Episode 6 - The Black Earring (encore: 'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned')

The Black Earring (Episode 6)

I paced around the empty room. The lights were out, a pale ghostly shine falling from the hall through the open door. It made the chairs into faded silhouettes. It was quiet. Unusually quiet. Normally at this hour, student-musicians were practicing their symphonies in the adjacent music rooms, which is my I even bother coming here in the first place, but not today. I turned to the shadows of the corner. The piano stood abandoned but with dignity in its smooth blackness. I caressed its keys longingly. Such a pity I never learned.

I ambled on, a final glance at the Steinway, in between the desk, the surface was dusty, and the blackboard, going over the lecture words forgotten on the canvas and lost in the green wilderness that was empty. ‘Antigone’ it said, with proud, hastily crooked letters, the first almost entirely wiped out by the lecturer’s fervent hand. Must have been interesting.

A glimmer in the dark caught my eye, next to the control panel for the auditory on the floor. It must’ve been a piece of equipment one of the students broke, a wire of sorts. I passed it, stopped, passed it again, retraced my steps and picked it up. It was an earring of coal with all the glimmer of diamonds, four ovals full of facets piled on top of each other, the lower always bigger than the next. I brought it up to the light of the hall and watched it sparkle.

And then stepped forward from the dark a creature fair with grace and ease. Emanating danger like a flame I was strapped to the wings of moths, unable to fly. She stood patiently, invitingly and smiled.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice an echo that seemed strange to me in the void.

She smiled benignly and stepped closer.

“My name?” She said with a melodic voice that ringed with something foreign, a tone I’d only heard before in dreams of spring and dew and fairy bells. She strode elegantly around me in a circle and whispered in my ear. It made my head light and empty and filled it instead with the fragrance of midnight flowers and dewed green. “Most call me Luna.” She traced a finger along my shoulder bones and let out an amused chuckle. I slipped into the touch complacently and watched her every step. “Others Artemis, Diana, Hekate,...” She took a step back suggesting infinity with the mere casualness of her nimble lily hand. “I have so many names.” She smirked. “None really matter.”

With a melancholy expression, she slid through the shadows shining bright like the moon, a radiant beauty of silver shackled to the earth and doomed to forever more mourn the loss of flight, her crippled hoary wings hanging limp over her long snow-white gown of Greek folding. She returned my stare with a knowing smile, shrouding in mystery like she knew of some secret by grace of which she held me ensnared. And she did. I stood motionless, powerless, eagerly taking it all in. She threw me a predatory gaze, pleased like a kitten with her catch.

It felt as though there was no roof, no walls, only earth, water and sky overhead, a distant scent of sultry fire smouldering and suddenly the empty chairs were like the forest, the trees from which they came, and the night a deeper, thicker black than I had ever seen before.

She held out her hand. I returned the earring to her. She beamed graciously.

“Tell me, my sun-kissed child, have you ever wondered what it would feel like to catch the moon in your bare hands?” She said in that magnetic tone of hers and beckoned. I hesitated, but to her nodding encouragement, I rushed ahead and stepped eagerly into her embrace, content to perish in her arms. She gave a kiss so powerful it could rip a life away and licked the blood that oozed from my lips and left the taste of magic.

Then in a flash of bluish pure white light, the world had disappeared.

Author’s note

Goal: I trying to master a certain type of writing that’ll be important in later parts of the Svart-cycle, heavy on mood, touch and insinuation, something sultry and at the verge of being passionate.

In fact, I think I’m going to add this one as a dream (that can be attributed both to Darius and Alice) in that cycle (which is why I labelled it ‘episode’), I just don’t know what the best place to fit it in is yet. Most likely after the next episode.

Anecdote about the coming to be of this story

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned!

(no, I’m not that religious, and yes, I just stole that from ‘Coyote Ugly’)

I’ve stolen things before, sometimes for no urgent or apparent reason and often with no or little trace of remorse afterwards, but now it finally happened; for the first time, I committed theft for Art.

