Short Story - "Always"

I submitted this a couple months ago to a very high brow, look-down-their-noses lit mag contest that I knew I had no prayer of winning. It didn't win - obviously - but I was pretty happy with it. It, like most things I submit, suffers from a bad case of being written by me, and that's something I can't seem to change. Huh. Oh well. I wanted to share it here. It's got my historical Slight of Hand characters - some of whom haven't been introduced. Major spoilers for that nebulous fantasy trilogy I plan to write one of these days. Kinda long. Kinda too artsy. Read at your own risk - it's total guilty pleasure fiction. Whole thing property of me.

Always

Immortal. That’s what Liam had said. His face returned to her, in snatches of nightmare, the wonder and bloodlust swimming in the blue striations of his eyes as the night pressed in around them. “He can’t be killed,” he told them, his captive audience on tenterhooks. Annabel remembered the snowflakes in his hair; the wind sighing high in the snow-weighted branches above them. She remembered her sister with fistfuls of fire, her waifish elegance splashed with the jewel tones of flame. “Blackmere,” Liam said, half-curse and half-prayer. His bane and his driving passion. “The Baron Strange of Blackmere…”

Posting it Here Too

Would love for the magazine to get some attention, but I wanted to post "Cold Again" here too for anyone who wants to read it and can't get the download to work.

 

Cold Again

 

The apple was small and withered, but when she bit into it, a trickle of juice ran down her chin and the green skin snapped beneath her teeth. She found a black piece of rot and dug it out with dirty, ragged fingernails, and kept eating. She’d forgotten the names she’d always wanted to give to her children, the color of her favorite dress, the things her mother had told her about proper manners. All that existed was food, and shelter, listening and living. All she knew was survival.

“It’s warmer by the fire, love.”

Lily picked up her head, swallowing apple. In the clearing where they’d camped, Theo had built a sickly fire of damp wood and bark curls. He’d tended it endlessly, until exhaustion had claimed him, and he’d joined the others in fitful sleep, wrapped in a bedroll. The fire had burned on, without his assistance, tended by another. Now she was alone, with Liam.

"Cold Again"

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/400257485604163941/

Happy Tuesday, all. I can't believe it's December already - December fourth, at that. It doesn't seem possible. I'm excited to start the month with another story published in The Opening Line. My short story "Cold Again" is the "Pick of the Month" for the magazine's Winter Spirit issue and you can find it on page fourteen of the mag that is free to download here.

For a while now, I've been considering doing something a little different with my side project historical story Slight of Hand, and Opening Line's December issue seemed like the perfect chance to explore the new ideas. I'm so glad, now, that I wrote this piece - and that it was well-received - because it's taken me down a whole new creative path with the Harwood sisters. Their stories have the potential to become magical and supernatural, and I can't wait to dive back into that project. Until then, you can read "Cold Again" and check out the rest of the December contributors.

Slight of Hand - 4.3

Theo plucked and dressed the pheasant; Rees sprinkled it with salt and pepper and set it to roast. They ate it at the table, by the light of two lamps, with beans and potatoes and china cups of the warm, sweet red wine the Liam had produced from a dusty bottle under his jacket. Rees let the younger girls drink too, and Annabel’s cheeks were rosy because of it, her laughter loud and sharp. Lily was quiet, but smiling down at her dented tin plate of food.

            “Do you even know how to use that bow of yours?” Theo asked Annabel between mouthfuls. Both men had the table manners of wild dogs: eating with their fingers, stripping the chicken from the bone completely, leaving not a scrap behind. They were hungry, and used to eating all they could when they could. It raised a dozen questions in Rees’s mind about where and how they’d gained access to so much food…and not partaken of it themselves.

            “Yes,” Annabel boasted, tiny nose lifted high. She’d decided she approved of Theo; Rees could tell. It was a grudging respect on both their parts, it seemed. “I do. I’m good at it, too.”

            “Can you even draw the string?”

            “Yes! You wanna see? I could kill a squirrel, if I wanted to.”

