Everly's Walk: Part Three

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. 

Everly Carrigan hated that smug Caspian Blythe-Cameron with all of her red, beating heart. She would never 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.

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. 

(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.)

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

Comment and critiques are welcome.

Everly's Walk: Part Two

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.

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.

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 did 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. 

And there were many tales to tell, most especially the tale of Everly Carrigan.

Comments, anyone? I'd love some feedback.

Everly's Walk: Part One

Part 1

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. 

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.

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.

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.

The beginning of my new short story, still under editing.

Time's Washing Woman

I think on Wednesdays there is a woman. She’s probably old with a gentle stoop and a foreign hooked nose that hides her smile. I probably like the twinkle in her eyes.

And, on Wednesdays, it is probably her job to iron and press. She probably does it with the ease built from age. But she does not have my shirts or skirts to work on.

No, she has my time. It’s already been made wet and limp by Monday’s vigorous wash, crying tears of exhausted tumbling, and laid dry and corse by Tuesdays drying, worn out from endless cycling.

And, on Wednesdays, she irons it, smooth and flat.

Presses my time so that there is the farthest flat space from one end to another. Granted, there are no hills or valleys to hurt my calves. But never the less, those wrinkles save me time. Wrinkled time is the shortest count down. So this ironing of my days leaves my time pressed unfortunately.

But, I think, on Thursdays, she folds. Her hands are probably strong and deft.

Plucking up on piece in ten minutes and bringing it close to a piece in a few hours, so that I rush through space skipping time outright.

It is as if I fly across the peaks between, seeing nothing of the passage.

She mends the damage on Fridays. It probably takes her three days to set it soft and whole again.

And I think she smiles as she smooths my folded week of time, picking lint off of Wednesday morning and sewing the rip in Monday afternoon.

It goes on the shelf next to the others. She is probably too short to reach and must get an old worn stool to stand on.

It goes next to last week, in the space before next. All with neat tags of the price I owe for such services.

But I think, the woman frowns as she studies the seemingly endless rows of folded time that belong only to me, knowing I will never come to pick them up.

One Word

There's a site called oneword.com where you have a set time limit to write about a set word. It's a brilliant exercise or working on flow and tone, for finding inspiration and destroying writer's block. I usually do two for each word. Here are some of my own one word creations:

Punishment

She fell from the branch to which she’d desperately clung, arms flailing in desperate bid for purchase. But no, her attempts were fragile and frail. That which was lost faded high away like dots in the distance. Faces of the leaving went quickly by and the below rose up with sharp fists to clutch at her broken body. She had not learned to run.

Punishment

It is a crash of rifting flesh like melting without the fragility. I break like breaking bones, unrepeatable. This is the rub of unending, just let me stop. Cease. It is never to end this pain.

Thread

Beneath the spool under a table in a small indentation in Ms. Jordan’s dingy home on the corner of Fifth and Crescent Street lived a family of five mice. The smallest slept always in the bundle of pooling thread that spilled over in turquoise blue masses. Their parents, small round mice with graying hair, made a sort of bed out of cotton balls but somehow always awoke with little thread fibers in their mouths. The oldest child slept on the next biggest mound of warm, soft thread. And the middle child slept on the hammock like sling beneath the two.

Thread

The piece that goes through the eye unwillingly, fraying until unusable and tossed aside. That which makes the needle tool rather than weapon. That which makes pictures of texture and color.

Avenue

Meaning to escape but forgetting the avenue even though twenty are open in the hedges. She streams forth blindly scrambling, nails scratch at latches and lost forever. Void. Fear. She knows his name. He leads her on and away and alone. Isolation.

Existence

He sat in the coil. Mortally wounded, his flesh fell out upon the earth, creating existence. His cells became persons who wandered and walked in their consciousness derived from his own membranous thoughts. They were one with him in his mortal wounds, his mortal peril, his broken, dying, immortality. They were his life force and they stole it away.

Existence

She existed between moments, breathing in the held breaths to try and capture attention. The glint of the eye, the flick of a wrist. She watched the things that make us human and longed to become as one. it is without permission that humanity begins unshakable and determined. Though that is a fabrication of human ego. She waited between moments with all the other corpses, the children, the infants, those who sat on eager edges for life to let them in.

As you can see, some are rough, but devoid of the words which inspired them, they take on entirely new meanings.

A Short Story

This is a piece a already had written:

It’s actually not that hard to kill your best friend. It’s just death. Just murder. I’m walking away and I’m not sorry. That part of me was one of the victims. It’s the lead up that’s hard, the moments before the killer takes over. It’s when you have to pretend to be anything other than what you are, a cold-blooded assassin, that can break you. Especially when you’re lying to the person who knows you best. How could he not have known?

I’m reliving the end in my head. People always say that the eyes of the newly dead are staring, piercing. As I stood above him, his eyes were still open, but they were blank and empty. There was no judgment or fear because he was so unprepared to go, so unsuspecting.

