Reviews and ironies
Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Let's see...wow. A ton! Some are older, tho, even though they're just live.

Fantastica Daily: (Feb 22-24)

Nano, by John Robert Marlow
When trillionaire Mitchell Swain is assassinated during a press conference, the world doesn?t realize that the biggest and most dangerous arms in history race has begun. Jen Rayne, a top notch investigative reporter, doesn?t know, either, but she?s determined to find out what major secret Swain was about to tell the world...and why it cost him his life. The trail leads to the man to whom Swain has sent billions of dollars -- John Marrek. She finds his lab, only to find John in the middle of destroying it. He would have been gone sooner, knowing full well that he is the only living man carrying this dangerous secret, but the data he wanted to save took five hours to download. (Which proves once again that you should keep full backups of everything on hand.) She gets there just before a group of federal looking agents attack, and the two run for it. Just as it looks like they?re going to get caught, John pulls out a gun...one that he is extremely reluctant to use. Jen, seeing that their choices in the matter are extremely limited, encourages him to do so, and witnesses first hand the destructive power of nano technology. John shoots a bullet, which bounces, seemingly harmless, off the agent?s body armor. Soon things begin to wiggle and make creepy chittering noises. It covers everything like a swarm, and the agents and the warehouse they?re all standing in, are devoured, or more correctly unmade by nano disassemblers.

City of Pearl by Karen Traviss

Shan Frankland was happy...she was going to retire from being an Environmental Hazard Enforcement Officer and go home to Earth, where she hoped to enjoy the rest of her years in relative peace. Then she was approached to lead a group of scientists and marines on a search and recover mission to the far off world of Cavanagh?s Star. Years ago a group of fundamentalist Christians went there with an invaluable gene bank of flora and fauna...a bank that the company that owns all the rights to the produce of our own planet want back. She was forced to take part in a suppressed briefing, which means that they gave her all the information she needs to complete the task, but she won?t remember it until she needs it...when she comes out, she knows that she wants to do the mission, that someone named Helen is important, and that she?ll have these feelings haunting her like an itch she can?t scratch until she?s done.


Beast Master's Circus by Andre Norton and Lyn McConchie

Laris, like so many, has had everything taken from her by the merciless alien Xik. The only way she could escape from the horrors of the refugee camp was by allowing herself to be sold as a bond slave to Dedran, the shady master of an intergalactic Circus whose menagerie of animals is only a cover for more profitable dealings. He?s been stealing animals from beast masters, not caring that the bond between the beast and its human is so deeply telepathic that it can destroy the creature if it?s severed, and make the human go mad. Laris is exceptionally gifted, and able to understand and take care of these creatures, though she loses many of them. One animal she didn?t lose was the kitten she found, now her best friend, Prauo. The large cat is nifty...not only does he have the ability, despite his size (I imagined a tiger size...) to squeeze through tight spaces, hide things in pouches hidden in his cheeks and use his sucker-padded feet to climb, but he has just developed the ability to mentally communicate with his sister-without-fur.

Mostly Fiction (Feb 22)

After Moses, Karen Mockler

Shoe, the oldest of the three Tumakin siblings, has been murdered, leaving a legacy in her will...her five year old son, Moses, has been given to her sister Ida, and her best friend, Emily, has been given to her brother Johnny. Moses? father, Max, comes to town, and he doesn?t reveal himself right away, instead, he courts Ida, a dreamy artist who has never left home, never really had a boyfriend unless you count Henry. Soon, the reason why Shoe left Max without telling him that she was pregnant becomes evident...leaving Ida with a hard choice.


Something's Down There, by Mickey Spillane

Something?s down there...at least, that?s what the native Caribs think, since several boats have been sunk by a mysterious creature lurking under the waves, the hulls looking like something big and nasty took a pretty good nibble on them. The more superstitious think it?s a monster, maybe even something from the Bermuda triangle, but Mako...and the government agents who come visit after a cruise ship is bit...is convinced that the truth must be a little bit more mundane.

The Jupiter Myth, by Lindsay Davis

When last we saw wise cracking Roman gumshoe Marcus Didius Falco, he?d just solved the mystery of the Body in the Bathhouse. Now he has to solve the murder of the body in the well. He and his family are staying with his uncle in law, the procurator of finance, which is why, when a centurion decides to send for a higher power to take a look at what has happened, Falco gets brought along. It?s the fact that he knows who the victim is that gets him in trouble. Readers may remember Verovulcus from the last book...and therefore remember that Verovulcus is King Togidubnus?s oldest friend. The King is also one of the best allies Rome has in what can best be described as a delicate political balance, so it?s up to Falco to discover who killed Verovulcus and why before the situation gets out of hand. What he soon discovers is that various establishments in the area...The Golden Shower, The Swan, Europa...all have more in common than names relating to Jupiter and his various amorous adventures. They are all establishments paying protection. He, his best friend Petronius and even his longsuffering wife Helena go undercover to find out just how far this plague has spread...and what it has to do with Verovulcus.


Fire on the Waters/A Country of Our Own, by David Poyer

The closet thing to sailing that Elisha Eaker has ever experienced was the time he went out on Cornelius Vanderbilt's yacht...and even then he didn?t make the open water. Yet he finds himself volunteering to ship out on the U.S.S. Owanee. He has recently discovered that he is sick, and hopes that the sea air will do him good. He also goes to defend his country if the southern states do, indeed, decide to go to war. He would rather die on the deck of a ship than in a sick bed. He leaves behind an angry father and a fiancee, Araminta Van Velsor, whose desire to act and to become an abolitionist is something her domineering uncle would like to crush, even as he has often tried to control and crush his own son?s will. Onboard, Eli meets the other main character of this story, Lieutenant Ker Calibourne, who will soon find himself a captain with mixed loyalties.

The SfSite )(mid-month update)

There Will Be Dragons, by John Ringo

In the far flung future, the world is perfect. A huge super computer named Mother watches over everything, making sure that the Earth's balance remains unchanged. People use nannites to do everything for them. Disease, poverty, it has all gone. Of course, not everyone's content to leave well enough alone. Paul, part of the council, thinks that mankind has gotten soft. Several of the council are with him, several are opposed, and the ensuing battle between the two factions drains the energy that runs everything else. Neither side can relent, for fear that the other faction will blast them and emerge victorious. What does this mean for everyone else? Utter disaster.

Path of Fate, by Diana Pharoah Francis

Reisil spent her life being passed from one family to another, an orphan and burden being shared by all the village. Now a grown woman, she is a skilled Tark, or healer, living in a tiny house in the very town she grew up in. As part of the agreement, she's working for them for six months, a sort of trial period, after which if they decide they want her, she can stay. And it looks like she's staying. In short, she finally has everything she has ever wanted, something many of us have and take for granted -- a home and a dependable career. So it is no wonder that, when an ahalad-kaaslane goshawk flies towards her,

Dragon's Kin, by Anne and Todd McCaffrey
Kindan has spent his life in the coal camp of Natalon, where he helps his father tend the watch-whers that are so vital to the safety of the mines. A distant relative to dragons, they have large eyes that are painfully sensitive to the sun, and an ability to tell if the air in a mine is bad. A tragic accident robs Kindan of his family and the mine's only watch-wher. They need a watch-wher, and since Kindan is the only person there who knows anything about it, he gets to ride on a dragon to get a new one. Kisk will do more than become the mine's new watch-wher.

Gotta Write

Dance With the Dragon, E. F. Watkins

Peggy Walsh had no idea why the men kidnapped her...and no thoughts could prepare her for the reality of her situation. The Church of Eternal Life, a cruel cult led by the charismatic Stephen Farkas, has captured her. It is a hard colorless life he offers...they live in freezing cold sheds, they farm for their food, what little there is of it, the only thing keeping them in line is the promise of life everlasting. Worse, they become the cows for Farkas and his Elite...those who have received eternal life by becoming vampires. Peggy is the daughter of a Senator who will stop at nothing to get her back, including accepting the help of a psychic named Dr. Armand Renascut, whose track record with the government is less than stellar since they discovered that all his information, from social security card to drivers license is fake. He and his partner, Kat Van Braam, may be the only people who hold the key to freeing Peggy and ending this cult once and for all.

Purse Master Pieces (a non fiction book on all sorts of purses) Handkercheifs (er...well, what it says) and The Encyclopedia of Warfare are my recent nonfiction Reviews: http://gottawritenetwork.com/referencebooks.html

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And as for ironies...I have a very small one. Yestrday I dyed my hair...I have brown/gold/red bride of Frankenstien without the mousse hair, when I don't, and I may be going to a job interview soon and I don't want to relive what happened last time, where the woman who was obviously a few years older than me asked if I minded taking orders from someone younger than me. (Her.) I wanted to ask, "How old do you think I am, anyway??" but restrained myself. So, dye job it is. After Barb taught me (brillant lady) it was abreeze. I now have very, very dark red borwn hair and no grey, except for a spot I missed behind my ear. Anyway, I'm working away last night, enjoyning new hair euphiria, when a news caster comes on, holding a bottle of dye not unlike the one I just applied to myself, saying, "Can you get cancer from your hair dye?"

Of all the days. Now you see why I think that the world plans itself around trying to get my goat.
Not that I beleive it. But the timing was beautiful.


Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:22 PM 0 comments

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  In The Chamber, 5, and final
Tuesday, February 24, 2004

I lay, almost asleep against his shoulder. I coaxed and charmed him until he stopped being mad at me, and now I listened to him breathing in sleep, my cheek warm against his bare skin.
I tried to let myself doze off, determined to continue not thinking. Not thinking about the fact that breakfast that morning had consisted of chocolate covered cherries and green beer. Of the fact that sometimes I found a scuff mark here, a bit of dust there. It was as if the house spirit, for I had given up on believing in servants I’d never seen or heard, was getting tired.

Or perhaps was stretched thin, somehow. Did I make much more work for it? Or was its resources stretched by something else?

I had managed to sweep my mind clean, and could feel myself just on the edge of sleep induced placidity when my husband sat up in bed.

“No!” he yelled, and I fancied I saw a shadow move across the window. “You will not have her.” His words came out as an agonized groan. The lights came on in the room, too bright. I blinked until I could see/

“Joaquin?” I whispered, hugging myself.

He looked at me, his eyes narrowed. “You.” He crawled across the bed, until his face was an inch from mine. “You touched the door. I saw it.”

“W...when?”

