tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840401509989014242024-02-20T09:45:20.315-08:00The Spark of Being HumanI can see it, right there on the horizon. But it's hidden in the shadow of the sun, and if I close my eyes it might appear.Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-966102430426089962013-05-05T14:58:00.002-07:002013-05-05T14:58:16.122-07:00Of Sea and Sky: Part 8
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“You’re
silent as stars,” Caspian said, coming up the cliff behind Lani on one evening
when fall was very near. The sun clung to the sky, casting its desperate
fingers over the water, over Lani, over Caspian.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I found
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“You found
what?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The wish.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Caspian
took it with fumbling hands, wondering why the feeling behind his sternum felt
more like desperation than joy. He had to see it. And then he did. It was a
piece of glass.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Something
of sea and sky,” he murmured, smoothing fingers over it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Made by
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“How is it
a wish?” He handed the shining glass back to her.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I’ll show
you.” Her voice was very sad. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Lani held
up the mirror toward the waning sun, which glinted off the ocean-polished
surface to catch the eye of the last of the summer trade boats. There was a
series of flashes in return.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“If I flash
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Though she
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“Don’t.”
His heart was tapping enthusiastically against his chest, and when he looked at
the boat, all he felt was sickly sweet dread.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Don’t?” <o:p></o:p></div>
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“You said
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Though the
muscles of her face wanted to stretch with contentment, Lani held them in
check.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I’d go
with you, if you went,” she clarified. Caspian shook his head, terrified now.
Without thinking, desperate, Caspian’s hand darted out to take the glass and
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<br /></div>
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<i>The End</i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-53399806421157993482013-05-05T14:57:00.002-07:002013-05-05T14:57:25.178-07:00Of Sea and Sky: Part 7
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Lani waited
for the boat to sail away before she went home. It had touched the island’s
shore, the flames had gone out, but she had not seen who was on it or what they
did. She glanced at the memories on the sand dune, the cliff. Reflections of
shadow through glass.<o:p></o:p></div>
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She stood
in her doorway, feeling like one made of sticks—stiff and fragile and very
hateful toward fire. Lani paced the shack four times, noting idly that she
needed new flowers. Without further thought, she slipped into the sweet evening
air. It was getting so cool, so quickly now. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It was
night before she made it to the center of the island where the jasmine bloomed.
She’d never brought Caspian there and it was free from shadows. Her practiced
hands plucked the flowers, but her old, mad peace was gone. The island queen
was unsettled.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“So this is
why you always smell of jasmine,” a deep voice spoke from behind her, back the
way she’s come. Lani whirled, spraying jasmine petals in a wide circle.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“But you
left!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Caspian
sighed, “I tried to.” He stalked toward her, long strides that no longer
stumbled in the fine sand. “But then I realized, you’re my lighthouse, Lani. I
wouldn’t make it without you.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“What makes
you think that?’ Lani asked, but she was teasing. Her eyes sparkled and flirted
now that she allowed them to. Caspian scooped her close, looking down on her
with a smirk.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Because
it’s impossible.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Oh,” Lani
nodded in understanding, but Caspian was very talkative and could not contain
himself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I’ve never
seen anything so clearly as when I’m with you, even the shadowy things.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I don’t
think I’m meant to guide anyone, though. Lighthouses do that.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No,”
Caspian shook his head. “They sit on the rocks and don’t let anyone near.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I suppose
I’ve done enough of that.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I suppose
you have.” He kissed her.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-78301785233942433922013-05-04T11:36:00.002-07:002013-05-04T11:36:17.898-07:00Of Sea and Sky: Part 6
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<br />
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“There’s a
boat, Lani.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She sat in
the shallowest water, picking the petals off a flower, the last of the really
warm summer days glowing on her skin. One by one, white petals rained into the
tide and were dragged away by the hungry sea. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“There’s a
boat.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lani
plucked the last petal, held it between two fingers close to her face, studied
it. Then she stood, let it drop. A shorter version of her silk-patterned garb
clung to her wet thighs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You’re
going.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You’re
going with me.” There was something so desperate in his tone that Lani closed
her eyes toward the sea. She reached out a blind hand and found his poorly
shaven face deftly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I’m not.
