Elevensies (aka Liebster Award tag fulfillment)

It's nearing the end of 2012, and this is my first blog post of the year. I. Am. On. Fire.

2012 hasn't been an easy year for my little family, so my grand ambition to have my first novel completed by the time the Mayan's claim game over has not really panned out. But! I have been writing. I've been writing my bloody heart out. Fictional "tie in" novels based on TV shows (aka fanfiction) that I can lay no claim to and that are posted online for the sheer enjoyment of storytelling and gathering reviews from others who've had fun reading. It's damn good practice; I've gained enough confidence to say I've found my style. *confetti and mini parade for me*

This month starts NaNoWriMo and I'm going for it. I may not finish the novel, but 50K words is a decent start, I'd say. In an effort to learn more from the writing and publishing world, I joined Twitter and started following several indie writers. The writing talent out there is staggering -- and the varied differences in style and interest is encouraging. It's a real privilege to read their blogs and their story excerpts and learn from their journey.

One of these writer-bloggers, Steve Montano, 'tagged' me with something called a "Liebster Award." I've never heard of this thing, but the directions seemed easy enough and I figured it was as good a way as any to get me back into blogging -- since that seems to be the thing to do when one is climbing the Novel Writing Mountain.

Basically, the deal is this: you provide 11 random facts about yourself, answer 11 questions asked by the person who nominated you, pick 11 bloggers to pass this award on to, and ask them 11 questions of your own. 

And, since I'm a fledgling in the writer-blogger world, some of you nominated (below) will have never heard of me before, so here's my virtual version of a typical Midwestern hey there, howsit goin'.  *waves* Those who do know me, good t'see ya. *smiles*

*takes breath* Here goes nothin'.

11 Random Facts About Myself:

1) I have a terrible sense of direction. I have been known to get lost in my hometown.

2) I have four tattoos, each with specific meaning to my journey in life and each with a word in Irish Gaelic.

3) I love music -- all genres. A good day for me always includes music. I must write with it: earbuds in, playlist selected, lost inside the story.

4) I fell in love with storytelling when I was 10 and read "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time. I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was 13 and read "The Outsiders" for the first time.

5) I love red wine. I like to drink it in a big wine glass so that I have to drink slowly.

6) I am a sucker for humanized superhero stories, movies and TV shows. The damaged hero will draw me in every time.

7) I learned to drive a five speed in a Porsche 911; I can also change a tire, change the oil in my car, and drive a tractor.

8) I grew up and live in the Midwest USA, but I've been to 48 of the 50 States and (so far) five countries outside of the States. The fact that I made it home from each of those trips has my family in awe (see Random Fact #1).

9) I am extremely ticklish and have been known to get violent if such a thing is dared. I cannot help it; it's pure reflex.

10) I cannot stick to an exercise routine. The latest focus for me has been boxing. Turns out I'm pretty good a punching. Who knew. This one may last the longest.

11) My family is my world. My husband, daughter, and I are the "Three Musketeers." Everything I accomplish in life has meaning only if they are a part of it.

11 Answers to the 11 Questions Steve gave me:

1. What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Probably nothing. Ach, boring answer. Ice cream and I have a love/hate relationship. I love, it hates. Now, if you'd asked me what I'd do for some dark chocolate with sea salt, my answer would have been extremely different. I'll let your mind wander.

2. Shotgun, dual pistols, or a sniper rifle?

Depends on what I'm trying to hit. But, as a general, all-purpose answer: shotgun. Less chance of missing my target.

3. Coffee or tea?

Coffee. Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee. 

4. Last good movie you saw.

Hmm. I love movies -- all genres, too. So, I'd have to classify this a bit, I think. "The Bourne Legacy" was the last good action movie I saw. "The Raven" was the last good mystery/horror movie I saw. "The Dark Knight Rises" was the last good superhero movie I saw. "The Lucky One" was the last good chicflick/romance I saw.

I think, though, I'd have to say "Flowers of War" was the last good movie movie. It opened my eyes to a part of history I'd previously not been aware of and made me cry harder than any movie had in a long time.

5. Joel or Mike?  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then shame on you!)

Joel. Hands down. 

6. Favorite TV show?

Supernatural. If you visit my LiveJournal you'll figure that out pretty fast. However, The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, and Game of Thrones are pretty close in the running.

7. Favorite alcoholic beverage?  (If you’re not a drinker, what’s one of your culinary guilty pleasures?)

Cabernet. Though there are days a Newcastle ale just hits the spot.

8. Last good book you read?

It's a tie between Tana French's "Broken Harbor," and Christopher Beuhlman's "Those Across the River." Possibly because I read them roughly at the same time.

9. If you could live in someone else’s body for one day, who would it be?

Jessica Biel. Fit, pretty, healthy-looking.

10. Preferred superpower?

The power to heal by touch. 

11. Aliens or vampires?

Duh. Vampires. The non-sparkly kind, of course. 

...wait, are they good-looking aliens or the scary, Ridley Scott aliens?

****

And Now I Nominate…


1) Peter Dawes

2) Matt Bryant

3) Dorothy Crane

4) Joshua Patterson

5) Kane Gilmour

6) Rachel Abbott

7) Shawn Hopkins

8) Chells

9) Lisa Bouchard

10) Jen Kirchner

11) Tina Charles


****

My Nominations Must Answer the Following Questions:

1) What is the strangest talent you have?

2) What's your favorite flavor of potato chips?

3) Do you parallel park or keep looking for a spot?

4) Is there one thing all of your love interests have had in common?

5) Childhood covers: bullet proof, yes or no?

6) What is the weirdest thing you've done while driving?

7) What would you do if you won the lottery?

8) What is the furthest distance from home you've traveled?

9) If you could pick one song lyric to have etched on your tombstone, what would it be?

10) What kitchen appliance can you not live without?

11) In the game of tic-tact-toe, do you prefer to be X's or O's?


 Slainte!

*blows dust off* Um...is this thing on?

I have OBVIOUSLY fallen completely off the map. A couple of months ago, I put my stake in the ground, decided I'm going to do this and then... *insert bomb-drop sound effect here*

Life turned a bit sideways on me.

I've decided that I am currently in the dusting off the important pieces and putting everything back on the shelf where I need it to be stage so that I can get back to this whole...writing...thing. Two jobs, a kid, a husband with chronic health issues, and the ability to write fanfic (which keeps pulling me back in because it's so frakking fun...and rewarding) has given me all the excuses I need to not write anything else.

(I'm working on not saying "write anything original" when talking about non-fanfic writing because I believe fanfic writing is original...I can differentiate it in other ways, yes?)

So. A friend of mine sent me a link to Writer's Digest's short story contest. The due date is November 15th, and there is a registration fee, but...I think I'm going to join. Here's the link if anyone reading this (assuming those of you who were reading haven't given up on me) is interested in checking it out:

http://www.writersdigest.com/short/?et_mid=507744&rid=165364122

I am under no delusion of winning anything, but I think I need that match struck against the kindling of words in my soul to relight the fire of storytelling in my blood. I keep thinking of different angles and different additions for Gone -- even different titles. I'll be on a conference call, or driving to Bible School, or vacuuming copious amounts of dog hair and I'll find myself thinking, Grace needs to leave Michael a message on his answering machine that he doesn't hear until it's too late and that's his catalyst for finding the journals.

I'll go write it down on one of about 457 stickie notes but do I stop my head-down push through life long enough to write it out? No. No I don't. Why? I DON'T KNOW!!

What happened to 'no more excuses'...what happened to my New Year's Resolution?!

*kicks at carpet, frustrated with self*

So, I think I'll enter this short story contest, and I think that next Sunday's four hours of writing will not be spent creating something for Dean and Sam to battle against. It will be time spent with Grace, Michael, Ryan, and Sara.

Why does that terrify me?

No more excuses

I finished the last multi-chapter fanfiction story I had planned to write before I started in on Gone in earnest. I can't say "goodbye" to fanfiction; it's become too necessary an escape. So, I'll write one-shots to fill requests and as they come to me, but I won't spend time plotting out and researching a length, multiple chapter story until I have a decent draft of Gone completed.

