The last two weeks have been exciting indeed (many, MANY lovely occurrences, such as meeting up with Squeaky, her hubby and Talulah, as well as finding a shiny new apartment to move into with teh Wereboy) and I haven’t had a world of time in which to write, but Aisling Weaver’s Weekend Writer challenge helped, once again.

This week I have another short story to offer, although I’m not convinced that it isn’t the start of something longer. AND I had tremendous fun/trouble fitting the images in … some of the links are quite tenuous. Some of them are laughable.

Either way, you should be warned that it is about naked alien boys and the nice girls who go looking for them.

Here’s the prompt …

… and here’s what I wrote!

Earthbound

I looked down into the clear waters of the fountain and saw, in the reflected sky between the lilypads, something falling towards the earth.

I turned around to look, and saw that the falling thing was a boy who was descending gently, feet pointing towards the ground. It was as if an invisible parachute suspended him, slowly dropping him through the sky.

I felt a prickle of fear and excitement as I watched, but at the same time I was rooted to the spot. If I moved even an inch, everything in front of might begin to make sense again.

The boy in the sky was falling towards the earth. It couldn’t be real … but it was.

He’s not falling, I thought. He’s just following the most natural path through curved space.

I learned that from a TV program about the universe. Objects like the earth, or the sun, distorted space around them. Anything that moved towards those objects would naturally follow the curve of that space; everything reacting to everything else.

I turned back towards the house, wondering if anyone else had noticed the falling boy. But the house was big and at the moment, almost completely empty. No faces peered, incredulous, from the windows. No one had seen.

Mum and dad were on holiday for three weeks in the Maldives, which meant that I was the sole permanent occupant until their return. I’d already read all my books, listened to my iPod while I explored the old, dusty house, and watched all the DVDs I’d brought with me. The library was the one place I hadn’t explored, because it was off limits. Dad’s collection of antique volumes and first editions was too valuable to touch. The house staff were friendly enough, but they were usually too busy to talk to me. On the occasions where I tried to lend a hand, I mostly ended up getting in the way.

I spent a lot of time each day wondering whether to just call one of my friends from school and invite them to stay for a week. My parents didn’t have to know. The problem was that the house was a million miles from anywhere, and I didn’t have a car. My options were limited.

There was too much space in the house for me to occupy. And every day it seemed to grow bigger.

Space itself is expanding, the professor on the television had said.

The world was a tiny mote in the vastness of the universe, and what if there was nothing else, no other planets with intelligent life forms? There had to be. Otherwise, it would be like the house and me, but on a much, much bigger scale. Me, the sole occupant of this cavernous place, like the world hanging lonely in the sky with the stars moving ever further away.

Loneliness was reserved not just for humanity, but the universe as well.

Even so, I’d seen a boy fall from the sky. I decided to go and find him.

The gardens were sprawling and wild, and it took me five minutes to walk to the edge. The northern boundary was made of water, that most ancient and impassable of elements. The Ring Wraiths had fallen at the Ford of Bruinen; vampires and evil spirits could not cross running water. I mentally went through all the books I’d read where running water is invoked in that way. The list was long.

Luckily, this boundary was not impassable. A small stone bridge, gated and padlocked at my end, spanned the stream and plunged into the field of wild grass that lay on the other side. I climbed the gate and crossed the bridge, and felt instantly lighter. It was like shaking off the shabby clothes of winter and stepping into summer: the house was behind me and the world stretched ahead.

I scanned the field and saw something white lying in the grass near the old oak. As I walked towards it I recognised the shape of a boy, long legs spread out in the grass, arms askew and –

No clothing. None. Not a stitch. I gasped, turned and covered my eyes. Then turned back, took a peek, and turned again. He was really, definitely naked.

He could also be seriously injured, I reasoned. Moving closer, I made myself look at the back of his head, then the skin around his temples and his jaw and neck. My eyes strayed over the rest of his body and I felt hot and embarrassed, but not in an entirely unpleasant way.

At least he didn’t look hurt. It was as if he really had fallen as smoothly and lightly as a feather … or as if he hadn’t fallen at all. Somehow he’d swum through curved space and landed in this field. I knelt in the grass next to his head and looked up into the sky, which was cloudless and perfectly blue. Then at the boy again; having made myself look, I couldn’t look away for long. He had short, white-gold hair and pale skin, but his eyebrows were light brown. His nose was a classical Greek, straight line. He was as beautiful as a vampire, as a boy-siren.

He opened two perfectly blue eyes and looked up at me. He caught me looking, I thought, and blushed yet again.

“Susa kuk-kuk a lai?” he said. I blinked.

“What?”

“Susa kuk haja?”

“Um, I don’t understand – English?”

His eyes closed and his whole body went rigid for a few seconds. “Sorry,” he said, as his body relaxed again. “It takes a few minutes to adapt … I don’t have much control.”

“To adapt to English?” I asked, incredulous, but he didn’t seem to hear. He lay still for a few minutes, eyes closed, breathing heavily. What if he was concussed? I should have been thinking about how to get him back to the house so I could call a doctor, not gaping at his naked body.

He opened his eyes. “I’m okay,” he said. His voice was croaky, a voice that hadn’t been used for a while. He coughed and cleared his throat, then tried to sit upright. He ended up propped on one elbow with his eyes screwed up tight, as if the movement had caused him pain. “Who are you?”

“Natalie,” I said. “What’s your name?”

He gingerly opened his eyes, and blinked several times. “I don’t have a name. Or if I did, I don’t remember it now.”

“No name. That’s strange. Where did you come from?”

He didn’t answer me. He simply looked up, his eyes two mirrors of the sky. I looked up with him, and thought about space expanding and galaxies moving further and further apart all the time. The sky was like a protective blue blanket, but at night time it disappeared and revealed the naked space behind everything, around everything. I was nothing but a speck on a rock that hung suspended in total blackness.

But here was a boy who had fallen through space towards earth … towards my house. How long had he been falling for?

“I don’t know if I can walk,” he said. “I’m not used to … this. Gravity is different here.” His eyes widened and he stared at me, as if he’d just realised that he’d spoken out loud.

I smiled. “You’ve come a long way?”

“You’re not supposed to know that,” he said, searching me with his eyes.

