Fiction Friday: Blood's Kiss (Part Two)

By Rachel Marks

In Case You Haven't Read PART ONE go HERE

I run through the brambles, thirty yards, past patches of blood, following the red streaks in the snow, and come the stump of a burned-out tree. I catch-up to the source laying over a bed of black ash, and—

It’s not a wolf’s body. Not a wolf at all.

It’s a man. Naked. Trying to pull himself into the hole of the tree stump. 

My mind registers details so strange, I wonder suddenly if I’m still in bed, curled in my dream-quilt, playing out a wish in sleep. A wish to find my wolf, a wish that’s turned twisted and wrong.

He’s choking, gasping, blood running from the wound in his shoulder. The flesh there is torn in a jagged gash, the arrow is lying beside his hand, like he’s just torn it out. There’s markings all down his back in a green and blue pattern that look similar to the weaving that wards against storms.

I step back. Close my eyes. Open them again. 

He’s still there.

He’s whispering through the choking, a strange language. He grasps one of the large roots of the tree, and pulls himself forward. I hear, “Please,” in all the muttering, and then he coughs, spraying out a mouth-full of blood.

He’s not human, though. He may look it, but he’s not. His hair is too clean, too golden like the sun. His skin is pale as the moon goddess herself with markings of spells coloring him in the strangest places. And his ears. Humans’ ears aren’t shaped to a point at the tip like that.

I stumble back, knock into a tree, get my bow tangled in the brambles. 

“Please,” he says again. And his eyes meet mine. A golden promise of horror. They lock me in, like a giant’s fist. “Come closer,” he pleads. A genuine asking in his voice, desperation and pain. 

And I should nock another arrow, strike him through the chest, in one of those golden eyes. I should run.

But nothing in my head can make my hands move to grab a weapon, or make my feet whisk me back to safety. 

I’m stuck. Terror rises in me, swift as a storm. He’s golden, just like the stories.

...just like the sun.

“Come closer,” he says with more authority.

I step closer.

Bile rises in my throat. “No,” I grind through my teeth. But my body isn’t listening, it’s only able to obey him.

“Closer,” he hisses. Blood is now running over his shoulder, down his arm, and pooling in the snow between his fingers. “Just one small task and I’ll leave you in peace.”

I have no idea what he means. I have no idea what’s happening to me—will I be whisked off to the Hidden Places, like Jimmi? Am I to be the toy of spirits, tormented and held captive between life and death until I plead for the later? 

My will battles with his, and my insides become a tug of war. He’s stronger, so much stronger than I could’ve ever imagined. Control belongs to him, over my body, my limbs, as they betray me, taking me to his side, forcing me to kneel at the head of a beast. 

I clench my jaw, hold in a cry of rage, and feel tears freeze to my cheeks. “I’ll gut you if you touch me,” I say.

He rises a little, coming up to meet me, so close, his misty breath brushes at my cheek. “You shouldn’t have tried to kill me, little bird. It may have lead you to a new path, one you won’t cherish.” 

His hand rises and he touches his finger to my temple, beside my eye. A caress, light and delicate, sending a shiver over my skin, my body being coated with his power. It spreads, growing warmer, the shiver turning to buzz. The buzz turning to heat. So hot. A fire in my flesh. 

The snow beneath us melts and steam rises into the air.

I gape at him, getting a full view of my end, my wolf, a creature of myth and fire-stories, as lovely and terrifying as anything I’ve ever seen. The fire fills me, burning my core, blurring my vision, pulling me under. Until a sudden white flash bursts behind my eyes and the fire is gone. But there’s something new left there, inside me.

He touches his nose to mine. “Be quick, and don’t forget.” Obvious pain and fear echoes in his voice.

And then he kisses me. Gentle, delicate, a whisper of lips to mine. But with the kiss comes the knowledge of what I have to do. The white fire is gone as I open my eyes, seeing him, his eyes full of tears, resignation in his shoulders. He’s readying himself, telling me to act. Now.

My hand moves to my belt, to my dagger, pulling it free. I grip his neck from behind. Feel the chill of his skin. The rapid pulse beneath. 

And I strike. Shoving the blade straight through his heart, twisting it, hilt to chest. There’s a stillness that settles, his last breath coming out in a hiss. His eyes stay on mine, going dull, from gold to copper before they close. Tears spill out, running over his cheeks and chin. And he’s gone, that spirit of wolf in him drifting away like misty air.

The control on me releases but I can’t seem to move. I can only stare at my work and feel sick. 

What’ve I done? What’s just happened? 

I killed a man.

No, he isn’t a man. 

His body goes limp and he slumps down onto the steaming forest floor. 

(To be continued...)

