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 Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:47 am
Week 22: 150 Bible April 19, 2013 Grandma's Chest I freeze on the stair as the creaking of an old house echoes through the empty space, the hollow tick-tock of the grandfather clock counts the seconds as I wait. The half-silence remains, no sleeping family members awake to flick on the light and tell me to go back to bed at the ungodly hour of the night.
The moment and the house settles and I tentatively creep up to the next step, testing my weight on the carpet covered stairs that saw my grandparents as young children. At last my hand reaches up and finds nothing but open air, and then the floor as it comes down with the sickening lurch found at the end of every staircase.
I rise to my feet and head to the chest against the far wall, the one covered in a white cloth that had taken some ancient relative ages to pink holes in and cover the edges. My fingers slide over the ridges and sprawling words embroidered by hand that reminded anyone who saw it that God was present in the house.
I lift up the edge and fumble with the latches in the darkness, the clinking sound of metal against metal and the clunk against wood makes my heart leap into my throat. The sounds that at any other time would have gone as unnoticed as the wind should have been loud enough to wake the dead. They did not even wake the sleeping.
I lift the lid and tense at the creaking and squeaking of the hinges that sound as if they have never opened silently. I quickly grab the first cloth wrapped object my hands can reach before I close the lid a little too eagerly and hear it slam shut.
I clutch the hard object and navigate my way back down the stairs and through the house to the backroom where siblings and cousins wait with sleeping bags, and flashlights, and eager eyes. I enter the room and close the door, careless of any sound it makes. I half skip and jump and run to my spot on the floor as I am surrounded by grabbing arms and half suppressed whispers.
"Did you do it?"
"She has something."
"What is it?"
"What did you get?"
"Shh."
"SHHHH."
"You'll wake them."
"Who cares? She has it."
"Come on let us see."
"What did you grab?"
The flashlights click on and bathe the room in an awkward yellow light that moves and shifts with every hand. In my hands is a rectangle covered in a grey cloth that had once been white. I smile and hear the excited murmurs and questions as I remove the cover.
When the dust dyed and covered cloth is gone it is clear that I have grabbed a bible from out grandmother's chest. It is thicker than the ones that sit on every nightstand but with the same simple cross on the front. A closer examination shows worn and tattered edges on the pages and a frayed ribbon that managed to stick out after someone had tied a knot to stop its unraveling.
I open the front cover and written on the blank paper in the sloppy hand of a child is my grandmother's name.
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Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:51 am
Week 22: 151 Shock April 20, 2013
Den picked up Tilli's sword from the spot it had fallen and stared at it as he felt the oceans of magic stored in the sword. The oceans that were held back by nothing more than her will. "Congratulations you disarmed me." She said as he looked up, "Do not let it go to your head."
He continued to stare at the sword and marvel at the magic.
"My sword has just as much magic as yours." She said as she held out her hand for the hilt, "That should not surprise you."
"But there is so much in there." Den said as he handed the sword back and felt the shock of her excess magic build-up discharge into his hand and arm.
"Says the boy who shines like the sun." Tilli said as she shoved the sword into her arm and quickly clenched and unclenched her hand a few times, "and who can taint mine by holding it for a few seconds."
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Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:20 pm
Week 22: 152 Glass Jar April 21, 2013
Fren walked along a dirt road that wound its way through the countryside of a land he had seen turn from golden sand to green grass covered hills over the years. His boot struck the ground and as he went to shift his weight onto it he stopped.
The bright sun in the cloudless blue sky shined on the grass and an object that stood among the tall green blades. It caught his eye with a dazzling brightness. He bent down and bent aside the grass to discover a simple glass jar topped with a cork and a piece of wax to keep the single strip of paper inside.
He picked it up and smiled at he looked around to a landscape that had never known the ocean. He placed it in his bag and continued on along the road, a road that like the river he was soon to cross, would reach the ocean.
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Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 6:52 pm
Week 22: 153 Dragonfly April 22, 2013
Oh! Dragonfly
how you flit and flitter,
float and flutter.
Oh! Dragonfly
how your wings do glitter
as you sit on the rudder.
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Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 7:07 pm
Week 22: 154 Truth or Dare April 23, 2013
"Hey John. Truth or Dare?" Jubilee asked as he walked into the kitchen and headed towards the frigde.
"No." He said as he opened the door and pulled out the carton of orange juice. A quick shake of the container gave him an idea that it was still as empty as it was the last time he had come to drink out of it.
"Sorry that answer is not allowed." Jubilee said as she walked over and looked over the door at him.
He put the orange juice back and pulled out the jug of him, a quick twist of the cap and the lid was off. After a drink the milk was placed back in the fridge. He stared at Jubilee and debated which option would cause him the least trouble that morning.