My blood pumped with adrenaline, excitement and sorrow, anger and fear. I knew the second he was gone. It left a sort of sick thrill in my veins that was accompanied by a terrible weight of guilt. When the last breath left his lungs, leaving a curl of gray in the air, I stood up, ready to walk away, but that lasting curl of air swirled in front of me. It seemed alive, so much more alive than the corpse in front of me.

Before that, I watched the soul leave his eyes, and it was my fault. Blood was painted down his front. It oozed from the wound, hitting the pavement with a sickening noise. It slid between my fingers when I helped him to the ground, taking his weight as his strength abandoned him. And it felt like a lifetime, like eternity, that journey to the ground. My first kill.

I stabbed him with a knife. It was as brutal as it sounds.

It just took a moment, just a second of metal through flesh, a quick twist of the wrist. The knife felt so good in my hand, so stealthy and invisible. I felt invincible, so powerful. It’s like being God. But there was a weight of guilt, a premature repentance.

“Sorry,” I whispered. I didn’t look in his eyes. I still don’t know if I meant it. I just moved close to him and did it, slid the knife beneath his coat, metal to cloth, not even slicing off a button. He didn’t even notice, didn’t see it coming.

We had just been walking. Night had set just enough to obscure the eyes of any witnesses. It lent a sort of eerie perfection to the scene. He didn’t know. I wished that I didn’t. I would have felt better if I could have shared his surprise, but this was purely premeditated.

I felt sick because I was excited. My palms itched with the desire to hold the knife in my hand, to move it in that practiced movement. But the other part of me was acting, pretending nothing was different about this walk, this conversation. And the assassin crouched, waiting to carry out her mission.


The idea was to write a backwards story. It's a little different than the usual.

A Simple Love Connection

I thought with school coming up (or having already started for some of you), people would be in need of an easy read. I wrote this the other night. It needs editing and it's only part of a larger story, but I think it's cute.


Piper leaned back in her desk chair; one stiletto-booted foot perched on the edge of the vintage wood counter at Hamelin Books and the other designer boot crossed over the first. It was a Wicked Witch-like picture to be greeted with, the sight of only those two feet, but Piper really didn’t care. She loved her job, but she didn’t feel like a bookstore required such propriety. Cordelia, her boss, would not have agreed. But Cordelia wasn’t there.
The little bell above the door let Piper know that a customer had entered, but she didn’t look up from her book. At least, it was her intent to remain undistracted by the new arrival, until she heard footsteps approach the counter and then stop. She waited, refusing to look up for a few precious moments.
“That must be some book,” said a male voice. Piper’s insides curled at the sound which was Irish and smooth. She set aside her worn copy of Finnegans Wake to look at the newcomer. She wished she’d kept her eyes on the rather less attractive James Joyce because she wasn’t prepared for the guy that stood before her now. He wasn’t the usual sort---nerdy, arty, skinny, cute but not handsome. This guy was tall and lean but muscular. Her eyes lit on his light blonde hair that looked a lot like a lion’s mane, and then let her gaze travel down to his dancing green eyes.
“Can I help you find something?” She found her voice, and at the same time suppressed a self-satisfied smirk as the guy’s gaze turned appreciative.
“I was told that if I wanted to find Roethke I had to come here.” The guy grinned. “My name’s Ian, by the way.”
“You definitely came to the right place,” she said, ignoring his question. “We’re the only bookstore around that carries Roethke.”
“So you aren’t going to tell me your name?”
“Well, technically, you didn’t ask,” she said. “Roethke’s in the poetry section, up those stairs and to the—What are you doing?” he’d reached down to pluck an old name tag from the jar of pens on the counter.
“George,” he read. Then he met her eyes. “I’m guessing that’s not your name?”
“No,” she tried to sound cold, but she had a feeling he didn’t buy it. She sighed and gave in. “Strangers call me Melissa,” she began. “Family and acquaintances call me Mel. But my friends call me Piper.” He raised an eyebrow. “It’s my last name,” she explained.
“But I don’t want to be a stranger or an acquaintance or even a friend.” Her traitorous breath caught. “So I guess I’ll have to call you something else.” Now she raised an eyebrow. He stroked his chin in mock-thought. “Melissa…Izzy?” Warmth curled in her at the way he said the name. And he smirked because he could tell she liked it, but he didn’t say anything. He did, however, turn and walk to the stairs. Then he stopped.
“I’m not sure I can find it on my own, Iz.” She noticed he was trying to make a sad kind of face. It was actually pretty effective because she found herself rising and walking up the stairs with him.
She helped him find the Roethke book, standing on her toes to reach the top shelf. In a move as old as time, Ian stepped up behind her and grabbed it so that they were pressed close together in the isolating row of books. She turned, but he didn’t move. She could smell his scent, a combination of coffee and spice.
“What do you want that book for?” she said to break the thick silence. He stepped back.
“A class at the university,” he said. “But I’ve been meaning to read some of his poems for a while now.”
“You like poetry?” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.
“Just because I’m a guy doesn’t mean I’m illiterate,” he said, pretending affront.
“In most cases it does,” she joked. Then she bit her lip which drew his heated gaze. She made a decision. “Follow me.”
She led him through the brightly lit rows of books into the back corner. Then she knelt down to a small section of shelf.
“This is where I keep the best books,” she admitted. Ian laughed.
“Hoarding them for yourself, Iz?”
“Something like that,” she laughed. “Actually, these are mine. I usually keep some of my favorite books around, just in case.” She half-smiled, wondering if he thought she was crazy. He was really thinking that she was fascinating and beautiful, but she couldn’t tell from his face.
She rose and handed him an old book. He set the Roethke aside to take it. It was an old copy of poems by Mandelstam.
“An old friend of mine translated them himself. They’re kind of amazing. You can borrow it, if you want.” He smiled at her.
“I want,” he grinned. She laughed a little. She felt isolated in their little space between the shelves. And she found herself liking this guy way too much.
“Come on, let’s get you checked out.” She slid past him toward check out, and he followed. She was acutely aware of his breathing and his footsteps. What was it about this guy? She’d met tons of cute, charming guys before. Her heels clicked on the wood stairs as she descended, jarring her back to reality. Then she heard him curse.
“What?” she asked.
“I left the Roethke back there,” he said. “I was distracted.” His eyes caught hers and held with an unspoken message that said it wasn’t any book that had distracted him. She looked away. “I’ll go get it and be right back.”
Piper went back to the counter, head spinning. She bit her lip before turning to ring up his purchase manually. Then, before she could stop herself, she had a pen in her hand and her fingers were scribbling ten digits and two hyphens on the back of his receipt. She shook her head at herself as she finished.
Ian appeared at the top of the stairs and a smile flitted over her face. She liked him, even she couldn’t deny it.
“Hey,” he said. “Here.” He handed her the book. She slid he receipt into the front cover and put both books into a bag. Ian watched her in silence.
“Take good care of my book,” she said.
“I will.” He smiled, and it did funny, unwanted things to her heart. “Well,” he said. “I’ve distracted you enough for one day.” She snorted. “I suppose you won’t give me your number then?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. And she didn’t have one for him anyway.
The door jingled, and then he was gone. And Piper felt oddly lost for a few moments after that, like she had to reacquaint herself with being Piper alone and not Piper with Ian. I was most unnerving.

