Author: pamaprice

Creative Shorts, New Writing

Seven Doors – Part 1

pamaprice

When one door shuts, another opens. That’s how the saying goes, doesn’t it? But I’ve found, when one door shuts – it’s quite possible that you’re trapped.

So that New Year’s Eve, Mum and I drove miles out of London, west into the countryside, up hills and down dales until we reached a remote corner of the world and followed a dirt track that led to a steep slope and a massive beige-grey stone structure that had the largest collection of turrets jammed next to each other that I had ever seen. The holiday rental was less of a house and more of a small castle and behind its vast number of windows secrets certainly loitered.

It was on the eve of that new year that somehow, I had lost myself – swallowed up into the walls as the night pressed against the panes of large arched windows of my guest room. Tomorrow, the curtainless windows would welcome the light of the new day, the light of the new year, the light of hope, but for now, in the darkness, amoeba-like shadows kissed the glass beaconing me to join in the hell-scape of their games.

I sat cross-legged on the bed in my black sparkly strappy dress and in the low light of the bedside lamp my hoodie, inhaler and rucksack lay in a heap on the stone floor. No signal. I tossed my phone towards the end of the bed, and it skittled in the semi-darkness along the blankets like a stone skimming a lake and landed just short of the edge. Nothing would make me go back downstairs. Not even the lack of Internet. The joviality of the night’s festivities was a farce: the effervescent laughter; the endless toasts and the disingenuous gifts all formed the stage of rumbling and riotous banter amongst the adults, hoots of surprise and now and again a squawk that escalated into an uproarious scream.

Why was I there in the first place, you may ask? This, in fact, was a very good question. Apparently, I couldn’t be trusted to be left at home alone. Well, that’s not quite what Mum had said. What she actually said was that it would be fun to spend New Year’s Eve together and with her friends and that everyone was bringing their kids. What she didn’t realise was that all the other teens had a life and I was the only sixteen-year-old in the whole world who had to tag with their Mum to a New Year’s Eve gothic inspired party in the countryside. What’s not to like – it will be fun, she insisted. There’s even going to be a Quadrantid meteor shower, and it’s going to be a clear night; we should have a perfect view – what better way than a shower of shooting star fireballs to bring in the new year, she said in a vain attempt to fill me with excitement. But that was Mum, forever excited about the skies, an astronomer, a planetary scientist and nothing stopped for her research, even New Year’s Eve. What she didn’t say, but meant, was that if she left me alone in charge of the house, her house, she wasn’t so sure that it would still be standing when she returned.  

I lay back on the bed.

The walls and ceiling seemed to undulate, rather pulsate, beating in time with the ticking of the clock on the mantel. The clock was white marble with the circular clock face set in the rectangular block of alabaster stone. The face of the clock, with black Roman numerals set against a faded sepia background, was at odds with the ultra-modern marble. The whole clock contrasted the jaded heavy fabric of the chairs, bed and tapestries. But the ticking was, by far, the most disturbing. Each passing second did not just seem to tick and end, but rather, tick and echo somewhere deep in the recesses of the stone walls reverberating infinitely. A cacophony of raucous screams from below cut through the clicks of the clock. It would be midnight soon.

The wallpaper was an embossed forest green that depicted a repeated barren woodland scene. Winter trees and branches sprawled across the walls and ceiling like arthritis-gnarled fingers, painful and disjointed, bent in unnatural ways. In the centre of the ceiling hung a dusty chandelier with the dimmest of glows through the obscured crystals, where the dust particles cast strange dull threads across the wallpaper.  

I closed my eyes.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The room felt heavy and cold – the small hairs on my arm stood to attention as I sensed the shadows permeate the windowpanes and close in against my body. I longed to grab my hoodie, but my arms felt like lead and legs refused to obey my commands. My breath was suddenly short and shallow – was I dying? Maybe I was dying?

Silence.

Dizziness.

Blackness.

A shriek of laughter jolted me from my limbo, and I opened my eyes to be blinded by the brightest stream of light. I sat bolt upright, but that was a mistake. My head pounded and my body screamed as if it had been splintered into a billion glass particles. I lay down and listened.

Heavy shoes clattered up and down in the stone hallway as high-pitched voices laughed and shouted – children. Small children. Giggling, squealing, whooping. Which of Mum’s friends had small children?

I turned my head and opened my eyes away from the monumental windows. The room seemed the same in the dim glow, but different. The bedside lamp was replaced by a small candle, there was no clock on the mantle, and the bed was a four-poster mahogany with deep wine-red drapes that were hung open. The tapestries were the same, but the room simple and bare. I blearily peered over the side of the bed. Nothing. Where was my hoodie? My inhaler? My rucksack?

As my eyes adjusted, I raised myself slowly. Rich aromas from downstairs permeated the walls; my stomach rumbled.

I slid off the bed and that’s when I noticed the door. The heavy prefab fire door with a fire escape instruction plaque was gone. The door before me was heavy dark wood in the shape of an arch and set into the stone. There were six great silver hinges that almost resembled swords. Three large ornate hinges on the left side of the door that opened the whole door and three smaller hinges that seemed to open a smaller door set in the bigger door. Each hinge was elaborately carved with flowery swirls, while the handle to the smaller door was adorned with highly polished intricate carvings. A tightness rose in my chest and pressed down on my sternum. My breathing became shallow. As in a dream where you are running and get nowhere or scream and no sound comes out, I dropped to my knees, and in a screaming whisper I cried, “where’s my inhaler?” My voice sounded both far away and near, both soft and loud, both echoey and clear. I felt the panic rising and strangling my airways. Air! I rose and stumbled to the windows and grabbed one of the black handles and pushed the arcane pane open. The freezing night accosted my senses and temporarily calmed my breathing; I leaned against the stone wall breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, slowly and deliberately holding the cold air in my lungs before releasing it in a cloud of misty breath. That’s when I noticed it. The sky. Trails of white, yellow and blue explosions that streaked across the midnight sky, streak after streak of fireballs erupting in light. Like rings on a giant ancient sequoia, the Quadrantids formed a hypnotic spectacle and I felt the ticking of the clock deep in my mind. I turned back towards the door. Where was I? When was I? And most importantly – was I trapped?

