The Visitors

It is I who chooses the time.
It is I determines the place.
All I ask is that you be present.
And whether you be in slumber, or naught,
I take no heed.
My needs are few, my requirements even less.
It is enough for me to encounter icy roads and careless drivers.
What is a slip of the scalpel when your time is nigh.
Or, a misguided drunk.
Accidents happen.
All it takes is a lift of my hand.
Then the sweet rush of air I so willingly ingest on your last exhalation.
I am death.
No appointment necessary.
Ever.

To view on Writng4all.ie click here.

The Peaceful Graveyard

Stone crosses towered crookedly above the lumpy ground. The dates commemorated dead from decades ago. Some had ashy flowers, once silk and velvet, now bleached by the sun.
But today there was no sun. The graveyard wasn't particularly frightening or classic; the stones were lopsided and unevenly arranged, but there was no hanging moss or shaded corners. Below the graves, the sea lapped against a cliff. Even that wasn't unusual, as the sea was almost always calm.
In short, the graveyard wasn't a frightening or even mildly uneasy place. It sat peacefully on the top of its hill slowly disappearing as the sea eroded closer and closer, neither in a hurry.
The graveyard wasn't a place you would find a dead body. Not a warm one.
Yet the pale hands and green dress were unmistakeably that of the mayor's daughter. The pool of blood by her head could have been anyone's, but judging by the gash on her scalp and the bloody tennis racket next to her, it was hers.
Her ex-boyfriend leant against a nearby gravestone. He was a tennis player. He was even covered in blood. However, he didn't kill her. That was painfully obvious because he was dead too.
The important things about the graveyard were that it was quiet, it was normal, and it was never visited by anyone.
The first thought in anybody's head would be to kill them here and leave their bodies for the sea to slowly get too. No one would ever find them.
Naturally, the second thought was that was exactly where everyone would look.
Sadly, no one did.

Magpie Tales #14...What the Willow Wills

She finished spooning dirt over the last plate. They were all there now, beneath the willow. Where they belonged. Of course Mother wouldn't think so, would she?
Here she came now. Assume innocent look.
'What are you up to, Claire?'
'Nothing.' Great. Now she was sure to suspect something. But she seemed distracted.
'Have you seen your sister? She was going to play tea with her dollies, and I'm missing my Blue Willow plates. You don't think she'd have taken them, do you?'
'No Mum. We all know they're off bounds.' She managed to turn away subtly, feeling her cheeks flame up.
'Not exactly, Claire, just until you're older. They need to be kept safe. Have you seen her? I'm a little worried...Those plates - they're dangerous.'
Claire felt a knot of fear in her belly.
'Why are they dangerous Mum?' She asked quickly.
'Never you mind. Oh! I do think I see your sister.'
As her mother hurried off, Claire looked down at the ground. The dirt wasn't even disturbed. Funny. She distinctly remembered piles of earth, like moles had been digging a palace.
She shrugged and ran off after her mother.

***

As Claire woke, she heard her mother talking quietly.
'She says she didn't take them. She seems to be telling the truth. Why wouldn't she? No, no. Claire would never. It just has to be Sue. The plates are beautiful, she must have wanted to use them for her tea party, and forgot she took them. You could be right. I don't think she'd be that afraid to tell me though.'
Who was her mother talking to? Claire hadn't heard the other voice. It didn't seem like it could have been her father.
Claire hurriedly shut her eyes as her mother came into the room.
She gently shook her awake.
'Claire. Claire, I need to talk to you.'
Claire swallowed.
'Did you take the plates? Please Claire, it's very important.'
Claire wanted to say yes, she couldn't bear the desperation in her mother's eyes. She shook her head.
Her mother sighed.

***

Claire wiped her eyes as she stared at the willow. It was dead.

Her mother was emerging from the doorway when she saw the tree. She put her hand to her mouth and sank to the ground.