Rachel Marks is an award winning author and artist. You can read more about her and see her artwork on her webpage: Shadow Of The Wood

Fiction Friday: Blood's Kiss

By Rachel Anne Marks

The hare is tough to spot in the snow, white against soft white, but I see her. I have this sixth sense, an awareness of them, these little creatures that seem so scarce now. But so vital. My brother Jimmi was a trapper. The best.

Was...

The hare nestles just at the base of a tree about ten paces off. It’s white-grey fir shivers as I raise my bow. The sound of snow shifting in the early dawn crackles at the air. Mist drips from the dead branches above me onto my shoulder.

I let the sounds of the forest sink into me and look down the shaft of my arrow, aiming at the hare’s tender spot, below the front leg, and wonder if she has a knowledge like me. That it’s almost the end.

I breathe out and release the arrow.

It hisses through air and finds its home in flesh. Instant kill.

I take a weaving from my pocket, a small one. It’s just an offering of thanks for what’s being taken. Thread is scarce and needed for mending and patching the warn clothing supply, but as the Crone would say, if the ways of give-and-take are left behind, then what remains except chaos? 

I pick the limp body up, place the weaving of thanks on the ground, in the blood, and then pull the arrow out. It goes back in my quiver. The hare goes in my bag for later. It’s my second kill this morning. One more and we should do well enough for our supply of dinner and breakfast tomorrow, even though they’re boney things, living off bark mostly, maybe thin ailing roots beneath the constant blanket of snow. 

We all do what we have to, to survive.

Like me.

I should be apprenticing with the Crone, finishing my learning of runes and medicine, of bone magic and weaving spells. But when Jimmi went missing, someone had to take his place in the trap—to find the meals and fir to trade. And there was only me and Nessa left. It certainly wasn’t going to be Nessa. 

Has it almost been a year now? Nearly. Beltane came and Jimmi went out after the feasts—after the seven-day fires had turned to embers and ash—he went into the wood, a simple hunt, as always. But he never returned.

I watched him walk into the bone trees at the rim—I always did, it was tradition, good luck. Nessa stopped once she had the first baby but I still followed ‘til that last day. I stood at the wall, and watched his form fade into the shadow of the forest. 

I sat with the radio by my bed for weeks, hoping to hear his voice. Still, every time I come out here, I stop, click the signal on it and listen for an answer. Or try to see if I can find a strip of cloth left behind. Any clue of him. Anything would set my heart at ease. It’s the empty nothing, no information, the void, that keeps me awake in the night. That makes me imagine I can feel him pulling at me—begging me to save him.

I’d woven a blessing of return into his coat and everything. I’m not sure why it failed.

But I know he wouldn’t have abandoned us for the Hidden Places. 

He loved us. And he wouldn’t have left me like that, without a word, unless he didn’t have a choice in it.

The sound of a wren chatters in the far off brush. I walk on the path and listen to the trees. Dark limbs reach to grey skies against stark white backdrops, with silver briars speckling the underbrush. The branches moan and creek and I have to keep reminding myself the trees are dead—the way they sound off, it’s like they have souls. But they’re supposed to be green, not all sharp edges and colors of ash. I've only seen a few living trees, here and there, by the river, where the rocks hold enough warmth for the willows to take root. But once they were all green. Long ago, in the Before.

Mamma told me the tale, passed from her mother and her mother before, of thick emerald canopies and rich dark earth, of flowers speckling the valley in a blanket of violet and orange, of fruit that tasted of sunshine. There were even buildings full of so much food it could feed a whole village for weeks. 

Not now. Not anymore. 

Now everything’s rusted and threadbare. Ancient objects fill the barn behind The Great Kean’s hearth-home and no one can decide what the point was for half of them. The other half are useless.

One more hare, that’s all I need. Then I’ll take them to Jimmi’s hunting cave, skin and gut them, before heading home.

If only I could find a wolf. One of their pelts would be very useful for when Nessa has her new baby. I’ve been trying to track one for weeks and haven’t had any luck, though. I thought I found a trail yesterday, but it went off too far into the Deep. And it would be stupid to break a vow for comfort later. Certainly a pelt isn’t worth the danger of what might be that far into the forest. Where the briars and silver underbrush thicken even more, blocking any path, tricking the eyes. Where the trees seem to whisper and warn you to turn back. Where spirits of the dead guard the Hidden Places. And no human returns with their mind in tact. 

The Crone tells bone-chilling tales of the beings in the Deep that even I’m not desperate enough to follow those pathways. “If we leave them be, Nora, they leave us be,” she says. “They’ve got their own trials. But don’t be believin’ that poking at their boundaries won’t leave them sore. They’ll come for reparations. They always does.”

And so I steer clear of them. 

Okay, I admit, I might have ventured close before. Only once. I took a thin path a few feet—a few yards at the most—and I called out to Jimmi.

But he’d just gone missing, and I hadn’t been straight in the head. Mama kept weeping, saying he’d betrayed us. And the rest of the clan...all they could do was sneer and spit on the ground when I passed. I couldn’t take it anymore.

