1. Whose story are you writing?

2. Who is telling it?

3. What is your overreaching theme? What’s the point?

These three questions are at the basis of every story. without a solid base, even the best constructed story falls to pieces in your hands.

When I got this particular assignment, it took me a decent amount of time to decide how I was going to approach it, how I was going to link three separate (yet, not, obviously) stories together.  I knew that I wanted it to be about Cristiani ( see previous entry) and about the musician who would be playing her. But that was about it.

For about a week, I dabbled with the concept. I tried a female muscian narrator, a male muscian narrator, Cristiani herself narrating. I tried it in first and third, once, in second ( that was a giant will-not-happen-again) voice. I tried an outside perspective, which went a little better, but still didn’t have what I was looking for.  At the end of the week, I was about ready to pull my hair out in clumps. Why couldn’t I figure this out? Perspective and voice had never been a problem for me. Why was this particular story misbehaving so badly?

I went with a good friend of mine, a fellow writer, to drown my frustration in a grande cafe latte and huge chocolate cookie. She asked me about my story. I went on at great length about the cello and the original musician and the current musician , and all this that and the other. Finally, I wound down to morose silence, occasionally slurping my drink and completely ignoring the chocoately goodness at my right hand.

She eyed me for about a minute. Then , casually, she said, “Well, that’s all cool and interesting, but what is it actually about?”

I looked up, affronted, ready to tell her straight out that it was about…..I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Well, crap.  I spent the next 1 hour enmeshed in the concept. What was my theme? Where was this going?

I left that little cafe table with a new lease on my story. I ran my original questions through my mind over and over again, examining them from as many angles as I could. I kept coming back to what effect would such an intense relationship between instrument and musician have on the people around them. How would those people (mothers, fathers, siblings, friends, lovers, etc.) see and deal with it?

It was while traveling along this line of thought that I decided to write the story from a variety of perspectives.  To create the story around the main characters, not from them. It would happen backwards but not in any specific order. Track the life of a genius and his muse from end to beginning. Watching what prices everyone else has to pay for their madness.

This is the second in the trilogy, “Do You Carry Every Sadness With You?” The title is taken from the song Half Acre, by Hem.

Every Sadness Mejia

Well, now I’m back. To celebrate my return, I have a few tidbits of writing to throw your way.

Backstory: While I was in my last semester of college, I took a creative writing tutorial that focused on writing linked short stories. Being an intense music fiend and a musical instrument autodidact, I had been eyeball deep in researching the history of Stradivarius and his very special stringed instruments. So intrigued with all the intense emotion and dedication surrounding both the musicians and the instruments themselves, i decided to write my linked stories around a real Stradivarius cello, Cristiani.

The cello was named after the first woman to ever play the cello professionally, Elise Cristiani (sometimes spelled “Christiani”). The cello was made in 1700 by Stradivarius and was owned by others before it came into her possession, but as in most cases, their names have been lost to the annals of history and the tax books. Elise had a very short career, debuting with aplomb at age 17, before becoming a favored court musician in Denmark. Many composers at the time, especially Mendelssohn, wrote or dedicated cello concertos to her. She was known for her elegant way of holding the cello and her individual charm. In terms of music, she was most notable for her use of the endpin. The endpin is the spike or stake that is used in many modern bass and cellos to stabilize the instrument when standing. When sitting, it allows the musician to sit upright and reach all the frets on the bridge with ease, as well as allowing them to reach extreme positions on the strings, particularly the A and C. Other large or unwieldy instruments like the bass clarinet use it, also. It was first noted in use in the early 1600s but it was rare. In a late 19th century article, it was said that the “tail-pin” first came into use with Cristiani ( first lady cellist) and thus its use was considered feminine, undesirable for male cellists. It was discouraged by some traditionalists for about twenty years or so, before being adopted by most players by the the beginning of the 20th century.
Because of her very short career and unattached but high-profile status, many legends about her ability and the mystical quality of her playing circulated after her death from cholera in 1853, at age 26. This, specifically intrigued me; many feel that her spirit, so tied to her beloved instrument in life, became one with it in death, thus her unearthly skill lived on and she able to do what she loved until eternity.
I began to wonder, “What would happen if another player, man or woman, were to inherit or buy her cello? What would happen between them? What would happen to the people surrounding them?”

From those meanderings of thought, this trilogy of short stories was born, “Concerto for Cristiani” starting with “None Can Die.” The title is taken from John Donne’s poem, “The Good-Morrow.”

None Can Die Mejia

This is what I have so far:

It was a long way to the ground, I mused, staring curiously between my bare toes. Even with my catch-safe, I shouldn’t go doing something reckless like sitting on the edge of a skyscraper’s roof.  Falling off this thing would be bad. Almost as bad as getting rotten eggs ground into your hair. Almost.  I leaned a little forward, trying to see the people on the sidewalk. They really do look like ants, you know. Little scuttle-ly ant people going about their little ant people business.  Though, at this hour of the morning, there weren’t that many on the sidewalks and streets below. The first rays of the sun were just now silhouetting the man-made mountain range that surrounded me.  I sat down, sighing gustily, and set my brand-new Supernatural mug down on the ledge beside me.  I took in the scenery, breathing deep and then peeked down again.

“”Huh, look at that,” I could feel a smile starting to pull my lips up at the corners, “ I’m sitting  on the edge of a skyscraper,” I said aloud, a full blown grin now crinkling my eyes into half-moons.  I gazed out over the city of Chicago with a shrug.  “No point in worrying about it now, I guess.”

It was a perfect Chicago morning: the sky was clear and brightening quickly in that way that said it would be a spectacular dawn show. The wind was minimal, just enough to ruffle my ponytail against the nape of my neck. The air was cool, crisp but not uncomfortably so.   It wasn’t the rich warmth of the South in April but it wasn’t unpleasant either.  I found myself at peace for the first time in several weeks.

It wasn’t what most folk would dub ‘peaceful’ but, this morning I’d like to hear anyone contradict me.  The first sunbeams of the day were slicing off southeastern windows, sheets of glass spraying red-gold reflections over the inner corridors of the city, those still bundled tight in the gray of pre-dawn.  At home, we call them fairy lights, those shimmering refractions of light off any reflective surface. If you catch one, make a wish. I’ve never caught one but I’ve heard it tell that those that do, their wish always comes true.

The breeze slithered past me, its bite drawing me back as it brought a waft of steam from my mug.  The scent of fresh, expensive, coffee filled my head.  Mug suddenly in hand, I inhaled so deep my nostrils flared with the effort.  Mmmm, coffee.  I held it for a moment in both hands, savoring its shocking warmth against my palms. It made my toes feel cold. I crossed my ankles, burying the toes of my left foot up the cuff of my right pant leg. Ah, much better.  I relished the warmth a second longer before taking a deep pull on the rim. I took my time swallowing, relaxing back onto my elbows, eyes going heavy-lidded with pleasure. I could feel the warmth curling down my throat and inside my belly.  It spread out slowly, dulling the chill in my limbs.

It felt good to just let my mind wander about unimpeded.   Sitting on top of the world like this I didn’t have to worry about hiding, or lying, or pretending to be something or someone I wasn’t.  I didn’t have to care that I wasn’t acting professionally or that so-and –so disapproved of my choice in stationary or felt I was too young or unskilled for the job.  Because, tonight, I was going to a concert, I was going to go out and have drinks with friends I hadn’t spoken to in years, and maybe, I’d get a little foxed, just for old time’s sake.  Maybe I’d do some dancing, a little karaoke. Never mind, that I hate karaoke, but maybe I’d do it just because I’m in Chicago, it’s the weekend and I’m footloose and fancy free. Anything could happen, I said to myself. Anything.

I was going to forget that Monday brought a trip up to Vancouver, followed by back to back meetings in Los Angeles and Flagstaff on Tuesday. Wednesday meant spending the day traveling to New York City to talk to ONE person for an hour then it was onward to London for a weeklong conference starting on Friday.  God, it made me exhausted just thinking about it. I took a quick, bracing swallow of coffee to wash the feeling away.  “Nuuuuuhhh,” I groaned falling back to lie flat on the ledge.  I lay there, struggling to empty my mind again, feeling the creeping tendrils of dawn touch my bare feet.  The intensity of the sun startled me. I sat up on an elbow and looked out at the brilliant shimmer of its light as it seemed to touch everywhere.  It was so warm. I downed half the cup in one swallow and flopped back again, completely boneless now.  In seconds, I was gone, drifting somewhere between Heaven and Nirvana, caffeinated and blissfully warm.

