The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – The alliance

She banged the door shot and sighed. Another week gone by with nothing in it for her but school, reading, sleeping and more school. The “village” was a bore, she knew hardly anyone in it and she could forget about diversion in her explorations as well, since the attic was guarded continually by Henry and his watchdog by the time she got home.

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 3

 

 

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Chapter 3 – the village

Si sta come

D’autunno

Sugli alberi

Le foglie

(“ One is/as in autumn/on the trees/the leaves”, ‘soldati’/’soldiers’ by Giuseppe Ungaretti, translation as found in Harrison, ‘dominion of the dead’, p. 125)

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Her eyes flung wide open. It took her a minute to realize that she was staring at the ceiling and then another to recognize the annoying beep in the background as the alarm clock. She turned to look daggers at it, but as the thing refused to explode she extended her arm to the fullest to reach it. No more denying it was already morning...

The Black Rose (novel): chapter 2

Chapter 2 – The attic

She startled and woke from the depths of sleep at midnight. What had woken her? She could have sworn she felt... It was storming, of course.

No wonder she couldn’t sleep. The winds were no soft whisper like home, they roared and howled and made the walls whistle and the floors creak. For a moment she doubted the strength of the bricks that were her shelter, but they had sheltered others for hundreds of years.

Still, the cracking and squeaking kept her from going back to her sweet slumber. Or had it been sweet at all? The imprint of the dream was already gone. She rose and strolled towards the window. It was pouring, rain pattered the glass with a merciless vigour. Thunder seemed creepily close by and so did the forked lightning that tormented the land below her dark ivory tower.

Even the fierceness of nature has its splendour. Yet there was a restlessness outside which caught on and stirred up her inner agitation. She felt trapped. At least the tempest was free, a privilege she had not. She fixed her eye on the horizon instinctively, but what was that to her? Where would she go? To view another skyline and long for that one. The horizon was a myth, though a lovely one.

She picked up a random volume from the pile of books on her desk, something to clean up in the morning, and opened it at an arbitrary page.

The Black Rose (novel) : Intermezzo chapter 1-2 (first dream sequence)

A thick fog surrounds me. I don’t know where it comes from, smoke seems to whirl up from every side. It wells up from below my feet, from the walls, the ceiling, it’s choking me!

I stumble to the door, it has to be here, how many steps have it been? I can’t find it. It’s damp in my mouth, my throat. I’m coughing, but every gasp brings in more mist and no air. My lungs fill up with dew, it feels like drowning.

I can’t see. Where am I? I reach and hold my hands out like a blind person, but the room is empty. Help! I shout as loud as I can, but there’s no reply. Help! Can’t anybody hear me? Please! My desperate calls echo in the silence and are then swallowed by the nowhere around. I’m all alone.

Slowly, the mist lifts a little. I start to discern vague contours. There is something rectangular ahead of me, I can see it shimmer in the distance, as if it is beckoning me to it.

I creep closer, is it a door, a portal? I can only see the same thick white mist ahead of me as I leave it behind, like I’m walking on clouds. I crash into something hard and touch my forehead. It hurts.

I feel the cool glass as it dawns on me; I can’t see my own face in the mirror.

A pale hand, white and cold as the fog, forms out of the glass and two cold fingers touch my temples and caress the side of my face along the cheekbones.

I gasp.

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 1

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CHAPTER 1 – The Castle/New Beginnings

“In the middle of our life’s path I found myself in a dark forest, where the straight way was lost.”

Dante, Inferno, Canto I, verse 1-3

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She looked up at the thing looming high before her and shivered. It was nothing like she had expected, it was worse, much worse. The same look was in her brother’s eyes. She clasped his hand and squeezed it reassuringly, with as consoling a smile as she could possibly muster. With a heavy heart, they mounted the hill.

The Black Rose (novel) : Prelude

This one is another unfinished project I've been working on since I was about fifteen and that I never got around to finish. It was a bit too much to handle with my skill at the time, so I could start the novel, but I couldn't push through the challenging bits. I've been reworking it (with long, sometimes year-long lapses, like the one since I lost rewrote it, long before I came to blogger) ever since.

It's pretty low on the to do list for the time being (the things on there always shift about, depending on the circumstances, I'm afraid I have no control whatsoever over that), so I won't be making it more decent anytime soon, but I decided - very much against previous incentives - to post it. Especially since I'm too busy to get a lot of short stories up during the exams. I'll schedule the parts I've got (which is at least 80 pages or so), one a week. I don't think I'm going to read over them first and bear in mind that they're imperfect drafts, but what I'd like is for you to tell me what you didn't like about it. I'm aware of the flaws, especially that it gets pretty long-winded at times and that the whole could and should be smoothed out considerably - a legacy from its early birth, I guess - but I'd like to map out just when, where and why it spins off, so I can take it into account while rewriting it, when I get around to it.

I wasn't keen on sharing this. I don't think I ever even thought of putting it up, until today, all of a sudden, so here's the first part. Enjoy!

Broken Shells, a poem in 3 parts

Broken Shells, a poem in 3 parts*

I

At dawn it hatched,

at noon I held

a chicklit in my hand,

frail and soft like spring buds.

At dusk I stand and stay

with my dear bird

long flown away.

II

Clinging to a bird in flight,

Its wings beat solemn through the night

so slow and still, what was, what will

and all that’s in between is seen

through eyes from high above,

and so we rove on and on

past rock, clouds, whatever may

be seen and watch it swirl away,

I frown, I know it is, a long way down.

            III

Closed my eyes when darkness fell,

hope, pray, dream that all is well,

softly curled up I creep

back in my shell,

put the pieces back in place

with crimson ribbon, shreds of lace.

*Author’s note: date = today; just dealing with depression/anxiety and shaking exam stress

Hey guys, sorry I haven’t posted yet in over a week, each day I wake up hoping I’ll finish the next part of the Svart-cycle (I’m almost sure I’m going to call it ‘The Nightingale Paradox. Chronicles of a revolution’), and I end up going to bed unfulfilled, though the chapter is practically done and has been for nearly two week now. Yes, exams are back in town. The regulars among you will know what that meant last time so be warned...

Nice to be back though, however brief. Sorry if I’m slow to respond at the moment, I’m kind of freaking out :S.