"Her Very Own Demons" Part 3

As we draw closer and closer to Halloween, my excitement only continues to build! This is my favorite holiday by far. I've Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban music playing in the background, trying to find a good Halloween soundtrack. I've dawned the Salem, MA shirt that I purchased a few years back when my friend Julia, her friend Laura, and I embarked upon a day trip to that fateful town. It was wonderful to see all of the decorations, the beautiful red buildings, and the history of such a sage seaside town. It truly was a wicked good time. I wonder if the residents get tired of the Halloween spirit or if they enjoy it to its fullest? If there are any Salem readers tuning into this blog, please feel free to leave your two bits below!

On that note, in preparation for All Hallow's, what music do you plan on playing for your trick-or-treaters? Is there any particular soundtrack that your neighborhood ghouls enjoy most or are you planning on Pandora-ing it? If you have any special tracks or any recommendations for the readers and me, let us know in the comments below!

Now, to the main attraction, the reason why you are here: "Her Very Own Demons, Part 3". For Parts 1 and 2, please refer back two posts staring with "Taming the Dragon." Enjoy!

"Her Very Own Demons"

Part 3

By S. Faxon

The wide, stone stairway on which Gwendolyn labored to clean had never felt more cold. Not a moment ago, sweat had been dripping from her forehead from the intense stuffiness of the grey confine. But now the temperature had dropped so that her breath formed misty clouds.

A deep fear settled upon her.

Before distress could completely deter her from concentrating on her scrubbing, Gwendolyn touched her hand to her heart, pressing her crucifix close to her chest.

The cold continued as did her cleaning. The rough, echoing scraping sounds of her sudsy brush to the hard stones did little to muffle the unmistakable dread that was approaching. The beast had not yet materialized, but she knew it was there. She could feel it. She could feel his eyes upon her again.

A terrible growl, unlike anything man or beast crept up the stairs as though preparing to attack.

With a deep breath, Miss Queen cleared her thoughts and prepared for the onslaught.

“What could a stupid little wench like you find so appealing about that bloke anyway?” Malacoda’s hissing voice sounded through the stairwell as if it were coming from every direction. “He’s not attractive; actually I think he’s kinda bloated around the middle. He’s gluttonous and greedy and he certainly has no interest in you, you are way too plain and small for his tastes. You know all this, Gwenny, why even bother wasting your time on the second floor here? Why not give it to that other ugly woman. She’s really bossy and she uses you anyway. She’s not really your friend you know. I heard her just last night calling you nothing more than a wretched, useless country-slut.” The demon did not materialize. As he whispered these things to her, she actually found a sense of relief. There had been times when similar whispers would come with her voice, though she generated not a sound. It was all their devilish ploy to make her feel mad.

Her resolution to not be perturbed proved to frustrate Malacoda. A loud gnarled sucking came just before her, ending with a splat on the stair she had just finished cleaning.

Gwendolyn looked up to see the disgusting green spot on the step that glared and bubbled at her. “Do you mind?” she asked, knowing that it would have been better if she had merely cleaned it without saying anything. .

“No, I don’t mind. I could do this all day.”

This was routine - she cleaned up the extra messes Malacoda made for her regularly. In a way, she almost preferred it when Luci exclusively stalked her steps. Luci would never do something so childishly wicked as dirtying or soiling something she cleaned. No, Luci played on an entirely different form of this game that was far more effective against Gwendolyn’s defenses, but at least it left her with less clean-up work to do. “Where is Luci, by the way?” Gwendolyn asked the nothing.

A shadow formed at the top of the stairs. It slowly descended toward her and Miss Queen knew that it was simply Malacoda. Without taking shape, the shadow hissed, “Not that it’s any of your business, Queenie, but she’s off in the south dealing with some other enterprise today. She’s a busy bee you know.” After a moment of thought Malacoda added, “And she’s not actually a she, I don’t know why I keep referring to my master that way.”

“I realize that Luci is not really a she,” Miss Queen more said to herself and the marble stair that she was polishing rather than to Malacoda. “I figure that she’d be different, look different to everyone she approaches.”

“My, my, the little rat does have a brain,” Malacoda said insultingly. The demon watched the washerwoman continue with her work unabashed by his tormenting for a moment before finding another button of hers to push. “What if he doesn’t come early today? What if he doesn’t show up until after you leave? Imagine the pain your poor pathetic heart will burden tonight.”

Pushing aside that worry, Gwendolyn sighed and said, “If he doesn’t come, I s’pose it’s just you then for company.”

Malacoda did not like it when Miss Queen was not affected by his attempts to bring her down, it frustrated him so. The demon began to conjure the next insult or threat that he could throw at Gwendolyn, but they certainly were becoming more and more difficult to find after so much abuse over the years. His creativity seemed to be dying.

Gwendolyn continued her job of scrubbing the stone steps as the demon continued his deep thought in silence. This was the sort of work she was used to doing; she had been a hard working woman for nearly all of her life. She was originally employed by the university at the age of fifteen when she left her home in the south in search of peace. It took a while for her to find it, but peace indeed she did find. She lived rather well actually for one full year – her eighteenth. However, right before she turned nineteen, the demons came out from the shadows and now as she was approaching her twenty-first birthday, well, the then established status quo has remained the same.

In the past year and a half of her life, the only solace Miss Queen has been able to find came from the greetings she would receive from the man she loved. He would come early every morning, nearly, save for the days on which he did not have to come to school, to work in his office before class started. The stairs on which she now muddled over cleaning led to the office and classroom where he spent most of his days. He taught history, and Gwendolyn could listen to him for hours. She had listened to him for hours. She would post herself on the steps during his lectures and listen to the words he had to say for as long as she could. His voice was such a comfort. Even the demons could not speak over him.

“What are the odds, you think, that a professor, a man of his stature, would have any room in his life or in his heart to tolerate a dirty, peasant, cleaning woman like yourself?” Malacoda said after finally finding something to throw at Gwendolyn. “He wouldn’t even take you as a lover. What chance could you possibly have? You can’t even write!”

Gwendolyn was not listening to the demon. She was busy thinking about the love in her life that soon would be near. She prayed that he would come soon, that soon he would come up those stairs and that his presence would spare her a breath of time from the shadow. Whenever she spoke to the professor the world seemed new and brimming with hope again. A simple look from him could chase the monsters away. With him she was safe. A look from his beautiful blue eyes chased away all of the fears within her. He was her everything, though, as the demons persistently told her, she could not help to think that maybe indeed to him she was nothing.

The excitement of seeing him, interacting with him truly was what made her so strong.