Claire wanted to run to her, but something made her stay where she was.

Her mother reached out a hand to Claire. 

Claire turned away, afraid of what she would see in her mother's face when she realised she wasn't going to help her.

When she turned back, her mother was slumped against the door-frame. Claire walked slowly toward her; her legs felt like dead wood, straining to move faster.

When she reached her mother, she let out a sigh of relief. Her mother was looking at her. When she held out a hand to help her up, her mother didn't take it. Her eyes were glassy. She was dead.

Claire shrieked. Her sister came running from the house. She took everything in in one glance and burst into tears.

Their father built the coffin from the willow tree, and they buried her where it had stood.

When he dug the spade into the earth, they heard a clink. The set of blue willow was there, much deeper than Claire had buried them.

One plate was missing. Claire found a shard of it by the grave the next day. It showed two birds in flight, above a tree.

****

A magnificent willow tree grew over her grandmother's grave. Alice sat beneath it every day. 

Today she felt odd, but she couldn't place why. She had never liked the set of Blue Willow plates, but she wanted to hold them. She could bury them! Wouldn't that be fun? Mum had said "off limits," but surely she wouldn't mind that much would she?

When she held them, she felt sudden urge to run to the shed, take a shovel, and bury them as fast as she could. She held one up before she buried it. It was marked on the back. It said Claire. She turned another over. Alice.

She jumped and dropped it. Her mother had said they were hundreds of years old - that's why she couldn't touch them - but it had her name on it.

Alice watched it as it fell, like the world was holding it's breath. It hit a root and cracked. Alice gasped, she had felt a pain near her heart, like when she had broken her wrist, but much worse.

It rolled down the hill. Alice couldn't move, she was rooted like a tree, watching it spin away. It hit and rock and flew into the air. Alice felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as it landed and shattered. The world spun, and she felt exhausted. She closed her eyes.

***

'Alice?'

She thought she could hear her mother faintly. She wrenched her eyes open. Her mother was standing over her. She was clutching a Blue Willow plate to her chest. It had been glued together, but the cracks still showed. And a shard was missing.

'Alice, I was afraid - ' she sobbed into her arm. 'I thought - " She reached out and hugged Alice to her.

Alice wrinkled her nose. It smelt here, and there was an annoying hum behind her.

'You're in hospital darling,' her mother said, recognising her confusion. 'Alice, I know you're tired, but I must ask you - Where is the other shard? Do you know?'

Alice blinked. Did she? She remembered looking at the plates, then seeing hers fall and roll. She shook her head. 

'Sorry,' she whispered.

'Oh darling, it's okay.' She sniffed violently.

'It rolled, by a rock. Then...' Then she couldn't remember.

'I'll find it, don't worry Alice.'

Alice nodded and closed her eyes. She was tired.

***

Claire dug into the earth with her hands. There wasn't a rock within yards of the tree. She had remembered her mother's death, and the shard she found afterwards. And the other plates, buried in the ground.

She couldn't find the missing piece. She cursed the willow. If she hadn't buried the plates that first time, her mother wouldn't be dead, but Alice might be.

She ran to the shed and grabbed an axe.

She roared at the willow as she swung it into the trunk. The tree creaked. She hacked at it again and again, until it fell. Then she chopped it. It was hard work, and her axe must be dulling. When she ran her finger across it, she bled. It was still sharp.

Claire didn't rest until the willow lay around her in sawdust and wood-chips. She hadn't noticed, but it had gotten dark.

The moon cast blue light over the scene. Claire laughed as she saw a shard of Blue Willow embedded in the trunk. It fit Alice's plate perfectly.

****

Alice searched the boxes for the set of Blue Willow. Her mother must have kept them somewhere. Funny though, she hadn't mentioned them in her will. Come to think of it, Alice hadn't seen them since she had returned from hospital all those years ago.

She shrugged. Who cared about some plates anyway, when she had a beautiful daughter and a lovely husband?

