Ballad of the Door, excerpt
“With ancient feuds forgotten, and minds with ballads filled,
Two worlds long torn asunder will find the door again.
Pure of heart and human, a Chosen warrior comes,
The barrier shall be broken, two worlds unite as one.”
Irvu’s Lullaby, excerpt
Born of power, born of flame,
The one has come her throne to claim
The child of light our hearts will tame,
Daughter of earth with heaven’s name.
She stretched her nearly thawed wings to brush the trees on either side. How much fun dancing among the branches had been, their bare bones crackling beneath the ice of her feathers. How delighted she had been by the cooling that had silenced the world and dressed her in crystal lace. The touch of her dancing feet had adorned every surface with a shining imitation of her, and the flakes that fell from her fluttering wings left white drifts into which she plunged again and again in gleeful abandon.
How strange when warmth began to creep upon her, first little more than an odd spark within her belly but quickly growing to melt her lacy garment thread by thread. The warm drops that fell from her exploded with color where they landed, transforming her playground into an artist’s palette. Silence slowly filled with song and chatter. The wind that had played with her became drunk on her increasing warmth and ripped the melting ice from her wings to fling it to the ground where it sprouted green in soggy puddles.
Soon enough she understood. The warmth had tired her, left her sitting or walking quietly among the blossoms, until her body could no longer contain it. Her child, this flame that had transformed her, hovered near her with the uncertainty of infancy. Wings still unformed, she blinked at the world from the familiarity of her mother’s palms. Her mother fed the last of her strength into the child, who sprouted wings of flame and hurtled skyward with all the enthusiasm of youth. Her fire would grow until the world reflected it’s brilliance, then cool in the last fling of youth before the birth of her own spring.
At first glance the figures gliding down through the trees seemed non-threatening, almost human. They wore leather jackets that hung low and had ragged holes worn in elbows and tail. As their feet touched the ground, my skin began to crawl. Three pairs of red eyes stared out of bloodless faces. One of them focused its gaze upon me, a smile snaking across its face to reveal the tips of sharp yellow teeth. His head slowly tilted to one side then the other as he moved with sinuous grace in a semi-circle around me. A finger tipped with a long, cracked nail traced a line up my arm, setting my hairs on end and sending a shudder through my entire frame. The finger traced its way around the back of my neck, and I could feel its breath in my hair, its scent oddly metallic, but I could not will my feet to move away.
“Enough!” Dagda’s voice cut through the fog beginning to fill my mind, carrying a sharp anger I would never have associated with the gentle Dagda of Earth legend. The creature sucked in a breath and stepped away, turning attention to him.
“Your Majesty,” he hissed, making the words an insult rather than an honor. He bowed low, sweeping an arm wide as greasy tendrils of hair trailed across the grass. I shrank in disgust to the protection of Balhon’s great side as I realized that everywhere a part of the creature’s body touched the grass turned brown and yellow, as if the land itself sickened upon contact with him.
“What brings you to Tylwyth, Grigore?” Dagda demanded, his voice icy. “This valley is far from Upir, and I don’t recall granting you safe passage.”
“Dracul rages against your enforced borders,” the creature sneered. “We starve in the dead lands; we need blood.”
“You are provided with blood in plenty,” Dagda responded coldly. “Live game is driven through your borders daily upon which your people sate themselves with disgusting abandon.”
“Animal blood!” Grigore spat. He eyed me with his tongue caressing the fangs revealed in his sudden feral grin. “What kind of life can be eked from blood with so little power? Dracul craves the blood of intelligent beings.”
How long had it been? One hundred years? Two? Locked deep within the castle vaults, skin burned black and then white by the silver of his sarcophagus, thirst that would not be assuaged by his own blood turning his mind to enraged madness. How long since his screams of pain had turned to bitter silence, how long since the silence had been broken by his own maniacal cackling?
He remembered companions. Barely. What companions had they been. Women whose blood slaked his thirst and woke already fading emotions. Sycophants who pleased him for what he could offer – wealth, the illusion of power, eternity. Dust all of them. Worth less than that in life. No matter, he no longer cared for companionship.
