Category: New Writing

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. 

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. 

Blog, Creative Shorts, New Writing

The Footbridge

pamaprice

Mist rose from the white froth of the river as it rushed under the footbridge. To the right of the bridge was the weir – large iron gates shoulder to shoulder as the river poured over.  To the left of the footbridge, black angry whirlpools that were whisked downstream by the current. The spray from the water that crashed into the weir landed on the wooden footbridge in droplets and froze almost as quickly as it kissed the wood forming an icy sheath along the handrails and planks.

This was no place to be so early on a bitter December morning.

The footbridge was long. One of the longest in the kingdom. Crossing the river, even over the footbridge at this time of year was, needless to say, perilous. One slip, one rotten piece of wood and between the freezing river and the current, it would take a miracle to survive.

I tied the black woollen scarf more tightly around my neck and cursed myself for rushing, leaving my hat and gloves behind when I grabbed the oversized duffle coat. Numbness crept around my ears and I began to regret my half-hearted attempt at deception and wished I had not cropped my hair into such a short bob before setting out, but everyone knew my long, curly black hair. It was wild and even under a hat the curls would force their way loose. I would be seen. But what’s done, is done and my curls lay tied in an amputated ponytail under the floorboard in my bedroom. I needed to cross the bridge before the sun rose. I rubbed my bare hands together and prepared to traverse the icy planks to the field on the other side of the river where he would be waiting.

‘You have nine lives.’ I said out loud. ‘Remember Forest, you have nine lives.’

And as if walking a tightrope, I lifted my arms out from my sides and placed my foot on the first board, and the next and the next. Between the gaps in the planks, the river rushed dizzyingly underneath. The footbridge swayed with the white water to the right, the whirlpools to the left and the driving current below. I lost my balance and I wasn’t even halfway across. The icy air constricted my lungs arresting my breath and my vision clouded.

I reached out to the handrail and flinched as the icy surface burned my palm and retracted my hand. I closed my eyes and pushed my hands into my pockets to warm them. I felt the leather pouch of money. It weighed heavily in my coat and I remembered my purpose on this early December morning. I clutched the purse, opened my eyes and stared into the distance, along the footbridge to the other side. I ignored the weir, the whirlpools and the current beneath the footbridge and stepped solidly from one frozen board to the next. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. Slowly. Deliberately. Evenly.

It was said that within my eyes, the whole of the kingdom could be seen. Even in one so young as myself. But what they did not know was that through my eyes, I could see the whole of the kingdom. Some secrets had to be kept.

I reached the bend in the footbridge and refocused my eyes towards the end – the lock. Hennery, the lock keeper, would not be up yet. He walked the streets of the town in the dead of night, ghostlike. Some say he was simply so old that he no longer slept at night. Others say he was cursed with an earthly purgatory of sleeplessness. I know he seeks what he has lost and can only hope to find under the cover of darkness.

As I neared the lock, I dared to look to my right, I had passed the weir and the white water had calmed to strong black current; I was able to keep my balance while glancing to either side of the footbridge. It was still early enough that not a soul stirred, not even a mallard. I continued to tread lightly, my shoes barely touching the footbridge. The last section I ran across on tiptoes until I reached the frozen earth of the bank. As expected, Hennery was nowhere to be seen.

I blew into my hands and rubbed them together as I peered both ways along the footpath. The sun was high enough to form long golden beams that accentuated the ethereal mist that rose from the river and rolled over the bank and settled in frozen fractal patterns on the saltmarsh-grasses, reeds and bulrushes. Before long, lovers would be out for early morning walks and Hennery would be summoned by boats needing passage through the lock.

How long was I to wait?

I moved off of the footpath into the cover of the horse chestnut trees of the bankside. I removed the purse and weighed it in my right hand. I scanned the bank, the river and the footbridge behind me. The scene was as empty as the soulless eyes of a dead man. My kingdom slept.

The grasses rustled and a frozen branch cracked. He was here. I laid the purse between two roots of the tree and stepped towards the footpath. Aiding and abetting a known fugitive. That is the crime I would be convicted of – penalty of death in my kingdom under the stars. My breathing became uneven again, the river scene swirled. The words aiding and abetting rebounded from one side of my mind to the other.