It’s a nice fire, but it isn’t a wish.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Caspian’s
mouth opened and closed helplessly. He wrung the hem of his white shirt in
agitation. Opening her eyes, Lani turned. Keeping her hand on his face and
adding another, she stood on her tiptoes. Then she kissed him. She kissed him
goodbye.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Lani, I
can’t just leave you.” Hanging his head as one under enormous weight, he
expelled a heavy breath. His fists clenched impotently in her hair. <o:p></o:p></div>
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She was
sad, smiled, made no response. His fists unclenched. His footsteps turned away
toward the smoke rising toward the bright blue sky.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Still more to go...</i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-13690326337201633312013-05-04T11:35:00.002-07:002013-05-04T11:35:33.163-07:00Of Sea and Sky: Part 5
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They didn’t
talk about it, pretended it hadn’t happened. But after that day, Caspian began
building a signal fire. It was done in secret, furtive movements, in fake
bathroom trips and extra supply collecting. In between, Lani was more and more
herself, a self that Caspian had never thought to reach. He felt like a sea
rat. But Lani might never have found out. Except she did.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Her face
blanched like cinder bone when she saw the pyre. She’d worn the dress, he
thought, the first thing he noticed, a short sun-dress thing that bared her
long legs. She’d caught her hair up too, using an assortment of island things
to hold it--shells and starfish and flowers--and revealing a slim neck. Caspian
felt his insides being dragged out to sea. He was a rat, a plague carrying boat
rat. Breath coming long and slow like the tide, Lani watched him. The island
queen’s face read disdain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You lied.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Lani, I
didn’t—“<o:p></o:p></div>
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Slowly with
great dignity, then fast and stumbling like an idiot, shipwrecked boy, she made
her escape. Caspian practically leaped over the pile, racing for her. He caught
her on the high sand dune where they had first met.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Wait!” His
eyes were wild, hair crazy. She was poised and sad. The island queen and her
savage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You don’t
believe me. You think I’m crazy.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“No, I
don’t. I don’t think—“<o:p></o:p></div>
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But now
Lani’s chest was heaving with the sobs she hadn’t spilled for her lost family
or traumatic past. Crumbling, knees in the sand, she stared out at the water
and grieved.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Lani…”
Caspian spread his hands helplessly, looking down at her.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Light your
fire, Caspian. Go! The sea is salted with bones, and I hope yours join them.”
But her voice broke enough to tell him she lied. Caspian’s extended hand on her
shoulder was shrugged off. Back at the shack, a flowing robe covered the dress
and tea was made for one. Caspian went down to the beach and lit his fire.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-19616073005288607772013-05-04T11:34:00.002-07:002013-05-04T11:34:48.720-07:00Of Sea and Sky: Part 4
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<br />
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After that
the nights began to grow longer. Summer was a dead man walking along the shore.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We have to
find it by autumn,” Lani repeated until it was a mantra in the shipwrecked
boy’s head.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We will,”
Caspian assured her, taking her hand to drag her down to the beach.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But one day
it rained. The sky split itself wide and bled down upon the little island,
drawing colorful blooms from the bland shore. Lani was among them. She raced
from the shack into the storm, her colorful outfit darkened by the water. It
clung to her body like a punch to the gut. At first, Caspian stood near her, in
the slight shelter of the shack’s roof. At first, he thought this was another
of her quirks, standing still, head upturned toward the rain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But then he
saw her shaking. She turned, stared him in the eyes. And he saw madness. He
hadn’t really believed it until then. That she was mad. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Caspian got
wet then, stalking toward her, grasping one slim wrist, dragging her toward
their favorite spot on the cliff.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Not here,
Caspian. You’ll ruin it!” her voice held an edge of hysteria though she did not
sob or cry. Caspian was stuck on the way she’d said his name, like it was her
own. He was stuck on her acknowledgement that their place was special. Never
had he seen her so emotional.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We’ve been
on this island together for weeks and you haven’t told me. Tell me. How did you
get here?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She didn’t
answer, simply stared out at the sea, haunted.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“How,
Lani?” Shaking her shoulders, he forced her to meet his gaze. Her eyes were so
pale that he could see the reflection of his own dark irises more clearly than
her blue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“A
shipwreck,” her voice was shaking. “A shipwreck!” she screamed. “In a storm,
this storm.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Not this
storm, Lani. A long time ago.” Caspian drew her against his chest, wrapped her
in his arms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I have to
wish myself free.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I know.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You
believe me?” Lani pulled back, all trace of madness replaced by skepticism.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I do,”
Caspian lied. She settled her head against his chest again, and when she stared
