Search Results for 'rather'

The drizzle wasn’t meant to last. At least that’s what the smell in the air was telling Fox. With the night it was getting colder and the drizzle would soon turn into small ice crystals, and maybe worse.
“We should get going,” Fox said, enjoying the last pieces of rabbit stew. The dwarf had been busy looking around in the leafless bushes and behind the tree trunks. He had been silent the whole time and Fox was beginning to worry.
“What have you been doing anyway?” he asked. “Are you hunting? You can still have a piece of that stew before I swallow it.” He handed his bowl toward the dwarf, who grumpfed without looking at Fox.
“I don’t eat. I’m a stone dwarf. I think I get recharged by daylight.”
Gorash kept on looking around very intently.
“We should get going,” repeated Fox. The weather is going to be worse.
“Grmpf. I don’t care. I’m made to stay outside. I’m a stone statue.”
“Well even stone gets cracked with the help of ice when temperature drops below zero. How am I supposed to carry you if you fall into pieces,” said Fox. He thought his idea rather cunning, but he had no idea if Gorash would be affected by the bad weather or not, since he was not really like stone during the night.

“And what are you looking for? It’s winter, there’s not much of anything behind those naked bushes.”
“It’s Easter. You had your rabbit. I want my eggs,” said the dwarf.
“Oh.” Fox was speechless for a few moments. He too had been thinking of the colourful eggs of the dwarf’s friend they had left in the witch’s garden. He wondered what had happened to it? Gorash had been gloomier and gloomier since they had left the garden and Fox didn’t understand why. He had thought his friend happy to go on a quest and see the outside world. But something was missing, and now Fox realised what it was.

He didn’t really know what to say to comfort the dwarf, so he said nothing. Instead he thought about the strange seasonal pattern shifts. If it was Easter then it should be spring time, but the temperatures were still a havoc. And the trees had no leaves in that part of the forest. Fox remembered the clock tower of the city had had some problems functioning recently, maybe it was all connected. The problems with the bad smell around the city, the nonsensical seasonal changes and that gloomy quest… maybe it was all connected.

Fox gulped the last pieces of rabbit stew without enjoying it. He licked the inside of the bowl and put it in his backpack without further cleaning. He had suddenly realised that it was not much use to ask Gorash’s permission to leave as Fox was doing all the walk during the day anyway. So he could as well do it at night. He didn’t have as much difficulties to put out the fire as he had lighting it up. He cleaned the place as much as he could and then looked around him. The night was dark, the drizzle had turned into small snow flakes. Fox smelled the air. It would soon turn into bigger flakes. The dwarf could stay outside if he wanted, but Fox needed to move. Let him follow if he wants to.

Glynnis, late with her mornings work after her lengthy dream journal entry, was initially irritated with the interruption of the postman.

“Leave it in the letter box!” she called. “I am up to my elbows in bread dough!”

“I can’t, it’s too heavy,” the postman replied, “And you have to sign for it, anyway. And I’m not taking it back to the post office, it’s put my back out carrying it here already,” he added.

Sighing and wiping her floury hands on her apron, Glynnis opened the door a few inches and extended her hand through the gap.

“You’ll need two hands, Ducky,” he said, thinking to himself, what an ungrateful wretch!

Exasperated, she flung the door open. The postman handed her a large stone parrot. A hand written note was attached to its neck with a blue ribbon.

“A Gift of Appreciation” was all it said, in a rather untidy almost indecipherable script.

“Oh, a gift,” said Glynnis softly, mollified. “But from who?”

“Says it’s from the Laughing Crone on the return address. Now just sign here Ducky, and I’ll be on my way.”

“But how?” asked Liz. “We don’t even know where she came from, or how she got here. I don’t think you can just banish characters that easily. Look what happened last time.”

“What happened last time?” asked Finnley.

“Oh, I don’t remember! Never mind that now! How are we going to get rid of that rude interloper?”

Finnley snorted at the word INterLOPEr. “That was rather clever, Liz” she tittered.

Liz couldn’t help but snigger too. “I didn’t plan that,” she admitted.

“Do you mean the story character refugee crisis, Liz?” interjected Godfrey.

“Yes! Of course, that was it.”

“Well you can’t banish characters just because they’re rude, Liz,” remarked Godfrey, reaching for the cashew nuts.