I wanted this. It's what I have been talking about for eons.

And yet...I'm sad. I've never been good with change. And this...transition, while desired, is bittersweet.

It isn't as if I'll never write another long fanfiction again. I'll be able to pick it back up when Gone is drafted should I still desire to. I think it's just insecurity and fear.

I know I am a decent fanfiction writer. And with that style of writing, posting each chapter as I complete it, I get feedback along the way encouraging me and pushing me. This is going to be totally different. I have no idea what kind of novelist I am. Or if the characters I created that aren't in any way connected to the Winchesters will appeal to people.

Not only will there be no "ready made" audience who shares a common interest in and attraction to the main characters of my story, but I'll not be able to post periodically for feedback as I've become accustomed to.

I have a friend -- ironically made through fanfiction -- who is writing her first novel and she emailed me awhile back asking if I really wanted to do this. Meaning write an original fiction. She also advised me not to call it "original" because each piece of fanfiction is still an original story, but it was a term that helped me separate the two in my mind, so I continue to go with it. She told me writing her novel is lonely and frustrating but that she loved her characters with a passion she hadn't seen from me when I talk about my characters outside of Sam and Dean.

Good points, all of them.

The thing is, I do love my characters with as much passion as I do Sam and Dean; I don't talk about them simply because...no one knows who they are except for me. It doesn't make sense to me to gush on about Michael and the trauma that had him blanking out his past or Ryan and his compulsion to feel responsible for everyone and everything or Grace and her innocently entitled attitude.... It means nothing to anyone but me.

Until I make it mean something to you.

I got on Amazon today and ordered several tour books for Chicago -- where Gone is set. One from 1997 which is perfect because the story takes place between 1996 and 1998. I visited Chicago many times while growing up in Muncie, IN, but it's been awhile since I've been there, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to visit during this first draft writing period. So, this research will have to do.

I've decided to ask a few fanfiction readers if they would be part of a "focus group" to read pieces of the story and send me reactions or thoughts (no edits, that's too much to ask of someone) as I go. I haven't figured out quite the best way to do that -- posting in a locked journal, or emailing "read only" files.... I trust these people, but haven't figured out how to get it to them yet. I'll have to actually pay someone to edit me when the time comes.

And then there's the whole business of what comes next -- agent? query letter? sending manuscript?

But I'll worry about that later. Say, in 2012. Unless, of course, the Mayans are right.

Meanwhile, when I need a break from the Sullivans and Murphys and their tangled tragedy, I'll be PDFing long fic and also formatting some stories to be uploaded to an eBook site. Oh, which reminds me. I attended a Webinar called "The Borders Dilemma" a few weeks ago about how the closing of that bookstore and how it will eventually affect the publication process. It was a free Webinar offered through Writer's Digest, but you did have to register. Here is the recording of the presentation. I thought it was extremely interesting.

Anyway, I just wanted there to be multiple ways to read my fanfiction should anyone desire to. It's amateur, yes. And rough with typos, sure. And probably could afford to have any number of plot points smoothed out or better explained. But it's through fanfiction that I first forayed into this world of storytelling and I'm not ready to let it go. I plan on sticking around and sliding one-shots in here and there in hopes that people won't forget me. And I'll come back. I still have a story with Brenna Kavanagh that I've wanted to write for a few years now. It may just have to be done.

SO. The journey has begun. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Yeah...I got nothin'

This weekly blogging on writing an original work when I'm not yet actually writing the original work is hard. However, I have absorbed two lessons this week, writing-wise.

I've been tapped this week, mentally and emotionally. Work has grabbed my head and twisted me into the ground. I haven't even had the opportunity to work on my SPN fanfic. However, I did post chapter one of said fic and thus far people seem pleased. I'm always braced for the flame, but am filled with relief when it rarely comes.

I did have one review spin me a bit -- not for On the Surface, but for Heroes for Ghosts, a story I finished over six months ago. Or maybe longer. Time tends to fold on me at times. The story won a fanfic award on LiveJournal, and due to a spoiler that leaked my way after a convention in San Francisco about a possible upcoming time-travel western episode, I've heard some people speak up about it again.

The reviewer started out by saying she (I'm assuming she, I really don't know for sure) liked the story, then segued into a bit of a mocking tone about the convenience of time travel that just "works out" and then said she had to "get something off her chest" and proceeded to bash my depiction of the 19th century. The 'back in time' part of the story took place in 1870.

Now, I will say that I did research to make sure what guns could be used, what medicine would be available, if there would be a town where I placed my make-believe town, that sort of thing. I purposely set it soon after the Civil War and I purposely set it in Texas. However, this reviewer thought the language and social class depiction was (as she put it) "hella" wrong. She brought up several things that apparently took her out of the "realism" (*cough*) of the story.

I haven't replied to her yet. I needed to shake off the sting of the 'tone' her review wrought. I had to remind myself that it, like any positive review, is just an opinion. And I had to also remind myself that I knowingly went into this story basing things like language and social class depiction on things I'd seen in Hollywood westerns or read in Zane Grey stories. So...maybe she has a point. Maybe it is "hella" wrong. Not sure how she would know; I'm assuming she, too, was born in the 20th century. And based on what I read of her profile, I highly doubt she's a 19th century scholar...my opinion.

The thing is, I did the research I needed to do to tell the fictional story I wanted to tell, and it worked for most who read it. It really does need to be okay with me if it doesn't work for everyone. Because my style won't work for everyone. If I'm going to do this for real, I have to settle myself with the fact that I can't be liked all the time and that sometimes people are going to tell me about it. Sure it'll hurt because I'm sensitive like that and I really take to heart what people say about my writing -- because I put so much of myself into it. But it's life.

Also...I have to remember to think about where the person who offers such opinions is coming from. This particular reviewer does write -- mainly (at least on fanfic) Japanese Anime stories as far as I could tell. None of them over 2K words, and none of the more than one chapter. Heroes for Ghosts is nearly 120K words and is 10 chapters long, and is one of many stories of similar length. It takes some work to conceive of and bring to life a story of that length. Not to say anything one way or another about her stories (which I haven't read) or any other short stories. Just that...I didn't go into this story lightly.

Second lesson came from reading the novel The Passage; a vampire apacolypse story the magnitude of The Stand, this story became more of a mission than something I enjoyed. The author had a point and a path, but he introduced a plethora of characters and told us intimate details about these characters and got us involved with these characters...and then they were killed off never to be heard from again -- and that was just in the first 1/4 of the book!

I have several characters in Gone, and what reading The Passage showed me is that if you want to keep your reader's attention, make each one pivotal to the overall arc of your plot or you'll frustrate the reader.

Either that...or make sure vampires are involved.

As it turns out, I have a type

In an effort to keep the creative, non-PowerPoint-oriented part of my brain limber and engaged, I poked around in some old files I had in the My Documents folder I transferred from my previous laptop. In that folder was a file labeled, "Gone: Character Sketches."

I had a two or three paragraph description of the four main characters I'd originally thought up: Michael Sullivan, Ryan O'Malley, Grace O'Malley, and Jack Sullivan.

The file was dated September 18, 2000.

Since they were drafted, Ryan, Grace, and Jack's characters have changed shape and significance to the story, and I think I'll probably only pull a few of the original physical descriptions, such as:

Ryan

28 years old. Lean, roughly 6 foot. At first glance, looks too "small" to be a cop, but is all muscle. Dark hair, cut short, spiked up in front around a widow's peak. Gray eyes. Crooked smile. Married to Sara (artist), born to be a cop. Protective -- one has to work to be part of his inner circle, but once you're there, you're in for life.

(I'd also included a scar on his hand from a childhood incident that I'm no longer going to have happen, and I added a lot of background that doesn't hold true of my new direction for the story. But I like the look of this guy and it fits the character he's always been in my mind--with one exception. I think I'll make his eyes brown because gray eyes feels a bit...gimmicky. And I can picture him with laughing brown eyes that go flat and cold in a second.)

