Jennifer M. Zeiger's Blog, page 38

Raining Frogs Option B: Fight with Frogs

In a world where it rains frogs, maybe amphibians will make good ammunition against bank robbers. Let’s find out =)

Raining Frogs Option B. Fight with Frogs

You worked for years to earn enough for your little parcel of land and now this two-bit robber wants your hard earned payment. No way are you okay with that.

As he approaches, you back up in a non-threatening gesture.

That close to you, you see he really is short, and you’re not a towering individual. The bulkiness of his clothing also covers very broad shoulders and what looks like the bulges of bovine ears under his hood. Those bulges move warily.

He’s definitely not human.

Around his feet hop a couple of the frogs. They seem to be trying to hop into the gap of his pant leg but he’s moving too much and they keep missing the narrow target.

His hand comes down on the counter to sweep the coins into his sack.

You stoop down, grasp a squishy frog and pitch it into the robber’s face.

He screeches and drops the potato sack full of money. It hits the floor with a crash and glittering coins scatter across the floor in all directions.

The robber stumbles and his hood falls back.

He’s ugly. Truly misshapen with a bald head covered in blotchy colors, big, rubbery ears and warts everywhere.

The teller behind you gives a horrified gasp.

Where the frog smacked the robber’s skin, steam rises and bubbles blister his flesh. He wipes at the slime frantically, trying to clean himself with his sleeve, but his movements are shaky and he gets slime onto his hands as well. Immediately the skin there blisters and lets up steam. There’s a hissing like an egg dropped on a hot skillet.

Useful.

You grab another frog and pitch it into his face, driving him backward. Two of his companions move up beside him and you start pitching frogs faster.

But there are four robbers and only one of you. By the time you have a chance to look around for the last man/ghoul/whatever thing, it’s too late.

He lands on your shoulders like two tons of brick and you hit the floor with an ugh!

Although he’s small, he weighs enough to equal a horse.

“More for the offering,” he says in glee. The others chortle in hissing, high-pitched delight.

While his companions gather up the fallen coins, he ties your hands behind you and throws an extra potato sack over your head. It smells musty. Maybe the potatoes that used to hold it turned moldy.

Offering? You wonder as he forces you to your feet.

He pushes you forward and a moment later you’re outside getting hit by splatting frogs. Deluge is right.

Your captures grumble.

Do you…

Bb. Stay Quite for Now?

or

Bc. Make Their Lives Difficult?

Now that’s just not fair! Four on one and the bank tellers didn’t give you a hand. But now you’re out in the froggy rain with what appear to be ghouls! What’s it to be?

Blessings and see you Tuesday,

Jennifer

Raining Frogs

And the adventure’s back! I feel like a talk show host sometimes. And here we have the adventure stories involving multiple endings and dangerous perils. Choose wisely, for there be dragons beyond them there boarders.

Okay, sorry, had to get a bit of shenanigans out of my system, but seriously, this piece was fun and random to write. Hope you enjoy =)

Raining Frogs

Today’s the day you’ve been working toward for months. Although the sky hangs overcast and the morning holds a gloomy gray in the air, you walk down the boardwalk with your shoulders back and your head high because, in your hand, you’re holding your final payment from the Sheriff.

You caught your last bounty that morning. Months you’ve tracked down criminals, with one goal in mind, to buy the chunk of land for sale on the far side of town. On it you plan to build your new home and work a small field and produce just enough to trade for anything else you might ever need. You never have to track down another person or haul them in for payment. No more wandering for you.

The money clinks softly in your pocket and you close you fingers around the coins to keep them from making any more sound. No need to announce your good fortune.

The bank’s just opened when you arrive and you step through the door with a barely controlled smile.

The door’s swinging shut when you hear it. SPLAT.

You pause mid step. With the door now closed, the sound’s softer, but you still hear the repeated. Splat, splatsplat, splat, splatsplatsplat…

You back step and crack the door open with a shoulder blade. And SPLAT, against your face.

You give an ‘ugh’ and quickly step forward again to let the door close.

“Did you know,” you announce to the three bank tellers on the far side of the room, “that it’s raining frogs.”