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Creative Shorts, New Writing

The House

pamaprice

Wildflowers stretched across the front of the house; it was a mustardy-lemon sea that had obscured the long since trodden path. The lawn, untamed, grew in patches with knee-length tufts like a balding man, a mix of umber, olive and sage, across the rugged earth that seemed to span perceptibly endlessly in front of the house. The house itself could be considered nestled amongst the eucalyptus trees, yet in reality it was the trees that consumed the house where only the distained ashen front door could barely be seen. In this part of the world, the seafaring settlements on the coast rarely ventured inland, but not the sea mist. From far out at sea, the thunderous clouds swelled and rolled bruised across the mountain tops where they inevitably lingered over the house in a charcoal pall of repose. The air, clammy and dank, hung heavy and shifted from a stifling suffocation in the day to a claggy cold in the evening. Somehow, the grape vines to the right of the house managed to prevail and their ancient tendrils pretzeled their way on rows of wooden crosses – crucified and forsaken, yet the fleshy grapes hung in abundance.

Despite silently shedding its bark, the susurration of the eucalyptus leaves was incessant and unnerving like the murmur of ghosts wheezing, gasping and rasping as they undulated with the wind. This was a pernicious place.

With an audacity that belied my years, I approached the house. Weaving my way through the tufts of grasses and ignoring the whispering eucalyptus ghosts, I stopped in the middle of the wildflowers. Consoled by their delicate beauty, I knelt to pick a small yellow flower. Its fragrance, initially sweet left a bitter stench. I dropped the flower and trudged on to the front door.

The large door lacked a knocker and there was no bell, but neither were necessary. The door was mine now. The house was mine. now The land was mine now. Thunder smacked overhead and rolled though the valley tearing the sky apart. Feeling as if the earth itself would split open, I dug deep in my jean pocket for the key. A single skeleton key opened the door, and I gripped it tightly as I inserted it into the keyhole. I jiggled the key and heaved the locking mechanism to the left – it gave way and clicked open. The door fell ajar, and I pushed it further to reveal the dark interior of the entrance way. Another clap of thunder trampled the sky and rebounded heavily off the trees and distant mountains. I crossed the threshold, grabbed the key and slammed the door shut.

I clicked the torch on my phone. The light was harsh and illuminated a jaded entrance where thick dust hid a former grandeur. As I slowly stepped further in, I disturbed the layers of grime on the marble floor; the ashen particles swirled upwards around my white trainers and covered them in a leaden grey as I crossed the entrance way. Apart from the dust, the space was empty. On the wall to my right were faded squares and ovals, ghost shadows of the past. To my left, a grand wooden staircase now chipped and worn by a myriad of feet going up and down over the years. Passing the staircase to what I presumed would be the kitchen, thunder reverberated throughout the house, rattling the windows and making the walls shiver.

“Who’s there?” a voice howled.

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Creative Shorts, New Writing, Uncategorized

Snapshots from the Sea 3

pamaprice

The cliff towered over the horseshoe harbour and was scarred as though the claw of an enormous prehistoric creature had ravaged its countenance; the green and brown stains that ran down surface of the jagged rock bled into the water. Carved out of the middle of the cliff face was a cave large enough to stand and the cyclops cliff, with its singular black eye, peered menacingly over the harbour below as twilight descended each night.

At the top of the cliff, a lone house perched on its edge: painted pale peach with fourteen tall windows, each had their light blue shutters closed. A girl waited in a rowboat at the base of the cliff. She hoped it would not be long before you arrived. Surely, she had thought, the closed shutters were an indicator that you were on your way. The sun had already begun to set outside the harbour, but the humid summer heat had not yet eased. The light changed quickly and the scars in the cliff grew grey and black and the shadows in the small cave darkened further, accentuating its grotesque expression.

The girl shivered and checked her watch. You were late. You were usually late, but you were later than usual. The girl shifted her weight and the boat rocked awkwardly; she quickly steadied it with the oars and sighed.

There was a sudden illumination of faint lights on the narrow steps that led up the cliff to the house and cast long shadows along the cliff and spread a cancerous blackness across its face. Even the smallest of crevasses developed a deepness of a thousand screaming mouths.

Where are you? the girl thought.

The girl had waited far longer than she should, but she persisted.

Above, the shutters on one of the windows flung open. The girl in the rowboat strained to see the figure in the window. It could be you. But the girl was not sure. The figure sat at the edge of the window and leaned out slightly. The girl stared at it, trying to discern the slightest clue – a mannerism or pose – that it was, in fact, you.

The girl searched the ghost shadow of the house and searched the blackened water of the harbour and searched her soul. The girl knew she should take up the oars and row away. She should not return to the harbour – to the base of the cliff – to the house. But the girl did not take up the oars. The girl willed you to come down the treacherous, moss-covered rocky steps. And as she willed you to come down, a light from above caught her eye – a light in the window where the figure was still sitting. The girl watched the figure and leaned back in the boat to get a better look, but it was not far enough. The girl moved nearer the edge of the boat and strained her neck just in time to see the silhouette of the figure disappear into the room, leaving a gaping white hole in house.

