Jackmonkey Games and Media

Tag: FictionFairy

  • The Sounds of Little Grove

    The Sounds of Little Grove

    A new horror story by the Fiction Fairy, Fey Cosmo. This story is lovingly dedicated to D and M… you know who you are

    TRIGGER WARNING: This contains confronting themes and is recommended for those aged 15 and up.

    Dear Reader: The serial, “Brethren of Judas” is on a mental health/research hiatus, as the topic of coercion right now is a difficult one for me. Please enjoy ‘The Sounds of Little Grove’, a one-off story of modern, suburban horror.

    He still walks them down the street, every evening. They’re still a snarling, horrifying mass of teeth and muscled, sleek bodies wearing studded collars. But now Killer Jap wears a scrappy, red bandana around his neck, and I dream about them. 

    My name is Brodie Marie Regan and I’m 14. This is not my story, it’s a story about a friend of mine called Ginevra Grace Rhodes. I’m taking a course for “Promising Young Athletes”, and this is the for the project, “Who Inspires You?” I know we were probably supposed to write about someone famous, but she Ginevra really inspired me, so here’s the story.  

    I should mention, our names are important because I’m pretty sure that’s why Mrs Halbrook put us together in kindergarten. Mrs Halbrook loved alphabetical order, and Rhodes followed Regan. I remember very clearly when she, Ginevra, walked in because she wasn’t wearing a uniform, she was wearing pyjama pants and a top that looked similar, but not quite part of the uniform. Mrs Halbrook would have said something, like, ‘This is Ginny, Ginny this is your class….’ or something like that, but then a small, precise voice corrected her. “Excuthe me pleathe, Thuthanna Halbrook, my full name ith Ginevra Grathe Rhodeth

    Tylar Scott, who would later become the biggest jerk in our year screamed at the teacher, “MISS IS YOUR FIRST NAME SUSANNA? THAT’S A DUMB NAME!” The whole class laughed but I remember Ginevra (not Ginny) scowling, like she wasn’t 5 and a half like the rest of us. She frowned like an impatient grownup.

    Soon this strange, pyjama-wearing, alien-acting girl with a giant lisp (lithp) was sitting next to me and unpacking with great care. I didn’t know what to say, she just kept pulling out lead pencils until there were about 8, all unsharpened and with their little white rubber ends completely clean. “How many do you have?” I asked in surprise. “Eight. I like the number eight,” Ginevra replied, in that same calm, precise voice. I would learn later that Ginevra really liked the number eight. In fact, when she liked something, anything, she Liked it with a capital L. 

    A few days later, Becky Roehampton was moved from our table of six girls because Cheryl came to our class. Cheryl was always around when Ginevra was in class, except for sport, and we simply accepted her as an adult that got paid to help kids in general, but especially to help Ginevra. She didn’t need help for schoolwork because she was very smart. But Ginevra needed help fitting in and doing the right thing. When Ginevra finished primary school with us, Cheryl was replaced by Mr Paxton, who did the same thing but in high school.

    It’s funny to remember now, how much I seemed to see of Ginevra.  I remember her always being there and then I couldn’t imagine school without her because she was my Friend. Friend with a capital F because she was very good to be friends with, because she always told the truth and always looked at you when you talked. Some people didn’t like that, but she looked RIGHT AT THEM, right in the eyes I mean. Sometimes other people would look away. But I didn’t mind, because it was nice to feel that when I spoke, Ginevra was hearing every word, like I was important. After a while I realised it was a bit of a privilege to be her friend, because she chose me, all because of my dad making me an egg sandwich for lunch. 

    My dad and me are the only two people in our family, unless you count Fancy, our poodle. Dad makes me lunch every morning and carefully trims off the crust and cuts the sandwich into neat triangles. Ginevra saw this as we opened our lunchboxes on the first day and for her at least, this made us BFF’s for life, as she TOO had an egg sandwich cut the same way. She was already sitting next to me, now we were eating the same food too. Little did I realise she ONLY liked egg sandwiches and would eat the same thing for lunch every day. Of course, the difference was who had made it, as Ginevra very precisely informed me, “My mother Doctor Thabrina Faith Rhodth made thith. She ith a doctor.” I replied that my dad Mick made mine, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t a doctor down at the factory. 

    Mum left when I was 2 and I don’t remember her at all. Dad tells me she got ‘fed up’ and just flew back to the UK and now it’s like she was never here at all. He always says, “Don’t worry love, she got fed up with me, not you,” but I’ll never know. I’ve seen a lot of two-year olds and they’re pretty annoying. Maybe I would have felt fed up too. I mean, look at my name! Dad was so sure I was going to be a boy he used the boy name he had reserved already. Thank GOD mum gave me the middle name of ‘Marie’ for one of her relatives. This confused my teachers growing up, as they expected to see a BOY when they called out “Brodie Regan”. But now I kinda like my name, especially when you say all three together, in a row, like Ginervra always did. To her I was never just ‘Brodie’.

    A lot of people didn’t like that about her though. I know primary school wasn’t easy for her because I was there for all of it. I was there when Tylar Scott cut some of her hair off and she screamed for two hours until her mum picked her up. I was there when Morris Melunga (in year 6!) thought it would be funny to steal her Munchables right out of her lunch box, because he knew she’d scream about it. That time it wasn’t two hours though, because Dr Rhodes, Ginevra’s mother, got smart and moved to a closer doctor’s office. In our class, we learnt the term, “meltdown” and why Ginevra needed her space when it happened. Cheryl even taught me to look for “triggers” and I saw that before any “meltdown”, Ginevra would scratch her head uncontrollably. When she was calm, and older, she said it was like her scalp was on fire from the tension inside.

    I started to see a lot of Ginevra’s family when she invited me to the Horse Party. In year 2 Ginevra absolutely LOVED horses. Everything had to be horses. She invited me and Sandra Lauren Thompson, but Sandra didn’t show up. The rest of the guests were her much older cousins, but Ginevra and I had a great time. Dr Rhodes had hired two ponies and we rode them around the yard for hours, even after the sun went down. At first Mr Rhodes tenderly led Ginevra around but in her normal, blunt manner, she quickly told him she was ok on her own, in her little pink cowgirl hat and pyjama pants. Eventually dad showed up looking for me, but he stayed for a cup of tea when he saw how much fun we were having. I remember having a super sore butt and thighs for days after because Ginevra just wanted to go round and round on her tired, brown pony. It’s a nice memory. 

    I remember very clearly when we were both nine that I started to get good at netball, and I was almost not Ginevra’s friend anymore. We learnt netball in sport and for the first time in my life I was good at something. Not a little bit good, but pretty good, and I was fast too. I got a spot on the under tens team and suddenly a lot more people wanted to talk to me. Dad was proud too. The only person who was not happy was Ginevra, mostly because she wasn’t very into sport. I mean she could throw a ball and run and everything but very quickly she would lose interest and want to go back to reading or drawing or counting or Maths or whatever else she had in her bag to do. I remember now, that at this time it was the closest I came to Ginevra not being my friend, until the day I invited her down to the court and she found something new to Love. 

    Love gets a capital because when Ginevra LOVES something, she loves it hard. Like in year 2 when she LOVED horses. After that it was Fantastic Crew, the tv show about the boy and his super-cat that go on adventures. Then it was computers. Then Netball rules, not the playing but the RULES. Then it was laws when we got to high school. I blame Sergeant Sam. 

    Sergeant Sam was a police officer who came to our school to talk about ‘Safe Fun Over the School Holidays’ because there’s a lot of crime in Little Groves. A long time ago, when the very rich ‘Little Family’ owned the land, they named EVERYTHING after themselves. Little Grove Public School. Little Grove Road. Little Lane. Little Street. Everything is called Little, even the netball courts, which are new, are called ‘Little Recreational Park’. Sergeant Sam told us about this and explained something called urban decay, which I didn’t understand, but I can remember the words on the screen of his presentation. They looked like graffiti. Sergeant Sam explained about all the things that were ‘illegal’ and ‘against the law’ and Ginevra was fascinated. I think all her life she wanted to learn about how things work and here was a way to understand the whole WORLD.  Sergeant Sam smiled and looked kinda cute for an old guy and we got to ask questions and Tylar Scott wanted to touch his gun, but Ginevra was not content just with his explanation, she wanted to know more. After this she was away for a few days and when she came back, she seemed to have learnt a LOT about different laws. It was pretty impressive. “Thargeant Tham was the tip of the itheberg, Brodie Marie Regan. All the good information ith online,” she said. 

    I didn’t mention at the beginning… Ginevra had a really bad lisp. It never went away- no matter how much she saw “Mithuth Mulheron” (Mrs Mulheron), the special speech-teacher that stayed with her till year 5. I think they just gave up after that because they realise it would never change. To me, it was just a part of her, but a lot of people teased her. Mr Gretchen, the casual teacher, laughed when he heard her in year 4. Being a teacher who laughed at her made it ok for the kids to laugh at her, until Cheryl said something. But I remember I was so, SO angry. I tipped his coffee all over his stupid laptop when he wasn’t looking. I saw the wallpaper of the race car, the icons on the screen and the cup of coffee and I just DID it, tipped the whole cup over the keyboard. He deserved it, and he never came back to our school. 

