Sinner's Halo: Book 1 Weaver of Snares - Chapter 1

First/Previous Chapter 

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

-       Semisonic, Closing Time

Chapter 1: Wake up Call

            † “Don’t make me drag you out of bed, Jenna. It’s only the first day- If you start sleeping in now…” Two seconds later, the old digital alarm clock’s red sectional numbers switched to glow a blazing 6:45 and the garbled sounds of an off-tuned radio grinded through the room.  

            In response, my eyes still closed, I rolled off the edge of the bed onto the floor with a loud thud. From the hallway, my mother, Christina, knocked again with weak tapping sounds – her bones were thin and with her delicate figure it was the best she could do against my brain muffling in and out of sleep. Where I was strongly built, she was all bones. Where I was willowy, she was brittle.  

            “Are you alright in there honey? Did you roll off the bed again?” I threw my pillow as hard as I could against the door and groaned in a voice hoarse from the night’s restless sleep.

“I’m fine, just practicing for my career as the ‘Duck and Cover’ mascot...”

            I could tell she was only half convinced when her muffled voice said through the door, “ Ok, well, don’t be long, or you’ll have no time to eat breakfast.” I’d stopped wondering why mom bothered to say this, and saw that I had been lazy when I went to bed: a shot-glass still sat on my desk in plain sight.

“Come on—Food!” She shouted, sounding annoyed.  I hadn’t eaten breakfast since 5^th grade, something my mom always seemed to forget. It wasn’t like I had a vendetta against eggs, bacon or muffins or anything. I simply hadn’t eaten breakfast in six years because I never seemed to have time after haphazardly throwing on whatever clean things lay at the bottom of my closet and running to catch the bus.

 After taking the dirty shot-glass off my desk and shoving it into a clean woolen tube sock of a particularly lurid yellow in my drawer, I threw on a pair of jeans before remembering about the dress code. No denim. Ok. No T-shirts with words. Fine. Those were pretty standard private school rules as far as I knew, but I remembered Liv had told me about a couple more that weren’t so vanilla. Checking the clock, I estimated that I had about fifteen minutes left, as the bus would be running late with parents sending their beloved children off to dormitories for the first time. Not that I was bitter or anything.  

Sometimes it was a blessing and a curse to live in town. My dad had put his foot down about me living in the dorms; we would see if I did any better at this school before I was given the freedom of dorm living. It was ok though. Most people I knew lived in town, and those that did live in dorms always complained about off campus privileges and the lack of gender diversity in common rooms.  Not to mention dorm students tended to stick more closely to each other anyway. A few of the Covenfeld kids had the grades for Spledidus Stultus, but their codependency was understandable, and they dwelled in neither the realm of the townies nor the dormers.

            I pulled open a cluttered drawer on my desk and after some digging pulled out a crumpled piece of heavy orange paper, with official looking writing and a school seal emblazoned on the top.

By Declaration of the

Most High and Glorious Master Proffesor Concert Master Manfred Lyre  

The following Rules shall be follow-ed at all times.

1.  All forms of Starcheth must be consum-ed. Any perpetrator with starch (especially potatoes) left uneaten upon thouest plate shall recieveth detention for one month.

2.  No cats be-eth allow-ed on campus as they be a signeth of bad luck. Any one who disobeys wilt recieveth detention for one weeketh.

3.  Any man who be unpresent for the Most High and Glorious Master Proffesor Concert Master Manfred Lyre ‘s monthly artism lectures shalt be expell-ed immediately

4.  Shoes shalt not be worneth in thou yonder locker rooms as the Japanese tradition of not wearing shoes in bath-ed houses must be-eth observ-ed. Punishment shalt be to clean the locker rooms for three months.

5.  The colors puce and orange must be-eth worn on all Friday the 13ths, to prevent malifluent luck. Anyone not wearing the colors shall haveth detention that afternoon.  

At first I had thought the piece of paper had to be a joke by my sister, Hope, who had been jealous that I was being switched to a prestigious private institution. When Liv had tried to tell me that it was legitimate school literature, I had thought she was pulling my leg. It wasn’t until I had visited orientation that I began to rethink the matter. Despite all of the time wasting campfire tales we had been told, it was a good experience for learning my new enemy, Splendidus Stultus. Teachers had seemed reasonable, and the freshmen around me gullible but likable enough. However, everyone had been sure to dress in a disgusting color of light brownish pink with orange accessories, including my friend Luke, who, being a guide, would have told me if it was all a big orientation joke. I had yet to figure out how legitimate all these rules were, but I wasn’t ready to test them quite yet. Settled that the date was listed as the 9^th, I grimaced and put on the last resort outfit that my mother had come in and painstakingly picked out for me the night before.

 “You don’t want to come on too strongly—at least for the first week.” Mom had cautioned. “I know that you are a perfectly normal girl, and your friends know that, but I think… I think you should tone it down and let the other kids get to know you before you go back to dressing… like you used to.”

            And I did understand. Some people felt uncomfortable when I wore my normal lace and corseted look. Even back at Westhawk High, I knew how much my clothing had stood out, and while different was now becoming mainstream, it would be a while before I could dye my hair magenta again without drawing at least a few withering looks.