The girl waited, paralysed, her body merged with the rowboat in gloaming of the harbour; she only moved to grasp the oars when she caught sight of the shutters closing and the house was shrouded in darkness.

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Creative Shorts, New Writing

Snapshots from the Sea 2

pamaprice

The cigarette dangled between the lips of the boy and moved in unison as he hoicked the fishing line up and down. When the boy finally held the line steady, he pursed his lips and took a long drag releasing the smoke over the sea in front of him. The smoke billowed on the tendrils of the wind, rose towards the clouds and scattered across a mostly clear pale blue evening sky.

The boy had climbed over the rails of the concrete pier and stood precariously on the ledge between the wrong side of the rails and sea far below. The sea undulated with sickening, rolling waves that indicated a storm was stewing much further out, churning and heaving its underbelly. But the boy was not deterred. He teased the deep purple waters with his line and laughed a gritty, wild laugh as he grabbed hold of the cigarette between his teeth, held it tightly, and inhaled.

She was not cooperating this evening.

She had not released anything to the boy, though he persisted, relentlessly, tempting with more and more bait. He had been patient but began to feel the night air press coldly against the skin of his countenance. The boy puckered his lips until the minute lines that surrounded his lips were became deep and engrained making him seem much older and tougher than he was. The approaching night jettisoned an urgency in the boy, and he removed his right hand from the pole, took the filter end of cigarette between his thumb and fore finger, rolled it back and forth several times before he flicked it into the sea.

She crashed her waves hard into the base of the pier and devoured the cigarette tip.

The boy cast his line again, splitting the air with its whipping. The line landed further out, and he steadied himself against the rails bracing his feet on the concrete. For the briefest of moments, he thought he should be standing on the other side of the rails, the safe side, the side that all the other people fishing would stand on. But he dismissed the thought as quickly as it occurred, planting his feet more firmly on the ledge and held the pole securely, giving it small jerks – teasing her, coaxing her, taunting her.

She belligerently swirled around the line.

The boy leaned his back against the rails, bent his knees slightly, and bounced in readiness to heave the line upwards. The sky had darkened enough for it to be considered night and as he looked down the pier, he realised that the other people fishing had already packed up.

He was alone with her.

From far out at sea, the storm clouds began to roll across the waves with the wind stronger, the storm burgeoning and the sea seething, coughing up white foamy tips on the waves that tangled the line. The boy raised his right shoulder to his face, brushed his cheek against his shirt and blinked the sweat out of his eyes. The pole, usually an extension of the boy, seemed disjointed and his grip slipped along the pole and as he closed his fingers more tightly, he could swear he heard her whisper – relent.

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Creative Shorts, New Writing

Snapshots from the Sea 1

pamaprice

The boy emerged from the sea; his head was just visible above the rolling waves. It wasn’t long before his face submerged with his long black hair splayed on the surface and was sucked under again. He half-heartedly fought the waves, and from the shore, the girl thought he seemed to almost enjoy losing the fight. Occasionally, his arms appeared in a chaotic pinwheel attempting a front crawl, his fingers clawing at the rough waves, before he relented and disappeared again.

The greying afternoon sky had been lit up by a cracking bolt of lightning followed by rolling thunder that echoed along the mountainside coast and sent the sun worshipers and parents with sand encrusted children scattering home. The only other people on the beach were an elderly couple. The woman, in a red swimming costume with her dyed hair messily pinned up, had tentatively entered sea, the waves rough around the pale skin of her ankles. She ventured in up to her waist only to retreat, gather her towel, put on her worn trainers, and head up the beach as it began to rain. She said something to the man with grey hair as she left the water. He was muscular and toned, dove over the waves, stood up, shook his head, and also retreated following behind the woman. They vanished in the direction of the car park, consumed with only themselves for neither the woman in the red swimming costume nor the man with the grey hair appeared to recognise that the boy was struggling.

The girl was then alone on the beach. Was he hoping she would save him? That the urgency of the situation would form the catalyst for her forgiveness compelling her to overcome her fear of swimming in the sea? That she would go beyond allowing the sea to tickle her toes and ankles? That she did, in fact, love him and this would drive her to do something she had never done before.

The riptide was so strong that when she saw he emerged and tried to swim, unsuccessfully, parallel to the shore, she knew that it was possible that he wanted to live. But as the sky darkened to purple and the rain steadily escalated, his struggle increased, and his screams were lost to the sound of the waves.

Yet she did not move.

The yellow and orange striped towel that she sat on became caked in wet sand. Yet she did not move. Rather she relished the warm rain as it washed over her body and seeped into her bikini.

The intervals between him surfacing had grown. Yet she did not move. She stared into the expanse of the sea and watched the spot where she had seen him last. Would he surface one last time? For a moment, she thought she saw a hand, but she could not be sure as whatever she saw was lost to the white tips of the waves that rolled relentlessly towards the shore.

She sat for some time in the rain on the beach as the day darkened to dusk. He had not re-emerged. What had passed between them on the beach that afternoon, what drove him to enter the sea, what compelled her not to move was consumed by the waves. Without looking at the water, she stood up, rolled up the yellow and orange stripped towel and placed it in her beach bag. She slipped on her flip flops, put the bag on her shoulder and as she walked towards the car park where she had left her bicycle, she smiled.

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Blog, Creative Shorts, New Writing

Arriving at Midnight

pamaprice

‘But sometimes it takes more courage to live than to shoot yourself.’

