Michael S. Atkinson's Blog, page 40

Checking It Once

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt, which was to use the word “father”. as in, a respectful form of address. ‘Tis the season. Enjoy!

The old man had a splitting headache. He reached for his glasses again, then paused. He hadn’t even got through the first reading yet, and the second reading was still to come.  The list grew longer every year, it seemed.

There was a light tap at his door, and a golden-haired elf bustled in. “I’ve brought another cocoa for you, Father,” she said, “and crumpets as well, and I expect to see them all gone before the afternoon. You know how you are with the readings, you lose track of time and you won’t eat. Very bad, sir, very bad!”

“You know, Juliet,” the old man said thoughtfully, “I don’t think there’ll be a second reading this year.”

Juliet stared. “I beg your pardon, Father?”

“Yes, I think we’ll skip the usual ceremonies. I’ve been hard on the children these past few years, and they deserve a real holiday for once, don’t you agree? Send the word down: every request this year is granted, no matter what, even if it’s a Shetland pony. There’ll be no coal in anyone’s stocking this Christmas!”

“But…but, Father, we can’t grant every request. What about Melville Withersby?”

The old man had moved on, however, sweeping away the list from his desk in a glorious bout of untidiness. “Every request, Juliet. Whatever the children want, they get! Even if-”

“It’s a Shetland pony, yes, Father, I know.” Juliet sighed. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that Melville, a candidate for the naughty list if ever there was one, wasn’t the type to ask for Shetland ponies. He had recently discovered action movies, and in consequence had far greater ambitions.

 

Many children had a better than usual Christmas that year, to their very great delight, and the consternation of their parents. Melville’s father was particularly stressed. He had to spend the Christmas holiday trying to explain to the friendly officials of the United States government how a nuclear missile had materialized in his front yard.

How Susan Stole Christmas (And Catrina Stole It Back)

Welcome to the third annual very special Christmas episode of the Catrina Chronicles, in which our heroine takes a break from chasing after Cthulhu and saving fictional reality to spread some holiday cheer….

Catrina, down in Shrmirmingard, liked Christmas a lot.  But Susan, who lived just north of Shmirmingard, did not. Susan also didn’t care for internal rhyme structures, and so, casting the poetic form aside, she decided to set about her evil scheme.

It was true; Susan really hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season. It wasn’t that her shoes were too small; she had stolen those Christmas shoes from a little boy who had meant to give them to his dying mother. It wasn’t that her head wasn’t screwed on right, or that her heart was a few sizes too small; Susan had no complaints about her physiology. It was simply that she was Evil. She never washed her hands, she wore jackets made of kitten fur, and she had a special loathing for anyone being nice to anyone else. She’d even mugged a troop of Girl Scouts once.

And so, when Susan saw the wreaths hung up all around Shmirmingard Castle, and heard the minstrels playing jolly Christmas tunes, and saw a band of knights carrying in the tallest Christmas tree she could find, she found herself growing more and more livid. She knew exactly what would happen. On Christmas morning, everyone in the castle proper would gather outside round the tree, whereupon Princess Catrina would distribute presents to her many servants and retainers. Then, after a hearty cheer or two, they would go back inside and have a sumptuous Christmas feast, with lots of drinking and eating and carousing. After that, they’d all go back outside again for a community Christmas sing-along, and after a few rounds they would soon devolve into a grand Christmas snowball fight, in which the Princess gave as good as she got. The rest of the day would be spent in less organized activities; Catrina herself often went for a sleigh ride outside the castle walls. A good time was had by all. Except for Susan, who had never been invited to any of it.  (With good reason, admittedly, her being Catrina’s arch-nemesis and all).

Then Susan got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea. She set about it at once. Susan wasted no time in disguising herself as Santa Claus; she didn’t believe in the old fellow anyway. Instead, she called upon all the dark magical forces she knew, and wrapped herself in dark cloud and shadow. Then, about midnight on Christmas Eve, she crept quietly and invisibly into Shmirmingard. There she set about her work. She took everything in sight. She took the castle pudding; she took the roast beast! She swiped presents, emptied stockings, smashed candy canes into splinters. She took the instruments of the minstrels, the song-books for the choir, the garlands of holly and mistletoe on the doors. She even produced a blast of blue fire that vaporized all the snow for the snowball fight. Her final task was to pull down the Christmas tree. Then, she carted everything up on a sleigh she had stowed conveniently nearby, and whisked away to the lonely single mountain in the area, the towering Mount Elevenses. When she had reached the top, Susan paused, just for a moment, before she tipped the sleigh and all its contents down to the plain below. She wanted to hear the boo-hooing and commiseration of the Shmirmingard people.

