Red Bracelets and Familiars

I’m going to cut right to the chase today. Here are the stories for the last two prompts, and following them is the prompt for next week. Hope you enjoy!

RED BRACELETS

I was a boring woman, with my red bracelets and my strange bottles. See how bright the red. Listen to the chime of my bottles. I keep to myself, a plain woman with long dark hair in a non-descript dress, neither young nor old – timeless.

My neighbours call me bruja and speak of me only in whispers. The street urchins cause me no mischief, nor do they trespass save for when the dare each other to touch one of my precious bottles. Are they surprised by the cold, the texture? I wonder.

The bottles hang from the tree in my postage stamp front yard, swaying in the breeze, rattling when the wind picks up. Each bottle is unalike, unique. Each song it sings is different. I hear their music even when the air is still.

The bracelets were passed down from generation to generation to the eldest daughter. Until me. I was not the eldest, but they are mine nonetheless. They have no beginning and no end. I cannot remove them even should I care to do so. But why would I? I sacrificed much to gain them.

My sister was weak, unworthy. She would never have had the courage to care for the bracelets as they must be cared for. To do what she must to keep them red. My mother and my grandmother knew this but they were slaves to tradition and so my sister had lessons in the bracelets and I was sent to the witch in the woods, my mother’s sister, to learn the secret of the bottles.

They’re connected, you see, the bracelets and the bottles. You cannot have one without the other. And as soon as I understood that, my path was set. It took practice, many false starts, but I learned to perfect my bottles, to craft them into the shape of the soul. And in secret I watched my mother and grandmother attempt to instruct my sister in the blood magic of the bracelets, the knowledge of the forbidden filling me.

So I learned the secret of the bottles from my aunt, and then, to her horror, I embraced the magic of the bracelets and she became the first. That green, misshapen bottle, clumsily made, is hers. When the day came for the bracelet ceremony I was ready. When it was done I had three more bottles for my collection and the bracelets gleamed wetly red around my wrists.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

FAMILIAR

I survived the magical experiment gone haywire by hiding in her library. You’d think someone of her calibre would know better, but then Daphne always was over confident, always thought she was better than anyone else. Frankly, she got what was coming to her.

I was her trusted apprentice but her trust only went so far. I was good enough for the grunt work – gathering ingredients, mixing potions, cleaning up afterwards – but not for actual spellwork. She kept her spell book under lock and key and me in the dark.

Another of Daphne’s faults was that she didn’t believe in familiars. I’d always believed a familiar was an integral part of a witch’s make-up but when I broached the subject to her she just looked down her nose at me. I argued that the witch’s handbook advised the first solo spell should be the acquiring of a familiar she sneered and told me, “I’ll have no mangy animals in my household. Familiars are more trouble than they’re worth.”

So that was that and I never mentioned it again, just did what I was told and learned what I could. She was miserly with the lessons, but I was a quick study and learned more than she ever realized.

I didn’t know what the spell she intended to cast that day was of course, just that it would be major judging by the number of times she sent me to the woods and the village for ingredients. As usual, she zapped me with a spell of silence – just because that one time I distracted her with a question – so I couldn’t have warned her about the mouse even if I cared to.

So I stood in fuming silence watching the mouse creep closer and closer to the salt of the protective circle around her, braced for the inevitable. The mouse crossed the circle, the spell went awry, and I bolted for the well warded library.

I knew it was safe to come out when I could speak again – personal spells always dissipate when the caster dies. Daphne was a smear of ash on the floor. The mouse crept out from under the broom that had fallen and scurried over to my feet.

“Well done, Otis,” I said, stooping down so he could hop into my hand.

Familiars didn’t have to be big and mangy to be effective.

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

Wordage Report

Wandering Wizards – 0
I gotta tell you, the story’s been as elusive as the sun lately, but I’ll keep working on it.

Weekly Prompt – 409 words and 397 words
The fact that I got both prompt stories dome makes me feel like I’m actually doing something.

New Prompt
Use this as your first line:
I've got my lantern - now I'm going into hiding.

Happy Writing!

