Vivika Widow's Blog, page 83
February 29, 2016
“The heart of the Kukri has been broken
“The heart of the Kukri has been broken in two. Only a great light will be able to repair it.” #conflictofthethrone http://ow.ly/i/h9cg7
King Henry isn’t royal blood. Hidden is
King Henry isn’t royal blood. Hidden is the truth of his rise to the throne. #mythsandtales ow.ly/Ylaui http://ow.ly/i/h9cMb
17 days to go! #Maestro #thriller #aunty
17 days to go! #Maestro #thriller #auntyvivslatest When an obsessive and a murderer meet! http://ow.ly/i/h9bPz
February 4, 2016
Vivika Widow’s ‘Myths and Tales’ Official Teaser 2016
‘Myths and Tales’ a series by Leo St Paul. Based on the works of Vivika Widow. Starring Simone Connelly as Vivika Widow.
For the latest updates subscribe to the Torrance Media youtube channel!
Copyright Torrance Media 2016. All Rights Reserved.
A little video to brighten your day!
‘All rained off’ Starring Kirsten Connelly. Directed by Leo St Paul. Copyright Torrance Media 2016. All Rights Reserved.
Enjoy! And for more funny videos be sure to subscribe to the Torrance Media YouTube Channel
January 22, 2016
January 17, 2016
Knock, Knock; by Vivika Widow; Episode 5
The grey skies of Westcliff were fitting for its rugged and harsh landscape. It was a cold, windy island were it rained frequently. Upon a large hill, at the highest point on the island stood a manor house, viewed with awe and respect. Therein lived the Crusow family. No on on the island spoke of it but the Crusow patriarch – Samuel Crusow – had amassed a great deal of power within the community. Samuel had one daughter. His sons were long gone. Emily Crusow had been walking the halls, carrying a child in her arms, sobbing for so long that the very stone of the building was beginning to vibrate with her grief. She had managed to keep the father of her child secret for the first few months of her son’s life. She should have known she couldn’t have kept him hidden forever.
Her father had been summoned by the jingling of bells as servants began to lay the long table for two. Samuel Crusow sat himself at the usual spot at the head of the table. A plate of thick broth was placed under his nose. Samuel immediately set about breaking bread. He had built up quite a hunger that day as it happened.
“Will you stop with that incessant crying!” he barked at his daughter. Bread crumbs fell onto his full auburn beard.
“Please, just let me and my baby go,” cried Emily. “We are no use to you now.”
Samuel smiled with a mouth full. He swallowed the masticated bread and replied, “Even if the little boy is a half breed, he can still be of use. He bares my name and bares my blood. He could find himself at the very top of our food chain if he is raised correctly. He has the chance here to become a great leader. He could have everything he could want and yet you wanted to take him away so he could starve and fade away like the rest them? You lost all chance of being his mother when you made that decision. When he is finished nursing you can go and join the rest of them on the ash heap but the boy stays.”
One of the maids who was most sympathetic to Emily’s plight tried to urge her to sit at the table. Emily pulled her baby closer to her. “You have to eat something,” groaned Samuel as he turned his attention to a newspaper one of the maids had left for him. “It’s not good for the baby.”
In the cover of darkness, in the silence of the night, Emily carried her baby away from the only home she had ever known, the monstrous building she had only just seen the outside of. A small fishing boat was waiting for her on the coast. She had to hurry. Her father’s reach was long and far. She didn’t know who she could trust. Her life had been dominated by ‘The Group’. Until she met Perry – a simple fisherman – she couldn’t conceive of a life outside the group. She didn’t wish for her son to suffer the same. With the help of some of the staff she managed to reach the outside. She didn’t shy away from the cutting wind, she embraced it. For Emily it meant freedom.
“Where are you going?” Tawny McInney had been watching the Crusow house for most of the night. She had been meticulously noting in her mind the changes in lighting through the windows and any shadows moving behind the curtains. Her face was reddened and weather beaten. Her mass of mousey brown curls were hidden beneath a hood.
“Please don’t hurt Sam,” Emily cried, knowing that pleading with Tawny wouldn’t do her much good.
Tawny leaned over and moved the sheets that the baby was wrapped in away from his face. He was fast asleep. He smacked his lips and turned towards the heat of his mother. “Your father is shuddering under the weight of ‘The Group’. He has lost touch with the principals we were founded on.”