Gwendolyn’s heart was beating faster, the demon could hear the increase in its pace. This he could not leave alone. “Do you keep yourself from stopping your heart’s beat because you hope that he will come for you someday?”

No, that was not why she chose not to end the suffering; she was simply far too strong for that. Suicide had never crossed her mind, for it was far too easy a course to take. Though, as she kept scrubbing a particularly nasty stain on the stairs, Gwendolyn had to admit to herself that of late the professor’s face indeed was gilded on her heart, and that the hope of simply seeing him again kept her going. She did not irrationally believe that someday she would be his wife, she only hoped that he would someday see her as something more than a peasant washerwoman who could not write. There was so much she had seen and done and survived through her short life, things she wished, longed even that she could tell him about and share with him, but for now, she would gladly accept the short conversations they had here and there. She would rehearse what she would say to him the night before as she slowly fell asleep under the watchful eyes of her demons. Gwendolyn would imagine talking with the professor for hours, and the man she held in her thoughts was as true an image to his actuality as any being could have conceived. Gwendolyn did not altogether mind the fact that these imagined conversations were not real, for they were a great relief from the evil around her. The demons could not take the comfort she took from her imaginings; her dreams were sacred, her thoughts and her sleep were the only places that the demons could not penetrate.

After watching Miss Queen continue to scrub the stairs without so much as a nod to acknowledge his wicked words, Malacoda asked, clearly agitated, “Why don’t you ever answer me?” He wanted very badly to kick the girl down the stairs to teach her a lesson in respect, but that act certainly would not be appreciated by his master Luci. She would yell at him and send him back to the pit where kicking and gnawing on people were acts that were more than acceptable. It was expected of his breed. It was his job to torture, to demean, and to maim those who were wicked, for being in the pit even as a demon was literally hell. Though running down a mortal on earth was loads of fun and a holiday to him at first, he really was not enjoying it as much as he presumed he would when Luci approached him with the prospects of taking this position three years ago. Leaving the circles sounded like a blessing, for lack of a better term, but disarraying a soul that actually was entirely clean felt rather odd and unwarranted. He wondered, occasionally and very rarely, if the game that he and Luci were actively engaged to was worth all their trouble for only one soul. The time he was wasting out of the pit on a soul that was really quite strong gravely upset Malacoda. “Answer me!” he yelled when his frustration got the best of him. Instead of kicking Gwendolyn, he knocked over the bucket with her materials in it, sending her brush and the bucket rolling all the way down the stairs to the marble hall of the first landing.

Gwendolyn did not so much as curse under her breath in reaction to this deed. She simply stood from the spot where she had been fervently scrubbing and descended the stairs to chase after the tools she needed for her work.

By the time she reached the last step where her brush and bucket had landed, someone else had already picked them up for her. When Gwendolyn’s brown eyes fell upon the great smiling face of the man she loved holding the objects she lost, she nearly collapsed. He looked so handsome, like always, and he was smiling at her, for her, and he had bent down and picked up the things she a lowly peasant dropped.  

“Hello,” he greeted warmly with his adorable smile just as he always had done before.

“Hello,” she answered back, starry eyed and riding the euphoric wave that fell all around her. She felt so wonderful standing so close to him, so strong and so safe.

The tall and broadly shaped professor placed the brush into the thick wooden bucket and held them for Gwendolyn as he accompanied her up the stairs.

 “How’s it going?” the professor asked the washerwoman as they both slowly ascended.

“Not too shabby,” Gwendolyn answered with a smile so sweet that any passerby would have immediately assumed her to have been speaking with an angel. In truth, to her, that assumption would not have been far off. “How are you, sir?”

There was a shuffling noise, like the sound of panicked wings that quickly echoed in the stairs as the professor and the young washerwoman rounded toward the second landing. The demon was gone. He would not dare hang around Miss Queen while her heart was so full of love; he and Luci both knew that when she was with the professor, there was nothing that either of them could do without breaking the unbreakable rules that would undoubtedly rip her heart apart.

The thirty year old Professor Eóin Leannán, a relatively young gentleman for such stature, noticed the sound before he answered his company, “I’m doing pretty good. Did you hear that, by the way? Thought I heard wings?”  

Gwendolyn of course heard what the professor inquired, but she was not going to even make an attempt to tell him that yes, she did hear it, but not to worry because it was only just her demon buggering off for the time being; she did not want to sound mad. “I didn’t hear anything,” she quickly muttered as she bent down to pick up the moist cloth that she had been using to clean the stains from the stair from which it had been abandoned. This was where the downfall of their conversations typically started; when she had to blatantly acknowledge that she was a servant for the university and only a couple of copper pieces away from being a slave. With a heavy heart she held out her hand to the professor so that she could have her bucket. By releasing him of her burden she could return to her work on the floor while he would rise to his office full of books that she could not even hope to read.

Professor Leannán gave Miss Queen the bucket, their hands touched in the exchange and our dear girl could not help to feel rejuvenated from even so small a touch. “Thank you,” she whispered shamefully as she put the cloth into the bucket as well. “I’m a bit clumsy, I drop or trip over everything.”(None of this was directly her fault; most always Malacoda had something to do with her stumbles and accidents.)

“Well, just don’t you go tumbling down the steps, alright?” Professor Leannán said with a sweet gentility.

Gwendolyn chuckled ironically as she bet to herself that such a fate was one her demon friends surely had before imagined that would send her tumbling into their eternal embrace. “Yeah, a roll down the stairs is not amongst m’ top goals in life, because that would be bad,” Gwen said with a smile, hoping that she could laugh off the thought.

Fiddling with the keys in his pocket, Eóin looked at the stairs ahead of his step and distantly said, “That would be bad.”

Gwendolyn did not know if she had heard the professor correctly, for to her ears it sounded as though Eóin may actually care for her and that he really was not simply a nice bloke who said hello to everyone, but his care-filled tone may just have been an imagining by her quickly beating, biased heart. Then again, there were so many little occurrences that made her heart hope probably more than it should; like when the professor would initiate the moment first to talk to her in the mornings when he did not have to or again in the evenings before he left for home. Could it be possible that he thought of her at the end of the day the way she thought of him? Maybe he did already see past her work clothes and straight to the beauty of her heart.

“Ouch!” Gwendolyn squeaked as a sharp, stinging pain shot across the nape of her neck. She immediately grabbed at the spot of the pain that landed behind her head. She was looking far too happy as far as the demon was concerned.

