Gone

Before you read our next flash fiction post by Amy, we wanted to let you know that our very own Krystalyn has a great new book out there in the world called LEGASEA

and is running a giveaway. Enter and you just might win her book plus a really adorable hand crafted seal ornament and a few other surprise things!!!

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AND now...onto the flash fiction. Here is the picture from this month and below it is Amy's story. Happy Friday people!

Gone

The picture was sun damaged--old and faded and worn along its edges. Isa found it stuck to the bottom of her bunk last winter when she'd crawled under it looking for one of her socks. She should've given it to the Keeper right away since she wasn't allowed to keep artifacts for herself, but something about the sunny yellow color of it stopped her. It had been such a cold, gray winter, especially after half of the children on the ward died from latest, nastiest flu that wouldn't respond to what little medicine the Keepers had stockpiled. The picture felt like a small piece of summer, a bit of paper hope that she could tuck into her pocket and touch whenever the days felt too hard or too long.

 A playground.

That's what  Houseman Spencer called it when she eventually summoned up the courage to show it to him. He'd studied it eagerly. He was the oldest adult on the ward, over seventy, bent and gravel voiced, but alert and full of memories about how the world was in the time before, back when every child was brought up in a home with parents and schools, not raised by Keepers until they were old enough to enlist in the war against the Travelers. It took very little prodding from her to get him to talk about it and afterwards he'd even let her keep it. Houseman Spencer wasn't much for rules or keeping the kids in the dark about what happened in the before.

"Moms used to take their kids to those playgrounds all the time. Weren't a need for barricades and safe zones. No, the world was a good place in those days." He shook his head then hocked a wad of mucus into the corner, scratched at his wiry beard and half smiled. "It's odd, but there were plenty of folks who'd a told you that the world was close to ending even then, knee deep in evil already, but looking back...it was downright heavenly in comparison with what we got now. Shoot, I'd give the last of my teeth to have it back the way it was then." He grinned as if to prove his point and she tried not to shudder at how empty his mouth already was.

Isa listened carefully, memorizing all that he told her in his roundabout way, all the while gripping the picture as tightly as she could without crumpling its corners. What would it've been like to grow up then? Her parents wouldn't have been off fighting in the war...if they were still fighting at all. It had been a long while since she'd heard from them last. She'd spent a lot of time that night crying into her pillow and wishing for something she knew she'd never get.

Now almost an entire year later she'd memorized every line and curve of that picture. She leaned against the metal pole behind her and stared up at the plastic roof of the play structure, comparing it to the one from the photo. It was similar...if you didn't look too hard or too long at the strange, sickly gray growths that were slowly taking over the play structure, the ground, and the trees beyond it--part of the Traveler's atmosphere conversion process. Isa breathed in and then had to supress the urge to cough. So little oxygen. In another year or two the Traveler's work would be complete and she wouldn't be able to be outside without an oxygen tank and mask. She'd enlisted last month just after her sixteenth birthday just the way she was supposed to. Tonight was her first outing with the other recruits. She gripped her gun closer and peered out at the strange, yellow tinted night. The Travelers would pass by here soon if they kept to their nightly routine, herding a group of children from the very ward she'd left just a few short months ago.

Recruits were tucked into every corner of the playground, waiting just like her, most her age. She glanced at her photo one last time and tried to imagine all of them onto the playground in it, wished desperately that that kind of magic existed and that she was capable of it, but it wasn't and so they remained where they were, gripping their guns and watching the dark.

Isa leaned forward when the first twig snapped loudly, dry and brittle from years without rain. She could see movement now, the first of the Travelers and several kids walking woodenly beside it. She watched as one of the kids raised his head and looked over at the playground, his eyes wide and interested in spite of his fear. She knew what he was feeling. She'd felt it when she'd seen her picture--a sense of wonder that something had once existed in this world that was meant for pure fun and nothing else. Even if he didn't know exactly what he was looking at, he could feel this truth deep inside, just like she had even before Houseman Spencer confirmed it for her. But then the Traveler beside him pushed him forward roughly and his face fell, his eyes went blank. He looked in the opposite direction and Isa felt her insides twist.