In my defense, what happened next was completely beyond my ability to control. Perhaps if I hadn’t been zoned out or, you know, not sitting on the edge of a skyscraper, events may not have occurred quite like they did.

Somewhere, off behind me, I heard a soft “pop.”  I ignored it. It was simply ambient noise of a lovely morning in Chicago.  The wind swept past, taking whatever noises that came after with it. Vaguely, something tingled at the base of my spine but I shoved it down into the back of my mind with both hands. I really, really shouldn’t have.

“AHHHHBBOOOGHALALALUUALALAALALA BOUGALA!”The sound scraped across all my exposed nerve endings and lit me up like a Christmas tree. “AHHhhhhh—” I shrieked, the sound guttering in my throat as I twisted to attack whatever-the-hell it was that had made that god-awful noise, my blood pressure spiking to an unhealthy level in .02 seconds. I didn’t think or wonder or care at that point. I was simply reacting on pure instinct.  Forgetting where I was, I tried to roll to a better position. My feet found no purchase on the slick granite of the ledge and my left hand was tight around my forgotten mug. I felt the remainder of the hot liquid spill over my hand and wrist, burning.  I jerked sharply and slipped.  And then, I fell.

Falling off a high rise is an experience unique unto itself.  If I remember correctly, that building was exactly twenty-two and half floors. The half was, of course, the private parking deck underneath it.  Did you know it takes you the same number of seconds to fall from a high rise as the number of floors? It’s not an urban legend.  It took me almost 23 seconds to hit the sidewalk. For 15 of those 23 seconds I was in shock, unsure of how I got from Point A to Point B. It took me another 6 seconds to figure out what, precisely, had led me to this, er, junction, and the final 2 and a half found me swearing up at the smirking face that watched me from over the edge of the roof.  Then, there was nothing.  Lights out, compadres.

“Wakey wakey eggs and bakey,” smiled a deep voice by my ear. It was cold, cold everywhere.  Christ, my head felt like someone had used it for soccer practice and then stuffed it with wool.  I levered myself up. Or, at least I tried to. My arms seemed not to want to work. The muscles along my back clenched in a bitch of Charlie horse. Holy shit, I gasped, but all that came out was, “Unngghhhnaah.”  A chuckle echoed beside me. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch it,” he said, his smart-ass grin oozing into the words.  Swallowing a couple of times, I tried again. “That…wasn’t…funny, Lang,” I ground out.  I pried open my eyes and turned to glare at him. “I thought it was,” he replied, and if possible his smirk got wider.  “Fuck you,” I spat back, hoarsely, “that was so not cool.”  I struggled to sit up and just managed to catch the blue sheet as it tried to slither off the table, and me. “So not cool,” I mumbled, again, under my breath as I succeeded in levering myself into a seated position. Wait, the table? The TABLE!  I whirled around, ignoring my protesting muscles. “You let them cart my ass off to the MORGUE?”

My brother was leaning bonelessly against the (occupied) table beside mine, his ankles and arms crossed.  He simply raised his brows at me as if to say, “Where else would they take you?”  I scowled, huffing at him. Clutching the sheet tighter to my breasts, I began trying to make my body work. Pins and needles were marching painfully up my legs and my fingers and toes were on fire with them.

“What the fuck, Lang?” I grumbled, “I can’t believe you did this.”  He just looked at me, his green-gold eyes shining with suppressed humor.  Didn’t lift a damn finger to help me as I placed both feet on the icy floor and teetered for a second, my teeth starting to chatter. Fucker.  My knees almost gave way and I gripped the edges of the table until my knuckles creaked. He cleared his throat. Another rush of anger spiraled through me.

“I just don’t see the point of scaring someone off the edge of a building, I mean, what sane person would do that?” I curled my lip at him, forcing my muscles to shake off that stubborn post-mortem rigor. “Oh, that’s right, you’re not sane, my mistake.”  Self-righteous fury quivered in my voice and I had to grind my jaw shut not to call on all the instruments of revenge at my disposal and teach him some goddamn respect right here, right now.

What kind of brother scares you off a building then allows you to wake up naked under a sheet in the city morgue, AND THEN laughs at you the whole time you try to get everything working properly again? Not a good one, that’s for damn sure.  I’m his elder sister; I deserve a little more respect than this….this insanity. Sonuvabitch, I swore with silent ferocity, I’m going to kill him this time, I swear to God I am.

“Easy there, Tessa, don’t go all Carrie on me before we get outta here,” he laughed, that crooked smirking smile rippling across his pretty boy face. His silvery hair caught the light and shimmered, adding to the illusion that his entire body was glowing with mirth. I couldn’t suppress the growl the slipped past my teeth.

“You know how I feel about morgues, you ass hat, and here you are, no, no here I am!”  Those blonde caterpillar brows lifted slightly, as if I was behaving like an unreasonable child. The good humor on his face shifted as something brief, and intense, passed through his eyes.  “You didn’t wake up alone, did you?” he murmured into the sudden chill silence my accusation left behind.  I paused in the midst of pulling the sheet tauter around me, toga style. Well, there was that. But still. I felt the steady tug of the frown on my face, the harsh arrow of my brows as I glared up at him. “Did you at least bring me some goddamn clothes?” I replied finally, silently conceding him the point. “I wouldn’t be here in the first place if you hadn’t pulled that stupid, dangerous stunt on the ledge, now would I?” I pointed out waspishly.  “It’s the very least you could’ve done, getting me clothes.”For a heart beat I thought he would say he hadn’t bothered to grab any. I was two blinks away from blasting his smart ass face through the opposite wall before he produced a handful from the table he was leaning against. He grinned and tossed them to me. “What are brothers for, anyway?”  I snagged them out of the air with an indelicate snort.

“Obviously not for fraternal affection and caring support,” I snarked, shaking out the clothes with one hand. “Ah, come on, I wouldn’t be near as much fun if I was nice to you, Tessa,” he wheedled, fluttering his eyelashes at me. I studiously ignored that comment. Instead, I looked up at him, brows raised. “You gonna turn around, or what?” I asked.  He rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “Why should I?” he demanded.

“It’s not like you have anything I haven’t seen a thousand times before,” he pointed out, “Besides, we really don’t have time for this modesty crap you’re suddenly advocating.”  I stood for a second and just gave him dead eyes.  His gaze slid away guiltily. I smirked. “I mean, Lang, this is a morgue—we have all the time in the world,” I told him sarcastically.  He pointed at me. “That is such utter bullshit,” he said, “and you know it. Anyone could walk in here at any moment and see you—this morning’s famous jumper—not squashed flat and oozing.” He put his hands on his hips and let the self-righteous stare and the raised brows do their dirty work. I scowled back, caught. I managed to look down my nose at him after a second. The image of what I must have looked like on that sidewalk skittered across my mind. Oh. EWWW. There went the composure.

“Gee, thanks for the visuals on that one, bro,” I snipped, “I really needed that picture painted for me.” I tucked the shirt under my arms, draped across my chest just in case the sheet slipped while I struggled into the jeans. This was absolutely ridiculous. I snapped the jeans open angrily and began pulling them on. I had to hop around, wiggling gracelessly, to get all the way in them. “Where the hell did you get these? Punch and Judy? I’m getting ready to bust a seam!” I gasped, sucking in to button and zip them.  These things certainly weren’t a pair of mine. I looked down, lifting the sheet aside to see. They were a pale, almost white, wash with quilted patch work things artfully done at the knees and by the pockets. I felt the sneer creep across my face. Nope, not mine, not mine at all. Jesus, I’m gonna have to practice not breathing or I really will explode out of these. My weight shifted and I heard the ominous creak of fabric. Uh oh. There was no way, if we had to run, that I was going to come out of this with all my clothes on. No fucking way.