“Are you alright?” Eóin quickly asked, his light blue eyes struck with concern.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she answered as she pulled her hand back around to the front. “I’m just bleeding,” she dryly elaborated after seeing a streak of sanguine on her fingers and palm. In her head she briefly cursed Malacoda for cheating by scratching her in his invisible state, something even she knew would be strongly opposed by Luci, but out loud she said, “Is it bad?” she turned around so that Eóin could look at it for her. Gwendolyn pulled the back of her cap so that he could see properly.

“It’s not too bad, but the light’s really bad in here, c’mon to my office so I can see it better,” Eóin said as he instinctually moved to address the wound, pulling out his clean white handkerchief and pressing it firmly to the back of her neck. “How did that even happen? You were just standing there!”

The professor did not wait for an answer, he had already started to guide Miss Queen up the stairs toward his office with the bucket and the tools of her trade abandoned on the steps where the well hidden demon lingered above.

Eóin lit several candles that flickered to life on his desk so that he could evaluate the damage done to Miss Queen. “Wow,” he whispered to himself as he looked upon the scratch that looked quite brutal, but still not permanently damaging. “How did this happen?” he asked again.

Looking out the window that glowed a light pale blue as the sun rose on the horizon, in the office packed with books, Gwendolyn had a very difficult time conjuring an answer. It all seemed so romantic to her. She was stumped from conjuring a convincing argument to cover the demon’s plight, but simply for the fact that the man she loved was softly running his fingers across her skin. Though she was severely afflicted with demons, she was presently in heaven. “Who knows,” she said as though soaring from the rare allowance of something amazingly good in her life even though her neck stung wickedly. “My cap is rough on the underside; it’s scratched me before, maybe it just got me right this time.”

“Well then take it off,” Eóin directed as he reapplied a clean side of his handkerchief to the young woman’s neck. “If it’s beating you up, Gwen, don’t wear it.”

Gwendolyn slid her left hand up to her neck, slipping it under the professor’s so that she could hold her own poultice, though she did not mind at all the touch, she wanted to look at him when they spoke. The professor’s hand lingered atop of hers for a notably residual moment before he gently pulled his hand away. He sat on the other side of the desk from Gwendolyn.

With her other hand the young woman pulled off her cap, her thick, light brown hair fell perfectly around her shoulders and face. “I must admit,” she continued in order to make her lie more convincing, “It does feel much better without that.”

 “Well that’s good,” Eóin said with a haphazard smile. “Is that something you have to wear? I mean, do they make you wear that as part of the uniform?”

Now Gwendolyn felt small again. She wished she did not have to talk to him about her terrible job, but how could she not tell him? “Sort of. We women have an option of wearing either the cap or a scarf to keep our hair back out of viewing. They try to make us as inhuman as possible.”

“Why would they do that?” Eóin asked incredulously.

Gwendolyn waited a moment before answering, “To keep us from being noticed by the students, I s’pose, and also because we do not pay to go here; they pay us.”

“I’m paid,” Eóin said succinctly. “And I think it’d be a safe bet to say that you’re job’s a hell of a lot harder than mine.”

“Oh, no, I don’t do anything for this university; you teach that’s sommat real special,” Gwendolyn softly argued. For a second, in the flickers of the candles, Gwendolyn thought she saw a shade of pink flare up in Eóin’s face as though he were blushing from her mild compliment, but she could not be sure.

“You clean up the crap from the halls before the sun is even up; that’s a pretty good deed,” he said with all genuine sentiment. 

“Well, ha, I don’t have a choice exactly as to when I clean up the halls, but thank you for trying,” she smiled at him and he returned the expression. Speaking to this man came so easily. “You’re an interesting soul, sir,” she dared herself to say.

“How so?” Eóin said with a humored and humbled scoff.

Shifting in her seat and repositioning the cloth on her neck a little bit, Gwendolyn answered, “Well, you’re not at all like the other professors. You don’t even talk like them.”

“How do the others talk to you?” Professor Leannán asked, his tone turning to a more serious twist.

While looking down at her lap Gwendolyn shamefully answered, “They don’t. They won’t even look at me. I’m just another shadow on the wall to them.”

Leaning forward over his desk, Professor Leannán said, “I’m sorry to hear that. They shouldn’t treat you like that.”

“They have a right to,” Gwendolyn muttered. “I’m just a stupid washwoman who lurks in the halls in the morning and evening. I’m nothing to them.”

The professor was very disheartened by this conversation. He had never stopped to think of how his colleagues thought of Gwen, for he always found her smile and her company to be so refreshing and welcoming in the mornings no matter how cold they were before. Pushing his short, black bangs to the side, Eóin shrugged his thick shoulder as he said, “Could you try to enroll in any of the classes here? Are there any programs offered for the behind the scenes people like you?”

Choosing to ignore the demon that was now standing as a large and threatening shadow in the doorway behind the professor, Gwendolyn answered as nicely as she could, “No. There are not. Besides, I would be so behind in those classes. I’m not at all at the level needed for this place.”

“There are courses here that could match any level of education, you’d be alright. If you’re a student, I guess, the professors are really helpful,” Professor Leannán continued, hoping that he could find some sort of kindness from the university to this washerwoman who clearly worked beyond expectation.

Gwendolyn closed her eyes for a moment for the demon at the doorway was staring cruelly at her. She and Malacoda both knew that she would probably end up sharing with this seemingly brilliant yet entirely humble man what she believed to be her greatest insufficiency (minus the demons of course). “I would be laughed out of the class,” she admitted. “I don’t have a ‘level of education.’” Gwendolyn sighed then released one of the secrets that she had been keeping in her heart from this man: “I can’t even write.”

“Oh,” the professor quietly exclaimed, for he had not been expecting that sort of confession. He tapped one of his fingers to the desk for a minute before figuring out what next to say. “I’m sorry,” was all he could procure.

“Don’t be,” Miss Queen excused. “It’s not your fault that I come from a village that lacked educated people. We weren’t expected to learn. We were expected to work, and work we did without complaint. I did not even know what it was to complain until I was fourteen and really had it bad. I was engaged to this right nasty brute; he was only nineteen but he was bound to be a demon like none other. He was just like m’ father actually; arrogant and no good. That’s why I left that place, well, that’s why I ran away. I wanted a better life because I knew I deserved better. So what other place to go to for a better life than to the greatest university in the world for a job in hopes that I could listen in on lectures and learn all that I needed to know.” She finished her little, yet significant confession with a smile in hopes that the professor would automatically assume that it was his lectures that she listened in on the most. 

