Monday, April 7, 2014

With Wings -- Chapter One: The Angel


Eight years earlier
The heavy draft carried the petrichor in its icy tendrils, through the ancient dorm room window, and across Samantha’s sleepy eyes. She had that dream again – about the brown-haired boy in the blue fleece jacket who sometimes looked at her from across the cafes or from the bus stop. The fleeting reveries kept her warm.
It was raining. She pulled herself out of the warmth of her private cocoon and, eventually, to the bus stop. It was too late to see him now. The only ones on the later bus were strangers in reds and blacks – school colors and the dark hues of winter wools. They stood near the black street lamp near the sandstone tower, under a grey, naked tree. The gentle thunder of cars on slick pavement filled the silence where earbuds and sleeping mouths made no noise.
The bus arrived, crawling to the curb, throwing open its rubber-lined doors that still dripped rain from across the town. It was the cheery bus driver, and he told Samantha that she looked pretty, and she blushed as she scuttled to her seat. She opened her phone to text her mom and saw her face – her blushing, aqua-eyed, crow-eyed face with a mess of browns and bad red highlights from Halloween. In the corner, she saw her friends in a photo, mouths stuffed with bad veggie pizza, and she smiled. Perhaps the waking world isn’t so bad, she pondered.
The engine was loud as the bus pushed up the steep, winding hills. Samantha watched the pedestrians from the window as they herded themselves into modern and gothic styled buildings. A tiny black sports car swerved in an intersection. A bicyclist cut a van off. Two men talked too loudly about an exam they’d taken. She leaned her head against the window and watched as traffic slowly zoomed through a three-way intersection near the chapel and a research building.
She always hated this intersection. Frustrated drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and bystanders all came together in one constant fight for passage. It was a collaboration of rage in one square, and she did not envy the cheery driver. They waited. A horn blew. Samantha almost closed her eyes, but she was too vigilant. They were just about to clear the stop line.
And it happened. It finally happened. A young blond man in bright khakis had been walking through the lines of the crosswalk, and a fat white SUV plowed right through him. Samantha clenched her eyes and screamed. She opened her eyes. The bus had stopped, and the bus driver looked down the aisle – as did everyone else. She turned and looked at the intersection. No bloody mess. No guts on the asphalt. The SUV zoomed down, and the boy stood on the corner.
Looking at her.
With all the shock that she’d had seeing him being smooshed by one of the many morons on the campus with drivers’ licenses.
“What’s wrong?” the driver asked.
She ran to the door of the bus, and he threw open the wet doors. Samantha stepped onto the sidewalk, and the bus slowly crawled away. Once she could see across the narrow street, she saw the man, still watching her with wide eyes.
“Do you see me?” he asked.
Samantha nodded. She wanted to ask “Are you all right?” and “What happened?” but her jaw trembled too hard to form words. Her knees were all that could move, and even they could not be stopped.
The man crossed the intersection again, dodging the cars in his even pace. “Don’t try to talk to me,” he said. “Just walk to that garden over there. Put your headphones in.” Samantha hesitated. “I’m not going to do anything funny. I promise. Come on.”
She waited a moment as he walked over the sidewalk. Who was he? What happened? He was as shocked as she was a moment ago, but at that moment, his face seemed delighted and bright. A girl in a suit dress looked Samantha over with wide eyes and a furrow brow, but Samantha shouldered past her. No one walked to avoid the man.
The dead garden beside the technology research building still dripped with the morning rain. A pedestal stood in the center with Latin written along its base. Archways with vines of once-beautiful roses were the only entrances into the small haven. The man walked over the mud, leaving no footprints, and sat on the wet metal bench. Samantha stood before him.
“You know, if you put your ear buds in, people will think you have a phone call,” he said.
“Who are you?” she asked with no nonsense in her tone.
He half-laughed and closed his eyes for a moment. She waited. Her patience was running thin, but he smiled and looked at her with bright light in his silvery eyes. “I am Lester, an angel of Heaven.”
Samantha half-kicked into her turn and stomped to the archway.  Whether she went straight for the clinic or to class, she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t going to waste another second with this hallucination or nut bag or whatever he was. She turned in the archway, and he was suddenly before her.
“I am an angel, Samantha Bell, and I have been looking for you,” he said in a louder, deeper voice. The thunder in his growling tone raised the hairs on her back and arms.
In her panic, she whimpered, “I guess God is not omniscient after all, eh?”
“He is,” he hissed, and all hints of smiles vanished, and Lester’s arms began to bulk and glow. “I did not say I was God, and I, too, am running out of patience. You are needed, Samantha, and quickly.”
She closed her eyes. Samantha had not believed in God or angels or any of that nonsense since dropping out of her private Christian school. This was just a terrifying hallucination. She would just have to wait it out. Maybe someone slipped something in her drink the other night. Maybe something was poisoning Dickson Lake. Salem was poisoned by that plant and led to those witch trials, so it wasn’t extraordinary.
“Samantha,” he said more calmly, “if you don’t listen to me, the demons will come after you next.”
“Oh, the demons?” she half-whispered.
“Miss Bell?” a voice called. She turned quickly and saw her ecology professor, who watched her from the sidewalk with his suitcase dangling from his wrinkled, tired arm. He lifted his glasses and waved with his free hand. “Is everything okay?”
Lester was gone. Samantha resisted running to her professor’s side and stayed her pace to a half-jog. “I don’t feel very good.”
                “Oh, well, the flu is going around,” he said.
                “I think I need something else,” she said.  Samantha looked around once more. The hallucination was nowhere to be seen. “I’ll, uh, see you in class.”
                “Not if you’re not feeling well,” he said with a grin. “Feel better.”
                She planned on it. Samantha waved and took the long way to the clinic, down a crosswalk near the abandoned soccer field, and through the narrow antechamber filled with STD and pregnancy pamphlets. On the third floor, the receptionist had her sit and fill out papers, and a psychologist took her in. Within the hour, she had six prescriptions for anti-anxiety meds and sleeping pills with a gentle “come back if it get worse” from the doctor.

