The Lonely Ones

This is my second story for my short story writing class.  It's an idea I've had for a year now but only just decided to really attempt to write.  I am very very excited about this one, and I think it might be one of my favorite things I've ever written.  Hope you enjoy! 



     She stood alone on the hilltop, looking out over the secluded town below.  The box she held wasn't heavy, but she'd been holding it for so long that her arms were starting to cramp.  She couldn't tear her eyes away from the town, couldn't force herself to enter the tiny parsonage that was supposed to be her new home.  Once she did, she'd be forced to accept that she lived here now, and she wasn't ready for that yet.  So she stood on the hill, resentment, anger, and an undefinable sadness threatening to overwhelm her.
     "Eleanor."  Her father's voice was not commanding or impatient.  He said her name as a simple statement without any emotion.  She didn't want to acknowledge him, but she couldn't take the impassive pleading which was sure to follow her name.  She felt a surge of anger toward the man who'd stolen her home from her, who'd forced her to leave behind everything she'd known for her eight years of life.
     "Coming, Father," she said without turning around.  She tried to keep her voice calm, but it came out rougher than she'd intended.  His footsteps faded away into the house.  She closed her eyes for a moment, controlling her anger, before turning around to face reality.
     She had to admit that the house was lovely.  It was more of a cottage, actually, and it was the most charming little place she'd ever seen.  She hated it all the more for its attractiveness; it was going to take some effort to maintain her loathing for such a place.  Swallowing her pride, she cleared her throat, stood up a little straighter, and marched through the doorway.
     There was barely enough space in her room for her furniture.  She stood in the doorway for a moment, frowning.  Claustrophobia overwhelmed her as she stepped inside and set the box down on her bed; how could she possibly live in a place like this?  The room's one saving grace was the window.  It was huge, taking up half of one wall, and there was a window seat set into the wall underneath it.  Leaving her box unpacked, Eleanor moved to sit by the window.  The seat cushion was fluffy and sank slightly when she sat down.  She opened the blinds, and light flooded the room.  She couldn't help thinking that the place looked almost cheerful with the proper lighting.
     Glancing out the window, Eleanor was surprised at the view.  An ancient graveyard spread out across the lawn beyond her window.  Worn headstones were arranged in rows, and the earth around them was overgrown and chaotic, as if the dead spent every evening dancing among the weeds.  Eleanor was fascinated by the decrepit majesty of the place; ever since her mother's death, she'd had a strange attraction to creepy things.
     The thought of her mother, coupled with her feelings of isolation and bitterness, finally broke her.  Eleanor was ashamed of the tears she felt running down her cheeks; she wanted to be strong, so unlike her mother.  But sometimes life was hard and crying was the only thing that made any sense.  Angry at herself and the cruelty of life, Eleanor put her head in her hands and sobbed.
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Her father insisted on holding service every day in the little church that adjoined their new home.  He preached with a passion absent from the rest of his life; the pulpit was the only thing that could bring out emotion in him anymore.  Eleanor was the only member of the congregation; though her father had gone into town to announce the times of weekday services, not a single soul showed up to be saved.  Eleanor was embarrassed by her father's zealous display to the empty church.  She didn't know why he persisted in preaching when there was no one there to hear him.  When she confronted him about it, he'd merely patted her head in his patronizing way and said, "God has made me a shepherd, and He shall provide my flock."
     After the service, Eleanor took a walk.  The grounds around the church were lovely at this time of year.  They were in the awkward middle season between summer and fall, and although the leaves had started to redden and die, the sun continued to blaze in the sky as if summer would never end.  Eleanor began to sweat in the morning sunlight as she trudged up the side of the hill, away from the parsonage.  She didn't feel like going home; there was nothing to do there anyway.  She'd been wanting to explore the grounds, and now seemed like a perfectly good time to do so.  She ran a hand through her short hair, pushing it out of her face, and continued her exploration.
     As her feet wandered, so did her thoughts.  She'd started school that week, and she was not in any hurry to go back.  She'd begged her father to let her stay home after just one day, but he wouldn't even listen to her complaints.  "It'll get better, you'll see," he'd told her.  "You'll make friends if you just give it some time."
     Eleanor didn't want to make friends.  She didn't like those kids, the ones in the town, and they didn't like her either.  When she walked by, their noses seemed to lift a little higher.  They'd overheard snatches of rumors from their parents about the girl with the dead mother and the detached father.  Eleanor tried to blend in, to make herself invisible, but nothing she did could stop the eyes that always followed her when she passed.  She couldn't help feeling self-conscious under such scrutiny, especially at the hint of malicious interest she saw shining in each pair of eyes.
     Eleanor came to a halt, surprised that her feet had carried her straight to the graveyard she'd seen through her window.  She'd been wanting to visit, but she was worried what her father might say if he found out she'd gone there; anything related to death made him anxious, particularly if it caught Eleanor's attention.
     There was an iron gate at the entrance to the graveyard.  Eleanor peered through the bars at the chipped, overgrown stones, wondering who they were for and what ancient secrets she might uncover amidst their decay.  She reached up to unlatch the gate and pushed it open.  She slipped inside, excitement rising inside of her.
     Somehow, the graveyard looked even spookier from the inside of the fence.  Eleanor couldn't help feeling like she'd passed through some sort of veil when she'd entered; the sunlight had dimmed considerably, and a slight mist pressed its chill into her skin.  Shivering, she picked her way through the gravestones, careful not to lose her footing on the uneven ground.  Every few steps, she stooped to read an inscription on one of the stones, but time had worn the words until they were indecipherable.
     At the heart of the graveyard, Eleanor stopped at the edge of a round patch of ground untouched by overgrowth.  At the center of the circle lay three gravestones, side by side, separated from the rest of the graveyard by a circle of stones lining the edge of the area.  She placed one foot carefully inside the circle, testing to make sure that it was safe, then moved fully inside.  Eleanor wasn't one to scare easily, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.  She shivered again, but it had nothing to do with the temperature.
     "Hello."  The soft voice startled Eleanor so badly that she tripped over one of the headstones, landing on the soft grass.  She turned around to see a young girl standing near the circle's edge and watching her curiously.  The girl looked to be about Eleanor's age, though maybe a little older.  She had long, white-blonde hair with a severe line of bangs across her forehead and pale, almost translucent skin.  There were dark circles under her eyes, and her white dress had seen better days.  The girl was quite pretty, Eleanor thought, but in a strange, insubstantial kind of way.  She looked like one good gust of wind would blow her over.
     Eleanor sat up, brushing dirt off the front of her dress.  "Who are you?" she asked, not caring that she was being rude.  The girl cocked her head to one side.
     "I'm Loretta," she said, her voice light and melodious, like a flute.  "What's your name?"
     "Eleanor."
     "It's nice to meet you, Eleanor.  What brings you to our garden?" Loretta asked.
     Eleanor looked around, confused.  "It's not a garden," she said, brow furrowed.  "It's a graveyard.  And it's not yours.  It's part of the church."
     Loretta giggled.  "Of course it's a garden, silly.  You're just not looking properly."
     "But it's still not yours," Eleanor argued.
     "Why would a church need a graveyard?”
    Eleanor couldn’t think of a decent answer to this.
     "Are you here alone?" Eleanor asked instead.
     In answer, Loretta turned and called out behind her.  "Des!  Danny!"
     Two boys peeked out from behind one of the tombstones, then then trotted over to join the two girls standing in the circle.  The darker-haired one looked to be the oldest.  He had an air of authority about him that the other two lacked.  The other boy looked a little younger than Loretta, closer to Eleanor's age.  Though he seemed submissive to the older boy, he had a sweeter look that was enhanced by his mousy hair and large, round eyes.  Both boys shared Loretta's dark circles and slight appearance.
     "What's going on, Loretta?" the older one asked, his voice commanding.
     "We have a visitor I'd like you to meet," she replied.  "Her name is Eleanor.  Eleanor, this is Desmond," she said, gesturing to the older boy, "and this is Daniel."
     "It's Danny," the younger boy murmured.
     "Daniel likes to be called Danny," Loretta added for his benefit.  Danny grinned shyly at her, and Desmond rolled his eyes.
     "Who cares what he's called.  What are you doing here?" Desmond demanded of Eleanor.  She was still sitting on the ground, and he loomed over her.  Eleanor disliked being in such a disadvantaged position, so she stood up.  She was pleased to see that the older boy - Desmond - wasn't much taller than her.  She was almost able to look him straight in the eyes.
     "I have a right to be here," she said to Desmond, her tone just as bossy as his own.  "I live in that house over there on the side of the hill, so I can be here if I want to."
     "I didn't say you couldn't be here," Desmond said.  "I just asked why you're here."  He grinned, happy to have outsmarted her.
     "I'm exploring," she huffed, still angry at his haughty tone.
     "And you've found our garden.  How exciting!" Loretta interjected, interrupting their confrontation.  "We never get visitors.  The kids from the town don't like it here.  Sometimes they run by and throw things at us, but they never want to play."
     "Why do you call it your garden?" Eleanor asked.
     "Loretta's just weird,” Desmond said.  “She doesn't like calling it a graveyard.  She thinks 'garden' sounds nicer."  Loretta stuck her tongue out at Desmond, who smirked back at her.
     "Oh," was all Eleanor could think to say.  These three children seemed very odd to her.  Something about them wasn't quite right, but she couldn't figure out what it was.
     "Do you like to play games?" Danny asked, his voice low and quiet.  Eleanor had to lean forward to hear what he was saying.
     "Yes, I do.  Hide and seek is my favorite, but I never have anyone to play with."
     Eleanor saw three pairs of eyes brighten with interest.
     "You can play with us!" Loretta exclaimed, but then she paused, cocking her head to the side once more, the smile falling quickly from her face.  "That is, if you'd like to."
     "Sure!" Eleanor replied, smiling.  Perhaps it was due to her intense loneliness, but Eleanor was liking these children more and more every second.  It was nice to have someone her age to talk to and play with again.
     "Danny's It first!" Desmond called, already running away.  Danny frowned, but sat down good-naturedly to start counting.
     "I'll count to twenty," he said to Eleanor.  "The circle is base."  He started counting to himself, and Eleanor scurried off through the graveyard alongside Loretta.  The girl didn't seem to have any trouble navigating the rough terrain; she quickly found a hiding spot behind a large tombstone.  Eleanor kept moving, looking behind her to make sure that Danny wasn't searching for them yet.  She fumbled her way to the base of a large cedar tree and found the perfect hiding place in a crack in its trunk.  She crawled inside and leaned against a soft bit of moss, angled so that she could see out without being seen herself.  Danny called out that he was searching, and she bent further back into the damp bark to make sure she was invisible.
     Danny found her first anyway.
     "Sorry, Eleanor," he said, peeking inside the crack.  "That's the easiest place to hide, so we make sure to check there first every time."  She wriggled her way out of the trunk and wandered back to the circle while Danny searched for Loretta.  Desmond was already standing in the circle, a satisfied smile plastered to his face.  Eleanor sat down in the grass and watched as Loretta ducked around one side of the tombstone while Danny looked around the other side.  She made it to the circle before he could catch her.
     Eleanor had to be It for the next two rounds, as she was unable to find any of the other children.  She found Loretta on her second turn, and they continued the game through several more rounds.  Danny was It the most, and Desmond wasn't It even once.  Eleanor had so much fun playing with her new friends that she didn't even notice how late it was getting.
     The four of them stood in the circle, having just finished another round of hide and seek, when a voice drifted across the graveyard.
     "Eleanor?" she heard her father call; his voice was tense and quiet, and Eleanor could tell he was hoping he wouldn't find her there.
     "I'm here, Father," she called back.  "I have to go home now," she said to the three children.
"Will you come back?" Loretta asked, sadness tinging her pretty face.  Eleanor nodded, and Loretta's expression brightened.  Eleanor's father called her name again, his voice strained with worry.
     "You should come play tomorrow," Desmond said.
     "I have school tomorrow," Eleanor answered, frowning.  "I'll try to come tomorrow afternoon, though.  Is that okay?  Will you be here?"
     "We're always here," Loretta said as Eleanor's father called her name louder and more insistently.  Eleanor turned around to see him standing at the gate, and she waved at him to show that she was okay.