    I don’t want to write what happened next, but this is part of a bigger project, and it should be “from the heart”. This is about as “from the heart” as I get. And I promised my dad I’d let him read it, so I must finish it. He took on extra shifts at the factory to pay for me to do this course, so I owe him big time, what with his back being messed up and all that. Here we go… 

    The very first time Ginevra came down to the Netball courts she sat and watched us play for only a few minutes, then she was on the iPad for a while. Then she tried to speak to Melinda Sanders, our coach. Melinda was only in year 12 but she was a bit of hero to us because she had a car and a part time job at McDonalds. When she wasn’t working the drive-through, she was coaching the Little Grove Under-15 Gems, as she was the Goal Defence in the senior Gems. One day I wanted to be just like Melinda and have a car and a job, but maybe not her gross boyfriend Anton. He was creepy. Ginevra and Melinda had never met but I heard their entire conversation. 

    “Excuthe me but I think Brodie Marie Regan and Thamantha Rawlingth should thwap plathes.” Melinda looked stunned and then slowly replied, “What did you say?” “I wath reading a netball thrategy on making of the motht of your playerth and thince Thamantha ith taller, she should be Goal Defenthe, not Captain. Bethides, Brodie Marie Regan ith fathter.” I learned to listen around the lisp and understood her right away, but  I really didn’t want Melinda to think I set it up. Yes, I was taller than Samantha, and a faster, better player. But it was a big deal that Mr Rawlings, owner of “Rawlings Fine Meats”, regularly bought the netball club items that they needed. When you wear the logo of a person’s livelihood, they own you, unofficially.

    But Ginevra didn’t know that. In her world, which was a little black-and-white, there wasn’t room for the very grey situation between Mr Rawlings and Melinda, who kept his daughter in the best position on the team.  Melinda, who was never quick on the uptake, took a moment to consider this and said, “No, Samantha’s dad sponsors the team through his business, and he wants her to stay Captain. Thanks, but.” 

    Looking back, this may have set up the animosity between Melinda, Ginevra and by extension, creepy Anton. Anton’s deepest, darkest secret was that his dad was the scariest person in Little Grove. 

    Everyone who lived in the area had seen him. They lived near the border of where Little Grove became Ludersfield, on a property that occasionally had a horse, or a really thin goat, but mostly was the home to car-skeletons. To guard these precious, broken-down cars Anton’s dad, Mr Brumdel, kept his dogs.

    There were four in total: two darkish German shepherds, a cattle dog with one eye and a white pit bull terrier who had the privilege of being named ‘Killer Jap’. Apparently, Mr Brumdel was in a war or something, because he really didn’t like anyone Asian and was always threatening to ‘sick Killer jap onya’ if you came too close or looked at him wrong. And it seemed EVERYONE had looked at him wrong at some stage. He’d walk these four horrifying dogs twice a day, once first thing in the morning and the other just as the sun was setting. So there were times when we’d be leaving netball and he’d be walking down East Little Lane, filling the path with four insane dogs that were only BARELY restrained by a thick silver chain. 

    Everyone was terrified of the dogs because they always appeared to be just barely within the control of skinny Mr Brumdel’s tattooed arms. Anton was the only person they never seemed to bark at, of course, but everyone else refused to go near them.  I had seen people turn around or cross to the other side of the street in front of cars to avoid being near them.

    Except, of course, for Ginevra. 

    She approached him for the first time last year, in year 7. She told him that his companion animals weren’t “thafe” to walk around the neighbourhood and that dangerous dogs could be put down if they attacked someone. I was a few metres away because I didn’t have the courage to get any closer than I needed to. Killer Jap was snarling at me, and I remember Ginevra staring hard at Mr Brumdel, the way she looked at everyone.  I will never forget the hateful slew of words he spewed at her, but it didn’t dampen her spirits. Despite Anton being Melinda’s boyfriend, Ginevra was writing to the council email after email about Mr Brumdel’s dogs. She was determined to see it through and kept telling me, “The law ith on my thide.” 

    Last school holidays, the Rhodes family took Ginevra to Moree to see her aunt’s family. Ginevra apparently spent the entire summer (thummer?) swimming in the yellow-watered dam until they had to drag her out at nightfall. She also would have ridden around with her cousins Jacob John Rhodes and Harley Elaine Rhodes. Even when I met them, they weren’t ‘Jake and Harley’, I always thought of them by their full names. The Rhodes of Moree presented Ginevra with a beautiful woollen red beret, which she instantly loved. I remember when she wore it to school; sometimes she would rub it on her cheek, or on the sensitive skin on the back of her hand, or on her neck.  It was SO not part of the uniform, but the teachers were always very kind when Ginevra HAD to do something, like wearing her soft pyjama pants in the school navy colour, even in summer. The beret clashed, but she loved the texture of it.  

    She was wearing it the last time I saw her, around 5:30 on a slightly chilly Thursday. We had been training hard after school and Ginevra was happily sitting among our bags reading and occasionally looking up, when she had a phone call. Her mum was going to be quite late to pick her up and dad was still at the studio in the city, so she wondered how Ginevra would get home. Most parents might not have bothered to call but sweet Doctor Rhodes knew that her daughter, my friend Ginevra, would not be ok if there was a change in routine. I knew as much when I saw Ginevra stand up and start tapping the side of her head opposite to her phone. I’d seen her do that for most of my life, it meant she was upset and needed help. I signalled Melinda for a break, and she rolled her eyes and blew her whistle. Like I said, Melinda never liked her. 

    I jogged over and Ginevra was hitting herself harder now, so I looked her right in the eyes and said, “Let me help.” Still hitting, she passed the phone to me, and I heard Dr Rhodes trying to soothe Ginevra over the phone. It was strangely intimate, breaking into the conversation like that, but I knew them well, so I thought it was ok. “It’s me,” I interjected, and Dr Rhodes soothing voice stopped.

    “Brodie thank goodness. Can you walk her home? All the way home?” I knew what she meant, I lived in East Little Grove, the bad part, maybe two minutes away. But the Rhodes family had a lovely, large house just outside of our area, in the much nicer suburb of Barstow Falls. The walk would be at least 40 minutes, maybe more if Ginevra felt agitated. 

    But I didn’t care. Ginevra was my Friend with a capital, and in that moment, I felt very protective of her. I remember the way she spent her entire savings on the gold ‘Best friend forever’ necklace she gave me, the only gold thing I owned. Sure, Dr Rhodes had tried to pay for it, but Ginevra had insisted loudly that I was HER Best Friend. I ran a finger over the half-heart on the golden chain at my neck and nodded, “Of course I will Doctor Rhodes, of course I will.” She hung up and I reassured Ginevra that everything would be ok. She gave her head one last tap and I did “deep breath”- a gesture we had learnt from Spectrum Awareness Week, and we both took one. She was ok. 

    Melinda tried hard to get us back on form after that, but our rhythm was gone. Ginevra was fine but it was as if the whole team had been given bad news, so ten minutes later Melinda dismissed us. We were all out of shape she said, and it was true. Six weeks of hard rain had flooded the local sewers, and this was the first day when there wasn’t a slippery, fine mud on the court. Made sense that we should be in poor form. 

    So, we started walking. I can’t even remember what we talked about, only that it got very cold and dark very quickly. For a while it was nice that it started raining, because I cooled off, but very soon we were soaked. What I DO remember thinking, not for the first time, that I wish my dad didn’t always take the double and be home on time occasionally, but with a pang of guilt I remember that his overtime at the factory was the only thing between us and moving in with my nan in Mollymook. We were poor, there was no other way of explaining it. I always knew there was something different about us, especially compared to my dear friend and her large house. Dr Rhodes would drive me home later and I would be in her beautiful BMW, a very different car to my dad’s rattly old ute. I was deep in these thoughts when Ginevra stopped walking suddenly, because she heard the barking long before I did. It was Mr Brumdel. 

    Standing in the lane between some of the poorest townhouses in Little Grove is not where you want to be when there are scary dogs nearby, so we started running. It was the worst thing I could have done because I lost sight of Ginevra between streetlights when she ducked into an unfamiliar alley. I started screaming her name, but she had bolted. She’d never been to that part of Little Grove, and the moment we were separated she began to cry this low-pitched sobbing I knew would lead to worse things. Still screaming her name, I started to sprint my hardest. In my running and fumbling, I reached for my phone and dropped it straight into a puddle. I picked it up, barely caring, because her sobbing was like the build-up before a massive crying fit and my heart ached for my scared friend.

    I tried to follow the noise, but we were coming up to the massive storm water drain that ran under Ludersfield Road Bridge.  It ran behind the dodgy, decrepit houses and I hoped Ginevra had the sense to stop running before she got there. It was where kids when to shoot up or have sex on disgusting, abandoned mattresses that only barely avoided getting soaked by the run-off water. Then my heart stopped when I heard the barking intensify and a terrible scream split the night sky. 

    I had heard Ginevra scream many times and for many reasons but this scream, the scream from my nightmares, was unlike any of her other screams. It was wild, terrified, and animalistic. Louder than anything I had heard before from her and somehow more desperate than a normal scream should sound. I was breathing so hard, still tired from netball. I needed my asthma puffer, but I forgot to pack it. Then I collapsed to my knees, holding my head as the barking intensified to snarling and the screams abruptly stopped. 