So, yes, I stepped closer and closer, I pushed the thick silver brush aside and once I saw the speckles of moss, the places in the trees where the life seemed to magically appear, I called out. “Please come home! We need you!”

And then I turned back and ran to the dead places again. Where it was safe. Nothing followed me. I didn’t hear the trees hiss or feel the spirits tug on my coat. There were no golden eyes in the mist. The only thing that I saw that matched the tellings of the fire-stories was the moss, orange and gold and green, in the crevices of the bark. 

Otherwise it was a wholly disappointing venture.

But I wouldn’t go in for a wolf. That would be nonsense.

Instead I slink my way through to the west end of the forest and look for more signs of life in the underbrush. It takes several minutes, maybe an hour, before I find something. A rubbed-on branch here, a scratch in the snow there. A tuff of fur.

But not rabbit fir.

I pick the tuff up and study it, smell it. Get a whiff of that heady oil smell.

My heart speeds up in excitement. 

What’re the chances? My wolf?  

I scan the trees, then, excitement tinging in my numb toes. All I need is a small sign, just a broken branch, a paw print. I listen with that other place inside me, I reach out, hoping to catch the feeling of warmth, breath, the pulse of blood. I reach into my pocket and rub my thumb over the weaving I made after Jimmi left, the prayer in criss-cross blue and knotted green, that asked for me to earn his gift, asked the trees to favor me, like they did Jimmi—well, at least they had until that last day—

A streak of grey moves to my right, in my peripheral. 

I stay utterly still, not even moving my head to look. I know it’s there. Like I sensed the rabbit, I feel the beast’s slick energy in the ground, distant, faded, but it’s there. And this time it’s not getting away. 

Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to have noticed me. 

I breathe out, slow. And then I pick a tree, press myself against it, take up my bow again, notch an arrow, and allow myself a look beyond, into the trees.

The form blends into the surroundings like it’s made of them. If it weren’t for the puffs of breath in the cold air, rising from the briars ahead, I wouldn’t see it at all. And this is the same one. A male, I think. He has a thick line to his shoulders, but his nose is narrow, ears regal and tipped in silver. 

He’s going to look lovely on Nessa’s bed.

I raise my bow and aim. 

At the neck.

The wolf’s rhythm slinks over the ground.

And as I release the arrow a thought passes through my mind: the energy feels off. 

Not animal. 

But before the idea can take hold the silver arrow-tip hits its mark and a yelp echoes off the trees. 

Cont. in PART TWO

***

You can read more from Rachel Marks and see her artwork at:

                www.RachelAnneMarks.com

Author Wayne Thomas Batson unveils his new series and reveals his writing secrets

By Merrie Destefano

Have you ever wished you could ask one of your favorite authors to reveal some of their writing tips? If so, today’s your lucky day! 

We’ve got an interview with Wayne Thomas Batson, best-selling author of the Door Within trilogy, Isle of Swords, Isle of Fire, The Berinfell Prophecies, Sword in the Stars, The Errant King, and Ghost.

Today also happens to be the release day of DREAMTREADERS, the first book in his new series. One of the things we’re requesting is if you want to purchase his book, please consider buying it today on Amazon.

Here’s some info from Wayne about The Blitz, a contest he’s running on his blog here: www.enterthedoorwithin.blogspot.com.

 
Here's the Amazon link for Dreamtreaders: http://is.gd/gONxPf

And now, for that author interview, where Wayne accidentally…I mean, on purpose…reveals all his writing secrets including how he came up with the concept for his new series, PLUS tips for writing Middle Grade stories.

RSM: I love the concept for Dreamtreaders! I also read the sample chapters online and it looks fantastic. How did you come up with the idea for this series and how long did it take you to write the first book?

WAYNE: Thank you kindly, Merrie. I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the sample chapter. The idea for the Dreamtreaders Series came from a little video I happened upon while surfing. The subject was Dream Science. I’ve always had vivid dreams, so I thought the video was pretty compelling. I had heard of Lucid Dreaming before, but not with the kind of detail presented in the video. Within minutes of watching the video, the entire plot of Dreamtreaders Book 1 popped into my head. I started thinking: What if there was a greater purpose for dreams? What if there was more danger involved with dreams than we ever thought possible? It was really kind of on a whim that I wrote up a brief proposal. I really didn’t think anything would come off it, but Thomas Nelson / Harper Collins loved the concept right away.

The first book took me about 3 months to write. I already had an outline, so I shot through pretty quickly. Thankfully, I had great editors like Steele Filipek and Amy Kerr to help me bring the story up to its full potential.

RSM: What do you think is the difference between writing for a Middle Grade audience, versus either a Young Adult or an Adult audience? What tips would you recommend for our blog readers who want to write for Middle Grade?