They had, of course, discovered what Susan had done almost as soon as the sun had come up. There was, it must be admitted, a fair bit of sniffling. But they rallied themselves pretty quick. “We should assemble in the courtyard and sing,” suggested the Prime Minister. “It would be the thing to do.”

“Are you daft?” Catrina said. “You think Susan is going to change her mind when she hears our song and come running back cherrily blowing Who-Who on her trumpet? She wouldn’t have a smile in her soul; I very much doubt that she has a soul at all. Or a trumpet, for that matter. She’s much more fond of kazoos. Diabolical kazoos.”

“Right…” said the Prime Minister. “So, er, what do you suggest we do then?”

Catrina smiled, and raised Mlrning (the Shovel of Thor!) . “Duck.”

There was a sudden blast of icy wind. Clouds swirled into the sky, unleashing a torrent of snow. Then the snow gathered itself together into a massive swirling column, a veritable snownado of wintry power. On Catrina’s command, the snownado hurled itself towards the slopes of Mount Elevenses.

Susan saw it coming. (A snownado is a difficult thing to miss.) She had only a few minutes to decide what to do. Not having her standard laser pistols with her, she instead decided to conjure up another blast of blue fire and throw that at the impending snownado. She’d forgotten that Mlrning could do more than simply whip up snownados. Mount Elevenses convulsed beneath her feet, throwing her off-balance and sending her fire-blast shooting ineffectually off into the sky. The snownado smacked into her with enough force to send her flying clean off the mountainside, where she collided with a passing reindeer and was promptly taken into custody by an outraged elf patrol. Catrina calmed the snownado with a wave of her shovel, retrieved the presents and the tree and everything, and set about having a very merry (if slightly delayed) Christmas celebration. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, when someone has made off with your Christmas presents, it’s all very well to sing about it, but it’s even better if you can create a snownado with Mlrning (the Shovel of Thor!).

R is for Repossession

Last time in the Catrina Chronicles, our heroine had decided to rally her friends in a heroic effort to heroically fight the Atlantean fleet, in a battle that would be the stuff of heroism! First on her list, however, was the decidedly not heroic Susan….

The Lake of the Omnicides was the very lowest point in Character Hell, and the darkest. In its eternally frozen depths were locked the various fictional beings who had tried to destroy their whole universes. The ice around them was smooth and clear as glass, so any passer-by could look down and see the imprisoned destroyers of fictional galaxies. The only sound in the frozen lake was the whirring of the Zambonis of Terror, sweeping to and fro in their remorseless course.

At least, that was the way it was supposed to be. That was how Susan had seen it last, before she was overthrown and kicked out of Character Hell. Now, however, she had returned, and she was not happy. Not one bit. “This is crap. This is total crap!” she exclaimed in exasperation to her iguana guide.

“Well,” the iguana said diffidently, “the Lake is not supposed to be a pleasant experience exactly…”

Susan rolled her eyes. “No, you moron, I don’t mean it’s bad as in evil, I mean bad as in unprofessional! Evil has standards! I mean, yes, I like to subvert the usual cliches, maybe kill the hero right off instead of waiting politely for him to power up and come at me, that sort of thing, but I never let things get like this! Every level we’ve been, it’s the same. Like the Cafeteria of Calamity, where all the bullies of those high school stories go. They’re supposed to be served three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwiches (with arsenic sauce) forever, right? But nooooo. One of those idiots ordered pizza! You’re not supposed to get pizza in hell!”

“We’d run out of arsenic sauce, you see, ma’am,” the iguana attempted to explain.

“And why?” Susan demanded. “When I was in charge, all the arsenic sauce was delivered weekly! In special trucks! On time! But apparently that idiot brother of Catrina’s couldn’t even get the trucks running on time, and now look at this place!”  She gestured down to her feet. “What is that? Tell me. What is that?”

“Erm….slush?” said the iguana hesistantly.