    I was told I lost consciousness because I somehow passed out. In the moment when Ginevra needed me the most, I collapsed into my own fear and failed her.  I just don’t remember how I got there, only that I came to in the hospital. Maybe I hit my head, or just tipped over from shock, between two houses, just meters from the opening of the storm water drain under where the cars pass. There was still a lot of water from the recent rains, and it was flowing as fast as a river. That’s right where they found me, but they did not find Ginevra.

    The Rhodes family were very kind and moved away immediately after the funeral. The entire school attended but I wanted to slap them all. They never knew her, not properly but there they were, enjoying a day away from maths because my precious, special friend was now gone. They said she was an angel taken from us in the funeral and tried to draw attention away from the fact that my dear friend was not in the small white coffin. She was nowhere. 

    These days I have a ‘recurring dream’ that my psychologist (who is free of cost thanks to the school) helps me deal with ‘trauma’. I’m sceptical about it all since I don’t remember, but I have a new fear of being caught in the rain. When its about to start coming down, I hear sounds that I can’t really place, screaming, definitely screaming. Also, the sound of dogs snarling and eating, then the loud splash as something falls, and the laughter. Mr Brumdel laughs in my head, and I hear, “Get her Jap! On ya Killer Jap!”

    But it’s only a dream. 

    He still walks them down the street, every evening. They’re still a snarling, horrifying mass of teeth and muscled, sleek bodies wearing studded collars. But now Killer Jap wears a bit of scrappy, red bandana around his neck. 

  • Rois: A tale of medieval horror

    Rois: A tale of medieval horror

    TRIGGER WARNING: This contains confronting themes and is recommended for those aged 15 and up.

    Dear Reader: The serial, “Brethren of Judas” is on a mental health/research hiatus, as the topic of coercion right now is a difficult one for me. Please enjoy ‘Rois’, a one-off story of medieval horror.

    We walked out of the village together. I stomped furiously ahead, but it was not good enough because my mother could easily berate me from behind. “You can walk faster than that Rois, right now a cloud could out pace you.”

    I didn’t answer. I was still very angry she was taking to the tower with her. I had demanded to walk ahead to avoid looking at her back the whole time as we crossed the field. She carried the bag of rabbits without complaint, and it made me hate her more.

    Sensing my annoyance, she walked on, and I cursed her for thinking that the Tower at Abhainn was more important than me, her eldest daughter, her only girl. Hate, hate, hate her.

    Croi and Una watched as we went by, tending to the barley while murmuring about us. It’s none of their business but they love to talk, bitches, the pair of them. “It’s an honour, you know, not every woman is allowed to walk choisant with the men. We must protect the village, it’s our duty, are you listening?”

    “I am, and I know. You’ve been saying it all day.”

    “Well, maybe if I keep saying it, you might actually start to listen. Your grandmother Eithne and your great grand mother Clodagh walked choisant as well, it is your birthright.”

    A million times, maybe more, I’d heard of Clodagh, who was pulled from the river and charged with this “honour”. She had been saved by some old woman for this, but I had no interest in it.

    “I know, they walked choisant, mother, I know.. you’ve said…”

    “That’s why it matters. We’re an unbroken line of protection.”

    I couldn’t feign interest, I‘d been hearing about it too long to care as my first blood had come earlier in the day, and it was worse than mother had said. When I was eleven she started talking about the blood and here it finally was, a full two years late. She’d watched me like a hawk and insisted I tell her the moment it started, no matter what I was doing. She joked once that she could be halfway through birthing Brawley and she’d still drop everything and check on me.

    This morning, she was checking the rabbit traps when I woke and found the disgusting puddle. She was already half kneeling when I told her, but she dropped further and insisted I kneel too, and we prayed to Cernunnos, not Brigid. I wanted to ask mother why she chose him to thank, but tears of joy were rolling down her cheeks. It was just another annoying part of the day adding to the feeling that nothing made sense.

    Mother walked on and I tried to ignore the painful cramps and sore back. She was still rambling about our responsibility, but at least I could see the Tower of Abhainn ahead. “There are raiders, bandits, you know this. Our village is too close to the sea and the river, and with that comes good soil, yes, but also the greedy thieves. They only know how to steal; think of our cattle, the crops, our homes. Tonight, we go to the river ford and wait. You will see.”

    I was so angry at her tone I snapped, “See what? There is nothing to see! We waste the night wading in a ford while my belly hurts and for what?”

    She turned then and I stopped, having gone too far again. Narrowed eyes, flaring nostrils and wild, red braids streaked with some white, my mother was a sight to behold. I thought she’d slap me, and I would deserve it, but she didn’t. After a heartbeat, she just shook her head and said, “You’ll see tonight.”

    We didn’t speak again till a guardsman hailed us at the rampart to the tower. He called my mother’s name, Orlagh and she replied with surprising pride, “Aye, and with Rois!” That drew forward all the men and they poured out, stopping the repairs to the partially collapsed wall and coming down the tower itself. There were at least eight strong men to walk choisant with us and I wondered what two useless women could do. But they beheld us with respect and almost a sense of awe.

    “With Rois? Already?”

    “Wonderous! We are blessed indeed!”

    “With Rois here, we will crush them like mice!”

    They gathered around us and one of them took of his helmet to inspect me more closely. I was astounded at their respect to my mother and instantly suspicious. Their reaction made no sense at all, what was happening?

    “Rois, dear, show them the torc,” my mother suggested gently.

    “The torc! She can wear it, of course!” One of the men called out to the others and they leaned in. Never had my skinny neck been shown so much interest.

    I hesitantly lowered my tunic to show a little of the new torc mother had placed on me that morning and they gazed at it with wonder. “Orlagh, what a wonderous sight, thank you Cernunnos.”

    My mother, blushing a little, thanked all of them men individually and produced the bag of rabbits from this morning. “We will take them to the stone as an offering and then… I will show Rois.” One of the oldest men in the guard, Old Carrig, came forward to take the rabbits and beckoned for my mother. While watching me, he kissed her hand and said, “Remember Orlagh, I was there when Eithne brought you, remember Orlagh? Now I have lived long enough to see Rois as well!”

    “Carrig, dear Carrig, I am so glad you’re here to see her. She will make us all very proud, by Cernunnos, you will see. She is wild, this one!”

    “The wilder the better!” Carrig laughed and shuffled away with the bag. Mother actually put her arm around me as we walked down to the stone together, but I removed her arm and hissed, “Are you going to tell me what’s happening?”

    “I cannot, till tonight. Evening will be upon us soon and we must thank Cernunnos for his blessing. Can you not see what joy you have brought to the men? Trust that your mother knows a little more than you, and soon, very soon, you will understand.”

    “Why will you not tell me?!” I half-shrieked.

    She smiled her infuriating smile and I wanted to bite the arm around me. “A part of me wants to see you angry and rage-filled. There can be no fear tonight and no better way to learn than to feel.”

    “You tell me, or I’ll run home!”

    She finally slapped me then. Her hand cracked hard across my raging red face and tears exploded into my eyes. “No, you must remain and be present in the ceremony, but I want you to remember how much spite you have right now.” She pressed my arms at my sides, hard and seemed to growl. “You have only to wait till nightfall and you will have your answer. But for now, be the river. Soft and bubbling on top, hiding deadly currents beneath. Remember that Eithne used to say that? It is carved above our doorway. Be the river, Rois.”

    I was shocked at the force of her slap, but more so that she remembered about the river, and what Eithne used to say before she died. Eithne never chastised Curran, even though he was three years younger than me and extremely mischievous and she didn’t live to see Brawley the menace. No, they were never told about the river. As the oldest, she was stricter with me than the boys. It was as if she wanted me to keep the anger inside me. When she struck me for dropping an egg, or for not watching the boys, she would chant, “Be the river, Rois. Soft and bubbling on top, deadly currents beneath.”

    It worked; I was calm. For so long I’d learned to push my anger into the dark river in my mind that it was easy. Even with my guts on fire and my sore back, I could push the rage down. Mother watched my face till I was calm and then, unexpectedly, kissed my forehead.

    “You already make me proud, Rois, but tonight, you will see.”

    At the ford, the men waded in and cleansed themselves and mother copied them, so I did too. The sun was lower in the sky now and the water was cold but it was just at this small dip in the valley that it was shallow enough to stand in without tripping and drowning. When it rained hard, it was impossible to pass.

    They merrily cleansed their hands, face and chests while Carrig respectfully smoothed water over a large, flat rock. The guards were in excellent spirits, cheerful and jovial, and I wondered why. They had a difficult night of guarding the ford from invasion and a huge responsibility was on their shoulders, but they were light, almost cheerful. Finally, the horse play ended, and they made a circle. I was horrified when the men all knelt, but mother and I remained standing in the middle of them. I felt their eyes on me. I watched, shocked, as they sang to thank “Great Conall”, which I had never heard before. Further horror filled me as mother and Carrig cut the rabbits throats on the large flat stone. So much for eating, I thought, mother had only let me have water today. Then my empty stomach churned as the guards began to smear their faces and armpits in the dead rabbit’s blood.

    It was awful. I watched, eyes wide with horror, as the men were painting themselves with sticky, strong-smelling blood. They rubbed the dead bodies on their necks, their armpits and all over their faces. The smell was overwhelming. My hand went up to my nose and mother batted it away like a fly. Only Carrig did not smear himself and I longed to ask why, but I could not interrupt the solemn singing.