            “Not with that short bow, you couldn’t. Do you handle the rifle?”

            “Let’s not encourage that,” Rees said, and he cast a glance across the table at her, eyes twinkling in the dancing lamplight, grinning as he licked pheasant grease off his palm.

Slight of Hand - 4.2

 

The next morning, there were more gifts. Needle, fine white thread, a bolt of gray wool, another of brown, some white linen, scented soap, oil for the lanterns, and three pairs of what must have been young boys’ riding boots. The boots were used, but still in good shape, just broken in; the leather was decent and the footbeds were comfortable and warm. Rees and Lily set immediately to making a new dress for each of them. Annabel was ecstatic over the boots.

Slight of Hand - 4.1

4

 

Favors

 

            They didn’t stay. Theo built a fire in the stove, left them with a week’s worth of firewood, and roused his drunken friend. With Liam’s arm slung across his shoulders, he gave Rees a nod and they took their leave, out into the dusky indigo of evening. “Bolt the door,” he told her as they started up the road. She did. And latched the windows. And she lit a precious candle so that she could see to pan-fry their last four strips of bacon.

            They ate at the table, by candlelight, soaking up grease from the iron skillet with stale, hard heels of bread. They had only cheese left, not enough for even one proper meal the next day. And in the wavering shadows, Rees could hear all their stomachs growling for more.

            Annabel was the one who finally brought up their visitors. “I think you should have let them stay.”

Slight of Hand - 3.3

“You’re educated?” Liam’s voice was growing sloppier by the second; the whiskey was doing its job. He was unflinching, asking her questions to help the time pass. Unfortunately, a drunk patient was a moving patient, and Rees kept steadying him, pausing between stitches. On the first pass, the first punch of needle through skin, she’d thought she was going to faint. No, she’d chanted in her head. No, no, no. And the spots had cleared from her vision. And she’d pulled the needle through the neat edge of the wound. And Liam was doing a good job of distracting her, even if he was foxed.

            “I am,” she said, pulling his skin closed and holding the thread down with her thumbnail. “I was going to be a teacher.”

            “Going to be?” He breathed a raspy chuckle. “The charms of matrimony stole you away from your career?”

            “William proposed. Mama thought it was a good match.”

            “Mama thought, eh? Your mama thought there were fairies living in the bottom of the well, and they sang songs to her when she was pulling up water.”

I Named It

Slight of Hand. And it's "slight" instead of "sleight" on purpose. If a title can have more than one meaning, and be a play on words, that's always a bonus. Hiding, rumors of magic, small girls with small hands...so yay, it's got a title now.

Liam had a gash that followed the outer curve of his shoulder, a wicked slice that bit deep enough to flash the white under layers of skin. Rees pressed her lips together against a wave of nausea when she peeled his shirt away and caught her first blood-smeared look of it.

            “Ruined my second coat,” he said as she prodded the edge of the laceration with a tentative finger. “What a rare thing it is to have two coats these days.”

More Untitled - Name Coming, I Promise!

3

 

Stitches

 

            There was nothing in the way of a modern convenience at the Cornish farm. Rees’s hands slipped on the well crank twice before Theo brushed her not-so-sweetly out of the way and brought the water up himself.

            “I can do it,” she protested.

            His answer was a disbelieving grunt as he emptied the bucket into one of the two he’d brought outside and dropped it down the well again. His shirt was the same thin roughspun as Liam’s, only light. It had been white once, a long time ago. It clung to the perspiration down the backs of his lean arms.

            His silence, the sheer boldness of him – following her out here, pushing her aside, acting not at all like any sort of gentlemanly southerner, his being here in the first place – pricked at her temper. She was still frightened, she was hungry, and she was close to tears with nerves, staggering under the weight of all that had happened in just a week’s time; and now this sullen, bearded stranger with wolfish green eyes was treating her like a prisoner in her own home.

Another Tidbit

Still don't have a name for it, but I'm working on it in pieces when I get tired of my main project, so figured I'd keep sharing.

His grin became true. “Smart girl.”