                And it did. It got much worse.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Chapter One of a Fairy Tale

          A dome of golden angels circled over Emmaline’s head. Roses interrupted the bright sunlight and glittered in pinks, oranges, reds, and whites. The heaviness of the gold furniture, the velvet curtains, the mountains of flowers, and the whishing bodies made her head heavy.
          A sharp prick to her nape silenced her mind for a moment. “Hold still, Emmaline,” her mother hissed.
          She bit her cheek and endured the thorns of white roses her mother threaded under the lace veil. Her three younger sisters sewed more emerald ribbons onto the sapphire skirt, all silent, all wearing beautiful gowns of their own. Her mother dropped the veil over her face and lifted her chin.
          “Keep your eyes on the high priest. Walk slowly but not too slowly. Do what the priest tells you,” her mother rushed and yanked Emmaline off the stool onto the marble floor. As they walked over the palace rugs and stone floors, her mother hurried more orders – say nothing, chin up, eyes low. Her sisters followed the train of the sapphire gown, but they were silent.
          The foreign palace was nothing like the narrow fortress she’d grown up in. The Saryllian palace was filled with roses and mirrors. Every beam of light reflected in the marble floors and the endless mirrors. Tapestries of beast gods and heroic battles covered every wall and column. The hearths were warm, and the windows were framed with ebony etched with flowers and vines. Even as she hurried behind her mother, their footsteps echoed along the glistening floors.
          Her mother paused in a crimson room before two heavy white doors. The floor was soft and plush, and the bright walls reached high into the dome where warriors fought for eternity in their murals. Emmaline searched her mother’s face for a hint of what waited beyond the doors. Her sisters stepped back and lowered their heads as the pages slowly threw open the doors.
          The long crimson runner continued into the great hall beyond the heavy doors. It divided two masses of lords and ladies in the finest, brightest gowns and coats that Emmaline had ever seen. Some were kings she knew from her father’s courts. Others were high priests of the temples in silver and gold robes. She could barely see the pair at the end of the room standing against a wall of white flowers and a grand statue of a falcon goddess.
          A trumpet sounded, and a thin boy in golden robes yelled, “Princess Emmaline Hester Frust of Tarvin!”
          The lords and ladies were silent, and gentle notes from a harp began though Emmaline could not see it. The crystals of the chandeliers scattered the colored sunlight from the stained glass above the hall. White rose petals dusted the runner like snow as Emmaline walked forward. Her mother molded into the crowd and nodded to her, but her steel eyes were cold and offered no hints.
          She walked in time with the swaying song from the harp. Every gaze was upon her. Emmaline tried to focus on the pair before her as they became more visible. The Queen of Rosland, a thin grey lady, gasped and whispered, but she could not look at her. A judge of the Fespian Court bowed slightly. The others were probably Saryllian, for they were tall, and they all had hair as golden as their honeys and straw. They whispered in their strange language with its rolling consonants and nasal vowels. With every step, she felt sicker. Her heavy skirt weighed her steps even as the weight of the stares made her legs numb. She focused on the scarred eyes of the falcon goddess and hurried her steps.
          The man directly before her, standing beneath the beak of the falcon, was a priest. He wore ink-black robes and a tall cap gilded in gold. He stood before a mahogany altar beside the other figure. His face was tight and sober, and his eyes grey with age. As she neared the pair, the harp became louder until it was a cacophony of gentle notes.
          The second man in burgundy velvet and tall polished boots turned to face her, and she paused. He was more decorated and beautiful than any other noble in the hall. His deep blue eyes were cool, and his clean gentle face was far more sober than any of the other sanguine smiles she’d seen. His peach lips were flanked by laugh lines, and his suit hinted that he didn’t quite fit within its stitches. He could not be much older than her cousin – perhaps seventeen winters – but the shadows in his cheeks aged him.
As she neared the dais at the goddess’ feet, the man offered his arm. She wove her hand through the velvet and held his wrist, feeling the strength in his forearm. He smelled of rosy shaving oils and leather polish. Emmaline only came to his chest, but she walked taller and surer. Even if her only comfort was the strange man, she felt the world become lighter.
The man stopped before the priest and closed his hand over Emmaline’s. She smiled to him, but he was looking straight ahead at the altar. The invisible wall shattered, and all the crowd closed in around the dais, silent and staring so hard that Emmaline itched all over. The priest began to speak the confusing language to the pair and to the vast sea of satin and velvet. The harp was silent. The silence was deafening.
“My lady,” the priest said with the trill accent.
Emmaline stared into his dark eyes. What had he said? What was she supposed to say? She didn’t understand a single word he’d said. She felt her knees knock together.
“Say ‘I do,’” the man whispered. His accent rolled gentler and was as soft as his velvet sleeve. His eyes were softer as he looked upon her.
