In the Corner of the Pinewoods

The following story is one I’ve been thinking about writing for years. It’s not really my usual genre of writing, but since it is Halloween and there was a sort of challenge for bloggers to write a short horror story, I thought I’d give it a try. It’s more fantastical than horrific, and since there is more than a single grain of truth to it, my protagonist’s name will be Melody. In the woods outside the town of Mistretta in Italy, there is a particular corner…


Melody looked at her watched and gasped. It was a quarter of five, and she’d now been gathering chestnuts for three hours. She had two huge bags full, but there were still so many lying around that she hated to leave them; if she didn’t gather them now, someone else would and that would be so many less than what she could have for the rest of the fall and winter. And yet, she had to get home, and quickly. Today was Halloween and they had the party that night.
She had ‘trained’ the girls well; they had been busily preparing for the party, putting up the decorations and preparing costumes and scripts for the ‘haunted house’, but she was the witch. And the Halloween party was not Halloween without her witchiness. Why, just the other day, as she was passing a group of children one of them came up to her and asked, “Mrs. Witch, are we going to be having the Halloween party this year?” When she’d answered in the affirmative, the little girl had skipped off to join her friends, nodding at them and giggling. A sense of satisfaction had gone through her that day: if she was to be remembered for something, at least it would be for providing fun for little children.
But now, it was late. She had meant to go home at least half an hour earlier, but when she was alone in the woods, gathering chestnuts, mushrooms or pine nuts, she usually lost all track of time and today there were so many chestnuts, probably resulting from last night’s tornado. Fortunately, she’d already made her famous poisonous mushrooms – the amazingly delicious pumpkin plus cookies that resembled the product they were named for – so all that was left to do was get herself ready for her bewitching role. But, before she could do that, she had to get past that corner…
It was on the fastest route out of the woods from the position she was in, and most of the time she had no problems taking it. Indeed, any other time of the day, she could take a short-cut across the corner, and take off a good ten minutes from her travel time. But it was almost five o’clock, and in just a few minutes… She had no other choice, though, because going the long way would add on an extra half an hour that she couldn’t allow herself today of all days.
And so, she walked. She couldn’t run, but even if she could, she wouldn’t because the ground was so uneven, with rocks and tree roots sticking up at odd spots. She hoped the strange feeling she got passing that spot wouldn’t grab her as badly as it usually did at this time of day. Had she left when she’d planned on, there wouldn’t have been a problem, because the eeriness of the corner appeared only at five o’clock. It wasn’t just the lighting – or lack of such – because the same sense was there in the summer, winter and spring, too, at five o’clock, rain, fog or shine. And, of course, the last rays of autumn sunlight filtering through the the yellowing leaves on the trees, caused oddly shaped shadows to ripple along the grassy slopes, hinting at things unknown and unseen.
Melody was almost there; although she could see it just around the bend, she would have known even with her eyes closed because of the cold tendrils of panic that gripped her heart. Today, though, the closer she drew to the spot the more she decided she would fight the usual tendency. She would teach them who would frighten who. Because, you see, Melody had a secret power; it was hers only on Halloween, which helped her be the best Halloween witch ever, and was the reason little children referred to her as Mrs. Witch. It was her laugh. Not an every-day-of-the-week laugh, but an evil-sounding, authentic witch’s laugh, the kind that causes children to hide their faces (which was why they loved it) and adults to tremble. And it only worked on Halloween.
And so, fighting against the corner’s chill (even Spike refused to chase any rabbit brave enough to run across that corner at that time of day), Melody gathered up her energy and laughed. The evil sounding, witchy laugh rang across that corner, issuing a challenge to those frightening, unknown forces of the pinewoods’ corner. As though by magic, a change came suddenly upon the corner. The mist drew back it’s chilling tendrils, the shadows drew back and though the sun had begun to go down behind the surrounding hills, its warmth slid easily in place of the misty cold. The birds began to sing in the branches, the raucous crows stopped cawing and peace returned to the beautiful corner of the pinewoods.
Melody smiled as she skipped through the woods, actually crossing the corner instead of going around it. Today, she could. Tomorrow? Tomorrow was another day.


© October 31, 2014 Mary Purpari . All Rights Reserved.

