Drabble Wednesday: Crones

Today on Drabble Wednesday, beware the little old ladies...

Granny’s Little Helpers

Somewhere, an old woman stands on a back porch at dusk, a large canvas sack at her feet. She murmurs into the night...

“Come my little darlings, Granny has a treat! A sup or two of blood, a morsel of fresh meat. That’s right, that’s right, the tastiest delight. Slink my pretties, from the shadows dim, and slither forth, from the graveyard grim. I need your teeth and your claws, to tear and chew, devour with your jaws.”

Blackness shimmers, and tiny voices chitter.

The old woman smiles.

“Come, come, time to eat. Granny has a body, the finest treat.”

~*~

By the River

The old woman cackled, her scrawny jowl flaps bouncing a little. “You should’ve listened, fool. Them old legends you scoffed at, should’ve listened. I ain’t never lost a challenge. And I wasn’t sure going to start with the likes of you.”

Rupert started at the dice, and the old lady squatting on her haunches by the riverbank. “It’s not possible. You couldn’t have won the game.”

“Why? ‘Cause those dice of yours is weighted? All rigged to cheat? That don’t matter none to me. Game’s always rigged in my favour.” She laughed again. “Pay up, fool. One soul, as promised.”

~*~

Reflections of the Soul

Arabella didn’t like mirrors.

She didn’t primp and she didn’t preen, despite her perfect face with its pristine complexion, or her soft blond hair with its ideal curls. She avoided her reflection as often as possible.

“Such a vain thing,” she’d say with a laugh. “I have better things to do.”

Perhaps she did. Arabella did like to dabble in things dark and unseemly.

Her nature, really. She liked to pretend otherwise, but nature won out. Especially in the mirror.

There her true face reflected back at her, all three hundred years, and all the wear of being a witch.

© A. F. Stewart 2017 All Rights Reserved

Drabble Wednesday: Alternate Worlds

Today in Drabble Wednesday something a bit different. I bring you three stories, three settings, one person in three alternate world circumstances…

Anticipation

For the moment she is alone.

She looks in the mirror. The bright sun streams in the window, casting sparkles over her beaming reflection. She smiles. Everything is perfect. Just as she imagined. Outside the door she can hear the commotion of the day, the voices, the chatter.

Soon it will begin. She leave this room, this temporary respite from what was to come, these last few moments of simply her.

A knock echoes on her rumination. It is time. She picks up her bouquet, and opens the door. Her father stands there, waiting.

The wedding march begins to play.

~*~

Apprentice

For the moment she is alone.

She looks in the mirror. The fading sun streams in the small window, illuminating the faint scar on her cheek. She examines her appearance. Everything is perfect. Not a button out of place on her regalia. This day will happen just as she imagined.

Outside the door there is silence. All her fellow students and teachers will be assembled on the training grounds for the ceremony. Soon it will begin.

A knock sounds, and she opens the door.

An officer of the Royal Guard awaits her, ready to escort her to her induction ceremony.

~*~

Annihilation

For the moment she is alone.

She looks in the dusty mirror. The sun streams past the cracked window, casting shadows on her pale reflection. She wants to cry. Everything is ruined. Nothing has gone as she imagined.

Outside the door she hears commotion, roaring voices, the sound of shooting, screams. Here, in her temporary refuge, she wonders how it came to this. To war. To genocide.

She picks up her gun and stares at the cold metal. One bullet left.

As ferocious pounding slams against the door, she knows it’s too late. They’ve found her.

A gunshot rings out.

© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved

Drabble Wednesday: Reflections

Today on Drabble Wednesday, we look into the abyss, and see what is reflected back…

Asylum

They locked me in a room.

A sad room.

I’m mad you know. Mad. Mad. Mad.

That’s what they say.

They put me in a solitary place. Threw away the key.

They’ll make me better here.

They say.

I hurt people.

Can’t have that.

So they brought me here, to the hospital. Isolated.

All alone. All alone.

At least that’s what they thought.

But I have friends.

My lovely, lovely friends.

They look after me. They whisper their thoughts in my ear. They’ve offered to help me.

They’ve offered me asylum.

Or did they offer me the asylum.

To kill.

~*~

Push

The jagged crack sliced across the mirror. A streak of red dripped down the reflective surface. Blood. She reached out a finger to smear the fluid away, but she couldn’t make herself touch it. She heard her husband screaming in the background.

“Why did you make me do it? You always make me do these things!”

