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2009-11-29T07:40:00.000-08:00

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Aliens From The Twilight Zone

2008-10-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that an Alien Invasion could be so funny?

The E-Mail Soul Eater

2008-10-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday me and my best friend Amihan were shopping at the Mall for hats ( I love those old lady styled hats with fruit and birds on the brim...the one I was wearing that day had little cats dancing around the edges ) when she asked me if I had heard the story about the E-Mail Soul eater and I was very sorry to have to say I had not heard that one.

" Well," Amihan " tells me- "the E-Mail Soul Eater is this demon who sits in this Library and sends out this picture and if you don't pass her picture around she'll come out of your computer and kill you."

" Yeah but why..."

" She doesn't have a Soul, so she eats them to stay alive."

" Oh she does, does she?"

Amihan opens up her purse and takes out a couple of pieces of paper and I see that one is a copy of the e-mail and the other is the picture and I say to her:

" You have got to be kidding me."

" No, it's true. I mean I think it is."

"Listen Amihan- Demons are old world. They do things the old fashioned way, that's in their nature -they are hands on and in your face. Please Amihan, e-mails?"

" What the Hell kind of stupid story is that? " I ask and then I took the picture from Amihan and folded it up in a neat little square and I put it in my back pocket.

" I know, I know, I took the e-mail and the picture and if I don't pass it along the E-Mail Soul Eater will come and get me. Well I hope she does. "

Amihan is near tears and she says, " Why did you do that? "

" Hey Amihan, don't worry about it. "

Amihan does look worried so I shrug and say as I pull my hat down over the little horns on my forehad " Don't worry about her, Soul Eater, Soul Thief, whatever- all I know is I don't need the competition."

In Memory Of A Practical Man

2007-06-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

by
a.m. moscoso

Mattie Greaves sat across from Mr. Sawyer Day, the owner of a small and all but forgotten funeral home in Seattle, Washington and together they were quietly discussing a suitable coffin for Mattie's husband Tabor.

" My husband is a practical man " Mattie told Mr. Day " and he wouldn't like anything with those fancy gold handles and he certainly wouldn't approve of things like this " Mattie was pointing at a catalog opened to a glossy page of coffins painted blue and gold and even black with ducks and eagles flying around their edges.

" I understand " Mr. Day said " and I have several models for you to consider that are more traditional. I'm sure we can find one here that your husband would approve of. "

Mr. Day is almost 65 and he had taken over Morning Ridge Funeral Home from his Mother's family right after he had turned 30. He had started working there right after he turned 16 so that means that for over 50 years Mr. Sawyer Day had heard and seen it all.

So when Mattie Greaves asked if the traditional model she was looking at came with a comfortable pillow Mr. Day didn't even look up. " From what I understand it does, however in the past some of our families have brought in their own blankets and pillows. "

" My husband is very fond of candy as well. " Mattie whispered. " Now his doctor told him he needs to give up sweets but you know, he's along in years and he's been through so much. I ask you Mr. Day how could I take away his salt water taffy?"

" My Mother was the same way, she was fond of her Cuban Cigars. Not only did she refuse to give them up we could never figure out how she got her hands on them to begin with. In the end, we just let it go."

" So of course I can..."

" Of course you can Mrs. Greaves, whatever you think would have made your husband happy."

After going through a few more books Mattie decided on a solid oak model with bronze handles and a lovely cream colored liner. She passed on the flowers.

" He's allergic " she told Mr. Day.

Mr. Day and Mattie went through numbers and she was about to pull out her check book when Mr. Day said, " We're almost finished Mrs. Greaves all we have to do is discuss your choice of a grave liners..

Mattie dropped her checkbook on the table and looked at Mr. Day for almost two minutes before her face turned a little red and tears welled up in her eyes., " Oh my, that sounds so final."

" Mrs. Greaves, I'm very sorry. I don't mean to rush you. If you need more time to go over..."

" No Mr Day...you've been very kind and patient with me. It's my fault. I'm the one who has been doing the rushing. I should have explained...my husband just needs a coffin until the one he normally uses arrives from back home."

Inspired by the Soul Food Cafe Prompt

Memory's Molten Stream

Devil's Luck

2007-05-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

by anita marie moscoso

based on the Soul Food Cafe Story Prompt

T is For Transformative

Did you ever have one of those days when everything went wrong?

Maybe you knew it was going to be bad when your alarm went off 20 minutes too early and to make it worse it was one of those nights where you woke up every half hour and when you got out of bed you knew, you could feel it was going to get much worse.

Veta Trella had a night like that.

After she got out of bed she went to take a shower and as she stepped into her tub she slipped but was lucky enough to break her fall with her knees.

That was okay because Veta wasn't the kind of person anyone paid attention to so if she had to limp and shuffle no one was going to notice.

That was the only lucky break Veta had for the rest of the day.

When Veta dried her hair she was distracted by the sizzling sound the wires made everytime she turned her wrist and just before her hair was completely dry some blue sparks flew out of the wall and all of the lights in Veta's house went out and stayed out.

She guessed all of those black scorch marks all over her walls by the electrical outlets she saw on the way to her basement to check her fuse box was not a good sign.

When Veta finally made it out thedoor she looked down in time to see her that not only were her shoes not tied, they were different colors and just as she turned to go back into her house the door swung shut and she knew that not only was the door locked she had never taken her keys out of the candy bowl she kept them in.

But none of that mattered for very long because as she took a step she tripped on her laces and went face first into the door.

It was only a matter of seconds- not minutes before her nose started to swell and she could feel her lips start to go numb. She poked at her face and sighed and then Veta walked around to her back yard.

She walked slowly up the steps to her back porch and when she reached down to pick up a little clay flowerpot to break the little glass window in center of the porch door she felt her fingernail peel back and then it came off with a sting.

She held her hand up, looked at raw finger tip and sighed.

Veta made it through her kitchen safe enough but when she got to the living room she scared her cat Blitzer right off of the couch he knew wasn't suppose to be on.

Veta didn't have the heart or energy to yell at him because she shouldn't have had to break into her own house and put herself in the position to scare her black cat into running straight across her path.

In fact, he was so startled by her that he jumped straight up onto the mantle piece above the fireplace and sent Veta's antique mirror crashing to the floor where it didn't just break.

It smashed into millions of little shards and a cloud of dust and glass wafted up and into Veta's face- Veta's bruised and swollen face that was now in the process of working it's way into a full fledged allergy attack.

" Oh, why the Hell not " Veta said and then she sneezed and her nose started to bleed- all over her brand new white blouse.

When Veta made it to her bus- well it wasn't her usual bus because she missed her regular bus- she almost tripped over a woman who had suddenly stopped to pick something up off of the ground and that sent Veta and her things flying in about four different directions.

Veta sort of shuffled and cringed all the way to the back of the bus and when she sat down it was on something wet and sticky and she closed her eyes and when she opened them she looked up and then down and then from her left to her right and then slowly behind her. When she was done she slouched down and held her belongings to her chest and tried to make herself breathe.

She thought if she concentrated on doing just that she wouldn't start screaming.

Then the woman Veta had tripped over took the seat right in front of her and she was jabbering and laughing and chatting away to the very good-looking man next to her.

" Can you believe it? " she sang, " first I find a hundred dollar bill right there on the curb on the very morning I'm thinking I'm going to for sure miss my bus and then..." she leaned towards her seat mate and nudged him with her shoulder " you ask me out and look! "

She was holding her phone up and the man read the text message and he congratulated the woman on her promotion and then he moved a little closer to her and put his arm over the back of her seat.

" I mean, I don't know where all of this is coming from. I've never had luck like this before!"

" My Grandma would have said you have the luck of the Devil " he told the woman happily.

And then Veta reached over she tapped them each on the shoulder.

When they turned around they were looking straight into Veta's bright yellow eyes which were ringed with bruises and they saw the little white horns she normally hid under her blow dried hair and then her forked tongue shot from under her broken nose and swollen lips and she hissed " your Grandma is liar."

Has The Cat Got Your Tongue?

2007-04-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

by anita marie moscoso

Daisy Cutting was not normal- her parents knew it, her brothers and sisters knew it and her dog knew it too.

That's why Tarzan lived under the porch instead of above it and if they could have the rest of Daisy Cutting's family would have followed Tarzan under the porch too- but there wasn't enough room for all of them.

So the rest of the family was forced to deal with their world with Daisy in it in their own way. The Cutting Family learned to be invisible- which was easy when all anyone really noticed was Daisy.

She was very hard to ignore no matter how hard you tried.

On the day her parents found out they were expecting a baby their house burned down, on the day Daisy was born the sky above the hospital turned black.

Not from thunderclouds- from birds.

The noise they made was deafening and the smell was bad and then while they were in mid-flight they died and fell with soft wet thuds for miles around.

Mrs Cutting saw the rain of dead birds from her hospital window and she raised her baby to her lips and whispered into Daisy's ear, "what have you done Daisy? "

Of course Daisy couldn't answer because she wasn't even an hour old but she did laugh and that's when Mrs. Cutting saw Daisy already had teeth.

" Well, " Mrs. Cutting said " at least you don't have horns too."

Then Daisy laughed some more.

The funny thing about Daisy is that she never really laughed again after that day- she just smiled.

A lot.

Daisy Cutting had a normal life- she had her own room, she had her own toys and she got two full grown black cats from her family on her 12th birthday.

Her cats, Potato and Chips didn't hide under the porch when they saw her. Everyone including Daisy figured they hung around just to see what sort of odd thing she would come up with next but that was in the nature of cats and the Cutting Family understood that.

That's why they got them for her.

So at least now Daisy had a couple of friends- which is what her family wanted. Daisy, if they had asked, would have told them she busy for a social life because Daisy was always busy working on her collections.

-like her Bug Collection.

To be specific Daisy had a Bug Zoo in her bedroom.

Her bugs were in jars and plastic containers and in front of each little cage was a card with their proper scientific names and dietary habits.

Daisy also collected yo-yos that she displayed on her bookshelf and under her bed was Daisy's Grave Collection- it wasn't as organized as her bug zoo or her yo-yo collection.

Daisy collected those little candy boxes- the ones that 6 different pieces of chocolate come in. She'd buy a box or two a month, toss the pieces to Tarzan under the porch ( he buried them ) and then she'd take the empty boxes to her bedroom.

What Daisy liked about the boxes were the little pictures of smiling cherubs on the lids.

It worked for what Daisy put in them.

At least once a month Daisy took the bus to Morning Ridge Cemetery in Duwamish Bay and she'd go from grave to grave snapping petals and leaves from the Grave Flowers.

She always did it in a way that didn't disturb the arrangements- then she'd take the flowers home, dry them and put them in the little boxes.

Each box was numbered- Daisy had a map of the cemetery in her desk and when she got home she took the numbers and not the names from the Cemetery Map and copied them onto the inside lid of the boxes.

Daisy's room was full of her collections.

One Summer Mrs Cutting was in her kitchen reading the paper and drinking some juice when she looked down into her glass and saw two flies drowning in her lemonade

She took a deep breath because she was about to yell for Daisy- and how fair was that? There were two black blowflies in her juice and the first words out of Mrs. Cutting's mouth weren't going to be "yuck".

She was about to scream, " Daisy!"

Instead she took the glass outside and threw the entire mess into the garbage can.

The next day Mrs Cutting found four blowflies in the refrigerator, two in the toilet and instead of yelling " Daisy" she went to the store and bought some No Pest Traps.

It didn't work.

In fact, it got worse.

Much worse.

By the third day there was family meeting in the Cutting home that didn't include Daisy or her cats but did include Tarzan the Dog.

The result of that meeting was Mrs Cutting was sent up to Daisy's room to see if the newest members of the Cutting Family had something to do with Daisy's Collections.

Mrs Cutting took a deep breath and before she knocked she her her daughter-sounding flustered and a little angry- which was something Daisy never did. Daisy never got rattled- so Instead of knocking she put her ear to the door.

" Hey you guys...give those back this minute...I've got you ...let go of that Potato! Chips you're next hand it over....come out from under there you two- I mean it.

You guys are in so much trouble"

Mrs. Cutting looked back down the hall and almost called for somebody- anybody to go with her into Daisy's room.

But this was her daughter- and Mrs Cutting wasn't about to forget that. To be honest, Daisy wasn't the type of person you could forget even if you wanted to.

So Mrs Cutting took a deep breath and knocked on Daisy's door.

From inside of the room came a meow, a couple of hisses and a lot of growling and then she heard a door slam.

Daisy called, " come on in Mom."

Daisy's room didn't have a few flies buzzing around the way they were in the rest of the house.

There were hundreds of them and when one landed on Daisy's face and crawled around and flew off without Daisy flinching even once or trying to brush it away Mrs Cutting lost her temper.

" Flies Daisy? You're collecting flies now? That's...that's... Daisy that's not interesting, that's just stupid. What were you thinking? Look at your room...look at the rest of the house. Young lady you are in so much trouble!"

Daisy was standing next to her closet door and from the inside Potato and Chips had started to shove their paws out from under the door and were trying to pull it open.

" Let them out Daisy...and answer me, what were you thinking?"

Daisy bit her lip and shrugged.

" What were you thinking Daisy? Answer me or did your cats get your tongue?

" No Mommy, " Daisy said " they don't have my tongue..."

It's All In The Cards

2007-03-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

by Anita Marie Moscoso

Idell Galina tells fortunes and casts spells from her little store on Eastlake Road.

Of Course Idell can't really see into the the future and she can't really cast spells but she can tell a good story and she's got a very winning smile and looks good in velvet so none of that really mattered.

Until the night Denae Colquite came in and asked for a Reading- then what Idell could or could not do mattered very much.

Denae Colquite took a seat on the little wooden chair Idell offered her and she kept her purse in her lap. She even kept her jacket on, refusing to take it off when Idell asked for it. " I know this is all- um, subjective. But I'm at a loss Miss-"

" Madam Galina " Idell extended a long hand over the crystal ball that sat on the table between them.

Denae looked down at Idell's left hand and then she looked back up and said, " Miss Galina. "

Idell shrugged pulled her hand back and slumped a little into her chair with her arms crossed over her chest and the air sucked out of her lungs. " What exactly can I help you with ..."

" Denae my name is Denae Colquite and I'll get right down to it Idell- I need to know if one can escape their fate."

Idell felt her Sea Legs come back, and she said " Our fates are..."

" Yes, yes, yes, written on the sands or wind or something like that but Miss Galina the upshot is my fate is about to ruin my life and I'd like to escape that. So, can you help me or not."

It wasn't a question and it wasn't a demand but Denae expected an answer all the same.

And it was obvious she wanted it now.

So Idell reached over to the counter to her left for a candlestick and she placed it next to the crystal ball and struck a match. Then she looked down into the reflection cast by the small yellow flame and as she did Denae put her forehead on the table's rounded edge and started to bang it up and down.

" Yes or no Madame Galina can you change a fate that's been cast. Do you really need to look into the future to answer that question? Because if you're that unsure of your present I don't see how you can help me with the future."

Without raising her head from the table Denae reached into her handbag pulled out a small box of playing cards and dropped it on the table.

" Here, it's all in here. My Grandmother did a reading for me 10 years ago when I got married. It's all there, in those cards. I need to know if I can escape it."

Idell smirked a little and wiped it off her face as Denae looked up. " Our futures, our destiny are constantly being rewritten, I see images, impression of things that could be. That's what I can offer you in the way of help and guidance."

Denae dropped her head back onto the table and mumbled, " Well, damn. It's starting to look like there is no way around this. No way at all. I mean the one person who can really pull this gig off was like a thousand percent right. You know, she was the real thing.I've been to hundreds of you people for the past ten years and all you guys have been less then...er talented then she was. Everyone said Grand was one in a million. I guess that was just the simple truth. She was one in a million."

Denae got up and sighed " How much."

" An offering of 20.00 is appreciated."

Denae got up and and put her jacket on. Then she opened her purse and dropped the offering on the table.

" Oh your..." Idell picked the box up.

" Cards- you can keep them I don't need them anymore. I know what they say. They've been saying the same thing for 10 years now."

And then as Denae walked towards the door the little flap on the bottom of the box slid open and the cards spilled out onto the table and the floor at Idell's feet.

Idell reached down and picked up one of the cards. She could see they were ordinary playing cards with something written in spidery red script across their faces.

She held the card up to the light and she could see written in old fashioned script, " My Granddaughter is going to kill you, run Miss Galina "

Idell looked up in time to see Denae throw the deadbolt on the door. " Don't bother, I told you...it's all in the cards."

Mrs. Beenettle's Garden

2007-03-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

by anita marie moscoso

Outside the town of Dewhurst is a little Country Cottage House standing all by itself up off of a long dusty road. There's a rusty mailbox out front leaning over a ditch and a low stone fence that runs for miles along the Cottage's property line.

Within the borders of the stone fence the small white cottage has potted plants on it's porch and at each of it's lace covered windows there are flower boxes full of purple and white and yellow Pansies.

That's where Mrs. Beenettle lives.

People who drive by Mrs. Beenettle’ s House always comment on the old fashioned looking elderly lady with the straw hat and the basket of flowers on her arm.

" I wonder how old Mrs. Beenettle is, " they'll say " she's been out working on that garden of hers since I was a kid and that was over 20 years ago. "

Then they forget all about her until the next time they drive by.

You see, Dewhurst is an up and coming town with streets full of houses called " Mini-Mansions " and roads with names like " Glen " this and " View Ridge" that and the people who live in those developments aren't the sort of people who slow down their cars or themselves for anything.

That includes sweet old ladies who tend Old English Cottage Gardens in the suburbs of Seattle.

Last spring, after years and years of waving to people somebody actually took the time to stop and drive up to Mrs. Beenettle’ s Cottage.

That somebody was named Betsy Ware.

Betsy Ware swears too much and drives to fast and when her kids moved out and left Betsy and her husband with an empty nest Betsy filled their old bedrooms with boxes full of their books and old furniture and outdated clothes and broken toys.

" If they want to move back in they're going to have to haul all this crap away. "

A fool is a woman who doesn't know her own children and Betsy knew her kids would rather live in a dumpster then to be responsible for their own messes so they never did come back-not even for visits.

Betsy was either one step ahead of you or maybe a half a step behind. But she was never far off the mark. That's what made Betsy such a hard person to mess with.

It was a gift she guessed.

One day Betsy just got it into her head to make the drive up to Mrs. Beenettle’s. She wasn't sure where the idea came from; it just seemed like the right thing to do on that nice cool Spring morning.

She got out of her jeep wearing a faded black t-shirt and her hair tied back in a braid and Mrs. Beenettle came from the side of her house with her basket full of flowers.

Mrs. Beenettle smiled her roadside smile. " Well Good Morning!" she said bright as a daisy.

Betsy stood there and smiled back and the thought came from nowhere and locked Betsy's smile into place..." I have no idea why I'm here...no idea at all."

Mrs. Beenettle was pleasant enough, she knew all about plants.

What she said was not exactly what you would read in The Lady Gardener’s Companion Books.

" Flowers are just cool and cunning as any gambler or card shark" Mrs. Beenettle said in her soft warm voice. " They will wine and dine and seduce anything they have to in order to get what they want."

" What is it they want Mrs. Beenettle " Betsy asked because Betsy had the feeling this was going to be a whopper.

" Why, they want to take over dear- simple it truly is as simple as that. I mean, if you think about it the only thing that consumes and reproduces with such blind determination are humans. We're a lot alike, plants and humans."

And Betsy found she couldn't really disagree with that.

They chatted about plants that ate bugs and flowers that smelled like cigarette smoke and Betsy asked, " are there really such things as plants that eat people?"

Mrs. Beenettle laughed and so did Betsy and at that moment they both knew what the answer was-which only made them both laugh more.

The sun was starting to set and it was getting cooler when Mrs. Beenettle said, " All kidding aside Betsy- if you're interested in Man Eating plants this may tickle your funny bone-follow me."

Behind Mrs. Beenettle’ s Cottage there was a grove of Hazel Nut trees. The trees had long thin spidery limbs and they were covered with moss and the bark on the trees was leather like and dark brown.

That surprised Betsy, she thought it would be more fitting if they were bone white, but she was far to interested in what was growing beneath the little trees to wonder why the bark was the color it was.

Under each tree was a large flower.

The petals were black and purple and red and the flowers themselves were as large as the trees themselves.

And they smelled bad; they smelled very, very bad.

" Whoa " Betsy said.

The sound of awe in Bety's voice seemed to please Mrs. Beenettle a lot. In fact Mrs Beenettle smiled wider then ever and then she put a Motherly arm around Betsy's shoulders.

" I am curious about the smell Mrs. Beenettle."

" These beauties are called Corpse Flowers Betsy. In order to thrive they attract blow-flies, and in order to attract Blow-Flies they have to give the flies what they desire which of course is the scent of death."

" Is that all they attract Mrs. Beenettle? The Blow- Flies?

Mrs. Beenettle held her arm out and Betsy took it. " Plants always seem to find the perfect environment to survive in- they're very cunning in that respect.”

Towards Sunset Betsy left Mrs. Beenettle's Garden.

Tucked into the back of Bety's Jeep was a flat box filled with tiny compartments. In each little square were tiny shoots that were coiled and spiraled upwards and each little shoot was tinted black and red purple at their edges.

Next to the flat, wrapped in oiled paper were Betsy's shotguns and in a little plastic envelope under the guns were tags from sweaters and jackets and shirts.

Like Mrs. Beenettle said, plants always seem to find the best enviorment to survive in- they're very cunning in that respect.

The Tacky Ticker

2007-02-24T10:21:00.000-08:00

by anita marie moscoso

Inspired by the Soul Food Cafe Prompt

"M" is for Myth

Alstona Kamacho's clock is an Doomsday clock- that's what she told everyone at her office. She also told them on the first day she brought it in that if the clock stops the world will end.

So for the past 20 years everyone she works with goes out of their way to make sure Alstona’s Tacky Ticker doesn't wind down.

At first it was fun to find a way to make it first to avocado green clock with the pink feet and the silver mushroom bells sitting sideways against face so that you could be the one turn the little silver key and save the entire world

Then it got to be serious.

When Alstona’ s six co-workers heard the little gears slowing down and just before second hand made this pop sound when it skipped past the glow in the dark five they’d already be pushing and shoving, tripping towards Alstona’s desk.

One year Barnell Bloss fractured right arm when he tried- and failed to clear Fales Digby's desk to get to Alstona’ s Armageddon clock.

Of course he didn't clear Fales' desk because Fales was sitting at it and when Barnell raced by it was more the Fales could stand.

He'd reached up and slammed Barnell down and Fales had been the one to save the world that day.

In any other office on the face of the Earth that stunt would probably have ended in some sort of legal action.

But Lonsdale and Mead's wasn't like anyplace on the face of the Earth- there wasn't anyplace else on the face of the Earth that had an Armageddon clock sitting on an employee's desk.

Delia Wing was a Courier from All City Express, she had won the Lonsdale and Mead stop in a lunch time card game at All City.

But that was nothing new- drivers at All City had been known to pay each other cold hard cash just for one trip because everyone in the city of Mayweed knew the L & M staff were a bunch of whack jobs.

What can you say? Nothing broke up the day like getting the chance to see a bunch of desk jockeys beat the snot out of each other to get to this cheap and nasty windup clock first.

As you’ve probably guessed by now Mayweed was short on entertainment venues.

Delia' first trip into L & M was on a Friday and there they were- all seven of them sitting at their desks, working on the phones and doing data entry and the entire time they all had at least one eye on the Receptionist’s Desk.

At least that one eye looked alive and alert because the faces they were housed in were pale and all of the worker's hands were twitching and shaking.

Delia decided right then and there she didn't want to go back to L & M- all of those people looked like they already had one foot in the grave and she was afraid whatever they had might be something you could catch.

But first Delia had a job to do.

She went over to the receptionist's desk where the clock was sitting and cleared her throat, " Package for you. "

Alstona looked up and reached for small box a in Delia's hand.

" So that's the clock. " Delia said.

" That's the clock. "

" So, if you're sitting there how come they...." Delia pointed to the rows of desks behind Alstona " race to wind it up? Why don't you do it yourself?"

Someone said from the back of the office, " because she doesn't care anymore...she wants the world to end."

From a little closer to where Delia and Alstona were another voice said, " she's nuts "

And everyone agreed.

Delia never actually saw the L & M people racing to the clock but on some days she thought they looked more nervous and pale then on other days and she figured that must have been at about the time the clock was probably starting to wind down.

Then one day, even though she had nothing to drop off and no one had called in a pickup Delia went into the Office.

" Nothing to pick up? " she asked Alstona.

" No. " the Receptionist said.

Delia didn’t want to leave and she didn’t want to be there but for several nights Delia would wake up to the sound of ticking and she'd have to bite down hard on her lip to keep from screaming out loud.

So she decided to get this over with.

" It's a joke...right? " Delia asked.

" It certainly is " a woman who sat directly behind Alstona said. She had heavy dark circles under her eyes and her blouse was inside out. " It's the funniest joke anyone could have ever come up with and I'm sick to death of it."

Then a man said, " I say we let it go...we just let go."

Alstona turned around and she said, " didn't I say it would come to this?"

The six staffers nodded and Alstona looked up at Delia and nodded, " it's a joke and I'm going to end it. "

Then Alstona reached over picked up the clock and smashed it against her desk over and over until her hands were cut and bleeding and the clock was mashed flat.

" It's over, right? " Delia asked. " The joke is over. "

Alstona said quiet as a Cemetery at Midnight, " it certainly is."

Outside a dark cloud crossed in front of the Sun then the ground shook just a little...

And that was

The End

The Scariest Sound

2007-02-24T10:11:00.000-08:00

by anita marie moscoso
Inspired by the Soul Food Cafe Prompt
Late, Late One Night

Late, late last night, when the whole world sleptAlong to the garden of dreams I crept.And I pulled the bell of an old, old houseWhere the moon dipped down like a little white mouse.- Zora Cross

Bartsia Butcherbroom lives alone on Wormbark Road and even though Wormbark is sitting on some prime real estate up there in the Cascade Mountains no one wants to live out there and the reason for that isn't the road with the funny name.

The reason is Bartsia Butcherbroom.

Bartsia lives in this little stone house with no windows and as far as anyone can tell it doesn't have a door either- little details about Bartsia's house are sketchy at best because in the 30 plus years she's lived on Wormbark no one has ever went looking to knock on Bartsia's door.
Catching a glimpse of Bartsia working herb garden that grows wild at the side of her is about all anyone wants to see of her.

If you're unlucky by nature you might see her sitting on her porch rocking on her porch swing.
Bartsia sits there whittling little human shaped figures with a long knife with a bone white handle from the wood she collects from around her property .

When she's done she stands them up along the railing that runs along her porch or she tosses them into the Riversleigh Creek that runs behind her property.

When the little figures wash up along the banks in the city of Hedon the people that find them dig little holes and push the figures in with their feet. They try to use something else other then their hands and then they go home straight home and try to forget those tiny little figures with the rows of "X" marks running across their little eyes.

Maybe you'll wonder how she makes such tiny cuts with such a big knife, but if I were you I wouldn't spend a lot of time thinking about Bartsia Butcherbroom.

Especially if you were one of those people who touched one of those little figures with your hands before you buried it- or if as you passed by her sitting on her porch as she whittled and she caught your reflection in that long blade attached to the bone white handle she carves her figures with.

If you your unfortunate enough to be in either position more then likely you're going to start to dream of her.

Having Bartsia show up in your dreams can only mean one thing.
It means that you're going to be out one night and that you will hear the scariest sound anyone can imagine hearing.

Trust me, there are a lot of things out there in the black night that comes from the Cascades that sound bad. People with small "X" marks running across their closed eyes and pleading as they stumble through the woods " Please wake me up, please wake me up " is pretty bad in itself.

But the scariest sound you 'll ever hear are the words, " What was that? "

You'll be saying them- and they will be the last words you'll ever hear as you turn around and come face to face with Bartsia Butcherbroom who lives on Wormbark Road in a house with no windows or doors.

Grave Thoughts

2007-01-10T07:09:00.000-08:00

by anita marie moscoso

Cebu Alacantara buries people for a living.

He digs the graves and puts in the liners, he lowers the coffins into the ground and then he covers the graves and he does it quietly, quickly before the next family shows up for services and of course before the sunsets.

It's at sunset that Leaning Birches Funeral Home and Cemetery closes for the day and opens for the rest of the night and like the rest of the Cemetery staff Cebu has learned that's when visiting hours are over.

For everybody.

Cebu has been at the Cemetery for over 30 years now, and it was on his first day back in November that he and a Mortician were outside the gates waiting for their rides home.

Kousso Eyebright was new to the funeral home too and Cebu liked her right away. He had heard from the other three Morticians that Kousso was good with the families, handy with a needle and on her first case had rebuilt a dead woman's face with a sculpture's hand and a surgeon's skill.

To be honest, that didn't mean a thing to Cebu but he also heard that Kousso knew some wicked jokes and he was hoping to hear a few of them for himself.

Instead Kousso asked, just like you'd ask for the time of day or in the same tone of voice you'd use to order a hamburger and fries, " So Cebu, tell me, what's the best part of your job?"

" I dig graves Kousso, I don't think there's a good part to that. "

" Oh sure there is, you just haven't figured it out yet. I mean, none of us come to a place like this without being invited you know."

" And your point is? "

" Well, if you were invited and you showed up there must have been something that called to you...some little signal that you tossed out that said ' hey, I could really enjoy burying dead people for a living. I could show up in the heat and the cold and shovel dirt all day long'. And that's to say nothing of the fact I'm the last person with the corpse before it's planted."

" Now, I had to embalm a guy today that I could swear had brown eyes, but when I put the eyecaps on they were green. Now that was creepy enough, no way would I wanted want to be with him...alone outside here when he goes into the ground."

" Kousso? "

" Yes? "

" You're weird, do you know that? "

Kousso shrugged and said," as a matter of fact I do."

Then Cebu thought about it a little more and he asked Kousso, " So you think we're called to do this work, is that right?"

" You bet I do."

" Who do you think is making the call Kousso?"

Kousso didn't answer; she was looking across the street.

There was a lot there and in the middle of it was an empty building that over the years housed a hardware store, a pharmacy and until a few months before had been a flower shop.

The Cemetery Grounds Keepers had taken to going over there to cut the grass and keep the place looking halfway decent because they didn't want an eyesore in their otherwise nice and quiet neighborhood.

But today there was someone out in front of the building.

A cat.

It was a small black cat that reminded them both of an owl.

The cat's head was large and round and it's body was plump and compact and it's eyes were a deep dark orange.

And it was looking right at them.

" You don't come to a place like this, you don't just show up. I mean think about it. No one comes to a place like this without being called in...do they?"

" None of us " Cebu agreed.

The little round cat uncurled it's tail and stood up and stretched and then it started to walk towards them.

It crossed the street in the slow easy stride all cats have and when it got to where Cebu and Kousso were standing it sat back down in front of them, curled it's tail back around it's body and looked up at them expectantly.

Kousso, the woman born to be a Mortician said down to the cat, " We close at sunset."

The cat looked up at her and blinked and Cebu who knew this was no joke stayed quiet...but only because he was afraid of what he might do if he opened his mouth.

The Cat could have easily gone under the fence but it didn't. It looked up at Kousso and twitched it's whiskers at her.

Then Kousso reached into her purse and took out her keys, She unlocked the gate and pushed it opened and the cat walked through.

" Take your time, I'll wait. " Kousso said in her Funeral Directors voice.

" We both will. " Cebu said.

And they did.

for more stories by Anita Marie Moscoso
visit
http://anita64.wordpress.com/

Eye of the Beholder

2007-01-10T06:47:00.000-08:00

by Anita Marie Moscoso

Abney Hawkweed taught music for 25 years in the Caswell School District and those were the best years of her life.

