Two Women and Some Books
The collected ‘wisdom’ of seven decades on this planet condensed into limerick form. Certainly not philosophy to live your life by…
When the poor and unloved f-bombs died
I’ll admit that I lay down and sighed
For the poor orphaned f**k
That ran out of luck
I looked into my beer and I cried
In The Library at Castle Herriot by Stephanie Barr, Sophia is a repressed literature teacher, afraid of love and passion and spontaneity after watching her mother’s trip into madness after her father’s death. She’s hoping for a quiet little holiday in a lodge in Scotland to, well, read. A naughty cat, a brutal thunderstorm, and a few missteps bring her to Castle Herriot, an occupied castle on an island in the loch, where she’s like to be trapped a day or so with its eccentric keeper. At least it has a library.
But in this library, is a hidden library that Sophia finds—and it’s never coincidence—and she gets lost in the pages of one of the special books inside. When she stumbles back out with the unfinished book, she finds she’s lost in a whole different way.
“You expect me to believe that removing this book from the little secret room has transported us all back in time and that we’re trapped here in a storybook until the events have played out. You think I’ll believe that?”
“It doesn’t matter if you can believe it or not. It’s the Gods’ own truth. Would you fight me so hard if part of you didn’t already believe?”
She cradled the book in her hands as the hairs on her arm lifted again. She knew, absolutely, that this was the same book that she had read so many hours the night before, that he hadn’t changed it. She had. With tears starting in her eyes, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Wisht, darlin’, now don’t be crying. Tis a hardship, right enough, but you didn’t know what would happen.” Charly scratched his head, clearly at a loss as the first tear fell down her cheek. “It’s the problem with secrets; you can’t rightly warn a body without giving it away. Dry your tears, won’t you? I canna bear it.”
“What can we do?” she asked.
The tears stopped and Charly breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, it’s complicated. There are some rather challenging aspects of this story, some that may be hard for one or both of us to stomach. But, if we don’t carry the story on to the end, we’ll never get back to our own world.”
“We’ll be trapped?”
“Aye.” He seemed about to say something else but didn’t.
Sophia refilled her cup. “Well? Don’t you know what happens? You talked like you knew what will happen.”
“It doesn’t work that way, sweetheart. I know the pivotal parts of the book, those steps that we must fulfill if we want to escape the book. I know what the outside characters do, as long as we follow the plans, because that part doesn’t change. But there’s no telling that you and me will do what needs doing when it needs doing.”
Sophia frowned over this last bit and kept sipping coffee while she mused. “Nope, I don’t see the problem. If you know the script, all we have to do is read our lines.”
“Well,” Charly temporized. “There’s a few potential hitches. First, the book, like most of them from that room, only provides the pivotal events we’re responsible for. It’s from the point of view of that belligerent bear out there. The lines, as you say, and details are left for us to fill in, ad-lib as they say in the states. Secondly, some of the pivotal events don’t sit very well with me; in fact, they scare me senseless, and I’m not sure you’ll like a few yourself.”
“I’ve changed my own mother’s nappies. If I have to do something unpleasant, I should be able to.”
Charly paled a bit. “Ah, well, perhaps unpleasant may not be the right word, but that leads me to the third thing. I can’t tell you what to do. You’ll have to decide for yourself.”
“Good God, why?”
You can also read a free precursor story on the origin of this library called Altered Page.
A Bite of… Stephanie Barr
On the one hand, not very much, less probably than my average heroine (I try to have as little in common with my villains as I can because I tend toward really nasty villains). She’s book-smart in the old-fashioned meaning of book smart/bookish and is almost a caricature of that stereotype when we begin. She’s not assertive. She dresses super frumpy. She’s not adventurous. BUT she’s also severely traumatized, first by the death of her father while she was a teenager and secondly by caring for a mother who responded to his death with a descent into madness. Between the two events, her own grieving and her creativity and imagination are set aside to deal with necessities. Even after her mother is out of the picture and she doesn’t have the same challenges, she’s caught in a tight world she demanded of no surprises and minimal passion. To her, loving someone wholeheartedly equates with insanity.
