Tag: Fiction

Dark Star

Her sisters already framed the night sky, swirling gently into the place reserved for them by Zeus. Only she remained, already touched with the stardust of the light she would become. The light she had not chosen.

The grasses crushed softly under her bare feet as she walked slowly across her mother’s pasture, their scent drawing agonized tears to her eyes. If she joined the others in the globe of the heavens as commanded, would she ever smell the sweet scent of life again? How could this be protection? Why could not Orion be cursed to travel the heavens, far from his beloved forests and the game he sought?

Her sons were so young, only millennia yet gifted to them. Especially Lycus, so impetuous and headstrong. He was his mother’s son, she thought, a quick smile chasing stardust from her face. He would take what he wanted, she knew, but without her guidance he would never escape the consequences. After all, had she not learned from her father’s fate? Some battles could not be won by force, only by wit and cunning.

Yet even she seemed unable to win this one. Celaeno, the daughter of the mightiest Titan ever to walk the earth, would be banished forever, while her tormenter remained free to choose his own fate. The stardust thickened and she clenched transforming fists around the folds of her now radiant gown. “I will never be a star!” hung voiceless in the windless night as a seventh light joined the circle above.

Symphony

He flexed his fingers and shifted nervously. He stroked the keys, drawing a deep, ragged breath as he moved his hands into position. The first notes were soft, tentative, sending dim blue tendrils into the darkness of the sound chamber.

His pulse quickened, notes grew stronger. The tendrils thickened and swirled, the darkness within their coils taking shape. He closed his eyes, desperate to focus on the music, but that coalescing shape tugged at his consciousness.

A face emerged, sound pulsing across delicate features. His chest rose and fell with increasing intensity, and first one note then another fell flat. A discordant clang echoed around the room as the song ended. A set of wave blue eyes opened, lighting the chamber with their residual glow. Symphony awoke.

Book Teaser: Songs of Fae

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.”

Sterntaler Fairy Tale Child Fairy Tales Human Girl

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.

The Chapel

“Boris, dorogoy, please come away from the window! The hall will not come to you, no matter how hard you stare. We must go to it, and soon or we will be late and the Chinovnik will mark against us.”

Boris sighed and twisted his cap in gnarled fingers, his eyes not leaving the hall. “Remember the day we wed there, Anushka? It was still the village chapel then, and as lovely as any cathedral that morning!”

She leaned her wrinkled cheek against his arm and smiled at the memory. “I can still smell the flowers the children picked to cover the floor. The chapel was full; no one in the village would miss a wedding!”

“Nor a christening,” he chuckled. “Who would turn down a half day’s holiday from the fields, especially when feast was involved? I remember on Sergei’s day all the women baked for a full day before, and we still ran out of food!”

“Ah, the greedy boys!” Anushka exclaimed with a laugh. “They would have eaten themselves sick if there had been any more syrniki! Ah well.” Her smile faded. “To speak of such memories in the village now is dangerous. We will earn a mark from the Chinovnik if overheard, or worse.”

“Let him mark,” Boris sniffed. “Love may be out of fashion with these oh-so-serious youngsters, but we will walk to the chapel like newlyweds.” He gently took her arm in his and they left the house, shuffling feet leaving two flattened paths side by side through the grassy commons.

Book Review: The Carp in the Bathtub

Harry and Leah have a problem. There’s a fish in their bathtub, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that the fish is dinner.

Mama’s special Passover dish is gefilte fish, special fish balls made from a carp. The best fish always sell out early, and dead fish spoil quickly, so the carp has to live in the bathtub for a week waiting to be cooked. Harry and Leah love to feed the carp, and especially appreciate that as long as the fish is there they can’t take a bath.

But Harry and Leah cannot bring themselves to eat gefilte fish. Who could eat a friend? And thus year’s carp is extra special; he is smart and friendly, and his name is Joe. They have to think of a way to rescue Joe before Mama turns him into the Passover meal!

The Carp in the bathtub is a delightful story about understanding and responsibility. For my children it was also an introduction to a time and traditions different from ours while demonstrating that children everywhere and in every age are all the same. By the way, Harry and Leah still don’t eat gefilte fish.

Seasons

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.

Book Teaser: Chosen – The Vampyr

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.”

The Legend

There he was, in all his lacy glory. I’d heard of the viscount, of course, from every local in every cafe and bistro between Paris and Calais. Quite the legend, apparently, that no one outside of France had ever heard.

No one remembered his full title, or even his family name, only that he was a viscount. A fact that had only fueled my dismissal of the story as a joke on gullible tourists, until now. Who could scoff with semi-transparent but gloomy dark eyes boring into one’s soul over the longest cascade of a collar ever seen in 18th century portraits?

“Je vous maudis, traitre!” The voice was bitter, but the lips set and motionless beneath the oddly unstyled black hair that streamed down both sides of a gray face. I glanced around, a shiver uncalled for in the warm summer night air setting my teeth chattering. Even my abominable French understood the word traitor.

“Th-the revolution is over,” I quavered in English. “I’m just a tourist.” Not that there was any point in speaking English to a dead French aristocrat, I thought. Even one that had managed to escape the guillotine only to be thrown from his horse into that widely spreading tree I could see through his face.

“Je vois maudis!” he shrieked, suddenly inches from me with his fist blending with my throat. My breath turned to ice in my chest and for a moment the world became as transparent as the viscount. Then it was over. I smiled with grim satisfaction, quickly twitched the lace on my cuffs back into shape, and turned back toward Paris. The traitors must die under their own cursed blade.

Book Review: The Trumpeter of Krakow

A legend of quiet courage becomes the centerpiece of a tale of adventure and intrigue in this lovely classic. The Hejnal, still played to the broken note in St. Mary’s today, plays only a minor role in Kelly’s story, but is a symbol for the goodness and innocent courage in the hearts of Joseph and Elzbietka. Two children on the brink of adulthood, they are plunged into a private battle begun hundreds of years before they were born.

Joseph’s ancestors have for centuries guarded a secret, a crystal to which the ancient scholars attributed mystical powers and whose beauty rivals that of the purest gemstone. Now their secret has been discovered, and danger threatens their precious charge on the eve of its fulfillment. But the children have a secret of their own, one created as a childish joke but that may prove the salvation of both the crystal and Joseph’s family.

Although written nearly a century ago about an age long past even then, this book is a timeless example of the human story. I love The Trumpeter as a read-aloud, even for young children. While the more formal writing can be difficult for younger readers to decipher on their own, when read aloud it breathes life into the characters of a time long gone, transporting listeners into lives they could not otherwise understand.

Vlad

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.