Grace

26 years old. Average build (size 8, 5'5", curvy, not thin, etc), curly black hair that she tends to tie in a knot at the back of her head rather than cut. Same gray eyes and smile as Ryan. Loves music, obsessed with Zeppelin, can't sing or play a note. Keeps journals -- has boxes of them from when she was seven and first met Michael.

(Again, I included a background for Grace that matched Ryan's {as they are siblings}, but I'm going a different direction. I also think I might straighten her hair because I've never dealt with naturally curly hair and I've learned from friends that there is a whole level of frustration to think about there {in real life}. Other than that, I'm keeping her looks--again, with the exception of the eyes.)

I'm changing pretty much everything I originally wrote about Jack because his character is now a pivotal piece of the puzzle where before he was simply a catalyst. But it's Michael's description that caught my eye and had me chuckling to myself. Especially because, while the others will all play key roles, Michael is the hero of my story.

Thinking back, I wrote these descriptions after I met my husband, but before we were married. The reason that is interesting is that I can see some elements of my old boyfriend -- who was a cowboy -- in Michael. But there's someone else there as well. Someone I hadn't even 'met' when I wrote these, but I certainly fell into the pull of his undertow the minute he came on scene.

Michael

26 years old. Lean, muscular, roughly 6'. Slightly bowed legs, powerful arms. Sandy hair, cut short (not quite military). Green eyes. Small scar just below his left eye from an incident during his youth that he can't remember. Full lips, strong hands. A few thin, white scars across his hands from working his way through school as a mechanic.

Wears his older brother's leather jacket like a badge of honor. Spent his spare time in college restoring his father's Shelby GT 500, and loves it almost as much as Grace. Indulges her love of music, but can sing. He's quick to anger if someone he loves (namely Ryan or Grace) is hurt in any way -- he's protective, but cool-headed, balancing out Ryan's temper.

Never wanted to be a cop, but knows his way around weapons because of O'Malley Sr. Works as a writer, can't remember what happened to his family beyond his brother leaving for Vietnam when Michael was seven. Has nightmares due to what happened in his past and a tendency to drink a bit more than Grace or Ryan would like.

When I read that, I actually laughed out loud. It isn't a mirror image of Dean Winchester, but it was close enough to justify my falling for that character so fast and so hard and not being able to let him go.

I didn't start assigning "actors" to my characters until I started to write fanfic, but now that I've done that with fanfic stories, I find it hard not to think of who might play these characters in the movie in my mind. Jensen Ackles would very easily fit the bill for Michael. It's already easy to picture him when I write Dean, and while Michael's story isn't Dean's -- not even close -- there are elements of Dean in the way this character moves and...is...that I can use to help me picture Michael in a much more realistic manner.

While we're at it, one of the reasons I'm thinking of changing Ryan's eyes to brown is that the change to his character and his motivation in the updated outline of the story could very easily fit a Colin Farrell-type actor. I don't yet know who I picture for Grace. The three women in the story -- Grace, Sara, and Tessa (who may be renamed) -- are all a bit nebulous at the moment as far as looks or who could 'play' them.

Right now, they're important because of how they each affect Michael. But as I bring the new outline to life, they each have a story to tell and a distinctive piece of the puzzle to add. I think the next step in character development might be to figure out who they look like to me. Help me see them as clearly as I see Michael.

The Week After Christmas Break Is Not The Best Time To Create...except fanfic

Well, in an effort to continue this log of writing Gone, I make this entry simply to say...I haven't written anything for Gone.

I have, however, written 21 pages of my next fanfic, On the Surface. This will be my last multi-chapter fanfic for 2011 so that I can channel my efforts into writing the original fic. I promised a good friend a fic and am working to tease my muse with my friend's requests. Plus...I really enjoy spending time with these characters and my friend pretty much gave me free reign.

When I first started writing fanfic, my daughter was barely five months old. I suffered from insomnia and used it to my advantage. My life situation was completely different: the hubs was in school to be a Veterinary Technician and I was working for a company. I would get to the last chapter of one story and already be plotting out the next, often times overlapping the creation.

Four years later, my girl is a preschool corker, the hubs is a stay-at-home dad (due to health issues) and I am an independent contractor. I still have insomnia, but because of working two jobs, I spend a significant portion of the day on the computer and find that I can't write at night the way I used to: my eyes won't take it. The two jobs thing has also sucked a good deal of the time I used to use to write. Darn that whole having to buy groceries thing.

I'm also a lot more conscious about what I write and how people receive it. Which makes for slower creation.

On the Surface is a ghost story. But because I love these characters and I sadistically love to pour copious amounts of angst and tribulations upon them, I'm finding myself layering it with introspection and hard conversations and experiences teaching lessons they don't want to learn. It's fun, actually.

I hope to get the majority of it finished before the end of the hiatus. We'll see if life will allow for that. But I'd like to start posting as I go so that I can also reply to any reviews I get. Those reviews are gold to me; it's important to me to thank a person for taking the time -- because I know they don't have to. Same goes for comments to the weekly episode reviews. Keeping up with those and writing is an undertaking.

Which is another reason this will be the final multi-chapter story of 2011. I can't say final fanfic...I think I'd miss these characters too much. I just have to mentally reserve the right to toss off a one-shot.

It's a bit scary, though. To actually take that step. *shakes head* I'll think about that later.

In the meantime, I'll head back to Dean and Sam and the mess they're getting themselves into and try to make it entertaining enough that people are...well...entertained.

Tune in next week when you'll hopefully hear me lament about posting nerves.

And so it begins

1/01/11

Today is the first day of a new year and a new decade. I've articulated the resolution to complete a draft of Gone by the last day of this year. It may or may not be worthy of submission to...anything. But I want to get the story out of my head, gather up the various notes and outlines, and compile them all into one centralized location in a fully imagined tale.

For the sake of documenting this journey, I am going to try to make an entry a week on how much I was able to write, what the characters are doing to me and my life, and if writing an original story is all I've imagined it's cracked up to be. I don't know if anyone else but me will read this, but I think it will be interesting to look back on this journey when I get to the end of the year.

This is the year I'll find out if I'm a hack. Full of bluster and dreams. Someone who plans for the future but never actually executes. I've been talking about writing for years. Since high school, really. I don't have a four-year degree but have managed to sponge up enough on-the-job skills to be a writer for a living (e-Learning and technical writing, but words are involved). I post a weekly review of my favorite TV show that's too long for any on-line establishment to take seriously (as in $$ seriously) but that many readers have informed me they enjoy. And I've spent the last five years writing fanfiction -- a genre I didn't even know existed prior to 2006.

So, on one very basic level, I am a writer. It's the activity that makes me most feel like me -- even above being a wife and a mother, quite honestly.

But fanfiction and TV show reviews posted on LiveJournal isn't the kind of writing I can get others outside of that particular fandom to ever read and/or take seriously. For the general populas, fanfiction is something written by 13-year-old girls with TV crushes. Most people you ask about fanfiction would either not know what it was, or would have no idea that it also contains mainstream stories very much in line with the tie-in novels found in a local Barnes and Noble. And more often than not (in my opinion), fanfiction authors are far better than the published material simply because they know the characters inside and out, love the characters' flaws and atributes, and understand what the other fans want to read about those characters.

Fanfic writers haven't been handed a set of DVDs and a script and been told, "Read up. You're contracted to write the next tie-in novel."

Through fanfiction, I have been able to bring alive fantasies and ideas I never thought anyone would understand, let alone connect with. But, connect they have to the tune of numerous online reviews and input that has improved my confidence and steered my creative skill.

I've discovered habits that help me tell better stories -- or at least stories I enjoy writing and telling. For example, listenting to music. I have different playlists for each story I've written -- mostly angsty rock or alternative. My current playlist for the last fanfic I'm writing prior to temporarily hanging up those spurs in an effort to focus on Gone includes:

Send Me an Angel, Zeromancer
Long Way Down, Vib Gyor
It's Probably Me, Sting
Red Sky, Thrice
Hesitate, Stone Sour
What Do I Have to Do?, Stabbing Westward
Make This Go On Forever, Snow Patrol
The Royal We, Silversun Pickups
Call Me, Shinedown
Running Up That Hill, Placebo
Weapon, Matthew Good
Iridescent, Linkin Park
Center of Attention, Jackson Waters
On the Surface, Civil Twilight
Millstone, Brand New
Truth, Balmorhea

I used to only listen to soundtracks, years ago when I first thought myself to be a writer. But when I discovered fanfiction and how to take characters who were much loved by me and other fans and pull them through a journey of my own imagining, I found that this type of music fed the muse with much sweeter ideas...relatively speaking. The stories I write aren't sweet. There is much pain involved -- physical, mental, and emotional. It's not indiciative of my life; it's simply the type of plot that trips my trigger.