    But the horror worsened when mother removed her cloak, even though it was cold, and the sun would set soon. She released her braids from beneath her hood and signalled that I do the same, so I started to. Then I watched in horror when she removed her smock, then began to undo the tunic closest to her bare skin. I stood, cold in my smock, still wet from the river, refusing to remove my tunic or shoes. She stood, white skinned and still a little wet, but the men did not look at her, they continued singing and deliberately looking away. Her torc, like mine, was the only thing she left on. I wanted to cover her, but I knew I was supposed to be undressing. Why was my mother naked? Did I have to be naked too?

    Suddenly it was as if the spell was broken and my mother dropped to her knees, her body covered by her hair. She called out, “Carrig, to the tower!” but I could barely hear her, it was as it her voice was not her own. Frantically, I knelt to check on her, but when she lifted her head, she was not my mother anymore.

    A red wolfwoman stared back at me, then roared as the rest of her began to change. Her hands extended into enormous red paws and from somewhere, I saw a tail appear. I stepped back too quickly and fell, feeling a burning all over my skin. I half fell, half tripped as my legs bent into powerful wolf legs and I tried to rake my hands, or paws, over my burning skin to stop the itch. Fur. It was fur bursting out of my skin.

    The tips of my fingers burned as sharp, long claws forced their way out of my fingertips, but it only hurt for an instant. I landed on my back and rolled my fur against grass, scratching and squirming.  It was happening so quickly, the sun in the distance was almost finished setting and I saw the glorious moon rising as I twisted to scratch my back with my paws in the air. Then I caught sight of the moon, the giant eye of Cernunnos and it held me, transfixed by its beauty. Staring at the silver orb, I felt no pain, only joy.  

    My mind was a blur of animal impulses with only a memory of who I had been just a moment before.  I could suddenly smell so many wonderful things, as if the nearby river and trees were bursting with life. I squatted to clean my paws and was surprised at how easy it was to lick what used to be hands. As I crouched, I felt the wolf-headed torc around my neck and I marvelled that I still wore it. Did it change, as I had changed? Is that why mother and I wear them? It did not bother me, I decided, as I licked my paws and shook myself from head to toe. It felt as natural as breathing to groom my new form.

    Mother, because I recognised her, nuzzled my face gently. With a firm snout, she cleaned my ear, and I heard her voice in my mind.

    Do you see now, Rois my love? I could not spoil the surprise for you.

    I love it mother, I didn’t know it would feel so good! How long will I stay this way?

    Every night of your blood time you will change. I will be there with you when we are aligned and we will run through the fields together, my dear. Above all things, we protect our village.

    I felt more like myself in this form, and I wanted to tell mother that. She was beautiful as a woman and even more stunning as a wolf. I watched her smell the air, and I could smell the rabbit’s blood on the men. Instantly, I knew not to attack them. That was why they had soaked themselves as if their lives depended on it. It did. If not for the rabbit blood as a warning, I wouldn’t know who was friend or foe, or would I? Turning my head, something sharp and distant drifted into my mind, a smell I did not like.

    I smell them too my dear. Let’s go.

    And do what?

    We’re going to kill them, darling.

    She led, astutely keeping low and I marvelled at her movement. Like me, she looked completely at home as a wolf, with the same red, brown fur that was her hair, down to the silver streaks. I longed to see myself, but the smell was overwhelming me.

    Keep low, they are in the trees. I will go this way; you go to the other side.

    Then what mother?

    Be the river, little one. Don’t think, just attack them. Use the anger I know is there.

    She slinked into the long grass and bushes and seemed to vanish, but I could still smell her. I could also smell their weapons and some leather armour, but mostly I could smell the sweat on their flesh, practically humming with their pulse.

    I walked silently, padding closer to a group of three men and I saw my mother on the other side of where they hid, watching the tower. I realised why mother had not let me eat that day, only drinking water had given me an appetite. I could see more clearly in the dark as a wolf and I realised I was much, much larger than the men. Where my extra strength and muscle had come from was a mystery, but I felt I was longer and larger than before. The fur on my body bristled and lifted with pride as I silently stalked the men, as mother did the same from the other side. When I saw her leap, I let appetite and anger move me.

    My mother bit the exposed throats of the nearest man and I copied her and leapt, landing paws first on his shoulder, then burying my face into the white skin beneath his jaw. My rage poured out of me, guiding my paws to scratch and rip, my teeth to snap and bite. Rois, the girl not allowed to show anger, was unleashed as the men screamed.

    His voice called uselessly, his yells just vibrations I could feel in my teeth as I bit. The weight of my wolf form pushed down, heavy fur and strong bones and muscles stopping him from taking in air and when he tried to hit me, I tore off his hand with ease.

    Dying from all the bleeding, he looked at me. The last thing he would have seen was his hand being eaten, the flesh of the thumb going first.

    Mother had killed the first man already and saw the third was trying to run. Rearing up onto her hind legs, she knocked him down. Her powerful jaws locked onto his chin as he fell, then she tore out his throat too. I was immensely proud of her, but also of myself.

    There was enough meat on the three men for a whole pack of us, so we left a lot uneaten.

    Full, and pleased with myself, I followed mother out of the trees and went back to the guards at the tower. I assume they were somewhat frightened by our faces and paws being soaked with blood, but they allowed us to sit nearby and rest.

    Will it be like this tomorrow, mother?

    I don’t know what the night will bring, my little love, but we will run together. We will protect the village, like we’ve always done.

    She nuzzled me tenderly and lifted her nose to the sky, then let out a long, strong howl. I joined her and our wolf voices, our true voices, filled the night.

  • PULSE: A new sci-fi story

    PULSE: A new sci-fi story

    Lovingly dedicated to the real Brett

    When the first flesh-to-fibre implant was going to be released for the public, my darling Brett was one of the hundreds who slept on the street to be at the front of the queue. As a healthy 35-year-old with an interest in computers and a love of new tech, he was the perfect test subject to see how effective this new form of browsing and gaming could be. If he’d had a fuller head of hair and less crooked teeth, he could have been one of the poster boys, he was THAT enthusiastic about it.   

    The media was as frenzied as sharks with chum: this was the breakthrough of the decade and was touted as the start of the new age of ‘smooth computing’. There had been opposition from various church groups, of course, but ultimately the desire to not just USE the computer, but BE it, was too strong. Since the first neural implants became accessible for medicine, the lawyers had foreseen a time when they would have to defend the right to choose an implant when it wasn’t strictly needed and had been quietly preparing in the background. It was about the freedom to choose what you want for your body- and allegedly, nothing to do with the fortune to be made.

    The implant didn’t just make it possible to browse the internet without a device, it also allowed for a totally seamless integration of the conscious thoughts and a personal, impregnable computer. The line between artificial intelligence and its users had been blurred for many years, but this device, the Verstand model 4, destroyed the line all together.  Through a six-hour operation, the implant would be connected into the occipital lobe with delicate fibre optic nodes coated in an artificial myelin sheath grown from the body’s own proteins and fats. Any thoughts or sights you wanted recalled forever could be captured with flawless clarity. The users were told to imagine being able to watch content projected as an overlay of their own vision or being able to stream an entire day of adventuring, hands-free. Many of the people in the line wanted the Verstand4 purely for the promise of recording every moment. Not Brett. He couldn’t wait to play computer games without controllers, as the implant promised. 

    For many years, the German company that made the Verstand was the world leader in prosthetics, so when the prototype for Verstand1 was tested and it returned all the functions to the stroke users it was tested on, the leap from spinal cord to the brain was an easy one. They took a financial hit when Verstand2 was too closely positioned to the amygdala and gave the subjects regular panic attacks. Naturally, Verstand3 was moved and refined and finally upgraded enough that Verstand4 was deemed commercially and medically viable for users who met the criteria. 

    He sold his vintage car and put down the deposit for the implant the day he was given clearance to have the surgery. My sweet Brett, all he wanted was to run around a version of ancient Greece, slaying digital monsters. 

    To even be able to stand in the line there was a whole process. The testing was arduous, and to me, cruel. Users were not permitted to have any form of previous mental health condition that could tarnish the interaction of the implant with the brain. Some very important celebrities were declined clearance on mental health grounds, so there were lawsuits filed for discrimination. Ironically, when Brett had his accident, they were still tied up in the courts. Users couldn’t be colour-blind, be on the autism spectrum or even have any limbs missing, for fear that the implant would not know what to do with phantom limb impulses. Candidates also needed a relatively high IQ because it was honestly believed that the stupid bell curve of “human intelligence” could determine if a person would know the difference between reality and what the implant was showing. We had an argument over this during the application process and I remember how I made a big deal out of moving his pillows to make him sleep on the couch. It boiled my blood to think the implant would ONLY help a limited number of very lucky people- not those who would really benefit from the assistive aspects. Brett had sneered that I was jealous because my depression excluded me from even applying. He walked out after saying that, realising he’d gone too far.

    I lay in our bed, boiling with rage that night. I was still a full-time teacher and had met many students who would do wonders if they were allowed more access to this particular technology. I didn’t see the Verstand as a blessing then, and I certainly don’t now, but at the time I was up on my high horse about how they should not be thinking about how to help the elite applicants have even MORE benefits that regular people couldn’t access. All I saw was how the technology would have helped those who really needed it. I left early the next morning after the fight and went straight to see dad. 