It isn’t quite that spectacular, especially not after how I made it sound in the introduction; last night I had some time before the next bus home. There’s an auditory I like to go to at times like that, I don’t really know why, probably out of nostalgia and to look for inspiration (there usually are musicians playing music that I’ve never heard before, and that you never hear on the radio, which is like the Fort Knox of inspiration for me). Anyway, the part of the story up to the picking up of earring, I just plucked out of my own experience. I picked the thing up and put on the table, so the owner would find it there the next day. However, I paced over and over, picked it up again, laid it back, scribbled some notes for the story, picked it up again... It just wouldn’t let me go and I felt like I needed to have it with me for the story. Having lost stuff before myself however, I kind of sympathise with whoever’s missing it. But, when it was time to go and I was at the door, I couldn’t go, so I went back, snatched the thing up and then I actually took it with me. It’s here next to me on the table right now as I’m typing this. I know, I KNOW, I feel horrible...

Anyway, in my defence, I do intend to put it back first thing on Monday though. Or after the book (but that would mean never...). So my intention was just to borrow rather than steal it from the start.

So, let’s make this thing interactive; what’s the worst thing you ever did for Art (or some other important Goal)? I’d love to know, please leave a relevant comment below.

(I’ll try to add a picture of the legendary earring. I suppose it’s rather plain in itself, but still, the way I found it, glimmering in complete darkness and all, it was just gripping)

Episode 5 - Fallen Order

Fallen Order

There was a rumble in the distance, an earthquake or a thunderstorm. It made the ground below them quiver.

“What’s that?” Michael asked panicky.

“I don’t know.” She replied thoughtful, a sense of worry encroaching on her. It would not go away. “Are you going to be okay?” He nodded. She handed him over to another friend to support him. “You guys go straight home, alright?”

She turned around.

“Wait, where are you going?” He pulled her back.

She looked at him briefly and turned in the direction of the Order headquarters. “I have to go somewhere, check on something.” She hoped so desperately that she was wrong.

“Alice!” He cried after her. She ran off, into the darkness.

Just a block away from the club a desolate ghost world began. A blooming part of town just a few hours before, now had more likeness to a post-war wasteland. No lanterns were lit, a few flickered and went out with a pop. It sent shivers down her spine. The streets were empty, the shops deserted. They showed signs of struggle. Trash cans were kicked over, their insides spilled across the sidewalks, a few doors hung wobbly from their hinges, cars were scratched and dented, the shoes of their yanked out drivers left behind on the road. Something crunched. She looked down at the broken glass from cracked windows beneath her feet. Svarts raided here as well.

She strode through the lane, on her guard, the only sounds her own. Her heels were too loud on the pavement and her feet were killing her. She took the shoes off and tiptoed crouching through the streets barefoot – carefully across the debris – clinging to the walls and staying in the shadows. She bit her lip. A squadron of Svart troops passed by, she pressed against the damp side of a corner and held her breath, waiting for them to march on and rubbing a hand over her queasy stomach. She had a bad feeling.

They stamped on in rows of two, blabbering and laughing, the sound of their military boots trapped, echoing back and forth between the high brick walls of the alley. What were they up to? And why hadn’t she met a single knight around? Where were the others?

Once they were gone, she crossed the street and looked around the bend. All clear. Nervously, she broke into a sprint.

There it was, the street. She slowed down, coughing. The air was thick with dust, everything was grey and it was so unusually, so deafeningly quiet and empty. And then she saw it.

With a sigh as if her last breath was squeezed out of her, she sunk to the ground. She’d been right. It had happened. Before her lay the pile of rubble that was once their tall, proud office.

She got up and plummeted headfirst into the smouldering wreckage. A few bits of wall were still upright, their characteristic iron bars sticking out like fish-bones.