WAYNE: For me, there’s not much difference between Middle Grade / Young Adult readers. You can’t underestimate either. Kids are incredibly perceptive. You really need to honor that in your stories. Writing for adults is a whole different ballgame. Adults like the thrills, adventure, and creativity just as much as YA readers, but adults demand a level of sophistication that is different. You need to weave in layers of inference so that adults can figure things out on their own. You need to be more subtle too. If you have themes you are interested in, go for it, but hint at it, don’t drown them. 

Tips for Middle Grade Readers:

1) Make sure you HOOK them early. I mean first sentence, first paragraph, first page, first chapter. Make sure you have some very cool unusual events going on right away. While kids are perceptive, they also are kind of quick to assess the interest level of the material. If it’s a yawner up front, they will drop it like rotten tuna sandwich.

2) Don’t forget the power of humor. Middle Grade books can be so heavy handed. Dogs dying, people getting diseases, concentration camps, government takeovers, dystopia! EEK, run! You’ve got to lighten up here and there. I teach middle school, and my students literally ask me sometimes: “Why are these books so depressing?” Not my books, mind. I always lighten the mood with humor. It really helps.

RSM: Those are great tips! Thanks, Wayne. I’ve always found outlining for one book hard enough. How do you outline for a series?

WAYNE: When outlining for a series, you need to use broad strokes. In other words, capture the headlines of each book. What are the major things you expect to happen in each book? How can you have a beginning, middle, and legit end for each story while maintaining a “greater story” for the series? Once you have the broad strokes, you can then paint in the details when you approach each book for a manuscript pass.

RSM: I think it's great that you're working with Thomas Nelson again, this time on the Dreamtreaders series—TN is an amazing publishing house! But I've noticed you also have some self-published projects. Some are short stories, like The Blackwood, and some are full length novels, like The Tide of Unmaking (co-authored by Christopher Hopper) and Ghost. How and when do you decide to self-publish projects?

WAYNE: There are several variables that I consider to determine the direction of publishing: traditional path or self publishing. 1) Is there publisher interest?  2) If yes, then what are the terms? Is the royalty /advance good enough?  3) Is the concept I have in mind appropriate for one of the publisher’s age categories?

If all the answers to the above are yes, then I might go traditional. If any of the answers are no, then I’ll likely self pub. Another deal breaker with traditional publishing is creative control. If the publisher won’t allow me to take the story where it needs to go, then I might do it myself. My Dark Sea series, for example, deals with themes TN didn’t want to touch, so I went somewhere else.  Then, the market changed and ebooks put such a dent in print sales that I ended up getting back the rights. I plan to completely repackage and self-publish the seven book Dark Sea Annals series.

I like to keep a foot in every market possible. Diversification isn’t just for stock portfolios. Print publishers still rule a huge market. Why not be a part of it? 

RSM: I completely agree about diversification. In fact, most authors I know are doing both traditional and self-publishing. Is Spearhead Books your own imprint? Can you tell me a little about the decision to create that publishing company and what your goals are?

WAYNE: Spearhead Books is a joint project from The Miller Brothers, Christopher Hopper, and me. We aren’t a publisher per se, but we are creating a brand for Christian readers to be able to trust. With self-publishing growing like it is, we wanted to create a one-stop shop for trustworthy, positive fiction. 

RSM: It sounds like an awesome joint project and our blog readers can check out Spearhead Books HERE. You have an impressive selection of books! Thank you very much for answering all of my questions, Wayne! 

WAYNE: You’re welcome. Always good to connect, Merrie. Thank you for the opportunity.

If you want to learn more about Wayne’s books, check out: Enter The Door Within, Heed the Prophecies, and Sword in the Stars.

Haj: A Short, Short Story

by Rebecca LuElla Miller

The following first appeared in the 2007 Writer's Digest anthology of the top twenty-five short stories from their annual Short, Short Story Competition.

- - - - - 

 
Is Haj a fool? It’s not my place to say, so I’ll lay out the facts and let you draw your own conclusion.

Bear in mind, even those who insist he is nothing but a sadly demented soul nevertheless acknowledge he has good intentions. Best be warned, so you aren’t swayed by appearances.

Haj arrived in Glesha last month, when the daytime temperature was so balmy icicles hanging from roof tops melted into little puddles. Delinda was the first to talk with him. Seems he stopped in at her eatery for breakfast. She reported the encounter to Tave Sern our esteemed information mogul.

Of course, you know just how reliable Delinda’s “facts” are. Anyway, what she told Tave was, this frail little salesman had just relocated to Glesha from “down south.” My wife believes to this day Haj does what he does because he comes from where he comes. But you be the judge.

Shortly after Tave published the official welcome to our newest resident in the Daily Report, Haj started showing up at people’s doors. Knowing he was a salesman—Tave had included that fact in the welcome—most folks, assuming he was employing some new vending techniques, invited him inside to satisfy their curiosity.