            I glanced at my watch and unplugged the straight iron I’d been using to melt away the frizzing waves my coppery hair was prone to. No time to curl it today. Seeing my bangs at least had a decent sidepart going for them, I slung my bag across my shoulders and tried (and failed) to slide down the banister. I don’t know how they make that look so easy in movies.  

            Running past the kitchen table I saw my dad, Jim Doloramor, reading the paper and eating a slice of toast. Before he could notice me, I gave him a kiss on the cheek, turned, and waved him goodbye as he chuckled after me.

 “Work hard this time, Jenna- your Ma will kill me if you get in any fights here. Stick to your schoolwork.”

“Would it kill you to let me have a little fun, Pops?”

“Since when is a punch to the face, a suspension and a grounding fun?”

“Never said the last two were—”

“Well, do me a favor; next time you stick up for the weak, don’t get caught, alright?”

“No… You won’t have to worry about that...” My eventual expulsion from Westhawk had little to do with academic performance and all to do with my exemplary skill at beating up on bullies: Not something I was much proud of anymore.

Shaking off the moment, I opened the front door with a loud whooshing sound. This was the cue for Silena and Hope to come charging from their respective rooms, down the stairs and out the door ahead of me.

As Silena passed, she shouted, “Come on slow poke! The bus will be here any minute!”

Hope dropped back to add, “Anyway, aren’t you excited?”

No I’m not excited. Relieved, maybe, for a fresh start, but no. I wouldn’t go as far as excited. I bit my lip and ran after them. I reached the curb just seconds ahead of the youngest, Selina, who pouted her lip, believing I should have let her win. Hope arrived last, looking winded despite the short run. She was a little bit on the frumpy side of fourteen years old, but Pops and I figured that her figure would tighten up when she started soccer in the fall. It was my mother who was currently stunting Hope’s self-esteem and her motivation to work out, as she nitpicked my sister’s look in what she assumed was a caring and not ‘entirely unhelpful” way. She had done something similar to me, and it was thanks to her approach that despite my healthy weight, I still carried a calorie counting app on my phone.

“Well, Jen, aren’t you?” Said Hope, breathlessly.

“Aren’t I what?”

“Excited!”

“Not really. It’s just school.”

            The eighth grader gaped up at me like I was crazy.

“It’s more than just school.” Said Hope, a dreamy look coming into her eyes. “This is your chance to change around your image completely! You can be anyone you want! You could be a cheerleader, or an artist, or a theater person or a slut.”

            “HOPE!”

            Hope looked at me, unsure. “A bigger slut?”

“Silena’s standing right there!” I said, not bothering to correct her opinion. It was true that the past summers activities might have led to my middle school age sister to assume certain things, but it seemed as if she had little concept of what a slut actually did. In a few years, she herself might regret slut shaming. I hadn’t slept with anyone, and I certainly hadn’t been sleeping around. However, she had walked in on my friends and I after we’d had a few too many beers, and I’d had to give her a list of every person I’d ever kissed to keep her quiet from Mom and Dad about the drinking. So far she had used the knowledge as an excuse to talk about adult subjects, something I was thankful for, considering that someday I knew she’d realize the blackmail potential.

“You don’t say those kinds of things in front of a first grader!” I said as Hope grinned slyly, but I already could see that it was too late. Silena was giggling and looking up at us with eyes that read all too clear what she would be discussing in the confines of first grade recess. Knowing the damage was already done, I sighed and turned back to Hope.

“I don’t want to be any of those things. I just want to be me, and trust me, being a slut is not on that list.” Silena giggled again as a canary yellow bus emblazoned with the words, Corner’s Wreath Elementary pulled up to the curb.

            Pointing to the words on the side of the bus, I said, “See that Silena? This is your bus. It says so right on the—”

            “I’m not stupid, Jenna, I can read. Now if you’ll excuse me, Ill be getting on my ride and showing off Princess Chainsaw and Lady Saberskates to everyone. Later gators!” I still had no idea how to feel about the latest line of fad horror-romance children’s toys to come onto the market. What ever happened to Pokemon and Polly Pocket? Despite the noise as the door opened, I could hear the groan of “Oh Lordy… those damn toys…” from the bus driver as my little sister skipped up the steps in a yellow jumper, an iceskating warrior woman and a fashionable zombified chainsaw enthusiast in hand.

            “When did she get so fresh?” Hope asked.

            “I think this all goes back to that time you left HBO on and she watched seven straight hours of True Blood.” I shot her a look. “Not that I think I’m even old enough to watch that yet.”

             Hope shrugged her shoulders and muttered, “I watch it for the plot…” Another bus approached the sidewalk, and Hope added in a fake girly voice, “Now if you’ll excuse me, Ill be getting on my ride and showing off my new ‘Chthulhu-the-Cannibalizing-Mecha-Jesus-Promqueen’ to everyone. Later gator!” Even I had to laugh at her made-up doll that in this day and age could, quite possibly, sell pretty well.