    Harrington Gardens was only five minutes away, but it still felt like driving to another country. It was such a carefully regimented, moderated environment that it didn’t feel like a care facility; it was run like a prison for those who dared to age with money. Dad was in his room, which was set up almost identically like home had been. The goal was to ease the transition, but it was still little more than a childcare centre for the elderly. There were photos of mum and me everywhere in case Dad thought she was alive again, or maybe to remind him that I was nearby and didn’t visit nearly enough. He was having a sharper day than he normally did and greeted me warmly as I put my hand on his. 

    “That magpie I like to watch hasn’t come to the tree yet,” he said, staring past me at his window. 

    “How’s the knee, dad? Are you warm enough?”

    “I want to do something about the weeds: you can’t get the help, you know, no one wants to work anymore.”

    “Are you hungry, dad? Do you want a cup of tea?”

    “He hasn’t come yet. He likes to sit right there where I can see him, and he’s got good eyes.” 

    “Dad, I had a fight with Brett.”

    “I left the remote control somewhere, see if you can find it for me, will you…”

    There was no point of course. I could have been any carer or nurse, or even the cleaning lady, the conversation would be the same. And if I’d shown up in the evening, I had no idea what side of him would come out. He would be confused, that much was certain, but it could be about anything, and he might not even speak to me. I kissed his forehead and left to cry quietly in the car. 

    I apologised, of course I did. It was silly, we’d already sunk thousands of dollars into his application, medical testing and all the other legal requirements. Thanks to our collective efforts, my precious Brett was on the short list by that stage. He could practically smell his spot in the line with the other frantic fans. He would be with the others- all the tech influencers, posers, and people with too much money who simply HAD to have something that so few people had access to. Brett was not like them: he was a regular, wonderful man who just wanted to play whatever version of his favourite city builder game was available. Making whole new places rise out of the ground like the conductor of a gaming orchestra, waving his hands as if he was there in person: the unquestioned God of Brett town, with the fate of thousands of digital dots at his fingertips. Despite all my boring, high-minded rhetoric and moral objections on the matter, I adored his child-like, innocent desire to play. 

    The irony of the events to follow did not escape me. 

    He had a month of joy where I barely saw him, because he was playing and browsing so much. All the leave from work that he had available to him was given over, so he could fully immerse himself in every function Verstand4 could provide for him. At first, he was diligent about trying everything, but eventually it was just games, games, games. He’d always been very fond of simulators, and he went head-first into them like never before. A couple of times I had to remind him to sleep, eat and bathe. With the excitement of a child coming home from the first day of school, he talked to me about the amazing possibilities for me as a teacher. Imagine all that I could learn! But I remained “his little luddite” and kept the experience at arm’s length. I still loved his company, but it was hard to compete with the entirety of the internet, his new mistress. Yes, I was THAT petty. But I missed when his attention was shared between us more equally. 

    My bitterness, now, feels like a permanent rotten taste in my mouth after the Pulse. 

    I no longer teach history or literature, because I am a part of it, and it’s interesting that I mentioned my jealousy, as the terrorists have come out and expressed the same thing as a sort of excuse for what happened. They wanted what they couldn’t have, pure and simple. It was more damaging than gluing themselves to the road outside the headquarters or padlocking themselves to trucks carrying parts. It was misguided activism, yes, but a part of them simply coveted the experience of the lucky users. Those who orchestrated the Pulse were not just impatient to experience Verstand4: they were angry it wasn’t available for everyone. I understand because I thought similar things. 

    My beautiful Brett was nearing the end of his leave time and was using Verstand4 to find us a place to visit for our anniversary. It was a big deal to us, we’d made it ten years after my own sister had given us a year, tops. He wanted us to revisit the small island we’d honeymooned on and was exploring the facilities that morning. At least one of his last, cogent thoughts was of how gorgeous it would be to snorkel through the water and lie on the warm sand dunes as the sun went down. He was telling me we’d both need new bathing suits when he suddenly fell over. 

    I didn’t understand it at the time, but the activists, who were really terrorists, had broken into the headquarters where Verstand4 was manufactured and specifically targeted the server where the users were encouraged to store their memories. They were backed up, but it needed just one blue screen of death for all the users to simultaneously lose access to it. My sweet Brett had once joked that he might freeze up and must be reset. He had laughed and said, “You’d have to find a way to turn me off and on again.” I had poked him in the belly and chased him around saying, “reset”, before we’d collapsed onto the couch and made warm, laughing love. That was a mere week before he had the implant installed, but now that he HAD blue-screened, it was no longer a joke. 

    I’d seen seizures before, of course I had. I also knew CPR, which is how I kept him alive until the ambulance came. But I couldn’t stop parts of his brain dying, the delicate synapses were instantly and totally deprived of oxygen rich blood by the implant setting fire to his mind. The carefully engineered cerebrospinal fluid conducted the pulse throughout the brain: a bolt of lightning burning through every axon that it could reach. He twitched horribly and moaned, contorting his limbs as if grasping the air for help. His mouth opened all wrong, to the side, and his eye drooped like he couldn’t hold himself up. He tried to say my name, I know he did, but he no longer controlled his own tongue. His crotch thrusted sharply, and I saw a pool of urine appear on his trousers as his leg kicked randomly. I tried to hold his hands and stabilise his movements, but his fingers became misshapen claws I no longer recognised.

    I only left for a moment to ring the ambulance in a half screaming, half crying voice and that’s when his heart stopped. I said though, that I knew CPR, so I used it. First time ever I had to use it, but I was glad for my mandatory training then, because it saved him. We’re now world famous, because only three people survived the Pulse attack, and my amazingly tough Brett was the oldest one. 

    It was international news within minutes and the internet damn near exploded with conspiracy theories and misinformation. Was it a malfunction or a coordinated attack, how could this happen, blah blah blah. Whatever was being said never reached me until months after, because those first two weeks were only about keeping my dear Brett from dying. The doctors outdid themselves trying to help and blessedly, thankfully, they did not demand that I leave him alone to rest. Eventually, I was told it was a sort of digital stroke, and he had no chance of recovery. The Verstand4 had a power source and it overloaded, thanks to the terrorist’s commands. Despite that, my hand was practically fused to Brett’s, even when he slept. When he was able to drink, I was there to hold the straw. When he was able to eat, I fed him. 

    Selfishly, I needed to be there. I needed to see for myself in real time how much of my husband, my darling, was left to me. That is all I could think about. Whether his eyes would still sparkle when he laughed at one of my terrible puns. Whether he would remember the dates when we met, kissed, and married. Whether he’d remember how to mould his body to mine when we were intimate. My need to recapture what was left was all that drove me and all that moves me still, because I live in the hope he will return. 

    Verstand5 will not happen for a few years, that much I know. There are too many bugs to work out and although the consumer demand is there, the world cannot forget the faces of all of those who died and worse, the contorted, damaged faces of those who lived. The company have paid for everything Brett and the other two need, but the three survivors remain a pebble in the shoe of progress, because no one can guarantee that an attack like this will not happen again. 

    Where is my precious Brett now? He is in the custom-made bed the company has provided, watching a documentary about ancient Greece. He is drooling slightly, and I will be feeding him later. He cannot speak, see out of his left eye, move his limbs, or use the bathroom alone, but he is still my darling husband. Inside his damaged body, there is still the boy I fell in love with, who gazes at me now, stroking a toy figure of Hercules. 

  • Pieces of Her: A tale of horror

    Pieces of Her: A tale of horror

    The legend says that most of the city was ash when the temple of Ishtar finally fell, but the legend could be mistaken; after all, no one who was alive then, is alive now. 

    But imagine you are, as the Gods are, and can see between the clouds. She could have calmly been going about her duties as a temple priestess, ignoring the invasion by the Gorgian savages. As the rest of the city burned, Gheralda might have been sweeping, tidying, or even washing the tunics of her Sister Priestesses. She simply refused to leave her temple, her duty. 

    The legend states all the priestesses of Ishtar were renowned for their strength: that was, after all, why they were called by the fearsome Mother Warrior, who was in equal parts fearsome and fertile. She is a paradox of burning sexual energy, maternal love and rage in battle while defending the home and hearth. Not every woman could bow to Ishtar, but the one named Gheralda, with “h” for ease of repetition, did. She was chosen.  

    See her now, as the Gods see her: She is tall and statuesque. A whole two heads taller than other women with long, strong legs, arms and feet. Her body nurtured two children before she heard the Song of Ishtar and was compelled to join the Order. Although one side, the caring and loving side, screamed ‘mother’, there was another side, in her strong hands and firm chin that bellowed, ‘warrior’ with white-hot rage and pride. Her astute eyes were framed by brown spiral curls, kept short for practical reasons, but known to dance when she laughed, and she laughed often. To laugh was an act of rebellion in the face of obstacles. Make no mistake, she could have cried too, but to turn, smiling and defiant towards the buffeting winds of chaos was a greater insult. In private, she cried like any other woman and her tears were cleansing, cathartic drops. She was all woman, every woman and no more extraordinary than you, reader. But what set her apart on this blood-soaked day was that when all others chose to flee, she remained. 

    The Gorgian savages were ransacking and burning what they could not carry for hours before the temple was in any danger. It was presumed the forces of Caradri would drive them back with tactics or force but the presumption was wrong, so the city would fall. The young acolytes and older Sisters went first, by the secret tunnels and Gheralda was instructed to leave also and almost, almost did. 