“I just…picked them up along the way,” was the vague response I got. A fabulous example of a non-answer as provided by Lang. I glowered at him, before inspecting the t-shirt he’d handed me. “I love cake? Seriously, Lang? Seriously?” Exasperation was practically a laser beam shooting from my eyes.  Lang shrugged carelessly. “It was short notice; I grabbed what I could.” His lip twitched. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. I was just about to say something appropriately snide when his expression changed subtly, drifting away from good humor on a fast tide. He held up a hand.

“Hush for a second, Tess,” He told me, tilting his head a little to hear better whatever it was that had caught his attention. His eyes eventually focused behind me on the door. There was a slight sound. I tensed immediately, muscles shuddering and clothes shouting their protests at my reaction. I closed my eyes for a brief second, concentrating on the outside world. The everyday noises of a functioning hospital in a busy metropolis filtered down to me. And, in the background came the sounds of the metropolis itself. I narrowed my focus, zeroing on our immediate area. Then I heard it. That funny hollow noise that fills empty hospital corridors, right before someone walks down them. It really is quite a creepy sound, in and of itself let alone hearing it from a morgue. I looked up from the shirt, still annoyed, only to see a frown pull Lang’s wide mouth into an unforgiving line. He cautiously straightened to his full, impressive height, hands hanging loosely at his sides. Warily, I observed him, noting the changes flitting across his face, in his eyes. The humor drained out of him like water down a… well, like water down a drain. And, let me tell how that is a very, very not good sign. Not good at all. Worry began to gnaw at me. I glanced over my shoulder at the door, eyeing it balefully. Shit, if we, either of us, get caught in here like this the jig is up. Cause if anyone, immortal or not, catches us, then the immortals will know. And, that, my friends, is another very, very not good thing. I looked back at my brother. He was practically strumming with tension. And Lang never gets all rigid like that unless it means we’re in deep.  Someone important must know about this little interlude. Someone like us.

“Tessa,” he warned, fear starting to creep into his voice. He was watching the door as I quickly dragged the (too small) shirt over my head.  “I know, I know, I’m doing the best I can, Lang,” I replied, tugging on the shirt hem.  Christ, he must have robbed a prepubescent boy. My breasts strained the navy material and the hem rode awkwardly at my navel. I wasn’t some voluptuous Venus imitation but this was just obscene. Well, I mean, I’m not built like a boy, either, just not…well, never mind. That’s neither here nor there, is it?  Slightly embarrassed, I lowered the sheet, holding it loosely in front of me. Lang made a soft grunt, jerking my attention back to him.

“Lang, what’s going on?” I whispered, tossing the sheet on the table behind me. “We really need to get out of here before someone comes back.” I edged toward him, glancing back at the doors.  A moment passed and no response. Puzzled, I turned back and studied his face closely. His eyes were blank and glazed. The color was more gold now than it was green, giving them a strange cat-like shimmer. I knew what that meant. He hadn’t heard a single word I’d said. There was no one home to hear me. Dammit. Off doing his version of our own special brand of voodoo. We really, really didn’t have time for this. I was suddenly overcome with the desire to wring my hands like those women in classic films, you know, the damsels in distress. Instead, I tugged at his sleeve, winding the fingers of my left hand around his bicep. He towered over me, frozen mid-listen to something in the ether. I could feel his soul—out there, deep in the ether—searching.  I flickered my own extra senses, catching nothing right away.  But, that wasn’t unusual. Lang’s hearing was better than my own, on the astral plane as well as in our corporeal forms.  And I didn’t have the time to use my own strengths to see whatever the hell the issue was. All I knew was that I didn’t have the juice to haul both our bodies out of this morgue and that time was running out. The sounds in the corridor grew clearer, sharper. Soon, I’d be able to hear them, even without super human senses. There were two distinct sets of footsteps. I gave us two minutes, three tops, before shit hit the fan in a very dramatic way.

“Lang, snap out of it,” I hissed. I grabbed his other arm and shook him a little. “We really don’t have time for this shit, dude,” I said, worriedly eyeing the corridor beyond the door. I could hear the individual voices now, coming toward us. Oh man, this was not good. I looked up into his face, searching the familiar features for some sign he’d come back. The only way to really see what he was up to was to follow his example and I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk both of us being caught in the cookie jar with our proverbial pants down around our ankles.  Someone had to execute the emergency escape plan.  And Lang was currently out of commission.  I tugged on his sleeves, experimentally. He swayed toward me easily but not in that ‘falling tree’ kind of way. If I led him, his body would follow, hopefully without too much trouble.  I prayed that whoever was coming our way would just pass on by or be easily mojoed. But something told me that today was not going to be my kind of day. This morning’s activities made that blaringly clear. I leaned into him, putting the pad of my thumb over each wrist’s pulse point. I let my eyes drift closed, centering myself on the uneven pulse of our two heartbeats.  It was hard, harder than it should’ve been. But with two unknown’s breathing down our proverbial necks, it was the best I could do.

Abruptly, I was surrounded in the rushing madness of a working human body. Two working human bodies.  I skated along my own bloodstream, noting how things were slower than they should be, heading for that place where I held his wrists.  It’s a strange feeling, passing awareness from one body to another. It’s kinda like diving into a really cold pool. The shock alone is enough to knock a person right back into their own skin. But I’d had plenty of practice dealing with the shock, and honestly, this sort of thing had always come naturally to Lang and me. Still, it was tough, his body being so much bigger, so much faster than my own was right then.  Luckily, I didn’t have to do a deep sea dive for what I needed.

I reversed until I was straddling the metaphysical barriers between our bodies, then I reached out and rifled through the molecules. Hmm, no, not that one, not that one either, crap, where was it? Lang’s heart thundered around me, drowning out my own thoughts.  It was speeding up. No, no, stop, don’t do that.  I swore at my brother. Apparently, whatever had pulled him into the ether was either really, really exciting or equally as scary. I prayed he could keep it together long enough for me to pull this rabbit outta my hat. Frantically, I stretched out as far as I could go and still be in the both of us. There! Potassium slithered into my grip with a welcoming curl. It nuzzled me, playfully tugging at the handle I had on it. I pulled back and centered myself again, wrapping myself up in the mineral as if it were thread and I a spindle.  This was part of my, our, own “special brand of voodoo.” We controlled the periodic table, utterly, between the two of us. Not something our brethren could claim, between the whole lot of them.  Most of them dealt with the traditional stuff: fire, water, mind control, invisibility, etc. You get the picture.

Anyway, the idea, here, was to bring our bodies completely in sync. Then to use our combined energies, while I still, er, straddled the line, to disassemble us and teleport those particles to another, safer, locale for reassembly. By doling out potassium in increasing or decreasing volumes I could affect mine and Lang’s heart rhythm thereby bringing the functioning speed of our bodies into the proper alignment. You see, the heart is this big battery, and like any battery, it needs a combination of positive and negative charges to work. This is where potassium and sodium come in. They act as the charge, balancing the rhythm and intensity of a human pulse. If things really got out of hand, all I had to do was find me some sodium (not hard in a man who loves his potato chips the way Lang goes) and we were good. It’s all very simple. What wasn’t simple was that sodium didn’t really like me. Like, it really, really loathes me. Sodium was part of my brother’s half. Like I said, between the two of us, we controlled the periodic table. And those pieces that weren’t our half-they were… well, either they didn’t react to us at all or exploded like atomic bombs in our hands.  So sodium had to be a last resort.  But, hey, that was only if this Hail Mary hit the fan in an impressive splatter of excrement.  I began measuring out the potassium like my life depended on it. Cause, it kinda did. Sorta.

Lang’s body shuddered in the circle of my arms and I knew it was working, slow as hell, but working.  We didn’t have the time for me to do this properly, not really. I knew exactly what that meant—and dreaded it.  The reality of teleportation is nothing like what they show in Star Trek. I mean, yeah, you start somewhere, disappear, and reappear somewhere else. But, there’s a reason why it’s science fiction. If you weren’t immortal, it’d kill ya. It also takes a helluva lot of energy to simply dematerialize a human body, move it, then reassemble it, dead or alive. That’s a freak ton of matter to move, no matter how you do it. And that’s energy that ordinary humans don’t have personal access to and, even if they did, they couldn’t control it. We immortals did have access to it and could control it, with certain limitations. How and why, I know not, nor did any one of us—they were the questions of the ages. Anyway, that indelible thing that allowed us to have these…gifts and immortality, also gave us access to the power required to disassemble a body down to its very molecules.  But that, unfortunately, isn’t the part I dreaded. It was reassembly that was the bitch.

