Mollie Hunt's Blog, page 4

TIME BEING Chapter 4. SAVE THE CHILD

A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.

Chapter 4. SAVE THE CHILD

 

Sylvan felt her way along the wall, fingers tracing the rough concrete, until she caught sight of the magic light once more. It was straight ahead of her but far away, bobbing like a fairy. She couldn’t see Aron—she had to trust he was there, wherever there was. The cavern-like tunnel had certainly never been in the basement of her youth—as a cat-curious child, she would have found it long ago.

Brie was struggling to get down from Sylvan’s hold. Sylvan hesitated—she didn’t want to lose the cat in this strange, sudden corridor, but then Brie probably had a better chance of navigating the anomaly than she did. Besides, the cat wasn’t taking no for an answer.

Once on the floor, Brie sniffed, first the air, then the ground which had become hardpacked dirt somewhere along the line. With mouth open, tasting the scent, Brie started down the tunnel, first walking, then trotting, then racing toward the light.

Sylvan took the hint. If it’s good enough for a cat, it’s good enough for me.

After a short distance, the gloomy tunnel led into the garden. When last she’d inspected the sprawling yard behind her childhood home, it was little more than a jungle of weeds and tangles. The upkeep had become difficult and then impossible long before the estate was sold. She’d never enquired to see if the new owner had resurrected the patches of heirloom plants or bulldozed the ornamental trees to make way for a hot tub—she didn’t want to know. She preferred her memory to remain untainted by time.

Now, magically, she’d got her wish. The white vine rose twined up the wooden trellis as it had done so long ago; the purple geranium cascaded over the knoll. There was the primrose edging—there, the apple tree! All as it had been when her grandmother cared for it with loving, dirt-grimed hands. Breathing in the verbena-scented air, the sun hot on her face, she stood transfixed

A hand gripped her arm. “No time to dawdle. We need to save the child.”

Sylvan shook Aron off. Now that she was out in the daylight, she found herself less vulnerable to his contagious panic.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on. How did I get here? Why?”

He reached for her again, but she dashed behind the apple tree’s rough trunk as she had done in childhood games.

“Sylvan…”

She peeked from her retreat. The sun was at his back, creating a ray effect around his form and putting his face in shadow. He looked like a murky angel, and she ducked away once more.

“Sylvan…” he said again, but now his voice was a mere whisper. “Come on. It’s not safe.”

“The Watchers?” She stepped away from the tree trunk.  “Who are these watchers? Tell me!”

“I’ll do better. I’ll show you, if you’ll let me.”

With that, he turned and began walking. Sylvan stood her ground, but her curiosity was piqued, nonetheless.

Brie loped to Aron’s side, then took a great leap and landed on his shoulder.  Now Sylvan had to follow. She wasn’t about to let the cat out of her sight.

“I’ll come,” she said sullenly. “But I still don’t understand.”

“Understanding is not necessary,” came a new voice, high and slightly furry.

Sylvan’s gaze shot to Brie.

The cat smiled.

It couldn’t be… Sylvan told herself as she took up after the pair.

Aron and his feline passenger led Sylvan through the yard and out onto the sidewalk. He moved quickly around the corner to the front of the house. For a moment he stood, taking in the covered porch with the flag hanging from one of the columns, a flag with only forty-eight stars. Then he was up the steps in through the door—no more hesitation. To the right side of the foyer were the stairs, and he began to climb, for all intents and purposes heading back to where he and Sylvan had begun their journey, but this time instead of going down the long hallway, he slipped into one of the bedrooms, the one that had belonged to Sylvan’s mother and father back in the day.

Sylvan trailed behind. There was something about this setting that she remembered, but it was far back in her mind like a dream long past. Or perhaps it had been a nightmare.

The room was dark save for one dim lamp burning on the bedside table. Shadowy figures gathered around the bed, their attention on the one who slept there.

Sylvan tried to push closer, but Aron held her back.

“Are you ready for this?”

She shook her head to clear her mind. She was tired of the enigmatic one-liners, the hints and allusions to who knew what. She was tired of this man who she found bleeding in her ancestral home. She was tired, she realized—just plain tired.

Sylvan flailed out of Aron’s grasp, wiggled her way through the group, and climbed up onto the bed. Instinctively she snuggled under the covers, letting her muscles ease and her tension go. Her fear had disappeared—she knew she was where she was supposed to be.

“Save the baby,” said one of those around the bed. The bold, male voice was as familiar as her own—even more so. The voice of her daddy.

Someone was holding her in their arms. Her mama. Her mama was beside her in the bed. Sylvan was the baby.