They look up and their identical looks of skepticism could make them triplets.

“Just saying,” you shrug and approach the right hand teller. You pull the Sheriff’s payment from your pocket as you move and say, “Deposit for my account,” like raining frogs isn’t anything unusual.

The woman doesn’t look down at the coins you place on the counter. She points, “You’ve got a bit of, um, slime, on your face.”

“Oh,” you wipe your cheek with a sleeve and, sure enough, the fabric comes away with yellow slime. “Like I said,” you smile, “frogs.”

She swallows. “Really?”

You nod, with your smile in place, and point at the coins for deposit. Nothing could ruin this day.

The door opens and, with it, you hear the almost solid splatsplatsplatsplat of a deluge of frogs. When you glance at the newcomers, several small, colorful amphibians hop their way in around the people’s feet.

You’re still looking at the energetic frogs when there’s the heavy Cha-chack of a shotgun being charged.

Your gut knots and you raise your eyes from the floor to find four people, each holding shotguns. Two of them approach the counter and sling potato sacks at the tellers.

“Fill ‘em up,” one says.

The Sheriff’s last payment still sits, gleaming, on the counter between you and the third teller.

A frog lets out a ribbbbet.

“Frogs,” you mutter.

“What’s that?” one of the robbers point his gun at you.

“Frogs,” you nod toward a green and red, glossy backed critter hopping toward his foot. “That one’s probably poisonous.”

He grumbles and kicks the frog away. It splats, unharmed, against the wall, before ribbeting to the ground where it starts hopping toward the man again.

The little amphibian seems determined to reach the robber and he’s not the only one hopping determinedly toward one of them.

Frogs chasing bank robbers. Interesting.

You eye the robbers. They’re all relatively short, wearing hoods and heavy clothing that you mistook before as rain gear. Now you see it just serves to make them nondescript but doesn’t actually protect them from rain. Splotches of color, like someone threw paint blobs at them, cover their heads and shoulders. The man’s boot, where he kicked the frog, boasts a red and green smudge.

Perhaps the clothing protects them from the frogs.

The slime didn’t harm you, so maybe these people aren’t human.

That’s a lot of guesswork, though.

With full potato sacks, the robbers back away toward the door. They haven’t touched your payment, so you don’t move.

Then one of them spies the gleaming coins and greed glistens in his eyes.

Great.

Do you…

A. Let Him Take the Coins?

Or

B. Fight with Frogs?

We’ll see you Thursday for the continuing adventures of you, the bounty hunter. =)

Blessings,

Jennifer

House Sitting Option Aa2: Talk to Him

It’s time to see if Gregory the cougar eats you for a midnight snack!

House Sitting Option Aa2: Talk to Him

Your eyes burn from lack of sleep while Gregory’s breath fans across your face. All you wanted was a stable job, something more than jumping from job to job. What’s the harm in hoping?

You don’t want to wrestle with the feline. Exhaustion weights your limbs down and, added on top of that, Gregory’s weight holds your right side in place.

“You’re a big pain,” you mutter.

The breath on your face stops for just a second but then resumes, like you surprised him by suddenly speaking.

“All I wanted was a steady job. That’s it. You know my friend Wilson cleans up people’s garbage just to have enough money for his dinner each day. That’s no kind of life. And my friend…” you ramble on.

Other than his orb like eyes, you can’t really see the feline. But you can make out the faint reflection that tells you he’s watching.

And you see it a second before he lays his head down on your shoulder because the orbs wink out, like he’s closing his eyes to sleep.

You keep rambling. “I worked for a while as a day laborer on a farm. Good work, but seasonal. They don’t keep…”

Gregory’s body relaxes into your side, making it a tad hard to breathe, but you don’t risk moving if he’s actually going to sleep.

You’re not sure how much longer you chatter on about the different jobs you’ve had, but eventually, sleep takes you too.

When you wake, the cat’s not beside you but the blanket holds the impression of his large body.

Breakfast becomes a rendition of the dinner the night before but this time you don’t move fast enough to reach the back yard.

Gregory doesn’t go for the bowl immediately. Instead, he pins you to the floor and, very slowly, closes his jaws against your throat. He holds there, just like you did the night before after pinning him, for a moment, and then releases you and goes to eat his venison.