Not that she liked teaching; in fact Abney didn't even like kids.

But the hours were good, she got the Summers off and at the end of the day not many people go out of their way to pay attention to plain looking women with wire rimmed glasses who know how to play the violin and trumpet and the saxophone.

Which suited Miss Abney Hawkweed just fine.

In the old days, after school was over and Abney was on her way home she used to roll the windows of her fuel-efficient little car down and she use to turn the radio off just so she could hear the honking horns and screeching tires. Sometimes she even got an earful and eyeful of some road raging driver screaming their lungs out and waving their fingers around in nasty gestures.

People were great and when they were driving and when they were ugly they were even better to watch.

Just for the fun of it Abney would go out of her way on certain days just so that she could drive passed the Great Mall of Felton Hills.

She just loved to watch people dodge buses and trucks and cars and then no matter how many cars were behind her honking their horns she'd drive slow just so she could see the same people sprint, jog or run across the parking lots with baby strollers and shopping carts- all so that they could get into the shops and the food court and consume anything they could lay their hands on.

It all seemed so trivial and innocent and final.

There was no mystery to life in the suburbs.

You worked, you shopped, you watched TV and then you got to die.

Some people, Abney thought, don’t know how good they have it and that's a fact.

Abney's day job paid the rent; what she did at night was who Abney Hawkweed was. She could always find another day job, but there was only one Abney and when the Sunset came she couldn't be anything else.

So just after dinner she would gather her tools into a little black leather medical bag- the one she inherited from her Grandfather and she turn the little gold clasps counter clockwise to lock it.

Then for luck, just like Grandpa taught her, she would touch the little brass plate that said, " Post Mortem Case " three times.

The luck thing was important because she usually needed it.

Like with most family businesses you could either take up the reigns and do the family proud or you could skate by and make them wish they could at least say you were adopted or 'from the other side of the family'.

The worst you could be neither, the worst thing you could be is mediocre.

And know it.

Abney figured she could get the job done- and that phrase pretty much summed up Abney's job performance. She wasn't as glamorous and thin and blond as her cousin Inez and she wasn't as smart or athletic as her Father Dr Setwell Hawkweed had been.

They were impressive figures at work and well respected.

No doubt, Abney could dig up a coffin, pop it open and hammer a stake into the bloated red face of a vampire before it could open it's mouth and spit blood all over her face-which is what they did when they were about to attack.

If they got you it was bad news because that mess could make you blind.

That's how they brought you down.

Anyway...

The problem was it was just plain old Abney Hawkweed in some old decrepit church or over grown cemetery carrying on the family trade.

There was no sense of style about how Abney did her work so she did it quietly and efficiently as possible and then she'd go home feed her cat, listen to a little Mozart and then she'd turn in for what was left of the evening.

She did that for 25 years and she never complained.

She didn't even complain when she had to go into a house on Halloween (of all nights) and take out a family of Vampires who had been sleeping in their basement and then had taken to hanging from the rafters like water logged Piñatas-dripping blood and purge from their hardly working bowels onto the floor.

All Abney figured when she slipped in the gunk and broke her wrist was that they had done that on purpose.

It wasn't like the books and comics and video games you know.

Abney learned the hard way that oxygen deprivation at death and then waking up to find you had been turned into a mosquito was enough to make anyone crazy.

Very Crazy.

On the day Abney retired- both from the Day Job and the Family Trade, her work friends had taken her out for lunch and given her some neat gifts and they had promised to keep in touch.

She doubted they would.

And of course they didn't.

Her family same to celebrate her retirement and of course they promised to stay in touch too- and Abney figured they'd make good on that and of course they did.

Especially when they needed a night off.

As time went by Abney started to play the Violin again for the simple pleasure of it. She never got calls to lend a hand at this Graveyard or that Morgue because the Vampire Problem was a Problem Solved and Abney decided to take up the guitar.

It was at Inez's birthday part last winter that Inez had told Abney, " You know in the old days we could never have all gotten together like this. It'd have been too dangerous. I mean, a couple of nutty blood suckers and a can of gasoline and before you know it we're crispy critters and people are dropping like flies from ' the plague' again."

" You had a lot to do with that Abney. Thank you."

And Abney decided right then and there that she may not have been the sleekest of models to hit the showroom floor but she had made a difference all the same.

That was when Abney really felt it for the first time- her life; her simple quiet life was all she ever was.

And she missed it.

When Spring came Abney had decided to take up sketching. She was pretty awful at it, but she had nothing but time on her hands and if this didn't work she could always try something else.

So one day she's at her favorite park sketching her favorite tree when four teenagers went walking by.

Shoulder to shoulder they looked like a little black thundercloud rolling along on the cobble stone pathway.

Their faces were pale, their lips were black and they smelled like the perfume counter at the Bay Side Department store.

Abney watched them for a moment and then she called out, " You there...are you suppose to be Vampires? "

There was a chorus of snorts and chuckles and someone tried to growl " suppose to be " but his his voice cracked.

One of the little black clouds broke away from the rest and she tried to glide up towards the middle-aged woman with salt and pepper hair " We're Goth " she said slowly with her jaw clenched tight and her black hair falling into her face.

" Is that a new type of Vampire?" Abney asked cheerfully.

" I guess you could say that." the girl with the pointed white teeth said. Then she tried to stare the old woman down. " Why do you want to know? "

Abney shrugged, " just checking. "

And as the little black cloud drifted down the path Abney got up, reached for the black bag under her chair and touched the little brass plate three times.

Then she went to work.

DARK TRAVELS

2006-12-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

by Anita Marie Moscoso

Last Summer Mata Dark and her family took a vacation.

Mata was almost 20 at the time and during her entire twenty years of life none of the Dark Family had set foot off of the Olympic Mountain Range in Washington State. They had never traveled further then 40 miles away from their hometown of Leaning Birches.

It's because Mata's Father was a workaholic and he had this thing about being replaced. He was terrified of losing his job.

" Lord Derby, do you really believe there's a line of people waiting for to do your job? " Mata's mom Rue screamed at the top of her lungs while waving around a bunch of travel pamphlets in her hand. Mom had wanted a vacation in the worst way and she felt like if she didn’t get this trip she wouldn’t have the energy to fight for another.

Derby's eyes crossed a little like they always do when he thinks to hard and finally he said, " I'm sure there's a few people who would love to do my job. And do you know what Rue? They're probably a lot younger and smarter and quicker then me. Don't ask me to take a chance on losing the only thing I've ever been good at in my life."

Rue who's eyes never crossed when she thought to hard lowered her voice and said " Derby you are the hardest working man in town and you've earned a vacation. Promise me you'll think about it."

Derby who adored his wife and family as much as he adored his job gave in about a week after that argument. He came home one night from work and out of nowhere asked Rue would she mind if they took a road trip? He had a route and a destination picked out. He even had a leather folder that read “ USA TOURS” full of flyers, confirmation forms and event tickets.

The travel agent he had worked with in town had even got them t-shirts to wear.

Mata's Mom looked through the folder and then she unfolded one of the T-Shirts and held it up. " You've got to be kidding. " was all she could think to say.

The shirt read:

" UFO PALOOZA 2006 "

Derby smiled and shook his head. " Pack up, we leave at Dawn "

Mata's brother 15-year-old brother Wilton not only wore the t-shirt the morning they left he went out to Joker's Galore the night before and bought a set of " Deeply Boppers" to wear on his head too.

The " Deely Boppers " were silver antenna with gold balls at the top that were the size of marbles. When you turned your head something in them shifted and made a crackling sound.

Mata took one long hard look at her brother, walked out the front door and then jumped on her motorcycle and rode at break neck speed into town and bought herself a set too.

Mata and her brother Wilton had agreed with each other sometime during that very long drive that if Mom said the words, ' UFO's? Are you kidding me Derby UFO's? Our one and only vacation as a family is to celebrate something that doesn't exist?" one more time they were both going to jump out of the car and take their chances on the New Mexico Desert, the New Mexico Sun and until they decided it sounded like fun the mutants that were suppose to have been created by the first Atomic Test back in 1945.

" Hey Mom " Wilton asked, " do you think there really are Radioactive Mutants out here? "

" Well I haven't seen any but that doesn't mean they don't exist...am I right Derby? "

Derby reached over and patted her shoulder and said, " That's the Spirit Querida "

The little town was almost full of people dressed up like aliens, there were also a lot of people not dressed like aliens and they all seemed to know a lot about space travel and where you could get " Saucer Burgers ", " Milkway Meals " and everyone wanted to know if you were able to get reservations to stay at the " Station 51 Hotel "

Most of the Dark Family were secretly pleased they were staying at the " Place to Be " for the Festival but they kept it to themselves because of the look on Rue's face.

Rue's face was this mask; she looked like someone had attached strings to her eyebrows and yanked them straight up.

She had speechless since they arrived in town, which was actually a relief.

Finally she opened her mouth, breathed and said " God in Heaven " and then she went back to the hotel and ordered a blood red steak and drank Strawberry Margaritas until she couldn't focus her eyes.

After that she went back out and joined her family.

Derby talked Rue into joining a UFO Watcher's Group and by the time they got back from spending an evening learning to plot their own star charts and joined in on a few debates about the Roswell Incident and watched a video of a genuine Alien Autopsy it was obvious Rue was having a good time.

At least her eyebrows had gone back to their normal spot on her forehead and she had quit saying " God in Heaven " everytime someone walked by.

So it really turned out to be a good trip and on their last night Rue and Derby went out with some new friends to make arrangements to get together for next year’s festival and Mata and Wilton went shopping.

Mata and Wilton decided to go and pick up some souvenirs for their friends back home and they spent a lot of time talking to Mr. Fanshaw who ran the little Museum just around the street from the hotel.

They talked about their Mom and their Dad and their home back in Washington. Small town stuff but Mr Fanshaw was a good audience and he asked lots of good questions.

Mr Fanshaw, Mata and Wilton were pleased to discover knew all about Aliens and he also knew at least an hours worth of top drawer ghost stories and as he packed up Mata and Wilton's purchases he asked, " so tell me about your Mom, in the end she had a good time? Is she a believer now do you think? "

" Doubt it, " Wilton said "she doesn't have much going in the way of imagination."

" Sorry to hear that...its a curse of the Modern Age " Mr Fanshaw said sadly. Then he asked, "and what does she do for a living? "

" Homemaker, " Mata told him " she use to be a Phlebotomist. That's how she met our Dad. See the offices she worked at used to get busted into and vandalized all of the time. One night she got attacked and our Dad actually saved her from being killed. They've been together ever since"

" And what does your Dad do? " Mr Fanshaw asked.

" He's a Vampire Hunter " Wilton said from behind a stack of packages and then he and Mata thanked Mr Fanshaw for all of his time and as the two young people left the Museum he heard Mata say " hey Wilton we should talk to Dad about The Triangle for our next trip..."

belated Happy Birthday, Anita Marie

2006-11-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

I found this giant spider's web and in it wove a hundred birthday wishes for you. I hope you had a wonderful day
with love from Traveller

Happy Birthday

2006-11-05T05:37:00.000-08:00

Make Kinross take you out on the town to celebrate. It's a full moon so it should be interesting!

Have a Great One!

Lori

Happy Birthday Anita Marie

2006-11-05T04:35:00.000-08:00

Bereavement is hard,

but I couldn't forget to

send you a card,

Happy Birthday, Anita Marie.

Happy Birthday Anita Marie

2006-11-05T03:51:00.000-08:00

I would have baked a cake Anita Marie
But really darling
It is so much more fun
to have Enchanteur dress up
in her very best web.

The Cry-An Owl Creek Exclusive!

2006-10-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

AN ARTICLE by BERNADINE SANTISTEVAN, DIRECTOR OF "The Cry"

Bernadine was kind enough to make a trip to my Owl Creek Bridge (anita64.wordpress.com ) in order to share some stories about making her Supernatural Thriller Based on the Legend of La Llorona.

I hope that you enjoy her story and that you are as inspired by her determination to see her creative dreams realized as I am.

amm

I first heard of La Llorona when I was a kid growing up in a small town in New Mexico. Ever since I can remember, we were told stories of a woman who drowned her kids in the river—basically to get revenge from her lover who had betrayed her. But after drowning them, she realized what she had done and let out a horrifying, heart-wrenching cry. From that moment she was condemned to roam the rivers forever, crying and searching for her children.

As kids, our parents always told us that La Llorona would take us away if we went by the river to play alone, or if we misbehaved. On top of being completely scared stiff that La Llorona was going to get me, the whole idea that a mother would kill her own child absolutely terrified me.

When I decided to make a movie, there was no question in my mind that it had to be about La Llorona. On the one hand, I definitely wanted to do something focused on my culture. And from a more personal perspective, having grown up in a very superstitious environment (a combination of old Spanish beliefs dating back to the time of the Inquisition mixed with Native American beliefs), making a movie about La Llorona was a way for me to conquer my some of my fears/demons, with La Llorona being a big one.

Like most of the more than 28 million people in the U.S. who grew up with stories of La Llorona, I originally thought that this ghost was from my small town. After learning that she’s basically everywhere and has been a strong force in the Latino world for five centuries, I set off on a search for her across the U.S. and Latin America. I dug up historical material on her dating back hundreds of years, interviewed people who believe they’ve seen or heard her, and collected stories, artwork, poems and songs about her from all over the continent. You can see some of my research on my website www.TheCryTheMovie.com. I also went on to explore “Lloronas in other cultures,” and found several similar legends from all over the world like the Greek Medea, the Jewish Lilith and the Irish Banshee. In the end, it took me 5 years to get to a place where I felt as though I knew La Llorona well enough to write a script that would truly capture her essence. Then it was writing, rewriting, finding money, shooting, finding more money, post-production, distribution…what seemed like endless work.

Since it’s Halloween, I want to mention a few creepy experiences that I had while making The Cry—moments where I definitely felt La Llorona’s presence.

The first creepy experience happened one day when I was shooting in Spanish Harlem. Some santeros (traditional saint makers) from New Mexico had carved a wood statue of Death in the form of a woman (Dona Sebastiana). It was quite difficult to transport the santo to New York because it was a large, life-size carving and very fragile. In any case, the day my best friend, Horacio, and I were unloading Death from the vehicle, a freak accident happened where I was hit in the head—just a hair above my right eye—

with something flying through the air. It felt as though a brick had hit me, and I almost lost my eye. I remember grabbing my head and seeing blood pouring into my hand. Horacio ran and caught me just as the world started spinning and I was falling to the ground. The experience totally freaked me out not only because it happened when we were moving Death, but also because in The Cry the way that I physically show La Llorona’s curse on people is through their bleeding eyes. A few months later when I was doing post-production on The Cry, one morning my project manager suddenly had some bloody tears coming out of her eyes. She never did find out why that happened.

Another creepy experience happened when I was shooting some of my flashback scenes in New Mexico. Basically, I had spent several days looking for the perfect river location to shoot La Llorona drowning her kid, and found it months before we shot there. The place had a strange, haunting feel to it that made it perfect for The Cry. What was creepy about this was that a few weeks before we shot there, my sister, Rita, who still lives in NM called me to tell me that a woman named Bernadine—my name, which is pretty uncommon—had gone to the same location and drowned her two kids and herself. When I heard this my stomach fell to the floor. As I was shooting my scene I remember looking out over the river and feeling La Llorona’s presence more than ever.

The last creepy experience that I want to mention happened when I was in the final stage of post-production. In The Cry, I am the voice and cries of La Llorona. It took me quite some time to figure out what La Llorona would say, and this is something that I wrote only after digging deep into my knowledge and “relationship” with her. On the day I was in the studio recording La Llorona’s voice, something very strange happened. All of a sudden, something moved through me, taking control of my body and my voice. It felt as though for that slice of time, I was outside of me, hearing someone else’s voice come out of my body. It was a haunting, yet amazingly experience. The sound team that was recording in the control room was frozen stiff with how scary my voice sounded. You’ll get a taste of it yourself when you see The Cry, and you can read about more creepy experiences on my blog www.TheCry.typepad.com/thecry/.

Making The Cry is definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. (Details included in my next horror film.) But despite all the unbelievable struggles, if given the choice, I’d do it all again. The film helped me learn so much about myself—my culture, my power as a woman, how to face and fight my fears—not to mention how to make a film. Though I have to say that perhaps the most important thing I learned by making The Cry is that nothing is more fulfilling, empowering and magical than pouring your heart and soul into a dream and making it come true.

As per La Llorona, we’ve been together for many years now, and I know her well—perhaps better than anyone else on the face of the earth. And although I no longer fear her, I am now more certain of one thing than I ever was before: There’s nothing worse than a mother who murders her child…and La Llorona is real.

I hope you enjoyed Bernadine's article.

Please visit Bernadine's Sites and check out her wonderful work:

www.TheCryTheMovie.com

www.TheCry.typepad.com/thecry/

email: TheCry@LaLlorona.com

Inviation To The Danse

2006-10-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

Feeling Brave?

Visit Anita's Owl Creek Bridge to learn the Strange History of
the Soul Food Cafe's Chamber of Horrors at:

http://anita64.wordpress.com/2006/10/15/strange-tale-from-the-chamber-of-horrors/

VIOLET DELAFLOTE WAS HERE

2006-10-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

by Anita Marie Moscoso

Violet didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the end of the world; it was what happened after it was all over that would keep Violet awake at nights.

She'd would be laying there in the dark picturing a dead and lifeless world with a small yellow sun rising in front of a blood red moon while all around her room on tables and in the windows and on their own special tables were dead and dieing plants in overpriced planters.

There were no starter plants with tiny little roots floating around in plastic fast food drinking cups in this room.

Only the best for her little victims.

Violet figured it was the least she could do for some poor plant that was bound to die once she got her hands on it.

However, what she did to plants was nothing compared to what she did to those colorful fish you kept in wine glasses with the half marbles scattered at the bottom glass.

Violet had come in from work one day and found all that was left of her fish were blue and red scales stuck to what looked like a fish's skeleton.

The day she saw those little corpses floating in the cloudy water she decided it would probably be better if she avoided the live animal route all together.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know any better.

There was the puppy got when she was eight.

Santa had brought the 'sleeping puppy' in the basket with the red bow tied to the handle and Violet had dragged it out to the living room stuck it in front of the Christmas Tree bright and early on Christmas morning and said, " It coughed all night, I don't think it feels well. Can we exchange it? "

There was the kitten four years later that started to bleed from it's ears and not to soon after that the baby brother that turned from pink to dark red right in front of Violet's eyes.

Then she grew up and moved out and started with the plants.

It was like having a bad tooth...your tongue just wants to go to it and poke around. That's the way Violet was with plants; she just kept buying them or planting seeds and they just kept dieing on her.

And Violet kept watching.

So it's not really a shock that she couldn't sleep at nights.

And then it got be too much.

One evening Violet’s dieing and decomposing plants couldn't keep her mind off of the little things that nibbled away at her mind during the day so she reached for her TV remote control and when she pushed the 'on' button the little black and silver box hummed in her hand and she knew the battery was dead.

She reached over and turned her bedroom light on and then she popped the back panel off of the remote.

Along with plant murder she had rotten luck with batteries too. She had guessed that if she bought batteries from someplace other than " Dollar Bonanza" (where all the stock was a dollar or less) they might last a bit longer.

She reached into her nightstand drawer for some new batteries when she saw that the battery in the remote control had split at the seam and the acid had started to ooze out and then before it ran off the side of the battery it had hardened and turned to dust.

She dropped the remote on the floor and reached for the little ivy plant that was dieing in the planter shaped liked an elephant. She touched one of the leaves and felt it turn to power between her fingers.

Now that was a new one.

Violet reached over and turned off her lamp but she didn't sleep.

It wasn't soon after that she stopped sleeping all together.

So instead of sleeping Violet did a lot of thinking; she thought about her dead and dieing plants, her puppy and kitten and little brother. She thought about the way no one ever sat next to her on the bus.

Even if her seat was the last open seat and they had to stand.

She remembered the way her own Mother would wipe her hand against her hip after helping Violet brush her hair and the way her Father would hold his hands out to stop Violet from rushing into his arms the way all little kids do.

It was strange, those little gestures that people used to keep Violet away. They were the same gestures Violet saw when someone had a coughing or sneezing fit and the person standing next to them would turn their head or pull in a long deep breath and try not to exhale until they were safely away.

That's exactly the way people acted when they got to close to Violet.

One morning Violet brushed her teeth and combed her hair and put on a bright yellow t-shirt. Yellow was her favorite color and today she wanted to do something nice for herself.

She walked down to the Lake and watched birds fall from the sky and bees drop from flowers. The trees put up more of a fight. She could hear them creak and groan and she could hear the leaves whither and then curl and crumble right on the braches.

When she got to the lake she put her hand into the water and she watched it thicken and could smell it go bad and then the fish all rose to the surface and tried to jump to land and before they were airborne for more then a second they fell dead back into the water.

Violet got up and walked to a little hill and when she got to the top she sat on a bench and she could see the route she had walked because it was a dead route now and unless you were looking you probably wouldn't notice the narrow trail of death; but Violet did.

That was it for Violet, this was all she would ever do-she would infect anything unlucky enough to get to close to her and then it would die.

Violet looked at the trail she had walked and saw the dead trees and plants she had passed could see the trees and grass and plants further away start to turn brown and curl and she could smell them turn to dust.

Violet Delaflote was spreading.

Violet walked to the lookout spot next to the Lake she had infected (there was no other way for her to think of it) and she figured she could just walk out and keep walking until the water covered her head.

She couldn't swim, she had never learned how...not after watching her swimming instructor drown all those years ago. " She had some kind of Virus, " her Dad told her " and when she dove into the water she got sick and couldn't breathe and she drowned.”

Violet passed the picnic table and walked into the water and she was surprised at how easy this was turning out to be...but what was the alternative?

She was a serial plant killer and she lived alone.

That was Violet's life.

She kept walking and by the time the water was up to her chest she realized what she was doing...she spun around went under and fought her way back to shore.

When she turned around and looked back at the lake...she covered her face with her hands and screamed until her throat felt raw.

Then she ran.

She ran and ran until she came to the Shopping Mall and she collapsed on a bench outside of the food court.

People were eating and laughing and scowling and living...and when it came down to it Violet decided she wanted to live too. She wanted to eat soft pretzels and drink strawberry lemonade and she wanted to shop and be rude to salespeople...just like everybody else.

That was what Violet wanted, she covered her face with her hands and she cried for the life she would never have.

When it came right down to it Violet decided she might only be a germ that had somehow disguised itself as a short woman with okay skin and dry hair but she still wanted to live just like anyone else.

She knew though she couldn’t do that like everyone else and Violet knew that was alright.

So she took her hand away from her mouth and nose....

And she sneezed.

CAN I SHARE MY EVENING WITH YOU?

2006-08-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

On Friday 25th Aug 2006
My neighbour & friend Angela & I went out to town for an
8pm start to our City Town Hall
A beautiful heritage listed building
It was the opening night of the Victorian Writers Fesival
It was a cold windy night ,we were rugged up well as we climbed onto the tram

Awards night were in 3 sections
Fiction,
Non Fiction
Poetry
Entries totalled over 400
from all countries in the world.
The majority were not happy stories

One caught my eye ,
the winner of the Poetry Prize
Jennifer Maiden -her book- "Friendly Fire"
She told of her love of Prometheus
the mythical figure who stole from the Gods
to give to humanity
She was intrigued by his assertion against the Gods on
behalf of humanity
He stole fire from them to give to mankind
to keep it alive

She writes a lot about war does Jennifer
Titles like " The Problem of Evil"
about the ethics of the war in Vietnam
" Friendly Fire" is dedicated to the children of Iraq

Jennifer works in torture and trauma rehabilitation
and says......
"Toward the end of my life I just want to write poems".
Her education goes on as she studies humanity
She has a degree in English,Geography and Economics.

I came home on the tram in a sad,depressed way and with a hopeless
feeling of the iminent death of the world as I have known it.
Of the wars and killing of not only children
but the air and the water we breath and drink to survive
She says of the children ,they will be rigid and traumatised forever..

Thank you for sharing my night out at the Writers Festival.
Lois (Muse of the Sea) 26.8.06.

WHEN THE SICKNESS IS YOUR SOUL

2006-08-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

When Morgan Gamble was 12 he pushed a classmate over a railing when she was trying to collect leaves on a class field trip for a project. The Project was a little booklet of local native plants and the little girl- Ona Crocata, fell to her death to the rocks below the bluffs.

In the spirit of true American Justice the police talked to Darren Marks, the bad kid who lit fire crackers in the bathrooms and smoked his dad’s cigarettes during recess behind the gym, they talked to Crystal Barker who’s Father was in jail and they talked to the Simon Ledbetter, one of the Park Maintenance staff who spent his weekends at Peace Rallies at the University in Feverfew.

The Police were about to resort to using a Ouija Board if need be to talk to a few of the executed criminals who took their last breath up at the Prison in Fallen (the next town over) because that made more sense then to even think about questioning Morgan Gamble, who was not only seen walking up the path to the cliff tops with Ona, people actually saw him running down the path after Ona hit the rocks below.

Morgan Gamble played baseball and was a Boy Scout and his older brother was a first year Med Student and his high school age sister a cheerleader. His Mom’s name was Betsy and his Dad was named Skip and they had two cars and one of the biggest, newest houses built in the newest and best new town of Ransomville.

Why on Earth would you spend time talking to a boy like Morgan who came from a family like the Gambles about the Murder of a little girl with perpetually tangled hair and socks that didn’t match and clothes that her Mother bought at the Neighbors In Need Charity Shops?

In the end a lot of people thought that, so Ona Crocata’s death was ruled a suicide.

After all, it was decided what else could it have been?

The stars that filled the sky lined up for Morgan Gamble: he got to grow up and get married and have a wife and a home of his own while Ona Crocata, wrapped in a simple white sheet and dressed (the dress had actually been carefully draped and pinned around the little girls smashed and ruined body) in her Mother’s best Easter dress turned to dust and bone in her simple pine casket at the Leaning Birches Cemetery in Larkspear.

Despite the fact the Sun and the Heavens smiled down on Morgan his eyes were closed to all of it. He didn’t see it; you don’t need to have open eyes to look into yourself 24 hours a day seven days a week.

Ona Crocata eyes were always opened.

And they were always looking out.

Morgan’s wife was named Ginny and the only difference between Ginny and his Mother were their voices. Betsy Gamble talked high and fast and Ginny Leonard-Gamble talked high and ultra fast so listening to the two of them at the same time was sort of like listening to a table saw running none stop for hours on end.

Morgan didn’t care as long as that high pitched whine wasn’t heading in his direction.

Only last Monday not only did that high pitched intolerable whine head his way it ran down his throat and he almost choked on it. The Whine was magnified a hundred times over and the sound levels could only be compared to standing next to a jet when it takes off.

God, what was that noise?

Then he remembered- Monday night was The Book of The Month Club night.

On book club night Ginny and her friends sat around in their living room and talked about plot lines and drank some wine, they talked about character motivation and then they drank more wine by the time they got around to talking about what the book meant they were all blasted which was good because the only thing worse then listening his wife’s book club talk was listening to them talk sober.

At least this way they were sort of amusing.

It made up for the screaming headache Morgan got when they were around.

Morgan managed to make it from their indoor garage with minimum pain when two little words drifted up from the living room to the entrance way as he closed the living room door.

“Dog Girl”

His face turned red and he looked up and around to make sure he wasn’t the one who had said those words out loud.

Then he heard it again only much louder this time, “Dog Girl”

He followed those two words into his living room and smiled his best toothpaste ad type smile to his wife and her friends and said, “You all sound like Junior High school girls…what’s this Dog Girl talk?”

“It’s our book of the month “Ginny tried to say “it’s a ghost story.”

“About a Dog Girl? What is that some kind of New Age Hippy Chick in search of her inner animal or something?”

They all laughed like they were suppose to and Morgan preened like he was suppose to and then Mr. Good Humor Man left the room, “No really, what kind of story is it?”

Ginny saw her husband’s face turn to a cold hard mask right in front of her friends for Pete’s Sake, how could he? So she tried to focus her eyes and get serious so she could get him out of the room.

“ It’s about this little girl who was murdered, when she comes back as a ghost she doesn’t know she’s dead and when she figures it out she kills her murderer.”

“Really.” Morgan held his hand out for the book. “Why is it called Dog Girl” was she ugly or something?

Ginny shook her head and the motion almost made her get sick. “No, that’s what he called her before he shoved her over the railing…Dog Girl.”

Morgan looked at the book and on the cover was a Walnut Tree growing over the edge of a cliff. “ No one could’ve known that, what it felt like to put his hand against the small of her back and feel that little push… no one except for Dog Girl and …”

“Morgan!” Ginny shirked as Morgan quoted the book “you’ve done it, you actually read a book!”

“How does she kill him?”

“He starts to see her everywhere, at the Park, playing with his children, in the Mall. She becomes as real to him as anybody and it makes him crazy.”

“Sees her?” he asked

One of Ginny’s friends chimed in, “He sees her everywhere. So he goes out to the Cemetery to find her grave and dig her up and it’s gone. Dog Girl is gone and so are her grave and tombstone and all.”

“ So, “ a high pitched voice grated against Morgan’s brittle nerves “ he goes out to his garage closes the windows and puts rags under the doors and such and starts his car and dies from carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“And just when he thinks he’s finally free of Dog Girl he sees her through the exhaust just outside of the driver’s window and he knows just as he dies it’s only the beginning. Dog Girl is never going to leave him…ever.”

Morgan nodded and for the first time in years, maybe for the first time in his life he looked outside of himself and all he saw was Ona “Dog Girl “Crocata.

He decided it would be best if he got use to it now because he had the feeling that was all he would be looking at for a very long time.

THE 477

2006-08-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea

-The Garden of Prosperine
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Clover Boonan takes the bus to work, she's taken the same bus..the 477 for the passed ten years. Before that it was called the "S-4" but it was the same route and much like the town of Larkspear it hadn't changed much in a very long time.

She tries to sit somewhere in the middle and she listens to tapes she recorded herself; they don’t follow any musical style or artist. They’re just sounds and voices and phrases that the Mortician likes to fill her head with before she turns the key to the Prep Room at the Funeral Home she’s worked at for over 20 years and disappears from the world of the living into the home of the dead.

When she was about 12 Clover wanted to be a writer, she wanted to write about demons and ghosts and cemeteries and the living dead. She wanted to dress in black and never smile and she wanted to live in one of those old Victorian style Mansions on Basam Hill.

Then one summer, after she turned 18 her Mother’s friend offered her a job at the Leaning Birches Cemetery in Larkspear.

Had Clover thought it was cool in those days to smile she would have.

Instead she looked up from her book (must’ve been something by Anne Rice…of course) and she shrugged, “Sure.” Was all she’d said from under her heavy black shadowed eyelids. “ I think I’d fit in there.”

That of course turned out to be so far from the truth it was a joke.

The Morticians Clover worked for were two brothers that inherited the Funeral Home from their Father.

Hunter and Calvin liked to sing Elvis and Frank Sinatra Songs while they worked, they attended every single Science Fiction Convention to come to town and they always dressed up as the bad guys from a show called “ Doctor Who”

“ You know Clover, “ Hunter suggested one day “ you’re looking a little pale around the gills. Why don’t you go out and walk through the Memorial Park? All that sun, all that white marble. That’s put some color on you really fast.” “ No thanks” Clover said from the supply cabinet where she was taking inventory.

“ Hey Clover” Calvin said with no room for debate “ why don’t you go out to the Memorial Park and do some maintenance? Rake up the leaves, clean up the dead flowers. That sort of thing. In fact, you should probably hop to it before you loose the Sun.”