     She turned back around to say goodbye to her new friends, but they were gone.  Confused, she stood on tiptoe to look around the graveyard, trying to see where they went, but the place was empty and quiet.  She bit her lip, wondering where they might have gone and slightly upset that they didn't say goodbye.
     As she turned to leave, one of the headstones in the circle – the one in the middle – caught her eye, and she moved closer to examine it.  She hadn't gotten a good look at them earlier before Loretta had startled her and they'd started playing their game, but now she had a chance to read the names printed on each one.
     Desmond Benton, Loretta Moffat, and Daniel Jones.
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For the first time since her mother's death, Eleanor was happy.  She'd made friends like her father said she would, though she couldn't help thinking that they weren't the sort of friends he'd been talking about.  The fact that they were dead didn't matter to Eleanor; in fact, she liked them all the more for it.  Their being dead gave her exclusive rights to their affections.  They couldn't leave the church property, and since no one in town dared visit the graveyard, Eleanor was their only living friend.  She liked that she didn't have to share them with anyone else; it made her feel important and loved to know that they liked her alone and no one else.
     Eleanor's new friendship didn't go unnoticed.  It was a small town, and no one there was happy unless they knew everyone else's business.  Eleanor's odd fondness for the graveyard earned her both fear and scorn from the townspeople.  Rumors flew around the school that she was a witch who planned to curse them all into toads or worse.  Kids still stared at her as she passed, but they did so indirectly, out of the corners of their eyes.  Eleanor didn't mind; she no longer cared what these dumb kids thought of her.  She had real friends that they knew nothing about, and that knowledge was like a talisman against their hatred.
     She knew her father worried about how much time she spent in the graveyard, but since he never did anything about it, she didn't give much thought to his concern.  He'd mentioned it once, but she'd convinced him that since it was holy ground, nothing could harm her there.  He seemed to accept this explanation a bit too easily, and Eleanor could tell that he was merely avoiding confrontation.  That didn't bother her for once, since it gave her the freedom to spend as much time as she could with her friends.
Desmond was the leader of their group; he was the oldest (both in life years and death years) and therefore the wisest.  He'd died trying to prove to his younger brother that he wasn't afraid of heights by climbing to the top of the tallest tree in town.  He made it to the very top, but when he turned around to gloat, the thin branch on which he was standing snapped, plummeting Desmond thirty feet to the rock-hard ground.  The boy remained as arrogant in death as he had been in life.  He decided what games they would play and what the rules were.  When he got too bossy, the other three would start a game of making faces when he wasn't looking, which almost always resulted in Desmond getting mad and sulking behind a gravestone while Eleanor and the others played whatever games they wanted.  Eventually, he'd peek around the stone and, realizing how much fun he was missing, humbly ask to rejoin the group.  They always let him.
Loretta was a bit strange, even for a ghost.  She knew all about different kinds of plants - she'd died from eating a plant she hadn't realized was poisonous - and she frequently spoke to and about them as if they could understand her.  She had the most vivid imagination, and she could spin a story that would keep the other three entranced at her feet.  Her moods varied greatly; she could be pensive one moment and cheerful the next, though Eleanor often caught a morose expression on her face when she thought no one was looking.
Danny was quieter than the other two and much more unassuming.  Eleanor thought he made a better ghost than either Desmond or Loretta because he was so good at being inconspicuous.  He was a bit more insubstantial than the other two, as though he was always trying to make himself invisible.  Eleanor looked out for him and made sure everyone listened whenever he spoke.  She did her best to protect him from Desmond and Loretta's dominating personalities.  He was sweet, thoughtful, and extremely observant; he noticed things that the others didn't even know to look for.  He could find anyone at hide and seek, but he almost always let the others win because he knew it would make them happy.  Eleanor thought he seemed content most of the time.  She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but Danny was her favorite of her three friends.  She liked spending time alone with him, because then his personality really came through.  He never mentioned how he died, and though she was curious, she never asked out of politeness.
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This was how Eleanor grew up, in a graveyard on the fringes of small-town society.  After several years and despite some very convincing rumors that Eleanor did not discourage, the townspeople finally came to accept her and her father as part of their everyday lives.  Their novelty had worn off, and they became a fixture of the town.  Her father continued to preach to an empty church - though Eleanor convinced him to only hold services on weekends - but every now and then, they'd get a request for a wedding or funeral.
Eleanor was happy with her life, for a time.  As the years went by, she gradually passed Danny, Loretta, and finally Desmond in age - though the latter always claimed he was still older because he'd existed longer than she had.  Loretta helped her through the awkward early stages of being a teenager, even though she was barely a girl herself.  When Eleanor was about 14, Desmond developed a short-lived crush which resulted in his being so mean to her that Loretta banished him from the group for a week until he could learn to be nicer.  Danny never changed toward her, no matter how old she got.
Eleanor loved her friends dearly, and she knew they loved her too, but she was growing up while they remained stagnant, unable to age in death.  She began to dream of a better life somewhere far away from the tiny little town where she'd spent the last eight years of her life.  She wanted adventure, to experience the fullness of life, and she knew she couldn't do that by staying put.  Eleanor knew the day would come when she would leave her friends, and she didn't know how to deal with that.  She wasn't sure they saw it coming.  The three ghosts were so young and naïve; they seemed to think that nothing would ever change, that Eleanor would stay with them forever.  When she was younger, she'd thought the same thing.  But as her seventeenth birthday approached, she knew it wouldn't be too long before she'd have to say goodbye.  The thought broke her heart.
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It was April, the perfect time for weddings.  They had a wedding planned for every weekend that month; Eleanor and her father stayed constantly busy, attending to everything from service music to decorating the church for the ceremony.  Eleanor loved weddings.  She enjoyed watching the little ring-bearer saunter down the aisle, holding the plump pillow aloft and the graceful flower girl, tossing delicate petals as she danced down the aisle.  Though it was cliché, her favorite part was watching the bride.  Eleanor was mesmerized each time by the woman in white drifting down the aisle on a cloud of happiness.  It all seemed so perfect and wonderful to her.  She dreamed of her own wedding, of stepping onto that cloud of happiness herself and never having to step off of it.
One afternoon, Eleanor picked up the rice left over from the wedding with her head in the clouds, dreaming about the future.  The wedding party had already moved over to the parsonage next door where they were holding the reception, and Eleanor had remained behind to clean up the church.  She didn't mind cleaning; the menial task allowed her mind room to wander to pleasanter things, a pastime she always enjoyed.  As she swept the flower petals from the aisle, Eleanor pictured herself as a young bride, shining and beautiful in a white dress.  She didn't picture the groom in her fantasy; she didn't have a picture for what her groom would look like yet.  Instead, she focused on other details: how the music would sound, how her dress would look, how everyone in the church would be mesmerized by her as she strolled down the aisle.
Eleanor suddenly pulled herself back to the present.
"I know you're there," she said without turning around.  "You know you can't frighten me."
"See, guys?  I told you it wouldn't work," Desmond complained.  Eleanor turned to see her three childhood friends standing near the doorway.  They hadn't made any noise when they'd come in – they'd been invisible – but Eleanor had a sort of sixth sense about them now.  She could always tell when they were present.  It was a useful skill to have when the trio tried to sneak up on her.
"You're no fun, Eleanor," Loretta announced, gliding into a pew to sulk.  "Why can't you just let us win sometimes?"
"Because then I wouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing your faces when I catch you."  Eleanor smiled, affection surging through her as she listened to their banter back and forth.  Underlying the affection was something deeper, though, something darker.  A sort of sadness that Eleanor couldn't quite put her finger on.  She shook the feeling off.
"How was the wedding?" Loretta asked, suddenly excited.  She always begged Eleanor to let her attend the weddings, but Eleanor knew that the ghost had a difficult time maintaining invisibility when she was excited, so she refused.  A ghost sighting during a wedding might put a damper on the celebration.
"Oh, it was wonderful," Eleanor gushed.  She sat down next to Loretta and described every detail she could remember to the girl.  "I really wish you could see it, Loretta, it was to die for."  The two girls giggled at their old joke.
"Ah, shut up about all that mushy stuff," Desmond interjected.  "Nobody wants to hear about all that.  Come on, Eleanor, let's go play."
"I wish I could, Des, but I have a lot to do today.  I promise I'll come out to the graveyard tomorrow, though.  How's that?"  Desmond scowled.  "Oh come on, don't be like that.  You know I'm busy on Saturdays."
"It's all right, Eleanor, we understand," Danny said.
"Thank you, Danny," she said, smiling.  "I promise-” She broke off at the sound of the church door opening.  The three ghosts faded to invisibility.
     "Hello?"  A young man that Eleanor recognized as one of the wedding guests poked his head through the door.
"Um…" Eleanor glanced around the church, making sure that her friends were gone.  "Can I help you?" she asked the man, taking a tentative step in his direction.
He pushed the door open wider and stepped inside the church looking sheepish.  He wasn't really an attractive man, but Eleanor found him striking.  His blonde hair was long at the top and arched gracefully in front of his eyes.  He ran a hand through it to push it back, but it fell right back, partly obscuring his clear, blue eyes.  He was very pale, and the combination of so many light features gave him a somewhat insubstantial appearance.
"I'm sorry to bother you," he said, "but I think I left my hat in here somewhere.  Have you seen it?"
"Is this it?" Eleanor asked, plucking a shiny black top hat from the pew next to her.  A relieved smile broke across the man's face, sending a strange swooping sensation through Eleanor's stomach that wasn't altogether unpleasant.
"That's it!  You're a life-saver!  My sister would've killed me if she found out I lost it.  I borrowed it from her husband, you see, and…"  He shook his head slightly. "I'm sorry.  I'm sure you don't want to hear about all this.  I haven't even introduced myself."  He held out his hand.  "I'm Jude."
"Eleanor," she said, taking his calloused hand.  His grip was firm and warm, and Eleanor didn't want to let go.  To her disappointment, he pulled away after one quick shake.
"That's a nice name.  Eleanor.  I like it."  His smile was so wide that it looked as though his face might split in two.  It crinkled his eyes, and Eleanor thought that he looked like someone who smiled often.  She couldn't help liking him, and she hoped he would stay for a bit longer.  He didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave.
“Are you here for the wedding?" he asked her.
"No, I live here, actually, in the parsonage next door.  My father officiated the wedding."
"Oh, brilliant," he said, and she relaxed; she'd been worried he'd think less of her once he realized she was just the minister's daughter.  "It looks like a lovely place to live."
"Thank you.  We like it here, for the most part.  I'd love to see the world, though."  She smiled and looked away to hide her blush.
"Wouldn't everyone?" he replied softly.  She looked up to see sincerity in his expression; she felt her awkwardness melt away as they locked eyes.  She felt drawn to him for some reason.
The sounds of the wedding party pouring out to the front yard broke the connection.  Jude glanced toward the door, then turned back to Eleanor apologetically.
"I'd better go," he said.  "They'll be wondering where I am."
"Oh…yes, I'm so sorry.  You should go, yeah.  I didn't mean to keep you."
"No, don't apologize.  It was no problem at all."  His mouth split into a grin, and she couldn't help smiling in return.  "It was very nice to meet you, Eleanor."
    "You as well."
"I hope this won't be our only meeting."  His face reddened, as if he'd said that without thinking first, and Eleanor's heart jumped.
"So do I," she replied, bringing the smile back to his face.
With a wave, he turned, slipped through the church door, and rejoined the wedding party, leaving Eleanor standing alone at the altar.
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Sunday afternoon, Eleanor came home from the graveyard to find a note taped to her front door.  Her name was written in an untidy yet elegant scrawl across the front of the envelope.  The note inside was short and to the point.  Lunch tomorrow at 11:30 at the Town Inn?  Her heart leapt into her throat; Jude's name was signed at the bottom.