Now, obviously, I haven’t let go my creativity and imagination, but the need for security in my everyday life, I can identify with that with Sophy, the growing up ahead of time, the fear of uncertainty. I’m not much for traveling and adventure. I do love to curl up with a good book. And she has some of my OCD quirks, like hating to watch a movie in the theater if she misses the first few minutes. All or nothing. And I love that way.
I’m also readily thrown when my equilibrium/routine is disrupted and I don’t have a game plan for escape. So, we have that in common, too. Maybe there’s more of me than I first thought.
You’ll be pleased to know I don’t share her love of decadent underwear. Nor do I have an obsession with coffee. But I do like cats. 😊
I have never created a world I’d rather be in than my current self (that might change with a future book, but so far it holds steady). In fact, for this book, that’s part of the point, slipping into a romantic world of seventh-century Scotland and not sugar-coating the hard labor and inconveniences, the lack of caffeine and plumbing, the miserable role most women were pushed into, the miserable existence for much of the poor. All that gets highlighted because it’s one of the reasons the past isn’t much of an allure to me.
Most of my fantasy is set in similar times so, no, I don’t wish I was there. My space sci fi has its own challenges. The closest to being comfortable is my near-term SF like Saving Tessa where it’s much like now only more so (and more environmentally friendly) or Catalyst which is pretty much set in the now. But those are variations on my here and now and not really new worlds. So far, I haven’t made a new world that I like better than now.
Ignorance—pure ignorance—can be cured. Stupidity is harder and not the same from person to person. Generally, I would stupidity can be cured, too, with patience. You can’t teach a person to be clever so much but you can help people who struggle in some areas to work around them, to find methods to deal with them, to find the aspects of their intelligence that works best. No one is stupid at everything. Innocent ignorance and stupidity can be cured for anyone willing to make the effort (and who can find good instruction).
But they have to want to be. Willful ignorance, the kind that revels in their own lack of intellect, those who refuse to learn or even acknowledge different views, that is much harder to cure. And, it’s been my observation, people who are willfully ignorant fit in every segment of society and do a great deal of damage. Once you’ve decided you already know, that you have “common sense” so don’t need those pesky facts, that being intelligent and questioning things is the sign of a fool, it is very hard to cure ignorance or the limited logic used to lock that ignorance in place.
So my answer is wilful ignorance (which is stupid, in my opinion), so the combination?
Although Stephanie Barr is a slave to three children and a slew of cats, she actually leads a double life as a part-time novelist and full-time rocket scientist. People everywhere have learned to watch out for fear of becoming part of her stories. Beware! You might be next!
If you wish, you can find her on Twitter, Facebook, her website, her blog or miss nothing and sign up for her newsletter!
He felt safe and secure behind his screen, in a comfortable chair with the remains of a take out close to hand, ordered online.
Flitting through social media, picking, choosing. Writing pithy, well-deserved comments and sharing his astute observations.
All anonymous.
Smart speaker close at hand, controlling his smart home – even monitoring the new doorbell that protected his house.
He didn’t see the data being gathered. Noting when he had visitors, recording his purchases, how often and when. Tracking his every mouse click, knowing everywhere he visited online – even places he’d never admit to his closest friends…
Safe and secure?
Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook . Sometimes we walk the edges of realty…
CHAPTER FIVE: JESSICA
It still did not seem real. How could it. This was not any kind of real world. But it was not a dream either. Somewhere between the two was an intersection of experience where none of the verities of reality could be assumed, but the utter chaos of dream was somehow still held at bay.
It happened as she walked to the throne. She felt the rightness of it as if some deep part of herself was nodding agreement with her actions. It was as if a flow of wisdom welled up in her psyche.
“I can do this,” she thought, mouthing the words as she took her seat on the throne. The strange sense of self-and-yet-other, intensified and she realised it was almost as if two of her was seated on the throne. One herself, wearing the flared jeans and purple polo-neck and the other wearing long skirts, a mantle and a cloak, the fabric pooling at her feet.
There was no sense of separation or dissonance, just the flowing of one into the other, like two tributaries of a river joining to flow on together to the sea. But Jessica had no time to consider the significance of it, or even to question what she felt about it. As her hands curled over the serpent heads of the throne, the serpents writhed beneath her touch and cast coils around her arms, acknowledging her right to be there, embracing her not restraining her.
