The Call of Magic

Tags

A Dark Matter, adventure, crush, magic, Master Class, revelation, Trifecta, writing prompt

The great revelations of my adult life began with the shouts of a lost soul in my neighborhood breakfast joint. At first I wrote off his proclamations as the ravings of a deranged lunatic, just like everyone else. But as time went on I couldn’t get his words out of my mind. As crazy as it was, I was starting to believe him.

When I showed up at his house a week later he showed no signs of surprise. Instead he urged me up the creaky stairs and into his rustic home. Odd artifacts cluttered shelves and covered patches of the floor, many of them looking like they belonged in the Middle Ages. Meticulously drawn maps were stacked upon a lopsided table. He gestured to a small stool in the center of the room and sat down on an antique chair that resembled a throne. I looked around without success for a free spot to set down my bag and then sat down with it in my lap.

“You want to know more, I presume,” he said after I situated myself on the hard stool. His face had a hint of a smile that erased years from his appearance.

“I didn’t believe you,” I said.

“No one ever does at first,” he replied.

“But I couldn’t drive the idea from my mind.”

He sat in silence, his gray eyes studying me. He ran a wrinkled hand through his disheveled beard and began to nod his head. “Yes, there is always one that it calls to. Wait here.” He stood up and disappeared into another room. When he returned he held a stone bowl and a pestle in his hands. He grabbed a pouch from a shelf and sat down across from me. He dumped the contents of the pouch into the bowl and began to crush the stones into a fine powder.

“Magic is real, lad. So are elves and other folk. The real question is if you’re brave enough for an adventure.”

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This marks the beginning of a story, fulfilling the writing prompt for both Trifecta and Master Class. This one has strong potential to be continued beyond this, and we’ll see if I can juggle this one in with the Monster Hunter series. I’ve already got some grand ideas for what happens next.

For the Master Class we were to use the first line from Peter Straubs’ A Dark Matter as the beginning of our post. The line was “The great revelations of my adult life began with the shouts of a lost soul in my neighborhood breakfast joint.”

For Trifecta we were to use the third definition of the word CRUSH in a post that is 33-333 words long.

CRUSH (transitive verb)

1a : to squeeze or force by pressure so as to alter or destroy structure <crush grapes>
b : to squeeze together into a mass
2   : hug, embrace
3   : to reduce to particles by pounding or grinding <crush rock>

 

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Team Nine: Whispatory and Scholarly Scribe – Part 2

Tags

apprentice, magic, master, partner, short story, Trifecta, Whispatory, writing prompt

Tonight I’ll begin with an announcement: I have entered Ogre Hunt into the America’s Next Author contest. So go there and grab a copy, read it, review it, and vote for it!

This week Trifecta is having their anniversary challenge, randomly pairing us with a partner for the prompt. My partner is Jennifer from Whispatory, who completed the first portion of the challenge earlier this week. Today I will pick up where she left off and finish the story in my allotted 33-100 words.

The bold paragraph was the initial start to the story given to her. The italics are what Jennifer added to it, and then we’ll transition into the conclusion that I’m adding.

Charts and optimal dates and preferential temperatures. One line or two. As if she could summon whatever it is that makes up the human soul as easily as she could a cab on a busy New York avenue.

She can’t but her mentor can. Her lips press into a grim line, sweat pops on her forehead as she pumps harder straining her quads and calves, weaving in and out of traffic. It’s dangerous she knows, a door could open any second and send her slamming down on asphalt only to be crushed under relentless rubber wheels. But she is far less afraid of that fate than not retrieving the package her mentor sent her to collect in time.

She skids to a halt, teetering on her toes, just in time to avoid being cut off by a red convertible. She sprints down the street, worried that she might be late. She hurdles a door that opens in front of her, thinking that this would be easier if he taught her to fly.

Twelve years as his apprentice and she was still learning basics.

She rounds a corner and cuts into an alley, taking the fire escape into an abandoned apartment. She enters into the room through a broken window.

“Congratulations,” her master says, “today you become a master.”

Burning Away The Past

Tags

burning, candle, fiction, letting go, old boyfriend, past, photos, scriptic, short story, Trifecta, writing prompt

She never seemed to be able to get away from him, no matter what she tried. Every time she thought she had forgotten him, he popped back into her life. It has been years since they had been together, yet he still dominated her thoughts. He would smile if he knew that he still could control her, even after all this time. She knew it was time to change things.

After all, if he still controlled her now then he might control her still in the year 2019, ten years after he left her. Did she want to end up on her deathbed, decades from now, looking back at a life that was never truly her own after she met him?

She lit a candle, watching the flame flicker to life, the aroma of apples and cinnamon filling the air. She hated the smell of cinnamon, but he had insisted on getting these candles. She wondered if it was only because he knew she couldn’t stand the smell. But even now she couldn’t bring herself to buy anything but apple cinnamon because of him.

Blue and green smoke trailed into the air as the flame devoured old pictures of him. She burned every picture she owned from when they were together. She knew she needed to purge him from her life, but now she needed to add the real fuel to the fire.

She grabbed her box of mementos, which once had been small enough to fit in her dresser drawer but now had to be kept in her closet, and pulled out the memories of him. His old sweatshirt that he always wore, a half-eaten box of milk duds from their first date, and the toenail clippers he kept by the bed were among the casualties of the night. As she watched them engulfed in the raging fire she smiled, feeling free for the first time in years. By burning away the past, she finally found a way to let go.

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I blame this post on watching too much Friends lately. When I was given my Scriptic prompt for this week, I immediately thought of the episode where they burn things from their old boyfriends. What else was I supposed to do with a candle, toenail clippers, and a box of milk duds!?

This post actually fulfills two prompts: Scriptic and Trifecta.

For the Scriptic.org prompt exchange this week, Barb Black at http://blackinkpad.blogspot.com gave me this prompt: a candle, toenail clippers, and a box of milkduds

I gave Jester Queen at http://jesterqueen.com this prompt: He finally did it. After years of failure he…

For Trifecta we needed a post between 33 and 333 words that used the third definition of Year:

YEAR (noun)

1: the period of about 3651/4 solar days required for one revolution of the earth around the sun
2: a cycle in the Gregorian calendar of 365 or 366 days divided into 12 months beginning with January and ending with December

3 : a calendar year specified usually by a number <died in the year 1900>