“Save the baby,” Daddy repeated, except that wasn’t it. His words flowed together and suddenly she understood. “Sylvan baby,” he said again. “Who’s my sweetest little girl?”

Mama tucked the blankets back around her as the watchers cooed and awed. Her godparents, her aunt and uncle, her family—all observing her birth.

Sylvan had never known such serenity, or maybe she had once but the feeling slipped away over time. Time was irrelevant now. Her newly-born self held no resentments, no anxieties, no experiences of any kind. There was no hate, only love and the warmth of belonging that comes naturally to every soul.

Should come naturally.

“Where do we go wrong?” she asked Aron, suddenly back by his side. The family was grouped around another baby, a different scene. “I must write this down before I forget.”

She left the room, Brie trotting beside her, down the stairs to the open front door  where she sank to her knees on the threshold. Somehow full night had fallen, and beyond the screen, the wide porch was in shadow. For a few moments, she stared out at the street, unable to cage her thoughts. She could hear the sigh of the birch boughs that lined the parking, and from afar, the progressive whine of a motorcycle. The perfume of roses daubed the air. Something else wafted with it. Something wild.

This was her birth day. She knew she’d been born in the house, but with such fanfare? All her family gathered to watch? And most important of all, front and center was her father, the man who had been missing so often in the years to come. She could not yet decide if the devotion in his eyes made up for the later neglect, but it did tell a different story—that she was wanted, that she was loved.

“Push over,” said Aron as he plopped down in the doorway beside her. No sooner was he seated than Brie was curling on his lap, her eyes fixed on Sylvan. Behind them, folks were descending from the birth room, talking softly. They ignored the trio in the doorway, moving into the other rooms like shadows.

Sylvan opened the red diary and began to scrawl. Aron put a hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Her concentration was still lost among the words pouring out of her.

“For the beginning…”

“Huh?” she said distractedly.

There was no reply.

“What did you say? Aron, what?”

She glanced up from her work, but Aron and the cat were gone.

A moment later, so was she.

Chapter 5. SORT OF A NIGHTMARE coming next Saturday.

For previous chapters, look here.

 

 

 

CLARENCE TURNS TWO!

Now we are two!

Clarence is a big boy now!

My  purrfect little Tripod turns two today! Of course the date is approximate, since he came to the Oregon Humane Society without a lot of history, but the vets can tell approximate age from his teeth and other kittenish details.

He’s been with us for a year and a half, blending into our family of Tabbies Tyler and Melinko. He has his own curious ways, like being aloof most of the time, then coming to be picked up and loved.

Soooo Floooofy!

He has gotten bigger in the last year, weighing almost as much as Tyler, my 21-year-old. He is the softest, fluffiest guy, which makes him look both bigger and smaller. (See his 1st Birthday post here.)

Clarence explores my display with Melinko behind the book stand.

He is very curious about absolutely every little thing, including bugs and invisible spots on the wall. He is especially curious about his brother Melinko.

Thankfully, he still plays like a kitten.

TIME BEING Chapter 3. BAD THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN IN THE BASEMENT

A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.

Chapter 3. BAD THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN IN THE BASEMENT

 

As a child, Sylvan had been afraid of the basement. Now here she was again, descending that fearsome flight of stairs into the dark where the demons lived. As she counted the familiar steps, felt the chill creep up her body, those fears returned. By the time she’d reached the bottom, she was scared to death.

It probably had to do with the ancient fairy tales her grandmother read to her before bed—the ones with blood and gore, with morals to their stories.  Those morbid illustrations that went with them—no child should be exposed to Arthur Rackham’s “Tales of the Brothers Grimm” before the age of three!

“Aron? Where are you? I can’t see a damn thing!”

She laughed, registering that at her age—the age she was in this retro-version of herself—she would hardly have known the meaning of the word, damn, let alone dared to use it within the walls of her family home.

Something touched her ankle, and her scream banished all thoughts of swears. The thing came again, spider-soft, tickling along her leg.

“Purrumph?”

“Brie!” Sylvan gasped, sweeping the wayward cat into her arms. “You scared the…” She paused, deciding not to continue down the road of foul language. “You scared me, you little stinker.”

Brie pressed her sideburns across Sylvan’s cheek. Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.

“Will you?” Sylvan said out loud.

“Will I what?” A match struck farther on in the blackness, lighting the young man’s face. He was staring at her without comprehension. Sylvan thought this odd, since she was the one who didn’t comprehend.

“Just talking to the cat,” she said finally. “I talk to cats. Don’t you?”

“Of course. And sometimes they talk back.”