“You didn’t exactly cover it up very well,” I said, grinning. “What with arriving here naked, and not speaking any English, and then suddenly learning it in a few seconds.”

He looked frantic, then slightly puzzled, then his face relaxed. “You feel … okay. I feel like I can trust you.”

“Are you reading my mind?” I asked, slightly dazed.

“Yes and no,” he said, shaking his head distractedly. “I’m an exile. One of many. But … not all here.”

“You mean … not all on earth?”

“Yes. Our planet is … dying. The sun is expanding, burning everything. I’ve travelled many light years so by now … it’s probably already gone. All of my people left at once. We went in different directions. Some of us alone, some of us together. I was with a few others when I began but now …” He looked around, searching the sky. “I don’t know if they’ve arrived yet or … if they will, ever.”

“What do you mean, a few? Why not all of your people?”

“It was known that the death of our planet would mean the death of our race. The few of us who find habitable planets are expected to blend in with its races and become like them. Not to colonise or impose.”

“But … won’t you just die out as a race, that way?”

He shook his head. “It’s always been our way, to adapt to our habitat. We were tied to our world so completely, it was part of who we were. Without that, a part of me is missing. The only way I can hope to survive is to become something else.”

I was struck by how profound and beautiful that sounded. And at the same time I knew that I was fascinated because it was so perverse: a sentient, intelligent being whose completely natural desire was to fade away, to blend in and not to stamp, shout and fight against the thing that was forcing it to become extinct. So unlike everything human.

“So,” I began, uncertainty spiralling through me. “Is that why you look … human? To blend in?”

He nodded.

“How long have you been travelling for?”

“I don’t remember … too long.” He looked for a second like he might pass out again.

“Here,” I said, reaching under his shoulders to support him. He muttered something in protest, but I ignored it. “Come with me.”

Practicality took over as I put myself to the task of helping him. First, getting him off the ground. His weight was unsteady as he tested his legs. Eventually we moved, with his arm around my shoulders and one of my arms around his waist. We were like tortoises, shuffling across the long grass towards the bridge.

“Where are we going?” he asked as we crossed it. I noticed his eyes widening as he looked at the water flowing underneath.

“To get you something to eat,” I said. “And to find you some clothes and a bed to sleep in. You look exhausted.”

“Sleep?”

“You did sleep, didn’t you? On your planet before you … left?”

“When you travel through space,” he said, “you begin to lose your mind. Sleep fades into waking, waking into sleep. It feels like it will never end. I began to wish I’d stayed on my planet … witnessed the explosion of the sun. Then, at least, my particles would have been unravelled … I would be the stuff of new stars.”

I smiled at him. “You have no idea how much I think about that kind of thing. Like, all the time.”

Something in him seemed to lighten, and he returned the smile. We stumped towards the house together and I wondered how this was going to work; how I would smuggle him – naked as he was – past the staff without being seen, and how I would tell my parents that we had acquired a stray boy from the sky, and whether they would care at all.

As I half carried, half dragged him around the side of the house to the greenhouses and the slightly shabby back entrance, I remembered that he had no name.

“I’m going to call you Swift,” I murmured, quietly enough so that he might not hear.

“Why?”

I took a moment before answering. “Because Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels, about a man who travels the world. And because swifts spend most of their lives in the sky, on the wing.”

And, I added privately, because Swift seemed like a good enough name for a strange boy who’d travelled through space to survive.

“You can’t live in this world without a name,” I said. “It’s who you are, it tells people that you belong, that you have a right to exist.”

I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he hesitated, finding his way around that concept. “Swift,” he said, and then said it again. “Hi, my name is Swift.”

I shrugged with my free shoulder. “Or we can call you Jonathan, whichever you prefer.”

He shook his head. “I like Swift.”

We looked up at the expanse of stonework and plaster in front of us.

“Welcome to my house,” I said. “It’s big, but you’ll get used to it.”

This is what she said:

“Every week I will roll the dice. They will be posted Friday at midnight(EST). I invite all writers, no matter your genre or your style, to try your hand at this challenge. Short, long, prose, poetry, I welcome all!

Your challenge…to write a piece that encompasses the nine elements shown on the dice. Once completed, add your link below and crow your success on twitter under the hashtag #WeekendWriter! If you don’t have a blog to post to, please post it in the comments!”

It is completely ingenious, and I couldn’t wait to try it.

Here are the dice from Aisling’s blog for this week’s challenge:

… and below you can read what I came up with. I couldn’t believe how quickly the images started to trigger new ideas. I also loved reading entries from last week’s #WeekendWriter, all of them completely unique. It just goes to show the real significance of the writer’s mantra: “write what you know”.

There are many themes in life, in writing, in art, and everyone will interpret them in their own completely unique way.

The Mystery of N

“Open your eyes,” Dawn said. “You have to look at this differently.”

How? I thought.

The map was abstract. It was drawn on a square piece of parchment, depicting a rugged, rocky island with a mountain right in the middle. It was just like a treasure map from a pirate legend.

An arrow drawn above the mountain showed north, but from there, all similarity to a normal, navigational map disappeared. The shape of the island was scrawled over with symbols, hieroglyphs and letters that had no meaning for me.

“I know you have the answer all figured out,” I growled, “so why don’t you just tell me?”

Dawn sighed and took the map from my hands. She pointed to the single word in the bottom-left corner of the map. Underbelly. “I don’t think this map is of a real island,” she said.

“Okay, I thought that too.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“Does it matter? You figured it out, didn’t you?”

She sighed again. “Okay. Well. Underbelly has to mean the underbelly of the museum – the crypts.”

“But the crypts are vast,” I said. “And there’s decades – centuries, perhaps – of stuff down there.”

“Exactly. This map will tell us what to look for in the crypts, where to find the next clue, perhaps. But we have to interpret it correctly.”

“Otherwise it’s just plain misdirection?”

She nodded. “Exactly, Alex.” She gestured in a circle over the map. “Everything here is symbolic. The island, the mountain … everything. Most of it probably doesn’t mean anything, to us anyway. It’s probably designed to give the right clue to the people who are clever enough to find it, and throw some of the others off the scent at the same time.”

“Okay. Is there something in the crypts that relates to … an island? Or a mountain?”