Theoretically Speaking

Let’s recap last week for a minute. It was my last week of babysitting, plus it was a short week – holiday Monday, plus a free day on Thursday. Theoretically I should have been able to get all kinds of writing done, right?

I can see you know me well enough by now not to have such high expectations. LOL

Here’s the sad truth. Tuesday I had my yearly (because I’m diabetic) eye exam. Later (much later) that night I had a bad reaction to what I suspect were the combination of drops used in my eyes. So when I wasn’t babysitting I pretty much spent the rest of the week curled up on the couch watching TV.

I was starting to feel better on Sunday, but then I accidentally shattered the chimney from the floor lamp in my office over my head. Who knew those things were so fragile? Anyway, that’s my sad little story. I’m thinking things can only get better. Right? (knock on wood)

It’s been so long since I’ve worked on Wandering Wizards I’ve kind of lost track of where they are. And, if I’m perfectly honest, I’ve kind of lost interest in the whole thing too. I need to re-read and maybe edit a little to catch up/regenerate my mojo.

What’s that, you say? Why didn’t I catch up/regenerate yesterday, which was my first full day of non-babysitting? Well, uh, I got busy taking pictures of butterflies, looking for a replacement chimney for my lamp, and catching up on my journal. Don’t judge.

I’ll do better today – promise!

Prompts of the Week

I went through a whole bunch of prompts (another time waster) and generators before settling on these two from Springhole. This site has a whole lot of options and if you don’t like the prompt it generates just click it again. Maybe I’ll just go straight here next week.

First I clicked on the Fairytale Plot Generator, which gave me this:

The story is about a lonely wizard who must outwit a faerie, defeat a giant, and find a magic mirror to solve three riddles. Assistance comes in the form of a magic ring.

Then as a bonus prompt I clicked on the Really Random Plot-o-tron, which gave me this one:

An ordinary dinosaur gains control of a monster from under the bed and discovers the princess.

Go ahead, play along with me. Or go to Springhole and generate a prompt of your own.

You know you want to…

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.

Fallen

This week’s prompt came courtesy of RanGen and consisted of three words: Grace, Confusion, and Brilliance.

Honestly, this was a little too easy. When I started playing around with these words I was able to get all three in a single sentence. I toyed with the idea of doing a series of sentences using all three words, but ended up looking for different meanings for the words.

His fall was a lengthy one and he landed hard on the grass-covered dirt of the earthly realm. At first he looked around in confusion, not really understanding what had happened.

The realization of what he’d lost came as a shock. He had been cast out, no longer one of the Chosen. He had gambled with his brilliance and lost everything.

Unused to corporeal form he rose slowly to his feet, dusting off his wings and folding them to his back out of sight. He was at a crossroads, both literally and figuratively.

Glancing upwards he saw nothing but blue sky. Determination filled him as he picked a direction at random and began to walk. He’d be back. If it was the last thing he ever did he would return and once more bathe in the light of the Grace. No matter what.

Chocolate Weather

You’re probably wondering what I mean by chocolate weather, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you (as you knew I would).

Chocolate weather is the overcast, depressing weather – sometimes with rain, sometimes with just the promise of rain – that makes you crave chocolate. Chocolate is the only thing that makes life worth living on a day like this.

As you recall, I’m a diabetic, which means the only kind of chocolate I’m supposed to have is dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is okay, I mean it’s better than no chocolate at all and one of the benefits is that it’s so strong tasting you can only eat a little at a time, so no overindulging.

But that’s not the kind of chocolate I crave during chocolate weather. Nope, the only kind of chocolate to combat chocolate weather is milk chocolate. Pure milk chocolate. Lindt or Cadbury or Belgian or Godiva – decadent, creamy, smooth milk chocolate. And if it has hazelnuts in it, that’s okay too.

Unfortunately, even indulging in my chocolate fix wasn’t enough to motivate me into a whole lot of writing. I got the prompt story done (eventually), and a couple of thousand words added to Wandering Wizards, but the word counts weren’t nearly as good as last week.

Keep the faith though, despite the slow pace my characters are moving forward and I figured out a new threat to throw at them that’s also going to solve the problem of how one of them gets kidnapped.

