Category: Fiction Friday

A Window in Thrums

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday6 Comments

I bought A Window in Thrums because L. M. Montgomery recommended it to me; she mentioned it in her journals.  She mentioned a lot of books she read in her journals, and since this one was by J. M. Barrie I decided to try it.  But this isn’t a book review, this is a Fiction Friday post.

I recently wrote about books as objects, especially pieces of history, and mentioned my copy of A Window in Thrums.  It’s a good story, but one of the most interesting aspects of my copy is the inscription on the flyleaf: “For Grandma from Mary Eunice, December 25th, 1898.”  I don’t know who Mary Eunice or her grandmother were, since I bought the book used online only a few years ago.  But shortly after buying it, I decided to write a story imagining who they might have been, and who else might have owned the book over the years.

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A Window in Thrums

            “Do you think Grandma will like it?” Mary Eunice asked, hugging the book to her chest.

            “Of course she will, dear,” her mother said firmly, continuing briskly down the row, eyes on the baskets of fruit for sale.

            Mary Eunice frowned, the frown of a girl just old enough to start questioning firm parental assurances.  “But will she really like it?” she persisted, hurrying after her mother.  “I want her to like it because she really likes it, not just because it came from me.”

            Her mother absently picked up an apple, put it down, and went on to the oranges.  “There’s never anything really fresh this time of year,” she muttered.

            “But, Mother, will she?”

            “What?  Oh, the book.  Yes, of course, you know she likes Mr. Barrie’s novels.”

            “That’s true,” Mary Eunice said thoughtfully, feeling reassured.  She watched her mother walk down the row but stayed where she was, to look at the book in her hands.  She enjoyed the proud thrill of ownership for at least the twelfth time in the last ten minutes since they’d walked away from the bookstore.  It was the first book she’d ever bought with her own money.

            Mary Eunice thought it was the prettiest little book she’d ever seen.  The cover was dark blue, with silver curls and swirls and a scattering of pink flowers.  The spine was the same, the back pale gray, the pages crisp and white.  Mary Eunice ran her fingers lightly across the silver title stamped on the cover: A Window in Thrums.  She checked on her mother, saw she hadn’t gone very far, and carefully cracked open the book.  She turned a few pages and found Chapter I.

            “On the bump of green round which the brae twists, at the top of the brae, and within cry of T’nowhead Farm, still stands a one-storey house, whose white-washed walls, streaked with the discoloration that rain leaves, look yellow when the snow comes.”

            Mary Eunice stopped reading with a puzzled frown and closed the book.  “Oh well,” she whispered to it, “I still think you’re the prettiest little book I ever saw, even if I don’t know what a brae is.  And Grandma likes Mr. Barrie’s writing.  That’s what matters.”

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A Flying Pink Elephant

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction FridayLeave a comment

You did actually read that title correctly.  A little context: some of my best memories from high school revolve around Pirates of the Caribbean.  I had a close group of friends who were all big fans of the movie.  And I still do–we’re still friends.  One way this fandom and friendship manifested itself was that I ended up writing a POTC novel that pulled in a lot of the randomness of our high school friendship.  I only half count it as one of my novels, as I think it’s more accurate to call it a 200-page extended joke.

The essential plot-line (such as there was) is that Captain Jack Sparrow returns to Port Royal, and Commodore Norrington and his soldiers spend a night chasing Jack, Will and Elizabeth through a very bizarre cornfield.  I refuse to be held responsible for all the craziness, as some of it definitely came from my friends.

For Fiction Friday this week, I thought I’d share the opening chapter of Pirates of the Caribbean: Cornfield Madness.  It’s one of my favorite scenes, even though it’s not a heavily Jack Sparrow sequence.

Since this is fanfiction, I should probably note that I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean or any of the characters from the movie.  I guess I own the elephant.  It’s also worth noting I wrote this story before the POTC sequels came out, so it’s not always accurate with the later events in the characters’ lives.  If you’re not familiar with POTC, you can read a synopsis here (or take my recommendation and go watch the movie; it’s wonderful).

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            It was late afternoon when Norrington first heard that Jack was in town.  He gathered together Lt. Gillette and an unspecified number of soldiers, and marched off for Will and Elizabeth’s house.  He failed to take into account that he was attempting to capture Captain Jack Sparrow, who happens to be a master of quick escapes and split-second timing.  So as Norrington, Gillette, and their unspecified number of soldiers marched up the stairs at the front of the house, Jack jumped out a second story window at the back of the house.

            Jack might have escaped scot-free right there.  Except for one little detail.  He landed fine.  Hit the ground just right, rolled exactly the way he was supposed to, that wasn’t a problem.  Except that he dropped his hat in the process.  If he’d just ignored it and run, he probably would have been out of sight and gone long before Norrington got to the window, leaving the Commodore with no trail.  From there it would have been simple to hightail it back to the Pearl and set sail.  But of course, he didn’t ignore it.  And he still might have made it if not for the dog.  It might have been the same one from the jail cell, and then again it might have been that one’s brother, but either way there was a dog and it liked this strange three-cornered object that had just dropped into its life.  All of which explains why Jack was still in the courtyard arguing with a dog over legal property rights to hats when Norrington looked out the window. 

            Seeing the Commodore and hearing the shouts of “After him!”  Jack bowed deeply, yanked his hat away from the dog (who howled broken-heartedly), clapped it on his head, and ran. 

Continue reading “A Flying Pink Elephant” →

Do You Remember England?