Dawn threw her hands askew in irritation. “No. Alex, that’s just stupid. Do you want to be one of those others who gets thrown off the scent right here? Because if you do, just keep on spewing that mundane, obvious crap. You don’t understand the significance here.”

I folded my arms and gave her what I hoped was my most piercing, steely glare. “I guess I don’t.”

I didn’t understand anything when Dawn was around. Not the way she spoke to me, like I was an unrepentantly idiotic child. Not the way she sometimes smiled at me, like the sun was shining out of my eyes, and then glared at me in the next instant when I said something that irritated her.

I didn’t understand Dawn, or any of this, full stop.

It all began at the Fishtank. That bar where all the research students converged after a hard afternoon’s work in the museum archives. At the bar, Dawn sidled up to me with an envelope in one hand and a tray bearing two cocktails in the other. I’d forgotten she bartended here after the museum shifts.

“Won’t you get into trouble?” I asked when she slid onto the bar stool next to me and pushed one of the cocktails – both mojitos, I noticed – towards me.

She smiled a very cute smile at me. “No. The boss is cool with me taking ten minutes to do something important.”

I raised my eyebrows. “This is important, is it?”

She pushed the envelope towards me and sipped her drink. “Very important, by the looks of it.”

I hesitated a few seconds, and that’s when I saw her trademark scowl for the first time. “Go on. I don’t have all day.”

Inside the envelope was the map. The first map, anyway. That one was quite straightforward, at least for the two of us.

It turned out that all the young research students working in the archives had been put into pairs and set the same challenge. It was a race, actually. A treasure hunt.

Dawn and I had been partnered up, without having spoken more than five sentences to each other before.

We cracked the map in those ten minutes she had, and arranged to meet after her shift to go to where we thought it was leading us. I sat there in the bar for the rest of the evening, drinking too many mojitos and savouring the ripe, fiery excitement that was burning its way along my nerves and bones and veins and arteries, making my skin tingle.

It was the alcohol. It was Dawn actually talking to me, and the fact that I’d been partnered up with her. It was the challenge, and the thrill of wondering where we would end up. My student buddies in the bar with me all looked on edge, and were talking in smaller groups than usual. Most of them were in pairs, actually. There was none of the easy banter and laughter that usually went with our nights out.

Dawn and I found the next clue pretty easily. Some of the others had had a head start on us, but at that stage it didn’t matter. The first map was the opt-in. The next maps would be the ones that separated the mere spectators from the real players.

There had been two more after the first, after which the competitors were whittled down from twelve pairs to roughly six. I hadn’t asked anyone outright if they were in or not, but I’d marked everyone’s progress in this crazy race by their mood at work, their expressions and allegiances – some of which were straightforward, some which I really hadn’t seen coming.

I guess you could say that Dawn and me fitted into that second category. Dawn was sharp as a tac and stunningly beautiful. I was more your Average Joe and I might as well have had a gigantic L-plate plastered over my forehead in comparison with Dawn’s knowledge and experience, even though she was a full year younger than me.

That we’d been thrown together was hilarious, infuriating and gob-smackingly wonderful all at the same time.

And we’d come a long way. This map, this cryptic, ass-kicking map, was the win-or-lose. I’d already gone over it with a magnifying glass, hoping I’d missed something tiny that would stand out the minute I finally spotted it – like the man-in-the-coffee-beans picture. But Dawn had grabbed the glass out of my hand and nearly thrown it across the room when she saw me using it.

“Jesus, Alex! As if it would be that obvious!”

I slammed my hands down on the table and had to count to ten to avoid saying something unforgivable. “What do you want, Dawn?” I hissed through gritted teeth. “You obviously know the answer.”

She shook her head, almost looking sad. “Alex, we have to do this together. We were paired up for a reason.” She leaned towards me and looked into my eyes, which made me a rabbit in her headlights. “Look, I don’t know the answer either. But I’m sure you won’t find it in the small print.”

I grinned at her bad joke, and she eventually grinned back at me. Well, there were some perks to this game.

Now we sat, heads bent low over the map, and I thought maybe she was reconsidering the magnifying glass after all.

“Maybe it’s mathematical,” she mused. “Perhaps there’s an equation in here, somewhere.”

I looked at the arrow on the map, with N written over it. North. Both of us had agreed that all maps, however abstract, basically related to a geographical location – all of the others had, anyway – and therefore north would somehow be shown.

But what if N stood for something else? What if the arrow was misleading, like the rest of the map?

A torch suddenly flicked on in my brain, shone out through my eyes and illuminated the map in blinding clarity.

I sat up, rigid in my seat, and closed my eyes. When I opened them the light was still shining out, and N was still there, staring me in the face. Dawn was looking wide-eyed at me, like I might sprout wings and fly around the room any second.

“Alex?”

“Dawn. Tell me, what else does N stand for?”

“Um. Nowhere. No. November.” Then she must have had the same realisation as me because her eyes lit up with the same torchlight as mine, and she smiled a slow, stunning smile.

“Nitrogen?” she whispered.

“How about liquid nitrogen?”

“You think … under the museum … in the Underbelly …”

“The cryogenics lab, it has to be!”

“You think it’s real? There are rumours, sure, but …”

“Not just rumours. It’s the urban legend around here. And all stories start somewhere. I’d bet both our lives on this.”

She gave me a grim look. “Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that. This game is getting out of hand.”

“Let’s go there now,” I said. “There’s no time to lose.”

“Okay, but first –” In two seconds she’d pulled me to my feet and yanked me forwards into a crushing kiss, which left me gasping. She looked up at me with those wide blue eyes and her mouth was red from the kiss. “Whatever we’re getting ourselves into here, I’m glad we’re doing it together. I mean that.”

“Me too,” I said. Dawn could be a pain in the ass, but she was also brave, and gorgeous, and on my side – to the end, wherever that would be.

And maybe – if we didn’t get ourselves cryogenically frozen and packed in ice for a few decades – I’d get to kiss her again sometime.

There’s a gnarled old tree, the home of an ancient spirit, encircled by snowdrops.

There’s a house draped in ivy, long abandoned by people …

… but a tree has wandered inside and made itself at home.

What else lives here?

In this wild place where time sits heavy, growing weary, at times stopping altogether, there is magic in the trees.

This post is dedicated to my sister Rachel – visit her at gullsofbrighton – who knows this place better than I, and has shared its magic with me.