I caught sight of the horse chestnut tree. The pouch was gone. I had aided and abetted my father, a fugitive, for the last time. I ran back across the footbridge ignoring the ice, the weir and whirlpools. I ran along the empty Riverside Street. I ran up the hill to our house and stopped short of the path that led to the front door. The light was on in Mother’s room. The house was waking up. I untied my scarf and pulled it over my head, retied it under my chin and pulled the collar of the coat up to cover my neck.

I had lost one of my nine lives on the footbridge. I felt it drown in the river. But I would always land on my feet, Father had said, so I had to keep going. I turned away from the only home I had known and headed on the road out of town.

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

Below Freezing

pamaprice

The fog rolled in overnight. It had settled around the treetops before I went to bed, but it silently crept through the bare branches until it covered the roads, the fields and the river. I left the house before dawn and entered the oblivion of the day.

I pressed on towards the Thames, coughing as the freezing air caught in my lungs. The path seemed longer than I had remembered and although the density of the fog was unexpected, it was not unwanted, and I wrapped my knitted scarf more tightly around my neck and covered my mouth with it in an effort to stifle the sudden loud coughs that could give me away.

As I reached the riverbank, the sun rose just enough and began to burn off the fog; the river came into view with the bluish shadows of the trees on the bank opposite. Snapshots of the tree’s reflections shimmered in an iridescent steel grey in the river and undulated slightly with the movement of the current.

I waited in the silence and listened.

In the freezing fog, the silence was broken by the snap of the odd branch or a catch of heavy breathing. I was not alone.

My scarf had slipped down and as I stood still, waiting for the inevitable, I pushed the loose hair that had escaped from my heavy coat out of my face. The stray strands had crystalised and crunched in my fingers; I realised that my breath caught on the ends; it must have been below freezing. In one way or another, I could die by this bank and in the short time I waited, the sun rose further and illuminated the white fog and myself in my black coat. Steam rose off of the river and created a haze in which it would be easy to disappear.

Two geese emerged from the fog and waddled close to my feet. I coughed into my scarf startling them into flight over the river honking as they drove their wings into the mist. I sidled down the bank towards the mooring, slipping on the icy grass and geese droppings until I reached the short dock. I pulled the leather gloves from my hands and stuffed them into my pockets. The rowboat was exactly where I thought it would be and I reached down to untie the rope from the post, but I stopped just before I touched it. A spider’s web, large and complex, formed a triangle between the post and the rope, heavily frozen white lace. It was beautiful. Delicate and perfect, nature’s tatting. I peered closer into the boat and in the corners and between the seats, frosted spider’s webs decorated the crevices like wedding finery. Though the sun was rising, the fog still hung heavy and the footsteps echoed closer and closer. I pulled the rope and released it from the post shattering the spider’s web.

I tip-toed across the wooden planks of the dock and eased myself into the rowboat sliding into the middle and held on to the sides briefly for balance. I removed one of the oars and pushed it against the dock and drifted towards the middle of the river and under the low-lying fog just as I heard a voice say, ‘I can’t see her.’

I fixed the oar into place and as noiselessly as possible; I removed the other oar locked it in and let the oars dip into the water. I pulled gently, lining the boat up with the shadows of the trees that I could now see lined both banks. The skin of my hands stuck to the oars and I wished I had put my gloves back on but there was no time to stop now. The winter sun rose fast, and I could see the fog in the distance dissipating. Despite the promise of the warmth of the sun, my fingers were so cold that the first two on each hand ached with stabbing pains so sharp I wondered if I would be able to keep up the pace as I closed them more tightly around the oar and pulled. Ignoring the pain, I manoeuvred the boat into the current as I had been taught and the boat moved faster and faster as I rowed.

Two swans escorted me briefly, gliding next to the boat, balanced and pure like some divine symbol of protection sent aid and abet my escape, as I tried to vanish along the steaming foggy river. On the bank were two figures, one with a rifle raised towards the river and the boat. A shot rang out. One of the swans faltered, let out a painful yelp and lost its balance. It was a crime to kill a swan, but I did not think they cared about the law. I gripped the oars harder, my fingers now blue, and rowed harder leaving the other swan to swim around its dying mate.