Emmaline said the words, and the priest continued in the language. He addressed the man with heavy words, and the man nodded. The priest turned and lifted a silver goblet from the altar. He handed it to the man with a smile and more words. The man sipped quickly and pushed it into Emmaline’s hand. She sipped, too, but the drink was sour. She could barely hold it in her throat. When she swallowed, the priest set the goblet on the altar and lifted his hands, and the entire hall erupted with applause. The man closed his hand tighter around Emmaline’s hand.
When they turned to the mass, she did not see her family or the familiar faces of her father’s court. She did not understand anything. The man lowered his hand to her wrist and led her away from the mass of nobles. She held his sleeve tighter than was polite and followed him through more marble corridors and runners. The sun was lower in the sky as the first streaks of orange took the sky.
He led her to a grand dining hall. The tables were arranged in a large rectangle around a lowered platform where a concert had begun. White cloths with embroidered flowers decorated the tables. Ribbons hung from the columns, and grand centerpieces of ivy and roses stood like mountains on the cloths. Two tall chairs stood beneath a crimson banner with ribbons and thick cushions. The man pulled out one of the chairs and nodded, so Emmaline sat down. Her knees still knocked, but the tablecloths hid them.
As the guests filled the tables, Emmaline sought her family. She saw her youngest sister, Denise, take a seat at the far end of her table. Her other sisters wove through two young nobles and a priest as they found seats at the end of her table. Neither waved to her. Emmaline’s mother took a seat near a grand blonde woman with a train gown. She remembered that the tall blonde woman was the Queen of Saryl and their hostess, Lady Reia. A pair in matching lavender garb sat beside Emmaline instead, talking amorously in the strange language with their backs to her as they talked.
The man opened his napkin and seemed to be looking for someone as well. He paused his search and looked at her for a moment, seeming more intrigued than angry then. Emmaline blushed. She suddenly preferred being invisible.
          “You have lovely hair,” he said and wrapped one of her garnet locks around his fingers.
          “Thank-you, my lord,” she said. “Your hair is lovely as well.”
          He lowered the lock and turned instead to the gathering crowd. Servants in clean almond-colored garb lined the tables with steaming plates in hand. Others covered the tables with wide platters of cheeses, fruits, and soups. The man set a flat-bottomed ruby fruit on his plate and used the pearly knife to core out its black heart. When he saw Emmaline watching, he slowly removed each fruit and named them: shepherd’s nose, star tear, witchberry. The sheppherd’s nose was her favorite, for its hairy skin yielded delicious emerald pearls within that burst between her teeth. It was sweeter than any fruit she’d known. The witchberry was so purple it stained her fingers. The man indicated the soup concoctions and the garnishes. He explained that in Saryl, everything was sweetened and presented beautifully, for it was art.
          As she cored the berries for herself, she opened her finger with the blade. The man wrapped it with his napkin. The calluses in his hand shocked her. He seemed so gentle, and yet his hands were rough and caught on her sleeve. The man did not seem to notice. Rather, he had begun to frown again, and the darkness took his sapphire eyes again.
          “Please excuse me,” he whispered.
          He wrapped her hand around her own wound and stood. The air became colder in his absence. The couple beside her dote on one another, stroking each other’s hands, speaking in the fast language. The entire dinner party was loud and rouged with their wines. Emmaline could not understand anyone, and she had already eaten her fill in foods and drinks. She excused herself to no one in particular and followed the man’s shadow.
          The man walked heavily to a darker corridor beyond the dining hall. He stood near a column by an alcove. Someone else stood there. Emmaline peaked from behind the column and saw that it was the queen. While everyone was standing, she became shier, for they were much taller and louder than she was. Then she saw that her mother stood in their company as well. No one noticed her beyond the corner.
          “You will address your guests in their language, Damond,” the blonde queen demanded.
          “Very well,” he bit out. “I’ll not bed your ten year old, Lady Hester.”
          “Lord Damond!” her mother hissed.
          “You had your wedding,” he continued, undaunted by the icicles in both queens’ expressions. “You had your wedding, my vows, your big party. The kingdoms will rest well. That should be enough.”
          “You will take the princess to your bed, Damond, and you will bed her before the wedding party. If you do not, I will see to it that you have no kingdom. Am I understood?” The blonde queen crossed her arms, but the man did not respond. She grabbed his damask shirt and spoke in their fast, angry tongue.
          He said nothing but furrowed his eyebrows. The queen released him, and he turned on his heels toward the hallway. Both women straightened their shoulders, but their hatred was tangible in the warm hallway. Emmaline was frozen against the column. How could he walk after such an angry confrontation? How did he stand such words?
          When Damond turned, his eyes met Emmaline’s. “Princess,” he whispered. She frowned. He sighed and set his hand on her veiled head, poking both of them with the thorns in the roses. “Come. The dessert should be delicious.”