I can’t wait!

Prompts of the Week

Seeing as I waffled so much last week, I decided to just go ahead and get prompts from both The Story Shack and The Plot Generator.

Your random plot points from The Story Shack are:

Word count: 550
Genre: Fantasy
Character: A healer
Material: A steam boat
Sentence: "You don't have to love me."
Bonus: Your character is loved by everyone.

And this week I chose the “Smelly Trolls” option from The Plot Generator to get this:

Your hero –Matthew Parker
The child's age in years - 5
The town where it all takes place – Bogstaple
An evil troll – Maud Speckledtongue
A good troll – Flappy Suzanne Boglewax
Two meals, plural – chips, lasagnes
A type of vegetable, plural – turnips
Something yucky, plural – dustbins
A part of the body, singular – elbow

Feel free to play along, or visit one of the sites to create your own prompt.

Excuse #792

After I got the ekphrastic poem written last week the writing pretty much took a nose dive.

I had a little extra babysitting last week, and as I mentioned before, the grandbaby is transitioning out of her naps so that gives her an extra hour and a half to drain the energy from me. Plus the weekend was a holiday weekend for us here in Canada, so I had to focus on getting the house cleaned up. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

We had some family from out of town come for a barbeque on Saturday and sadly I’ve never been what one might consider a “Suzy Homemaker.” Normally that wouldn’t matter because it was a barbeque – we were going to be eating outside. However, we’ve had an unnatural amount of rain and there was a good chance it was going to rain on our barbeque, which meant people would actually be in my house. Therefore, the house must be cleaned!

And being the anal retentive weirdo I am, a lot of what I did was stuff no one was going to notice except me. But my fridge has never been cleaner, and you can actually see your reflection in the stove. So Sunday I got to kick back and relax and enjoy my clean house. I celebrated by…not writing, but sitting out on the deck to read. Close but no cigar.

However, whilst reading I did get an idea for that scene I wanted to add to Wandering Wizards (the one I skipped over), and I got a brand new idea for a quirky, maybe even funny, romantic short. So at least my mind was on the right track.

Now you’d think that would mean yesterday, which was the actual holiday, I would have been all gung ho to write. Well, it was a thought, but just a passing one. Instead I went down to the local Waterfront Festival. Twice. And then we went down again after supper to watch the fireworks, which is why this blog post is late (I usually try and write them the night before and schedule them, only there wasn’t any night before).

Anywho, while the fireworks weren’t all that impressive this year I did get some (unintentionally) interesting pictures. I took my good camera down with me and put it on the sports setting which is for action shots. But it’s hard to keep still when you shoot 600 pictures in the space of 10 minutes, so some of the pictures came out . . .weird. Those were the best ones of all. :-D

To prompt or not to prompt, that is the question…

Oh! Lookee what I found! Too lazy to go to my office to peruse my writing materials, I did a quick Google search for prompts and found this cool page:
Writing Exercises
This page has a whole bunch of neat prompt generators like Random First Lines, ‘Take Three Nouns,’ and Random Image Generator. There are about 21 of them to choose from and I hereby challenge you to pick one (or two) to give your creativity a boost.

And hey, if you have fun with it let me know. And if you like what you’ve come up with (or even if you don’t like it but still had fun) send it to me at crward(dot)author@gmail(dot)com so I can post it along with mine on Saturday.

C’mon. You know you want to!

Viva La Revolucion!

This week's prompts actually required some thinking on my part. Especially the first one.

The words for the first prompt were so disparate that I couldn’t think of using them for anything other than a poem. Which was a little surprising, but it’s nice to do something different once in awhile.

The second prompt generated a flash piece that is both weird and a little sad.


Prompt One

Forestall, review, applause, vocalize, govern

Viva La Revolucion

Forestall your protests;
the time will soon be upon us.
Ideas are rising
like floodwaters in the spring.

Review the past
if you do not believe.
Though it comes not again
we can still learn from it.

Applause is given
for measures taken;
plan for the future
if there’s to be a tomorrow.

