Introducing Dorcas Little Deer

Dorcas sat as tall as she could in an attempt to get air to the bottom of her lungs. She smoothed the black taffeta flounces, watching the fabric shimmer like the lake on a calm night. She idly imagined what a broad border of beading would look like, flowers and animals in glittering bits of trade glass with borders of variegated porcupine quills. Maybe some brightly colored ribbon to dress up the edges. Mother Barton would never approve, even though she had insisted Dorcas and her sister-in-law have the finest mourning dresses. These awkward metal hoops and yards of flounces were the latest style, brought to the upper reaches of the old Northwest Territory by the wealthy summer residents rapidly taking over the sleepy trading village of Harbor Springs.

Tawah tah, but this corset crushed! She didn't remember it being this tight eight years ago and the stays were still a finger-width further apart than she'd easily pulled them then. However, since it would be unseen and had almost never been worn, it was decided she'd make use of the corset she'd worn in her wedding on the day she laid her groom to rest. The same economic considerations meant other Mrs. Bartons also hid old support garments under new hoops and silks.

She hid her grimace as the jostling cart made inhaling even more difficult, but then realized it might have been better to let her discomfort show. Her mother-in-law's family began muttering about her stoicism before the bodies of her husband, his brother and his father were found in the smoldering ashes of the lumber camp on Crooked Lake. What she’d just done to her hair then only made the tongues wag faster. She had learned to ignore the behind-the-hand chatter, the muttering of the creek behind her house had more meaning to her. 

Her hair. Mother Barton hadn’t noticed yet, so overwhelmed by her three-fold loss. When it was apparent her eldest son had set his heart on on a “savage”, Mother Barton followed her husband’s lead and accepted his choice. But she didn’t take the decision with complete pacifism. Dorcas was quickly taken under the matron’s wing and taught how to style her hair, wear these unreasonable dresses and act like the wife of a respectable businessman. Dorcas was a good student, eager to please her groom and his family. Even if she did wear her old moccasins under the floor-length skirts instead of the ridiculously small and uncomfortable leather boots Mother Barton had supplied. She always returned to westernized traditional dress whenever she wasn’t going into “town”.

Today, of course, she wore the boots. But her hair was not up in the expected neat bun with careful curls framing her face. It was cascading down her back, long, unbraided and as black as the satin, except for the thick fringe above her eyes where she’d cut her hair short. It was to mark her grief that she risked scandalizing the Wasichu. Her sister-in-law, a cousin, had painted her face with coals mixed with pine pitch. If those gossips could be bothered to learn about the Odawa ways they’d understand the deep respect of that action. It meant she was in mourning and would not consider remarriage until the paint wore off - which could take year.

At the moment all those voices were silent. Creaking wheels were the only sounds as the long line of wagons traveled from the church to the cemetery. The dense blanket of autumn leaves turned the clattering of horses’ hooves to soft rustling. She was grateful. She desperately needed the peace after the endless chattering she'd endured these past few days. Callers at the house every hour, loaded with gifts and gossip. Under the thin disguise of condolences, they'd pried for information about the forest fire, the state of the lumber camp, and the solvency of the Barton lumber business.

Dorcas longed to return to her family, where she would have been sheltered from such impudent questions and be allowed to mourn her husband, father-in-law and brother-in-law at her own pace. Her father had abandoned the traditional bark-covered wigwam for a wasichu-style cabin long before she was born. Even so, that home was full of traditional comforts. Her aunts, uncles and cousins would intercept all messengers, letting through only the most necessary. If she had married an Odawa brave, her grief would be wrapped in the comfort of her grandmother's embroidered trading blanket, not on public display.

Her parents had walked on years ago and the old cabin had been taken in the same fire as her husband. Her marriage into an English family meant her aunts, uncles and cousins were forced to observe her grief from afar rather than help her bear it.

As much as she had come to love her new family, some traditions made no sense at all.

Wasichu means "fat-taker", what the Odawa called the early fur traders who showed no respect for nature, taking only the very best of the animal and wasting the rest of it.

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. Glitter in the Sun and Bird on Fire are the results.

