Maurissa Guibord's Blog, page 6

Dark Days, Bright Lights

 


Well, there have been some dark days lately haven't there? Here in Maine the sun manages to struggle to the top of the pine trees each morning and wobbles around the edge of the sky before collapsing sometime around 4:30, leaving us in the pitch black.

Thank goodness for whatever twinkle we can manage to muster-- in the form of candles*, a really nice bright reading lamp, holiday decorations, and maybe the glowing moon.
In the spirit of making and sharing light, authors  stephanieburgis   and  psamphire   have created a project called December Lights. It's a collection of light-hearted short stories, with or without holiday themes that have been donated from a group of authors including Sarah Prineas, Leah Cypess, Jaclyn Dolamore, Sherwood Smith, Tiffany Trent and lots, lots more.

I'm very proud to have a story there too, called The Golden Band. 

If you have a chance please check out some of the offerings here :www.decemberlightsproject.com/  

* I don't usually like scented candles but I recently tried Fresh Balsam from Bath&Body Works- it's a bit strong but if I just light it for 30 minutes or so the whole room smells wonderful.

So what have you been doing to brighten the dark lately? I'd love some suggestions! 

Gandalf. Tea. Wednesday.

 
When I first read Chapter One of The Hobbit the thing that impressed me the most was... the food!
Haha- yes if there were any socio-political undercurrents, racial or gender messages or brilliant literary metaphors in there, they were pretty much lost on me. Mr. Tolkien did far too good a job making me hungry.

After all, those 13 dwarves were pretty much eating and drinking machines, weren't they? They breezed right in on Bilbo's cozy little hole-home and started drinking and chowing down everything in sight. And Bilbo had a well-stocked pantry for a bachelor hobbit-  after he toted out the beer, coffee, porter, ale and red wine he fed them buttered scones, raspberry jam, apple tarts, pork pies, mince pies and cheese.
Gandalf knew how to put away the groceries too: " ...just bring out the cold chicken and pickles." 

But the thing that the dwarves really went crazy for, it seemed, was seed cakes. Man, they couldn't get enough of those seed cakes!
Of course, being American I didn't know what a seed cake was. Actually I'm still not sure- maybe a cake with poppy seeds? But I have found a recipe that satisfies my idea of a seed cake. It's a yummy little sesame cookie that is so easy to make- I think I could easily whip up enough of these to satisfy any impromptu dwarf invasion:




Here is the recipe*, which has no butter- so it's nice if you're trying to maintain your elvish figure:

350 degree oven

1 large egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp lemon extract or 1/4 tsp almond extract, your preference
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil

sesame seeds - about 1/2 cup

Mix everything together (except the sesame seeds). Take about 1 tablespoon of the dough and roll into cigar, or I like the crescent shape myself, then roll in sesame seeds. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet and bake 12-14 minutes.

These go great with tea- or anything else your friends raid from your larder.
Give them a try!


*Many thanks to Sue Lynch for this recipe :))

Just a quick update

Home today, taking care of sick munchkin.
Munchkin is taller than me but illness diminishes us all and makes us need Mum.
She has no voice and is practicing her theatrical gestures and emoting like crazy.
The Earl Gray tea and Chicken soup are steaming and we have comfort TV viewing.
For some reason my 12 yo girl is enthralled by Confessions of a Shopaholic. I don't think this bodes well for our future budget. I keep reminding her that it should be viewed as a cautionary tale. I'm not sure if that message is sinking in.

And here is a guinea pig named Sadie. She's not sick.
If you could see the rest of her you would be able to see that yes, she is a furry pumpkin.
Isn't she cute?

That is all.
Hope everybody has a great evening tonight- stay warm!

What's on Your Conference Calendar?

 
Recently I've been planning my travels for next year- specifically the conferences I'd like to attend.
I didn't go to anything this past year. It was definitely a help to the budget but I felt a bit like the girl in the shabby dress with the cinder smudge on her nose. And I don't even have a fairy godmother who could show up and "poof" me to New York!