See, reanimation is a large consumer of this mysterious energy we have and it, understandably, takes quite a bit of time until a person was at max power after such a thing. Again, think battery. Mine was currently riding the dangerously empty line. And, I didn’t have the luxury of waiting till my battery was completely charged to make the jump. Ergo, I had barely enough juice to move myself, let alone my giant of a sibling; read: nearly none at all. I, maybe, if I was lucky, had the power to dissemble us both, and to maybe get us somewhere else close by, but damn if I could put us back together, in two pieces. And that was the bottom line.  If I did this, even perfectly synced, there was an 85 percent chance that one of us wouldn’t come through in one piece or that we would end up as one piece. Which, for your information, has happened only once before, when we were first learning how to do all this immortal mojo crap. Luckily, Jerry disentangled us. But it took months before we were completely ourselves again. Months–and I am NOT doing that again. It brings a whole new meaning to the words “ character bleed.” Now, unfortunately for me, us, whatever, it doesn’t look like I really have a choice in the matter.  I swore that I would kill Lang myself when this was over.  And, Goddammit, I would follow through with that oath this time. I would. If whoever was currently squeaking down the hospital corridor didn’t do it for me.

Lang’s heart beat shuddered, double –beating, suddenly. That’s what’s supposed to happen.  In a normal person, that was a death omen. It meant get to a hospital or prepare to meet your Maker. But, still, we were nowhere near take-off. The span between us was still too far to hop, although my adrenaline-spiked pulse was helping matters. There was something heavy going on in the ether and Lang’s heart kept leaping and bucking in that special adrenaline dance. Undoing all the ground gained by my own adrenal issues and making this entire thing twice as hard. Of course, by hard, I certainly mean impossible.

Fighting panic, I tuned myself into my own frequency and was not pleased with what I found.  They, whoever they were, were now just outside the morgue doors. I could hear the vibrations of their voices in the membrane between Lang and me. One was a man with an uncharacteristically deep voice; a resonant bass that shimmied through both our bodies like heat over a desert road.  It was vaguely familiar and very distracting. The other was female, young and shrill in the upper registers. I cringed as she hit one of those registers.  Apparently, she was not a happy camper. Join the club, princess, I thought acidly.  Still sunk deep between  bodies, her words were lost amidst the roar of blood and air through lungs and the distant marine gurgle of our digestive tracts. But, if I were a gambling girl, I’d bet my right hand, she didn’t want to be here anymore than I did.

He, on the other hand, sounded absolutely lovely–calm, soothing, tonally rich—and like a man who is accustomed to being obeyed, without question. Age had mellowed that extraordinary voice in the lower registers, which in youth had probably crunched like fresh gravel under tires. Unable to help myself, I leaned into the sound, loving the silken thunder of it against my mind and body.  The sound was like velvet, no, no, satin, slithering through my mind, pulling me away from Lang, slowly separating my mind from our bodies. It was so familiar. I just….I knew I’d heard it before. At work? I ran into many of our kind while executing my duties, though for very limited amounts of time. It was possible. Really, that would be the only place; I refused to mingle with other immortals socially. I enjoyed my peace of mind too much.

Damn, it had to be somewhere, but where? I couldn’t…it wouldn’t…dammit, a face and a name lingered tantalizingly close in the peripheries of my brain. They slipped away playfully every time I managed to get close enough to latch on.  But, it was work related. That much I caught before the tide ripped my thoughts loose again.

God, why did that sound make me want to…just…fall away? Go to sleep and never wake up or simply float away on cotton candy clouds? Every time I tried to return my focus to my current task, the hum of his voice would niggle into the back of my mind, drawing my attention away. It draped silken tendrils over my thoughts, preventing me from digging through them for answers without becoming deeply and hopelessly entangled.

This was no good. It seemed like they were just hovering outside the morgue doors, like spiders, waiting for me to become so exhausted and flustered that I gave in and floated away. Thus, making both myself and my brother easy pickings for whoever happened along, be they the fuzz or some predictably unscrupulous foe. Fucking vultures, I sneered, the venom of such a thought echoing oddly in my mind.  My eyes narrowed. Which was strange because, by my calculations, I had at least another 2 minutes (or less, now) before they got to the inner door to the room we were in. Well, huh.

I had no doubt that these ass wipes were immortals, now.  Him, definitely, if not her, too. Who else would use such underhanded methods or move so quickly? It was disgusting, all this pointless cloak-and-dagger political drama. Even doing what I did, knowing what I know, this was over the top.  I had no more patience and time had run out. It was the moment of last-ditch efforts.  Somewhere, deep in the back of my mind, part of me whimpered, desperately wishing Lang would suddenly return and save us. But, being a pragmatist, I knew that was highly unlikely.

I held Lang’s wrists as tightly as I could, until his flesh and mine were white with strain. There would be bruises in the shape of my fingers later.  My palms were slippery with sweat and the sensation was irritating and distracting. Think of things, I said to myself, which make your skin crawl. Think of noises that make you want to hurl, or throw things, or run away. Eyes squeezed shut I imagined nails on chalkboards, forks on porcelain, fingernails tapping on a table, toes tapping on a floor, mouth noises of all and every kind. Repulsion slithered down my spine and I took the opportunity to dive under again, searching our bodies for the signs I could start the transition now, without too much damage.

His heart beat was unsteady and his respiration was too fast. My own situation wasn’t much better. In any other circumstance I would be totally against doing this. It was unbelievably stupid. The list of things that would probably go wrong is endless. But they were hovering outside the doors and I had no more time, no choice.  Without Lang there to help, there was nothing else that could be done.

“God, Lang, I really wish you’d come back already, “I huffed, fiddling with his big, limp fingers, lacing them with mine.  I slipped from my skin like a hand out of a glove. It is never a good idea to take yourself apart while still in your body. Lang was already gone, his shell standing listlessly in my arms. I was able to maintain our stance from where I hovered just beyond my flesh. It took more energy than I would’ve liked to expend. Damn. I could already tell this was not going to follow the best case scenario. I just didn’t have the goddamn resources. Despair began to itch in the back of my mind. I pushed it away, fiercely, concentrating on what had to be done.

Here goes nothing, I sighed.

Jerry had told us, once, way back when we were freshly immortal, that while it is better to imagine the transition from solid to any other material as if one were unraveling a fine tapestry (seeing the body’s parts as “warp” or “weave”, respectively), there were times when it was more…efficient… to see it as sand, instead, being blown away in a desert storm.  Now, I realized, was just one of those times. And, most of the time, the transition took mere seconds—very much like in Star Trek. But today I had no doubt that this could, would, take much longer; minutes, at the least.  The thought of such exertion sat like a bucket of hot lead in my belly.  I didn’t have to look down to see how my trembling shook our linked hands.

I took a deep breath, then another, and centered myself.  The thunder of two bodies roared like a train through my mind, abruptly destroying everything beyond us, beyond this task.  I reached out with my mind and touched the air, sifted it over mental fingers. I tasted it, tested it for weight and depth and strength.  I would need it, desperately, to do what I could not: tear us apart.

It was stale and cool. The cooling units down here were state-of-the-art with high tech filtering systems that prevented anything in the autopsy room from being moved through the ventilation system out into the main body of the building. Therefore, dust and microscopic debris were minimal.  I drew a shuddering breath and exhaled loud, loud enough to hear over our internal noises and the still-liquid sweetness of that voice.  Great, just fucking great, I fussed sourly; I would have to be stuck in a city medical facility that actually gives a hot damn about airborne contagions.  Any other place would’ve been too bloody easy.  Hopeless fury boiled low in my belly and I barely stopped myself from releasing Lang’s hands to run my fingers through my hair in frustration.  Jesus, could this get any worse—Oh shit.

I did not just think that.