Liz was furious. She stormed into the living room of the manoir where she found Finnley, swishing her duster lethargically and rather randomly with one hand while she texted with the other. Liz frowned but decided to ignore this blatant breach of cleaning protocol. There were more pressing matters on hand!

“My fury knows no bounds, “ she said, rather dramatically, to Finnley.

Finnley grunted non-committedly. Liz was encouraged by the unexpected response.

“That child, Jingle — and what a ridiculous name — that child is the rudest person it has ever been my misfortune to meet. Do you know what she said to me?” She glared accusingly at Finnley.

“No”, said Finnley.

“I was kind enough to read her an extract from my latest novel and she had the audacity to say, in that awful german accent of hers, that I was getting on her nerves with my outpourings. That “I” was getting on “her” nerves! The cheek of it.”

“That is quite rude,” agreed Godfrey, who appeared from nowhere, as usual. “But don’t worry, dear Liz, it is just a projection of her own insecurities. It always is. Unless it is you being rude one, of course, in which case it is no doubt most profound and accurate,” he added hurriedly, wisely thinking it was best to cover his bases.

“Just get rid of her,” said Finnley.

It had been three days. Fox wasn’t sure of what to do next. The witch was gone, the manor was empty, and she wasn’t coming back. For a moment he felt like the small fox he was before his master found him, feeling abandoned by his mother. She had been killed after hiding him from the hunters. But he didn’t know it at the time. Fox sighed. How was he supposed to find the lost piece of soul now? It was easier when he was in his animal form, he wouldn’t think so much about what to do next, he would just be doing, anything that fit the moment. But his master had warned him not to revert back to his animal form, that he was not yet free. Fox wasn’t sure if it was true, but he trusted his master, and despite the strong desire to turn back, each moment he was making the decision to keep his human form.

There was another who was not yet free, Fox thought. He looked at the cold stone face of his new friend. They had talked every night since his arrival and as usual they hadn’t seen the daylight coming. This time, Gorrash had been frozen laughing, and Fox thought it was the liveliest statue he had ever seen. They had gotten along quite easily, especially after Fox had given the dwarf some medicine to help with the nausea after his incursion underground. Afterward, Gorrash had been an endless source of questions about the world. Fox thought the dwarf was an interesting character. He looked old with his long beard and the wrinkles around his eyes, but he had not been around very long. Grey during the day, he was very colourful once the daylight had gone; he wore red hat and pants, green jacket, and brown crakows and belt. His voice had the sound of a grinding stone, with a hint of melancholy as he talked about his maker. But for the moment, despite his expressive outburst, he was cast in silence.

Fox shook himself and decided it was time to make some plans about where to go next. He would try to catch up with the witch, he might be able to find her before she went to far away from the forest. The woman looked old and she couldn’t have gone far, especially as she seemed to avoid human contact, she wouldn’t have found a carriage. Fox remembered his master warning him about hope, that it was one of the cause of suffering in the world. Nonetheless, roaming randomly into the enchanted forest could take him years to find the lost piece of soul. Hope or no hope, he had spent enough time waiting in his life. He had a quest now.

Fox wouldn’t have admitted aloud, but his new friendship brought in some complication. Fox had tried to lift him, but despite its rather small size the statue was quite heavy. He would have to find something to carry it during the day as they couldn’t just walk at night time.
Fox looked at the garden for a moment, the frozen pond, the yellow grass, some old abandoned furniture. Then he looked at the closed door of the house, and wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. There might be something useful inside. And if the witch was gone, she wouldn’t mind, would she?

Fox used a pair of pins to open the door. The smell of herbs, spices and a few other things he didn’t want to know about, brushed past his nose as he entered the dark house.

Kumihimo was rummaging through the content of a wooden chest at the back of the cave. According to the smell it had spent too much time in the dark and humid environment. She might have to do some spring cleaning one day. But the chest was now too heavy for her to carry. I need an apprentice for this, she thought not knowing if if was a wish or a regret.

In that chest, she had her many tools of the thread. Some were made of bones and she had carved them herself under the direction of her spirit guides. Each one had a specific purpose, either to catch, to extract, to guide, or to dissipate, and many more usages that even she had forgotten after so many years spent in that place.