Conferences are wonderful things. And not only for writer's. I've been in other professions and I've always loved seeing a new city, meeting other people who share an interest, learning stuff, networking and laughing over a meal together. One that I didn't have to cook! Bonus! I've been to the Annual SCBWI conference in New York on two occasions, and both times had a great, rewarding experience. The regional- New England SCBWI conference has also been amazing.

This year though, with Warped coming out, I feel like I want to branch out some. So I've signed up to attend the New England Romance Writer's of America conference in Salem, MA in April. I don't really consider myself a romance writer- but there are definitely kissing tendencies in my books- so close enough I say! RWA has a reputation of being fantastically supportive of new authors and a great resource for learning the craft.

And then- I really got daring and signed myself up for the World Fantasy Con in San Diego in October!! It will be my first time ever in California, my first time ever to a conference that calls itself a "Con" and is therefore cool, and what else? Well, that's enough I guess.

So what about you?
Are you planning, dreaming scheming about a conference next year? Let me know in the comments- It doesn't even have to be writing oriented- I'd love to hear about other types of conferences.
Yay for fun, networking getaways! 

Haunted House Tour- Thank you!

Just popping in to say *Thank You* to everyone who took the time to visit, read and comment during the Haunted House Tour.I had so much fun putting this together. And a great big *Thank You* to the authors who shared their stories with us. Halloween is all about  imagination and marvelous things happen when we let it out to play.

I already have some ideas for next year's house- so we'll definitely plan to do this again.  I am thinking that we might even have a tour of a haunted ship (this may be inspired by the fact that I watched Titanic last night and am still mourning Jack)

So I am off- I have a hobo clown, a ghoul and a ballerina to escort to various parties and a bowlful of candy to eat pass out. Have a spectacularly spooky night tonight my dears, and a safe one!

 My son's pumpkin. Boo!

Happy Halloween!

 Maurissa

Haunted House Tour- The Basement

The winner of this week's spooky prize is :

                                                    nutmeg3  

                                           CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! 

And now...You've been waiting for it. You knew it was coming. The next stop of the tour is the basement.  I've been holding off because, quite frankly I don't want to go down there.  You all go ahead.