    The legend said she was walking past an old statue of Ishtar when the crescent atop the head of the Goddess began to glow, and Gheralda kneeled, hands out, face bowed. She was told to stay, stay in the temple, because Ishtar remained and it was her will that Gheralda should be there too. So she stood, bare of foot and humble of heart. There was no question of disobedience, she would do as she was told and remain steadfastly at her duties. This was a woman who had given her Word, her Vow to Ishtar and would not go back on it. 

    So, there she remained. Minutes passed since the glowing crescent vision and a strange peace settled around her, her shoulders were proud and firm, strengthened with the perfect cape of calm that was Ishtar’s request to remain. She would have heard screams, smelt smoke from the burnt buildings and could not help but taste the soot of her burning city but none of this deterred her. The legend states she would waver for a moment, but it was not then. 

    Caradri’s pride was its downfall that day. The city had sat like a glowing gem in the desert, gleaming with trade and treasure that the Gorgians could not resist. They were not the type to settle and make a great city: they were invaders, constantly mobile and respecting nothing. They had no roots to settle them to a part of the Earth, no foundation of faith in Gods and only lived in the immediate, the here and now. They could not have known the joy of heritage, of tradition, because there was no past and barely any future, only the hedonistic ecstasy of the here and now. Caradri was their anathema and their envy in equal parts and that is why they burned all that they could not steal. 

    Gheralda knew this and remained. With the tranquil Song of Ishtar in her head, she worked on until they were at the gate and she could no longer ignore them. They used a battering ram and poured in from all directions like black flames. Some ran straight to urinate on the sacred Ishtar fountain, just to watch the water stain with their impurity. Others ran from room to room looking to pillage and plunder, thinking only of the value of the metal and not of what it was shaped to resemble. There, in one of the rooms, was Gheralda. 

    The legend is used now to frighten women with the worst of what men can do, but the legend leaves out the worst of the events. Not what they did to Gheralda, presuming she was a virgin, as many others were, but how they treated her after. She was violated over and over again, caked in their wildly squirted juices and treated as the fountain had been. When there was no part of her that was not moist and bruised from their sick desires, the legend says the commanders cut off her breasts and cooked the sliced flesh with a torch in front of her, then fed her pieces. How she swallowed is a mystery. It is whispered that two men inserted their thumbs into the tender ball of her eye and pushed, competing to see which would pop first. The winner then slid his fingers into the fleshy socket as the others laughed, holding her down. She was no longer a pillar of virtue, she was a woman of broken faith and this was her lowest point, this barrage of humiliation and agony. If she had screamed, the whole city of Caradri would have heard it, but they had stuffed her mouth with feces and closed it with a rope. Her body was a canvas of suffering, a toy for cruelty and boredom. She bore the brunt of them not finding enough firm, ripe, young things to rape. Unsurprisingly, her body gave out and she died. 

    And that is where the mere cautionary story turns into legend, as Ishtar intervened. The Gorgians left, having finished a torment that to them, was mere sport. The pieces of Gheralda were scattered around the room where they’d killed her and she lay, splayed like a puppet with its strings cut, with a ceremonial spear sticking out between her legs. Ishtar appeared, looked around, and gave life to her servant again. 

    The form of Gheralda awakens, readers, to find her limbs scattered and blood sprinkled like rain. Infused with the strength of Ishtar and feeling no pain, she picks up the pieces of herself and beholds them with curiosity as she remembers where they go. Glowing with the Light of the Crescent-Crowned Goddess, she puts herself together again from fleshy pieces. She is able to stand and call the wriggly slivers of muscle and sinew back together where they reform into a deeper perfection than before. Wherever there was torn skin, the point of fusion was a golden thread holding new life together. With a grunt, she removes the spear from herself and uses it as a walking stick as the bleeding ebbs like it was never there. She glows, still broken but painless and transcendent and her faith returns with frightening strength. 

    This was meant to be. 

    She’d lived through a pupation of pain and was emerging into a new form as her back split, revealing golden wings that brushed the ground. Her skin was marble now, threaded with the yellow memories of every injury the Gorgians had made, but there was no agony. There remained only the roar of self, the idea that she could triumph over anything. In her hand, where every finger had been removed and eaten, they returned and wielded a sword. And when Gheralda felt the strength return completely to her knees, she took to the air, as light and easy as a bird. 

    The legend ends there, with Gheralda the emissary of Ishtar, flying over the crumbling remains of the city to guide her Sisters to establish a new temple. She would exist another thousand years as the temples herald and protector and through her, thousands found strength in their times of darkness. Any time she was seen flying overhead, women would remember the hideous pain of Gheralda, certainly, but they would also see the unstoppable strength that transcends all tribulation. They still whisper the legend of the woman, once ordinary, made extraordinary by sheer will. No one alive now was alive then, but the story is like Gheralda herself, unconquered. 

    For if a woman can rebuild her entire self from mere pieces, we can all become more than we once were.   

  • My Beautiful Son: A tale of horror (PART TWO)

    My Beautiful Son: A tale of horror (PART TWO)

    Still, there were so many moments during his life that his condition could have been caught or captured, but somehow it was hidden from the world. He was very healthy and well developed, plump and cheerful, a good feeder and sleeper. When he had doctors and dentist appointments I waited for someone to see that he had the extra teeth, but it never occurred. He reached his milestones with ease and the doctor told me he was a model child. Some children avoided him all together and at the playgroup he was more interested in watching the children play and then unexpectedly gave up the pretense of playing at all. He would rather sit and listen to the adults, which made them uncomfortable and one mother even told me she left like Dylan was judging her. But when he wanted to, he was perfectly social and played beautifully. His first word was mama and then baba, which meant fresh blood and was paired with him sticking out a fat, baby hand which he pointed at my chest. Part of me remains grateful that small towns can be skittish of a woman feeding a baby, so I was happy to have private places to go. 

    When he learned to command fire at the age of five, I waited for a teacher or even a school friend to report something, or a scream of fear at the playground, even accidentally, but nothing came. As far as I saw, he knew to only levitate objects at home, and in front of me. I shouldn’t have clapped and praised him when he made blocks float around the living room, but I was proud. 

    I suppose it was mum who came closest to figuring it out. I was hanging clothes on a gorgeous sunny day, with Dylan at my feet when he was three. As usual, he was perfectly behaved and seemed to be sitting happily, until I looked down and realised there was a brown snake curled around his chubby legs and arms. Norm, my fathers dog, had passed already and I didn’t have time for pets, so until this moment Dylan had never seen a snake, let alone a deadly one. 

    But the snake’s forked tongue was tickling Dylan’s cheeks and he was laughing, delightedly, playing with it. For a second I was seized with irrational fear until Dylan looked up at me, and I felt the mysterious calm that always washed over me when we locked eyes. It was safe, he seemed to be thinking, so I just took a step back and continued to watch. I had never seen a snake nuzzle a human, like a puppy or a kitten, but this snake did, and Dylan was delighted. He cooed with glee, staring at it fixedly until he seemed to get bored of it, and the snake slithered away. I finished hanging the clothes and scooped him up for a feed when mum stormed out and asked if I saw the snake or not. 

    I replied that I did, and started to say something, but then Dylan locked eyes with mum and she seemed to forget what we were talking about. Her words trailed off and her eyes glazed over and then she murmured, “…curried sausages for tea”. I knew Dylan had done something to her, there was no denying that, but when I fed him, looking down at his beautiful, gleaming eyes as he drank, everything seemed right with the world and my darling child. I loved his raven hair, cheeky grin and impossible green eyes, how could I not?  It would not be until just after his twelfth birthday that I would be allowed to understand. 

    Mum had passed when he was eight, unexpectedly falling asleep on her way home from a long shift. She had somehow driven the ute into a tree that marked the turn off to the house and although there was very little left to pay, I almost couldn’t afford the mortgage on my own. Out of pity and grudging obligation to my mum, I had got into a receptionist job, despite many people in town being more qualified and suited to working for Uncle Gavin, who was actually more of a cousin to mum. But he kept me long enough that I actually learned to be useful to the business, so there I stayed. Having Dylan to look after changed me, somehow made me collected and together. When the day finally came that my son explained his powers to me, I realised just how much in our lives was his will, instead of just a lucky coincidence. 

     There had been a death at his school and all the children were sent home unexpectedly and Dylan showed up at the office on the main road of Tilling, making the door jangle to announce his arrival as every other customer of “Gavin’s Construction”. Just five minutes after Dylan arrived, Uncle Gavin was called away on an urgent call so Dylan and I were alone, me at my desk trying to complete a game of solitaire instead of drafting a letter and Dylan sitting with his history books. He had come to wait for me after school many times and our tiny town was perfectly safe for a boy to wander. He approached me with the same calm confidence he always had, a tall and handsome lad of twelve with his intense, beautiful eyes. 

    “I need to explain something Mum, I hope you understand,” he said and sat with a commanding air across the table from me. Atypical as it sounds, I was not surprised that he was so mature and collected. My boy had always been something else. Something exceptional in a child costume. I remember when he no longer wanted to be breast fed because he seemed to sit up and push me away. It was then I realised he preferred the independence of the bottle, so I resorted to expressing milk,  and mum never seemed to question that my milk had a pink tinge to it. I didn’t understand the mechanics of it until he explained that she physically couldn’t see it, because he willed that she could not. 

