to his master. Enough, he said. End them, he whispered. Forsake them all! With them, you shall never be at rest. Priest did not recall the echoes that abound in the vast halls and chambers of our Mother. His master heard him, yes. But so did others. So did I.

I did not necessarily think Priest was twisted or evil, but I did note the effect his sewn discord reaped. It was moments—or would that be years, or ages?—before we were assembled on the great battlefield, to make war against She-Who-Created-Us. But we had grown in power just as she. Our sons and daughters had wrought more havoc upon the inner plains of our Mother’s body than even she could have imagined; cyclones that were so destructive they formed a raucous music within their circling. And then we were born a king, strong, and goodly—when he could be—and true.

We are just the bastard children of her first consummation. Her first born, her first castaways, for we had killed her Consort, lest he destroy us all. She wielded vengeance as a tool for upheaval. Her minions, foul of face and limb, putrid to every sense and more, fed off her rage. They were called the Eleven Princes, by their side in truth, and by our side, in horror. For they were sent to destroy us.

This is the tale of the Battle, and of the time and that which was not time, which followed.


###

JUNOWRIMO 5--The Coming Cold

For anyone interested, see Chapter 1 here, Chapter Two here, Three here, and Four, here.

Happy reading!

A Tale of Unlikely Magic and Wonderful Adventures

Chapter 5: The Coming Cold

Every awake head in Pete’s living room swung toward Rahhh.

“I’ve lived at the edges of Promethia my entire life,” she growled in explanation. “My family…time beyond time, all of them, have lived away from the hustle and bustle of the humans, so we might hunt in peace. I grew from a pup to a lupa on the stories of the countryside, stories of the dangers of the humans and their magic; the night stories of my species. But one — one — would brought fear into the coldest of the wolves, and it is a tale to which my own ancestors bore witness.” Rahhh paused, licked her lips nervously with her long red tongue, eyes darting around the room as if in fear of being heard. When she spoke again, her voice was but barely a whisper. This is quite hard to do as a wolf. Don't believe me? Try and hear a regular dog whisper. Then imagine how much less likely it is for a wolf.

“When my grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother was but a pup, the pack lived far north, where the winter nights were long and the moon shined clear and large, and the prey were many and fat. One year, the snows came early, and the ice pack lasted late into the summer. Many voices in the pack were lost that unnatural winter. When finally the cold broke and the freeze melted so the hunt could begin again, they found the world around them had changed.”

“Wait, I remember that,” Steve said, running a hand over his sleek ninja topknot of hair. Ninjas don’t like to look messy. You understand. “I nearly died that year on the mountain.”

“Yes,” Rahhh agreed. “That alone would be worthy of stories, that winter. But when the winter broke, the pack found itself amidst a sea. But it was not the sea of ice and water and seal. They were among a sea of chained, hateful human souls.”

JUNOWRIMO 4: Back to Life

I forget why I wasn't going to post every chapter on here, but as this blog is my main outlet for "for fun" writing, I figured I might as well. So every week from now on I'll post up a chapter from my JUNO experiment; it's not finished yet or anything, but there are still quite a few chapters to go before the blog will be all caught up. Feel free to critique (such as my ending sentences in prepositional phrases, or splitting infinitives unecessarily) as I want this to be all finished and nice and neat, so I can read to my little cousins during the holidays.

For anyone interested, read Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here, and Chapter 3 here.

Now:

A Tale of Unlikely Magic and Wonderful Adventures

Chapter 4: Back to Life

Adele’s eyes felt crusty. She blinked hard a couple dozen times, waiting for them to adjust. Nothing made any sense. Just moments — or was it years? — before, she’d been floating, peacefully drifting in or away or on to some place she did not comprehend, nor need to. Then, just as she’d been floating away or beyond, she felt herself returning, in a manner of sorts, for an unknown reason, for a reason that did not matter, for it was not for her to know or to question, because she was dead. And now?

Fire.

Fire!

She looked to her left and right, where the wolves and the Red Ninja were just beginning to come-round. Dead, living — fire is fire, you know.

“Fire, quick,” she cried, though it sounded more like a rasp. She sprang up. At once Pete tried to get within the bounds of the circle, but went shooting backward in a burst of white light when he tried to cross, knocked flat and out cold. The wolves and the ninja struggled to their feet. They looked quite comical, staggering around like that, covered in blood, giant holes in their paws and hand, a thin sharp blood line across their necks knitting into hurried scars … Adele’s hand went to her own neck. There, between the gape of skin not yet closed she felt the cool, slow pulse of blood through her arteries. That was … wrong, wasn’t it? Isn’t blood supposed to be warm?, she wondered. Then she looked at the others in horror as the skin began to knit itself closed around her fingertips, which she hastily pulled back. She stumbled backward, tripped, and fell over another body. When she stood, she saw it was an old woman, crumpled into rags. The lump of rags appeared to be crawling, heaving, trying to stand, and then, with one last heave, she simply splatted on the ground.

That’s when Adele felt it, the incredible rush of immortality.

That’s right. Because the old witch had tried to reanimate not one, but six, the strain had simply crushed her. The bond between animator and zombie is tricky: The living must give life to the dead. That’s just the way it goes. The trade off, of course, is that the animator gets a hefty portion of control over the reanimated body. Enough to make the zombie do the dishes, darn socks, assassinate political leaders (in fact, this had been Mrs. Olwitch’s specialty)—whatever the animator wants. Problem was, that no matter how handy six zombie slaves would be to have around, age is a huge factor in the career of a measly reanimator, otherwise known as a wicked witch. And Mrs. Olwitch, why, she was practically ancient, and it just plumb did her in. It was a metaphysical kerblooey kind of mess.