~ Albert Camus, A Happy Death

It was nearly midnight. During the whole of the midsummer journey from the train station, darkness hung about the taxi with a destructive intent as the wheels jutted in and out of the ruts of the rough mountain road. Had the girl been alone, she might have shouted at the driver herself, but as it happens, she was not alone. The older woman balanced on the edge of the seat next to her and was incessant with her rant letting the driver know at every possible moment that he would find her dead in her seat by the time she arrived at her destination. Starless and oppressive, the night harboured birds of prey that squawked and cawed as they periodically landed on the glass roof – picking and clawing at their visible but inaccessible prey. Lifting off, they seemed to disappear, but she sensed the flap of their wings and the silences between as they coasted behind. The older woman fanned her hand in front of her face; little beads of sweat had formed on her forehead and her blond, slightly greying hair, grew matted and the strands that had come loose curled into ringlets around her full face. She looked all at once like a small child and an old lady. It was hard to tell at what point she became weepy, but she brushed away the tears and sweat and eventually relaxed back in to her seat, letting her body move with uneven undulations of the taxi as she talked incessantly about nothing in particular.

Internet was sparse and the girl had given up trying to message him. She knew it was useless and was beleaguered by thoughts, inescapable, menacing thoughts that circled her mind like the birds of prey above the taxi. Her agitation grew. Had she misconstrued the situation? Had she viewed it through a singular lens? Had she reached the nadir – the lowest point or was there more to come? The girl wondered if she had the courage to open the door and jump out, relenting to gravity, and allowing the fall down the steep mountain side kill her. Wiping the window with the palm of her hand, the girl tried to see through the blackness and pressed her forehead against the glass. They were quite high up on the mountain side, it would be now or never. As the driver whizzed around the bends of the mountain, she rested her hand on the seat belt release, held her breath and searched for the courage to release it and pull the door handle.

“Would you like a butterscotch? Settles the stomach and the nerves on these windy roads.” The older woman thrust an open pack of boiled sweets at her. The girl took her hand off of the seat belt release and exhaled. Taking a sweet, she unwrapped it and muttered “thanks” as she popped it into her mouth. The rich sweetness alerted her senses and reminded her that she was still alive. Alive to taste. Alive to feel. Alive to smell. Alive, maybe to have the courage to live.

As the taxi reached the crest of the mountain and descended, it took a sharp turn off the main road and ploughed like a juggernaut along the narrow dirt path sending the older woman tempestuous rage again exacerbating her nervous nature even further.

The opportunity to jump had passed as the mountain was now solid on the right side of the car and to the left there was a stone wall illuminated by the headlights. The girl had not misconstrued the situation. This was about as far from home and him as humanly possible. This was nothing less than a banishment. And just when the girl thought that her situation could get no worse, the taxi stopped at the end of the road.

“This is where you get out,” the driver said to the girl.

“Here? There is nothing here. Where is the house?” The girl said lowering the window peering to the front and back of the taxi.

The stone wall curved around to the left at the front of the car along with a dirt path that was illuminated by a sole streetlamp. This was the end of the road. Shadows from the dense hedgerow and the few spindly trees that managed to grow on the mountainside extended across the path and reached up the side of the stone wall; the shadows shifted as they caught the summer night wind and gave the impression that someone was lurking along the path. The girl’s depression deepened as her isolation became clear. The driver opened his door, walked round to the back of the taxi and opened the boot. The older woman, who had been so loquacious, chattering non-stop, was finally silent as she pushed the bag with the remainder of the butterscotch sweets into her hand. Sharing the taxi was the only option at this time of night, the chances of another coming along had been slim and while the girl found the woman odious, she now wished she did not have to part ways with her.

The driver wheeled her case around to the front of the car. The girl put the sweets into her rucksack and climbed out onto the verge which was overgrown with plants that pricked her bare legs and left small red welts around her ankles just above her trainers. She slammed the door shut and lifted the heavy rucksack onto her shoulders. The birds of prey reappeared and flew just above the path she was about to take, sending sharp squeals that echoed along the mountainside.

The girl pushed several notes into the driver’s hand, grabbed her suitcase with one hand and her phone in the other and headed towards the illuminated path. She had hardly walked ten paces before the streetlamp faded and the path darkened with the roots that impeded the smooth movement of the wheels of her case. The girl paused as the darkness closed in. She flipped her phone open and pressed the torch icon. Somehow the path looked far more foreboding the white light of her phone rather than with the warm yellow light of the streetlamp. The stone wall and pathway seemed almost monochrome and the girl had a prescient feeling that her death on this mountainside would not be unexpected.

As the girl reached the end of the path, rising up from the mountainside, was the House of Morana. The sight of the house sent an icy shiver though the girl. She felt all at once sick at the sight of the stone towers that rose up from the foundations but compelled to continue to the house that was actually a castle carved and layered into the mountain side. It’s magnificence was both alluring and frightening. From the path, the girl could see at least seven levels and the top layer of the castle appeared to grow out of the peak of the mountain and disappear into the night sky. Built with large greyish-brown stone, coarse trees and gorse grew between layers, the turrets and castle walls created a fantastical layer cake of doom. This house. This castle. The House of Morana would be her ending and her parents would be complicit in her death. As she walked towards the first of many moss- covered stone steps, she embraced the gloom that emanated from the expansive walls of the House of Morana and prepared for this to be the pinnacle of her short life.

Inspired by The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe and Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier.

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Blog, Creative Shorts, New Writing

The Light of Winter

pamaprice

The Tree of Lux Brumalis was not ancient. In fact, compared to the other trees on the journey, it was decidedly average and hardly likely to enable anyone to access the future. Its trunk curved slightly like a sideways smile that revealed how much the tree had acquiesced to the north winds of winter storms. You would want the tree that held all the answers to give an impression of massiveness and longevity, like giant sequoias or the strength and power of an oak, so it was surprising when we were told of the fragility and ordinariness of the Tree at Lux Brumalis.

