scribblings

march 14

the writing

spring sky brightening 
a perfect blue, as snow 
crunches underfoot

~

“Sink or swim,” he whispered, and pushed her over the railing. 
The moment she hit the water, the clear sky swirled with sickly green clouds; the ocean darkened, roiling waves tossing the ship about, sending the crew into a frenzy.
“She really is a daughter of the sea,” he muttered, thinking he should have shot her instead…

~

Carefully shifting the Captain’s portrait, Eva spots the skull and bones carved into the stone, no bigger than a coin. Pressing it, a nearby bookcase swings open with a screech. 
Mr. Vickers pounds at the door: “What are you doing in there?” 
Flashlight at the ready, she runs into the dark, followed by her cousin. 

~

“Careful with that,” Elsadora snapped, rifling through her ingredients. 
Morgan flinched, almost fumbling the glass sphere before catching and setting it down carefully. “Why? Is it cursed?”
“That one holds siren song,” the witch replied, “a few notes and we’d cheerfully drown ourselves.”

~

“Raise the flag, Warren,” Ava Cloudsinger whispers, bloodstained and exhausted. She hands him some dubiously white fabric.
“No—no! We are not surrendering to those stinkin’ mages!” Penn snarls.
“The twins are dead,” their captain snaps, “and I will be damned if I let another one of my crew die in this godsforsaken tower.” 
“They’ll hang you, Cap,” Warren speaks low, taking the cloth in hand without moving. 
“Yes, and the rest of you will denounce me and serve your time and get on with your lives. That is an order, you scum-soaked slag-heaps.” 
This desperate moment of bravado might have held true, had Ava’s voice not cracked, had Warren not embraced her first, followed by the rest. Even the ghosts in the room wept.

~

“We’re being followed.”
“Oh…dear. You wanna, erm, deal with them?” Ali looked rather distressed at the thought. Poor girl never did well with violence.
“Deidre told us to keep a low profile…” Zeke sighed. “Always a thorn in my side, that woman, even when she’s not here to screech at me…right, let’s split up. I’ll draw them off—meet you at the Jolly Roger Tavern in an hour.”
He slipped off before Ali could protest.

the reading

Poem: “;” by Matthew Thorburn

“For years, I avoided you. Thought the clear
finality of a period was best. Well,
I was young. Such certainties were easy;
they came with little cost. Now in middle age
I’ve come to love your lingering, the gentle way
you link, like a paperclip, two thoughts too
linked to stand alone. Come to love this
other way of moving forward by holding still
a moment. Instead of ending here,
we pause; we breathe; we walk on.”

Short Story: “The House That Sighs” by C.C. Harlow

“I climbed the stone stairs, but I dared not push the front door open. I stayed firmly rooted to the front porch, knowing all too well that the house would not let me enter, for, in her eyes, I was not the new mistress of the house, but a passing soul, like those that come and go with the tour guide, gaping in admiration at the minstrel’s gallery and at the jungle of centennial portraits.
I was never welcome here.
I was never furniture.
All I was was a stranger.
And strangers don’t stay long at Holloway.”