“No!” On her knees she clawed into the ruins to look for life, for bodies, anything among the ash and stone, but two arms clenched firmly around her. She pushed him away. “Let go, we have to...”

“Alice, don’t!” A soft voice whispered, resolutely helping her up. “You can’t help them, it’s too late.”

She looked at him, in tears, exasperated. “Uncle, what happened?”

He held her close. “The building, they blew it up, my child.”

She struggled against him to go back, but he wouldn’t let her. “No, Alice, it’s not safe.” There was a distant thudding on the ground, she paid it no mind. “We have to go, they’re coming.”

She looked in the direction of the marching sound. “I don’t care. Some may have survived. We have to get them out.”

He clenched her wrists and made her look at him as he articulated the words carefully. “None survived, Alice.” He pulled his hair with a frustrated wave of his hand. “The collapse was just a cover-up, they gassed them first, there was a leak and...” He puffed. “No one even noticed what was happening.” He scuffed his foot over the concrete, unable to look her in the eyes. “I was just outside in the garden, I saw the whole thing through the glass door. Once it got through to me what was wrong, I rushed in, but it was already too late.”

 “No! No!” She moaned, pulling her hair.

“Alice, please, we have to leave.” He said desperately. “If they spot us...”

“No, no, I won’t go.” She wiggled around for a way out of his grasp and back into the rubble, but he tightened his grip. He dragged her back into an alley and clasped his hand firmly over her mouth and his arm around her waist. She struggled like crazy and uttered suppressed screams, but he did not let go.

“Shht!” He whispered in her ear. “Be quiet. They can’t find us. You owe them that.”

She calmed down and nodded, so incredibly tired and so she hung limp in his grasp, watching through dulled eyes with tears pouring down as a dozen of the Svart task force went through the rubbish. They were looking for something, kicking rocks aside like it mattered nothing, be it stone or flesh.

“Captain!” One of them cried. Three of his companions rushed in to help and they shoved boulders until one pulled out the prize from its unbreakable titanium container in the ground where the front desk had been.

“The security system.” She whispered. “What do they want with that?”

Author's note: hi there, hope you're enjoying the novel. I know I sure love writing it. However, there might be slow progression with the project for the next month or so. The last weeks have been terribly busy, next week will be worse and after that, it's examination time again till end of July, and you probably know how that turned out last time... Yes, disastrous. So, be warned. It's very frustrating, because now I have to delay getting Alice to the point and place where it really starts getting exciting, I'm anxious to get there, which results in not rewriting each separate chapter for a hundred times over before posting. Sorry.

Enjoy.

Episode 4 - The raid

Also see: Episode 1 (chronologically a much later part in the story) - Episode 2 (start) - Episode 3

The raid

She nipped her drink by the bar and watched the others dancing. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something made her feel very nervous. Maybe it was just that she could not shake the truth. She was the only one around who knew what was going on, what was going to happen, that everyone in the club was really in danger.

She held onto the bar to steady herself against the upcoming faintness and took a deep breath.

“Come on, girl.” She muttered to herself, downing the drink in one gulp. “You can do this. Just think of it as a game.” Looking back, her friend Michael was waving at her, motioning to come back already. She forced her lips into a convincing smile and set her foot forward to make her way back to her group on the dance floor.

Then a loud noise drowned out the music and froze her in her tracks. The sturdy door caved in. A squad of soldiers in all black suits, helmets and machine guns stormed through the gaping hole screaming ‘move, move!’

The DJ stopped playing, people stepped aside. She stumbled back into the bar. The place had a reputation for drug dealing, was it a raid?

They fired five warning shots in the dark, they lit up and echoed loud through the silence. This wasn’t a raid. Glass breaking, people screaming, scattering into the corners, tugging at each other and the horrible sound of so many heavy boots stamping along the floor after them. “Everybody out!” The commander yelled and they went about grabbing at arms, shoulders, elbows, pulling at hair and motioning the guests onward with their guns. Alice saw one haul Michael over the floor, thick with broken glass, by his clothes and rushed to help him.