at the sea, there were no ghosts in the waves.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-53117471681952841742013-04-30T10:19:00.001-07:002013-04-30T10:19:13.356-07:00Of Sea and Sky: Part 3<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Apparently, making wishes involved a lot of searching for things in the sand. Caspian followed Lani from one end of the island to another, dragging his feet in the sand. She’d explained patiently that what they searched for was something of sea and something of sky that, when mixed together, would yield a wish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Why will this work again?” he asked on the second morning of hunting.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Because it is impossible. The universe in a tea cup.” That was all she would say on the subject.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But as the days past, Caspian found he didn’t mind quite so much. If their task was futile, it was no more futile than any other means of being saved. Besides, Lani looked quite beautiful on the beach, toes in the water, sun on her skin. She looked even more beautiful when he tucked a flower behind her ear, one from the trees on the far side of the island, which she loved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You are so quiet, Lani,” Caspian said one night. They sat on a rocky cliff, a fire behind them and the stars beyond. The ocean churned with a storm approaching. “So quiet all the time.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Saying nothing, Lani looked out at the sea. Brow furrowed, she might have been listening to a song there. Her shoulders were bare to the fire glow, her dress a flow of wispy fabric. Raising her hand, she flicked at her face, the tear removed catching fire as it fell to the sand.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The faint scent of jasmine reached Caspian’s nose, made bumps dance down his arms. Capian rose to his feet, grabbing that teary hand as he did. He drew the island queen to her feet.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Show me,” he said, refusing to allow her hands free. With a sigh of defeat, Lani nodded. And Caspian had been right; she was a dancer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<i>There's still a few parts to go.</i></div>
Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-47652812044300936932013-04-30T10:17:00.001-07:002013-04-30T10:17:38.262-07:00Of Sea and Sky: Part 2<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
“So how do we make a wish?” Caspian asked again, almost failing to notice that they had come upon a little sea shack in his desperate single-mindedness. Lani turned at the entrance to the lopsided home, letting the armfuls of flowers she had collected on the way fall to her bare feet.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“There is a special formula. I’ll teach you, if you like.” Her raised eyebrows were tentative, revealing something sharp and sad behind blue irises.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’d appreciate it,” Caspian replied. Darting forward, he kneeled to collect the flowers she had dropped.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No,” she smiled down at him. The silk of her robe brushed against his face, making him light-headed. “Leave them.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Are you sure—“ Lani abandoned him at the threshold, gliding into her dark, two-room house on legs that—revealed through a slit or fold in her many patterned fabrics—might have been a dancer's. Without further protest, Caspian followed, finding as he did that the entire floor of the sea-bent home was covered in similar blooms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lani crossed to a teapot by the rough-cut window. It was a badly beaten thing, warmed by a tiny fire on a makeshift stove. Caspian eyed the strange space that contained a pile of chipped china, a trunk with travel stickers, two wooden chairs, a matching table, and a door that presumably led to a bedroom.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Was all this here when you got here?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Most of it,” Lani’s voice had drawn thin.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“How <i>did</i> you get here?” Curious, he’d moved nearer to her, near enough to see the tension enter her back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“How did you?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I thought it would be obvious from the stench of seaweed,” he joked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“A shipwreck?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yeah.” Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, Caspian accepted a cup of tea with the other. He hardly knew what to make of this strange, distant girl.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Are you all alone here?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I am. Do you want to start on the wishes now or later?” Cocking her head to one side, the island girl watched him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Now, I guess.” Together they sat down at the wooden table. Lani wrapped long-fingered hands around her mug, some of the tension leaving her body.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“What will you use it for?” Caspian asked because he was fresh from society and couldn’t bear the quiet that had fallen between them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The same as you, I suspect.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You aren’t very talkative.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“<i>You’re</i> very talkative.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Caspian laughed, and because he had not expected to laugh on a lonely island after a shipwreck he laughed again. As the chortles shook his battered body, Lani watched him with the expression of one who is trying to remember a word in their native tongue after long speaking in a foreign one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-30629597491502049942013-04-30T10:13:00.003-07:002013-04-30T10:17:56.459-07:00Of Sea and Sky: Part 1<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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She was a queen, a lonely island
queen quite solitary on a rocky dune with summer sand grass itching her bare
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down the beach with sand in his eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The queen
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<i>Working Title. Let me know what you think!</i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-6372635113324432062013-04-24T16:28:00.002-07:002013-04-24T16:28:27.628-07:00The Carnival of Fallen Stars<iframe frameborder="0" height="553" src="http://figment.com/books/625509-The-Carnival-of-Fallen-Stars/widget?size=small&desc=true&stats=true" width="221"></iframe>Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-21696737631216163302013-04-18T13:16:00.002-07:002013-04-18T13:16:40.133-07:00Which one's better?