Vocalize your concerns
to anyone who will listen,
to affect the changes
you wish to see.

Govern your thoughts
and keep them hidden
from those who deny
the revolution is coming.


Prompt Two

Child Eternal
Light Attributes: Determination to remain young in body, mind, and spirit. Ability to see things with fresh eyes.
Shadow Attributes: Inability to grow up and be responsible. Extreme dependency on others for physical security.

There was nothing remarkable about her, especially in the beginning. It was only later, when she reached twelve years of age and stopped growing, that her parents realized she was different. They consulted several doctors but they could find nothing wrong. She was a medical anomaly.

The years passed and she never changed – it was as though her mind and body had been frozen in time. When she was eighteen years old another distinction became evident. She had a unique way of seeing the world. Each time she was shown something she saw it differently.

By this time she was no longer attending school, she just didn’t have the capacity to learn beyond the twelve year old level, so her parents started her on the talk show circuit. She had her fifteen minutes of fame, but all too quickly the novelty wore off and she was yesterday’s news.

Her parents grew tired of having an eternal child to care for. They talked in secret about different solutions and finally found a boarding school for special needs children. It was far enough away that they wouldn’t be expected to visit, close enough for her to come home for holidays.

Life went on in this way for some time and would have continued for many years had there not been an incident at the school involving several of the girls and several boys from the academy across the river. Their daughter was sent back to them and they turned their attention to a lawsuit against the school that they had trusted to protect their daughter.

Before they reached a settlement agreement, they realized something strange was happening to their daughter. It was not just that she was more withdrawn than she had been, she seemed to be …growing. For the first time in fifteen years she needed new clothing, not because her old clothes were worn out, but because she’d outgrown them.

No longer could she see the world with her unique point of view. It was as though with the loss of her innocence she lost all that made her special. For the life of them, her parents did not know whether this was for better or for worse.

Visions and Pirates

Believe it or not, I had something written to both of these prompts by the end of Tuesday, same day as I posted them. What I forgot was to type them out and schedule them to appear earlier this morning.

Oh, well. I’m only a little late, right? And they do say better late than never. LOL


Prompt One
You’re at work, like any normal day, and happen to look out the window as you head to the break room for a second cup of coffee. What you see makes you stop in your tracks. What is it?

It was fast turning into one of those days. First, I was almost late to work because the car wouldn’t start, then I was late to the meeting I’d forgotten all about. To top it off, I just couldn’t seem to wake up.

“This calls for another cup of coffee,” I muttered, getting to my feet.

“Save some for the rest of us,” my cubical mate, Sheila, said.

The break room was empty, but at least the coffee pot was full. Guess there might be hope for today after all. Or at least that’s what I thought as I went back to my desk. But then I happened to glance out the window on my way by. I stopped dead in my tracks, unable to tear my eyes away from the view.

“That’s a good way to catch flies,” Henry said as he passed by on his way to the break room.

I don’t know how long I’d been standing there with my mouth open. “Have you seen that?” I nodded towards the window.

Henry glanced towards the window and did a double take. “Oh my god,” he whispered.

In a short time Henry and I were joined by Bob, Francine, and Harold, from accounting, who had come upstairs to use our break room because their coffee maker was broken.

“For Christ’s sake Jonas,” Sheila said, coming up the hallway. “Just how long does it take to get a cup of coffee?” She didn’t appear phased by the small crowd at all.

Wordlessly, Francine pointed at the window. Sheila turned and let out a small gasp. “How did that get there?”

“I don’t know,” Harold said grimly, “But we’d better get back to work before the boss finds out.” Murmuring in agreement, we all went back to our desks.


Prompt Two
One day, while reading your favourite book on the beach, you notice a boat slowly drifting to shore. It eventually lands near your spot. A person, draped in pirate clothes, yells to you from the boat, “I have a treasure map and I need help. Are you in?”

I had saved for three years for this vacation in Cuba. This was not one of the popular resorts, it was tucked out of the way, overlooked by most tourists, which is just the way I wanted.

After three years of extra long hours in customer service, the last thing I wanted was to have people around me on my vacation.