Even though he did not actually pick up on her hint, Eóin still returned the smile and said to make Gwendolyn feel better, “We all have to start somewhere. Do you think that I was just born a professor?”

“Yes,” Gwen answered with a playful yet hard tone of sarcasm which brought even larger smiles to both their faces. “But I doubt that you had to linger outside of history and political science classrooms to gather your smarts.”

Eóin smiled wide once more and the two of them continued to talk in this way until the sun rose fully, warming every inch of the Northern, chasing her demons away.

~*~*~

Be sure to tune in next week for the exciting conclusion of "Her Very Own Demons"!

Your humble author,

S. Faxon

"Her Very Own Demons" Part Two

Welcome to part two of my short "Her Very Own Demons". As a glorious side note, I am happy to report that my blog has reached 2,000 views!!!! I'm rounding the plate for my year anniversary on Blog Spot, so I'm sure hoping to triple that number by this time next year. While I cannot thank you enough for helping me to reach 2,000, I do have a favor to ask - PLEASE help to spread the word about your ten minute escape from the daily grind of nine to five. I could not have reached that number without you and I cannot say how honored I am to have so many people reading my stories. Thank you and enjoy part two in this weekly mini series! For those of you just tuning in, to read part one please see last week's posting entitled "Taming the Dragon."

"Her Very Own Demons"

Part 2

By S. Faxon

“How did this all begin?” the sole person in whom she chose to share her curse asked through the wooden bars.

The tight dark space and the veiled separation between them made her feel safe again, something she had not felt in some time. The ceaseless harassment from the shadows had finally been abated when this man invited her inside the sacred walls of his home.

Gwendolyn hesitated before answering. She realized the extraordinary circumstances under which she had been found. After wandering from building to building, trying to escape the inescapable, this kind-faced middle aged man approached her and asked, “Are you lost, my child? He had seen her sleep deprived eyes, the loss in her expression, and the mark of death to her step. He thought her diseased at first, though she looked relatively healthy. He guided her into the church on the college campus and as soon as she passed through the doors, her entire demeanor lightened. This struck but encouraged him. When they entered, her eyes rose to the stain-glass window that shone a marvelous spectrum of colors and light upon the central altar. She stared at it transfixed as many had before her, but there was something different about her gaze. To him, it looked almost as if she was staring at the very face of God.

He took her into the Confessional, assuming that she would know what to do as he could clearly see a Crucifix, the mark of their religion, dangling from her neck. Instead, they sat in silence. The fear that consumed her tongue and muted her speech was too great. The priest watched her clutch onto her crucifix as though it was the crux between life and death. The facts began to add up for this devout priest. What had initially caught his attention about this young lady was that she looked as though she was cowering from a thousand voices screaming at her, but there was not a soul aside from themselves walking the green at that hour in the morning. As soon as he approached, it looked as though the voices were silenced. Where she had not been aware of his presence at first, the moment he spoke, she was alert, responsive, albeit quiet, hauntingly quiet. It was an otherworldly experience she was having and he was sage enough to recognize this. The fear that she demonstrated now gave strong suggestion that the experience was not one of God, though she did smell beautifully of flowers. In all of his experiences with the damned, they had wreaked of decay and human filth.

“Are they inside you?” the priest asked, knowing the likelihood of this to be low as she was comforted and not disgusted by the symbols of the Lord.

To answer, she shook her head curtly. The young lady took several deep breaths then looked at the priest through the divide. She was terrified that they would know that she was talking about them. The repercussion of this was beyond her imagining and that much more troubling. Her fear was scared upon her face.

“They cannot hurt you in here,” the priest firmly assured.

His resolution did encourage her to speak at last;“They started as whispers at first, moments after that quake that happened a year ago…” She cringed to remember it. One voice would begin to whisper her name, and then another, and another, and another, all starting immediately after the first two letters of her name were pronounced. It sounded like utter, maddening gibberish, but she could feel that they were calling for her. Thousands, if not millions of harsh whispers calling for her. And as her fear grew, so too did their power. “It was like that for a long time. They followed me wherever I’d go. Didn’t matter if it was day or night. They were…they are always there.” She paused to wipe her eyes. “I think they’re getting stronger. I’m starting to see them. Quickly, like, they’re trying to make me think I’m losing my mind. I’ll see a horrible creature, looking down at me from trees, or from around corners. I’ll feel a completely different one behind me…that one watches me all the time.” She looked hard at the priest and said, “What do they want from me? Are they really there? Father, please help me!”

The priest had seen possessions, he had seen the horrendous curses that the king of the fallen had wrought upon the children of God, but there was something different about this. “Have they offered you temptations? They may not directly offer them to you, but have opportunities arisen in your life that normally would never be appealing or that would call you from the path of God?”

Gwendolyn thought hard on this. Thus far, there was nothing. She was still just an impoverished cleaning lady at the university. “Nothing that I can think of, Father.”

“And it’s gone on for over a year, you say?” he asked to which she nodded. The fact that this child was able to fight their onslaught for so long was very intriguing. She was extremely strong, that much was evident even if she did not perceive it in this way. “Be leery of any suggestion that may turn you against His name, no matter how insignificant it may seem. They may be after you for a reason that we may never be able to understand, but in my experiences, those that are taken over by these fiends have invited them in.”

Gwendolyn shook her head vehemently. “No, no, Father! I’ve never done anything to invite them!”

“What about those around you?” the priest quickly asked as he did believe her. “They tend to target either those who refuse to believe in the king of the fallen, those who invite them in via the occult or through similar dark practices, or those who are devout.” The priest watched her reaction and he could see that she could find nothing. This suggested to him something extremely significant. Perhaps they sensed that she would one day be a soldier of sorts for God and his grace. Perhaps they feared her. “Hear me, child. Know that they can enter you if you open for them a window. I understand that it is terrifying, but know that you are not alone. God is with you always. There may be times when they may attempt to come to you as forms of salvation, but ‘do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world’. You are always welcome in this church, you are safe in the house of God. He will not abandon you.”

The rest of the memory was lost to the sudden need to wake.

Though it was still dark in the world, at half past four in the morning, Gwendolyn rolled her exhausted body out of bed. After only barely two hours of sleep it was already time for her to rise and prepare for work. The memory of going to the priest whom she saw many times after was a great comfort. The man, her greatest ally on earth, had been alas transferred to a different parish in the north. The new priest was not so welcoming to an employee of the university’s janitorial staff. No sooner had she emerged from the church upon learning that her ally had left, the shadows materialized.