She tucked her picture into the pocket of her jacket and rested her gun against the closest pole to steady it. She aimed it at the Traveler and waited for the squad leader to let off the first shot, signaling the start of the fight. The kids would have to duck and cover. They couldn't warn them to, they just had to hope that they would. She could see the long line of them now, all of them looking away from the playground and towards the Traveler's. She could tell that looking at the playground was too much for them, a reminder of all that was gone and might never be again.

When the first shot rang out across the playground and some of the Traveler's grabbed the children closest to them like shields, Isa tried not to let the kids terrified faces rattle her. They would save who they could. It wouldn't be all of them, though. She steadied her gun and pressed the trigger, willing the bullet to hit the Traveler she was aiming for and not the little boy in its arms. The gun slammed into her shoulder as it went off and she fell backwards into the wall. Down below it seemed like everyone was screaming, kids and Travelers alike. She didn't want to look, didn't want to see if she'd managed to shoot true. So she closed her eyes and pictured the playground in the photo, tried to imagine that all the screams were squeals of delight from kids sliding down slides or playing tag on the ground or swinging on the swings. She put a hand on her pocket and wished so hard that her head hurt. But when she opened her eyes there was only the blood and the screams and the shots. She pulled the picture from her pocket one last time. It caught on the pocket's flap and tore in two, one piece fluttering down between the platform's bars before she could catch it, landing beside one of the other recruits. Ben. He was lying on his back, his eyes fixed and staring, a wide hole carved out of his chest. While she'd been wishing for something that would never be again, he'd died trying to save what little life they'd managed to keep. That picture wasn't hope the way she'd thought. It was torment.

 She crumpled the other piece inside her fist and threw it down. Then she brought her gun up and fired.

The Last Summer

by: Krystalyn

Grandma’s house smelled like cats and cooked tomatoes. Cats because of the three pie plates filled with cat food that lived on her porch, and tomatoes because Grandma liked to can them. The resulting glass jars were tucked in every closet and unused corner of her house. Some in the bathroom cabinet.

I hadn’t wanted to come this summer. It was the last one before I graduated high school, and I’d wanted to go with my two best friends to the theatre camp I’d discovered online. I had taped the flyer to my parents’ bedroom door two months before the deadline. They still forgot. Maybe on purpose.

Nothing ever changed. I wished to God it would.

As I stood with my suitcase on Grandma’s tea-sipping porch unwilling to go inside the house, someone called my name. I held back, letting my parents scoot past me.

“Yeah? Who’s that?” I squinted into the sun and saw a gangly boy standing in the middle of the road. Red, Georgia clay coated his sneakers and the hem of his jeans. His light brown hair formed a curtain over his eyes.

“I come for a visit and my best friend don't even recognize me. Geez, Grace.” The voice was deeper, but the crooked smile was the same. An old force, the strength of a summer storm, whirled inside my chest.

“Billy Duffy?”

Eight years ago, we’d eaten ice cream and lit sparklers on the Fourth of July. Seven years ago, we’d caught fireflies in the moonlight. His eyes held their light long after we’d set them free. Six years ago, he’d kissed me on my grandma’s porch right in front of a clutter of cats. We’d made a vow to marry each other if we didn’t find someone by college.

Then, he’d fallen off the face of the Earth. Or moved to Virginia where his dad opened a furniture store. Same difference.

“It’s Will now.” He brushed his hair aside. He still kept a spark of light tucked in the corner of each eye.

I left my suitcase on the porch and walked toward him. I smiled. “Billy.”

The sparks grew brighter.

***

Each morning, I rolled off the couch and stumbled over to the TV, taking care not to step on the small patch of floor the termites had claimed as their home. I sat in front of the box fan by the window, watching ancient sitcoms and eating my bowl of grits until Billy knocked on the door.