Then Calvin opened a package on his desk and pulled out a little toy space ship that hoped you would live long and prosper when you pushed a little button on its underside.

He held the toy up to his brother, “ Score.” He said with awe.

Score. “ Hunter echoed back with reverence.

Clover was odd and pale and wore too much black but in the end it was got hard to be around Hunter and Calvin Larkspear and not end with some color in your life.

It took a few years but Clover made it all the way through Mortuary College, she attended Comic Book Conventions and she even got it into her head that she might start writing some day.Mysteries were her thing now and the only horror books she read anymore were true crime novels.

Over the years she couldn't read or watch a horror movie with out laughing out loud, so she have them up ages ago.

But when she put her headphones on and took that bus ride to work it was music she thought about. She loved the way the notes went together and the stories the songs told and she loved the voices, those lively colorful voices that wanted to tell you their secrets.This was the world she was in the day the lady in the gray linen shirt dress got on the bus.

The woman dropped some change into the fare box and carefully made her way down the aisle as the bus pulled away from the stop. As she walked towards Clover Boonan, something about the dress yanked out of her day dream of rock stardom and to the little black belt that circled the woman’s dress.

It looked like one that Clover use to own.

The edges of the belt were finished off with purple thread and because of that the belt had been considered flawed and she had bought it for less then dollar.And the dress…that dress looked like one of four shirt dresses her Mother had donated to the Funeral Home last winter. They had a closet full of donated clothes that they dressed Jane and John Does in. Jane and John Doe were people the County brought to Leaning Birches, which had some years back devoted at least 20 acres of the Cemetery to the surrounding cities less then fortunate citizens to be buried.
Calvin and Hunter had started the “ Closet” because the idea of burying people in sheets and plastic bothered them. “ I’ve buried Gold Fish with more dignity then this, “ Hunter had mumbled one day as he prepared John Doe 21704 for his casket.

The next day the brothers brought in some clothes and the closet grew from there.

Clover decided it was nothing, the belt and the dress weren’t unique. But the thought raced around her head all the same, “ no they’re not unique but those things are yours Clover. You know it…that’s your Mother’s dress.

The woman took a seat across the aisle from Clover and she smoothed her dress out before she sat down and Clover just knew the woman was going to look over at her and smile.

She snapped her eyes forwards and tried to concentrate on her tape where a man was growling into her ears that he could do dirty deeds for cheap.

Clover could smell the faint sweet odor of Jasmine, her Mother’s perfume. The thing of it was Clover’s Mom has worn that scent for so long she can’t smell it on herself anymore and she has a tendency to wear too much of it now.

So all of her Mother’s clothes, no matter how many times you wash or dry clean them the always smell like Jasmine Delights by Lucia.

Lots of ladies that age wore that scent, Clover told herself, lots of women that age wore that style of dress and lots of them had that hair style too. Clover did hair and makeup at the Funeral Home and of all the things she had to do that was the task that worried her the most.

“ It’s cinchy Clover,” Hunter explained on the afternoon she had finally run out of excuses for not doing hair “ it’s a pretty basic style just take the small barrel curling iron and make three curls on the top, two on each side and brush it out.”

It was called it the Granny Brush Out and even though it turned out it was an easy do Clover usually had to cheat and use bobby pins to hold the waves above the ears to hold the hair up.

Clover’s eyes shifted to her right, and of course right above the woman’s ear were two crossed bobby pins with a tiny bit of cream colored thread to hold them in place.

As the bus slowed down and pulled over to the next stop Clover hoped the woman would do what most of them did when someone got on the bus, the seated passengers looked out the window. And the Grey Lady was no exception. She turned her head too as the next passenger started towards the back of the bus and when she did Clover’s eye went to the woman collar bone.

Just under her white linen collar it was there, just like clover knew it would be because she was the one who put it there.

The little line of puckered skin held together with string.

Clover had made that incision herself and she had gently reached inside of this woman and found the artery .

And then Clover embalmed her.

She was sure of it as the woman turned and looked at Clover and smiled and when she did Clover decided she knew this woman.

Clover after all had shaped the woman’s mouth into a small smile with her own hands and she had brushed her hair and put blush on her cheeks and colored her pale lips with a soft shade of red.

The Gray Lady was a dead Lady and she was riding the bus with all of the other morning commuters like she belonged there. She fussed a little more with her dress and her hair and then she reached up and pulled the yellow cord and the bus slid to a stop.

She got up and before she could pass Clover, Clover reached out and touched her hand, still bearing traces of the power she had dusted on to give the woman’s hand’s some color. “ Where are you going? “ was all Clover could think to ask.

The Gray Lady looked down at Clover and smiled and she leaned towards Clover a little and said, “ I’m just visiting dear, just like everybody else.”

“ Just Visiting. “

INTO AN ETERNAL NIGHT

2006-08-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

Inspired By The Soulfood Alphabet Project:

“ D” Is For Descent Into The Underworld

http://www.dailywriting.net/Alphabet/D.html

Tory Devenish was eight years old when his Father married Cascara Pomeroy. Sixteen years later, to the day, Tory Devenish would be sitting in a pale green room eating his last meal and sitting across from him in a chair that was bolted to the floor was Cascara. She didn’t say a word. She just looked at the clock, turned her face back to Tory and smirked.

“It should be you at the end of that rope Cascara not me…it should be you.”

Cascara laughed until tears ran down her face but she didn’t make a sound.

Tory use to enjoy it when Cascara came to the house to visit. Tory would wait for his father to leave the room and then he’d whisper “I hate you Cascara” and then he’d stick out his tongue.

Sometimes he’d even try to spit at her but Cascara would look down at him and smile that dark empty smile and she never said a word.

“I told Cascara I hate her,” Tory would tell his Mother on one of her infrequent visits.

“You did?” Mara Beth asked, her eyes wide and sparkling and with a wider and even brighter smile.

“Yeah, then I did this…” Tory stuck his tongue out and shook his hips from side to side and Mara Beth laughed and swept Tory up in her arms. “You’re a silly boy Tory Devenish.”

Tory looked into his Mother’s face and that’s when the thought came to him for the very fist time. “I think Cascara is a Wicked Old Witch.”

“She’s an ugly old witch!” Mara Beth laughed in agreement.

Tory’s heart warmed and burst and his Mother’s smile flared and burned bright and golden and consumed him until there was nothing left of him at all.

It was after that visit that Tory really let Cascara have it. Cascara’s dog disappeared, her herb garden died over night and the dry soil smelled like liquid laundry detergent long after the dead plants were cleared away and Tory would mouth the word “Witch” when his Father’s back was turned and he’d screech it out at Cascara when he wasn’t home.

“Are you accusing me of being a Witch?” Cascara asked him once and Tory stuck tongue out and sang over and over again, “Cascara is a Witch, Cascara is an ugly Witch.” Cascara never got mad and she never yelled. She looked at him with her slightly crossed dark eyes and smiled at him with all of her teeth and she laughed. She laughed and laughed and she never seemed to take a breath.

Years passed and Tory went from being spiteful little boy to spiteful teenager and one day he turned into a spiteful young man with a nose ring and jet black hair with blue and gold stripes above his ears.

“You know Tory, “Cascara said on that last afternoon he would be a free man “since you came into my life I can’t remember the Sun. Isn’t that funny? It’s like I’ve been locked in a dark room since my Wedding Day.” Cascara seemed to be talking more to herself then to Tory “since I married your Father you have buried me alive in your bile and spite. Why, I’d go as far as to say you’ve killed me with your poisonous nature. I’ll bet there isn’t a court in the land that wouldn’t find you guilty of my murder.” “Now there’s a thought.”

“What?” he snorted.

“You at the end of a rope, twitching away with a hood on your head. Wow, it would almost and I mean almost makeup for the years of Hell you brought into my life.”

“You’re sick,” he said.

Cascara went to the phone and he saw her hit the speakerphone button.

A flat impersonal voice asked for the nature of the emergency and Cascara screamed, “It’s my Stepson…oh my God! He’s got a kni-“Cascara jabbed the off button and walked out of the sunroom and into the kitchen.

Tory could see her lean over the sink and when she came back into the sunroom he saw the knife in her hand.

“ Put that down you crazy old bi-“he started to say.

“You said it yourself Tory, I’m a Witch, and I’m an evil old witch. Who’d have thought that a vapid little worm like you would have noticed or cared about anything outside of himself.” “I’ll be damned.” She said with genuine surprise. “No, “she said “I take that back…you’ll be damned Tory Devenish.

Then his Stepmother pulled the knife across her neck and as the blade whispered against her flesh Cascara was looking at something behind Tory and she winked at it.

Tory spun around to see what it was that her dead eyes where taking in and he saw what she saw. It was her plastic cat clock with the tail that was supposed to move from side to side.

It was 8:25pm.

The Police collected dozens and dozens of statement that seemed to tie Tory to Cascara’s murder. After all, he had spent the past 16 years telling anyone who’d listen he wished Cascara was dead. “ He was preoccupied with Cascara,” a neighbor said “ he couldn’t stop talking about her and how much he hated her guts and he wouldn’t shut up about her being a witch.”

There was a trial and his Father died from a heart attack right before the verdict was read. Tory hadn’t his seen or spoken to his Father since the night he was arrested for Cascara’s murder. He hadn’t seen his Mother either, he hadn’t for years.

So in the end all he really had was Cascara.

Tory is waiting in the pale green room with the stainless steel table bolted to the floor and he’s eating his last meal (cheese pizza and Buffalo wings) and sitting across from him is Cascara Pomeroy.

It’s 11:30pm and the executioner is at the door Tory stands up as the door swings open and Cascara leaps to her feet and she looks back at the clock and smirks. Tory watches the clock flip back minute by minute until it reads 8:25.

Tory looks down into his plate and back up at Cascara and she starts to laugh her dark silent laugh and it descends and echoes forever into an eternal night.

Cacciatore Luna

2006-08-10T05:03:00.000-07:00

Such a lovely, golden hunter's moon tonight - here's a little story to go with it.

"Eloise, how good of you to come - yes, just drop your coat there, it’ll be fine.

What a lovely dress. It looks like a designer label. Paul bought it for you, didn’t he? No, don’t worry about it, I know his taste. I have a wardrobe full of dresses he chose for me.

Would you like a drink? How about a Martini? Paul’s favorite - but I’m sure you must know all his little ways by now.

Yes, this is a lovely room, isn’t it? I did all the decorating. I chose everything. Paul just signed the checks. There used to be a most charming lamp over there, but it got broken. We bought it on a trip to Italy. A wonderful little shop in Florence.

What do you mean, you’re embarrassed? We’re adult women, aren’t we? Just because Paul is my husband, and your lover, there’s no need to be embarrassed.

Oh yes, I knew about you. Bless your heart, dear, I knew about all of them.

Just a moment, I have to check on dinner. Do stay for dinner. Doesn’t it smell wonderful? It’s Italian - Cacciatore.

What was that, Eloise? What do I mean by ``all of them"? Oh but, surely, you didn’t think you were the only one, did you?

There’ve been so many other women. It started on our honeymoon, he was supposed to have stayed out all night on the crap tables, and it turned out he’d been with some cigarette girl.
What did I do about it? Oh, I cried and threw things, and he swore he would never be unfaithful again. And that’s how it was, every time - I’d find out, I’d cry and throw things, and he would promise faithfully never to do it again.

Did I do that when I found about you? Yes, I did - in the last few years I had calmed down about it, you know, but this time he said he was leaving me. He never said that before. You must have had quite an effect on him, Eloise.

Would you help me set the table? Just put those napkins out for me, there’s a dear. Yes, it’s just the two of us.

Nonsense, dear, there’s nothing wrong with us having a nice meal together like civilized people. There’s so much to talk about, isn’t there? It’s very important for me to get to know you. After all, Paul fell in love with you. I don’t think he was ever in love before, even with me.

My, you’re so thin. Do you eat properly? I’ll give you an extra helping of cacciatore. Nonsense, that’s not too much. Paul likes women with a bit of meat on their bones, or so he always told me.
That’s the way, tuck in. It’s a pity we never had children, you know, I’m sure I would have made a good mother, I love to cook.

Oh - you and Paul plan to have children, do you? How nice. Eat up, there’s a dear girl. I’ll give you the recipe if you like. This is Paul's favorite dish. Cacciatore means hunter, you know - I suppose it was originally made with game, like rabbit or deer.

Paul never wanted children with me. He always told me he would make a poor father. That’s so typical of a man, isn’t it? They never know what they want.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cry. I can’t help it. I keep thinking of all those wasted years - and the lamp. I didn’t mean to break that lovely lamp. I shouldn’t have hit him with it, but it can’t be helped now.

Never mind, eat up. That’s what I always loved most about Paul, in spite of his faults.

He’s so tender. "

A Nature Gift For Anita Marie

2006-08-05T00:41:00.000-07:00

DEVILBIT LAKE

2006-08-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

By Anita Marie Moscoso

Inspired By "B is for the Blade of Grass"

at the Soul Food Cafe:

http://www.dailywriting.net/Alphabet/B.html

Baneberry Troublefield use to live out on Down Turn Road back when Down Turn was the only road going though Feverfew County. Now days you know that Feverfew is this historical place and people come from all over the world to see Devilbit Lake because it happens to be the deepest lake that exists anywhere in the world.

To be precise Devilbit Lake is bottomless and cold and shines green no matter what color the sky above it is and it still shines at night. The last Space Shuttle that went up took pictures of it and in the picture you can see the oval shaped lake staring back up at you as green and bright as a cat’s eye in the dark.

I’ve heard that Scientists think it’s some weird kind of algae that makes the Lake glow like that, but as much as I respect science I’d have to say in this case it’s a bunch of hooey and they WISH it was algae. If it were true then that would mean that Baneberry Troublefield was wrong and that would restore order to anybody’s universe after hearing Baneberry tell his story.

Baneberry was about 10 when his family moved out to Feverfew, his Father was a Doctor and his Mom was a nurse and they both worked at the Feverfew Sanatorium. They treated patients with these incurable diseases like TB and Leprosy. Feverfew Sanatorium wasn’t a bad place you know. It was just sad and lonely and packed from the basement to the attic where the Chapel was with people who never expected to leave its walls alive and most of them didn’t.

The Patients at Feverfew spent their days in beds or in little rooms with dark hardwood floors and windows that were never opened. But all of those windows looked out on the Lake because it was suppose to help remind the patients that the world was still out there.

Most of them asked, after a while for the curtains to be drawn because they didn’t want to see the Lake anymore. One of them told Baneberry’s Mom “ Nurse Troublefield, it’s that Lake. It feels like it’s watching me. And that awful man who sits on that rock…” they’d shudder and say, “Please shut the curtains"

After awhile Nurse Troublefield hardly ever opened them anymore.

No one asked why.

One day when the ward was empty and being made ready for the next group of unfortunates to be brought up (by train in those days) she found herself idly staring out the window when she noticed the lake was perfectly still. There wasn’t a wave or a ripple or as much as a cat’s paw making it’s way across the bright green water. She reached up for the cord to pull the curtain closed and the perfectly still green lake…

Waited.

That was it, Devilbit Lake was waiting Nurse Troublefield decided, to see who would move first. Only the lake was a body of water so how could it be waiting? She knew it was true, the Lake was waiting, who would move first?

The air around her got warmer and she could feel the sweat start to run down the back of her neck, she could feel it under her arms and her mouth was dry, dry and dusty. She wanted to itch her nose in the worst way but she refused to move and just as she was about to turn away the lake shifted just a little and she reached up and pulled the cord so hard the rod came down on her head.
After that day it was War.

Nurse Troublefield made it her business to chart the Lake just like she would one of her Patients. She saw Nurse Martinez who was standing with her back to the window and talking to one of the Patients look over her shoulder several times in just a few minutes before she walked away from the window.

She watched Dr Grayford staring out the window for the longest time and when he turned around his pupils were so large that his eyes almost looked black and his skin was pale.

“ I thought I saw a man down there, sitting on the rock” Dr Grayford said “ but he wasn’t really there. I mean, “ he looked back out the window and back at Nurse Troublefield and then he walked out of the ward.

Dr Grayford rode the Corpse Train that night to the next town of Sherry and never came back to work again. Nurse Troublefield heard later that he left medicine all together and took over his family's dairy farm.

It didn’t take long for Nurse Troublefield to fill almost 400 pages in her logbook with notes concerning the affect the Lake had on the staff and the patients at Feverfew. She spent all day going over them and then she decided it was time a closer examination.

Nurse Troublefield went down to the Lake itself and stood as close as she dared to it's edge. The water was dark green at the edges and the further out towards the center it was lighter.

It was very quiet and pretty and she started to feel silly. After all, she’d let herself get worked up over water. It’s not like it had teeth or claws or could rob you at gunpoint. It was just still, quiet water.

That's when she saw the man at the edge of the Lake for the first time. He was sunning himself on a rock and fishing. His hat was pulled down over his forehead and she thought he was whistling but then she realized the sound she was hearing wasn't coming from him...it was coming from the Lake.

It hummed and echoed in on itself and the thick green water turned slowly in the center and the little spirals reached out and then were pulled back down again.

The man noticed Nurse Troublefield and stared back at her and sat there as still and as unreadable as the Lake.

Nurse Valaria Troublefield was use to that look, that emptiness, it was a death’s mask and it didn’t throw her off balance for a second. It’s a lovely day to fish, isn’t it? “ She said.

The man said nothing in reply but he didn't look away either.

“ You’re not here to catch fish though, are you?”

The man lifted his head and she could see his burned peeling lips and the dust and grime around his cheeks and mouth. He smiled and turned back towards the water.

“ My Patients at the Sanatorium up on the hill, they think the Lake is watching them, that it wants them. Some of the staff has seen things that have made them run away from their jobs and homes without a second thought.”

“ I think those are the smart ones. They’re the ones who got away. Aren’t they?”

The pole fell not with a splash into the water but with a small hollow click, and as the man stood up his movements were more spider like then human.

He turned to the Nurse and said to her, “ Come on in, the Water’s fine.”

Then he walked off the rock and was pulled down into the water and Nurse Troublefield thought of Quicksand as the water closed over the man’s head.

There wasn’t as much as a bubble, a ripple or a sound from the Lake but if it could have the Nurse was sure it would have been laughing. Worse yet, she really believed him…she really believed the water was fine and she almost followed him in.

Almost.

As the days and weeks wore on it wasn’t just the people at the Sanatorium that began to notice the Lake. Stories about the Fisherman started and he began to not only show up at the Lake’s edge he started to show up on the Feverfew Loop Highway.

People would stop to ask the old man if he needed help and he would lean into the car and tell them, “ Come on in, the Water’s fine. “ and then he would straighten up and somewhere on the car would be a watery handprint that would be visible for days no matter what you did to wipe it away.

The rest of the people he talked too just disappeared and all they ever found of them were their cars or bikes or shoes somewhere near the lake.

So the question most people ask Baneberry Troublefield is, who is the Old Man and what is his connection to the Lake? Did he die there? Is he a ghost?

Baneberry has his own theory and I’ll take his word for it.

“ That old man, he’s a Bimini Twist” He'll tell you.

“ A what?” You'll ask.

That’s a non-slip double line fisherman have to use when they go for game like big billfish. Anyway that’s what he is. He’s an honest to goodness Bimini Twist; I don’t think he’s the bait. That’s what the Lake is. That Lake, it gets your attention. But the old man…he’s what brings you in.”

“ So who’s out there fishing Baneberry?” you’ll probably laugh.

Baneberry will laugh back at you and say, “ Why don’t you go out and see for yourself, I’ve heard the Water is Fine.”

That will stop you from laughing and trust me, it will stop you from pulling your car to the side of the road to offer help to little old men with fishing poles in their hands.

I hope.

THE UNQUIET GRAVE OF IRIS WINTERBARK

2006-08-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

Behind the building called the school house, under the hanging tree is the Unquiet Grave of Iris Winterbark. She was supposed to have been the teacher in that little schoolhouse and the twisted rotted oak tree out back is where she was suppose to have dispatched her more unruly students by hanging…either that or she was suppose to have hung them by their heals and burned them alive.

This particular story came from a town called Deuil right here in the Olympics of Washington State…and morbid story about a demonic school teacher aside the real mystery is why, in what was considered a good sized town, there was there only one grave and no cemetery.

When Deuil was founded there were 30 families living there- and it was exactly 30 families that were to disappear from there one day.

No one could tell what day that was, or what year or if it happened slowly or all at once because nobody in the surrounding towns really had much to do with the residents of Deuil .

For the most part they were shunned because most shocking of all to the somewhat narrow of mind and narrow of spirit of their neighbors was that some of the men and women of Deuil had taken Indians and other dark skinned people as their husbands and wives.

And worst of all, no request had ever come from the Town of Deuil for a Minister to come out and visit them.

It’s very famous, or infamous depending on your point of view, and most of the stories you’ll probably come across aren’t true, but the one about Iris Winterbark is.

Iris Winterbark showed up to teach school in April, she was small and thin and nobody liked her. It wasn’t because she was strict and she kept the razor strop on her desk that she could snatch up with lighting speed that you’d never think a woman her age was capable of, no it was because of something no one could put there finger on because it wasn’t easy to notice but it preyed on your mind like a starving wolf all the same.

Iris Winterbark never seemed to take a breath and she never blinked.

She would spend her teaching days looking out at her few dozen students with disgust because they were filthy little creatures that smelled like they never bathed and she would hiss out history lessons and math lessons and spelling lessons and geography lessons.

The rest of the time her gaze and face was as slack and expressionless as a corpse’s face.

That is until some unfortunate student made a mistake. Then those flat blue eyes would suddenly spark to life and her face would crack into a smile and bang!

The strop would be in her hand and some poor slow pupil would be bleeding and Iris Winterbark would be at her desk again prim and still as a marble statue in a cemetery.

Now every class has its odd student out and in this class it was a boy named Petty Morel.

Petty had a hard time studying because he’d been sick for most of that spring and when he got well he wasn’t the same.

He’d glare at his classmates and he’d glare at his parents and he’d glare right back at Miss Winterbark hardest of all. After failing an arithmetic lesson and after writing the correct answer 500 times on the blackboard and after Miss Winterbark had administered the strop Petty stood at the front of the class and dripped blood all over the shiny wood floor and said, “ you’re just an evil old witch.”

And Miss Winterbark had said, “ There are no such things as witches Petty, but I’m very real and I would be very careful of what you said if I were you.”

“ Then you’re not a witch? “ Petty had asked as a wide beautiful smile crossed his face.

“ I most certainly am not.”

“ I’m glad to hear that Miss Winterbark, I really am.”

None of his classmates were paying attention to anything Petty and Miss Winterbark were saying. They were too busy watching the blood pool at Petty’s feet.

The next day Petty Morel walked up to Miss Winterbark’s desk after class and he asked her, “ is it true you hang people out behind the school house and they come back to life when you want them too.”

“ No it isn’t.”

“ Do you bury people alive?”

“ I most certainly do not!”

Petty almost looked disappointed, then he sighed.

Petty stood in front of Miss Winterbark’ s desk with his hands folded behind his back and was about to say something more when Miss Winterbark slammed her hand on her desk and made Petty jump about six inches off the ground. “ I have never a group of such dull slow witted children as I have in this town. And look at those nails and your hair…. dirt and leaves in your hair. My goodness, what do you children do, sleep outside with the rest of the animals?”

“ I don’t sleep outside in the open, my Parents would never let me do that Miss Winterbark. Its not safe you know.”

Then Petty watched the sun sink behind the window and he said with his sharp pointed white teeth “I’m so glad you’re not a witch Miss Winterbark, I really am. “

Petty wasn't really worried about how angry his Mother was , he could deal with her being angry. It wasn't the same this time because his Mother was furious and she shook his arm so hard it made his teeth rattle. “ Who on earth is going to clean up this mess Petty Morel? “

“ I am mother, “ he said. He around the blood spattered walls and what was left of Miss Winterbark on her desk and what was left of her under the window and over by the door and he sobbed, “This is the biggest mess I’ve ever seen in my life! It’s going to take me all night to clean up!”

“ Well, being that you already ate all I can do is deny you dessert and playtime with your friends. This is very serious Petty, do you know how hard it is to get a teacher to come out to places like this?”

“ I don’t know why we have to go to school at all, I don’t see why it matters anymore.”

“ Listen to me Petty Morel, we maybe living out in the middle of nowhere in these godforsaken mountains, but our family has been well educated since we left our home in Transylvania and I see no reason now why that should stop. Do you understand me?”

Then she handed him a shovel, gave him a good solid whack on his backside and she sent Petty out back to dig the only grave they ever really needed in the little town called Deuil.

THE WITCH OF WHITE ASH MOUNTAIN-BY A.M. MOSCOSO

2006-07-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

The Grave of Calisaya Stoneroot is lost back up in the hills of White Ash Mountain here in Washington State and not a year goes by a story doesn't show up on the evening news or the front page of a local newspaper with the headline:

" Remains of Hikers Found "

And somewhere in the story you will find that these Hikers weren't going to White Ash to admire the scenery. They’re out there looking for the grave of the infamous Witch of White Ash Mountain.

I know this story by heart and here’s how it goes…

Rocella Coffin was the law in White Ash back in 1964, she was short and dark and bad tempered, as most of the Sheriffs in the Duwamish Bay area are. To be specific none of the Sheriffs in Ballast County are known for their sense of humor but at times they do laugh and some joke and some smile all except for Sheriff Coffin.

Sheriff Coffin held her spot as the Ballast County" least likely to be amused by anything law enforcement official " with a grip so tight it’s unlikely anyone would ever be able to pry the title from her hand.

That title, however, became Coffin’s for all eternity when Avery Bowen showed up the day after the execution of Calisaya Stoneroot.

Avery pulled into the Sheriff's station and forgot to stop his truck. It only stopped because the Sheriff’s car (her own car, not her patrol car) was in the way. Avery wasn't hurt but he was bleeding and he was sort of running around in circles and no matter how loud she yelled he wouldn’t stop.

Sheriff Coffin didn't even read him his rights.

She just pulled her gun and shot him right between the eyes, right there in the parking lot in front of the Sheriff’s Station. When she was done Rocella stood over Avery's body and said down at his pale white face, " I told you to settle down, now start over. "

Avery looked up at her and said, " she's back Sheriff, and I saw her walking up the road not even an hour ago. Calisaya Stoneroot is back."

Rocella dragged Avery into her office and pulled a pair of tweezers from her desk drawer. She took a look at Avery's wound and dropped them back in and he saw she had a crochet hook in her hand. " Sit still " she told him.

Avery obeyed and he felt Rocella pull some of his skin away from his wound with her fingers and then with one smooth move the hook was in and out and in her hand was a small piece of mashed gray metal.

" Tell me what you saw, and I suggest you don't fool around with me because the next thing I'm pulling out are the silver bullets. Got it? "

Avery tried very hard to focus his eyes and he nodded, " I saw her down on Middleditch Road, walking kind of slow and funny and …”

If Avery hadn’t been so distracted by picking at the bullet wound in his forehead he would have found it a little amusing that Calisaya had been hung just the day before on November 5, 1964 at dawn for Witchcraft.

You read that right. Not 1664, 1564, 1264.

1964.

1964: That was the year Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in Prison and China detonated it's first atomic bomb and US Surgeon General Luther Terry affirmed that cigarette smoking caused cancer.

You read that right, it was 1964, and back in the hills of White Ash Mountain a woman died laughing with a noose around her neck and she was buried with that terrible wide grin on her face and her mouth was stuffed with garlic and her eyes had been sewn shut.

Not that anyone in the town thought it would do them any good; they'd figure Calisaya would be back before dawn.

They were right.

The towns’ people of White Ash had for the past 20 years tried everything to rid themselves of Calisaya Stoneroot.

First they tried bringing in that Priest from Seattle.

The Sheriff from Duwamish Bay and two of her friends that worked the Sideshow came to watch Father Thomas bless the Cemetery the Witch and her Demons were living in and Sheriff Coffin thought it might actually work; the Witch and the demons rode out of the Cemetery Gates like the Devil himself was chasing them.

Later Sheriff Coffin realized Sheriff Blitzer and her friends snorting and snickering and stupid comments were probably what really drove Demons and the Witch away.

Four days later Stoneroot was back.

Another year they even tried to burn Calisaya at the stake and Blitzer and a woman with bad skin actually brought Snow Puffed Marshmallows and skewers and handed them to Rocella and her Deputy with the advice, “ you might as well get something out of this cause that won’t work either.”

Calisaya, over the years, went from tormenting farm animals and turning the water in the wells to blood and making the crops and the fruit trees go bad (which turned out to be a favorite of hers) and casting curses and playing petty tricks on the Towns People to grave robbing.

That was the last straw as far as Ballast County was concerned.

They sent word down that White Ash cut out the theatrical executions and do something about Stoneroot or they (Duwamish Bay, Fallen, Ninebones Cross and Abandon) were going to do something about them.

The Valleys and Mountains if Ballast County were full of barren dead places where it could reach over 90 degrees in the summer and it didn't matter because it was so cold you'd get frostbite if you weren't covered up.

The ground in these barren places are full of a fine heavy dust that’s almost impossible to wash from your clothes and if you aren’t careful it’ll work it's way into your skin and cause a nasty infection that acts like leprosy.

That dust is all that’s was left of the people and the places that Ballast County 'did something about' when things got out of hand.

Sheriff Coffin had no intention of letting the town of White Ash become another open grave.

No matter what it took.

Even if it meant going to Duwamish Bay itself.

The Duwamish Bay Curiosity Shop is famous for a lot of things: it's genuine Egyptian Mummy, it's collection of shrunken heads, it's electric chair (you could sit in it and get your picture taken) it's " funeral tools from across the ages” and it's jars.

People drove from all over the state to look at " The jars" which where kept behind a door riddled with bullet holes.
Inside of those jars are things like the three headed cat, an alligator with human face, tumors and eyes and brains and limbs and hearts and medical experiments gone bad.
Most infamous of all in this collectoin is the 'devil baby”.
The Devil Baby not only had horns and a tail but an eye in the center of it's forehead and sometimes that eye opened and sometimes it was shut and no matter where you stood in the store you knew it was watching you.

The Shop was also famous for it's Soda Fountain but on that day Sheriff Coffin wasn't in the mood for a Strawberry Phosphate. She looked over the menu tacked to the wall and next to it on pressed tin sign was a sign that read

OVER 2000 AMAZING ARTIFCATS
25 ARE GENUINE FAKES
FREE SUNDAES FOR A YEAR
IF YOU GUESS RIGHT

“ Want to take a guess?” Ignancia asked

“ No. “

“ Go on, take a guess…I got all day and from what I hear you don’t.”

“ The Baby…”

“ Nope, you’re wrong. Everybody wants that baby to be fake. That’s how come we don’t have to cough up the free ice cream. It’s that baby bless it’s dark little heart. Nobody wants that baby to be real.”

It was true; Rocella felt her chest tighten when Ignancia told her about the baby. “ Look Mrs. Guzman, I need to get rid of a nasty tempered Witch who’s developed some weird culinary habits. Can you help us?”

Ignancia looked up at the ceiling like she was reading something up there and Rocella had to fight the urge to do the same.

Finally Ignancia said, “ Oh, this is going to be good, come on follow me, we have to go into the Workshop”

Rocella followed Ignancia behind the Counter and they went back into her Workshop and as the door clicked shut behind them it occurred to Rocella the door had been there a minute ago.

As Rocella drove back up to White Ash she went over the instruction again, “ You can’t write these down you know. You have to memorize this so don’t blow it. “

“ You know why Calisaya is bothering you all up in White Ash and not us down here in Duwamish?” Ignancia asked

“ I don’t know she likes the View?”