He pulled away, slightly. “Did you. Touch. The door?”

“Yes.” my half breathed word was covered by his growl of frustration. He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of bed, half dragging me behind him. The doors opened before we reached them as we raced down the hall, slamming against the walls. The etched glass doors of the library shattered as they hit the walls. A wind gathered around us as we walked, cold and clammy. He, naked, did not seem to feel the cold, but I, in my thinnest shift, felt it like a blade across my skin. He was muttering something furiously under his breath, words I could not catch. The kitchen door opened, and he pulled me closer to him.

“Women, women you’re all the same.” He spat out.

“I did not open the door.” I said calmly. “I did not put the key to the lock. Because I love you and respect your wishes.”

The kitchen torches lit, and I saw that there were tears on his face. “He's in your head now. It’s only a matter of time.” He threw me into the kitchen and I caught myself on the table just as he slammed the door shut.

He did not come back.

Here is how I lived for two days in the kitchen. During the night, the dark, I huddled in a corner, under a table, scared witless, because, you see, I finally could see the servants. They were shadow against shadow, movements that flickered in and out of the corner of my eye. A flash of phantom knife here, a flicker of peelings falling there, things didn’t float or look as if they were being moved about by invisible hands so much as appeared when I wasn’t looking.

The first morning I had, by some miracle, managed to fall asleep and when I woke I saw a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of tea placed on the floor beside me. The kitchen itself, a place of perfect order the one time I’d bothered to look at it, was itself somehow dilapidated. There was dust, and one of the widow panes was cracked, a small square of glass broken out. The dry sink was rimed with filth, the pump disused looking. Neither the oatmeal or the tea had any taste. True, it’s hard for oatmeal to have any real taste, and when one is upset food tastes like wet parchment anyway, but still, the complete absence of flavor, the nothing that sat on my tongue, was disturbing.

There was a blanket, half mangled, but clean, draped on one chair. It had not been there the night before. “Thank you.” I said out loud, before wrapping myself in it. I stuck my head through the largest of the holes, then ran my fingers up and down the horribly scarred table. It was filthy, and so I looked for a bucket, and worked the water pump. Nothing.

“If you get this pump to work, I’ll clean the kitchen. Fair trade?” There was silence, but a few moments later, when I tried the pump, it gurgled deep inside itself. I worked it until finally water, rusted but useable, came out. A few more pumps and the water ran clean.

When he comes for me, at least he’ll find me useful, I thought. Once in awhile I checked the door carefully, just in case he’s unlocked it and left, but it was stuck fast. I attacked starting with the table.

In some ways I wish I hadn’t.

The kitchen tells a story. I can not tell you what it is, but even I have an idea.

The filth covered axe shoved under the sink. The table, covered in dark brown blotches that look like rust in the scores the axe made, where the wood was fresher and lighter. The corner of the table was sheered off by the axe. I found it laying underneath.

The blotches are every where, layer upon layer. The stone of the floor, the counter top, the bowl of the dry sink, are all stained. Some of it comes up dark flaky brown on my cloth, clotted with dust.

The big, heavy fireplace is perfectly clean except for a light layer of dust, and the lack of ash just makes me feel sicker.

“Why did you put me here, Joaquin?” I opened the pantry, fearing what I’d find. Save for one smeared blotch in the middle of the floor, the place was clean. Food...jars of preserved things, vegetables, smoked meats hung in perfect order. This place was clean. He put me where the food was, I realized, but why? So that I would not go hungry, of course, but...did he mean me to stay here until he came for me? Did he think something would happen to the house spirit, and I would have to fend for myself?

No lunch came, nor did dinner. The sun light faded and was not replaced. I fended for myself with cheese and meat I cut with a small sharp knife. I drank water, and wondered what the new day would bring, praying that the night would bring nothing. My prayers were answered, mostly, though in the distance I could hear anguished howling, punctuated sometimes by some thing shattering.

I slept on the counter in the pantry that night, wrapped in my ragged blanket. The knife stayed in my hand.

The next day breakfast was laid out on the table, thin slices of white and yellow cheese alternated in a many petaled flower pattern with sliced of pale green fruit. A pitcher of pale peach juice sat in the center. “That’s pretty!” I said, yet when I reached out to pluck a piece of cheese from the display it crumbled to dust in my hand.

Breakfast: dried fruit, a little smoked ham, water.

I cleaned up, then scrubbed on the walls, ignoring the spots of irregular brown that splattered them.

The night was silent.

Still, Joaquin did not come.

The next morning a pitcher of boiling water was set out for me. It remained hot as I prepared a little tea. I ate from a jar of stale little cookies and stared at the door. My keys were on my dresser, yet even so it didn’t look like you could lock or unlock the door from this side. In fact, there was a sort of bar set across the door, that pulled back when the latch on the other side was turned.

The axe was in the corner, cleaned of the worst of the mess, it’s cream colored handle spotted with many finger shaped prints. She hefted it, a sense of dizziness coming over her. She went to the door and lifted it to swing, and the kitchen came into focus. She turned and looked behind her.

There were four of them, dressed in the same colors, serviceable gray for servants, a bright blue for the family’s crest. A man, his haggard looks belying the strength in his scarred hands...the hostler, she thought, and a glance at the heavy boots proved that he was the one who took care of the stables. A young boy with dark hair, his ears sticking out like saucers. A flat cheasted, scarecrow of a girl, her dull straw hair almost all hidden underneath her tightly drawn scarf. An older woman, her face like leather, her hair like wool. They all stood perfectly still, hands folded in front of them, as if lined up for inspection.

The hostler’s eyes lit up like flame. “Be bold,” he said, it was almost fatherly, the way he looked at her. The flames dulled, and he disappeared, the fire passing on to the boy.

“Be bold,” he said earnestly. The fire passed on. He, too, was gone.

“Be bold,” the girl said, a flicker of flirtation in it.

Now only the housekeeper was left. She stared at me for a long time. I recognized pity in her eyes, along with the flicker of flame. “Be bold,” she said. She started to say something else, but she, like the others, faded.

I took the axe to the bar.

When I walked out I half expected to see Joaquin, drawn by the noise. No one sat at the table, though a book and some dishes lay scattered upon it. The food looked like offerings left for mice, so old and desiccated it looked. I looked down at the axe in my hand, then turned around and put it back in the kitchen. This was not a fight for it.

I put the blanket around myself like a stole, and back straight, I marched out of the dining room.

She was beautiful, the woman who stood near the bottom of the stairs, her hand on the rail. She wore a white dress, beaded and embroidered lavishly in red, and a velvet coat that pooled onto the pale marble below. She wore her rich black hair pulled slightly up, graced by a ruby tiara. She had a chocker of rubies, and rubies dripped from her wrists and from her elbows. As I got closer one ruby drop fell to the steps and splashed, and as I got closer I realized that the line around her neck, her elbows, a couple of her fingers and wrists were all made of blood. The embroidery became splashes of blood, and she dripped, calmly staring at me, on the marble of the white stairs. The only rubies she in fact wore were on her ears and in the crown.

I stood only a foot from her. “Hello,” I said.

Her mouth almost lifted. Her expressional almost mocking, amused, but only slightly, as if she had not the energy to gather any more.

I walked up the steps, scraping the wall to put as much space between me and wife number one as possible. Only her eyes moved.

“But not too bold.” She said. I looked at her, and realized that her hair was not half pulled up, but shorn on one side, as if it had been between the blade and the flesh. I kept going, and her head turned. “Lest your heart’s blood grow cold.” And then she laughed. “God knows mine did.” She fell to pieces then, whatever had been holding her together vanished, and she lay in a pile, her head rolling down the few steps and coming to a stop near the door.

I managed to make it to my bedroom without further incident, where I began to pull my warmest dress out of the cupboard, then stopped. Instead I pulled out the dress I’d married him in, and slowly, bit by bit, dressed myself in my finest things. My most beautiful jewelry, the intricately embroidered shawl. I decorated my hair as finely as I could, and applied the most carefully enhancing layer of make up I could. My fingers twitched to put on the heavy waling boots in case I decided to run for it, but knowing they’d look amiss, I grabbed my soft slippers instead.

When I was done I looked just like the woman he’d married.

The library was a mess. The dome was shattered, books scattered everywhere. I crunched and slithered through the room until I got to the study. The painting had been ripped from the mantle and thrown aside. In the direct light from the sun, I realized that the hunters had the faces and hands of foxes, and that the creature on the spit was a man. “We’ll have to burn that,” I muttered, and made my way back, and back up the stairs.

He was sitting in the middle of the music room, the wind blowing in and twanging across half broken strings. He looked up at me slowly. “There you are,” he said, off hand, as if I’d wandered off somewhere.

“You look like you smashed your face into a glass cabinet.” I said, and he did. Cross crosses of scratches covered his face and hands. Three lines that looked like claw marks stuck out amount the brutal purple collar of flesh that decorated his throat. Dried blood pooled in the shell of one ear.

His eyes looked out into the distance. He didn’t seem to even see me. “I think,” he said, after awhile, “That you should go and visit your cousin. It will do you good, to be away for awhile.”

“I don’t want to.”

He eyes focused, and he looked at me, with that searing look he used to grant me. “I was not making a suggestion.”

I stepped forward, wanting to keep his attention, wanting to keep him. “We should both go. Together. It doesn’t matter where. You can run your business fine anywhere.”

His eyes unfocused again, and he drifted away from me. “I can’t leave. Not for long.”

“Why not?”

“I am the house.” he said, and then buried his face in his hands and laughed, a soft, angry chuckle that was half sob, half acceptance.

I placed my hand on his head. “I really do love you,” I said, then sighed. “Right then. It’s up to me.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked me as I left.

“You’ll see.” I said, “Lock door.” And it did as I bid it.

The axe was where I left it, and so was wife number one. I shuddered both times I past her, and hoped she’d be gone, when I got back.

The door was where I’d left it, but it was different. The wood was scratched and splintered, and some one had written nasty words around the frame with a nail or a knife. The voices were loud inside my head, the whispered beating in time with the drum of my heart, but they did not need to urge me to take the key to the lock. The door opened slowly.

The odor was nearly over whelming, death and animal mixed together. things lay scattered everywhere, balled up and stained dresses of bright cloth lay in piles...sapphire and ruby, one of them a wedding dress. Gnawed bones mixed with shattered plates. Next to the room’s only window, Joaquin stood, dressed in perfect black mourning, polished boots and starched white cuffs. He turned to me, shutting the book he held in his hands with a snap. A fine mist of fur covered the back of his hands, and climbed up his neck, surrounding his face in a soft fuzz. His finger nails were quite longer than he was in the habit of keeping them, and his teeth were very sharp when he smiled.

