(No Silver Lining?)"Lucinda.""Jatray."It was a chilly meeting and in that space where the two women met, Antarctica couldn't even come close to rivaling the climate."Any news?""Nothing yet."Jatray had allowed Izzy and Journey to go off on their own today. The carnival had come to Mala and they had said that they wanted to experience it."Are you coming Jatray?"Journey had asked."No I am allergic to being out in the sun all day."Izzy, who though it was a joke, laughed and said."Really, that is your excuse?"Izzy picked up a brush from the dresser."It is and I am sticking to it."Jatray had replied. Izzy brushed her hair and Journey held up a white shorts, wondering if white was a good shade to go dancing in the streets all day in.Jatray had returned to her room and picked up her cellphone. *******************************Jatray couldn't think of them now. As the old saying goes, there is no pleasure in business.There was something peaceful about the mountains of Mala. N
(Love Conquers All.)It was cloudy in the afternoon. Buttercup and Hercules spread a towel and lay on it while sitting in a meadow. Since that night on Bridget Street, they have been having peaceful days together.Butterflies took effortless strokes across the land, wings flutter colourful and soft as blush on a woman's cheek. A caterpillar climbed a nearby stalk of grass, hunching and extending its boneless body, while a bird sat on a tree branch and scratched its feathers with one leg. They both smelled the rain, but knew it was not near its hour to pour.It was a perfect day, warm enough to wear strapless blouse, which Buttercup did. Yet it was cool enough to wear sweatpants, as Hercules did, and neither was uncomfortable. "So we are going to the country in two days, right?""Yes."Buttercup replied, picking an apple from the bag of fruits she had carried with her."Opal and Moonstruck said they grew up in that region. What is it like?"Buttercup bit, chewed, then swallowed."
(Opal.)I flew above the clouds and through the windows of the old mansion. I wanted to be home before the storm. I hated storms.It reminded me of the day I died."Would you be needing anything else, Miss. Bloomfield?"Doug asked as the door opened."No thank you Doug."With that, he closed the door. I knew where he was going, as I looked through the windows and watched the clouds turn as black as a phantom's robe. Doug loved storms.It reminded him of the day he was given life.Why had I returned to the mansion?I asked myself. Yet after so many years, I felt compelled to come home. I grew up in this small town with its Ferris wheel by the ocean and endless fields of golden corn. I could hear the engines on the neighbouring farms shutting off from a long day of raking the soil for planting.Shutting out the sound, I wondered if anyone would recognise me. If they did, which Bloomfield woman would they associate me with?Looking up at the walls I saw pictures of the Bloomfield generat
(Opal's Rebirth.)Another clap of thunder had me scurrying beneath the blanket. I settled down and thought that, unlike Doug, I had not asked to be saved.Again my mind took another path down memory lane. I felt the recollection as if it was just happening, the hairs on my body stood to attention. There was a man in my father's study, the door was locked and I peeked through a crack in the wood.It was the loud arguing that had shaken me from the sweet, lullaby of sleep and I had tiptoed to the source of the disturbance. The walls of the study were lined with agricultural books and lately, my father had added some hardcover historical books to the shelves. Two half-filled glasses of brandy and an open bottle of liquor was on the wooden desk. There was the stench of fear in the atmosphere and my father was mopping at his face with a handkerchief. The light shone and cast shadows on the walls and the man took out a gun and aimed it at my father's chest. I felt faint but it all happened s
(Catching The Past.)As we drove down the highway I remember when there were more houses than trees and skinny, one lanes that horses had to squeeze by on as dust flew up into the carriages. I watched the world and watched it change before my very eyes. I saw war, peace, then war again, boats, cars being made, and then the invention of planes. Telephones, computers, microwaves, humans got really smart. Ball gowns became skimpy dresses, jeans emerged, ballroom music replaced by rock and roll, then pop music and yet this continuous change in the quest for a better way of living brought us down roads of destruction. I looked out the car window as Doug drove, trees became only decoration on the lawns of expensive, show houses.Finally, after half an hour, we started to enter the heart of Mala. Mala is a small island folded neatly at the edge of the world, at least that was how tourists described it. The land creased the borders of a sea frothing at the mouth, appearing like beer trapped in
(Moonstruck.)Now I know who and what I am.I just don't know what I was born to do. My name is Moonstruck. I am a teenager of fifteen years old, a dancer and sometimes a babysitter. What I am, is a Werewolf.Not those types of mixed blood, half human breed, but one hundred percent, pure blood, where my Mother and Father are wolves.I live in Mala with our pack, we have lived here for generations. I dreamed of leaving Mala one day to go to College, or just travel the world. However, dreams like that had to be put in a mortar and crushed like parched corn grains with a pestle, to become the powdered food we call asham. No sugar was added to my asham, no sweetness to my dreams. I tasted my dreams and choked on them, because being next in line to lead our pack, there was no way I could leave Mala. I had to crush my dreams, but I didn't want to.I was cutting across the cornfields, dodging obstacles, led to safety by my wolf's vision. Looking back I saw the Vampire still circling the ho
(Buttercup.)I lived in a place where majestic trees reached up to the clouds and leaves covered them all the way to the trunks, like fur covering an animal so that you are unable to see the colour of the skin beneath it. To see the trunks and branches, one had to part the leaves with their hand. The leaves went down to the pebbled-covered ground, where there was no dirt, no soil. The pebbles crunched under your feet, a smooth, pink source of minerals that nourishes the land. They had the cracking sound of many eggshells breaking. Yet they never break nor burst, they bend, twisted then bounced back into oval shapes, once your feet have lifted off them.These pebbles held the magic of Fairyland together and could only be crushed once it was wet, and then dried to a powder. It never rained in Fairyland, but the rivers from the natural world would run underground, bridge the gap between the supernatural world and the natural world, and flow through Fairyland. The water took many paths an
(The Eye.)Now I can say it is time to begin at the beginning.Who am I?I am the narrator, the one in whom all secrets are kept. You can call me... The Eye.The earth was new, unsoiled like money that had just left the press. The trees had dropped their fruits to the ground and Raytard had gone out to collect the harvest. One by one he picked up the juicy fruits and giving into temptation he sunk his teeth into one. The sweet, pulp was yellow and the juice ran down his fingers, he licked away all traces of it. He was staring at the hills over a herd of dinosaurs. They were big animals, with huge muscles, some even weighing more than two elephants put together. They were as gentle as a bird that pecked seeds from the palm of your hands, it was a time when all animals were submissive. Raytard along with all the first intelligent life forms created had the built-in genetics to subdue everything created beneath them.As usual, Raytard was thinking of Siri, the one he loved. He threw the