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 two very demanding cats.

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

Fiction Friday: Breaking the rules

By Merrie Destefano

There came a point in my writing career when I got frustrated with rejections. My 9-to-5 job was as a national magazine editor, so I was pretty sure I had learned how to write. Well, I knew the basics anyway. You can always learn more. But a recent rejection of one of my manuscripts stung more than I expected, especially when the acquisitions editor said the story was too internal.

That was the kind of story I liked to read, where you got deep inside a character and learned what he or she thought and felt.

I almost wanted to quit writing fiction. Instead, I decided to write one more manuscript, breaking all the rules (that I had been told) and creating my own way to tell the story. The result was AFTERLIFE—my first novel, published by Harper Voyager. Since then I’ve had reviewers call the book experimental, which it was in a way. 

I decided I would have scenes with lots of action and forward motion, but interspersed between these would be the occasional scene that was complete back story, told from one character’s point of view. These scenes allowed me to world build and to be as internal as I wanted, so it allowed me to write the story the way I wanted to.

While writing this book, I took other chances too. I had decided this would be my farewell song, my last manuscript, and so I didn’t care if anyone else liked it or not. Surprisingly, when I decided to write the book my way, breaking every rule that had bothered me, other people loved the result.

So, today I’m going to share one of those “rule-breaking” chapters from Afterlife, where I let the main character speak in his own words about the resurrection process that his family employed. In my mind, this book is science fiction, although it has been labeled urban fantasy. I hope you enjoy this snippet!

Chapter Eight

Chaz:

I was eleven years old the first time I saw a Newbie, the first time I saw life and death trade places. I guess my life had been pretty sheltered up to that point.

            A state-appointed teacher came to our Cell, wearing one of those government suits with the high collar, his breath a mixture of coffee and mint. My brother Russell and I, we sat in the back and pretended to pay attention while the guy peddled the Ideal Plan, we even made faces at each other behind his back. We only had seven kids in our Cell, but we could tell that we made him nervous. Seven kids in one room was enough to unnerve almost anyone. I’d heard of Cells with as many as 16 kids, but personally I don’t know if I really believe it.

            We each had two bodyguards inside the room, armed and able to kill with their bare hands in less than three seconds if necessary. And outside the room there were at least 15 more. A crackle of handset communications buzzed continuously between the teacher’s sentences, a hoarse whisper of monotone voices.

            “—Sadie took her medicine, yes, I will get her there in time—”

            “—piano lessons at three. Of course—”

            “—Jeffrey is listening to the teacher, Mrs. Damotta—”

            The Ideal Plan had been enforced for the past 15 years, so I had to study it just like everybody else, whether I wanted to or not. The teacher did his best to explain everything, all the way from Life Number One to Life Number Nine, covering everything from sterilization to college to the legal procedures involved in fighting a death cert case, then he gave us each a contract. My best friend, Pete Laskin, signed his that same day. I heard that his mother cried for a week when she found out, but it didn’t matter. They kept us separated from our parents for a full month, so we could think about it without their influence. Sadie Thompson, a 12-year-old, dream-come-true who barely knew my name, laughed and signed hers almost immediately, dotting the ‘i’ in her name with a heart. Russell, who was 13 and of an age to make his own decision, immediately folded his contract into quarters and handed it back. Unsigned. No thank you, Mr. Government Man. Can I go home now please?

            At eleven years old, I was the youngest in our Cell. Everyone else had to make up his mind within our month of isolation. But I had a full year to make my decision.

            So that was when Dad started taking me to work, on the pretext that it was time for me to learn about the family business. I’ll never forget that first day. Mid-October. Dry leaves whisked across the streets, crackled beneath my feet and turned to dust. The sky burned blue and bright overhead. A cool breeze poured between the buildings like fresh water, a welcome respite after the unending summer. People had been dying all over New Orleans from an abnormally long heat spell. Mostly old people, but a few babies had passed too.

            Fresh Start had been busy, everyone working double shifts. Two extra crews had been flown in from Los Angeles. I’m sure that’s why it happened. Somebody was too tired and the out-of-state crews didn’t know our procedures.