“Well, then,” I said. “I am pleased to finally be meeting the rest of the family.”

He smirked at me. “I knew you would come.” He threw the book aside. “They always do.” He walked closer, and my hand tightened on the axe. He rested his paws on the back of a chair. “Tell me, what did you expect to find? More fine jewels, more fair wonders? What did you expect to find in this room that made all of the other treasures seem so inadequate?”

“I found what I expected.” I said. “A monster who preys on the innocent, who enjoys chopping up the servants just because he can. I revile you, and I want you out of my house, and away from my husband.”

“But I am the house,” he said, feigning shock.

“It is time, then, for some remodeling.” I hefted the axe and struck the wall. I was rewarded by a pained scream that was barely muffled by my own as the shock of pain ran up my elbow, but not from the monster who I shared the room with.

He smiled, all his sharp teeth glittering. “He came out first,” he said, “and he’ll die before me.”

I pulled the axe from the wall.

“Appreciate that.” Joaquin, the real Joaquin, was leaning on the door frame, one hand holding his shoulder.

“What are you? What is he?”

He straightened slowly, and came towards me. “My father was a man,” he said, reaching for the axe. I resisted his tug on the handle before letting it slide from my fingers. “My mother was a fox.”

“They lured women here,” his twin continued, “to feed the family.” He ran his eyes down my form, and I could feel his gaze is if it were his tongue, tasting and testing and seeing where he’d like to begin eating.

“Is this true?”

Joaquin was looking at the balled up wedding dress. “Yes,” he said.

“But you don’t look like him.” I said, “I mean, you do, but...”

“He shaves,” his brother sneered. “And he leaves you to hunt game in the deep woods. What do you hunt now? Chickens? A stray goat? While I stayed locked up in this room, forgotten like yesterday’s meal.”

“If that’s so, how have your survived?”

“It’s the house. We are the house, the house takes care of us.” Joaquin’s hand flexed on the axe. “There must always be two.”

I tucked my hand in my pocket. The small kitchen knife was there. “I am your flesh.” I said to him. “We swore before God.” He looked at me, and I tried to read his eyes.

“You’ve lived too long with this. You must choose.”

“He can’t choose!” his brother snarled. “His choices were taken from him long ago. Without the house, he dies. Without me, he dies.”

“Because you are the house?”

“That’s right,” He snarled, his fingers ripping open his coat.

“I have a message for you, from the house.” I said, pulling the knife out. “It doesn’t want you anymore.”

Joaquin brushed past me. “I’ll go first,” he said.



Of course, I must have lived, or I would not be telling you this.

The clue was that the house showed itself to me, when I picked up the axe and proved that I was willing to take things into my hands. It showed me the servants, murdered so long ago by my in-laws, and when I struck it, it hurt my shoulder as it hurt Joaquin’s.

I would like to leave the house, sometimes, for I no longer can for more than a few weeks, and I begin to pine, I feel weak and hungry and no amount of food fills me. I see ghosts...the servants at their work, bound to me and the house, and unwilling to go even if I could free them. Sometimes I see wife number one, I see a woman I call sapphire earrings, and both of them shoot daggers at Joaquin, who seems never to notice. Once I saw a woman with wild red curls, beads of amber twined about her throat, and she stood behind Joaquin’s chair, petting the air above his head. When she looked up at me I saw that they shared the same eyes, and she smiled at me, her teeth sharp. Her ear’s twitched and she bounded off, a bush of tail ruining the line of her loose colorful skirts.

“Don’t you see them?” I asked.

“God forbid that it should ever be so,” he shuddered, and I decided not to discuss it again. Even when a man, with hair so black that it was blue, the stubble from his late day beginnings of a beard making his skin cobalt was awaiting for me at the landing, cleaning his nails with a small sharp knife not unlike the one I carried. He gave me a look filled with lust and menace, and took a step forward.

“If you don’t behave yourself, I can have you kicked out, and then you’ll be even less than you are now.” I did not look back to see what he made of these things, but in the kitchen the housekeeper gave me a pleased wink.

I am heavy with child, now, and Joaquin thinks it will be twins. He does not look pleased, and sometimes, when he seems to be happy, his hand on my swelling belly, talking nonsense to me and our children, waiting for one to kick, a shadow will cross his face, and I realize that he is afraid.

I’m not. The house and I have an agreement, and I will do what I have to.

It is what mothers do, in the woods.




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Lots and lots of work, now. The story is over 13,000 words long....kind of long for a short story. I am still a little buzzed from finishing it. The final words coming out, saving the file...I feel like it’s the best short story I’ve ever written, that this is totally the one that’ll sell and make everyone love me.

Now that I know what happens, I need to make sure it’s not too much of a shock. Well, I want it to be a shock, but I also want you to be able to look back through the text and find evidence that will prove that it’s the only ending possible, all the while trying not to make it too obvious. I want the clues to only become obvious after you’ve read it. I like that Aha! effect. I also need to strengthen the connection between the house accepting her, so that the ending becomes more believable. I can get you to believe anything, as long as I prove it.

“God forbid it should be so,” is from the Robber Bridegroom. it’s also in one of Shakespeare's plays, but which one slips my mind. And yes, I couldn’t resist using the rest of the be bold refrain...I rather like it coming from her.

This is the most horrific thing I’ve written, I think. The next step is to edit it, and I’ll try and put it up, edited, with the edits, on it’s own page rather than clogging up the journal. I’ll let it sit s few days. first.



Permalink Cindy scribed this at 8:43 PM 0 comments

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  In the Chamber, Part 4
Friday, February 20, 2004

The forest around our home was dense, as if no one had been permitted to thin it, even for a stick of wood to heat the fire. The only thing that made it passable were the trails beat down by horses like mine and the patches of land where the needles had landed too deep for anything to grow through. I had set off meaning to go in a straight direction, stopping when we reached the edge of the land, which i hoped would be marked by some sign or even a line of low stone fence. This idea was soon discarded...I’d be fine for a long time, until a thicket of brambles and brush forced me to turn right or left. Sometimes I would see burrows dug out of the floor, and wonder what lived inside them, hoped for a glimpse of an animal. I saw birds, occasionally, but did not hear them sing or even chirp. I startled something large as I came around the corner, and though I heard it’s panicked flight, I saw nothing. Otherwise, silence as steady and as unsettling as back inside the home.

I got off the horse, meaning to lead her to the stream I thought I saw through a wall of weeds and bush. I knew if there was water, and of there were animals, then there was a way down. And there was. Narrow, muddy, I took the reigns and walked down slowly. In her eagerness for a fresh drink she pushed me, and my boots...pretty and pretty useless...skid in the soft soil. I let go of the reigns and fell backwards, skidding until my feet and one hand splashed into the water, managing to keep most of myself out of it. I grabbed a few pale twigs sticking out from the mud to pull me up, but they pulled free, and I fell back.

The sticks felt funny and I opened my fist to inspect its contents. Barely held together by mud and something else, the finger bones lay in my hand, surprisingly heavy. In the dying rays of the sun, a ruby winked through the sludge and I realized the rough, filthy lump encircling one bone was a ring.

I went into shock, I think, because I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw the fingers as far from me as possible. I was filled with dread, but not worried. After all, we knew that his wife had been found. Instead, I sat, got colder, shivered, while I wondered.

Now, what does one do? I have been poor, though you might not think it from my story so far...hungry, putting my coppers and silvers together to buy enough trim to pretty up a dress to keep up appearances when I’d rather be buying bread, watching money I would have spent on supper being sent to pay off the previous night’s losses. Knowing this, perhaps, you won’t be surprised that one of my first thoughts was whether to keep the ring or not.

Eventually, I worked my way back up the bank. I saw a curve of bone that I’d confused, earlier, with a rock. I pulled at it, brining a skull out of the muck.

And that was when I began to worry, for you see, I figured that they’d found her head. That’s how they would have identified her, his wife, the one who loved rubies. In the hole made by removing the skull, I found something that glittered, despite the mud, and I took it out, and walked it down to the water, and rinsed it until the mud was gone. It was a sapphire earring, some of the stones missing, but nevertheless, it was not something a woman who favored rubies and wore nothing but would mistakenly wear.

My horse raised her head and nickered, and I shoved the skull and the fingers back into the bank. I pocketed the ring and the earring, and walked over to the edge of the path.

I held my hands out from my body, lifting a drenched skirt. Joaquin, from on top of his stallion, winced. “What must you think of me, “ I said, walking up to him. His eyes flickered over my shoulder, along the bank, and back to me. I kept my smile on straight, just like I had when creditors came and looked over my family’s possessions. He knows, a voice in the back of my head whispered. He knows that they’re there. You had best pray that he doesn’t think you do.

He got down from his horse. I could see that he intended to go down to the river, perhaps disguising his need to look at the grave sight by fetching my horse.

“Rachel, come now.” I called, and thank God, she actually listened, blocking the path down by coming up it. He grabbed the reigns, and in the moment it took him to pull her around, I made a decision. As he made to hand them back to me, I wrapped my arms around him and pressed close, not worrying that I was getting mud and water all over his nice clothes. “I’m cold. Let’s go home, perhaps you can help me get warm again?” I pulled his face to mine and kissed him, making the meaning behind my words clear. He pulled away, looking down at me with thinly disguised suspicion, and suddenly, the hard set of his shoulders loosened, and he kissed me back.

It was late, when we finally sat down to dinner, but it was still warm.



He awoke me with a kiss.

I unwillingly opened my eyes. It was still quite dark out, a peek out the window showed the last stars of night and a gray line of sky. I flopped back down with a sigh, and snuggled closer to him. He laughed and said, “I have to go.”

“Already?” I wrapped my arms tighter and squoze my eyes shut. He carefully pulled my arm from around his waist.

“While you were out yesterday I received an urgent letter from one of my business associates. I have to go over see some things. I’ll be back.”

“You didn’t say anything about this last night.” I managed to pry one eye open. This was my favorite time of day, to be honest. He was always softer, when we first woke up. He looked younger, gentler. It was easier to delight him.

He grinned wickedly. “You kept me quite busy, last night.”

“How long will you be?”