            There was a sound behind her of Lily feeding another precious log into the fire; Rees thought she could hear the low rush of water in the old iron kettle preparing to boil. Cups, she thought inanely, forcing herself to turn away and go to the cupboard. We need cups. Theo’s eyes followed her, bright green wolf eyes that made her want to shiver. Inviting them in had been a mistake, but what choice had they?

A Little More of This

It needs a name. Because it is most definitely the next thing I'm working on that I won't claim to be working on because God Love Her comes first. Confused? Good, so am I.

It, like all stories, begins in one place and ends in quite another. Small minds expand. Opinions are worked over like hot iron in a forge. Writers are a bit like blacksmiths in that respect: we thrust characters into the fire and beat on them until they're in the shape we want...

2

 

The Magician

 

            There are two kinds of legends. There’s the big legends: the legends everyone knows. They’re embellished, and twisted, but the main threads run constant. Legends of kings, of presidents, of horrible wars. The sorts of legends that withstand centuries of time, and get put down in books.

            Then there are small legends: the local ones. The ones salted with the flavor of towns, of places, of small people with big stories to tell as they keep warm by the fire. Legends steeped in mystery, swirled in uncertainty, tasting of fear and dreams and wishes and tall tales. Legends that only exist on the lips of the tellers, that spill forth at the gentlest prodding of good whiskey, that live a generation, or two, or three, before they’re laid to rest in cold Southern ground somewhere.

            Liam Bennet was a small legend.

More of That Thing I'm Not Writing Yet

I'm not working on it yet, I swear! Not really...oh, that's a lie. It got some hits, so I thought I'd post the rest of what I have so far. I had to change "Lainey" to "Lily" because another Civil War Lainey was brought to my attention and I don't want to even smell like a copycat. I've had my work nicked before and it ain't fun - never want to be accused of such. So, Lainey is Lily instead. And again, I'm not working on it...

Except I am.

”Go inside, Lily. Now. And close the door.”

”Oh,” Lily gasped as she spied the men.

“Go–” There wasn’t enough time. Not now. They were close enough to make out both girls on the porch, their pale dresses drawing two sets of eyes in the shade of the roof. “Nevermind,” Rees said. Her voice sounded desperate in her ears; she hoped it didn’t sound that way to Lily. “Hand me the rifle.”

“But…it’s not loaded.”

Something New, Saving for Later

I posted a little series of snippets and flash fiction pieces...gosh...a year ago, or so. They're part of something I've always wanted to work on. There's this story that keeps coming back around. Some things just take a little longer to ferment. But one of these days, I'll get it written.

 

 

There were two men coming down the road, one half-a-head taller than the other. Long, drab brown coats marked them neither Confederate nor Yankee. The slender shapes of rifles sprouted over their shoulders. The wind brought the sound of their footfalls tunneling down the path. And one of them was whistling.

A rustle in the long grass beyond the porch drew her attention. It was Annabel, skinny and sun-browned as an Indian boy, her little ash wood short bow slung over one shoulder as she belly crawled through the stalks.

”Anna!” Rees hissed. ” Come back inside.”

Annabel ignored her. ”There's strangers coming,” she whispered, and crawled toward the road.

I should never have let Henry give her that, she thought, heart pounding wildly as the men drew closer. She could make out faces now, the hints of them. Narrow cheeks scruffy with beard and the strong ridges of noses. The taller one was dark-headed, and sharp-featured. The other not blonde and not redheaded, but between, and wore his hair to his shoulders. It was the tall one who whistled. ”Dixie.”

”Rees,” Lainey's voice called from the doorway. ”What are -”

”Hush. Go back inside.”

The men were close, now. The tall one wore his beard short, his hair a thick dark cap that curled over the shells of his ears. Under black brows, his eyes were round and bright...and skipping up to her. His companion was older, she saw. Perhaps forty. There were lines on his face. He watched her too, his gaze a hot, fixed thing from down the length of the lane, and Rees shivered.

”Rees -”

”Go inside, Lainey. Now. And close the door.”