“Yes. Hellslush,” Susan said, and her voice went very low and dangerous. “Since when does the Lake of the Omnicides have slush? Where are the Zambonis, you incompetent iguana? Where are the Zambonis?”

The iguana sighed. “They were sold off. We got behind in our bills to the arsenic sauce company, and then they gave us some credit in exchange for a security interest in the Zambonis, and when we still couldn’t pay, they repossessed them.”

“Repossessed,” Susan repeated. “My Zambonis of Terror got repossessed. By the company that makes arsenic sauce. Because you couldn’t pay them.”

“Right.”

“And why were we paying them in the first place? Don’t we have their president locked in Circle Six for all eternity?”

“He, er, got out on good behavior.”

Susan didn’t reply for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was quite calm. “Where are we?”

The iguana seemed lost. “Where, ma’am?”

“Yes. Where are we.”

“We’re in Character Hell, ma’am.”

“But that can’t be. We can’t be in Character Hell. Because, see, Character Hell is a place where one goes to suffer in eternal torment. And that isn’t happening here, is it? People are getting pizza delivered. There’s no Zambonis. And now you tell me that you let someone out on good behaviour. So, where are we?”

The iguana didn’t know what to say. Sadly, that didn’t stop it from saying something anyway. “It wasn’t my decision, actually, his request was approved by the Fifty-Third Iguana Committee, and-”

Susan didn’t even bother to ask about the iguana committees. Blue fire blasted from her hand and reduced the poor iguana to smouldering bits of ash.  She kicked a bit of the hellslush over the ash for good measure. Then she set out alone across the lake. She knew, deep in its center, was the official throne of Character Hell. She would go there and claim it, and then set about making things right again. And that pizza delivery would be the first thing to go. Of that Susan was sure.

As she marched forward, across the slushy surface of the frozen lake, she noticed that there seemed to be an obstruction up ahead. The smooth ice had piled up into a jagged ridge blocking her way. Susan wondered what could possibly have gone wrong now. Summoning all her dark powers, she fire-blasted a way through the ridge, and emerged on the other side. Then she gasped. For once in her long career of evil, Susan was truly shaken.

Before her, a wide crack yawned in the icy lake, gaping like the mouth of one of those singing fish you hang on your wall that sings “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and moves its tail. But all she could hear emanating from the massive crevice was a cold silence. Whoever had been down there had escaped. The worst of it was, Susan knew where she was. She knew who had been imprisoned in that particular spot. “Oh joy,” she said. “This is just ducky.”

All at once she heard a sudden rushing wind. She looked up, and saw a white figure blazing through the sky like a falling star. It drew closer, and Susan scowled when she saw who it was. “Catrina. Crap.”  Ordinarily she would have been happy to engage Catrina in a battle for the death; it’d been a while since she’d had a fight with her archnemesis. But she would’ve much preferred to face Catrina with her own house in order. It was freakin’ embarrassing, is what it was, having Catrina show up now, with hell-slush everywhere and the crack in the ice beside her.

Catrina landed with a bump, still holding on to Mlrning, the Shovel of Thor. In her other hand she held a steaming slice of cheese pizza. “I stopped on the way down for a bite to eat,” she said to Susan blithely. “I hadn’t known you had food like this in Character Hell.”

Susan snarled some unprintable insults at her. Catrina sighed. “So much for the pleasantries. Let’s get to the matter, then. I need your help.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Susan asked.

Catrina repeated, very slowly, “I need your help.”

The ex-mistress of all Character Hell snorted in derision. “The heck why?”

“Well, to summarize, the person I married turned out to be a spy for Atlantis, and now they’ve invaded my kingdom and they’re trying to take it over. They’ve got a fair few magicians with them, and I need all the magical help I can get to fight back. You helped fight the zombie penguins once before. I thought you might help again.”

“You do know I’m evil, right?” Susan said. “Why on earth would I help you? Or…” and now, for the first time since she’d arrived at Character Hell, Susan smiled. “What can I get you to do for me in exchange?”

Catrina hadn’t quite thought it out that far. “Erm. Well. You can’t have Shmirmingard. Beyond that…I suppose….”

Susan had all sorts of wonderful ideas. But then she remembered the crack in the Lake, and who had escaped from it, and with a sigh she realized what she had to do. “Okay, here’s the deal. I need to be in charge of Character Hell again. You know this, I know this. The previous management-”

“My brother. I know.”