“Only a couple of days. I’ll hurry back to you, I promise.”

“Very well.” I closed my eyes and turned over again.

“Shall I bring you something?” I felt the bed move as he sat up.

“Sapphires.” I whispered, half back into dreams.

His motions...reaching for things, getting dressed, stilled. My eyes opened, and I cursed myself. I forced them closed again, and said sleepily. “You know, something purple.”

He put a hand on my waist. “You mean amethysts, sweetheart?”

I sighed. “Yes. To go with the new lavender dress you bought me.”

“I thought you bought the lavender dress to go with your emeralds?” His teasing tone was there. I wondered if I detected the edge of hardness, or if I imagined it out of some weird guilt.

“I did, but Weli said that was gauche. I’m not sure what gauche means, but it sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”

“I've never known a woman who liked amethysts,” he said, then laughed and kissed my temple.

I am told that people keep huge hunting cats, cared for from birth, as pets. They walk them around on leashes, they feed them raw meat from their fingers.

Living with him was like that. He'd love you up, eat morsels from your fingers, be the perfect husband. But you always knew, someday, he might just turn on you. And worse, you’d never be sure why.




The ring and earring burned in my pocket. Not literally, but I knew, constantly, where they were, and couldn’t help but think on them.

Finally, I walked into the treasury room. I poked through boxes, looking for jewelry. Surely, if his first wife was so hot on rubies, there would be more left of it than a ring. in my own jewelry box, since I had told him that I loved emeralds, I had four rings of various kinds for each hand, a half a dozen bracelets, some gold or silver, but most studded with emerald chips in different patters. I also had five necklaces and three sets of earrings and one tiara. Surely she would have just as much, maybe even more, since rumor had it he'd courted her for years.

Most of his things were loose, and most of the boxes were filled with metals...gold, silver, copper. There was even some brass and mithril. My favorite object was a chunk of purple stone the size of my fist, perfect for a paperweight, and I wondered if I could ask for it. It had an inclusion shaped like a butterfly.

I went over to the work bench where tools...a tiny smelter, weighing scales, different things, sat in perfect order. I opened a drawer, and saw boxes of various sizes and small velvet bags. They contained resins, and herbals, s far as I could tell, some so pungent that when I opened them they brought tears to my eyes. In the very back, I found a box of much finer make, and I drug it out. Inside was a jackdaw’s treasure cheat...ruby necklaces lay entwined with beads of amber, onyx and jet, diamond and sapphire, topazes and opals all lay in a knotted mess. I pulled out half mashed links of what had once been a diamond collar, halves of a sapphire studded bangle that had been sliced in two. I pulled the earring out of my pocket and began matching it with the pieces I saw, looking for a mate, or a necklace that would have been part of it’s set. I found a mate, in a nest of fine silver links that had beads of jet strung on it, spaced so many inches a part. I held them together. Some of the chips were missing from the edge of it, but I knew they had been made together. The pinky nail sized sapphire that hung in the center was exactly the same shade of blue. I heard something clatter down the hall, and I shoved everything back into the box, out the box back into the drawer, and put the purple stone on the shelf by the door, to give me an alibi. I closed the door and ran down the hall, looking for him.

The hall buy the red framed door faced the stable yard, and so I ran down it, to look out the window. No sign of his horse, though I could see Rachel contentedly grazing in the paddock.

A flare of cold light behind me reflected off the panes, and I turned.

Around the red frame of the forbidden door, words had been burned, black against the blood red.

“Be Bold, “ they read, “Be bold...”

“But not too bold.” Joaquin said. I looked around. He wasn’t in the hall.

I stepped closer to the door. I’d heard him, plain as day.

“Yes.”

I pressed my ear to the door. “Joaquin?”

“I’ve locked myself in, wife.” There was a mocking quality to his words, and while one would assume he was making fun of himself...after all, he’d locked himself in...I felt that the humor was directed at me. And it wasn’t the quiet, delighted humor, as if he found me constantly endearing, either, but something much crueler.

“How...how did you do that?”

“I came back to fetch something...and now the door won’t open. It must be locked from the outside. perhaps you...?”

“I didn’t hear your return. And I didn’t see your horse...”

“The servant must have taken him inside to groom him. And perhaps you were yet asleep. I’ve been stuck in here for such a long time.”

I fumbled at my chatelaine belt. The little black key slipped itself into my hands.

“I’m so thirsty,” he whispered. One hand flat on the door, the other hand slowly bright the key to the lock. My hand shook so badly that it knocked against the metal. I thought again of the first day here.

“Do not place the key to the lock.” he had said. “Do not open the door. Do not enter in.” I dropped the keys and stepped away.

“No matter what.” I whispered.

“Wife, what is going on?”

“I love you.” I said, backing away. I felt dazed. I tripped over my own feet and had to put hand out on the wall to support myself.

“You can’t leave me like this! Wife!”

“I’m so sorry.” I said, as something began to howl, and throw itself against the door.

I fainted at the mouth of the hall way, and when I came to, it was night again.



He found me laying on the sofa, as uncomfortable as it was, staring wide eyed at the fire. I was not going upstairs by myself for any reason. It did not occur to me to ask how he got out of the room...I knew that, whoever I had the conversation with, it wasn’t with him.

You might be thinking that, this would be the right time to introduce these weird things into the conversation. “Hello, husband. While you were out I went over by the door...don’t worry, I didn’t open it, but I did have a conversation with some scary creature that spoke with your voice.” Or, “By the way, when I was riding the other day, I found some body parts...would you happen to know why you have an earring belonging to the dead body laying in your drawer?

It doesn’t much matter, you see. It’s what I was saying, about the hunting cats, earlier. He may be a murderer, and I may be the next victim. But when he scolds me gently for sleeping on the sofa (It’s freezing in this room. You’ll get sick.”) and when he picks me up and carries me up stairs promising a present for me, and he’s so soft and so loving, I can not feature it.

He’s often a cold, hard man, but he softens for me. He cherishes me. It makes me feel special, like I’ve done something no other woman could.

At the top of the stairs he puts me down, and takes a sack off his back. “Let’s put this away.” he says, and goes over to the treasure room. I unlock it for him, and he steps inside, lighting torches with a flicker of his hand. He opens the sack and beckons me over, and pulls out a length of pale purple pearls, each as large around as a fingernail, and long enough that he loops it around my neck and drapes it into my hair. They feel like warm satin.

“They’re beautiful,” I say, and he steps back to admire the effect. Something crunches under his foot. He lifts his boot slowly. His nostrils flare, and I can tell he recognizes the mangled bit of blue and silver.

“I’m so sorry,” I manage. I thrust my hand into my pocket, where I had been certain I’d shoved the earring in my rush. It wasn’t there, of course, and neither was the ruby ring. There was a hole, one that should not and had not been there before.

Where was the ruby ring? I looked around, trying not to be transparent.

“What were you doing in here?” he asked, casually as he opened the drawer.

“Being careless with valuable things, obviously.” I could not conceal the nervousness in my voice as he opened the box. Of course, the mate was sitting right on top of the scramble. It even sparkled in the light.

“I found it outside.” I said before he could ask. “In the back yard. I don’t like sapphires, and was looking for a place in here to store it.”

He nodded and knelt to scoop up the earring pieces, then threw them in the box. he slammed it shut, then shut the drawer with much more force than was needed.

“The rest can wait until tomorrow.” he said, taking my arm. The torches went out, and in the darkness, he placed his lips to my ear. “I believe you because I choose to, not because I do.”

==============================================================
Wow. Over 9 thousand words...this story just keeps on going. Will I wind it up soon, or will I be writing a novella?

Today, the thing I noticed the most is that I need to put in some more context. I introduce elements here...such as her finding the skull, that need more work to have an impact. I also need to decide for sure whether they've actually found the first wife...is it better for the body, as I've had it, to be found, or to just have rumors? The rumors thing I was avoiding because I've seen that done a bit in classical gothic romances. Is it more effective to have:

Knowledge that one body was found, chopped up. And then have Tessa discover signs of, just not that body, but another, bringing home the fact personally that Joaquin may have indeed killed his first wife and that he -- or someone else -- has killed others?

Or have it all hinted at, increasing the shock value...not only does she find the body (the woman didn't run off with another husband after all) but there's a second?

Another context addition lies in her past...we get some of her own past with her gambler guardian, but I think I need to add another hint of two before hand...right now it's a bit of a surprise.

What I like is the cat and mouse element...it's becoming an exploration of something I've often noticed in stories, something I, myself, find incredibly alluring...the wounded, tragic man. why are men like Joaquin so attractive?

I also like the hint that maybe he's not so vile after all. He wants to believe her.

I don't write on the weekend...work on other things...so there won't be another part unless I'm super inspired, until next week. Not that I've been all that timely these week, eh?

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 6:56 PM 0 comments

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  Book reviews, etc...
Monday, February 16, 2004

My reviews for this week...

Gridlinked, by Neal Asher

Ian Cormac is a man, but years of being gridlinked into the AI net have taken away much of his humanity. Usually that’s a plus when dealing with the scum of the universe, as he does as an Earth Central Security Agent, but in this case, his lack of human response destroys his cover, and the thieves he’s worked so hard to get in with think he’s an android plant. When Angelina Pelter, their leader’s sister, tries to kill him and gets killed instead, her brother goes mad, determined to get revenge.



Scaredy Cat, by Mark Billingham Please scroll down...it's been up a couple of weeks, but I actually wrote it a long time ago.

"She was nothing to me, the woman from the station. She was nothing to me and I squeezed the life out of her.

I'm so very sorry, and I deserve what is surely coming.

I hate to ask a favor, Karen, but if you see her, the woman I killed, will you tell her that for me?"

There were two of them, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne knew that. He knew it from the victims, how some of them would be killed slowly, to prolong the pleasure as much as possible, and some would be quick, as if a particularly nasty chore to be done with. But why? It goes against everything they know, or think they know, about serial killers...the first rule being that they almost always, always work alone.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

So, I watched way too much TV last night. I finally saw Shrek. I thought it was really sweet and funny. Too much toilet humor sometimes, (I hate that....really don't find it funny, tho' I laughed at the Muffin Man sequence, so that really shows you how mature I'm not.) and the moral of the story really does tend to slap you upside the head, straddle you with its hands around your throat and say, "Beauty is on the inside, get it, get it?!" but then it's for a younger audience so I suppose the fact that I really liked it despite these thinsg says a lot for the movie. And I always enjoy watching people play with fairy tales. (Seeing Snow White and Cinderella b**ch slap each other for the bridal bouquet made me laugh, too.) Also, am so looking forward to Shrek 2. Antonio Banderas is Puss in Boots!