And each morning, Grandma stuffed two jars of tomatoes in my hand and said, “Give these to him. His nana isn’t doing too well, bless her heart, and his daddy is going crazy being away from that store of his. Mind me now.”

I didn’t know what Billy did with all those tomato jars. Probably kept them in corners.

***

Our favorite place to escape was the playground at the bottom of the hill. No one ever came there in the middle of summer. Sweat made your legs stick to the slides.

Billy didn’t fit in the playhouse anymore, so we sat on the wooden bridge between the swings and the monkey bars, sipping sweet tea from his thermos and watching the way our hands fit together.

After dark, we lay on the grass. I pointed out the constellations, giving them funny names like Buttercup the Bull because I loved his laugh. I also loved how the sleeves of his soft, faded t-shirts brushed against my bare arms every time he moved.

“My dad wants to sell the store,” he said one night. “Move here. For Nana.”

Anticipation and need worked its way around my body, speeding up my heart and twisting my stomach. “Yeah?”

“And…I was thinking of applying to Georgia University. You’re still going there, right?” But a different question hid in the creases on his forehead. One that was six years old.

I ran my fingertips across his cheek, touching my favorite freckles. A smile shivered onto his face, and I answered his unspoken words. “Ask me next summer.”

His eyes sparkled like a thousand fireflies. Their brilliance swallowed me whole.

***

On the Fourth of July, we sat with our families on the bank of the river. Everyone oohed and ahhed as the National Anthem played over the static-y radio, and the sky exploded. He pulled a box of sparklers and a white plastic lighter from a paper bag. We wrote our names in the air. He tacked “Duffy” onto the end of my name.

My heart pounded louder than the fireworks.

Nothing ever changed. I was glad it didn’t.

***

Billy’s Nana died the next day. I didn’t see him until the day of the funeral. That morning, I sat in my grandma’s house in front of the box fan staring at the blank TV. Grandma came in with four jars of canned tomatoes.

“Gracie Mae, you take these over to the Duffy’s. They’ll need something to serve all them guests this afternoon, and Billy’s daddy never learned how to cook. Mind me now.”

***

I stood at Billy’s front door, the heavy jars clacking together in my arms. He put the jars on a table just inside and led me to the porch swing. Billy opened his mouth, took in a breath, and then pinched his lips together. He did that seven times. I gripped the edges of the swing so hard, white paint flaked off into my hands.

Finally, his words poured out like a waterfall. “My dad and I are leaving for Virginia tomorrow. He said we’ve been gone from the store too long. He said there ain’t no reason to stay here.”

“What about next summer? College?” But those weren’t the questions I wanted to ask.

His shoulders, his face, his hands. They answered all of my questions. Even the silent ones. “I’ll be working full time in the store after graduation. Dad wants me to take over in a few years.”

“Oh.” It hurt to breathe.

A faint spark wiggled its way into the corner of his eyes. “There’s a school there. Old Dominion. Maybe you can…” He swallowed. The spark winked out.

We shared the last kiss in the world. It tasted like tears.

My family had gone to Georgia State for generations. He knew my parents would expect the same from me.

Because nothing ever changed.

I wished to God it would.

***

Photo by: Krystalyn

Legasea Release and Twitter Chat

 

The wonderful news this week is that Krystalyn's book, Legasea, released on Monday. You can purchase it for Kindle and Kobo now, with Nook and print copies coming soon. Take a look at the book description.

When sixteen-year-old Aileen Shay sees a dead girl floating in the bay during a midnight yacht party, she never imagines Jamie Flannigan, her new boyfriend, may be involved. The only thing she knows about Jamie is that he personifies the one thing she has been drawn to her entire life – the ocean. But as she grows closer to him, she realizes he knows more about the murder than he’s telling. When another girl is attacked, and Jamie refuses to answer her questions, Aileen searches for answers on her own.

Aileen learns that Jamie’s family belongs more to myths and legends than they do in the real world. They are selkies, and after the Flannigans threaten her family, Aileen suspects they are responsible for both attacks.