In addition to music, I found that there's a certain environment that is more conducive to creation for me: the cave. Be it the kitchen table, the bedroom, the couch, or the office, I crave a sense of closed-off darkness around me with only the computer and the light from a lamp. I want no reminder of the real world to jar me from the fictional one I'm living in while I write.

I think that's one of the reasons the original short stories I wrote for the NYCM contest were largely unsatisfying. With the word limit enforced, I didn't have time to get lost in the story. I haven't studied enough to know this to be certifiable fact, but I contend that there are certain types of writing that one gravitates toward. Just because you are a "writer" doesn't necessarily mean you can write anything from short fictional stories to hard-hitting journalistic articles. You have a niche.

Gone is a story that's taken a journey with me. I first thought of it on a roadtrip with my now-husband from Phoenix, AZ, to Breckenridge, CO, back in 2000. I nutshelled it to him over an early morning in-car breakfast of OJ and powdered donuts. He absorbed and I was satisfied. Several years later, on our last couples trip (this time to Louisville, KY, to tour Churchill Downs) before our daughter was born, I resurrected the story and he offered a couple slants that changed the direction to a more meaty, satisfying end.

Later still, I submitted the first part of the first chapter to a writing workshop and listened as they told me that it was well-written, but somewhat predictable. Not what I had in mind.

I took that draft and the culminated ideas and during an angst-filled family trip grabbed the middle and flipped the whole thing inside out. Now I finally feel as if I have a sequence of ideas worthy of a solid draft, and I have a promise to myself: finished draft by 12/31/11.

And so it begins....

The Return

Flash Fiction Challenge 2010: Challenge #2, Round 1
Genre: Historical Fiction
Location: A Farm
Object: A Diamond

1,000 word limit

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is the reason for this journey and an impossible weight in my pocket.

I imagine it pulling at the straight line of my uniform, casting a tilt to my bearing that I work to compensate with the duffel bag gripped in my left hand. Groups of anxious-looking people, mostly women, cluster on the platform, watching, waiting, and hoping. Discarded newspapers litter the ground, the headline of one reading: Soviets Surround Berlin.

It is nearing an end, this war. And it has taken so much from so many.

“Captain.”

I stifle a grimace, dropping the duffel bag to return the salute with my left hand. It doesn’t feel natural. I doubt it ever will.

“Help you with your bag, Sir?”

The snap of his hand is crisp and he works to keep his eyes at a point over my right shoulder.

“No thanks, Sergeant.” I bend, slipping my hand through the well-worn canvass handles and stand.

“Have a good trip home, Sir.”

I dismiss him with a tilt of my chin and continue down the platform. Steam erupts from the undercarriage of the train startling several waiting passengers. I continue on, unfazed. I feel dulled to the impact of the real world.

The morning light turns Army green to brown as I give the conductor my ticket, meeting his eyes briefly. He glances away from me as if it is impossible to look without pity. Punching my ticket, he grabs the duffel before I am able and tosses it effortlessly up the stairs. I grip the rail and cross the slight gap between platform and train, climbing the stairs and stepping into the passenger car.

The men in the car all hold the same expression of experience trapped in the faces too young to have lived so much. I tuck my hat beneath my left arm before retrieving my duffel. Without the cover, it isn’t necessary to salute and I am saved the awkward reminder that only part of me is coming home.

My soul stayed on Utah Beach. My right arm is in Carentan. And my heart never left Iowa.

I won’t get any of them back.

I toss the duffel on the top rack, then drop into my seat, patting my pocket. It is still there. Sighing, letting the noise of men slide into my background, I lean my forehead against the cool pane of the window and close my eyes.

“Mind if I sit, Captain?”

I don’t remember falling asleep, but the world outside my window is changing.

“Sir?” The voice is at my shoulder.

“No, no, it’s fine. Sit.” I nod to the seat across the way.

He sits and I feel my breath freeze in my lungs.

“You all right, there, Sir? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He died in Carentan.

“What’s your name, Private?”

“O’Grady, Sir. James.” His grin is young but his eyes are ancient as he settles back in his seat.

“James.” My voice sounds strange in my ears. The name is wrong. “I knew a Private O’Grady.” I watch him for a moment. Watch his hands. “Did you have a brother?” It’s a bit forward, but I have to know. It’s as if the boy I let die was following me home.

He nods. “Robbie. He bought it in France about a year ago. Some German sniper bumped him off.”

I swallow and look toward the passing countryside.

“I knew him.”

“Sir?”

“I was there,” I say. “In that barn.”

He sits forward, elbows on knees, and looks at me.

I slide my hand into my pocket, feeling it there. My fingers trace the edges and I think about this journey home. About the person who left her and the person returning. About the moment that changed me from one into the other.

“We retreated to a little farm outside of Carentan.” My voice is low. He leans closer. “O’Grady carried the BAR. The men needed it. But we got trapped in the barn.”

I see it now, outside the window of the train. I see the German uniforms crossing the barren field, plow furrows still buried in the empty earth behind the carcass of a horse. The farmhouse had been gutted, roof collapsed inside, walls still reaching in supplication.

“The sniper hit him as we took cover.”

Glancing down at the empty sleeve, I continue.

“I used the gasoline from his weapon to light the barn, thinking to keep them away.” I have to stop. Breathe. “The farmer stored ammo.”

His eyes track to my missing arm.

“You headed home, Captain?”

I look away again. “I think so.”

“Not me.”

I am surprised.

“We grew up on a farm. Robbie tell you that?”

I shake my head.

“Yeah. And he goes and dies on one. Ain’t gonna happen to me. I’m jumpin’ off at Chicago. Find me a dame. You got a dame, Captain?”

A small smile is my answer. He settles back against the seat. I think to do the same, but for a moment can’t look away.

“You did what you could, Captain.” In those words I hear forgiveness.

When I wake again, he is gone. At my stop I exit the now-empty car to an equally empty platform. No one knows I am returning. Shouldering the duffel, I begin to walk. It takes me three hours to reach her door.

I am no longer whole. I have only scars and time holding me together. When I was a different man, I wrote her, asking a question. A farm in France kept me from sending her the letter.

I slip my hand into my pocket as I hear the knob turn.

She stands in the open door, clear blue eyes pooling, face pale from shock. I pull the envelope from my pocket, my eyes catching on her hand as she gripped the door frame.

The diamond on her finger glints in the dying light.

I have my answer before she’s even able to read the question.

Caught

Flash Fiction Challenge 2010: Challenge #1, Round 1
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Location: Bridge
Object: Tambourine

1,000 word limit

___________________________________________________________________________________

Tess ignored the fact that her handcuffed companion had stopped running.


She charged past him to reach the end of the alley, her momentum pulling him forward and her back, their bodies colliding and sending him sprawling, off-balanced into the side of a dumpster as her shoulder connected abruptly with the bricked wall of a building.

“What the hell are—” Jack gasped.

Tess contorted herself, twisting around until she faced him, her hair slipping loose from the knot she’d tied at the nape of her neck and clinging to the sweat marking a trail down the side of her face.

"Do you want to get shot? Is that it?" Jack growled, jerking her cuffed arm roughly and pressing her against the wall. “We have to get to the ferry, Tess.”

“The ferry is obvious,” she argued.

The barb of the rough-hewn bricks poked through her thin T-shirt. Her jeans felt weighted, heavy against her thighs. The tang of sweat, dirt, and old garbage wafted around them.

And Jack was standing too close.

“Exactly,” he nodded. “An obvious place to hide.”