The Builder in the BasementBy Kendare Blake

The light made a hazy, four foot semicircle at the bottom of the stairs, revealing a floor of cement. Then it promptly cut out. Oliver thought he could make out a secondary light source, a sort of quiet glowing from off to the left. Maybe from a window, small and rectangular, cut out just above ground level and caked over with dust.  “Downstairs is where I keep all of my canning,” Mrs. Hockstetter had told him when he’d moved in a week ago. He was renting the attic loft for the summer, on a whim. Had just seen the sign as he was driving home from school, and a summer spent in the attic of a gothic mansion (even if it was in the late stages of decay) was definitely better than three months being scrutinized by his parents, dodging questions about why his grades weren’t higher, and why he wasn’t first string on the la crosse team like he had been in high school.  “I can all sorts of things: peaches, bread and butter pickles…even marinara sauce.” Mrs. Hockstetter had smiled, and he remembered how the movement multiplied her wrinkles. It was like watching the function of an accordion. “If you ever see the basement door open, give a shout, won’t you, dear? The acoustics down there are horrible; if something were to happen to me, you’d never hear me calling all the way up in the attic.” Oliver leaned farther into the stairwell, and inhaled the potato-dirt smell of the basement. When he’d come back from a walk in the woods, the door had been yawning open, and like a good Boy Scout, he’d called for Mrs. Hockstetter. There hadn’t been an answer. He called her name two more times. Silence. Her car was still in the driveway. “Perfect,” he muttered. The last thing he wanted to deal with was her crumpled body in the shadows. What if she’d stumbled, reaching for a jar of flipping bread and butter pickles, and cracked her head wide open on the concrete? It was dark down there…he’d probably step in a puddle of black, old lady blood before he found the light switch. A twinge of fear tightened his stomach, and he ground his teeth. Being scared of the dark and things that go bump in the night? Please. Without another thought, he went down the stairs.  The air in the basement felt thirty degrees colder. The smell was stronger too, laced with mold and dampness. And he’d been wrong about the window. The faint yellow glow wasn’t from daylight. It was coming from the corner of the basement, some obscured light source, like a dying lamp. When the hammering started, he almost jumped out of his skin. It was loud and sharp, the concise strike of steel hammer against wood and nail. “Mrs. Hockstetter?” he called over the noise, and it abruptly stopped. Staring into the dark, Oliver wished he’d stayed quiet.  It wasn’t Mrs. Hockstetter. Someone else was in the basement, and he couldn’t keep himself from feeling that five-year-old fear, that some gnarled hand was going to reach for him from the shadows. “No, it’s not Mrs. Hockstetter.” The voice was old, but not gruff. “Flip the light on, boy.” Oliver’s fingers snaked along the basement wall, feeling grit and spiderwebs until he found the switch and the room flooded with light. What it illuminated he didn’t understand at first.  There were rows upon rows of shelves. Free-standing shelves, arranged in the room like great bookcases. Each of them appeared to be packed to the gills with canned goods. They were made of different woods in different shades. They were different heights. They had different numbers of shelves. A few had drawers built-in, and others had intricately carved doors. In the back left corner, where the fading light had come from, an old man stood, his head and shoulders just visible above the stacks. A pair of woodworking goggles hung around his neck, and sparse tufts of gray hair lay over each ear. “Who are you?” Oliver asked. “I’m the builder,” he replied. “Mrs.Hockstetter isn’t here.” “Oh,” Oliver shrugged. He’d almost forgotten why he’d come down. The rows of shelves were beautiful, oiled and polished. They stood side by side, interlocking perfectly. The variety of them was a spectacle beyond imagining. “You’d best head back up the stairs,” the builder said, and sat back down to his workbench, dropping from view. “The Missus doesn’t like people traipsing around her basement.” Oliver didn’t answer. It couldn’t hurt, just to look around. He stepped into the first row of shelves, admiring the detail of the carving as he walked. The door of one featured a scene of a hunt, with a panic-eyed stag fleeing from hounds with bared teeth. Another had a great amount of silver work, shining handles and decorated hinges. Oliver turned a corner, the stacks moving seamlessly in a winding row. He ran his fingers along a drawer of beveled walnut.  “Did you make all of these yourself?” he asked. “Wouldn’t have had time,” the builder replied. Oliver walked another row, and then another, each shelf more beautiful and intricate than the last. He walked for several minutes before his hand paused on a pewter- handled shelf filled with blackberry preserves. Several minutes, he thought. That can’t be right. He tore his eyes from the shelves and looked back toward the door. It couldn’t have been more than 25 feet. To his left, the builder was still working. The soft sound of wood being scraped and formed made Oliver curious. He wanted to see what the builder was making. The beauty of the shelves, and the variety; the multitude of stains and lacquers was incredible. Oliver walked on, listening to the sound of wood being shaved, his eyes darting left and right, over carvings of leaves and vivid murals of twisting streams. After a minute, though, he stopped. Something was wrong with the sound. It took him a moment to realize what it was. It wasn’t getting any louder. It wasn’t getting any closer. Oliver looked up. The basement door was still 25 feet away. No it isn’t, he reasoned. It’s farther than that. I’ve just been walking slow, getting drawn in by the carvings.  And the room must’ve been bigger than he’d thought at first. He had to have walked past twenty shelves already. Only that wasn’t possible. He’d been able to see the whole of the basement from where he stood at the foot of the stairs. Ahead was another curve in the stacks. He walked briskly around it, ignoring the shelves and focusing instead on the left corner, where they had to end, where they would open up and he would see the builder. And then he saw it. It was the same shelf. Dark stained wood with floral knobs of pewter, and an unmistakable wood-burned pattern of swirls, stacked with jars of blackberry preserves. The same one he’d passed three turns ago. “Are there, two of the same shelf in here?” Oliver asked. “That would be a waste of time,” the builder replied, and the skin on Oliver’s neck tightened. The builder’s voice had come, inexplicably, from the right. Oliver heart sped up. There was sweat on his forehead, and underneath his arms. Turn around and run, he thought. But that was ridiculous. There was an obvious explanation to whatever was happening, perhaps some odd quirk of the basement layout. When he reached the end of the stacks it would all make sense. His legs twitched to turn back, wishing he’d left some kind of Hansel and Gretel trail leading to the basement door, which was still a maddening 25 feet away. The builder started to talk; loud muttering that was half to Oliver and half to himself. The builder was obviously nuts. He’d probably been lying about the second shelf. Even if he hadn’t been, there could have been a fork somewhere he hadn’t noticed, that had led him around in a circle. Except there hadn’t been. It was a tunnel of shelves, straight on both sides, and it had been the whole time. Oliver bit his lip. How long had he been walking? Ten minutes? Fifteen?  He looked up to check the distance to the basement door. “Oh,” he said, and almost laughed. He couldn’t see the door. Without realizing it, he’d walked into a corridor of shelves that ran from the floor almost to the ceiling. Looking back the way he’d come, all of the shelves seemed that high. There wasn’t any section like this, he thought. When he’d come into the basement, he’d been able to plainly see the builder’s head and shoulders. None of the shelves had been this high. “Um, I think I’ve managed to get myself turned around in here,” he said. Enough was enough. Admit defeat and feel stupid about it later.  The builder didn’t reply. He didn’t even seem to have heard. Oliver said it again, louder, even though he was oddly certain that the builder couldn’t hear him. Not anymore. The sound of the builder’s muttering had taken on an echo.  “Builder! How do I get out of here!” Panic raced in his blood. He paced nervously, first ahead, then back, then ahead again. He felt dizzy, suddenly, and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was standing in front of the shelf filled with blackberry jam. Oliver ran, shelves flying by on both sides. He knew without looking that he wasn’t gaining any ground, that when he stopped running, he’d be standing in front of the same damn shelf. At least with all this canned crap it’ll take forever to starve, he thought wildly.When builder caught hold of his arm, he screamed. The builder held a steel hammer tightly in his other hand. He pulled Oliver through the stacks and in his panicked daze, Oliver recognized the shelves he had admired, the hunted stag, the mural of water. It only took three turns before the stacks opened up, and Oliver was looking at the basement door. He was breathing hard. Sweat ran down his temples. The builder motioned upward with the hammer. “You should go back upstairs,” he said. “A person could spend all day down here, trying to find a measly jar of pickles.” Oliver did as he was told. He looked back just in time to see the builder disappear back toward his workbench. And of course, there didn’t seem to be anything strange about the rows of shelves.~~~
Kendare Blake is the author of Anna Dressed in Blood, a gory, ghostly love story coming out in September 2011. Visit her at www.kendareblake.com/ 
And add her book on Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/9378297-anna-dressed-in-blood  Sounds delicious! 