As she tied herself into the long black outfit she was required to wear as she worked, she shivered from the frozen embrace that met her when she left the bed. The morning was very cold and the chill of the outer fall world crept into Miss Queen’s room as though there was no wall or shut window to keep out the climate’s cruel winds. Gwendolyn did not let this disturb her, at least, she pretended that it did not. Within a year of the start when her direct torture from her two demons began she decided that the best way to counteract their terrorism on her body and soul was to pretend as though she was unabashed and unmoved by their wickedness. She knew that the cold was because of them.

From the side of the bed, a dark shadow loomed.  She knew it was Malacoda, though he did not fully take form. It was eerie to know that she was being watched, but she longer feared that he would harm her, for she knew that so long as she stayed true to the priest’s words she was safe. Actually it was Luci who she feared would molest her in some form, but, for whatever reason at the moment Luci was absent. It did happen this way frequently, where one of them would disappear from time to time. Gwendolyn was hardly about to question or to complain about one less demon following her around.

Without a word of acknowledgment to the demon, she left the fetid smelling flat where she stayed, leaving for that moment Malacoda in darkness, even though she knew that he and the smell would not stay far behind. At the moment of Miss Queen’s departure from her place, a coworker who too resided in the residence building provided to them from the university came bustling down the hall.

“C’mon, Gwen, we’re bloody late!” Melanie Gates said as she grabbed Miss Queen by the elbow and dragged her down from the second story of the building and out into the crisp morning air. In the back of her mind, Miss Gates noted that as she passed the room of Miss Queen, the horrible smell was still there. No matter how many times the pair of them cleaned it, the smell remained, and yet Miss Queen always had the almost overwhelming scent of roses. The enigma was one that Miss Gates had given up questioning ages ago. “You’re never late, Gwen, is summat up? Are you getting the snuffles that are going around?” Miss Gates asked Gwendolyn as they practically ran across the great lawn of grass that preceded the main collections of archaic yet beautiful stone buildings of the prestigious university.

The pair ran down a narrow flight of brick stairs that lead in the general direction of the building toward which they were expected everyday to check in for their duties.

Gwendolyn shook her head to wake herself a little more before answering her peer, “No, I’m not sick. I stayed late last night to clean the lou in the west wing and, well, most of the north wing.”

“But you work the in the eastern one with me,” Melanie argued as they neared their intended destination. They slowed down at the sight of a couple of the men they knew still loitering outside the door with their cigarettes and pipes lit. The need to rush was obviously no longer needed. “Oh no, don’t tell me you’re still covering for that Daniss-girl, are you?” Melanie asked as the pair walked over the last stretch of cobblestone path that lead to where they were expected.

Gwendolyn stopped walking for a second to pull back and shove her long light brown hair into the black cap that was required as a part of the uniform. She sighed lightly then answered already knowing what would come back in response, “Yes, I am.”

“You’re mad, girl!” Melanie harshly whispered. “That’s a whole other soul’s workload that you’re shouldering by yourself! She didn’t even ask you to do it, did she?”

The pair resumed their walk into the stuffy building, passing through the thick and potent cloud of smoke from those who sucked on the butts of death sticks. Melanie and Gwendolyn entered the barely lit interior of the building into the long line of fellow janitors, landscapers, and cleaning ladies.

In a hushed tone Gwendolyn answered so as not to be heard over the droll hum of all the other voices in the room, “No, she did not ask me to, but think about it, Mel, these times for people like us who can barely read or write are hard enough as it is; Miss Daniss’s still got a cold and it won’t let her even out of bed, and, like you and me, she’s got no one to support her. If she loses this job, they’ll take her flat and throw her out into the cold without a second thought. Winter is coming; I couldn’t live with m’ self if I knew that she was out there alone and without a home.”

As the line they stood in slowly crept forward toward the desk where they signed the ledger to prove that they were present, the dark haired Melanie shrugged her shoulder and admitted, “Well, as long as you can handle it, I s’pose it is the right thing to do.” The woman was quiet for a minute before adding dryly, “Do you ever think tha’ it’s ironic that most o’ us we can’t read or write, but we work for the big bad Northern University, the best the world’s got t’ offa?”

Gwendolyn only nodded an answer because the man in front of her in line finished making his mark so it was her turn. As she stepped up to the table she looked at the huge, thick bound collection of lined leaves before her that had all of the names of the workers in this division of the school, meaning the staff that kept the place looking smashing. There were so many blokes and gals who could only make illegible scribbles of marks that sort of looked like names, but really were just scribbles and a whole load of Xs, beside the place where they knew they had to sign. Luckily today there was no one overseeing this process, so that Miss Queen could not only write her name next to “Wash Lady Number 36,” but so that she could also scribble another one of those illegible lines beside “Wash Lady Number 59” for the sake of Miss Daniss without fear of being punished.

On the side of the ledger was the list of duties for the day assigned to the numbers of the workers. The duties written on these lists were simply phrased so that nearly everyone could understand them and those who could not typically relied on people like Miss Queen. She would quietly do her best to read to them what they needed to do for the day so that they would not have to be too embarrassed.

“So what’re we doing today?” Melanie asked Gwendolyn as they left the table’s side and weaved through the other countless bodies of exhausted workers. (Miss Gates was one of those people who only knew how to recognize their number on the sign-in sheet and thus relied heavily on Miss Queen for aid in the mornings.)

The pair gently pushed their way between many unwashed and lightless bodies over toward the maintenance storage room where they would receive their stained aprons and buckets full of the supplies they needed for the day. The university’s goal for the multitude of these workers going to work so early was so that the students would not see them working. What student at the Northern would want to see the lower class cleaning up after them anyway? Gwendolyn thought of this grimly as she waited to tell Melanie what they had to do today until they were outside; she wished desperately that they could work during the day instead of in the mornings and evenings when there were no students around. The key, she found, to keeping the demons abroad was to keep large groups of people around. When she was with at least two or more of her peers, Luci and Malacoda did not dare to torment her for it was not worth the risk of being detected. Gwendolyn Queen and the priest determined that she was amongst those who can see the souls who either in life had warranted eternal salvation or eternal damnation. It was one of the reasons why they targeted her so fiercely. There were several like her that attended and worked at this university who too would see Luci or Malacoda if they dared to show themselves during the day, and being seen was not something that either of the demons were willing to endure. So, on a normal day to day basis, they would follow her steps in the shadow realm where no one but members of their plane could see them. However, Luci could, at times, linger beside Gwendolyn all day as she had yesterday, without being looked at as anything other than an incredibly intimidating and hauntingly beautiful woman. When Miss Queen went to work, she was temporarily free. She worked hard, but at least she was without those who made her life on earth hell.

