City of IF

[LordoftheNight]

You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration. Submissions should be posted on or before Feb 6th, and polling will begin on Feb 8th. The competion will end on Feb 15th.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct. This is a voluntary effort and no one person's responsibility. Please make comments and criticisms of entries constructive.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month. You get a prize of 100 fables, the honor is listed on your profile, and your story is immortalized in the City Auditorium.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

The specs for this month:

Length: Up to 1999 words
Genre: Historical Fiction

Topic: Must contain the words 'explanatively' and 'chancrous'. It must also feature a surgeon - of some discription - and a dream.

[Solomon Birch]

lordofthenight wrote:
Topic: Must contain the words 'explanatively' and 'chancrous'.

You meanie; those took lot's of tweaking to work in..... :x

[LordoftheNight]

god

i must confess that i've forgotten what the second one means now

[Solomon Birch]

S'alright, I looked it up. Some sort of leison, caused by some nasty disease.

[LordoftheNight]

as yes, that was it

[Solomon Birch]

Ok, here's my entry for this month's linear story competition.

Enjoy! :biggrin:

--------------------------------------

The North Ward

In Hampshire County, atop the desolate hill that resides over the old, dying town of Amherst, there sits the old Whitehall Mental Asylum. This forlorn, but imposing structure had lain abandoned for almost a century before I learned of its existence. My position as an anthropological researcher at the University of Massachusetts meant that I occasionally had to traverse the country in search of auspicious sites that would lend themselves to the forwarding of our great nation’s historical awareness. Pre-revolutionary structures were especially prized, so the discovery of Whitehall asylum was an especially pleasant find; having been constructed in 1804, a hundred and eight years ago, the building had survived unscathed by that terrible war, despite the large battle fought near Amherst, which destroyed much of the town.

So, I set off for that remote backwater, hoping that there were locals who knew details about the curious structure and could help me get on my way. Upon arrival, I left the ramshackle station, and headed into the town in search of someone who could give me a lift up the steep incline to the asylum. I inquired at the local inn and the general store, but none seemed willing to take me the short way up the hill. I was angered at this seeming unwillingness to aid a newcomer, and was about to begin the climb myself when I was approached by an unkempt fellow who introduced himself as Edward Navidson, the owner of the asylum.

“Greetings there Professor. I’m Ed Navidson, the one the universeety spoke to ‘bout yor leetle visit? I can take you up in ma’ wagon, if youse is ready?” His gruff manner caught me off guard, and I could recall no one at the university mentioning this ‘Navidson’ fellow. But the offer of transport was a welcome one, and I readily accepted, intending to finish up my inspections and return to Boston before the day was done.

Climbing aboard Navidson’s old but sturdy open carriage, we set off for the asylum. I was interested what the owner knew of the forlorn structure;
“How did you come to own Whitehall Asylum, Mr. Navidson? I had heard that it was abandoned?”
“That it is Sir, yor the first visitor the place has had in a century. ‘Taint nobody who goes up there anymore. ‘Tis a cursed and foul place. I inherited it from ma uncle, Will Navidson. He died a while back, and all he left me was this awful place. That’s gratitude eh?”
“Yes, quite.”

We continued in silence, and shortly arrived at the gates of the building. The towering black-iron fence stretched around the grounds, seemingly to keep in whatever used to inhabit the foreboding structure. Unlocking the huge padlock and chain that kept the gates so tightly barred, I thanked Navidson for the lift and inquired when he would come and pick me up
“If you aint done by the time I come at 6 o’clock, yor stayin the night, you hear? I aint comin up here in the dark, no sir.” With a demonic grin, he turned his horse and trap away and headed back down the hill.

A little disheartened at his comments, I headed toward the front doors of the ancient building. I admired the gables and soaring balustrades of the darkly majestic structure, but it appeared that age, and superstition, had not been kind to it. Crude wooden boards covered the windows, and the white paint coating the outside of the building had begun to peel. ‘Greyhall’ was probably a more appropriate title nowadays….

Stepping inside the building, the darkness astounded me. Outside it had been relatively light, if a little overcast, but inside there was almost no light at all. I had luckily brought a pocket torch, and I used this to find my way around. I was in the entrance hall to the asylum. I looked at a ledger located in the reception area, and noted the names of the different wards. I found a records and library area, and decided that that would be the best place to start my research. Despite the room being only a story up, the long dusty corridors seemed to go on forever, and it felt like an eternity before my flashlight finally fell on the dull bronze plaque on the door.