You’re heart beats so hard in your chest that you start assessing yourself for a heart attack. By the time Gregory’s ready to be cleaned up, you have your heart back to normal but the adrenaline still leaves you weak in the knees.

The text two weeks turn into who can best whom. Sometimes you pin the cat, sometimes he pins you. It’s never exactly friendly but neither do you hurt each other. And each night, you fall asleep rambling to the feline curled up beside you.

When Ms Katerina returns, your nerves are kind of fried. She pays you, thanks you for taking care of Gregory and lets you go. Between your fried nerves and Ms Katerina’s disappointment over her missing things, you separate on good terms but will never be back.

Although you do wonder, if you handled things differently, would you have made a friend of Gregory? Was such a thing even possible with a wild cougar?

The End

Thank you to everyone who participated in the adventure. =) A new adventure will start on the 17th.

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer

House Sitting Option Aa: Make a Stand

The cougar’s just cornered you and it’s time to make a stand before he decides to eat you!

House Sitting Option Aa: Make a Stand

You just ran through the house being chased by this beast. With two weeks to go, you aren’t in any mood to let this feline set the

precedent. No way are you letting him dictate every meal.

You meet the cat’s golden eyes, set your feet and place your hands on your hips in a challenge to the giant feline.

Gregory yawns, unimpressed.

You don’t move. Of course he’s going to win the staring contest, but that’s not the point.

Gregory yawns again, showing his long teeth and raspy tongue, and then he lays down atop the wall, never taking his eyes from you.

That easy?

You doubt it. You feel like the mouse in a cat and mouse game. But you can’t stand there all day, so you relax and turn toward the door.

As soon as you turn, his muscles bunch and he launches off the wall.

Ha! You expected the move, so you slide through the door and use it as a shield to break his momentum. His body hits the wood with a thud that forces you back several steps, almost closing the latch.

When Gregory hits the floor, you shove the door open against him and he sprawls onto his back. Claws and tail lash out as he scrambles to stand back up.

You don’t let him get so far.

You grab his large paws and pull them all together in a hog tie position. In the same move, you place a knee against his throat to keep him from biting at your hands. Then you lean in, against his powerful chest, to weigh him down.

He thrashes around, almost throwing you off, but you manage to hold the position until he stops moving.

If he were any older, and bigger, the move wouldn’t have worked. As is, your body screams at you that you’re straining it to the max just to subdue the beast.

You hold him for a bit longer, just to show him you can, and then you slowly back off him.

Gregory rolls over to his side, eyeing you with far more caution than he did a moment earlier.

“Dinner,” you say and point through the open door at the bowl on the patio.

Gregory stretches and then moves past you to finish his meal.

Relief makes you weak. For now, at least, you showed the cat who’s boss. But you didn’t make any friends in the process.

Gregory finishes his meal and then, true to Ms Katrina’s instructions, he moves over to lay beside the sun-warmed garden hose.

After washing him and finding a meal of your own, you head farther into the house to the room Ms Katrina said you could use while staying.

Before you reach the room, you pause outside the study door. It stands open and inside, drawers law scattered with papers and other bits littering the floor.

A quick exploration of the house confirms that the study’s not the only room in such a condition. It wasn’t that way when you first arrived. Sure, you were distracted with Gregory, but you’re not that unobservant.

At some point between getting the cat’s dinner and now, someone’s been in the house.

But you’ve no way of knowing who did it or what was taken, if anything. Nothing for it now. You go to bed, discouraged on top of being exhausted. The likelihood of Ms Katrina keeping you on after the two weeks just got very slim.

You toss and turn until sleep finally takes over.

It isn’t a noise, or even the extra weight on the bed, that wakes you. It’s a sense of unease. You open your eyes to find the shimmery orbs of Gregory’s eyes watching you. He’s laying, sprawled to his full length, against your right side. His nose sits less than five inches from your face. When he licks his lips, you almost feel it against you skin.

Do you…

Aa1: Shove Him Away?

or

Aa2: Start Talking to Him?