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Version 1</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stop<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She bit a fox<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Trees to the left<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And under her nose<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He darted<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Down wind she drawls<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lipped in a whisper<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By sweet saplings on the curve<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pause<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She wrote a table from a trunk<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A river near the elbow<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Smudge prints along the doorframe<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The animal escapes<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
East by the hilltop<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wait<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She chased him by ear fur<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rusty on river stones<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And in a hollow in a forest<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fair well the dancers<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the shade<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On her braided hair<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The same shade as the oak bows<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Brown<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She waded through the willows<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fox pranced a pace ahead<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She bit him on the ear as she bothered<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
***<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Version 2</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p>Stop: she trees, and he down
lipped</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By she, a smudge<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She rusty and<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fair in the brown<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She fox, she<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stop<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bit--darted<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wind in sweet, pause,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wrote river prints (Animal by Chased)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On her same brown<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Waded, pranced, bit<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stop a fox, left her nose<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She drawls a whisper<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Escapes the hill<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wait, him the hollow, the shade<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Braided shade<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Brown through him<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stop on the curve<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pause the elbow, the doorframe<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Top, wait, ear fur, river stones<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a forest, dancers<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hair as the oak bows, brown,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the ear as she bothered<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No one reads this, but if by some miracle someone does, let me know which version is better.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-23443974039890561772012-10-19T07:32:00.001-07:002012-10-19T07:32:12.655-07:00America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest<a href="http://www.ebookmall.com/author/s-e-cates#.UIFkXAO2JT0.blogger">America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Just a reminder....Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-53446030775521651492012-10-11T08:40:00.000-07:002012-10-11T08:40:05.162-07:00America's Next AuthorAnother Writing Contest ENtry: http://www.ebookmall.com/author/s-e-cates<br />
I doubt anyone will see this post, but check out the link above if you want to help me win.Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-48447036591140223782012-09-25T15:01:00.002-07:002012-09-25T15:01:11.248-07:00The Wishing Treehttp://figment.com/books/435967-The-Wishing-TreeShannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-3136221257681834632012-09-20T13:28:00.000-07:002012-09-20T13:28:55.506-07:00Everly's Walk: Part Eight<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now the townspeople whisper tales of curses to the tourists brave or strange enough to come by. They speak of Everly Carrigan, the best Carrigan by far, who fell for a Blythe-Cameron and then fell from her own walkway. It isn’t there anymore, that walkway, they say. It fell out in some storm, leaving poor old Alice trapped in that crumbling-away manor. Except that she had been a recluse anyway, probably knocked the bridge out herself.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They say that every Carrigan woman since Everly has met her death by falling from the Cliff. Araby never believed that, naturally. They warned her, the drunken captains and quiet scholarly types, that she should leave before her turn came. Not that they didn’t want a Carrigan about--most of them could hardly fathom how they’d function without Miss Araby and her lovely money--, but they’d rather have a removed last-Carrigan than a dead one. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Araby laughed at them, the sound was white-feathered birds on the green sea breeze. Even if she did have wine red hair (far tamer than Everly’s) and a short temper, she’d never go jumping off a cliff. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But then again, that was the summer <i>before</i> she met Augustus Crane.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<i>The End</i></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<i>This thing had a life of its own when it came to posting it. I hope whoever bothered to read it enjoyed it. Leave a comment if you want.</i></div>
Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-76139784092797685952012-09-20T08:12:00.000-07:002012-09-20T08:12:30.322-07:00Everly's Walk: Part Seven<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everly Carrigan met him again only once. And she was cold. Except when she wasn’t. There was fire as she screamed at him, made her throat raw with hurt and humiliation and rage. Caspian screamed back, of course, but by then both their hearts had accepted the breaking to come. She tried to fight him, but he stayed her hands. He tried to touch her, but she flinched away.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The parted ways as enemies up on the cliff tops where the wind clawed at Everly’s hair beneath the gray sky. Caspian walked one way. Everly walked another. She walked across the scrubby plains, a lone spot of scarlet in the gray and green. She walked to her lands and there she started to cry. Or maybe those were rainclouds on her face. It stormed often on the sea shore. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She walked to where she saw her home in the distance. It was beautiful, finally complete. She pretended that she had not been harboring familial images in that setting as she walked on. The thought of that horrible Blythe-Cameron name inside a Carrigan house was rather ridiculous after all. She walked onto the narrow bridge to Carrigan’s Cliff, rain making the path slick. Thinking of the spiteful promise she had once made Caspian, she still tried not to stumble.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She walked on, but she never set another foot inside of Carrigan House. Everly Carrigan fell to her death from Everly’s Walkway that night in the rain. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Except that’s not how the story goes: she leapt. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Except no, actually, she sat down and slid off. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But then, she never fell at all, simply ran away to a place where she would never have to hear the whisper-screamed longing in the voice of the green ocean. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But who could know, as she was never heard from again? </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Except when the townspeople heard her ghost screaming and hollering up on Carrigan’s Cliff each night. No ghost can step foot on holy land, so if Everly was a ghost, that alone explained why she never tore down that horrid expansion that some distant relative--</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Descendant? Some say that a boy showed up one year, bearing the Carrigan name and a peculiar penchant for merfolk paintings and stylish suits--</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> that her relative built on Carrigan Cliff.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And as for Caspian Blythe-Cameron--who would have loved the expansion as it housed an entire room dedicated to strange sculptures and art--, he never married that wretched French girl. He never finished his castle either; it wasn’t as fun without Everly around to dissapprove of it. In fact he stopped dropping his bread crumb trails, packed up his suits and went on holiday, finally disappearing a few months later on a hunt in some far dry land where there was no green sea. (It’s funny, but some say that the boy Carrigan who came years later spent many holidays in that land.)</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All that can be said for the Carrigans and the Blythe-Camerons after that is that they left a lovely legacy (apart from a new, far more haunting name for Everly’s town), stories to be bought and sold as economy--since they’d built up their towns so poorly. Or perhaps it was the crumbling rock at war with the green sea that was poor in the first place.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Only one more part to go. Not that anyone is reading this anyway.</i></span></div>
Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-27686294026955796062012-09-19T14:50:00.000-07:002012-09-19T14:50:44.736-07:00Everly's Walk: Part Six<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everly made inquiries as her carriage drove them bumpily over the so-called plains between Carrigan and Blythe. Elsbeth complained noisily, muttering unlady-like things in French which she was sure Everly did not understand (Everly did). But between the cursings, she managed to spill a secret or two. It seemed that Everly’s traveling companion simply loved to talk about herself and her dear Caspian. Everly was assured the Caspian was probably waiting at the port in Blythe to greet her. Probably distraught, he was. And oh, but she’d had to leave a dozen trunks behind for the journey, and wasn’t that dreadful? But hopefully her darling Caspian would replenish what she had lost. You’d think he would, you know, considering they were to be wed--</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Cold. Everly resolved to be cold. It was all she thought on that long journey to see the man-she-loved-who-was-promised-to-another. If Elsbeth noticed Everly’s sudden silence--No, she hadn’t noticed or she would have taken advantage of what it implied.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Cold. When Elsbeth stepped from the carriage, Caspian’s expression changed from curious, even happy, to confusion, to shock, to--there it was--the flinch of fear. Everly removed herself from the carriage as well. Cold, she reminded herself. Pleasant. Polite. It was fire that had gotten her into this mess in the first place.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Caspian Blythe-Cameron tried valiantly to meet her gaze, but she went home without any explanation from him. It wasn’t as if he had a good one anyway. He did try though, a missive or two dashed off desperately after now-finished-house calls went unanswered. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It wasn’t as if he didn’t try, with his fancy suits out in the rain that poured for three days and nights after Elsbeth came into town. That was probably the only reason he didn’t pack her off on a boat out of Blythe on the spot under Everly’s aching gaze. Then, after the rain, he’d simply forgotten about Elsbeth Deverauz entirely. He’d never liked her all that much anyway (though his mother had insisted), not in the way he’d hated (loved) Everly Carrigan.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-88714092745764987092012-09-18T07:34:00.000-07:002012-09-18T07:34:11.997-07:00Everly's Walk: Part Five<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On the sea shore, where everything is gray and green and the living is hard, nothing lasts. The paint on the circus tent would fade to dusty pastels. The houses would grow water-logged or rust. And the relationship between Caspian Blythe-Cameron and Everly Carrigan was bashed in by a south wind known as Elsbeth Deveraux whose father’s surname had been Crane. She preferred the French though, she told everyone in her snide accent. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>Where had she come from?</i> the people of Everly’s Walk (which was not then called Everly’s Walk but rather “Carrigan Beach”, a title that made no sense since there was very little beach and quite a lot of jagged rocks on the Carrigan coast line) wondered. They knew, of course, that she had come in on a tug boat, making it look dull and busted with her beauty and class. She wore a shimmering dress of many layers and folds with a bodice far too tight and a neck line too low. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everly hated her, obviously, but she greeted her with a smile. It was not the custom of the Everly Carrigan to greet every stray who came in from the green waters, but she happened to be down on the docks at the time giving one of the captains, a drunkard with an impressive black beard, an earful. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That was how Elsbeth first saw the crazy woman with red hair, waving her (admittedly very pretty) hands about insanely, fire in her nearly-violet eyes. She hardly noticed the rather frightened looking man, all brawn and sea-hardened leather skin. She was the type of woman who only notices a threat.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And it was not so much a greeting that Elsbeth received as a snapping-at, but then Elsbeth was not really such a nice girl and she undoubtedly deserved it for some crime or another.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Anyway, Elsbeth inquired where she might find the Blythe-Cameron home. Wasn’t she surprised (and loudly displeased) to find that she’d come in at entirely the wrong port and she should have to go all the way down the coast to reach Blythe-by-the-Sea? After Elsbeth stopped shouting loudly in French and Everly stopped shouting just as loudly back, the tug boat captain was able to have his voice heard long enough to offer the pretty Elsbeth a lift down the coast.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For the first time that day, Everly’s brow clouded; she enjoyed a good fight far too much to have let that bother her. But she did not want this Elsbeth Deveraux (Crane) getting away and taking all her secrets about Caspian with her. So she offered to take her herself.</span></div>
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Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-43769100739318609352012-09-17T07:07:00.000-07:002012-09-18T07:34:43.514-07:00Everly's Walk: Part Four<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Caspian Blythe-Cameron had a penchant for paintings of fat mermaids and mermen. There was a whole room in Blythe-Castle-on-the-Sea--Caspian had made a castle to one-up his neighbor’s manor, but it was proving a rather expensive and impractical endeavor, one Everly observed with endless satisfaction.--dedicated to his collection of such art.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It was in this room that Caspian Blythe-Cameron kissed Everly Carrigan. And she hated it. Except, well, she didn’t. Rather, she kissed him back. And this was very hard to explain to herself and to him and to the watery eyes of fat merpeople surrounding them.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Caspian had run out of things to hate about Everly when he got to her near-purple eyes and now was forced to admit that he loved her rather foolishly. Everly refused to admit the same until she was back on Carrigan soil.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With one boot toe on the walk to Carrigan House, she kissed him again. Fluttering her lashes in that way that makes words, she told him how idiotic her heart was. He agreed, naturally, that her heart was indeed idiotic.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They danced on the walk to Carrigan House, though there was no music, only moonlight. Little white birds with tails like swallows flew around them, eating at the bread trail that led from Caspian’s carriage to his jacket pocket. This was a habitual thing for him to do, his bread trail. It has been noted that he was a strangely quirky man.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-69143498487760478792012-09-16T08:17:00.000-07:002012-09-16T08:17:26.904-07:00Everly's Walk: Part Three<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everly Carrigan built Carrigan House from the ground. Each stone set was there because she’d pointed, drawn, demanded, or placed it herself. Back then, she was known around and about for her wild hair. It was perhaps the only red thing on the entire coast. Until Caspian Blythe-Cameron showed up down the shore and ordered his townspeople to paint their cottages in lively colors (that would later fade to blinding white beneath the sun that somehow only shone on Blythe’s part of the coast) and to whitewash the stones and streets. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everly Carrigan hated that smug Caspian Blythe-Cameron with all of her red, beating heart. <i>She</i> would <i>never</i> order her townspeople to do something so foolish as paint, not when she’d already hauled most of them out by their ears and wallets and forced them to live the seaside life. Apart from the tug boat captains and crew (some of whom preferred to live elsewhere, though certainly not in Blythe-by-the-Sea), Everly’s townspeople tended to be business types, accountants and money-making people that Everly didn’t really think she needed in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Later down the line, when the tug boat industry wobbled, many of those business types left, but a whole crowd of artists and writers and historians and scientists had been drawn out by Everly’s lovely library and legendary wit, intermingling silently with the crowd so that no one saw them come and no one expected them to go. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(These people even brought with them the famous Carrigan Coastal Circus, a magnificent tent in brilliant colors that sat on the water. Beneath it one could find all manner of wares, entertainment, and even a rather rare and delicate carousel. This was in the prime days of Everly’s Walk, of course, after Everly had died but far before Alice and Araby were born.)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everly herself, though she never missed a detail, was far too preoccupied with building her home and thwarting that dastardly Caspian Blythe-Cameron to care overmuch that some new people had snuck into their midst. Besides, these people tended to be the only ones of actual interest for Everly to talk to. Apart from Caspian. He was irritatingly quirky.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So irritatingly quirky, in fact, that Everly fell in love with him. Not before he fell in love with her though, she was quick to point out. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It started out quietly enough, a not-quite-built-house call to judge with his twinkling eyes, an unfortunate run in at the home of some mutually-hired contractor types, perhaps a verbal sparring match over dinner on the edge of Carrigan Cliff--it would have been rude not to invite him to dinner after she’d yelled at him all day. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then there were the letters. Nothing more than insults wrapped in romanticisms, they told themselves. But it was true when Caspian said he loved her hair and her hands. Everly had wonderful hands, simply made for pointing and gesticulating.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And it was true when she said she didn’t hate his suits. That it had actually been a lie when she’d shouted that after him down her drive. She also said that she liked his sarcasm, his smirk, his wandering hands. But those were, of course, lies designed to outwit the enemy.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everly spent a beautiful day with that enemy in the place where the circus tent would be built. He’d forced--literally forced, she would never go quietly--Everly to take a day from building and planning and business-ing. She’d never have admitted that it felt nice to have his steadying hands on her waste as she rode the carousel horse. (Caspian had brought one of his prized carousels from France where he kept them at his mother’s house. It was pink and gold and mint and horrible. Only that was wrong because it was beautiful.) Except she did admit it, in a whisper, with a look from beneath heavy lashes. She didn’t need steadying, naturally; she was an accomplished rider. Caspian knew this because he’d watched her gallop across the scrubby plains on the cliff tops. He’d hated the way the wind sought to unclothe her, flung her curls to the sky, of course. He’d been annoyed by the way she was so sure and confident, so gentle and kind to the beast.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So no, she didn’t need steadying. Except when she did, when she was tipsy on star champagne drunk at dinner in a town where no one knew that she and Caspian hated each other and so they’d probably thought them a couple, and she teetered down the way to her house. The walkway was a narrow, stone bridge that held Carrigan Cliff--which was really more a tower of rock--to the mainland, barely wide enough for a carriage to cross. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When Caspian Blythe-Cameron told her that he’d hate to see her fall from that death trap, it was true. But only in as much as it was a slight to her poor planning of where to live. Nothing more. Because she annoyed him.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And she swore that she would fall, if only to bother him then. Because he was too quirky and sweet and smart for her to like.</span></div>
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<i>Comment and critiques are welcome.</i></div>
Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-52458403296257969592012-09-15T12:48:00.000-07:002012-09-18T07:34:35.071-07:00Everly's Walk: Part Two<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Blythe-by-the-Sea was a prosperous ocean town, built on seafood and surf. Made of white houses that dotted the shores like shells, it was a pretty enough place, a fond destination for families on holiday. Even the gulls dared not soil the pristine streets of Blythe, and the sun always shone there, making the water a clear blue-green.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everly’s Walk was a preposterous ocean town up the shore from Blythe. Built on tug boats and trade, everything in Everly’s Walk was green or gray. The ocean, the glass, the seasick faces of the town’s people (who were notably averse to sea travel), sometimes even the skies, were a pale, unattractive sort of mint. Nothing grew in Everly, and so the ground was always charcoal stone. The houses were old, bent by wind and warped by storm, and, of course, gray. But it was outside of unfortunate Everly, not Blythe, that the once grand Carrigan House lived.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Carrigans were the sole owners of Everly’s tug boat industry, and the town grew up from their money (which was also green). Though they still made far more than any townsperson in Everly, the Carrigan’s business had faded by the time Araby was born to the dusty glamor of things outraced. No one ever left Everly, and people rarely came. And the people who <i>did</i> come to Everly’s Walk were often the not-quite-right types. That was because the townspeople of Everly’s Walk did not deal in fish or fineries, trinkets or trifles. In Everly’s Walk they traded one thing and one thing only: tales. Not the lovely sort. Well, lovely in their way, but rather melancholy, nasty, stomach-roiling, even upsetting in their own right. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And there were many tales to tell, most especially the tale of Everly Carrigan.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Comments, anyone? I'd love some feedback.</i></span></div>
Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-78905806121156601872012-09-14T07:09:00.000-07:002012-09-18T07:34:28.750-07:00Everly's Walk: Part One<i>Part 1</i><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Carrigan House was a crumbling old manor, perched on the edged of a cliff. Or it used to be. Rather, the cliff was perched under it. And then it wasn’t. Chunks of gray stone slipped from their precarious positions and plummeted to the green sea below, and parts of Carrigan House, that once stately mansion, went with them. Over time, the green sea collected enough souvenirs from Carrigan Cliff that a little island began to grow below, bathed in sea foam. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The right wing of Carrigan House fell into the sea directly, when the first of the cliff began to go. Alice Carrigan, even then an old lady, had always said that the right wing was for those with no spine. That was probably because the right wing was the new wing, built on top of an old graveyard. To Alice Carrigan, the destruction of a graveyard was no fault, it was the cowardice of living on something so safe as hallowed ground that got to her. And all those modern conveniences as well.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The smallest dining room, remaining guest rooms, and half the ballroom fell away with the rest of the straggling cliff pieces. Alice Carrigan, who was fond of cliff diving, went with that batch as well. She left a message making it clear that she would be back when she recovered her home from the sea’s greedy, green fingers and not a moment sooner. Her granddaughter, Araby Carrigan, thought that her grandmother could simply not bear to watch her library tumble into the ocean with the rest of her life, and so she made it watch her leave instead.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They dragged the corpse of Alice Carrigan from the deep, mint pools of shallow water near the rocks that marked the edge of Carrigan Cliff. Araby could see it all from where she stood in the half-destroyed ballroom, wind wrecking her scarlet hair and howling along the jagged marble edges of the fallen-away floor. She refused to look as they removed the body, but still she caught glimpses of the limp, white-clad form, dripping and dead and covered in stony sand. She’d never seen Alice Carrigan look so frail or so free.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The beginning of my new short story, still under editing.</i></span></div>
Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-79145734189657059252012-09-06T12:12:00.000-07:002012-09-06T12:12:45.292-07:00Standing in the Window at Day Changefall away ashes<br />
on the ground, in the light<br />
pieces of sun and bone and broken<br />
on my face, the skin of my arms<br />
delving between the shallow shadows<br />
between<br />
it hurts harder than the depths<br />
of drowning in the dark under my breath<br />
consistent in the window<br />
the world smiles through<br />
the silhouettes that mark my vision<br />
and my visage and my broken<br />
wind under the lashes of my eyes<br />
I weep dry tears<br />
my face a dusty field<br />
of ashesShannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-61638761719107424862012-09-06T08:19:00.001-07:002012-09-06T08:19:34.833-07:00Up North I Wasup north there were a thousand<br />
lights<br />
on a city of white<br />
snow and snowing<br />
in many different words<br />
all crisp on the breaking ice<br />
break even with the path and the odds<br />
but here there are shadows of two<br />
under the storm clouds reaching<br />
dancing on the sea<br />
and boats swim in the thorny waters<br />
that kiss innocently the bows in the rain<br />
running gray and white<br />
foggy sun set still on two horizons<br />
where up north there was a single<br />
compass point<br />
monochromatic symbols under a bridge<br />
and licking the wakes<br />
that walk deep in the water<br />
with their stories of glories in the dangerous<br />
white surf mountains<br />
white is the color of fear on the water<br />
but it is another hue of gray<br />
on the alter<br />
in the storm laughing<br />
overhead the skyShannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-51265609052678223402012-07-23T18:31:00.000-07:002012-07-23T18:31:00.810-07:00My Latest Short Storieshttp://figment.com/books/340316-A-Thousand-White-Fragments<br />
http://figment.com/books/323305-The-Seven-Swans (Contest winner!!)<br />
http://figment.com/books/334630-The-Last-DragonShannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584040150998901424.post-84950757548408156402012-07-23T18:28:00.002-07:002012-07-23T18:28:49.877-07:00The Golden Maid<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">she gave up the years that passed her south</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a useless void, a sucking mouth</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">eight twice and on the chin a kiss</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">so far a dazzling dizzy miss</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">pressed on a dance in twelve inch heels</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">stop twice the weighted man he feels</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">the next year out, her short a foot</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a golden maid, footprints of soot</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">sing diddle the fat hen and golden egg</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">she lost her wits and thrice did beg</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">ashes and dust her skin flakes fell</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">another hill, a mountain swell</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">by the road she left them lie</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a fire on the wind to die</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">sifting soft the half past still</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">she walked one pace and one pace killed</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a memory gift for a broken king</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">her empty past was just the thing</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a crown at sea, a storm-tossed man</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">she’d seen the world in just his hand</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and though he loved, she loved not back</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">he had for shining things a knack</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a lovely voice, a kissing mouth</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">she watched the sea as he sailed south</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">twice tripped each night coming bright</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">sun song is basking in the light </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">cross the lines that make her face</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">sixteen years she’s won the race </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">but peasants have no use for trifles</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">down the throat the gullet stifles</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">venom comes in pretty bottles</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">lovely braids as soon as throttle </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">she spent her days coin for the fair</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a laughing maiden with golden hair</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">too young to see between the stars</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">sixteen years and come too far</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">she gave up the tales that drew her north</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">an armored prince, a prancing horse</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">six and ten and tear tracked well</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">so far it’s rather hard to tell</span></div>Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11087793160259008986noreply@blogger.com0