“ Don’t be stupid, it’s because you’re all old world up there. All that garlic and chanting and potions. She’s a modern woman and none of that is going to work on her. You have to think, how do you trap and kill a modern witch? “

Rocella shook her head, “ Come on Mrs. Guzman, the Sun is going to set soon and the Auditors will be heading up soon. “

Ignancia handed Rocella three sheets of what she thought were paper. But as the Sheriff took each one from Ignancia’ s hand she saw what they were, she could feel what they were and worse they were still warm. “ I don’t want to know “ Rocella said.

“ Don’t be such a baby. Now listen. You go to that tree by your courthouse. You go up on a ladder this has to be at least 7 feet up and you nail this first…”

“ Spells? I thought you said the old world…”

“ It’s not what you think. This is strictly modern and legal. Don’t look at me like that … it is. See, this is a Summons for her to appear, the minute this goes up no matter what she has to come forward. This is a warrant for her execution you nail this up second. This time I think you’ll find your rope will do it’s job and so will fire. I’d go with the rope it’s so dry out right now you wouldn’t want to start a forest fire, would you? Now, this little puppy is the dealmaker. This is her death certificate. You just sign here and there and here “ Ignancia said as she flipped the heavy pages up one by one and I think you’ll find yourself short a citizen before morning.

But if this comes down, if someone is dumb enough to pull the nail out and this paperwork is disturbed. Well, it won’t be good for White Ash. Won’t be so hot for me either.”

“ Fine, you got a pen or something cause I have to be going…Oh let me guess” Rocella said as she sat down hard on a wooden barstool and tilted her head to the side. “ Don’t get any of it on the Uniform. I just had it cleaned.”

Ignancia pulled a scalpel from a little black bag and as she found Sheriff Coffin’s artery and nicked it open she asked, “ so Rocella, how’s the family?”

So did it work? You’re probably wondering.

Well, White Ash is on the Map, and you can go there if you want and see for yourself.

It’s small and old fashion and the Sheriff is bad tempered and has this funny scar on the side of her neck that bleeds at the wrong time (birthday parties, funerals when she’s in Court and swearing and using profanity isn’t something you don’t want to do at the tops of your lungs)

As for Calisaya Stoneroot, you know there isn’t a Halloween that’s gone by for the past 40 odd years since her execution that a bunch of weirdos from Seattle and as far away as Bellingham don’t descend by the hundreds on poor little White Ash looking for the grave of the Witch of White Ash.

Was she real?

If proof is all you want all you have to do is go to the tree besides the court house and look up and there on one of the branches is an old frayed piece of rope still gray and covered with moss and further up still are three pieces of something that looks like parchment nailed firmly to the tree’s trunk.

Just make sure you leave White Ash before the sunsets.

And before the residents of White Ash start thinking about dinner.

La Llorona Shaking It

2006-07-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

La Llorona

2006-07-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

The Chamber of Horrors............

2006-07-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

Hello? Is there anyone here? ............. Hello????

(creak, snap)

Hi. Whew! I'm glad it's only you. I was getting worried. Where is everyone?

Hello? Why aren't you saying anything?

What's that?

Get away from me with that. You could hurt someone.....

Get away!

I said Get away!!!!!

No, no, no.......

Get------

Gloyd

Anita Marie's Chamber of Horrors Challenge

2006-07-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

( Fear by Goya )

Here are two places for you to visit:
What tales will they inspire? What poems or artwork will you bring back?
I wonder

THE LEGEND OF LA LLORONA AND THE BLOODY BOX OF EL PASO, TEXAS

When I was a young child growing up in El Paso, Texas, a dusty desert city right up along the Mexican border, I heard many different and fascinating legends, ghost stories, and superstitions. The area is very old and rich with folklore, and a very bloody history that lends itself to all kinds of interesting tales! I have many I can share with you, but this one is probably my favorite…

This is the story I heard as a child that scared me more than anything else could – the story of La Llorona. Just saying the name gives me chills to this day… La Llorona (pronounced LA YO-RO-NA) literally translates into “The Crier,” which is exactly what this spook is said to eternally do. Part sorrowful banshee, part angry spirit, part cursed creature, La Llorona is known to almost every Latin culture; the first story dates back to 1550! There seems to be different version according to region, but the stories are all centered around a woman who murdered her two small children hundreds of years ago. This is the version that is prevalent where I come from.....

http://www.weirdus.com/stories/TX01.asp

La Llorona Is Real
In a town even smaller than mine in New Mexico, not too far from where I grew up, the younger brother of a friend was playing next to the Rio Grande river and ended up drowning. My friend's family swears to this day that it was La Llorona that killed him.

I realized that there's a lot of superstition in Northern New Mexico, but to people all over the U.S. and Latin America who I spoke to about La Llorona, the one thing almost all of them say to me is "she's real." After ten years of doing research on La Llorona all over the world and making my film, The Cry, now...more than ever...I know La Llorona's real.
Do you believe?

http://www.thecry.typepad.com/thecry/

Jump The Rope

2006-07-10T05:39:00.000-07:00

Jump rope,
shiver,
count,
still,
avoid,
excuse.
Vacate,
empty chamber
dust coat,
cloak.
Wash hands
frenzy clean,
mop,
wipe,
sit.
Rocking,
swimming
memory,
dive down deep.

Beastie Victoriana Times at the Chamber

2006-02-02T23:28:00.000-08:00

The night of a thousand years was
spent in a thousand rooms,
swirling and disappearing,
reappearing in another form,
thousands later.

Untethered, detached parts, pieces,
drab colours and strange species,
parts of bad news and tricks
of the mind.

Victorian horror,
cats in dresses, red cat's faces
with sad, bold temperaments,
misunderstood.

Birds in flight, ragged
winged, as they were seen,
not as they were. Suspicion,
superstition, Hitchcock
discomfort in quiet rooms.

Take the chamber with its
webby decor,
sit in the creaky chair.
The door handle that comes
away in the hand, the lock
that binds the key.

Watch the film of fright,
as it rolls in the black and white
shadows --
of old stuffed seats and specimens,
and wicked stares.

The boiling insides,
the stiffened stays,
the memory of what was,
a child locked in a room,
and thousand years
ago, a thousand years on,
nothing.

Excercise In Horror Challange

2006-01-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

Over at the Lumerian Faraway Tree we are climbing up towards the Chinese New Year.

That's inspired another little Chambers Exercise In Horror Challenge and here it is:

In the Western World we are familiar with Were-Animals or people who can turn themselves into wolves or bears or cats. In China there is a belief that animals can take human form and here are a list of those talented creatures:

Tigro-anthropy
Were-foxes
Were-stags
Were-monkeys
Were-rats (Now there's a thought!)
Were-birds
Were-insects,
Man-Fishes
Man-bears
Plant Spirits
Animated Lifeless Matter.

I wonder what you'll come up with should you take this challange.
Share it here, use it for you own journal or blog...just have fun with it!

Anita Marie

It was a night to remember

2006-01-20T01:25:00.000-08:00

It happened in the early hours
A week day morning
3.30 am to be exact
I had travelled far that day
I was exhausted and also hungry
But,I had an ache in my right knee
So to ease the pain I took a tablet
One containing parecetamol,
I kept a few in my purple backpack
Everyone needs a standby at some time
I had climbed the Faraway Tree
and on finding a small door just before the top
leading into a bunk bed style room I entered

I thought that climbing this tree
had added to the knee problem
So rest I did,and in no time was fast asleep.
I awoke somewhat startled
To find beside my bunk a black creature
It was trying to climb the wall
to the high window above the bunk.
It had left scratches on the wall
Its mouth was dripping with saliva
Its breathing was like that of a monster on fire
I reached out to touch it
a chain was around its neck
I thought it might have been a bear
that had escaped from the circus

It was dark,no lights in the Faraway Tree
So I was going on touch,imagination and fear
I said to myself "Lois take a deep breath"
I slowly climbed out of the bunk bed
putting my bare feet onto the cold floor.
Standing up I could still see this black creature
It wasn't as big as a bear ,its head was smaller
Its tail was not as bush as a bears' tail might be
But, it had a snout and a large pink tongue
Teeth white and very large,pink gums amd tongue

It was still trying to climb up the wall
Still panting,still oozing saliva ,its eyes wide open ,looking terrified.
I walked toward it quietly ,not wanting to come into its
vision suddenly
It was then that it made a turn as if to look at me in the eye
I stood trembling ,glued to the spot unable to move or speak
I had experienced this feeling only once before of utter fear
I thought back to that time when I caught a thief in the garden of my
home in the hills
Then he ran up the hill toward the road
with only the whites of his running shoes visible.

I calmed myself down ,it was then that the creature/animal
came down from trying to climb the wall
It was then I recognised who and what it was,
Jessie Dog had felt the loud thunder under her feet
and had become terrified ,without any hearing it must have been worse
She had climbed between my bed and the bedside table
a very small opening ,and was trying to get up onto my pillow.
She was trembling all over her poor wet body
I had not woken ,I had taken a pain pill and did not hear the thunder
I slept heavily ,dead to the world as they say
I woke from this deep sleep,got out of bed
lifted her heavy frame onto the bed
Snuggled her to me,held her tightly
Till she settled down
some hours later she was still shaking but by 5am the storm and thunder had passed and she slept soundly.
I didn't ...I never slept a wink and was up the next morning
much earlier than my usual rising time since retirement.

A dream...Yes partly,Truth yes much more of it
The moral of this story is to
listen to the weather report before retiring
So any unforseen nightmares can be avoided,and don't go climbing any trees before bedtime even in your wild fantasies

Lois (Muse of the Sea) 20.1.06

,

And in a short while I fell asleep

Chambers Challenge...

2006-01-18T20:46:00.000-08:00

a little nightshade perhaps?

I've been working on a writing exercise involving Horrible Words.

The idea is that you create a list of horrible words and you play with them. Use your dictionary and look up their definitions. Use your thesaurus, use your imagination.

How will these words inspire you?

Will you see pictures? Hear a story? Have a nightmare or two?

These are some of my favorites:

embalm, dementia, torment, impale, infest, grave, shroud, demon, curse, hex, shriek,
torment,wicked, surgery, secrets, ghouls, gasp, curses and death, plagues, poison alone, malice, burial

Want to see where these words have taken me?

Take a look here at deadwoodhall.blogspot.com/ to see for yourself.

Happy Haunting!

Writing Excercise: Horror Style!

2006-01-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

Cadavers and Crypts, Empty Graves and Dark Deeds...If you spent a night here in The Chamber of Horrors what Tales would you tell the next morning... if indeed there was a next morning?

Go ahead, give it your best (worst) and post it here or better yet write in your own Nightmare Journal and bury it.

Bury it by Moonlight of course.

Oh dem bones!

2006-01-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

Some people visit castles when they travel. Others visit war memorials or historical sights. Me? I visit bones. And skeletons. And weird things that make most "normal" people ask "Why that?"

Here are a few...

Bones at the Ossuary in Sedlec (Kutna Hora), Czech Republic

And then there is this remarkable tower in Prague.Yes those are babies crawling up the tower!

(see Cerny's site for more of his unusual work.

And I also like Urban Decay...

Old warehouse windows in Prague.

Heart Of The Gravamina

2005-12-03T08:54:00.000-08:00

Gravamina: The part of a charge or an accusation that weighs most substantially against the accused.

I’m sailing to the End of The World on a ship called Gravamina, and she’s perfect for this Journey because she knows Death.

She is herself as dead as the Black Waters I sail across, as dead as the Crew that still haunt her decks and tend to her needs. She is as Dead as the Corpses that lie in the Catacombs I stole her compass from a week ago.

“ Finding the Gravamina won’t be as hard for you as it is for others. You’ll need the Heart of The Gravamina to find the Caravanserai,” the Hanged Man’s Skull whispered to me from his shelf in my library. “ But tell me, why do you want to join the Caravanserai?”

I walked to the shelf and turned the sectioned skull towards me and looked into his empty eyes and said, “ Because I’m tired of you, I’m tired of this house and I’m very tired of pretending to be something I’m not.”

“ You trail Death behind as if it were a train on a woman’s gown Azi Dahaka. When the Caravanserai become wise to you…they’ll destroy you and then you’ll join me here on this shelf and we’ll have nothing for company except each other’s Sins.

I took the Hanged Man’s Skull from the shelf and wrapped it carefully in linen decorated with a language no living person has ever spoken. “ You wish,” I told it. Then with the Skull, and nothing else in my possession I went into the world to find the Heart of The Gravamina.

The Hanged Man’s Skull told me on our long journey to the Catacombs about the Heart of The Gravamina and why it entombed and the rest of the Gravamina rots in a Grotto below the City.

Then he told me to listen because the Heart of The Gravamina doesn’t beat like a drum.

The Heart of the Gravamina screams.

“All Ships are alive, you know that Azi Dahaka and the Gravamina was alive too…maybe more so then any of her Sisters

Once long ago something dark and wicked boarded The Gravamina and killed her crew.

Now, it was assumed it was the Plague, but of course it wasn’t…it was a Demon and it drained the blood and life from every living thing on board the Gravamina and with no crew the Gravamina drifted and dreamed.

And then she went mad.

Like most Insane things the Gravamina was very good at pretending to be normal and after she was repaired and sold and even re-named she sailed and reacted to her world, as any Ship should

But then she started killing things.

She took the lives of her crew, the fish that swam around her as she sailed the Seas and when she was bored she made the food and water and wine go bad that had been stored below her decks.

Then one day a young sailor whose mother was a Witch and whose father was a Demon from the Mountains boarded the Gravamina and she tried to kill him to…for sport.

But he knew what to do and he tore her Compass from her chest and he took it to the Catacombs and he buried it.

He buried it alive.

The fool.

So the Heart of the Gravamina Screams in anger and rage and the rest of her dreams and rots and then one day a woman named Azi Dahaka went down into those tombs and brought it back out.

Azi Dahaka put the Compass back into her chest and the Gravamina’ s Sails captured a long dead gust of wind and her Crew came from the darkness and now they are all sailing to a port where this is dancing and music and art and poetry.

And Souls.

Lots of them.

And Azi Dahaka is very, very hungry.”

The Chamber of Horrors

2005-11-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Chamber of Horrors!
As you know, we at the Soul Food Cafe have been using this building as a place to teach Horror Writers how to be...horrid? At any rate, this was a Victorian Era Medical School at one time and if you'd care...if you'd dare, stay right here in the shadows and listen to Dr Delphine Heller and a few other voices tell their stories...
And in case you're curious, the door to this room doesn't lock....
AMM

What remains today of the Asylum
( Back Right- The Infamous "Plague Church "

THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS: THE BEGINNING

Isn't it just amazing that we have come here to learn to make up stories when all around us are the remains of one of the most notorious Medical Schools of it's time?
This particular book has already been written and is just sitting here, waiting to be read.

You know, I think it's time time for a story.

Interested?

Good...

So please step this way and follow me.

Here we are in the vestibule; do you like the marble effigies? Stolen of course from religious places and cemeteries. When you're as rich as the owners of this school were, they didn't call it stealing, they didn't call it grave-robbing.

They called it the procurement of antiquities

The School itself was once run and owned by a husband and wife team; Dr Johnathan and Delphine Heller. I'm not kidding about the last name. Can you imagine trusting your body and life to a Dr Jack Heller?

And his wife!

Delphine Heller, she was a pioneer in the study of Psychiatry and she believed there wasn't a malady of the human brain that COULDN'T be cured by surgery. Delphine's belief in scalpels and other sharp medical instruments bordered on religious mania.

Her patients in the insane asylum behind the school use to say she was crazier then all 200 of them put together. They also use to call her " De fiend ".

They were right on both counts.

They may have been insane, but they weren't stupid.

If you follow me, I'll take you to the surgery theatre. Awful place, the floors in here are wood and if you drop anything on the floor...write it off. Even after all this time you couldn't credit what sort of nastiness has made it's way into the woodwork.

That's in general I suppose.

This school is not a good place.

Upstairs are the labs. To your right are Dr Johnathan's offices. His books, instruments, specimen jars, charts and journals are exactly as he left them.

Here, let me get the lights. Yes, those are real body parts. Pretty standard fare. Only...well, there seems to be an awful lot of them. More then you'd need for study. Don't you think?

I call this Dr Heller's trophy room.

It seems like that man couldn't perform the most simple of surgery without taking something more then was required. Eyes, hands, feet...and other things as you can see.

Follow me here to his wife's offices...which should be full of books, notes, maybe even pictures of the unfortunates she treated. But her rooms. Well, look for yourself.

These offices are twice the size of Johnathan's and they are full of these...curiosities. These things would be more at home in a circus sideshow or a medical museum then in offices for a psychiatrist.

On this wall, let me get those doors..they slide, there. Physical deformities of embryos..human, animal...some, well, we're not to this day what they are. You will also find if you care to look...are more, medical oddities.

Some of those heads and hands have been altered. Parts sewn on, sewn together, body parts created, in other words, by a surgeon.

She has shelves and shelves of medical instruments that appear to be one of a kind. Tools designed to reshape bones of all sizes, scalpels with specially designed blades and oddly shaped needles.

What the Morgue?

Oh my friend, I was hoping someone would ask me about that.

This elevator is old, but don't worry it works just fine.

The Morgue, was someone's pride and joy and I'm pretty sure it was Delphine's pride and joy. It screams her name...as you'll see.

The morgue is twice the size then the entire school above it. As you can see this is the place where those things in the jars were created. This is the heart of this place.

Now, my astute authors look at the autopsy tables...notice anything strange? Look closer...go ahead you won't see it from way back there.

What, you don't see anything?

You wouldn't see what I'm looking at right now anywhere in any morgue in the world.

They're not necessary for the work down here.

You didn't notice the straps on the autopsy tables?

Hey, don't you all run up the stairs like that, someone is going to get hurt!

THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS AND THE LEGEND OF THE 6TH FLOOR

What, now you all want a tour of the Sixth Floor? After that baloney down in the Morgue when you all tried to trample each other to death? I had visions of it on the evening news: Students perish in freak accident in a Morgue.

Well, forget it.

Oh, stop begging. But I mean it, the first one of you to turn tail and run winds up in a jar. Got it? Okay, then lets go.

As you can see the Sixth Floor was where the chapel was...well, actually where it is because as you see, everything is still here.

The altar and all of this artwork and effigies are from a church in the Carpathian Mountains once known as the Plague Church. Yes, that’s what it was called and if you think that’s strange takes a closer look at the effigies and the carvings on the altar.

Very good, I'm glad you noticed...none of the human figures have eyes.

Do you wonder what Delphine said, when she took her place at the altar and preached the Sunday sermon? I mean, what on earth there was to say to over 100 deeply psychotic and criminally insane individuals?

Perhaps Delphine answered that question all those years ago in her own special way.

In her logbooks she blocked this time off not as " Sunday Services " or " Church ". Nope, she wrote in " Alternative Therapy Session "

To answer your question, I'm not sure it worked...no one is because this wasn't the sort of place you were released from...ever. Delphine’ s Asylum wasn't a place you came to in order to be cured. No, you came here because you couldn't be cured.

Anyway, this is the legend of the 6th Floor.

Years after the Asylum was closed people insisted that the "Alternative Therapy Sessions" were still happening every Sunday evening, and if you were unlucky enough to be here when they started you would go mad.

You would become just as crazy as the ghosts that still haunt the Chapel.

They're supposed to be here still, sitting in the pews, waiting for their treatment.

Some are in straight jackets, or other types of restraints that were popular in those days. A few of the patients wear cages that fit over their heads and rest on their shoulders, some are brought in coffin like contraptions called ' Lunatic Boxes ' and others, the truly insane walked in and eagerly waited for " Church " to begin.

It's widely believed that Delphine’ s Congregation has actually grown over the years because sure as the Sun comes up each day one fool after another feels the need to bust into the school and come to the Plague Church and attend services with Delphine’ s Congregation of the Mad.

Once a group of girls dared their friend to come up here at sunset and sit in that front pew and wait for the Session to begin.

She was sitting right there when she heard the opening and closing of doors and feet shuffling along the corridor. At first she was positive it was her friends playing a joke on her. So she sat facing the altar and refused to turn around, she didn't want her friends to see how much they had frightened her.

Suddenly those heavy doors swung open with a hiss and a horrible stifling hot breeze rushed up the aisle. With it, as if it were woven into the heat, she could hear whispering and every once and awhile she caught a phrase or two and heard laughter and giggling.

Within minutes the entire Chapel was full.

So she wasn't surprised when someone sat next to her...because she was sure that the empty space to her right was the last empty space left in the entire chapel. To her credit she wasn't terribly startled when felt something encased in canvas and metal scrape then rest against her upper arm and shoulder.

She did however bite her lips so hard to keep from screaming they bled.

Suddenly the Chapel was quiet and the girl caught the heavy scent of lavender and heard the rustle of a skirt and heard the sound of light footsteps come up the aisle from behind her. From the corner of her eye she saw light gray fabric and a woman's hand adorned with small thin gold bands on all the fingers of her right hand.

The girl snapped her eyes shut... or really maybe that's when her mind snapped.

Alternative Therapy began.

So what happens when the doors suddenly swing open and the new convert emerges?

Go on, have a seat...I'd be glad to share what I learned that evening all those years ago with each and every one of you.

Okay, I meant what I said...you in the sweater, come back here. I told you what I'd do to the first person that made a run for it.

I warned you all, didn’t?

THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS AND THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT

What on Earth are you people doing in here?

What tour?

We most certainly do not give tours of the Asylum...let alone the Chapel. Now all of you come out of there at once! Here now, what's this? Let go of me and quit that babbling and for heaven's sake quit that crying. You are all far to old for that.

You, young man, what's going on here?

A woman? With a scalpel?

Ah, I see you've had the misfortune of running into our Mrs Everett. Well, don't expect me to feel sorry for any of you. We were very clear when we opened this school which part of the properties were for your use and which areas were off limits.

If you got chased around by a psychotic ghost that's your problem.

Now follow me, we have to get out of here before the Midnight Shift comes on.

Okay, here we are, safe and sound and back in the school and safely tucked away in the library. I'm going to have Miss Bayloche the Librarian explain somethings to you.

May I suggest that this time you listen.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I'm Miss Bayloche and I'm the school's librarian. Which is probably why I've never laid eyes on any of you. Hmmm, not in the mood for chit chat are we?

That's just as well. Let me get straight to the point.

This school is not a safe place, but you'll do just fine if you understand a few things.

One is the original staff is still here.

Mrs Everett, the Hellers, the teachers and lab workers. They are all still here and they are all still very busy doing the same things they did over 100 years ago, I'm very sorry to say.

One of the worst members of this staff is a very unstable woman who is the head nurse...her name is Elizabeth Telrico and she is perhaps the most worrying to the present day staff because she's in charge of the Midnight Shift.

Simply put, the Midnight Shift is the heart of this school.

At exactly the stroke of Midnight all of the lights in the Asylum blazed on and you could see the Midnight Shift come up the path from the north side of the Asylum.

They walked across a footbridge and came in through the back entrance.

Then the doors and windows would slam shut just as the last member of the night staff entered the building. You could hear the echoes for miles around, I've been told.

Now most of the day staff were locals, they never really met the night staff and tried very hard to keep it that way.

No it's not a mystery why.

Go ahead and take a look out the window, it faces north.

You can see the trail the Midnight Shift used, the bridge they crossed. That piece of property doesn't connect to the road. It's fenced off.

It's the cemetery.

THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS AND THE GHOST HUNTERS

NO!

I will not allow ghost hunters into this building. That's out of the question. Have you people finally lost your hold on sanity?

Do you think for a minute that the ghosts would be the hunted in this situation? I don't know who these people are you've invited but get rid of them...all of them!

What do you mean, it's too late. Go down there and tell them...oh this is just wonderful.

Is running around kicking your mortality in the backside what you do to amuse yourselves? What do you do when you really want to have a good time... play a little Russian Roulette?

Fine, bring them up to the Library and do it quickly, things have been a little to noisy in the Isolation Ward lately. Well...you'll find out the hard way if you don't do what I say at once!

So you are the ... how quaint the Gaslight Society Ghost Hunters. Yes, charmed I'm sure. My name is Miss Bayloche.

To make a very long story short these eight students are all that remains of 25. The others left a week ago after running into the Night Staffers.These remaining eight are suppose to be here to study writing, music and art. They've done none of that. But they've paid room and board till the end of next month so they're here for at least that long.

Their instructors leave them to their own now because all they want to do is talk ghosts and demons and about the living dead.

That's it in a nutshell.

Oh the story...you mean of the School itself.

Well, it was founded by two serial killers one of which was a demon and the other a creation of the demon itself, the Asylum was run by a psychotic and it's Night Staff were residents of a little place called Leaning Birch...which I'm sure you've been informed is the town's cemetery.

Every evening at Midnight a Shift occurs between the world of the living and the world of the dead and the School, or parts of it return to it's former self. Our problem is that now after each shift has occurred parts of the old school are finding their way into the new school and staying.

Furnishings, cups of tea on desks, a room here and there...and things in the Morgue.

Yesterday the kitchen was in full use, food was being prepared, the tables were set...the days paper was even propped up against a bowl of steaming oatmeal.

Well, we don't use that as a kitchen, it was closed off over 100 years ago and the paper for your information was dated 1905.

Things you see from the past are shifting into the present and I don't know why, it's never happened before. It's your standard Chamber of Horrors fare. Boring to individuals of your expertise. So, I guess you'll be...

Staying.

Why of course you are.

This place is one of a kind? You don't say. The racket? It's the door leading to the Isolation Ward. From the sounds of it, it's just been torn off of it's hinges.

Welcome members of the Gaslight Society to the Chamber of Horrors.

THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS AND THE ISOLATION WARD

How many times do I have to tell you I came back as the School’s Librarian because I wanted a nice safe place to settle back in? I've been out of practice for a very long time and I had to brush up on my studies.

It was peaceful, quiet and with each day I felt...hmmm, more involved you might say.

The next thing you know I'm hunting around a morgue for lost students, I'm settling in staff and
trying to set up housekeeping under ridiculous circumstances then I find myself pulling out some old medical equipment (oh don't look like that, I'm referring to the straight jackets) for some Ghost Hunters who decided to try to dive out a window in my library and haven't been quite the same since.

From the looks of them right now, the kindest thing to do was let them fly.

I had to put them in the Isolation Ward; it's the safest place really. Nothing in there can hurt them. I just wish you wouldn't have done that damaged to the door because I've had to restrain all eight of them in there.

It was no easy task...look, one even bit me.

So it's you and me now, until the next shift anyway.

The rest? They're all tucked away safely, the students, the Ghost Hunters (sorry, no I'm okay I was trying not to laugh and I choked a bit there) the curious and the very, very stupid. Tucked away and waiting for... well, you know, help.

Ignore the yelling, I do. It's good practice; it's only going to get worse later.

Yes, it's a good thing the Midnight Shift kept the place up all these years.

They better have, the lazy brutes.

So now let me see here, the beds are ready, the treatment rooms and the equipment are in perfect working order.

Why even the Plague Church is ready.

Now there's a happy surprise.

Everything is ready and I think it's time to begin our rounds. Shall we start with the Isolation Ward? No, you first Jonathan. And do quit calling me by that silly name. How long exactly have you been in that room? It's me; it's your wife...

It's Delphine.

Come Darling, you first...

I insist.
© anita moscoso text 2005

THE ADVENTURES OF THE AMAZING BENANDANTI

2005-11-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

The Amazing Benandanti performs at the Chamber of Horrors Sideshow at a Marina in a town called Duwamish Bay.

The Sideshow has been in the same building for over 50 years and its star attraction has performed there since the first day the doors opened.

Over the years other performers have aged and died, moved on or disappeared.

All except for the Amazing Benandanti.

It was SUPPOSED to be sideshow secret along the Marina; the original Amazing Benandanti had a look- a-like daughter who in time took over the act. Of course, she's billed as an Immortal who learned her magic secrets from the Egyptians or Druids, or sometimes she was supposed to have been a student who studied Magic under Merlin himself.

The Amazing Benandanti is a Death Defying Escape Artist...tie her in chains, put her in a tank of water and watch as she escapes from a watery grave; she also performs a routine she calls " Chasing the Rabbit” which involves an Electric Chair once used in the most infamous now abandoned Prison in the state of Washington: Maplewood.

The Chair is her favorite part of her entire act because as she will tell you, there's no such thing as going over the top when you're suppose to be getting electrocuted. It appeals to her sense of theatrics, which are after all in the true spirit of the Sideshow.

Her eyes roll, her body convulses, blood trickles from her eyes and ears, wisps of smoke make their way from her slightly parted lips and then her blood red eyes change back to dark brown, she turns her wrists, the straps snap off and she stands and then takes a deep bow.

Among her other acts are the Escape from the Gallows and the Revenge of the Condemned.

Some nights as a treat for her self as much as for her audience The Amazing Benandanti summons ghosts, demons and other strange creatures that are part animal, part human. They are vaporous images but solid enough to touch.

That part of the act is always somewhat unpredictable and because of that The Amazing Benandanti doesn't like to perform it very often because one night a creature that was part horse and part crocodile nearly took her head off.

She will tell the crowd, as she prepares to open the doorway to not talk to the apparitions. They will ask you a question and if you answer...she won't be able to guarantee what happens next nor will she be able to guarantee your safety.

Sometimes because it's a simple pleasure and she enjoys it The Amazing Benandanti sits out front and performs little slight of hand tricks for people walking along the Boardwalk before her first show of the evening. She gives lessons and patiently explains how to make coins disappear and reappear again. There are magic scarves and dancing rope tricks that she can teach you to perform. She keeps all of these props in a well-worn, heavily stickered travel trunk.

Reach in, pull out a prop and the Amazing Benandanti will teach you magic too.

The Amazing Benandanti, like all good Sideshow performers does have her secrets. One is, she's never in over 50 years surrendered her billing to anyone. Her ego would never allow that. There has only ever been one Amazing Benandanti, which is more then enough as anyone who knows her will be glad to tell you.

The second is The Amazing Benandanti isn't really a Magician.

Kincross Benandanti is a Werewolf, but like a lot of us she has her talents too. And one of those talents involves seeing into the next world.

That's how she came to see the riders camped on the railroad tracks. Not by, but on the tracks themselves. They were phantoms of course but that didn't mean they couldn't cause damage. The grass and shrubs along the tracks were starting to die and the air started to smell a bit stale and old.

Not that anyone noticed, these tracks ran below street level and were not exactly the type of place you paid attention too even when you did look down. The tracks were littered with trash and pigeons and crows roost wherever they can land. It wasn't pleasant to look at and the smell coming up to the sidewalk above was foul.

For nearly a week Kincross had been watching the three of them as they appeared at each sunset. Earlier in the evening they were almost transparent and as people above walked by they reached to the back of their necks or pulled their jackets a little closer to their bodies. Some of the people even stopped suddenly and turned around, like they expected to see someone following them.

By the time the moon raised the Riders were as real and solid looking as nightmare creatures made flesh can get.

One evening, as she stood on the bridge that looked down onto the tracks she watched the three riders come to life with more speed then they had on previous days and she wondered, what exactly were they?

She was puzzled and wondered how to satisfy her curiosity about these things. In the end she took her years of predatory experience, considered several options she learned in thousands of years of war experience, reached down, picked up a bottle and threw it at the head of the tallest figure.

It made contact with a thud that made Kincross wince and she said with genuine feeling " that has got to hurt "

Then the tall one looked up at her, directly into her eyes and hissed, it opened its mouth wide and thick yellow green mucus oozed out from the corners of its thin-scarred lips.

It was drooling.

That's when she ran.

Kincross was so distracted by what she had seen that earlier that evening she managed to make herself look like an amateur at her 10:00 show.