Blessings and see you Thursday to see if you survive =)

Jennifer

House Sitting Option A: Backyard

It’s time for dinner with Gregory the cougar! Hopefully you make it to the back yard.

House Sitting Option A: Backyard

You have two weeks with this cat. Best to face him head on right from the start or he’s going to make your life a circus. As a side thought, you pocket Ms Katerina’s instructions.

Then, with mastiff bowl in hand, you make your way to the locked hallway door and peek through the small glass window.

Gregory’s no longer ramming his shoulder against it. Instead, he paces back and forth in a languid stride with his tail lashing side to side. His eyes lock onto the window and your face, and his lips pull back over his long teeth in a protest. His nostrils flare as he picks up the smell of venison.

Your pack, and its contents, are scattered all over the entryway floor behind him. Apparently the catnip no longer holds any interest.

Nothing for it, you decide, and slide the bolt open on the door.

Gregory sits back on his haunches, ears and eyes alert.

No fast motions. No fast motions.

You pull the door open and step through. Gregory simply watches, his golden eyes unblinking in that eerie cat way. He’s close enough that you can make out individual eyelashes on his large lids.

“Good boy, Gregory,” you say.

The cougar’s eyes open wider but he doesn’t move as you side step toward the back hallway that leads to the yard. His head follows you with each step but he doesn’t move.

You’re not sure what catches his interest, but that instant before you step into the hallway and out of his sight, his muscles tighten into a pouncing stance.

“No,” you say, trying to deter him.

This only serves to excite him more. He crouches and his butt lifts a little.

“Greg—“ You don’t get the name out fully before he leaps.

You spin and bolt down the hall. On the right and left are multiple rooms you could dart into, but none of their doors are very thick. Judging from the thud against the other door, these ones wouldn’t hold up under Gregory’s momentum.

You glance back.

And he’s got a lot of momentum!

Just as he’s about to land with his paws on your shoulders, you grab a handful of venison and toss it into his face.

There’s a wet slap and the cat crashes into a wall, denting in the drywall, as he attempts to catch the meat in his mouth.

Those long teeth sink into the meat and juices drip down the cougar’s chin. He pauses to tear the venison into smaller pieces, which gains you most of the hallway before he takes off after you again. Right before you hit the door into the yard, you toss a second piece of venison over your shoulder.

There’s a slap from it hitting the floor and then you’re through the door and out onto the patio.

Without stopping, you drop the bowl, and the remaining meat, onto the concrete slab and then crash into the door of the enclosed gazebo. It swings open, hits the wall and swings shut again behind you. The gazebo’s one of those full wooden post structures, so it might hold out against the cat if he decides to ram his shoulder against the door.

Only then do you stop and grab your knees. Gasps of breath heave in and out of your chest. You start to shake with the adrenaline coursing through your system.

Two weeks! Running from Gregory every time you feed him might just kill you, if, of course, the cat’s teeth don’t do the job first.

You pull Ms. Katerina’s instructions from your pocket and smooth out the creases in the paper. It shakes in your hand.

Gregory’s rather messy when he eats, so I rinse him off when done. This keeps him from smearing blood on the walls.

You scoff. Right. But then you read on.

He likes warm water so I leave the hose in the sun during the day and he’ll come right to you for his washing.

She’s serious! Don’t cats typically clean themselves?

You look up to locate him but he’s not on the patio. From where you stand, you can see the rest of the venison still in the massive bowl. Did he exit the house behind you?

You’re not sure. You were too busy getting away to actually see him leave the house. So where is he now?

A low rumble makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. On a heel, you slowly spin to find Gregory, perched atop the wall where the ceiling of the gazebo has been cut away for him to enter. Kind of like a cat door.

Juices from the venison smear his muzzle and he licks his lips with a long tongue.

You could go for the hose and hope he really likes to be washed.

Or you could try to make a stand. He’s not eaten all of the venison, so at this point, he finds you more interesting than dinner. Or he thinks you’ll be more tasty.

Great.

Do you…

Aa. Make a Stand?

or

Ab. Go for the Hose?

Blessings,

Jennifer

House Sitting

Hope everyone’s week has gotten off to a great start! For some entertainment, let’s start a new adventure =)

(Some adventures are just a blast to write. This was one of those. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!)