“You’re hurting him!” She prised the man’s claw open, allowing Michael to scramble up, rubbing his sores. The soldier pushed her away so hard she fell backwards and took off his helmet. As soon as she saw his curiously gleaming eyes, she knew this wasn’t a raid but an invasion. They were Svarts. She gasped.

“Go home!” He spat at her and clutched the next victim. Michael helped her up.

“Michael, you’re limping.”

“It’s nothing, let’s just get out of here.”

Leaning on each other, they got out. The streets were full of Svart troops, going door to door in public places, hurling everybody out.

“What the hell are they doing?” Michael asked her, coughing.

Alice watched them for a moment. As it turned out, they hadn’t paused. Either that, or enough of them were already here in the first place. They had been fooled. “Establishing a curfew.” She said, feeling as if all life had drained out of her. “They’re taking over the city.” She looked up at the horizon. It would be many hours until the break of day. She should go look for the other knights and round them up for battle.

With a sigh, she whispered to herself. “So it begins.”

And that was the day they invaded our world.

(video that has a lot of screaming in it, but parts of it might give you a good idea of what is going on in this episode, so it is kind of appropriate and may have influenced this part of the story in a latent fashion)

Episode 3 - Through the glass

Progress Report (not really relevant, if you're just here for the story, please skip to 'read more' at the bottom of the page ;) )

Here's the next part, which comes immediately after episode 2 (since now I know where to start with it all it's a bit easier to be more coherent, for the time being). Sorry this had some delay. I was nearly finished last weekend, and then my computer shut down suddenly and the whole Svart file had DISAPPEARED... That's like a writer's worst nightmare. Strangely, once I got over the shock and saw clearly, I realized it wasn't that bad and I got to see my personal calamity as a blessing in disguise. I was really spinning the chapter out too long, getting carried away and just basically messing everything up, so being forced to start over entirely was the best thing that could happen - I don't really have the heart to 'kill my darlings', I guess my comuter felt sorry and decided to do it for me. That part did get better, I think, more concise (which isn't really my thing, unfortunately, I could take some classes on brevity). AND, it's also a case of Serendipity (always wanted to use that word) since thanks to Bagle's handy tips on file recovery (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!), I found a back-up of 9 out of 12 pages of a book I was working on just before I joined Blogger. The file got corrupted very badly, so I couldn't open it and I still haven't been able to gather up the strength to start over, since it would never be the same and  didn't feel it needed improvement like Svart did. So it just sucked. But now I have the crucial parts back and can pick up where I left off anytime :). I'd post some of it, but it's in Dutch, so, sorry...

And after that, I got sick and I was exhausted for a couple of days after school work, so I couldn't find the strength to write, specially since it meant starting over from scratch (luckily I'd already posted the first chapter, so I at least had a backup of that one). Instead, I did quite some fairy research, some useful stuff turned up which I hope to integrated in future parts (though most of it was suitable for Macy's world rather than Alice's and some of me just confused me or confronted me with my own lack of originality where I thought I WAS being original, which sucks).

Anyway, here is part 2 and part 3 is also done - it on the short side through, 2,5 pages - I'll schedule it for some time next week. Probably Wednesday. I do have to say I'm not entirely okay with this part and the next one yet, but there sort of a rough outline, a first draft. I'm just trying to get from point A to B as fast as possible and then I'll see from there when I'm done so I can rewrite it in the end. Oh, and the titles are pretty random now. The themes they refer to aren't always there yet or emphasized enough. I may call the novel '(The) Nightingale. Chronicles of a revolution' or something like that.