She had accumulated so many things in that chest. Fortunately she liked miniature, and most of her creations were seldom bigger than her little finger. However that made it difficult to keep things in order and finding something was often a real challenge. So she sang lullabies to lure the object she was looking for out of their sanctuary.

Victory! she exulted in the ancient tongue, which would translate also as ‘I have done all that is necessary to harvest the benefits of the next crop’. Kumihimo liked simple things and she liked when one word could signify a very complex meaning. Under an old donkey skin that she often used to camouflage herself when she was going down in the valley, she had found the loom she had been looking for.

The loom was made from the right shoulder blade of a bear. It was one of the first objects she had carved when she arrived in the vicinity. It had a yellowish patina and felt very smooth in her hands. Its shape was octagonal and each side had seven notches under which were three rows of symbols, some of the ink was gone after so many years, but she could still feel the groove where she had carved them. She smiled at the fond memories and at the dear friend who allowed her to take his bone when he died of old age.
In the centre of the loom was a heart with a circular hole in it. It was where the braid would emerge.

Holding the precious object, Kumihimo could feel all the braids she had already made and all the potential braids that waited to come into existence. She felt warmth bloom in her heart at the task at hand.

Each notch corresponded at the same time to a time of the year, to a direction on earth and in the sky, and some rather obscure references to many other phenomenon and concepts. The weaving depended on very complex rules that she had discovered from experience. Actually the meaning weaved itself into the braid through a subtle interaction between her and Spirit. That way she didn’t have to bother about what to do or what notch to use as it would all unfold during the weaving.

She stood up and walked outside. The day was still young and she had a lot to do. The weaving ceremony was an act of spontaneity, but it required some preparation. She put the loom on a round rock to dry in the Sun and went to examine the hanging threads. She had to choose carefully.

Yorath led the way down the forest path. Eleri followed, feeling no urge to rush, despite the sense of urgency. Rather, she felt a sense of urgency to linger, perhaps even to sit awhile on a rock beneath an old oak tree, to stop the pell mell rush of thoughts and suppositions and just sit, staring blankly, listening to the forest sounds and sniffing the mushroomy mulch beneath her feet.

The compulsion to be alone increased. Unable to ignore it any longer, Eleri told Yorath that she would catch him up, she needed to go behind a bush for a moment, knowing quite well that there was no need for the excuse, but still, she didn’t feel like explaining. Talking, even thinking, had become tiring, exhausting even. She needed to sit, just sit.

She watched his retreating back and breathed a sigh of relief when his form disappeared from view. Much as she loved her dear old friend, the absence of other humans was like a breath of air to the drowning. The rustlings of the living forest, the dappling shadows and busy missions of the insects was a different kind of busyness, far from still and never silent, not always slow or sedate, not even serene or pleasant always, but there was a restful coherence to the movements of the living forest.

Leaning back into the tree trunk, her foot dislodged a rotten log from its resting place among the leaves ~ crisp and crunchy on the top, damp and decomposing beneath the surface ~ revealing the long slim ivory of bone contrasting sharply with the shades of brown.

Bones. Eleri paused before leaning over to touch it gently at first, then gently smooth away the composting detritus covering it.

Bones. She held it, feeling the hard dry texture peculiar to bones, loving the white colour which was more than white, a richer white than white, not bleached of colour, but full of the colours of white, and holding all of the colours of the story of it.

The story of the bone, the bones. She knelt, carefully brushing the leaves aside. Bones never rested alone, she knew that. Close by she knew she would find more. She knew she would take them home with her, although she knew not why. Just that she always did. A smile flitted across her face as she recalled the horse bones she’d found once ~ an entire, perfect skeleton of a horse. What she wouldn’t have given to take the whole thing home with her, but it was impossible. Perfectly assembled, picked clean and sun bleached, resplendent in the morning sun, it was a thing of unimaginable beauty that morning, reclining on the hilltop. So she took as much of the spine as she could carry, and later wished she’d taken the skull instead. And never really wondered why she didn’t go back for more.

But that was the thing with bones. You don’t go back. You take what you want, what you can carry, and leave the rest. But Eleri had to admit that she didn’t know why this was so.

“Let the man speak!” Yorath’s voice boomed from the back of the vociferous crowd. “Let’s hear what he has to say!”

“Nobody asked me to vote on no bloody fence!” shouted a plump middle aged woman, jabbing her spectacles up her nose with an indignant prod. “Nobody can put fences up, not without a vote, what’s he think this is, the dark ages?”

The people who were still paying attention nodded or voiced their agreement. Many had already started to wander off. It appeared that something more interesting had captured their attention.

Leroway started to resume his address to the public about the purpose and benefits of the new fence and toll booths, and then fell silent as more people started to amble off. Where were they all going? he wondered, feeling his curiosity stirring after a moments irritation. They were all heading in the same direction, and yet nobody was rushing. They all looked rather aimless, and leaving at different times, and yet there was no doubt that they were all going the same way.

Yorath caught Leroway’s eye and smiled. “They noticed the oiliphant in the room.”

It had been many years since Eleri left the service of Lord and Lady Teacake to make a life of her own in the woods, but she continued to visit Lady Jolly from time to time, arranging her visits to coincide with the Lord Mayor’s trips abroad. It was not that Lord Leroway wouldn’t have made her welcome ~ rather the reverse ~ in fact he found it hard to keep his hands off her. Eleri had no reciprocating feelings for the old scoundrel, but a great deal of affinity and affection for the Lady Jolly, a kindred soul despite their seemingly different stations in the life of a small rural township.

Lord Leroway Teacake had not been born a noble, nor had the Lady Jolly. Leroway had a dream one night that he had been made the Lord Mayor of Trustinghampton in the Wold, and in the dream he was asking his teenage neighbour, Jolly Farmcock, for advice on what to say to the villagers in his inauguration speech. It appeared that the pretty girl with the curious eyes was his partner in the dream, and the dream was so vivid and real that he set his sights upon her and courted her hand in marriage. Jolly was bowled over by his ardent attention, and charmed by his enthusiasm. Before long they were married and Leroway was ready to continue his dream mission.

Leroway was tall and broad shouldered, and prematurely bald in an arrestingly handsome sort of way. Despite his size, he had a way with intricate mechanisms; he had the manual dexterity of a watchmaker, and a fascination for making new devices with parts from old broken contraptions. Had it not been for the dream, he would have happily spent his life tinkering in the workshop of his parents home.

But the dream was a driving compulsion, and he and his new bride set off to find Trustinghampton in the Wold, as the feeling within him grew that the villagers were expecting him.

“Where is it?” Jolly asked.

“We will know when we find it!” replied Leroway. “Hold on to my coat tails!” he added a trifle theatrically. Jolly smiled up at him, loving his exuberance. And off they set, first deciding at the garden gate whether to turn right or left. And this is what they did at every intersection and fork in the road. They paused and waited for the pulling. Not once did they have a difference of opinion on which direction the drawing energy came from. It was clear.

They arrived at the newly populated abandoned village just as the sun was setting behind the castle ramparts. Wisps of blue smoke curled from a few chimneys, and the aroma of hot spiced food hastened their steps. A small black and white terrier trotted towards them, yapping.

“We have arrived!” Leroway announced to the little dog. “And we are quite hungry.”

The dog turned and trotted up the winding cobbled street, lined with crumbling vacant houses, looking over his shoulder as if to say “follow me”. Leroway and Jolly followed him to the door of a cottage with candle light glowing in the window.

The dog scratched on the cottage door and yapped. Creaking and scraping the tile floor, the door opened a crack, and a young woman pushed her ragged dreadlocks over her shoulder with a grimy hand, peering out.

“Ah!” she said, her face breaking into a smile. “Who are you? Well never mind, I have a feeling you are expected. Come in, come in.”

The door creaked alarmingly and juddered as it scraped the floor. Leroway scowled at the door hinges, suppressing an urge to take the door off the hinges right then and there to fix it.

“My name is Alexandria,” the woman introduced herself when the travelers had squeezed through the opening. She kissed them on both cheeks and gestured them to sit beside the fireplace. “We haven’t been here long, so please excuse the disarray.”

Noticing her guests eyes on the bubbling pot on the fire, she exclaimed, “Oh but first you must eat! It’s nothing fancy, but it is mushroom season and I must say I have never had such delicious mushrooms as the ones growing wild here. Let me take your coats ~ I say, what a gorgeous purple! ~ sit, do sit!” she said, pulling a couple of rickety chairs up to the table.