(She is, in fact, a fey spirit who can sometimes be seen sitting in the tree inside the house.)

I read a lot of books, but I am incredibly bad at writing them all down. It sounds silly, because surely it can’t be that hard to remember to write down their names?

It isn’t that hard, so I’ve started making more of an effort. In fact, I’ve noticed that a lot of my resolutions and goals for the year involve wasting less time – but more on that as the year goes by. For now, I’ll talk about the books.

I first came across the Moleskine book journal when I gave it as a Christmas present, and since then I’ve bought one for myself. I’ve so far used it to record:

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

(I’m now reading On Writing by Stephen King, and it’s just as entertaining as his novels, with the added bonus of conveying the writing habits and tips of one of the most successful authors of the 20^th Century.)

Each page in the journal has sections for the book’s author, their nationality, the book’s original language, publisher(s), year of first edition, and two larger sections for quotations and opinion. The star rating goes at the bottom of ‘opinion’. I’ve never been dedicated enough to give most books I read a proper review, but the book journal has helped a lot in distilling my thoughts.

It affects my reading, too. Each time I read something quoteworthy a mental trigger goes off. “I must remember that and put it in the quotes,” I think, which is the sort of thought that I wish I didn’t have. I have a good memory for trivia, but being a person who quotes often and eloquently is not in my nature. In fact, I find such gifted individuals frustrating because how can you really enjoy something if you’re constantly on the lookout for good quotes, or the need to show them off to people?

The quotations section has, though, become my favourite part of the journal. Probably because when I read To Kill a Mockingbird – this year being the first time I’ve ever read it, unlike thousands of people who were forced to read it at school – I encountered some of the most profound and moving prose I’ve ever read. I also fell in love with the characters, especially Scout and Atticus.

Here’s what I wrote in the quotation section in my entry for Mockingbird:

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (Atticus, pg. 33)

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.” (Atticus, pg. 124)

There were many passages in the book that made an impression on me, but it would have been greedy to have gone back and meticulously excised each one of them until I had a neat collection. Novels are meant to be enjoyed as a whole, aren’t they?

Keeping those kind of quotations close, easy to find and all in one place feels kind of like hoarding treasure. Literature is full of such treasures. I mostly read good, entertaining, hugely enjoyable books by authors who know how to convey some of the deepest experiences of being human. I say ‘mostly read’, because I don’t love every single book I read. But there are still things – lessons, unique moments, pages where sunlight breaks through the cloud – in those books that are worth writing down somewhere.

There should be more cloudscapes like this one, I think …

I took this picture a few weeks ago. It’s the view from my back window – well, specifically, I glimpsed it from my back window and then legged it outside to take as many pictures as I could before the view changed too much.

That’s the moon rising through the clouds, not the sun setting. At first I wrote this without thinking, calling the view a ‘sunset’. But of course, it isn’t. It’s the setting sun illuminating the clouds in the east.

My dad took his camera outside too, but spent so long playing around with the exposure and flash settings that he didn’t win on the overall quality-picture count. I felt a little proud of myself (or, dare I say it, smug), since I have an aesthetically pleasing but fairly basic-by-digital-camera-standards point ‘n’ click job.

Anyway, I’m going to let this photo speak for itself. To whoever may be out there reading this: enjoy your sunsets and your beautiful views. Don’t be ashamed of staring dreamily at the scenery outside, or the clouds, or the way the sun shines through the trees.

A sense of wonder at nature is a good thing. My inner child is kept alive by views like the one above.

And if you gaze at the scenery for long enough, you might be inspired to create something, too.

A few days ago, I started doing something I hadn’t done for years, not since I was a carefree 17-year-old writing Tolkien-derivative short stories …

I started making a Fantasy Map™ and boy, did I enjoy it.

There is some background to this. About a week ago I started thinking about my WIP again. The WIP has been in my head for over a year now and it’s already changed forms several times. Soon after getting back from Portugal last year I got the initial idea that set it all off. Then, as charted in this blog, I started writing it in September. Months went by, I got somewhere around the 60-90,000 word mark when I realised that the story was changing again.

It was almost like the story had its own ideas about how it wanted to be told. I blogged about it again and thought (hah!) that I was actually getting towards the end of my first draft.

How very wrong I was.

I wrote more, and more, and more. I got frustrated, was ready (again) to chuck it all away. So I left it, and let it rest. It rested, in the end, for months. Back in May I chucked down some ideas in note form about about how I could rewrite the story, because it was becoming apparent that in its current form, I would never be able to write anything resembling a coherent ending for it.

Now, those ideas have spent long enough brewing in my head that I’m ready to exorcise them and commit them to paper. I have a plan, people. A plan. Complete with – and this is the best part – an ending.

And now, the WIP has its very own Fantasy Map™. So it should all be easy from here, right?!

Well, no. Yesterday, while poring over the map in its rough form, I got a completely different idea for another story set in the same world, which is shaping up to look suspiciously like a prequel. Which ISN’T HELPFUL AT ALL. But it’s kind of cool though.

So, let the fun begin. The WIP will be reborn and in the meantime, let’s see where this other-story-that-could-be-a-prequel takes me …

Oh my, is this a blurry, out-of-focus teaser image? I think so!

When I say ‘new project’, I mean pretty much exactly that. Right now I have a few ideas, a few characters, and a vague sense of plot and direction. All I knew when I started writing it was that I liked the idea of this halfway house between heaven (if there is a real heaven in this story; I don’t know yet) and earth, and the idea that there are many ways of falling.

Josef, one of the characters in this short prologue, believes that goodness is not determined by how far Below you go. Maybe that’s the essential idea that I’m intrigued by. The idea that’s going to make me write and plot and develop.

I didn’t spent much time editing or polishing this piece of writing. It’s just a something at this stage. But maybe it will turn out to be a decent something, eventually.

Halfway House

It sat above the earth and below heaven. Its walls hid labyrinthine passages and portals, secrets and angels. Angels that stopped here for a day at a time, or a week, or an undefined stretch of time. Time had little meaning here, but it had meaning in the places the angels were travelling to or from.

It could look different, depending on who you were – friend or foe, or something in between. As the Nowhere fog cleared in front of Ethan he saw a flight of marble steps leading up to a set of oaken double doors, massive and thick. Ethan remembered their soundless opening and closing, their noiseless hinges. The steps, the marble columns and the door, they were all the same as before. But the shadows around them were deeper.