When we started out three days ago, I did not know who my companions would be. Once a generation, anyone who turned fourteen on the first day of the year was required to meet just before sunrise on the edge of Terretown with a hand drawn map, food, a hunting knife, a blanket, water and matches in a rucksack.

We were the chosen few who would know what the future would hold, who would be the Decision Makers and who lead our people. I thought we would be a large group – ten, maybe twenty – as people came from far and wide for the pilgrimage. But we were not twenty and we were not ten. This year, we were just two.

Fara had already walked two days from a farm on the other side of Willow Hills to reach the starting point. I had walked down the road. Fara was critical and made cursory comments on just about everything from the coldness of the days, to the hardness of the ground where we slept, to her aching feet. She was quick to pass judgement on the beauty or ugliness of every rock, plant or animal. Her pursed lips and the intense stare of her cold blue eyes added an extra bite to every comment.

There were long stretches of time where we walked in silence, Fara’s dour expression enough to scare off any enemy. She is, what Mama would have described, as a cup-half-empty person. I on the other hand, Mama said, was a daughter she was proud to have as a cup-half-full person. Setbacks were opportunities, failures were a learning process, and good always rose to the surface even in the most wicked of situations. My smile was catching and even if I wasn’t smiling, my brown eyes were warm and inviting. Those were my good points. On the other hand, I avoided conflicts, this Mama warned, would be my downfall if I was not careful.

As a Decision Maker, Fara would be hard to work with, that much I knew from the outset as she seemed to take an instant dislike to me for the short distance I had walked to the starting point and made it was clear that she felt I already had an advantage over her. However, this was not a race. Nor were one of us intended to be greater than the other. There were no winners or losers. We were supposed to bring harmony, coherence and balance as future Decision Makers.

We found the tree of Lux Brumalis in a small clearing surrounded by low level shrubbery just as we were led to believe. But what was unexpected was the brilliance of the snow-covered branches whose expanse glistened against the pale late afternoon sky. The frozen branches formed intricate lacework patterns with a celestial glow that emanated from their tips with a halo-like aura. It was anything but banal.

“I will go first.” Fara stated as she let her rucksack slide from her shoulders and land in the snow at her feet. She took off her gloves and stuffed them into her pockets. I took a deep breath. Mama warned me about this. If we did not pass through in the right order, the order of our birth, we would create a turbulence in the world that would last a generation. I had heard tales of what happened at this point. People who had walked together for days, people who had known each other their whole lives, people who were nothing but kind and caring. People who changed in the sight of the tree. Arguing, fighting, pulling out knives leaving companions bleeding out on the ground feeding the roots of the Tree of Lux Brumalis for the next generation.

“Let me see your wrist.” I said putting my hand on Fara’s arm and held her back. With my other hand, I felt for the hunting knife that hung from the belt of my coat. She tried to pull her arm out of my hand, but I gripped more tightly.

“I’m older. It’s obvious.” She said petulantly spitting her words at me.

Mama said to always keep your voice deep and low in an argument and maintain eye contact. It gave a sense of calm command. I cleared my throat, lowered my chin slightly, kept my eyes locked on hers and slowly said, “Let me see your wrist.” It was hard not to stop my voice from rising. Panic erupted in my stomach and my lunch began to summersault. Tightening my grip on the knife, I clenched my teeth, mostly to stop from vomiting, but my tight lined lips were severe enough for Fara to relent. Did she really think I would use my hunting knife on her? I was in no doubt as she pulled her arm from my hand and pushed up the right sleeve of her coat. I released my knife, pulled off my gloves and stuffed them into my pockets and pushed up my right sleeve.

Tattooed on our wrists was the time of our births. Mine was 00:05. Hers was 13:01.

Apart from learning I was the first born between the two of us, the fact that Fara thought I would use my hunting knife on her meant that I sure that she would use her knife on me.

“Fine. You go first.” She said pulling her sleeve back down. She reached for her rucksack, pulled out her water and slugged it down as if we had just gone several rounds in a bare-knuckle boxing match.

Fara was going to give me a lifetime of conflict. This I knew. In my heart, I knew if from the moment we left Terretown, but I had given her the benefit of the doubt with small talk, niceties, compliments – glass-half-full. Mama had also warned me that while being positive was an admirable quality, being realistic was a necessity. And being realistic meant that I could not let Fara dictate events. As much as I hated conflict, in this moment, our first battle before the Tree at Lux Brumalis, I had won.

I nodded my head at Fara in acknowledgement of our agreement and walked towards the tree with purpose. It is said that some never return, so overwhelmed with what they see on the other side, they’re gutted by their greed and left to rot like stinking fish. Mama said I needed to imagine that I had blinders on like the kind you put on horses, so they don’t get distracted. I had one task. Walk around the tree counterclockwise three times at which point I would pass to the other side. I was to pick up the first gem rock I saw and return immediately, walking clockwise around the tree three times. It sounds simple. But when confronted with a sea of gem rocks temptation can engulf like the deluge of a rogue wave.

I paused under the canopy of the tree as its silver aura penetrated my pores driving the light of winter deep into my soul. I began to circle the tree.

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Bedside Table Reads, Blog

Shortlist Read: Deeplight

pamaprice

This week I have had the great pleasure of reading Deeplight by Frances Hardinge from the YA Book Prize Shortlist 2020. A fantasy set on the imaginary islands of Myriad where the Undersea gods were ‘as real as the coastlines and currents, and as merciless as the winds and whirlpools’. It is here, where the gods destroyed each other in the event known as the ‘Cataclysm’ and subsequently, the fear of the gods has dissipated. The narrative follows fourteen-year-old Hark, orphaned with his best friend Jelt, as they scavenge an existence together on the island of Lady’s Crave.