When her executioner pulled the lever on the trap door of the gallows and the very real hangman's noose tightened and yanked up just behind her ear, the language she used as she was snapped back up was not good. “

Hey, " she said to loudly " you’re suppose to nod before you do that so I can make myself ready…”

Her friend Clara the Alligator woman said, from under her executioners hood, " mouth Danti! "

" Well, I'm sorry Clara " she croaked the rope is pulling my shirt up for Pete’s sake and something is tearing in my neck. "

" It's supposed to be breaking your neck stupid! " Clara said starting to loose her temper " for Pete's sake shut your mouth and start choking! "

So before the act fell apart The Amazing Benandanti kicked, choked and struggled for air...she was giving a very good impersonation of not only a dieing woman, but a dying woman in agony, much to the delight of her audience.

She went rigid, and then limp and the rope creaked and sounded as loud as gunshots as she swayed back and forth from the end of the noose.

Very slowly as if she were in slow motion on film, the dead woman twitched, kicked and seemed to slither up back up through the trap door. It looked like an invisible hand was pulling her; rope and all back up towards the scaffold's arm. Then while she seemed to be hanging in midair facing the audience her eyes snapped open.

And flamed red, red as coals in a fire. "

Ladies and Gentleman, " cried Jesse the Cyclops from the side of the stage " the death defying Amazing Benandanti! "

Kincross lowered back onto the scaffold and worked the rope away from her neck and took her bow and when the curtains snapped shut on the stage Jesse gave her a thumbs up. "

Good work ladies, I really liked the part when you vomited all those four letter words when you're suppose to be dieing at the end of the rope Danti. Are you going to make that a permanent part of your death scene?' "

" Hey it's that touch of reality that makes the act "

" Sure, sure. " Jesse the real life Cyclops said, " Like this place has anything to do with reality.

That's the way it was at the Chamber of Horrors, which was part of a permanent Sideshow act down the street from the Guzman Curio Shoppe.

Reality was only a theory here on the Marina.

Jesse really was a Cyclops, all 7 feet and one eye in the center of his forehead of him. He was a friend of Kincross' from the very, very old days. He had been living in Olympic Peninsula in Washington state for several years when Kincross found him...and offered him work.

He wasn't sure exactly who set up the Sideshow, but it was a good place to be if you wanted to hide in the open. Which was a relief from hiding in the shadows. Ask anyone who’s tried it. It’s enough to make you crazy.

So mixed among the fakes was Jesse, Wintra and Summer the Conjoined twins who's real talent was seeing into the past, but for the Sideshow they performed Victorian parlor music on violins and other stringed instruments, and Clara the Alligator Woman. There was nothing supernatural about Clara's skin condition, but at east she had a job and could walk around in the open.

Among the medical curiosities displayed in glass cases, the human oddities and artwork a woman with scaly skin was hardly noticeable. Which is why she worked so many acts. She in her 45 years went from living in a mental institution to being a stage performer. Clara had always wanted to be an actress and as far as she was concerned, her mission had been well accomplished.

Now we come to The Amazing Benandanti.

Kincross was a faker of sorts, nothing she did was magic...exactly.

In fact she couldn't tell you if she was human or monster, she couldn't tell you how old she is. She came from the Mountains, but she's not sure which ones. None that are standing now, that she's sure of.

Then in one evening in less then 10 minutes her life changed...at last.

Kincross was watching the Sunset yet again and the sight of it going through the same old routine almost cost her sanity when she was captured and forced into a place where all she could do was sleep and dream.

It was a relief really.

After she was rescued from the Catacombs by the Franciscan Monks who discovered her sleeping beneath their Abbey where she had been imprisoned by a rogue witch and her vampire companion she promised herself more then a new life. She promised herself to become something else altogether.

That's why she ran away and joined the circus, that's why she almost ignored the Riders at the Railroad Tracks.

But old habits die-hard and that's why she threw the bottle...

Only these Riders, as she was about to learn were about to create some changes of their own.

When the Moon was full three days later on Halloween Kincross was going to find that out exactly what it was they were about to change.

The last week of October is a very big thing on the Marina.

The Guzman's Curio Shoppe displays its newest finds at Halloween, it's a tradition.

Their stock, things like shrunken heads, exotic plants and mummified remains of all sorts are spiffed up and their cases draped in orange and black crepe paper streamers. Akela, Ignancia’ s Guzman's sister, could not only be counted on to bring back treasures and curiosities like the Mummy of the Egyptian Priestess that made the entire Marina famous, she could tell the best stories and could entertain people for hours in the Soda Fountain in the front of the Curio Shoppe.

That included the performers from the Chamber of Horrors.

Wintra and Summer, Zymo the Missing link, and sometimes Jesse would sit among the tourists and locals and listen to Akela tell stories about a city made up of immortals who's souls died leaving their corpses to wander their city in a dream state for all eternity, a town called Leaning Birches where Death itself lives, an Insane Asylum haunted by a demon doctor and her husband, who as Akela tells the story was still haunt the Sixth floor of the abandoned Hospital that still stands in the town of Resolution just outside of Lawton. Akela also tells stories about Headhunters and witch doctors, curses and hexes.

Only Akela’ s stories are much more then simple scary stories and they are always more fact then fiction and she leaves no doubt about that as she spins one tale after another.

She also tells stories about Werewolves when she's sure Kincross isn't around because she can't get halfway through them before she hears a gravelly sounding voice go into hysterical fits of laughter and say, " Kade, you are SO funny! Come one, tell us a good one. You’re holding out on us, you know you are. “

A few doors down the restaurants; souvenir shops and art galleries display pumpkins, offer free candy and some host costume parties. The Arima's Amusement park, famous for it's hand carved exotic carousel horses, mermaids and other fantasy animals are polished, the normal carousel music is replaced by recordings of funeral music and the electric lights are replaced by lanterns giving the friendly animals of the carousel a darker look.

Their eyes seem to follow you as you walk by and their wooden muscles seem to ripple under the half cast light.

The vendors selling treats along the Marina replace their usual fare with candy corn, orange cotton candy, as well black cat, bat and pumpkin shaped cookies and confections like black and orange popcorn balls. The soda pop is replaced by Devil's Blood, Nightmare Ambrosia and of course, Witch's Brew. There is an endless supply of caramel apples coated in not only in caramel but marshmallow, exotic chocolates and then all of this is rolled in nuts or candies in the shapes bats and ghosts.

But something was happening those few days up to Halloween; there was an unfriendly bite to the night air, the fog that rolled up from the Duwamish Bay wasn't a fine mist, it was heavy and smothering and seemed to extinguish anything unfortunate enough to end up in it’s grasp.

On these evenings as you walk down the boardwalk or along the brick and cobblestone sidewalks and streets your footsteps seemed to echo to loud and for too long. No matter how fast you walked it seemed to take forever to get from one short block to the next.

One night, after the Sideshow had closed for the evening Clara and Kincross decided to walk down the boardwalk to the Curio Shoppe to visit with their friend Ignancia. Her sister Akela was in town and both women were anxious to hear some of Akela’ s new stories...before she took to relaxing with her wine and thin cigars that had been soaked in rum and began to change the stories to more fiction then fact.

Which left the listeners with a pale imitation of what really happened.

Akela’ s stories were best told by candlelight and tea and before her mask of bravado hid whatever she may have been really feeling at the time her adventures were happening.

Halfway down the street it was Clara who asked Kincross, " Did you hear that? "

Of course Kincross had heard it.

Heavy footsteps in almost perfect timing with their own. "

No. " she lied.

Clara stopped and demanded, " you did too hear that! "

Kincross grabbed Clara's hand and started walking " of course I did and there’s more than one back there...so keep walking and shut up. I'm trying to think."

" What abo..." Clara felt something press against her chest and shove and she was pushed over a rail and into the black night waters of the Duwamish Bay

When Clara broke the surface of the icy waters she could hear the sounds of a terrible storm.

The winds howled, there was the sounds of thunder and lightning and the sounds of voices lost in the middle of the storm. Then she saw a terrible figure standing on the rail above her, it held out it's arms and it howled against the night sky. Then it turned it's misshapen head towards her and pushed away from the rail and then it was coming down towards her.

The force of the figure hitting the water pushed her back and then under the water. A heavy clawed hand grabbed her by the back of her jacket and lifted her dead weight straight out of the water and swung around like a rag doll.

After it had turned her around she was peering down into a pair of blood red eyes and jagged teeth so white they gleamed blue. The face was a shadowed by a heavy brow bone, and In the fog shrouded night down here in the water it was hard to tell if it was a human face or an animal’s face but you knew it didn't belong in this world.

" Danti! " Clara cried in relief " you're alright! "

When they got to the Curio Shoppe Akela handed Clara a towel and a flask of something. When she put it to her lips to take a drink the alcohol seemed to disappear as it hit the space between her mouth and the flask's opening.

The fumes wafted up and burned Clara's eyes.

" What is this? " Clara asked raising the flask a second time but careful not to have her eyes open this time as she drank...or inhaled. "

Who knows, but it'll get you drunk fast. "

" Amen to that " Clara said and tossed the flask to Kincross.

Ignancia plucked the flask from Kincross' fingers and threw it back to her sister, " We need them sober, and we need to know what it was they saw. "

" Grave Robbers " Kincross said yanking the flask back and taking a long hard swig " three of them...nasty brutes too. I tried to finish one off. He must've just eaten. " She took another long swallow and snapped " this isn't working. "

Ignancia went to her cabinet and pushed at the latticework along the top. After she pushed in and pulled a drawer came of the center of the scrollwork. Without looking in she reached in and pulled out a small blue bottle and that smelled faintly of curry powder. " Here, sniff it. "

Kincross shrugged and did as she was told.

Then she ran out the door and the sounds of her getting sick into the Bay were brutal. When she came back in she said through clenched teeth and narrowed watering eyes " gee thanks."

" You have to kill those germs, you don't know what those things have been getting into. " Ignancia told her.

" I do, I could smell it and taste it I'm afraid. And we have a problem, a big one."

Akela laughed. " It looks like Ghouls have infested our Cemetery and are probably robbing them for food. And it can’t be good news for you or Jess because technically you count as the.... not of this world too, so you're on the menu and anybody else who has...how can I say it; were born of exotic heritage...like the Twins and I don't know, what could be a bigger problem then that? "

" It's what they ate for their last meal. "

" Which was " Akela said through a line cloud of blue cigar smoke.

" Vampire "

So the night before Halloween Kincross, Akela, and Clara went out to Leaning Birch Cemetery to meet newest residents of Lawton Ridge.

Leaning Birch Cemetery is a well-known place on the entire West Coast; it's famous because of its size and somewhat notorious history. Leaning Birch had started out as a graveyard for suicides, the executed and the poor. Babies who only lived for a few hours or days are here as well as the deformed and defectives.

This is where the forgotten were laid to rest.

It's a maze of graves, marble and stone mausoleums and crypts dug directly into the hillside.

The Cemetery was built in the forest and in time it had become a city and more then once hikers and the curious had gone up there and been lost for days. Some where never found.

These three women were very familiar with this place and getting lost here wasn't something that concerned them.

" Why do we have to come out here at night, " Clara was whispering to herself, " why not during the day when there are people around and you can see where you're going if you have to run."

" Because last shows at our last show is at 10:00... you know that. " Kincross looked over at Akela and rolled her eyes heavenwards. Sometimes it was all too apparent to Kincross that Clara had been in an institution. At times when Clara started talking out of her head like this it was all to painfully clear that being locked up in that asylum had damaged her, poor thing.

They came to the first section of the Cemetery just as the Moon came up.

Akela waived the Lantern from one grave to the next, " what do you think? " she asked Kincross.

" This Graveyard is dead. " she shook her head and grabbed the lantern from Akela. She began to walk up and down the rows. She walked briskly past new headstones, old weather worn headstones, past mausoleums then up the brick path to the Oak Tree Columbarium. And you could tell from the tilt of her head she was trying to catch sounds and was finding nothing. "

What do you mean it's dead? " Clara asked, " it's a graveyard. "

Kincross was over the top of the hill and Akela was running to catch up with her " Akela, what did she mean? " Clara had a horrible feeling in her middle and her head was starting to pound because Danti was scared and that was something in twenty years Clara had never seen her friend affected by.

Fear.

The graves near the Columbarium, where the cremains were housed was the oldest part of the Cemetery. Here in the center of the Cemetery were the oldest graves, the most ornate mausoleums and statues of angles, children, lambs, benches and hooded figures. All of them hand crafted and after all this time they had not cracked, or been worn away by the elements.

A barrier surrounded this part of the cemetery; you could feel it when you came here. This place was the heart of the cemetery.

" There's nothing here..." Kincross had dropped the lantern and it rolled down the brick path towards Akela. " There's nothing here...” her voice echoed like it would in a tomb.

Akela saw Kincross stop under a giant twisted tree. Only one side of it seemed to have grown and the other looked stunted. From a distance it looked as if it were reaching over to the ground beneath it. " Oh no." Kincross whispered.

Then she called out, " come here, but not to close. You have to see this. "

Clara and Akela came up to the tree where Kincross was and on the ground was a dying Vampire. Its face was a twisted mass of cuts; its head was split open from the bridge of its nose to the back of its skull.

Kincross knew that unlike her self this creature could feel pain and she also knew that something intended for the Vampire to suffer.

" Here to finish me off Benandanti? " it asked through it’s ruined mouth " execution right? Will you break my neck and trap my putrid soul in my eyes forever? Or will you leave me here to suffer until the..."

" The expression is, until the cows come home. " Kincross shook her head " we didn't know you were here. We had no idea. "

" It would have stayed that way Benandanti, you may not believe that, but it's true. You can only stand Death for so long, understand?

" Kincross nodded, " I do. "

Akela shone the light into the vampires face. Under normal circumstances the Vampire is no oil painting. By nature their faces are ruddy and red and a little bloated. They're eyes are milky white and their hair dull and dry. It's their teeth that look good, they have sets of them, and like sharks and they're so sharp they can go through bone. Those teeth shine so white they glow.

The Vampires don't spread their sickness or curse like you hear in the stories. They're regular people who die and for some reason that no one knows...they come back as this.

When they do the Benandanti come.

Akela was surprised to learn, after seeing more then one fight that these creatures knew each other by name. They understood each other’s language...knew each other’s histories. There was a balance between them and if Akela had to live to be 500 she intended to understand it one day. "

Who did this, who destroyed this place? "

" I forgot, your family used to guard the Cemetery in Kincross...for centuries. I can see why you're fond of this place. It's quite beautiful. "

" Yes, yes, tell me who did this. "

" You saw the Ghouls, right? "

" Yes, by the tracks. "

" That's where the gate is, that's why you saw them there. But they're not Ghouls anymore. They're not robbing the graves for food, like before. They're not hunting the living dead for sport or trophies even. They've been changed, something has happened to them. "

" What? "

" They're turning human.

" Kincross motioned Akela and Clara back and leaned forward. " I can help you, maybe I can fix this...what's happened. I studied in the House Of The Dead. I know what to do.

" The Vampire shook its head. " Just do what you do Benandanti, just...no execution. Do you swear? "

Kincross nodded. " I'll...put you to rest, when we're done. "

" Thank you Benandanti "

Kincross drew her fist back and slammed it between the vampire's eyes. Because it's face was so damaged already the skull almost split in two and from the center of the forehead where the soul lives a mist leak out, it crept from the corner of it's eyes and felt it's way to the ground and was gone.

" Shovel " Kincross choked " get me a shovel.

" The sun was just starting to rise when they got home to the Marina. Clara put her hand on Kincross’ s arm and Akela thumped her a few times on the back. " You did alright Kincross "

" What do you suppose he meant, they're becoming human? " Kincross demanded.

" I don't know but I bet it ain't for love. And the cemetery, are you sure it's dead? "

" All those ghosts, the things that live there...they've gone. Where could they go Akela? Do you know what happens to spirits that wander forever? They go nuts. No offense Clara. "

" None taken "

" Something scared the dead from their graves and drove them out of the only place on Earth they're safe. They're risking their sanity. They are willing to risk oblivion because of what? Ghouls who are turning human? What the hell happens when a ghoul becomes human? "

Akela was the one who noticed the trees that lined the hill above the Marina. The smile she always seemed to have on her face and the light from her deep brown eyes dimmed.

Every green thing up on the hill was dead or dieing. There wasn't a bird in the sky, and the air smelled stale and old even though there was a constant breeze coming off the Bay. It was like walking into a long closed room in an abandoned house.

The Sun was shining bright; it was going to be a beautiful autumn morning.

Only to the three women standing on the Pier, it felt like the darkest hours after Midnight.

CONTINUEING ADVENTURES OF THE AMAZING BENANDANTI

Kincross and Clara The Alligator Woman were out on the Pier last Saturday before their 7:00pm show at the Chamber of Horrors performing slight of hand tricks.

Kincross was dressed in a simple black dress and over her shoulders she wore her black cape with the purple lining and on top of her head at a slight angle was her top hat and she was also wearing her favorite rainbow colored sunglasses.

Clara was wearing her favorite yellow dress and her Alligator markings seemed to shimmer and glow light green under the light gauze fabric.

" Did you hear about the Malloy Sisters? " Clara whispered, " Do you know what they're doing now? "

Kincross shrugged, " Eating their young? "

" I'm serious..."

" Well, so am I " Kincross said.

Kincross’ hand gracefully swept up into the air and from her fingertips a dove appeared and perched on two of her fingers." Those Malloys are one seriously ill family." Kincross held her hand open, palm up and the dove was gone.

She twirled her hand in a circle, opened it and the dove was back.

" If you can't get this thing to stop pecking my hand I'm turning this thing into a chicken nugget. " Kincross whispered so that the little girl watching them couldn't hear.

When the girl walked away Clara said quickly " they've been taking people up to the Bridge Islands. " Then she ducked her head and winced.

Kincross snapped her head forward and the novelty glasses slid down her nose. " They are NOT. "

Clara nodded and with a snap of her wrist covered the dove with a red scarf and then Kincross threw it up into the air and the dove was gone. " I think we should tell Sarah. "

Kincross pocketed the scarf and hissed ‘ ouch’ between her teeth. " Sheriff was very clear to us, we have to take care of our own." It looked as if she were flicking dust from her left shoulder but when Clara saw that small gesture Kincross almost looked ashamed.

Almost.

" But."

" No buts about it Clara, if Sarah has to bring the law we could all wind up in psycho wards or in jars somewhere in a medical lab. You want that? "

Clara shook her head, " Danti, the people the Sisters are taking aren't, you know from here. They're...they're people Danti. "

" I'll go talk to them. "

" Danti..."

Kincross crossed her heart and held her hand up, " talk, just talk I promise on my Mother's grave..."

" Very Funny, "

" Okay, I promise all I'll do is talk. You can come and keep me honest"

The Alligator Woman shook her head, " I won't go near those creatures, but I'll tell you where you'll find them..."

The Malloy Sisters were exactly where Clara said they would be. They were having Tea like respectable ladies at the Glass Gardens Tea House on Weller Street. They were sitting very dignified and refined towards the back of the room by a salt-water fish tank filled with Seahorses.

When Kincross saw them she grimaced. The Malloy Sisters didn't smell like the Sea, they smelled like the grave.

" Ah " said one with red hair, " the Amazing Benandanti, Magician Extraordinaire and Werewolf Less Ordinary. Tell us, dog to master do you ever have the urge to chase cars or buses? " She asked daintily.

" No, but I do still have, on occasion, the urge to roast Sea Witches over an open pit and feed their lying carcasses to the gulls. " Kincross replied in the same mocking tone.

" We don't lie, Benandanti. It's just like the sign at the Pier says we simply provide a service, Sunset Boat Rides to the Islands. We own boats now, we sail them; that’s what we do for a living…”

“ For a living. Now that’s funny.” Kincross chuckled.

“ We've...become modern.” the bald headed sister with tattoos ringing her head said through clenched teeth. “ We don't practice the old ways anymore.”

" Well, see to it that you don't become unmodern otherwise I'll have no choice but to bury you so deep the maggots will never find your bones.”

" Don't threaten us Benandanti, it's not good for your health to threaten us. " said the Red Headed Sister.

Kincross leaned across the table and opened her hand. In her outstretched palm was a book of matches with a dragon on the cover. " Don't mess with me ladies, I've cooked your kind faster then you can say, what's that smell...I'm warning you whether you like it or not. I don't like the idea YOU are going up to the Islands and I don't like the idea YOU aren't taking money for your ahem, good deeds. And I have every intention of finding out why you've become such civic minded ladies...all of the sudden. "

" Just reuniting loved ones and doing good works...” the Tattooed Sister laughed.

" Yes Benandanti, more then anyone you should believe in redemption. You know it's possible; you strive for it every minute of your pathetic wasted life.” The youngest sister with long white hair said just above a whisper.

Kincross sat back and spread a napkin across her lap, she poured herself some tea and then raised the cup to her lips and drank. Then she helped herself to an almond cookie and popped it into her mouth.

" You know, I don't like you being anywhere near the Bridges and I don't trust you being so close to the dearly departed. So if I find out you're going onto those Islands yourselves, if I hear about " accidents " involving tourists being lost at Sea if I see one Shade...just one down here in Duwamish with your names on their lips I will find you ladies and after mere second in my hands I will have you wishing you'd never made it out of Croatan. Got it? "

" We're never going back there, " hissed the Youngest Malloy Sister " nothing can make us go back there. "

" Oh ladies, I will personally take you back to Croatan myself...you know I can. "

" They're just sunset trips to the Bridges Benandanti, we sail at Dusk and bring you back by Moonlight. That's all we do" the Red Headed Sister said slowly and she stared hard into Kincross’ face as each word sunk in.

Kincross chose another cookie tossed it back into her mouth and then raised the teacup to her lips again and bit a chunk from the side of the small cup. Steaming hot tea ran down her arm and pooled at her elbow onto the tabletop.

She chewed and ground the heavy glass with her mouth open and the Malloy Sisters saw her teeth, her long sharp teeth pulverizing the cookie and glass to dust and then she spat it all out on the floor at the Sea Witches feet.

" You're liars ladies, that's what you do. I guess it can't be helped it's in your nature. As for me? I'll grind your bones to make my bread...hell I want to because that’s what is in my nature. That can't be helped either. Remember that next time you go on a Moonlight Cruise up to the Bridges and you start feeling nostalgia for the old days. Keep it clean ladies...I'm warning you. "

The Sisters flat dark eyes stayed flat and expressionless, which was good because that was the Malloy Sisters version of keeping their mouths shut.

They were listening to every single word.

Kincross wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin and when she looked up her blood red eyes were glowing in the semi-darkness of the tea room." Ladies, I wish you smooth sailing. "

The Malloy Sisters watched Kincross leave the Tea Room; they also ignored the nasty gesture she made at them through the windows as she walked by.

One sister reached out and pulled her hands back across the heavy oak table as she stood up. When she lifted her hands there were deep gashes in the wood.

Then together they left the Tea Room and seemed to drift like shadows in the gathering fog to the Pier.

© anita moscoso

There's A Party At the Chambers!

2005-10-30T13:54:00.000-08:00

Halloween is upon us and to start off the fest-er-tivities you could toddle over to these sites for a little bit of fun:

http://blackdog.net/holiday/halloween/index.html

http://theshadowlands.net/ghost/

http://www.missioncreep.com/mundie/images/sideshow.htm

Then grab your lantern and say a prayer and head ( off...cackle cackle ) on over to the Chamber of Horrors and see what the Writers, Artists and Poets of the Soul Food Cafe have cooked up for you:

http://chaeve.blogspot.com/

Writing Excercise: Horror Style!

2005-09-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

This looked like fun it could be a bit of Halloween Fun soI pulled it off the net...my comments are in italics.
amm

Instructions: If you want to play around with developing character without taking the plunge of building fictional people from scratch--if, for example, you want to learn about character-building but aren't ready to start writing a story--a good source of names can help. The phone book is one, but it has no other details. In this exercise, we'll use a cemetery as a place to find the beginnings of interesting characters.

1. Find a cemetery near your home and go there with a notebook and pen. Really old cemeteries are often the most interesting, especially if you're into historical fiction.
( Google is great for this too )

2. Wander around and look at the names and dates on the headstones. Read any inscriptions you find. If you find any really intriguing names, jot them down in your notebook.
( I found my name once...Anita Marie Godfrey...no kidding, freaked me OUT! )

3. Find a good place to sit and write. If you've written down some names and dates and inscriptions, you may want to go home or to the library to write. If it's a nice day and there are places to sit, you may want to write in the cemetery itself.

( Nah, no one will think you're being a ghoul, but if its not a place you want to be don't go! )

4. Choose a name and think about what that person might have been like. When did they live and how old were they when they died? If there was an inscription on the headstone, how might it relate to the person's character? Perhaps a tombstone might say "In memory of a loving mother." Was the character you're creating in your mind really a good mother, or might her children have chosen those words in order to keep up appearances? Were any other family members buried nearby? How might their lives have touched your chosen person's life?

5. When you're beginning to get a good idea of what your character might have been like, write about them. You might choose to write a short biography, or maybe you'd rather put your character in a scene and see how they might act. Remember, you're not trying to figure out who this person really was; instead, you're creating a character based on a name and some dates, and maybe an inscription. The character will be made up based on what ideas that name and dates and inscription create in your mind.

Notes: This exercise is similar to the idea of making up lives for the people you see in public places. Instead of seeing a person for whom you can make up a name and other details, though, you have no idea what the person looked or acted like; you have only a name to go on. This is meant to be a fun way to exercise your imagination and learn a little bit about how characters can be made to seem real. And who knows, you might learn some local history in the process.

EPITAPHS

Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.
Joseph Conrad
(St. Thomas Church; Canterbury, England)

Good Night Sweet Prince
and a flight of angels sing to thy rest.
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

As the flowers are all made sweeter
by the sunshine and the dew,
so this old world is made brighter
by the lives
of folks like you.
Bonnie Parker
(Crown Hill Cemetery; Dallas, Texas)

Here lies
Ezekial Aikle
Age 102
The Good
Die Young.

Hillaire Belloc (1870-1953)
Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if
the car was on the way down. It was.

October 31, 2005

2005-09-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

October 31, 2005

" They were so wrong about the Cemetery, they were so wrong about the 13 Steps, " my Grandmother told me on her Deathbed. She said this very forcefully, which shocked me because she was hopped up on Morphine and about 2 hours away from dieing.

She was laughing her usual laugh, which always reminded me of a cat's growl, and I took that as a sign of health.

I'm not sure why.

I had been begging since I was a little girl for my Grandmother to tell me about the Cemetery of 13 Steps and she just out right refused. " It's all Hogwash "she'd snap, " its a little private cemetery that a very nice family buried their own in and there's nothing evil about it. So for Pete's Sake drop it will you? "

" I think there's a interesting story there. " I insisted.

" I think the young people around here need to find a new place to get drunk and look for ghosts. "That's what I think" she'd sneer and then she'd pop open a beer and drink herself blind.

When my Grandmother was about 13 she use to go up to the Manzoor Family Cemetery and tend the garden that use to be there. In those days there were only about 6 graves and they were back up on a little plateau lined with Hazel Nut Trees.

My Grandmother used to like to work under the trees because Owls perched in them at night and she said she use to find little bones from mice and other prey littering the ground under the branches.

She'd call them treasures and she kept them in a canning jar tinted light green. She'd given me the Jar when I sold my first Novel and I thought it was right she had it back now.

As far as I knew it was the only childhood memento she truly cherished.

When I put the Jar at her bedside her eyes, which had somehow changed color before they became glassy and unfocused during her last week of life blazed on when she saw that Jar, that's when she told me about the Steps, that's when she told me the truth about the 13 Steps.

" It all changed up there the day Mrs. Manzoor and her children died in that accident. The youngest his name was Broody, he ran out in front of that Ice Wagon, it was pulled by a horse you know. Well, Mrs. Manzoor ran after him to snatch him out of the way and she didn't realize it but her daughter was right behind her...probably trying to help. Maybe reflex, maybe its because that little girl knew death was all around them and was going to the safest place she could see...her Mother's side."

" They were crushed together under the wagons wheels and then if over turned and God what a sight that was. Mr. Cooley the Ice Man, the horse Pedro, the children, Mrs. Manzoor. All ended up at the bottom of the Gully. They were just a tangle of wood and bodies. It wasn't easy to untangle them all. I think they used Axes, I think it was that bad. Then of course they had to pull that entire lot up the hill by rope and pulleys. Awful sight, something you can't forget no matter how hard you try. "

I didn't like the look in Grandmother's eyes, her voice was saying one thing and her eyes, well, and they weren't saying the same thing. I was looking into two faces, that’s
what it felt like. Her voice sounded sorry, her eyes, well they just looked alive.

The desire to clamp my hand over her eyes was strong and they itched to go to her face. So like a little kid I sat on them instead.

" What happened after that? "

" Bad things, people died out there, later it was car accidents, suicides, some people well you'd see them walking along side the road past the Cemetery and then they'd just be gone right before your eyes. "

" Mrs. Swenson said she saw Irma Liston, this was in what, 1946 I think walk past the cemetery and then she said she just wasn't there anymore. Thing is, no one ever saw Irma Liston again and Mrs. Swenson lost her mind and cut her wrists up at the Manzoor Cemetery. "

" So the Cemetery killed people. "

" Don't be stupid, of course it didn't. "

My Grandmother was looking over my shoulder and she laughed a little again and went on," Then the stories started about the 13 Steps to Hell being in the Cemetery. You could walk down these little gray steps that went down into the ground, and led into a tomb and an evil witch with white hair and no eyes was suppose to be down there. You'd bring her a little offering and she'd let you pass and then you'd see the devil and he'd give you powers. It was all a trick of course; it made things easier...for me. People are curious animals you know. "

Grandmother yowled her laugh and her eyes; they were shining " of course the Devil's a Liar you know. "

I watched her face, which was already changed by Death and from no where the thought came to me," why I'll bet she's looked like this all along."

" No I don't know that I don't know the Devil I'm glad to say. "

Grandmother chuckled long and deep and I almost screamed. Something inside of me was desperate to cry out and I wasn't sure why.

" It wasn't the Cemetery where the steps where. That was the lie. One of them anyway. The 13 Steps were on the other side of the fence by the Hazel Nut Trees. I found it when I was looking for my treasures. They were like a little trail of breadcrumbs you know. I followed them. Down the little gray steps that went below the work shed.

There was a garden down there, full of treasure..."

" Bones. "

" That's what I said, are you stupid? I wanted them...all of them and I made a deal with the Gardener I met down there. I would bring the seeds and he would give me the treasure. He told me he loved my treasures, he'd hold my hand and tell me how beautiful they were and how proud he was of all my work. "

" So I waited out on the road rain or shine day or night, and I found them one by one...and he gave me the treasure but you know...the Devil's a Liar. I tended his Garden for him and in the end why, I found out he didn't care about my treasures or love them the way I did. No, the treasure he wanted was Souls you know. Greedy, corrupt ones..."

" Those poor people..."

" Oh no, he didn't take those Souls he took mine...and its been his for a very long time in the Garden...."

The words snaked around in side my head and nested in my heart...she'd been in the garden " for a very long time..."

I backed up against the wall and my Grandmother turned her head towards me and smiled and smiled and the light in her eyes went out and her mouth went slack and on that Halloween Night someone died right before my eyes.

I'm just not sure who it was.

This is dedicated to my Grandmother the late Virginia Godfrey
It Might Seem An Odd Choice To Some
But She'd Have Loved It.
That's Why It’s Her Story Now.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

Coming Soon: Day of the Dead

2005-09-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

Definition

2005-08-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

cham'ber of hor'rors
1. a place for the exhibition of gruesome or horrible objects.
2. a group of such objects, as instruments of torture or murder.
3. any collection of things or ideas that inspire horror.

