Tag: fantasy

Poodie James

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excerpt

The chief reminded himself to be charitable
tonight and think of the A-rabs’ good works for crippled and burned
children when the Shriners and their bottle-fed mischief overflowed
from the hotels into the street. A mass of purple, white and brass, the
high school band and drill team crossed the intersection and the band
broke into “I’ll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time.” The drum
major blew his whistle, strutted and kicked toward the sky. Thirty
batons twirled high and back into the hands of the girls, whose smiles
had yet to reach the pasted-on stage. The parade was off to a good
start, Spanger thought as he watched two youngsters sitting on the
curb wide-eyed and laughing, gripping their popsicles. The first float,
a confection of white, pink and green, bore the festival queen and
princesses in their satin gowns. Princess Marcie Welch, her tiara a
double band of apple blossoms, waved to the crowd. When she saw
Poodie standing beside his wagon, she blew him a kiss. Grinning
broadly, he waved back. Well, Spanger thought, the kids in town do
seem to love that strange little man.
On the side of the blue Packard convertible that followed the
queen’s float, signs with block letters a foot high proclaimed
“Mayor and Mrs. Pete Torgerson.” The mayor perched atop the
backrest of the back seat, turning toward one side of the street then
the other, moving his arm in the way Spanger had seen in the
newsreels when the Pope blessed crowds in St. Peter’s Square.
Sue-Anne Torgerson now and then glanced at the onlookers and
lifted her hand, her head just visible above the side of the convertible.
Torgerson waved the chief to the side of the car.
“Did you see that?” he shouted over the band.
“What, Pete?”
“Poodie James, that’s what.”
Poodie had waved and smiled at the mayor’s car as it went by.
That smile, Torgerson thought, that mocking smile. Sure as hell,
he knows. He remembers.
“He’s watching the parade,” Spanger said, striding alongside the
car. Even with Torgerson sitting on the backrest, the chief’s head
was nearly level with the mayor’s.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

In Turbulent Times

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‘Oh yes, I knew him well. And admired him. He’s a monk in Loughinish Abbey in south Armagh now. Why do you ask?’
‘He was epileptic too, wasn’t he?’ Nora’s hands rested on the table with the knife and fork still in them. She looked earnestly at Liam. She accepted the fact of her epilepsy with no embarrassment. She had long ago come to terms with it. It meant no more to her than the dark brown of her eyes or the black of her hair. But she wanted others to accept it, to regard it simply as a normal aspect of her being. Most of all, though she could not explain why, she wanted Liam to accept it. So she watched his face and was disappointed. Liam’s mouth twitched, and his eyes looked down at the bacon and eggs on his plate. He reddened a little and then said, ‘Yes, he was;’ but his voice could not hold the nonchalance he tried to charge it with. Internally Liam knew he had failed her. He wished he could kick himself.
Why do I react this way? he repeated to himself while silence extended into a solid barrier between them.
‘Do you believe the gossip that Padraig was my father, Liam?’
Nora’s question exploded in his face. The barrier disintegrated with a crash that reverberated through the house, through the empty schoolrooms.
‘Nora! How could you …? How can you … ?’ Liam struggled to regain his composure. The blast from her gelignite question had hurled him off his feet.
She smiled. The smile leered with malicious sadism. Liam was totally confused, disoriented, unbearably discomfited. He liked to feel solid, familiar ground beneath his feet. He liked the trodden paths of life, however narrow or however straight, and he did not stray from them. He was at one with those whom Grey elegised in his English country churchyard. He was one of the living dead, his life already past, like a swift, irrecoverable dream, his being already buried under a smothering mound of moral precepts, religious commandments, social expectations and private, psychological inhibitions.
‘Some people in the village have hinted that I might be Father Padraig’s bastard, haven’t they?’
Stop it, Nora, stop it, Liam cried silently. He gripped his knife and fork fiercely. He clenched his teeth. He pushed his back hard against the chair till he felt the wood bruise his spine. He drew in a deep breath. ‘Whatever put that silly notion into your head?’ he blurted out, and then realised how weak his question was. ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘You understand me well enough, Liam Dooley.’ Nora’s voice was hard, penetrating, like the bull the stoneworkers pounded into granite to split it. ‘I know what they say. I know that you know also.’