From where she sat it was as if every part of this strange catacombic underworld was visible to her. She could cast her thoughts up and see Annis, arms round her cats, watching and wondering. She could reach out and sense the shifting depths of darkness where the Old Ones moved beneath the earth. She saw the pinioned vampire and as if at her unspoken command, the creatures around him slithered back into gloom.
No longer restrained Roald, pushed himself up from the slab of dark stone and stood staring at her, something of both yearning and desperation in his eyes. Jessica watched as he seemed to flicker between the handsome human form and the bone-grey near skeletal one she had seen in the fair. She realised then that was why Annis had taken her from the safety of the Sanctuary. In the midst of the fair he could not hold his human form against the powers of life and death which met there. She had needed to see it, see him as he really was, if she had not then she would still see him only in his gorgeous human form.
The other part of her knew only the viking Roald, clad in fine furs and wool, his braided beard and golden, on bended knee. Beguiling and beautiful. Telling her how the gulls themselves saluted her as they wheeled over the headland. The high headland where he tried to…
The sunken cheeks and cold-burning eyes filled her vision. He was impossibly fast, impossibly strong, impossibly no longer on the other side of the cavern, but there infront of her, black withered lips pulled back from the row of shark teeth, jaw impossibly wide to close on her throat.
The shots sounded like thunder, booming across a charged summer night and the grotesque head flung back and away, old blood, dark and slow as if in part congealed, fell in liquid clots onto the stone and deep within the core of the earth itself, something sighed in delight.
Part 15 of Maybe will be here next week…
Love in times of Coronavirus
Isn’t about sex
It’s about taking precautions
And wondering who is next
Love in days of quarantine
Isn’t bulkly buying
It’s getting stuff for other folk
Alone and lonely sighing
Love in times of distancing
Isn’t about skin to skin
It’s about calling on the phone
When you can’t be dropping in
It’s about yelling over the fence
Across the street conversations
Trying to be sociable
Without leaving your station
Enjoy the opening of Dying on the Mosaics, one of The Dai and Julia Mysteries by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago set in a Britain where the Roman Empire never left, which is free to download 18-22 April.
The cheap baths in Londinium were not the most salubrious place to meet but needs must when times demanded. At first he thought no one was there, then a changing cubicle opened. The man who emerged looked much older than he expected and a slight tic flickered in the corner of his eye. They had been friends once, but now there were other bonds that tied them.
The man with the tic washed his hands and under the cover of the sound of running water, murmured. “You have to do something. This could destroy me – destroy us, destroy the entire consortium.”
It was interesting to see how weak and vulnerable a proud man could become. Contemptible but interesting.
“Don’t worry. Fortunately for you I’ve been thinking ahead and will be in a good place to deal with it.”
The man with the tic nodded, their eyes meeting in the mirror for a moment, then turned and walked out. He had left the data drive in the cubicle as arranged and it was a moment’s work to pocket it and walk out.
I
Ante Diem Septimum Idus September MDCCLXXVIII Anno Diocletiani
The body lay sprawled on the cold, mosaic floor of the Basilica Viriconia. Dai found irreverent and irrelevant thoughts going through his mind about how having a murder scene so close to the Vigiles House was so convenient and considerate of the killer. He recognised them for what they were. An instinctive protection against the horror.
And horror this was.
The headless corpse had been carefully arranged so its posture fitted to the Caput Deum, the head of the Divine Diocletian, picked out on the floor there as it was in every official building in the Empire. Haloed in tiny golden tiles, it replaced in two dimensions the murder victims own head. The body was naked, male, and the only obvious identifying mark was the silver ring of Citizenship. Whoever this was they were most-likely Romano-British.
“Same M.O. as the last one,” Senior Investigator Bryn Catrivel observed. “This is getting sick and creepy, Bard.”
His familiar tone and form of address drew an odd look from the other man present, Sextus Catus Bestia who had recently taken up the role of Magistratus for Demetae and Cornovii. Recently enough, Dai knew that he had yet to realise Bryn and Dai were long time friends and work partners. That they had served together in the Vigiles in Londinium for eight years before Dai was appointed to be Submagistratus based here in Viriconium.
Dai looked around the broad expanse of the civic building’s portico and noticed the dead-eyed cameras.