WELL OF COURSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And Ill leave it to your imagination but these items are from the Shelves of the Mutter Museum....go ahead, just THINK about it.

Broken bones
Pott's Disease Skeletons
Skull Collections, including the Muniz collection of trephinated (holes cut in them)
"Brain Of A Murderer" - John Wilson hanged in Norristown, PA
Longitudinal slices of the head, showing brain
Brain of animals arranged from tiny frog to man, often with eyes attached
Large collection of baby deformities.
Hearing apparatti of mammals in butterfly collection-like cases.
Wax Renderings of Eye Disease Problems

The Witching Hour

2005-08-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

Last year, following in ABCFamily's shadow, I did a 13 Days of Halloween in my journal. It was a fun two-week long exercise. This offering is one of the entries I did for it. Enjoy! But, if you are out walking on the night of October's Hunter Moon and lil chills zing up your spine all of the sudden while the lil hairs on your neck stand at attention, don't be too alarmed by the voices you're hearing. After all, it is the Witching Hour, and you should be safe at home anyway. Just pray these women aren't hexing you.

The Witching Hour by Jessica Galbreth
The Witching Hour is the hour of midnight on a full moon. It is at this time that the witches' spell casting powers are at their fullest. It is a time of change and transformation. The history of this may be traced to the ancient times of the worship of goddesses associated with the moon and fertility. As the moon waxes in its phases so do the powers of those, until they culminate at the full moon.

Sometimes, this moon in October is called the Hunter's Moon or Wolf Moon. (Any pagans reading this, please correct me.) The moon is very powerful in pagan beliefs, and I think it's said it affects emotions...? Usually herbs are collected and harvested at night while the moon is high. It is believed when done thusly, the herbs are at their best, infused with the moon's power.

Sometimes, other spells are performed during the day. Here is a spell to heal a broken friendship: If you have had a falling out with a good friend this simple spell will clear away the bad feelings and create a situation where peace can be made and the past put behind. It will in no way mean that the spell will force your friend to come running to you. It will simply pave the way for differences to be forgotten and your friendship to resume its happy path. You will need:

Two twelve-inch white candles
One twelve-inch yellow candle
Some yellow ribbon and white ribbon
Two Tarot cards to represent you and you and your friend

If you are female choose queens and if you are male choose knights. However do not choose the swords cards. Hearts are recommended. This spell is to be done only on a Sunday or Monday at exactly midday. It should be done on a bright, sunny day, never in the rain.

Using a heavy duty pin engrave the name and birthdate of your friend on one white candle and your name on the other. On the yellow candle engrave both your names and birthdate together. On the yellow candle also engrave the following words: "Preese ito na lionide."

Find a peaceful spot in a grassy place under a tree. Place the yellow candle in the center with the white candles on opposite sides twelve inches apart. With your left hand light the yellow candle. Then light the candle on your left, which will have your name on it. Then light the candle on the right, which will have your friend's name on it.

Wait until a piece of dripping wax from each of the candles has touched the ground. Then say these words: "(Your full name backwards) ete tiato el liso reto mio li qi (your friends full name backwards)." Repeat three times. Extinguish all three candles with the little finger of your left hand your candle first, your friend's candle second and the yellow third.

Tie all three candles in both yellow and white ribbons entwined. Bury in the ground.

Though this spell calls for the day, from my limited understanding a lot of spells are performed under the full moon when a witch's power is at its highest. During the Witching Hour...

"Tis the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen
For what listen they?"

~John Keats~

Fear by Anita Moscoso

2005-08-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

( Fear by Goya )

People read the stuff I write and will beat around the bush for a few seconds ( the polite ones anyway ) before they ask...where do you get these ideas from? What scares a person like YOU?

Well, I made a list ( which is a actually from a writing excercise ) and here it is:

Anita's List of Fears

Having my Mummified remains turn up in a thousand years in a musuem where a bunch of people will stand around it and say things like, " If that's preservation I hope to God I never see decay "

Full Moons Creep Me Out...it's like having a dead Sun up there

Head Hunters: I'm terrified of them...no kidding. My number ONE fear of all times is to end up like this

One of my favorite Sideshow Attractions of all times: To bad I'm afraid of it... The Fiji Mermaid. Go ahead and just try to prove it wasn't true.

Having my Family do this to my Grave...they would too!
************************************************************************************

So there it is, the things I'm afraid of.
I'll bet Satan rides a snow plow to work before a lot of people ask me a silly question like that again!

Anita Marie

The Birth

2005-08-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

“Why did you choose tonight, of all nights, to come into the world,” She said as she smoothed her hands over her heavily pregnant belly. She moved slowly from the kitchen with a stub of a candle lighting her way.

Outside it was still raining heavily and the wind was howling. It had already brought down trees and power lines in the area. Her husband was out in the weather, trying to get the local midwife. The power had gone out just as they sat down to dinner. They sat down to a candle lit dinner, probably the last for sometime, with the baby on its way. She had had niggling pains all day; this hadn’t been a concern to her as the baby was not due for another three weeks.

The pains had become contractions during dinner; she knew that this wasn’t a false alarm. She got her husband to run her a bath thinking it might help. The contractions became stronger and more frequent. She asked him to call the midwife; the baby would be born tonight. He picked up the phone, there was no dial tone. There was no way of contacting the midwife. He started to panic, what did he know about delivering a baby? What if something happened? She was calm, she told him he had to get help, the doctor or the midwife, but he would have to go.

She watched him leave, a bolt of lightning turning the night into day as he drove the car down the drive. She locked the door behind her and walked back to the kitchen, to get a candle, feeling her way along the wall. She had to stop a few times, clutching her belly as the contractions shuddered through her. She was standing at the sink when another contraction gripped her. She held tight to the counter until it passed. It was then that her waters broke.

She knew that it would not be long now. But would her husband and the midwife get back on time. She knew that it was unlikely. She carefully made her way to the bedroom, her path lit only by the stump of candle that she carried and the occasional lightning bolt.

She lay on the bed and talked to the baby between contractions. “Please wait … just a little … longer … your daddy … will … be back … soon … with help.” She was feeling ill; she didn’t know what to do. She began to cry.

“Shush, my child, do not fear, all will be well.” She looked up to see an old woman with haggard features coming toward her with a lantern. “Where is my husband?” she asked of the woman. Her question went unanswered, as the old woman examined her. “Now my dear this child is ready to greet the world, push.” She was feeling weak but she gritted her teeth and pushed. The baby slithered free and let out a healthy cry. The old woman wrapped the child in a shirt and placed him in his mothers’ arms.

Her husband drove into the driveway just as the power was restored. He unlocked the front door and ushered the midwife in. He looked around; the dinner plates were still on the table. He called out to his wife but there was no response. It was then that he noticed a pool of blood on the kitchen floor and bloody footprints that led towards the back of the house. The midwife had noticed them too and was following their grisly path.

They found her on the bed, cradling the baby in her arms. The midwife set about examining the mother and child. The husband clearly upset by the scene that he had witnessed held tight to her hand and brushed the hair from her brow.

She tells him it is okay, the midwife came and delivered the child. He tries to explain to her that he has just returned with the midwife. “No” she tells him “an old woman is here.” There was no sign of anyone in the room or the house, and no sign of anyone else having attended the birth.

The midwife catches the husbands’ attention and speaks to him out of earshot of his wife. She explains that she is concerned about infection; his wife is clearly feverish and delirious. “We need to get her to the hospital.” She then returned to her examination of the child. She gasped, tied around the stump of the umbilical cord was a single strand of silver hair.

© Megan Warren, August 2005

Soul Hand - The Greening

2005-08-18T22:56:00.000-07:00

Dollface

2005-08-17T23:58:00.000-07:00

I saw her at the tip mine a few times before I approached her. She was an obvious tyro – there was no plan to her digging, and she had no idea of the customs. She kept wandering over to neighboring stakes and rummaging through them.
I’ve been a tip miner for forty years, so the others came to me and asked me to speak to her. They had tried, but she just stared at them blankly and went on rummaging where she shouldn’t.
``Hi,” I said. ``I’m Grace Fletcher.”
She had a pile of stuff around her, none of it valuable – plastic bags spilling household garbage.
``Do you need some help?” I asked. ``I been at it a long time, I got plenty of experience.”
She rummaged in her pocket and thrust a laminated card at me. I saw the name Rose Hammond.
``I got my license,” she said defensively.
``I know, but you’re doing it all wrong, and well, you just need to be aware of the rules.”
``Rules?” she gave a harsh laugh. ``Rules? There are rules at a rubbish dump?”
``They’re called tip mines now, and there are always rules.” I was surprised she didn’t know. Some of the stuff from the last century is so valuable – aluminum foil, plastic bottles – there have to be rules or tip miners would murder each other over a well preserved beer can.
``What are you looking for?” I asked. ``Got any focus objects? We want to help you, but you’re getting some of the others’ backs up. You gotta realize you can’t trespass on their claims.”
``Trespassing? Am I?” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. ``I didn’t know. I’m not looking for the same as them anyway.”
I glanced at my watch. It was time I took a break, and the cool cafeteria up on the landfill would be a better place to argue it out with her than down on the baking hot surface of the tip itself.
``Come on up to the café,” I said. ``We can talk there, over a cup of Joe.”
I led the way. She was sniffling behind me like a kid caught stealing apples. The others watched us sympathetically then went back to their tasks. At least they knew while I was with her she wouldn’t be rummaging through their claims.
At the café, I ordered lunch and sat with her near the window. I waited until she had calmed down a bit, which she did after she sipped at her coffee.
``So,” I said, ``this is the deal - we tip miners watch out for each other. You understand the nature of a claim, don’t you? It’s your area, where you can mine as deep as you like and everything you uncover belongs to you. With so much great stuff buried in these landfill sites, it’s a valuable thing, a claim.”
She nodded. ``I know, I’m sorry. But I get so desperate.”
``What are you looking for?”
``I’m looking for one thing – one particular thing.”
Slowly, over coffee, she told me the whole story.
She had been married once, but divorced for longer. She had one daughter, a lovely girl called Felicity. As a child, Felicity had been spoiled, she admitted – far more than was good for her.
``But she was beautiful, and so happy – my parents were just crazy about her. Mom was always buying her special handmade gifts. Everywhere she went she would pick up something new. It had to be perfect, there couldn’t be a mark on it. She bought Felicity the doll.”
Her voice shaking, Rose described the doll to me. It was made to resemble the child it was bought for – a photo of the child was manipulated into 3D on a computer and a head cast from that. The doll looked exactly like Felicity. And she loved it, took it everywhere.
``She’d had the doll for a year, when I began to notice things,” she said. ``Just little things at first. One of the doll’s painted nails was chipped. Felicity cut her finger in the same place. Then the doll fell off the bed and there was a mark on its forehead where it hit the floor. The school called me and said Felicity had a fall in the playground.”
I reached for my coffee. The air seemed suddenly cold.
``One of the dolls legs became loose – Felicity fell off her bike and she was limping for a while. Things like that. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my mother,” she added in a whisper, ``they would have thought I was crazy, or tried to destroy it the doll. And – well, I couldn’t do anything to the doll, could I? I mean, I couldn’t – she drew in a long shuddering breath - ``burn it.”
``So what did happen?”
``I put the doll away so it wouldn’t get damaged. I was going to put it in a glass cabinet but as soon as I did, Felicity had an asthma attack – her first ever. She couldn’t breathe until I opened the cabinet. So I put the doll on a high shelf, I surrounded it with cotton wool – I tried to make it as safe as possible.”
``And?”
``One day a bird got in through the window and knocked the doll off the shelf. The head was cracked.”
I waited, my mouth, I realized, hanging open.
``The hospital called me. Felicity was in a coma – she’d had a car accident. I rushed to the hospital of course – I sat by her side day after day – then it occurred to me. I went home and took the doll to a doll hospital. They fixed the crack – and she woke up.”
``And she was all right?”
``For a while. I took care of her, and Mom helped me sometimes. My parents, they didn’t come round much – Felicity wasn’t perfect any more. Then she started wandering off – sometimes she stayed out at night and I had the police looking for her. They’d find her sleeping on the street.” She looked up at me with haunted eyes. ``I tried locking her in, but she just kept finding a way out. She’s been gone for three weeks this time. The doctors told me she kept wandering because she was brain damaged, and I believed them. But a few days ago, I saw it – I hadn’t noticed before because I had so much else to think about. I’d put the doll back on the shelf, so it wouldn’t fall, and when I looked, it was gone.”
``You mean –“
``Mom threw it out, yes, threw it in the garbage because it was damaged. She didn’t know – I guess she couldn’t bear to look at it anymore, like she couldn’t bear to look at her grand child anymore. I should have told her about the doll.” She began to sob, and I sat helpless, not knowing what to say. As she spoke again, the tears continued to flow down her cheeks.
“My daughter’s soul is in the garbage – her mirror image is on that tip. And if I find the doll, and bring her home, and clean her up and put it safely back on the shelf – “ she left the rest unfinished.
With all of us digging, we found her by the end of the day. We lifted her tenderly out of the trash and carried her down to Rose, who fell on her knees, weeping, and tried to brush the dirt from her face.
We gathered around them, awed into silence by such grief.
But we never found the doll.

EYES

2005-08-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

Melody At Sunset by Anita Moscoso

2005-08-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

When I was a teenager we use to go out to a place called Lost Lake and walk around the cemetery out on it's North End at Sunset.

That's all that left of Preston Prison which in it's day was such an awful place that no one in town would even admit to having known anyone who worked there, let alone say you had family or friends locked up behind it's bars.

Something about those walls changed people.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

It changed their faces and voices and natures so much that most of the staff ended up living on the grounds because their own kin wouldn't let them back through their own front doors after they'd been working at Preston.

Check the staff records against the records of the dead at the Cemetery in Lost Lake. You'd be surprised how many of those names match.

Later after they pulled the prison down they actually buried the stones, the bricks and bars and furniture, papers, books, clothes kitchenware too. There's a grave marker of sorts over the sight. It simply says,

" Preston Penitentiary B. 1899 D. 1942 Dead By Our Hands "

People use to go up there to hear see the ghosts of the condemned wandering the ruined tombstones. They were unable to leave the cemetery and you could hear them begging for God or the Devil or anybody to help them, and they were all suppose to be doing the same thing.

They were trying to dig up the graves with their bare hands. People guessed they were still trying to escape that Prison.

I was about 18 the year my friends and I made our first trip up to Lost Lake.

We knew this ritual ( and we knew that’s what it was called ) wouldn't work at noon or dawn or at midnight; you had to be there at Sunset in black and ready to walk the borders of the small neglected cemetery as the sun came down. If you did the ritual wrong something bad happened...instead of being able to look in you let something out.

I grew up around stories where people were suppose to have tried this and we knew what happened if your timing was off or you left something out or wore the wrong color.

" Do you remember Kelly O'Hara's sister Laura? The one who walked the cemetery gates? She died from a drug overdose last week," or " Remember that bunch of seniors who walked the Cemetery Gates back in 1981? Those four guys who always use to hang out together? They all died in car accidents last week...yeah ACCIDENTS.... plural they all live in different places but they all died last Saturday..."

When we went up we did what you were told to do to the letter.

We wore black we walked backwards and we also stopped at the front and back entrances and faced the gates and mimicked locking the gates.

Then we finished and faced in and there they were, the condemned, on their hands and knees and it looked liked they were trying to dig down to their caskets with their bare hands.

Men, some women in the clothes they were buried or executed were on their knees helplessly trying to touch the earth they were no longer part of. They cried, some were screaming others just crouched there shaking their heads from side to side and they were laughing.

They were the worst.

It was the woman buried closest to the gates that I learned the secret of Lost Lake from, the Phantom that haunts me to this day and who's image I will take with me to my own grave.

She was down by her own grave making the same motions over and over in the dirt and pine needles; so I simply leaned over on my side of the gate and copied her a few times. Then I put my hands down into the dirt on my side of the fence and copied her movements: I wrote, " I killed Bobbie Green, December 25, 1925 gunshot. "

When I asked later I learned that Melody Green was the Warden's wife and she shot him Christmas Morning because he bought her a dress she didn't like, probably because the card attached had his girlfriend's name on it instead of her own. I wouldn't have liked the dress either, if you want to know the truth.

But I wouldn't have shot him for it in front of my entire family.

They hung her in his office at the prison and I guess it took her a long time to die.

Melody's dieing words were supposed to have been the Prison made her do it. But in the end she pulled the trigger...didn't she? I guess she realizes that now, I think they all realize it now up at the Lake.

You can't see the Prison Walls anymore but they are still there, and there's no leaving them.

Ever.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

Ghost Town by Anita Moscoso

2005-08-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Domino Wilton can't drive passed those empty looking towns, or roads that branch off from the highway without thinking about her family's home in a little town called Bronson Bluffs.

They rented a house there so Domino's Dad could go back to school for a year and then he could become a teacher.

That choice meant a loss of income and her Parents decided the best way to economize was to live cheap and you could do that on the Bluffs because it was practically a ghost town and the houses were dirt cheap.

It meant an over an hours commute for her Dad to get to school and her Mom to get to work but it wasn't a hard choice to make in the end because Domino's Dad couldn't spend another hour working in the slaughter house at MacKay’s.

So one day they packed up and left for their new home on Bronson Bluffs.

For the rest of her life Domino was convinced they were the only people living on the Bluffs. No one could change her mind. Not her Parents not her Counselors or Doctors or later her husband could change her mind.

Bronson Bluffs wasn't practically a ghost town; it WAS a ghost town.

Domino remembered how the streets would be empty, the stores would be open, maybe a bag of groceries and a checkbook would be on the counter but there was no one in the store; Domino was sure of that.

Then she would turn around and look again and there was Mrs. Greene and her daughter Kirsten and a half dozen other people looking at the shelves, talking in front of the vegetable bins or buying a soda at the fountain. Domino could hear them talking as she'd walk away and their voices would fade to whispers and she knew if she turned around they'd be gone again.

Nothing on the Bluffs felt solid to Domino.

Domino and her brothers hadn't started school yet, which was not something Domino was anxious to do on the Bluffs even though she hated spending day and night with her brothers.

She hated the way her brothers were always crying or fighting and coughing and sneezing.

Her little brothers, Derek and Miles were 3 and 2 at the time. She was almost six at the time and after all these years she remembers the dark heavy circles around their eyes. How skinny they were.

" It's not their fault they're always sick, they have trouble sleeping " she heard her Mom telling her Father as they forced cough medicine down Mile's throat " they're run down. I don't know what to do. "

Domino would have gladly taken that purple spicy medicine and been sick herself all of the time then to go that school and have to sit next to those rotten smelling kids. She as much said so herself one day as they drove by the school.

" Domino! " her Mother had snapped " That's an awful thing to say! "

" Well, they do stink, they smell like rotten eggs and they talk to themselves and make those weird faces..."

Her Mother had given her a good scolding and a lecture about saying mean things and Domino refused to back down because of what she'd see from the Park.

Half a block up and just around the corner, Domino use to love to play at the Park until she started to notice the kids at the school across the street.

During recess the little kids would come out single file and head for the monkey bars or rings and tether ball pole and instead of playing together they'd wander off and talk to themselves, and Domino could see their faces twist into grimaces and she could hear their teeth chatter and click in their mouths and sometimes they knew Domino was looking and they'd fly to the fence and hiss at her in words she couldn't understand.

The last time she had gone to the Park a little girl had climbed up the fence at the school and she was saying something to Domino only Domino wasn’t listening because on her way up the fence the little girl's wrist had caught in between the links and snapped. She pulled it free with a grunt and continued up the fence and she reminded Domino of a spider inching it's way up a wall.

" Domino, Domino, Domino come here and listen to me Domino. "

Domino was fascinated by the girl’s wrist, which was now almost shaped like a "C". The little girl pulled angrily at the fence and Domino looked up, " let us out, let us out, open the gates and let us ALL out. "

" Why don't you just walk out? " Domino had asked the little girl with the dark brown eyes; so dark it looked like she didn't any eyes in her head at all. " Just walk out why don't you. "

" Let us out Domino, let us all out! "

" No! " Domino had yelled, " you stay in there...you stay! " And as fast as she could Domino raced away from the school and the park. Why had she never noticed how dark that Park was? What were those things moving around in the trees? She kept looking over her shoulder at the school and she could hear the laughing and screeching that did sound like children playing, unless you really listened.

The sound was off key and wrong and it hurt Domino's ears just to listen to it for to long. Something wet was running down her neck and when she put her hand up to wipe it away she saw blood on her fingertips.

After that day Domino would cover her ears with her hands when she went by the school, even if she was in the car with her Parents.

There was a little Church; it looked like one that Domino had seen on a Christmas card once. It was white and had flowers out front and no windows. There was a heavy wooden beam nailed across the double doors and a little cemetery at it's back.

Domino’s family weren’t “ Church People “ and for the most part paid no attention to the sign out front inviting people to come and visit at 11:00 for Sunday Worship. In fact, it seemed that the entire town weren’t exactly “ Church People “ but Domino’s Mom did wonder why the door was nailed shut.

And why there were no windows.

They’d been living in the Bluffs for almost a month when Domino and her Dad had come home one day from a visit with Dad’s Mom, Grandma Carmen. There was a big Move-It truck in the front yard and her Mother was blindly throwing their things into the back of it.

Domino had never seen anything so wonderful in her life.

She ran around to the back of the truck and saw the bed was littered with furniture and pictures and pots and pans and if it was fragile it was broken because Domino’s Mom was tossing stuff in the back and she wasn’t obviously concerned with things like packing paper and boxes.

“ Jesus Katie, what are you doing? “ Domino’s Dad asked.

“ I’m moving us out Max, that’s what I’m doing. You can help or you can sit, but I suggest you help because if it’s not in this truck in the next 15 minutes it stays. That goes for you to by the way. “

“ Katie! Come on, why are you doing this? “

“ I went to sign Domino up for school today. “

“ Uh-oh “ Domino had said “ the Smelly kids? Did you see the smelly kids? “

Her Mom wasn’t listening, “ those things, those awful things were crawling up the walls…

“ Like Spiders? “ Domino asked.

Mom’s ears had been bleeding two little red lines ran down her neck and shoulders and she looked at Domino and said, “ just like Spiders. "

Domino's Dad was yelling now, yelling for Domino's Mom to stop it, stop this craziness of course they couldn't just take off and leave their house, leave everything behind.

" Oh yes we can, " Mom hissed, " Look behind you Max and tell me what you see. "

Domino could see it; Dad didn't want to turn around. " Why? " he asked

" You can feel it, can't you Max? So turn around, it's Mrs. Gunderson from across the street. Turn around Max and look at her. "

Domino looked around her Father's legs and then looked up at her Father and shook her head. There' were no words for her to describe Mrs. Gunderson because what Domino saw made no sense.

No sense at all.

" Don't turn around Daddy, " she said, " please don't turn around. "

But he did, Domino knew he would.

Mrs. Gunderson was walking by and she was smiling like the nice old lady she appeared to be. Only her feet weren't touching the ground and her head was lying over to one side. " Good afternoon " she said with a pleasant tight smile. Her eyes rolled back up into her head and she smiled brightly, " leaving us so soon? "

" Truck, " Domino's father said, " get in the truck Domino. "

Domino saw that Mrs. Gunderson's voice was coming out of her mouth, but her mouth wasn't moving her lips were parted slightly and Domino thought of a rag doll.

That's what Mrs. Gunderson looked like, a rag doll being shook and forced to move and makes sounds like a real girl.

Only of course a rag doll is just a doll and not a real girl.

And of course Mrs. Gunderson wasn't a real lady, she couldn't be.

Mrs. Gunderson crossed the street to her house and as she floated up the stairs to her front door Domino could hear the thump thump of her toes hitting against the steps.

The door opened for Mrs. Gunderson on it's own and slammed shut right after her.

" It's gets better Max, I drove by the Park on my way from the school and have you ever looked in the trees? "

" They're full of shoes. " Domino said with authority.

Her Mother looked down at her and her Mother asked her like she was a grown-up " Is that all you saw Domino? "

Domino nodded, " I played there a lot and I saw them...shoes, the trees are full of shoes "

" The trees Max" Domino's Mom said to her father without taking her eyes away from Domino " are full of people and they're hanging from the trees by their necks. Your daughter only saw their shoes. She played there Max, almost every single day we've lived here. "

" They don't bother me, not like the kids at the school or the people in the library or that man in the attic..."

" I can't listen to this anymore, " Mom said " get in the truck."

They left town that night and on the way out they saw the School Kids playing in the schoolyard. Domino and her family watched as the Children ran and twitched and whirled, caught up in a windstorm only they could be part of.

Domino saw the shoes in the trees dancing and kicking and all the while she could hear gurgling sounds and cries and everytime the shoes dropped they were yanked back up into the dark tree tops again.

They ended up at Grandma's house and Domino heard her Parents and Grandparents talking until sunrise.

They never talked to each other about the Bluffs again, but for years later they knew the others were thinking about Bronson because Domino or her Brothers or Parents would sometimes scream themselves awake from terrible nightmares and everyone would pretend they hadn't heard a thing.

Now days Domino Wilton can't drive passed those empty looking towns, or roads that branch off from the highway without thinking about her family's home in a little town called Bronson Bluffs and when she does pass them she pushes down as hard on the gas pedal without realizing it and stares into her rearview mirror until she's sure those little towns or roads can't see her anymore.

At least she hopes they can't.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

A weird night at the Duwamish Motel

2005-08-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

I scared a ghost.
It hovered over me, the pearlescent, misty form of a woman, then it screamed – it looked at me and screamed in horror, flicking back like smoke in a puff of wind.
Then it vanished.
Shaking, I slithered out bed and fell to the floor. My first thought was to run, but the ghost had completely vanished, and my legs wouldn’t work anyway. My second thought was that I should have listened to the locals that told me not to come near the Duwamish Motel. Strange happenings there, they said, and the owner, Mr Brede, was supposed to have murdered his wife. He was seen burying something in a nearby field. But it was both Mr Brede and his wife who greeted me at the reception desk, so I dismissed that as scurrilous gossip.
My third thought was to get back into bed and pull the covers over my head. I went with that one.
And she came back.
This time she pressed down on me, not like a weight, but with some force I couldn’t see.
``What are you DOING here?” she demanded. ``Who the hell are you? This is MY bed.”
``Not anymore,” I shouted back at her. ``I hired the room two hours ago – and nobody told me someone died here.”
``I am not dead!” the ghost snapped. ``I’m astral traveling.”
I sat up straight in bed. ``Where’s your silver cord?” I said. Everyone knows that a silver cord connects you to your corporeal body while you’re astral traveling, so you don’t get lost.
She looked blank. ``What silver cord?”
``You didn’t know about the silver cord? No wonder - ” I said. ``Was this your first time?”
``Yes – I got the instructions out of a book, How to Have an Out Of Body Experience In 30 Days or Your Money Back. It looked cool – I had to try it.”
``Did you read all of it?”
``No, I just skipped to the meditation bit.” She hung her ghostly head. ``Thirty days seemed such a long time to wait.”
Suddenly she flickered, growing dim, as if some of the ectoplasm, or whatever you call it, had drained away.
``Oh no,” she said. ``I couldn’t have.”
``Died?” I suggested. ``That’s possible. Maybe you really are a ghost.”
``But I only checked into the motel yesterday. The book said I needed a place where I could be completely alone. And I just went for a short trip.”
``Without your silver cord,” I reminded her.
There was a sharp rap on the door. ``You having trouble in there?”
``Must be Mrs Brede,” I said to my astral visitor. ``I’d better let her in.”
I opened the door. ``I heard you yelling,” Mrs Brede said. ``Is everything OK?”
Suddenly there was something very familiar about her. I looked at her, and I looked at my `ghost’.
``Oops,” I said.
``What are you doing in my body!” The astral traveler screamed. The woman backed away and raced off into the night, with the astral traveler in hot pursuit.
I guess Mrs Brede just couldn’t resist the opportunity to hop into an uninhabited body after her untimely death. As I raced out to my car I passed Mr Brede, swinging limply from a tree branch with a rope around his neck.
I jumped in my car and didn’t look back.

The Strangers Head

2005-08-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

Part I

The night was dark and dreary
I was feeling kind of weary
The light of the moon
Lit up the room
Like a spot light
In the dark of night
I abandoned my loom
Sensing impending doom
I moved to the window
Brushing the hair from my brow
I looked out into the night
What I saw gave me quite a fright
Standing on the ground below
Staring up at my window
Was a headless man
His head in his hand
I tried to hide my face
Behind the curtain lace
It was then he spoke to me
“Don’t be afraid lady
I come for your help
To reattach my scalp
You see it was said
That you go late to bed
And you were my best bet
To reattach my head.”

Part II

I pondered the strangers request
All the town can attest
I am the woman most prepared
To reattach the strangers head
I went and met him at the door
He looked like he belonged in folklore
I invited him in
Wherein
I led him to my sewing room
And lit some candles against the gloom
I got some water
And suggested a doctor
Might yield a greater effect
He said “I must protect
the secrets of my people.”
This caused my mind to boggle
What had I let myself into
Looking at the sinew
That protruded from his neck
First I had to check
That I had the correct tools
I gathered some spools
Of thread and my needles
And prayed to my angels
That my stitching tonight
Would be more than alright.

Part III

I bathed the wound
Which made him swoon
I threaded the needle
And with a bit of fiddle
His head upon his neck was placed
There we stood face to face
Starting to stitch
Using a topstitch
Trying to keep my stitches quite small
I tried to recall
A time
That stitching of mine
Held so much importance
I wondered what instance
Had befallen this man
From which unknown clan
Did he belong
Whose song
Did he sing
What secret did he bring
The stranger dressed in capes of black
I pulled the slack
From the thread
As I attempted to reattach his head.

Part IV

The night was growing long
The stitching only half done
It was then the stranger spoke
He was a most mysterious bloke
He spoke in riddle
Of which I understood little
I kept on with my stitching
I looked forward to finishing
It was then he told a tale of woe
That sounded rather like Poe
The wind outside was howling
I could hear a cat meowing
Suddenly the window blew open
And in from the dark blew a raven
Landing on the loom
In the corner of the room
I felt quite frightened
Wondering when this nightmare might end

Part V

I continued stitch by stitch
Trying not to twitch
With the raven watching over
My shoulder
It was nearing dawn
When the stitching was done
Little had been said
While I reattached the strangers head
The stranger reached into his pocket
And pulled out a velvet
Pouch
While I settled on the couch
He handed me the bag of gold
Saying it was very old
Thanking me for my kindness
And my stitching quite painless
Then he was gone
Into the rising dawn
The raven on his shoulder

Part VI

I woke at noon
In my sewing room
I thought it but a dream
So it might seem
Upon the loom a ravens feather
And a bag of gold from the stranger.

© Megan Warren August 2005

My finish to Heather's project

2005-08-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

See this small white hand wrapped in blood soaked leather,
See this small white hand wedded to a ring of beaten gold,
This small white hand once held mine,
It is my wife’s hand.

I’ve watched this hand sew stitches too small to be seen,
I’ve felt the touch of this hand on hot and fevered nights,
When its touch was all I craved.
It is your hand, my wife.

How comes my hunter to possess this small white hand,
When it was a wolf’s paw that he severed from its joint,
A killing wolf, a wolf that tore flesh
With my wife’s hand?

How come you to be sitting here without a light,
Your bloodied arm wrapped in a rag, your eyes wild,
While I hold your small white hand,
My wife’s small tender hand?

See, the full moon rises, soon both our secrets will be exposed,
Ours will be a savage mating, and then we’ll hunt the night as one.
I should have known about you, wife.
Wolves mate for life.

Warning Label: This Blog Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

2005-08-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

This is a warning to all who are considering Anita's invitation and Shiloh's challenge.