“Yeah, your brother, let it all go to pieces. In the process, something got out. Or rather, someone. You help me round him up, and get me back on the throne of Character Hell, and I’ll help you kick your ex’s Atlantean butt. Deal?”

Catrina didn’t see as she had a choice. But at this point, she made a very serious error. She thrust out her hand towards Susan. “It’s a deal, then.”

“Perfect,” Susan said, clasping Catrina’s head in fierce glee. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Catrina wrenched her hand away and wiped it on her shirt. “Yes, whatever. By the by, who got loose?”

It occurred to her suddenly that she really should’ve asked that question before she made the pact with Susan. The answer was even worse then she’d thought. “Oh, no one in particular. Piddling little sea monster type. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He goes by the name of….Cthulhu.”

“Oh dear,” said Catrina.

This has been another exciting episode of the Catrina Chronicles. For previous episodes, go here. For my Amazon page where you can buy Catrina stories of your very own, go here. Thanks for reading, and a very Merry Christmas to all!

True Love

This week’s Trifecta prompt was to write 33 words to make the editors laugh out loud, and spread some festive cheer. I consulted my muse. And a particular Christmas song leaped to mind. 

“Bill? Sarah. Listen, I appreciate the thought, but … NO. MORE. BIRDS. Partridges. Turtledoves! I – wait. Someone’s at the door.”

….

“Honestly. Milkmaids? I don’t have a cow, Bill! We’re through, you hear me? THROUGH.”

 

In Which Steven is Not Careful About What He Wishes For

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt, and is also another entry in Constance’s Story. To sum up what’s happened so far, Constance is a former treasure-hunter turned guardian angel, who had unfortunately lost one of her charges, Amy, in a tragic bus accident. She decided to get Amy back, as Amy had only just got married to Steven. Unfortunately, Amy came back all wrong…

Steven was having an exceptionally bad day. His formerly dead wife Amy was lurching towards him, moaning in fine zombie fashion, her undead feet squelching in the mud of the cemetery. This was alarming in itself; what was even more alarming was the woman who had popped in from nowhere exclaiming about having resurrected Amy.

“You what?” Steven said. “And who the heck are you, anyway?”

“I’m Constance, I’m your guardian angel, and honestly I totally didn’t mean for her to come back this way!”

“Well, she did!” Steven exclaimed, backpedaling to avoid Amy’s clutches. “And you’re not much help, are you? Where were you when she got run over by the freakin’ bus?”

“Like that was my fault?” Constance snapped. “I can’t be everywhere, you know!”

“So you made up for that by making her a zombie, is that it? Heck of a job, there, angel.”

Constance flew into a most unangelic fury. “Oh, you melt my heart, you really do.  You’re worse than my loathsome squid ex-boyfriend.  If it weren’t for me, you and Amy wouldn’t even have met!”

“And maybe if that hadn’t happened, she’d still be alive!” Steven shot back. “Honestly, I wish you’d just left us alone!”

“I- wait.”  A sudden mad gleam came into Constance’s eye. “I’ve wanted to do this since I got the halo. Fine. You have your wish. I left you alone.”

There was a sudden flash. Zombie Amy disappeared. So did Constance. The cemetery was quiet as churchmice. Steven ran to a spot he’d come to know all too well. The headstone was gone. “She’s alive…” Steven whispered to himself, in profound relief. Whatever had just happened, maybe things would come out all right now.

Then he heard a distant boom, followed by the clanging metallic roar. Steven spun around, just in time to see a gigantic green monster rampaging merrily across the horizon. “Hey, angel?” he said. “I think I changed my mind!”

She didn’t answer. The green rage monster barreled on.

Q is for Quixotic and Quintessential Quibbling

Last time, in the Catrina Chronicles, our heroine had finally tracked down her onetime consort, only to discover that he was indeed a spy for the invading fleet of Atlantean sky-ships. After engaging in a bout of witty banter, they prepared to duel each other in a battle to the death, as per tradition….

Catrina, in mid-hurtle towards him, suddenly twisted aside out of his way. Luke, formerly Perry, stumbled on for a few paces before stopping and turning back. “I say, aren’t we supposed to be fighting now?”

The princess let the blade of her shovel rest on the ground. “Actually, I’d rather not. I’m tired, Perry.”