“Or get caught,” she retorted, pulling her arm from his grip. “We need to go to the bridge.” She bit off the end of each word.

Brow puckered in a frown, Jack darted a look around the corner of the building Tess leaned against, then ducked back, shaking his head.

“The bridge is out,” Jack pointed out. “There are cones and orange barrels everywhere.”

“Exactly,” Tess countered.

Jack’s glance was incredulous. “And this helps us how?”

“If we get on the other side of the barricades before they find us,” she lifted a shoulder, “we could lose them in the city.”

“Listen,” Jack said, his voice assuming an air of authority. “I’m fairly accustomed to bringing my witnesses back alive.”

“Fairly?” She scoffed. “Not exactly a confidence builder, Counselor.”

“You’re my witness,” Jack said through clenched teeth. “It’s my case. And my job to get you back.”

“This is my life,” Tess snapped, rattling their cuffs.

“Tess,” Jack said softly, grabbing her attention. His eyes seemed to turn her to glass. “We need to work together on this.”

“Then trust me.” She matched his stare.

Tess had resisted the confines of a conventional lifestyle for too many years to relinquish her perception of control to the reasoning of this man. No matter if that damn half-grin of his caused a tick in her gut every time he dug it out.

He wasn’t grinning now, though.

Her gaze took in the set of his mouth, lines drawing the edges down in a bow of worry. The events of the day had tarnished his polished appearance. Strands of his impeccable brown hair had fallen across his forehead, giving him the illusion of innocence. His tie was askew, he’d left his suit jacket back in his car, and he was missing a cufflink.

The fact that he even wore cufflinks made her want to laugh.

The fact that she liked them on him made her want a stiff drink.

Jack was the first to look away, reluctant surrender evident in the roll of his shoulders. “The bridge? You’re sure?”

He pulled his lower lip against his teeth, biting it in what she’d come to recognize as nervous habit. She struggled to ignore the irrational desire to bite it for him.

“The bridge,” she asserted, trying to keep her voice even. “Get on the other side, slip into some pub, and call for back-up. Or whatever.”

“The ferry’s still a better idea,” Jack grumbled.

“Well, if I’m wrong,” Tess said, glancing at him askance, “feel free to gloat.”

Jack’s grin hit his eyes and clenched her stomach. “You can count on it.”

They stepped clear of the alley, moving with casual swiftness toward the barricaded bridge, avoiding curious eyes, Jack’s arm around her waist, her arm behind her back, their bodies close.

As they approached the last crosswalk before the bridge, the plaintive sound of a guitar drew Tess’ attention. A man sat slouched in a doorway, eyes vacant, dirty fingers gathering rhythm. Next to him, leaning against the door as if waiting for its cue, was a tarnished saxophone. Pulling Jack to a halt, Tess dug into the pocket of her jeans and retrieved a bill, dropping it into the overturned tambourine near the street musician’s feet.

“Why’d you do that?” Jack asked, slightly breathless from keeping pace.

“Everyone deserves a second chance,” Tess replied softly.

“Even lawyers?” Jack asked.

Tess didn’t allow herself to glance his way. “Almost everyone.”

They walked in silence for several beats until Jack suddenly rolled her roughly against him. Before she could protest, he’d guided her toward an alcove doorway, tucked her into the corner, and blocked her from sight. Her heart shivered at his touch.

“What—“

“Quiet,” he whispered urgently, his lips close to her ear. “I saw them. Heading toward the bridge.”

“You’re sure?”

Jack looked over his shoulder. “Pretty sure.”

Tess peeked out from beneath his protective arm. Near the orange cones that blocked the bridge entrance stood two men whose imposing figures were frighteningly familiar.

“Maybe we should try the ferry,” Tess said in a small voice.

Jack’s quiet laugh was quick and unexpected.

She blinked up at him. “What’s so funny?”

“I had plans to meet another attorney at Chez Marius tonight,” Jack said quietly, his grin coating the words in honey. “Looks like I’m not gonna make it.”

Tess pursed her lips, daring another glimpse around Jack’s arm. The men were still there. “Sorry to ruin your plans,” she muttered.

Jack lifted their cuffed hands and rested his palm on her jaw. “You were wrong about the bridge.”

His lips hovered close to hers, his breath ghosting her cheeks.

“What are you doing?” she asked against his mouth, her eyes slipping shut.

“Gloating,” he replied.

Missing Peace

This was an entry for the 2010 Kansas Fiction Writers contest, written in March 2010.

***

How little today resembles what yesterday thought it would look like…

--Jim Beaver, “Life’s That Way”

***

Seth Ramsey was no stranger to the dark.

For the past year, he’d carved out a fledgling reputation as one who was never far from the shadows. Darkness was often blamed for hiding secrets, but it seemed to him that people who claimed safety inside the day were only fooling themselves; the light too often teased with promised relief and brought with it only the pain of reality.

It had been day when he’d learned Sophie was gone, light spilling all around him.

His eyes wandered the moonless sky and the still-bare limbs of the scattered trees. He’d parked his car in the hollow of a dead-end gravel road and perched on the scuffed black hood, cloaked completely by the night. He’d made the effort to sneak into the shed behind his father’s house undetected, slipping his old Ford out from beneath the tarp and driving the ten miles to the house he’d once lived in just to go inside. Alone.

Now that he was here, though, he was going to need a minute. The courage he needed to face the truth was buried too deep inside for easy retrieval.

The orange and blue flash of a match head briefly cut through the shadows, momentarily illuminating the black of his jacket sleeve and jeans. He lifted the flame to the end of his cigarette, the leather of his jacket creaking, and then shook out the fire, the softer glow of burning tobacco and paper replacing the bright flare. The tang of the nicotine hit the back of his tongue one heartbeat before a thin tendril of smoke snaked through the air and wrapped around him like a familiar embrace.

Using the tips of two fingers calloused from years plucking guitar strings, Seth drew the unfiltered cigarette from his mouth, darting out his tongue in a quick gesture meant to rid his lips of the cling of roll paper. It was a crutch he couldn’t put away and, at times, the only way he could find balance in a world that fed on chaos. Taking another drag, he exhaled tandem rivers of smoke through his nostrils and watched as the headlights of an approaching car skimmed the silhouette of a small house across the road from him, revealing the sparse, gnarled trees scattered across the bare yard. He’d never been one for landscape upkeep, and since his departure, the land around the house had surrendered to the conquest of dirt and weeds.

As the car continued down the road, wheels gracing the rumble strips that warned it was too far right of center, Seth let his eyes track the retreating taillights, flirting with the idea of following. Leaving. Shaking off this insane search for absolution and walking away. But his heart beat in a shaky reminder of what had brought him to this moment in the first place: he couldn’t escape his past.

It had been a year since he’d left this house; a year to the day. He’d spent most of that year on a French Quarter high, bouncing from open mic to empty stage, using his voice to try to rid himself of the youthful disease of malcontent, seeking fulfillment and finding emptiness.

Most people he’d encountered in his recent travels had viewed their own yesterdays through the comfortable veil that was memory, washing angst with the brevity of lessons learned and tempering heartbreak with the benefit of experiences. For Seth, thoughts of his past loomed like a cold specter in a circle of warm, familiar faces.

He jerked, startled from his reverie, as Alice in Chains’ Rooster suddenly echoed from the lining of his jacket pocket, cutting through the quiet of the night with a reminder that he was not, in fact, alone. He knew before retrieving his phone whose voice he’d hear on the other end; she called every week like clockwork, ignoring his half-assed attempts to dissuade her by simply not answering. She had been persistent in her efforts to keep what was left of their family connected, however tenuously.

He turned the cell in his hand to look at the display, his lips wrapping around a whisper of her name: Renee.

“Seth?”

“I’m here.”

She sighed relief into the phone, the sound of her breath skipping across the mouthpiece to rest in his ear. She said nothing else for a moment, but he heard the confused tangle of her words anyway: come back, stay away, don’t go, leave…

“You’re at the house, aren’t you?”

He didn’t answer her. She’d always known him better than he wanted to admit. She’d been both sister and mother, in the absence of their own. She’d been his conscience for as long as he’d allowed her and his protector when he’d tested the limits life naturally put into place.