The match winked out, and the dark closed around them once more, then another light flickered. At first Sylvan thought it was a small flashlight or possibly a time-traveling cell phone, but as she drew closer, she saw a tiny round glow hovering in the air, totally separate from the man.

Sylvan eyed the spectacle suspiciously. “How are you doing that?”

“Doing what? Oh,” Aron sighed. “Just something I picked up on my travels.”

“Is it magic?”

He snorted. “Not at all. But I don’t have time to explain the fundamentals of alternative physics right now. Come on, it’s this way.”

Alternative physics? Child Sylvan had not yet heard of that mystifying branch of the sciences, but old woman Sylvan had learned a few things in her lifetime. She’d been under the impression that physics was physics, and there could be no such thing as an alternative. Magic might have been easier to accept.

She followed the bobbing ball of light and Aron who was headed for the rear of the basement, skirting the generations of miscellanea taking up space there. An old-fashioned wringer washer; a wood stove tipped on its side; a workbench piled with photography equipment—her father’s. Then the monolithic furnace with its silver octopus arms running every which way across the ceiling. Aron ducked behind it, coming out only long enough to beckon Sylvan to hurry.

“There’s nothing back there,” Sylvan called after him, watching the light waver and grow dimmer until it was nearly gone. Then it was gone, leaving her once again in dusky obscurity.

How can that be? she pondered. Had Aron turned out the magic orb? There was a second explanation, but it didn’t make sense—that there really was something more behind the ancient furnace, something other than the lichen covered concrete wall she had known all her life.

Sylvan had to make a choice. She could stay in the dark, awaiting the coming of whatever evil forces were pursuing them. She could go back up to the kitchen—wasn’t it time for a snack, and where was her mama anyhow? Or she could follow Aron and see what happened next.

Before she knew it, she had ducked behind the furnace, on her way to another impossible place.

Chapter 4. SAVE THE CHILD coming next Saturday.

For previous chapters, look here.

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY, CAT MOMS!

Not All Mothers Have Human Babies

It’s that time again, but not all mothers have human babies. This post is dedicated to the other mothers, the ones who love and care for cats and pets.

I always look forward to watching and sharing one of my favorite videos, That’s What Moms Do, by Furball Fables.

Be sure to watch all the way to the end. Yes, you can sing along!

Thank you again this year, Furball Fables!

 

 

 

TIME BEING Chapter 2. THE STRANGER

A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.

 

Chapter 2. THE STRANGER

 

The house was huge. Sylvan didn’t remember it being so big, but things diminish as one gets older. The magic goes away, and all that is left are walls and memories. But not this time. She was back, and in a way she had never thought possible. Back back. Back in time back. Back to where it all began.

Sylvan was recalling something else as she followed the wounded stranger down the stairs and through the maze of rooms, something that had been hidden from her all those in-between years. She couldn’t put her finger on it; it was slippery like oil or the green slime that lives atop stagnant water. It had to do with…

“The watchers!”

She grabbed Aron’s shirttail and pulled him around to face her. “Who are the watchers? What are they? I feel like I should know, but I don’t.”

Aron stared at her, and for the first time she was really able to see him. Long-faced, long-limbed, delicate features, and hair that curled as it fell around his shoulders. His eyes, dark as tunnels and just as compelling, though if she was asked what color they were, she would be at a loss. No color—all colors—a kaleidoscope of every hue. He must be an angel—or an alien—because she had never before seen such an amalgam of elements in a human being.

“Come on, Sylvan. We don’t have much time.”

Sylvan shook off her wonder. “First tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you everything when we’re safe, all right?”

She stayed her ground, a stubborn little girl ready to stamp her foot if she didn’t get her way.

“I want to know now!  You said something about a baby—what baby?”

“Why it’s you, of course.”

“Me? But…”

“Come on. You don’t want them to take you, do you?”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Sylvan muttered, but this time she let him pull her away.

Together they raced: across the living room with its vast tile-faced fireplace and built-in benches along the windowed walls; around the old oak table and chairs set in the dining room; through the swinging door and into the kitchen. Sylvan’s patent leather shoes skidded on the linoleum, and she almost fell again, reminding her of the blood.

“Was it the watchers who hurt you?” she panted to Aron’s back. “Did you get in a fight?”

Aron shot her a look of exasperation, his strange eyes flashing like angry stars. “Why can’t you shut up and trust me?”

“I have a naturally curious nature. That’s why I’m a writer.” She held up the red diary and laughed. Her writing career was still years in the future, though the imprint of that chapter of her life seemed clear as if it were today.