“Luke, actually.”

“Right. Luke. I changed my name, why shouldn’t you change yours? At any rate, I’m tired of fighting. Do you know how many battles I’ve fought these past few years? Vladimir the Marauder. Susan. A pack of weasels. Velociraptors in helicopters. Susan again. Murphy the Terrible. Zombie penguins. Flaming zombie penguins. A tiny orange tooth monster. A snowman. Cthulu. My evil brother Edmund. Atlanteans. And now, you. I’m tired of it all. Just once I wish I could solve my problems with calm and reasonable diplomacy. Talk things out. Non-violent resolutions of problems. I mean, what am I teaching the kids who might be reading this story? What kind of family-friendly message am I presenting? How are you supposed to negotiate peacefully with a flaming zombie penguin?”

“So…” said Luke. “Your point?”

“My point,” said Catrina, “is that all of people in the meta-verse, I did not want to fight you. So, just this once, couldn’t we work out our differences with a minimum of quibbling?”

Luke sighed. “I suppose we could. Truth be told, I didn’t want to fight you anyway. Yes, technically my Perry alter ego was a magically created facade, but I have to admit, what we  had was real enough.”

Catrina sat wearily down on a nearby log. Luke sat next to her. They were quiet for a long moment. Then Luke made a gesture with his gopherwood wand, and a small paper bag appeared in his hand. “Gummy bear?” he offered.

“What,” Catrina inquired, “is a gummy bear?”

“It’s a delicacy from the future. Some of our magicians are adept at time travel, and one of them managed to bring it back. I think you’d like them. These bears are particularly good; they’re made by a company called Haribo. And they’re sugarless, even, so they’re quite healthy.”

“Indeed?” said Catrina politely. “Might I try some, then?”

“Of course,” said Luke. He handed the bag over.

Catrina tested one experimentally. Her eyes lit up. “These are wonderful!” She tore into the bag, going through the gummy bears as fast as she could, in a most unprincess-like fashion. Luke, meanwhile, didn’t have a one. He kept a tight hold on the gopherwood wand, waiting. He’d told the truth, partly; the time-traveling magicians had brought back the gummy bears. He had neglected to pass on a few warnings they had delivered. For instance, what could happen if one ate too many all at once.

She finished off the bag and delivered a satisfied burp. “Right,” she said. “Since we’re friends now again, I wonder if you would mind sending your fleet back to Atlantis?”

“Well…” Luke said. “They’ve come all this way. It would be a shame to disappoint them. Especially since we’ve brought colonists. They were promised new lives, and I can’t go back on that.”

Catrina pondered a moment, trying to find a diplomatic solution the way her parents had taught her. “My kingdom’s occupied at the moment, and not really prepared for colonization, but there are the Plains of Hypothermia up north, past the Scrumdiddly mountains. I’d heard rumors that some of Susan’s minions were starting up a city there, but I think that fell through. It’s a bit cold, thus the name, but your people could probably deal with that quite expertly, couldn’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Luke. “I expect we could. We’ve got some very talented weather mages. They had to be, what with Atlantis being underwater all this time.”

Catrina, naturally curious, was about to inquire why exactly Atlantis had been plunged beneath the waves. She’d heard one story, about a shiny blue crystal thing that had been misused by the Atlantean king in some way, but she didn’t put much stock in that. She very much wanted to know the real truth. She opened her mouth, and all at once her stomach gurgled in a manner most ominous.  “Erm,” she said. “Excuse me.” She thought about making a clever quip to mask her embarassment, but then her stomach let loose a mighty gurgle indeed, and Catrina suddenly realized that she had to attend to a terribly insistent call of nature. She looked desperately round, but there wasn’t an outhouse or chamber pot to be seen. In frantic haste she dove behind the nearest bush. The sounds that subsequently emerged resembled nothing so much as the quackings of a psychotic duck.

“You all right over there?” Luke asked coolly.

“No,” Catrina said, from behind the shaking bush, “no I certainly am not. I am beginning to have grave doubts about those bears!”  She had to break off, as nature called yet again.

“Your doubts are quite well-founded,” Luke said. “Which is why I didn’t have any.”