Haunted House Tour- The Backyard

 



Button up everyone because tonight we are going into the backyard. It's very damp back here and a little squishy...



 photo by Katie Oxford
The Louisiana Glop Monster- An Excerpt
By Dawn Metcalf


It was night and an old, abandoned cabin squatted in the corner of a swampy backyard. It was clearly old because it was full of holes. It was clearly abandoned because no one lived in it. And it squatted because nothing stands up straight in Louisiana mud. Since it’d been raining the past seven days, everything from the trees to the walls leaned decidedly to the left.
Creepers covered the cabin floor, gnarled and twisted like long, squiggly fingers. Creepers are plants that stretch and slither, trying to slurp up any bit of light so they can stretch and slither some more. However, since it was night, the creepers were lying still. Think of them as “stillers” for now.
Stillers covered the cabin floor, gnarled and twisted like long, squiggly fingers. They looked as if they had collapsed after straining to pull themselves out the door and wrap around the pale, white throat of a young boy in the backyard. Unfortunately, the boy didn’t even notice the tangled plants to feel the slightest tremble of fear or trickle of foreboding sweat; he was too busy digging.
The boy clawed through the earth with his bare hands like a dog, fireworks of dirt flying everywhere. He was making a hole, and this was the quickest way to do it without a shovel; and, since he didn’t have a shovel, this is what he was doing.
By the light of a kerosene lamp sagging sadly by his knee, the boy scooped out a deep hole, placed a shiny metal box c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y inside it, then stopped to look around like a porch bloodhound. He didn’t see anything in the shadows of the swamp, and even though he knew there were probably wild cats, alligators, rabid raccoons, ghosts, ghouls, zombies, will-o-the-wisps and mosquitoes aplenty, he figured he was safe and began to shove the black mud back on top of the hole. Once he’d finished, and stamped on the mound properly for good measure, the boy sauntered off, swinging his lamp and whistling a little as he went to frighten away any ghosts that might be watching.
The boy, whose name was Ryan, wiped his hands against his mucky jeans as he walked home. The reason he was known as ‘Ryan’ was because he couldn’t just be called ‘the boy’ throughout the rest of this book.
In the dim light, the stillers stirred, becoming creepers again. The creepers knew they’d be seeing more of Ryan later, although their attention had shifted to a quivering puddle of softly-glowing glop.
“Glurp,” said the goo in an ominous voice.  ‘Ominous’ meant it was certainly up to no good.
The goo was certainly up to something.
It squelched and gurgled, curdled and glopped, then finally it fizzled, having run out of appropriately disgusting verbs. Sitting there in a pool of its own slime, the goo thought about how it was going to get out of this hole in the earth before it finally realized it could think.
“Glorp!” it said through a bubble. It was quite excited.
It began to twitch and jiggle, lurch and squelch, doing all four in a rather unsavory fashion. ‘Unsavory’ being the same thing as saying it was not very pleasant, even a little tiny bit.
Time crept by on stealthy little legs because time, unlike the rest of us, time doesn’t have to actually walk through Louisiana mud. If Ryan had tried to creep by, he’d’ve lost a shoe. As it was, the tall, dirty man lost one of his galoshes as he tried to sneak by the boy on his way to investigating the soft, green glow in his backyard swamp. (Just because the cabin was abandoned, didn’t mean the basement underneath the cabin was, too. It wasn’t. The filthy man lived down there.)
He stared at the slop with something like adoration. Actually, it was adoration, but it’s just too disturbing to think that someone – even someone as disgusting as Mr. Moriarty – would find such a horrible thing adorable.
“Glee!” said Mr. Moriarty gleefully.
“Glee!” said the goo. Mr. Moriarty looked just as pleased as punch. Tropical Berry Flavored, to be exact.
“Ah,” Mr. Moriarty waved a hand over the surface of the puddle as if petting a white, angora bunny rabbit that happened to glow lime-green. He stood up to his very impressive six-foot-seven-and-one-eighth inches and then slouched like a vulture to a measly six-foot-two and beckoned the goo forward. “Come, my lovely.”
“Squish?” said the goo.
Mr. Moriarty tried again, “Attend me, my beautiful one.”
“Blorp?” The goo was clearly confused.
Mr. Moriarty, though, was no one to be trifled with, even by green goo. “Get over here!” He snapped loudly.
“Glorp!” This, the goo understood, and it pulled itself up and out of the hole.
Having had no illusions about its physical appearance, the glop had no idea that its creator, Mr. Moriarty, was referring to it with such pretty words like “lovely” and “beautiful” since no one else would have thought it so. But Mr. Moriarty was an exceptional person – mostly being that other people would take exception to him, meaning they’d rather not be around his dirt-caked fingernails, his greasy black cloak or his yellow, snaggle-toothed grimace whose breath always smelled like canned anchovies.