The narrative is written in the third person and Hark is presented as a storyteller. His skill in spinning a yarn gets him out of more than one sticky situation. His way with verbal language is juxtaposed with the fact that he cannot read. Two years younger than Jelt, Hark is constantly caught up in Jelt’s schemes and is described always being ‘neck deep in Jelt’s latest plan. It was as though he’d signed up for it in his sleep’. The devotion to their ‘friendship’ and seeing Jelt as ‘family’ drives his commitment to Jelt’s schemes but deep down, Hark questions Jelt, his decisions and escapades. This internal friction for Hark is crucial and drives his conflicted decision making throughout the narrative. However, there are certain points where Hark’s unflinching loyalty to Jelt, in the face of emotional manipulation, is so very frustrating.

Hark and Jelt’s relationship is established from the outset where Hark is ‘the follower’ and Jelt ‘the leader’. While Hark protests ‘You never ask, Jelt.’ and ‘You did have time to tell me.’ Jelt contrives an answer that makes it seem like he is attempting to help Hark, ‘I’m trying to show Rigg what you can do, Hark!’ ‘I brought you in because we’re friends.’ The fact that Hark was ‘mollified’ by this compliment indicates the long road he has to be out from under Jelt’s manipulative control. This is furthered by Jelt’s harsh insistence ‘Oh, grow a spine, Hark! Before I start wishing I’d left you out of this. This is a promotion.’ Will Hark ‘grow a spine’? This question lingers throughout leaving the reader to will him to make the ultimate decision to break with Jelt and go his own way. However, even in the face of a dangerous and suspenseful scheme to climb a cliff edge to put out a lantern in the beacon tower, Hark is bogged down by his conscious ‘But I couldn’t leave Jelt in the lurch, could I? He’d be dead without me.’

From the outset, the beacon scheme is somewhat doomed with Hark caught ‘Appraised and sold’ as a slave, highlighting the inequalities within the Myriad society. While ‘slavery was forbidden within the Myriad’ if you committed a crime and were found guilty, you could be sold as an ‘indentured servant’. Hark’s gift of the gab allows him to combine his lies with ‘fragments of truth’ appealing to his audience of purchasers where he is ultimately bought by Dr Vyne. Hark is transported to the Myriad island of Nest ‘a wild, lonely island…almost ghostly’ where he begins a new life in servitude at the Sanctuary. It is a place where ‘young acolytes’ trained to become priests in the past. Hark explains that these priests are ‘The old, crazy ones whose minds broke when the gods died!’ It is also where Hark makes unlikely alliances providing the reader with some rays of hope.

It is as an ‘indentured servant’ where Dr Vyne sees Hark’s potential stating that ‘some schooling would make you more useful to me…I’ll have someone start teaching you your letters’. Even without Jelt, this was conflicting for Hark who was excited to learn to read but replays Jelt’s words: ‘Reading makes your brain soft.’ ‘You live in the world, or you live in a book. You can’t do both.’ trying to understand Jelt’s idea that ‘illiteracy was a badge of honour.’ The reader is buoyed by Hark’s change of situation away from Jelt, albeit, an enslaved situation. Hopeful that after three months on Nest, Jelt was well and truly out of the picture, however, like a boomerang, Jelt returns with one more scheme. It is this savaging foray that sets off a series of events compromising Hark and forever changing Jelt. This nail biting turn of events leaves the reader on edge and slightly seasick.

Hardinge’s successful world building conveys the Myriad islands and the gods as if they have always existed enabling the reader to suspend any notion of reality slipping into the fantasy world of the Undersea, gods, godware, smugglers and priests with ease. The prose is cleverly crafted and rich with original similes, ‘The sun was as pale as a poached egg’ and ‘Nest’s harbour was a little more than a bare bay, curving like an empty melon rind’. Hardinge expands new notions, such as ‘godware’, which if obtained, means not only having a piece of a god, but for Hark and Jelt, having the heart of a god signifies money, freedom, renewed life and potential death with nail biting consequences.

Hardinge introduces the ‘sea-kissed’ who experience hearing loss due to extensive diving or being in submarines and explains that ‘sea-kissed deafness was the mark of a seasoned aquanaut, and therefore generally respected’. Sign language features throughout and is generally understood by most to greater or lesser extents. ‘Sea-kissed’ Selphin, Rigg’s daughter, is a voice of reason for Hark when her mother wants the godware to heal her deafness. Selphin represents the ‘good’ in contrast to Jelt’s ‘bad’ and she tries to warn Hark of the dangerous changes the god-heart can make, signing angrily ‘So what are you going to do? Change my thoughts? Make me want something I don’t want? If you do that – if you even try – I’ll kill you.’ Selphin also sees Hark as ‘spineless’ exemplified in her ‘one swift, fluid sign. It was the expressive sign for a jellyfish, pulsing its way forward, fingers trailing las tentacles.’ This aquatic imagery transcends the water with readers constantly hoping that Hark will not be further dragged under by Jelt.

The journey through Hardinge’s fantasy world of Myriad, the Undersea, gods, battles between gods and god-killers and the toxic relationship between Hark and Jelt is rich in detail, immersive and believable. It is through Hark’s relationship with Selphin and the old dying priest, Quest who is ‘shrewd and lucid’ with many secrets, that Hardinge drips elements of brightness for Hark. Can Hark escape the manipulative clutches of the monstrous Jelt? Will learning to read and write free Hark from his past? And ultimately, will Hark ‘grow a spine’, become a ‘god-killer’ and have a future of freedom and hope? I wholeheartedly recommend Deeplight – it is easily one of my favourite YA books I have read from the 2020 shortlist.