No, Haj says. He’s not selling anything. He has something he’s giving away. Many somethings, actually. “As many as there are people living under your roof,” he says, or so Dade, two houses down, told me, as did Jamin across the way, and Sem next to him.

Of course, we were all curious, except by the time he arrived at my door, I knew what to expect. I met him at the entry and did not invite him into my common room.

From out of the black trunk Haj hauled behind him, he produced a fine brown leather jacket, the kind with suede patches on the elbows.

“So you’re selling outer wear,” I said, though I knew he would deny it.

He cocked his head and lifted an eyebrow but smiled an ironic smile, as if he knew that I knew. “I’m not selling. I’m giving.”

It was my turn to smile, though I had to work hard not to let it become a smirk. “Summer is here, warmer than usual, so I don’t have use for a jacket just now. That’s not to say this isn’t a fine one.” I ran my hand up and down the pliant material, creamy as butter. “But this would sit in storage until winter. By then this cut will be out of fashion. Then what will I do with it?”

Haj acted as if he hadn’t heard me. “I’ll leave it with you in case you change your mind, Honorable Mayor.” He extended the jacket toward me.

I pushed the bundle back at him. “It will take up space and eventually rot from disuse. I won’t even be able to sell it.”

“Surely you know summer will end.” His gaze danced from the jacket to my eyes and back again, as if to entice me to look closer.

“When the weather turns, I’ll shop for a fashionable coat.” I retreated a step and reached for the door.

“Honorable Mayor …” His voice shook, and he shuffled his feet.

I glanced down, not meaning to stare, but his old-fashioned galoshes, mud splatters staining the sun bleached gray rubber, clashed so with his brown corduroy trousers, I was caught off guard. I’m certain my shock registered in my expression though I averted my gaze as soon as I recovered my wits. After all, I had no wish to embarrass the poor man.

He started again, as if he hadn’t noticed my reaction. “Honorable Mayor, it was my thought that you, being Glesha’s most respected citizen … well, others may follow your example.”

I smiled into his serious eyes, hoping my countenance was suitably benevolent. “Salesman, you are an astute observer, and your tactic is sound. I’ll buy the jacket from you.” I reached into the inner pocket of my tunic and withdrew my money pouch. I pinched open the end and sprinkled a few coins into my palm. “Will this do?”

Haj stared at me as if I’d dealt him a blow across the mouth. Tears glistened in his eyes. Tears! The man was about to cry because I said I would buy his jacket! I could only imagine he hadn’t expected to find me so benevolent or to convince me so easily

           

Instead of reaching for the coins, however, or passing me the jacket, he held it close to his chest. “The jacket isn’t for sale. It’s a gift. I have a coat for your wife, too, and cloaks for each of your servants.”

I tapped my gold ring against the edge of the door. “As you say, salesman, Glesha looks to me as an example. What would the citizens think of a man in my position accepting charity?”

“Not charity. A gift!”

“You must look at this from my point of view. People will talk. Someone is sure to think I will repay your … uh, generosity with favors of my own.”

Haj shook his head, his eyes closed as if he couldn’t bear to hear what I was saying. “A true gift requires no return of any kind.”

I jingled the coins in my hand. “But people will talk. The perception alone could destroy my good standing in the community. Instead of you giving me a gift, how about if I give one to you? Here.” I laid the coins on top of the supple leather.

He brushed them off, and they clattered onto the patterned stonework outside my door.

“Here, now, there’s no call for ill treatment.” I pulled myself to my full height and stepped toward him.

Without backing away, he met my gaze. “I do not need your money, but you need my coats. I have warmer ones if you prefer.” He hauled the trunk closer, bent over it, and pulled up the lid.

I lifted my foot and banged it shut. “Enough. I’ve been courteous, even generous, but I’ve reached the end of my patience. I do not want your coats and can only suggest you leave Glesha since you have outlasted your welcome.” I stepped back and closed the door, gently, I hoped, in order to mask the agitation I felt.

Haj stayed the month, giving coats to the few citizens who opened their homes to him. Delinda reported to Tave who published in the Daily Report that more than one family was actually wearing their new coats out in public. In this warm weather, no less.

As it was to be expected, I received complaints from any number of sources. The merchants worried that fewer Gleshans would buy coats when the cold weather set in. The treasurer worried that the citizenry would expect other free provisions and become lazy or careless. The council complained that those wearing the coats considered themselves superior to the rest of us and were creating a division in the town.

Finally, with the full backing of the most influential residents, I corner Haj at Delinda’s eatery in the gray dawn.

“Honorable Mayor, have you come for your coat?” he asks.

I fold my arms over my chest and with my foot push in the chair he pulled out for me. “No, Haj, I’ve come to ask you to leave Glesha.”