No, the goo could not have known that Mr. Moriarty saw the goo differently than even how it might have seen itself, if the goo had eyes, which it hadn’t. For Mr. Moriarty was an Ickythiologist. (Not to be confused with an Ichthyologist, who is a person who studies fish, no matter what their breath smells like.) An Ickythiologist is a person – one man, to be exact, known as “Mr. Moriarty” – who studied things that were icky, gross, horrid, filthy, repulsive, revolting, repellent and otherwise completely nauseating to everyone else in the universe. If it oozed, squished, reeked or slimed, Mr. Moriarty loved it with the very core of his being which was, oddly enough, located somewhere in the vicinity of his knees.
And this is why he loved the goo upon very first sight.
~


Dawn Metcalf was raised in an old Victorian farmhouse with an imaginative backyard. She blames her love of the dark and quirky fiction on the Brothers Grimm, Jim Henson, and Monty Python and promises that there is nothing currently buried in her backyard. Her debut novel, LUMINOUS, is due out June 30, 2011.
You can find Dawn on LJ:  dawn_metcalf  
or check out LUMINOUS on Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/8715787-luminous
I recommend it!

Haunted House Tour- The Attic

Okay Halloween is coming- how many of you have your candy ready?
How many of you have eaten all your candy and have to buy some more? 
Ha! That's okay- I'm with the second group too...

This week's prize for a randomly chosen commenter will be a DVD collector's pack of 6 classic horror movies:


The titles include The Night of the Living Dead, Revolt of the Zombies, Dementia 13 (an early Francis Ford Coppola film- I didn't know that), The Corpse Vanishes, Satanic Rites of Dracula (c'mon what other kind of rites would the guy have?) and The Vampire Bat.
Looks like a good mix of classic camp and real scares!

Today we are going upstairs to...the attic.