Entering, I looked around the surprisingly large room. Along the rear walls were large bookcases stacked with old, musty tomes. Most were old, mass produced bibles, but some would make good additions to the University library, so I bundled these onto the desk in the centre of the room. Stacked around this huge oaken writing desk were masses upon masses of browning papers, most likely the records of patients, expenses and other uninteresting bits of information. But my task was to record the buildings history, so I set about searching through the stacks.

After a number of hours of tedious work, and finding little of interest other than the copied diary of a former janitor of the building, I decided that a walk around the building would be the best thing to do, and the most useful to my studies. Leaving the records room, I used the map I had found in the reception area to determine my route. I wandered aimlessly thorough the asylum for some time, until I arrived at the ‘North Ward’. Looking at the records, I discovered that this was where they kept the most dangerous and unstable patients, and also where they performed some of the most experimental and strange surgeries. I sat down on a cot in one of the cells, but my eyes suddenly seemed heavy and the cot so inviting….

I awoke in a small room, dimly lit by a candle on a small writing desk. Sitting up on a cot, different to the one I had just lain upon, I saw papers on the desk, illuminated by the candle

August 9th, 1806

Finally got the job in the asylum that I had waited for so long. I start work today, cleaning the wards and helping run errands for the head, Prof. Navidson.

Later….
What a place! The asylum is huge, and I have much work to do, but the pay is good, and I get lodgings near the ‘North Ward’. Comfortable enough, but that ward is unnerving. I heard other talking about the stuff that goes on in there; it’s like a prison, where the most dangerous are kept. Prof. Navidson says it’s only like this for the safety of the employees and the other patients, but I cant help but wonder what goes on in there. I can sometimes hear the patients in their cells. I might ask for some other quarters tomorrow.

Goodnight

Zachariah Islington

August 13th, 1806

I am starting to worry now. The work is fine, but that ‘North Ward’ is not right. I can’t sleep at night because of the screams and moaning that I hear from the cells, and they won’t give me another room. I can’t afford to rent down in the town, but I might have to if this doesn’t change. Prof. Navidson is also strange, but I can get no clear reason why… He’s just odd. Being a surgeon, he spends most of his time in the NW, performing lobotomies or whatever that brain works called.

August 14th, 1806

Prof. Navidson gave a talk on how to deal with rowdy patients. I hope I don’t have to. I don’t know how I would handle one of those lurching lunatics. He clearly and explanatively warned us that we must take extra special care with the patients from the NW. That they were 'extremely unstable' and if they escaped, he would prefer us to find him and tell him rather than we try and deal with them oursleves.

10.25 p.m......
I might quit soon, I can’t handle working here much longer. Others have been missing from work, so I’ve had to start pulling double shifts. I wonder where people are? Maybe there’s a sickness in Amherst….

August 16th, 1806

They won’t let me leave! They say it’s because I haven’t finished my contract, I have another MONTH to work before I can quit. NW has been locked down; Navidson says that some patients have escaped. I’m scared.

August 23rd, 1806

Navidson sent me to NW. Lost. Patients free. Complaining about their chancrous lesions. They are looking for me. Can’t escape. Someone come. Please.

That last chilling entry disturbed me greatly, and although I am not an easily scared man, the frankness of the account and the fear Islington had shown in the writing disturbed me greatly.

Suddenly, I sat up in the cell, darkness all around. Terrified that I had slept past 6 o’clock, and remembering Navidson’s threat, I struggled out of the cell, the only light to guide me the occasional shaft of moonlight shining through the boarded up windows. Eventually I made it too the entrance hall. Forgetting about my flashlight and bag in the records room, I tried that door but found it locked. Panicking, I began to frantically search the hall for another means of escape. But there was none. All the windows were boarded shut, and I did not have the strength to pry them loose. Deciding that getting my flashlight would be the best thing to do, I groped my way along the strangely cold stone walls, towards the stairs heading up. But In the darkness I must have gotten lost, because I never found the stairs. Instead, I was back inside the North Ward. Now thoroughly terrified I ran from the ward, trying to find my way back to the entrance hall. But as a turned the corner leading to the entrance hall passage, I once again found myself standing in the foyer of the North Ward. Falling to my knees, I now realized what Islington meant by “Can’t escape”. Suddenly, I heard a crash; one of the cells' iron cage doors slamming into a wall. Who is in here?