From the bank, the voices argued and grew distant. The dying swan had bought me some time and as I passed under the old stone bridge, I disappeared.

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 Clock Tower

pamaprice

The clock on the tower had stopped. I was not sure how long the hands had ceased to move as I had been sitting at the table outside the café stirring my coffee into swirls. I stirred clockwise then anticlockwise as if to undo what had been done. The clock could have been still for seconds or minutes or longer.

People hurried past the tables outside the café; sometimes a bag or umbrella or the person themselves knocked into my back as they tried to escape the mizzling rain that had started to fall by edging as close as possible to the path under the awnings. No one said: ‘excuse me’ or ‘pardon’ or ‘I’m sorry’. I steadied the cup in its saucer after each encounter and took quick sips of the hot sweet liquid which burnt my tongue. I held the cup to the saucer with my thumbs and index fingers in anticipation of the next interruption.

I would not usually sit outside the café by myself. Not this café anyway. And not on a school day. From my table, I could see the whole of the clock tower. An austere landmark in the town with rich bronze mechanisms that slowly moved behind the glass doors, and harnessed the steam from below ground to generate the momentum and press time forward. The clock tower released steam from the top turret every quarter of an hour and today the steam had merged with the misty fog from the sea front, but the puffs of steam no longer seemed to mark the passing hours.

I thought of all the time wasted. Notions of what should have been, what I could have done, what still might be. And then in turn, how time was eating away at me, withering me, slowly taking the breath from my body. I thought of all the steam that must had been building up under the clock tower like it was holding its breath waiting for the inevitable volcanic geothermic explosion.

People would gossip. When they found out. Time would be taken up with supposition – the whys and wherefores. My hand jerked against the handle of the cup and I spilt some of the coffee into the saucer. This time it was not a passer-by, but my own nervous spasm that I tried so hard to control when it happened. I poured the coffee from the saucer back into the cup. It was a murky brown, and the rich taste was altered by its distillation and was no longer appealing or comforting. I pushed the saucer away and pressed my hands together under the table as if in prayer or rather to hide the evidence between my knees. The coldness of my fingers penetrated my school skirt and tights and I shivered in my duffel coat.

I knew the day was progressing. Even the dull light of the hidden sun had changed in the rain. But the clock had stopped. The chasm of time where I had left him behind at the pier and now, where I waited to be discovered, grew wider and wider. We should have taken the bus. But there was no one at the pier, so we walked.

Was it an accident?

Time obscures memory. Even a memory from earlier today. Did we argue? It was tit for tat, wasn’t it? A push for a push. He was so tall and broad. How was I to know he would trip? The bigger they are the harder they fall, that’s the saying, isn’t it? Who’s to know if I meant it. I meant it, didn’t I? I didn’t mean for it to crack though. For him to crack. For his clock to stop.

Someone knocked into my back again as the weather turned from a drizzle to a slashing rain. The wind picked up and I jarred the table enough for the coffee cup to teeter back and forth and eventually fall over before I could catch the cup. The brown sludge bled over the red plastic gingham table covering and slowly dripped off the far edge. The coffee that reached the ground mixed with the rain on the red paving stones and ran off in the grouting towards the gutter.

I closed my eyes. It was an accident, I thought over and over, as I stood up and placed the cup upright on the saucer. I pulled several paper serviettes out of the dispenser, blotted the table and soaked up the coffee. I stuffed the distained serviettes into the cup. Steam erupted from the top of the clock tower. The hands began to move again. The time between then and now faded and was almost non-existent.

I pushed my hands into my pockets. No one saw me at the pier. If anyone asked and they wouldn’t, would they? But if anyone asked, I wasn’t there – it must have been an accident, surely? As I walked away from the clock tower, I kept close under the awning to avoid the brunt of the heavy rain and caught the elbow of a woman seated at the next table and jarred her hand as she brought her coffee cup up to her lips. The coffee lurched out in large drops and splattered on the red gingham. I almost said, ‘sorry’, but I had nothing to be sorry for really, did I?

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.