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Eleanor went to lunch with Jude that Monday, then again that Wednesday afternoon.  She was able to laugh with him and be herself in a way that she wasn't able to do around anyone else.  She enjoyed his company immensely; he had a laidback manner that put her completely at ease.  The ghosts were not very happy with her new friend.  They complained that she was spending all her time with Jude instead of with them.  They missed her, they said.  They hardly ever saw her anymore.
Eleanor dismissed their concerns.  She saw them every weekend and most weekdays as well.  Jude wouldn't be in town very long, she told them.  She promised that once he left, she'd devote all her free time to them once more.
Jude left on Saturday, exactly a week after they'd first met.  The night before his departure, he gave Eleanor his address in London and made her promise to write to him; she agreed.  That's how their correspondence began.
They wrote to each other almost daily.  Eleanor found that she could talk to Jude about all the things she'd kept to herself - her innermost thoughts, wishes, and dreams for the future.  She told him about wanting a big wedding and a family of her own.  She told him about her mother, about how she missed her, how she was still angry sometimes.  In return, Jude told her about life in London.  He told her about his fears, about how it felt being the oldest son, the heir to a family business he did not want.
Eleanor poured her heart out to him, and it felt good to finally say all the things she'd kept bottled up through the years.  The truth about her friends was the one secret she still kept, the one thing she knew she could never tell him.  He’d think she was crazy. 
She didn't tell her friends much about the letters she exchanged with Jude.  She was afraid of what they'd think if they knew she had formed such a deep bond with him; she didn't want to upset them.  They knew that she wrote to him, but she never shared any of his letters with them, despite Loretta's constant begging.  Eleanor tried to keep life as normal as possible, but she couldn't stop her mind from wandering to the future.  She was able to keep her dual life balanced for several months.  She spent enough time with her friends to keep them happy, and she kept up a constant correspondence with Jude.  She didn't know how long this could go on.  Something big was lingering on the horizon; she didn't know what it was, but she felt a strong sense of mixed anticipation and dread.  Then the day finally came when the balance unexpectedly tipped, and everything Eleanor had ever wanted and feared happened simultaneously.
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Jude came back into town in August, then again at the end of September.  Eleanor spent as much time as possible with him when he was in town, but there was never any talk of her visiting him in the city.  After each visit, Eleanor had to deal with the backlash from the ghosts.
"You're abandoning us for him," Desmond accused her.
    "No I'm not, Des.  Jude isn't in town often, so I try to spend time with him while he is.  What's so wrong with that?"
"You like him better than us," he sulked.  Eleanor could see the hurt in his eyes; he really believed that.
"No, no, Des!  Of course I don't!"  She stood close to him, crouching slightly so that she could look him in the eyes.  "You lot are my best friends, you know that?  My very best friends.  And you always have been, since the day I met you.  You're like family to me, Des.  Nothing can change that."
    Desmond looked down suddenly.  He couldn't cry, but his face scrunched up a little at her words.  He tried to hide it so that she wouldn't see.
"I just don't want you to leave us," he said softly, looking back up and meeting Eleanor's eyes.
"I won't, Desmond.  Don't worry about that.  I'd never abandon you," Eleanor said, conscience twinging.  She told herself that it wasn't really a lie - it was true that she wouldn't abandon them completely.  She just didn't think that Desmond's definition of abandonment quite fit in with her own.  The boy looked reassured, so Eleanor quickly changed the subject.
"So are we going to stand around all day, or are we going to play something?"
She played with her childhood friends on that fall afternoon, laughing and singing and smiling like she did as a child of nine who'd made friends for the first time.  But her happiness wasn't complete; she felt a pang of guilt at the thought of leaving her friends, but she knew that day would come, and she didn't know how they would take it. 
That moment came sooner than she'd believed it would.
Jude visited again at the end of October, when the leaves were crunching on the ground in hues of red and orange.  Eleanor was overjoyed to see him again so soon.  He said he had something for her, and before she knew what was happening, Jude was down on one knee; Eleanor went home that day with a golden band around her finger and pure joy in her heart.

________________________________

Eleanor laid in bed that night and didn't know what to do.  She didn't know how to tell Desmond, Dan, and Loretta about the engagement.  She couldn't express her dreams, her deepest wishes about getting out of this town, not to them.  She couldn't tell them how much she loved Jude, how happy he made her.  They'd never understand; they'd think she just wanted to leave them.  They were so innocent, almost helpless.  She didn't know what they'd do if she left them.  They'd been there for her for so long; how could she abandon them now, just because she didn't need them as much as they needed her anymore?
    But to stay would be to give up everything she'd ever wanted in life.  She couldn't imagine living out her days in this tiny, do-nothing town.  She wanted the adventure that life with Jude promised.  How could her friends keep that from her?  How could they ask her to give that up, if it would make her so happy?
She just hoped they'd understand.  She didn't want to hurt them.  She never had.  She was afraid that now she didn't have any choice.
__________________________________

She avoided the graveyard for several days, keeping company with Jude or her father as much as possible in order to keep the ghosts from coming to her.  She still didn't know what she was going to say to them, so she stayed away from them, trying to conjure up the right words out of nothing.
An afternoon came where her father and Jude were both busy, and Eleanor was left at the parsonage by herself.  She walked over to the church to finish decorating for the wedding service her father was holding the next night for a couple in the town.  Being alone made her nervous, but she had things to do, and she couldn't avoid the church grounds any longer.
 She managed to finish decorating without any interruptions.  She finally started to relax when she turned and suddenly came face to face with the three ghosts.  She shrieked in shock, and Loretta giggled.
"We finally got you," she said with a smile, but Desmond shushed her.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.  "It's been a week since we've heard from you at all!  You said last Sunday that you'd visit, but we've been waiting for ages!"
"I-I got distracted," Eleanor mumbled.
"What happened, Eleanor?  Why have you been avoiding us?  We've been trying to talk to you for days now," he said, sounding more hurt than angry now.  Eleanor's heart twisted in her chest.
"I…I've been thinking.  I have something to tell you, and I'm afraid you'll be upset with me," she whispered, looking at the ground.  She couldn't look at them, couldn't bear to see their hurt, innocent faces.
"You can tell us, Elie," Danny said softly.
She couldn't help herself.  She lifted her head slowly and looked into the faces of the only three friends she'd ever had.  Desmond looked angry, Danny looked upset, and Loretta looked as she always did - dreamy and wide-eyed.  She felt the prick of unshed tears in her eyes, so she dropped her eyes once more.
"Jude has asked me to marry him," she said.  Silence greeted this pronouncement.  “The wedding is set for next April, and…I’ll be moving to his place in London-”
A voice interrupted her.
"What?" She'd never heard Desmond's voice sound like that.  She peeked up at him through her eyelashes; he was wearing the most dangerous expression she'd ever seen on his young face.
"You're getting married?" Loretta's voice was shrill with distress.  "But…you said you'd never leave us.  You promised, Elie.  You promised!"
Danny didn't respond; he simply began sobbing drily.
This was exactly what Eleanor had feared.  Her friends were all in different stages of anguish, and she didn't know what to do to comfort them.
“Guys, please.  It’s not the end of the world.  I’ll still visit you-”
“That’s not enough!  You promised you wouldn’t leave, you liar!” Desmond growled.
Eleanor felt anger rear up inside her.
“You can’t tell me what to do, Desmond,” she snapped.  “I have a life to live, and just because the three of you don’t doesn’t mean that you can take mine away.”  She regretted her words as soon as she’d said them.  Three hurt and angry pairs of eyes stared back at her.
"You can't," Desmond said, his voice deep and threatening.  "You. Cannot. Leave. Us."
Loretta and Danny continued their chorus of suffering while Desmond glowered at her with fury.  She could almost see fire in his dead eyes.  She couldn't stop herself backing away slightly.
"Desmond…Loretta…Danny… Listen to me.  I have to do this.  I love Jude.  I want to be with him.”
Desmond exploded.
"YOU SAID YOU LOVED US!" he roared at her, eyes bulging, and she winced as if he'd struck her.  She felt a strong gust of wind from his direction.  "YOU SAID WE WERE FAMILY!"
"Desmond, please!" Eleanor begged.  "We are family, I just-"
"DON'T LIE TO US.  DO NOT LIE TO US AGAIN!"  His voice cracked, and the wind almost blew her off her feet.  She felt a desperation, a need to make her friends see.  It tore her apart inside that she was hurting them, and she wanted to fall to her knees and beg them to understand.
Loretta started screaming, a terrible sound that ripped through Eleanor like knives.  Each scream was punctuated by another gust of wind, adding to Desmond's.  The gusts were pulling and pushing Eleanor so that she could barely keep her balance.  Danny let out a long wail, and the burst of wind that accompanied it finally knocked Eleanor to the ground.  She backed away toward the stairs that led up to the altar.
"Guys, please!" she screamed.  "Stop it!  Stop it!  Please!"  She was crying now, but nothing that she did or said had any affect.  The idea of losing her seemed to have broken the three ghosts standing in front of her.  They looked less real, less substantial somehow, as they blew a hurricane through the empty church.  The wind ripped decorations from the walls and blew colorful bits of broken flowers across the room.  Eleanor heard a vase shatter near the front doors, and large shards of heavy, broken glass flew around the room.  One of the shards knocked Eleanor's shoulder, and she cried out in pain, clutching the bloody wound it created.
"Desmond!  Loretta!" Eleanor screamed over the storm.  "Danny!  Look what you're doing!  Please, for the love of God!  Stop it now!"  Another shard smashed into her ankle, and she felt the bone crack.
The screaming stopped suddenly, though the wind continued, and Eleanor looked up to see three pairs of crazed, gleaming eyes turn to bore straight through her.  She took the calm moment to plead with them.
“Please.  Let me live my life.  I promise I’m not abandoning you, I just need to get away from this place.”
  Three voices answered simultaneously, sounding eerily unemotional.
"You will not leave us," the voices said together.  "We won't let you leave us.  You must stay with us forever."
Eleanor had never in her life been scared of her friends, but at that moment, she felt terror spread its ice through her veins.
"Wh-what are you doing?" she whimpered as the wind picked up even stronger than before.  Its gusts seemed more directed and controlled now.
"If you don't want to stay," the voices said, "then you will join us.  You can never leave us, Eleanor.  We love you, Eleanor."
The gale continued to grow, picking up small pieces of debris, then gathering larger bits.
"WE LOVE YOU, ELEANOR."
With a deafening crash, the church windows burst inward, raining chunks of shattered glass upon the whole church.  Eleanor watched, panic squeezing her heart and lungs, as the wind gathered the glass and broken pieces of pottery into one large gust that forced its way toward her.  She screamed in pain and terror, covering her head as the large pieces buffeted against her, striking her leg, arm, shoulder, back.
"What the hell?!" a voice exclaimed from the other side of the church, and Eleanor lifted her head to see Jude standing in the doorway to the church.
"JUDE!" she shrieked, but at that moment, a large piece of glass smashed into the side of her skull, and her body collapsed onto the stone floor, unmoving.
"ELEANOR!" Jude screamed, running toward her limp body, but the wind threw him back toward the door.  “ELEANOR!"
"ELEANOR BELONGS TO US NOW," the trio of voices said as the ghosts turned their ghastly faces toward Jude.  "SHE IS OURS…WE LOVE HER…SHE IS OURS."
The wind flowed back into the church, forcing Jude back inside.  It formed a whirlwind of air around the three ghosts, and with a thunderous boom, the ghosts disappeared.
The air was still.  Debris covered the floor of the entire church.  Jude clambered to his feet and stumbled his way toward Eleanor's still form, his ears ringing in the silence.
"Eleanor," he murmured, reaching for her even from several feet away.  He stumbled and fell down next to her.  "Eleanor, please don't be dead.  Please, Eleanor, please don't be dead."
He pushed the bits of debris off of her and rolled her onto her back.  Blood was streaming down the side of her face and shoulder from where the glass had twice struck her.  Her ankle was bent strangely, and her wrist was swollen.  Jude shook her slightly, but she didn't respond.  He pressed two fingers to her neck.  His body began to shake, wracked by violent sobs, as the first tears of loss trailed down his face through the grime.
He heard a shrill scream behind him and turned to see a young man and woman from the village standing in the doorway of the church.  Eleanor's father shoved his way past them and into the church, where he too let out a yell of shock.  His eyes took in the scene, finally coming to rest on the lifeless Eleanor cradled in Jude's arms.
"Get away from my daughter, you bastard!" he screamed, rushing across the debris-strewn floor toward Jude.
"I-I didn't-" Jude started, but the preacher thrust him away from Eleanor.  He crushed her beaten body to his chest, rocking back and forth.
"My daughter…my only daughter…" he moaned.
"No…ghosts…there were ghosts…they did this to her…to Eleanor…they…they…" Jude stuttered.  Several policemen were streaming into the church now.  Jude didn't fight as they handcuffed him and dragged him out through the broken doors.  Someone laid a hand on the father's shoulder, but he ignored it.
"My beautiful little girl," he sobbed as he continued rocking his daughter to her eternal sleep.
_________________________________________