    When he could eat solids this was soon replaced by meat and when mother died, raw meat. It seemed perfectly normal to buy a tray of mince and watch Dylan consume it by the handful, sometimes delicately slurping a strand of it, sometimes shoving an indiscriminate ball straight into his throat as he read. His warm palms often welcomed snakes and he was never bitten, they just coiled lovingly around him soaking up the unnatural fire of his never-cold skin. 

    He explained it all to me, that quiet Tuesday afternoon. I suddenly understood it all: his command of the air, which he manipulated to lift objects, his ability to read some minds, the flames that leapt from his fingers at will and the curious eating habits I had grown accustomed to. He explained that he was born knowing how to control what others could see and experience and that is how he remained hidden for so long, but that would no longer be able to hide from me.

    This was why he never wanted to play, muck around, and be a child. This was how he learned to speak flawlessly while so young and could read and write with such mature ease. His mind was older and more perfected than mine and although he still spoke with respect, there was no doubt that he saw the people around him, myself included, as ants slaving pointlessly towards death. But I was still his mother and he explained that he needed my help. 

    With singular clarity he outlined that consuming dead flesh was no longer viable for his appetite and in order for his power to grow, he would need to continue consuming living victims. He confessed to killing the girl in year 6, but that it would look like she just stopped breathing, but that he had absorbed her. I was taken aback that the day off given to the students was due to my darling son, but I also didn’t understand what he meant. 

    He sighed and took me by the hand and walked me to the staff bathroom and gently told me to remain calm. 

    I watched the mirror and him as he removed his clothes without shame and folded them carefully. I was a little embarrassed that he covered his genitals from me, the mother who had changed his nappies a million times, but the air left my lungs when he closed his eyes and began to gently shiver. 

    He strained with effort and his entire form began to change; his skin, hair and bones rippled into action and within a minute, my son was no longer there, instead there was a girl with the features of pre-pubescence and shock of ginger hair. My Dylan had black hair cut into a short, hip style that he had asked for, but this hair grew long, almost down to his waist and he looked tired at the effort of the change. He spoke, and it wasn’t his voice, “See how it tires me, Mother. We must go home so I can rest. Do you see now?” he asked. I calmed myself and tiredly replied that I did, of course I did. He turned to show me all of her, a girl, now dead, living only as a part of my son, and I saw tiredness in him. 

    I left him in the bathroom to change back and he emerged just before closing time, looking tired with dark circles under his eyes. I took him home and gave him hot tea and chicken mince, but he barely finished half the tray before he fell asleep eating it. I put it in the fridge and tucked him in, gently wiping some of the cold chicken off his mouth and fingers. As he slept, I watched lovingly from the other side of his room and marvelled at him, his brilliant mind that had produced the drawings I insisted he display, the many books he liked to read and of course his violin, which he played with such delicate skill and passion that many had said he could be a professional. But mostly I saw the beauty of what I had grown inside me and I was full of pride at every muscle, every inch of perfect skin. 

    There were other benefits too, I suppose. He never misbehaved as I did, never rebelled or pushed back against human rules, even if they were pointless to him. At school he was never in trouble, just a quiet, model student who enjoyed his music lessons greatly and had little trouble learning anything new. They wanted him to apply for a talented student program, but he gently turned it down, stating he wanted to stay with his mother. Even when he had begun to masturbate I was glad, because all animal life seemed to leave the area around the house, even flies, ants and mosquitos. It was as if they sensed a stronger, more powerful predator.

    It was four years ago that he took his first human life, and I have been helping Dylan kill ever since. At thirteen we moved to the city, where he could take lives more easily and no one would notice. He finished his schooling dutifully and told me it was time to begin his work. What he does, exactly, I am not sure. But he leaves home in a suit every day and makes enough that he bought me a house that we share, with a large, thriving garden fed on human blood and bone. 

    Every week, or less if he gets truly hungry, he brings home a new, besotted girl for the night and the next day I get rid of the remains or whatever else she has left behind. Sometimes he takes their forms and creates elaborate lies that they are leaving town and other times he has taken their possessions with ease, as he also takes memories of what they know. One girl’s life was so charming to him that he lived as her for a full month and then absorbed her boyfriend too. But all too soon, it grew tiresome, and he stopped being them altogether. He gets bored easily, my brilliant boy and even now is discovering new and interesting ways to stretch his amazing talents, like how he consumed a doctor and can now perform surgery with total ease, or fly a plane without ever setting foot in one. 

    I wonder sometimes that we may have to move house if someone grows suspicious, but for the moment I am happy with my quiet, peaceful life. As he grows in power and I age, I fear I might not ever see his true potential. At least at home he is truly himself sometimes, shaking off the human form like a dog shaking off water, his beautiful skin rippling and his hair parting to reveal his black, glorious horns. When he sits beside me in the glow of the television and puts his unnaturally hot, red arm around me with a smile, I can almost remember what his father must have looked like for me to have such a beautiful son.

  • My Beautiful Son: A tale of horror (PART ONE)

    My Beautiful Son: A tale of horror (PART ONE)

    I don’t remember the night I fell pregnant, at least in any firm way. Memory has allowed me some vague impressions of the haze and heat of the nightclub, but mostly I remember how my heart’s drumming was in time with the music. I let my body flow and melt into the drunken, whirling rhythm. In that glorious miasma of bodies, alcohol and bliss, I clearly remember the beautiful eyes of a stranger coming out of the crowd and the sense of falling.

     At first it was just grinding as our bodies twisted into each other, but when our hips brushed, my head lolled back on its own with a wave of dizzy desire. I felt him swoop in and catch me by the small of my back. With oddly cool lips he kissed my neck and the last of my solid resolve melted into liquid lust, so we stumbled to the bathroom. 

    My short skirt lifted in a moment and the thin barrier of my underwear didn’t seem to be there, instead I just felt the cold porcelain edge of the sink. He had lifted me so easily but he didn’t look strong. I saw leather pants and a white singlet and strands of raven hair across his face. Then he lifted me from the cold perch and I was filled with the searing, glorious heat of him filling me in a single, powerful thrust. 

    I saw ceiling tiles stained with filth as my head flopped helplessly and then teeth, mouth and tongue on my breast which he freed from my crop top.  There was a wild, wonderful, sliding sensation of his manhood burning into me.  Sound and sensation faded suddenly as something white hot seemed to bloom inside me and there was a strange light blazing inside my closed eyes. Then I almost fell off the side, catching myself dizzily on the mirror behind me and the defunct hand dryer, barely avoiding the instant nausea. He was gone. 

    My common sense returned in a rush from the indecent banishment of bathroom sex and I possessed my body fully. Alone, sore, leaking and half naked, I was sitting on the edge of the counter with one sneaker dangling off and my underwear bunched around the other ankle. A girl stumbled in, fidgeting with a baggy of white powder and she saw something in, or on me that made her immediately step back and find a more covert place to get high. 

    When I felt more like myself I remember clambering down and covering myself again and could not help noticing the bite around my nipple. Teeth had punctured the skin and I had 6 new pin-pricks encircling my areola, but no blood came out. Considering how dangerous this part of town was, I briefly considered myself lucky. In the hours it took me to feel better, I stared at my reflection and wondered why my irises were so large now that they filled my whole, formerly blue eyes. It took a few days for them to recede to their normal size, while something inside me grew. 

    It was not till a few months later, when I was at work and trying to be normal that I realised I could be pregnant. I was frothing milk for a customer and the smell of it was suddenly repugnant and I had to ask Tanya to finish making the cappuccino. I was barely out of the customer’s sight when I had to empty my stomach into the nearest bin. I remember seeing flecks of red in among my coffee vomit and thinking that the streaks of throat’s blood looked oddly dark and glistening. Tanya could not help but look at it too and sent me home immediately, even though the café was full and busy. I went straight to the doctor, who confirmed with a smile that yes, I was expecting. 

    Of course I went home as soon as I could. I was terrified and inexplicably unable to get warm and stop shaking until I made it back to Tilling station, which is five hours away from anything resembling a city. The long, flat plains around town were filled with cows and little else, something I resented as a child but now found very comforting. Mum had to leave the hospital mid-shift to get me but any trace of anger she might have had vanished when she hugged me, because she was crying a second later. I was suddenly a child again in her warm arms and I felt how much she’d missed me. She hugged me so hard I could only breathe her in, nothing else, and I let the scent of her soap and skin fill me with a comfort that I didn’t know I craved. Then, still without speaking, she hoisted my suitcase into the ute and we drove off into the red dust path to the cottage. 

    Dad was sitting with Norm on his knee on the porch, exactly the way they had been when I had left four years ago in an angry storm of teenage rebellion. I was only twenty now, but something in me had snapped in the city and I hated the sixteen year old who had left to be an artist or model or whatever shit I had screamed at them. I remember yelling ‘bourgeois’ among other truly filthy words as I slammed the gate and clambered into Bianca’s Holden. We were going to take the city by force, make the whole world sit up and take notice of us, but of course I ended up making coffee, and Bianca came back in six weeks. 