“I didn’t make you do anything! You’re the one who can’t control themselves!”

She screamed at full volume, but he seemed not to hear her.

Maybe she was dead.

After all, she stared at her motionless body sprawled on the floor under the mirror.

~*~

Perfidy

I hear her call my name, when the moon shines through the black sky and the wind howls against the window pane. The reflection of her face settles in the glass, her dark eyes gleaming hatred in crimson.

She haunts me.

Her whispers, her accusing looks in my dreams, and on nights like these. I wronged her, and she shifts through reality to abuse me with my misdeed. And I deserve her punishment.

She trusted me.

I thought I could change. That her darkness would soothe my own. Alas, it was not to be.

And betrayal lingers far after death.

© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved

Drabble Wednesday: Past Reality

This week, Drabble Wednesday steps beyond the realm of the existent into worlds beyond…

Debt Collector

The man in the black coat waited. At the end of the street, his white gloved hands resting on his walking stick, a derby hat upon his head. He stood still, though the wind plucked at his coat, his silver eyes staring.

I remembered those silver eyes.

I remembered the last night he stood waiting. The night of my unholy bargain. Now it’s time to pay my due.

Well, he won’t collect anything from me. I shan’t go out tonight.

I take my tea into the drawing room. Silver eyes stared at me.

“Hello, James. I was tired of waiting.”

~*~

The Visitor

My sister died a year ago.

Horribly.

My family shut away her existence, even refuses to whisper her name. They shush me when I try to talk of her, and I see their looks of pity. I ignore them now. I am simply glad they granted me the gift of her mirror.

I hung it on my bedroom wall, over my dressing table, where the sun can catch the gilt finish and make it shine. Where I sit and stare into the polished glass, remembering. Where I smile, laugh, and cast her name to the heavens.

Where she answers me.

~*~

Sunshine

Skittered particles of dust, like sparkles on a lake surface, shifting, shattering inside sunbeams. Suspended in air, visible as the light passes giving form to the insubstantial. Whispers of what went before, the aged dust of humanity, hovering, lingering.

Caught.

In the gossamer net of the sun, exposed. A minuscule river, flowing, bobbing, desiccated powdered remains, of what was once flesh and life. We were washed away, but now reborn specks of matter again, fragments to be certain, but alive, aware. For one moment in the sun. Before we disappear to the nether beyond.

To the world of the dead.

© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved

Drabble Wednesday: Broken Things

Today on Drabble Wednesday I bring tales of broken bits and shattered things…

A Splinter of Time

The cracks decorated the clock face like a fractured spider web, radiating outward across the glass. No familiar tick tock rhythm filled the room, and the clock’s hands stayed motionless. Its tall, ornate body stank of wood rot and rust, and a layer of dust shrouded its once lustrous sheen. The machinery that destroyed it was gone, winked out of existence, as was the man who annihilated the universe.

Yet, the clock survived. A fixed point in the nexus of infinity. It remained as the atoms of the universe disintegrated, coagulated, dissolved and reformed, as time itself shattered and unmoored.

~*~

Fragile Glass

Shards of glass littered the lawn. Other bits hung off the frame of the sliding door. Jagged pieces even scattered over the hardwood floor. He stared at them, trying not to see the rest, or the tinges of red on some of the glass.

“I didn’t mean to, it was an accident.” He whispered the words to an empty house. “Everything just got out of hand.”

Perhaps he meant what he said, perhaps he believed it. The gun in his hand suggested otherwise. As did the body of his wife, resting on the lawn in a bed of broken glass.

~*~

Mirrored

“I’m afraid.” The tiny whisper broke the night’s silence.

The old woman smiled at the child. “Shush now, little one. The darkness holds terrors, but you must be strong. You've your mirror, yes? You remember what to do?”

The girl nodded. “Show the Dark-Beasts their reflection. Trap them in the mirror.” She sighed. “Like they were trapped before Mama broke the Otherworld looking glass.”

“Yes. But you will fix her wickedness. You will mend the damage and put right the world.”

The child nodded and closed her eyes. “We just have to reach the temple before the Dark-Beasts find us.”

© A. F. Stewart 2015 All Rights Reserved

Kintsugi Blog Hop: Shades and Reflection

Time to reflect on this, Day Six of the blog hop...

Shades and Reflection

I looked into the heart

of the black night.

What did I find?

An image, distorted

in a gilded mirror.

An image desolate,

of me.

See you over at the main site: http://kintsugiart.wordpress.com/