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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Brother Rordan looked around for Svend or Ul, whichever his name was. Determined
he’d find him, he only wished to apologize for his earlier blunder and perhaps
be his friend. Maybe Ul was being ‘used’ by the captain and felt ashamed of his position.
The crew, apart from the captain, seemed to give him a wide berth. Perhaps
already on board, the Irish thrall was nowhere to be found.
When the feast wound down, the late summer sun had moved along the far horizon.
Songs and games became more boisterous. The Norsemen wrestled, stripped
to a narrow loincloth, their bodies glistening with lamb fat. Bjorn, strongest of them
all, won every bout. Bjorn was aptly and fondly named the Blonde Bear for his massive
bushy beard and hairy chest. No Norseman ever refused his challenge. Each
preferred to be thrown by the mighty Bear than be seen as any less than a brave son
of Odinn, god of war. Spectators circled the wrestlers, cheering on each challenger
in his turn. Sometimes, Bjorn allowed a man to hold him for a while, but never long
enough to claim a victory. As each challenger lay defeated, the great champion lifted
him up with the love of a Nordic brother. In all his show of strength, Bjorn was
almost gentle.
When the wrestling was done, other games of skill took place. Some competed in
feats of archery and knife throwing with targets set at greater and greater distances.
Prizes of bone-handled knives and silver jewellery were awarded to winners in each
category. Several men began a game with a leather ball. They used sticks to hit the
ball and one another’s legs. Competition grew loud and fierce. The ball, the size of a
man’s fist, flew hard and fast.
At last, the casks of beer were drained. One by one, the players left the game to
sit in small groups and talk about home and women and their dreams. Each man
speculated on his share of the profits, when they’d sell their catch of sheep and slaves
at the marketplace in Thulé.
By the dying embers of the fire, the captain filled his men’s cups with sweet mead.
He and his crew toasted further adventures and Valhöll, where all slain warriors
would live for all time, happily feasting with Odinn. All grew serious for a while.
Then Bjorn tossed the ball to Kyrri, the Quiet One. Kyrri tossed the ball to Captain
Hjálmar. This was a different game, played with a twist of humour. While Bjorn and
Kyrri covered their eyes, the other men began a song.
“Treasure hidden in the night, so safely out of view,
will not be gained without a fight. The search is up to you.”
Hjálmar tiptoed off to hide the ball. Much to the amusement of the onlookers,
he slipped it up the loudly snoring Finten’s tunic, then stood apart chuckling. On a
signal from the singing crew, Bjorn and Kyrri began the search from man to man, accompanied
by cheers and sighs of “koer, varmr, heitr, kaldr” and the Brothers joined
in with their own shouts of “close, warm, hot, cold.”
Finally, with whispered hints from various members, Bjorn snuck up on the apparently
sleeping monk. But as Bjorn reached under the priest’s tunic in search of
the hidden ball, Finten grabbed his wrist and bellowed, “Do you take me while I am
sleeping? You are desperate, my poor fellow, but I have a vow, and my vow applies to
women and to men. I cannot satisfy you asleep or awake. For shame.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763106