Ethan felt very far from safe as he carried his burden to the top of the stairs. The oak doors parted silently and his feeling of dread increased. The hallway beyond was dark and desolate, shadows crowding around unlit lamps. It was as if the house was deserted. He shook off the feeling, annoyed. He had allowed himself to become afraid. It was a symptom of being Below, where the baseness of the world spread its corruption.

Ethan took deep breaths, searching for the calm centre of his mind. The feeling that he was being watched was stubborn, refusing to be pushed aside. He knew there were eyes on him. Eyes that watched from the other rooms, eyes that could pierce the darkness and the material of the house itself. He imagined the guards with their vast wings beating, bearing down on him with lightning flashing from their eyes. But if the Guardian wished him dead it would have happened already.

Once again he searched, pulling at the strands of peace that were always in his mind. Angels were peaceful. They were protectors, defenders, guardians. They believed in truth, then understanding and then, only when truth was understood, might they take action.

Ethan walked down the hallway towards the audience chamber. The thing that he carried looked like nothing but a bundle of rags and filth, but Ethan could see the white hand that rested against his arm. It felt warm, otherwise he would have guessed her dead already.

At the end of the hallway stood an angel. He was the brightest thing that Ethan had seen for days, maybe months. In his glow, no lamplight was needed. He was light itself.

“Hello Ethan. What have you got there?”

Josef was a tall, gentle angel with wise eyes and elegantly narrow wings. They were still and silent against his back as he approached Ethan. He had never gone lower than the Halfway House, and so his body bore more resemblance to the shining, translucent forms of the ones Above than to the solid flesh forms of the mediators and the messengers. Ethan sighed. Once, when he was young, he had been as untainted as Josef. His travels Below had imposed a heaviness on him that constricted everything else. His wings had grown muscular and thick in compensation for the weight of his new form. It was disgusting.

“Has it really been so long?” he said, his eyes still fixed on Josef. “When I left, I had wings like yours.”

Josef’s expression was pure compassion. “You have suffered for your cause. You look … different. But your purity remains. I can see it inside you still.”

“I left here to find something, Josef. I found it Below.” Ethan clung to Josef’s kindness. It was divine. So different from the emotions he had seen and experienced Below. He felt a sudden urge to confess everything, lie down at Josef’s feet and let the angel heal him.

Josef’s eyes went wide. “Below, you say. How far Below?”

Ethan’s voice shook as he fought back the images and recollections that assaulted him. His angel’s peace seemed further from him than ever. “The deeper Below, Josef. The other world. You know, Below. Where we cannot see.”

“The dark stronghold?”

Ethan took a deep breath and felt his body tense involuntarily in preparation for the inevitable retribution. “Yes. Josef, you don’t know, you couldn’t understand … what I saw there. It was terrible. I am a different angel. It has tainted me.”

Josef smiled again. “But you willingly went there?”

Ethan looked at the bundle in his arms. “I had to. She’s my sister.” His voice rose above a whisper as he crooned the familiar word. “I thought I’d never find her.”

“Then you are not tainted. Flesh and body is one thing, your soul is quite another.” He reached out a hand and touched Ethan’s shoulder. Ethan felt warmth spread through his body, and calm settled over him, elusive in his own mind but radiating from Josef like sunlight.

“I know she is beyond redemption. But I had hoped …”

“The Guardian will decide, Ethan. You have done your part. There may be something we can do …” Josef’s voice turned wistful. “May I look at her?”

Ethan was perfectly still as Josef lifted up one of the rags. The face beneath it was bruised and battered, eyes swollen shut and skin scraped and caked with dried blood.

Josef inhaled sharply. “Who did this?”

“The ones Below. Her own people, essentially. Her wings are … ruined. I don’t know if they’ll grow back properly.”

“What did she do to make them do this?”

“I don’t really know, except that she seems to have turned against them. She stole something from the King, although I haven’t been able to find out what, or where she hid it.”

“If she turned against them, then to whom does she belong now?”

Ethan took a deep breath. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

As if Ethan’s words had unlocked them, the doors behind Josef swung open.

“I think the Guardian will see you and hear your story,” he said, stepping aside. “Good luck to you both. I hope this isn’t the last time I’ll see you.”

“Thanks,” Ethan said. “I hope the same.”

He stood for a few seconds, collecting and hoarding the peace and calm that came from Josef’s presence. Then he stepped forwards into the shadows of the audience chamber to be heard and judged.

I started my new job at Waitrose, quickly took on lots of overtime and spent my hours at home watching Bad TV instead of writing much. Bad TV is only enjoyable for so long before you start to crave something richer. Books, then, have also been filling my time, and Better TV. I’m currently reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which is enjoyably dark and subtle so far.

I’ve also been reading (although I’m yet to finish) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which has further opened my eyes to the possibilities of magical-realism and omniscient voice (which you can also find in the wonderful One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez).

I’m still toiling away at the WIP-novel, which is trickling along merrily, if slowly. I’m thankful for the fact that I seem to still be writing something, instead of nothing. A couple of years ago I might have abandoned writing completely, for several long months, after starting a new job. So I think I can say that although I’m nowhere near perfection just yet, I’m a better writer than I was back then.

I have a lot of people to thank, actually, for keeping me on the writerly straight-and-narrow. Twitter has been the safety net which has prevented me from falling off the edge of the communicating world completely, and I must give thanks to @squeakattack, @jenku70 and @atrinza in particular.

Your encouragement and wisdom has been of invaluable help, guys.

Now, in penance for neglecting you all, I offer up this short story for your entertainment …

Portrait of Lord Otto as a Young Man

“You may find this wine rather potent, Sarah. But it’s my birthday, and that calls for a special vintage.”

Lord Otto unstopped the crystal decanter and poured dark red wine into a slender cut-glass flute, which looked as if it were meant for champagne. Sarah didn’t say anything. Young lords were allowed to have eccentricities. Rich young lords, especially.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said, taking the glass and holding it carefully. Otto poured himself a glass and held it up to the light, turning it this way and that.

“Your health, Sarah,” Otto said, and took a delicate sip. Young, rich, and rather beautiful, Sarah thought. His nose was perfect and his mouth refined and sensitive.