          Emmaline followed him back to the loud dining hall. The dessert was a fruit cake with sweet meringues deep in its crusts. She ate witchberries until she was nearly sick, and she drank a drop of wine to ease the tension in her stomach. Damond was angry. She avoided looking into the brooding shadows of his face for fear it would make the knots in her stomach sink her through the chair.
          “Hot tea, my lord? My lady?” a crystal voice half-sang. It was the second time in the entire day that a Saryllian spoke to her in her language.
          Emmaline looked over the servant. Her hair was covered in a yellow cap, but her brilliant emerald eyes glistened like stained glass. She was curvy, even sultry, with wide hips tucked neatly to hold a platter, and narrow wrists. Her rouged lips were pulled in a deceptive half-smile as she gazed at Damond.
          Damond’s smile could swallow kingdoms. He tilted his head and gazed into the servant woman’s eyes as he said, “Please.” The woman hummed a sweet note and turned to Emmaline. Her smile was still warm, but her eyes looked her over from head to toe. Emmaline nodded and smiled back. When the woman left, Damond still smiled and watched her sashay around the tables.
          She knew that look. It was the look her cousins gave some of their servants when they’d had too many goblets of wine. Her father sometimes had that look when he was not so busy and when her mother was not so cold. Emmaline looked again at the servant woman with the rolling hips and long neck. She wanted to be that beautiful when she was a woman.
          Servants began lighting the candles in the chandeliers and within the piles of flowers and used napkins. The beautiful servant brought hot tea and smiled to Damond before disappearing into the lengthening shadows.
Finally smiling, Damond began to introduce the many party guests – prime ministers, barons, powerful merchants, priests of the great temples, kings and queens. Emmaline could not possibly remember all of them, but she remembered Reia, the Queen of Saryl, and the King, Carle, who was much like Damond.
Emmaline had begun to understand that Damond was the second-born prince of Saryl. His older brother, Garrett, was the Crown Prince. Damond was only a year apart from him, being seventeen with his own estate in the eastern mountains. She could not remember the names of his other five brothers and sisters even as he repeated them through his stories. Unlike Emmaline’s mother, the Saryllian royal family dined together frequently, and the siblings saw each other for their frequent outings. Emmaline saw her sisters once a moon.
As the night drew on, the party grew louder. Damond became quieter until he stopped speaking altogether. He set his glass on the table and took Emmaline’s hand. “Come,” he said. “We should get this over.”
She ached to know what he meant. The amorous couple lifted their glasses and whistled at him, drawing a tense look of disgust from Damond’s shadowed face. He led her through a courtyard filled with lazy lavender and weeping wisteria, past a tiered fountain and dewy grass. On the other side was an ivory tower laden with long vines that reached all the way to the spires. A guard opened the door to the tower, and he led her up the winding tower stairs.
At the second door, Damond stopped. He pushed it open, revealing a suite filled with more white and red roses. A plump burgundy bed rested on a dais in the center with mountains of frilly pillows all across its surface. A small table and chairs stood among two massive bookcases. A rack with bows and a sword was hidden among trinkets in an alcove above a table of lilies. A screen with a river scene painted across it blocked her view of the corner, but a blue robe was draped over its top, and the golden legs of a bathtub peaked out from its edge. Tapestries and mirrors covered the walls.
Damond rounded the dais and moved the roses from one of the tables. He thumbed the golden frame of the mirror above until it clicked. “We have not much time,” he said lowly. He lit one of the lavender candles from the tower light and pressed it into her hand. “On the other side of this hallway is a room. It is much like this one, but it is a secret. Stay there until the morning.”
The beautiful servant woman appeared in the doorway. “My lord,” she hummed, “and the lady. Your father is gathering the party as we speak.”
Damond paled even in the shadow of the room. “Princess, go to the room at the end of this hallway. No one will harm you there.”
She nodded and turned to the mirror. The glass eased from its frame and slowly revealed a narrow passage. Emmaline stepped into the hallway and turned. Behind her, the servant girl had removed her bandana and revealed hair as red and curly as her own. She covered her lips for fear she would gasp. The servant poked roses from the urns into her hair, and Damond smiled. Emmaline closed the mirror door behind her and walked quickly through the cold, dark passage.
The passage dropped into a flight of stairs that descended into a circular room. It was quaint with two wide windows with window seats and a bookshelf separating them. A wide bed with velvet curtains rested at the center against the interior of the wall, lit by moonlight at its foot. A trunk rested against the lower posters. Emmaline set the candle on the small dining table and sighed.
She pulled the roses, pins, and jewels off piece by piece and set them on the vanity. The servant woman had worn the roses like jewels. Damond clearly loved her. She wondered what drinking the sour wine meant, or who the gods of this castle were, and what the people had been talking about. Did every language have its own stories? Were there monsters in the Saryllian language that did not exist in others? She slipped from the dress and skirts and veils until she wore only the long chemise. It was cool. A breeze blew across her gooseflesh. The moon was high and bright in its fullness. She sighed and cast herself into the soft bed.