Savages and Beasts

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on to Father Jerome and having a smirk on her face she left.
Mary, who couldn’t stay longer either since her working hours
had started, gave Anton another deep kiss and left; but just before
she walked out of his door she turned and whispered to him, I
love you which made Anton’s day.
During the breakfast the children ate without any incident
and soon after Anton having shared his coffee with Mary,
left to go and check on Dylan. Anton by nature and internally
always recognized and related to the misery of the world in such
a strange way that he believed it was inescapable, therefore something
one has to survive by standing up to it and fighting and that
way he felt he could discover where his sense of justice was laid.
This was his feeling this morning driving to the hospital and a
stressful sensation overconsumed his mind. Truly, this was his
feeling when he arrived at the hospital and went to Dylan’s room,
though he didn’t find him there. The nurse supervising that section
informed him that most unfortunately Mr. Kelly had passed.
“When? What happened?” Anton questioned.
“The doctor will see you soon,” the nurse replied.
Soon, the doctor who was looking after Dylan appeared
and took Anton on the side. An aneurism, he said, an aortic aneurism,
something building inside Mr. Kelly for some time caused
a sudden rupture of his aorta. Cigarettes contributed to it, so did
unhealthy food habits and unhealthy lifestyle, the doctor opined.
They did all they could. He bled profusely, nothing could be
done; he bled to death in just five minutes.
Anton was stunned. He couldn’t utter a word. Didn’t know
what he could say. What one says in such situations? He left the
hospital. He drove to the Residential School not even paying attention
to anything as if dazed, absorbed in his thoughts. He walked
to Dylan’s room, his room now, and sat behind the small desk.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

Jazz with Ella

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Elizabeth and the other a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. The two laughing women that accompanied Slava looked on with interest.
“Let me give you something in return.” A dignified Slava reciprocated with two artistically decorated stamps from his album, which he had brought along for this purpose. Lona, who was seated at the next table, apparently took her cue from Jennifer because she also rummaged in her purse for a gift, pulled out an American nickel, and began explaining the significance of the buffalo to a group of enraptured young men.
By the time the party broke up, some two hours later, the students and visitors had warmed to each other. Jennifer had learned something about their lives: their brothers and sisters, their schools, their music and their anxiety that they would somehow discredit themselves in front of their superiors on the day’s visit—this last concern added in a whisper. She glanced around. But their commissar was still engrossed in conversation with Chopyk and both Ivan Nikolaevich and Natasha had disappeared—presumably leaving the group in good hands. What a relief, Jennifer thought. Finally, Nadezdha brayed her goodbyes to Chopyk, while Lona exchanged addresses with at least four of the panting youths.
Just before he left the dining room, Slava turned to Jennifer. “Stay with us, Zhennifer, please. You can have a good life here. Stay with us.” She was stunned by the request and could only smile and shake her head. Good god, were any of the others asked to stay?
As she walked the trio down to the wharf and waved them goodbye, she did not notice that Paul had also walked his new friend, Vera, to the bus and was now standing behind a copse of rowan trees on the footpath. And if she had not been so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she would have overheard Vera explain to Nadezhda that she would not take the bus back with the others, but instead walk to her father’s farm, only one kilometre down the road.
“On your way, then, Vera Fyodorovna,” the political commissar called out to her. “Get there before dark.”
“See you later, Nadezhda Ivanova,” she called out happily as she ran toward the rowan trees.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