Chpt 3--In Which Nearly Everybody Gets Killed

Allow me to begin catching ya'll up on my JUNOWRIMO project. If you haven't read the first and second chapters, I highly recommend them. Wildly entertaining, extremely educational. Better than the Rosetta Stone and more interesting than lime sherbert. Lime sherbert's one of my favorites.

Damn I'm not even making sense anymore. LOL.

Here you go:

 A Tale of Unlikely Magic and Wonderful Adventures

Chapter 3: In Which Nearly Everybody Gets Killed

Now that they’re all out of the way, I have time to tell you about the troll. As you can no doubt guess by his blubbering, he was really a very well-natured, sensitive creature who just so happened to look like a tree and have the spirit of a rock.  Actually, those things usually work in his favor. He was very sturdy, a stable, responsible sort of fellow, slow to anger and change, despite his windblown hair (it was apparently some kind of moss),  his thick tree legs or his chipped teeth that let his voice sound full of gravel and mud.

But there was one thing above all others at which he was most certainly not slow: luck. He had the quickest luck of anyone anybody had ever met.  When it struck, it struck like lightning, and it was the sort of thing most around him figured they’d never witness twice. 

But with Pete the Troll, his luck was a proverbial endless lightning streak. A lightning storm. A lightning ... errr … enough with the lightning.  He’s got really good luck. And yes, his name really is Pete.

Pete the Troll—and mind you, I’m not blaming him one bit—was a bit of a gambler.  Well, more than a bit.  He was a enough of a gambler that it caused some problems, problems even bigger than him, and he’d been the size of a small car (not an American car of course, a European one, but a car one and the same) since he was born, and now he was full grown. So his gambling problems were pretty darn big.

That’s how he came to live in the Land of Pain and Suffering.  One night, there he was in the capitol city of Promethia, playing game after game after game of high stakes black jack at the best casino in town. The table he played at was edged in gold and studded with rubies. The carpet under his feet was hand crafted from the wool of tiny little sheep-like animals only native to one corner of Early Realm, whose ultra-specific diet made their fur feel like the stuff of which clouds are made, and it in fact looked exactly like clouds; so white that it at once held all the colors of the rainbows in its ply, and so puffy and luxurious that it gave one the very disorienting impression of floating. The lights were shining bright, the coins flashed across the table, the cards flipped expertly from hand to hand. And so on, and so on.

 He, Pete the Troll, was hobnobbing with Promethian nobility, the movers and the shakers of all the Early Realm, and he was winning.  Winning game after game after game, pile after pile of coins from every country he’d ever heard of and even a few he didn’t.

Soon he had so much money that, were he a greedy sort, he could have bought the bank and filled it with his coins just so he could swim through them every morning. But he wasn’t a greedy troll. Spirit like a rock, remember (rocks don’t go to banks, you see). Slow to change. He looked at his piles of money spilling over every gold-and-ruby encrusted table in the casino, cascading down the cloud-carpeted stairs, pouring out the golden revolving doors, and he saw that his luck had quite run away with him.

 Much to the consternation of his relatives (among whom were several of the greedy sorts), he donated all his winnings to the Promethian Academy of Music, which now runs a scholarship program for up-and-coming trolls far and wide in his honor. Then he packed all his belongings and moved out of his penthouse, searching for a place far from any kind of temptation, and even further from his relatives. Somehow he found himself a nice, extremely large hole in the ground of the Land of Pain and Suffering, and without another moment’s thought, in he moved.

But if there’s one thing casinos don’t like, it’s losing their shirts to a troll—or rather, their coins. So the CEO (a very, very greedy sort) of the casino searched far and wide for someone, anyone, who might be able to dispense of a troll with endless luck. He searched first among the assassins, of course. Too fond of guns and gas bombs and such which would not be of any use in the Land of Pain and Suffering. Someone more hardy, he thought; more hands-on.

So he looked among the pirates. Of course they were very put off once they found out they were his second choice, and would have nothing to do with him.  Good thing too, because the Captain of captains was secretly planning to double cross him with a casino heist the whole time they were negotiating.  Then, since he was already at sea, the CEO checked among the vicious creatures of the deep underworld, but none had the limbs or the lungs required for navigating the Land of Pain and Suffering.

 After those failures and the mounting fear of filing for Chapter 13, he travelled north. Far, far north. Farther north than any other Promethian had ever travelled before. He travelled first by boat, then by wheel, then by horse, and then by foot, until he finally came upon a peaceful glade of yet unnamed fruit trees in blossom at the foot of a towering mountain. The mountain was white in its entirety, and its snow reached even to where the CEO stood, at its base. The snow carpeted the ground so white that the orchard  blossoms, once fallen, looked to be such a bright pinky red  they almost looked like blood.  In fact, many years later, these trees would come to be known as Blood Blossom trees, for that very reason.

The blossoms indeed did fall, right before him, and they formed a path, which the greedy CEO followed. It led him to the top of the mountain. Around the back of the highest peak, where the dying sun bid the earth a long and sad goodnight, there was quiet temple, and in the temple sat a man—a ninja—dressed in head-to-toe in red.  And the CEO knew he’d found the right guy, because he could tell that the ninja’s suit was dyed with the blood of all those he’d killed.

