Jennifer M. Zeiger's Blog, page 2

Ossuary Music

Welcome to a brand new adventure story! As I said in last week’s Amari’s Shadow story, it’s been far too long since we’ve explored an adventure. If you’re not familiar with how this works, let me explain really quick.

You get to be the main character in the story below. At the end of the post, there will be a choice on what you should do next. Leave a comment with your choice. I’ll tally up readers’ choices on Monday and then next Thursday we’ll explore whichever one gets the most votes. This adventure will run for four weeks, so you’ll get three times to vote, one each week, before finding out how the story ends. Choose carefully, for some paths lead to fame and fortune and others to danger and even death!

Now on to the adventure! (I feel like this is an evil laugh moment. *Muuhhaha*. Okay, that’s out of my system )

Ossuary Music

Torchlight flickers over the skulls, casting long shadows made from human bones. You should never have taken the bet—even the pillars are leering at you—but now you’re here, in the ossuary tunnels with your flute, trying to wipe the sweat from your palms. 

Just one song. That’s all you need to play. Alex waits back at the entrance. As long as he hears the sweet tones of your music, he’ll pay up, and you’ll have enough to buy shoes. 

You stretch your toes against the dirt, trying to remember the last time you wore shoes. It’d be mighty nice when the first freeze hits this month. 

But you have to make it that far to enjoy them and the bones aren’t the only thing in the ossuary. Besides the guards who roam the tunnels, you’ve heard the stories of the wendigo, an unnatural creature that stalks the bones in search of prey. There’s a reason the guards carry torches or lanterns as that’s the only thing that scares the creature. 

You can’t carry a light, though, as that would draw attention. 

Just one song. Then you’ll retrace your steps and never return. 

You sink farther into the dark alcove, press the flute to your lips, pull in an unsteady breath…and pause. 

Was that the scuff of a boot? 

You wait, holding your breath. When the sound doesn’t repeat, you raise the flute again but can’t quite shake a sense of foreboding.

Should you move? Find a different spot. A tremor runs through you. Moving farther into the ossuary isn’t appealing. 

Maybe you should just get the song over with and flee. Still listening, you haven’t caught another sound. Still that foreboding persists.

Do you…

Move?

Or

Play?

Thanks for stopping by! Leave your vote below and we’ll see you next week

Blessings,

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Amari’s Shadow Part 2

Welcome back! Last week we started the story of Amari, a young girl who has lost her shadow because it’s protesting the heat of the desert. If you’d like to read part 1, click here.

Otherwise, let’s jump right in and see if she finds her darker half =)

Amari’s Shadow Part 2

Amari skidded to a halt halfway to the cellar door at the back. She’d crossed Ms. Mavery a time or two and didn’t wish to repeat the folly. 

“I think my shadow’s down there,” she said bluntly. 

Ms. Mavery snorted. “Your shadow? Dearie, it’s dark down there. Your shadow isn’t there.”

“But it’s not with me either!” Amari pointed around herself as proof. 

Ms. Mavery’s cheeks sucked in, hollowing out her face even more than usual as she leaned on her cane. “You’re not going to give me peace until you check, are you?”

“No, ma’am.” Amari tried to look sweet like some of the other kids. They somehow always left the tavern with a treat in hand. She rarely left without a stinging backside. But she and Ms. Mavery had come to a kind of truce over the last year and this was the first time she’d darkened the door of the tavern since Winter Tide. 

“Fine,” Ms. Mavery flicked a hand, “but touch nothing beyond the lantern.” 

Amari grinned and scampered for the cellar door. Lantern in hand, she slowed down for the cut stone steps. The cellar always smelled musty and the footing liked to trip her up due to the warn groove down the center of the stairs. 

Reaching the floor, she raised the lantern high and whispered, “Shadow Row, you down here?” It hated the nickname but would usually protest its use, which would reveal its location. Silence answered her. 