"Truth." He said as he closed the door.
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:55 am
Week 23: 155 Relativity April 24, 2013
"You are overreacting." Idell said his voice the epitome of disinterested boredom.
"I am not." Dolle said as she turned to glare at him lying on the bed.
"You destroyed the dining hall when most people would have not even started to yell." Idell said as he sat up. "You are overreacting, you were being impolite."
Dolle took a deep breath and resisted the urge to yell at him, "You sound dangerously close to agreeing with her."
"I do agree with her." Idell said.
"Leave." Dolle said as she flung her hand in the direction of the doors that opened with a burst of her magic.
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:34 am
Week 23: 156 Reaction April 25, 2013
Idell remained seated where he was on the bed and stared at Dolle. From where he was he could see the face of a surprised servant look in from the newly opened door.
"She is still your mother." Idell said when Dolle continued to stand with her hand pointed towards the door, "Even if you do not think of her as such."
A wave of magic pulsed off Dolle as she clenched her hand into a fist and looked like her anger had strangled her. "I am not a child to be chided."
"No you are not." Idell said, "But you are her daughter and heir and need to act as such."
"I did that once." Dolle said her tone worryingly cold, "It ended with my brother dead."
Idell sat down on the bed and waited for whatever emotions that bubbled below the surface of her words to rise.
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:38 am
Week 23: 157 Winter April 26, 2013
"I am tired of winter." Den said as he clapped his hands together in an attempt to bring warmth back to them. "I am tired of the snow and the cold. I want to go outside and have the danger of over heating if I so much a walk in the sun."
"In a few weeks spring will arrive." Dolle said from the window. "The warm winds will blow in from the south and the white snow will be replaced by apple blossoms."
"And then the snow will turn to rain and mud." Idell said as he walked up and left a trail of thin mud on the stone behind him.
"It already has mud." Den said as he looked down at his own mud coated boots. "I just want to feel my toes." He said as he stamped hit feet in his boots. The one time his feet had been warm was when they had been in the desert and they had threatened to be burned off.
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 10:28 am
Week 23: 158 Dolls
John walked into the kitchen, and not for the first time wondered why he continued to do so in the morning, to find Jubilee already inside and doing her normal thing of doing some strange thing that made him ask "Why".
Jubilee stood in front of the counter with a doll that she had locked in a staring contest.
"I saw Chucky last night." She said as he walked to the fridge and opened the door.
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:32 pm
Week 23: 159 Ink
Ri walked past the full shelves of the royal library, the sun long since set left the moon to illuminate the slightly yellow pages and their cracked leather bindings. She turned her head down and aisle and smiled at the sight of the sun haired mage she searched for bent over a table with his attention focused on the papers on the table.
A flame that danced above a bowl of water on the table illuminated his face, and the line that had formed between his eyebrows as he drew his hand over a page in search of something. Ri walked up to the table as he looked up and the concentration turned into a smile on his face. "What time is it?" He asked as his smile widened into a yawn.
"Bed time." She said as she slid a chair out and sat down on it. Her gaze dropped from his face and to the scattered and stacked pages covered with his slanted print and jotty maps. She looked back up to him and the dark circles that had appeared under his eyes, "Although I think it is nearer morning and the rooster's crow than time for restless men to sleep."
The smile slipped from his face as he dropped the feathered quill to rub his eyes. His fingers came away and left black smudges on his lids and drew a small smile and laugh from Ri.
"What is it?" Fren asked as his blacked tipped fingers ran across his mouth and left his lips dyed black. The edge of a mirror caught the light and the edge of her eye, and Ri reached for it. She held it up for him to see and let out a laugh as his eyes widened slightly in surprise. "I suppose this means I need sleep." He said as he looked at his finger tips.
Ri stared at Fren and the black lines around his eyes as she set the mirror back on the table. "It does." She said as she dipped her finger into the ink and evened out the mark of the smudges. "Or it means I can do this." She dipped her finger into the ink again and extended the line along his eye down his cheek and into a line that jutted up again. A smile spread across his face and made the ink that she had drawn across it shift. They were black lines the mimicked the painted's markings, the only thing missing was the white base.
"Does this mean you want to marry me?" He asked as she placed her fingers on his lips to touch up the smear he had created there.
Her fingers stopped moving and she froze at the sound of his words. The thought had often crossed her mind and settled well in her mind. His mouth twisted into a worried frown as her fingers moved again. "Do you want to?" Ri asked as she felt his lips spread into a smile beneath her fingers.
She let her fingers fall as he leaned towards her and both their answers met in a kiss that tasted of ink.
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:27 am
Week 23: 160 An Instant
Fren looked down at the man who he had spent his life shrinking away from. He breifly wondered when he had gotten taller than his father before he walked past him.