“You are too kind,” replied Jolly gratefully. “It smells divine, and we are quite hungry.”

“How many people live here?” asked Leroway.

“Twenty two now, more are arriving every day,” replied Alexandria. “Eleri and I and Lobbocks were the first to come and we sent word to the others. You see,” she sighed, “It’s really been quite a challenge down in the valleys. Many chose to stay, but some of us, well, we felt an urge to move, to find a place untouched by the lowland dramas.”

“I see,” said Leroway, although he didn’t really know what she meant by lowland dramas. He had spent his life in the hills.

He tucked into his bowl of mushroom stew. There was plenty of time to find out. He was here to stay.

“You can see for miles and miles and miles and miles…” Eleri wondered briefly why it would never do to use the word kilometers in this case, despite that she rarely used the word miles these days. “Look at all those enormous birds, Yorath! Are they eagles or vultures?”

The whitewashed walls were dazzlingly bright in the crisp rain washed air, and the distant blueberry mountains looked close enough to reach out and touch. The easterly wind whipped around the castle walls as they strolled around, playing the part of tourists for the day, decked out in woolly scarves and sunglasses, taking snapshots.

It was disconcerting at times to see the crumbling stone walls where once had stood magnificent rooms, where they both recalled times long since past, times of intrigue and danger, and times of pastoral simplicity too. Many the lifetimes they had shared in this place over the centuries. Not for the first time, Eleri wondered why she felt a crumbling ruin was the natural state, the most beautiful state, for a man made structure. A point of interest in the wild landscape, softened with encroaching greenery, rather than the right angles and solid obstruction of a newly built edifice.

Peering over the wall at the chasm below, Yorath exclaimed, “Look! Look at the goats sheltering in the crannies of the cliff wall!” Eleri smiled a trifle smugly. She felt an affinity with goats and their ability to traverse and utilize the places no one else could reach.

The North wind was cold on his cheeks. It was almost sunset, which didn’t help with the temperature. Fox was sweeping a street covered in autumn leaves. He couldn’t help but think it was useless. The wind was scattering away the leaves as soon as he had made a small heap. He already missed the quietness of his hut.

Mr Mole must have misunderstood, he thought, he appointed me caretaker of the city streets.
Fox took a whiff of city air. The cold bit his nose,but it was not enough to numb his sense of smell. The dragon breath was still there, even though the North wind had dispersed it a bit.
I’m not sure it will be enough.

He shivered, he never liked staying outside too long in his human form. Fox looked around. When he was sure nobody was in sight. As the sun disappeared behind the city walls, he allowed his true nature to the surface, just enough to enjoy the warmth of his red fur on his body. It was such a good feeling he almost didn’t stop in time. He touched his face, a moustache had grown on his upper lip, and his ears were a tad pointy. He passed his tongue onto his teeth; the length of his canines reminded him of chicken hunt in the nearby farms.
Don’t let yourself get carried away by the memories, he reminded himself. He took a deep breath. The smells of the city were stronger now, and it was as if someone had lit a light.

With his improved hearing, he caught up a strange noise coming from a nearby garden. It was like a faint pulse that was growing louder as the light diminished. A crack as soft as the whisper of stone. And the most unexpected words.

“Bloody bird shit ! Why do they always pick my nose ?”

Fox came closer to the small garden stonewall, as stealthily as he could, to see a gnome washing his face in a small basin. He suddenly caught sight of some wavering in the air, coming from a bush. The waves gradually took the shape of a strange animal, still rather translucent. Its fur behaving as if it was immersed into water, all wavy and floating.

“Ah! You’re here Rainbow,” said the gnome.
“Mrui,” answered the creature.
“Let’s get some potion for you, then.”
“Mruiiii.”

Fox looked the two of them walk silently toward the house. He could see the rays of light getting through the spaces of the wooden shutters. The gnome climbed on his friend’s back and took a bit of that translucent quality. He said something but it sounded like gargling. Fox almost expected to see his hair beginning to float in an invisible current. But it didn’t. And then they disappeared through the wall.

Fox dropped his broom, which bounced on the stonewall before falling on the floor. He waited, half expecting to hear a voice ask about all the noise. But the place remained quiet except for the wind. He jumped over the wall and waited behind a bush, his eyes on the wall where they had entered the house.