House Sitting

He’s staring at you with golden, unblinking eyes. A deep rumble emanates from his chest, just loud enough for you to hear the burr of it like a distant engine. You try to stare back and he slowly closes his eyes and opens them in an exaggerated, lazy blink.

When you were hired for the job, you were ecstatic. Finding work these days is difficult in the extreme and this promises, if you do well, to be a continuing job instead of only a short time gig. No one you know has a full time, continuing job.

Ms Katerina explained in your interview that you’d have to look after her baby cat. At the time, you pictured a cute little kitten with fuzzy fur that might fit in the palm of your hand. Not a problem, you’d answered. She said nothing about wrangling with a 50 pound baby cougar.

“He’s just darling,” she’d said, “and loves to be scratched under the chin.” She’d gone on to explain the details of his diet and how long she’d be gone on vacation.

Two weeks.

You were in a manor house, house sitting essentially, for two weeks with a cat that could eat you.

Gregory. That’s what she named the cougar.

“Hello Gregory,” you say, trying to decide how you’re going to get from the front door, which you just walked through, to the hallway to your left that leads to the kitchen.

The sun outside sits against the horizon. According to Ms. Katerina’s instructions, it’s Gregory’s dinner time.

Great. You showed up just in time for the cat to be hungry.

Gregory’s purr deepens and the cat pads two steps closer and then stops to stretch his spin in a languid yoga pose all cats do. Front paws outstretched, butt in the air, spine elongated. He yawns and his continued purr comes out with a r-a-r-o-w.

You swallow, watching the teeth he just displayed for you.

Gotta get to the kitchen.

You hold out your bag at arm’s length and plop it to the floor. When you packed, you still had the furry kitten image in your head. Ms. Katerina mentioned Gregory loves catnip, so you picked up a small bag of it on your way to the manor. Considering the size of the cat, the amount’s definitely too small, but you slid the package into the outside zipper pocket of your pack. Perhaps the cat’s large nose will pick it up and find it interesting enough to distract him. Hopefully long enough for you to get to the kitchen.

Gregory eyes the bag and his nostrils flare in and out several times. He sinks down, focused with deadly glee, and then pounces, front paws hitting your bag so hard it slides across the floor right at you.

You side step and bolt for the kitchen door.

With a solid thud, you shut it behind you and throw the bolt, an actual slide bolt, not just a lock in the doorknob.

Through the small window in the wooden door, you peek to see where the cougar’s at.

He bats at your poor bag, now ripped down its entire length on the side with the zippered pocket, and then throws his head at it and, in a half roll over his front shoulder, rubs his entire spine across the bag.

Huge paws in the air, he wiggles back and forth, eyes closed in drug-induced ecstasy.

Great, you just drugged the cougar. But he’s not chasing you, so you recede down the hallway to find the kitchen.

Five minutes later, you’re staring at the instructions Ms. Katerina left. No wonder she can’t keep hired help these days.

First thing on the list is dinner for Gregory. Venison. The cat eats better than you do. You find the containers with raw venison in the fridge and portion out the desired amount into a metal bowl made for a mastiff dog.

There’s a thud to your right where you bolted the hallway door. Gregory just figured out he doesn’t have easy access to half the house.

Thud.

You stare at Ms Katerina’s instructions.

Feed Gregory at 7pm every night and 9am every Morning. Blablabla. Gregory can be a bit feisty when hungry. I’ve found feeding him in the backyard or the workout room works best so he doesn’t break anything.

Umm. The backyard sounds best but to get there, you have to go through the door Gregory’s pounding against.

Thud.

The workout room’s closer but upstairs. You’d have to let Gregory through the house and hope he doesn’t break anything, or attack you, on his way to dinner.

Thud.

So…

A.Backyard?

Or

B.Workout room?

Blessings and see you Thursday to see if Gregory eats you =)

Jennifer

The Falls Option Ab2: Give Her a Hug

Ab2: Give her a hug

You smile an apology for just staring.

No clear, perfect words come to you and you doubt if you open your mouth anything helpful will come out. Instead, you say nothing and step forward to hug Miss Vera.