Aron had slowed at the back door. “Garden or basement?” he muttered. “Where will they be? I don’t know. I need to know. If I make the wrong choice now…”

“Not the basement,” Sylvan said.

“No? Why not? You don’t think that’s a good plan?”

“It’s never a good plan to corner oneself in a creepy basement. But tell me, are we looking to find these watchers or are we running away from them? You haven’t been very clear on that.”

“Basement it is then.” Throwing the door wide, he plunged into the gloom.

“No, wait! I said not the basement.”

Sylvan felt something soft brush against her ankle and jumped in surprise.

“Brie!” she cried as the cat disappeared down the stairs after the man. “Not you too!”

Grabbing the wooden handrail, she stepped onto the top tread and let herself be swallowed by the looming dark.

“Oh, bother!” she swore, though another, more adult word had come into her mind as well.

 

 

Chapter 3: BAD THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN IN THE BASEMENT  coming next Saturday.

For previous chapters, look here.

 

TIME BEING Chapter 1. TIME WARP

An old woman trapped in an unconscious state finds herself traveling through time to significant points in her life, but things are not the same as she remembers them. Past and future become mailable, hers to mold, but how can she know where her time-sculpting may lead? Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, she picks her way among the visions, hoping the choices she makes will be the right ones.

 

Chapter 1: TIME WARP

 

You’ll never guess where I am! That’s because I can’t believe it either.

I’m sitting at my little desk in my bedroom, except it’s the room I had as a child. It must be a dream. It makes no sense otherwise. But it’s a nice dream, and I hope it lasts a long time.

 Those were the words Sylvan wrote in her diary, the red volume given to her by her father when she was eight. He’d been away—he was often away, and she recalled the pain of that separation, but the memory was strange, as if drifting on smoke.

“This whole thing is strange,” she reminded herself. “A dream, though a particularly vivid one. I’m really somewhere else, some-when else, but for the life of me I can’t remember…”

The place that had slipped Sylvan’s mind was the narrow bed in the nursing home that had been her residence since the stroke a year ago. The staff at St. Vincent’s were kind and solicitous, but there was only so much they could do for the woman. Word was, she had been a well-known author in her day, though no one was curious enough to look it up or read her stories about fantastic places and beasts of myth. Now her readers were few, her books lost among the millions that never made it onto the New York Times Best Seller List.

Sylvan shook her head. Thinking made her head ache. Rising, she went to the window and looked out on the familiar sight. The old garden—except it wasn’t old anymore. The grass was freshly mowed, and primroses bloomed along the border. The apple tree blossomed pink and pretty. From her room, looking down, it seemed especially glorious.

This isn’t right, Sylvan thought to herself. Didn’t Uncle Fran come and cut the tree down? They said it was rotten inside. I cried and cried. Yet there it is. I don’t understand.

Sylvan was brought from her musing by a meow outside her bedroom door. A gray cat pushed through, first a nose, then a dainty foot. The cat stared up at Sylvan, blinking amber eyes.

“Brie!” Sylvan cried. She ran to the cat, and falling to her knees, grabbed her in her arms. For a moment, she buried her face in the velvet fur, then she sat up, her brow scrunched in a bewildered frown.

“Brie?” she muttered again. “But how…? You died.” Like the apple tree, Sylvan thought. You were dead a long, long time ago. So long I can’t even remember what you looked like.

Sylvan held the cat at arm’s length, studying the ash-colored fur, the slightly-pudgy torso, the curve of the feline face. The eyes, eyes that shone like jewels until Sylvan could see nothing else.

Brie briefly allowed the awkward hold before she squirmed out of Sylvan’s grasp. Throwing the girl an enigmatic look, she stalked to the door and flowed through the crack like water. Since Sylvan could think of nothing better to do, she rose and followed.

Everything was just as she remembered it—the long, dark hallway that had frightened her so when she was little. When was that? Way back last year? But now she was nine, and neither the high ceiling that disappeared into shadow nor the long, narrow corridor scared her anymore… at least not as much.

At the far end of the hall was the odd-looking door with its translucent window—the water closet. Separate from the rest of the bathroom, a claustrophobic chamber of its own. The cat had stopped halfway there, gray coat blending with the shadows as she sniffed the floor with great interest.

Sylvan moved toward her. “What did you find? Oops…!”

Suddenly Sylvan’s foot was flying out from under her. She landed on the floor beside the cat. As she flung out a hand to brace herself, it met with something sticky. She looked down—her palm was black. At first, in the gloom, she thought it was paint. But it didn’t smell like paint. It smelled like blood.