Anyway, the idea is to start out the story with this little exchange that seems really really normal and then reveal the truth. I'm not sure what the truth is. By the way, the story's called Pied. I'm leaning towards making it take place after the world has pretty much been ravaged, but they're in one of the few rebuilt places. We shall see.

Can fluff be painful?

Instead of the witty awesome lyrical prose piece I wanted, I wrote a poem. But it's still rough yet.
Instead, enjoy a angsty romance oneshot I wrote a long time ago. Just recently posted it on FictionPress though.

http://www.fictionpress.com/secure/story/story_preview.php?storyid=2838395&chapter=1

10/6

Oh, a madman. Oh, a tired companion on a journey. How does he tailor so smoothly with crooked scissors and broken string? He who has been burned like the lace and buttons in his hair can no longer float above the ground. Waiting under a cloudless rain, his favorite tea time, there sits a masterpiece musician with needles and thread. Yet he wouldn’t know when tea time is because he no longer gets on well with history or future. Hoping has forsaken him and his pocket watch. He can only sit and search in his tea leaves for that which will appear on the horizon. His eyes are closing but his mouth runs rapid in another world for which he waits. Everything is clear in the uncrowded mind, but things cannot help pressing in to clutter the space most uncompromisingly. He who once knew all riddles is questioning. But the answer is found in a cocoon. Once he walked along and dreamt of clouds shaped like things, stringing letters along with his needle, embroidering them into rhyme. Dreams are no longer his companions and his companions are now only dreams and housecats, housecats who scratch and bite with their sarcastic smiles and covetous paws, as if they know more than he. They smile grins that stir up the dregs of the sad-faced madman’s latest cup. He who converses with cats and rabbits must also converse with hares, although they do not say much. He is tired of the silence. This poor forgotten reminiscence can’t wait to be remembered. Do you see the stitches in his heart? Everything is impossible for this honored jester. He is piecing together nonsense. Because shards of insanity rain more gently than pieces of perfect sense, and perfect sense in pieces makes no sense at all. In fact, it makes nonsense, and seems only like a few halfhearted tries at getting along ahead when the feet are stumbling behind in shoes three sizes too big. He does not know that his head is in the sky or that he is too tall for his shoes. Sometimes being taller or smaller is much preferred to normality. Maybe he only needs some cake. His favorite food is buttered bread, but he generally eats scones. He was once an artist but he is now only an appointed court official, hanging on the end of an unanswered question. If the butterfly could speak, he would end the fluttering query. Sometimes a headpiece is more like a hat. And sometimes a headpiece is simply a hat. There is no truth truer than that.