And when he’d walked away from everything, he’d walked away from her.

“You don’t have to do this,” Renee said.

He heard latent tears in her voice; she wouldn’t cry, not to him. But he knew she had been.

And he knew she would be.

“Yeah, I do, Ren,” he replied, lifting the cigarette to his lips and pulling in a drag, letting the buzz hum through his brain as he waited out his sister’s next argument.

“There’s nothing there,” Renee tried. “Nothing that matters.”

Seth looked across the road at the small house. A pseudo-porch flanked the bungalow-style building, blue shutters gracing the two front windows like lashes on sorrow-filled eyes. Even in the dark he could see that the graying paint was peeling from the boards; yellow crime scene tape still crossed the front door, though the edges were frayed and flapped a bit in the mild, early-spring breeze. The nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile down the road to the west and the gravel road, where he currently sat hidden, ended at the shell of an abandoned church.

It had been their childhood home until their mother died. His father had kept it; claiming it would be needed some day. That day turned out to be Seth’s nineteenth birthday, when he’d found himself tearing down walls of indifference between himself and his father and Renee had stepped in with a solution before words had evolved into blows.

“Seth?”

“I’m still here.” He exhaled a heavy breath, his cigarette now resting in the corner of his mouth, the dull orange glow bouncing as he spoke.

“You’re smoking again,” Renee guessed.

Seth didn’t reply.

“You really think that’s a good idea?”

“How about we pick one battle at a time?” Seth rebuked.

“You’re a singer, Seth,” Renee hammered.

“I’ve got a Plan B.” Seth lifted the cigarette from his lips and dropping his hand to rest on the top of his thigh.

“Guitar?” she asked, the word a one-note scoff.

“Drop it already.”

Renee had moved him into that house, choosing to stay with their father until their youngest sister, Sophie, was old enough to be on her own. It had been his refuge—a fortress of solitude in a life that would soon be over-exposed. Five years later, Sophie had moved in.

Seth closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of the dying house. There were entire days from this last year that he couldn’t recall, liquor and late nights having rubbed out their imprint on his memory. There were faces of women who’d lain next to him for the space of a night that he’d pass by in a crowd without even a glimmer of recognition. There were roads he’d travel twice because he didn’t realize he’d been there before.

But he’d never forget the day Sophie had joined him in living at the old house, escaping the bad choices of her youth and seeking solace in her older brother’s irreverent life that her older sister’s structured lifestyle simply couldn’t offer.

“I wish I could say I understand why you’re doing this,” Renee sighed.

“It’s been a year, Ren,” Seth said quietly. “I just…I gotta know.”

“Know what?”

If I can face what I didn’t do. He rolled his neck, hearing the vertebrae crack with the motion. Renee didn’t bother to wait for him to figure out how to answer her question.

“Just walk away again, Seth.” Tears balanced on the edge of her voice. “Leave.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Her voice became slightly shrill. “You didn’t come back when she died. You didn’t come back when we buried her. You were gone, Seth. Free of this.”

“No, I wasn’t.” His quiet admission brought her voice back to normal.

“I haven’t even been back inside since…since that day,” she told him, offering him an escape clause. “No one expects you to go in there alone.”

He rolled his lips against his teeth, pressing them together, searching his supposedly bottomless repository of words for the right ones to fit this situation and coming up empty. Even now, even after everything he hadn’t done, she was still trying to protect him.

“You want to go with me?” he asked, knowing the answer, but offering her a chance to once again hold the role she felt most comfortable inside.

“I will if you’ll wait until tomorrow.”

“No.” He shook his head, feeling his shoulders tighten as he resisted. “Tomorrow’s…no good.”

“What’s so important about tonight, Seth? The anniversary isn’t for weeks—“

“Because, Ren,” Seth snapped, irritation at having to justify himself shimmering just below the surface. “Because this is the day I left her. This is the day I walked away.”

When the edges of their lives had fallen in, Renee had done everything short of showing up on stage and dragging him back home by the scruff of his neck. She’d made calls, sent emails, written letters. Her eloquent words had threaded through the numb rejection of the moment with an impotent attempt at reason, and in the end, he found that he simply couldn’t believe her. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d come home.

What mattered was that he’d left.

His family had fallen apart with alarming speed, and he’d simply walked away. The only thing that had him here now was the soul-killing realization that he had nothing to walk toward.

“You couldn’t have known,” Renee tried, her tone gentle. “There’s no way any of us could have known.”

“I was living with her,” Seth replied. “I should have seen. If I’d…paid attention, I could have known.”

He heard the desperate edge in his voice slipping through the cracks of the quiet. It had been frighteningly easy to create the mystery that followed his music: he simply hadn’t allowed himself to feel anything he wrote. His lyrics held emotion that would enthrall audiences, allowing them to see his pain through the individual filters of their own lives, telling them who he was in whatever way they wanted to define him.

But he hadn’t felt it. It hadn’t reached him. And he’d been able to exist inside of that. Until tonight.

“People survive stuff like this all the time, Seth,” Renee said. “We’re not…unique.”

“What, and that’s supposed to make it better?” His voice hardened, the edges of his words becoming clipped and sharp. “You think I care that everyone has a sad story?” He curled his fingers against his palm as he spoke, tightening his grip until he felt the blunted ends of his fingernails dig into his skin. “This happened to us, Ren. To me and to you and to her.” He felt his body want to echo the movement of his hand, his belly coiling, his legs twitching.

“Stop it,” she ordered, her voice matching his in edge, the fragility hidden in her tone coming close to shattering him. “You don’t get to say that to me, Seth. Not you.”

“I’m—“

The word sorry snagged on the inside of his throat, unable to find its way into the open air of the world. He was sorry; everything about him at the moment was an apology. But his lips went numb at the thought of confessing that truth before he’d walked through the door of the house.

“Why are you doing this, Seth?” Renee asked finally, cutting the heartbeat-filled silence with a trembling plea. “What is it you think you’ll find? There’s no…reason it happened. It just happened.”

I’m lost, he wanted to admit. But his lips didn’t move. His lungs rebelled against the necessary breath needed to speak. I’m doing this because I can’t do anything else.

“Seth?”

The worry laced through that one word chilled him, an inadvertent shiver slipping up the length of his spine and settling like a cold hand at the base of his neck. His name seemed to be suspended in her voice, captured in her mouth as if she were trying to keep it—and him—safe.

His eyes burned and he realized he hadn’t blinked since his outburst. His cigarette had burned ash down to his fingers and he forced his fist open, dropping the butt into the gravel at his feet. The act of snuffing the smoldering tobacco with the toe of his boot drew him from his stupor.

“I know what I’m doing,” he promised her, feeling a suddenly affectionate smile tug the corner of his mouth and he tucked his chin to his chest, knowing she heard the scratch of the scruff that framed his jaw as it raked against the end of the cell phone. He knew she didn’t want to hang up, just as he knew she’d run out of things to say.

“You’re really sure about this?” One final time.

He lifted his eyes, regarding the house. It was waiting for him. He somehow knew it had chosen him to be the one it spilled it secrets to. He knew it as clearly as he knew his eyes were green, the scar on his cheek had come from a blow meant for someone else, and the lyrics to his first ballad had been stolen from a love letter Renee had written to a boyfriend.

“I’m sure.”

This night was going to change his life one way or another.

“Call me when it’s over.”

He’d never tell her, but she sounded exactly like their father when she issued requests in the form of orders. She expected nothing less than agreement when she spoke in that tone.

“Bye, Ren.”

Renee never said goodbye. She’d toss up a smile; perhaps a nod and a wave, or she’d part with a love you or maybe a see you later, but never goodbye. Seth listened as she cut off their connection and waited until the dial tone sounded in his ear before closing his phone and stuffing it back into the pocket of his leather jacket. He pulled his lower lip into his mouth, still tasting the cigarette.

Sliding from the hood of his car, he retrieved the mini MagLite flashlight from the recesses of his jacket pocket. Twisting the head, he pointed the narrow, intense beam at the house and resisted the urge to wince as the too-brilliant light further exposed the neglect the house had suffered since his younger sister had died inside its walls.