Emily looked towards the water edge where Perry’s brother, Peter, was waiting to take her to the mainland and to safety. “I have to go,” said she. “I have to get away from my father before he hurts Sam or hurts me.”
Tawny had never been much of a sympathetic woman. In ‘The Group’ she was probably the most blood thirsty, even more so than Samuel. Something was brewing. ‘The Group’ had been questioning Samuel Crusow’s leadership. Tawny would be the one to step forward and take his place.
“The Group is about to change in terrible and glorious ways. You do not want to be caught in the middle. Take your child to the safety of the mainland. Care for him. Perhaps one day when he is a man we will call upon him.”
To allow Sam to fall into the hands of Tawny and the other’s was a worse fate than anything Samuel would have in store. However, Tawny was offering her something that Emily didn’t have – time. Emily’s immediate concern was getting Sam away from the island. He could grow up away from ‘The Group’. Maybe they would find him one day but in the meantime taking him to the city was the best chance Sam would have. There in Coldford no one had yet heard the name, Samuel Crusow.
***
“So my grandfather was a lunatic and he began this group who felt they were so above the rest of humanity that they could kill for whatever reason they felt necessary?” I said, probably sounding a little more concise in my head than the nonsense that escaped my lips.
Tabitha leaned back against the bar. She had long finished her tall glass of gin and soda. I was still nursing the whiskey in my hand, having held it so long it was warm.
“That’s a rather crude way of putting it but that is the gist. Although, I must profess, your grandfather wasn’t a lunatic. He was a great man but he had lost his way. In the midst of the first great depression the islands were a harsh place to live. There were three prominent families – mines and yours included. Your grandfather saw to it that the worthy ones were provided for. Space, money and even blood and flesh had to be taken from the lowers otherwise the worthy ones would suffer and the lowers would feast on them like parasites.
“That is awful!” I exclaimed.
Tabitha laughed. “Well listen to the righteous man with the Crusow name.” She shook her head. “This was at a time when there was no trade to the island, the land couldn’t be cultivated and there were far too many mouths to feed. Something had to be done. The lowers were dying at a rapid rate anyway and if left unchecked they would have brought everyone down with them. They were going to die anyway but their lives didn’t have to be in vain. Like cattle raised for the slaughter they helped provide food, shelter and provisions for the worthy ones. Life could go on much as it had before.”
“So what does that have to do with me?” I asked, trying to comprehend how it fit into it all now.
Tabitha tipped her glass over and began to roll it on its edge. “Well you are the key to it all. You are the last remaining Crusow. One of the founding members. That is a pretty important role don’t you think? My aunt was right to let your mother leave with you. In doing that ‘The Group’ managed to grow from some miserable little island cult to something much grander. When your mother had a child with one of the lowers it caused the members to look at how things were run, how it was decided who was lower and who was worthy in the first place. It was dangerous to keep you around, my aunt saw that but your grandfather didn’t.”
“Where is my grandfather now? Is he still alive?”
Tabitha stopped fidgeting with her glass and stood it back upright. “When your mother escaped a sort of civil war was born within ‘The Group’. My aunt and your grandfather made for pretty powerful allies. They both still believed that those of lesser importance should be sacrificed for the benefit of those in authority. Samuel’s blood had mixed with that of the lowers when you were born. Some didn’t like that. Whilst the others bickered over the purity of ‘The Group’ my aunt set about restoring it to its former glory. My family followed you to Coldford. My aunt had promised your mother that she would find you. When she came to Coldford she saw the corruption in high places, like your mayor friend, the miserable wretches that swamped the streets. She had only just bought the club and cemented herself in Coldford society when she died and the second depression hit. Some of ‘The Group’ followed my aunt and thrived in the city. Others stayed behind with your grandfather and died out.”
The weight of grief began to press down on me again as I considered the scale of the situation I was in. “My wife is dead because of this. Theresa had nothing to do with any of this.”
Tabitha raised her eyebrows. “I’m genuinely sorry for what happened to Theresa. It was not our doing. There are still some out there who don’t like the idea of ‘The Group’ being led by a man who was sired by a fisherman. Theresa’s murder was a warning.”
“Where does the mayor come in?” I had pondered the question constantly from the moment Dennis pulled a gun to the mayor’s head.
“Mayor Feltz was a stupid man. His wife had used her connections with ‘The Group’ to gain political office. He then treated his wife and child terribly. The aid we gave him in getting his job was in the understanding that we would have influence in his office. He wasn’t willing to share. He felt that now he was mayor he could get away with anything. No one is above ‘The Group’.”