He had dug the grave himself, late into the afternoon.  It had to be perfect, just like she deserved.
He hated burying her in this little town.  He knew she'd hated it here, but he'd never paid her feelings any mind.  How he regretted that now.
At least she was out here, next to the parsonage and away from the graveyard.  He'd never liked the graveyard; it always felt ominous to him, even though she seemed to spend most of her time there.  He couldn't bear to leave her in the midst of that miserable place.
Her body, wrapped in a white sheet, was lying on the ground next to him.  He could hardly stand to look at it.  It didn't feel like her anymore.
Eleanor's father placed her body inside the hole in the ground.  He stared at it for a moment, unable to avert his gaze.  He felt oddly detached, like his body couldn't handle the amount of grief he was feeling, so it turned off all emotion.  He took a step back, picked up the shovel, and began refilling the hole.
When he was finished, he placed the stone, engraved with her name and dates of life, at the head of her grave.  He couldn't think of anything else to carve on the stone that didn't sound meaningless and too late.
He knelt at her grave for a moment after positioning the stone, staring at the freshly dug dirt.  In time, grass would grow over it, making the small mound into another part of the landscape.  Only the stone would remain to commemorate the young girl sleeping beneath the ground.
He hadn't held a proper funeral, because no one had come.  The only man who might have was currently locked away in a mental health facility.  He'd read it in the paper that morning.
He stood up and walked slowly back toward the parsonage, wiping the dirt from his hands.
As he passed, he didn't see the three, pale figures standing expectantly at the edge of the grave, waiting for something.  The lonely trio of ghosts waited until the sun set.  Heartbroken, the girl took each boy’s hand, and they faded slowly into the darkness.  There was no moon that night.

Crossing the Universe

I wrote this story a few days ago (and just finished editing a few minutes ago) for my short story writing class.  This is the final draft that I'll turn into our workshop.  After we workshop it, I'll revise it and turn it in again, and I'll post that version here as well.  Enjoy!

Victoria

PS: The italics in the story are Beatles lyrics.
PPS: The entire story (including the title) is exactly 3000 words.

Crossing the Universe

            She looked like the kind of girl Paul McCartney would have written a song about.  The thought occurred to Will as he stood at the window, watching her sip coffee in the small café across the street.  He tried to think of the right words to describe her: graceful, lovely, radiant…he scoffed at how cheesy it all sounded, like a bad Hallmark card.  He was an artist, not a writer; he preferred pictures to words.

            The sound of his own name pulled Will back to reality.  His boss, Jodie, was telling him to get a move on.

            “Those tables won’t clean themselves, Will,” she said, balancing a tray of food as she bustled by.

            He nodded in embarrassment at her stern gaze.  This wasn’t the first time she’d caught him staring blankly out the window.  He turned back to his work; the last thing he wanted was to get fired.  He lifted the bucket of dirty plates, cups, and silverware off the table and wove his way toward the swinging door in the back of the restaurant.  The kitchen was buzzing with life as the cooks tried to keep up with the flurry of orders coming in for lunch.  Will ignored the shouts of “eighty-six the onions” and “order-up” as he began scrubbing the dishes clean, his mind drifting across the street to the empty chair sitting across from The Girl in the busy café.

“The sun is up.  The sky is blue.  It’s beautiful, and so are you…”

            Will’s shift ended at 4:30, right before the dinner rush picked up.  He buttoned his coat, flipped up his collar, and stepped out into the chilly evening.  He glanced across the street to the café to see The Girl – he didn’t know her name – turn the page of whatever book she was reading, a half-smile curling the corners of her mouth.  It would’ve been easy enough to walk across the street, enter the warm café, and introduce himself, but he’d never been able to bring himself to do it.  As far as he was concerned, the one-way street that separated them every day was as wide and expansive as the entire universe – he was an observer and nothing more, unable to reach through the telescope to touch the stars.  Will didn’t know if it was fear or pride that kept him from talking to her, but either way, he ended up sitting alone on the bench in front of Floyd’s Pizza while he waited for his sister to pick him up (they shared a car, and she had class until 4:45).  He didn’t mind the wait, even when his fingers started to go numb from cold.  Will was content to watch The Girl read her book, enjoying the frequent bursts of laughter that punctuated her smiles.

            Sometimes he took out his sketchbook and drew pictures of her, but only when it was warm enough that his hand wouldn’t cramp up.  Since it was too cold to draw that day, he spent the wait observing her - really looking at her – noticing every detail.

            The Girl had bushy black hair that fell down her back in long, curling waves.  She often wore a ponytail or headband to keep it pulled back, but today, she didn’t seem to mind that it was falling in her face.  Every now and then, she’d push a hand through the curls, holding them back for a moment, but they would inevitably fall forward again when she reached an interesting part of her book and let go.  She wore a thick, overlarge, green sweater that fell past her waist, brown jeans, and ankle boots.  She had one leg tucked underneath her, and the other one swung freely under her chair.  When she got really into some part of her book, she’d lean forward, pulling the book closer.  Her eyes would widen, she’d grip the book tightly, and her breathing would speed up.  It was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen.

            Will couldn’t help but be attracted by her.  She seemed incredibly cool to him. (God, did he really just call her “cool?”)  She gave off an air of sophistication and carelessness; perhaps it had something to do with seeing her in a café every day.  She always seemed so relaxed, like nothing in the world was more important than reading a book while sipping a cup of coffee.  He’d never seen her upset in any way; her café visits were punctuated with smiles and laughter.  Will envied and admired her careless happiness; he and anxiety were close friends.  He could never let go of the idea that everyone around him was watching and judging his every move, even if he knew that wasn’t true.  The Girl didn’t seem to care who was watching her or what they might think.  It was in the way she carried herself and the way she interacted with her surroundings.  She exuded confidence through her every movement.

            Will wondered what she might be reading.  He figured it was something he’d never heard of, filled with jokes and references he wouldn’t understand.  She looked like the sort who could read straight Chaucer as if it were a novel (Will couldn’t even understand Chaucer when it was riddled with footnotes and annotations).  Will didn’t read very much – just some sci-fi and fantasy, plus a little Stephen King now and then (who didn’t like Stephen King?  The Girl would likely turn up her nose at such a widely popular author as King).

            He watched in fascination as she marked her page and set the book aside.  She slipped her computer back into her bag and took one last sip of her coffee (probably something with a fancy French name he wouldn’t understand…she looked like someone who spoke French or at least Spanish…probably French) before heading for a trashcan.

            A car stopped directly in front of Will, blocking his view of The Girl.  His sister, Courtney, rolled down the window a crack and shouted for him to hurry and get in the car.  As he stood to open the car door, Will glanced over at the café window, hoping to catch one last glimpse of her, but she was already gone.

“Sometimes I wish I knew you well.  Then I could speak my mind and tell you.  Maybe you’d understand…”

This was their routine.  The Girl appeared at the café early in the afternoon and generally stayed until 5 or 6.  Will spent his shift relishing the rare glimpses he got of her throughout the day, then he would sit and either watch or draw her from the his usual spot in front of Floyd’s until his sister showed up.  It was well-established that The Girl never left first – she remained at the café until Courtney picked him up.  He wasn’t sure what she did or where she went once he was gone. (He’d once considered following her to find out, but then he’d sternly reminded himself that that was called stalking, and he shouldn’t be such a creep.) 

It was also a given that she always spent her time in the café alone.  In the month or so that they’d followed this schedule, Will had never once seen anyone else sitting with her.  He assumed she had a boyfriend (she had to have a boyfriend…look at her!).  He tried to imagine what he might be like: tall, dark, and handsome, most likely.  He sometimes wondered why this mysterious boyfriend or at least one of her many friends that she was sure to have was never with her, but he figured she was independent and liked her alone time.  Now that he thought about it, she probably sat chatting with her charming boyfriend via computer over a latte every afternoon; maybe that’s why she was always smiling…

Will shook his head to rid himself of that idea.  He was sitting in his room, his sketchpad open to a series of drawings of her he’d done earlier in the week.  Drawing was the one thing in life that Will knew he was good at.   As long as he held a pencil in his hand, he could forget his own mediocrity.  That’s when everything seemed right with the world.

He looked through the sketches, fixing a few errors, adding a mark or two to improve the picture.  He couldn’t help but be impressed by his own skill.  He’d managed to capture the essence of her on paper, tiny details he felt sure no one but him ever noticed: the way her mouth curled slightly at the corners when she was amused, the way her hands rested lightly on the table beside her, the way she leaned over her book or computer whenever she was interested in what she was doing.  He’d noticed how she absentmindedly tapped her fingers or curled a lock of hair around her finger whenever she was deep in concentration.  She tilted her head slightly to the side when she was confused or thoughtful about something (he could tell the difference: confusion meant a furrowed brow, but thoughtful meant looking at the sky through the window).  Will imagined showing her his drawings, impressing her with his accuracy, with how closely he’d paid attention.  He almost felt as though he knew her intimately.

He thought of meeting her, introducing himself, having an actual conversation with her.  In his fantasies, he was always much cooler and more mature than he was in reality.  He pictured himself not as a scrawny, neurotic 17-year-old but instead as someone confident and charming, who always knew what to say.  He figured that was the sort of guy she’d fall for – the charismatic yet intelligent Casanova who could sweep her off her feet.

Will laughed at himself; he was about as far from being Casanova as he was from being President of the United States (probably further, since as a U.S. citizen, he theoretically had a shot at being President).

He added one flourishing line to one of his sketches before putting them away.  He put on a vinyl of his favorite Beatles album and set the needle to his favorite song.  Leaning back in his desk chair, he closed his eyes and pictured her: graceful, beautiful…he didn’t care how cheesy it sounded.  She moved and swayed, dancing in his mind’s eye to the soft sound of George Harrison’s voice:

“Something in the way she moves…attracts me like no other lover…”

Will stood at the window in shock, his rag lying forgotten on the table he was supposed to be cleaning.  He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the empty table in the café across the street.  She wasn’t there.  He craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of the other tables; she had to be there somewhere.  She couldn’t just not be there.  She was always there.