“Here goes nothin’.” He stepped from the illusion of safety the shadows provided and crossing the silent street.

The air seemed to cling to him like cellophane, giving him the sensation of walking through spider webs of memory. He almost reached up to brush them away from his skin, but stopped just short of lifting his hand. He reached the porch and kicked aside one of the decorative rocks that flanked the steps leading to the door. Beneath was a small, silver key.

The individuals who had once resided inside this house had perpetuated human mayhem with storms of emotional outbursts and gales of near-hysterical laughter. But at the core of it all, they had been family. And he knew that nothing could twist him up as completely as his family. They’d been his last line of defense and first enemy; they’d known all the buttons to push and the right order to push them in. And he knew that somewhere in the memory of that chaos the reason Sophie was gone lay hidden.

“Man up,” he scolded himself, gripping the key and unlocking the door. It swung wide and he swiped his hand down, breaking the decaying hold of the crime scene tape and stepping across the threshold.

It was as if the house took a breath.

For a moment, the darkness inside that perceived gasp of air was so complete he felt as if the walls had absorbed him. The cloistering, panicky feeling of imprisonment gave way to complete, irrational terror when the wind picked up, sucking the door from his hand and slamming it closed decisively, as if punctuating the end of a sentence.

Seth felt the muscles across the plain of his belly tighten even as his legs seemed to liquefy. He couldn’t quite justify his fear; he’d lived here in his youth and as an adult. He’d lived here with his sister as his career ignited. It should have been a place of peace. Yet the darkness that had lately been his salvation became almost a predator and he felt himself shrinking away.

Instinctively he reached for the wall switch, though he knew Renee had turned off the power to the house long ago. Habit had him nervously flicking the switch twice before the signal that it no longer worked traveled from his fingers to his brain. It took him a moment to think to raise his flashlight, letting the beam score the dark and chase away the terror.

“There’s nothing here, Ramsey,” he said aloud, needing the sound of his own voice to steady him in the heavy quiet. “There. Is. Nothing. Here.”

The house was cold—almost colder than the outside. He moved into the small living room; the furniture was where he’d left it, but the bookshelves were a mess: paperbacks fell in haphazard stacks, some spilling to the floor to lay with their spines spread wide. Sophie’s snow globes were still there, dust having gathered in the waning time and dulling their reflection in his flashlight. Continuing to trail the light around the room, Seth shook his head, somewhat awed at the disorder left behind when the investigation into his sister’s death had been completed.

He lifted the beam to the wall above the sagging couch and felt himself stumble back a step. Pinned to the wall with thumb tacks was a broad, loose canvas. On it someone had sketched the outline of a jigsaw puzzle with what looked like charcoal. Across the assembled pieces, Seth saw various images that he worked to place. Concentrating the light at the top left corner of the canvas, he worked his way down, feeling his chest burn with a latent ache as the image slowly solidified in his brain.

Lyrics from Seth’s music overlaid sketches of guitars and a bar of musical notes that his mind immediately connected with a chord from one of his songs. He read excerpts from Renee’s favorite authors, pieces from political speeches their father had all-but memorized, and partial recipes from meals their mother had cooked. He saw flowers pressed in wax paper overlapping postcards from towns he’d played on what he laughingly called a tour.

Stepping back further in an attempt to widen the beam of light, Seth saw that what was tacked to the wall were moments of every family member’s life—except for Sophie. As he traced the beam lower, he saw that the puzzle wasn’t completely put together: one piece was missing.

The edge of the puzzle piece was sketched off to the far lower left of the canvas. Inside, a peace symbol had been drawn, wildflowers pressed flat and lacquered to the canvas inside the sketch. Frowning, Seth moved closer, shining the flashlight onto the symbol. It took him a moment to see it, but the wildflowers spelled out his sister’s name inside the peace symbol.

“Aw, dammit, Sophie,” he whispered, straightening up. “How come—“

His own question was cut off as he caught the blurred image of movement from the corner of his eye. Gasping, he turned swiftly to his left and trained the beam of light on the next room, working to steady his quickened breath as he saw it was only the flutter of a curtain. Closing his eyes, he dragged his hand down the length of his face.

“Son of a…,” he whispered, letting the curse trail off into silence as he worked to shake free of the sudden fright. “Get a grip, man.”

His bedroom had been adjacent to the living room, and Seth knew it was empty of furniture. He’d cleared it out the night he’d left for his tour, telling Sophie to stay as long as she wanted. You’ll be safe here. He could still feel those words on back of his tongue. You’ll be safe here, Sophie.

He hadn’t even known what—or whom—he claimed she’d be safe from. He’d just wanted to leave, get on with his life, take advantage of this opportunity. Worrying about a younger sister who was more apt to surrender to fantasies and daydreams than do anything productive hadn’t even been in his orbit of care.

Seth wrinkled his nose at the putrid smell of mold that greeted him. It was evident that the window had been left open a few inches since the last time someone had been inside the house. Weather had been allowed in, rotting the wood of the windowsill, soaking the wall and the carpet beneath. Tucking his flashlight beneath his arm, beam shining behind him, he used both hands to shove the swollen window frame back into place. As he closed the curtains, he caught sight of something reflecting in the window, lit by the flashlight.

It was the figure of a woman.

With a cry of surprise, Seth whirled, dropping the flashlight to the carpet, the heavy instrument hitting the sodden floor with a thump. As it rolled to a stop, the beam shone on a poster of a nameless brunette straddling a black guitar and staring out from beneath too-long bangs, her sultry eyes flashing bizarrely in the swaying light.

He began to shake.

There was no slow build-up, no calm before the storm of tremors that now wracked his body. He started to bend down to retrieve his flashlight but when the room spun around him, he found himself instead reaching for the wall to keep from falling to his knees. His palm slid slightly on the cold wall, his fingers digging for purchase until he found balance.

“I know you’re not here, Sophie,” he whispered into the quiet darkness of the house, his flashlight still shining on the warped poster tacked to the opposite wall, subtly lighting the empty room. “You’re not anywhere. So what the hell am I looking for?”

The police had found her lying curled up on her bed, as if she were asleep. Their discovery had been prompted by Renee’s worry when her sister hadn’t answered two of her daily calls. Renee had phoned the neighbor down the road from her work and when that neighbor hadn’t been able to get Sophie to come to the door, Renee had called the police even before she’d left her office. She’d known then, Seth was sure. She’d known in that moment that their sister was gone. He hadn’t known until Renee had called him later that afternoon, but there was no doubt in his mind that Renee had felt the truth.

Sophie had been dead for nearly two days when her body was found; the pills she’d ingested with a Merlot chaser taking away the pain none of them were even aware she’d been feeling quite so keenly. She’d always been fragile; her voice ice-delicate in his memory. But she’d come from the same family, the same chaos, the same drama that had forged both he and Renee. He’d always assumed her fragility masked an iron core.

Seth all-but staggered from his old room, moving as though pulled by an invisible rope back into the living room, past the jigsaw-puzzle canvas, through the kitchen, only stopping once he reached the threshold of Sophie’s bedroom. The door was closed, the brass knob painfully cold in his grip.

He couldn’t turn the handle.

His lips tingled as if tiny pins pressed against them and he realized he hadn’t taken a breath inside several heartbeats. Pulling in air, he heard it catch on a sob and felt his stomach muscles clench, propelling him slightly forward until his forehead rested on the cold, smooth wood of his sister’s bedroom door.

“I hated you.” The breath from his words bounced back against his face in the narrow space. “I hated you for leaving.” He didn’t know where the words came from, but once spoken, he recognized the honesty threaded through each one.

Tears burned the back of his throat as he felt the truth begin to claw its way from his belly, climbing his lungs and digging its way into his heart. He’d despised himself for so long, berated his weakness for not coming home, for not seeing, for not being there. He hadn’t wanted to recognize that the slow burn twisting around his spine to make a home at the base of his heart wasn’t self-loathing: it was anger in its purest form.

Anger at his poor, fragile, lonely, dead sister.