In Turbulent Times

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But those same powers—satanic or divine, according to opinions prevailing from time immemorial—held her in their grip and demanded annual or even more frequent submission ever since. Her epileptic seizures were a constantly gnawing concern to Liam while Nora was his pupil and a cause of fright, excitement and storytelling among the other children in the school. Dr Alexander had declared that the fits were simply the result of some slight brain damage that Nora had suffered when she was born and that they were nothing to be alarmed about. More malicious tongues blamed the incompetence of the still unqualified medical student, Clifford Hamilton, who had been called against his will to perform a placenta previa delivery by Caesarean section on a wild, wet winter night when no other doctor was available. Local people said that he should never have been summoned that night to take control of such a difficult delivery. Dr Alexander, the current Corrymore doctor, admitted the possibility that someone more experienced than Clifford Hamilton might have handled the birth with greater proficiency but he added that the delivery was a difficult one in any case, and no one could guarantee that a more experienced doctor would in fact have done any better. To this day Dr Alexander commended Clifford for what he did under such testing circumstances. ‘If there is any brain damage,’ Dr Alexander often said, ‘it is obviously very slight and will not do the child any harm. You can see she is a budding genius already.’
҂
Nora bore her handicap with a fortitude unexpected in a girl so young, so insecure, so vulnerable, and for this Liam admired her. He took it upon himself to give this quick, intelligent girl, stumbling even at the start of her journey into womanhood, more than ordinary care. He could not resist the mute appeal for sympathy, for help, for encouragement that precocious pride had silenced in the darkness of her eyes. He could not resist the serious determination of the unformed scholar to escape from that strangely disturbed and disturbing mentality. He could see instinctively the intelligence that hid within that young but tortured mind as the sculptor saw the future form within the blank whiteness of his ivory or his marble. Patiently Liam worked upon it, chiselling away slowly and watching the chips of ignorance and childish superstition fall away upon the schoolroom floor.
All of Liam’s pupils were output shaped from blocks of stone or clods of clay or challenging curves of ivory. Passionately devoted to his art, Liam was happiest in the theatre of his creations.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Arrows

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A numbing chill crept up my legs. Something warm wet my
backside. It must have been the pain that made me lose
consciousness, because afterwards it became apparent the arrow
had not gone deep. It had been stopped by the bone inmyshoulder.
The last thing I remembered was seeing Apacuana running
towards me.

“Apacuana! Apacuana!”
It had to be a dream. A strange girl’s voice startled me back into
consciousness. I was lying on the ground. I kept still with my eyes
closed, drifting back into sleep, when I heard Apacuana’s voice
much closer to me, answering back. Merciful heaven! What was going
on? A sharp pain shot from my neck to my shoulder, reminding me
that I had nearly been killed by stampeding horses and an arrow. I
turned my head gingerly. My head slid over the polished surface of
the big leaves upon which I lay—plantain leaves. I unglued my
eyelids and looked around me. What was this place? A cave?
The dirt floor was damp and cool, the air musty with a slight
pungency. I glanced in the direction of two young women who were
talking fast. I could see their figures silhouetted against the bright light
of the entrance. I gathered that the other girl was urging Apacuana to
go with her. The word Baruta came through several times, always
accompanied by a certain apprehension in their manner.
Apacuana was holding a small gourd, which she handed to the
girl while signalling in my direction. The other girl glanced at me
apprehensively, but her eyes sparkled when she discovered I was
awake. Apacuana left the cave, crawling through the opening. The
other girl, whose voice I had heard first, came towards me, gourd in
hand. She knelt beside me and stirred the gourd’s contents, her
young breasts pointing downward as though weighted by the many
loops of the seed necklace she wore.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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She could barely restrain herself from making a second
public accusation.
“You might get the answer to your question if you asked our
friend, Gregorio,” I replied, looking at Gregorio instead of Josefa.
Gregorio immediately understood. He grabbed Josefa by the arm
to forcibly remove her. I stood rooted to the ground, hoping he
would drag her away and that could be the end of it. But Josefa
remained feisty and broke away from him, running to me with a
pained expression. She leaned forward and whispered devilishly in
my ear, so that only I could hear. “I know what happened at the
river,” she said. “I know everything. I know you let her touch you!”
I jerked back from her, as though she had slapped me in the face.
The servant, she had seen me, and Josefa could barely contain the
power she had over me. There was no point in trying to deny
anything. I walked away, horrified by Josefa’s misplaced jealousy,
and dumbfounded by my inability to eradicate her secret
knowledge.
Right then, I decided I did not want to learn whether Apacuana
had bitten Josefa or not. There was a part of me that hoped she had.

