Eternity Touch (Part 4)

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** NOTE: The next couple of extracts contain slightly adult content. Nothing graphic (Cos I blush too much), but stuff is definitely implied. Just so you know. **


The thing that amazed me was how his touch changed. I mean, once I got over the being in hell thing. Of course I hadn't believed him at first. He found that hard to handle. You'd think a god would know how to handle any situation, but apparently human social skills are beyond the repertoire of the Lord of Hades. But he convinced me. I couldn't continue to disbelieve once I had seen those rooms. That coldness in his eyes as he said to me, "I'll show you". They were… awful. Clinical. The only way I can explain it is like a mental asylum. One of those really terrible ones you see in movies from decades ago, only worse. Much, much worse. No fire and brimstone, no Dante infernos. Nothing as living, as heated, as a flame. Just rooms and rooms of empty souls, going quietly mad. And some going not so quietly mad. It makes me shiver just thinking about it. I cried. Horrified, silent tears, burning my cheeks. It was a strange kind of relief, to feel those hot points of salt water on my skin, so I knew I, at least, was still alive. Eventually, he took us away. I might have begged him to leave. I don’t really remember.

And then suddenly we weren't there any more. We were in what looked like a drawing room. Well, at least, what I would imagine a drawing room to look like (having never been in a real one before). Complete with log fire, and shelves of books. Although when I tried to read one, I realized they were all blank. Beautiful leather bound books - Great Expectations, Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, all the classics - but every one of them blank inside. When I asked him about it, he just shrugged.

"I couldn't fill them in. I hadn't ever read any of them," was his only explanation.

And then he touched me. I can't explain the change. My only guess is that he decided it must change - he knew the effect he wanted, and so he got it. It was electrifying. I felt him touch me in every nerve in my body - and the result was a profoundly pure physical reaction. If you can imagine the best lover you have ever had, and then imagine what a god can do with that kind of knowledge.

All I can say is, it was never pomegranate seeds that trapped Persephone in Hell.

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Eternity touch (Part 3)

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Of course I knew when he took her. A mother does. I felt her go. Also, I had been expecting it. It's the hardest thing for a mother to accept - that your child can be in danger, that you can know it will happen, but you can't predict when, that you can't tell her, and that, when it comes down to it, no matter how you try, no matter what you do, you can't do a thing to stop it. But I knew when he took her, and maybe that's something.

I was sitting drinking tea with some society type women. Playing the role to the hilt. And it came - that rush of cold, that absolute certain knowledge I had been dreading. It was all I could do not to rush out immediately. But I knew that there was nothing I could do right at that moment. And more to the point, that it would play itself out again, this thing I hated and dreaded each time.

I made my apologies - feigned illness I suspect (I never really remember the moments immediately after that cold dreadful certain one) - and got home before it hit. After so many centuries you'd think it would get easier, but it doesn't. That wave of despair, so encompassing. So horrible. I had only just closed the door when I sank to the floor sobbing. It's strange, there is always a part of my mind that knows this is a playing out of a fated hurt, and I always know that it will pass, but it is so profound - I can't explain it in mortal terms. You couldn't understand. It fills everything. And all I can do is just wait for it to pass…

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And suddenly, months before it should have arrived, the snow began to fall.

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Eternity Touch (Part 2)

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She wasn't at all as I had imagined her. She was supposed to be quiet and submissive and very feminine. Instead she was talkative, much too talkative for my liking, and she spoke to me in a manner that suggested that I was rather below her. As if she was doing me a favour by allowing me to converse with her. She didn't look the part either - this little girl with her mousy hair all bunched up at the back of her head, and a ragged fringe hanging too long in her eyes. I even, for a moment, wondered if I had been mistaken. However, the moment I touched her I could tell that there was no error. I could feel her blood beneath her skin, and read everything in it.

She didn't resist at first, which made the journey easy. That too surprised me. Usually they yell and scream and struggle and make it all very unpleasant. It wasn't until we had arrived that she responded at all. And then it was in a manner very different to what I was used to.

"Jesus fucking Christ! What was that?" she said.

"You’re rather foul-mouthed for a young lady," I responded.

She snorted. "Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind."

I watched her reactions carefully. This one was different to the others, and that made her unpredictable, and I don’t like unpredictable. I cursed the god who had given mortals their free will and made them impossible for us to read accurately. She looked around slowly, and walked away from me slightly. Then she turned and regarded me from beneath that unsightly fringe.

"OK. You've got me. How'd you do that? And where are we now?"

I was silent for a moment. Then I stepped closer. She stepped back quickly, eyeing me suspiciously.

"No, we're here now," I assured her. "I'm not taking you anywhere else."

"Right." She was being very cautious. "So where is here?"

Again, I paused. This is always the worst part. When they realize where they are.

"Here. Hell. Hades." I shrugged. "Whatever name you choose to give it."

I waited for the screaming, the sobs, the usual hysterics. They never came. She was looking at me with a look of skepticism, which slowly ebbed into disbelief. Then she started laughing. I was slightly taken aback.

"What, is that some kind of melodramatic, Goth-kidnapper, classics student joke?" she said, when her laughing subsided. "Because I tell you, it's a bit of a cliché. I'm no Persephone, my dear!"

"Actually, my love," I replied, "that’s exactly what you are."