Amari moved into the shelves of pickled beets and canned peaches, calling softly again. It never did to shout in the cellar. Everything inside lived in quiet, and the bottles sometimes got frosty if you disturbed them. As it was, a few pickled eggs eyed her from the top shelf. 

She hurried past, calling again once she entered the next aisle full of crates and potatoes. 

Thirty minutes of looking produced no shadow. 

Dejected, Amari emerged from the cellar to return Ms. Mavery’s lantern. “Told you no shadow’s hiding down there.” Ms. Mavery snuffed the lantern. 

“Lots of shadows,” Amari mumbled. “Beet shadows and potato shadows, even egg shadows. Just no Amari ones.”

Ms. Mavery paused and tapped her cane on the floor. “Shadows need light, Dearie. You’re sniffing in the wrong place.”

Ameri left, shuffling her feet in the dust as she wandered the street, then the path into the hills, and then picked up a bit of mud as she approached the pond the river fed into. All around the village was desert except for here where the mountains fed a river and the river fed a pond which in turn fed a patch of sad plants just trying to survive.

The mud squished over the leather of her sandals and into her toes, its cold seeping into her skin. Azor wasn’t wrong. The water from the mountains was cold. Lifting her head, she caught movement out on the pond. 

“Shadow Row?” she called softly. Nothing responded. The pond sat still as a frightened toad. But she’d seen something. Inching closer, she peeked through the leaves of a baby date tree that overhung the water. Nothing but the tree’s shadow there. 

Inching closer, she dipped a toe into the water. Small ripples radiated out from her, disturbing the placid surface until they reached the shadows from the overhanging plants. 

“Uck!” Someone yucked up gray matter into the water.

Amari grinned. She tapped the surface again and her shadow skittered out from under a nearby fern. It launched itself up onto the mud and lay there. Amari felt its glower. 

No matter. She knew how to brighten its day. “Hi, Shadow Row,” she greeted it. “Want to join me for some ice cream?” 

The End

Thanks for stopping by for some fun! Next week we have a brand new adventure starting. Just like it’s been far too long since I posted a story, it’s been waaaay too long since we explored an adventure. Hope to see you then

Blessings,

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Amari’s Shadow Part 1

I honestly can’t remember the last time I posted a short story. It might actually be since I wrote a series of shorts for Mystery of the Golden Shells back in 2022. Eek, that’s sad. It’s high time to fix that! So without further ado, here’s a bit of fun for your Thursday =)

Amari’s Shadow Part One

The haze wasn’t what bothered Amari the most. True, it turned the sun to an orange orb in the sky that cast a sullen hue over the world but that was an impersonal thing, a generalized thing that affected everyone. 

What bothered Amari was she hadn’t seen her shadow in three days, and she was fairly sure it’d run away in protest. For as long as Amari could remember, her shadow walked with her, sat with her, even danced with her, but now it was nowhere to be seen. 

She missed its unique form of pessimism. When she wanted to play in the river, it clung to the dry sands higher on the riverbank because the motion of the water made it sick. It literally threw up gray matter the one time she coaxed it away from the shore. 

Amari glanced at the orange orb of the sun. The only thing her shadow hated more than water was heat. As the temperatures rose, the air wavered, and Amari had noticed her shadow trying to cower in the shade because, just like the motion of the water, the haze also made it sick.

Amari shook her head. She’d never encountered another shadow who got motion sick off anything that made it waver.

It was time to find her shadow. Tying her long hair back with a ribbon, she covered her head with her silk scarf to protect from the heat and stepped onto the dusty road heading for the ice parlor. Her shadow was protesting the heat. What better place for it to hide? 

As she walked, others shot suspicious looks her way. It was noticeable that no companion stretched long at her side when everyone else trailed one in their wake. She tried not to be salty about it. Their shadows refused to play or dance, so they could eye her all day for all she cared. Her shadow was better… when it wasn’t pulling an attitude. 

As soon as she saw the parlor, she knew her shadow wasn’t there. Didn’t even need to step inside. Couldn’t, actually, as the place was so packed that the shadows were lost to the hubbub of their people. 