“They even found a way to take the surveillance offline, I’m guessing.”
The Magistratus cleared his throat. His long face looking distinctly sallow beneath the carefully trimmed black hair. He lifted one hand, palm forward, the heavy gold patrician ring of Citizenship very obvious on his index finger.
“Um. I’m terribly afraid that might be my fault. I was testing it late yesterday afternoon and I told the disadattatus I would restore it to normal mode as it was the end of his working day, but I must have forgotten and I suppose it stayed down overnight. Mea culpa. Isn’t there a night watchman of some sort?”
“Used to be, dominus,” Bryn said heavily. “Until Aprilis. That was when the last man retired and as the automatic surveillance had been upgraded it wasn’t felt necessary to replace him.”
“Oh dear. That is not good, not good at all.” The Magistratus looked profoundly unhappy and shook his head. “The poor, poor man.”
Dai was wondering whether the ‘poor man’ in question was the retiring watchman, the disadattatus or the deceased when he caught the look Bryn sent him.
“Dominus, we should allow SI Cartivel to continue this murder investigation. As long as we are here it is getting in the way of what he needs to do.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.” He started walking towards his office and Dai walked with him leaving Bryn giving clipped and efficient orders to his team. “Two Roman Citizens killed in this bizarre way.” He frowned heavily. “Wasn’t there some extreme Anti-Roman group operating in this area recently?”
“Yes, dominus. We had an unpleasant encounter with such a group last year. But they were dealt with conclusively.”
“Such evil can grow deep roots and spring up like mushrooms. But if you are certain, Llewellyn…” He trailed off as another thought clearly distracted him. “Considering how this is going I think I should take over the investigation myself.”
Dai felt his guts tighten. The new Magistratus had been in Viriconium for less than three weeks and in that time the impression he had made was not one to inspire any confidence in his ability to lead an investigation.
“Might I suggest, dominus that as you are still settling in and are not fully acquainted with the local circumstances, it might be better to let me do so.”
The Magistratus stopped on the spot.
“Well isn’t that the point? How am I ever going to get to know how things are here if I don’t jump in and get my hands dirty? Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be breathing down the neck of the local Vigiles – I’m sure they know what they need to do, I’ll just be overseeing not interfering. This is the kind of thing that can echo all the way to Augusta Trevorum and even Rome, you know. I just want to keep across it so if there is any come back I am the one who gets to do the testudu and your Vigiles won’t have to worry about taking any flak.”
Dai stifled the urge to snap that the Vigiles wouldn’t need any protecting if they were just left to do their job, but clearly the Magistratus meant well and was trying to show care and consideration for his subordinates.
The Magistratus placed a heavy hand on Dai’s shoulder.
“I know I have a very large set of sandals to fill to be able to measure up to Magistratus Ambrosius, but I want my people to know I have their backs. So I’ll have my primus secretarius – what’s his name again? Turtle? Turnbull? Terfel. That’s it – arrange for SI Cartivel to brief me twice daily and on any key developments. I can provide any support and resources as the investigation might require.” He nodded as if well satisfied by his own solution to the issue then smiled encouragingly at Dai. “It’ll be for the best.”
To keep reading FOR FREE (18 – 22 April) click here to download the novella.
The clouds all roll like breakers ‘cross the ocean of the sky
White horses a-chasing greys, with dapples running by
The thunderheads, black stallions a-gallop with the gale
As howls the call of the banshee storm bringing sleet and hail.
The trees bend low before the wind, which makes like autumn spring
As leaves and twigs and buds and flowers they rip away and fling
The hollow roar of taunting gusts, the pounding of the rain
The water from the river floods the fields and drowns the lane.
The fingers of the tempest from the roofs rips slates free
Vital pylons are brought down by gusts of o’er eighty
The human world turned upsidedown as wounded nature ranges
Unseasonal and more extreme, and still the climate changes…
Hola niños.
In a spirit of kindness and the immolation of self upon the altar of mutual aid and comfort, one has undertaken to answer literary questions posed by one’s students and their little friends.
This particular problem is one that faces many of us as we strive to draw inspiration from the people around us. I have often found myself wondering if my next door neighbour has yet realised that he has been immortalised in my pen portrait of the evil villain in Chapter Thirteen of ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’.