The AtticBy Robin Bridges

Mommy never lets us play up here.  She’ll be so angry if she finds me.  But this is the best place for playing hide and seek.  So many nooks and crannies where Thomas will never find me! So many old things hiding up here inside the boxes and under sheets and under years and years of dust.  I can squeeze myself under the rocking chair and stay here until everyone else is found.  I wedge in between the trunk of Grandmother Addie’s old clothes and a box of old toys.  These must have belonged to Mommy.  I find a broken doll, its eyes stuck half open.  She’s missing a leg and her hair needs to be brushed.
It smells different up here, not like down below.  It smells old, like mildew and dead mice.  I can’t smell the rhubarb pie Mommy has cooling in the kitchen.  Or the lavender sachets that fill her wardrobe closet.  The clothes up here smell like moth balls and cedar.  I find an old white dress that must be hundreds of years old.  It’s way too big for me, but I like the tiny pearl buttons that close up the back.  I slip it over my head.  Now I smell like cedar and mildew.
I can hear every sound the house makes up here.  It’s not the people living down below, but the house itself.  I’m sure of it.  The house breathes, and the rafters creak.  It sighs, and the floorboards bend.  I feel like I’m walking around in the house’s brain. Grandmother Addie, when she used to live here, said an attic is where a house keeps all of its memories.  So I think it must be the brain.  Her grandfather was the one who built this house, over a hundred years ago, so it must have lots of memories.  I find a painting of a lady wearing old timey clothes.  I think it’s her dress that I’m wearing.  She doesn’t smile, and she doesn’t look very nice, so I turn the painting around so I don’t have to look at her anymore.  
I gently smooth through the doll’s tangled hair with my fingers.  There’s dirt on her pinafore, like she’d been left outside too many times.  I try to close her cloudy blue eyes but they won’t stay closed.  She stares at me from beneath broken wax lids.  I poke an eye with my grubby thumb.  Stupid doll.  Why are you smiling?
It’s beginning to get dark, and I can only guess that it’s getting close to dinner time downstairs.  I’ll just stay up here a little longer.  Where could Thomas be?  Surely he must have given up searching by now.  Surely he knows that I have won.  
There are voices up here, behind the attic walls.   It sounds just like a little girl and boy laughing. I think they are trying to tell me something.  But I’m listening for Thomas.  
The doll looks as if she’s laughing at me.  As if she is the one who has won the game.  Stupid doll.  She’s been stuck up here all these years, forgotten about.  Nobody cares about her.  I’m the one who is going to win today.  And I hope it’s soon because I’m starting to get tired.
Thomas must have forgotten about me.   My mother has forgotten about me too.  It’s been years, and everyone down below has forgotten about me.  But the house still remembers.  It keeps all of its memories locked away in the attic.  Just like it’s kept me.  Why won’t it let me go?
The children in the walls are still laughing.  They are telling me the game is over.  I’m not sure but I think the doll winked her stupid eye at me.  Did I win?

~~~~~
Robin Bridges does not live in a haunted house but dreams of becoming a ghost hunter on Destination Truth. In the meantime, she writes stories about creepy ghosts and waits for Josh Gates to call her. Her young adult paranormal, The Gathering Storm, will be out in December 2011 from Delacorte
you can find Robin on lj here  robinbridges  

  

Random Bits

Two, no Three  Four Random bits of information.

1. Today I posted a Topic of the Week discussion over at the Enchanted Inkpot. We are talking about How to Make a Monster. If you want to share your favorite monster from fantasy fiction or hear about what scares the pants off some other folks head on over here: tinyurl.com/2wsjlsn

2. I am joining NanoWriMo again this year and I'm MauriMo over there. So if you want a partner in literary crime you can buddy me! Maybe I'll finally "win" and write 50,000 words on this my fourth year doing it!

3. The first six chapters and outline of my WIP are going out on submission today to my editor for the "option" book. I hope she chooses the option of buying it :) All my fingers are crossed.

4. I feel inordinately happy and proud of the new linoleum floor my husband put in the laundry room this weekend. Armstrong faux marble- so clean and pretty. I have envy of that little space now. Why should the washer and dryer get that when I need an office? Oh well.

Haunted House Tour- The Dining Room

Welcome back to Ridley Manor. As Halloween approaches things are getting even more ghostly. I do wish someone had remembered to pay the electric bill- it's so dark in here! Maybe hold hands with the person next to you if you're scared. And please let me know if they are furry hands- our handyman Festering has gone missing again.
Tonight is the Hunter's Moon- and he takes it quite literally... the scamp.

Anyhoo- This week's winner of a spooky prize- A copy of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is :

                                                           tracy_d74  !!!!  

On to the next room!





MAY WEDDING by Saundra Mitchell
May 1, 1861
Edwin's very last words on this earth were, "I'll come for you, Bette." 
I shouldn't have heard them- scarlet fever is contagious! How could I have risked myself so shamelessly, you all wonder. But what worth had my life without my Edwin in it? His laughter was my own, his pale blue eyes were the light of my days. We shared a fascination for lawn tennis and faery stories. Most girls are not so lucky as to marry for love; I thought I would be among the few.