 The Red Ninja was commissioned on the spot, and he’s been after Pete ever since.

The chase had been on for three days and three nights when Pete saw the four wolves and the ugly girl climbing down to the Land of Pain and Suffering; for this long he’d evaded the Red Ninja’s attacks by a mixture of cunning, desperation and natural troll camouflage. In a word; luck. But even the luckiest person— err, troll —knows that nothing can last forever. He was just about to try and signal the group for help when the Red Ninja sprang from a hidey hole in the sand and attacked.  The whole time he was on the run, Pete had not eaten nor drank nor slept, and well, had Adele not saved him, he would have been done for.

 And now you’re pretty much caught up.

Pete scratched the moss on his head and looked at the four knocked-out wolves, the bled-dry girl and the unconscious, ripped-up ninja.  Then he sighed, and stomped on a very well-hidden thatched door in the ground, the door of his neighbor, a retired wicked old witch. She’d retired because she became … tired … of her wicked ways, and so fled to the Land of Pain and Suffering in order to repent.  Pete was hoping she could help; she was very good with this sort of thing.  But there was no answer. He stomped again, and tried to strain his mossy ears to listen for sounds under the earth.

Creak. Ahh, so she was home. He’d been afraid she’d gone to town for groceries or some other errand.

“Eeeeehh? Eeeehhh?” she cackled as thatch swung open and she bobbed her frizzy head through the hidey hole in the earth, “Ehhh? Pete? Is that you?”  Her glasses were thick as her knotty fingers and had a good layer of dirt on both sides, and the eyes behind them had long since went towards the milky blue of blindness, no matter how much she claimed the opposite. Frankly, it was no wonder she couldn’t see Pete hulking there in her ceiling doorway as she swayed her head around and around.

“Yes… Mrs… Olwitch… May… I… come… down?” Pete paused; trolls always took a very long time to say anything, as it takes such a lot out of a person (troll) to speak when they’re that big and rock-like. “It’s….an…emergency.”

Mrs. Olwitch really rather liked Pete, but she wouldn’t admit that even if you had a poison apple held at her mouth. Anyway, she motioned him down, and somehow Pete managed to get himself and his quarry down the narrow, old-lady sized ladder that hung from the hidey hole opening.  In no time at all, he’d explained the situation to Mrs. Olwitch.

“So, ehhh,” she cackled at him, raising her bony, veiney hand into the air as she thought it out “you darned near killed each one of these here … ehhhh,” she used her other hand to poke her cane doubtfully at the still conked-out Red Ninja, “creatures, and now you want me to un-darn-near-kill them?”

“Well…” Pete said, “yes….ma’am….please.”

Mrs. Olwitch sighed and leaned back in her rocking chair, beginning to whack her cane on the floor of her home in a repetitious manner as she rocked.

“Ehhhh. Can’t do it.”

“You…you….can’t?”

“Eehhhh, can’t be done, sonny Pete, can’t be done.” She thumped her cane some more.

“At…at…all?”

“Not’t’all.” A single thump.

“Is…there…anything…you…can…do,…Mrs…Olwitch?”

“Hmmm….ehhhh….If they were  dead, I could reanimate them, ehhh, make them into zombies, eeehh.” This brought out a rain of excited-sounding cane thumps. “The Necromancer might try and have my skin for it, but what’s that little whipper snapper really going to do about it, now that I’m an old retired witch now…close to my death watch anyhow…” Mrs. Olwitch had taken to muttering, now hobbling around the chair where Pete now sat, uncomfortable. She looked up to the moss covered troll, and by some kind twist of fate, her sight came back to her just long enough to discern the tear stains dried onto Pete’s rock-like skin. She grunted.  “Ehh. Worth it, for a bit of fun, I’d say, taking up reanimating again. Not to mention the killing the innocent part; I haven’t had a good and appetizing slaughter in ages. But I gather you don’t want that, do you sonny Pete?”

“Hmmm…” Pete said. Slow to change, he’d just gotten himself reconciled to the group living, and now here she was talking about them being dead, and then alive again … he cleared his throat. “See,” he said, with a pause, “that’s…why…I…came…to…you…You…do… …. …. what…you…think…best,” he added.

In a flash, Mrs. Olwitch was propelling herself here and there with the help of her cane, careening around corners, propping herself up on one leg to reach certain dust-encrusted shelves and generally performing physical feats people in their twenties struggle to do. In three shakes she was over her cauldron, and in three more shakes she was brewing.

 Then, as Pete blinked at her, she drew a long, curving dagger from her cruddy skirts, and one by one she sliced the blade into the throats of the wolf pups, Rahhh, the Red Ninja, and even our beloved, noble, ugly Adele.  As the last drops of their blood mingled with one another in dark, muddy puddles on the floor, Mrs. Olwitch let out a long cackle, and Pete began to cry again.

#

While Pete sobbed, Mrs. Olwitch swooped around her hovel, snatching this, snatching that. Once all was gathered and the six were good and dead, she used six roughly-hewn pewter bowls to scoop each individual’s blood from her floor. She was sure to mark on the side of each bowl to whom the blood within belonged. Then, drawing yet more howling sobs from Pete, she plucked a bone from each, aiming for the hands (where there are so many bones there are some to spare) and paws. These went into their respective bowls. Pete howled and sobbed, then sobbed and howled some more. 

Many hours later, under shining slivered light of the three Early Realm moons, the retired witch laid the bodies of the deceased on the plain in the valley of the Land of Pain and Suffering. The moons were just on the point of retiring, but a bit of good reanimation magic is not a thing to be missed, so they decided to stay up, and light the way for Mrs. Olwitch.