Alice laughed at herself a little bit as she walked toward the car, passing beneath the majestic oak tree that had grown up over her grandmother's grave.

She ran to the shed quickly. She suddenly felt the urge to bury that set of ceramic bowls.

One said Alice on the bottom.

Magpie Tales #13...His Glass Eyes

My father flicked his paintbrush across the round glass. This eye was a startling blue, staring back at him.
The eyes scared me, because they looked real. When I opened the drawer to show customers the selection, the eyes gazed up at me, sliding side to side and clinking.
My father was working on a commission for twenty-four eyes. The customer, who wanted to remain anonymous, sent servants and maids to give orders and collect eyes.
Sometimes when my father was out, I would take out an eye or two and play marbles with them. They rolled across the floor like slime, pupils fixated on the wall.
I had picked up my paintbrush and was painting an eye for the taxidermist, my father didn't trust me with human eyes yet.
A policeman burst through the door.
'On the floor,' he cried, though he had no gun. My father complied at once, but I carefully put down the eye I was painting then moved towards the policeman.
He stepped back.
'Son, I'm arresting your father. If you have any relatives in the city, you should call them.'
'What are you arresting him for?' My father was no criminal.
'Accomplice to murder.'
I stood rigid, astonished. My father had said nothing.
'Why?' I couldn't help mumbling meekly.
'The Cyclops Killer Murders.'
He took pity on me and went on.
'Ten people found dead, their eyes carved out with a sharpened spoon. And a glass eye dug into their forehead.' He smiled in satisfaction as I involuntarily shuddered. I didn't need him to tell me the Cyclops Killer was our client. But my father had nothing to do with it. I knew it.
'Father? You're not guilty! Tell him, tell him,' I shouted.
He looked at me. 'I'm sorry m'boy. It was all for you. You needed money, an education. You couldn't grow up making glass eyes.'
'But -'
'It was Ryan. He promised to pay me. I picked out the mark, that's all.'
The policeman took him away.
I smashed the drawer against the wall.
'Stupid eyes, this is all your fault,' I screamed.
They just gazed up at me, rolling haphazardly across the floor, as they had always done.

Tales on Tuesday...All in the Family

I missed last week's Tales on Tuesday, but it's now posted below this post, so have a look at it if you will ;)


Mum was a petty thief, and Johnny was a burglar.
Daddy was a pick-pocket and Susy was a hustler.
Billy was an arsonist and Sonny was a mugger.
Lucy committed insurance fraud and Rose-Beth stole credit card details.
Me? I was law-abiding.
But now I'm an orphan. They're all dead and I'm silent.
But if you lean closer, I'll tell you where I buried them.
Shh.



Short but (not) sweet. I found this week's prompt rather difficult I must admit.

This is a Tales on Tuesday post.

Theme Thursday...Box

I carry the box to the mime and place it over his head. Immediately it disappears, and he finds it with his hands and lifts it.
He walks out on stage and bows within the confines of his box. The audience applauds, thinking they know what's to come.
He feels around and makes a show of being trapped. Only he and I know he really is.
He curls his arm awkwardly behind him to get at his pocket. He lifts out the knife just as we planned. He hacks at the box.
The box won't cut. He tries harder, I can see the strain on his face. He looks back at me, but I duck behind the curtain.
He smiles at the audience, but it is obvious he is panicking. He beckons at the audience and shouts something. The box is soundproof of course. A man in the front row whistles.
I smirk and wait. The mime throws down the knife and tries to inch the box toward the edge of the stage. It's too heavy of course.
He starts panting in fear. Of course, the box is airtight.
He looks back again. This time I give a small wave and an innocent smile. He gestures wildly, somewhat constricted by the box.
'Get on with it,' someone calls. The audience is getting bored.
He tries to sit down, but the box is too narrow. A young girl in the audience starts screaming in complaint.
I laugh out loud and look at one of the stagehands. 'Great show, isn't it?'
He shrugs and mutters into his mic.
I continue. 'The smart box makes all the difference doesn't it? Technology has advanced beyond what we ever imagined, don't you think? See look how his performance is improved by having a real box that the audience can't see.'
He listens urgently to his earpiece, then hurries onstage with a dismissing wave. I smile as the audience start to panic.
'He's not moving!'
'Mommy, what's wrong with the man?'
'Oh God...who has the box remote?'
'The stage manager, she's right over - '
I'm not there. I've fled the scene, taking the remote with me.
'Call an ambulance...and a tow truck. We can't move the box.'
I drop the remote in the gutter outside the airport. I glance at the television as I walk inside the terminal.
Woman drowned in river...body recovered today...two deaths in three days in downtown area...victims said to be related...family devastated by loss of three sisters
I'm free. And I've got no burdensome siblings - anymore.