Sarah took a sip from her own glass and her eyes widened. She hadn’t been expecting the sudden, dizzying heat of the wine. She had to set the glass down.

Otto watched her with a gratified smile. “It’s good, isn’t it?” he said, his voice soft like velvet.

Sarah cleared her throat and looked around the room, trying to think of something to say. She smoothed her skirt unnecessarily. It was mottled with mud at the bottom, she noticed. Laura had sold the carriage a month ago, so she’d had to walk through the dirty streets.

Otto leaned forward in his seat and smiled guilelessly. “You are very beautiful, Sarah. I am fond of beautiful women.”

She felt herself blush. “Thank you, my lord.” Thank you, my lord. Wasn’t that what she had said a few seconds ago? Was she some stupid parrot? Laura would laugh at her scornfully. Or perhaps she would slap her.

Sarah stayed quiet after that. Otto watched her. His eyes never left her. She fought the urge to fidget or touch her hair. He never even lowered his eyes past her collarbone. It was strange.

Then again, perhaps he was too much of a gentleman to stare openly at her figure. The thought comforted Sarah, until another idea popped into her head. Perhaps he was clever enough to keep his fantasies to himself. Perhaps he would be controlled up until the last second. Perhaps he would be rough with her …

Laura frequently scolded Sarah for indulging in flights of fancy. She said it made her look stupid and unattractive, the way she stared at nothing in particular when she was deep in thought. Sarah pulled her shoulders up, stuck out her chest and smiled at Otto in what she hoped was an alluring manner.

“Would you like to see my galleries?” Otto asked.

“But of course, my lord. How enchanting.” She took the arm Otto offered her and rose from her seat, feeling a little unsteady. It was the wine. She hadn’t had wine in a long time.

As she walked next to Otto through the halls of his mansion, she wondered how it would happen. Would he force her against the wall in the gallery and push up her skirts? Or would he take her to one of his private rooms? Would he want her facing him, when he did it? Laura had not told her very much about Otto, only that he was very rich and she should try to please him. If she pleased him, he would pay her more money. And he might invite her back again.

Otto’s galleries were full of beautiful paintings. Some dominated whole walls, others were small, sober portraits. Sarah could see that although different artists had painted them, the subject matter was uniform: Otto’s dark eyes stared from every frame.

Well, such a handsome and rich young man could afford to be vain.

“Perhaps you are wondering, Sarah, about my collection.”

“It’s magnificent.”

“But unusual, yes?”

Sarah nodded, and forced a smile.

Otto leaned forward and softly stroked Sarah’s hair. Laura had brushed it for her until it was smooth blond satin. Sarah felt the heat of the wine return as he pushed her gently against the wall. His lips went to hers lightly, briefly, like a moth’s wing.

“Every year I commemorate my birthday in two ways,” he whispered in her ear. His breath was warm and tickled her skin; her heart fluttered. “I commission a new portrait for my gallery.”

“But there are so many paintings here,” Sarah said uncertainly. “You must be much older than you look.”

“Yes,” Otto said. She shivered as his fingernails brushed against her neck. “Much, much older.”

“And the second way you commemorate your birthday, my lord? What is that?”

Otto’s answer was an exquisite touch on her neck, a hand on her waist. Sarah gave a soft cry. He was gentle with her, as he was with every woman whom he brought to his galleries. He held her until she was limp in his arms, until her eyes closed.

Laura came after dark. Lord Otto received her with courtesy and bid her sit in the chair where, hours earlier, her sister had sat, drinking wine from a slender crystal flute.

Otto’s dark eyes were full of concern as she asked if he knew Sarah’s whereabouts.

“Your sister was very charming, very charming indeed,” he said with a little moue of contentment. “But I’m afraid I haven’t seen her since she left.” He paused a moment in thought. “It was late afternoon. I offered her a carriage and chauffeur, but she preferred to walk. She talked of going to the market.”

“Oh,” Laura said forlornly. “Well, in that case, I’m sorry to have disturbed your evening.”

“Not at all,” Lord Otto said, smiling guilelessly at her. Then he leaned forwards in his seat. “The company of a beautiful woman is no disturbance at all.” He gestured towards the crystal decanter. “May I offer you a drink?”

————————————————————————-

© Rosanna Silverlight 2010

Sunlight on the Snow

The snow falls every year, here in the north. Winter comes with a sombre promise to take and give nothing back. But we are stubborn people. We hold on to our homes, even when it costs us dear.

South of us the valleys stretch out, welcoming warmth, sheltering it in a cradle of trees and soft grasses. But we have the mountains and the spaces in between, the small cracks where we find what warmth we can.

In the summer the frozen rivers melt and flow again in the deep ravines. The water filters through the rocks until it’s pure and sparkling – the best water you ever tasted. It nourishes the roots of the trees, and the deer drink from the streams. We kill the deer, and the snow hares, and the mountain lions. We eat them and we take their pelts for warmth.

We survive in our mountain home.

Lydia watches for the first snow every year. She’s sun-haired, like me, and sun-eyed. Seven years old, a summer girl, who delights in the feel of sunlight on her skin. But like her brother before her she knows the time when the season will change, and she waits for the coming of winter.

I too can feel the change in the air, when it turns. I smell it in the air’s new sharpness, and I hear it in the fickle voice of the wind as it calls along the ridge. We hold on against the approach of winter, digging our fingers into the cracks in our ravines between the mountains.

In the morning, Lydia bursts through the door with the news. “Ma, it’s today! The first snow’s fallen!” Normally the first snow is fleeting, and the sky is light and pale in its wake. It doesn’t seem so long ago that I too found it beautiful, the way the sky mirrored the earth below, making the world completely white.

Lydia runs to me and presses her cold hands against my cheeks, laughing. I ruffle her hair and kiss her forehead. My summer girl. She has powdery snow melting in her hair and on her shoulders. She giggles as I brush her down.

“Have you been in a snowball fight already?”

“Hannah and Marta ambushed me as I was coming past the log pile. But then Benjamin helped me. He got snow all down their backs.”

“Go and round them up then. When the snow stops you must go and build the snowmen on the ridge. And don’t forget your gloves!”