On a more cheerful note, I noticed that readership for the blod - followers but especially page views - have rocketed *dances around like a retard yelling 'whoohoo!'*, so I just want to give a big welcome to all of you who are a new and another big thank you for sticking with me despite all the craziness and irregularity lately to all the regulars. I really appreciate having you guys here giving me advice, I really really really do. I know I haven't been responding to all comments, but I will in due time. Circumstances are making it hard enough to keep up with posting the best I can, so I kind of have to 'eliminate' everything else.

/delay. Onto the story...

Episode 2 - The Eve Of Battle

Another novel start, it is getting hard to keep up. I don’t know where to place this exactly, but it may very well be the start of the episode cycle. It is meant to be a little mysterious and vague. It is the onset of a novel, after all, so it has to keep you guessing at the whole story. Song that brought this writing spree on:

I heard it again and got flashes of scenes like this, the other ‘episode’ bits and other parts I didn’t know about before. Hope you enjoy it ;)

Episode 1

He poured himself a drink from the beautifully wrought crystal carafe and carefully placed it back on the cherry wood Louis XV, pensively.

“You shouldn’t overexcite yourself so much. The girl will return.” He finally stated, to break that awful silence, and sipped.

“You think so?” A broken voice replied from the sofa, the speaker kept from sight. The prince hadn’t stirred for hours. He handed him a full cup along with a comforting smile.

“I’m sure.”

A deep sigh.

“I wish I could be so positive.” He sprung up and ran a hand through his half-long messy dark hair. “But I fear the worst.” The lad paced toward the window and looked out, his hand on the pane as if he could reach out to her.

Velvet curtains of the dimmest shades of red lined every opening. It was about time his young master adjusted to more modern times instead of clinging to the era of his birth. Maybe this girl could be of use.

“Don’t worry. All our available trackers are out looking for her.”

“And? They’ve been looking for hours and still no trace of her. No news.” He looked down at his cup and flung it against the wall. Frustrated. Like a caged animal. They better find her soon.

“They will find her. They will bring her back.”

For the first time since he came in, his young lord looked up at him, tears in his eyes. His voice sounded choked.

“I hope so.”

The desperation in his gaze was too much to bear for his older counsellor. He looked away. The prince realized the cause, and turned back to the window, staring out into the dark. Where could she have gone?

“Where are the Nightstalkers? Are any rogues roaming about?”

“No, Your Highness, none are on our grounds. It’s safe.”

“Double the squads regardless. Tell them to eliminate all potential threats at sight.”

He nodded and went into the hallway to hiss the order to one of the guards. He ran off, passing the message on to the squad commander.

When he came back in, the prince had his two palms up against the glass, looking out. He looked so gruesomely tired.

“My Lord, you haven’t slept all day, please, get some rest. Let us take care of it.” The lad smacked his head against the glass so hard it showed slight cracks.

“Oh, why did she leave me, Lucas? I’ve been good to her, right, why would she run away?”

There was a long silence. How could he explain it to this boy, who was so much still a stranger to love?

“Because it is in the girl’s nature.”

The boy sobbed quietly. To this man who has been his care-taker all his life, it was deafening. Why couldn’t he have saved himself all this heartache and picked a more docile mate?

“Please stop crying.”

“I promised her everything. The world she could have on a silver platter, if only she accepts me.”

“Give her time, my prince. The girl is only confused. She’s lived her entire life in fear of us, fighting us, protecting all she holds dear from us. Have some patience with her.”

“Patience?” His eyes flickered for a minute with anger. It was a promising start to returning to his former self. “I’ve waited for her for centuries, I’ve always waited for her and now that I’ve found her, she turns me down.” He picked up a vase from a stand and hurled it across the room. It smashed into a thousand pieces with a racket as loud as if it came from hell itself. “She flees from me!” Now the stand itself met a similar end and his master sunk unto the ground, looking like a boy again.

“Please.” He said, the word pending in the air. He stood there, gazing at him awkwardly, torn between the counsellor, that stands strong beside his ruler at all times, and the caretaker in him.