She gives a small sound of surprise but then hugs you back, tightly.

“No!” The voice of objection is Mr. Lancaster’s but when you glance around, you don’t see him and apparently Miss Vera didn’t hear him.

There’s a brief moment of perfect understanding between you and the teacher, a moment of comfort, but then your world shifts like you’ve been thrown into a storm. Miss Vera disappears. The blues and purples return in a chaotic swirl and you’re spun around and around. Your stomach heaves and only a force of will keeps it from vacating through your throat. Everything goes dark.

You wake a while later and sputter at the water Mr. Lancaster was splashing on your face.

Wiping a hand across your eyes, you find the old man watching. His face is drawn, not angry but frustrated perhaps.

“You cannot,” he says emphatically, “touch a person in their dreams.”

“Why?” you ask, remembering the moment of comfort for Miss Vera.

“It messes with their reality,” he stands while shaking his head. “It’s like breaking the fourth wall in a play. Their brain knows the interaction isn’t something it came up with and that messes with them.”

He wanders away and returns with a mug of tea. Handing the steaming mug to you, he leans against one of the marble tables and crosses his arms.

The tea gives a strong hint of mint and something else. You take a sip and the liquid steadies you. You didn’t even realize how wobbly you felt, perhaps because you haven’t tried to stand, but the mint and whatever else clears away the haziness from your head.

“I’ve looked in on Miss Vera’s dreams while you were sleeping,” he continues after you take another sip of tea. “Her recurring dream is gone.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” you ask.

“Perhaps,” he admits, “but the faded colors from the one dream have now overtaken all of them. The color’s gone out of her world.”

“Oh,” you sip again. “Maybe if I go see her, actually hug her, it’ll help.”

But Mr. Lancaster shakes his head. “If you leave the falls, you will never return. I’ll explain tomorrow.” He takes your now empty mug and points to a door behind you. “There’s a bed in there.” Then he leaves you.

You peek outside and see he’s right, it’s well into the night. You make your way to the room and the bed but when you lay down, your mind just won’t leave what happened in Miss Vera’s dream alone.

You can’t just sleep on it.

The cottage remains still as you get up and pass the fountain and all the marbles. Leaving the falls behind feels odd but nothing stops you from hiking back to town.

The next day you wait out front of Miss Vera’s house like you did in the dream. Maybe she’ll write it off as some type of deja-vu.

There’s shock on her face when she sees you but she smiles politely and actually lets you into the house with her.

Below the coat rack just inside the door, you see two pairs of slippers. Both are blue and well used but they’re different sizes.

“Someone else lives here?” you ask.

Miss Vera’s face looks stricken but then she hugs her arms around her middle and answers, “Someone else lived here. My sister passed away last night.”

Everything clicks together in your mind. “How long was she sick?” you ask.

“Ten years,” she explains how her sister didn’t want anyone to know, instead letting the town think she left for parts unknown. Tears steam down her face. There’s grief there but also a sense of relief. Ten years of taking care of a dying sister would do that.

You hug her, let her cry, and there’s that perfect understanding again.

You return to spend time with her every day and hope you’ve added color back to her world. But you’ve no real way of knowing if you are succeeding.

You attempt once to return to the falls and the cottage, but it they’re gone. Just gone. You never see the place again, in your dreams or in reality.

But you do make a lifelong friend in Miss Vera. A part of you wonders how much more you could have done if you stayed with Mr. Lancaster but you’re content with the choice you made to leave.

The  End

Dreams are crazy things! But you gained a lifelong friend =)

Thanks for participating in the adventure. The adventure will be back on the 26th.

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer

The Falls Option Ab: Words

The adventure continues as we try to encourage with words in a dream. Let’s see what happens next!

The Falls Option Ab: Words

Miss Vera’s slumped form pulls your heartstrings. She’s always been such a sweet person every time you’ve interacted with her.

“Words,” you tell Mr. Lancaster. “She needs something direct.”

Mr. Lancaster nods once and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out another marble but it stays perfectly clear in his grasp.

“Your time in her dream will be brief,” he says, “so consider carefully what you’d like to say before going in.”