Huffing, Amari turned away and eyed the street. Where else would it go? 

“Lost, Amari?” Azor, the cobbler, hollered from his shaded stall. 

“Only half,” she replied. 

He gave her a knowing smile. Azor was one of the few people who never treated her strangely. “What half is missing?” 

“The darker half. Where besides the ice parlor would be cold?” 

“Cold?” he didn’t scoff but pulled at his beard in serious thought. “The river’s water would be cold. It’s snow fed from the mountains.”

“Water makes my darker half sick. Where else?” 

Again, Azor pulled on his beard. “Ms. Mavery’s cellar!” he exclaimed. “Not only cool, but also dark. Maybe a good place to hide, no?” 

“Just so!” Amari agreed and took off for the far end of the village where the tavern bordered the sands of the Obihan desert. Buried below its stone walls was the village’s only deep cellar. The perfect place for a person’s shadow to hide from the heat. 

The doors of the tavern creaked as she shoved through them into the dim interior. “Ms. Mavery!” Amari hollered. “Ms. Mavery! I need a look in your cellar!”

“You what now?” The withered Ms. Mavery peeked up from where she knelt behind the bar putting away drinking glasses. “You don’t need a thing in my cellar.” 

Amari skidded to a halt halfway to the cellar door at the back. She’d crossed Ms. Mavery a time or two and didn’t wish to repeat the folly… 

To Be Continued Next Thursday

Thanks for stopping by! We’ll return next week with the rest of the Amari’s Shadow story. Hope to see you then

Blessings,

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My Current Arena

Despite what it looks like over the last six months, this is not meant to be a travel blog. Travel, with its new and exciting experiences, often inspires my writing, so moving to Germany has naturally filled my ALT posts with lots of travel. In the background of those posts, I’ve been slowly getting my writing back on schedule. 

Every time we move, I shift from day-to-day life into full on moving and adjustment mode. Sometimes I bounce back quickly, but other times, it takes months to find the new normal. Germany has been that on steroids. As many of you have seen, even my posts have reflected my off-kilter balance. 

But I love writing, and it does eventually draw me back into the familiar arena. As I wrote last week, writing is always my attempt to do hard things, to be in the arena instead of the spectator in the stands. Part of the dust and sweat that comes with it is that every story tests me in different ways. I’ve yet to write a book the same way as I wrote one previously. 

And that stands especially true for Hidden Mythics III (HMIII), my current Work-in-Progress. I’m a linear thinker. Some writers work on a book in big scenes, not writing from start to finish but putting together the story in pieces like a puzzle. This terrifies me because so much in later scenes relies on what came before. I’m scared I’ll miss details if I don’t write in a straight line. 

HMIII has defied this way of thinking. I attempted to start it by writing the opening as I usually do. Nothing came. I tried to outline. It kind of worked, but I still have no idea how the large pieces connect to the small bits. 

Frustration drove me to write the large scenes that were rolling around in my head. And now I’m writing HMIII like the above-mentioned puzzle. So far, it’s working, but only time will tell if I can tie together all the details. 

Either way, I’m in the arena, again learning something new. =)

Blessings,

Jennifer

P.S. If you’re not familiar with the Hidden Mythics series, you can check out Books 1 and 2, Quaking Soul and Theos Rising, here.

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Trier Part IV – The Amphitheater

I would be remiss in a series on Trier if I didn’t mention the Amphitheater. Seriously, this series could be really long as there are historical buildings and ruins all over the city. But I’ll finish with the arena. If I ever get the chance to see the Colosseum in Rome, I’ll jump at it because the one in Trier was a teaser. 

It is, unfortunately, actual ruins and the seating was torn out during the Middle Ages for other construction, leaving behind grassy slopes that hint at the indentation of the tiered seating. The area is big enough to house around twenty thousand spectators.

Although the structure isn’t fully there, the feel and idea of the place still is. We were able to walk down into the cellar below the arena floor and see the lift technology the Romans used to change obstacles and scenery in the arena. The drainage system still drains mountain water and precipitation all year round. The cells, or carcer, still stand where the cages for animals surrounded the sands. 