In the morning, when Losada was notified of the incident, he
preferred to dismiss it as mere female hysteria rather than discern
which party was responsible. It was the prudent decision: to
concentrate on completing his negotiations with the cacique Chacao.
After mass, Losada ordered the captives brought to him and untied.
“We want to be your friends. You see we have not harmed you,”
Losada told Chacao. “We can decide to do this in peace, or we can do
it in war. We are powerful. To show you my goodwill, I give you all
your people back.”
Chacao was a middle-aged man with deep lines running down
the sides of his nose to his mouth in a permanent scowl. He did not
answer, just stood there, hands folded in front of him. It was
important for him not to appear grateful for Losada’s benevolence.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Still Waters

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nterior stunned her, and she felt a twinge of guilt. This must be terribly
expensive. Why had Cam chosen such a place? To impress her?
But he appeared at ease in their surroundings, was recognized by
both the maitre’de and the wine steward, and had obviously been
here often. Determined to enjoy the evening and the company of
the man who had lavished attention on her since the moment he
had appeared at the door of her apartment, she settled back in the
delightfully comfortable chair and relaxed.
Until the wine was brought and their order taken, they made small
talk about the hospital, his parents and her family in Emblem. Then
Cam smiled and raised his glass.
“To our meeting again, and to our future meetings. Together we’ll
set the Holy Cross on fire.”
He touched his glass to hers, then put it down and looked at her
soberly. “I want to ask you something – at the risk of having you tell
me to mind my own business.”
“Ask away.” She knew what was coming, but her spirits were too
high tonight to be dashed by the mention of Morley’s name.
“Are you … that is, are you still seeing Morley?”
Tyne raised her glass to her lips, and looked steadily into Cam’s
eyes. “No,” she said.
“Oh.”
He appeared baffled by her brief, straightforward answer as if he
had expected her to simper and evade his question. Well, she was
through simpering over Morley Cresswell. He had dumped her, and
that was that … all in the past … over … done. And why should she
care? She did not need a stubborn, pig-headed, unsympathetic farmer
in her life. Was she not here, in this posh restaurant, being wined
and dined by the handsomest intern the Holy Cross had ever had the
honour of admitting to its program? And was he not looking at her
with the fondest admiration? So she did not need Morley Cresswell.
Goodbye, good riddance.
Tyne put her glass on the table with a thump. And to her horror
and distress she burst into tears.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Savages and Beasts

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“Yes, I do. I’ve been in this position for almost five years
and since my first month, one November night, around nine
o’clock I was paid a visit by the Head Master of this facility,
Father Jerome, who, that night for the first time but not the last
violated me in the most disgusting way; He has been doing this
occasionally, whenever he would feel up to it, no questions asked
no permissions granted…”
“Father Jerome” Anton talked to himself, “somehow the
impression I got for the man, the first time I met him, was that
he would never take no for an answer…”
Mary turned a little so her eyes would dive deep in Anton’s
and smiled at him. Her smile seemed forced, stressed smile, yet it
was her smiling lips that Anton looked at and enjoyed their shape
and promising tomorrow. She took his hand before she continued.
“Yes Sister Gladys and Father Jerome are lovers, for a long
time, I’d say from the day of his arrival here, they seem to match
in many different ways and the way our rooms are lined upstairs,
you’d notice when you come for some reason upstairs and spend
time you’ll realize that her room is next to Sister Helen’s and next
to hers is mine, all the men’s rooms are on the opposite side of
the upstairs hallway with Father Jerome’s in the middle. He’d
just walk out of his and within ten or so feet he accesses Sister
Gladys’ room or mine.”
She stopped and took a breath, the freshness of the August
day just outside the truck window and the freshness of the slow
flowing water of the Thompson River blew certain moist on her
face moistening it; she pulled Anton closer to her and kissed him.
“Sister Gladys followed Father Jerome each time he paid a
visit to me and since she saw me as a competitor who I never have
been nor would I ever want to become, in fact each time Father
Jerome came to my room, he plainly and simply raped me,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602