Willow charcoal is used by artists to lay out the first lines of a portrait. Thin and delicate, it breaks easily, but these very qualities ensure that the artist will employ a light touch. Lines must not be deeply etched into paper in solid black while an idea is being born or they will transfer from paper to eye, to brain and changes will be nearly impossible.

Charcoal can be smudged, erased with the touch of a finger tip. The shadows left behind remind the artist where he hopes to go but do not force him to go there.

Why am I telling you this? Because all the arts share things in common and there are places where the arts turn dark.

If you must write here in the Chamber, hurry on with your plot, keep it moving swiftly, don't linger over characters or concentrate on details! Do you ever wonder what Delphine looks like, what the exact shade of her hair is when she sits reading and the light hits it just so, or if she tilts her head when she hears a strange noise? Don't ponder these things! Do not use specific words to describe her or employ your other senses! You've asked yourself what scent she used, haven't you? I knew it! Do not explore this question or ask yourself about the quality of her voice, if it's low and mellifluous or high pitched and raspy.

You still don't understand. Let me tell you a story. I used to like to draw portraits. Used to. I would start with the eyes, the mirror of the soul, they say. I knew if I could get a likeness there, I'd have success with the whole face. I drew mostly children and older people, people I knew well. One day a friend asked me to draw a portrait of her boss from a photograph. As usual, I began with the eyes.

I felt them looking back at me, but I'd experienced this feeling before on good drawing days, so I didn't worry. When I got to the mouth I had some difficulties, a smile just wouldn't come, the lips refused and I erased over and over again. I decided to switch to the hair. That was when I swore the eyes blinked. I discounted it, of course, until the lips formed a smirk and the eyes blinked again. I threw my drawing pad down and fled into the kitchen. When I came back, I crumpled the paper and threw it and the photo in the waste basket, but every time I opened my pad again the face was back, angrier and more snarly than before.

I took everything, drawingpad, photo, and charcoal outside and and did the only thing I could think of; I set fire to them.

To this day I can't get the sound of those screams out of my head.

Another Great Project from Heather!

2005-08-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

The Heller Asylum & Medical School

2005-08-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

What remains today of the Asylum
( Back Right- The Infamous "Plague Church "

The Medical School

A sign on the entrance door appeared last week. It reads, " Accepting Applications for Students and Staff "
No one knows where it came from

Can You See The Story?

2005-08-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

This is a Real Story and I thought it has the potential to inspire some writings from our group. I'm curious: what story do you see?
Anita Marie

Coffin From Civil War Uncovers Mystery By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
Thu Aug 4, 4:43 PM ET

The rusty iron coffin stubbornly resisted hammer and chisel as researchers in a warm Smithsonian laboratory sought a glimpse of an American who lived more than a century and a half ago.

An electric drill, its orange cord snaking around the pre-Civil War artifact, finally freed the lid.

"This is a person and we want to tell this person's story. She is our primary obligation," anthropologist Doug Owsley said as the lid was lifted to reveal a young body wrapped in a brown shroud.

The scientists hope to identify the remains so they can have a properly marked grave. In the process, they have a chance to learn about mortuary practices of the period, what disease and trauma people may have suffered, their diet, past environments, clothing and perhaps even social customs.

Based on the small size, they had expected the coffin to contain a female body. On examination, it turned out to be a boy, about age 13.

The coffin was found in April by utility workers digging in Washington.

Owsley, head of physical anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, said the body was well preserved. The young man wore a shirt and vest, pants and drawers, all hand-sewn, as well as a pair of socks. Only the socks appeared machine-made, Owsley said Thursday.

"I think ultimately we'll be able to determine who he was and what the cause of death was," he said. Owsley said the young man's right lung had adhesions indicating an infection, possibly pneumonia, and calcifications of the lymph nodes from infections.

The cast iron coffin was shaped a bit like an Egyptian mummy and is of a type called Fisk style patented in 1848. This particular model was popular in the early 1850s among the well-to-do, Owsley said.

Because they are sealed, cast iron coffins tend to yield well persevered bodies. Indeed, the young person looked not unlike an ancient mummy, even though he had not gone through the Egyptian embalming procedures.

The Washington iron coffin was one of three opened this week in Owsley's lab.

Two others are from a Caswell family cemetery near Kinston, N.C. Their grave markers have been lost and the museum is helping the family identify the remains — comparing them with family records — so they can be reburied in newly marked graves.

Water had gotten into those coffins, causing the remains to deteriorate.

Nonetheless, anthropologist Kari Bruwelheide said researchers had identified two gallstones in one body that might have contributed to death. The other showed no signs of sickness or trauma, said Bruwelheide, a specialist in skeletons.

Both sets of remains were of middle-aged women. Both had dental work, including gold fillings, and in one, a porcelain crown.

The Washington remains are in much better condition, with skin and soft tissues intact. Researchers were using long cotton swabs to get samples they could test for toxins and bacteria.

Human remains from burials are a rich source of information about the past. Owsley's team has studied many of them over the years, though only a few have been from cast-iron coffins, which were rare and expensive.

On hand for the opening, in addition to Owsley's research team, were scientists from other museum departments and students from East Carolina State University.

After the Washington coffin was opened the body was carefully removed for CT scanning. An autopsy will be performed.

___

On the Net:

National Museum of Natural History: http://www.mnh.si.edu

Stone Hearts by Anita Moscoso

2005-08-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

We sat side by side at the abandoned railway station looking out onto the dead tracks.

" I don't sing, I don't dance and I don't do poetry " I told my companion " but I do know stories. Lots of them. "

The woman next to me settled back against the rotting wooden bench and stretched her arms in front of herself and I could see her fingernails were long and polished and curled slightly at the tips.
" I like stories, so go ahead. Tell me one. "

It was a challenge.

Fine, I like challenges.

" There once was a woman, who lived on the Bluffs above Deadwood Hall, her name was Cecelia Marrow. "

I heard my companion draw a long deep breath and I could feel her staring at the side of my head and I knew she wasn't smiling. " Marrow, as in..." she began.

" Marrow of your bones " I said " which is how she affected people. To the Marrow of their bones. She wasn't a pleasant woman. She was the Pharmacists wife and everyone thought she married him just so she could be near all those...potions. "

" They flirted with her, those pretty things in the jars " I heard my companion say.

" Yes they did, " I said " It was an infatuation at first. She'd hold those little bottles up to the sunlight and admire them the same way other women would admire jewelry or fine fabrics or even flowers. She'd hold them up and nothing else was more real to her then what was inside of those bottles."

" She looked very pretty, soft, and sweet when she was behind the counter standing among those jars and bottles with their hand written labels. Then someone would walk into the shop and her face would harden into a mask, a grimace and she would stand between you and those medicines and dare you to reach out and touch them. She was jealous, even then. "

" She was obsessed " was whispered right into my ear and I had to clench my hands together so that I wouldn't reach out and slap my companion away.

" Oh she was, she would walk into the shop in the morning after dreaming of her lovers all night and she would stand there with flushed cheeks and a racing heart. Then those powders and liquids and roots and herbs would whisper to her, whisper things that they could do for her, gladly, blindly and with pleasure...for her just for her. "

" What did they give her? "

" Lives, they gave her lives the same way a young man gives flowers or chocolates to his sweetheart. They would escape the shop at night and find their way into the food stored in kitchens and the water in the wells. They found their way onto fruits and vegetables still growing on vines and in the trees and fields, they would hide themselves in clothing, blankets toothpaste and perfumes. There was wasn't a place her love wouldn't go to find tokens of it's affection "

" When it was done, most of Marrow Falls was dead. All that was left was Cecelia, her husband Ben and a handful of families. But they were not well people, Cecelia's Lovers hadn't been able to kill them but they ruined them all the same. Sickened them for the rest of their short tortured lives. "

" She was caught, " my companion said.

" Do you know the people of Marrow Falls were once simply called the River People and they knew this; the River was alive. Its full of ghosts. They buried their dead there you see. That River” I said pointing beyond the fence where we could hear rushing water “ is a cemetery.”

I continued, “ she tried to escape on a Barge down the River to Duwamish and it was more then the Sprits could bear, her walking on those graves like that, so they reached up out of the water and pulled her over the side and held her down and then they took her face. "

" Didn’t they? " I asked my companion.

" She wears a mask now " my companion told me but no matter what she puts on her ruined face it turns to stone and each stone face is a cursed face"

" You're from the River, you’re from the Falls, aren't you? " my Companion asked.

" Yes. "

" Will you let me go? Will you ask the River People to let me leave? "

I looked straight into that stone face, the face that froze hearts in terror...not for it's ugliness but because the true curse of the River People was this; my Companions face would always mirror the Sins of the person looking into it. That was the terror, to look into this creatures face and see your own monster carved in marble staring back at you.

She would never know love of any kind ever again.

I put my face close to hers and said, " Never. "

Then I got up and walked up over the little hill and into the waters and all the time I could hear my Companion...weeping.

Or maybe she was laughing.

It all sounds the same from down here.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

GOYA'S DEVOURING MONSTERS

2005-08-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

This was a Story Challange Heather put out and I wrote " Deadwood Farm " and " The Gravedigger's Daughter". What story will you come back with after visiting Goya's Devouring Monsters?

The Mystery of Goya's Saturn

The painting known as 'Saturn Devouring One of His Sons', by Francisco Goya, presents us with a terrifying cannibal god, Kronos, whom he depicts as a wild, revolting figure, consuming his offspring. The ancient deity looks crazed, his eyes are atrocious and the painting is one of those which imprints itself on the psyche of those who examine it closely.

'Saturn Devouring One of His Sons' springing from the Kronos myth, was a part of Goya's 'Black Painting' series when Goya 'carved his fates and inscribed his nighmares directly onto plaster.'

The earliest version of the Kronos myth--Saturn is the later Roman name--was written down by Hesiod in his Theogony, around the eighth century, B.C.E.

First comes Chaos; then Earth/Gaia; Tartarus in the bowels of Earth; and finally Eros. Earth gives birth to Heaven, also known as Ouranos, and then bears twelve of his children, the last, "most terrible of sons/The crooked-scheming Kronos." Earth and Ouranos have three more sons, so fearsome and mighty that Ouranos forces them back inside their mother, burying them alive. She forms a sickle, and asks her other sons to use it against their father, "For it was he/Who first began devising shameful acts." All are afraid, except Kronos. She gives him the sickle, hides him in her, and he castrates his father, preventing him from having more children, then assumes power among the Titans. But fear lives in his heart; a usurper himself, he learns that one of his own children will usurp him, and he devours them at birth:

As each child issued from the holy womb
And lay upon its mother's knees, each one
Was seized by mighty Kronos, and gulped down.

Through a ruse by his mother, the last born, Zeus, survives, leads a war against Kronos, and casts him down to Tartarus. Even gods cannot overcome Fate.

Reviewers have asked what it was that Goya recognized in himself that charged the work with such raw, wounding power? Jason Scott Morgan, for example, alludes to the traditional father and son narrative which has been presented in, amongst other documents, the Bible.

Maybe Goya was painting this narrative but I suspect not. Before he began the Black Paintings, Goya survived a near fatal illness, documented in his Self-portrait with Dr. Arrieta. Goya depicts himself as a "pained and weary artist, surrounded by dark, phantasmal faces." It is plausible that Saturn was painted as a way to express the lonely terror of mortality. Since my husband's body has been ravaged by a third round of bowel cancer, and we have faced the lonely terror of mortality, I have every reason to think that this is likely. If I could paint I would paint Atrophe, towering like a giant, scissors in hand, tormenting us with the reality that she has the power to cut the thread at any moment. Goya's Saturn touches me deeply because it expresses shared pain and his Atropos paints the dark dreams that haunt me.

So what charged Goya's painting of Saturn? As his health declined, as he stared creative impotence in the eyes - Saturn's eyes, Atrophos's scissors his work gathered momentum and a dark force. It doesn't really matter if Goya threw away his pastels and used someone like Saturn as a metaphor to represent the terror of creative impotence. Who cares if Goya used Saturn as a metaphor to depict the 'black dog' that consumes artists offspring -- that hungrily devours work deemed, for whatever reason, not to be of any merit, not to fit the stereotypical mould. The main thing is that Goya went right outside the square and painted with force that speaks with passion today.

I imagine Goya must have smiled wryly when he realised that he had captured the demonic figure who had lived with him all his life. But most of all I am grateful that he has so powerfully captured the demon who lurks in my nightmares, for I know now that I am not alone.

Gravesway and Associates by Anita Moscoso

2005-08-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

Darwin Chubrough once spent an entire summer in the abandoned mining town of Gravesway with nothing except the cold and dust and the dead for company.

He had gone alone to Gravesway to photograph and draw the abandoned houses, stores, church, saloons and a little brick schoolhouse. He had spent an eventful week exploring the graveyard and one morning tried to follow the railroad tracks that wound their way up Cavanaugh Mountain.

He was forced back by deadfall and rock slides after a freak rainstorm.

He didn't know the devastation from the slides were much worse in the valley. It wasn't until later he realized that he was trapped in this place where nothing lived...and nothing died.

Ever.

Darwin met Mr. Gravesway and his Associates the day after the storm. He was staying in the abandoned Saloon, because it had a good roof and the rooms though dusty were dry and very livable despite having been standing empty of almost 100 years.

One day Darwin heard the doors downstairs open then shut and footsteps coming up the stairs to his room.

He heard snatches of conversation and he even heard someone sniff then sneeze.

Then there was a knock on his door and it swung open slowly and a good natured looking man who looked as if he enjoyed more then one trip to the bottom of the occasional bottle of hard liquor said " hello there Sir. I was wondering if you'd care to join my friends and me downstairs for a drink or two. "

That was Mr. Gravesway, the first dead person Darwin ever met.

And he wouldn't be the last.

" Well give you a moment. " The Gentleman said and then he was gone and the door was pulled slowly shut.

Darwin was rooted to the spot, unable to move because his mind was to busy having a conversation with itself and had no time to respond to the little voice that was Darwin begging his legs to move or run or for his voice to work enough to scream just a little.

" I just saw a dead man, a pale shade of a man I could almost see through invite me downstairs for a drink. Isn't that the darndest thing Darwin? I mean did you see that? "

RUN! The little voice was yelling.

" I don't think he was alone, that's the bad part. I don't mean just bad I mean you are so screwed BAD. So what should I do? "

" I think I should get the Hell out of here!" his voice screamed back to his brain out loud.

From downstairs someone cleared their throat and called up cordial and nice as you please, " Everything okay up their Sir?"

Darwin stood in the middle of his room, his face as pale and drained of blood and life as the man who'd just been upstairs to talk to him and he called back, " just a second! "

And then he fainted.

Mr. Gravesway and his Associates were looking down at the man on the floor. He had a round pleasant face and he wore wire-rimmed glasses. His hair was dark and curly and he was in need of a shave.

" Poor fellow, " said a voice with no body to house it, " I thought this might be to much for him. Really Gravesway, couldn't you have been a little less obvious? "

" What would you like to do? That business where we write in the dust? Talk into his tape recorder when he's not here? Go into his head when he sleeps and let him dream us? Parlor tricks for ghosts and we're not Ghosts. Remember that ladies and gentleman, we're not ghosts. "

" That's our problem, isn't it? " said a little girl holding a china doll in a blue dress.

Mr. Gravesway nodded. " Yes it is Tanith, that's our problem alright. "

" Do you think he can help us? " the little girl asked.

Mr. Gravesway peered into the round friendly face of Darwin Chubrough and saw he wasn't completely passed out. He said firmly and happily " Yes I think he can ".

When Darwin came to, Mr. Gravesway was sitting on the sun-seat and he stood in alarm as Darwin's eyes began to roll back into his head. " Oh, don't do that again young man. That can't be good for you to keep fainting like that. Look, I'm all alone and I'm going to sit right here and not do anything...unpredictable. But I am going to tell you a story and when I'm done I'm hoping you can help my Associates and myself. If not, it doesn't matter we're still going to help you find your way out of Gravesway..."

" Road..." Darwin croaked.

" Oh, that's gone I'm afraid. Buried under a mountain of landslide. But there are other ways. Tunnels and the like. We'll help you Mr...

" My name is Darwin Chubrough "

" Mr Chubrough..."

" Darwin, call me Darwin " he said as he sat up.

Gravesway extended his hand and Darwin stood to shake it and their hands passed right through each other. Gravesway held his hand up to the sunlight and his good-natured face suddenly looked sad and he started to remember...

" The sickness came the day we started mining over in 64. She was a treacherous mine. She collapsed, sent up rotten air that made people sick for days. That was just the beginning.
Once we got her working the suicides started, the sicknesses started and people started to fade..."

" Die you mean? " Darwin asked quietly.

" Not all of them "

" Excuse me? Some people lived? "

" No, I mean only parts of us died. This sickness only took parts of us. "

Darwin was puzzled and he before he could ask Mr Gravesway seemed to wake up and he said, " It was as strange illness Darwin. You see, it killed our souls and left the rest of us behind to fade like old photographs. "

" I guess Mr Chubrough, you'd call us Zombies. "

From below the window Darwin thought he heard voices passing by, maybe a dog or two barking and even an echo of laughter. They were everyday sounds. He looked over Mr Gravesway's shoulder into the empty street below and asked, " Do they know, do they know they're different now? "

" Some of them, poor wretches. You know, they can't tell if they're dreaming or awake. Most of them thank God, think they're just dreaming...things you see look very unreal to them. " Gravesway stood and joined Darwin as he looked out the window. " I see my town, alive as it was the day I took ill and became this. In a moment I'll see something that happened a year ago, two days ago or a year from now. I might find myself in my office or riding my horse into the hills "

" After a while you just fade and fade till youÂre an echo. Then you go crazy and we think, we think we go into the mines. "

Gravesway echoed to him self sadly; " we go into the mines forever. "

Darwin looked into GraveswayÂ s fading face and understood. " It's happening to you now, isn't it? "

" Once it does you know, well the others...they're young folk for the most part, they'll be young and left alone to face this. It's a terrible thing Darwin for a young person to look into oblivion alone. "

" I guess I'm asking you Darwin, to help me figure a way out of this. I can't believe there's nothing we can do. "

And that's Darwin learned later is why Mr. Gravesway outlived most of his Associates.

He simply refused to let go.

Darwin was alone in his room that night and from his window he heard the town of Gravesway come to life. He heard music from the Saloons, he heard wives scolding husbands, he heard horses and mining equipment being worked. He could hear some fighting and in the distance a gunshot or two.

Then he picked up his notebook and aimlessly wrote, " Tanith, maybe aged eight. Doll with a blue dress. Wise beyond her years. I think she was like that...before. " And then he wrote, " Only heard a voice, no image. Older man Irish accent..."

The crying from the rooms downstairs was soul wrenching, " Mr. Gravesway, MR GRAVESWAY! My Tanith is GONE, oh God... the Mines she's gone into the mines. Mr. Gravesway please help me find my Tanith! "

Darwin raced down the stairs and saw a woman as solid as himself crying onto the shoulder of the fading Mr. Gravesway. He didn't startle at the sight of Mr. Gravesway empty eye sockets. It would have been ungentlemanly to do so and even though he doubted she could feel it, he rested a comforting hand on the shoulder of Tanith's heartbroken Mother.

Later in the evening Darwin was standing at the Bar, tended by a very lively man by the name of Leo. " Sorry I can't offer you a drink there Darwin...but..."

" It's okay. So tell me Leo. How are you, you know feeling. "

" Lost my Granddad this morning. At least, I think it was this morning. Maybe it was a month ago...you know how it goes around here."

Darwin let that pass because Leo's grief was at the moment very real to the both of them.

" He knew all these great songs and stories from the old country. Could keep us laughing and crying for hours. "

" Old country? "

" Ireland, he was from Ireland. " Leo said with pride but Darwin was all ready halfway up the stairs to his room and pulling his notebook from his backpack and screaming for Mr. Gravesway before Leo was even finished speaking his sentence.

Darwin spent the rest of that summer with the People of Gravesway. He wrote down their stories and drew pictures of things they told him they could see and with each memory they left with Darwin they were able to leave Gravesway.

Not by the mines, according to Mr. Gravesway, but by train.

Mr. Gravesway hung on until the end, or tried to.

One morning he told Darwin it was done. Everyone in Gravesway was gone...almost.

So through that morning Mr. Gravesway worked with Darwin on maps, detailed maps Darwin would become famous for. These maps detailed lost mines and hidden cities far beneath the earth and a way for Darwin to leave the valley.

It wasn't until Gravesway time had come that Darwin realized the extra details were a gift from Gravesway... a fate altering gift.

Within a few years Darwin's family would become wealthy and well known for the discoveries they would make because of what was on these maps.

And above all they would be all known for their good hearts and generosity.

As the last detail was drawn in Darwin realized Mr. Gravesway was gone... most likely he was on his way to the Mines he feared so much and was willing to face for his friends and Associates. Darwin cried onto his journal, hoping with each stroke of his pen that he wasn't to late: Mr. Gravesway was my good friend and a good man.

Darwin didn't know if that was enough, he hoped with all his heart it was.

Across the street in the Station Darwin was unable to see, Mr. Gravesway boarded his train. As it took him out of Gravesway he wished he could have told Darwin that thought was more then enough.

And one day he had no doubt he'd be able to tell Darwin himself.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

The Chamber of Horrors and The Isolation Ward

2005-07-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

How many times do I have to tell you I came back as the School’s Librarian because I wanted a nice safe place to settle back in? I've been out of practice for a very long time and I had to brush up on my studies.

It was peaceful, quiet and with each day I felt...hmmm, more involved you might say.

The next thing you know I'm hunting around a morgue for lost students, I'm settling in staff and
trying to set up housekeeping under ridiculous circumstances then I find myself pulling out some old medical equipment (oh don't look like that, I'm referring to the straight jackets) for some Ghost Hunters who decided to try to dive out a window in my library and haven't been quite the same since.

From the looks of them right now, the kindest thing to do was let them fly.

I had to put them in the Isolation Ward; it's the safest place really. Nothing in there can hurt them. I just wish you wouldn't have done that damaged to the door because I've had to restrain all eight of them in there.

It was no easy task...look, one even bit me.

So it's you and me now, until the next shift anyway.

The rest? They're all tucked away safely, the students, the Ghost Hunters (sorry, no I'm okay I was trying not to laugh and I choked a bit there) the curious and the very, very stupid. Tucked away and waiting for... well, you know, help.

Ignore the yelling, I do. It's good practice; it's only going to get worse later.

Yes, it's a good thing the Midnight Shift kept the place up all these years.

They better have, the lazy brutes.

So now let me see here, the beds are ready, the treatment rooms and the equipment are in perfect working order.

Why even the Plague Church is ready.

Now there's a happy surprise.

Everything is ready and I think it's time to begin our rounds. Shall we start with the Isolation Ward? No, you first Jonathan. And do quit calling me by that silly name. How long exactly have you been in that room? It's me; it's your wife...

It's Delphine.

Come Darling, you first...

I insist.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

Deadwood Farm By Anita Moscoso

2005-07-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

There are two brothers who live in a farmhouse at the edge of a town called Mercer.

No one knows how long they've lived there or where their family was from or if there had ever been anyone living up there besides the two brothers. They could have been ten brothers or no brothers or maybe there never was a house up there.

However, rest assured, there is a house up there.

It's called Deadwood Farm.

Things like Deadwood have always existed right alongside the paths and roads that we travel everyday. If you're lucky, you'll never notice them, you'll never follow them and you'll never find what's at the end of them.

If you're lucky.

When the town of Mercer was established in 1902 the Bronson family were already living just outside of town on the farm. There was the Mother Ernestine the Father Yesler and the boys, the Deadwood Brothers.

Their names may have been Yesler Jr. and Ernest Jr. Only no one ever seemed to refer to the boys by these names, not even by the family name. They were always called after their home and nobody knew why.

No one ever asked.

It's not that there weren't questions in Mercer about the Deadwood Brothers; questions like why their limbs where so misshapen. Each brother had one long arm and one short with a twisted left hand. Their heads seemed to be mashed slightly flat on their right and both for as long as anyone could remember had both been bald.

They always wore old fashion clothes, very proper looking suits with bright brass buttons and top hats. They dressed that way all the way up to modern times. Their clothing style never changed and neither did the Deadwood Brothers.

The Deadwoods may have looked comical out there in the Pacific Northwest Mountains of Washington state in their Victorian era clothes, but no one ever laughed at those brothers. Laugh at them from a mile away and you just knew they could see you. They would know you were out there laughing at them and then most awful thing of all would happen... they would look at you.

Their eyes were a terrible shade of white with the faintest tinge of blue in them and though no one ever really got close to the brothers their eyes those awful eyes could reach out and touch you all the same.

And the feeling was far from pleasant.

In every town, every village there's always someone who knew someone else that once saw something strange...but you'd never hear stories like that about the Deadwood Brothers or their Farm.

Stories like the shadows on the trees.

The shadows are scorch marks that have been burned onto some of the trees. There are always two figures, misshapen figures of two men with what could be top hats on their heads. Each has a long and short arm with a claw like hand.

Sometimes the burn marks are of just images of a head, an arm or what looks like brush marks from a paintbrush. It looks as if the moving shadow was frozen into the tree's trunk. But the same types of marks have turned up on rocks and cliff sides and even on some of the buildings in Mercer.

No one ever questioned why you could hear a train up at the Deadwood Farm, never pointed out there were no tracks leading up there or anywhere close to the house. When people down in Mercer heard the whistle and could hear the trains engines work as it pulled the train up into those hills they'd flinch a little and talk loud enough to drown out the sounds.

They also never, ever talked about the missing families from the hills around Deadwood Farm.

The Jackson’s, the Newton’s, the Gunderson’s, the Terry's, the Greens, The Kline’s...in all there are almost a dozen families gone. Their houses are still up there empty of people but full of furnishings and clothes and food rotting in cellars and on tables and in pantries.

Sometimes families went missing from Mercer itself and that was always the hardest to ignore. The hardest not to mention.

But in the end that's exactly what happened.

Nothing even remotely connected to the Deadwood Brothers was really ever talked about.

It had something to do with those eyes.

So if you care to, step behind those eyes for a minute and see for yourself the real Deadwood Farm.

First thing you’ll see are the doors, window frames, floors all made from Deadwood....

The Deadwood was taken from gallows and torture racks and wheels used to break backs and bones. The frames from guillotines and old wooden surgery tables and coffins unearthed all across the world are in this house too.

All found and carefully reshaped in the hands of Mr. Yesler Bronson.

Now take a look at either side of the walkway leading up to the front porch.

This is where Yesler and Ernestine are buried. They’ve been there since the day the Deadwood Brothers were born.

Ernestine found the twin boys, each in a wooden cradle in her sewing room one hot summer evening. She heard babies crying and assumed that it must have been cats fighting. There were no children in the Bronson Household. No reason for her to hear crying babies.

She went in and looked into the cradles and wasn't taken back by the children's odd appearances or the fact they were even there to begin with. She looked around the room and asked it, " What have you done now? "

" Yesler! " she yelled, " Yesler! "

In the library downstairs Yesler closed his book. Looked up and mumbled, " now what " and then he got up and went to his wife.

Her face was twisted, her eyes were cold hard specks of blue ice, " I've stood by you Yesler, and your...how can I put it, your new dietary habits and views on religion. Even allowed you to build this place from deadwood and put I've put up with the mischief this house gets to on it's own and as for you! I've helped you Yesler and I've enjoyed every moment of it. But this, now this house...look! It's had children Yesler, how is that possible? "

He looked down into the cradle and shook his head, " I hope you don't think I...."

" Well, of course not! What do we do with them Yesler? "

" They're deadwood Ernestine...we'll do what we always do with Deadwood " and then he reached into one of the cradles and the bedroom door slammed shut and the screaming....

It went on for hours.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

The Gravedigger's Daughter by Anita Moscoso

2005-06-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Percy Reilly became the Chief Groundskeeper and Gravedigger at the Cemetery outside the town of Resolution on his 20th birthday.

He moved into the Caretaker's Cottage and turned it into a very respectable home in a short amount of time. One year after moving in he brought home a wife and they had a daughter they named Frieda.

Frieda’s childhood was spent in the cemetery among the stone angels and marble lambs and gray tombstones and it was probably best she had no desire to travel past the cemetery gates and down the road into the small town of Resolution because on
The day Frieda was born a terrible thing happened in the town of Resolution.

That was the day the small cemetery outside of the town's only church was desecrated. The Pioneers Cemetery was ripped apart, graves plundered and dry brittle bones and shrouds and things long buried where scattered from one end of the grounds to the other.

That's what happened the day Frieda was born and no one ever believed the two things weren't connected.

And they were right.

In the following years in the town of Resolution the young people and some of the older residents, their resolve strengthened by alcohol or outright bullying on each others part would dare each other up into the hills of Resolution and to the Cemetery at the end of the aptly named Coffin Road.

The idea of the trip was to find the Gravedigger's Daughter, who for the past 50 years still lived in the caretaker's cottage.

If you could stand the voice that came from that throat and slithered into your ear you'd learn your future. She knew how you would die and if you could prevent it. She could hear the whispers from the ghosts who walk among the living and sometimes she knew where all sorts of things had been hidden or buried.

And Frieda was never wrong.

All you had to do was look her in the eye as she tells you your fortune.

Another thing you had to be sure of was that you didn't go mad just looking into that face; and the Asylum in the next town over held at least a dozen living former residents of Resolution who weren't able to hold their own in the face of Frieda Reilly.

One day Baxter and Everett, two local boys, met Frieda just before sunset last November. They went up to the cemetery to find the Gravedigger's Daughter to ask her
her to tell one of them their fortune.

They dared each other to see who could stare into her face and learn their own fates.

Everett took the bet and up to the cemetery they went.

All the way up into the hills Baxter reminded Everett the bet was off if he didn't actually look into Frieda’s face when she answered. If he shut his eyes, screamed out or turned back that 100.00 bet was as good as spent in Town that night and Everett could just stand there and watch him spend it all.

On the way up to the Cemetery on Coffin road, they passed an abandoned farmhouse surrounded by a dead apple orchard, they cut through a field coated with dust and walked down into a ravine choked with plants they'd never seen anywhere around town.

The flowers were dry and brittle and the leaves gave off a sharp pungent odor. Maybe it was only a trick of the light but the small blossoms seemed to glow with their own light in the coming twilight.

Then they found a set off steps carved from granite followed them up to an unused but well cared for path and then they were at the gates of the cemetery.

Everett heard it first.

Laughing.

A child's thin high voice traveled down to them and passed around them like a soft breeze and was gone.

Baxter grabbed the gate and pulled it open. Everett stepped inside and looked back at Baxter. " I don't want to do this. I really don't want to do this " he told his friend mournfully.

The laughter came back and both men, without realizing it wiped their faces with the cuffs of their sleeves.

" Bet's a bet man, " Baxter said. Then he pulled the gate shut.

Everett wandered around the cemetery for a while. In the setting sunlight he finally saw the Caretaker's Cottage on a little Hill in the west corner of the graveyard surrounded by dead black trees and the skeletal remains of shrubs and bushes.

" Frieda! " he called " Frieda Reilly, are you home?"

The door to the cottage swung open and a blast of stale dried air crawled out of that dark place and slid and twisted it's way to Everett and wrapped itself around his legs and before it could crawl up to his face he brushed himself off and backed away from the house.

Then he saw the shadows in the doorway separate and reach out towards him and before he could shut his eyes, before he could scream he saw a little girl standing in the doorway.

She was an ordinary little girl and Everett thought, Sunflowers. She reminds me of sunflowers. Who on earth would plant sunflowers up here?

" What do you want? " that little girl said with a child's voice in Everett's ear, but in Everett's mind the voice was old, old and corrupt and rotten.

Poor Everett was past the point where his mind was able to make sense out of anything anymore.

" I'm here for Frieda Reilly, I'm here to learn my future. "

" Will you stay for awhile and keep me company? I get very lonely here. The dead are mad at me again and they won't talk to me. Just because I hurt them..."

" Hurt them? " Everett felt dizzy, his own voice sounded very far away and he was cold, so very cold. " Why would you hurt the dead? "

" Because I get hungry, " the little Sunflower said soulfully. " That's all, I just get so hungry. "

" I'll give you something to eat, if you tell me where Frieda is. "

" Promise " said the Sunflower

" I promise. " said Everett.

" Okay, here I am! " the Sunflower cried happily.

And then Everett didn't see Sunflowers he saw Frieda Reilly.

He saw the semblance of a six year old girl; he saw a twisted elfin face engulfed by milky green eyes with no pupils, her ears were pale and leathery and pointed and her mouth was too wide for her small face and full of sharp white teeth.

Frieda’s hair was bright and golden and glistened alive with it's own warmth in the moonlight. Just like a sunflower.

" I'm here to learn my future Frieda Riley. " he said in a whisper, his voice was far away and his mind following it.

His eyes were locked onto that terrible face and he wished to God he could at least see those Sunflowers. Even if they weren't really there. “Please, oh please, I just want to see the sun…” his poor tortured soul was screaming

" Oh that's easy Everett Halsey, you're going to die here. That's your future! Now keep your promise. "

He did keep his promise. He held out his hand and then he was pulled down for a very long time and terrible pains crawled up his arm to his shoulder and then to his neck and then the darkness took him.

Across the cemetery near the gate Baxter reached through the wrought iron fence and picked up a little cloth bag full of coins.

Very old and valuable coins.

He looked into the bag sadly and then started that long walk down into Resolution.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

A Spooky Story

2005-05-25T03:19:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, only yesterday, a very wealthy nobleman and his wife lived in a beautiful palace not far from the woods.

One morning a very terrible thing happened. The nobleman was watching television when suddenly an important update was reported. A werewolf had escaped from a sanctuary and had been seen in the woods. Two victims had been killed.

The nobleman ran straight to his wife’s room but she wasn’t there. The nobleman looked all over the palace but she was nowhere to be seen. The nobleman let out a huge yelp and asked for his hunter. The hunter ran right to him.
“What do you want?” said the hunter.
“ I believe my wife was has been kidnapped. I was just watching television when I heard that a werewolf had escaped in the woods and two people have been killed. If my wife is in the woods she will be killed as well. I want you to take this sword to the woods and kill the werewolf”

The hunter ran down to the woods and hid behind a tree. After waiting there for almost two hours he saw the werewolf. The hunter jumped out from behind the tree and cut the werewolves paw off. However, the werewolf was not killed but injured. The werewolf ran from the hunter. The hunter put the bloody paw in the pocket of his shirt and then went back to the palace. The hunter then showed the nobleman the paw. The nobleman believed that he had killed the werewolf but still could not find his wife.

The nobleman walked down to the kitchen to get a bite to eat. To his surprise his wife was making soup with only one hand. The other hand was in the pocket of her apron. The nobleman asked the his wife
“Why are you cooking with one hand?”
His wife replied
“I am using one hand because I am the werewolf your hunter chased in the woods.”

DONG, DONG the clock struck twelve.

The nobleman’s wife started to grow fur.
“What thick hair you have” said the nobleman.
Then suddenly the nobleman’s wife grew big brown eyes and the she started to grow long pointy nails that were as sharp as a knife.
“What long nails you have” said the nobleman.
“The better to stab you with” said the nobleman’s wife and she pounced on him. Blood went everywhere.

Now the nobleman is dead and we all know that all along the werewolf was the nobleman’s wife and that this werewolf ain’t coming back.
At least we hope she is not coming back.

Brittany Grade 5/6Q

Another Story Starter Hint: Journal Keeping

2005-05-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

This was based on a real life trip I took and was actually a very small entry in one of my journals. I've used this particular entry to write at least 3 stories here at the Cafe...just a little FYI on the use of Journal Writing.
Anita Marie

I use to ride dirt bikes and on one of my weekend warrior trips I came across an abandoned mining town. All I found were the foundations of about 3 buildings some glass medicine bottles ( which I still have ) and now scars all over my right shoulder.

Anyway, I was riding around the foundations and cut across a little field when all of the sudden I heard some ripping and popping sounds. I'd never heard sounds like that in my life and decided to open her up and get out of there fast. I'm ashamed to say I panicked and I nearly ditched my bike. I had good reason to be scared though; that sound seemed to be following me.

When I made it to the road I looked back and saw a HUGE hole in the ground. I had ridden right across these wooden platforms or 'caps' over an old mine shaft entrance and the tearing and popping was the sound of the wood breaking apart and collapsing.

There was so much dust and dirt that kicked up that it almost looked like a fire. And, it took a long time before I heard what I thought was the timber hitting the bottom of the shaft. On the other hand, I can't swear to that. I was way to scared and wasn't to sharp at that point.

Being that I was 23 at the time, it didn't occur to me I almost DIED. So after I calmed down I rode around and looked for more building foundations and found some. I also found things like railroad spikes, those little cars they hauled stuff out of the mines in and I spent a lot of time trying to find those helmets miners wore or lanterns but no luck.

I did find signs that trains use to come up here. I found tracks and what looked like and entrance to a tunnel that you couldn't get into because it looked like the entrance had collapsed. I guess the hill just slid right down the hill one day and buried it. In fact, you could see a lot of evidence of some serious landslides all over the place.

Do you know what happens to old railroads tracks? Nothing...and if you're not careful you're liable to ride across some half buried ones like I did and wind up face down in God knows what spewing every cuss word you've ever learned in your entire life.

I spent about a half hour alone up there when it occurred to me no one knew where I was. All of my friends and myself were on the way back to camp and I had stopped to be er, answer the call of nature if you get my drift.

I'd never had claustrophobia in my life, but all of the sudden that's what it felt like. It felt like I was in a little box or something and I couldn't get away from that place fast enough.

And there's this odd twist of memory...

The entire time I was up there I never heard a sound except for the caps collapsing. I never heard a bird, I never heard the wind and I didn't even hear the river until I got away from that little abandoned town

Would I go back? No way, never.

Some things should stay buried, and I think that little town is one of them.

The Chamber of Horrors and the Ghost Hunters

2005-05-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

NO!

I will not allow ghost hunters into this building. That's out of the question. Have you people finally lost your hold on sanity?

Do you think for a minute that the ghosts would be the hunted in this situation? I don't know who these people are you've invited but get rid of them...all of them!

What do you mean, it's too late. Go down there and tell them...oh this is just wonderful.

Is running around kicking your mortality in the backside what you do to amuse yourselves? What do you do when you really want to have a good time... play a little Russian Roulette?

Fine, bring them up to the Library and do it quickly, things have been a little to noisy in the Isolation Ward lately. Well...you'll find out the hard way if you don't do what I say at once!

So you are the ... how quaint the Gaslight Society Ghost Hunters. Yes, charmed I'm sure. My name is Miss Bayloche.

To make a very long story short these eight students are all that remains of 25. The others left a week ago after running into the Night Staffers.These remaining eight are suppose to be here to study writing, music and art. They've done none of that. But they've paid room and board till the end of next month so they're here for at least that long.

Their instructors leave them to their own now because all they want to do is talk ghosts and demons and about the living dead.

That's it in a nutshell.

Oh the story...you mean of the School itself.

Well, it was founded by two serial killers one of which was a demon and the other a creation of the demon itself, the Asylum was run by a psychotic and it's Night Staff were residents of a little place called Leaning Birch...which I'm sure you've been informed is the town's cemetery.

Every evening at Midnight a Shift occurs between the world of the living and the world of the dead and the School, or parts of it return to it's former self. Our problem is that now after each shift has occurred parts of the old school are finding their way into the new school and staying.

Furnishings, cups of tea on desks, a room here and there...and things in the Morgue.

Yesterday the kitchen was in full use, food was being prepared, the tables were set...the days paper was even propped up against a bowl of steaming oatmeal.

Well, we don't use that as a kitchen, it was closed off over 100 years ago and the paper for your information was dated 1905.

Things you see from the past are shifting into the present and I don't know why, it's never happened before. It's your standard Chamber of Horrors fare. Boring to individuals of your expertise. So, I guess you'll be...

Staying.

Why of course you are.

This place is one of a kind? You don't say. The racket? It's the door leading to the Isolation Ward. From the sounds of it, it's just been torn off of it's hinges.

Welcome members of the Gaslight Society to the Chamber of Horrors.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

The Chamber of Horrors and The Midnight Shift

2005-05-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

What on Earth are you people doing in here?

What tour?

We most certainly do not give tours of the Asylum...let alone the Chapel. Now all of you come out of there at once! Here now, what's this? Let go of me and quit that babbling and for heaven's sake quit that crying. You are all far to old for that.

You, young man, what's going on here?

A woman? With a scalpel?

Ah, I see you've had the misfortune of running into our Mrs Everett. Well, don't expect me to feel sorry for any of you. We were very clear when we opened this school which part of the properties were for your use and which areas were off limits.

If you got chased around by a psychotic ghost that's your problem.

Now follow me, we have to get out of here before the Midnight Shift comes on.

Okay, here we are, safe and sound and back in the school and safely tucked away in the library. I'm going to have Miss Bayloche the Librarian explain somethings to you.

May I suggest that this time you listen.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I'm Miss Bayloche and I'm the school's librarian. Which is probably why I've never laid eyes on any of you. Hmmm, not in the mood for chit chat are we?

That's just as well. Let me get straight to the point.

This school is not a safe place, but you'll do just fine if you understand a few things.

One is the original staff is still here.

Mrs Everett, the Hellers, the teachers and lab workers. They are all still here and they are all still very busy doing the same things they did over 100 years ago, I'm very sorry to say.

One of the worst members of this staff is a very unstable woman who is the head nurse...her name is Elizabeth Telrico and she is perhaps the most worrying to the present day staff because she's in charge of the Midnight Shift.

Simply put, the Midnight Shift is the heart of this school.

At exactly the stroke of Midnight all of the lights in the Asylum blazed on and you could see the Midnight Shift come up the path from the north side of the Asylum.

They walked across a footbridge and came in through the back entrance.

Then the doors and windows would slam shut just as the last member of the night staff entered the building. You could hear the echoes for miles around, I've been told.

Now most of the day staff were locals, they never really met the night staff and tried very hard to keep it that way.

No it's not a mystery why.

Go ahead and take a look out the window, it faces north.

You can see the trail the Midnight Shift used, the bridge they crossed. That piece of property doesn't connect to the road. It's fenced off.

It's the cemetery.
© anita marie moscoso 2005-text

Revenge of the Werewolves

2005-05-11T21:30:00.000-07:00

The car door opens and a dark figure steps out...

It is a man holding a briefcase. He opens it and gazes in. Suddenly a wild gust of wind swirls the papers and they fall to the ground. A page lands at your feet. You pick it up and read it. It's the same kind of story about 'Revenge of the Werewolves'. You keep reading until the realization hits you. It is about a kid winning a competition, just like you, there is a man, just like you, theand there is a story just like the one you are reading. You convince yourself it is all a silly coincidence.

You decide to let the people in the lodge know that you're here. You step up to the door. The knob is a bit werewolves face. You put your hand on the knob and start to turn it. Just then a sting in your palm makes you jump. You take your hands off the knob and gaze down at your palm. It's bleeding!You shove the door open with a small push. You're not putting your hand on the handle again! You step inside. It is a huge building with a counter in the middle. You step up to the counter. No one is there. Suddenly a hand taps your shoulder. You turn around slowly. A kid about your age gazes at you solemnly. He wore a T-shirt and faded jeans. "My name is Cory," he said. "Get away from here," he said. You were just to ask why, when voices were heard upstairs. They were coming closer. Cory grabbed your arm and pulled you into a closet. It is pitch black. You peer through the keyhole. You see these creatures. They look like werewolves! They are werewolves! What is going on? Then you hear the most terrifying words. They sent a chill down your spine. "Tonight is the revenge of the werewolves" one of them said. "Whoever is in this building stays here FOREVER!!!

by Demi Grade 5/6 Epping Primary School

Little Red Cap, Groovy Gran and The Wolf

2005-05-11T03:55:00.000-07:00

One day there was a girl who was a mad Sydney Swan’s supporter, and therefore she always wore a red Sydney cap. Everyone thought she was so cute and called her Little Red Cap.
One day Little Red Cap’s Groovy Gran sent her an SMS. “Hey LRC Im sik, can u bring chickn soup,” it said.
Little Red Cap loved her Groovy Gran so much that she immediately grabbed a can of soup. “Hey Joan” – for Little Red Cap was going through a teen rebellion stage that involved calling her Mum by the first name – “I’m going to see my Groovy Gran.”
“Ok, as long I don’t need to go,” Joan replied.
Little Red Cap’s Groovy Gran was Little Red Cap’s father’s mother, and Joan and her had never really got along. So Little Red Cap headed off alone, walking down the street to the train station.
After validating her ticket Little Red Cap wandered on the platform where there was a wolf. Little Red Cap liked dogs so she said: “Hi doggy.”
“Woof, woof,” said the Wolf, which clearly meant: “Hello, Little Red Cap, how are you on this fine Autumn morning?”
Little Red Cap was surprised that a Wolf could talk, so she told it her plans for the day. “I’m taking chicken soup to my Groovy Gran.”
“Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof,” said the Wolf, which clearly meant: “Aha.”
Then the train came so Little Red Cap and the Wolf got on. Little Red Cap thought it was funny to see a Wolf on the train, so she laughed.
“Do you have a problem?” a voice said.
Little Red Cap looked up and saw a boy wearing a West Coast Eagles cap. She glared at him.
He glared back.
They glared at each other. And everyone around them were silent, afraid to say anything…
That was except the Wolf, he noticed that Little Red Cap was far too busy glaring and did not notice her stop. He said: “Woof,” which Little Red Cap thoughts meant: “Go the Swans!” but actually meant “If you don’t get off I will and I’ll eat your Groovy Gran.”
Little Red Cap nodded, so the Wolf shrugged, got off and went to find the Groovy Gran. When he got to her house he knocked with his head and almost concussed himself.
“Who is there?” Groovy Gran said.
“Woof.”
“Pardon?”
“Woof.”
“Is that you Little Red Cap?”
“Woof.”
“That wasn’t no, must be yes.” So she opened the door.
He ate her.

Meanwhile Little Red Cap stopped glaring and realized she had gone too far. So she got off the train and caught one going back the other way.
When she arrived at her Groovy Gran’s house she knocked.
“Woof.”
“My, Groovy Gran, you sound like you’re dying. I’m coming in.”
She went in. The Wolf was wearing a sun hat.
“That is the worst attempt at Groovy Gran impersonating I have ever seen.”
“Woof,” said the Wolf, which meant: “****.” But Little Red Cap thought meant: “I ate your Groovy Gran,” which by sheer coincidence was true.
“You ate my Groovy Gran!” Little Red Cap said.
“Woof,” the Wolf said. Which meant: “You gave me permission if you dob me in, I’ll have you up on conspiracy to murder charges.”
“****,” said Little Red Cap. Which meant: “Oops.”
So they decided to cover up the murder, go their own ways and try to live happily ever after.

by Grant Grievan - Student Teacher at LaTrobe Secondary College

Shewolf Stories by LaTrobe University Diploma of Education Students

2005-05-11T03:04:00.000-07:00

In the mountains of Auvergne, a story dating back to 1588 was told of a royal female werewolf. In the story the nobleman was gazing out of his window and upon seeing a hunter he knew asked the hunter to check with details of the hunt. While in the forest, the hunter stumbled upon a wolf. In the ensuing struggle, he severed one of the wolf's paws and placed it in his pouch.

Upon returning to the chateau with his gruesome prize, he opened the pouch to show the nobleman evidence of his encounter. What they discovered was not a paw at all, in fact, the pouch contained what looked to be a feminine hand bearing an elegant gold ring. The nobleman recognised the ring and sent the hunter away. The nobleman then went looking for his wife. When he came upon her in the kitchen, he found her nursing a wounded arm. He removed the bandage only to find that her hand had been cut off.

Finish this story

Students at LaTrobe University School of Education were presented with the same Shewolf material that had been presented to students ranging in age from Grade1/2 to Year 12. These are some of their stories.

Werewolf by Joanna Seidel

The nobleman goes to the kitchen and sees his wife nursing a wounded arm.....

Her arm is wrapped in a whit cloth and blood is seeping through the layers. She looks at her husband with fear in her eyes, rises slowly and moves to the hearth to lie in front of the fire and keep warm. The nobleman stares at his wife in horror and disbelief. But he loves her. He cannot help but sense how hard it has been for his beloved to live such a double life. He leaves her alone by the kitchen fire and heads for the quiet of his study to devise a plan.

The nobleman waits for the next full moon. An hour before midnight he leaves his bed-chamber and prepares for his sojourn to the deep, dark forest. He carries no weapons, not wanting to appear as a hunter, and meanders slowly with the heart of an old man. He finds a tall tree and leans against its sturdy trunk, waiting for the werewolf to appear. Shortly before midnight he hears the sound of a snapping twig and looks around him. A shadowy figure creeps stealthily across the forest floor, unaware it is being watched. The nobleman opens the package he brought with him from the castle, hoping that the smell of food will bring the creature nearer to his hiding place. His plan works and the animal, its snout in the air and ears alert, pads soflty toward the smell of sustenance. It seems unafraid. It smell no fear from the nobleman. It eats the morsels laid at the nobleman's feet. When sated, it lays down on the forest floor and rests its head near the nobleman's outstretched hand.

The nobleman lays down with the wolf and falls asleep, not stirring until dawn shines its light on the trees above. He sits up, turns his head to look for the wolf but finds he is alone. He feels stiff and sore from his night in the forest, but his neck seems to have suffered the most. He reaches his hand up to rub his sore muscles and touches a recent wound, crusted with dried blood.

The nobleman has no memory of receiving the wound but he finds upon his return to the castle that he feels no fear or horror at the sight of his wife. Tenderness overwhelms him. They never speak of how his beloved lost her hand. There is no need. They are together again now and will sleep indoors no more. Their lives have come together not only in this world, but in another world that will hold their secret forever.

Another Werewolf Story by Mink Schapper

Sir Bob and Lady Madge: a story of love and loss

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there lived a nobleman in a big castle in the countryside. Beyond the castle were deep dark woods, and the villagers said that in the woods there was a werewolf.

The nobleman, (whose name was Sir Bob) sent his hunter out to kill the werewolf. The hunter went into the deep woods, and came across the werewolf. There was a battle, he cut off the werewolf’s right paw, and the werewolf escaped.

The hunter said to himself, “I don’t want to go further into the woods, to find the bleeding, enraged werewolf. He will surely trick me and kill me. I can tell milord that I have, indeed killed the werewolf, showing him the paw as proof.” So he went home to bed, well pleased with himself.

At dawn he rose from his bed, prepared himself to speak to Sir Bob, had a hearty breakfast of porridge with a good dash of salt, and was up at the castle as the people began their day. He presented himself to Sir Bob, telling a story of courage and daring, finishing with a flourish and presenting the paw, wrapped in a bloody kerchief. He quickly left the room, as he’d never been good around blood.

His quick exit was fortuitous. When Sir Bob unwrapped the kerchief, he discovered, not the paw of a wolf, but the fair ringed hand of his wife, Lady Madge. He blanched, then bravely decided to confront Lady Madge with this ghastly evidence of her other life.

Breakfast smells issued from the kitchen, and he could hear his wife’s gentle voice, singing a soothing lullaby, amongst the other busy kitchen noises. He entered the kitchen, and saw, to his dismay, that she was, indeed nursing a wounded arm.
“My darling, dearest. What has happened to you?” he exclaimed.
She cried pitifully, “I was making your favourite meal, wolf-soup, and when I was chopping through the sinews, the hatchet slipped and cut clean through my wrist. My hand fell into the soup, see?”

With trepidation, he peered into the large cauldron, and sure enough, there was a sinewy, gristly hand-looking object, bubbling noisily away, along with the rest of the meat, onions, turnips, herbs and spices. It smelt good.
“Please, my darling!” she pleaded. “To show me how much you love me, please let us eat this meal together, so that we will have taken back into our bodies, that which has been taken away from me?”

Poor Sir Bob was torn. He loved his dear wife, and very much wanted to reassure her of his attachment to her. They would indeed partake of this meal together, but first he needed to have Lady Madge’s dreadful wound attended to. He called the local healer to pay a visit, and she made a draught of healing herbs for Lady Madge to drink, and a poultice to wrap around her stump. After which they ate, and a delicious meal it was indeed.

Sir Bob had many important nobleman duties, so he sent Lady Madge off to bed and recovery. He saddled his horse and rode the countryside, visiting here and there, until night began to fall, and he headed home to his safe castle.

He was quite exhausted, so after a quick bite to eat, he fell into bed, and sleep overcame him as his wife snored close by.

At midnight, he woke with a start, realising that in his shock and haste the morning before he had left the werewolf’s paw/hand in his audience-chamber. He crept out of bed, out into the cold stone hall, and along to the grand room, with his grand chair and the kneeling cushion at its foot, for supplicants to be comfortable. As he walked closer to the chair, he could discern a faint glow, and the bloodied kerchief was opened. The hand had turned again into a wolf’s paw.

Full of fear he sprinted back to find an empty bed, the wedding ring, and tears on his wife’s pillow.

Sir Bob never saw Lady Madge again.

The moral of this story is: if you love your love, (were) warts ‘n all, show them you love all of them, or they might disappear!

More Werewolf Shenanigans by Liz Packett

With a look of disgust on his face, the nobleman asked his wife, "What happened to your hand?" With a confused look on her face, the wife said, "I don't know. I just woke up this morning and it was gone."
Without wasting another moment, the nobleman called for the finest surgeon in the kingdom to reattach his wife's hand.

The surgeon put the nobleman's wife under anaesthetic and sewed the hand back into place. But as he did so a strange thing began to happen. The nobleman's wife started to grow hair, then more hair, then even more hair, until her whole body was covered. There was no denying it now. The nobleman's wife was a werewolf!

So horrified was the nobleman that he ordered the surgeon to pump up the levels of anaesthetic until his wife/werewolf was dead.

After a hasty but tasteful funeral, the nobleman went on a holiday to the neighbouring kingdom. Here, he a wealthy and attractive young woman with no werewolf tendencies. They were promptly married and the nobleman couldn't be happier. However, there were a few things about his new wife that did seem a little strange. Like the fact that she didn't like the sun, had a fondness for bats and tended to shrivel up when garlic was served in her pasta...

The Hand That Feeds You by Rebecca Reggars

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a nobleman who lived in a big castle. Beyond the castle were the deep dark woods and the villagers used to say that a werewolf lived in the woods. The nobleman, displeased with the thought of a ware wolf living so near to the castle, sent a hunter into the deep dark woods to kill the werewolf. The hunter bravely entered the deep dark woods and stumbled across the ware wolf. They fought. The werewolf, trying to defend itself, was strong but the hunter prevailed and cut off the poor werewolf’s paw. The unjustly injured werewolf limped away favouring his injured leg now devoid of its paw. The hunter hadn’t done his job – he hadn’t killed the werewolf, but he knew that the werewolf didn’t deserve to be killed. It was causing no pains to anyone … it was just trying to exist. The hunter decided to deceive the nobleman and to take the werewolf’s paw in a pouch to the castle to prove that he had “killed” the “wicked beast”.

Back at the castle, the nobleman opened the pouch presented to him by the hunter with a triumphant smirk. But when he looked inside the pouch, the smirk was replaced by a look of pure horror. There was no paw inside the pouch. There was a hand. A feminine hand with a beautiful ring on its ring finger. The nobleman recognised the ring immediately as the engagement ring he had given to his wife. Praising the hunter for having done a “good job” the nobleman walked down the stairs to the kitchen holding on to the railing to keep him steady for his heart was pounding and his head was spinning. Could she, his beautiful wife, be a filthy beast? In the kitchen his wife stood by the fire nursing her arm with a steady stream of tears cascading down her peach-coloured cheeks.

He approached her slowly, gingerly. “My love?” he began in a tremor, barely able to hear his voice over the sound of his own heart thumping so rapidly and forcefully that he feared it would escape from his chest. “What has happened to your … hand?” he managed to ask. His wife looked up at him. The tears had stopped streaming down her face but had stained her peach-coloured cheeks a crimson red. He stepped back. There was something in her eyes that frightened him. Sensing his fear, she looked away and moved from the fire to the kitchen bench where she began to chop carrots. He couldn’t help but notice that she only used one hand and that the other, seemingly injured, hand that she had been previously nursing was hidden behind her back. Anger now replacing his fear the nobleman asked again: “What happened to your hand?”. She said nothing but smiled wryly. “I asked you a question!” screamed the nobleman as he walked over to her and again repeated “what happened to your hand?”. The woman stopped chopping carrots and looked into his eyes. “What hand?” she asked innocently. Fed up, the nobleman grabbed the arm that was concealed behind her and screamed when he saw that there was nothing but a bloody stump where her beautiful, fragile wrist should have been. “What hand?” repeated the wife then in a deafeningly loud, high pitched voice screamed: “I HAVE NO HAND!”. The nobleman stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. Regaining her composure the woman said: “Your hunter failed” she then picked up the knife she had been using to chop carrots with and slit his throat. She then washed the blood from the knife, and took it upstairs with her where she opened the safe, took the jewels and money and some of her favorite personal effects, placed them neatly in a suitcase, and left the castle, explaining to one of the (female) servants on the way out that a burglar had come into the castle, killed her husband, cut off one of her hands and forced her to open the safe from which he stole all of their money and jewels. The servant smiled knowingly and said: “I rather thought he would have taken you with him as a hostage” to which the woman replied: “He did”. The servant winked, and waited a good two hours before calling the authorities.

It is said that the “burglar” killed the woman as soon as they were clear of the village and that her ghost reappeared exactly one year later and cut off one of the hunter’s hands. This of course can not be proven though, for who would believe such a story?

The moral of this story: don’t cut off the hand that feeds you.

Label Your Wolfbane Clearly

In the mountains of Auvergne, a story dating back to 1588 was told of a royal female werewolf. In the story the nobleman was gazing out of his window and upon seeing a hunter he knew asked the hunter to check with details of the hunt.

While in the forest, the hunter stumbled upon a wolf. In the ensuing struggle, he severed one of the wolf's paws and placed it in his pouch. Upon returning to the chateau with his gruesome prize, he opened the pouch to show the nobleman evidence of his encounter. What they discovered was not a paw at all, in fact, the pouch contained what looked to be a feminine hand bearing an elegant gold ring.

The nobleman recognised the ring and sent the hunter away. The nobleman then went looking for his wife. When he came upon her in the kitchen, he found her nursing a wounded arm. He removed the bandage only to find that her hand had been cut off. Upon questioning his wife she finally admitted to being the wolf the hunter had encountered in the forest.

"How did this happen?" the nobleman asked his wife.
"Well", his wife answered "I was making some soup last Tuesday and the cook mislabelled the herbs. I was trying to add parsley and instead I added Wolfbane. Now I am a Werewolf."

The Nobleman got scared and he ran away screaming like a little girl. It was only when he passed the window and saw the full moon that he felt himself change.

Fear filled him for he had eaten the soup too.

Just then the Hunter came around the corner, saw the Nobleman and threw a silver dagger into him.

He died.

The moral of this story is to always label your wolfbane clearly.

Good Bad Wolves

2005-05-09T04:56:00.000-07:00

As a part of the Werewolf project that I have undertaken with students, ranging in age from from Prep through to Diploma of Education students at LaTrobe University, we read a few versions of Little Red Riding Hood.

Apart from fracturing this old fairy story we decided that there were so many variations to this classic tale that the wolf could have been framed - might well have been innocent all along. Grade Two and Three students have had a wonderful time making good/bad wolf masks and they have put forward defenses and also had the wolf admit it's guilt.

Ruth Stott, from Reservoir East got right into the spirit of the project and has shown her students the good and bad wolves. You be the judge as to what the truth really is about that big bad wolf that featured in so many clssic tales.

The Guilty Wolf

You know why I am here sitting in this jail. I was caught trying to catch and eat Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.

You know those stories about me trying to eat them well they are true. But that is not all of it. Not everyone knows about my other little ventures, which alas have failed.

It was me who tried to catch and eat those cutesy pie little pigs.

It wasn't a mean old witch who tried to eat Hansel and Gretel. It was me. I am really good at disguises.

And it was me that caused Sleeping Beauty to prick her finger on the spinning wheel. That stupid prince foiled my plan.

It wasn't the wicked stepmother who poisoned Snow White with the apple. I had already eaten her stepmother, which I wasn't really happy about because I admired how her brain worked. As I said, I am really good at disguises.

And I am good at escaping, which is what I am about to do in a few minutes.

My final piece of advice is to check out your teacher because I have done my homework. Teachers always have kids near them and I love to eat kids. If there is a kid in your grade missing after lunch they may not have gone home sick or to the dentist. They may jsut have been my lunch.

I Have Been Framed

I suppose you are wondering why I am sitting here in this cage. Well this is why! That girl is a liar. She tells really big whoppers. She is Little Red Riding Hood. I didn't try to eat her grandmother. All those stories she told about me are lies. This is what really happpened.

It was a beautiful spring morning and I was wandering through the woods picking flowers for my grandmother. Suddenly out from behind a tree jumped Little Red Riding Hood. Boy did she give me a scare. She gave me the evil look and asked what I was doing and where I was going. I was so frightened I told her that I was picking flowers for my grandmother who was sick and that I was going to give them to her. She asked me where grandmother lived. I told her in the cave at the end of the woods. Then just as quickly she disappeared.

What I didn't know was that Red Riding Hood had run to my grandmother's cave, tricked here way inside by pretending to be me and locked my grandmother in the cupboard. Then she hopped in to my grandmother's bed and pulled the blankets up to her head and pretended to be asleep.

When I got to my grandmother's cave I called out to her to let her know I was there. I didn't just walk in because that would have been rude.

I walked up to my grandmother's bed to give her the flowers and ask how she was. I thought it was unusual that my grandmother would hide her face from me but maybe she didn't want me to catch whatever was making her sick.

I sat on the floor next to my grandmother's bed to talk to her and tell her what I had been doing at school. Then I noticed something strange. My grandmother had shrunk and lost a lot of weight. She wasn't taking up very much space in bed. Slowly I stood up and went up to the top of the bed and gently pulled back the blankets.

Boy did I get a fright. Out of that bed jumped Little Red Riding Hoood with a hatchet in her hand and a mean look on her face. Well I screamed and ran. I ran until I could run no longer. She was getting closer. I was so out of breath. I stopped to try to catch my breath. I could see a man cutting wood. I thought he would be able to help. But I was wrong. Red Riding Hood had seen him too. She suddenly stopped chasing me and screamed and yelled.
"Help! Help! The wolf is trying to catch me."
I couldn't believe my ears,

Well do you think that man was goin going to believe me. No way. He took one look at me and one look at her and decided it was me trying to hurt her.

I turned around and ran. I was so tired I couldn't run very fast. He quickly caught me and threw me to the ground. Then he hit me on the head with a big pieces of wood. It knocked me out.

When I woke up I was all tied up in a cage. Red Riding Hood was standing there telling the police that I had attacked her grandmother. Did anyone believe me? No.

So that is why I am sitting here in this cage in the zoo. The worst thing is that I don't even know what happened to my grandmother and my mother thinks I am mean and horrible. There is no way that I can get her to hear my side of the story.

Ruth Stott - Reservoir East Primary School