But they aren’t the only ones in her small fishing town who can keep a secret. As Aileen uncovers the truth about the murder, the selkies, and her own family, she learns why her soul is bonded to the sea. But with that revelation comes a choice – to permanently sever her connection with the water, which comes at a painful cost, or embrace a legacy that just might get her killed.

If the description intrigues you, head over to Amazon to read the first two and a half chapters.

Also, Krystalyn will be the special guest tonight (1/31/13) at the Curiosity Quills Twitter chat. The chat runs from 7 pm - 9 pm est. For the first hour, they will talk about writing inspiration, then at 8, she will be joining to chat about Legasea or Santa Claus (trust us, it's writing related) or her favorite nail polish color (trust us, it's writ- uh, who are we kidding). Anyway, they'll be using the hashtag #CQpress, so come join the fun!

Turn the Season

Turn the Season

It’s Winter’s turn. The eve of the new ones’ eighteenth birthday means the transition. Winter remembers when she received the gift, or curse, a century ago. She and the others took the field one by one. They’d been born the same day, the same year. It was destiny. Each of them felt new life leave their elder and seep into their bodies, filling them with another earthly being and right it encapsulated them completely. Turning hair and skin and eyes and personas different shades to represent their new designation.

Summer, at the time Alec, had held her hand so fiercely the day of their turn he could have broken bone. She hadn’t minded it though because it kept them close.

She and Alec held close then. Hoping, wishing that they'd be paired. Summer and Spring or Winter and Autumn. It didn't matter, as long as he remained hers.

Alec was called first and strode to the field. Watched not just by the others waiting to turn, but by their elder seasons and the watchers. Alec held out his hand palm up waiting for the piercing. Everyone but Alec winced when the blade cut and the blood pooled in his hand spilling through his fingers. He clenched his fist. When he opened it he smiled a bit, held his palm up to reveal the sun: Summer.

From his elder he gladly took over. Grinning while his eyes became a blue ocean, his hair wheat, his skin took on a golden glow that made him shine like a beacon in light and dark year round. When he took his place on stage he blew a kiss that kept her hopeful. 

Next was a girl with skin the color of chocolate and hair as dark as an oil slick. When the dagger hit, the girl gasped waiting for the red stream to lessen, in the end it left the mark of spring, a lily. She would be Spring. When she went to her elder to take on her new role her skin went caramel, her hair dirty blonde, her eyes honey.

It was her turn. She shook as she approached the dagger, unable to look at Summer and his new partner Spring. Her hand continued to waver. Catching her breath and trying to clear her mind the blade came quicker than she expected but she swallowed a yelp. Refusing to look at the symbol, no longer caring because it didn't matter. She took in the picture of Summer and Spring. Both of them lovely, and still felt the hurt of him being hers.

When she finally looked, she saw the snowflake.

Winter cried when she turned. Cried as her hair went from red to white. As her skin lost it’s fleshy hue to match her hair and her eyes became crystalline. When she passed by Summer he commented on her continued beauty but she did not speak because it was done. Decided for them.

And so it went. Winter was set apart from the flightiness of Spring that could turn on a dime deciding to embrace the cool or the hot depending on her mood. Spring tended to glide rather than walk, always on tippy toes and finding herself here or there at a moment’s notice she was so quick. Autumn was Winter’s mate and proved to have his moments as well. Skin of bronze, sculpted features from his square jaw to his muscles and the sinews that lined them when he tensed or the way his eyebrows arched in surprise and anguish. He tended to favor the cold and this is what made him perfect as her mate.

“I’ve always thought much of you, Winter,” Autumn told her when they were paired.

She gulped at her new name. “Winter,” she repeated to herself. It wasn’t until she held it that she hated it.

After distinctions had been made and their elders faded into a life of old age, their time paid in full to the elements. After the ceremony, when eighteen seemed the worst age possible Summer and Winter attempted to kiss, attempted to see if they could override centuries of rules to be together but it was both awkward and painful. Summer’s heat too much and Winter’s cold almost an antidote. Their lips together sizzled and stung so that Winter had to bring the cold forth to heal herself and Summer had to protect himself from a new kind of burn. Autumn could handle her cold, adapt to it, Summer could not.

Her tears became diamonds on her cheeks when the realization hit.

Summer leaned in, “I will always love you. Just from afar,” he promised. But it seemed a lie. The way he looked with Spring always so damn happy. But that was the way of Summer, Summer was frivolity as was Spring. Autumn was consciousness and Winter aware. This is what made them right for each other in that sense. But in all other factors it was wrong. She had a new designation, a new duty, and that was to her season.

Winter steps forward for the transition. It's a boy this time around. A young boy despite his eighteen years and in him she sees the Summer she had hoped would be hers for a lifetime.

The former Summer, Autumn, and Spring sit awaiting it to be over. No longer in stasis as eighteen year olds they revert back to their former selves, selves that have aged. Lines and creases marking their faces. The glows and earthly tones that consumed them gone. She takes a breath and holds the boy’s hand. In him she pushes the cold, the hurt, the pain and watches his blonde hair turn to frost, his eyes take on her glassy look. She falls into the snow that has formed a bed around them.

When she opens her eyes she is welcomed by the aged face of her beloved Alec. He holds a hand out to her and says, “I always keep my promises.”

Photo by Helen Warner Photography

Story by Jenn Baker 

Honeymoon

 

 



Honeymoon

In less than an hour I will have to kill you.

 Is that the right way to say it if technically you’re already dead?

 I don’t know.

A person could go crazy trying to figure out the proper words.

The thing is you died for the first time five nights ago, on our wedding night. We’d only just gotten here to our cabin when it happened. You were laughing about something I said…funny that I can’t remember what it was now. But I do know that it must’ve been a real howler of a joke because you were doubled over with tears in your eyes.

I unlocked the door and let it go open just a crack, but no more, so that I could scoop you up and then dramatically kick it in like I’d seen some guy do in a movie of the week kind of thing. I knew you would think it was silly and then endearing and so I was over the moon happy to do it. I remember working to gather your dress into my fingers so that I could walk without tripping. Then I did manage to kick the door in with the kind of flourish I was hoping for. It slammed against the wall of the cabin and you squealed.

But before we made it over the threshold this thing charged at us. My first thought was: Bear! My knees went a little weak and I took a step backwards, prepared to run as best I could with you in my arms--knowing all the time that we wouldn't be able to run fast enough. Looking back I wish that’s what it had been. At least then this would all be over and I wouldn’t be here staring at you, waiting for you to open your eyes.

When his teeth sunk into the meat of your forearm I realized it was a man, but his face…it was mangled, the skin hanging off in places like pieces of old wall paper dangling from a bone wall. I had this momentary debate in my mind about what to do. Keep you in my arms and try to wrench your arm from his teeth or put you down with him still attached so I could get my hands on him properly? In the end it was a little of both and you dropped to the floor, the sleeve of your dress stained red with blood. I punched him, but it barely slowed him down.

He came at me again and again while you sat on the floor, your mouth a perfect  O, your hand clamped over the bite.

Screaming, screaming, screaming.

I punched and hit and kicked, but he wouldn’t stop. Then I saw the ax by the fireplace. I yelled for you to turn away and you did and I swung it into his chest.

 The ax was sharp. It slid in easily, stopping only when it hit his rib cage. But still, he came, pushing on the ax, driving it deeper into his chest, snapping the bones so that he could get closer to me, his jaws snapping.

I put my foot on his stomach and pulled the ax out, all the while picturing King Arthur pulling that sword from the stone and feeling like something inside of me was breaking. It was a movie scene. It couldn’t be real life. Still, I reared back and brought the ax down again, this time into his skull, the sweet spot that’s supposed to permanently stop those like him—I can’t say the word for what he is--you are--even now.