I stood in the middle of the arena and let my imagination run. Movies like Gladiator definitely gave me something to build off of but it’s different standing on the ground where they actually fought. It brings a quote to mind, one I’ve mentioned before but I don’t think I’ve actually posted in whole. It’s called Man in the Area, and was part of a speech given by Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Although I could picture stories and scenes while standing on the sand in the amphitheater, envision the dented swords and throwing nets, the angry lions and bloodied slaves, contrasting strongly with the plays and the religious festivals also held there, this stuck with me more. 

The day was warm, but I knew it could be hot, unbearably so until the sweat would trickle down my temples and spine. Visitors’ voices echoed, both subdued and carrying, due to the acrostics that work despite the place being in ruins.

I felt small. 

It struck me that this is true many times when I strive for something. The environment feels against me and sweat will trickle with my effort. Noise will attempt to distract me. And overall, I’ll feel small as I strive to achieve something. 

Every time I write a novel, I’m in the arena. It tests me. It’s uncomfortable and I’m easily distracted. I never feel up to the task. But time and again I find the effort worth the toil. For the Gladiators, sadly, the reward was death or survival and not much in between. For us, it’s different. Even if we don’t achieve the heights we want, we can still walk away knowing we tried. The sweat and dust and blood are our victory regardless of the outcome. 

Right now, I’m working on Hidden Mythics III. That’s my arena. What’s yours?

Blessings,

Jennifer 

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Trier Part III – The Imperial Baths or Kaiserthermen

We follow the stairs down into the brick lined hallway, sinking feet below ground level, and I shiver. There’s a disconcerting shift in temperature that’s noticeable between one step and the next. It goes from a pleasantly warm day to startlingly cold. If the Imperial Baths in Trier were functional, the warm-to-cold experience would have been reversed. What we were walking through were the service corridors for the heating system below the baths and they would have been quite hot. 

Last week I wrote about the Trier Basilica but when we visited the city, we stopped by the Kaiserthermen, or Imperial Baths, first. This might have been the wrong order. I didn’t realize the baths were built to support Constantine’s move to the area until after touring the throne room. Regardless, the heating system below the Basilica is a small-scale version of what exists below the Kaiserthermen. It’s an impressive underground network of tunnels that weren’t finished for their initial purpose because Constantine shifted his political activities east midway through construction. My brain stumbles over that whole concept. So much invested only to be abandoned. The same thing happened to the Basilica. 

Anyway, above ground, the ruins look mostly like a rounded, many-arched-windowed wall with a wide field in front of it. I was prepared for lots of reading about what used to be there and not much seeing. What I didn’t realize was that much of the underground structure still exists. The farther we wandered, the more we got to see. My shift in world view that I’ve talked about in past posts involves the reality that the Imperial Romans didn’t know how to build small when it came to something the emperor wanted. I knew this…yet I didn’t have a concrete thing to attach my understanding to.

The Imperial Bath’s Layout

The Imperial Bath consisted mainly of three large pools. The first was a cold bath that would be used after cleaning with oil. The next was a warm bath that was an in-between level before heading inward to the apse that held the hot bath that came last. The heating system hid belowground in the tunnels I spoke of earlier. Boilers sat in chambers called hypocaustum and they heated steam that ran through pipes below the pools. 

All of this was paired with a field on the far end from the hot pool in which sporting events could be held. I would never have placed the two things together, but that’s what’s there. A walled field right next to the baths. 

The fantasy writer in me sees secret meetings in the underbelly of the baths with two spies sweating in the humid heat of the dark tunnels. A man working the boiler spotting an unusual figure who doesn’t belong. Or above ground, politics being hashed out in the steam of the heated pool, the principles just as murky as the air. Or an assassination attempt during a sporting event being held in the field just out front of the cold baths. Very public but also very confusing and possibly embarrassing as half the people running in the confusion afterward are naked. 