As they walked past the blokes who were still smoking, one of them muttered as Gwendolyn passed by, “God save the Queen,” in reference to Gwen’s surname which, her whole life, had produced fodder for fools to snicker at in front of her or behind her back. Ignoring the comment completely, Gwendolyn and her companion strode on, still choosing to wait to answer her comrade.

Returning into the dark morning’s cold embrace Melanie and Gwendolyn left the sight of the hot and crowded room of people who wanted to be there even half as much as they. “Right, well, here’s what we have to do,” Gwendolyn explained as she kept her eyes up and moving, looking out to see if Luci or Malacoda were visibly present on her trail yet. She thought she saw a tall shadow dart among the darkness. Swallowing hard and lightly swinging the heavy bucket full of cleaning products by her side, Gwendolyn continued, “We’re back in the second, third, and fourth landings of the East hall. We’re supposed to cover stairwells and the hall floors today. How ‘bout I take the second and fourth landings, is that alright?”

“Why do you always want the second? That’s a terrible place to be; it’s always so bloody hot there,” Miss Gates asked, though hardly expecting an answer to a question she had asked many times before. “Alright, well, anyways, let’s get going ‘fore the wardens come out and start hounding at us.”

The hardly at all exaggerated verbal blow toward the people who oversaw their work would have at least evoked a smile from most others, save Gwendolyn. The wardens and their awful attitudes were the least of her worries.

~*~*~

Be sure to check back next week for the continuation of the story!

Your humble writer,

S. Faxon

Taming the Dragon

Dear Readers,

Over the last few weeks I have been absent from the blog post, resting my hands and taming the Dragon. I now have at my disposal software that is talk to text. While the doctors try to figure out what's happening with my digits, I've been training the software in my computer to follow my voice correctly. Much like taming a Dragon would likely be, there have been many bumps along the way. However, I am getting better at enunciating and learning how to produce works by staring at a computer screen. This is not my favorite way to go, but the life gives you Dragons, you have to learn how to fly or get burned.

On a much lighter note, we've reached my favorite month of the year. October is full of festivals, fun and fantasy. It is the month of Oktoberfest, the transition to fall, the best seasonal drinks at Starbucks, and the peak of tourism for Salem, MA (one of my personal favorite little towns I've visited thus far). It all culminates with my favorite holiday, Halloween. When I was a child, my grandmother's house was always the most sought after haunt in neighborhood. Cobwebs, dancing ghosts, witches, and tombstones adorned our lovely little residence it all made a great impact on my creative side.

The story that I will present you in segments over the next few weeks was one that I wrote during a particularly productive part of my life. Not only was I attending my second year of college in the fall semester of 2009, I wrote three full-length novels and one short story. It is the latter that will serve as entertainment for you this month.

In my theology in literature course we read the infamous Dante's Inferno. For those of you who have read it you may see some similarities or at least the inspiration. For those of you who have not, I highly recommend it, if anything just to enjoy the poetry of a well-written and very haunting tale of Dante's tour through the nine circles of hell.

The short story to follow is significantly darker than most of my other works thus far presented and may be disturbing for some; reader's discretion is advised.

"Her Very Own Demons"

An Original by S. Faxon

It was half past two in the morning when finally she made it back to her apartment. The day had been long and strenuous, precisely as all before, yet still she would receive no peace in the safety of her keep. They were there.

They were always there.

“Oh, look who’s home!” the certainly more physically frightening of the two who always haunted her thoughts mockingly chimed. “If it isn’t Miss Queen back from the university.”

Miss Queen locked the door behind her even though the closed aperture could not guard her from the evil that lurked among her at all times. The stench that filled her nostrils that her company brought made her stomach ill, but she had no choice but to bear it. She did not respond to the demon who addressed her, she hardly ever did. She instead immediately made ready for bed.

“Why so quiet tonight?” the terrifyingly ugly demon with pointed black wings, fangs, horns and all asked as he lay out on her bed. “Didn’t she see him today, Luci?” Malacoda asked the other shadow that accompanies Miss Queen, but singularly stayed with her today.

“Oh yes, yes she did, of course,” Luci, in her sleek and her tight fitting robes of black and white answered as she hovered over near the bed. Her voice was velvety, but it was neither male nor female in tone. “Are you kidding? She could find him anywhere. Her heart is full of love.” Luci scoffed and rolled her eyes. The very thought of love was a foolish waste of time.

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Malacoda teased with a wicked smile, all of his sharp and yellow pointed teeth glaring unmercifully towards Miss Queen. “If indeed she caught a sight of he, why so blue?”

“HA!” Luci cried. “Why do you think? She –”

“Hush, Luci!” Malacoda commanded even though he was hardly the more powerful of the two. “Again you answer for her, let the queen of the universe answer us tonight. Miss Queen? Come now, why so quiet? Speak!” the demon commanded, his voice was ever a cross between a growl and a vicious hiss.

Miss Queen no longer immediately shivered from the very sound of her demon’s voices, for she was beginning to grow jaded of their awful presence no matter how frightening they seemed, but still, she hated it when they made her speak. She finished changing from her work clothes, stained with the cleaning liquids she used to wipe down chalk boards, into her thin long night gown. She timidly answered without looking at the red eyes of Malacoda, “I did see him, and I talked to him briefly, but that is all.”

Luci rolled her wickedly dark blue eyes as she internally laughed at this weak creature before her. Time and time again had shown that this thing of flesh and bone could never achieve her dreams, yet still had the audacity to hope. “Do not lie to us, pet,” Luci sternly cut through the silence as she stared poor Miss Queen down nearly into nothingness. “For false witness will send you to a different circle from that which you belong.”

“I am not lying,” the poor young woman defended. “That is all that happened, you were there! Why must you continue to condemn me falsely?” Miss Queen burst out, for the weight of her sadness and depression had finally sprung back. “What have I done?”

Both the demons looked to each other and laughed most cruelly. This was a topic they had been over with her repetitively, almost even diurnally, and it never failed to bolster their nights.

Miss Queen hated them, but, she feared that she was stuck with them for life and maybe even indeed into the next one after this. However, she was strong. Their daily beatings of her conscious and occasionally of her body would have proved long ago to have condemned many others to challenge fate by seeking their own rapid escape, but not her. Her heart was determined to see this curse through.