I Will—the Encounter

“First call for TWA flight number 163 for Heathrow Airport now boarding at Gate number 67.” Twenty-six year old Melody McDonald picked up her pace. She’d been lucky; there weren’t many passengers on the flight and so her standby ticket had gotten her on the first flight out. The song playing over the intercom was mournful, with an Irish lilt to it. She wished that they’d put up the volume so she wouldn’t have to strain so much to hear the haunting tune; she was dividing her energy between that and running to get to the departure gate before the flight took off. She knew that if she didn’t figure out what it was, it would probably drive her nuts during the entire eight-hour flight. Such was her concentration that she didn’t notice the tall, thin young man with the walrus mustache until she plowed into him, knocking both of them onto the hard floor.

Jack shook his shoulder-length, shaggy light brown hair out of his eyes as he tried to regain his composure. The impact with the cute blonde had surprised him; he’d been listening to the song on the intercom, trying to place it. It had sounded vaguely familiar, slightly airy with a more serious cello undertone threading through it, although he couldn’t remember who had composed it, or even the name of the piece itself. Of course it was a canned, instrumental version, but so intent had he been that he hadn’t seen the girl until they had literally fallen at one another’s feet. Had he seen her coming he would have moved out of her way; but then again, he thought, focusing his sapphire-blue eyes more closely on her, maybe not. She looked kind of cute with his baseball hat – which had ended up on her head during the collision – as though wearing baseball hats was a normal habit of hers.

Sitting there on the floor of the airport, in the middle of the gangway, her luggage strewn all around her, Melody could finally hear the music, perhaps a little too loudly, now. Had she possibly knocked something loose in the collision? She’d heard about people being able to receive radio stations straight to their brains after knocking a tooth loose. Of course, she could never tell anyone about this – they’d think she was nuttier than she really was. The song… She thought maybe it sounded a little like the Moody Blues – that slightly bittersweet song they had done in ‘72 – but there was that cheery Irish lilt running through it. Suddenly, the intercom broke into her reveries. “Last call for TWA flight number 163 for Heathrow Airport now boarding at Gate 67.” Oh dear! how long had she been sitting there? And she hadn’t even apologized to the young man yet! Che scema! Flustered, she jumped to her feet, gathering her belongings. Running to the boarding gate, she shouted behind her, without turning around, “I’m sorry, I have to run – that’s my flight. It was really nice meeting you. See you around!”

Jack sat there for a few moments, stunned by the preceding events. So astonished was he that he even forgot everything but the unknown girl running off with his baseball hat. He hoped she would take good care of it – it was the last one left from his days on the diamond. A grin spread across his face as he stood up and dusted himself off; he recognized the music now – Handel’s Water Music, with a little Bach thrown in for good measure. It seemed to fit.

 

For those who may be interested, this is a prelude to I is for I Will a Long story shortened.

 

© October 24 2014 by Mary Purpari all rights reserved.

 

 

A Writer’s Christmas Tale

 

Three wise guys from the East Side went and found the baby dressed in swatting clothes and lying in a manager.

Meredith Soul, Vice President in charge of author relations at Disadvantage Publishers, was seated at her desk thumbing through the royalty checks that had been placed there for review several hours earlier. She stopped when she reached the one addressed to Melody McDonald. After three years of being on the market and selling only five copies, Melody’s book had suddenly jumped up to the 150,563^rd position of best sellers, out of more than 12 million books on sale at Silos & Common. The jump was amazing, since Publishers had done nothing to promote the book; the recent sales were due mainly to the author’s efforts among friends, family and their acquaintances.

Her reflections were interrupted by the sounds of carolers singing outside the otherwise quiet streets: “God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…” She stood up and closed the window; the noise was distracting her and she needed to think. The carolers, however, had reminded her that it was Christmas Eve; perfect – now she had two days in which she could work in peace and quiet.

After picking up the check addressed to Melody she looked at the e-mail on the computer screen; Melody had been particularly pressing lately. It was indeed true that the check from Silos and Common had been deposited into the company’s account a month ago, but Melody had already been waiting for three years to receive royalties for her book and Meredith was convinced that a few more months waiting wasn’t going to change a thing: what if there had been no sales at all? She wouldn’t have received anything anyway.

Meredith picked up the book in question and swatted at the unseasonal fly buzzing around her head; the annoying creature zipped out of her reach as the phone rang. She let the call go to voice mail – she rarely answered her phone because she never knew when an irate author was going to ruin her day by asking embarrassing questions about how things were going with his or her book, and it was best to let them think she was out of the office.