Sylvan’s nine-year-old self could not have known that smell, but her other self, the one she suspected was still lying in a hospital bed caught up in a dream-mare, knew that odor all too well. During her decades on earth, she had been a nurse, then a medical assistant. She’d even thought of becoming a doctor, but things changed, and her career path veered into a writing life. Later, as she aged, she had smelled that scent again, her own blood as the anti-coagulants she took to stave off stroke had made her bleed at the slightest provocation. The stroke had come anyway, a big one that had incapacitated her.

All the more reason why…, she thought to herself. Why this—the cat, the hallway, the blood—can’t be real.

“Why can’t I wake up?” she groaned out loud.

Because you’re not asleep, came the clipped answer.

Startled, she peered around her, but no one was there. She looked at Brie, but the cat was busy cleaning blood off her paws.

“Dead, then?” she asked the invisible speaker.

Not yet.

Then Sylvan registered another sound, a soft moan, no more than a breeze. Staring into the shadows, she made out a figure lying propped against the wall farther on. Brie was there too now, rubbing her sideburns along the outstretched leg.

Sylvan got to her feet, careful not to slip again, and followed the trail of blood leading up to a man.

“Help me,” he whispered. “Help me out of here before they come again.”

Sylvan paused just short of the downed man’s reach. This was all wrong. Her childhood home, her cat, her red diary—these were things of safety. There had never been blood in the hallway, never a wounded man fallen by the bathroom door.

She glanced around her, picking out details of her past, so familiar as to be ingrained in her psyche. The pattern of the hardwood floor, swirls and lines that she had in childhood games pretended were roads, rivers, and plains. The papered walls with their faded cabbage roses twisting and twining on blue-green vines to the picture rail molding above. Then her eye caught something else, the full-length hall mirror. Her reflection was dim in the shaded gloom, but she could make out enough of herself to know this, too, was familiar.

As it is when one sees oneself, she asserted. Still, something wasn’t right about it. The little girl staring back was most certainly her, but not her as it should have been. Memories came in flashes: other times, other mirrors, other selves.

The tall, slim frame of a teenager.

The full-blossomed body of a woman.

Then those first moments when her breasts began to sag and her belly fatten.

Age had taken its toll. Sylvan learned to live with it. Her last impression of herself was a hush of a human, a near-empty shell, yet here she was at the start again. How could that be?

“Help me, Sylvan,” the man pleaded once more.

She had forgotten all about him. It seemed easy to forget things in this surreal dream of hers. Now it was her self- confusion that was lost as her concentration turned to the injured stranger.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”

“Aron,” he gasped. “Call me Aron.”

He struggled to rise, failed, and sank back against the wall with a groan.

“Help me up, girl. We’ve got to go.”

Sylvan had an odd feeling about this demanding stranger who was messing up her childhood hallway, but the feeling was changing, morphing into one of awareness. She was sure she had never met this Aron before, as a child or any time after, but she was equally certain they were acquainted. More than acquainted. More than friends. But what more?

She sank down beside him, peering at a gash running through the curls of his hair. Carefully she touched it.

“Who hurt you?”

Aron flinched but didn’t pull away. He didn’t answer her question either.

“It doesn’t look too bad. The bleeding’s stopped. Let me get something to clean it up.”

“We need to go,” Aron gasped, but halfheartedly.

“Clean up first, then I can assess the damage. After that, you can go if you wish.”

“We…” he corrected, but Sylvan was already off.

She headed into the bathroom and approached the porcelain sink. Strangely, she found a small flame burning in the drain. The shock of the absurdity made her heart race with unfounded fear, but she needed to move quickly.  Crossing to the bathtub faucet, she cleaned her hands and wet a washcloth, then with another glance at the peculiar fire, she returned to the wounded man. As she removed the caked blood from the cut, she had a thought: her nine-year-old self would not have known how to do that. Sylvan hadn’t learned first aid until much later in her life.

“Humph,” she muttered. This dream was getting more complicated by the minute.

“It’s not a dream, Sylvan.”

Sylvan looked up. “What did you say?”

“This isn’t a dream. Ouch!” he added as she tended his wound.

“How would you know? You are part of the dream.”

She began drying his hair with a face towel embroidered with the letters, M-R-S. Her mama’s towel. Mama would be angry for her ruining it, Sylvan thought with childlike remorse.

Aron flinched again. “Here, let me do that.” He took the towel and pressed it to his head. “Not a dream,” he muttered under his breath.

“Then if you know so much, tell me what it is?”

“I’ll tell you everything, but later. Now we’ve got to go. The watchers are already here, and we have to save the baby.”

Sylvan shook her head without comprehension. “Huh?”