            I have to believe it was a mistake. The other possibility, that my father let it happen on purpose to teach me a lesson—well, I just can’t go for that. Russell, in one of his dark moments, said that Dad did it to show us that life is, and should be, unpredictable, that we never should have pretended to be God.

            Mom refuses to talk about it. I have to admit I admire her for not taking sides. I know she had an opinion about all of it, she always did. But for whatever reason she let Russell and me make our own decisions, about Fresh Start, about the Ideal Plan, about what happened to the Newbie on that October day.

            The inside of the plant was everything I hoped it would be. All stainless steel and molded plastic in the industrial sections; all luxurious leather and ceramic tile in the public areas. Not that anyone would want to, but you could eat your lunch on the floor anywhere in that 200,000-square-foot facility back then. It was that clean. And the smell was a bizarre mixture of dentist-office-scary and new-car-exciting.

            For years, whenever anyone found out that I was Chaz Domingue, of the Fresh Start Domingues, a hush would sweep through the room almost as if something just sucked out all the oxygen. A long quiet would follow. And then when people started to talk again they would be ever so polite, opening doors for me, asking me if I would like some candy, asking my opinion about the weather. I liked the attention at first, but by the time I was a teenager I realized it was based on a combination of fear and envy. So I quit telling people my last name. Sometimes I pretended to be someone else entirely. When I got older I even pretended to be a Stringer, just because I wanted to fit in.

            But on that October afternoon, when the sunlight was slicing through the warehouse at a steep angle, when the sounds of the city seemed muted because so many people had died, on that day I decided that I never wanted to jump. No matter how much I wanted to be like other people. No matter how much I wanted to live.

            That day, one of the Newbies got stuck in between lives. In some nether world, where dark swirling creatures spin traps like spiders. She got caught. Her old body, withered and white with decay, lay discarded on the other side of the frost-etched glass. Her new-cloned body, as beautiful as Eve herself, lay expectant on a metal gurney, modestly covered in white linen. Neither body breathed, neither had life. All the equipment was suspiciously silent, no beeps to register heartbeat or brainwave patterns. Too much time had passed. The technicians began to get nervous, but Dad just raised one hand to quiet them.

            “Give her a minute,” he said, a tone of assurance in his voice.

            But several more minutes passed and the clone continued to stare, sightless, at the ceiling.

            And then, like it was straight out of a nightmare, she started to talk. The machines refused to admit there was life in either body, yet some alien consciousness caused the clone’s mouth to move and a hollow voice to speak.

            The things she said have haunted my dreams, might just follow me all the way past Judgment Day into the great beyond. Might bring torment with me, like shackles, into God’s kingdom, whether he likes it or not.

            “I can’t ... I can’t break free,” she said, still staring up at the concourse of pipes and ducts that traversed the warehouse ceiling. “I’m tangled in something. It feels like a web.” Tears streaked her face. Slow, glycerin-like streams. “They’ve been chasing me and I’m so tired of running, of trying to hide. Oh, please get me out of here! I don’t know where I am. There’s no light, just a dark glowing horizon, like fire in the distance. And these creatures—” She moaned, a heartbreaking cry, long and low and inhuman. I found myself wondering if we were really listening to a woman or if some spirit from beyond had commanded an audience. “They’re like spiders, but much bigger. I saw one of them eat a man. It ripped his head right off.” Her eyes closed.

            Meanwhile, my father ran around the room, fiddling with dials, gesturing to the other workers to try and save her.

            “It’s so dark. So cold,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “And I’m so alone.”

            Most of them stood frozen, like me. Listening.

            Then she turned toward one of them, looked right at him. Allen was his name. She reached one arm out, then shrieked. And she was gone.

            To this day I still imagine her trapped in a twilight world, waiting for someone to rescue her. But I know now that no one ever will. God wouldn’t have left her there if she were one of His. Even if we had messed with His plan, with His order laid down from the beginning, He still wouldn’t have abandoned one of His chosen.

            That’s the only way I can rationalize all of it.

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.