All at once Catrina realized the truth, and felt a suddenly quickening fury at his new betrayal.  She had thought the bears were rather quaint. She had no idea what they would do to her. Worse, she was in no condition to fight now. She figured she’d be behind that bush for another ten minutes at least. Maybe fifteen. And she’d left Mlrning over by the log. Her one satisfaction was that Luke couldn’t possibly use it; it could be wielded only by someone who was worthy. Poisoning her with gummy bears was not the act of a worthy person at all.

“So,” Luke said, as calmly as if he were discussing the weather, “I could kill you right now. Solve that little problem right off. But then your people would be terribly upset, and they’d have a martyr to rally around. My fleet’s gone back to Kumquat City, so I’m going to go with them. We’ll regroup there, and then set about taking over your kingdom. You’re welcome to try and stop us. But then, I’d wager my gopherwood wand is just as powerful in its way as your shovel. And I’ve got a lot more magical friends. Mages. Very powerful. So, I’d advise that you not put up a fuss. You’ll find Atlantis can be very merciful, when we have cause.”

He waved the wand and vanished, presumably teleported back to Kumquat City. Ten minutes later, once the tempest in her intestinal system had finally subsided, Catrina emerged from behind the bush. There was one solitary green gummy bear lying on the ground, which she had missed earlier. Catrina squished it with her boot.

“So,” she said to no one in particular, “You’ve got friends, have you? Well. I have friends too.”

She could think of three right off, though she didn’t know where they were just then, and one of them wasn’t so much a friend as a twisted version of herself, and slightly more evil. Then there was the third person, who was most definitely evil. But Catrina didn’t see as she had a choice. She raised Mlrning, the mighty Shovel of Thor. “Mlrning!” she called. “Take me to Susan!”

The shovel shot away like a rocket, carrying Catrina off into the clouded sky.

This has been Episode 95 of the Catrina Chronicles. For previous episodes, go here. For my author page on Amazon, which has more stories about Catrina (and some other people), go here. Thanks for reading!

 

Final

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekend prompt, in which we were supposed to use the words “myopic”, “dazzle”, and “basin”, along with thirty more of our own. Enjoy!

“*WHAM*

“Mayday! Mayday! We’re in Antares Star Basin. Shields gone. Stupid myopic engineers, can’t build shields worth-

*WHAM*  *BWEEEE-OOO* BWEEEE-OOOO*

“Core’s melting. Mum said space would dazzle me. Thanks for that, mum!”

*KER-FLOOM*

The Return of Amy

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt; it’s also another entry in Constance’s Story. For those new to the action, Constance is a treasure hunter turned guardian angel who unfortunately lost her charge, the newly married Amy, to a tragic bus accident. Constance decided to get her back. This was not exactly a good idea…

It was raining in the city: a cold, hard, January rain that was absolutely miserable to be out in. Steven was out in it regardless. Every day, after he got off work, he went by the cemetery and had a quiet chat with his fiancé. Sometimes he imagined that she talked back.

He stood under his umbrella and told her about the dull happenings of his job. That day the most exciting thing had been that the copy machine had been moved from its position by the elevator to a corner by the vending machine. The office had already split into warring camps over whether the move was a good thing or not. He almost laughed when he told her about it. It was the first time he had come close to laughing since the accident.

“Well…” he said. “I’ll have to get back soon. The cat needs feeding. You’d like her, I think. Wouldn’t you?”

He hadn’t really expected an answer. What he absolutely didn’t expect was Amy’s fist smashing through the muddy ground. Then the rest of her came out, covered in mud and slime, eyes wild, howling like a banshee.

Now, some men, when faced with their screaming zombified girlfriends, would have unceremoniously double-tapped her head with their crossbows and walked grimly away. Steven, being a man of somewhat less fortitude, screamed and ran for the cemetery’s exit. Amy came shrieking behind him, very fast. Steven was nearly to his car, parked just outside the cemetery. He still had a chance! He could make it out alive! He-

Then Constance popped abruptly in front of him. “Hi! Good news! I’ve resurrected your girlfriend! Isn’t that great?”

Steven couldn’t stop in time. He skidded on the mud and crashed smack into her, knocking her flat on her angelic tush. “Hey!” Constance said in protest. Then, for the first time, she saw Amy lurching towards them, howling in all her zombified fury. The angel’s mouth fell open. “Oh….crap.”