Aron lurched to his feet and took Sylvan by the hand. His first step was shaky, but he rallied. With long strides, he made for the staircase, dragging Sylvan with him.

Sylvan pulled out of his grasp. “Hold on. I need to get something first.”

Running back into her bedroom, she grabbed the red diary, then picked up the cat. Cradling Brie in her arms, she rejoined the tall stranger who wasn’t a stranger.

“Now I’m ready,” she told him as they dove into her future past.

 

Chapter 2: THE STRANGER, coming next Saturday.

TIME BEING, Chapter 1: TIME WARP

An old woman trapped in an unconscious state finds herself traveling through time to significant points in her life, but things are not the same as she remembers them. Past and future become mailable, hers to mold, but how can she know where her time-sculpting may lead? Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, she picks her way among the visions, hoping the choices she makes will be the right ones.

Chapter 1: TIME WARP

 

You’ll never guess where I am! That’s because I can’t believe it either.

I’m sitting at my little desk in my bedroom, except it’s the room I had as a child. It must be a dream. It makes no sense otherwise. But it’s a nice dream, and I hope it lasts a long time.

 Those were the words Sylvan wrote in her diary, the red volume given to her by her father when she was eight. He’d been away—he was often away, and she recalled the pain of that separation, but the memory was strange, as if drifting on smoke.

“This whole thing is strange,” she reminded herself. “A dream, though a particularly vivid one. I’m really somewhere else, some-when else, but for the life of me I can’t remember…”

The place that had slipped Sylvan’s mind was the narrow bed in the nursing home that had been her residence since the stroke a year ago. The staff at St. Vincent’s were kind and solicitous, but there was only so much they could do for the woman. Word was, she had been a well-known author in her day, though no one was curious enough to look it up or read her stories about fantastic places and beasts of myth. Now her readers were few, her books lost among the millions that never made it onto the New York Times Best Seller List.

Sylvan shook her head. Thinking made her head ache. Rising, she went to the window and looked out on the familiar sight. The old garden—except it wasn’t old anymore. The grass was freshly mowed, and primroses bloomed along the border. The apple tree blossomed pink and pretty. From her room, looking down, it seemed especially glorious.

This isn’t right, Sylvan thought to herself. Didn’t Uncle Fran come and cut the tree down? They said it was rotten inside. I cried and cried. Yet there it is. I don’t understand.

Sylvan was brought from her musing by a meow outside her bedroom door. A gray cat pushed through, first a nose, then a dainty foot. The cat stared up at Sylvan, blinking amber eyes.

“Brie!” Sylvan cried. She ran to the cat, and falling to her knees, grabbed her in her arms. For a moment, she buried her face in the velvet fur, then she sat up, her brow scrunched in a bewildered frown.

“Brie?” she muttered again. “But how…? You died.” Like the apple tree, Sylvan thought. You were dead a long, long time ago. So long I can’t even remember what you looked like.

Sylvan held the cat at arm’s length, studying the ash-colored fur, the slightly-pudgy torso, the curve of the feline face. The eyes, eyes that shone like jewels until Sylvan could see nothing else.

Brie briefly allowed the awkward hold before she squirmed out of Sylvan’s grasp. Throwing the girl an enigmatic look, she stalked to the door and flowed through the crack like water. Since Sylvan could think of nothing better to do, she rose and followed.

Everything was just as she remembered it—the long, dark hallway that had frightened her so when she was little. When was that? Way back last year? But now she was nine, and neither the high ceiling that disappeared into shadow nor the long, narrow corridor scared her anymore… at least not as much.

At the far end of the hall was the odd-looking door with its translucent window—the water closet. Separate from the rest of the bathroom, a claustrophobic chamber of its own. The cat had stopped halfway there, gray coat blending with the shadows as she sniffed the floor with great interest.

Sylvan moved toward her. “What did you find? Oops…!”

Suddenly Sylvan’s foot was flying out from under her. She landed on the floor beside the cat. As she flung out a hand to brace herself, it met with something sticky. She looked down—her palm was black. At first, in the gloom, she thought it was paint. But it didn’t smell like paint. It smelled like blood.

Sylvan’s nine-year-old self could not have known that smell, but her other self, the one she suspected was still lying in a hospital bed caught up in a dream-mare, knew that odor all too well. During her decades on earth, she had been a nurse, then a medical assistant. She’d even thought of becoming a doctor, but things changed, and her career path veered into a writing life. Later, as she aged, she had smelled that scent again, her own blood as the anti-coagulants she took to stave off stroke had made her bleed at the slightest provocation. The stroke had come anyway, a big one that had incapacitated her.