He remembered children. Children of blood who hunted with him in the night, children who had filled the earth with their fascination and their hunger. Children who had fallen to the mobs who would not bow to their new gods. No matter. There would be more.
This one who had freed him would be the first. She stood before him, unbending, unyielding, unworshiping, unafraid. She would turn, oh yes, and she would be a queen such as had never been. They would rule a world of their own remaking. The crumbling throne before him waited for the liege lord, and all others would soon bow before it or die.
With my first full-length novel tentatively releasing this summer, I will be sharing a teaser from the unpolished manuscript every couple of weeks until release. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.
Laughter like the tinkling of a wind chime drew my attention to a small copse. I approached slowly, my heart fluttering, peering closely into the shifting branches. A delicately pointed ear nearly escaped my notice until a merry eye the color of deep indigo followed it around the trunk of a tree. It disappeared the instant I saw it, but the chiming laughter rippled through the leaves. I followed it, forgetting the strange path entirely as the mysterious creature led me deeper into the forest.
The laughter suddenly ceased, and a heart shaped face dropped from the branches overhead, inches away from my nose and upside down. Green hair hung like Spanish moss from a pale impish face, and slim fingers sprouting tiny pink flowers prodded my eyes and ears and pulled my hair. I tried to back away but my heel struck a root that had inconveniently pushed its way above ground behind me, and I crashed into the underbrush with my arms and legs flailing awkwardly. The creature laughed again, tumbling out of the tree and somersaulting through the air as it clutched its belly that shook with mirth.
I stared at the creature from the flat of my back, too astonished to even be irritated at its mischief. “What are you?” I asked, my heart skipping with excitement.
In my quest to read aloud all of my childhood favorites to my own children, this was the latest challenge. It is a challenging read in many ways, although as a child I simply enjoyed it for the adventure. I had no idea at the time how much my heart was being shaped.
Three unlikely heroes – the children Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin – are summoned to cross time and space in order to save their long-missing father. The villain is evil itself, centralized in a disembodied brain on a far-distant planet, but with shadows that threaten to engulf Earth itself. The children are the only ones capable of rescuing their father, according to the beings of light that summon them, but before they can succeed they must face the potential darkness within themselves and learn to banish it.
Though the language is simple, the lessons for the reader are deep. Love is more rare but stronger than hate. Emotions are only as bad or good as how we use them. Cold logic can be dangerous if misapplied. Confidence and arrogance are not the same thing. Character traits are neither good or bad; their nature depends upon their application. Evil disguises itself as order, safety, equality, and comfort, but truth is always discernable for those willing to look beneath the surface.
My favorite thing about this book is the contextual use of scripture and literary quotes. When Meg doubts her ability to do what is required, the reassurance given is that “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things of the mighty.” When Calvin is told where to find the missing father, the hint is given in the form of a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In this very natural way the meanings of some of the deepest principles become plain to children.
The elementals stood in time suspended, shadow almost entirely consumed by the union of water and light. Locked in the the throes of their own battle, they had gradually drifted to the surface of the watery wasteland. Thousands of years of forgotten emptiness parted as the blue ice pierced the sky, dusted with the snow of an antarctic spring.
The elementals reflected the frigid sun like the facets of a jewel. The glancing rays stirred the fringes of their battle, sending swirls of radiant blue dancing over the jutting rocks of broken ice wedged against the elementals. Within the swirls the shadow’s tendrils stretched and grew.
The seamless blue of the sky clouded with ice crystals as the elementals cracked. The shadow’s tendrils crept from every crevice, spreading slowly to darken the horizon. The crystal shattered as light and water drew from the ocean beneath them to explode the sky, banishing shadow into the darkest trenches of the sea. There it gathered, seething with resentment, as the world above drowned in brilliant fire.
“Come with me, my lord,” she whispered in his ear. She was perfect, enchanting in her beauty. She laughed, silver notes of music, and caught his fingertips with hers as she danced lightly away. He followed, allowing the touch to remain. She twirled with delight, the hem of her robe indistinguishable from the dust on the path for one distracting moment.
“Where shall we go, my lady?” he asked, held captive by the gray that seemed to whirl in her irises. The city faded from memory, the path disappeared beneath his feet. He cared nothing for where his sandals carried him so long as that laughing smile flashed before him.