It was early enough in the morning that only a few of the other guests at the small hotel were up. After a delicious breakfast in the dining room, I took my bag and went out to the beach.

I don’t think there’s a bad beach on the whole island. This one was a wide strip of sand bordering the curve of a bay. I was aiming for the spill of rocks leading right to the water, a few palm trees casting long shadows.

The hotel was just a spec in the distance as I spread out my blanket in the shade and dumped the contents of my bag onto it – bottles of water, sun screen, snacks, and three paperback books. Everything I’d need for the day.

I settled back with a sigh, opening up one of my favourite books. It held my attention for the better part of an hour when something made me look up and out over the water.

There was a large speck out there. I shaded my eyes with my hand and squinted, but couldn’t make out what it was. A passing ship maybe? For the next while I alternated between reading and watching the spec, which seemed to be drawing closer.

The sun was high in the sky when I abandoned all pretense of reading and stood to watch the approaching speck. It was close enough now for me to see that it was some kind of large sailboat, a rather old-fashioned one at that. And there was a man on board dressed up like some kind of pirate.

Was someone shooting a movie somewhere? Had I accidentally intruded on their set? I glanced quickly around – there were no signs posted.

“Avast, ye landlubber,” the man called when he was within shouting distance. “What land be this?”

“Cuba,” I answered, bemused. He was younger than I’d expected, but tall and lean with his dark hair pulled back from his face in a long tail. He appeared to be the only one aboard the boat.

“Cuba ye say?” He let loose a string of curses. “Damned storm blew me further off course than I thought.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Why to find me treasure, lass.” He gave me a speculative look. “Care to come along? I could use a hand.”

I glanced down at the book lying facedown on the blanket. The one with the muscular man in the billowy shirt standing on the deck of a beautiful, three-masted sailing ship. Then I looked at the boat with its raggedy sail, and its equally shabby but earnest looking pilot.

It was a no brainer.

It’s A Start. . .

It was a busy week, it being March Break and all, so I only got one of the prompts done. But it’s better than nothing, right? This little story proves that you don’t have to take these prompts too seriously. :-D

To get the story straight. Dave, we think, has become a chicken. Just the worst of luck with that guy. Tom is claiming he married the futon that’s now covered in yogurt, Carl is on the chandelier with the dog and you just walked in after getting groceries. What the heck is going on?

You set the groceries down with a sigh. “Millicent!” you call.

There’s a pink swarm of dust motes hovering in the corner and a high pitched giggle comes from the sparkling cloud.

“Millicent,” you say again, looking sternly at the pink swarm. The sparkle intensifies and two bright fuchsia eyes appear. “What have I told you?” you ask sternly.

The effervescent of the swarm tones down slightly. “No using wild magic on your friends,” a high-pitched voice replied.

“And what did you do while I was gone?”

“It was just a little magic, and it wasn’t my fault.”

You sigh. Raising any child on your own is hard, but raising a half fairy, half genie is challenging, to say the least.

The swarm drifts down to the floor in front of you and begins to coalesce. Another few seconds and a small form takes shape. The fuchsia eyes remain the same and today she’s sporting bright pink, spikey hair, a pale blue tee-shirt with the slogan “Unicorn Trainer” emblazoned across it in darker blue sequins, and jeans. As usual, her feet are bare.

You crouch down so you can look her in the eyes. “You’ve had your fun, now change them back please.”

She looks down, hands behind her back, and her glow dims a little further. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“Carl used my wand to play fetch with the dog and the dog bit it in half and it broke. That’s how they ended up on the chandelier.”

“And the rest?” you ask with the patience of a saint.

One bare toe rubbed on the carpet. “The magic kind of spilled out and went wonky.”

You sigh and straighten up again. “Okay. Give me the pieces and we’ll fix it.”

She produces the pieces from behind her back and hands them to you. You pat her on the head and take the pieces gingerly.

“All right, let’s glue this up and you can put things to right again.”

Millicent skips happily beside you as you go into the kitchen to get the super glue. At the rate she keeps breaking her wand, maybe you should be buying glue by the case.