All the more reason why…, she thought to herself. Why this—the cat, the hallway, the blood—can’t be real.

“Why can’t I wake up?” she groaned out loud.

Because you’re not asleep, came the clipped answer.

Startled, she peered around her, but no one was there. She looked at Brie, but the cat was busy cleaning blood off her paws.

“Dead, then?” she asked the invisible speaker.

Not yet.

Then Sylvan registered another sound, a soft moan, no more than a breeze. Staring into the shadows, she made out a figure lying propped against the wall farther on. Brie was there too now, rubbing her sideburns along the outstretched leg.

Sylvan got to her feet, careful not to slip again, and followed the trail of blood leading up to a man.

“Help me,” he whispered. “Help me out of here before they come again.”

Sylvan paused just short of the downed man’s reach. This was all wrong. Her childhood home, her cat, her red diary—these were things of safety. There had never been blood in the hallway, never a wounded man fallen by the bathroom door.

She glanced around her, picking out details of her past, so familiar as to be ingrained in her psyche. The pattern of the hardwood floor, swirls and lines that she had in childhood games pretended were roads, rivers, and plains. The papered walls with their faded cabbage roses twisting and twining on blue-green vines to the picture rail molding above. Then her eye caught something else, the full-length hall mirror. Her reflection was dim in the shaded gloom, but she could make out enough of herself to know this, too, was familiar.

As it is when one sees oneself, she asserted. Still, something wasn’t right about it. The little girl staring back was most certainly her, but not her as it should have been. Memories came in flashes: other times, other mirrors, other selves.

The tall, slim frame of a teenager.

The full-blossomed body of a woman.

Then those first moments when her breasts began to sag and her belly fatten.

Age had taken its toll. Sylvan learned to live with it. Her last impression of herself was a hush of a human, a near-empty shell, yet here she was at the start again. How could that be?

“Help me, Sylvan,” the man pleaded once more.

She had forgotten all about him. It seemed easy to forget things in this surreal dream of hers. Now it was her self- confusion that was lost as her concentration turned to the injured stranger.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”

“Aron,” he gasped. “Call me Aron.”

He struggled to rise, failed, and sank back against the wall with a groan.

“Help me up, girl. We’ve got to go.”

Sylvan had an odd feeling about this demanding stranger who was messing up her childhood hallway, but the feeling was changing, morphing into one of awareness. She was sure she had never met this Aron before, as a child or any time after, but she was equally certain they were acquainted. More than acquainted. More than friends. But what more?

She sank down beside him, peering at a gash running through the curls of his hair. Carefully she touched it.

“Who hurt you?”

Aron flinched but didn’t pull away. He didn’t answer her question either.

“It doesn’t look too bad. The bleeding’s stopped. Let me get something to clean it up.”

“We need to go,” Aron gasped, but halfheartedly.

“Clean up first, then I can assess the damage. After that, you can go if you wish.”

“We…” he corrected, but Sylvan was already off.

She headed into the bathroom and approached the porcelain sink. Strangely, she found a small flame burning in the drain. The shock of the absurdity made her heart race with unfounded fear, but she needed to move quickly.  Crossing to the bathtub faucet, she cleaned her hands and wet a washcloth, then with another glance at the peculiar fire, she returned to the wounded man. As she removed the caked blood from the cut, she had a thought: her nine-year-old self would not have known how to do that. Sylvan hadn’t learned first aid until much later in her life.

“Humph,” she muttered. This dream was getting more complicated by the minute.

“It’s not a dream, Sylvan.”

Sylvan looked up. “What did you say?”

“This isn’t a dream. Ouch!” he added as she tended his wound.

“How would you know? You are part of the dream.”

She began drying his hair with a face towel embroidered with the letters, M-R-S. Her mama’s towel. Mama would be angry for her ruining it, Sylvan thought with childlike remorse.

Aron flinched again. “Here, let me do that.” He took the towel and pressed it to his head. “Not a dream,” he muttered under his breath.

“Then if you know so much, tell me what it is?”

“I’ll tell you everything, but later. Now we’ve got to go. The watchers are already here, and we have to save the baby.”

Sylvan shook her head without comprehension. “Huh?”

Aron lurched to his feet and took Sylvan by the hand. His first step was shaky, but he rallied. With long strides, he made for the staircase, dragging Sylvan with him.

Sylvan pulled out of his grasp. “Hold on. I need to get something first.”

Running back into her bedroom, she grabbed the red diary, then picked up the cat. Cradling Brie in her arms, she rejoined the tall stranger who wasn’t a stranger.