He was distracted throughout the rest of his shift.  Josie yelled at him several times that he needed to get his act together.  He kept leaving cups on tables, forgetting to wipe the table down, not rinsing dishes and putting them in the drying rack still covered in soap.  He didn’t understand why she wasn’t there.  What had happened?  Had he missed something, some subconscious sign that she was changing up their routine?

Josie let him off early that day (Will hoped that wasn’t a bad sign).  He couldn’t help glancing up at her table again as he stepped out into the cold afternoon.  Still empty.  Disappointment crashed over him when he realized he wouldn’t see her today.  If he couldn’t rely on their routine, there was even a chance (he admitted it was slim and a little overdramatic) that he’d never see her again.  The thought depressed him.

He turned to take his usual spot on the bench (he’d already texted Courtney to let her know he was off work).  His heart nearly stopped when he realized there was already someone sitting there.  He took a step closer but jerked back in surprise and confusion when he realized who it was.

The Girl looked up at him as he approached; her face was blank and expressionless.

“Hi,” she said in a voice that struck him like a light breeze and a symphony all at once.

It took Will a moment to remember how his mouth worked.

“H-hey,” he stammered awkwardly after a moment.  She wasn’t looking at him anymore; her eyes had dropped to her lap.  She looked like she might be crying.  He finally remembered how to move his legs and walked toward her, feeling like each step covered a million miles or more.  He sat down next to her on the bench, not awkwardly close, but not too far either.  He was acutely aware of the fact that he was close enough to touch her.

He studied her out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to make her uncomfortable with point-blank staring.  She was even prettier up close, and he found he was having a difficult time breathing properly.  He couldn’t help noticing all the details he’d gotten wrong in his sketches: her hair was messier than he’d noticed, her eyes were much rounder, and her nails looked bitten and chewed.  She didn’t wear any makeup, and she had a light sprinkling of freckles all over her arms and face (so light that he almost couldn’t see them…that’s how he could tell she wasn’t wearing makeup).  As he watched her discreetly, he wished he could think of something witty to say to impress her and get her attention, but his mind was blank.

            She let out a quiet, partly-suppressed sob.  He had to say something.

            “Are you okay?” he asked nervously.  “Is something wrong?”

            “No,” she sniffed.  “I mean, yes…but not really, no.”

            She glanced up at Will, who was sure his face betrayed his utter confusion.

            “It’s hard to explain,” she said.

            “I’ve got time,” he answered, smiling.  “Is there something I can do to help?”

            “That’s really sweet of you, but I’m fine, really,” she said.  “I just…well, I finished my book this afternoon.”

            “Oh,” he said, surprised.  “Was it sad?”

            “Not really.  Just…emotional?  I’m not sad, exactly, just…reading it was an…experience.  You know?”  She frowned.

            Will didn’t know.  He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.  He didn’t even know why he’d tried talking to her; now she was going to think he was a complete idiot.  He wished he hadn’t said anything.

            Just as he was cursing himself for his stupidity, she spoke.

            “Do you like books?”

            He looked at her.  Her eyes were wide and innocent, sparkling from the tears she’d shed, and her hair was blowing wildly in the wind.  She looked tired and vulnerable and overwhelmingly human.  The image made his heart ache.

            “I-I don’t read much, no,” he said, hating himself for having to give her a disappointing answer.  He’d hoped she wouldn’t ask that question. 

She wasn’t discouraged by his reply.

            “Well, if you don’t read much, you must read some.  What do you like?”

            “Uh…just, you know, a bit of sci-fi – er, science fiction…some fantasy, I guess.  I like Stephen King –“

            “Oh I love Stephen King!  He’s fantastic!  Which ones have you read?” she burst out enthusiastically.  Will was taken aback by her intensity.  She was no longer crying (though her face was still a bit puffy and red); her eyes were glinting with excitement.

            He told her which books he’d read, and she gushed over her favorites.  She seemed to like the scariest, goriest ones best; her favorite was Carrie (he hadn’t read that one – he certainly would now).  A conversation about books turned to one about movies, then music.  Will was surprised at how much they had in common.  She didn’t listen to all the same music as him, but she was a Beatles fan (“Who isn’t?” she’d said).  They discussed their favorite songs and whether Lennon or McCartney was the better songwriter (“Come on,” he’d said.  “Eleanor Rigby?”  “For No One?”  Paul’s totally got John beat, no question.”  “Yeah right!  “Strawberry Fields Forever” alone blows both of those out of the water!”). 

Neither of them noticed the temperature or the sun go down until Courtney pulled up in front of Floyd’s.

            “Oh wow, it’s 5:30 already,” he said, standing up.

            “Whoa, I had no idea it was so late,” she said, eyes wide (she expressed so much with her eyes; “window to the soul” didn’t even cover it).  “I didn’t realize we’d been sitting here so long!  I better get home or my mom’ll be pissed.”  She looked up at Will and smiled.  “I never did get your name.”

            “Will,” he said, unable to restrain a smile of his own.

            “I’m Lorraine.  Nice to meet you, Will.”  She held out her hand, and he shook it, smiling slightly at the mock formality.

            Will couldn’t help staring at her in wonder.  He’d never envisioned this, pictured her this way.  He felt as though he’d crossed the universe, and it was better than he could ever have imagined.  She was so…ordinary.  It was amazing.

            Courtney honked the horn to get his attention, and they both jumped.

            “I gotta go,” he said quickly.  He took a step toward the car, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.  Though he’d been staring at her for the better part of a month now, he felt like he was really seeing her for the first time.

            Courtney honked again, and Lorraine said, “You’d better go before she decides to just run us over and save herself the trouble.”

            He nodded, waved, and turned toward the car.

            “Hey Will?”

            He looked back at her.  It wasn’t like looking at the sun so much as watching a still painting come to life.  He shook his head slightly in amazement.

            “I’ll see you around.”  She grinned, giving him a mock salute.

“Count on it,” he answered, returning her smile.  “It was nice meeting you, Lorraine.”

Midnight in the Forest

My husband, brother-in-law, and I are all assigning each other different criteria for short stories that we write, kinda just as an exercise in writing.  These were my requirements:

Setting: Midnight in the enchanted forest

Genre: Science Fiction (I know, I kinda stretched this one)

Characters: 6-year-old boy and his lab, elderly twin women, ethereal voice

Plot Device: A crowbar lands in front of a character

PS: If anyone reads this, PLEASE let me know if you get the twins :).  There’s something odd about them, and I want to see if anyone gets it.  Tyler didn’t.

~Victoria


MIDNIGHT IN THE FOREST

They had lived in the house at the edge of the woods for as long as Gabe could remember.  Most of his childhood had been spent on the fringes of those trees, playing fantastical games of make-believe with his friends.  All of that changed soon after his fourth birthday; that was the year his sister, Lenore, danced her way past the closest trees, just beyond his line of sight, and he never saw her again.  After that, his parents strictly forbid Gabe from ever venturing near those trees again.

Gabe never really understood what all the fuss was about.  Lenore had simply gone into the forest.  She was perfectly safe, he knew, because he was certain that his friends would never let anything happen to her.  His parents just didn’t understand about the forest or his friends.  They never did.  After Lenore disappeared, he watched quietly from the stairwell as more people passed through the house than he’d ever seen before, even at a party.  Most of them seemed to be policemen, but others were distant relations and a few were even reporters for the local paper (Gabe heard these people introduce themselves to his parents as each one came through the door).

The only time Gabe had left his perch halfway down the staircase was when his mother had sought him out so one of the policeman could speak with him.  The man had asked strange questions about things that Gabe didn’t know or thought were unimportant.  He asked about visitors to the house or strangers in the forest, but Gabe told him that the only people he ever saw in the forest weren’t strangers at all; they were his friends, the people he’d been playing with for as long as he could remember.  There weren’t any wild animals hidden in the trees either, just Gabe’s dog, Sammy.  Gabriel’s mother corrected him and apologized to the policeman, explaining that he and Lenore didn’t have playmates over to the house, and their dog had died the year before in a tragic accident.  All of the adults were puzzled when Gabe tried to explain that Lenore had simply gone too far into the forest and disappeared.  They asked if he’d seen anyone take her, seen anything unusual.  One again, he explained that she had simply gone too far.  They asked why he didn’t follow her.  He wasn’t supposed to, he’d said.  Not yet.

It was after the talk with the policeman that Gabe’s parents had built the wall.  It was a long, thick wall made of bricks, and it was at least twice Gabriel’s height.  He was very disappointed when he saw them building the wall - how was he going to play at the edge of the forest now? - but he very quickly discovered an iron gate in the wall not too far from his house.  Fortunately, one of the bars was loose, and he was able to slip through the crack it left.  Thus, he continued playing on the fringes of the forest for several years, and his parents, unaware of their son’s disobedience, were unable to stop him.

One Saturday morning, about two weeks after his 6th birthday and only a few days after the anniversary of Lenore’s disappearance, Gabe woke up extra early and set out for his normal playground on the edge of the woods, which he had affectionately named the Enchanted Forest.    Gabe liked Saturdays; no one forced him to go to school on Saturdays, and his parents slept in, so that gave him free reign of the house and grounds for most of the day.  He usually spent this time with his friends by the forest, though he had to be careful that his parents didn’t notice his absence and come searching the grounds for him.  The grounds were extensive enough that this normally wasn’t a problem, but still, there had been several close calls in the past where Gabe had to think and lie quickly to keep the truth about his daytime wanderings from being discovered.

This particular morning, he managed to wake himself up before the sun was fully in the sky.  He dressed quickly and raced downstairs, eager to watch the sunrise with his friends.  As he trotted quickly and quietly down the staircase, Gabriel heard something strange on the bottom floor of the house.  He stopped and crouched midway down, the lack of light and his small size giving him adequate cover from whomever - or whatever - might be down there.

Though the house was large enough for six or seven people to live there, Gabe and his parents were its only occupants.  Gabe didn’t like the largeness of the house; it made him feel small and exposed.  Right now, however, he was incredibly grateful for the house’s size, as it increased his chances of escaping through the front door before the mysterious intruder noticed his presence.

As Gabe crept the rest of the way down the stairs, he was relieved to realize that the intruders sounded like regular people; at least they weren’t monsters.  He was also confused as to what they were doing in his family’s house, however, since he knew for a fact that his parents were still sleeping upstairs.  He didn’t know why his parents would have people over while they slept, but he shrugged and continued his silent crouch to the front door at the foot of the stairs.  He cracked the door open and slipped through, shutting it silently behind him.  Relieved that he hadn’t been caught and questioned, Gabe dashed happily toward the back of the house, toward the gate.

Just as he reached the side of the house nearest his parents’ bedroom, however, he heard a blood-curdling scream that stopped him in his tracks.  The scream was cut off suddenly, as if the screamer had been forcefully silenced somehow.  Terrified, Gabriel looked toward his parents’ balcony, above and in front of him, where the scream had come from.  He didn’t see anything strange, but he pressed himself against the side of the house just in case anyone stepped onto the balcony and looked around.  He was worried they’d noticed he was gone and panicked; his parents were still jumpy sometimes, especially around the time of year when Lenore had disappeared.

After several minutes of nothing happening, Gabe’s heart rate slowed enough that he begin walking again.  He sent nervous glances up to the balcony as he passed it, which was fortunate; as he passed right underneath the railing, he looked up just in time to see an object flying directly toward him.  He instinctively leapt backwards, the object barely missing smashing into his skull.  He ducked back under the balcony, afraid that he would be visible to whoever threw the object.  When he didn’t see or hear anything, he approached the object on the ground, curious.

It was a metal bar, slightly curved in the middle; he thought he’d heard it called a crowbar before, but he wasn’t sure.  Glancing nervously at the balcony above him, he leaned down to take a closer look and saw that the crowbar was covered in a sticky red substance that Gabe quickly realized was blood.  Fear overtook him again forcefully, and he suddenly felt an irresistible compulsion to run as fast as he could to the gate in the wall.