Sooo many story possibilities! Little nuggets to tuck away for later use. 

Blessings,

Jennifer

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Trier Part II – The Basilica

Some things, like the Porta Nigra, stand unchanged through centuries and are a snapshot in time. Other places have been built, altered, updated, destroyed and rebuilt again over the ages to the point that every part of the structure speaks of passing years like a textbook in stone. This would be the Trier Basilica. For me, it shares two major things with the Porta Nigra. One, the Romans built it and two, it changed my understanding of what the world used to be. My imagination can barely keep up and I love it. 

The Basilica brought home just how enormous the Roman empire truly was. I’m not sure why the Porta Nigra and the Baths didn’t strike me this way, but perhaps the Basilica did because it started out as an intended imperial assembly and ceremonial hall for Constantine, complete with a rounded, raised apse for a throne. I always imagined the seat of Rome in, well, Rome. But seeing the Trier Basilica and knowing just how far north Trier sits were like gears of two cogs in my brain finally lining up. In an age where cars and phones weren’t even a concept, somehow the Roman empire controlled over 1.9 million square miles. 

But all that aside, let’s talk about the Basilica itself.

When we stepped inside, my jaw about dropped. We’ve visited a couple of castles so far and I was surprised in each one by how close the rooms felt. I think movies influenced me to expect larger dining rooms and audience chambers. The Basilica laid to rest my growing concern that I’ve had things all wrong. 

Its ceiling soars 108ft or 33 meters high, making the wooden squares in the ceiling design look like a tic tac toe board. Yet those squares are 10ft by 10ft apiece. In other words, each one could be the ceiling of a single small room! The place is massive, earning the title as the largest, undivided room still standing from antiquity. Today it’s gray and white brick, holding a solemn, reverent feel, but originally it was opulent. The brick used to be covered by marble all the way up to the bottom of the lower windows. And below the floor is a massive heating system similar to the Roman baths. (We’ll talk about one of the baths in Trier next week.) The Roman’s heated that insanely huge room in a time when heating was not commonplace.

The Basilica boasts so much more detail but this is not intended to be a history blog and I want to avoid descending into textbook boringness. Let’s just say it passed from Roman throne room into decay, was rebuilt and turned into a district court by the Frankish kings, then became the Archbishop’s residence in the Middle Ages, complete with palace wing additions, and then transitioned into a church in the 19th century only to be destroyed again during WWII and then subsequently rebuilt back into a church. Whew, that’s a mouthful!

Tidbits of Writing Inspiration

Since this is an ALT post about the things that inspire me to write, let me touch on a couple of the tidbits that lodged in my brain as possible story fodder for later.

One hides in the decay that happened after Rome fell. You see, the heating system below the floor of the Basilica isn’t just pipes. 4-foot-high pillars support the floor and essentially create an open, many-pillared room below. (I’ll explain the heating system better next week.) When the Basilica began to fall apart, the floor caved in, leaving those pillars and the pit below the floor open. In that space, the Trier people turned it into a marketplace. For some reason, the picture this creates in my head fascinates me. 

The second tidbit is similar in that it comes during a time when the Basilica was destroyed. During WWII, the allies bombed the city and the resulting fire consumed the building despite efforts to save it. Apparently, the water from the firefighters only reached about halfway up the walls. The crazy part, and the part that could add poignancy to a scene, is that the fire storm burned hot enough to rush through the pipes of the organ and play it while the building burned. As the saying goes, sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. And in my case, it will certainly feed my future fictional writing. 

Blessings,

Jennifer

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Trier Part I – The Porta Nigra

I gaze in awe at its towering black stone while my mind adjusts, fixing the disconnect from what I imagined while being taught Roman history, and what stands before me now. A part of me knows that if I get the opportunity to see the coliseum in Rome, the mental shift will be even greater and more staggering. But for now, as I gaze at the Porta Nigra, the adjustment is enough. There’s nothing like seeing reality to prove my imagination needs to keep growing. 