Casting the circle wide about the dead and herself, Mrs. Olwitch did the unthinkable: she ground the bowls of bone and blood into one another until they made a paste. But this wasn’t really that unthinkable. What’s unthinkable is what she did with that paste. She tipped her massively-wrinkled head back to the sky, opened her saggy mouth, and ate the contents of each and every bowl, down to the last grainy bite.

The moons nearly shuddered in anticipation. Lightning cracked outward from the circle.  Fires sprang from the circle edge. The swamps of the valley boiled, and the quicksand pits began to roll. The earth itself shuddered.

And then, in a great explosion of magic, the five bodies sat up, and Mrs. Olwitch collapsed.

Chpt 2: A Short Interlude of Butt-Kicking

Okay. So what I posted the other day for Chapter 1 was not the chapter in its entirety, and yes it is finished, but I thought I'd go ahead and post Chapter 2. Just because. *laugh* For anyone who may want it, here's a quick recap:

Adele- Main character; an ugly, noble, 8 yr old.Rahhh--a she wolf with three pups and a terrible cold
Grawwq--eldest, largest boy pup
Sharaaaa--girl pup 
Curghaa--youngest boy pupBaroooi--Rahhh's nosy fox aunt

Adele finds a magic map one day which transports her to another land.  She doesn't yet know why, but it must be returned to the Necromancer, all the way in Promethia, and to do so she must first cross the Land of Pain and Suffering. The wolves agree to help her.

READY?!

A Tale of Unlikely Magic and Wonderful Adventures

Chapter 2: A Short Interlude of Butt-Kicking

Now having a cold is a pain no matter who you are, what you are, or in what realm of existence you live, and if doesn’t matter how hard you try to pretend that’s not the truth.  I could go into the details—but I won’t. Too much snot and too many coughs. Suffice it to say that by the time Rahhh got over her cold, she’d successfully passed it onto all her companions.  So we’ll just pick back up with our story when everybody was healthy (except for Aunt Baroooi, and who really wanted her along?) and ready for the aforementioned adventure and danger….

Adele, the three pups and Rahhhh stood at the edge of the rock stairwell that led down to the Land of Pain and Suffering. I know what you are thinking—but yes, there was a rock stairwell. Granted it was crumbling and “fraught with peril” in and of itself, but a stairwell nonetheless. In ages past, for even the Early Realm has ancient times, this had been called, in hushed, solemn tones, The Most Fantastic and Long and Steep and Stupendous Stairwell.

 The ancients weren’t so hot at picking names, you see, but you can at least get the general idea. At the top of the stairwell there read an ancient, roughly hewn stone sign that read “Warning: Those With Arterial Issues Should Turn Back Now.”  In smaller, later scrawl, a line followed: “Everybody else, grab your water bottle,” which of course proves this was not the first time a human had ended up in the Early Realm and had to take The Most Fantastic and Long and Steep and Stupendous Stairwell, in order to reach the Land of Pain and Suffering, no doubt with the end goal of Promethia. For nobody in the Early Realm bothers with water bottles. 

While I would like to tell you of all sorts of incredible, adventure-like things our group of travelers faced as they made their descent, I am afraid I cannot. It was fantastically uneventful, long beyond all preconceived notions of long, steeper than the highest mountain upside down, and stupendously boring. Sorry. That’s the way it is. Sometimes you want cake, and you get a cookie. Sometimes you want just something a little bit sweet, and you get a flopping salmon on your plate (which you then demand the waiter remove).

Which brings us to...the Land of Pain and Suffering.

“Ugghh, was that you,” Grawwq asked, turning himself into a ball so he could hide his face in his butt.

Adele glared at him.

“Why does everyone assume the smell is me,” she said, exasperated. “It’s this!” She swept a hand and stood real tall so they’d remember she was noble. Noble people don’t fart or stink at all, let alone fart or stink like sulfuric fire and swamp mold and rot. We know this because in the history of all histories, no one noble has ever admitted to such a thing, and as they are noble people, they would be nobly-bound to do so.

Rahhh pointed her nose straight into the mists that hung close to the belching land of fire and bog sand.

“Everybody in a line. Stay close. Follow me.” And she took the first few fated steps.  The rest followed.

It was slow going. There were a couple of tail-fires, and Adele lost her right high-top in a pit of quicksand (no huge loss there, because she was obliged to chuck the other as well for comfort’s sake, and they really were awful looking shoes), but all in all things were going fairly well, considering. The first part of the day lapsed into relative monotony.

This monotony lulled them into a false sense of comfort. This was unwise, as they’d already attracted the attention of a very looming troll, and he doggedly followed their progress, sneaking through the shadows and mist. And nothing, nothing at all, could have prepared them for what happened next.

For from out of the depths of the mists and the stench there sprang a very small frog, a very looming troll, and a ninja dressed all in red. The frog is of no consequence, and soon hopped away, but the troll and the red ninja, were—as you can imagine—quite a different story.

Kapow! Whoosh! Whip, wham, bam, thump, whoosh, whoosh, kapow! went the Red Ninja on the poor troll. The Red Ninja was both nowhere and everywhere all at the same time, and was beating down on the troll so badly, so harshly, so knock-down-drag-out-fantastically, that within a few moments of the duo’s appearance the troll collapsed onto its mossy, tree-like legs, and started to cry. The crying was very loud, and very much along the lines oh “Booo whoo, booo,” sniffle,  sniffle, "booo, whooo.” But the Red Ninja, lest he be deemed a sissy, was relentless in his attack. 