    There were moments when I wanted to, but I was stubbornly drunk on my own pride. When my dad had his stroke, I just deleted mum’s awkward, all-caps text. As mum unloaded my suitcase I smiled at her, and she nodded in Dad’s direction. I noted the slope of his right side, like half of his face had melted like candle wax, because it dragged his features down with it. The wind picked up as he walked slowly and weakly to the gate and opened it for me. As I approached his thin arm slipped around me for an awkward hug as he slurred “Welcome home, Mish” 

    I’m writing this down now as a sort of explanation, more to myself than anything, but I do not remember the months after that, because they must have gone by in that happy blur that turns all good memories into one golden burst. I remember the ‘Congrats Michelle’ banner at a bbq a week later and some awkward questions from a school friend looking for gossip. But the feeling of safety was too strong to ignore; I was back in my childhood bedroom, a woman in a world of too-small, young person’s ephemera.

    More than one drunken neighbour asked about the father, but I don’t remember what mum or me answered. I must have gotten pretty clean at that time because I didn’t smoke at all, and I was eating regular meals. Within days I was back on a horse, then on an old dirt bike and zooming around the fields. I was tethered firmly to my parents, but had not felt so safe in months. 

    I remember my hair grew long and blonde at the roots again and I put on weight as my belly rounded. Mum kept me busy; she found a million activities to volunteer me for and I threw myself into the community, reading to people, serving food, helping people with their gardens. Of course she tried to introduce me to the eligible bachelors of Tilling but to them I was no longer Michelle, the wildcat, but Mish, a sweet, fat piece of spoiled fruit, glowing with someone else’s seed. As I grew larger, I withdrew from activities and began going to the dam for slow, quiet swims and occasionally just walking aimlessly. 

    I helped dad where I could and just gazed peacefully at the boring network channels that kept mum and dad amused. Reception being what it was made my social media dry up, but for some reason I didn’t mind because I had a strange contentment I had never felt before. Every now and then I remember dad reaching out to hold my hand, gently squeezing with his tough old fingers and once he even stroked my belly. He would have loved to meet Dylan before he died, but he missed it by a month. Dad was in his shed, tinkering away with something when he quietly and permanently keeled over, as Norm whimpered at his now lifeless feet.

     It was a horrendous birth, from what I was told. I had found out Dylan was a boy along the way and asked mum and dad for a nice name.  Mum suggested what they were going to call the brother I never had, Dylan, and I liked it. Sure, they had wanted another baby, but it just wasn’t meant to be because mum had miscarried. So I borrowed the name and mum dutifully collected every single article of light blue baby clothing she could get her hands on. 

    We were painting my room when there was a flood of pain so sudden that my knees stopped working and the paint-soaked roller hit the floor with a wet sound. I thought I had pissed myself as my whole groin felt horribly loose and burning hot and I knew he was coming, coming now on the floor of the nursery. Mum’s common sense and nurse training kicked in, or so she tells me, but I remember very little of the delivery other than pain and a needle filling my spine with coldness and numbness when the doctor gave me the epidural. It happened very quickly, but until the day of her death mum told me that no birth had ever bled quite so much as me, even among all the ones she’d assisted with at the hospital. That’s where I ended up recovering, back at the place I had called “mum’s work” for so long. 

    The first of the many odd things was that Dylan was not much of a crier and refused to latch on to feed, at first. The expert, a sweet and motherly midwife who was a good friend to mum, was worried he’d fail to thrive or get jaundice, because even after a week of recovery, he didn’t seem to want my milk. I remember the doubt in her eyes as she waved us off, no doubt thinking of me only as Jazzy’s junkie daughter who ran off to the big smoke and came back home pregnant like a skank. I could tell, at times, that these thoughts were in everyone who met me and met my sensible, loving mum, who had given a lifetime of nursing to Tilling Hospital. 

    I wasn’t sure myself who I was, I had just delivered a baby after all. I only knew that when I looked at his tiny red face, his nose and eyelashes were so small and perfect that I learned there was a love in me that I had never felt before. It was all I felt and all I had, from the moment I saw him. So that night, in the rocking chair I had also been nursed in, I tried to feed him again and this time, he latched on. 

    But it was not without pain, and pain so deep and searing I wanted to rip my tender flesh out of his mouth as he suckled me, yet I kept it there. I panicked silently and without moving: I had read this moment was magical, sacred even, as you nurture your child with unique milk made especially for them, but I had not anticipated the agony, and yet I held on. I gritted my teeth and cried a little as he drank. Then, five minutes later when he pulled away, I saw the six newly opened holes bleeding slightly and his mouth filled with a mix of milk and blood. I waited a second and checked his gums as he slept and there were six, mysterious, sharp little teeth in tiny holes that I later learned he could retract at will. I gazed in shock at his plump, pink lips and smiled at the milk-coma sleep he fell into. He was beaming with complete fullness. 

    Something seized my reasoning that night and told me, very clearly, I must tell no one. With this thought came horrible images of people kicking down our front door and taking my little boy as he slept. The fear was so real, so all-consuming, I never said a word.

    PART TWO – CLICK HERE

  • MARKED: A story inspired by the spell, Hunter’s Mark

    MARKED: A story inspired by the spell, Hunter’s Mark

    My death starts and ends with a searing circle of pain. 

    The hunter sighted me long before my senses oriented me to where she hid. Her form was a mystery to me as there were too many smells, too many new sights in the forest for me to focus on. We had chosen this clearing to guard the chest through the night, thinking it would be easy to defend, but not from the others in her company. The one who would kill me was the most concealed and probably the most deadly. Her movements among the trees were as fluid and familiar as one raised in the trees, and one of the last things I would live to see were her gleaming elven eyes. 

    But this began with the hiss of an angry cat who tried to warn us. 

    The quiet of the clearing at night had been destroyed by a muscle-bound barbarian charging and roaring at the same time. He crashed through saplings and towards our fire, then swung a great hammer into the gut of Severrn, our tabaxi rogue, and winded her. She had been on watch and hissed to warn us, but it was too late. 

    She lay twitching helplessly and I saw, with horror, that her ribcage was malformed from the impact. Ribs are meant to be smooth, not jagged and lumpy beneath her spotted pelt, and I thought myself a coward for not coming to her aide. The barbarian barely stopped to breathe before he raised the hammer again and I looked away. I knew what was coming but I was too cowardly to see it.

    But I could not avoid hearing the crunch of her skull as the spiked hammer crushed her delicate, feline head. 

    It caught me off guard that they were so well prepared. My companions leapt into action and I crouched to hide. I am a trained wizard; I am expected to remain away from the worst of the danger. But the fighting had come to me far more quickly than I expected and I was having trouble concentrating. I tightened my grip on my bloodstone, my unique arcane focus, and centralised my thoughts on the spell. 

    Thanks to my magic, a spray of beautiful, dancing lights dazzled the enemy knight who came running towards us before he could brandish his sword further. If I could keep him disorientated, the others could move the chest before these thieves could take it. 

    But I didn’t have time to worry that they’d found us, or tracked the chest because this ambush was more than we could take. It was then that I felt the mark on me. 

    How does it feel, you wonder?

    It feels like being spotted by someone when you were trying to hide, but the gaze has the power to burn. Not intense enough to make you stop in your tracks, but there is a terrifying weight to being seen, a heavy and inescapable feeling that they SEE you. Not just your body, but your soul. 

    They see you at your best and most shining moment. 

    They see you in a silent sliver of shame. 

    They see you.

    It was like nothing I had experienced. I would die feeling completely naked.

    I shifted, continuing to concentrate, until I realised Mahgas, our cleric, was also in trouble. He had charged the knight and was expecting to finish him, but something was sliding a long, thin knife into Maghas’s throat. It was one of the races of the small-folk, with such smooth and practised movements that they barely made a sound. A black shadow of death in a cape and hood. It had dropped on Mahgas from above in total silence. 

    I watched Mahgas rattle as he fell, his heavy armour trapping him in a cage of death as the little creature fell with him, on him, riding him to the ground. The being withdrew a shining blade and leapt again, so fast I could barely track it.

    It was then that the first arrow hit my collarbone and I dropped the bloodstone. The arrow was deep in my soft flesh and burned deep into my armpit. My arm became useless, hence my hand hanging like a useless string, and I cried out with stupidly loud agony. I was meant to be concealed, I was meant to be fine, the chest would make us rich… lies. All lies. 

    All the while, the feeling of being SEEN grew stronger. Some sort of connection began between hunter and quarry and I felt the green eyes, rather than seeing them. They seemed to be measuring every part of me, my whole body, from head to toe and sizing up my weakness to choose where to strike next. I reached for the arrow with my good hand and touched the wooden shaft. White-hot agony exploded and I had to let it go. 

    The intense pain made me so weak that I reeled into a ball of pain on the ground. The feathers on the nock stood out, so ludicrously bright in their colour that anyone could have spotted me and I realised then, I was going to die next. 

    The feeling of exposure peaked suddenly and I felt the eyes sizing me up, judging where to split open my skin with a second arrow. It hit my exposed side and I gasped from pain. My hands flailed helplessly and grabbed the debris of the forest floor around me. Somehow, my good hand tightened around my bloodstone. 

    The wetness I lay in was my own blood, I realised. She, my killer, approached me with casual, elven grace. A small foot pushed me down as she leant in and ripped her arrow from me. My scream sent birds tearing into the night sky with fear, but all the elven huntress did was coldly evaluate my dying moment. Where there had been a dry arrow, a stream of blood spurted out and I began to lose my vision. 

    Green elven eyes gouged me and I felt her remove the second arrow and begin to clean it. For a moment she radiated with more power than before and I felt the mark leave my body. I felt an odd warmth and saw her mouth move into the shape of the word “good bye”. 

    Sighing, I saw no more.