 Theme Thursday, where interpretations run amok.

Magpie Tales #6...Helen and Rose

The nails have spilled again. Helen feels her feet shrinking away from them as she navigates the floor. Their sharp points rise threateningly. She reaches down and picks one up. His hammer is lying on the bench, the picture frame on the ground, glass shattered. She picks it up tenderly. The picture is still in the frame. She arranges it against the wall.

There is a nail there already, bent in on itself where a stray blow has ruined the perfection. She tugs it out with the claw of the hammer. It falls into her palm and she deposits it in her pocket. She swings back the hammer and taps a new nail into the wall. One is enough.

Helen stretches on tiptoes, leaning over the bench to hang the picture. She steps back to admire it. There is a small stain on the faux gold frame. She rubs at it. It flakes a little, but the ornate surface is pitted with nooks.

She lopes into the house and returns with a moist cloth. She dabs at the stain. It is almost gone now. She looks at the white cloth, now discoloured with red. She starts to cry.

*****

'It was the drinking,' Rose says. 'His hand slipped. I never thought a picture frame would be heavy enough.'

'No.'

Helen's monosyllabic answer doesn't seem to deter her best friend. She hooks an arm around her shoulder. 'It was a small cut, not much blood. He was drunk anyway. It wasn't anything you did, you know,' Rose glances at her for affirmation.

'I know.'

As Rose steers her back to the car, Helen can't help a last look at the grave. It is covered in white flowers. As she watches, a red stain seeps among them, just like the blood that pooled around his head.

She pictures his face as he missed the nail, turning toward her slightly angry, not denying anything. Her hands tremble as she remembers the frame clutched in them. Holding it high, slamming it down. It falling and the glass shattering. The vodka bottle she recycled, the smell of bleach after she cleaned the floor.

Rose glances toward the grave when she notices Helen crying again. She looks at the sea of white flowers. She smiles slightly as she remembers the man who said he loved her. Now no one will know about their affair.

*****

The next day Helen and Rose have coffee in the little cafe by the square. Helen sombrely slides an envelope across the table.
Rose opens it and her eyes widen. She touches her wedding ring briefly and opens her purse.