“Now I’m ready,” she told him as they dove into her future past.

 

Chapter 2: THE STRANGER, coming next Saturday.

“TIME BEING” COMING SOON ON THIS SITE

My serialized story Time Being was originally published on the now-defunct Kindle Vella. It was a fun project and as I reread it, I see how I can fit it in as a freebee for my esteemed blog readers. The plan is to post a chapter each week on this blogsite, then archive the complete collection on my new “Stories” page. There are 15 chapters in all.

 

A part flight-of-fancy, part drama, part timey-wimey fantasy.

A plot that evolves from episode to episode.

An arc to tie it together.

 

Sylvan Dale, an elderly woman…

goes back in time…

to confront her past…

to change her past…

To change her past and her future.

Her companions are Aron—is he an angel or an alien?—and Brie, a magical cat from Sylvan’s past.

 

1952-That time when Sylvan witnesses her own amazing birth.

2021-That time when she is paralyzed by stroke.

1968-That time when she protests the Kent State shootings.

2000-A new century.

1961-That time when she wakes up in her childhood home.

2030-That time when she sees a future that cannot be explained.

 

An old woman trapped in an unconscious state finds herself traveling through time to significant points in her life, but things are not the same as she remembers them. Past and future become mailable, hers to mold, but how can she know where her time-sculpting may lead? Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, she picks her way among the visions, hoping the choices she makes will be the right ones.

What memories do you think about? What do you wish you could change? How about the future—what do you see there, or would you rather be surprised? Take Sylvan’s journey and see if you would make the same choices.

 

MURDER MYSTERY MURDERS APLENTY

Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

We all love a good murder mystery, don’t we?

Whether it’s a book, a TV series, or a movie, the mystery genre continues to thrive, and some businesses are taking full advantage of the craze. From out of this vicarious enjoyment has come something more proactive, an in-person, hands-on event: the Murder Mystery Weekend where the guests and players intermingle.

Circling back around to books and films, writers are going even further to offer the greatest thrill of all—penning and producing stories of the Murder Mystery Event murder! Fact is, I chose that theme for my latest Tenth Life mystery, Ghost Cat at the Mystery Hotel. I saw it as a challenge. I wanted to take the premise—guests at a Mystery Weekend are terrified when a real murder takes place—and give it a new spin.

The first thing I did was to look up what had been done already. I researched those stories so as not to repeat the same old plot. I wanted to make my story my own, and I succeeded in at least one aspect. None of the others featured cats!

In a way, my fascination with this theme carries back to the original Agatha Christie mystery, And Then There Were None. Ten guests on a secluded island getting picked off one by one. The killer is among them, but who is it? The brilliant Christie carries it off with her usual superlative flare.

I am a great fan of British mysteries, but I don’t have those exclusionary pay channels like Acorn and BritBox, so I wait for the DVD to come to our wonderful local library. Lo and behold, twice recently I discovered murder mystery murders have been the theme of episodes in my recent rentals.

The Madame Blanc Mysteries Season 3 Christmas Special takes Jean and her eclectic group of friends to a spooky hotel where a storm traps them for the night. The lights go out! When they come on, someone is dead.

Season 2 Episode 5 of the Harry Wild Series involves another murder-mystery party on a secluded island. Costumes abound, but someone is a killer.

Photo by Quasi Misha on Unsplash

Many of these stories include inclement weather which allows for participants to be trapped, lights to go out, cell phone reception to be lost, and other surprising things to happen. I, too, used a storm in my cat mystery, along with a ghost or two.

You can read my older post about THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERY WEEKENDS for a bit more insight on my thought process while writing Ghost Cat at the Mystery Hotel.

If you like this theme, here are a few suggestions. (I took these from a Google list and am not familiar with all of them, so I make no recommendations.)

Books: “The Writing Retreat” by Julia Bartz, “An Unwanted Guest” by Shari Lapena, or “Rock Paper Scissors” by Alice Feeney, which all feature isolated groups, secrets, and deadly consequences.

Movies: “Knives Out,” “Glass Onion,” “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Death on the Nile,” “Gosford Park,” “Memories of Murder,” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

Did you find any of your favorites on the list? Can you think of other murder mystery murders stories or films?

CLARENCE – a Poem for National Poetry Month

Clarence

 

The way he steps lightly into the warmth of the cat bed

Arranges himself in a perfect circle

Puffy tail wrapped around to complete the ring

His stripped face

Caramel ruff

Black toes, pink nose

Green eyes that look with love and wonder

He is the answer to all my questions

The revelation of the ages

The secrets of the universe

The little tripod cat who holds me in the clutch of his paw.