What if they don’t come out? he thought. But he remained there, his gaze fixed. He let his fur grow more. He wanted to be comfortable in the cold night.

As Eleri prepared the mushrooms for breakfast her mind wandered back to the previous mushroom season, when Rhiannon had been visiting from the old country. The rain had been relentless, hammering down without respite, until the trees of the enchanted woods were bowed with saturation and the forest floor was as swampy as the Marshes of Doom. The river had risen to within a few short meters of her thatched dwelling, necessitating an emergency spell to lift the building onto temporary stilts above the sodden ground.

There had been an initial difficulty in achieving the correct height of the stilts. The first attempt had been much too high, and Eleri and Rhiannon had clung to each other laughing, as the cottage swayed alarmingly in the wind above the tree tops.

A swinging shutter slammed shut on Eleri’s pinky, occasioning a piercing howl of pain amid the shrieks of mirth, but it did serve to ground the women sufficiently to recall the ‘shortening emergency stilts’ spell. It was, however, administered without due care to details, and the building crashed to the ground rather too quickly.

Rubbing their bruised body parts but still seeing the funny side, they eventually managed to lift the abode a logical distance from the mud.

“Good morning!” Yorath called, bringing Eleri back to the present. “Mmm, mushrooms!”

Gorrash enjoyed twilight, that moment when the beautiful winter light was fading away. He could feel life beating anew in his stone heart, the rush in the veins of his marble body.

As a statue, life was never easy. When day breaked you were condemned to stand in the same position, preferably the same as the one you have been made, cramped in a body as hard as the rock you came from. The sunlight had that regretable effect of stopping your movements. But as night came light was losing its strength and nothing could stop you anymore. At least that’s what Gorrash believed.

He could almost move his fingers now. He tried with all his might to lift his hand and scratch his nose where a bird had left something to dry, but there was still too much light. If he tried harder, he could break. So he waited patiently.

Gorrash had had plenty of time to think and rething of his theory of light since his placement in the garden. The only thing is that he never had anyone to share it with. There was no other statue in the garden, and the animals were not very communicative at night time. Only a couple of shrews and night mothes (the later soon eaten by the erratic crying bats)

But nonetheless Gorrash was always happy when darkness liberated him and he was free to go. He could feel his toes moving now, and his ankles ready to let go. He loved when he could feel his round belly slowly drop toward the ground. He chuckled, only to check the flexibility of his throat. He had a rather cavernous voice. Very suiting for a garden dwarf.

When the night was fully there, Gorrash shook his body and jumped ahead to the pond where he washed his nose from the bird dropping. He looked at the reflection in the water and smiled, the Moon was also there, fully round. Its light felt like a soft breeze compared to that of the Sun.

The dwarf began to walk around in the garden, looking for the rodents. Chasing them would help him get rid off the last stiffness in his stone heart. He stopped when he saw something near the window of the house.

MATER

Bert seems to be digging a very large hole. I mean, good grief, it’s just a veggie garden. I don’t think my cabbages warrant all that effort. I pull open the window—the latch wobbles precariously on its single screw—and call out to him.

“What are you doing, Bert? Digging a grave or something?”

My humour is clearly lost on him. He glances over in my direction, distractedly, before placing his spade on the ground. He then kneels down in the dirt and leaning right inside the hole begins scrabbling with his hands.

How odd!

I pull a jacket on over my pink floral onesie. The onesie was a birthday gift from the girls and was accompanied by rather a lot of silliness and giggling. However I was privately rather taken with my gift and with summer over and a cool chill in the air it was very handy to put on in the mornings. Completing my ensemble with an old pair of gumboots by the back doorstep, I go and join Bert in the garden.

“What’s that, Bert? What’s that you’ve found in there?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he replied. At least, I think that’s what he said. It was hard to hear him when he was hanging upside down in a hole.

I crouch down beside him, no mean feat at my age, and take a look.

All I can see are some bones.

“What is it? A dog or something?”

“Too big for a dog.”

“Oh my goodness!” I gasp. “Are those … people bones?”

Bert gently extricates an object from the dirt and pulling himself back up he perches down beside me. “Not unless they have a beak for a nose,” he says, gently dusting off the dirt and holding it up for me to see.

It was a giant skull. Like a strange giant bird.

“Dragon skull,” says Bert with a satisfied smile.