Don’t think anymore, you idiot, I scolded myself.  Just do what needs to be done and bitch later.  I zeroed in on what I did have and began to push the air immediately touching our bodies.  It moved easily and I thanked a God that I was pretty sure didn’t exist anymore for small blessings.  I kept a steady rein on that small tendril of power, the air now moving at pretty steady clip around us.  Far away, I could feel it whipping my hair and our clothes against me, in a way that might have registered as painful on a more superficial level of consciousness.

I sunk low into our bodies, to the very bottom.  I rested among the atoms, feeling the pulse and tug of the neutrons and electrons and protons as they did their busy little deeds.  I thought “go faster” and they did.  “Even faster” was harder but still, they did.  I felt myself weakening. I had to force the dematerialization: my condition, my lack of power, prevented the mindless sort of action that this usually was.  I was having to backtrack years, to our first lessons in god-hood.

My body began to vibrate as the atoms moved faster and faster, pieces of it beginning to fragment.  The pieces were swept up and around by the miniature vortex I had going around us.  Molecule by molecule, my body was disintegrating. I pushed into Lang’s now, repeating my actions.  His stubbornly refused to move. I pushed, exerting an enormous amount of energy before, finally they began to shimmer and quake.  But still, it wasn’t near enough.  I leaned into my command, shifting power away from the vortex to strong-arm them into submission. They sped up abruptly, literally exploding out and away.

In an instant, half of Lang was gone.

I jerked, the backlash rippling through my mind and body, sheering off more of me as well as a good bit of the surround area. The phantom tang of pain peaked then faded.  I found myself beyond my body. Dazed, I fumbled about. It took me a second to realize I was In-Between.  A whisper of heat blew past me, more a thought than sensation. I turned toward it and the Ether was there, breathing like some ancient sleeping beast.   It wasn’t something visible or concrete. But it was tangible and responsive, almost like air, but …not.

It was the entire collective mind of the world, if not the universe.

Lang was in there, searching, for something, some villain or foe lost amid the glittering smog.

I found myself moving toward it, almost without conscious thought.  It wouldn’t take much, I told myself. Just a bit of time to get him, I coul—

Agony, white-hot, seared across my mind. No longer in a corporeal form, no sound left a throat that was less than it had been. But still, I screamed. It was a ragged, animal sound and it jerked me back to the present, our current situation. The pain faded as quickly as it came but the echo of my scream bounced out along the In-Between and I felt…something… pulse back in response. Almost like….a laugh?

Jesus, what the hell? I moved back to our bodies, sifting and threading myself through the bits and pieces. Everything here was fine.  Why….? Oh, Christ.

Silence reigned beyond the door. An ominous, calculating silence. The other immortals; dammit, I had completely forgotten them.  It had been him. He had….sent something, done something, I don’t even know what or how but it had felt like someone had driven a red-hot nail through my temples.

So, that brings me to The Glass Mountain. I’m not sure what got me about this tale; maybe it was the huge mountain made of glass or that a young boy was the victor. Or maybe it was because I always felt it was neglected–that there was so much more to it, written between the lines, that I kept coming back to see if I could charm the answers from those seemingly blank places between words and letters.

What’s really interesting is, according to legend, there was, in fact, an Amber Mountain near the “real-life” island of Atlantis, Heligoland. It was this one that sank beneath waves in 1500 BC and became the basis for all stories of the Glass Mountain throughout the world. Again, according to legend. The most definitive versions come from northern climes which jives oddly with a Mediterranean beginning, at least in my mind.  So, like every tale that’s over a millennium old, I shall take its origin stories with a very large, very coarse grain of (sea) salt.

The story of the Glass Mountain that I read  when I was knee high to a grasshopper was a Polish tale. But the original tale began its life much farther north, among the peoples of the North Sea as something just a little bit different. There are, on record, at least thirty versions of the story. Some have the mountain standing ignominiously in the middle of the countryside but others have that it sunk deep beneath the waves of the sea, lost forever.

In the oldest version, from Scandinavia, an unnamed Valkyrie (“chooser of the slain”– warrior women who pick who dies in battle and will ascend to Valhalla, also bear mead and are the lovers of various heroes and immortals) is trapped on the mountain by Odin (Norse king of the Gods) and an warrior fights to the top of mountain saves her and they’re married–the end. Other variations talk of the North or the “Pole” Star.

For instance, the Indian version of the tale, The Shining Mountain, says that this mountain lies that star. It is the Mount of Meru and on it lies all the Gods and all the Souls of the Ancestors ( in Norse mythology, these places would be Asgard and Valhalla).

Now that I’ve got all the out of the way, I’ll relay the tale to you as I heard it.

The Glass Mountain
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Once upon a time there was a mountain of the finest Venetian glass on top of which stood a castle made of pure gold. In front of the castle stood an apple tree, made of beaten silver, with emerald and jade leaves, and hanging from its branches were apples, made of purest, softest gold. Anyone who picked an apple gained entry into the castle where there was a silver room, at the top of its tallest tower. In the silver room sat an enchanted princess, who was both modest and beautiful. And, below, her coffers where overflowing silver and gems of every color and shape. Great chests of gold lined every wall of the castle. Surely she was as wealthy as she was lovely.

Knights came from all around the world to try their hand, but their efforts were fruitless they could not climb the great glass mountain. Even with horses shod with sharp nails , they never made it halfway up the mountain. Sometimes they just slid back the way the came, other times they fell in wild flailing of limbs and mail. Many broke bones and there were not a few that fell to the bottom of the steep, slick mountain and never got back up. The enchanted princess sat on the balcony of her silver tower room and watched all that went on below. The sight of her always gave the men a fresh burst of courage. It was all in vain.

Now, for almost seven years (or 70 or 700 0r 7,000..) the princess had been waiting for some man to make it to the top of the mountain. A vile moat surrounded the mountain, made up of moaning, dying men and rotten befouled corpses of both knights and steeds. It looked like the site of some great, dreadful battle, after the fighting had finished and the women had yet to dig free the survivors. It was a sorry sight, indeed.

Three days before the end of the seventh year (or 70th, or 700th or 7,000th…) a huge, golden knight on a lively black steed appeared at the foot of the mountain. In a a mad rush, he managed to drive his horse halfway up the mountainside, farther than any had gone before him. Then, he stopped and turned his horse around, calmly returning to the ground with ease. The next day, he repeated his actions the horse walked the glass like it was still on flat earth, thought sparks shot from its hooves with every step. Everyone stared in awe as he neared the summit. He was almost to the apple tree when, from deep within its branches, rose an eagle. The huge bird gave a fearsome shriek and dove at the knight, striking its horse in the right eye, blinding it. The horse shied, rearing. Then, as if in slow motion, the horse’s hind legs slipped down the glass and it, and the knight, tumbled from the mountain. Neither rose again.

Now, there was only one more day left before seven (or 70 or 700 or 7,000) years will have passed and still the princess waited in her silver room in the golden castle at the top of the glass mountain. There, coming up the path, was a school boy.He was a merry, light-hearted fellow, though tall and well-grown. He took quiet note of the bodies of the other knights encircling the mountain but continued onward, beginning his ascent slowly.

Since he was a little boy, this young man had heard his parents speak of the castle and the riches at the top of the mountain. Mostly, he heard them speak of the beautiful, enchanted princess. Hearing all this, he decided he would try his hand at climbing the mount. But, first, he killed a lynx and attached its claws to his hands and feet. Glowing with confidence, he started his climb as the sun started its descent.

By the time it had completely sunk below the horizon, the boy had not gotten more than halfway. His feet were sliced to ribbons and bleeding. He could only hold on with his hands, the claws wedged deep into the grooves of the glass. He strained his eyes, looking toward the summit of the mountain but it was too dark. Starlight gilded the sides of the mountain.The boy clung, completely drained. He waited, without hope, for death. He drifted, hanging firmly from his claws, into a sweet and dreamless sleep.