He stands there with the marble, giving you a moment to consider but watching you with his strange, swirling eyes. You wonder if his eyes reflect the marbles because he’s spent too many years gazing into them.

What do you say?

Maybe something about her quiet strength. How she deals so aptly with a classroom of children every day.

Or maybe something about how her presence always lightens your day.

Without knowing what awaits Miss Vera inside the house, you realize anything you say really is a shot in the dark.

But you’ve got to try. You nod to Mr. Lancaster that you’re ready.

He holds the clear marble up. “This will be rather jarring,” he cautions, “brace yourself.”

You get the feeling he’s not talking about holding onto the tables, so you simply nod again and watch him add the marble to the fountain, directly beside Miss Vera’s in the flow of the water that displays the repeat dream.

Your world shifts. Blues and purples rush past your sight like you’re stuck on a branch in a river and are watching the multicolored water ripple past your immersed head.

Then the colors solidify and you’re on the street just down the block from Miss Vera’s small house.

The sun shines brightly on your shoulder. You blink several times to clear your sight and Miss Vera’s slender frame appears down the street as she turns the corner on her way home from work.

A smile touches her lips until she reaches the gate to the faded blue house but the expression fades when she moves to open the metal latch. Just like when you watched her dream from above the fountain, all the color seems to fade from around her.

You rush forward with your desire to put the color back into her world.

She glances up at the sound of your steps, a friendly, polite smile returning to her lips, but the despair in her eyes does not recede. It adds lines to the corners of her eyes and darkens the beautiful chocolate around her irises.

You stop before her but the words you so carefully planned die in your throat. They’re inadequate beside the deep emotion you not only see, but feel, rolling through her. Perhaps that’s part of the dream, but you experience Miss Vera’s internal struggle like it was your own.

She watches you, saying nothing while you stand there with your mouth open.

You snap your lips closed. Your mind races, knowing your time is short to make a difference.

What you were going to say isn’t adequate, you know it with a deep certainty. But you need to say something.

Do you:

Ab1: Make Something Up Fast?

Or

Ab2: Give her a hug?

Blessings and see you for the finish of the adventure on Thursday!

Jennifer

The Falls Option A: Yes

This next part of the adventure was so fun to write! I’ve been listening to the Dresden Files and I think some of his description stuff is getting into my writerly mind =)

Hope you enjoy! Be sure to vote at the end for how you’d like to continue.

The Falls Option A: Yes

His swirling blue eyes watch as you debate your answer. They see your surprise and indecision. He’d probably know if you lied. Those eyes crinkle slightly at the corners with perception and understanding.

“Yes,” you finally say, “but I’ve never been here physically.” You frown, realizing how odd that probably sounds.

The old man’s lips pull up into a careful smile as though he completely understands but enjoys watching you struggle with words.

“Come,” he pushes off the ground to stand up, “let me show you something.”

You let the flap on you satchel fall closed without retrieving your paper and ink and follow him into the small cottage. Immediately within the door, the air touches your skin, thick and heavy with humidity. It’s a wall of moisture that turns movement into a conscious action because it slides the air across your skin like a caress.

On a shelf to your right, a cat watches you with bright green eyes. You make a face at it and the feline yawns in a toothy show.

“Dreams,” the old man says over his shoulder, pulling you from your fascination with the cat, “mean something.”

He picks up a clear marble from a table full of marbles. They vary from pea sized to grapefruit sized but all of them are perfectly clear like raindrops. The table’s edge curves upward, containing the marbles neatly within its frame. It’s not the only such table, you see, as you move deeper into the cottage to find dozens of them.

As soon as he touches the one marble, a grape sized sphere, it swirls to life with brilliant blues and purples.

The old man weaves his way amidst the tables to the middle of the cottage.

“Come,” he beckons you with his free hand. “You must see to understand.”

You move to join him by a flat, circular table. From its center flows a fountain of water that rushes evenly outward and cascades off the edge to land on the floor. There it steams on the dry wood and evaporates. Thus the humidity, you realize.

The old man places the grape sized marble into the very center of the table. It suspends there and the water rushing off the edge fills with wavering images.