Themes: friendship, loyalty, enslavement, lies, truth, stories, freedom, manipulation, isolation, loneliness, fear, bravery, literacy, obsession, power, greed, change, old age

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Blog, Creative Shorts, New Writing

The Gelid Time

pamaprice

To captain one of the boats, you had to be the first born. I was not the first born. You also had to be eighteen. I was not eighteen. The fact was, I had just turned fifteen and I was the third born. A cold that was greater than any cold recorded in the Scrolls of Origin had descended upon our settlement. Word had passed through the few travellers who dared to go beyond, that the glacial weather extended far and wide and people were calling it The Gelid Time.

Kaz and I met before first light at the boat yard by the River Eliin with our rucksacks filled with bread, nuts, dried fruit and water. The only way to cross was by rowboat but we were not going to cross. We jumped over the low wooden fence and wandered through the boats that were huddled close together and covered with thick grey tarpaulins. The masts rose in criss-crossed mazes of white painted poles and ropes that were barely visible against the blue frozen fog of the dawn. We had agreed to sail downstream to the estuary, out to sea and along the coast to the foothills the Anatase Mountain range. Somewhere in the foothills, Great Gram Agate lived near the caves, disconnected from all who knew her as well as those who did not; some say she had become unhitched, living a truly wild existence unyoked from reality. But Gram Agate knew things. She knew things that no one else living or dead knew. She might be disjointed, but her knowledge about this land, the beyond and the between was better than anyone around. Everyone said that I would be just like her. Not just because I looked like her, tall with sharp green eyes, but because I had the same sense of the land and the water.

“Celeste, we shouldn’t be here.” Kaz, a fellow third born, whispered. His black parker coat was a hand me down and far too large; his head was barely visible through the thick fur of the hood. His voice seemed to emanate in a magical and ethereal way as his words floated through the fur on frozen breaths.

“Come on.” I said pushing my hood back a little to get a better look at the boats. “The Legend is here somewhere.”

“Of course it’s here. Where else would it be? We’re going to get out there, follow the Eliin to the sea and then – that’s it. It’s going to become a ghost ship because we’ll be frozen, drown or overrun by pirates.”

Kaz always had a tendency to lean towards the dramatic, always thinking of the worst-case scenario with an obvious catastrophic ending – if there was a spark from the fire he insisted it would turn into a blaze, if it rained he said it would flood and if the earth shook he insisted we would be buried under a mound of earth to slowly suffocate, unless we were knocked unconscious, then we would be dead instantly.

“Help me look.” I pulled his coat sleeve towards the next section of boats. “If we all stay here the food will run out before the thaw and we all die. If we all leave, the food will run out and we will all die. It’s what’s called a no-win situation.” I was sure there was a between and Gram Agate would know what flows betwixt staying and going.

“You hear about ghost ships all the time. What about The Bowhead? It went adrift, the crew froze to death and the captain was sat at his desk writing his account, logging all of the information, as you would expect a captain to do, and then he just froze pencil in hand, mid word and all. Or what about The Tiger Tooth? It came a ground empty of its entire crew, including the captain. The food, gold and all its cargo were still on board – so where were the crew? Pirates would have taken the gold and cargo. If the crew had evacuated, they would have taken their possessions surely. Maybe they killed each other? A wild mutiny! Or maybe they were all poisoned and dove overboard?”

“Stop. We’re not going to become a ghost ship and we are not going to kill each other, unless you don’t stop talking.”

I started to regret convincing Kaz to come along. He was the best navigator our age by a long shot and could easily navigate up and down the high seas of the coast. He just needed to talk a bit less so I could think.

An iron gate at the other side of the boat yard clanged shut and two hushed voices came closer and closer. Kaz and I huddled under the nearest boat and waited for them to pass. Kaz started to speak but I shook my head and he shrank back further under the boat. As they grew closer, I realized that it was Dad. Dad and someone else. Someone I did not know. I nearly stood up when Kaz pulled me back under the boat. I thought I knew just about everyone in the settlement. But Dad was being just as secretive as we were.

Dad and the man moved towards the boat house and then disappeared around the other side. We slipped around the boat and there in front of us was The Legend. Kaz took one side and I took the other, we quietly unhooked the tarpaulin, folded it and placed it in the stern of the boat. I unlocked the break on the boat trailer and together we pushed The Legend to the ramp. Kaz took the rope and tied it to the dock while I backed wheels the water. I unhitched the boat and pushed it into the water and watched it float off the trailer. Kaz pulled the rope and the boat moved in towards the dock. I looked back towards the boat house. Dad and the man were still on the other side. I pulled the trailer out of the water and positioned it near the other empty trailers so that it would be less obvious that the boat was missing.

“Quickly!” Kaz whispered.

I locked the trailer in place, returned to the river and boarded the boat with Kaz. Dad appeared and walked towards the river with his hands behind his back – he always did that when he was thinking deeply. The man was slightly behind and flipped through a folder of papers. I locked eyes with Dad just as we drifted into the current; startled, he turned the stranger away from the river before he could see us. Dad spoke emphatically and put his hand on the stranger’s arm as if to stop him from moving. Dad did not shout at us or call out as I would have expected. He did not even seem angry. What was Dad doing? I was an underage captain. I took the boat without permission. I was not even a first born. Why didn’t he stop us?

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations. 