“How have you managed to get away with this for so long?”
“It’s very simple really,” she answered. “If you approach someone in power and tell them they have the right to decide the fates of those lower than them they tend to jump at the opportunity. Flattery is a very powerful tool. When that fails there is always good old fashioned threat of violence.”
I knew then that it was never going to be so easy as to walk out the door of the ‘knock, knock’ club and leave all this behind. They had people everywhere and now they were trying to make me their leader because I had the same name as the man crazy enough to begin it all in the first place. I asked myself again, not for the last time … what had I gotten myself into?
Missed the beginning? Maybe you just want to go back and read some more…
January 11, 2016
Extract from Vivika Widow’s Maestro
As always Ernest was late for dinner. Elizabeth was alone with George. She could understand why some women had the call of the maternal instinct. Some of her closest friends would turn up to afternoon tea with an entire brood of babies whining for their attention – refusing to hand them to a nanny for such little inconveniences as face wiping or showing affection. She resented having been left alone with a child that didn’t belong to her.
“You’ll feel different when it’s your own child,” her mother friends told her, but as she sat across the long dining table
form George, with his fair, angelic face and his large saucer eyes she couldn’t see it. He was prettier than most little boys. Before her untimely demise, his mother, Alice had been so proud of her baby boy. George was the constant champion for his mother’s attention. Her devotion was unwavering towards him. He was too young yet to fully grasp why such a void would be left in his life but he did understand that his mother had been replaced by a virtual stranger who didn’t share his mother’s enthusiasm for everything he said and did.
They ate their meal in silence. Initially, Elizabeth had tried engaging the little boy in conversation but gave up when George wasn’t particularly receptive. They solid ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway thundered through their silence.
After a while Elizabeth noticed that George wasn’t eating any of this vegetables. He was using his fork to move what remained of them around his plate.
“Aren’t you going to eat your vegetables?” she asked.
Without looking up George answered, “I don’t want them.”
Elizabeth tried a smile. “They are good for you…”
George slammed his fork down. “I don’t want them!”
Elizabeth’s fingers began to twitch. “Calm down. You don’t have to eat them.”
George threw his seat back. His boyish round face contorted in a sneer. His neatly combed hair began to furrow with his frustration. “I hate you!” he screamed at his aunt.
Elizabeth lifted the glass of white wine she was having with her meal in one hand and waved the child off with the other. “I hate you too you ungrateful little brat,” she snarled with venom.
“You are a murderer,” said the boy.
Elizabeth frowned. “Don’t be so stupid.”
George snarled, “Little Suzie Winkle is dead because of you.”
Elizabeth dropped her glass in such a rush some of the wine spilled onto the table. “Where did you hear that?” she asked, more frightened than angry. George’s face flushed crimson. He pursed his young lips. His innocent eyes overshadowed with an almost adult vexation. “You are excused,” Elizabeth barked. “Get out. You can be assured your father will hear about this.”
George knocked his seat over. It crashed to the floor. “Well I’ll tell dad you are a murderer!”
“Get out!” Elizabeth said again but this time in a full throated scream. George stormed out. When she was alone Elizabeth reached her hand out in front of her to see how badly she was shaking.
The day that little Suzie Winkle perished, Elizabeth and her friends told a very colourful version of events to the authorities. It was declared an accident. Elizabeth and her friends knew the truth. Their guilt would never be alleviated. They chose never to speak of it.
The name being spoken out look shook Elizabeth to her core. There was no way that George could have known about it. She was just a girl when it happened. She hadn’t even told her brother.
‘Maestro’ will be available on the 17th March 2016. For more information or for other novels by Vivika Widow visit http://www.vivikawidow.uk
December 21, 2015
The Capacity to Love
I look around and what do I see?
A chorus of people crying ‘Please help me!’
‘My problem is great, more so than theirs.
You are the one to soothe my cares!’
So who is first? Who deserves it the most?
Perhaps the downtrodden or the benevolent host?
A special place lies for those who will try,
For they are the ones who only in solitude will cry.
They carry their burden in quiet despair,
So to help them first would only be fair.
I have the capacity for love,
It was sent to me from the being above.
It swells in my heart to see the hateful shove,
For I have the capacity to love.
Myths and Tales ( a collection of short stories and poems from Vivika Widow) is available now!
