Faerytaleish Pinterest Contest: Eric Martell

This #Faerypin entry created by Eric Martell (@drmagoo on Twitter)

Doors

The old stories spoke of endings. It’s all endings or beginnings, he thought. The old stories all began the same way. “A door, a way, a path, and we pass through. But doors open to those on both sides of the wall.” He remembered his favorite story as a child, of the ancient kings, obsessed with obsession, passing through the same door at the same time without seeing each other, so blinded by their desires they were. There was wisdom there, wisdom he wished all shared, and yet few even sought.

There were some who prayed for endings, he knew. Some who wanted to see what The Enemy looked like, as if it mattered. Fools they were, and more. Whatever hopes they’d had, were frail and tenuous at their best, and now had passed through a door someone who should have known better swung wide.

He knew that the knocks on his own door would come soon. Mothers with babes, young men who had eyed a shop of their own, and the nobles, thinking that hunks of metal and rock, however pretty, mattered at a time like this.

But the shadows outlined the shape of the open door in the courtyard. He wanted to close it, lock it, bar it with stone and steel, but he knew the old stories too well. The Enemy had seen the open door, and knew what it meant, as he did. It knew the magic of the Invitation.

Doors open to those on both sides of the wall, he thought, and knew what he had to do next. Watching the shadows, he stepped through the door at just the right time, and felt the brush of The Enemy as they passed. Behind him, the screams began. And ended.

Inspired by: http://pinterest.com/pin/179158891396699858/

The Serendipity of Parent Matching

I sat in the molded red plastic chair in the hallway, staring at my bare feet. I tried wiggling one big toe and then the other. They wiggled appropriately, but I still sort of wished for a magazine or something, if I were able to read.

“NEXT!” called out the voice, booming down the empty corridor. I looked to my left and my right and saw no one, so I hopped down and toddled into the office. It was full of bookshelves filled with musty books. The dust motes caught the sunlight and sparkled, a legion of fireflies.

“Name?” came the voice again. I tried to peer over the edge of the desk to see the voice. All I could see was a podge of thinning brown hair, combed over neatly to cover a burgeoning bald spot.

“Um, don’t have one yet,” said I, tremulously.

“I know that,” was the impatient reply, “What do you wish to be called?”

“How about Brunhilde?”

“Surely you’re joking,” the bald spot bobbed and weaved as he turned another page of the massive book in front of him,”Best to choose a nice inoffensive name, like Sarah or Ellen. That will give you a lot more choices.”

“I think they should pick my name,” I offered, doing my best to keep the sulky out of my voice. “I mean, I hope I can find a pair with good taste.”

“What else?” His voice was disinterested, rather the aural equivalent of picking one’s nose and flicking it at the wall.

“Well, I’d like it if they were smart people. The kind that you could talk to about Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln and…um, paradigms.”

“Don’t pretend you know what any of those things are yet. What else?”

I crawled up into the arm chair across from the desk, but it was still a low squishy well of leather. I did manage to see the voice’s eyebrows, though; they were like ungroomed caterpillars and rather expressive.

“They should be funny. Not take each other too seriously. Maybe they could sing while they vacuum. I’d like it if they could laugh at themselves and at me too. Maybe the dad could teach me how to make funny faces in the mirror and how to dance like he’s starring in a Cecil B. DeMille musical. Maybe the mom could show me how to mummify a Barbie Doll and how to direct a room full of unruly people into doing what you need them to do.” I piped up, in a voice quite unlike my own, “It’s called ACT-ING!”

The caterpillars crawled across the furrows of his brow to a quizzical position, “This seems like a fairly specific request,” he said, rather suspiciously, “You haven’t been peeping in The Book, have you?”

“No sir,” I said, meek, hands folded in my lap in the primmest fashion.

He sighed and flipped a few more pages, the fuzzy wiggles of his brow descending towards the type. “There is one possibility here,” he said dubiously, “There’s a couple here that fulfills your requirements.”

“Really?” I perked up instantly, “Will they take me on trips to museums and nature trails and force-screen awful science fiction movies and black and white classics? Will they love me and help me, even when it’s questionable that I deserve either? Will they put me to sleep with Booshky Cream and sing You are My Sunshine and Side by Side and The Monkey Song? Will they make me cry when they sing On Top of Spaghetti with a fatal ending? Will they encourage me to write and sing and dance and do all manner of things which are not profitable in the world?”

The book slammed shut indignantly, “You, miss, have been reading The Book! How would you possibly know all that?”

I gave the only answer I could: “Because it’s my destiny.”

Finally, the voice and the bald spot and the eyebrows worked in conjunction and almost looked and sounded as though they were smiling, “Well. Well. Door 11C.”

“Thank you!” I chirped and wandered down the empty hall till I came to 11C. I opened the door and walked into the great white light and towards the parents I was meant to be with.

—–

This post is dedicated to my parents, on their anniversary. I’m not certain how I ended up with wonderful them, but this seems as feasible an explanation as any.

Fate, I owe you one.

by Artist 3001

Secret Garden

The Secret Garden by Tasha Tudor

When I was younger, I had a copy of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The cover had a single illustration by Tasha Tudor (above). I used to lay on my bed and stare at this picture. I wanted to discover a secret garden, more than anything. I was a plain little girl, just like Mary, and with a smart mouth too. I wanted a walled-in mystery, blooming in secret.


/ Come spirit, come charm
Come days that are warm
Come magical spell
Come help him get well /

Whenever I envision my little cottage by the sea, it always has a walled garden, with tangled wild roses behind ivy-draped walls. Never mind that I have no skill in gardening or even, really, the ability to keep potted plants alive. Apparently, the invisible gardeners will tend to them. The same ones that rake the paths and mulch the beds and weed and spray for bugs.

This garden should be behind an overgrown door with a rusty lock. The kind that only opens with a key hidden away. There should be stone benches beneath sagging willows and gurgling fountains ringed in green. There will be wild lavender and herbs and reckless overgrown roses and the smell will be transcendent.

On late sunny afternoons, when the shadows are long on the lawn, the only sound will be the buzzing of fat, self-satisfied bees, and the tinky-trickle of the water and the rush-rush of the wind through the branches.

There, the only other sound is the beat of my heart and I will be able to write to its content.

/ I need a place where I can go,
Where I can whisper what I know,
Where I can whisper who I like
And where I go to see them.

I need a place where I can hide,
Where no one sees my life inside,
Where I can make my plans, and write them down
So I can read them.

A place where I can bid my heart be still
And it will mind me.
A place where I can go when I am lost,
And there I’ll find me.

I need a place to spend the day,
Where no one says to go or stay,
Where I can take my pen and draw
The girl I mean to be /