The apple tree was guarded by the huge eagle that had sent the golden knight to his doom. Every night at moonrise, it circled the entire mountain, on the lookout for trespassers. This night was no different. No sooner had the bird taken flight from the tree, it caught sight of the boy clinging to the glass. With nary a sound, it swooped down and ripped the boy from his perch. Its sharp talons dung into his shoulders and he, bearing the pain stoically, reached up to hold onto its scaly legs.  It flew high  above the mountain and began to circle the castle. The boy looked down and he saw the glittering palace and its tall tower. In the tower, he spied the beautiful princess, sitting before a fire, lost in melancholia.  He looked away and found the eagle had circled close to the apple tree.

Quick as lightening, he pulled a small knife from his pocket and cut off the eagle’s feet. It flew off, screaming in agony and was never seen again. In the meantime, the youth tumbled from the sky to land hard among the branches of the apple tree. Again, he took his little knife and used it to peel an apple, placing the shimmering skins on his wounds. In moments, they were healed and he was well and whole again. He climbed from the tree and placed several of the apples in his pockets, beside his knife.  From there, he entered the castle.

The inner doors were guarded by a great dragon but he tossed a single apple toward it and it vanished a puff of smoke. Instantly, the doors opened to the inner courtyard which was filled with many fragrant and lovely flowers and trees. Amongst them stood the princess, forlornly wandering through the garden.

At his entrance, the princess looked up. As soon as she saw him, she ran to him and embraced him as lord and husband. She offered him all the gold and treasures within the castle and the kingdom her father had ruled before her. Now, the youth was a rich and powerful man.

The next day, the young man and his new queen were exploring the gardens, he looked down from the edge of the mountain and was stunned to see a great crowd of people gathered together at the base. The queen blew a tiny silver whistle and a hummingbird appeared, hovering at her shoulder.

“Fly down and ask what has happened,” she told the bird. Swiftly, it disappeared, flitting down the side like an emerald comet. Soon, it returned.

“When the young king cut the eagle’s legs off, the blood fell down on all those who had lost their lives and limbs at the bottom of the mountain and restored them to life. They awoke this morning as if from a deep sleep and are now gazing with gratitude and awe upon the day and the youth who defeated the eagle and the mountain”

The End
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My very own special ending to the story(I did this as an exercise for writing class. I hadn’t reread the story for years when I first wrote this. I’m surprised by how much I remembered. Enjoy)

The Glass Mountain

Is it the magical creatures we meet? The witch? The ogre? The enchanted princes? The swans and frogs and donkeys that are not what they seem? The triumphing of good over evil?

Or is it the journey? The hardships? The agonies and humiliation that the protagonist must suffer in order for goodness to prevail? Is it the clever helpers and the enchanted tools?

Or do we love the happy endings? Where the princess and her prince ride off into the sunset or the children are returned to their loving parents or the evil witch is vanquished and everyone can go back to living a normal life? Is that what make us love them so very much?….or is it something more, something…deeper?

What draws you into a fairy tale? What keeps you there? And, what, after all that, makes you remember it long after you’ve set it aside?

Fairy tales have been around since before man had a name to call them by. Some began life as parables, setting the example for children on what they should aspire to as functioning and contributing adult members of society. Some began as myths, meant to explain away some phenomenon or mysterious and beautiful person or place or thing. Many, though, began as legends, with their own small (in some cases, microscopically tiny) grain of truth.These evolved over time and telling until there were so many versions that one could never tell which was the original or where the truth lay hidden amongst all the lawful lies.

Thus it becomes redundant to point out that Disney was not the first to hook the beauty up with the beast or give the mermaid legs. But they did, in fact, fabricate many of the happy endings. The mermaid is given legs but every step is sheer agony and her prince chooses another over her. She ends up a wandering spirit, doomed to forever work for an angel’s wings that she will never receive.  Rapunzel was actually knocked up by the prince, with twins no less, gets her hair hacked off as punishment and evicted by the witch.  And children are always getting used and abused, especially by stepmothers.

The original fairy tales were quite gruesome with children being decapitated or horribly deformed or abandoned. Or women being trapped by ogres and witches and young men being transformed into swans or frogs or other things equally as undignified. Men were never changed into, oh, I don’t know, war horses, or dragons or some such. It always had to be a rather embarrassing animal. The women seem to be mostly airheads, or passive-aggressive, and if they do possess a brain, they must lose it in the end in order to get the happily-ever-package deal.

Enchantment or Brain washing? But still, we love them. We’re drawn back to them, again  and again. We tell them to our children, we rewrite them, we make them into films and books and plays and paintings. The question is, in essence, why?

Why do we love fairy tales so much?

So, here’s the deal: I’m going to post 2 pieces a week, with a discussion/explanation, whatever, to put them into some kind of context.We’ll still being starting in the back and going forward in time so it may be awhile before really new pieces start going up (gives me more time to finish and edit some of them).

That being said, I’d like to start with the Hybrid Manuscripts. I got the idea for this story from a discussion I was having with my mother waaaaayyyy back in the day. Science was always a love of mine but I hadn’t the dedication or (to be brutally honest) the math skills to pursue it beyond the “hobby” stage.  Anyway, this particular discussion revolved around the new and improved uses of nanotechnology, especially in medicine.  Well, afterward I went to Google and found that it was very important in genetic engineering and gene splicing and, well, everything snowballed from there.

I didn’t really have anywhere to go with this idea. It sort of just water-falled out of me and somehow ended up in a sprawl of ink across my desk. I took most of the characters from my classmates,  the ones I’d traveled from first grade through 8th, and in the case of some of the girls, on into high school. I had tried my hand at creating my own characters and was frustrated as all previous attempts all seemed to sound the same, if they were female, or they were stoic and uncooperative, if male. Plus, even when they were adults, they sounded like children playing dress up. This frustration was one of the main reasons I set this one aside.

The other, and more detrimental, problem I had with this entire story was the plot. I had gotten the idea from science and the plot had come from a dream. A dream that had ended in the middle of the plot. So, I had this seriously epic story, with a zillion tiny plot arcs, but the ultimate arc had no conclusion. I had several options but they felt….cliche, washed up, predictable. At the time, I didn’t have the skill to get the results I wanted with the material I had, ergo all my notes, all my paintings and sketches of the characters, all my research was stuffed into various folders and set on a shelf. Occassionally, I’d pull it out again, look it over, do some random edits but would, in the end, just wind up sticking it back on another, higher, shelf until the next time I thought about it.

Now, it is up here. Please, help me find something, anything, to do with this. Maybe one day it’ll be a real boy.

Most of my work is short fiction and, again, I’ll post the oldest first. Start at the beginning, proceed to the middle, conclude with the end sort of arrangement, you understand.

So, without further blathering, here’s one.

Summary: Lost in the dark underworld of dreams, a young woman discovers herself face to face with a tall problem she never expected.

Rating: PG-13 for Adult Situations and Religious Contexts

Word Count: 2,954

Status: More or less complete. With the proper attention it could go further.

Started: 2003

Edits: 1

Series: N/A

Read the pdf. or just scroll down.

Black Roses

Black Roses

Black roses. Their petals fall from the air like ravens’ feathers and coat the ground in layer after layer of fragrant velvet. The bare, spindly arms of the trees reach for warmth from them but those silky-soft patches of shadow slip like ink through paper from their branches. I lift my face toward the sky, overcast and ominous, the faint rumble of thunder heralding the coming storm. Over me, beside me, beneath me, all around me they fall but the hallowed ground which is my skin is never touched. A fitful wind makes them dance wildly for a moment and my unrestrained hair whips about as if trying to capture the fleeing buds. The ashen tendrils settle, disappointed, splaying sulkily over my back and shoulders. I reach a slender hand to brush it from my face, my fingertips lingering thoughtfully against the curve of my cheekbone. The faintly delicious scrape of my long nails over my skin sends a shiver down my spine and hardens my nipples, bare beneath the transparent archaic night shift I wore. I let my lids slip down over my eyes and draw the roses’ unique scent deep into my lungs.