...........Please, someone come. The patients are…. still here. They are looking for me. Please, someone….

They know I am here. Darkness all around. Can’t escape. Please…….

[LordoftheNight]

i like it - you've got my vote - so far

[Chinaren]

Well done Soiled One! A well written story!

[Shady Stoat]

Fantastic story Soily. One of your specials!

I hate to be the one to bring this up, but the word to include was 'explanatively', not 'explanative'. You might have to juggle your sentences around a bit to get it in. "The manuals were clearly and explanatively written" perhaps?

Very good though :D

[Solomon Birch]

*Mumble mumble......* Ok, fine.... You win....

*Grumble.....mumble* ;)

[Solomon Birch]

Tee hee! :lol:

Come on, someone at least try and give me some competition! ;)

[Shady Stoat]

I do apologise for this one. I've been watching too much Blackadder recently ;)

------

Revelation
By Shady Stoat

It was a good dream. Several nubile fillies danced around him, tempting a stirring in his blood. They sang sweet promises to him, calling to his lust until he rose to meet them… only to find that they had inexplicably turned into dancing bears, wearing pink satin negligees. Their paws thudded rhythmically against the ground as he roved among them, looking for the girls that had been there, only moments ago…

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Dr. Hubert Pomfret opened a pair of bloodshot eyes. He picked his cheek up from the hard teak of his desk and looked blearily in the direction of the door.

He needn’t have bothered of course. It was in the wee hours of the morning and the candles had burnt out long ago. Burnt out. Just like him, really.

The rapping continued, frantic and stubborn. Much as he wished to ignore it, his throbbing head would not allow him to. He felt around for the candle stub and fumbled it alight again. Then, in the flickering shadows of near-light, he trod his way to the door of his cottage and pulled it open.

The air was as cold as a Scandinavian virgin. He gasped as it howled into the house, straight through his thin clothing. Standing in the doorway was a vile hag. Her hair was nothing more than patches of string. Her nose was little more than an empty socket and, through her rags, Dr. Pomfret could see a mass of chancrous lesions.

“Gods above us,” he moaned, clutching himself for warmth. “It is too early in the morning for this. For the last time, you are not to bother me with this ‘Avon Catalogue’ business, ever again! I have told you before, I know not of this journal of which you speak!”

“It is of greater matters that I speak of tonight,” cackled the hag. “Tonight you must come with me. Dark deeds are afoot!”

She gave a wild laugh that echoed in the gale.

“A foot? Ah.” He nodded as understanding dawned. “You mean that fungus that grows between your toes? My advice remains the same. Wash your feet thoroughly, take your boots off once in a while and be sure to tread regularly in horse manure. It may not help, but at least you will not see the mould for the dung.”

“No, Master!” The crone leaned closer, her breath fetid against his face (Then again, his breath was not so hot after a night with his good friend Mr. Gin). “You must come with me to deliver a babe.”

He sighed. “And once again, it comes to this. Delivering infants to the crusted masses and getting paid in pennies. I used to be a great surgeon once, you know. A great surgeon. If it had not been for that one little slip…”

The beldam whistled a laugh from between her remaining teeth. “I would not let Mrs. Dawson hear you call it a little slip, Master. She may be called Cecilia now, but she can still pack a mean left hook.”

“Yes, yes, enough of that.” He surrendered and began to look for his shoes. “Give me a moment. Where is this babe?”

“Pickets Lane,” answered the crone. “You must hurry.”

--------

Dawn was letting in some feeble light now. The doctor’s head throbbed with the screams of the mother to be. He would rather be with the dancing fillies than here, up to his elbows in blood, pouring with sweat, the babe struggling against its delivery every step of the way and Mad Agatha wheezing over his shoulder. By the gods, he would even accept the dancing bears over this torture!

With a final, agonized shriek, the women forced her youngster into the world. She lay back, settling against the soaking sheets and panting her triumph.

Hubert took out a knife to sever the umbilical cord. His head rang anew with the piercing screech of Mad Agatha.

“Yes, yes, Master, kill the devil-child. Slit its throat while it lies helpless in your arms! ‘Tis the kind thing to do!”

“Excuse me?” The doctor turned to the hag, looking incredulous. “What are you raving on about this time, old crone? Have you been smoking the stale cow-pats again?”

