Rites of exorcism 3.0

Or something like that. I did one version to 20 pages, redid from scratch to 80 pages (35K and change) and realized I'd have to change a fair bit to get some characters feeling believable. Shelved it for current project, but it's nagging me again. This time with a solution: take the Rites 2.0, finish it in my head. And make it the back story to another novel. The only thing I need to keep, really, is the stuff with Aiden's grandmother. A lot of other things will make more sense, Brooke and Sal attempt to deal with their odd relationship as twenty-something's and I'll see where it goes from there.

magnetic fields.

"Early Earth's Magnetic Field Was a Weakling"

If only it knew that in 3.5 billion years people would say such things, it might have tried harder.

Box and fox: an update (finally)

The story as it stands is now at 23.5K. It used to be a bit longer, but in editing some bits for the writing group I ended up re-reading it to date and realizing one character could not show up when she did. Why not? Honestly, I don't even know now but scenes were deleted and attempts to move her reunion with Boy worked on. All told, I wrote ~5K new words and lost about 7K during two weeks and change. OTOH, I have a better idea of where it is going from here than I did before and the next few scenes are sitting about in my head waiting to be written.

Of grass and empire

The grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. They were all there, I was told, but felt no need to count. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell, or so my guide assured me, stumbling over the words. English it a hard enough second language to speak when one is not afraid, I thought, and just listened. He didn't want to be here, of course, but he dared not disobey.

"Fresleven," I said, not meaning to speak aloud, but the bones did not stir. A foolish fancy, but such things strike us more easily out here than in England. This is the very edge of the Empire, at least metaphorically, and things are different here. They believe in magic and they make us magic. And why not? We are capable of things they can barely dream of, holding an Empire that stretches around the entire world. Even Rome fails in comparison to what we are, though we still use their roads.

And here, without roman roads, there are other paths, of stone and bone. "All we do is build on the ruins of the past," I said to myself and shook my head. I drew the cross over his bones and looked over at my guide, who saluted me nervously.

Morituri te salutant, I thought, surprisingly myself.: the guide looked healthy enough. Even so, I did not salute back. "The body must be buried."

He froze. "We dare not move the Being. The villagers fled, and dare not return. To disturb the remains would free it to hunt them."

I raised my eyebrows. Our family is not that far removed from the King, and we have lands and titles aplenty. The guide drew back (perhaps he paled, I can never tell with them) but shook his head again.

"You are in my service," I said, and he squirmed and nodded jerkily. He wanted to run, but my words held him in place.

I do not know why. They thing us supernatural begins, and perhaps engender it. I can order the common rabble and servants with ease, but even the King, I think, cannot command in the way my voice has here.

"Would you die, if I asked?" I hadn't meant to speak, but I couldn't help but do so.

"Yes," the guide said, not hesitating a moment, his eyes clear and flesh willing.

I hesitate in turn, taken aback. I was to ask if we are gods or demons, we supernatural beings, but I am almost -- ah, almost -- certain he would lie to save my honour at the cost of his own. I feel strangely heavy as I turn away from the corpse. 'The gentlest of men', Fresleven was called, and it lead to attempted murder over two black hens.

And they know we die as they do, supernatural or not, I thought, but tried to keep the thought from showing on my face.. I wanted to ask what the guide thought of us, of Britain, but the building I had been housed in this morning was a chief's home, once, and I imagine it was built on older ruins still.

"There will come empires after ours," I said, half to the guide, trying to be only the man I was for a moment, in this solitude. "I imagine we will feel towards them as you do to us, angry over what they have, what we lost, marvelling at their arrogance, secure in our condemnation."

For a moment I thought nothing had changed, that my attempt had failed, when the guide favoured men with a slow, sad smile. "They will speak of rights," he said, "as you do now. But we have only responsibilities."

To whom? I opened my mouth to ask. And for what? I closed it and smiled in return. My children would know, or their children's children, when all they would have is quiet pride devoid of arrogance and clothing of the lost dreams of empire to chase them to sleep each night.