The Porta Nigra

Trier stands as Germany’s oldest city and it’s littered with ruins. One of the most breathtaking, in my opinion, is the Porta Nigra. It’s all that’s left of a Roman wall. My imagination struggles to knit together a picture of how majestic the wall must have been when the remaining gateway is so impressive. It used to be gray, but lichen and years have slowly turned the stone black, thus giving it its current name. 

Part of the shift that happened in my brain was this concept of a gate being a thick wall with a portcullis or, when stories talk about being inside the wall, it being a narrow passageway. No, what stands before me now is a four-story building with a narrow courtyard in the center. Once you climb past the first floor, it’s airy inside with arches lining the passageways and high ceilings, and outside arches allowing an expansive view of the city. 

It could be sad, a remnant of what used to be, but that’s not the feeling I get from it. Instead, it’s the sentinel still overlooking its charge. The stalwart soldier standing strong and keeping watch. Why do we not build things like this anymore? I’m constantly asking this question lately. 

Blessings,

Jennifer

P.S. There’s soooo much in Trier that I can’t cover it all in one post. We’ll visit the Trier Basilica next week. 

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Coins and Bathrooms

The U.S. just recently passed a law to stop making the penny. This is an apt example of how most Americans seem to view coinage. It’s part of our monetary system but few people will stand at a cash register and count out coins to make exact change to pay. In fact, few people carry more than maybe quarters because they’re handy for parking meters. But even parking meters are going by the wayside as the option to pay with a card is becoming more common. 

So, it was a shift in moving to Germany to find that the one and two dollar Euros are coins. (Are they even called dollars?) And yes, you definitely want to keep some on you at all times.

Part of this is because bakeries and many other local places only accept cash. No one wants to eat at a restaurant only to find out when the bill shows up that your credit card will not be accepted. 

But even more importantly—in my opinion—is that there are places where you have to pay to use the public bathroom. Are you traveling to Cochem and need to stop at a gas station for the restroom? Better make sure you have a few Euros in your pocket because there’s a turnstile to enter the facilities. 

Want to use the restroom in the Marktplatz while exploring a city? The gentleman in the booth between the doors will gladly take your payment. Ein Euro, please. (€1).

It’s little details like this that make world building in stories so much fun. Just imagine the tension of a character not realizing he doesn’t have the necessary coinage to pay for his meal or to use the bathroom. Hmmm, warning, this may show up in a future story!

Blessings,

Jennifer

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“J” – Common Yet Different

I fully admit I’m a nerd when it comes to language. Although English was hard for me when it came to reading and writing originally, I still find its fluidity and creativity fascinating. 

My high school required two years of a foreign language. I picked Spanish because, growing up in Colorado, it was the most likely language I would encounter after English. Plus, I love how gracefully Spanish flows off the tongue. 

Unfortunately, Spanish didn’t stick. I’ve tried off and on for years, but without someone to regularly speak with, I only managed to get so far. However, I do still know the letters. To read the language requires a sort of mental acrobatics for me to remember that the double “ll” sounds like a “y”—think quesadilla—and that the “j” is an “h”—think jalapeno—instead of the “jay” we say in English. 

The difference isn’t all that surprising since English and Spanish split centuries ago. To me, it’s more surprising that the two languages have almost the same alphabet than that they have similar letters that sound completely different. 

Enter German and the Letter “J”

It is surprising to me that German and English also have this letter in common. Yet, they sound nothing alike and are definitely not called the same thing. A German “j” is called jott (sounds like “Yoo-t”) and, as the name suggests, it creates a “y” sound. So, when Germans say ja for yes, it comes out “yah.” 

Six centuries since Spanish and English diverged, and yet, they have touchpoints displaying their similar roots. Yet at the same time, even those that are relatively close in their history, only fifteen hundred instead of six thousand since English branched from German, and somehow, they have vastly different sounds for the same shaped letter. 

I find that fascinating. Don’t know why. Thanks for letting me express my nerdy side for moment! 

Blessings,

Jennifer

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