Laughter and cheering echoed into the room. She covered her head and pulled the pillow tight over her ears. Emmaline could not stand that language a moment longer. Once the noise faded, only the crickets in the distant woods remained, familiar and quiet as they had always been. When dreams of home finally came, she heard only the slow, quiet words of her own language spoken by her nursemaid and sisters. 

Thursday, November 28, 2013

With Wings -- Prologue

 The blizzard had come earlier than predicted. Carol and Sean Bell lay on the old pleather sofa beneath the plaid green throw, Carol against Sean's shoulder, watching the scrolling bar at the bottom of the local car ads, as each school listed its closing. Carol's eyes grew heavy. They watched out of curiosity, really, to know where the snow was bad and to know how their tax dollars were spent. The roar of passing snow plows muffled the dim chatter. Wafts of baked bread still lingered from the quiet dinner, the first dinner they'd had together that week, the first dinner that Carol wasn't working overtime at the hospital and Sean wasn't stuck in the garage in town.

The ads became more mundane and blended with each other. Carol's eyes lowered. It was strange. When did they decide to watch for school closings? They read the paper for the weather reports. She was going to have to go to work no matter what the weather was like. The blizzards brought more patients if anything. Yet when she read Centerville High School is closed it still brought her a gentle relief that swelled inside her heart. She sighed and flipped the channel to the end of some movie, with a man covered in ash and blood holding an equally filthy woman, both smiling before the fast music came to a slow finale.

“It's quiet,” she said into Sean's grey undershirt. He looked down with his deep green eyes, equally tired, but still young. “Don't you think it's quiet?”

He smiled and rubbed his palm over her sandy blonde hair. “It's nice. It's the first night you can get some decent sleep,” he said.

She sighed and rested her cheek on his ribs. The moment felt perfect. A husband and wife, cuddled on the couch, sheltered from the storm, half-asleep with full bellies and not a worry in the world just for the night. She ran her finger over his shoulder and felt him catch her wrist to kiss it. Carol had loved this man since the sixth grade. She remembered that they'd fought in their marriage, sometimes until Sean would drive out in the night, drunk and angry, and all of her anger would wash away with a river of worry for him. Why had they fought so bitterly? In the kindness of time, she had forgotten. She wished they'd never fight like that again.

“What are you thinking about?” he said sleepily.

“Nothing,” she mumbled.

“You are too smart to be thinking about nothing, Dr. Bell,” he laughed. Sean pulled a hair from her ear and wrapped it around his finger, brushing it with his thumb. “You shouldn't worry about things. We're too old to be worried about things.”

“We're not old,” she said less sweetly.

His eyes caught hers, alert. “Fine. We're not old. What's on your mind?”

“When we were young, we wanted to have babies, didn't we?” she said, searching his face. “Why didn't we have babies? It was a dream of ours.”

His eyebrows knit together, and his tired eyes suddenly focused like lasers into the space far above the ceiling. He was searching, too, for words that escaped her. “We tried,” he said softly. “I remembered we tried – like bunnies, all the time.” He caught her eyes and smiled wide. “Remember?”

She laughed, and he cupped her cheek. “I remember very well, Sean Bell. We got in a lot of trouble, too.”
He clicked the TV off, and the quaint living room was blackened. The green light from the cable box lit the glass coffee table and the cluttered photos on the fake cherry wood entertainment center. The blinking yellow light from the answering machine lit the computer, still lightly humming, in brief seconds. Outside, the trees clashed against each other as the winds pelted everything in their path. Sean leaned and kissed Carol's dry lips.

“It's not too late,” Carol whispered. “We're not that old.”

He smiled. “Of course not. Whatever makes you happy, my love.”

She cupped his ear and kissed the nape of his neck to work her way to his lips. He growled and grabbed the bottom of her shirt, and the familiar passion flared between them.

Then the hum and buzz of the house came to a deafening silence. The green light was gone. The computer was still. The phone light was no more. The shadows were complete. The light of the moon through the windows, the motor of the refrigerator, the hiss of the heating vents – all the of reminders of safety and function were gone. The wind gusted against the house and shook the windows, rattling the shutters, and scaring Carol beyond her passion.