Lydia flings the door wide and runs into the winter air. In doing so she lets it into the house and I shiver against the cold. On days like this the chill in my bones wakes up biting. I’ll sleep poorly and my joints will creak for the rest of the winter. It’s been that way for three years.

My balance is getting better now. I have a stick but I keep it mostly for comfort, these days; I don’t need it to get up and add another log to the fire. The wood pile is neatly stacked on the left.

I like the snap of firewood when it burns. Fire is our ally against the cold, so I will not begrudge it a burn or two when I’m stupid enough to put my hand in the flame by mistake. I sit here and keep the fire high, and in the afternoon I hear my husband’s voice outside. There’s a cold blast of air as the door opens.

“Close the door,” I say. “Keep the warmth inside.”

“I’m going up to the ridge,” Alun says. “I just wanted to tell you. The snow’s stopped. Lydia and the other children are going up to build the snowmen.”

“It’s stopped already?”

“Yes, but it’s deep.”

“Let’s go then.”

“Are you sure you want to come?”

“Yes, of course. Get me my furs, will you?”

I hear Alun hurrying, gathering the things that we will need, and then I hear the wind outside. It howls around the house, trying to get in.

I hear the whisper of its voice at the door, and it calls to my blood. I see a figure in my mind’s eye, tall and lanky with youth, dark haired and wrapped up in furs. Aryn, my winter boy, with a young boy’s smile and eyes as old and knowing as the mountains.

“Hurry,” I whisper. Alun takes my arm and leads me outside, where the wind blows right through me. Alun has cleared a path through the snow going up to the door. I plant my feet firmly on the freezing, slushy ground and begin to walk.

Alun takes me to the edge of the village, where the snow lies ankle deep. We follow the scattered tracks of the other villagers to the top of the ridge, where the first snow always falls deepest. The kiss of a snowflake on my cheek is cruel and cold. My knees buckle.

“Katya, do you want to go back?” Alun’s voice is gentle, close to my ear.

“No. I have to be there.”

We go on.

At the top of the ridge Alun and I stand close to the others. For years we have been gathering here to see the first snow – the snow that rides ahead of the true winter storms, the snow that settles but never stays beyond a few days. The children build their snowmen here each year. The snowmen tell us what they will bring, whether they will be cruel or merciful. Last year, they stayed for a day and a night. That winter was kinder than the others before it.

I hear the summer voices of the girls and the loud hoots of the boys, singing, shrieking as they throw snowballs back and forth. The adults, with proper solemnity, shush them and wait for them to begin. I must be here, even though I no longer find any joy in the game and ritual of it. I imagine the snowmen with twisted, grimacing white faces. I will show those demons of the winter that they cannot frighten me.

But the wind sings in my ears, promising ruin.

This year, it whispers. This year … this year.

While the children build the snowmen, some of the villagers sing, some of us are quiet. Afterwards, most of us leave the ridge in small groups and return to our homes, but some linger until it gets dark, offering prayers to the mountain.

As we walk back to the village, Lydia holds my hand and tells me about her snowman. He is tall and big, and his name is Elmun. I murmur appreciatively to make her happy, because she still trusts in the snowmen as our protectors and helpers.

Alun is at my side with his arm around me. I realise I am crying.

Our house is cold and there’s a draught coming in somewhere. I go carefully to the fire and move to the left, feeling for a couple of thick logs. It needs to be kept high as the night draws closer.

“Ma, let me do that,” Lydia says. I feel her small hands on top of mine as she tries to take the log from me.

“No, it’s fine.” I gently push her away. “I want to do it.”

Lydia is young and good and likes to be helpful. I hear her sigh as she steps back. She’s wondering why I don’t just sit by the fire and relax. But keeping the fire high is my job. It’s all I can do against the cold.

Alun sometimes tells me that I spend too much time blaming myself for what happened, and even more time trying to make up for it. Perhaps he’s right. But on some days, when the wind howls around my house, I wonder if it would have been different, if the snow hadn’t taken my sight so quickly. Would I have found him, my Aryn, my winter boy?

Three years ago Aryn was fourteen and growing up fast, but he was determined to join in with the children one more time. He named his snowman Ivan. Ivan outlasted all the others and still stood tall on the fifth day. Nobody else minded, because Ivan was bigger and thicker-built, and the six others had already melted.

After five days, Lydia’s snowman still stands and I understand: winter has touched her summer-born heart. I know the wind is laughing at me as it hisses past my ears.

This year, it sings. This year … this year.

On the fifth night I lie in my bed. The house is warm and I cannot hear the wind. I feel safe. I reach for Alun and kiss him and press myself against him. I feel him go still as he realises. It’s been so long, but we haven’t forgotten. It comes back to us, our dance. We are still in tune, after all this time. It makes me weep.

I wake up early, before sunrise. Alun’s still snoring next to me and I’m careful not to disturb him as I get up and feel around for my clothes and my furs.

In the main room, last night’s fire is still giving out some warmth. I find my stick, propped up next to the hearth, and then a skin of water. The wind outside is cold, but I set myself against it and trudge through the snow that has come up to our door again. This will be the last time.

I have a good sense of direction and my feet have rehearsed the village paths. I find my way up to the ridge, where I feel the first small protests from my joints as the chill begins. The furs are still doing their job, but my bones remember. I walk carefully along the top, feeling my way with my hands outstretched, until I touch the cold, wet skin of a snowman. Even though the melting has begun, he still stands. Elmun, Lydia’s snowman. Alone on the sixth day.

This year, sings the wind. This year … this year.

I swing my fists through the air but I overreach myself and stumble, falling to my knees. With a groan I get to my feet again. I reach out, searching with my hands for Elmun. I knock him down.

“You can’t have her,” I pant. “Not Lydia. She doesn’t belong to you!”

Suddenly I feel foolish. What good is it to scream and rage against the greed of winter? What can be done? If it reached down the mountain it could smother us. Our ravines would fill with ice, our deer would run south towards safety. Even the mountain lions would abandon this forsaken place.

Our fragile mountain home would disappear.

The wind promises ruin. It howls with a hunger that must be placated.

And I know what I must do. I leave the ridge, and the village, behind.

Beyond the ridge the land dips down into a small wood of fir trees that gather around the mountain’s feet. I remember coming this way last time. Aryn had gone looking for game and he’d been gone too long, so I went after him. I took enough food and water for two people to last three days on the mountain. I wrapped myself from head to toe in furs, more than I really needed. They would keep Aryn warm, once I found him.