The madwoman’s eyes were wide and alight. “No, doctor. Only the freshest leavings of the herd end up in my cigars. I speak the truth.” She pointed an accusing finger at the infant.

“See how it has the six fingers and six toes of the anti-christ. Kill it, kill it I say!”

Hubert spoke over-explanatively, as if training a small but stubborn child.

“Now, we’ve talked about this before, Agatha. You can count up to…?”

“Uhh… three, Master.”

“And this makes you qualified to tell how many fingers and toes a child has? I suggest you leave the counting to me. I, in turn, will leave the drooling and talking complete gibberish to you. This child has five fingers and toes. One, two, three, four, five. It is a perfectly normal baby! Do I make myself clear?”

Agatha tossed her head wildly. Another piece of her nose broke off and lay on the floor like an old piece of cheese. “But Master, it has the rosy cheeks of the devil-child! You must destroy it, while you still have the chance!”

Dr. Pomfret rolled his eyes. “Agatha, I have just spanked its backside. Of course it has rosy cheeks! It is not the anti-christ!”

“The devil’s mound! It has the devil’s mound!”

“It is a wart. I myself have one, just behind my elbow. That does not make me a…”

“Arghh! The devil! The devil himself!”

Hubert took a deep breath. “Oh shut up, you daft old besom.”

He held out the infant at arm’s length. Agatha shrank back as if being burnt.

“See how it shrieks out, calling to its Satanic friends to join it from their nether-hells, Doctor!”

His temper was beginning to slip. “You would cry out too if you were cold and naked and somebody had slapped your seat with an icy hand. I know I would! Now get me a blanket for the babe. Now!”

Agatha mumbled through her three remaining teeth. She tottered around the room, rifling through various drawers and crevices. Finally, she came back with an old, black shawl.

“Black,” she proclaimed. “Black for the devil’s work.”

“Yes yes,” snapped the doctor, grabbing the shawl from her scabby fingers.

“’Tis true, Master,” she gibbered. “Even you cannot fail to see the horns protruding from above its ears and the long, swishy tail of evil itself!”

Hubert Pomfret regarded the baby.

“Yes,” he said, finally. “You may actually have a point there.”

The knife rose…

[Chinaren]

Quote: Several nubile fillies

ROFL!!

Good entry Stoatyadder! I could almost hear Rowan Atkinson, oh wait, the TV's on.

Anyway, highly amusing! :D

[Smee]

:lol: :D Well done Stoat - I didn't think it possible, but you managed it.

*wanders off looking impressed*

[Solomon Birch]

Shady Stoat wrote: The air was as cold as a Scandinavian virgin.

ROFLMAO!! :lol: :lol:

Great story Stoat! Hilariously, twistedly funny! And Black Adder was certainly watching over you when you wrote this, shaking his head and mumbling all the while... :P

And I'm glad someone else put up an entry. Not very interesting on your own...

[LordoftheNight]

great - now there's no need for me to enter

[ethereal_fauna]

Here is my rather morose entry for this month:

Sawbones

Running, ever so slowly, and the faster my legs pump the slower I get. The foul hot breath of the grizzly washes over my fleeing form, causing the hair to stand on the back of my neck. Rocks litter the ground, and I run slower still, until my body no longer advances forward but instead moves in place. The bear is upon me, and my mouth opens to scream but no sound comes out...

With a start I awoke from my nightmare, beads of sweat forming on clammy skin. The same dream as I’d had two nights before, but the monstrous bear chasing me got closer this time. I laughed away my chills and ran my fingers through my damp hair, shifting my broken leg painfully in the bed as I sat up. The bone jutted rudely from the side of my calf, and the skin around the break looked red and angry. I wished I could say I had broken it running from a grizzly, but instead I’d fractured the bone falling from a tree.

Momma had sent for the old witch woman to come, wanting her to set the break. She was supposed to get here sometime today, and the bone had been painfully exposed for two days already. My brothers grumbled because they had to do all the chores, but even they had to admit I’d have a hard time walking.

“Reckon today it’ll hit a frog strangler,” Momma announced as she bustled into the room. “God’s tater wagon done turned over several times already.”

As if on cue, a flash of lightening zapped the sky, followed by a long rolling thunder as the Almighty’s potatoes tumbled across the earth. The witch woman followed in behind Momma, grinning her gap-toothed crooked grin.