I turned away, heading back towards the ocean. "If I stay, I will die like Fresleven. I will make his mistakes, demand things, wish for things that are not mine to have."

"All men do that," the guide said.

"You would have an Empire again?"

"All men learn as well," the guide said smoothly, but did not quite meet my gaze.

I walked away, leaving the supernatural being behind me to be food for worms and a story for villagers. Our empire would end in time, but Fresleven might live on, destroy of villages and seeker of hens, to become a story told to children long after even Britannia is forget. The thought was, strangely, almost cheering, but I shared it with no one, and even less to be a supernatural being and bind and loose what I could not contain nor understand.

I fled from power to safety, and maybe that -- and people like me -- are why the Empire will fall. I don't know. I don't think I want to.

The Lion, The Children, And The Zoo

Dearest Judith,

It is with deep regret and a sorrowful heart that I write this missive to you. I cannot say when the madness first began to appear among them, but it spread among the children like wildfire and would not be contained. I believe the fancies begun with tales by Mr. Tumnus, our elderly gardener who once worked for the zoo until the unfortunate incident with the elephant which I shall not relate herein.

I have reason to suspect that the Turkish Delight Mr. Tumnus gave to Lucy and the others contained various hallucinogens owing to the bizarre nature of their behaviour and the eventual tragic results. While the police are still not certain about the events at the county zoo, it is known that Edmund decided a random woman was his mother and refused to leave her side until the other three children freed a lion and it attacked her and killed the poor woman and then the four children who were to all accounts trying to get it to “name the animals”, of all possibly absurdities.

The lion was rather enraged and the police shot it a multitude of times before it fell, breaking a stone park bench and, astonishly, trying to rise again before they shot it several more times. The children, alas, could not be saved.

The police are still searching my home for clues as to their aberrant behaviour but alas with the disappearance of Mr. Tumnus we may never know just what he gave poor Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter. God rest their souls.

Your loving brother, Digory.

P.S. You would not believe the condition of grandmother’s old wardrobe in the attic. I don’t know what games they were playing in it, but it is positively disgraceful. I cleaned out human waste from it and some of Lucy’s toys, leading me to believe the other three must have locked her in their at one point.

Box and fox excerpt

"A boy was following the path. He was thin and hollowed out, skin pale with a hint of grey under it, head devoid of hair save for spare eyebrows."

That is probably one of my better mistakes :)

A one word bit of fun

one word gives you a word, and sixty seconds to write something about it. This was mine:


All he had, he told her, was hers. She didn't believe him and returned home, across the seas, and he sent her his heart later that year, in a box, only it never got past customs.

Love, the post office said, is not exportable. Neither is that.

The nail

Thinking about Roy, my tears tracing
fresh lines of woe into my face like
the cuts on my arms, I cover my sorrow
with a veil, my arms with
a top, and oh, my sorrow, and oh, my
sorrowess, the memory is tender
as a bruise and my muse expires
from the pain of ecstasy as I write
his name in the sand of time to be
washed away, grimed and ruined
in all but memory of Roy.

I would have nailed him like Jesus
to the cross, licked his sorrow like
sandpaper-kitten toungues and the pain
of my broken nail reminds me tears swelling
like my belly (all better, now)
like a whale on the beach, dying, and he
no longer is, but I wish to see him
but once and again, forevermore. My love.

Boy and Fox, 10 days in

10K into the story. So far the oddest part has been the creation of GROWL (Grassroots Organization for Werewolf Liberation) and STARVE (Society to Achieve Responsible Vampire Emancipation). Both of which took over twenty minutes each to think up ....

Boy and Fox post

7 days into Boy and Fox (as of last night) and 7K and change written. A much slower pace than nano, but also a very different story. It's about a young man, currently named Boy (he has forgot his name) who is wandering a (the?) spirit world, en route back to his body. He knows he is looking for someone, but is unsure who, or even why. Currently he has been befriended by a fox that was eaten by ogres.