Gabe ran with the irrepressible feeling of being pursued, though every time he looked behind him, he couldn’t see anyone there.  He reached the gate and easily slipped his way through the loose bar.  He normally stayed close to the gate while he played, in case he needed to get home quickly, but this time, he walked along the wall for about ten minutes before stopping to face the forest.

"Sammy!" he called out, but he was suddenly afraid that he’d yelled too loudly, that someone on the other side of the wall might hear him.  "Sammy?" he called again, quieter this time.

A large, black Labrador came bounding through the trees, a stick in his mouth.  Gabe, despite his remaining fear, smiled at the dog and took the stick.

"Hey there, buddy!" he said to the dog gleefully.  "How are you?  I’m sorry it’s been so long since I could play."  The dog flopped onto the ground in front of Gabe, then rolled over to expose his belly, which Gabe rubbed vigorously.  The dog’s tongue lolled out, and he closed his eyes happily, his back leg kicking.

"That’s right, boy.  Here, Sammy - fetch!"  Gabe threw the stick deep into the trees, and Sammy immediately took off after it, disappearing into the forest.  A minute later, the dog returned without the stick, and Gabe disciplined the dog playfully.  A voice spoke from within the trees.

"It is not the dog’s fault, little one.  We have the stick here," the voice said.  Gabe looked up, smiling.

"Hello Dora," he said cheerfully.  "How are you and Donna today?"

"Very well, my boy, very well.  You’re rather early, are you not?  The sun is not yet risen, and the sky remains dark," Dora said, stepping forward with her sister from between the trees.  The two sisters, which Gabe referred affectionately as "the Twins," were indistinguishable, though Gabe, through years of familiarity, could easily tell the two apart by their voices.

"I wanted to be here early so we could have more time together," Gabe replied.  He had decided that watching the sunrise might be a bad idea; they would have to look over the wall for that, and there was no telling who might see them from the other side.

"Well that’s lovely, isn’t it Dora?" Donna said cheerfully.  "We’re glad you’re early, Gabriel."

The Twins approached Gabe and handed him the stick he’d thrown for Sammy.  The dog leapt around playfully until Gabe threw the stick, which Sammy immediately went racing after.

"Where’s Jared?" Gabe asked, glancing at the Twins.

"He is running a bit late today," Dora said.  "He had some things to arrange.  You will see him soon, I am sure."

Gabe tried to hide his disappointment.  He liked the Twins well enough, but there weren’t many games he could play with them.  They were much, much older, even older than his grandmother was when she died a few months ago, though certainly not as frail.  They didn’t much have patience for anything but mind games, which were fun for a while, he supposed.  Being a 6-year-old boy, however, Gabe had quite a lot of energy to expend, and mind games just didn’t do the trick.

Sammy came running back through the trees then and bounded straight into Gabe, who, being a bit smaller than the dog, toppled over.  Gabe laughed and struggled as Sammy licked his face, then finally managed to pull himself free.  The Twins offered him a bony, veined hand, though their expression changed to one of disgust when he put his slobbery hand in theirs.  They pulled him to his feet, and he thanked them politely, as his mother had taught him.

"What sort of games should we play today?" he asked them, reaching for Sammy’s stick that he’d dropped on the ground.

"We won’t be playing any games today, silly," said Donna smiling.  "Today you’re going into the forest!  Isn’t that exciting?"

Gabe straightened, unable to do anything more than stare at Donna for a moment.

"I’m…I’m going into the forest?" he asked, his voice a bit higher than usual.  The Twins nodded, and Gabe felt a rush of mixed emotion wash over him.  He wasn’t sure if he was more excited or scared.

"That’s why Jared isn’t here.  He’s getting ready for your arrival," Donna explained.  She couldn’t seem to wipe the gleeful expression from her face.

"We’ve been appointed to lead you inside, though of course, we can’t stay with you past the edge," Dora said sternly, clearly disdainful of her sister’s uncontained delight.  "You know the rules, Gabriel."

Gabe nodded slightly, nervous butterflies erupting in his stomach.  ”I can have Sammy with me though, right?”

Dora considered for a moment, then nodded briskly.  ”I think that will be allowed.”

The Twins motioned for him to come forward.  He slowly moved to stand next to them, then looked up into their face.  He could read nothing in their lined, ancient face, but he did detect a hint of kindness that made him feel slightly better.  They wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him, he was sure.

"What about my parents?" he asked, suddenly concerned.  "Won’t they be worried about me?"

"Don’t worry about them, dear.  They won’t even know you’re gone,"  Dora reassured him.  "Now come, it’s time for you to enter."  She pushed him forward slightly, and he began to walk.

"Wait," he said, suddenly stopping again.  "What about Lenore?"

"What about her, dear?" Donna asked, smiling.

"Will I…will I get to see her again?" he asked quietly.

"You’ll see," they replied together with a smile, and for the first time in several years, Gabe couldn’t tell them apart.

The Twins placed a hand on his back and propelled him forward.  He almost wished they didn’t, because he thought holding their hand might make him feel better.

Even though this was what he wanted more than anything, Gabriel still couldn’t help feeling scared.  He didn’t know what to expect in the Enchanted Forest, and his confidence that nothing there would ever harm him was fading with every step he took.

He felt his feet slowing automatically, when suddenly he heard Jared’s voice coming through the trees.

"It’s alright, Gabriel.  There’s nothing to fear.  Everything will be alright."  Gabe searched the trees for his friend, but the light, airy voice sounded like it was coming from the whole forest instead of one person.  Still, the voice alone calmed him enough that he was able to keep his feet moving.

"You’re almost there, Gabriel," the voice - Jared’s voice - said again, softer this time, sounding like it was coming from farther away.  They were moving past the first couple of trees in the forest.  Gabe glanced down at his feet to make sure they were still moving.  "It’s almost over."

Glancing up again, Gabe saw Lenore standing several yards in front of him, a beaming smile on her face.  She looked just as she did when he’d last seen her, even down to the grass stain on her dress she’d gotten from a fall the morning she’d disappeared.  His footsteps sped up slightly, and he felt a smile spread across his own face at the sight of her.

"Lenny!" he said, moving closer, almost running now.  The Twins were no longer pushing him forward; he wasn’t even sure they were there anymore, but he didn’t care enough to check.  All that mattered was that Lenny was waiting for him.  Sammy jogged at his side, barking happily, and Lenore held out a hand toward Gabe as he ran to her.  He reached out, a burst of fierce joy running through him, and took her waiting hand.

——————————————————————————————————————

The beeping slowed to a steady hum, and Dr. Jared Landry tore his gaze from the now-blank thoughts-monitor to glance at his watch, then turned to the nurse standing next to him.

"Time of death, midnight," he said wearily, and she made a small note on her clipboard.  She reached over and turned off the monitor next to the bed that had just moments before shown the thoughts of a joyous boy reuniting with his sister.

"At least he died happily," she said reassuringly to the doctor.  "He chose it, Jared, there was nothing you could do.  You saw."  She gestured to the monitor.  Jared shrugged slightly, but refused to take his eyes off of the bruised, beaten face of Gabriel Martin.

"I’ll go let the detective know," she said, laying a hand lightly on his arm.  She turned and left the room, heels clicking on the tile floor as she went.  Jared reached down and laid a hand on Gabriel’s forehead, pushing the boy’s hair out of his face.  The nurse was right.  At least he died in peace, with his dog and his sister to welcome him to the afterlife.  Jared had seen it himself, on the thoughts-monitor.  At least Gabriel didn’t die alone, not really.

Jared pulled his hand back reluctantly, staring down at the young face.  Suddenly unable to bear the sight of it anymore, he pulled the white sheet over the corpse of the child, then turned and left the room without glancing back.

Bookprints

     Scholastic is doing this thing on their website where people (mostly celebrities) pick the 5 books that have most influenced and shaped their lives.  They are calling these bookprints.  Tons of celebrities have participated, from famous actors and directors to authors as well, and Scholastic also includes a few bookprints from its own employees.

     After reading several of these, I decided to do one myself, not necessarily so that I can proclaim to the world the amazingness of my favorite books (I do that already), but because I wasn't actually sure that I could pick out 5 books that have shaped my life and adequately explain the reasons why.

     It's incredibly easy for me to explain why books are good or why they are my favorite, but now I'm going to have to explain why they matter to me specifically, and not only why they matter, but why these 5 books matter to me more than any other books I've ever read.  That's a tall order, I think, and I'm still not positive I'm going to be able to explain it properly.

     So, after about a half hour's worth of deliberation, I've finally narrowed it down to five books.  Here they are, with explanations for my choices:

1.) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Anyone who knows me at all will not be surprised at seeing this book top my list.  Hands down, Harry Potter is one of the biggest factors (that's right, I said factors, not books) shaping my life.  I first fell in love with the series in February of 2001, when I was 8 years old, and I've been obsessed, addicted, in love ever since.  Harry Potter has contributed to almost all aspects of my life: family, friends, school, life decisions...you name it, and I can trace it somehow to the effects of HP.  I'm currently an English major in college working at an independent bookshop, and I fully believe that none of that would have happened with out Harry to help me along.  

My mother says that I was a reader before HP, but I think it's safe to say that Pre-Harry Potter (a time I barely remember, honestly) I didn't have the same level of adoration for the written word that I gained afterwards.  Harry Potter has shaped my personality: I wouldn't be near as weird and individual as I am without it, and I certainly wouldn't take near as much pride in being exactly the way I am.

Through the experience of being a Harry Potter fan and showing such unbound enthusiasm for the series, I learned what it was like to be thought of as a weird kid, but I was absolutely unable to be ashamed of my love for HP, so the mean kids couldn't touch me.  The rude, mean, and sometimes very nasty things that kids are wont to say to each other never had much of an effect on me, because my love for Harry helped me to love myself and the way that I am.  The fact that Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn't cater to the whims of others, didn't change themselves to fit in, but also didn't seek attention for their differences...that has stuck with me.  If people made fun of me for something that made me so incredibly happy, then I didn't want to be around those people.

HP also shaped my relationships and my dreams: the people I love and keep in my life all accept me the way that I am, without judgement, especially since they also have their weird quirks and strange loves that I respect in return.  Growing up with Harry, learning those lessons, I naturally gravitated toward people with similar ideas, and now when I look at the people around me, the people I spend my time with, I realize how wonderful and unique and good they all are, and that's a wonderful feeling.  I know that no matter what happens, Harry will continue to shape my life.  As Jo Rowling said in 2011, "Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home."  And I will always come back.


2.) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

I know those are technically two books, but since I read them together, bound in a single volume, I think I should be allowed to count it as one.

I first read Alice when I was in junior high, and I fell in love with the story.  I'd heard of it, of course, and I'd seen the cartoon, but when I finally read the book, everything about it drew me in.  I absolutely adore the nonsensical sense it makes, and I think it's possibly one of the cleverest things I've ever read.  I really can't stand when people complain about it, saying it doesn't make any sense at all, because that's the beauty of it!  Carroll masks his sense with the nonsense, he mixes it all up until you don't even know if the sense you can make of it was intended or not.  And the language...he makes so many jokes and rhymes and riddles; the way he uses language as if it's nothing at all to him just fascinates me.  The making-up or words, the often very precise and intentional usage (or mis-usage)...everything about it is wonderful to me.  This is the book that first interested me in language itself, not just stories.  The scene with Humpty Dumpty and the explanation of the Jabberwocky poem are my favorite parts. 

Also, the whole idea of nonsense being a good, even necessary, thing was pretty new to me.  All throughout life and childhood, people tell you to grow up and act your age and stop all that nonsense.  Children are told that their ideas about the world are wrong and incorrect, and that they must learn the right and correct way of things.  So having a book tell me that nonsense was a good thing was incredibly eye-opening.  Even now, I like to spice up my life with a bit of nonsense, even if it's just deciding to do something for absolutely no reason at all.  This frustrates the people around me sometimes, but these mad ideas generally turn out to be fun and worthwhile, simply by their nonsensical nature.  Everyone needs a little madness in their lives, after all.

3.) Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther

The best teacher I've ever had read this book to my gifted class when I was in 7th grade.  It's nonfiction - a memoir - and the only one of its kind on my list.  I often forget about this book and how much it meant to me; it's a quiet book, not one that really calls attention to itself with grand gestures or epic lessons, but it's one that sneaks back into my head every now and then, just to say hi and remind me that it's there.

Gunther wrote this memoir about his son, Johnny, who died of a brain tumor when he was 17 years old.  Johnny was incredibly intelligent and had an insatiable hunger for knowledge and love of learning that kept him going even in his last moments of life.  One of the things that impressed me most about him, for example, was that he passed the Harvard entrance exams with a tumor eating his brain.

But despite his illness, and some might say despite his intelligence (though others would say because of it), the thing that struck me the most about the story of Johnny Gunther was not what one would expect from such a memoir.  It wasn't his bravery in the face of death, not his selflessness or his struggle for survival...none of those things which are commonly lauded when a young person dies.  Instead, it was his love of life that impressed me most.  Johnny Gunther, no matter what happened to him, did not once stop living throughout the entire time he was dying.  He cherished life and the small joys it brings.  He refused to let the bad thing get to him, and it really made me consider how often I do let them get to me.  How many times a day do I let myself worry or get mad or feel sad over things I can't even control?  How many times a day do I let good things pass by without even a smile or passing thought?  Way too many times, that I know for certain.

Johnny Gunther taught me to be enthusiastic not just about the big things in life, the things that everyone gets excited for, but the little things, the ones that go unnoticed and unappreciated.  The book includes entries from Johnny's diary in the months before he died, and there is one in particular that my best friend and I have adopted as a sort of life motto, one that, I think, has changed the way we live.  It is simply two words, a toast to the most fantastic gift that any of us ever receives: "To Life!"

***I was hesitant to include these last two books on my list because I read both of them within the last two years, and I didn't really think that was enough time for me to be able to say they've shaped my life.  But nothing else fit.  I couldn't think of any other books to take their places on this list.  Then I realized that it's not the amount of time that something has affected you that matters, it's how deeply.  These two books, though they haven't had that much time to stew yet, affected me more deeply than any of the other books I considered putting on this list.  The fact that I first wanted to include them at all speaks for itself.

4.) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I first read The Night Circus about two years ago, my freshman year in college.  I think this might be the most beautiful book I've ever read.  I don't necessarily mean story-wise, although the story most definitely is beautiful.  I think the words of this book, the descriptions, the way that Erin Morgenstern makes you see, hear, feel, smell, taste the Circus...it's absolutely amazing.  You don't just read this book, you experience it.  

The Night Circus is, of course, about a circus, though please take everything you think you know about circuses and throw it all out the window, because this one is completely different.  Le Cirque des Rêves, or The Circus of Dreams, is only open at night, and it is a lovely, mysterious place where the magic of dreams become reality.  The circus serves as the stage for a magical competition between two magicians, Celia and Marco, each trying to prove themselves more skilled than the other.  Despite this fierce duel, the two fall in love, not knowing that only one of them can finish the competition.

The Circus of Dreams is just incredibly.  Morgenstern clearly has a gift with description, because it all feels so real.  She makes you feel like it's all true, that you just need to wait and hope long enough, and the Circus will mysteriously appear one evening in your town, ready to open its gates when the sun sets.  It's a magical place, an incredibly artistic and beautiful place.  And oh, how I can't stop wishing that it were real, that I could actually visit.

This book is on my list for much more than its description, though.  Something about this book, about the Circus and the people and the atmosphere...I don't even know how to explain it.  I actually can't think how to fit what I'm thinking and feeling into words.  Let's try this: Imagine a night sitting outside by yourself or with a quiet friend (one of those friends with whom you can have a great conversation in perfect silence).  Perhaps you're writing or reading something magnificent, or maybe you're just sitting quietly, contemplating life and the world.  The stars are shining, and you two are the only people around, each doing his or her own thing, but managing to still do them together.  You're not particularly tired, really, but you feel a slightly pleasant sleepiness that adds a tiny bit of unreality to everything around you.  Because you are spending periods of time lost in either words or thought, resurfacing brings with it a sort of hyper awareness of everything.  You aren't bored, you aren't particularly entertained, you aren't really doing much at all, but everything you are experiencing feels full of meaning and possibility and inspiration.  You can't help but feel a sense of hopeful contentment with the world and life.  You don't want the night to end, because you realize that once it's over, once you sleep and wake the next day, this feeling will be gone, and everything will be back to normal.

That's what The Night Circus is like.


5.) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

I feel like such a cheater by including this book on my list.  It's almost a cliche now to talk about how much it changed your life, and since I read the book less than a year ago now, it feels like a sham to talk about how much it changed mine.

But it did, and that's undeniable, so I included it anyway.

I actually saw the movie before I read the book, and I'm glad I did, because the movie really affected me and made me feel deep things, but when I read the book shortly after, it deepened those already deep things and made them into something even more beautiful.

I read this book very quickly (I think I read it in one sitting), and by the time I finished, I was crying and wanted to be alone...but not in a bad way.  I was crying because it was sad but beautiful.  I was crying for the pure honesty and truth I found woven into the story.  I wanted to be alone so I could think and digest and really let the book sink in.  I was terrified something would interrupt that process and that I would lose it, that strange happy/sad feeling I got from reading this.  I finally understood what Sally Sparrow meant in Doctor Who that sadness was "happy for deep people," because that's exactly how I felt.  I was perfectly happy, but I had this strange aching sadness that I couldn't shake and wouldn't even if I could, because it was part of what made me so happy.

I think my favorite thing about this book is the corny quotes.  You can find incredibly corny quotes from this book all over the internet from "I feel infinite." to "We accept the love we think we deserve."  And don't get me wrong, I love them just as much as everyone else, but you must admit that these sorts of things are why the word "corny" was even invented.  But that's why it's so lovely.  Even though these quotes are corny and overused and everywhere, they still manage to mean something.  They are still true, they still hold that same honesty.  It's not the kind of truth you know, it's the kind you feel to be true.  It's amazing to me, every time I see something plastered with one of these quotes, they still hold meaning for me, they still stir those deep feelings.

This book, in my opinion, at least, is an honest glorification of life; all its ups and downs and everything we experience that shapes our lives, and the appreciation of how all the things in life create us and make us who we are.  Sam is a wallflower, one who watches without being noticed, who tries very hard to "participate in life."  I think that's something we all struggle with, participating in life, though I don't think everyone notices.  We strive for meaningful experiences, memories, and relationships, but so many people don't take the time to actively enjoy the little things, the things that come together to make up the bigger experiences: a nice cup of tea, a good novel, an amusing joke, a really nice hug, a smile from a stranger...these things are just as important as the birthdays and the anniversaries and all those other major moments in life that we spend so much time looking forward to; in fact, they are arguably more important.

Sometimes you just have to let go and live a little.  Do something ridiculous or a bit irresponsible, throw your cares away for a little while, just realize and enjoy the fact that you are a living, breathing human being.  That's what I took away from this tiny little book I read less than a year ago, and it's something that has definitely had an impact on the way I live my life.  My favorite quote from the book, one that I think describes life so beautifully well, is "So this is my life.  And I want you to know that I'm both happy and sad, and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

This is my bookprint.  These are the books that have had the most significant impact on my life and way of thinking.  They brought me happiness, and most of them brought me a fair bit of sadness too, but that's how life works anyway.  So there.  These are the stories that have most enriched my life.  I hope they do the same for you.

Victoria

Now that's an idea...

I finally managed to get past my writer's block, but I am gradually realizing that inspiration comes at a price.  I know a way to make my story more interesting, more dynamic...but it requires a TON of rewrite...and possibly the loss of my story I was working on in November, Curious Nonsense, aka Mirora.

It has just occurred to me that taking bits and ideas from Mirora would really benefit this story.  I would have to use the entire main idea behind Mirora, which would destroy and derail that story completely.  I'm not going to lie and say that this is a difficult choice; I'd all but decided not to finish Mirora already, so killing it won't be that big of a deal.  No, it's what it will do to The Window of Impossible Things that I'm worried about.  I love this story, I love my original idea for it, and I'm scared to change so much about what it is.  Some might call this the natural evolution of my story, but I can't help seeing it slightly differently.

If I change this about Window, I'm terrified I'll start to lose what I like so much about this story.  I'm scared it'll be too much.  I don't know if I have the patience or energy to completely rewrite so much of Window, so I'm scared of how much this new/old idea will change it.  I don't want to let this one go.  I don't want it to sit unfinished on my computer and notebook for the next five years like the other stories I've started and never finished.  It's a scary thought.  I'm scared to take this chance that I'll change it too much.  I don't want the story to lose its identity, and I certainly don't want to start all over again.

Contrariwise, however, this new idea excites me.  I'm madly curious to see where this could take Anya, and how it will change where she's been.  I like her, and I'm anxious to put her in the type of story and situations her character deserves.  She deserves more than what I'm giving her at the moment, and the blockage has stemmed from my sudden realization of the fact that I've left her in an impossible situation.  I left her a plot that she didn't care about and that she couldn't fix even if she did care, and I could tell it wasn't going to work.  I think Anya will blossom much more beautifully in this new story direction.

But what of her writer?

Will I be able to pull it off?  I don't have a lot of confidence in my patience and persistence.  They've let me down so many times that I don't know whether to trust myself to really finish this story.  I really want to.  But I'm really good at convincing myself that I don't want things that will cause me too much trouble.  And I don't want to convince myself that this story isn't worth it, because I know that it is.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have this sort of problem, and I doubt I'll be the last.  I suppose the only thing I can do is trust my excitement, trust my instinct that this will be really awesome, something for me to stay excited about.

I hope I'm making the right decision.

Victoria

Blockage

It's finally happened.  I spent all of April cruising merrily through my story, idea after idea flowing freely through my brain, only to hit the second act turn and BAM!  I've hit a wall.

That's right.  I have writer's block.

I was seriously hopeful that it wouldn't hit me, at least not until the climax, but nope, here it is.  I'm super stuck, and it's driving me nuts.  There are several flaws with the direction I've taken my story, and I really need to fix them before this blockage will clear up.

My bad guys are weak.  The big giant evil thing that they're going to do?  Yeah, it's stupid.  My MC wouldn't care at all if they succeeded.  It doesn't affect her in any way, and she's not selfless or noble enough to jump to the rescue of the world's happiness.  They have to be doing something seriously messed up for her to go through the effort of stopping them, and they're not.  I can't force her to care.  She's sitting in a corner stubbornly refusing to go.  She always was a stubborn one.

I'm also tapping her on the shoulder, reminding her that she has to be a bit more active in her own story.  She can't let the other characters do everything for her; she has to take the reins and drive this thing herself.  She started off doing this excellently, but once other people started butting in, she got lazy.  Poor thing's been through a lot, but she can't give up now.  She's still got the hardest part of the book ahead of her.

I really don't know what to do.  Endings have always been my weakness (which seems like a very serious flaw for a writer, now that I really think about it), and I'm stuck.  It's really not good for my whole "finish this book by the end of the month" thing, and I'm starting to feel discouraged that I can't seem to find any decent way to resolve these issues.  I think the second thing will help resolve itself if I can only fix the first problem, but I'm having no luck with that so far.  The bad guys persist in being cardboard, and I need something real.