The witch woman turned my leg this way and that, making my skin crawl where her gnarly weathered hands grasped my calf. “Aye, the bone gone antigodlin,” she muttered, as if any moron couldn’t tell that the bone was out of alignment.

“This’n ell hurt ya, I reckon,” she offered as her only warning, before squeezing my leg tightly and twisting the bone back into place. The pain slammed through my leg, and incredulously I heard the bone as it slipped back through the skin and snapped back into position. As in my dream, I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. Then darkness consumed me.
**
I awoke to my father’s deep voice chastising my mother. He wasn’t pleased that she had sent for the old witch woman. He’d druther taken me in the wagon to the town, to see the fancy doctor there that had moved in from the city.

“I don’t want fer mah son to go see that ole sawbones,” Momma protested. “I figured that witch woman could do just as good. She’s done healed Jesse’s nasty warts, and stitched up Orpha’s hand when she sliced ‘er open peeling taters.”

“Don’t that just crack yer yeller?” he asked sarcastically. “Done been four days mah boy been sleepin’ sure as’n he’s dead. Guess that old hag done poisoned ‘im with ‘er witchery.”

With that he came to my bedside, but I was too weak to speak. My leg felt heavy, but didn’t hurt at all. My head did hurt though, and as Pa scooped me up into his arms I succumbed to darkness once more.

I remember little about the wagon ride into town, other than the bumping causing my throbbing head to protest. The doctor in town examined my leg, a frown pulling his face almost to the floor. He grumbled about the chancrous lesion oozing on my calf, where the bone had breached the skin on its unnatural jaunt outside the flesh.

Explanatively he spoke, “This boy’s leg has to come off. Infection has claimed it already, and if I don’t remove the leg the infection will claim the boy.”

Mother’s wailing was lost as a folded cloth covered my mouth and nose, and the nurse dripped an amber liquid onto it, sending me into sleep again.
**
Birds sang happily outside the window, perched in the squat persimmon tree growing beside the clapboard building where the doctor practiced his craft. My head felt much better, I was sore hungry, and my foot itched something fierce. I pulled back the sheet and stared at where my itchy foot should have been.

Yep, I’d rather have broken it running from a hungry grizzly. Then he’d have ate me up and I wouldn’t be sitting here now.

[Shady Stoat]

ethereal_fauna wrote: Here is my rather morose entry for this month:


Given the subject of the linear, it would have been difficult to do anything that wasn't morose!

Unless, of course, you're twisty :shock: ;)

Good entry, Fauns! I like it :D

[Solomon Birch]

Great entry Fauna, really good sounding dialect too. Really added to the painful reality of the story.

And there's nothing wrong with it being morose, I personally like them (see some of mine if you want some proof) alot, and they make a nice change to the humour-flecked pieces that many stories end up becoming.

[Smee]

Excellent entry, if a little morose. :)

Hardly surprising given the topic this month. :?


Wow - at the last minute this has just become a tough competition.

Nearly Soily. :)

[LordoftheNight]

still four days left - get your stories in now people

[Chinaren]

Oh, the morosness of it! Hehe. That be nicely wrotted Fauna. :)

[ethereal_fauna]

I thought I was Flauna, Chinny. ;)

[Chinaren]

My sellpnig is gttenig wrose. ;)

[ethereal_fauna]

Stoat and I figured out what causes that...

[Chinaren]

ethereal_fauna wrote: Stoat and I figured out what causes that...

???? :confused: :surrender:

[ethereal_fauna]

*giggles*

[Jack_D.Mented]

And now, for my entry...


It was his duty, his obligation, as it were, to rid the world of these five Daughters of Venus before they could do any more damage. Of course, it was incumbent to show explanatively, unmistakably, his pain to the world. He had to watch his son, his precious heir, waste away into nothing as chancrous sores appeared on his young face and his brain softened until, in his last hours, he was simply a drooling idiot.

But before he had passed, he had said five names. Five loose women whom he'd had relations with before his decline. As he looked at it, this list was not just of names, but a list of things to do before his own death. Four names were crossed out on the crumpled sheet. One remained.

He had been a surgeon in the war. But that was before his prodigious hands had been marred and disfigured in a terrible fire. Now they weren't much good for much more than simple butchery. And to him, these women were beasts, foul sirens of debauchery that had lured his precious boy from the Lord.