**************************************
Next week I will try to defer from the recent horror/murder theme.

Magpie Tales #4...The House

Life goes on around it, for it lies on a busy road, where cars rush past from early morning to late evening. But in the house, life has not been present for decades. Even mice and rodents no longer frequent its quiet hallway and still rooms.
Outside, it is a house of grey stone again. It had been painted a creamy white by the commission of a housewife. The window frames are covered in chipping paint, a cheery yellow. You get the sense that the window frames were painted by some other hand, perhaps that of a daughter.
Once there were window boxes on each window, now only one is left in solitary confinement, sagging to the left, supported by a single long nail. In it a cluster of brown weeds wilts.
The glass in the windows is but jagged shards that were broken for sport by schoolboys. In the lower window, lace curtains hang to the floor. Today a gust of wind has lifted them out the pane-less window. There they hang, thrust out as a bride thrusts off her veil, awaiting a new life of homemaking and promises of love and happiness. But perhaps the curtains were thrown out the window not in hope, but to cleanse them of their dirt and grime, the life they led, the things they saw.
A sagging staircase leads upstairs. There are three rooms; two bedrooms and a bathroom. One bedroom is windowless, its door faces the bathroom. Wallpaper drapes the floor in peeling strips. Yellow ducks swim in a faded sea of blue. In the middle of the room, a collapsed heap of boards lies evidence to some place of rest. The boards look like railings.
In the next bedroom, there is no bed, only a pile of musty blankets in the corner, heaped as though torn from a mattress. Beneath them are scorch marks, a hole in the floor. Above them the ceiling is black, the walls are gray; a trail made by a finger shows it to be soot.
In the opposite corner, a sewing machine rests on a collapsed table. A spool of thread leads across the floor in looping patterns. Red thread, dusty like everything else.
Next to the sewing table, there is a wooden dress dummy. Its shapely curves show that it was a woman's. It is headless, and it arms hang slackly by its sides. One wooden hand is on the floor. Its screws are not rusted, but the wood is dusty. One finger of the hand points listlessly toward the blankets, the others are limp and lifeless.
The dress dummy wears the remains of something lacy. The work is sloppy, the threads unravelling.
You look at the blankets again. Then something else is visible. Piled in the corner are empty bottles of alcohol. Beer, vodka, whiskey. Now you can smell it on the air, wafting close like the stale breath of a drunkard.
In the bathroom, a bottle of pills has spilled onto the floor. They have rolled out in a convex from the bottle. Next to them there is a creased photo of three people. A man holds a smiling woman close. She cradles a laughing baby. They are all blond.
Rewind to the entrance. The yard is knee-deep in weeds. They are brown, dying. Behind the house, just out of sight, there is a garden shed. In the shed, a bloody hatchet rests on the table. An empty can sits next to it, the scent of petrol lying heavily in the air. A box of matches is teetering on the edge of the table. It too is empty. On the wall there is a shovel. It has clumps of dried dirt stuck to the blade. In one of the clumps a single human hair is embedded. It is blond.
Behind the shed there is an unnatural mound of earth.
It is the only place in the yard that has flowers.

****************************************************

I was experimenting with telling a story just by setting a scene...I think it turned out pretty good (I did digress a bit, using the second person).
Also, both of us posted a Magpie Tales this week, so don't forget to check them both out! (if MM posts hers on time that is...still doubtful)