“Just a power outage,” Sean whispered. “We're okay. Come here.”

A chill flew up her spine, and a reflex, something in her gut, told her to protect something. Something upstairs. She pushed aside the covers and took one of the pumpkin-scented candles from the table for a light. She found a lighter in the clutter pile on the desk and lit it. Sean stayed in his nest of throw blanket and remotes, smiling to her, inviting her to his den of lust. The twisting of her insides tugged her upstairs. Carol smiled to him and walked quickly up the narrow flight.

She stopped at their bedroom and pressed the door open. The bed was made, a sight not seen since before she'd taken the job at the hospital, and the clutter had been thrown into boxes in the closet to present a perfect magazine image of a bedroom. The crimson curtains – now as indistinguishable as any other shadow – were pulled shut against the drafts, but the room was cold.

The power had gone out, but the heat should not have. Carol lifted the phone and listened, but there was no noise. She plucked the charger out of Sean's phone and touched the power button, but the phone did not come on. It had been charging for over thirty minutes. Her wrist was frozen as she set it back down on the glass night stand.

Her legs were stiff, but she walked to the guest bedroom and pushed the door open until it banged against the pink wallpaper, punching a hole in the wall behind the doorknob. Sean called from downstairs. She threw open the closet, filled with her sister's old childhood clothes. Her sister had never liked these clothes, had said they were not her clothes but were Carol's best friend's clothes in a mislabeled box perhaps. Carol bent down and opened a trunk and found pictures of the beach, of a playground with children in strange poses. A swing in mid-air and a photo of just a slide. Sean had had strange artistic habits of taking strange photos of shadows and objects in motion.

“What happened?” Sean said, stepping inside. “Carol, what's going on?”

“I don't know,” she whispered. “I just feel so strange.” She felt a surge of hot pain wash over her neck and head. “Sean. Sean, do you feel that?” The next surge blinded her with its tendrils of deep burning ache. It felt like a thousand wild animals clawing into her face, through her scalp, running their claws down her shoulder and neck. Carol wailed. “Sean, what is this! Sean!”

She wiped at the imaginary animals and grasped her flesh. Was it a hallucination? Was she leaning against a live wire? Carol screamed and threw open her eyes, but when she looked, Sean was on his knees, his mouth open but with no sound coming forth, his face turning red and purple. She reached her hand to help him, but the pain made her rigid.

The room lit with brilliant fluorescent sun. In place of shadow that made everything black and formless, the light made all white and blinding to see. Carol looked over her shoulder and saw the light, framed only by the hints of a window, before it made all into a star. She closed her eyes and focused on ridding herself of the pain.

“Carol and Sean Bell,” said an angry baritone voice. It came from the light, clear and accented with an almost Italian origin. “I am Lester, an angel of Heaven. I am looking for someone of great importance. I need you to tell me where she is.”

Sean made a noise but could not speak. The light dimmed until the shapes of the room were visible, and in place of the sun, there was a man – a man with wings. He had golden flesh and armor, and his hair came down to his ribs. His eyes still glowed like stars, but they could feel his angry gaze as his aquiline nose moved with his rigid jawline. He levitated through the window and spread his pearly wings, so huge they took the entirety of the room. In his golden presence, he pain stopped, but the dull after-shock of the pain echoed through Carol's very core.

“Tell me where she is,” the angel commanded again. “I am out of time. I need to know now.”

“We don't know who you're talking about,” Sean said. He crawled to Carol and grasped her hand. “Whatever you want, we don't have it.”

The angel's nose pointed at Carol. “You remember through the spell in Our Presence. I can hear your thoughts. Her spell has weakened. Tell me where she is, woman.”

Sean looked to Carol, and for the first time, she saw terror in her husband. It was the terror her patients wore after the very worst car accidents, the terror of having escaped the maws of death, the terror after an explosion and running. This thing, this “angel” had done this to the man she loved. She knew she must look just as scared of whatever this being was.

“Sean,” she whispered, “why didn't we have babies?”

His chin quivered, but he shook his head. The pain came slowly through her neck, but in bursts like an electric whip. With each whip, she could see an image, each more vivid than the one before it. A girl, as blonde as gold, sitting atop a slide. A girl on Sean's lap with a book held before both of their faces. Report cards with A's and B's and a B- in math. A young lady in short track shorts and big green eyes running nearly last in the track team but smiling. She looked like Sean with her persistent smile and gentle hands. She looked like Carol in the hair, the wide hips, the short stature but long legs. The girl wanted an iguana. She wanted a dog. The boy band t-shirts didn't fit the girl anymore but she didn't want to get rid of them in case the bands were popular again. She was an emotional child. She was a good girl.

“Where is she?” the angel demanded.

“Go to hell!” Carol screamed.