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Eternity Touch (Part 1)

It wasn't even a cold night. You'd think it would've been. Or raining at least - cold and stormy, that's when these things happen isn't it? But it wasn't. There wasn't the slightest hint. In fact it was warm - one of those strangely uplifting nights, when summer dances on the wind and the stars are bright, and everything feels a little crazy and anticipatory. That might've been the hint, but if it was, I wasn't paying attention. I felt totally light. In retrospect I should have known better. That kind of lightness is always followed by the world screwing you over completely. But I guess that 'enjoyment of the moment' thing motivational speakers are so high on had me firmly in its grip, holding me over a chasm, about to drop me into it. Quite literally. Although the ground didn't quake and shiver and split open, and the sky didn't roar and flash fire, and, well, to be frank, it was all pretty unmythic really.

He's small. Much smaller than you'd think he would be. And that night he gave me no reason whatsoever to think he was a threat. I guess someone like him doesn't need brute strength and size, not when he has so much at his fingertips. He struck me as almost weedy, to be honest. He wore jeans and a t-shirt - nothing to suggest, well anything. You have to understand, I have gone over and over this in my mind, trying to find something that might have warned me. I find it so hard to believe something like this can just happen. But there was nothing about him, nothing about the night, absolutely nothing at all that could have been a warning. No foreboding whatsoever - and there's me, ever the believer in intuition. I guess intuition was away that night.

Anyway, like I was saying, jeans and a t-shirt. Only slightly taller than me (and I'm a little thing - 'petite' my mother calls it) and relatively skinny. In fact, on sight I'd have said I could probably have taken him, what with the self-defense classes my mother was making me take. So it's not a big surprise that I stopped to talk to him. Asking me the time - I mean really, you'd think a god could come up with something more original than that! And then the usual - where was I from, what was a pretty girl like me doing roaming the streets at that time of night... It was only when he caught hold of my wrist that I knew there was anything strange about him (again - how can you engage in small talk with a god and not realize that there's something a little odd about him? And I just thought he was shy and a bit awkward!). His grip was uncannily strong, but that wasn’t what alarmed me. It was also freezing. In fact, his hand was so cold I gasped. I looked up in horror and noticed for the first time that he had eyes like ice. Ice blue and deeply cold, there wasn’t the slightest bit of humanity there.

"Well, my love," he said, and the voice had changed - it too was like ice now, cold and hard. "Enough small talk, let's go home, shall we?"

I couldn't answer. The cold from my wrist was shooting up my arm and agonizingly into my shoulder. Suddenly my ears were full of the sound of wind, but not the warm balminess it had been all night. This wind was cold and violent, biting into my skin, and cutting straight to the bones beneath it. I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet, or see beyond the cold blue of those eyes. Staring into the eyes of a god (although I didn't know that yet), I was sucked into hell.

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Welcome to my hearth.

Hi there.

Presumably if you are reading this, you already know me. You will have come here because you got an email from me, or from a link on my livejournal. I am starting this blog for my creative writings. Stories which I have hidden from the world for years. Stuff that's bubbling in my brain. Possibly even some poetry here and there.

My first major project started years ago with a story called Eternity Touch, which I will post after this. Eternity Touch was written for an anthology that never happened. The idea behind it was that various people would write stories based on myths. Mine was based on one of my all-time favourite myths: Persephone's abduction into hell, and the subsequent creation of the seasons. To the best of my knowledge, no-one else came through with a story. Certainly, the anthology never happened. But I did get one of my best stories out of it. So, my proposal is to fulfill the original dream. To create a series of stories based on myths. I'm not going to try and stick to the Greek, because other mythologies also have such lovely stuff to work from.

At the end of each story there will be a 'donate' button. You are not obliged to donate, but it would be most appreciated, and if all goes well, it may eventually turn into an actual book. If that happens, everyone who donated will be acknowledged in that book. I have seen this work for other people ( M.C.A. Hogarth's wonderful The Aphorism's of Kerishdar happened out of a similar project on her livejournal, and are very much well worth reading, because they are gorgeous. And check it out - now she's on Amazon!). This kind of cyber-funded creativity is starting to happen, and while I don't for one second put myself in the same category as people like M.C.A Hogarth or 'Song with her brilliant Wind Tunnel Dreams and Shayara, I do think I write some pretty nifty stuff, and it would rock to make some cash out of it. Especially since, at the moment, things are very, very tight. The small donations add up, so don't feel that if you can't donate a lot it's a problem. Small donations are also very very welcome, and you will be acknowledged if I manage to make a book out of this. However, if you really can't do it, please still keep reading. Readers are important.

Also, if you feel the need or inclination to plug this, please do so. The more people going, "hey, where's the next one?", the more inclined I will feel to write. I may throw in a couple of other, unconnected pieces here and there, just to keep things interesting. You help me by spreading the word. Please do.

I have said elsewhere that fiction is hardest for me. Travel I can do. Easily. Writing about cooking comes as naturally as breathing. I can even tell you how to live your life with minimum shame. But fiction scares the bejesus out of me. I freeze up. The stories in my head laugh at me and swirl around so I can't get them down. I may end up doing the various stories episodically as a result of this. Eternity Touch took me ages to write, and I want to keep you interested. All and any encouragement is very welcome. Help me make something beautiful. Donate if you can, and please, please, bring your friends.

Welcome to my hearth. It's story time.