Miss. Vera, the town’s only teacher, smiles down at a group of young children. One of them raises a hand and she calls on him before the image falls over the edge to disappear in a hiss against the floor.

“She dreams,” the old man says. “Mostly of her teaching. Those dreams come and go easily. She’s comfortable with her job. But,” he holds up a hand and walks to the far edge of the table. Instead of completing his thought, he points at an image there.

You rush around, thinking the image will disappear off the edge before you can see it, but you needn’t have worried. The image flows like a play, never finishing, never disappearing.

Miss Vsera returns home but hesitates on the porch of her small, faded-blue house. The color of the home darkens like night has fallen but you can see the sun still shining on the porch steps behind her. She sighs and her shoulders slump before she places her hand on the doorknob and enters her home.

The image doesn’t show what’s inside. It darkens briefly and then repeats.

“What happens inside?” you ask.

“Her mind doesn’t go there. Can’t or won’t?” he shrugs. “But we can send her a little encouragement if you like.”

“Yes,” you say instantly, “please.” The repeated image holds your attention, almost bringing tears to your eyes.

“Here’s the tricky part.” the old man draws your attention by sweeping his hand between you and the image. “Do we give her warmth or words?”

Aa. Warmth?

Or

Ab. Words?

Blessings and see you Tuesday,

Jennifer

The Falls

It’s adventure time! Read on and vote in the comments for however you’d like to proceed.  =)

The Falls

You’ve never been to the falls before but every part of it speaks of familiarity, like an old coat that rests, warm and comfortable, against your shoulders. At first you shrugged the feeling off as a temporary moment of deja vu but the farther you walk, the stronger the feeling gets.

That aspen to the left of the trail up ahead, without walking around to see the far side, you know it’s blackened from a lightening strike. Or beyond that, to the right, the trail curves around a granite rock face. On the other side of it, you know the falls open up into a vast pool with small waterfalls splashing down from the rock above.

For years you’ve dreamed of the pool with its rainbow casting falls. You’ve called it your haven, the place your resting mind goes to escape the tedium of life as a printer’s apprentice. Dark ink stains cover your hands and blacken your nails from your hours of copying text, day in and day out.

But in your dreams you never have to hold a quill or clean up spilled ink. Instead you swim in the pool, feel the water wash away your weariness and lay in the sun, letting it warm your too white skin.

Never, though, has the pool been anything but a dream, a mental escape.

You finger the piece of paper in your hand. On it a scrawled message beckons you to report to Marius Lancaster to assist in the writing of his will.

Nothing about such a note is unusual. The directions to Mr. Lancaster’s, however, led you here. Well out of town and into the mountains. Since you’re from a small town, you assumed you knew everyone around but you’ve never heard of Mr. Lancaster. When you asked your Master about it, he shrugged, not knowing the name either, and told you to leave early to make it to Lancaster’s on time.

The note shakes in your fingers. Something about finding your dream world to be real settles unease in your stomach like a lump of lead.

You remind yourself this day is like any other, stuff the note back into your coat pocket, and proceed up the trail.

Around the granite rock face, the pool opens, sparkling with water rainbows cast by the late day sun. The sight creates a deep ache in your chest. It’s beautiful, pristine.

The trail ends farther up, about fifty yards from where you stand, at a wrought iron fence. Inside it sits a dainty cottage decked in flower boxes. Everything from roses to tulips to daisies bloom in those boxes, giving a varied sweet scent on the breeze.

This is the first difference from your dream escape. There was never a cottage there.

At the gate, you pause half way through as you see an old man sitting just beyond. His shock of white hair could blend with snow.

His back rests against the cottage door and he’s staring at you. Probably has been since you rounded the granite face.

“In or out,” he says. “It’s dangerous to stand in between.”

“What?” you ask.

“In or out.” The statement’s soft but commanding.

You step through the gate and close it.

The man nods. “You’re late.”

You can’t disagree, so you just smile an apology.

“Have you seen this place before?” he asks.

You freeze in opening your satchel. Why would he ask such a question? When you look up at him, his eyes swirl with bluish color, unnatural but mesmerizing.

Do you say:

A. Yes?

Or

B.No?

We’ll return Thursday to continue the adventure.

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer