Kit Whitfield's Blog, page 2

#2024MakeAMonster Day 22: Beach

 

Beach

The tide crept in on gnarled fingers. Scabs of foam clotted the shore, raking the sand and creeping up, up, up to whisper under the little girl’s window.

‘Come out and play, pretty child,’ the mermaids sang. ‘We’ll give you a necklace of pearls.’

‘No,’ said the little girl. ‘I must stay in bed like a good child.’

‘The pearls gleam like shark’s teeth,’ the mermaids chanted. ‘Worms crept between the oyster’s lips and anguished its flesh till it wept solid shimmer. We’ll hang its tears around yo...

#2024MakeAMonster Day 21: Game

 

Game

The first time Johnny wasn’t sure; sometimes punters do have a run of luck. 

The second time I watched his play. He wasn’t hand mucking, though. Even if I didn’t have the Eye, I can still tell. Whatever he was doing to bring in those wins, there were no cards being palmed.

The third time, though, he came in in a bloody disguise. A good one too, nothing obvious. Just a change of clothes, from flash to quiet elegance, plus a new haircut and a pair of glasses. If he didn’t keep raking in the win...

#2024MakeAMonster day 20: Fossil

 #2024makeamonster day 20

FossilAfter the museum closed, they sold off the skeletons. The ichyosaur skull went to another collection, a big one in the city; it was always a big piece for such a little place. They’d only had it because James Fitzroy, the man whose collection served as the foundation, had had a lucky day on the Jurassic coast: a young girl with a talent for carving and without Mary Anning’s connections had found a marvellous thing, and James Fitzroy had stopped in to her small seas...

#2024MakeAMonster day 19: Closet

 

‘Is there a monster in my closet, Mummy?’ asked Chloe.

‘No, darling, I’m sure there isn’t.’ 

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m pretty sure.’ I tucked the sheets tighter around her.

‘Check!’

I sighed, stood, brushed off my knees. What do you know, the closet door was a little ajar.

It creaked as I eased it open further. I’d have to put some oil on that tomorrow.

Eyes looked up at me, big as teacups, black as a night sky. Fangs chattered in terror.

‘No,’ I said to Chloe over my shoulder, ‘no monsters in here. Just a ...

#MakeAMonster day 18: Stripey

 

Stripey

I wouldn’t give him my bag. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Please, I can’t.’ So he took his knife and whipped it across my cheek.

The bag was still in my hand, but now I couldn’t think: every fibre of my attention was on the gash in my face, on how to stop staggering, how to hold still so the pain didn’t split me open. How to keep the blood from dripping down. 

‘That’s the second time I’m asking,’ he said. ‘Don’t make me ask a third.’

‘I – I can’t give you the bag,’ I said. ‘Please don’t ask me. I’ll ...

#2024MakeAMonster day 17: Ancient

 

Ancient

‘Wipe your shoes before you walk on my clean floor,’ Granny said. ‘Think I want your muck tracked over my house?’
Since Grandpa died it had been duty visits. We went every Sunday, collecting Granny from church. Mum stayed behind in Granny’s house to cook the roast Granny insists on, and Granny tutted about Mum messing around in her kitchen, and on the drive she told Dad that he was letting us run wild and if he knew what was good for us he’d send us to church along with her. 
‘Kids need ou...

#2024MakeAMonster Day 16, again: Bad Hair Day

#2024MakeAMonster day 16 again; I wasn't happy with sending off something unfinished. 
Bad Hair Day
She never did the dishes. She was always late with her share of the rent. She left her dirty laundry piled on the sofa. She left cups out so long they started to grow mould, grey clumps of fluff on top of old sweet coffee. But it was when she brought the cat home that I thought it was time to move out.
'Aw,' she said, 'how could you not love a little kitty?'
'I don't like cats,' I said. 'They move too...

#2024MakeAMonster Day 16: Bad Hair Day

All right, so this is more a sketch than a complete story. Truth is I'm really not well and don't have any energy. It's the beginnings of a short story using the characters from my Gyrford series that I may finish later when I'm not fecking dying, but hopefully you'll enjoy what's there. 

Matthew Smith had been up all night tracking a lantern-man through the woods, and he was too tired to cope with this.

  ‘Mister Dowdell,’ he said, regarding the customer who stood in the smithy with his arms fold...

#2024MakeAMonster day 15: Traveller

 

#2024MakeAMonster

Traveller
The carriage wasn’t crowded, but he set his luggage on the rack and sat opposite me. ‘Going far?’ he said.‘Just a few stops,’ I said. I had my book in my hands and glanced up only long enough to be polite before raising it a little and lowering my eyes to the print.‘I hope you aren’t getting off at Crewe,’ he said. ‘There was a terrible murder there just last month.’‘Oh?’ I said. My book was level with my mouth, but he kept his eyes on me.‘Oh yes. A young woman with he...

#2024MakeAMonster Day 14: Fuzzy

 

Back from #FantasyCon means back on my nonsense. So here's today's #2024makeamonster - short because I'm sick, but hopefully it'll amuse.

FUZZY
Oh, the caterpillars.

They swarm, my little pretties. They hunch their chubby backs and tippy-toe along their leaves, after their sweet bites of green. They hurry, and they ripple.

‘Use a black cat,’ Nan says. ‘Have some respect for tradition.’

But a cat has only four pads of claws. My little fuzzy darlings, they’ve claws in row after row. Atop, they shimmy...