“Hi Merry, this is Ned Sugarsnak.” Ned had been one of the editors at the Publisher before the company had transferred from Park Avenue to Connecticut (less accessible to authors) and he had started his own publishing company. He was a nice enough guy, but she didn’t want to talk to him, either.

“It’s good to see you’re out of the office for awhile… I think. Listen I need to talk to you about one of your authors, so give me a call ASAP. Have a Merry Christmas, Merry.” She definitely didn’t want to talk to him – Ms. McDonald had been one of his favorite authors before he left Publishers and Meredith did not want to go there at the moment. “The name is MEREDITH,” she grumbled, “not Merry.”

She switched from internet to her excel files. The fly once more alighted on the screen, blocking her view of the numbers that signaled the rise in sales of Ms. McDonald’s book, How to Avoid Lunacy with Five Kids under Eight. The phone rang just as Meredith reached for the book so she could swat the fly; still staring at the fly, she picked up the phone instead. Flabbergasted, she stared blankly at the phone.

“Hello…hello. Is anyone there?” She continued to stare in horrified silence at what she had done, her eyes and mouth wide open. “Hello, Ms. Soul? This is John Dough, Ms. Melody McDonald’s lawyer; I am calling in her behalf. Are you there?”

Not that dratted woman, again, she thought. Rolling her eyes, she responded, “Uh…Hello. This is Meredith Soul speaking. How may I help you, Mr. Dough?”

“I have been speaking with our mutual client, Ms. Melody McDonald, and she is very distraught. It seems that she has written several e-mails to you regarding royalty payments that she feels she is entitled to receive. I have read through her contract with you and feel I must concur with her assessment. Our client has sold several hundred books, putting her well over the required fifty.”

Meredith was well aware of this; just before the fly had landed on the screen, she had seen that sales had arrived at 950 copies, and she wondered if it might not be a good idea to order a second printing. In fact, it had registered as a Top Ten best seller at Silos & Common one day in October…

“In fact, Ms. McDonald reached Best Seller status in October, earning herself the right to have that printed on her next book.” Was the man a mind reader? “At the moment, Ms. McDonald is in sore need of these funds, and since they are much overdue, we request immediate remittance of the entire sum. If nothing is received by January 2, 2013, our next conversation will be in court. Good evening and Happy Holidays.”

“Good Evening to you, too, sir. Good bye.” And good riddance to you. Happy Holidays, indeed. Slamming the phone back onto the hook, she walked back over to the window and glanced out. Obviously, the warmer temperatures that had kept the fly alive had plummeted; snow swirled relentlessly from the sky, covering the road below in a cold, wet, white carpet. She watched mesmerized as the wind, howling like a starving wolf, molded the snow into recognizable shapes that seemed to emerge from the flurries, before her very eyes.

She rubbed her eyes as one of the snowy shapes seemed to float toward her. She gasped: the figure now standing before her was Mr. Agnello, the owner of Disadvantage Publishers. He lived up on East Park Avenue in Manhattan, and had left for home hours ago. He tapped on the window, beckoning for her to open it up.

“Either I need to start wearing glasses, or I should start writing my own books,” she thought. She reluctantly opened the window as the tapping became more insistent. “Why doesn’t he just come through the front door? Maybe he forgot his keys.” As she turned toward the door to let him in that way, his voice echoed through the room.

“Ms. Soul, you must listen to me,” he thundered. “I had a car accident on the way home today; my car hit a patch of black ice and slid into the car in front of me, just as the car behind me slid into me. I was told to come warn you that the check will save more than one life and reputation.” He pointed toward another shape that had appeared in the snow-covered street. She jumped back, appalled, as she recognized the figure before her as a rundown version of herself.

“Remember, mail the check tonight on your way home.” His voice faded as he slowly floated back into the snow, leaving behind the memory of Meredith dressed in rags. She turned, shuddering, from the window.

That lingering memory stayed with her as she slid the check into an envelope and addressed it, slipped into her coat and opened the door. The pesky fly buzzed in a circle around her head, and then preceded her into the blustery night. The memory persisted until she reached the mailbox on the corner; as she dropped the envelope through the slot, she thought she heard the thundering voice of poor Mr. Agnello exclaim as the memory fled from her mind, “Merry Christmas, Ms. Merry Soul, and to you a good night.”