And Adele had had enough. The nobleness of her being coursed through her veins. Before she knew what she was doing, she’d gotten out of the line, marched ahead, and yanked the Red Ninja (at that very second he’d been atop the troll’s shoulders, delivering mind-shattering pressure-point blows to the creature’s ear and neck) down by the scruff of his red pant leg, and she did it hard, too. The Red Ninja, surprised by this onslaught, sprang to his feet.

“Get back, ugly girl! I am the Red Ninja! If you engage me in combat, you must die!”

 The Red Ninja backed away from Adele, straightened himself perpendicular to her, and shadowboxed the air. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, swept his fists through the fog.

Adele remained unimpressed.  The troll remained seated and crying. The hopped-away frog of no consequence remained…well…froggy.

So Adele stood there, hands clasped behind her back, waiting for the Red Ninja to stop his tomfoolery. It was a trick she’d learned from her second grade teacher and worked like a charm. Sure enough, soon the Red Ninja dropped out of his butt-kicking stance, and lowered his arms. Adele tilted her head one way at him. The Red Ninja did the same. She tilted her head the other way. So did the Red Ninja. She smiled.

“What?!” burst the Red Ninja.

“I was just waiting for you to be finished…are you?”

“I….well…” he glanced over his shoulder at the boo-whooing troll, and then back at Adele, his eyes two mere glints of darkness in the shadow of his red mask. “I…yeah, I guess...”

“Good.” She strode over to the troll. The wolves all held their bodies motionless, as if wanting to escape notice. Only their eyes followed  Adele. “There, there,” she said, stroking the troll’s mossy arm—the arm alone was twice the size of Adele, who was of an average size for her age—“It’s alright now. Everything is alright,” she continued. “Does it hurt?”

The troll gave a very pointed sniffle and nodded its boulder of a head, trying a wavering smile on for size. But apparently this hurt too much, because as it did so the troll’s tears grew into buck-sized drops.  The Red Ninja threw up his hands in disgust and began pacing between the swampy pits.

“Where?”

The troll sniffled again, and shot a look at the Red Ninja.

“Everywhere,” he huffed. “Just everywhere.”

The Red Ninja glowered.

“Hey wait a minute now,” he said in a protesting tone, “he started it.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did no—”

“Shut up, will you?” Adele’s noble streak could only run for so long—she was only eight, after all. “Good grief! Now tell me straight: which one of you is the bad guy?”

They both pointed to each other. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, the Red Ninja  changed his mind and raised his hand, hanging his head a fraction as he did so.

“Alright.”

“Oh,” the Red Ninja said slyly as he lowered his hand and produced from his ninja suit the most dangerous throwing stars ever to be thrown, even if thrown by someone like you or me, let alone a ninja with training for that sort of thing, “I wouldn’t exactly say ‘all right.’”

He threw the stars.

“In fact,” he said, voice filled with spite, “I would say ‘all wrong.’”

For with his throwing stars he’d managed to pin Adele to the ground. Seventeen stars passed through her skin and into the rotten, putrid  soil. And there, in a valley of the Land of Pain and Suffering, Adele experienced exactly what it was to be pinned to the ground with her own skin and someone else’s throwing stars. Blood leaked from the scores in her flesh and spread across the ground in pools of red liquid.

“Didn’t need to make a cheesy joke,” she wheezed. And in a blink, she was out.

#

Having grown quite fond of their ugly duckling, the wolves sped into action. The pups were still pups, true—but they were wolf pups. Not Golden Retriever pups, or  Basenji pups, or Saint Bernard pups, or even pups like Tramp (from Lady and the Tramp); they were wolves. And well, you know how wolves can be. There’s a reason they have a fearsome reputation.

The bulk of the problem when faced head-on with a wolf is that of the teeth. No; wait; the speed. No—the huge, clawed paws. No.

Well, either way, the Red Ninja was in for a galaxy of pain. Very fitting, considering the location.

Before he could even get into his butt-kicking stance, the wolf pups sank their teeth into his thigh, Grawwq on one side and his smaller brother and sister on the other. Their fangs were incredibly sharp and they sank deep. Still, the Red Ninja fought on. He and Rahhh traced the circle in which they would fight over Adele’s body by slow and steady steps, although the Red Ninja was bobbling a bit as he struggled with the wolves. But once they’d stalked each other a bit, they were at each other’s throats.

Quite literally, I mean.

Snap, flash, snap, snap, went Rahhh’s teeth at the Red Ninja’s neck, who deftly twisted out just in time. Kapow! Whoosh! Whip, wham, bam  went the Red Ninja as he made for a fatal pressure-point attack behind her right ear. But he was not used to fighting wolves, and his pressure-point attack was to no avail, and so he tried to strangle her. Have you ever seen how big a wolf’s neck is? It’s big. Real big. Very foolish move on the Red Ninja’s part. Then again, he was no doubt distracted by the three sets of puppy fangs ripping through his thighs. And so it seemed that Rahhh would be the victor, and rip the Red Ninja’s esophagus clean through his red ninja suit, when all of a sudden they each glimpsed a rock above their head, felt a sharp and heavy thwak!­­, and saw no more. Thwack, thwak, thwack,  went the rock again and out went the pups too.

The troll, towering above them, sighed a gurgling sigh, picked all the bodies up, and carried them away into the stinking fog.