Black roses are a thousand times more dangerous than any common rose. Their scent is the sweetest, richest, most musky of all roses but there is a sharper tint, like the bite of salt in a wound, and a bitter aftertaste, not unlike the pungent tang of the opium poppy, that remains long after the scent has dispersed. They grow in wild, unruly forests of thick black thorns longer than a yard and as big around as a man’s arm. The bark is slick and poisonous so that once it has pierced the flesh, even the smallest scratch, a long suffering death is soon to follow. The scent intoxicates you, drives you mad. It is an aphrodisiac and a poison. It is the smell of burning flesh, carrion, and hate. The smell of freshly made love, of a newborn child, and hope. It fills you up yet leaves you aching, desperate for more. It is everything and nothing.

A sound penetrates the silence of falling petals and my eyes open slowly. There is a new shade, a darker shadow leaning against the slick, dark bark of one of the barren, naked trees. Beyond this, I glimpse the sky, nearly black now, the storm almost furiously upon us, this shadow and I. The wind has picked up and now whistles panickedly through the branches and thorn forest. My head cocks to the side like a little bird’s as my eyes trace the silhouette beside trunk. I take a step forward, and without glancing down, I know that those pitch-black blossoms evade my touch, leaving icy, stark earth to greet my unblemished soles. A chill races up from my feet and goosebumps prickle my skin. I take another step and then another.

With every step the wind blows harder and the snap and crack of limbs fill the air, along with patches of stained flora. The figure never moves but the errant gale has caught their overcoat in its grasp, sending it belling out like the spread wing of a great bird swooping down to capture its unsuspecting prey. Now I am surrounded by the rotting skeletons and I stop beside one, my hand pressing into the moist, slimy bark, leaving an imprint in the mold. My hair has become a maelstrom ‘round my face and I seek to tame it. Imprisoning the majority of it, I use my free hand to press it against the side of my neck but my eyes remain trained on the figure, a man, lounging no more than a few yards from me. A cowl covers the upper half of his face from my view but I can feel his gaze boring into me, seeming to scorch my skin with an arctic blaze. His mouth, chin and the lower line of his nose is all I see. He is tall, standing at a height that would dwarf most adult males. He is dressed in the colors of the storm and his clothes are elegant and expensively cut, displaying a body that is lean, yet undeniably powerful, to its most devastating advantage.  I feel uneasy suddenly where before I had felt nothing but interested indifference. I glance over my shoulder but the scenery hasn’t changed with the darkening sky.

The austere hilltop is the color of ashes and coal dust, ringed by a forest of malicious, greedy thorns from which grow the crooked, gangrenous trees like poisonous spikes. My footsteps have been swept beneath a rug of gloom and doom and there is nothing to do but to look forward at the man. A frown creases the corners of my mouth downward and I narrow my eyes suspiciously. The air has chilled and the wind has changed direction, now slamming against my back insistently, urging me onward. I stumble forward, reluctantly. I lean back into the wind and struggle to keep my grip on the tree, digging my nails and my fingers deep into the mold and the decaying wood. Fear rolls in the depths of my belly and I jump as lightening flashes directly above my head. The smell of burnt ozone fills my nostrils and I struggle to breathe past it. My grip loosens and the wind tears me from my not-so-safe harbor with a satisfied snarl. A small scream escaping me, I am hurled the last short distance by the rollicking wind and tossed by thorn and bramble at the feet of the dreadfully patient stranger.

The rain has come and it sends the briars and branches to cackling and it drowns out the soulful cry of the gale in the clouds. It is a steady pounding, drenching me to the bone. My shift clings to my naked body beneath, outlining detail after detail, leaving me no dignity, no modesty. My skin is coated in slick black as the fallen petals no longer shrug away from me. Rain and roses fall and I refuse to look any higher than the ever-dampening earth oozing between my pale fingers, clenching them tighter and tighter as if the sterile soil will save me from him and his soul-stealing eyes.

A shift in the wind warns an instant before his shadow falls over me. My muscles go rigid with tension and cold, I fight my instinctive urge to scramble away as fast as the oily ground will let me. It is not only fear and ice that stiffen my body but pride. My hair clings, panicked, to my neck and the one shoulder that my stumble has revealed. I want to squeeze my eyes shut but they won’t close. My breath rattles in my throat and my chest rises and falls raggedly. Icy drops of water tremble as they fall from my lashes. I feel him move and then the blazing shock of his thumb and finger grasping my trembling chin. His touch is like an inferno radiating through my body with just that one small point of contact. I will not look upon his face. I refuse. He lifts my face up toward his own. I can barely control the shaking in my limbs.

“Look at me,” he murmurs. His is a voice meant for seduction. A rich, velvety baritone with the smallest most delicate trace of an accent, it rolls over the listener like hot fudge over vanilla ice cream.  My lashes shield my eyes as they stare at the ridiculous beauty of his muscled calves and long shapely feet. His slacks are a fine grey silk that drapes just-so over the contours of his distinctive musculature, defining yet hiding its beauty. He is wearing soft black leather boots, I think, but can’t be sure because the light is too dim and my eyes are having trouble focusing. His weight shifts and he bends a knee. Crouching, one long elegant hand, like concert violinist’s, rests casually on that knee and he repeats his request, an air of command sliding behind the words. I shake my head, once, in denial. I study the signet ring that looks to have worn itself a groove in the flesh of his left pinkie. It’s simple. The band and setting is a thick silver whose surface seems to have been etched with a message once but is now faded by time. The stone is black and transparent and unlike any stone I have ever seen. It shown brilliantly although there is no light to speak of; the light appears to come from within the stone or, perhaps, the man himself. My eyes desperately try to focus on the ring but his touch is insistent.

“What a proud one you are,” he says, admiration and irritation warring in his tone as he leisurely strokes my chin and bottom lip with the pad of his index finger. A shudder dances down my spine and my lashes flutter as he moves to cup my entire jaw in his palm. He uses his thumb to thrum the leaping pulse below my ear and I find I’m having the damnedest time concentrating on not looking at him. I silently curse my over-developed sense of aesthetics because I know when I look into his face I will see the most excruciatingly beautiful face of all time staring back at me. That beauty was temptation enough without the luscious promise of something else dripping like nectar from his words. He lifts my entire face toward his, so that now, instead of his knees and hands, I’m looking at the strong, shadowed column of his throat and the chiseled perfection of his mouth and beard-shadowed jaw. Damn, his beauty, I snarl to myself through the fear the clogs my rational processes.

“Such a striking little thing, too,” he murmurs near my ear. Liar, I think, trickster, cheat; I call him filthy names in my head as he bends his head down so close to mine his lips brush the sensitive shell and his sweet breath tickles the hair at my temple. I draw a quick breath in reaction and nearly choke as his scent swirls through my dazed mind, numbing even the silent curses that had helped me balance. A knowing chuckle rumbles in his broad chest no more than a few scants inches from my nose. Abruptly, I get the sense that I’ve been horribly outmaneuvered. I stiffen and try to lean away from him but his iron grip on my head prevents my body from moving more than an inch or so in any direction.

“Stubborn and willful as well, I see,” he chuckles again and fondly strokes the line of my jaw with a finger.  “I should’ve known it from this strong chin and that delightfully sulky bottom lip,” he says, his voice deepening on the last, becoming disturbingly thick and sleepy. His finger teases that bottom lip unmercifully before reclaiming its original place along my cheek and jawbone.

“Pride I knew from the beginning; I saw it in all this silk ,” again, he whispers in my ear, his free hand skimming through the sodden tendrils dangling down my back and over my hindquarters. His hand follows them down my back. At his touch, they are once more dry and smooth, no longer dripping or windblown. He picks out a single lock that lies along the indention of my backbone and he strokes down, down, down until his fingers brush the curve of my buttocks and trace the dimples at the base of my spine through the clinging, moist fabric. He is so close I can barely breathe and his touch makes my body quiver in exquisite agony. I hate myself for finding even the smallest pleasure in the contact of his hands. He smells like a church; expensive incense, the sweet, faintly floral scent of silk vestments, and the sharp lemony smell of freshly polished wood.