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday3 Comments

I have a poetry problem.  I like some poetry, and I respect some poets, and if you like and/or write poetry, I have no quarrel with you or your poetry.  One of my best friends writes poetry, and one of my favorite authors (L. M. Montgomery) preferred writing poetry to prose.

But.  Maybe I had too much poetry pushed on me in classes, or maybe it was being pushed by teachers who went a little too far about the deep symbolism.  Or maybe I just have free verse issues.  Because my problem is, far too often I look at poetry, and can’t quite shake the feeling that someone threw meaningless words onto a page, made up something that sounded deep, let other people guess at other deep meanings, and then sat back and grinned while people raved about the symbolism.  I know it probably isn’t true most of the time…but I have this sneaking feeling it is true more often than the literary world wants to admit.

So, from this feeling, I decided to play a bit one day.  And I wrote a poem where I deliberately took memories from what was in fact one of the best ten days of my life, and tried to make it sound as solemn and dark and deep as I could.  Every line is a specific memory.  I just turned things around a little.  For example…I neglected to make it clear that when we collapsed halfway up a flight of stairs, it was because we were laughing.  Or that the “walk of horrible murders” was a “Jack the Ripper tour” and the “thousand graves” refers to Westminster Abbey.

So here’s my deep, dark, grim poem about my absolutely wonderful school trip to England during high school.  Which technically makes this not fiction, but never mind that.

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Do You Remember England?

I remember glittering gems in locked cases,
Guards in gleaming red coats,
Lofty towers and small cells.
I remember stealing money from a fountain.

I remember food with too much sugar,
A boating accident that didn’t happen,
Hundreds of eyes in hundreds of faces.
I remember walking past shining windows and buying nothing.

I remember a boy frozen in stone,
A stone spire, slightly tilted,
Massive shapes, ancient gray stones.
I remember looking at a stone statue looking at me.

I remember a walk of horrible murders,
A thousand graves,
An admiral on a pedestal reaching to the sky.
I remember collapsing halfway up a flight of stairs.

I remember a city of tents.
Small birds pecking at crumbs.
Crumbling columns and algae-strewn water.
I remember sleeping curled up on the floor.

The Curse Strikes

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction FridayLeave a comment

This week for Fiction Friday, I thought I’d share another excerpt from The People the Fairies Forget, my young adult fantasy novel.  You can read a little about the premise here, and catch up with previous excerpts here and here.

            In brief, the story so far: Princess Rosaline was cursed by the Evil Fairy Echinacea at her christening to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die.  Good Fairy Marjoram transformed the death curse into a spell for enchanted sleep until awakened by a kiss.  Tarragon (a free agent fairy unaffiliated with either group, and our narrator) thinks the whole thing is kind of stupid.  He also has a wager on with Marj about whether True Love can be found among non-royalty; he says yes and she says no.  He’s chosen a goatherd named Jack and a kitchenmaid named Emmy, who works at Rosaline’s castle, to prove his point, although the details of how this will be demonstrated have yet to be revealed to the reader.

            As we join, Rosaline has just pricked her finger.  Marj, out of deep concern that Rosaline will be lonely if she wakes up in a hundred years and everyone else is gone, has put the rest of the castle to sleep too.  Tarry has seen to it that Jack and his herd of goats, including the Little One, a baby goat, have come to the castle to investigate.

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           When we arrived at the main entrance to the castle, Jack stopped short to stare at the yards and yards and yards of thorns.

            The area around the castle was by no means deserted.  A considerable crowd had gathered already, and more were arriving.  Many looked on with eager curiosity and loudly theorized regarding what had happened—they were plainly onlookers, come to see the excitement.  Others, the ones who appeared more distressed, had to be friends and relatives of the people inside.  Marj should’ve seen what she’d caused.  But she wasn’t there, of course.

            The goats settled in and started eating the lawn.  Jack eyed the thorns.  They weren’t just thorns.  Marj would never dream of magicking up something that plain and ugly, so she’d made enchanted roses instead. There were roses swarming all over the outer wall of the castle and spreading at least three hundred feet out into the fields in a tangled mass far above our heads.  They had vivid red blossoms and sharp thorns.

            Jack scratched the Little One’s head, and stared at the roses.  “I have to get through there.  How am I going to get through there?”

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How the Klingons Stole Christmas

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday3 Comments

Once upon a time, I wrote a lot of Star Trek fanfiction.  And once upon a time, I decided it would be fun to rewrite “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” for the Star Trek universe.  So, in honor of the holiday, I’m going to be a bit geeky here, and share my retelling of the story–with respectful acknowledgement to Gene Roddenberry and Dr. Seuss, of course (two men who probably don’t come up in the same sentence all that often).

Happy Holidays to all!  And whether you celebrate Christmas or not, and whether you’re a Star Trek fan or not, I hope you get a laugh out of “How the Klingons Stole Christmas.”

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How the Klingons Stole Christmas

All the people in the Federation liked Christmas a lot,

But the Klingons on Quo’nos… the Klingons did not!

The Klingons hated the Federation, every alien race!
Now, please don’t ask why; they never stated their case.
It could be that their skull ridges affected their minds,
Or that their big boots weren’t quite the right size.
But I think the most likely reason may be,
That they had too much blood wine on a wild Klingon spree.

But,
Whatever the reason,
The wine or their boots,
The Klingons were all gathered, all in cahoots,
Planning a way, on the twenty-fourth of December,
To distress the Federation, down to every last member.
For they knew they were all preparing for their holiday toast,
And Christmas was when the Federation annoyed the Klingons the most!

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