It was in a dream that he was shown the way. Five graves in the poorest cemetery, covered with the newspapers that heralded a new crowned prince of crime, watched over by the spirit of his departed, who took his father's hand and smiled. He would be able to rest after this.

Picking up the ebony case and placing his deerstalker hat upon his head, the doctor exited the door and let it close behind him. The slam was like the trumpets of a thousand angels heralding the arrival of a great redeemer. It brought to the man a change. His eyes became like ice, cold and unforgiving where once they had been once warm and friendly and his mouth curved into what appeared to be a permanent frown where once there had been once nothing but smiles beneath that same mustache.

He was now a different man than his friends or family had ever seen within him. They would have never suspected that such a ruthless creature, an unflinching hunter without mercy, lurked within this silent man. The transformation was complete. Now he was Jack, monarch of the gas lit streets.

Amazing how death changes people. It had filled his life with purpose and understanding, a clarity which had never existed within his absinthe hazed world before. The drugs were no longer within his system and it showed. He saw things no other man saw, heard things no other man could hear, and knew things no mortal should know.

It was like being a god. It was incredible. He knew that it was divine intervention which had granted him this clairvoyance. Jack climbed into his carriage. The driver knew where to go. It had been previously discussed. Opening the black case, he ran his white gloved fingers over his tools.

A Listen knife, a scalpel, a saw, and several other nightmarish instruments of amputation waited, eager to begin the night's work. The silver gleamed in short flashes as the vehicle gained speed, passing several streetlights. Each one was razor sharp, the blade honed to a fine edge that would slice through most anything with ease. The effect was hypnotizing and jack simply let himself fade away into the magic until the sound of horse's hooves pounding upon the hard road seemed a thousand miles away.


The carriage door was open and the steps extended long before the thought occurred to exit. Jack stepped out and his cloak swirled about him majestically in the wind. He glided along in the eerie fog, silent as a ghost, knowing where his destination lay and finding it with no difficulty. The window was broken just as he had been told.

A white hand, contrasting sharply with the darkness, reached through the breach and freed the lock with uncanny skill. The door eased open smoothly, without so much as a sound and the black figure slid into the room. He opened his case on the table and extracted the knife, the long blade as stealthy and deadly as its owner. Jack made his way across the room to the bed upon which slept a young woman with flowing red locks tossed about her, almost resembling pools of dark blood.

Jack cupped a hand over the woman's mouth. In response, her eyes popped open almost immediately. Struggling away for but a second, she cried out. A slice of the blade across her throat silenced her and sent blood spurting across the room as Jack the Ripper commenced his work.

"Mary Kelly, I presume?"

[Kalanna Rai]

It's not morose or dark, or brooding but it is my entry under the circumstances...
--------
Faery Apothecary

The surgeon swept the hair out from under his feet. "Lazy swine. Clean this! Clean that! Sick of it I am." One day that barber was going to cut himself on one of his razors...see if Henry helped him then. He continued to grumble as the pile of filthy hair continued to rise.

Then, just as he had it all in a lovely pile, a knock on the door scattered his wits...and he scattered the hair. Sneezing and rubbing his watering eyes he bellowed at the unknown entity on the other side of the door. "Who goes there!"

"Only I." The voice was as soft as a sigh and fragile as the night it's self. Henry remembered hearing it before yet could not put face to name.

"Thy name woman, if it pleases you." The hair was settling again and he grabbed his broom for another vicious assault. He did not expect the answer from outside the door.

"I am the chancrous lesion on the face of humanity..." With a smile Henry pulled open the door and smiled at the slender figured wrapped in a green cloak that stood on the threshold.

"Nay wench, thou art the chancrous lesion on it's heart. Maegwynn what brings you about at this abominable hour? Hast thou lost thy fear of the night?

The slim woman eased into the shop with all the grace and noise of a winter mist. She shuddered in relief as the door latched behind her. "Nay Henry, tis my fondness of you that brings me out now for I have dreamed of thee." Henry was puzzled to say the least.

Maegwynn never, ever went out after sundown, it was her cardinal rule as strict as any religious practice he followed. Yet here she was, all four foot ten and...what did she weigh it seemed like nothing. Her long sliver blond hair caught the firelight and turned it into a halo and her huge blue green eyes shimmered wetly with tears.

"Thy brother wilst come for thou." She said explanatively. "Tis all my fault Henry. My father always warned me not to meddle with humans." The tears that threatened now coursed silently down her cheeks.