I've taken to hand writing some notes in hope of inspiration, but so far it's not working very well.  However, like the optimist I am, I will keep trying.  I have work at 10 tomorrow morning, but I think I'm going to stay up obscenely late anyway.  It feels like one of those nights.

Victoria

And so it begins!

Once again, we've reached the beginning of Camp NaNoWriMo.  Tyler (my brother-in-law who is also participating) and I stayed up till midnight so that we could get a head start, and both of us have reached out daily word count goal before the sun is even up, so that's pretty cool.  I'm simply continuing The Window of Impossible Things, and he's starting a new story.  It's been really fun having a writing buddy who was actually...you know...writing with me.  We've been swapping quotes and concepts back and forth, bouncing ideas off each other for inspiration.

It's been a while since I've really written anything, and I stopped on a rather difficult part of the novel.  I wasn't sure where to go from there, so I was worried that getting back into the swing of writing would take quite a while.  And yes, tumblr and Penny Arcade did distract me for a while, but I'm excited that the words flowed as quickly as they did.  I'm writing the second act turn, the rallying point for my MC to rise up after her Dark Night of the Soul and realize that she actually can accomplish her goal.  It's going rather well, though I'm not quite sure how I feel about what I've just written.  It's alright, but I think it needs a bit more.  I'll probably fix that later.  Note to self: August is for editing!

I'm really excited that Tyler is participating this month.  I always bug people to do NaNo, and though several of my friends and even my husband have previously agreed, it hasn't had nearly the effect on them as it has had on me.  It didn't help them write more, and it didn't make them more excited about writing.  Tyler seems to be different, though.  He's been saying for days how anxious he is to get writing, and he seems legitimately excited to write, which is good.  That's how I always feel, so it's finally nice to share the experience with someone who feels similarly to me about it.

I think this is going to be an interesting month.  I just hope I can finally finish my novel.  It will just make my year if I can finish the first draft of this thing and start editing and whatnot.  I'm anxious to finish everything and finally allow someone else to read it.  I'm really only working with my own opinion here, and that's unusual for me.

It's late, I'm tired, and I have more writing to do later today, so goodnight and happy writing!

Victoria

PS: 1251

My First Story

My first real story was a screenplay I wrote in 7th grade. My friends and I wanted to make a movie, and we came up with a title - Defy the Line - that we thought would make a great film.

Trouble was, we didn't have a storyline to go with it.  We all wracked our brains trying to come up with something, but there were no ideas, no sparks, no inspiration at all.

Then one night, while I was just hanging out at my grandmother's house, a wonderful idea for the story just materialized in my mind out of nowhere. I was so excited that I started writing that night and finished the first scene.

This was my first experience with the amazing rush of excitement and possibility that comes with sudden inspiration.

I'd had no idea that inspiration could work like that.  I'm sure I'd heard people talk about it before...how you sitting there thinking of something completely pointless and then BAM!  Something beautiful just unfolds in your brain, and you feel the intense creative energy running through you.  You know it's a good idea, and it comes with this craving to get it down, to remember it, to do something worthy of such an idea.  Defy the Line was one of those ideas.

Unfortunately, I never finished writing it.  I tried for a long time, but I loved my idea so much that I couldn't get past the feeling that I wasn't doing it justice, that I simply didn't have the ability to pull it off.  So I finally gave up and pushed it out of my mind.

But it refused to go away.  I thought about it often.  Every now and again, I would find myself itching to try again, but I haven't yet reached a point where I feel like I'm ready.  Still, Defy the Line is a story that’s been in my head for eight years now.

I keep writing in the hopes that one day I will finally be good enough to tell it.

Writing Matters.

http://blog.lettersandlight.org/tagged/my-first-nano

Goings On

So I've given up on this blog twice now, but I'd like to give it a third shot.  I kinda stopped during April because I was so busy writing...you know, my novel.  But maybe I can try to multitask this time.

In April, I started a novel that I eventually named The Window of Impossible Things, and I actually won April's Camp NaNoWriMo, which I didn't honestly think I'd be able to do.  Camp NaNo's July session starts this Monday, and I plan on using the month to finish up this novel and finally begin the much-anticipated editing process.

I really really REALLY like this novel, which is kind of a new experience for me.  Normally when I write, I constantly ask friends or family to read bits of my work or I post pieces on the internet and various things like that.  Basically, I constantly need someone to tell me that they are interested, that what I'm writing is worth finishing.  With this novel, though, I don't want anyone to read it until it's finished.  I really can't wait to finish because I can't wait to share it with people in its entirety.  I don't want them to have a small piece, and I don't need anyone to tell me it's good.  I actually like it and enjoy reading it myself, which is so beautiful and crazy and wonderful to me.  I'm so confident that I will finally finish something, and I'm incredibly excited about it.  I also haven't hit a point throughout this writing process where I believe that everything I'm writing is absolutely horrible and should just be thrown away.  I've felt a certain level of confidence in myself throughout the entire thing, and when I did start to doubt my abilities, I went back and reread some of my writing, and it actually made me feel better.  I'm not used to this.

I really enjoy writing, and I can't wait to get back to it.  I'm a very lazy person, so sometimes, even when I actually want to write, I can't make myself sit down and do it.  Having a deadline over my head will be a nice change.  I'll finally be able to convince myself to sit down and do it.  Especially since my goal is not a word count this time but actual completion.  It'll be a challenge, but it's one that I am eager to begin.

Happy writing,
Victoria

PS: I convinced my brother-in-law to write with me this month, and I'm so happy to see that he's almost as excited about this as I am.  It's going to be an awesome July.

Mess Idea

I've recently acquired a copy of Keri Smith's book Mess.  If you're not familiar with Keri or her works, I will direct you to her website to become acquainted with the type of things she writes: http://www.kerismith.com/

Basically, her books contain challenges/tasks/ideas on each page that you must complete in order to finish the book.  Things like "While in a public place, draw a large circle in full view.  Color it in." and other random things.  This sort of thing might not seem like it encourages creativity or originality, but it actually does.

To give you an idea, here's my copy of Keri's This Is Not A Book:

(His name is Gaius Non Libris.  And I know it might look like it but no, he's not a book.  Hence the title.)

I've been working on my This Is Not A Book for several months now, and it's actually quite fun to go through and find the tasks I would like to complete, especially with my friends.  But with Mess, I might try something different.  Instead of just following the instructions and doing everything in the book by myself, I'm considering trying to turn it into a group project.

My idea is to do a certain number of pages myself, then pass the book onto someone else with these rules:

1.) You must complete (certain number) of tasks in this book.  You may choose which ones, as long as they have not been completed before.
2.) You must include evidence within the book that you completed said tasks (if your task takes place outside of the book, you must at least include pictures of your project).
3.) After completing said number of tasks, you must pass the book on to someone else who has not had the book before, and they must continue the chain.
4.) Once the book is complete, you must mail it back to me (and include my address or something inside the book).

I'm thinking this would be REALLY cool to do.  Then, not only would I have some fun with it, but it would turn into this collaborative thing with a bunch of people I might not even know.  And I could see others' ideas and creative pursuits in following the book's instructions.  It would be super awesome!!

I've been unsure about it for a while, but I'm really starting to think that this might be a good idea.  Also, I agree with the message of the book, and I'd like it to reach as many creative people as possible (in case you're wondering, the overall message is that you should stop worrying so much about being perfect and allow yourself to mess things up sometimes because it frees your creative mind).  It would be kinda like a travelling creative project!

If this does happen, I'll definitely post pictures and updates (whenever I get them) here.

In the words of Mumbo Jumbo: "Hope this works!"

Victoria

Permission to Suck

"I give myself permission to suck.” - Maureen Johnson + John Green on how they write and get over writers block

I'm slowly learning that sometimes you just have to accept being not perfect at something and dare to just do what you can, regardless of what the world thinks.  I'm also learning that it's harder than it sounds, but the rewards are definitely worth it.

I've been attempting to take this advice particularly when writing, because that's definitely something that stands in my way when I'm writing: the fear of imperfection.  This is true whether I'm writing a class paper, a twitter status, or even my stories.  I find myself worrying about the quality of what I'm writing to the point that I can't bring myself to write anything at all, which is a horrible point to reach.  The creative flow slows to a stop, my thinking turns self-critical, and I become disgusted with my lack of ability to even write English coherently much less beautifully or cleverly.

But it's at that point - at midnight the night before my paper is due or midway through a timed writing session - that I tell myself how much none of that matters.  Who cares if my writing is horrid??  As long as I get words from my brain to the paper, the quality doesn't matter in the least.  It's the editing that takes the utter crap I spew out onto the page and makes it (hopefully) worth reading.  And I have to really, really work hard to not edit myself to death while I'm still in the middle of writing the first draft.  It's taking a lot of self control not to edit this very post as I write, and I'm barely managing it.  It's really hard to let myself write things that I know are crap, even if I also know that right after I'm finished writing, I'm just going to turn around and edit most of the crap right out.  But the crap must be written in order that it may be made clean.  I can't fix what doesn't exist.

I know that this particular technique works with writing, but that's a pretty narrow application; most people don't write enough for this to really matter to them.  But it works for other things too, not all of them based solely on creativity.

Some people are shy.  Some people refuse to participate in anything that they think may embarrass them in front of others, be they strangers or friends.  Almost everyone reaches the point where they won't try something for fear of making a fool out of themselves.  It's at that point, the point where you sort of wish you were just a little less self-conscious because that thing you're too nervous to do looks like so much fun, that you need to allow yourself to suck.  Whether it's dancing, singing, playing a game or anything (particularly in public), allow yourself that chance to act a fool.  Stop worrying so much that other people will judge you for how badly you dance/sing/play/perform/etc, and ENJOY your imperfection.  Chances are that 1) you're not the only one sucking at it and 2) most people won't notice or care how bad you are at whatever you're doing.  If you're at a dance, your favorite song comes on, and you really want to go out and dance with your friends, but you're just not really a good dancer and you'll just look dumb and there are just so many people...STOP WORRYING AND DANCE!!!  If you just let go of that fear of imperfection and allow yourself to suck a little bit, you'll most likely have a fantastic time, and it's very likely that no one will even notice or care about your horrible dancing!

I know you're thinking But Victoria, it's really not that easy, and I think you're underestimating how much I really suck at dancing, and that's partly true (though seriously, I'm a very awkward dancer, so PLEASE don't talk to me about how bad you are).  It's not easy, not at all.  But it is actually much easier than you might think, especially the more you practice it.  You have to consciously make the decision to stop worrying, stop self-critiquing, stop thinking too hard about it.  Lower your expectations of yourself.  It is incredibly rare that we as humans find something that we are naturally perfect at without any practice or learning involved.  So why do most of us shy away from doing things that we think we aren't "good at" the first few times we try??  Of course we're not good at it!  We won't even let ourselves do it enough to GET good at it!  For some reason, most people hold unrealistic expectations for their own talents and abilities, and when those expectations aren't met by something, they label themselves as "not good at it" and they move on, avoiding said activity as much as possible, particularly when the thing is in view of or involves other people.  When you really think about it, it doesn't actually make much sense.  We need practice, repetition, and learning to become good at something, but we don't like to practice or repeat things we aren't good at.  Pretty much everyone is guilty of this at some point.  I certainly am.

So that's the sort of thing I try to keep in mind when I start getting self-conscious and nervous about how well I'm doing things.  Sucking is an important part of being human and learning new things, and when you stop worrying so much and actually allow yourself to suck, you often enjoy yourself much more than when you sit out and remain suck-less.  I think it's a valuable lesson that everyone can take to heart in some way.  So next time someone asks you to do something fun and your self-consciousness kicks in, instead of making the excuse "No thanks, I'm not good at that," why not swallow your pride, take a risk, and show off how badly you suck??  Who knows??  You might actually enjoy it.