He went down almost immediately.

A few hours later you were feverish.

 I wanted to take you down the mountain to town, but it was snowing hard by then. The road was buried in the first hour.  And we left our phones at home, didn’t we? All part of the “off the grid” honeymoon we’d planned. How could we have known?

You died before the night was over and by dawn you were standing up again. At first…well, I hoped it was a miracle. But then you came for me like he did. I couldn’t stop you, not the way I did him. I just pushed you out into the snow and shut the door. I barricaded myself in, busted up the small kitchen table and covered the sole window with it. You pounded on the cabin for hours. Then you walked around it. Over and over and over.

It was cold so I built a fire in the fireplace. You were in just your wedding gown, a long sleeved, crimson splattered mass of tulle and netting. I’ve been wondering if you could feel the cold. If you do now.

You were lying down, half buried in snow when I finally worked up the nerve to open the door. I made myself get closer to you and then I touched your arm. It was marble beneath my fingers, all smooth and hard. You looked like one of those sleeping princesses—what were their names? I can’t seem to remember now. You still do. If I lean over and kiss your lips will your skin flush and your eyes flutter open? Will you be you the way you were before the bite?

But no! That’s a fairytale. It’s not our story. I know that, of course I know it. Ours is a tragedy steeped in horror. There won’t be a happy ending, not now.

It didn’t take long to figure out that the cold kept you from, um, waking up. So I’ve done my best to keep you buried in it for the past few days. What else could I do?

 I did almost drive away yesterday. Hopped in the car, let the engine turn over. The roads down are clear now. I could just drive away. But what would I tell your parents? What if you wandered after me and found the town down there?

 No, I know what I have to do. And I will do it. I will.

Your finger just twitched. I swear it did. I run into the house to get the ax. I don’t like how it feels in my hands though. I can’t get my grip right. I can’t…your eyes are opening.

Oh god, they’re the same shade of brown.

I thought…I hoped that they would be black or red or just different somehow after all these days out here, but you look too much like you.

Was I wrong?

You lean up on one arm and the crown of rose buds in your hair falls to the ground. You watch it, your head cocked to one side.  There’s something so sweet, so gentle and so inherently you in the movement that I feel the the wall of ice I've been building around my heart these past few days shatter.

 My wife.

 I let my hands slip from the ax and close my eyes.

 

Story by: Amy Christine Parker

Picture by: Helen Warner
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Queen

by: Krystalyn

To sleep ensnared in the brambles and vines of their wicked forest.

To dream of ice shards slicing deep into my heart.

To waken in the realm that has consumed my dreams since birth.

To know they have brought me here for a purpose.

To fear their narrow slitted eyes and needle sharp nails as they examine me, their new treasure, home at last.

***

“Such pretty eyes,” one says.

“Such full lips,” hisses another.

I remain curled up in a ball on the forest floor, the place where my dreams have deposited me on this final night of my life.

They crouch near the ground, their boney knees touching their ears as they hop from one foot to the other. I didn't realize there would be so many, but the clearing is filled with hundreds of thin, agile creatures with a white-blue tint to their skin. They all came out tonight.

And now, more than ever, I am certain my time is here.

I feel uncomfortable as the folk examine me, but then I notice the one who makes me feel naked. He is the one who has crept through my life, leaving footprints across my eighteen years. He exists for me, or so he's always said. His fingers tap a staccato rhythm on my temple while his eyes draw me in. The lines in his irises replay the cracked, broken roads of his victims, past wishes gone wrong.

I see Caleb Jenkins wish to be noticed by his crush. She notices him, but only after a thief in the night slices a six inch gash across his throat. I see Matty Torres' wish for money to buy a new car. He gets the money, but only after a car accident kills his dearest grandmother. I see death and ruin fall to each person unlucky enough to utter the incantation and make their wish.

I would rather be blind than see these atrocities played out before me, but even if I were, it would make no difference. I know each victim intimately. Their horrors are branded into my soul, for it was my own hands that did the work.