"Ah, sweeting, never fret. My brother is a pompous fool who will know nothing." Yet even as he said that the marrow in his bones cooled. Men had been hanged for less than his transgressions...after all how would he explain that his cures came from a faery? Maegwynn was his nurse and his cure master. He might cut them open but she put them back together.

"I've seen it Henry! Thou wilst burn should thou stay! Flee Henry! Into the night! Thou must go quickly for the bargain I've made shall not last! Begone before the cirrus of the moon fades or thou shalt perish at thy brother's hands!"

Henry had no time to grab hold of much more than his cloak, purse, and bag of Maegwynn's magical remedies before she shoved him out of the door... and into paradise! Song birds twitted overhead, deer grazed without fear of him, and everything shone with health!

He turned and looked over his shoulder at Maegwynn who only looked paler. "Go before the gateway shuts! Walk until thou cannot hear my song!" With that she began to sing and he began to walk.

Too soon her song faded and he realized what bargain she must have made...but he could not go back the path was gone. At the other end of reality Maegwynn threw back her head and gasped...it was done.

With a silence due falling snow she crept out of the barber shop and down the sewage filled street to her own safe shop. She locked every window and bolted every door before turning down her ice cold sheets and falling asleep with the sounds of her homeland burned into her brain...Henry would be safe...for now...

Henry wandered in the depths of the Lost lands for some time, passing Puck and Oberon, who were engaged in a lively debate about the virtues of human women over those in faere.

"No, no father, tis earthly women with their warm tones and soft silkeness that are fairer."

"Nay my son, tis our women with their pale countenances and cool grace that are superior."

"Why don't you ask the human whom HE would choose?" Both turned and looked at Henry for the answer but Henry, with the weight of Maegwynn's sacrifice still heavy on his shoulders, was disinclined to speak. Yet he could not very well refuse.

"My Lords. I am but a humble surgeon yet I have met one stunning creature in all my few years. Her name is Maegwynn and she is faery. It is not her flesh, or her face that make her stunning but it is her soul. The most beautiful things radiate beauty their beauty from deep inside out, not from outside in. A beautiful marble statue is beautiful outwardly...but inwardly it is still just a heavy bit of rock. A bar wench with a nose like a potato and a heart like panacea is the most comely creature in the world by comparison."

The nobles were stunned yet this was not the answer they sought. They drove him away in order to continue the argument in their own fashion. Maegwynn, meanwhile, waited for the men from the Church to come for the heritic surgeon who claimed that nature held cures prayer alone did not.

The men did come, and shove the drunken barber out of his bed on his stoop. They did search the shop, did burn the building, and the barber was finally taken to a place where there was no hair to cut but his own. Maegwynn breathed a sigh of calm, Henry was safe...

Morning came and with it came the opening of Maegwynn's shop. It was supposedly owned by a man named Silas Grummage, but nobody had ever seen him and nobody ever would...unless it was a desperate matter Maegwynn couldn't handle with a well placed charm or two.

Vials and flasks lined the walls in sparkling hues and not a speck of dust was to be seen. A lazy orange cat dozed in the window. With a sigh of contentment Maegwynn unlocked the front door and picked up the mortar and pestel that sat in a little niche to her right. She began to absently grind things together, automatically adding just the right amounts of herbs to the mix. No simple herbwife was she, no. She was Maegwynn e' Ava of Lonne and she knew what she was doing.

Strangely so did Henry who wandered in no determined direction yet still arrived at the same destination...a small cottage in a grove next to a small stream. On a sign next to the door read the simple words 'Maegwynn, curer of ills.' She'd literally sent him home, to her home.

The door opened to his touch revealing a space just like her shop back in Suffolk. With a merry tune on his lips he plopped down his bag, tossed off his cloak, and grabbed a dust laden broom from the corner. With a cheerful vigor he began to sweep away the dust and cobwebs. He sneezed, then sneezed again. Hair was tickling the back of his throat. Wait a moment...hair?

He suddenly felt the air go out of him as he hit the floor. He'd been dreaming again! The pile of hair he had worked so hard to sweep was now dancing in the air! Damn him and his daydreams! He went back to sweeping back to cursing and back to jumping when there was a knock on the door...

Did he dare answer it?

[Kalanna Rai]

Oopse! Think it went too long...oh well snip snip on the editing room floor go those extra words...