Then I watched Alias. I've admired the show...sometimes less than others, but generally, I really admire how the story writing manages to push the envlop with lots of twists and turns, atisfying the audience in soem small ways while making us hungry for more. It is a story line that, without great care, could very well fall in on itself...but always manges to succeed.

Last night, seeing someone the build up, then seeing the trailers, has convinced me that Alias is gathering it's legs under itself in preparation for jumping the shark.

Last year this time I had no clue what jumping the shark is, so I'll tell you. it's when a show does something so horroble or lame that it's all down hill from there. You know that the show won't ever recover from it, and it's sort of ruined for you.

So if Alias goes through with the trailer promised Star Wars moment (Sydney, I am your father! says the evil bad guy...alright, it didn't say that in the trailers, but close, with a psychologist asking Sloan is that's what he was saying, and him smailing and nodding...) then it will have jumped the shark so darn hard for me, since half of the show's merit rests on the fact that Sydney's father is always so great, I will seriously consider doing something else with my hard earned Sunday night, thank you.

Argh.

Well, at least Dennis Hopper's on Las Vegas tonight. There's a show that's jumped the shark for me already, but I'm holding on. It's a show that really needs to live up to it's theme song, you know, a little less conversation, a little more action please?

Though maybe I'd get more done if life was like the good old days, when I just watched CSI? though I don't watch TV in the summer, (rarely watch repeats) and that doesn't seem to help...

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 5:47 PM 0 comments

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The next morning he was waiting in the dining room. As with the night before, everything as already laid out, not another person in sight.

“Three times a day,” he told me, “The servants will lay out a meal...if there’s anything your require, a something between meals, something you would prefer, you merely have to say so in the speaking tube leading to the kitchen. He flicked a finger at a brass tube next to the doorway leading towards the servant’s area. It had a cover, so all I had to do was flip the cover up and say what I wanted.

“How will I know that they’ve heard?” I ask.

“They always hear.”

“I’ve never seen one yet...where are they?”

“Around” He handed my an egg from the basket. It was still warm, and when I cracked open the shell I was pleased to see it was cooked through solid. I listened to the crunch of shells being rolled and cracked on the table, silver ware on plates, stuck again by how loud all these mundane tasks seemed in contrast to the absolute silence that commanded the residence. It had been too quiet for me, last night, trying to get to sleep. The manor did not creak as it settled for the night. The wind did not whistle through the chimneys. I would have drawn comfort from the breathing of my husband, but once he drifted off his breaths became almost imperceptivity shallow. I’d held my hand in front of his face once, to see if he yet lived.

It had not been this way, on our travels.

Wherever the servants were, they new how to cook. The rolls were so sweet and warm they hardly needed the honey that sat in it’s etched glass pot. It, like the dinnerware, had a fox motif...in fact, hunting was a major decoration of many of my husband's furnishings. So manly. I wondered if he would mind, now that he was single, if I replaced a few of his foxes with something more female. I stared down at my plate, of the foxes running along a forested border, out witting a farmer with an axe, and felt dizzy. Yes. Roses, or perhaps ivy would be far better for my indigestion. Especially since the plates seemed to be telling a story...one that continued around the brim of the salad plate, that blossomed full blown on the side of the tea pot. Foxes running, hiding, from foolish looking men. It would have been cute, even comedic, but for the look on his muzzled face...

“I’ve lingered longer than I should have.” he said, standing up from the table. I stood too, but he stayed me with a kiss. “Sit, finish your dinner. I will see you in a few days, I promise.”

“Are you sure?”

He took my chin in his hands and kissed me again. “I always keep my promises.” He looked me in the eyes a long moment and I nodded. He stroked my cheek and left, leaving me to sit, wondering what to do next. I ran to the window after a moment, to see him on his white and gray horse, riding down the lane. He had a pair of saddle bags, no more, and I thought good, perhaps he will come home. The keys weighed heavily from their chain around my waist, and so I decided to do some exploration denied me the night before. I went over to the tube.

“I’m all done. Thank you. It was very nice.” I listened for a long second. No banging of pots, no yelling at skivvies, and certainly no acknowledgement of my speech. Odd, I thought as I, keys jingling, went off.

Most of the rooms were not locked. Some of them could be...and I had keys for those to prove it. The library, three stories high and filled with books was one of these, the key marked with an open book fit in the lock and turned easily. It was a perfectly round room, and a set of stairs spiraled around it, up and up to a small platform t the very top, below the stained glass dome. I walked all the way up, admiring the pattern of the large done...it was intricately done, a forest filled with flowers and life, like a labyrinth that unraveled itself the closer I got to it. On the platform, with it’s short iron rail, I could see the words around the very bottom, worked in the pattern of the forest floor. “Be bold,” it said, “Be bold, be bold...but not too bold.” Looking far down to where the bright colored pattern of the carpet seemed more like a memory than fact, I thought it would take far more than me being bold to ever ascend those steps again.

There were bedrooms done in various colors, and, under lock and key, a nursery, the only place that had any accumulated dust. I pulled the drapes and opened the windows wide, hoping that some of the dust and the underlying stench of decay would fade. I would have to talk to the servants...it smelled as if a rare, or maybe even a cat had died unattended to. And the dust and webs lay so thick on the furnishings that until I opened the widows I thought they were covered with cloths.

It was the only room in the manor so shamefully taken care of. I took delight in the upper rooms, all of them locked, such as the music room. As I stepped inside it, I was amazed at how airy it seemed, filled with cases displaying all manner of instrument. One corner was taken up with an odd organ, that barked nosily at me when I, thinking that I was crossing a different pattern of tile, found myself making music. I did a silly little jig on the wedge shaped tiles, and every time my foot moved, music came out of the pipes. In front of the windows a many layered harp sat, speaking softly whenever a whisper of breath from my moving touched it. I opened the windows and stood behind it so that the breeze from outside could play across the strings, and as I stood there I felt as if I was awash in music, bathing it like something tangible.

Eventually I left. I spent more time than I should admit to in the treasure room, with it’s small boxes filled with gold coin, a chest of nothing but pearls, and a cabinet with various stones of varying hues and sizes. I felt guilty, looking through it, but he had bid me to be free with his whole manor.

And so I was, until I took a wrong turn somewhere, wanting to sneak down into the servants quarters. I thought I could sneak up on one of them, give them a right talking to for the nursery.

The hall was long, dark, but perfectly clean. A window at the very end of it provided the only light, and there was only one door, outlined in red. There was no other way out, but to go back the way I came. I could hear something, on the other side, and as I leaned closer I could hear something whispering. At first I wondered if it was perhaps the housekeeper or the butler’s room. I placed my hand on it lightly, pressed my ear to the wood. My other hand held the keys silent.

The smallest key dug into the palm of my hand, and I straightened, looking at it. It was not metal, despite it’s black all absorbing color, but glass. I held it in front of my gaze, studying it. The other keys slid away until I was holding only the small, plain glass key in between my thumb and forefinger. Such a tiny key, for such a tiny room, down such a long, plain hall. It looked so harmless. I had seen all his treasures, surely...his gold and his jewels and his strange, beautiful, wondrous things. What things would this room hold? This out of the way, innocent looking doorway? Besides, he was my husband, was he not? What right did he have to keep secrets from his wife?

Such a tiny, harmless, innocent key. Such a plain, normal looking door. Just take a peek, prove them all wrong, no one would ever, ever know...

I lowered the key towards the lock. The door knob was red glass, smooth and cool to the touch.

It would not go well for out marriage, I heard him say, as clearly as if it were yesterday again. I took my hand away from the knob and put it behind my back. I forced myself to drop the keys so that they hit my thigh. Hand joined hand, and grasped each other tightly. I backed down the hall, never taking my eyes off the door, wondering, wondering, what was listening to me in the silence, what might come out to get me.


The only sign of my near fall was that my thumb and forefinger were pink, almost as if the key had scalded me. It faded even as I was sitting down to the tea I had requested from the kitchen, telling the silent servants that I was not interested in lunch, thank you, when footsteps, hard, business like boot steps could be heard stomping up the stairs. I thought about cowering in the corner, but realized that the small room, sunny and filled with plants, the only furniture a spindly table and pair of chairs, would afford me no cover. I could throw the tea pot at whoever it was, I thought.

“There you are.” He leaned against the door frame as if trying to capture his breath. There was no warmth in his smile.

“You’re home so soon? Was the business that quickly concluded?”

“I hope you’re not disappointed. I wanted to rush home to my bride.” He crossed to me, and offered his hand. I placed my hand in his and he kissed it with cold lips, turning it over so that he could kiss the palm. His eyes lingered on the tips of my fingers. The pink was merely a blush, almost indiscernible, and he kissed those two. He repeated the process with my other hand, and the more he kissed them, the more he looked, the warmer he became, until he gave me a smile of perfect, unspoiled joy and pulled me close. His lips on mine were warmer than summer, and I felt, oddly, as if I’d passed some test, as if I’d made him incredibly, profoundly happy.


I searched the house from top to bottom, but never found the smallest sign of a servant. My husband always changed the subject even if I asked him right out where they where and why I never saw them. The nursery was door was locked again the next time I went to inspect it, and when I opened the door the curtains were drawn once more. I looked at the floor, and noticed that there were only two sent of tracks...one leading in and one leading out. How did they manage to go in and shut the windows without leaving a sign? I thought it was because they had their own way in, like all large houses a network of tunnels must surely run behind the walls, entrances and exits cleverly concealed by wall seams and wainscoting. I walked around the room, pulling back the curtains and looking for scuffs in the dust beside my own, and came up empty. I stepped into the hallway, pausing for just a moment, wondering if I should prop open the door and go get my husband, when I heard the whisk of the curtains being drawn once more. The door was slammed shut and I heard the lock turn. I fumbled for the keys then stopped, much as I had before another, smaller door, and decided to lave well enough alone.

To quote my husband during a more exasperated moment when I’d been harassing him on the subject, “As long as the food appears on the table on time, the rooms are clean and all of your other needs are seen to, what do you care if you ever see them or not? Most nobles prefer it that way.”

The servants (or lack of) were not the worst part.