P is for Prestidigitonium

Last time, in the Catrina Chronicles, our heroine had just been saved from certain death by meteor, thanks to the timely intervention of her magical babies. Unfortunately, she still had to deal with the problem of the Atlantean fleet of sky-ships just outside her castle. Meanwhile, in a nearby forest, the Yellow Fairy was about to make a slightly unfortunate error….

“Right,” the Yellow Fairy said, having recovered from her surprise that the meteor hadn’t fallen and wiped everything out. “I suppose that’s Peter Mordred then.” She hadn’t seen him since he had teleported himself away in the aftermath of their wizard’s duel and then called down the meteor. The Yellow Fairy didn’t know whether Peter had been on board the meteor as it fell, or whether he had simply transported himself to yet another place and watched from a safe distance. She didn’t care, really. She had clearly won the wizard’s duel, and therefore, according to their deal, she was entitled to change Catrina’s consort Perry back from being a bear. “Let’s get on with this, shall we?” she said, rolling up her sleeves and flourishing her wand.

Perry the bear made a gesture with his paws that indicated assent, as he was quite tired of being a bear and wanted to be his old self again. The Yellow Fairy paused a moment, trying to remember the exact magical phrase. Changing a transmogrified bear back into a human was a tricky business, to say the least; she didn’t want to get it wrong. “Ahem,” she coughed. “Winnicus, poohicus, christopheri robininius! Higitus figitus migitus mum, prestidigitonium! Shazam!”  There was a flash and a bang.

She hadn’t gotten it wrong. Perry wasn’t a bear anymore. Unfortunately, the Yellow Fairy’s spell to remove the enchantment that had made him into a bear had also removed an enchantment she didn’t even know he had: the magical memory-blocking spell that had been put on him by the Atlantean magicians, so he wouldn’t remember that he was actually a spy for their side. Now he remembered who he really was.

The Yellow Fairy expected some sort of expression of gratitude, something along the lines of, “Thank you very much for changing me back from being a bear.” But Perry didn’t do that. Instead, he casually pulled a slender wand from his pocket. The look he gave it was the look one might give an old friend, whom one has not seen for some time, and whom one has missed very much. “Do you know what this is made of?” he asked.

The Yellow Fairy was taken aback. “Well…I couldn’t say really… “  Her own wand was made from willow, very nice and springy.

“Gopher wood,” Perry said, and for the first time the Yellow Fairy noticed that his voice was an octave or so lower than it normally was. “What they used to build the Ark with. It’s very rare. No one’s even sure what gopher wood is, now. They mainly called it that because people tended to use the wand for pathetic, middling purposes, household chores and so forth. They’d use it to go for this, go for that….they never knew what they had. Not till Atlantis got hold of it. We used it proper, we did. This wand is the very first one, handed down from our first Emperor all the way to me.”

“But…” said the Yellow Fairy, not being entirely up to date on the recent developments around Shmirmingard, “Atlantis isn’t real. It was made up by Plato. I thought you would’ve known that, Perry, you being a librarian and all.”

“One,” he replied, “Plato didn’t make it up. Everything he said was real. Two, I was a librarian’s assistant, not a full librarian yet. Three, my name’s not Perry. It’s Luke. Luke, son of Madrigal, Emperor of Atlantis, Conqueror of Shmirmingard Colony.”

The Yellow Fairy instinctively brought her wand up in a defensive stance. “I don’t know what’s got into you, but you’re not this Luke whoever. And even if you are, you haven’t conquered anybody yet. I haven’t seen Atlanteans marching in my garden, have I?”

“You know, I am sorry, but I’m afraid you’ve gone past your usefulness. I appreciate you solving the bear problem, but now…: the wand twitched in his hand. He hadn’t even said an incantation yet. The Yellow Fairy tried to block his spell, whatever it was, but it turned out it wasn’t aimed directly at her. What it was aimed at the cottage behind her, which promptly exploded in a blossom of fire. The shock wave leveled trees, sent poor squirrels flying, and knocked the Yellow Fairy out flat.  Luke, sensing his cue, turned his back on the fire and faced towards the distant Shmirmingard Castle. The fire formed an epic backdrop behind him. He was about to say something appropriate, when to his surprise Catrina came running towards him. He vaguely recalled her, but only as a fragment of a memory from his alter ego, now thankfully got rid of. He certainly didn’t feel any attachment towards her now.