JUNOWRIMO--Chapter 1

Well, here's the first 2000 words, give or take, of my current NIP. It completely nonsensical and escapist to boot, but as I think I might do something (hopefully better thought-out!) along these lines for NANOWRIMO, I want to give it a shot. I'll finish the chapter with the next thousand words or so, and begin the second. Toot, toot!

Disclaimer: To any of you who might actually wade through my JUNOWRIMO posts, I'm sorry! There's a very good chance that, given my 2000 words-a-day goal, I will alter what you read one night quite a bit the next day, while trying to meet my 2000 word quota and still make sense. Also, I'm probably only going to post bits and peices to keep myself from cheating. *laugh* Oh well. Here goes! (Title is tentative)

A Tale of Unlikely Magic and Wonderful Adventures

Chapter One: The Almost Beginning

The Land of Pain and Suffering spanned for miles in front of the most ugliest and most noblest girl in any world or any realm. Her name was Adele, which in fact according to her grandmother means “noble,” and she liked the sound of that, as she (like I just told you) was a very ugly girl indeed.

This very ugly, very noble girl stood at the edge of Hawk Sight Ridge, looking down and over an expanse of land so big and so wide and so far and so terrible, the kind of land you only read about it books. This land was a gray land; grayer than all the gray things you can think about; grayer than pavement and rainy skies and worn off black marker on your skin; this was true gray, the kind which leaves the mind blank and the soul, bleak.  Across the Land of Pain and Suffering’s hills and valleys were fire pits and swamp and quicksand, and was rumored to be prone to cyclones and earthquakes.

Adele checked to make sure her high tops (believe me, these didn’t exactly help her cause) were tied tight and gripped the map in her hand. She knew she had to cross the Land of Pain and Suffering, and cross it on foot no cheating, in order to reach Promethia. What she didn’t know was how she was going to do that, ugly or not, or noble or not.

Just then, from the dank gray landcape slinked a large—very large, as a matter of fact—wolf. A hulking mass of bared teeth and shoulders so wide and dark they remind a person of long cold night, longer even than the expanse of the Land of Pain and Suffering, and colder than the coldest ice cubes, and a night so deep you worried for the dawn.  It padded towards her.  One. Foot. After. Another…and another, and another, in a line on the precipice of the ridge, until it stood before Adele. It growled. Adele shivered.

But neither made a move.

The wind blew a stench, foul with the smell of burning and mold, across the air between the wolf and Adele. The wolf twitched his long gray nose.

“Uggh, was dat you?” The wolf pulled itself to its hindfeet and stood before her, fanning its snout as his mouth formed the awkward words. The wolf figured a girl as ugly as Adele could very likely make a stink that bad, but it wouldn’t say so. Wolves, after all, do have some manners. Just not as many as people.

Adele stared at the wolf and tried to back away slowly. Unfortunately, high tops are not the sort of shoes which make for easy backward-walking, so she only made it two clunky steps before deciding to give it up as a lost cause.  Ugly, yes—intentionally clumsy, no. Because you never want to trip yourself in front of a wolf, even one who speaks your language.  It might laugh…among other things.

“No!”  She hated how childish it sounded. But then, she was a child, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. “He who smelt it, dealt it.”

“What are you, five?” The wolf said, dropping back to its forefeet, an expression of disgust evident in his whisker twitches. “Ad it’s she, thank you very bmuch.  Dnot that you bothered to ask. Dno proper bmanners at all; here you go, traipsing through bmy ridge, where bmy pups are, and you don’d even bother to introduce yourself. Let alode ask perbission,” the she wolf said, dropping her voice to a mutter and shaking her head back and forth. “Pups these days, I dell you…”

“I’m very sorry,” Adele said. She’d decided to allow the mistake about her age; just because she wore high tops didn’t mean she was five. She was a whole three years older than that, but didn’t dare correct the wolf at this point. “But the smell isn’t me. It’s coming from down there.” She gestured to the Land of Pain and Suffering.

“Oh that,” the shewolf said.  “Cand you believe it, I forgot? We just mboved here, and I’ve had dis horrible head code all season long, can’d hardly sbmell a thindg. Bmy aunt’s been bringing bme her hunt leftovers for the pups…ndosy beast, she is, too. Cambe in de other day all ind a roar about some uppity little sndot with a red cape over in the deep forest….ndosy….can’t wait to get rid of dis cold….and mby aunt…ohhhh,” she huffed, “bmy sinuses.”

“I…I’m very sorry,” Adele said again. “Colds can be awful. Would you like a cough drop? I’ve got one in my pocket.”

“Will it help?” The she-wolf was told to be wary of strangers bearing candy. Especially the ugly ones. Because they carry ugly candy, the kind nobody in their right mind wants to eat, like those puffy orange peanut-shaped things.

“Probably not. Plus it tastes gross.”

The wolf sighed a snotty, fleghm-filled sigh, and stood back up on its haunches. Until that day, Adele hadn’t known what haunches were; now she did.

“Just as well.  What did you say your ndame was?”

“I didn’t,” Adele admitted. “But my name is Adele.” She attempted a curtsy like her southern friend, Christine McPearson, had taught her last year. Again, the high tops. But the wolf seemed to approve.

“That’s mbuch better, young lady,” the shewolf said. “My name is Raaahhhflooooommeeeiiiiioooggrrrhhhhh. Bud you can call bme ‘Rahhh,” for short if you like.”