Sean wrapped his arms around her and pulled her deep into the closet. The light was interrupted in the angel's eyes as shadow intercepted it. Deep in the pits of Carol's stomach, she felt the deepest dread she'd ever felt. It filled her with nausea. The stench of sulfur was overwhelming, and bile rose to her throat. The angel turned his eyes from her to the wall as it lit in blue fire in fine black lines. Between frolicking kittens and Pepé Le Pew, a pentagram of fire appeared, and from the flame, the scent of smoldering flesh and sulfur overwhelmed the air. The fires were hot and licked at Carol's back and hair, but she would not move. She heard the pattern of fire and guessed that the wallpaper and curtains were on fire, but she could not be certain without looking.

Carol grasped Sean's face and pressed it to her bosom as she turned her back to the fire and light behind her. She did not look at whatever would come forth from the fire or at the angel that threatened them. The light cast a shadow in the closet, a silhouette of the evil behind her. She saw a great pair of wings unfurl in the shadow. The angel cursed in its language, shrieking, and Carol squeezed her palms to her ears. Sean curled into a tight ball as he tried to mute the screaming of the angel. The screaming and cursing became wails of pain, lost to the air, and then they were silent. The light faded and was gone, but the fires from the room still flared, and the shadow of the black wings remained, as did the deep dread, the nausea, and the sulfur.

“Kill us,” Carol hissed, “or torment us, or whatever you do. You will never get her.”

The demon lingered a while longer, its shadow silhouetted in the closet with its hellfire. Carol dared not look at it. Sean made no noise, a silent, trembling toy in the corner. The shadow narrowed as its wings furled, and in an otherworldly sigh, the flames spent. The room was black and silent. Sulfur lingered in the air with its powerful dread.

A gust of wind threw itself into the windows again, freezing the room. She was trembling. Her knees shook so hard that she could not crouch a moment longer. She reached and touched Sean's cheek, and he opened his eyes, crying. She was crying too. Together, they nodded and looked into the room – their daughter's room – and saw the remains. White feathers lay across the charred pink carpet. The wall was black with wide gaps gone – new windows to the outside storm. Carol touched a ceramic fairy on the window sill. Its face had been melted in the fire.

A voice came from the hall. Carol shook so hard, her very bones ached. Every inch of her existence came to life in the impulse to kill, the impulse of an animal backed into a closet with no choice but to kill any angel or demon that had come back to fight. She saw only Sean, clenched tight within himself by the door, hugging his arms. His phone glowed in his hand with the familiar black box and number pad of a phone call displaced in the light. The voice came again. 9-1-1, what is your emergency?

“Send help!” Carol screamed. “Please! Help us!”


Beneath the snow of a blizzard, among the smoldering ash of hellfire with angel feathers beneath her feet, Carol Bell screamed. She screamed for her shattered husband who would need a lifetime of therapy from this night. She screamed for the pain still quaking in her body. She screamed for her daughter, her little girl that had been torn from her very soul by forces she could never understand. She screamed for many things that night, but to whom she screamed, she was not sure.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

The Sorry Woman

She intrudes and is sorry
But this memories escape
Like steam from the pot
She cannot pull the wisps back
Into this unfamiliar form.

She speaks and is sorry
But this memory’s taking shape
And this is her only shot
To find redemption here
To quell her inner storm

She tells me how very sorry she is
For snapping at her silly kids
The wisps of memory are vivid now
Louder, more vivid than her knitted brow
I hear the snapping from long ago
Before me, memory’s actors perform.

“Put that animal back in its cage!”
And the hurt shame in children’s faces
This is the poison in her soul
And she is sorry, so very sorry


Please tell my kids I’m sorry.




Last night I was visited by a strange woman. It was pretty strange. She was a shorter woman in her mid-thirties, blonde-haired, average weight if a little round, with dark eyes and an aqualine nose. She came to me as I was falling asleep and begged me a favor that I have no idea how to perform, but it filled me with emotion, and I was inspired to write for her.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Battle

The first battle is done and fought
I know who I am now
They tremble and weaken
Seeking a cause to believe in
but
How can I-?
How will I-?
They find strength in their weakness
And I can nary life my head.

The war is done and its soldiers dead
I know who I am now
Others bled and died side by side
Seeking to change the battle's tide
but
How did I-?
How will I-?
The living weep with grief and strife
And they find peace in death.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Blinding

            The roses leaned in the summer breeze, carrying pink and red petals over the fountains and flagstone paths. She reached forward and snatched one soft red flake from the wind and held it against her cheek. When she turned, she heard her mother’s gentle chuckle and saw her wide smile. Her father stood at her mother’s back. The tall king and the beaming queen, both so handsome and so full of pregnant smiles.
            “Make a wish,” her mother whispered. “Blow it back into the breeze, and your wish will come true the moment it hits the water.”
            She looked to her father, and he nodded. She sucked in a warm breath and blew her wish beneath the wings of the petal. Its soft veins rolled among each other as they whisked into the breeze, and the petal floated as though the air had become water. The girl smiled and clasped her hands, and her parents took her shoulders with their soft, loving hands.
            The petal rose higher and higher, far above the others in their gentle stream. The girl felt her stomach rise as she, too, became lifted in the air. She looked to her smiling parents, but their smiles became grins, and they looked upon her with such sadness. She turned again to the petal, but it was beyond the stone gates beyond the rose garden then. It twirled above the ponds and the white geese.
“Momma,” she whimpered, but the air in her belly was too light for words.
The aroma of roses grew stronger as the girl felt more airy. Her feet could barely feel the grass beneath her slippers, and her hair lifted in the gusts. She turned to grasp her father’s hand, but it was naught but powder when she touched it. The sun blew up in the sky and swallowed the world in its brilliance. All that remained was the aroma in the wind.