It hadn’t taken Catrina long to work out where her consort had gotten to. It was all quite logical, really. He had been turned into a bear, and fairies were very good at turning people back. The Yellow Fairy, in her village of Ewokington-on-the-Sticky-Bun, was the nearest one to the castle. She had to arrange a babysitter for the twins first, and then of course there was the invading Atlantean fleet to deal with, but to her surprise they suddenly pulled up sail and withdrew over the horizon. She didn’t know whether they’d all gone back to Atlantis, or whether they were still hanging round someplace nearby. But at least this meant she could deal with them later. Right now, she had to find Perry.

Catrina didn’t quite, even then, believe that what the Atlantean officer had said was true. Perry wasn’t a spy or a traitor; how could he be? She’d had twins with him, for heaven’s sake! One didn’t have twins with someone who would sell one out to Atlanteans, right? That was the thought that kept her running through the woods, even when she heard the explosion in the distance. Surely it had all been a ghastly mistake, like when she had attempted to brew her own blueberry cordial, and instead created an extraordinarily powerful laxative. (Christmas dinner that year had been memorable indeed.)

But then she emerged into the clearing, and saw him, standing there in a black cloak, with the Yellow Fairy’s cottage blazing merrily behind him, casually flexing the gopherwood wand in his hand, and she knew. She felt a blaze of hurt and fury, but she couldn’t let him see all that. So she decided to cover with some witty banter. “So, you’re from Atlantis really, are you? Does that mean you’re actually Aquaman?”

Luke blinked. “How would you even know who he was? He’s from the 20th century, you’re still mired in the 12th. Bit out of your time, isn’t he?”

Catrina recovered quickly. “Why, yes. Yes he is. Which is exactly what you are. Out of time, that is to say. I brought the Shovel with me, you know.” She held it up so he could see. “Thought I might have to scrape up some dirt. I wasn’t wrong.”

“You know what thrives in dirt?” he retorted. “Moles. Which is what I’ve been. I’ve been reporting on your kingdom for years. And you never even suspected.”

“Maybe you are a mole, but moles have very poor eyesight! Which is while you’ll never be able to see the light of justice! And truth!”

“Ah, but poor vision problems can be corrected with the glasses of evil!” Luke shot back.

Catrina thought quickly. “Well, you won’t be needing those glasses in a minute, because I’m going to correct your poor eyesight with the laser corrective eye surgery of justice!”

“But ‘ll just reflect that laser right back at you with a mirror of evil!”

“Oh, I don’t think it’ll reflect my laser. I think it’ll break, and breaking a mirror gets you seven years bad luck!”

“Luck favors the prepared, and I have been preparing for this day for years!”

“Prepared? Prepared for what?”  That wasn’t strictly banter, but Catrina felt like she was supposed to say it anyway.

“For the death of the king!” he said on cue.  He half expected her to reply, “What, is he sick?”

Instead, she went with, “He’s not even in the country, you moron! My father is on an anniversary vacation with my mother. That’s why I’ve been running things this whole time! I thought you knew that! You wrote it down in your appointment book!”

“I’m afraid I have another appointment….with destiny.”

“Actually,” said Catrina, rolling her eyes. “You have yet a third appointment. With my shovel. I cannot believe I actually married you. And had twins, even! Well, no more of that! I would say we should go in for marital counseling, but failing that, I’m going to wallop you over the head.”

Luke smiled, and raised his wand. “You will try.”

Catrina readied herself, placing her boots apart, shifting into a battle stance. “As someone much wiser than I said, do, or do not. There is no try.”

Somewhere in the background, epic music in dramatic minors began to play. Raindrops splashed across their faces. With that, on the cue of a well-timed flash of lightning, Catrina and her ex-consort hurled themselves at each other.

This has been another exciting episode of the Catrina Chronicles. For previous episodes, go here. For more Catrina stories which you can buy for yourselves on Amazon, go here. Thanks for reading!

No Strings. Ever.

For this weekend’s Trifecta prompt, we were supposed to do a 33-word free-write. I was inspired by a post from Suzanne at Apoplectic Apostrophes wrote. And so, I give you Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer. 

“But…” Bunny Smithers squeaked. “You…”

“Just saved you from a vampire? You’re welcome.”

“You staked him! With your nose!”

“So?”

“You’re a puppet! Puppets don’t stake vampires!”

“Tell it to the cricket.”