Malacoda leapt from the bed, his muscular body and wings flung themselves at Miss Queen. He pinned the young lady to the wall with his forearm across the front of her neck, it was time he finally drove this point into her heart with a long and resolute nail. He had to do this. Even though her smell was unbearable to him, he had to torture her in this way. “Why do you not believe us when we say that you’ve ‘ad a seat waiting for you in Hell since the day you were born?” Even though he was nearly choking her, his other hand pushing his sharp nails painfully into the flesh of her chest, Miss Queen was still able to say, “I was baptized! Why from the day I was born? I ‘andn’t done –”

           

But Miss Queen could not finish her sentence, as Malacoda shoved his arm slightly deeper into her jugular making her gag and choke.

“Be gentle with my pet,” Luci almost indifferently commanded to Malacoda. “She may be a worthless fool whose head is blinded with love for that man, but she still belongs to me, and what good is damaged property?”

Malacoda held his arm to Miss Queen’s neck for a moment longer before he released her. Miss Queen coughed violently for a moment as air returned to her lungs. She clutched her ringless hands to her throat and prayed to her true Creator to save her from these creatures of absolute evil, as she did every night.

           

Luci saw the words run across Miss Queen’s mind, even though she could not hear the girl’s thoughts. The act of her pet running to God was something Luci could not allow. A dark shadow and heaviness fell across the room. Though only two candles flickered on the only piece of furniture Miss Queen had aside from her bed, the subtle lights were extinguished by the weight of the pronounced presence. Both the demon and Miss Queen felt it as Luci’s anger grew to a startling evanescence that filled the home of the single lady. Malacoda backed away from Miss Queen’s side to let his master do with the pet as she pleased.

Tall, thin, and terrifying, Luci, with her wavy black hair hanging down loosely around her long face slowly walked to Miss Queen’s side. Miss Queen did not dare to blink, for she was not at all aware to the full powers that Luci possessed and this petrified her beyond all reason, more even than losing the man she loved.

Luci saw the fear streak across the face of this stubborn preferred daughter and she absorbed absolutely sinful delight from its presence. The Creature of evil lifted Miss Queen from the ground without ever laying a finger on her small body, dangling her at least a hand above the floor. Though she was not being touched, it felt as if a clutch of ropes were tightly wrapped around her abdomen and arms, making breathing or subtle movement nearly impossible.

Luci smiled to see the pain of Miss Queen as she softly said, her pallid skin glowing in the darkness, “Why do you persist, Gwendolyn, dear, in praying to that ‘God’ of yours? He does not love you. He does not even exist.”

“That’s not true,” Gwendolyn Queen said as vehemently as she could, given the circumstance. “If He did not exist, neither would either of you.”

Malacoda and Luci laughed with one another again. “Oh, you really are just a stupid girl, aren’t you, pet?” Luci asked Gwendolyn with her shrill and teasing voice as she continued to restrict the lady high against the blank and bland grey wall. “You’re naïve, trusting, and dull, but at least you’re pretty.” Luci smiled wickedly again, her own smile of sharp, but perfect white teeth, glaring menacingly at Gwendolyn. “You’ll be the shining piece in my collection someday indeed.”
           

Luci released her grip over Miss Queen and let the lady drop without warning to the ground.

Luckily this time Gwendolyn landed without injury, but last time Luci did this to her, Miss Queen landed incorrectly and broke two toes. Remembering that injury from the first night of their official meeting rattled Miss Queen all over again. It had been a full two years since she was first removed from her happy world in which she assumed it only to be bad luck that was the cause of her misfortunes, but no, it was fate. How could she ever forget that starless night in which the lands shook and the ground split before her? What evils from that crack emerged she could not have dared to guess in a thousand years. She did not even then think it possible, nor could she now believe that these demons really were true. But yes, yes they were and, for the time being, they were here to stay.

“If you do not mind, Luci, Malacoda, I have work tomorrow and it is quite late,” Gwendolyn quietly, but firmly reminded as she nonchalantly went to her bed as though entirely unaffected by their persistent harassment.  

“Oh yes, and she must get her beauty sleep if she is going to see ‘im tomorrow anyway,” Malacoda teasingly reminded Luci though she needed no reminding.

As Gwendolyn pulled her sparse and scratchy blankets over her body she was not at all surprised that Luci sat on the bed right beside her, though, as always, Miss Queen was annoyed.

“Why do you stare at me so?” Luci asked as she sensuously ran the back of her long nailed fingers down Gwendolyn’s soft cheek. “You know that I do not hate you, pet. It does not have to be this way. You know what you must do to make Malacoda and me go away. Why, pet, do you continue this charade? All you have to do is say four simple words and this nightmare will end.”

“I will never say them,” Gwendolyn said with a heart full of conviction. She had lived with these monsters for two years, how bad could another fifty be? Besides, she could not betray her God like that, never.

“My, we picked a ‘ard one to crack,” Malacoda chuckled as he looked out the small window that looked out onto the sleepy university’s grounds where Miss Queen was employed. “Sure makes it fun though, don’t it?”

Luci resisted the urge to say “yes, but we did not choose her,” as she lowered her face an inch over Gwendolyn’s. Luci let her pointed nose touch Miss Queen’s as she whispered, “Good night, pet, sweet dreams.” Luci kissed Gwendolyn’s forehead hoping for a chance that lust might be what takes the girl under, but the strong heart of Miss Queen was not at all interested. She knew what game Luci was playing at, and she was not willing to throw her cards in any time soon.

The Creature whose heart longed for nothing more than presently winning this girl’s soul, stood from the bed while running her hand down Gwendolyn’s stomach that burned in pain from the soft touch, “Don’t forget, pet, whether you need us or not, we’ll still be here.”

Gwendolyn ignored the cold and bitter chuckling of Malacoda and Luci as she rolled over in bed away from them. In her thoughts she was safe. She clung to her pillow as though it was the body of the man she loved but had never dared to touch, using its body as a bulwark between her heart and her very own demons. 

~*~*~

Be sure to tune in next week to see what happens between Miss Queen and her very own demons.

Your humble writer,

S. Faxon

PS - It's good to be blogging again. :)

A Subway Short Story

Here's a little story that I found in my files from January of this year. Based entirely on a dream, I wrote it while on my way to and from work one day on the subway train. It was one of those days when people looked at me like I was batty as I scribbled away in a journal with my well used pencil.

Enjoy!

Beyond Deerstowe Bridge

A peculiar tale came to the journalist Benjamin about the people who lived beyond the bridge in Deerstowe. The woman he interviewed at length found his interest in her home to be more entertaining than anything at first. She figured that his interest in her company was overwhelmingly more his focus than any substantive story about her province. While this was partly true and the inspiration of his interest, there was something to this lady’s story that deserved telling. The all telling gut feeling told him that this was the type of case journalists dreamed of unearthing.