Magpie Tales #1...The Pewter Creamer

Martha liked to pretend it had once poured honey, like in those ads for some perfume or other, where the Greek goddess was dripping with it.
Honey keeps almost forever, she knew. Once it was found in an Egyptian tomb...still edible. It must be because of the bees.
Her bees, now, they were something of another world. Martha was a careful bee-keeper, but she did not believe in wearing a veil or bee-keeping suit when she visited them.
When she first saw them, when she was only five, she had come home covered in stings.
Her father had shouted at her, but she could not tell if it was out of worry for her or concern for the bees. Maybe he thought she had let them loose?
That was the final straw, when her mother finally decided that it was enough.
Strange, she thought, her mother would hate it if she knew Martha had picked up bee-keeping just where her father had left off.
He had died three years ago, twenty-two years after her mother had been put in that place. He had been stung three thousand times. She knew, she had counted every sting. No one knew he had died, just her.
She buried him near the bees.
Every day she visited the bees, taking careful count of the dead ones. It seemed that they died so often. She knew that there were now exactly two thousand nine hundred seventy-five bees in the hives.
She supposed when she was ready to die that they would send her on her way just as they had her father.
It was a fair exchange. The bees had kept her father alive far too long. She was already seventy-seven, and he had been over one hundred when he died.
Every day at three o'clock she took three tablespoons of the bees' honey, carefully stored in a glass jar over the fireplace. She put it into the pewter creamer and then warmed it slowly over the fire, just as her father had taught her. Then a splash of milk, carefully calculated, but unmeasured. Lastly, a pinch of cinnamon.
She drank it in exactly two and a half minutes, no longer, no sooner.
Then she took a nap for two hours.
She couldn't say she felt a day over thirty, maybe even younger.
The ritual puzzled her though. Was it the simple preparation or the honey itself that gave her this energy?
She decided to test it.
After all, one day without the miracle mixture could hardly kill her, could it?
She prepared the mixture as usual, but instead used honey purchased from the store. She drank it, and went to take her nap.
Three minutes after she had fallen asleep she was woken by a buzzing.
This was not an unusual sound to her, for she visited the bees every day. Yet she knew something was wrong. She never woke from her nap until exactly two hours after it had begun.
Martha sat up in bed. It was dark.
Her window was open, a cool breeze teased the curtains.
She stood up.
She sank back down again. Her knees felt weak and her head was spinning. She rose more slowly this time, holding on to the headboard.
She inched closer to the window. She couldn't see, but she blamed the darkness. She reached out toward the wall.
Her hand connected with a living being.
Martha screamed.
The wall was coated in bees. She rubbed her hand against her night gown but yanked it back again. It too was covered in the buzzing, writhing mass of bees.
She reached for her face. She tried to pry her eyes open. It was then she realised that her whole body was covered in bees.
She ran into the sitting room, her knees almost giving way. She stepped toward the fireplace, only to have her bare foot connect with a carpet of bees.
Martha screamed again. This time she knew it was hopeless.
She tried to find the fire poker, she had left the fire to die down, it was probably still hot. Her foot felt as though it had been thrown into a furnace.
The floor was covered in hot coals.
Martha stopped moving.
She stood shaking in the middle of the room.
She could hear the bees buzzing.
Was this how her father had died?
She reached out for anything to fight them with.
Her hand touched the cool pewter of the creamer.
She swung it in the air, hearing the swoosh as it flew. Then a small ding. She had hit a bee!
She swung it again with renewed vigour, rejoicing in the soft *pings*.
Martha opened her eyes. All around her the ground was littered with dead bees.
She collected them all. There were only two thousand nine hundred seventy-five, not the huge overwhelming army she had pictured.
She lit a fire and threw them into it.
Martha inhaled the sickly smell of the burning bees.
When they were all gone, she carefully filled the pewter creamer with the bees' ashes.

***

The next day, Martha's niece found her body near the bee hives. There were exactly two thousand nine hundred seventy-five stings covering her body. Martha's niece buried her there, next to the hives.
Then she went inside and took a drink.
It was three o'clock.
She poured three tablespoons of the bees' honey into the pewter creamer and then warmed it slowly over the fire, just as Martha had taught her. Then she added splash of milk and a pinch of cinnamon.
She drank it in exactly two and a half minutes, no longer, no sooner.
Then she took a nap for two hours.
When she woke up, she thought to herself that her grandmother would have been very angry if she knew that she was following in Martha's footsteps.
Then she went out and visited the bees.

***

Note: I have absolutely no idea where this story came from! First of all, I was going to write about the origin of the pewter creamer, not a story where it just features. Secondly, I never write horror stories (I must admit, I frightened myself a bit on this one). Thirdly, where did the bee-keeping idea come from????

I changed the picture a bit from the one willow provided for Magpie Tales. (BTW, I am #45).

After one read through, I have realised that unintentionally I have made the pewter creamer the most important aspect of the story! It is the thing that kept Martha's father alive! And it is why the bees returned (resurrected) and were able to kill Martha! I cannot believe my subconscious mind did that.

The variety in posts abut the creamer is endless! Some are funny, some are poetic, some are funny and poetic. Some are sort of tragic and some haven't been posted yet. I look forward to reading the rest of them.