Every day or so, I would get visitors. Sometimes my cousin, but more often other nobles women from our, I suppose I should say, circle. People, I’d like to point out, who had had very little time for me when I was merely Weli’s charity case. And if it was the usual busy body digging for gossip, I’d have probably dealt better with it...but it was...odd. There was no noisy entrances, no silly useless talk or over exuberant greetings. The show, in short, was gone. You know what I mean...every time a lady visits another there is a mini performance. Her clothes, her friends, her carriage, everything down to if she brings some small, yappy pet along is part of a performance. The way she takes your hands, kisses your cheek, looks around your home are all part of a larger thing. They did not do this, for me.

They were quiet when they came, and their clothes, while respectable, were darker in tone. They took turns coming, and always came early in the day, well before sunset. There most daunting resemblance was the fact that, from the closest friend to the most distant near enemy, without fail, they always looked so worried until they saw me, until they took my hand. They would search my face, talk to me, until little by little, the worry would fade into an almost palatable relief. I thought as time went on, they would stop coming, but they never did. Every other day, afternoon. I could predict with near perfect precision when and who.

But that wasn’t the worst part, either.

It was the whispering, you see. Every night on the edge of my dreams. It was a murmur, if my husband was there, but it only grew louder when he wasn’t. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the darkness to an empty bed and to chitterings and whisperings and moanings that echoed between my ears so loudly that sleep was impossible, I could only lay there and wait for my husband’s return. He would come in, naked, cold, damp, and throw himself under the covers. He’d slide his hand into mine, and we’d never speak, just wait until his shivering stopped, and the screeing in my head would die down to faint whispers once more.

It amazes me still, that I could be obsessed with making him confess the secret of the servants, but never once ask him about the sounds in my head. Perhaps I was afraid that my listening at the door had contaminated me somehow, that it would be a confession of how I’d almost slipped the key in and opened it.


“Be bold,” I said.

He jumped a little, and looked up from his reading. “What did you say?”

We were in his study, and I was standing next to the fireplace. The painting above it disturbed me, continuing as it did the fox motif. I’d never gotten quite comfortable with it, but the picture of it, with a group of farmers hunkered down around a fire, the fox spitted over the flames, was horrifying. I felt bad for the fox, who chased my food around plates and followed me in the wood work of the house. I’d read the brass plaque underneath it.

“That’s what the painting’s called, I suppose,” I said, pointing at it. “Be Bold.”

“No,” he said, “That’s the motto of my house.”

“Be bold? Is that all.”

He nodded and returned to his reading. “It’s enough.”

I looked outside. There was another couple of hours of light. “I’m going riding.” I looked to see if he would jump up and congratulate me on my wonderful idea, but all he did was nod, and turn the page. I left the study, feeling nervous. I’d never ridden anywhere by myself, at least not since the last time. His voice echoed down the hall after me, comfortingly, as if he knew my worries.

“I’ll come after you in an hour,” he said, “should I not see you sooner.”

And suddenly I felt much braver.


========================================

Why I did what I did...

Let’s see. Hum. This part is getting harder, but the idea is to make me think more, to explain, to study the experience, so...

I want to utilize some of the themes and happenings that are famous in the Bluebeard/Robber Bridegroom mythos. The egg is from a version of the story where the “Bluebeard” of the story gives his young wife an egg to carry around everywhere. She drops it in the room when she nebs into it, and hence he knows she broke in. That’s why Joaquin (still not sure about that name...opinions?) hands her an egg...albeit hardboiled. The key is glass because, and Terry Windling points out in the introduction to Fitcher’s Brides, it almost always is.

The fox idea comes from the fact that the Robber Bridegroom is often named Mr. Fox, or sometimes Reynardine. The implications will become more important later, but not, I hope, in the way you might think.

And I’ve finally used Be Bold the rest of the way. I’m not going to use the rest of it, (Be bold, be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest your heart’s blood grow cold) at least I don’t think so.

I had a lot of fun writing of the wondrous rooms...and of the creepier rooms. Mostly, what we have is a lot of planting. There will be more planting tomorrow, with her discover that she’s about to make. A lot of what I’ve written may get changed around in the next draft. Right now, it’s all discovery. Each draft is so different. The first, you learn...you learn what you have, what you want, what the story is going to be. You find out if it’s a short story or novel. It’s the raw stuff. The second draft is where you take it all and make it make sense...it’s a totally different creature, and just as much fun as you work things around, as you wince and cut or smile and polish.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 5:21 PM 0 comments

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  Numonic Device 79
Friday, February 13, 2004

He's been in my head so much these past years.
Longish white hair and a young face. Not too young. But I don't know if the age is earned or lived.
Long and lanky, he shows up at the oddest times. I can be thinking of someone else, and he's there. I could be writing someone else, and he's there. I can be alone, blissfully alone in the walls of my skull, and he comes. But I'd never met him before.

Until I drove past him once. Angel wings embroidered on a black denim jacket, guitar case in hand, walking a slow lanky walk down an endless road. He's not the type of guy you pull over for, but I did, driving off the side and getting out, leaning against the door before I walked down the white line and back toward him.

He stopped walking, waiting for me, as I came. It's cold out, colder by the hughway where the cars turn the air bitter and there's no break in the wind, but he doesn't seem to feel it. He just waits, head tilted, eyes alive.

A few feet from him I stop. "Could you use a lift?" I ask. Up close, I feel a surrealness, to see him in the flesh and not in the dream.

"No, sweet heart," he says. His voice is gentle, like a carress from the only person who ever loved you. "That's alright."

I looked around. It's a long way between exits. "Are you sure?"

He nods and smiles. "Thanks, tho."

I nod and back away a few steps before turning around and going back to the car. On the road again, I think about getting off at the next exit then getting back on again, so that I could go past and see him once more. To make sure he's the man in my head, and not an illusion.

I keep on driving.

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  No third part today....
Thursday, February 12, 2004

Didn't write on the story today.

I need to write reviews today. I couldn't do it yesterday because i worded myself out. Do you ever do that? Run out of words and need to be silent until you fill up again? I'm reviewing Gridlinked by Neal Asher (for FD), Son of Avonar by Carol Berg for the SFsite, and Raymond Feist's King of Foxes for Mostly Fiction. I picked up a book of my pile and coudn't stand it...all those exclamation points! Don't use so many exclamation points! it's too dramatic! Convey drama through context!


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  In The Chamber, Part 2
Wednesday, February 11, 2004

A few days passed, and I forgot my fears again. The weather was bright and hot, so much so that in the back yards of all the noble houses gazebos of bright colored silk sprung up like flowers, their petal like sides blowing in the wind. None of the manors were very far apart, just a few trees, some knot gardens, some short expanses of perfectly trimmed and watered grass separating us and making us feel like we lived in our own far off land. The truth was that we were all close enough to walk, easily, from one lawn to another, and that was how the ramble parties began. In the late afternoon we’d all adjourn to the tents outside. Weli favored plums and lavender colors this year, and so the tent’s room was a pale, lovely lavender, the tied-back sides a combination of the lavender with a gauze like plum second curtain that could be pulled shut separately from the heavier silk curtains. The pillows were every shade of purple imaginable, from the lightest to the darkest, the rug a whit with a pattern of grapes and ivy. My favorite pillow to sit on had pink flowers embroidered on it. We would sit in this purple haven and wait, drinking tea and eating lightly from the large trays of treats set against one side. Eventually a party of nobles would come, and we’d lounge together on the pillows, all trying to act very proper despite the fact we were sitting on the ground...slippery ground at that. Weli’s husband cheated by having a small stool brought out for him, which he would usually end up giving up to an older lady who did not want to have to get all the way down on the pillows to sit. eventually the group would be ready to move on...sometimes leaving members, sometimes taking one or even all of us on to the next stop. All day and into the dusk this would continue, wandering back and forth among the houses, eating and drinking and talking about nothing.

On this particular day the party left, and I decided to be the one to stay...alone. Weli tried to pull me along, hoping that one of the men might attract me, but dull and lifeless they had been to me before I’d met Joaquin, and knowing him made it even harder to stand them. Besides, if I was alone, I could actually eat something, not nibble on the same cookie for three hours like all the other women did. If only there was something left in the carnage that had once been the dessert trays...

I saw him wander out of the woods long before he reached the tent. I kept my eyes down, excited and worried at the same time.

“There is not much left, is there?” he said from behind my shoulder.

“The servants will bring out more soon, I’m sure. May I get you something? Some tea? O wine, perhaps?”

He was looking at the Manor. It was all whitewashed stone and back iron shutters on either side of the tall windows. It was a pretty place.

“It’s a good home,” I said, “it has lovely bones.” He blinked, then looked at me. I blushed. “I mean, structure. Good structure, underneath it all.”

He nodded as if I’d said something of incredible depth, and sat down. He gestured to one of the pillows next to him, but I declined, sitting at an angle from him, stacking a couple of the pillows so I could sit fairly straight.

He remained silent. He looked calm, as if he were enjoying the surroundings. It made me feel uncomfortable, but I learned late, it was supposed to, to make me talk. It was something he did to everyone.

“I wanted to thank you again for the earrings, they’re lovely.”

“I heard that you favored emeralds. I hope I was not wrong?”

“You heard correct.” I realized I was pinching the fold of my skirt, running my fingernails down it, making a wrinkle. I stopped forcibly, Placing my hands on my knees.

“It is an unusual choice, I thought...most women seem to prefer rubies.”

“We don’t suit each other,” I said, making an implication.

“Everything suits you,” if he picked up on it, he was ignoring it.

He leaned back, stretching out his long legs. “You should be hearing from your guardian soon.”

“I highly doubt that, sir.” No one was allowed to write letters from prison.

“Someone has settled his debts.”

I met his eyes. They flickered oddly, all shadows. “Why would anyone do that.”

He leaned closer to me. “Perhaps they thought it might please you to have one less worry.”

“I was not worried.”

He straighter. “Pity.” He said, and made as if to stand.

I caught his arm. “Why do you care?” He tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t allow it.

“I could have forced you into marriage. I could have told his...and by proxy your...debtors that I would settle all things when you were my wife. I would not do it.”

I stood. “How generous. But if that was all you wanted you might have gotten farther asking first.”

I pushed the blowing cloth aside and left the pavilion.

“Marry me then.”

I turned. He was leaning against one of the columns holding the tent up, not relaxed as his usual wont, but clutching the cloth. His face was in the shade, but I thought he looked...uncertain. Longing. I don’t know if it were truth, or fancy that make it seem so, but for a moment I felt like I was the most wanted person in the world.