But that tickle in his throat turned mortal. I slipped into his sickroom while the doctors argued over treatments. My once golden boy had turned to ash. Lacing my fingers with his, I promised a hundred little things I had no right to promise at all. I swore he would be well again, we would be married on May Day- we would wear flowers in our hair and defy death, just the two of us.
Then he spoke, that last rasping promise, and he died.
It was good of you to offer our dining room table for his laying out. It wasn't so odd-  we have that good foyer that leads right in, and those double doors in the back. I understood it entirely; our house accommodates a casket and its bearers very nicely. And after allowing so many friends and neighbors to the space in their grief- that Edwin should have soon been my husband made it seem all the more right to host his lying in.
I barely remember the funeral. I barely knew my own name. After the burial, I found myself drawn again and again to the dining room. Edwin's favorite peonies still perfumed the air there- the only evidence of him I had remaining. You know I believed it cruel- his parents had burned all of his things, down to the last handkerchief. It mattered not that they fought a contagion; I had no memento of my lost love.
And you, my dear family, you minded my daylight hours, keeping me busy with chores and conversation. You peered, ever fretfully, at the calendar- where a whimsically penned heart still marked the day I should have been married. It made you boisterous, as if your excess cheer could render my grief immobile. 
My sweetest apologies for these cross remembrances, but you should know that when night came, I felt blessedly excused from all of that. I wandered the house. I sat where Edwin's head had rested, and gazed into the woods out our back door. 
A fat, silver moon flickered through the newly-green trees. It graced the sky two nights after the funeral, and considering my grief, I could have been forgiven for thinking it illuminated Edwin's shape beside the juniper tree. He did nothing but watch me, hands clasped, moving not at all. Twisting the engagement ring I still wore, I wept when his shape flickered out. A cruel trick of misery, I decided.
But the next night, I had barely taken my seat when I saw him. He was ten steps closer. The angles of his face were done an unkindness by the moonlight- he was gaunt; he seemed spindly. It was in this condition, I had to admit, that he'd gone to his grave. He stood there in the field, still as night. And then, at once, he was gone. The single look at him comforted me nonetheless.
A third night brought him closer, a fourth, closer still. I nearly screamed when he appeared three days before we would have wed. I should have been packing for our honey-moon trip; instead I sat at the table where his body had lain, and waited for an infinitesimal stripe of moonlight to reveal him. It did, and with great effort, I kept from crying out and waking you- for now he stood at our fence, as he had done so many times in life. 
Jumping to my feet, I went to the window. But just as I twisted the lock, intending to throw up the sash, Edwin shook his head. Not yet, he seemed to say- though his pale eyes were shadowed. In life, his every thought had played through them. Now they were hidden, mysterious as his seemingly physical appearance. But he had promised to come for me- he'd promised it on his last breath.
Yesterday, he was in the yard. I pressed so close to the glass that my breath fogged it. I drew my fingers through it, and my apologies to Mollie for having to wash my prints clean in the morning. I couldn't restrain myself- Edwin was so close, I surely could have touched him. But once more, he shook his head. The clouds crossed fast behind him, the dark sky filled up with them. With a strange, shifting shadow, he was gone. 
My heart pounded so, and this morning, I packed a little bag. Just a few things- a nightdress, and some perfume. Instead of too loud, you were all too quiet today. I took advantage of your awareness, putting flowers in my hair as if to somberly mark the occasion. And I said, very shamefully, that I would go to bed early as it should have been my wedding day and was not. It put an effective pall on all of you- everyone retired at dusk, as if to swiftly bring this awful day to an end. 
Thus, I sit at the dining room table, where I have both feasted and mourned. Where we have had our Christmases and birthdays, and so many funerals. My little bag dances on my knees, for I cannot be quite still. I put out the fire, for I thought it might lure Edwin nearer, sooner. The air tastes of warm ash- the sky is dark, the moon swallowed entirely. 
And he is here! At the window! He puts his hand to it, and I mind not at all that his nails have grown long and sharp. 
Good-bye mama, good-bye papa. Good-bye to Mary and Nellie and Kit, you have my love always. Edwin promised to come for me and he has. For this miracle, I shall be a good wife, I will question nothing- not his return. Not his razor teeth. Not the black coals of his eyes.
I am opening the window now, and dear family, we shall not meet again.
~~~

ETA:  If you would like to read the other side of this story you can-
It's here at These Dark Things: tiny.cc/zzmo2

Saundra Mitchell has been a phone psychic, a car salesperson, a denture-deliverer and a layout waxer. She's dodged trains, endured basic training, and hitchhiked from Montana to California. She teaches herself languages, raises children, and makes paper for fun. She's also a screenwriter for Fresh Films and the author of Shadowed Summer, The Vespertine and The Springsweet. She always picks truth; dares are too easy.www.saundramitchell.com/www.shadowedsummer.com/www.thevespertine.com