[Shady Stoat]

You're well within the 1999 word limit Kalanna. Don't fret.

Good stories, both Jack and Kalanna. Looks like the competition is hotting up :D

[Chinaren]

Woah! Two more great entries!! :shock:

[LordoftheNight]

and still 14 and a half hours to go till closing time people - get those stories in now

[Kalanna Rai]

It's a little off the cuff and not my cup of tea but hey! You guys are making me good at improv writing I'll admit.

[Solomon Birch]

Wow! Those appeared quickly! Nice stories people. Serious competition now! :biggrin:

And to think, I thought I might be the only entry this time... ;)

[Kalanna Rai]

Once I found the post, by accident, and did the reaserch, that didn't make it into the story, I had to give it a whirl.

[Solomon Birch]

Yeah, I saw and read the last competition, and really wanted to have a go, so I was right in there this time! :D

[ethereal_fauna]

Some excellent entries this competition. Since Random isn’t about as much, I thought I might do some of the nit-picking for the stories. I found a few errors...still plenty of time for the authors to correct. No more than ten errors I believe the rules state; otherwise the story is disqualified. Not too bad with the entries submitted, mostly typos and such, although there might be some things I have missed so it’s always good to double-check. :)

Soily wrote: I’m Ed Navidson, the one the universeety spoke to ‘bout yor leetle visit? I can take you up in ma’ wagon, if youse is ready?” His gruff manner caught me off guard, and I could recall no one at the university mentioning this ‘Navidon’ fellow.

Climbing aboard Navidson’s old but sturdy open carriage, we set off for the asylum. I was interested what the owner knew of the edifice (and no ending punctuation)

‘Taint nobody who goes up there anymore. ‘Tis a cursed and foul place. I inherited it from ma uncle, Will Navidon.

A little disheartend at his comments, I headed toward the front doors of the ancient building.

Despite the room being only a story up, the long dusty corridors seemed to go on for ever, and it felt like an eternity before my flashlight finally fell on the dull bronze plaque on the door.

I awoke in a small room, dimly lit by a candel on a small writing desk.

Suddenly, I heared a crash; one of the cells' iron cage doors slamming into a wall. Who is in here?

Stoat wrote: She gave a wild laugh which echoed in the gale. (laugh, which ~or~ laugh that)

Jack wrote: Of course, it was incumbent to show explanatively, unmistakeably, his pain to the world.

As he looked at it, this list not just of names, but a list of things to do before his own death. (fragment)

But that was before his prodigous hands had been marred and disfugured in a terrible fire.

Now he was Jack, monarch of the gaslit streets.

It had filled his life with purpose and understanding, a clarity which had never existed within his absinthe hazed world before. (color, which ~or~ color that)

He knew that it was divine intervention which had granted him this clairvoyance.

A Listen knife, a scapel, a saw, and several other nightmarish instruments of amputation. (also a sentence fragment, incomplete)

Jack cupped a hand over the woman's mouth. In response, her eyes popped open almost immeadiately.

Kalanna wrote: "I am the chancrous leasion on the face of humanity..." With a smile Henry pulled open the door and smiled at the slender figured wrapped in a green cloak that stood on the threshold.

"Nay wench, thou art the chancrous leasion on it's heart. Maegwynn what brings you about at this abominable hour? Hast thou lost thy fear of the night?

My brother is a pompus fool who will know nothing." Yet even as he said that the marrow in his bones cooled. Men had been hanged for less than his transgressions...

"I've seen it Henry! Thou wilst burn should thou stay! Flee Henry! Into the night! Thou must go quickly for the bargin I've made shall not last!

Henry wandered in the depths of the Lost lands for some time, passing Puck and Oberon, who were engaged in a lively debat about the virtues of human women over those in faere.

Maegwynn, meanwhile, waited for the men from the Church to come for the heritic surgeon who claimed that nautre held cures prayer alone did not.

The did serch the shop, did burn the building, and the barber was finally taken to a place where there was no hair to cut but his own. Maegwynn breathed a sigh of calm, Henry was safe...

Viles and flasks lined the walls in sparkling hues and not a speck of dust was to be seen. A lazy orange cat dozed in the window. With a sigh of contentment Maegwynn unlocked the front door and picked up the mortar and pestal that sat in a little nich to her right.

[Shady Stoat]

Thanks Fauns. Good spots, the lot of them! :D

[ethereal_fauna]

Thanks, and you are welcome.