He made a hesitant step towards the boy that was his son in all but blood, reaching out and pulled back when the door was yanked open suddenly.

A messenger bowed to each of them. “Your Highness, sir... I bring word from the...”

The prince scrambled up, a gleam of expectation over his face. “Have they found her?”

“No, my lord, not yet. But there is a snow storm headed right this way from the north. The troopers fear it will cover what’s left of her tracks.”

“Good grief, she will get caught in it!”

The chancellor quickly waved the messenger off, so he wouldn’t see his ruler collapse in front him, moral’s been low enough as it is with their leader risking everything over a mortal girl.

The door fell shut.

“Lucas, she could die!”

“She will be fine, Darius, she’s strong.”

“She’s only human.”

“She managed far well all these years without you, in both deserts and snow land.”

“I pray you’re right, Lucas, I don’t know what I’d do if anything were to happen to her.”

“Nothing will. She’ll be back before you know it.”

The sound of the clock on the wall, it was so nerve-wrecking. Hours ticked by without a word and big flakes of snow and hail came pouring down across the sky. Darius clasped his hand over his mouth gasping when he saw it. Lucas knew he had every reason to be worried. He’d seen people dying over less.

The sound of excited voices emerged from the hall, followed by numerous footsteps hurrying up the stairs.

A juvenile herald came stumbling in, crying out “Milord, milord...” They looked at him questionably.

“They found her.”

The mixed look he threw them, evading their penetrating glance, left them feeling eerily ill at ease. Something was amiss. Anxiously they scurried after him.

Author’s note:

I’m going ‘retro’ when it comes to my personal writing style and topics. What I’m occupied with here is what I’ve always been concerned with and then moved away from. Now I’ve made a full circle and returned where I started, bringing in later experiences. The whole feel of the things swarming around in my head right now are all part of what I like to call ‘21^st Century Romanticism’ which is pretty much my artistic home (for the time being).

This, for instance, is part of what I expect to be the next project after Notebook: a tale of four brothers. As far as I can tell now, it will be some sort of vampire fiction work, though not the most conventional type. I’m very concerned and excited to find out where post-Twilight vampire fiction can take me. I have a general idea of what will happen, but it’s all very vague and is more of a loosely-knit set of episodes such as this one with no telling of how they’re interconnected, what goes where or what will turn up in between the ‘light-spots’. Like groping around in the dark.

I know I’m kind of shooting my own foot here taking on too many projects all at once, but I really can’t help it. It’s like my brain’s turned into some sort over-fine-tuned receptor and every single thing is pulling/hitting strings in there, it’s maddening. And wonderful * smiley face *, somehow. Swallows up energy though, but hey, I’m not complaining. I digress...

I think there might be more episodes like these popping up here now and then, which I’ll take up again in the not-yet-even-started novel once I know where to place them. They will probably not make much sense, leave more unsaid than they reveal, and not be at all chronological or consistent with perspective or focalization, but I do like the atmosphere and the mystery of it all. So it looks like we’re finding out where it leads together. This is new for me, I’ve spent my life being rather solitary as a writer, definitely not developing stories out in the open like this.

Short stories aren’t meant to give everything away in the first place, are they? So I think I’ll leave you lot guessing, and myself as well. That will keep it interesting, don’t you think? I think I’ve nailed the right kind of tone though.

You know the drill: I’ll be happy receiving any kind of remarks, suggestions or other kinds of feedback in the comment-section.

And one more practical thing: I kinda came up with this on the spot (yes, I should be studying, but I was doing this instead, not that I could’ve stopped it; it’s a bit like a dam with a hole in it at flood, I have no control whatsoever), so it’s not a scheduled post just yet. Since I’m going to be abroad next week, the next posts (except perhaps the last of this week, I might get that one on here manually) will be scheduled ones. Don’t be alarmed if I don’t respond to comments, I will when I get back.

All best wishes,

Stories Inc.