Dear Ivy,
How do I include my annoying mother-in-law as a murder victim in my next novel without risking a divorce?
Thanking you for your kind attention.
Penny.
This is an absolutely spiffing question Pennykins. The answer is, of course, a matter of complete simplicity to a mind as great as one’s own…
Describe the lady in every irritating little detail.
Enumerate her most revolting habits. Show the reader how she speaks, snores, breaks wind, misunderstands, and annoys. Detail her physicality, how she dresses, and how her voice sounds. Because she will NEVER recognise herself, and her offspring will equally not ever connect their beloved mother with the horror depicted in your prose. You are absolutely safe. Kill her off. With impunity. Or with whatever blunt, or sharp, instrument pleases you. Those who dislike her will recognise the old beldame and applaud your perspicacity. Her loved ones will never catch the reference.
Oh, and be sure to include the statement at the front of your book that all names, characters and events in the story are fictitious and that no identification with actual persons (living or deceased), is intended or should be inferred. Then even the law is on your side.
Win. Win.
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV
If you have a literary problem you may avail yourself of one’s wisdom by posting to my Facebook presence.
You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.
Sana stopped walking to work along the main street.
They’d be there. Men and women. Silent, hostile glares or shouting abuse.
“Come here! I’ve got some letters to post.” Laughter.
“I bet you wear that cos you’re an ugly cow underneath it.”
“Why don’t you return to your own country?”
“We don’t want your sort here.”
“Terrorist!
Like they thought it their right and she should be ashamed.
She daren’t shout back or tell them how she felt.
Persecuted.
Vilified.
Furious.
Women had been attacked for that – even killed.
So Sana walked an extra mile to work to avoid them.
When he reached the top of the steps he was met by a sweet-faced acolyte carrying a lantern.
“Good sir,” she said with gentle politeness, “our lady awaits you in the garden, may I escort you thither?”
He bowed floridly.
“That would be my pleasure.” His eyes rested on the girl’s smooth brown throat and the modest swell of her breasts. He thought he might come back one day for a bite of this tasty little morsel. But he followed her quietly enough, clasping his hands behind his back and emptying his mind of carnal thoughts.
The garden to which he was conducted was walled, and accessed via a green-painted wooden door. The acolyte curtseyed and gestured for him to enter. Once he was inside, the girl closed the door quietly behind him, before making the sign to ward off evil.
“Faugh,” she said, “he even smells of Her Majesty’s malice.”
Inside the garden, M’a’tsu found himself walking along a narrow grassy path beside a burbling stream. It wasn’t a comfortable walk as, although the path was lit with little twinkling star-like lights, the dragon had to bend his head to avoid the spiky undersides of the gunnera leaves that formed a green tunnel. When he stepped out into the moonlight he found himself blinking for a second in the brightness.
The princess was sitting on a velvety bank that was starred with tiny flowers which filled the air with a fugitive sweet fragrance. She turned her eyes to look at him, and the silver light picked out a sombre darkness in their depths that gave even M’a’tsu pause. His normally facile tongue deserted him for a moment and he stood in silence.
“Come and have a seat.”
She patted the grass and he walked towards her feeling the springy turf under his bare toes. It was still warm from the afternoon sun and the pleasure of it underfoot was almost sexual. The dragon smiled internally and regained his equilibrium. He couldn’t believe how his prey was playing into his hands. He sat down, at a careful distance from the princess. His eyes took in the long line of the princess’ neck and he allowed himself to think about his hands around that white skin as he despoiled her. The thought gave him great pleasure, but he kept his smile bland and avuncular. Or he thought he did. What he couldn’t see, or understand, was how the magic of the goddess’s garden revealed his innermost self to the gaze of his companion.
Her wide-set night-dark eyes, on the other hand, gave away nothing of what she was thinking. Banishing her inner revulsion, Tia smiled with shy modesty.
“Now then, my lord dragon, would you mind explaining why you are here?”
He gave her his shifted form’s most disarming smile and edged a little closer. “Truly, lady. I believe Her Majesty only seeks your happiness.”
“That is a change of heart since the last messenger who informed me that my lady mother had disinherited me and never wished to hear my name again.”
An extract from The Dragonheart Stories: Fairytales for Grownups by Jane Jago
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