I’m sure the trees remember my passage. The wind sighs through them, but they have kinder voices.

Up on the mountain past the wood, the snow is still falling, powdery beneath my feet. It hasn’t had enough time to really set in yet. I remember the way the sun shone off it before, like blue skies. I was thinking about my winter boy, but the beauty of the sun on the snow filled my heart with hope.

Beauty in this land is treacherous. After two days had passed he was still lost on the mountain, and still I searched. The relentless glare of the sunlight on the snow was hurting my eyes.

Another day passed, and another. I didn’t want to eat the food that I’d saved for Aryn, but I would need it if I was to keep searching. By then my eyes were sore and weeping and my vision was growing darker. I thought the clouds must be closing in, because it was too early for night to be falling. My strength was leaving me as my joints slowly seized up. I remember urging my feet to go on, but I must have tripped over a stone. I fell, and couldn’t get up.

I lay in the snow, calling for Aryn. Then I croaked his name, until my throat was raw and freezing. I drifted on the snow, on the wind, hearing voices calling across the mountain. The world went dark.

Alun found me and carried me off the mountain. Nobody found Aryn.

People in the village talked of what might have happened to him. A mountain lion had overcome him, perhaps, or he’d run out of food, or he’d fallen into a crevasse. It didn’t matter. The wind, the winter, had taken him. If I’d known what it wanted, I would have gone in his place.

I’m slower than before. I have to be more careful not to slip and my joints are unwilling. I can feel them growing stiff and numb, but I have to keep walking. Alun might already be looking for me. I have to go further so he won’t find me. The winter is hungry for a summer child, but I will go in her place.

I walk all day, up and up. When it feels like the night has set in I sit down in the snow. My furs are wet and the cold has started to seep through them, so I take them off. They’re no use to me anymore. I start to shiver.

The wind is still singing, but now it sings to me. Sings peace.

After my short rest I get to my feet for one last push. My legs and arms are unbearably heavy, but I don’t mind. I’ll make it to the top. It’s getting brighter, and I think I can hear his voice calling on the wind, my winter boy, my Aryn.

This year, sings the wind. This year … this year.

————————————————————————-

© Rosanna Silverlight 2010

Chihiro and the beleaguered river spirit in Spirited Away

2010. It’s the beginning of a whole new decade. I want to start this decade by being more like Chihiro, the young heroine of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated masterpiece, Spirited Away. There are many points I could draw from the film – especially as an example of fantasy that has reality, truth and humanity at its heart – but I’ll be content with just one, for now.

Forced to work in a bath house run by Yubaba the witch, Chihiro has to undergo many trials in the hope of rescuing her parents, who greedily ate the food of the spirits and were turned into pigs as a result. On one particular occasion, a stinking monster comes into the bath house. He wants a bath, and he has lots of gold to offer in return. Greedy Yubaba likes the colour of his money enough to ignore the foul sludge which oozes from him, filling the bath house and scaring off the other customers.

Chihiro is given the rather daunting task of making the guest feel welcome and escorting him to his bath, which she does with heroic determination. As the monster soaks in the hot water, Chihiro realises that something is stuck in his side, and it won’t budge.

With the help of Yubaba and the other bath house attendants, Chihiro succeeds in tying a rope around the mysterious object. Then she pulls. And pulls. And pulls …

The ‘something’ turns out to be the handle of a bicycle. It comes out, dragging a trail of debris which fills the bathroom. The monster is no monster, but a river spirit, poisoned by the waste of humanity. Chihiro’s actions set him free, and he rewards her with a gift; medicine, which she later uses to help a friend.

It’s not easy for Chihiro, but I love the fact that despite having to struggle to the point of exhaustion, and despite the pressure that Yubaba puts on her, she doesn’t crumble. She’s strong enough to wade – literally – through the adversity. She digs deep – again, literally – to help the river spirit and get to the root of his problems. In the process she finds out that he is not at all what she, or anyone else, expected. And she finds out a little bit more about her own capabilities.

She comes out stronger than before, and we see a new Chihiro, who is selfless and brave, hard working and caring.

I guess it’s not hard to see where I’m going with this. It’s the old tale of courage in the face of adversity, courage and fierce determination that wins the day.

Sometimes writing is tough, sometimes it feels like I’m Chihiro wading through the sludge, but lately – lately I’ve pushed myself more and more – and the results are not what I expected. At the end of each day I have at least 1,000 more words on my hard drive than I started with that morning. The process of writing is therapeutic, and once I’m warmed up it can even be an inspiration in itself, when conversations take flight effortlessly, plot points jump out and characters start flexing their vocal chords. Ideas crop up that might not fit into what I’m writing at that particular moment, but that doesn’t matter; they can be drawn upon later. My creative side is getting stronger and gaining momentum.

I want to become a braver writer, a more hard working writer. I want to dig deep and get to the root of my writing. Find out what makes it tick. Follow what inspires me, write what I like and kick out my inner editor until the sensitive first draft is finished and ready to be worked on with the red pen.

This year is going to be the year when I start updating my blog more than once a fortnight. It’s the year when I’ll write more short stories – because I find short stories a real challenge. It’s the year when I’ll finish my first novel.

Ask me how it’s going in a week, and feel free to give me a good arse-kicking if I’m not living up to it.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Sources of Inspiration for the new year:

• Author Allison Winn Scotch’s website: A great author website and blog which I only just came across today. I found her blog, ‘Ask Allison’, really helpful – especially this article here.
• Author Hélène Boudreau’s website: Great advice on everything from plotting to synopsis writing and working with agents.
• Funds for Writers: Hope C. Clark’s award winning writer’s resource website and newsletter.
• Twitter: connect with other writers and follow writer chats using hashtags. I’m on Twitter (@miss_rosie); I chat on #amwriting frequently (more info here) and stop by #pubtips sometimes. Also, have look at other people’s #2010writerlyresolutions (started by Hélène Boudreau). Much inspiration to be had! Twitter is a goldmine for writers. Seriously.
• A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing: I recently came across this blog by following a link on Twitter. Published author Joe Konrath offers his wealth of hard-won experience in publishing FOR FREE. It’s gold, all of it.