“But I never dreamed you’d be this mule-headed,” he says, his mouth below my ear now, his lips a breath away from touching the skin there, his dark hood brushing tenderly across my cheek. I jump as his hand abruptly lifts from my jaw, shifting to encircle the slim column of my throat, his thumb coming to rest in the hollow at its base, starting to apply a steady, disturbing pressure. My hands clench and I can feel my nails biting into the skin of my palms. Sweet Mother, I gasp inwardly, fighting the surge of terror in my veins and the rising tide of desire in the core of my body. Think, damn you, think, I swear at myself, you’ve got to say something to get his mind off seducing you or you’ll end up begging him to throw your shift over your head and have his wicked, wicked way with you. My lashes flutter against my cheekbones and a tiny frown line forms between my brows as I struggle to gather my scattered thoughts. The first thought that pops into my head slips from between my lips and I’m stunned by the audacity of it.

“What do you mean you never dreamed I’d be this mule-headed? I thought you’d have done your homework like a good psychopath before you violated your women.” My voice is breathy and faint, not as strong or as sure as I had hoped. “But then again, I guess I should expect such rash and undisciplined behavior from someone like you.” It is stronger now and my famous tone, cutting and acidic, is just on the edge of the words.

He pauses and I can feel the sudden tension radiating from his big body into mine. I pray I haven’t misjudged my target and bitten off more than I could ever hope to chew. He lifts his head until he can look at my face, if not into my eyes. His grip on my throat has tightened just the smallest bit, just enough to set my pulse to leaping unsteadily beneath his thumb. I can feel the wheeze of air in my throat beneath it, whirring faintly as I inhale. I force my eyes to focus on his inhumanly lovely mouth, struggling not to show my fear or let his power cow me into backing down.

“Explain yourself, my pet,” he murmurs darkly, anger coloring his tone sanguine. That accent has thickened delightfully and I can’t help but melt a little under its power.

“My prince,” I say quietly, “Was it not such bold and impulsive actions that have reduced you to this sad state in a land of death and decay?” My tone is purposely genteel and sweet, a tactic used to sharpen the keen edge of my words.

I can feel the fury pouring off him in great, pounding waves.  His breath has quickened and the moist heat of it brushing past my cool cheek sets my skin to prickling. I still refuse to look him in the eye and I can feel his gaze burning as it sweeps over my features.

“My, little one, you are more falcon than dove but you forget a finely placed arrow can kill a falcon, for all its strength and courage, as surely as any dove…What say you to that?” he growls low in his throat. But I can not answer him because his hand is tightening further, pressing against my windpipe, turning the whirring wheeze into a sucking gasping struggle. I have to force myself from reaching for his wrist, to pull it from me and cast it aside, but I manage to restrain myself. I make my lips curve into a wry smile and I say, my voice steady for all its lack of volume, “How can I say anything if you insist on throttling me…”I pause, lifting one pale and faintly bloody hand to lay it over his thundering heart. The heat of him scorches my palm but I try to show no response. “…Lucifer?” I exhale his name, little more than a breath of air. I raise my eyes to his face. Our gazes clash like two enemies on a battlefield. But the battle light dims in his stunning eyes, one black and the other gold, as what I said begins to sink in. Immediately, his grip loosens, becomes caressing again. I suck in as much air as I can, coughing. He stares at me a moment, a very long moment. Then the hand at my hip tightens and abruptly pulls me into his body. But he couldn’t pull my upper body with it. I’d locked the elbow of the hand resting over his heart and I am glaring at him from streaming eyes. He sees my reluctance in my narrowed eyes and heavy breaths. A grin lights his expression; fucking sadist.

“I didn’t think you’d remember me so quickly, my love,” he laughed openly, genuine pleasure filling his remarkable eyes.

“Remember you?” I ask, bewildered, a sense of foreboding settling in my bones at the strange change that came over him when I’d said his name. The heat in his eyes and the familiar way he touches my body warns me that there is more to this than meets the eye. But another emotion eclipses the amusement on his face in the next moment after my question.

Arched black brows draw down over his long slender nose with its flaring nostrils and the shadow cast by the hood he still wears gives him a violent, dangerous aura. But it isn’t violence and pain those intense eyes promise me.

“You might not remember it all now but you do remember,” he says huskily…

I’m going to put up a few character exercises and some basic information that I used in forming this AU. I haven’t returned to this story for a couple of reasons.

1) It still requires a HUGE amount of research that I have not yet the time to undertake. I want to be as accurate as possible despite this being in a different universe than our own. This is more a “what if” scenario that a whole different Earth, with completely different rules governing its functions and interactions.

2) Much of the plot is still under contention.  I have yet to work out the characters fully or to figure out what becomes of them. This is really the most difficult of the obstacles.

3) I have more, smaller, projects that are closer to culmination and so, ergo, I chose to spend more time on them than this monster.

I would greatly appreciate any feed back anyone is willing to offer. Plot suggestions, style, technique, etc.–all are welcome.

Character Sketches:

The Angel, Death (Character Excercise)

Azrael (Character Excercise)

History and other Notes:

Angel Hierarchy (History Notes)

The Flyers (History Notes)

Summary: Janey has returned to the world of the living and is realizing the hardships that lay both before and behind her.

Rating: PG-13 for Language

Word Count: 1,390

Status: WIP

Started: early 2007

Edits: 1

Series: Hybrid Manuscripts

The Tree(Scene)

The next is something I wrote to explore how the hybrids in other parts of the world interacted and how their society was set up. This is my favorite of this series.

Summary: Janey is abroad in London and learns something about herself she never knew she had.

Rating: PG

Word Count: 3,609

Status: WIP

Started: January 2008

Edits: 3

Series: Hybrid Manuscripts

London Flight

I figure I should give you some background on this series/Universe. It is fairly complicated, even for me.  It is an alternate universe, where the United States government has delved into genetic engineering since the early 1940′s. Think something like Eureka ( the show on SyFy). In an expedition to the north, a cache of what is clearly alien artifacts is found deep under the ice. In this cache are three very important thing: a vial made of something that is like glass but isn’t, a book made of paper that isn’t really paper, and a strange metal disk made of metal.

Over the next 40 years, the government intensely studies and analyzes theses three objects, especially the vial. Inside, they find an alien DNA, one that is both radically different from humans and perversely similar in a few very important ways.  The decision is made to experiment with the DNA. It was combined with many animals from horses to rats to cattle to various reptiles and amphibians.  In doing so, they found that those without a certain genetic marker were severely adversely affected by the DNA while some not only survived the combination, but became entirely new and thriving species. When it was discovered that humans also possessed this genetic marker or “catalyst,” the push for human experimentation began in earnest. Around 1980, the first experiments were conducted, using prison inmates and orphans.  Through these trials, it was discovered that only certain ethnicities possessed the genetic marker and that it was only able to act as a catalyst during a very specific time frame.  From the 4th month in utero until the child was about 8.

The government discovered that hybrids could be created from the alien DNA and our own. Hybrids that are faster, stronger, and far more dangerous than your average soldier, even expertly trained and in the very best of physical shape. This information, though, was not discovered through the trials but from the disk, an information storage device from which all our technology had sprung, that contained everything required for such an attempt to be undertaken.

The government staged the contagious childhood disease and forced those “infected” i.e. in possession of the genetic marker to become wards of the state. Thus, the hybrids were created and the Angel Corps was instated.

I’m posting these scenes in the order in which they were written and not chronological.  This next scene happens a decade after the previous one.

Also, I’m putting up links to sites that I used in my research.  Enjoy!

Summary: After the massacre of her people and the invasion of Earth, Janey slept in a sleep like death–and dreamed.  The world she knew was gone and in its place was something out science fiction. Humans were bred as slaves, work horses, and great forests of alien flora flourished. Hybrids were persona non grata–hunted like beasts with prices on their heads.  Most had been captured and “neutralized”–broken down and dissected and violated until they were nothing but shells of their former selves, more robot than organic being, completely under the control of the invading force. Most had be wiped out in the first attack and those that had served had been swiftly hunted down. Very few existed now. They were vast becoming creatures of legend, especially Janey, who, in her coma beneath the trees, had become the new Arthur of Legend, the once and future queen.

A small, stubborn group of hybrid rebels pushed back. They waited for something to give. And, this time, it was Janey.

Rating: PG for Language

Word count: 1,412

Status: WIP

Edits: 1.5

Started: Summer 2006

The Awakening (Scene)

Links:

http://www.understandingnano.com/introduction.html

http://www.brighthub.com/science/genetics/articles/22210.aspx