I thought he might tear up again like he did that first day, or maybe refuse to go. Instead, he smiles—a sad smile, like he feels sorry for me—and stands up from the table.

“You—you can finish your meal,” I say, caught off guard.

Still with the pitying smile, he shakes his head, dons his own coat, and retrieves his trunk.

When he pushes open the door, a blast of cold air sweeps into the room. I glance at the blustery sky, and a snowflake lodges on my eyelash, turning to water with one blink. “The weather has taken a cold turn. We can accommodate you until this summer storm passes.”

This time he doesn’t smile or shake his head, but the sadness in his eyes makes me want to weep. He turns up his collar, buttons the last button on his coat, and with his trunk in tow, marches into the street away from town.

So I ask you, isn’t Haj a fool? I suspect, with the onset of this early storm, he could have become a rich merchant if only he had stayed to sell his wares. After all, we thought that’s why he came.

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Best known for her aspirations as an epic fantasy author, Rebecca LuElla Miller has been working as a freelance writer and editor since 2004. She has covered high school sports for a Los Angeles area newspaper group, published articles and short stories in several print and online magazines, and placed in the top twenty-five in the 2006 Writer’s Digest Short, Short Story contest. Most recently she is the author of Power Elements of Story Structure. She currently blogs Monday through Friday at A Christian Worldview of Fiction.

Her editing credits include non-fiction and fiction alike, most notably four titles in the Dragons in Our Midst and Oracle of Fire series by Bryan Davis and two novellas in the Mission League series by Jill Williamson. You can learn more about her editing services and read her weekly writing tips at Rewrite, Reword, Rework.

Why do some people like to read scary stories?

By Merrie Destefano

The sun goes down, the sounds of the city grow quiet, and the rest of the family nestles, safe and sound in a world of incandescent light. Meanwhile, one person huddles alone in a darkened room, face turned toward a screen, eerie blue light carving shadows on her face while her fingers slowly tap out a message, letter by letter. 

A writer is writing.

October winds blow outside her window, leaves gather in shadowed corners of the yard and nearby trees sway, branches creaking.

The writer is writing a scary story.

Why do some writers always return to the dark side of literature, spinning out tales that make readers sit on the edge of their seat? Perhaps an even better question, and one that I’d like to discuss here, is why do some people love to read scary stories? 

While, I can’t answer this question definitively, I can offer some suggestions.

1. ADRENALINE RUSH: This is my favorite answer, although many of the others are just as good. We read scary stories so we can experience artificial situations of “fight or flight.” These scenarios, whether real or imagined, get your body ready for action by giving you an extra dose of adrenaline. Your heart beat speeds up, your breathing increases and your blood pressure increases—in other words, it’s like an instant dose of caffeine combined with heavy exercise. You’re ready to leap over tall buildings in a single bound, although you may be screaming “Mommy!” all the way.

2. FAMILIARITY: You’ve been here before and you liked it. You’ve been reading scary stories for years, you have a list of favorite authors and you’re waiting in line, with sweaty palms, when his/her next book releases. You stay up late (reading these stories is always better at midnight, right?), turning pages while everyone else is asleep. But the truth of the matter is you can’t sleep, can you? Not until you know what happens next…

3. A VISCERAL REACTION: The desire to feel something strongly—no matter what the emotion is—can drive readers to these books. Detailed descriptions of eviscerated body parts in zombie stories may not get you excited, but there are plenty of readers out there who live for this stuff.

4. TO FEEL ALIVE: Similar to the answer above, books that put you on the edge remind you that you are alive. You’re not watching some soap opera at lunch time; you’re hunched over a novel wondering if the heroine is really strong and smart enough to survive that demon horde that’s been chasing her for the last twenty pages.

5. TO CONQUER THE DEMONS: We all have our demons, things we’re afraid of but don’t want to admit. Things like clowns (It), menacing dolls (Chucky), the end of the world (The Stand), rampant pestilence (Contagion), rabid dogs (Cujo), vampires (Interview with a Vampire) and serial killers (Darkly Dreaming Dexter). By vicariously facing your fears in a novel, you’re able to tame them, or at least, imagine that you’ve tamed them. Until they show up the next night, waiting for you in the closet.

6. TO EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN: There are boundless supernatural realms, where wonder and horror walk side by side—realms where people rise from the dead or where someone learns the future in their dreams or where someone is giving an extraordinary power. There’s just enough enchantment and mystery to make you want to know more, and just enough danger to make you glad this is fiction.

7. TO FEEL STRONG EMOTIONS: Anger—hatred—fear—love—surprise—terror—repulsion—empathy…Scary stories have all these emotions and more trapped between the pages, just waiting for an innocent reader to come along and release them. Before you know it, you’re experiencing the same emotions. Again, this is similar to Number Three, but I felt that it needed to stated again. (It is my list, no?)