"You are just going to ignore me?" His father said as he reached out a hand and grabbed him on the shoulder, "You are my son, you will listen to me."
Fren spun around and swatted his father's hand away. "Yes. You have nothing to say that I want to hear." He said as he straightened his back and looked down at the already tall man. "You gave up your right to call me that they day I was born."
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Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 9:01 am
Week 23: 161 Lullaby
"Mage Taiya." Mald said from the door to her room, she turned away from her desk and the papers she had been writing.
"What is it Mald?" She asked ignoring the fact he was out of bed past lights out. If there was one thing she had learned in the short time she had been charged with him was that he would not ignore the rule unless he had a valid reason.
"It's Dolle. My sister." He said displaying what she had come to think of as his knee jerk reaction of adding 'my sister' to any mention of her. "She is crying."
Taiya stood up and walked to the door, "I suppose she is in your room?" He bit his lip instead of answering, it was a rules violation and he would not do anything that might get her in trouble, "No she is in her room, you went to check on her. No one is going to get in trouble."
She pulled up a flame and let the way back to the student dorms, where as she had suspected Dolle sat on her bed hugging the blanket she had brought with her. "Mald." The small white haired girl said as he entered the room and was quickly grabbed in a hug. "I want to go home."
"This is our home now." Mald said in a tone she had heard many times in the puppet's cells.
"He can stay here tonight." Taiya said as she suppressed a yawn and pulled the spare set of blankets from the top of the book case, "I do not want to hear that you two were up all night talking."
"You will not." Mald said as he took the blankets and set them up. Taiya let out a small smile as she turned to leave. She would not hear of it, she did not doubt that.
"Will you stay?" Mald asked as she reached the door. She turned around to see the same expression on his face that her own brother had had when he had refused to admit that he was sad or scared. "I'll sing you a song but then I need to go to bed."
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 6:47 pm
Week 24: 162 Spider Webs May 1, 2013
Ri stared at the road as they walked and tilted her head as the glint of sunlight off an invisible object in the trees caught her eye. As she peered into the grassy orchard, and the cloud overhead moved to let the sun shine on it again, the iridescent lines revealed a spider's web strung within the leaves of a tree.
Strands of fragility that could barely catch the light, were still strong enough to hold them selves together.
She stared at it as she walked past. A burst of magic that swirled with the air created the same prismatic threads across the path ahead. A smile spread across her face as the illusion held. She quickly let the illusion fall as she walked through it and the silky webbing clung to her.
Her hand shot up to her face where the feeling lingered and a shiver radiated from her spine.
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Posted: Sun May 05, 2013 9:23 am
Week 24: 163 Fortune Telling May 2, 2013
John stared at the woman, the matted hair that laid in tangles and brambles over clothes that hung in a manner that reminded him of moth-eaten curtains. She smiled at him with crooked teeth and pointed a long, pointed finger at her. "You." She said and her voice came out like a dry wind and crunching leaves, "Time runs backwards, the future waits to pass. Stars fall. The visions guide your steps." She reached out to him and he stepped back, "A man of many names. A man with knowledge more than the gods. What brings you here?"
John stared at the soothsayer and wrinkled his nose at the scent of the air. Too many lifetimes to count, and enough strange things happening to make him believe in magic, memories of time travel, and what he thought was a simple act of looking at the vast expanse of time turned out to be nothing more than hallucinations. "I do not come." He said as he motioned to where the other man stood, "My friend seeks your council."
"You seek for something but you know not what." The woman said as she pressed her bony finger to his chest, "You will find it." John stared back at her, they were hallucinations that had a basis in reality, and if she had the ability to catch glimpses of time the trip would be more fruitful than he thought.
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Posted: Sun May 05, 2013 5:23 pm
Week 24: 164 Yin and Yang May 3, 2013
"Still stuck?" John asked as he walked into the kitchen and stopped when there was no short, hyperactive woman sitting on the counter. A glance to the fridge made him decide opening it could result in springing a trap. He took a few steps backwards and into the hallway, a glance down it gave him the view of Jubilee sitting cross legged on his table. "Still stuck?" He asked as he walked to the main room.
"Yep." She said ending her word with a pop. She opened one eye and stared at him.
"Meditating?" He asked.
"Yep." Jubilee said as she glared at him with the single open eye, and dared him to utter the words "I told you so."
"Is it working?" He asked as he ignored the pile of stuff she had dumped on the floor.
"Nope." She said.
"What made you try it?" He asked and did his best to keep the smug smile off his face.
"Shutting you up about yin-yang and all that stuff." Jubilee said, "And I had a fortune cookie."
John smile and walked back to the kitchen for his morning orange juice.
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