Bedside Table Reads, Blog

Shortlist Read: Shuggie Bain

pamaprice

Hello! I’ve had a little rest from posting in January, but I am back and ready to go. I am continuing my goal of reading all the longlist Booker Prize nominated books from 2020 and to kick off 2021 I’ve started with the winning book, ‘Shuggie Bain’ by Douglas Stuart. It is story of toxic relationships, abuse, addiction, neglect and poverty set in 1980s Glasgow. While the narrative is about Shuggie, his love for his mother and growing up gay, it is as much, if not more, about his mother Agnes and her spiralling alcoholism. The effect on her children: Catherine, Alexander (Leek), and Shuggie is a truly raw exploration of the pain and paralysis of alcoholism and poverty. If you think you’ve read about these themes before, think again – Stuart’s rollercoaster of a novel will leave you gasping for breath, closing your eyes and wondering when the rollercoaster will come off the rails.

Shuggie, fifteen, is introduced in the first part, ‘1992 – The South Side’, where he lives alone in a boarding house. The opening line sets the scene of bleak oppression, ‘The day was flat.’ This simple sentence is followed by a semantic field of negativity – ‘abandoned’, ‘listlessly’ and ‘vacant-eyed’. Shuggie’s out of body experience with his ‘soul floating’ initially leads to the possibility of hope with a new day at the end of the paragraph where he ‘thought only of tomorrow’. With a dream of going to hairdressing college, Shuggie runs the deli counter to support his ‘digs’ and counts himself lucky to have the room. Within the boarding house where ‘he could smell the musty overcoat of the yellow-toothed man who ate only what smelled like buttered popcorn or creamed fish’ Shuggie searches for his identity staring in the mirror as ‘he tried to find something masculine to admire in himself.’ It is hard to see how the desperate ingrained despair of the past can lead to a new life for Shuggie.

The narrative shifts to the past, 1981 – Sighthill, where Agnes Bain, proud and beautiful, is described as ‘To be thirty-nine and have her husband and her three children, two of them nearly grown, all crammed together in her mammy’s (Lizzie) flat, gave her a feeling of failure.’ This failure extends to the men who are described as ‘rotting into the settee for want of decent work’. The deprivation is furthered in that ‘it would take an eternity to pay off a pair of children’s school trousers or a set of bathroom towels’. Agnes’ second husband, Big Shug, a Protestant taxi driver, is loose with money and ‘a selfish animal’; he dissolves any hope Agnes may have, fuels inevitable gritty conflicts and Agnes’ alcoholism that are shocking and sad to read.

The narrative progresses in time from 1981 to 1982 – Pithead and 1989 – The East End, coming full circle at the end in 1992 – The South Side. There are many scenes that haunt the reader long after completing the novel, such as the abuse Agnes endures from Big Shug in her alcoholic state ‘the hardened hairspray cracked like chicken bones as he wound his fingers into the strands. With a tug hard enough to rip handfuls out by the roots, he started up the stairs, dragging her behind him.’ While the novel is at times overwhelmed with similes, such as the ‘chicken bones’ above and the description of Anges ‘abandoned behind the door like a ragged draught excluder’, it is these comparisons that linger. These volatile vignettes result in Agnes’ attempt to escape, no more than when she ‘held out a glowing cigarette to the curtains’ while holding Shuggie close to her in an attempted suicide. The juxtaposition in the description of this scene with the ‘grey smoke’, the ‘orange flame’ and the ‘greedy fire’ with her ‘complete calm’ is chilling. The fire is beautiful with ‘dancing shadows on the walls and the paisley wallpaper came alive’ while Agnes and Shuggie waited for death in the ‘new beautiful silence’. It is abundantly clear that Shuggie loves and trusts his mother completely and is fearless in the face of the fire. It is this love that is so heart breaking as Anges’ deepening alcoholism grinds away any potential hope.

Equally, seventeen year-old Catherine is attacked when trying to find Leek at the pallet factory by ‘many hands [that] moved on to her body, roaming and searching’ threatening her with a ‘silver fishing knife’ that would leave her with a ‘Glasgow smile, a scar from ear to ear’ or even raped. The description intensifies as the ‘gutting knife rattled against her teeth’. The scene is desperate, made worse by her realisation that ‘the men standing around her were only boys, younger than her and probably younger than Leek’. The ingrained abuse of women from such a young age further emphasises the hopelessness of the narrative and it is unsurprising when, early on, Catherine marries young and moves to South Africa without looking back. Leaving her brothers to cope with Agnes is an act survival for Catherine; it creates a sense of hope that the cycle of paralysis can be broken.

However, leaving Leek and Shuggie with Agnes is bleak. Agnes oscillates between alcoholic oblivion and times of vague coherency in the all too vivid description when ‘She lowered her head into the cavernous bag and tilted it slightly to her face. The children watched the muscles in her throat pulse as she took several long slugs from the can of warm lager she had hidden there.’ Is there any hope for Shuggie? He regularly misses school to care for his mother, heartbreakingly described: ‘With a practiced finger he reached inside her mouth and hooked out the bronchial fluid and bile. He wiped her mouth clean and lowered her head safely back on to her left shoulder.’  Equally is his struggle with his identity in a masculine world and wonders: ‘Was this the moment that would make him normal?’ While most of the novel follows Agnes’ story, it is Shuggie’s absence in the narrative that is so telling of his neglect.

With the dialogue written mostly in dialect, the inclusion of slang and simple hard-hitting prose, the novel paints a detailed picture of Shuggie’s life growing up in Glasglow. I would highly recommend ‘Shuggie Bain’, but be prepared for the no holds barred exploration of Agnes, Shuggie, Catherine and Leek, their relationships, poverty, abuse and alcoholism, and persist to the end to see if they are able to realise their hopes and break free from the paralysis that consumes their lives.

Themes: family, dysfunctional family, abuse, addiction, coming of age, poverty, neglect, religion, violence, masculinity, bullying, unemployment, prostitution, gambling, loneliness, hopelessness, redemption, hope, mother-son relationship, sexuality, identity, class, status, aspiration

All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations.