Out of the Garden - Part Thirteen

 By Patti Hill

(Catch up on the story here.)    

"Have we need of introductions?" the Princess said.

      Remembering is tricky, especially after not one, but two lifetimes. "I think . . ."

     “You’re remembering now, aren’t you?”

     I remembered all right—an early mist morning, and a giddy flight to the campsite of a lone human. Princess Orlagh led the way. We ladies in waiting followed nervous, but one does not argue with the next queen of the fae. Besides, I was curious about the humans I had glimpsed over the years, the large ones who lumbered across the sacred mounds. This one had pitched a tent and cooked his meals over a large fire, far from the nearest village.

    I sat on the bed, careful not to tumble the princess off her feet. “We got too close, we did. The net was covered in butterfly scales that tangled our wings. 'Twas terrible.” Our eyes met. “The jar, its terrifying smoothness, unlike anything we’d ever encountered. How could I forget such a thing?”

     The lumbering mortal was Don, out collecting butterfly specimens among the heather.

     Princess Orlagh stepped forward. “Maeve, you’ve lived your destiny.”

    Falling in love with Don had changed everything. It had certainly changed me. I learned his language and lived in his nectar-rich garden with Princess Orlagh and Peta. The princess eventually grew restless and left to find her way home. Peta and I stayed. We spent our evenings sharing stories of the fae with Don—the successions of queens, battles against our enemies, and, of course, love stories. 

     First, we lost our wings. It was no longer safe for us to live outside. Don brought us into the house, where Peta and I lived in an unnatural world and invented new lives for ourselves. And then we grew. Our dresses pinched and laces popped. Don provided dolls’ clothes, which only fit for a day or two before we needed something larger.

   It was his kindness that grew my love, and, probably, my body. I learned later that Peta’s growth mirrored mine for the very same reason. But Don chose me.

     “What now?” I asked.

     “I need to go back. That’s why I’ve come. I can’t make it on my own. I’ve tried. The winds of the large ocean are too powerful, and I’ve failed at finding a portal in this land. And now, with a wounded wing…” She spoke in the ancient tongue.

     “Back to Donegal?” I answered in the same language, surprising myself.

     “The throne sings to me, Maeve.”

     My whole family sat outside my bedroom window, probably thinking I needed testing for Alzheimer’s and knowing absolutely nothing of my fae past. “My family, what will I tell them?”

     “I suppose you’ll tell them to get out of the house, that you’re taking a holiday.” She was impatient with my mortals, and thought of me only as what I had once been. To her, my family was the fae.  

     She made it sound so easy, so royal. “What about Peta? She knows you’re here.”

     “Peta has broken the sacred code. She no longer belongs to us. She will try to follow, but the survival of the fae depends on keeping her in the land of the mortals.”

     Princess Orlagh could have commanded me to take her back to Donegal, but she’d never been that kind of princess. And she knew nothing of the TSA and arthritic feet. “I will get you back to Donegal.”

Patti is the author of six published novels, all of which have a touch of whimsy--Like a Watered Garden, Always Green, In Every Flower, The Queen of Sleepy Eye, Seeing Things, and Goodness and Mercy. She is one of the six original founders of Novel Matters. After writing stories, she loves to teach. And eat Mexican food. 

Many thanks to my editor, Bonnie!

Out of the Garden - Part Twelve

by Heidi Dru Kortman

(Catch up on the story here.)

“Hector,” I muttered, lest Peta overhear. “Where did you put the Her?” He hadn’t behaved like this since he was a six-month-old kitten. Then, he’d made off with Bree’s doll, “Soo-Z Sprite,” though it looked nothing like a sprite to me, and I’d had plenty of experience dealing with the real ones.

So long ago—I’d set much aside to marry Don. And nearly forgotten.

Hector rolled onto his back, stretching one paw to bat the bedspread fringe. Then the cat sat with his back to me and washed.

“If you’ve left the Her behind the living room sofa, Peta will take her.”

 He hissed.

“Cat, I dislike Peta myself. She took Don from me once, and I won’t give the Her away. Bring Her to me now, before she gets thirsty again.”

“Tá mé anseo.” The Her stepped between the bedspread fringes, climbed the chenille fabric, and walked to the far end of the shoe box, where she crossed her arms on the edge. “Tá mé anseo, I am here.”  Whispery, like wind in tall grass, the síog’s voice I heard carried a hint of annoyance.

“I regret needing to move you from pillar to post. Peta is persistent.”

As the Her cocked her head, obviously considering my words like any person would, the door knob rattled hard. That had to be my grandson. “Callan, stop that,” I said.

“Gran, where are the sweets?”

“The price was too expensive.” I tipped one of my throw pillows, and gestured the Her to hide in the cavernous space. The Her sprinted from the shoe box and ducked into the sheltering darkness. 

I heard Callan stomp away. Spoiled child.

I lifted the throw pillow, grinning. “Dia dhuit. Hello,” I said as the síog emerged. “Peta believes you’re a French fae, but you’re speaking Gaelic.” Neachtar, the word this síog had whispered, rolled back time to my years in a Donegal village.

Nodding, she braided her hair. “Dia dhuit. Sive Orlagh is ainim dom.”

“A hundred thousand welcomes, Princess Orlagh. Maeve is ainim dom.”

Thank you, Heidi!

Heidi Dru Kortman, CWG Apprentice graduate and ACFW member since 2004, has devotionals, and poetry in Breaking Barriers, Disability Concerns, Christian Reformed Church in North America, a devotional in One Year Life Verse Devotional, Tyndale October 2007, a short story in Harpstring, vol. 1, issue 2 Written World Communications. She writes flash fiction on AvenirEclectia.com. She is also an active member of Toastmasters International.

Out of the Garden - Part Eleven

by Sharon K. Souza
(Catch up on the story here.)

There you are? My heart felt like it would burst through my chest. I threw my legs over the side of the bed, stood, and nearly fainted again as the blood rushed to my head.

            “Easy there,” Peta said, as I dropped to the bed.

She lowered herself to the floor with uncanny ease. Then, with a smirk, she tugged out the shoe box. She paused for a moment, looking me square in the eye, as if giving me a chance to confess to its contents before she discovered for herself. But what could I say? Wordlessly, my eyes dropped to the box.

            “I really thought it would be me she visited,” Peta said. She tossed her frizzy, silver ponytail back over her shoulder.

            “Sh-she? She who?”

            Peta laughed that biting laugh again. “Oh, Cuz. This is me, remember?”

            I did remember. All too well. I remembered that summer I first brought Don to meet my family, to meet the cousin who was more like a sister. The same sister-cousin who betrayed me.

            The smile faded from Peta’s face, and I knew she remembered too. “You’re not still holding a grudge, are you? After all these years? We were kids. I mean, what’s the point? He went back to you.”

            “Why did you do it?” I hated that there was still pain in my voice.

            “Honestly, Maeva, that’s ancient history.” She said it like it was no big deal, and yet she squirmed, adjusted the shoulders of her peasant blouse, fluffed her skirt.

            I lowered my eyes, let her off the hook, because she was right, what was the point? I was about to say as much when all at once she lifted the shoe box and placed it on the bed beside me.

            “Peta, wait—”

            With a devilish grin she lifted the lid. Then she sat back on her heels with a huff. I looked ever-so-slowly at the box on the bed. Blinked. And blinked again. Inside were a pair of green pumps, one with a broken heel. I looked back at Peta, gave her a weak smile.

            Suddenly, Hector appeared from beneath the bed. Peta scrambled away from him, got to her feet and backed to the door. “I know it’s here,” she said. “I know it.” Then she turned and hurried away.

            I dug through the shoe box looking for the Her, but there was nothing inside but the shoes. Shoes I’d never purchased.

            “Hector?” I said, thinking the unthinkable.

            He sat there and swished his tail with a smile on his face.

Thank you, Sharon!

Sharon is the author of three published novels, Every Good and Perfect Gift, Lying on Sundays, and Unraveled. She doesn't shy away from the hard questions and the emotion that draws us into a story. Her storytelling is powerful.

ATTENTION! We need one more author to participate in our story in the month of June. Contact us at novelmatters@gmail.com if want to make your splash. 

Out Of the Garden, Part 9

Read the story from the beginning here. 

Part 9 by Kathleen Popa

I shoved the shoe box under the bed, and hurried out, grabbing a tissue from the box on the dresser and shutting the bedroom door firmly behind me.

"My new shoes," I said. "The green  pumps. I meant to wear them, but the heel is broken. I'll have to take them back."

"Pumps?" Margaret seemed ready to take my temperature. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Granny? New shoes?” Bree seemed impressed. “Can I see?"

"No! No no no." I said it at least one time too many, because of course I hadn't bought new shoes. "I wanted to run out for a few things, some dessert, some artificial sweetener."

Margaret frowned, so I kept going. "Of course, there's no need to dress up to go to the store. Not at my age."

"When did you ever?" Margaret mumbled, and her eyes met Bree's.

"Why don't we all go?" I asked.

"I'll stay here,” said Bree. “Settle in." For just a moment, her eyes wandered toward my closed bedroom door.

I wished for a lock on the bedroom door. "Come along," I coaxed, "and pick out the ice cream." When I returned, I could find a better place to hide The Her.

But when we walked back through the front door, we found Peta and Klaus sitting so stiffly in the living room, she in the chair and he on the couch, their smiles so tight, that I keenly sensed that they had halted a conversation mid-sentence when they heard the car in the drive. The tension between them was so palpable, I hesitated to enter the room.

Margaret slipped in around me. “’Scuse, Mom. Don’t want the ice cream to…” she began, but then, she stopped.

“What is it?” she asked.

Peta glanced at me, then at Klaus, and then she chuckled. A pair of diaphanous wings popped out from behind Peta. Just like the Her's, only much, much larger.

Out of the Garden, part 8

Read the story from the beginning here.

Part 8 by Vila Gingerich

My words ruffled the delicate hair and wings of the Her. “Mythical creatures: a figment of who you dream to be. Could that be true?”

Dreams? Bree would raise her eyebrows at the thought. She considered me a dottery grandmother with one sensible shoe in the grave.

Even so, I still had my stash of somedays, my valise of what-ifs, my shoe box of—

Dreams?

Maybe this magical creature, this Her, embodied my fancies of what I could be, could do—submit that story, see Venice, run that marathon.

A rustle came from the box and I leaned closer. Tiny limbs stretched, then straightened, and a wince puckered Her face. No fresh blood welled, though, and I let out the breath I hadn’t know I’d been holding.

With an index finger, I scooted the lid of honey closer.

Her tiny nose twitched. Asking this elegant being to put her face down and drink like a dog seemed preposterous.

“I’m sorry.” My face burned. “I didn’t think. Maybe—”

A hand fluttered out and downward, like a baby moth, and then—a droplet of honey glistened in her palm. She held it to her lips, paused, and the golden head nodded.

At me. For me.

My heart clutched and tears pricked behind my eyelids.

As the Her drank and my knees grew stiff from kneeling, I became aware of voices outside the window.

“What’s wrong with Grandma?” Bree’s voice sounded sharp as glass.

“You noticed too?” Margaret speaking. “She meant to slam the door in our faces earlier. I mean, it’s not like we weren’t invited. Oh, and she forgot my diet. She had nothing but sugar for the Earl Grey.”

“Well, right now she’s in her bedroom, crying into a shoe box,” Bree said.

I glanced over my shoulder and gasped. The bedroom door stood ajar.

Vila is a very good friend at Novel Matters. She won our essay contest on why novels matter in 2012. You can read her essay here. She is currently a humanitarian aid worker in Eastern Romania with her husband. Learn more about Vila here.

Thank you, Vila!

Out of the Garden, part four

Part Four by Josey Bozzo ...

To read the full ongoing story, click here.

Yes, help her. That was exactly what I had to do. But how in the world was I supposed to do that? Where do I find medicine for a fairy? Touching her seemed unwise. Mishandling her fragile form might break her beyond repair.

Her weeping worried me. Was she in pain? With all the talk of liver damage from this pain reliever and recurring illness from others, just what was I to administer to a mythical creature? Perhaps she didn’t have a liver. I thought to Google “how to fix a fairy,” but quickly dismissed the idea.

            I longed to talk to Granny, but she was gone now. When I’d stayed at her house as a child, her stories enticed me to believe in fairies. I wish I’d paid better attention, but Granny had never told me what to do if a fairy landed broken on my doorstep. I was sure of that.

Granny’s stories were lovely, taking me back to a time when magic had been possible. Many a nights I'd slid into sleep with blissful thoughts of twirling around the garden in the moonlight with dozens of fairies flittering around me, the breeze from their wings moving my hair away from my face and tickling my cheeks.

I dropped to the floor again and peered into the box. Those were just dreams, this was real.

Beep-beep.

My head whipped up. My family had arrived. I looked down at Her one last time, reaching for the box lid, and said, “I have to go.”

“Neachtar…”

I looked at Hector. The cat stared back, his amber eyes wide with interest. She’d spoken. The Her had spoken. I bent closer.

“Neachtar…” she said again, and closed her eyes, drifting, I hoped, into to healing sleep.

. . . To be continued next Friday.

Thank you, Josey!

Josey Bozzo is a treasured regular here at Novel Matters. You can read more of Josey on her blog here.

If you'd like to contribute to our ongoing story, contact us at novelmatters@gmail.com and we'll add you to our schedule.

           

               

 

Out of the Garden, part three

Part Three by Henrietta Frankensee ...

To read the full ongoing story, click here.

How many times would I have to check before she became real to me?

            My hands and knees trembled, my body, mind and soul a mass of disharmony, as I retrieved the box with its mystical — and mystifying — contents. I sat down to peek this time, just in case. Stranger things were happening than my doctor knew how to prescribe for.
            I lifted the lid, and there she was, as real as anything mystical can be. An iridescent feeling flitted through me, laced ever so lightly with compassion. My breath held in my chest as I observed Her, so like a hummingbird in her uniqueness. No wonder we couldn’t see her amid the glads. No, more like a butterfly, I reconsidered, since she couldn’t fold her wings.
            She lay on her side with the wounded wing supported by a cotton ball, her face buried in the upper part of that crumpled appendage. Her gossamer hair lay tousled like the gold thread in my sewing box when the cat got through with it. I wanted to touch it, ever so lightly of course, but even that would terrify Her, of that I was certain.
            “Don’t weep,” I whispered. “I’ll do ...” What? My best. But what did that look like?
            Hector placed his paws on my forearm to meow in my face.
            “No! You can’t have her!” I lifted the box out of reach and scolded again.
            He danced a figure eight around my feet, meowing like a fire engine in heavy traffic, and swishing his tail in the air. In his eyes I saw mercy, not menace. It struck me then, Hector could have devoured Her if he’d wanted to, instead of bringing in his treasure to lay at my feet. I reinterpreted his meowing, rightly I was sure, to mean Help. Help Her.

. . . To be continued next Friday.

 

Thank you, Henrietta!

 

Henrietta Frankensee has been a long-time member of the Novel Matters community.
 

If you'd like to contribute to our ongoing story, contact us at novelmatters@gmail.com and we'll add you to our schedule.

           

Out of the Garden, part one

We've been talking about writing a story together all week here and here. And now, it's showtime.

Below is part one of what will be our story--yours and ours. We hope the opening lines ignite your creativity and you decide to join us in telling the story. We'll give details for your participation after the all-important beginning.

I’d seen her before hovering around the gladiolas. One can ignore what one does not believe exists. Sometimes, after a sighting, I’d lie awake and worry. Did she fly with the devil’s minions, or heaven’s angels? I could sleep only after convincing myself I hadn’t seen her at all. Aging eyes, frequent headaches, trick of light.

            And then my cat carried her into the house one Tuesday, dropped her at my feet like a prize catch. She was only slightly larger than a mouse. Not dead despite the cat, one wing bent out like a wind-turned umbrella, and blood swelled where it melded to her back. I scolded the cat. 

           She looked tiny lying inside the shoebox I’d found and lined with cotton balls and a clean hanky. Her eyes never left my face. There were people coming, I tried to explain to her as I slid the shoebox under the bed. 

Your turn!

Sign up at novelmatters@gmail.com to contribute up to 300 beautifully polished words to the story. We suggest that you revisit the posts from Monday and Wednesday for pointers.

The newest installment of the story will run each Friday. We'll let you know your assigned Friday via email. We ask that you submit your installment as a Word document to our email address on the Wednesday previous to your assigned Friday. That gives us pokey folks time to get your words posted.

We'll continue the story until it comes to a satisfying resolution.

Not to worry, previous installments will be available through a link. 

That's it. Any questions? 

This is going to be fun.