The series of questions that he asked her, none of which he had written down, were a necessary exercise of the craft. It was luck that she was in pursuit of the same profession. Their positions facing each other on opposite sides of a square table and his terse questions were part of a familiar exercise to her.

“Were you forced to adhere to any one particular religion or dogma?” his first serious question seemed to hardly phase her at all.

The woman rolled her eyes. “We weren’t ‘forced’ to practice. There was a church, just one, but it was like some of the other churches I went to in Estoria; fairly progressive. Not like the churches in the southern parts of our country where people’d kill and condemn you if you missed a single sermon. The church in my community wasn’t close to my home, so my family only went for major holidays – the way most people anywhere else do.”

“Did you have access to books or to a library?” he asked, moving right along.

Nodding, she answered, “There were books. Not a library, but every home had their own assortments. Mostly fictions. People read a lot. We were well educated.”

“But were there histories or newspapers?”

A soft spot was hit. Her demeanor throughout this had been light, playful, eager to talk about her home, but now it looked as though for the first time, something inside her had been touched. This was no longer the same game. “No newspapers.” The first newspaper that she had read on her way to New Bayard was the most exhilarating experience of her young life, at that time. That moment, reading the paper in a bouncing cart on route to the big city was what set the path for her journey to become a reporter. “The older generations had histories and they taught them to us. And I think that I can anticipate your next question.”

Benjamin smiled breaking his intense, and almost stern look of concentration, “You always think you’re a step ahead of me, Sam.”

“Yes, because I am,” she returned the smile with a wink.She shifted in her wooden chair then continued,, “The histories were accurate, as far as I could tell after having been formally educated. We knew about the deaths of the last Viramont governors, the revolution, our nation’s subsequent prime ministers, the election process, but, I will admit the histories did stop.”

“The older generations stopped talking?”

“No. They were always willing to talk,” she defended. The person to whom she had always been closest was her grandmother, her dad’s mom, so any hint of a slide at the older generations was interpreted by Sam as a grave offense. “But at a certain point in history there was a rift of some sort. A disconnect from present and continuous time. Technological advances, trains, elevators - granted our houses and buildings were only two stories, we didn’t have use for elevators - electric light, these things we did not have, and we certainly did not know about them. Going into New Bayard for the first time was an enormous shock for me. I adapted by trial of fire. It was overwhelming to have a room lit up by something other than a large amount of candles. It was a comfort that my dormitory in college was not electric.”

In their rather remote outpost for their current assignment, Benjamin had noticed that Sam had the easiest time adjusting for one so young in the field. This was her first truly desolate location to cover, and the first really dangerous one at that; he had hoped that being the experienced field guy, he would be able to comfort her when she came to him in fear or frustration. Alas, much to his disappointment, she was the most resilient of them all. Her unrelenting drive to get the job done against all odds was one of the details about her that impressed him the most. She was one of the bravest and most analytical women that Benjamin had ever met, but the withdrawal and lackadaisical perspective she had on her town was one of the greatest mysteries that he had yet confronted.  

The intense look of attention that Benjamin gave to his interviewee was one that she had seen him give to his past subjects a thousand times. His sharp blue eyes had a compressing feel that made many of his subjects melt to his every whim and question from the intimidation. True, his gaze had made her melt before, but she found his stare to be focused and welcoming. He was listening. No one had ever displayed such interest in her hometown before, or in her the way that he did.

“Would you say that the town was limited on advancements?” Benjamin continued.

“Aside from the technological advancements? Do you mean ‘primitive’?” she asked, sounding offended, but she was smiling again. The feel of this being a game had resurfaced. “It wasn’t New Bayard by any means, but our livelihoods were mostly agricultural. We were, they are mostly farmers. The technological luxuries were not missed or even wanted; there was no reason. Life was simple, but great.”She paused and leaned back in her chair. Laughing, she asked, “Why do you look so serious? You’ve always been a good listener, Ben, but this is a bit much for the story of a small agricultural community. It’s really not that interesting. That’s why I left.”

The catatonic interest that she was demonstrating made Ben wonder if there was something to this that Sam knew about and that she was hiding. Could her approach of disregard be a mask? ‘No,’ he quickly deduced, ‘She’s shared everything with me. She genuinely doesn’t regard this as having any potential.’ “Sam, I’m not asking these questions to harass you or simply to occupy the time while we wait for our next guest, but to find out the truth about from where you came.”

“The truth?”she asked incredulously, “Ben, you act as though I’m the only one who’s ever left a small community like Penbrooke, I mean, c’mon! I know I’m not the only one.”

“To have escaped?”

“To have left,” she sharply corrected. The seriousness that consumed her would remain throughout the duration of their interviews. The lady swallowed hard and tapped her short nails on the table top. He really was doing an investigation. It was not like Benjamin to waste time, especially on something like this. A question then came to her mind: “How much is known about Penbrooke?” People from the country, like the two of them, were no strangers to people engorging the truth. Perhaps Penbrooke was just another victim of country-folk gossip. Maybe this would prove to be her opportunity to correct a falsified image of her home.

In situations like this, Benjamin always considered his words with great caution so as to obviate any unintended disastrous misstep. But, being blunt always helped. “Nothing. Nothing is known about the people beyond that bridge. I grew up, as you well know, in Deerstowe. My family’s ranch had been there for four generations, and no one ever, in my family or in town, ever mentioned the people of Penbrooke.”

All her life she had assumed that people from Penbrooke came and went from the area as they pleased, even though no one in her family ever had. Maybe, generally, people did not. She had left for school at sixteen - her head had always been focused on seeing the world and analyzing all that it had to offer, even before she picked up that first newspaper. Her personal fantastical distractions had blinded her to the very interesting and mysterious tale of her own neighbors and ancestors. It was a mystery to her why there was such silence surrounding her small paradise, but maybe this would be a good way to find ration to Ben's uncharacteristic moment of dramatics.

Ben almost asked why none of this had ever struck her as odd, but reason stopped him. She was the product of this place where global normalcy seemed disconnected. This was indeed a subject to be pursued, but he would have to tread carefully to ask the correct questions.

“Shall I go back to the beginning, then?” having interviewed dozens of people with her own pen and pad, she knew the drill. If anything, this would be a good exercise to be on the other side.

“As far back as you can remember,” Ben confirmed.

With a sigh, Sam closed her eyes and travelled back to the lands beyond the Deerstowe bridge.

~*~*~

Your humble writer,
S. Faxon

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