 “Very pleased to meet you, Rahhh.”

“Very pleased to bmeet you as well, mby dear.” The wolf sat back onto her haunches and rubbed at her nose with her front right paw. “Now what is a tasty-looking little pup like you doing alode and wandering in the Early Realmb?”

Adele looked at the ground. So that was the name of this place, the “Early Realm.” Just like the map said. Well, it was now or never. Guessing that if the wolf was going to eat her—let’s face it, if any of us were in Adele’s situation, we would have guessed this—it would have done so already, she pulled out the map and began unfolding it. Nobody gets human-sized-portion hungry with a cold.

“See, I found this old map,” she began.

“Oh ndo,” Rahh interupted. “Ndot again!”

#

The cave where Rahh lived was really very picturesque; ferns crept shyly up the embankments to each side of the entrance, and the inside was smooth-floored and very tidy—Rahhh was a very good housekeeper, you see. There was a low wooden table with six low stools, a basin for washing, a guest bedroom and a master, and the pups slept in the very furthest reaches in their own nursery with pretty wooden cribs.  Adele played “beast and huntsman” with the little pups.  It seemed a lot like cops and robbers to her but with wrestling and teeth; they rolled around with each other in a jumble of sneakers and fur and squeals while Rahhh and her “ndosy” aunt Barrrooooi held a hushed conference at the mouth of the cave.

“So,” Barrroooi stated in a quiet whisper, curling her red tail so hard it touched her back (this was a sign she was about to nose up into somebody else’s business), “the map has been found.”

“It would apbear that way, yes.”

Barrroooi jabbed her long red fox snout towards the play session.

“She is very young; she will need help. Does she know the way?”

Rahhh remained silent, watching the four play happily. You've never really played happily until you get to do it with wolf pups; its a whole other matter of happiness and playing entirely.

“Does she know what the map is, what it does?”

Silence.

“Does she know anything about Promethia at all?” At the resounding lack of response, Barrrooi snapped her snout a couple of times, and her tail coiled even tighter. “Forget it. I’ll take care of this.” And she sashayed over to Adele, flicking her curly tail this way and that.

“Mraa, mraa, mraaa, I’ll take care of dis, mraa mraa mraaa,” Rahhh mumbled. She really hated being sick and having to put up with her nosy aunt all at time.

“You there. Ugly girl,” Barrrooi said to the rolling pile of fur and sneakers. The playing stopped for a moment; paws were untangled.

“Adele, thank you.”  Her lumpy face was sweaty and a shiny red from playing with the wolf pups. One of them chomped her shoestring while nobody was paying attention.

“Oh. Very pleased to meet you, Adele” Barrroooi’s tail went coil flick, coil flick, coil flick.

“And you.” Playing commenced once more. Two of the pups and Adele pounced on the pup nibbling the shoestring.

“How old are you?” Her tone was very suspicious.  Adele disengaged from the pups, stood, and straightened herself nice and tall, as tall as an unformed and uniformly ugly girl can stand. And when you stand like that, it doesn’t matter how ugly you are, because everybody can tell you are noble. Remember that.

“Eight.” Adele’s tone was equally suspicious.

“Where’d you get this map?” The dark eyes peered into Adele’s face  in the way that only the very nosy can do—it borders on creepy, even.

“I found it.” This time, Adele’s voice far surpassed Barrroooi’s in regards to suspicion.  

“Yes—but where?”

“On my pillow.”

“Do you know what it is?” This came out quick,  Baroooi’s snout snapping the words out almost before the word “pillow” was finished floating through the air.

“It’s a map.”   

The eldest, biggest pup tittered. He had a very highly developed sense of humor for his age.

“Don’t get smart with me, young lady!”  Barrroooi put on a stern face, looking down her long snout at Adele, as if a fox could in fact look down to something a good two foot taller than itself.  The eldest pup quickly busied itself with its paws, lest he get stern-talked too. Mother didn’t like it when he was rude.

“Don’t ask stupid questions, then.” Boy oh boy, Rahhh had been right, Barrroooi was nosy.

Rahhh tried not to laugh.

“Fair enough.” Looking at Rahhh, Barrroooi moved back towards the opening of the cave, indicating with her tail that Adele should follow.  “Do you know what this map does?”

“Well, I know it zaps people just for minding their own business,” Adele stated with a huff as she followed Barrroooi.   “Just because they try to move something off their pillow to go to sleep! And when it zaps them they end up in the middle of some crazy weird place with talking animals. And I know that I’m supposed to go to Promethia; the map told me so.”

“It told you?

“Yup. That’s what I said.”

Rahhh and Barrroooi exchanged low looks as Adele sat onto a stool.

“How?”  Barrroooi asked this without looking away from Rahhh.

“I don’t know…The words kind of just…sparkled… across the page.”

The two animals sighed—but they were not sighs of relief.

“And Adele, how long have you been in this realm?”

“How long are you going to be asking me questions? Just curious.”

“Listen here, ugly-girl—”

“Adele!”

“Listen here, Adele: I’m trying to help you! You have no idea what danger you have exposed us all to!”

“Maybe I don’t want your help. I didn’t ask you for your help, I know that!” Adele jumped up and stamped her foot.

“Well, I never!”

“I bet that’s true,” Adele agreed, now with a left foot stamp. “Rahhh’s right; you are nosy! A big, fat, nosy beast!”

“Fat?” The fox glanced down at her coat in horror. “You think this fur makes me look fat?”