“Yes.” I said, and walked into the house, never looking back.


He wanted to get married quickly, no ceremony. I agreed, both because I had no one I really wanted to invite, and because I as afraid that if I had time too think about it, I might change my mind. Mo one wanted it, you see. Even my cousin’s usually disaffected husband who treated me like a stranger rather than family stopped me in the halls to tell me...on three separate occasions...that he was content to have me here, that I didn’t have to rush into marriage.

The servants wept on my wedding day. The children were somber, playing quietly as if afraid to disturb the fragile quiet that had gathered around us. Weli, too, wept.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. You did not ask him to pay your guardian’s debts.” She was brushing out my hair. She’d stop to rub her face with the back of her hand.

“I am doing this because I want to.”

“Why? He doesn’t...he could have killed her, you do know this.”

I was picking at my emerald earrings. He’d sent me a necklace to match. “It is possible.” Admitting it was a weight off of my chest, even as it opened the door to darker imaginings.

She dropped the length of hair she was about to pin up. “Then why?”

“He fascinates me.”

“Trust me, darling, there are a million fascinating men out there. Just last night Termind promised that we could all go on a tour...” She smiled tremulously. “You have all the time in the world that you want, we could sail the world, visit different places, find your someone extraordinary...”

I raised my hand slowly to touch her cheek. Our eyes met in the mirror. “I want him,” I said. She teared up again, and began pinning up my hair.

The traditional dress is either pale yellow or pink, with tons, and tons of scarlet embroidery...flowers in profusion, symbols indicating the bride’s hopes for her future. I dressed in pale green satin, a plain dress with a fitted bodice and a flaring skirt that brushed the top of my feet. I tacked some gold lace around the hem. It was sleeveless, and I wore white gloves. My only other decoration were the earrings and the necklace, and emerald tipped pins that Weli insisted she give me to pin up my hair.

“You should have at least wore a traditional dress...we could have altered mine, for goodness sake...”

“That dress is for your daughter, should she want it. Besides, I don’t like red.”

“Nonsense! Since when?” She was remembering my second best dress, red velvet with black cord decorations. It was now, unbeknownst to her, sitting in the back of her cupboard.

“I don’t know.” I folded my hands at my waist, and took my place by the door.



We left early, my husband and I. He made up an excuse about having to go meet the ship, saying that it had made port earlier than expected. We ended up sitting in an inn for two hours because of this, but I didn’t mind. The wedding had been nice, the small party afterward a grim thing of false cheer that seemed more like a wake than a wedding. I didn’t understand it...I was outside their circle, why would they care what happened to me? And why, if they were so certain I was going to my doom, did they let me go?

It was uncomfortable, and I couldn’t eat, and so I welcomed Joaquin’s change of plans. I did not feel as if I were walking down a dangerous path...I was married, and well, my husband solicitous, the food he bought for me filling and plentiful. I leaned against his arm, and after a moment he drew me closer, holding me while we waited for a ship that would take us beyond the horizon.

I will not bore you with details of our honeymoon. It was lovely...the place he took me was an old ruins, filled with explorers and scientists and wizards trying to discover the meanings of the things the people had left behind. He took me into caverns where the walls had been carefully chiseled flat and covered with mosaics made of tiny stones and tiles that lasted for miles. We traveled the edge of the desert, we visited a gorgeous oasis. After that we traveled north, and slept in a palace of ice. It was not a usual trip, but a trip that filled me with wonders and promised me more. He was kind to me, ever watchful, very little affection in public but in private he often touched me, not always with interest in the bed chamber but nice quick kisses, a hand rubbing my back for a second as he passed. I’d find small presents in my pockets, a silver comb, some pretty pebbles, a flower pressed in glass.

I was feeling quite smug with myself, if you must know. And happy. It is hard not to love someone, when you are at the center of their most lavish attention.

It faded, though, the closer we got to home. In the carriage, closing in on his estates, it was almost as if we were strangers.

His manor, unlike my cousin’s and his neighbors illusion of space, really was on a stretch of land. The land was covered in a dense forest of pine, the silence, when we stepped out of the carriage and walked up the pale marble steps to the imposing doors complete. The house was huge, gray marble veined with white, I could not take it all in. I was relived, when we got near the door, because I would not have to assimilate the absolute vastness of the place.

Over the door, a thick almost black wood with black iron hinges, it was carved, Be Bold.

I waited, at his shoulder, for him to do something. The only servant I had seen was the man who drove the carriage and who was, even now, somewhere behind the house putting things away. Perhaps they did not know we were here?

“Tessa.” I put my hand on his shoulder, and he placed his own on top of it. It was cold, and I stepped around him to see his face,. He looked paler than usual. He was silent for so long that I thought about prompting him, but he spoke again, looking into my eyes. “I give you everything I have. My wealth, my home, my body...any desire you have, it’s yours.” He dug into his pocket and produced a ring of keys. They were all ornate. Some were silver, some were brass. One was black, not as iron would be, but a sort of black whose dullness seemed to suck the life out of everything next to it. It was the smallest key of all. He presented me the ring. The keys clattered together, and I realized my unflappable husband was shaking. I took the keys quickly, hating to see his weakness. He did not let them go, but placed a hand under my chin. Our eyes met again. “There is only one thing that you may not do. There is a room by itself, down a dark narrow hall to the back. It’s frame is painted red, and it’s a small door and takes the smallest key. Under no circumstances are you to ever enter that room.” He half whispered, half growled the words, so fierce that his hand on my chin was beginning to hurt.

“I promise” I gasped, and looking surprised, he let go of me.

“Do not place the key to the lock. Do not open the door. Do not enter in. No matter what.” He paused, and no longer able to meet my eyes, he said, “It would not be good for our marriage.”

“I promise never to go anywhere near that room, much less open in.”

He nodded, and let go of the keys. He gestured toward the door. “The house is yours, then, my wife. Unlock her and enter in.”


I tried to smile, and, knees shaking I walked past him. I tried the largest key first, because it had a pattern that looked door like to me on it. My not so wild guess was right, and the double doors parted to my touch, sliding open on well oiled hinges. The entry way looked like a church foyer...all wide expanse, with a pair of carefully turned staircases spiraling down the wall on either side. Three smaller replicas of the huge doors we’d entered through interrupted the pale expanse of it all.

“Where are the...ah..” I began, not knowing how to ask.

“Servants?”

“Yes! I’ve never entered into a house before without being attacked by someone determined to fuss over me.”

He smiled, in control again, the shadow of the man I’d honeymooned with returning. “Everything is taken care of. This way. I’ll be going away on business tomorrow...”

“So soon?”

“And therefore I’ll leave the explorations up to you, it’ll give you something to do while I’m away.”

“Can’t I come with you?” The last thing I wanted to do was to be left in that...that...mausoleum by myself.

“Next time, perhaps. Don’t you want a chance to get yourself situated? I smell food. I am absolutely dying for something to eat, aren’t you?” And he kept me distracted like that all evening.


============================================

Why I did what I did, and thoughts on other things.

By the way, the last bit was 1,543 words. This one was 2,526. I stopped, even though I know what happens next (Goodbyes, exploration of the house.) because I was starting to trance out a bit. Besides, I have a couple of book reviews I need to write.

I received a couple of surprises...our Tessa’s not completely unwitting in her desire to marry Joaquin. I’m not sure that I’m sold on her reasons, though, and am going to have to go back and strengthen them. I have some roots to work with...maybe work more with the fact that Joaquin paid off her guardian’s debts. She could feel like she *has* to marry him, and indeed, he really isn’t giving her much of a choice, despite the fact it’s clothed in a desire to please. In this society, if word got out that he paid these debts off, her reputation would doubtlessly be tarnished. After all, everyone would wonder what he was getting out of it, eh? (Nudge nudge, wink wink.)

The other surprise is that he did the “Don’t open the door speech” where he did. I was planning on writing it right before he leaves on business. Is he afraid that something inside the house might over hear?

I may have to play up the no servants thing earlier. We’ll see. There can’t be servants...but since I’ve chosen a magical setting, I can finess that, make it something nifty. Or maybe even scary. Hum. We can’t have servants, one, because of the door...I mean, if something *bad* were to happen every time the door’s opened, Joaquin’d probably already been burned out by now. You know servants are just as curious as anyone else. But maybe they can’t get the key...ah. That would negate the worry? But the idea of dinners just appearing, the house being cleaned...that’s stuff that can add atmosphere. Ok. No servants still.

Be Bold is a shameless thievery from The Robber Bridegroom. I don’t know if I’ll use the rest of it or not...I don’t think I will, but Be Bold will show up again, I already have the scene in my mind.

The last part of the scene will have to be expanded slightly, I think, in the second draft. I was starting to get tired, and wanted to quit. The endless descriptions of the pavilions early in this scene will have to be toned down, since it’s not *that* important. We’re never going to visit again, so why make such a big deal out of it?

Didn’t have a chance to introduce Tessa’s whole name yet. By this point of the story, we never will, and that might be for the best, but still...something to tackle next draft.

All in all, I feel equal to the task of writing the next section, which will be a major one, as she’ll have broken the first promise of never going near the door...

Anyway, I have to go take a crowbar to the ice on the driveway.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 3:47 PM 0 comments

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Hello!

After much worrying about it, I decided it was ok...even a good idea, perhaps, to mention that FictionAddiction.NET has uploaded my Editing Workshop class. It's a class for authors who want to learn how to edit their own work...sort of do it yourself for people who can't afford to pay an editor. :-) http://fictionaddiction.net/emailworkshops/editingworkshop.html It's an email class, four weeks plus a bonus lesson, all the things I've learned over the past few years. I think it's well done, I only hesitated mentioning it because it costs 15 bucks. :-) Please pass the word on if you know anyone who might like the idea of it.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 12:18 PM 0 comments

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  In the Chamber, part one
Tuesday, February 10, 2004

I started a short story last night, and as I was driving today, I realized that if I ever wanted to blog the process, this was it. So, as I write on this story every day, I’ll post what I wrote and explain why I did what I did. Hopefully this will be an interesting experiment in the form and function of writing, and not proof positive why you should not, in fact, be rooting for my writing career. :)

Before I post the excerpt, I’ll begin at the very beginning. One of the gentlemen I review for might be especially interested in this part, since I always act like I’m going to review every single Tor book they send me...