8. TO PROVE WE CAN SURVIVE: Isn’t that what it’s all about? You’re secretly taking notes, so if X, Y or Z ever really happens, you’re ready. Doesn’t everyone know what to do in a zombie/alien apocalypse by now? And if so, why? Because you’ve all been making a list and checking it twice while watching The Walking Dead or Falling Skies.

9. SATISFACTION WHEN TERROR IS OVERCOME:There’s an unbelievably sweet moment when the heroine finally plunges a stake through the heart of the last vampire—almost instantly, your muscles relax, you slump backward in your chair and then breathe a well-deserved long sigh because, without realizing it, you’ve been holding your breath and sitting on the edge of your seat, ready to run.

10. TO PROVE THAT DRAGONS NOT ONLY EXIST, BUT THAT THEY CAN BE DEFEATED: What? Scary stories can give you hope? To quote someone more knowledgeable on this subject than me: “Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”―G.K. Chesterton. Watching a character deal with the monster in the closet can give you the courage to face up to your own monsters. Yes, tales of terror can actually be uplifting, when written with that purpose in mind.

Which of these categories do you think you fall into? And what book did read recently that made you feel this way?

Merrie Destefano is represented by Natalie Lakosil of the Bradford Literary Agency. Merrie’s published work includes Afterlife and Feast (both with HarperVoyager), Fathom, The Plague Carrier and Waiting For Midnight (with Ruby Slippers Press), and How To Draw Zombies (Walter Foster). She’s also the editor of Victorian Homes magazine and founding editor of Cottages and Bungalows magazine. She is the founder and owner of Ruby Slippers Media and Ruby Slippers Press, and her website is here.

What we lose when the fairy tales are no longer Grimm

Remember fairy tales? You know, the Grimm ones, where people died violent deaths – often at the hands of children?

No?

Guess J.R.R. Tolkien was more prescient than we give him credit for.

In 1939 Tolkien gave the lecture “Fairy Stories”, later published as the essay “On Fairy-Stories” in which he railed against the fate of fairy tales as they became increasingly relegated to the realm of children’s literature. (Read more here...)

“Fairy-stories have in the modern lettered world been relegated to the ‘nursery,’ as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the play-room, primarily because the adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused,” Tolkien said. “Children as a class …neither like fairy-stories more, nor understand them better than adults do; and no more than they like many other things.”

The problem he foresaw was that just as anything left in the hands of children will eventually be destroyed, so would the value of a well-conceived and written fantasy. Especially the caliber of fantasy that reveals to us deeper truths often hidden in “real life”.

So, what has happened in the past 70 years to the fairy tales we feed our children? I have an almost complete set of The Junior Classics: The Young Folk’s Shelf of Books, copyright 1938, 1948 and 1949. I started reading Volume 1: Fairy Tales and Fables to my sons before bed. I had to quit because some of the stories were too scary.

Take, for example, the story Mollie Whuppie, by Joseph Jacobs.

Little Mollie and two of her older sisters are dropped off in the woods by their parents who have too many other mouths to feed. The hapless girls wander through the woods until they come to a house. Of course a giant lives there. The girls are fed and allowed to share beds with his three normal-sized daughters. Before bed, though, the daughters are given gold chains to wear while the homeless girls are given straw ropes to wear around their necks.

Mollie, apparently the cleverest of the girls, suspects something, and switches the ropes and necklaces once the other girls are all asleep, and the giant bludgeons his own daughters to death. The visitors escape to a nearby kingdom.

Which is where Disney would probably end, with Mollie and her sisters living Happily Ever After… but that’s not how this story goes.

The king of the kingdom gives Mary a kind of negative compliment for her quick thinking, “Mollie, you are a clever girl and you have managed well; but, if you would manage better, go back and steal the giant’s sword than hangs on the back of his bed, I would give your eldest sister my eldest son to marry.”

She succeeds, but not before the grieving giant nearly catches her and threatens her life. The king sends her back again, this time for a bag of gold from under the giant’s pillow, on the promise that the second sister will marry his second son. Again she succeeds, but only just, escaping across a narrow rope bridge that will not support the giant’s weight.

The king, again (seriously, what kind of a jerk is this that keeps sending a child into harm’s way?), asks Mollie to take from the giant the gold ring on his finger. For this Mollie will get to marry the youngest prince.

This time Mollie gets caught and is stuffed into a bag with a dog and a cat while the giant goes out to find a stick to beat her to death with. She escapes by tricking the giant’s wife into switching places. The giant beats his wife to death while Mollie once again escapes over the “Bridge of One Hair”.

After reading “The End” to my sons I thought, “wow. I’ll never complain about Loony Tunes violence ever again!”

As I think about it, though, there’s no “damsel in distress” here. Mollie is resourceful, loyal to her sisters, selfless and insanely brave. She is Tris in a genre dominated by Bella. And those are lessons I want my kids to learn.

