Ghosts & Friends

Originally I’d planned to do a short bit for each of this week’s prompts – I thought they’d be quick and easy. But the first one ran so long (and I was already a day late) that I figured one was plenty.

To refresh your memory, the prompt was: One day in an abandoned factory haunted by a restless spirit, a lost girl summons a restless spirit.

“She’s one of the lost ones, Talla,” Jem said, placing a hand on her sister’s arm. “Everyone knows you can’t trust a lost one.”

Talla jerked her arm free. “Then don’t come with me.”

Jem watched her sister head towards the abandoned factory, biting her lip in indecision. The building had a reputation for being haunted, but of course that was why Talla was so interested in it. She had a soft spot for ghosts. Jem sighed and hurried to catch up.

Talla was waiting just inside the factory and gave her sister a small smile before leading the way to where the lost girl promised to meet them. The factory was dark and damp, smelling of mould and dust. It was sectioned off into empty rooms, all of them stripped of anything valuable by scavengers long ago.

The lost girl waited for them in the central most chamber, sitting on an empty crate. She was small and thin and dirty, dressed in raggedy black clothing. Her eyes seemed to glow in the dark.

“I am here, as promised,” she said to Talla. “What would you have of me?”

“There’s a ghost haunting this place,” Talla said without preamble.

“Yes, I can feel it.”

“I want to help it – I’m told you can do this.”

“Who says it wants or needs your help?”

“I…” For once Talla seemed to be at a loss for words. “I don’t know. I just get this overwhelming sense of sadness when I’m in here. This ghost has been here a long time, I think it needs help moving on.”

The girl cocked her head and studied her for a moment. “All right,” she said at last. “But I do this my way.”

“But what—” Jem started to ask before Talla elbowed her into silence.

The lost girl stood up from the crate and reseated herself on the floor, sitting cross-legged. After a second of hesitation, the others joined her.

“What do we do?” Jem asked.

“Be quiet,” the lost girl replied.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Closing her eyes she rested her hands on knees and began to chant. The chanting rose and fell with musical cadence, although she never actually sang.

Jem gasped as the ghost began to manifest above them, but Talla just looked up in wonder. It was a smoke-like wisp, a ragged remnant floating gently in the air above them. It dipped and bobbed and turned as though dancing. Still the lost girl chanted.

A second wisp appeared in a corner and moved slowly forward. The first one stopped its dance and waited. The girls watched in wonder as the second wisp drifted towards the first. The two entities circled each other, seemed to acknowledge each other’s presence, and moved in tandem in a lazy circle. They continued the dance the first one had started before flowing upwards and out of sight.

“What do you sense now?” the lost girl asked. The others hadn’t even been aware the chanting had stopped.

Tally looked surprised. “Peace and happiness.”

The lost girl nodded and climbed to her feet.

“I don’t understand!” Jem said. “I thought—”

“You thought I would banish the spirit.”

Jem nodded.

“The spirit was unhappy, lonely. All it needed was a friend.”

“So you summoned it one.”

“I said I would do it my way.” The lost girl shrugged. “It seemed a better choice than banishment.”

“Everyone needs a friend,” Talla said with a smile at the lost girl.

The lost girl smiled back.

Prompt Me ... Um ... Sunday?

So here’s the thing. For some reason I thought I had another Friday, so I was planning to work on my story this week and post it Friday. Only this Friday will be March, and the first Friday of the month is when I post my picture prompt. So my story is late, but at least I managed to get it done.

Here’s a reminder of the picture prompt I used:

Now you may wonder about the title. It’s loosely based on the fable by Aesop called The Scorpion and the Frog that goes something like this:
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?" The scorpion replies: "It’s my nature..."

It was that last line that stuck in my mind. The picture made me think of forest faeries and tea parties. And that got me thinking about the nature of faeries and how they’re often thought to be soulless. And THAT got me thinking about a story I started (but it petered out pretty quickly) a while back about a man who finds a faery in his garden. So without further ado, here’s my story for the month of February:

Frog and Scorpion

His friends thought him mad, buying the cottage set in the woods on the cliff side, and yet they were often to be found wheedling an invitation to visit. There was something peaceful about the murmur of the sea, the shushing of the wind in the trees. It was almost magical.

Despite being surrounded by nature, he created a garden - for the faeries, he said. There were sunflowers and daisies, lilies and lavender, foxglove and tulips, honeysuckle and heliotrope, and set in the midst was a low, round table with eight diminutive chairs padded with moss. On a whim he set the table for tea with mismatched china.

He found her there, at the bottom of the garden, a broken thing - lost, injured, just a shell - like so much flotsam cast up by the tide. At first he was not even sure she was alive, lying as she was amidst the stones, cradled in the illusion of tattered remnants of gossamer wings.

The friend who had accompanied him to assess the damage left by the great wind storm the previous night told him to leave it there, no good would come of aiding such a creature. But he believed in magic and faeries and all the good that came with them and would not be dissuaded. When he brought her into his home, the friends who were waiting for the damage report advised him to cast it back from whence it came. He stood as they barred his way, the weight of her in his arms as insubstantial as a puff of smoke, and looked at them reproachfully until they stood aside.

“It’s a wild thing,” they said, calling back to him over their shoulders as they left his home. “It cannot be tamed.”

“Nonsense,” he said softly, otherwise ignoring their departure. “She’s lost and helpless. She has no need of taming, just love and care.”

Love he had in abundance, and was always willing to share.

She was almost transparently pale as he carefully laid her on the cot in the sunny guest room. He built a fire in the fireplace for warmth and washed her and cleansed her scratches with witch hazel. With the gentlest of touches he combed the detritus from her long dark hair.

For a long time she lay unmoving on the cot, her slight form barely discernible under the faded patchwork quilt. Patiently he spooned milk, warmed and laced with honey, into her mouth. More often than not it dribbled back out again, but his quiet persistence was at last rewarded. She swallowed, and he all but wept with joy.

When he spoke to her, she opened eyes that held a forest of green, but she made no sound in return. He named her Shaelyn, meaning ‘from the faery palace’ in Gaelic. He continued to feed her the milk and honey when she was awake, and when she dozed he read to her from slender, leather-bound volumes of poetry.

“One day you will regret your impulsiveness,” she told him, when she could at last speak. “You should have left me to die.”

“Nonsense.”

“You think to bind me with your kindness and a name of your choosing. But I cannot be bound. I am not what you think I am.”

“You are one of God’s creatures in need of succor; that is what I think and that is all I need to know.”

It was several days before she was able to stay awake for any length of time and he left her side only once, to go to the village to buy more honey and oatcakes. On the fourth day she was able to sit up in the cot, on the fifth she was able to stand. On the seventh day she was able to walk to the door and back and he knew that soon she would leave him. The thought saddened him.

On the ninth day she stepped outside, holding her face up to the sun, the gauzy rags she wore floating in the breeze. He stepped up beside her.

“You can stay if you like,” he said, almost shyly, for in the short time they’d been together he’d grown to love her.

She turned to look at him and he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Looking down in surprise he saw the slender knife she’d slipped between his ribs. His hand went to the crimson stain blossoming on his white shirt. He looked at her in confusion.

“Why?” he gasped with his last breath.

She looked at him dispassionately as the light in his eyes dulled. “Because it is my nature,” she replied.

And without glancing back she turned away and spread her ragged wings.