“Did you really just ask me that?” Honestly, grownups! Here the fox had been going on about danger and helping, and then becomes completely preoccupied with how many custards she’d eaten at the equinox get-together she’d had last spring!  You could see it plain as day across her face as she inspected her coat.

Again, Rahhh’s whiskers twitched as she tried not to laugh; it was as though she’d known exactly what both of the other two were thinking.

“Forget it. If you don’t want my help, that’s fine. But Rahhh can’t help you; she’s got to look after the pups. And we can’t leave this journey entirely up to you; you’ve no idea what you will face! It is a long way, fraught with peril—”

“Fraught with peril?

“Dooooom! Dooooom!” Her fox voice howled out the cave opening. Adele blinked. “ Now stop interrupting!”

“Yes maam.”

“Doom,” she repeated once more, for effect. It worked. Even the pups shivered.  “ For if you do not return the map to the Necromancer who made it and bestowed  it with powers of magic beyond all reckoning, both your realm and this will be twisted and deformed into all that is unwholesome and unnatural and evil. Life there will make the Land of Pain and Despair seem like a cake walk.  But to go near the Necromancer almost ensures your death; it’s the only way. No,” she said firmly, “you cannot go alone.” Her mouth snapped shut.

Not A New Beginning

*This week's prompt for The Chrysalis Experiment was "I think you're my new favorite puzzle." Contains mild swearing. Can't decide on a proper title (which is usually a sign I've got a holey story, lol). But...

Without furthur ado:

Not A New Beginning

Iris knew as soon as she saw the Thursday paper chucked against the screen door that it was going to be another bad day. She stood there for a moment in the silence, door open, red-and-brown flannel nightgown flapping against her knees in the early dawn wind, and looked up and down the street. All the cars were in their garages, all the curtains closed,  even all the gardeners were asleep still, dreaming of digging beds under the sycamores to stash their rows of impatients. For a moment she considered hopping in the truck and driving all around town, plucking people’s papers right of their front porches, but there wasn’t no sense fighting something like this. So she went back inside, to her puzzle and her grapefruit and coffee — her “old geezer” breakfast that Annie teased her about so much.  Iris preferred to think of it as sensible. She locked the door behind her.

The paper’s headline — “Local hero discovers wife is mother” — made the acid of her coffee rumble in her stomach. She didn't read it; didn't need to. Instead, Iris found the puzzle piece she’d been looking for, and slipped it into the gap that showed the oak of the kitchen table. It was so quiet; almost the good kind of quiet rather than the bad. But that wouldn't last. Sooner or later Annie would show back up, dark hair frizzed with humidity, eyes wild, all sunburned and looking like a prophet or a bum, and then she’d start in on “what they was gonna do about it.” You could put money on it.

The sound of truck doors slamming in the drive, and whispers, arguing voices. Iris sighed. Right on cue.

“Iris, open up,” Shawn called through the door. So it was all three of them then, she saw as she came to the foyer, Shawn towering on one side of Annie, his fist wrapped around her arm all firm and white knuckled, Zack struggling on Annie's other arm.  As soon as they came in, Shawn done chucked Annie loose, almost knocking both her and Zack to the floor.  Annie flopped on the couch. The house filled with sounds.

Wild Henriette

*Week sixteen, yowser! This piece is kind of meandering; it isn't where I want it to be yet but perhaps that's not something I should wish upon a poor, helpless little story. We shall see...

Prompt: "Women are like a different species or something."

Happy Earth Day, everyone. Go planting or digging!

Wild Henriette

Even when Henriette was a little girl, she had this thick and earthy strength about her which bordered on the unnatural.  Everything about Henriette was like this;  she ran harder, yelled louder, lasted longer, grew taller, played wilder, ate more, spilled more, laughed more, broke more, did more than any other little girl ever, real or imagined. She became a danger to have in the house. Bull in a china closet, the adults would say amongst themselves when the dire prospect of a sleepover presented itself. These were the same type of adults who said things like what doesn’t kill makes you stronger,  and strong paths, strong shoes, as if they had any idea of the truth of the matter. This last one was especially hard for Henriette to understand. Her hands and feet looked suspiciously like shovels, and shoes never seemed to last on her. But her life was always full of friends and of fun, so she paid very little heed to the mutterings. 

 Big and bold as she was, Henriette favored being out of doors amongst things growing as fiercely as she. Picnics, tree-house building, camping — you name it — Henriette was Johnny on the Spot.  On camping trips, for instance, she was often named the Firewood Fetcher (in part because it was too perilous to leave her near an open flame), and she was swift and sure about it.  One late afternoon, Mrs. M., the mother of Henriette’s dainty friend Joanna Mason, sent Henriette to go looking for firewood about as big as her arm.

“Sure thing, Mrs. M,”  Henriette had said, bellowing. And she disappeared into the forest, the smaller plants positively jumping out of her way as she struck off into the wild. The day leaned into dusk, and dusk leaned into night. Mrs. M. began to fret. She knew Henriette to be nigh indestructible, but one usually worries about an eleven year old girl in a strange forest under nightfall, if only as a matter of propriety. Then, presently and from a distance, strange crashing sounds reached the ears of the small huddle of girls around their teeny little fire. The crashing was growing closer and closer to the camp.

 “That’ll be Henriette,” Mrs. M. said, letting relief flood her voice. The girls shifted on their campfire logs. Not two moments later and Henriette stood before them, her dark hair sweaty and stuck to her freckly face as she dragged herself and her quarry up to the fire pit.