            She felt deadening cold shivers in her spine, her hips, her shoulders, and her cheeks. The sun was still a blinding white explosion behind her eyelids, but fear muted its strength. She breathed, but the air was wet and hurt her lungs. Her legs and arms were numb.
            When her eyes focused, she first saw the azure sky. Then she looked at her bed around and saw that it was of wilted roses. Untamed bushes of teacup buds, all white and pink, poked up around her. The girl – nay, a woman in this strange world – lifted herself onto an arm and looked upon the wooded world around her.
            A young man lay in the roses beside her. She looked upon his aquiline nose and his smooth jaw, all twisted and torn with rose thorns. His velvet tunic and cape were ripped and muddied. The woman reached to touch him, but her body was still numb. To her other side were shards of glass strewn about the roses and an epitaph: Lady Snow, the Fairest Maiden. The words were strange and ate at her tired head.
            Is that my name? she wondered.
            The words brought warmth to her fist, her knees, her neck, all the way to her breath. She pushed herself from the bed of roses and held the young man in her arms. His chest was still and his eyes marble. He had found his sleep a long time ago. The woman touched his lips, but there was no breath. She kissed him and combed the wilted petals from his soft hair.
            There were others, she remembered. The woman felt her heart pound hard against her chest as she remembered that there were others – twelve of them – and she needed to find them. She ached to stay with this strange man, but there was nothing she could do for him. She lifted his knees and his magnificent shoulders and carried him to her bed of death. The glass was gone, but he would be safe her in his eternal peace. With one last touch of his pale cheek, she ran toward from the brilliant sun into the quiet woods. In her waking mind, she knew the way.
            Squirrels and chipmunks dashed from her path as birds fussed in the oaks and maple branches. She slipped on a bed of shattered walnut shells and leaves but caught her step. The long funeral dress wavered at her feet and caught in the brush until it was naught but a tattered web of gossamer. The slippers squished with mud and rainwater, but she would not stumble again, for beyond the hill and under the elm was the home of men that had risked their lives to shelter her.
            She crested the hill, but the cottage was naught but ash. Her eyes caught the cindered bodies in her periphery, but she clenched them shut. The birds had already come to clean up the destruction with beaks filled with food and golden trinkets. The woman ran and waved her arms against the birds, and once they were gone, she fell to her knees between two of the petite men. They held rakes and pick axes even in death with firm grips, and as she gazed upon their fat knuckles, she remembered how soft they’d felt against a young woman’s tears of terror.
            Who would do this? She shook her head, for as soon as she thought the question, she’d remembered. It was that jealous, power-hungry tyrant. The queen of the realm who’d seduced and murdered her way into the throne and could drill her way through a broken heart a thousand times without a wince or a pity. Her step-mother, the witch from the dark forest, had been here with her army of bewitched soldiers. Their butchery was as clear as day.
            One by one, she dragged the corpses to the funeral garden. She dug twelve graves and wove ivy vines and oak branches for markers. Each was buried with his weapon, a rose, and a kiss to his cheek. When she’d finished, the moon had risen high into the air, and Lady Snow was black with grave dirt. The forest was quiet save a distant howl from a lone wolf, but when the leaves were still and the wolf was quiet, all was silent save her angry, beating heart.
            She unwrapped the young man’s belt from his stiff waist and tied it around her own. His sword in its leather sheath was light, and the cloth wallet was still heavy. If she traveled by the goat path and river bank, she could reach the outskirts by noon. There she could meet with the rebels and the Good King’s spies to finally defeat the wicked tyrant – the woman who’d taken everything from her. And if a fool highwayman or bandit ambush her on the way, heaven help his soul.
            Snow tore a weak white blossom from the bush and left it on the young man’s hands. Its white stem soaked with the blood by his heart until it was brown. “When this flower blooms, this will be a new world,” she promised quietly. “I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done. Goodbye.”

            With her promise and her spite, she started east.

Friday, July 5, 2013

My Wedding

(The other side of the "Your/My Wedding piece will follow. I am just linking to my Pinterest board of wedding ideas for now. http://pinterest.com/barbaraforce/fantasy-wedding/

I'll note that this is a venting piece based on some years-long-seething that broke loose. I don't like vent poetry very much.)