What do you wear to a haunting?

All right, I know that a banshee isn’t a ghost, so what she does isn’t technically a haunting. My point remains. There is no established protocol for going out to mourn for a soon-to-die distant relative. Maeveen clearly did her banshee-ing in her flowy white dress, but I didn’t think I was supposed to dress like her. It seemed like the white dress was her banshee “uniform,” or something like it.

I looked through what clothing I had. I had my nice dress from last Easter, all flowery and bright. I had several cute outfits I would wear to school, mostly jeans and sweaters, peasant tops and khakis. I had some dressier skirts and tops that I had worn to parties, or to church.

Someone is going to die tonight, I thought. Someone distantly related to me. Perhaps this is like a funeral, then? Should I dress the way I would for a funeral? I looked at the clothes I had worn to my parents’ funerals – a black lacy top, and a long black skirt. I felt a little queasy, and decided to match that top with a pencil skirt instead.

…It took a long time for me to make it down the stairs in my heavy-heeled shoes. I had just reached the half-way point when Maeveen breezed up the bottom steps, whispering and muttering to herself. She looked me up and down. “What? No. No, no, no. Go up and change, wear something for traveling, girl. Walking shoes, and something warm.”

Copyright Christopher Russo © 2016.  No part or whole of this excerpt may be reproduced in any way.

I woke all at once, sitting up at almost the same moment my eyes opened. I was still fully dressed, wearing what I had worn to chase after Maeveen. My room was empty, and the house was quiet. A little sunlight spilled across the sill of my casement window. Noon, I thought, or just after.
I looked around for my phone, and saw a book on my nightstand, with a large bookmark sticking out. The bookmark turned out to be an index card, covered in fancy handwriting, which I recognized from Maeveen’s death-book.
Spenser is at school. I told him you weren’t feeling well, and called in sick for you. There are muffins in the refrigerator downstairs. I’m up in the attic. Come find me when you’re ready to talk. –M
The book was a collection of essays by J.R.R. Tolkien. I glanced briefly at the passage the bookmark had indicated. Faerie is a perilous realm, it read, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold… In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveler who would report them.
I found my phone under the book, with about fifty unanswered texts, mostly from Katy. I considered again calling a cab, escaping back to the Woo’s house, but I was calmer now, and I wanted to know more first. I texted Katy just to let her know I was okay. Then I looked at Maeveen’s note again, and made a face. Come find me when you’re ready to talk, she’d written. Well I would, but I wasn’t ready yet.
I went downstairs and had breakfast, with nice, normal muffins. Then I had a long shower with nice, normal body wash, and nice, normal shampoo. I took my time getting dressed, brushing my hair, and putting on makeup like battle armor. Just in case, I took all my clothes and packed them in my suitcase. Then, and only then, did I go up to the attic to find Maeveen.

Copyright 2015 Christopher Russo.  All rights reserved.  No part or whole of this text may be reproduced in any form without permission.

Robin had just taken human shape. I could see him clearly, now, by the light of the torches: he looked like a handsome young man with yellow eyes, his hair long and dark and curled. His black coat and vest were old-fashioned, like something from the Revolutionary War, and he was just settling a feathered tricorn on his head. The hat, and the hair, almost covered his ears, which were dark-furred and twice as long as my own.
He turned as I approached, and gave me a charming smile. “Feeling better?”
I punched him in the face, hard, swinging from the shoulder the way Jovana taught me.
“Ow!” cried Robin, staggering back and clutching his nose. “Oak, Ash, and Thorn, girl! What was that for?”
My fist hurt, the little bones of my fingers feeling like I’d set them on fire, but I tried not to let it show. “You didn’t ask if you could touch me. You didn’t ask if you could bring me here.” I waved a hand at the castle. “I don’t know how they do things here in the Fairyland, or whatever tortured corner of my subconscious this is, but where I come from, that’s called kidnapping, and I’m pretty sure it’s a felony.”
He took his hands away, and I felt a childish surge of pride to see that blood was dripping down his chin. He gave me an infuriating grin, almost a snarl. “Yet so I have done since time out of mind. For countless centuries, when drunken sots staggered home, or when foolish travelers were caught on lonely lanes after sundown, I came and I caught them up and gave them a wild ride — hah! — enough to keep them sober for months.” He spread his hands. “I am the pookha, little flower.”
I raised my fist. “Call me a little flower again,” I said, in my best Dirty-Harry do-you-feel-lucky growl.

Copyright 2015 © Christopher Russo.  All rights reserved.  No part or whole of this excerpt may be reprinted or copied without the express written permission of the author.

When “writing,” it seems I do anything but writing.

Hours spent on the computer today: about 8 (no, seriously)

Hours spent actually putting words into a word processing document: maybe 2

Hours spent getting into an argument about whether or not C.S. Lewis wrote books that are published under the name C.S. Lewis: 1

Hours spent staring blankly at Facebook: 2 (total)

Hours spent researching topics tangentially related to the project I’m writing: 2

Hours spent on Amazon trying to figure out how to get my Kindle to work again: 1

So yeah.  I can’t complain about slow authors like Robert Jordan or George R. R. Martin, because I am definitely in the same genus of writer.  (Scriptor Tardus?  Heh, sounds like TARDIS.)

Bradbury talks about the need to feed your muse, to crank out a solid thousand words a day to keep yourself in practice.  Neil Gaiman says something similar: to be a writer, you must write.  Maybe this is me getting stuck in the Big Swampy Middle again (Already?  On Chapter Four), or maybe I really have mild ADD.  I don’t know.  All I know is, suddenly it is dragging agony to put one word in front of another.  What am I doing wrong?  Do I not have enough rotten apples in my desk?

Ah well.  Once more unto the breach.

(Hours spent writing a blog entry instead of writing: 0.25)

I like to write dream-sequences in the present tense, even if the rest of the story is in a different tense. Dreams are, in my experience, oppressively immediate, with no true sense of past or future.

Sometimes, when I wake up, it is a relief simply to have a sense of time again, to not be trapped in loops, to not live in a story where the characters change mid-sentence.

I think, however, that this means I’m overly optimistic about the nature of the waking world.

“Come on then,” said Maeveen, rising fluidly from the car. We followed her unsteadily, carrying our books and our bags up to the front door, which Maeveen opened at a touch. “Right,” she said, as we stepped inside. “What do you think?”

“It’s a T.V.,” said Spenser uncertainly. Indeed it was. We had both been in Maeveen’s living room before, but now a large-screen television was bolted to the wood-panelled wall, still adorned with brand-name stickers and price tags. The power cord dangled uselessly across its screen, plugged into nothing. It looked very out-of-place, this big glossy new thing looking down at all the old brass lamps and dull red curtains, the oil portraits and dusty wooden chairs.

“I thought you might like it,” said Maeveen. She kept playing with the fringe of her shawl, waiting for one of us to respond. “I never watch the thing myself, but I know you — ”

“Is it upside-down?” asked Spenser.

“What? No, dear, it’s just the way I saw it in the shop.”

“Are you sure?”

I looked, and yes, the labels were all upside-down, and the power button was far out of reach on the uppermost edge. “He’s right,” I said.

Maeveen looked uncomfortable. “Does it matter?” she said at last.

Spenser looked like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. I just sighed. “Which room is mine?”

“Well, I thought you could take the first one on the left upstairs, dear, but why…”
I lifted my suitcase, adjusted my bookbag, and started up the shadowy stairs. Behind me I heard her question trail off into silence.

(Copyright C. Russo 2015.  All rights reserved.  No part or whole of this excerpt may be reproduced in any way except by the author’s express written permission.)