“Eat with me, my lord,” she crooned, leading him to a gray couch beside a laden table. She sat beside him as he lay back, a bowl of sweet plums in her hand. Her lithe fingers slipped one between her teeth, rosy lips closing over it just as its juice began to flow. His own mouth parted, and he leaned toward her, his hand reaching out to touch her arm with reverence. She blushed winningly and popped another fruit into his mouth with a giggle.
“Stay with me, my lord,” she pleaded, running a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, her scent of earth and dried grasses filling his senses. Her fingers stroked his forehead as he drowsed with his head in her lap. His own hands played with the folds of her gown as it seemed to flow through his fingers.
“I must sleep, my lady,” he whispered, arms drooping weakly from the couch to trail in the dust. She wailed in anguish, slipping from beneath his head to kneel beside him. He felt her arms around him, as if her skin blended with his. Strange, he thought as he fixed his eyes upon her face. The color faded from her cheeks, leaving nothing but gray that matched her eyes.
“Come back to me, my lord,” she wept to the skull that lay alone in the dirt. The tatters of her robe formed furrows in her skin as she buried her colorless face in one crumbling hand. The wind blew across the bare ground, lifting dirty clouds into the air to obscure the ruin of his city in the distance. She knelt there, cracked and crumbling, in the accusing gaze of his empty bones.
Born of power, born of flame
The One has come her throne to claim
Child of Light our hearts will tame
Daughter of Earth with Heaven’s name
She was my friend, but no one knew about her. She said no one would believe me anyway, so I never told anyone. Until now. Maybe you won’t think I’m crazy.
Her name was Daisy, but I called her my flower girl. She was so pretty in her white dress with a clover chain draped around her head. I thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world and my eight year old heart was smitten.
Daisy didn’t talk much. Mostly she smiled, giggled, ran away, and buried her face in every flower she found. She loved flowers and I could always find her hiding in the trailing roses at the edge of the cemetery.
I met her one day when I followed a lizard into the bushes. She had crouched behind them, watching the people pass by, she said. My lizard escaped while I stood and stared at her. She laughed at me and told me to chase her.
I had never been inside the cemetery before. It was an ordinary one, I suppose, but my child’s imagination had conjured all sorts of evil existing there. That day, with Daisy glancing over her shoulder at me as she ran, I forgot to be afraid. She led me a merry chase, up and down the rows of headstones, ducking behind trees and slipping away before I could catch up to giggle at me from behind another.
When the factory whistle reminded me of supper and my mother, she blew me a kiss and told me to come play again. So I did. Every afternoon, so long as it wasn’t raining, I ran to the cemetery to find her. She was always there, hiding under the trailing roses, and she always greeted me the same way. Every afternoon we played tag among the stones.
Some days, she would stop for a while at this grave marker or that, pointing at the words engraved there. I would stumble through the names and epitaphs, wondering what held her attention so long. Sometimes it would be a child’s grave, sometimes a soldier’s. Usually it named just an ordinary person. Some were new, some were so old the inscriptions were all but illegible. She never told me why they were important to her, and she never stayed long.
I never questioned that she was always there beneath the roses. I never asked why she never changed her dress. I never thought about the fact that her clover chain never faded or was lost, or her bare feet never dirty no matter how long we played. She was my best friend and the love of my young life.
Eventually other interests claimed me. The neighborhood boys recruited me for football practice with scraps from construction sites and dumpsters as goals, bicycle helmets and wadded newspapers in our shirts our only protection. My third grade teacher, a pleasant looking woman with a will like iron, believed in homework to keep idle hands from mischief, and thus stole many of the afternoons not devoted to “the game.”
Fewer and fewer days found me at the cemetery. When I did go, I found that playing chase and staring at headstones soon grew monotonous, and I would say goodbye to Daisy. She still blew me kisses and told me to come again, but she seemed different all the same.
One day, I followed her slowly into the graveyard instead of chasing her as usual. She stopped and turned to look at me, her smile gone. “Goodbye,” she said simply, then ran away. I went home to do my homework, and although I went to the cemetery for a few weeks afterwards, I never saw my flower girl again.
The Word Worker 