“You were so fucking selfish, Sophie.” He sobbed out the words, his breath crying even if his eyes still could not. In a nauseating rush, the emotions and words he’d held at bay for so long swept upwards, beating against the inside of his skull like panicked hands searching for escape.

She can’t be gone…How could she leave…How did I miss it…What was so bad that she…Why did she do this to The world isn’t right if she’s not How can she not be What am I going to do now Did I let my sister die….

With a cry he slid to his knees outside her bedroom, the flashlight tumbling from his numb fingers and rolling across the linoleum of the kitchen floor. He willed the tears to come. He slammed his forehead against the door, wanting to force himself to feel. But his face remained dry, his eyes burning, his chest such a raw mess of tangled emotions he felt as if he’d fallen on a land mine.

“Fuck it.” He turned the handle and shoved the door open forcefully enough it banged hard against the opposite wall. From his knees, he took in the shadows of his sister’s room.

Everything was still there; the police had searched the room for signs of foul play, looking for any evidence that it hadn’t been a suicide, but all they’d found was the empty bottle of pills and the half-full bottle of wine. Her bed was unmade; the white sheets knotted at the foot. A quiet, heavy, dusty silence lay like a shroud over the pile of dirty clothes in the corner of the room, the stack of books on the desk, the sketch pads strewn next to the door, the collection of candles and wax gathered at the base of a free-standing, full-length mirror.

Seth pawed at the floor clumsily until he found the flashlight, then used the door frame to pull himself to his feet. His shaking had quieted, but he felt weak, spent, as if just getting over a lengthy illness. He shone the light on Sophie’s bed, swallowing past the lump in his throat at the sight of the crumpled pillows and small red wine stain on the edge of the sheets. He swept the light back across the sketch pads, looking for something else that might give him what he needed to see.

Something that might tell him why.

“Were you lost, too?” he whispered to the room. “What couldn’t you live with, Sophie?”

Glancing down at the sketches, he caught sight of a face, the charcoal-like outline partially smeared by hands that saw it not for what it was: Sophie’s voice. The face in the sketch was his, the shadows under his eyes sweeping out like wings, his hair—too long now to match this drawing—framing his jaw line like slim, but greedy, fingers. His eyes, however, had him bending to one knee to carefully pick up the sketch pad.

She’d drawn his face, but her eyes.

They weren’t edgy, cautious, calculating. They weren’t the empty eyes he’d become so used to seeing in the mirror each morning. They weren’t eyes that didn’t reflect the words he’d pressed against a waiting microphone night after night.

They were the eyes of bruised innocence. Eyes that saw too much; that felt it all.

“Is this how you see me?” He asked before he could stop himself. He looked up, wincing. “How you saw me, I mean,” he amended, catching the outline of his own reflection in the full-length mirror. Setting the sketch down on the edge of the bed he turned to face himself in the mirror, the flashlight angled down toward the pile of candles.

He was thin; the darkness he’d wrapped around himself manifesting itself in his choice of clothing, his curtained hair, his barely-parted lips. Only the paleness of his skin and the green of his eyes gave any indication that Seth Ramsey was more than just a shadow. Sighing he shook his head in disgust, the motion teasing the beam of light across the reflective surface of the mirror and exposing an odd smear.

Moving closer, Seth realized that something had been painted or drawn across the glass at the level of his knees—or, he realized, the level of a young girl’s eyes if she were sitting down. Crouching low, he traced his fingers through the dust.

“Wax,” he realized aloud. He tilted the glass slightly, shining the light across the smooth plane.

I was here.

Written in wax, the whorls of his sister’s fingerprints still visible, Sophie had made her final declaration. I was here. She had been there. She had meant something. But it hadn’t been enough for her.

Seth let the mirror fall back to its original position and sat heavily on the wood floor of the room. He tried to breathe, the words he’d spoken in anger just moments ago echoing back at him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, wanting the house to hear, knowing the very thought sounded insane.

He’d been wrong, all this time. It wasn’t that he’d walked away. That hadn’t been his sin. Sophie had been the missing piece of the Ramsey jigsaw puzzle. But what she’d been trying to say, what she’d never found a way to tell him—tell any of them—was that it had been peace that she’d been missing. Peace with herself. Peace to accept who she was.

It wasn’t that he’d walked away. It was that he hadn’t come back.

“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here,” he managed to choke out. “I’m sorry I hid from you. I’m sorry I hid from this. I’m sorry I didn’t let myself see what you needed to tell me. I’m sorry that I—“

He ran out of words.

It had been the catalyst for returning to this house on this night. He’d always been able to pluck a few chords on his guitar, close his eyes against the glare of the stage spotlight, all-but caress the microphone with his lips, and the words had flowed like water.

Until the night he’d simply...run out of words.

Hanging his head low, feeling the tense muscles along his neck pull with the motion, Seth surrendered. The tears rippled through him, falling from the tip of his nose, his lips, his chin and collecting on the candle wax at the base of the mirror. He cried for his sisters, both lost in their own ways, for his father who might never really absorb the reality of his children, and for himself and the year of emptiness he’d somehow survived.

He cried until his body ached, his breath felt labored, and his face was chilled. As he lifted his head to peer once more at his reflection in the mirror, he gasped. Staring back at him weren’t the eyes of a jaded musician. In his face, he saw Sophie’s eyes. And smeared across those eyes, written in wax on the mirror, were the words: you are here.

Seth heard himself whimper and saw his lips turn up in a tremulous smile as the mirage faded and he once again recognized his face.

He hadn’t been there when she’d given in; he hadn’t been there when they buried her. If anything, he’d expected the imprint of her memory in this house to retaliate with residual anger. He’d expected the promise of a tortured soul. He’d expected her to break his heart; he’d expected her memory to tear him to pieces, rip him apart.

The forgiveness and acceptance he felt envelop him for that brief moment left him dizzy with relief.

“I am here, Sophie,” he rasped, emotion turning his voice ragged.

He was here, now.

Standing, Seth looked around the room once more. He slipped his hand in the pocket of his jacket, fingering the book of matches nestled next to his pack of cigarettes. Pulling the matches out, he looked down and realized he knew how to end the darkness this house represented in the lives of what was left of his family. Gathering the sketch books and tucking them under his arm, he returned to the living room and pulled the canvas with Sophie’s Missing Peace from the wall.

When he left the house, the smoke was already billowing beneath the door. By the time he’d crossed the silent road to his car, the fire lit up the night sky like a beacon. He perched once more on the hood of his old Ford, no longer in shadows as the funeral pyre for his sister’s pain chased away the night and highlighted his face.

He set the canvas on the hood of the car next to him and pulled out his cell phone. Renee was going to want to kill him when she found out. But she would understand. He’d find a way to make her understand. She answered on the first ring.

“Seth?” she greeted him.

“It’s over.” He was surprised to hear that his voice was actually steady. The words had felt almost too big for his mouth. “It’s over,” he repeated, just to be sure.

“Over? You’re…are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” he nodded, though he knew she couldn’t see him. “We need to talk.”

Renee’s voice was cautious. “About what?”

Seth looked at the flames eating the wooden structure that had contained so many memories, so much pain, so many explanations that no one had been able to understand. The light from the fire dazzled his eyes, but he didn’t look away. He drank it in, wanting nothing more to do with shadows.

“Missing peace,” Seth replied.

“The missing piece of what?”

“Don’t worry,” he promised her, “I’ll show you what I mean.”

“Give me an hour and I’ll meet you. Where will you be?”

Seth pulled his lower lip against his teeth, unable to suppress a smile of acceptance. No longer did his past lurk at the edges of his attention, haunting him with thoughts of what he hadn’t done, who he hadn’t been. Three words—real or imagined, it didn’t matter—validated the anger at his sister for the choice she made, forgave the disgust with himself for the repeated act of cowardice, and began to soothe a year of pain his shattered heart hadn’t been strong enough to feel.

You are here.

“Seth?” Renee said, her voice giving him a virtual shake back to reality. “Are you still at the house or what?”

“Yeah, I’ll be here,” Seth answered her, feeling his body ease with that affirmation. “I’m here.”

He hung up with his eyes on the fire’s light.

THE END