Those are lessons I need to internalize myself.

Jane Wells has always gravitated toward reading material that pushed other people’s buttons. In 2nd grade it was a dinosaur book that upset her teacher at a Baptist school. Now it’s vampires and dystopias that catch her imagination. In them she finds parables and allegories illustrating God’s ancient plan in a language that is uniquely modern – and easily understood by people who may have never set foot inside a church. 

Always a writer, Jane’s “real jobs” have included newspaper journalism, youth ministry, sewing machine sales and marketing for a publishing house. Currently she is back to “just a writer” again, while juggling all the typical domestic duties of wife and mother, homeschooling two boys, managing two needy Golden Retrievers and answering to one very demanding cat.

Fiction Friday: Something a little bit different

By Merrie Destefano

For several weeks, the members of Ruby Slippers Media have been posting snippets of our work here. At first, I had planned to share a bit of my published work, maybe something from Afterlife or Fathom. That’s the reasonable thing to do, right? Show you something that will intrigue you and possibly cause you to buy one of my books. But I’d rather show you something I’m working on right now—something that’s not finished and that you couldn’t buy, even if you wanted to.

The newest creation always burns the brightest and gives off the most heat, in the creator’s heart anyway.

So, below is part of chapter 4, from my current WIP, titled The Summer of Fire and Ice.

Chapter 4

The room was brighter than any I’d been in before, with four oil lamps burning and a full fire crackling in the hearth. A welcoming heat rolled over me and I removed my cloak, carefully watching John as he stared down at the furry limbs spread across the table. They were from different animals, one hind leg was longer than the others and had silver fur, while the other legs were a dark grey; the torso was barrel-chested and wide and covered with black fur. I glanced in the nearby wheelbarrow and noticed that in the left over pieces, all of the heads save one had been crushed.

John reached into the barrow and drew out the one head that was still intact, jaws swinging open as he carried it to the table. I recognized it immediately. It was the head that had landed at my feet when I opened the front door.

I stepped back in horror, afraid its jaws were moving of its own accord.

“Do not worry, Mary,” John said. “It was only a reflex. Before long, the joints will stiffen, but for now they move easily. The beast is dead. But watch this.”

He took a stick and prodded one of the wolf’s legs. It flinched, as if trying to get away from the stick.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen this before, except in frog legs, but this is why I came here. For years, I’ve been looking for the right place, the right circumstances. I thought if I got to a crime scene in time, I might discover it, but I never did. Then I heard about how every year, there were mysterious violent deaths here, in the mountains that surrounded Lake Geneva, and I heard that sometimes the dead bodies that were left behind weren’t fully dead.”

He lifted his head to look at me, his dark eyes so deep that I worried I could get lost in them.

“I don’t understand. How can something be dead, but not fully dead?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But it sounded so close to the theories of Erasmus Darwin, that I had to explore it. I was the one who convinced Byron to come here, when he had to leave England. He knew some of the local folklore, so he thought this might be an intriguing intellectual adventure.” John was watching me, his gaze moving from my eyes to my mouth, then back. “But I didn’t know that he was going to invite you or Claire. I would never have willing brought either of you to a place that might be dangerous.”

“I’m not afraid,” I told him, realizing that it was true. “I don’t fully understand these theories, but I would like to know more.”

He smiled and, for an instant, the room seemed even brighter. There was a childlike innocence in his expression that I had never noticed before. Perhaps he had been hiding it from me, just like I tried to hide my bouts of melancholy from others.

“You were right when you said I was about to perform an experiment,” he said as he drew several items from the bag he always carried with him. He began by threading a long, curved needle with pale, flaxen thread. “I’m going to try stitching the animal back together. I don’t know what will happen, especially since I have pieces from different wolves here, but if there really is life left in this flesh, it’s possible I may be able to—”

He paused, as if he didn’t dare finish his sentence. So I finished it for him.

“Bring it back to life.”

He nodded. Then he began to sew.

…….

I hope you enjoyed that portion of my latest creation! Thank you for stopping by to check out what’s going on at RSM blog. I hope you find something wonderfully beautiful and slightly scary to read for this weekend!

My book recommendations, if you're looking for something to read:

Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor

The Hallowed Ones by Laura Bickle

Ironskin by Tina Connolly

Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn

Merrie Destefano is represented by Natalie Lakosil of the Bradford Literary Agency. Merrie’s published work includes Afterlife and Feast (both with HarperVoyager), Fathom, The Plague Carrier and Waiting For Midnight (with Ruby Slippers Press), and How To Draw Zombies (Walter Foster). She’s also the editor of Victorian Homes magazine and founding editor of Cottages and Bungalows magazine. She is the founder and owner of Ruby Slippers Media and Ruby Slippers Press, and her website is here.