I finally got to settle down last night to do my computer stuff...checking my email, trolling Fiction Addiction. While my computer was loading up I picked up the next book I intended to review...Fitcher’s Brides, by Gregory Frost. I started to scan the introduction, and got caught up in the different stories of Bluebeard, which are what Frost choose as his inspiration for the book. I love folk stories, and am constantly fascinated by how many time stories are retold...over the world, you have several occurrences of many of the same folk story, only different in slight, mostly culturally focused ways. In Bluebeard, and several of its brothers, you have one significant similarity...a young woman marries a man, who takes her to his house, filled with wonders. The young woman can wander the house, enjoy her life, all things are open to her, save one small room that she is forbidden to ever enter. The man leaves for some reason, handing her the keys to his house. Eventually the girl will always give into temptation and unlock that final door...and always she will find horror, and always she will be found out.

And I wondered, “Why does the girl always open the door?”

I logged off the internet, put aside the book for fear of contaminating myself or being accused, later, of whole sale theft. I’ve decided that I’ll review Gridlinked by Neal Asher instead.

The first line was easy, and it flowed from there. Here is the unedited excerpt, my comments will follow.

=============================

In the Chamber
By Cindy Lynn Speer
February 9, 2004

He was the handsomest man I’d ever seen.
Tall and slender, he wore his pale as snow hair to his collar, the perfect widow peak accentuating his aesthetic, almost lupine features. His eyes were the color of amber, and sparkled strangely in the candle light. Sometimes it was almost as if his eyes were on fire.
He was always fashionable. Perfect clothing, tasteful and not ostentatious, perfect manners, perfect style. He followed the rules as if he walked on a knife’s edge, knowing just how long it was proper to touch, to stare, careful to never be alone with a woman longer than was proper. Managing to make one feel as if they, too, walked on the knife’s edge with him without doing anything that could be remarked upon as unseemly. He was wealthy, and while he did not have the highest of titles, he had all the things that allowed him entrance into the finest of circles. Better yet, some would say, he had all these things and he was single.
But all the ladies, from the maidens looking for a good marriage to the widows desperate for a man’s protection avoided him desperately. They flirted, yes, but only as far as safety allowed. No one would consent to marry him, it was said, no matter how fine the offer, no matter how beautiful the dowry gifts.
But that’s not to say he wasn’t married once already. And that was why, thanks to rumor and to superstition, it was said he would never marry again.
“What was she like, Dona Meriania?” I asked my hostess, Dona Welicide. She was a second cousin who had graciously agreed to take me in after my guardian lost everything we had. He was in debtor’s prison in the capital, and there he could remain, really, for all I cared. He had tried to sell me to avoid imprisonment, and I figured, better him than me.
Welicide brightened. I knew nothing of the local gossip, stories which, to her circle, were so over told as to be threadbare. Now she could relate them to a new audience...in fact, I think it was half the reason she invited me,. to have someone else to tell her stories to. “She was...beautiful. As dark as he is pale, very much the lady of the moment in her time. everyone wanted her. She had a taste for rubies, I remember.”
I found myself smiling. “That’s all you can remember of her?”
“Oh, Tessa, I can remember much more than that, but I fear I did not care for the girl. She was my greatest rival, every since we were little.”
“Did you fight over Don Joaquin?”
“Shhh.” She breathed. “I was already engaged at the time, so of course not.”
Don Joaquin had dipped his fair head to take a sip from the glass he was holding. He was across the room, a room filled with music and laughing people, but still he stopped when I whispered his name, and looked up at me, slowly, first from the corner of his eye then straight on, meeting my gaze. I smiled slightly, taken aback by the intensity. I could feel the weight of his stare like a touch, over my cheeks and nose and mouth. He returned the smile just as slightly, and turned to address a man who had come off the dance floor.
“Ooh, he gives me the creeps,” my cousin said. I would have been inclined to agree, but the chills running down my spine felt too good to be wrong.
I lost sight of him, until I went outside to get a breath of air. I choose one of the smaller balconies, off to the side. I saw him almost immediately, the light of the moon shone on his hair like a beacon. I paused at the threshold of the doorway, then came the rest of the way out. I leaned on the rail the opposite corner from him, but still, there was only a foot between us. I imagined I could feel the heat of his presence, radiating off of him.
“You are not afraid?” His voice was deep, like the forest at night. He seemed surprised, perhaps even amused.
“I am not afraid.” I realized it was true.
“You have not been in our fair country long enough, perhaps.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps I do not listen to rumors.”
“Or perhaps you simply do not listen.”
“I think that you rather like your notoriety, Don Joaquin. Maybe you enjoy being dark and mysterious and dangerous.”
He straightened up to look at me. “No,” he said. “I do not.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, but it was to the air, for he had already pushed through the doors and back into the ballroom.
That was not the last time I saw him, though perhaps it should have been.

I was lost. Helplessly, and regretting that I had agreed to go on the hunt with my cousin, who was busily trying to introduce me to a wide range of men...any of whom she was hoping would sweep me off my feet and give me a home, hearth and silk dresses. Some of them were nice enough, but basically I found them all tedious and boring. Sometimes I could feel my brain die in bits and pieces, talking to them. or rather, listening to them.
Of course, the hunt would have been fine if I, trying to act like I’d ridden all my life, hadn’t decided to race better horse people than me and had ended, ignominiously, ran off with and dumped on my well skirted rear. I had no idea where the bull headed animal (who despite being the meanest horse I’d ever clapped eyes on nevertheless had a higher IQ than the combined members of the hunting party...myself included.) was, and so I was wandering the forest, in unsuitable boots and very heavy clothes.
“So, how is the view from the ground?”
“I am not amused...” I said, turning. My thoughts disappeared like fog when I saw him, sitting with perfect ease on his white and gray stallion. The black and silver leatherwork glistened, his black suit was cut to emphasize the perfection of the body that sat upon it.
He rode forward so that he was next to her. He kicked a foot out of the stirrup and held out a hand. “I doubt I would be, either. Come, it is a long way back to your cousin’s manor.”
I placed my hand in his. I was surprised at how good it felt...his hand was large, and it enveloped mine. It was strong feeling, and the warmth, the strength, felt wonderful. I put my foot in the free stirrup and with less awkwardness that I feared I was helped up onto the saddle behind him. I sat very straight, trying not to touch him more than with my hands on his shoulders.
“You will fall if you do not relax.” He said.
“Again, you mean.” And let out a breath I’d been holding and transferred my grip to his waist.
“So, what brings you out here?”
“My horse ran off with me.” I don’t know if he felt my shrug. “We parted ways.”
“I think,” he said, pushing aside a low branch, “That you were curios and wanted to explore.”
“No. I am the least curious person you will ever meet.”
“Really?” He had been polite before, pleasant bordering on cold, but now his voice warmed with real interest.
“Honestly. I like to learn things,” I said, not wanting to sound like a fool, “But if it requires anything more than reading a good book, you can count me out. If I am supposed to know it, it will present itself. I shant go look for it.”
He put the reigns in one hand and his other came down on my own. Warmth coursed to my toes and back up. My cheeks felt hot. “A wise choice.” he muttered, and I felt, somehow, that I had pleased him greatly.

The next day a box was delivered to my cousin’s house. My name was written on the label in a quick, graceful script. It held earrings, an ornate confection of silver and brilliant green stones. My cousin was thrilled, until she found who sent them.
“Don’t do this.” she said.
“Do what?” I was holding one up to my ear, admiring myself in the reflecting glass of the entrance hall. I wiggled it so that I could see how they would flash. They were exquisite. Far more so than I, I may add.
“He is dangerous. He said his wife fled from him, ran away with another woman...”
“How terrible.” I said. I was actually thinking about how to wear my hair to set off the earrings. I wanted to certain to wear them the very next time he would see me...
“They found her in a ravine, not three miles from his home.”
“Perhaps her lover abandoned her. Perhaps she fell.”
“I do not know.” She said. “But they never recovered her completely.”
I looked at her over my shoulder. Whatever do you men?”
“she’d been chopped up. They found her head, a couple of limbs...”
I shivered and placed the earring next to its mate, and closed the box.


===============================

Why I did what I did.

First, I have to confess, I watched the Mask of Zorro again before I settled down to do the things that lead to the story. This is why this story, while a fantasy tale, will have a slightly Hispanic feel. Very slight...I liked the idea of the feel we get when you think of Spain, and so I’ll be, lightly, using that feel to help the setting. That’s why I’ve used Don and Dona. I used made up names to help transport the story out of our reality...the only normal names are Tessa and Joaquin. Tessa I chose because I saw it recently and decided it was a name I liked, but by choosing two “normal” names for my main characters, I put myself into he dangerous position of looking like I’ve symbolically brought them forward through this name choice. I don’t like that, so Tess will not be short for Teresa, by Tessazerova. As for Joaquin’s name, it doesn’t feel quite right in my head, and Joaquin seems to shrug in his name, like someone trying to fit comfortably in a jacket that’s just slightly too small. I didn’t want to spend an hour dwelling on it or looking through my baby name book, so I picked one that came to my head and that I liked. I’ll either get used to it, or have a realization as to what his real name is.
There is no special reason why his hair is white, save that’s how I se him. If I was sticking to the tales, I might have gone the way of The Robber Bridegroom...who should have fox like red hair. (Gaiman reader may be familiar with the story...The White Road was based on it.) I decided to make his eyes the focal point for what may or may not be “wrong” or “evil” about him. At this point, I’m not sure if Joaquin is evil or not.

I chose the first person because I wanted to make it as immediate as quickly as possible. I also can use less space by focusing just on her. And, well, it’s how it came to me. I heard Tessa’s voice in my head immediately upon realizing I wanted to write this story.

I did a lot of introduction that will have to be dispersed throughout the story in a later draft...right now I’m telling myself about these people as much as I’m telling the reader.

The three other major things I accomplished: Her statement on lack of curiosity is both what draws him to her (Could this be the woman to pass the test?) and an introduction of the major challenge...will she be proven wrong?

The second is the earrings. They are to give an opening to give one of the major clues about the first wife...she loved rubies. That will be important, later.

Three...of course, that SOMETHING happened to the wife, and that she was found chopped up, a la Bluebeard, etc.

Now my next major decision...do we court more, or jump to the marriage? Hopefully we’ll both soon find out. :-)


Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:06 PM 0 comments

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