The first time I took a human life, I scrubbed my hands until they were raw. For weeks after, I imagined innocent blood oozing from my knuckles and beneath my nail beds. That didn't stop me though. Nothing could have kept me from my goal.

His face cracks open into a smile. The points on his teeth glisten in the ice-filled night. “My queen.” His breath rolls over me in waves, a mixture of copper and decay. I may have facilitated the ruin of a hundred men, but he did the clean up. And his appetite was insatiable.

I ball my hands into fists, then release them as I place one hand in his open palm and allow him to help me to my feet. I know why I am here.

The folk step back and make a path for us as he leads me to the far side of the clearing. An elaborate throne, carved from ice and strengthened with the bones of our victims sits nestled beneath the biggest tree. I pause in front of it. His hand tightens around mine, feeding the sliver of ice that sleeps in my heart. I take a deep breath. I have worked for this night all of my life, doing his bidding, fulfilling the requirement that would make me their queen.

I'd known of the requirement since the day I was born. He slipped into my dreams and told me the fantastic story of a race of folk that existed in the shadows. When humans stumbled upon the right incantation, they brought the folk to their door, sealing their fate. But the folk wanted more than just blood. They believed that one day, a human girl would be assigned a test, and if she passed that test, she would rise to be their queen and release them from the shadows. No longer would they be bound to spells and ritual. Her presence would grant them full access to the human world, and together they would rise up and claim it all.

That was the night he placed the sliver in my heart, along with the need to fulfill his every desire.

He repeated the story each night for a dozen years. Then on the eve of my 12^th birthday, he came to me with a request. Even though I was fully aware of the wrongness of it all, I complied. I could blame brainwashing or the sliver in my heart, but that wasn't why I did it. And it wasn't why I continued to assist him, year after year. I did it because I wanted to be queen.

I squeeze his hand one last time, turn around, and settle in on my throne. I glance at my subjects, lock eyes with a few before the creature at my side falls to his knees and proclaims, “My queen. You have joined us at last!”

The others fold their bodies until their foreheads touch the ground. “My queen,” they say as one.

A scepter appears beside me, and I snatch it greedily. A brand new power rushes into me, drawn from the ground and the ice and the heartbeats of a thousand folk. I revel in it, because I know what to do next.

I stand. An ocean of magic rushes up through my feet and surges into my body. I feel as if I may get swept away with the power of it all. The ice sliver encourages me, tells me that all I have to do is snap my fingers, and the folk will be released into the human world. It's what I was born for.

But it's not what I do.

I wrap both hands around the scepter. I lift it high in the air, then bring it down, smashing the end against the ice-covered ground. Cracks splinter across the ice, rushing toward the folk. One touch of the ever-spreading cracks and the folk freeze instantly into ice statues. It takes just long enough for the creature beside me to shoot me a look of utter betrayal, but then he is gone too, frozen into an everlasting statue. No more wishes. No more queens. No more blood.

I drop my scepter to the ground, then walk slowly back through the folk, back to the place where I woke on this final night of my life. I curl into a ball, knowing that because of my crimes, I have no right to return to the human realm, and I do not wish to survive in this one. My only choice is to silently drift away.

***

To sleep until my body finds its way into the next world.

To dream that my good has overshadowed my crimes.

To waken in the realm of those who've passed before me.

To know, without a look, the folk have crossed over as well.

To fear that in this realm, I won't be able to stop them.

***

Photo by: Helen Warner
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Happy New Year! Here's a Brand New Pic Prompt.

January, winter, snow... done, done, done. I have a certain affinity for January since it's my birth month but also because it is the start of a new year. So let's start it off with a bang, shall we?

I want to thank Helen Warner for allowing us to post one of her beautiful photos. She's a master at Gothic-style imagery and I loved her entire portfolio. Definitely check out Helen's Tumblr & Facebook pages. Hope this sparks some New Year's creativity!

Happy writing all!