            It was only after the doors closed and the bus rounded the corner that I dropped whatever fake excitement I had mustered. Leaning against the bus post, I grumbled aloud, thinking I was alone:

 “Why can’t the summer just last forever?”

             “That IS the eternal question, isn’t it?”

             Embarrassingly, I jumped. I hadn’t been expecting an answer. To my left, I saw a boy of about my age holding a black book bag covered in iron-on band logos smirking a familiar smile. Even without seeing the chipped left-most canine, I knew it was Luke right away. His gait as he walked over was strong, and there was no trace of the hitching limp that Zack tried so hard to keep hidden.

            I could feel my face relax when I saw that he was wearing black pants and a button down shirt with a red tie: contemporary, appropriate, but still chic and a little bad-ass. His dark hair was tousled and just long enough to cover the back of his neck; his laughing eyes a clear, crystal, grey.

            “Finally joining the gang, then.” He smiled and the chip in his tooth was plainly visible. “It’s about damn time, Jennamor.”

            “You know, if you keep calling me that, it’ll look to people like we’re together.”

            “LET THEM LOOK!” He cried to the heavens above, making me snort with laughter. Recently Luke had seemed a little downcast, and tired. It was good seeing him make a ham of himself.  

            “Nice frills,” he said, looking me up and down. I grimaced. Mom hadn’t picked the dark lace I would have chosen but gone for a style straight out of Stepford Suburbia.

            “You look like you’ll fit right in. If it were the 50s. Wish I had time to drag you inside and get those clothes off you…” I stared at him, shaking my head. He could get so fresh sometimes. “-and get you some cooler duds! That did not come our right-  I’m-” I couldn’t keep my face straight any longer, though I loved watching him squirm. I cracked a smile, for which he was less than amused.

 “I try to be a gentleman but no… we should get on board the bus before it leaves, don’t you think?” I’d been so preoccupied poking fun at Luke that I hadn’t noticed our bus pull up. Unlike the others it was a bright shade of green, and I wasn’t used to the new stop yet. As I boarded I wistfully looked back on the marked bench where my old bus would be pulling up shortly.  

            “Oh, right.” Sighing, I walked up the last step and glanced down the aisle. There weren’t two seats left next to each other.

            “Looks like, we’ll have to part ways for now. Ill see you at school, Jennamor.”

            I rolled my eyes, but he didn’t even look back. After a moment of searching the nearest faces, I realized that I hardly knew anyone on the bus, and by the time Liv caught my eye, her seat was taken- by non other than Luke. He smirked at me, raising both eyebrows, knowing that I would have to sit with someone I didn’t know. Asshole.

I remained standing as the bus lurched forward until a small nerdy looking girl grudgingly moved her backpack and suitcase aside. I swear I tried to make conversation with this mousy girl, but no matter what subjects I brought up, from videogames to anime, the most I forced out of this girl were one-word answers. Trisha, as her named turned out to be, had given me the window seat, and at the final stop before the school, her friend had taken the seat across the aisle. They had begun discussing the latest boy-band concert. The girl was a true Belieber. I swear I had this Trisha Evans pegged for a Nerdfighter. So much for me expanding my horizon.

            By the time I grabbed my things that had gone flying when the bus stopped, everyone was already off it. Shoving what I’d found back in my bag, which had burst open, I exited and looked around. A small brunette girl was waiting for me by the curb, holding a piece of orange paper. Smiling, the copper skinned girl, dressed in a blue T-shirt and capris, walked over and said, “Hi, my name is Olivia Canto but my friends call me Liv. Is there anything I can help you with, Jennifer?”

            “You can help me get the stick out of your ass, Liv.”

            “Hey, if I’m in a damn formal skirt doing a damn formal job that I’m getting paid almost nothing for, the least I can do is follow the damn script.”

            “Don’t bust a vessel now, Liv.”

            “I ain’t got time to improv. I don’t even understand why we need to do these curb-side pick ups for transfers. By Junior year you think they’d expect you newbies to know how to find the admissions office.”

            “Well thanks all the same. I’m glad it was you that got me though. Some of the, uh, guides, look a little too friendly.” The one I was looking at in particular was a boy, wearing an identical shirt to Liv’s, who’s overlarge smile never faltered as he grabbed everything an older girl was carrying up the stairs. The gesture was more creepy than helpful.

            “Yeah… No one really gets Brent anyway…” She directed her next words at the boy, who’s smile still never faltered. “Let the girl carry her own stuff, Brent! She’s practically gonna hit you if you keep picking up the things that fall from her purse. It’s upsidown, moron!”

Indeed, Brent had begun picking up what he must not have known were tampons and holding them in his mouth so he could shove what remained on the ground into other bags.

            “For the love of…” Liv turned to me and gestured towards an oddly shaped building. “Just keep walking that way till you get to the giant beaker. I need to deal with this—Brent, NO! We do not put other peoples tampons in our mouth!-- Mr. Felis is coming in late today- our advisor- you’ll meet him in your history class—which reminds me. Here’s your schedule,” she quickly grabbed a piece of paper from the messenger bag dangling at her side and held it out to me. I put it carefully in my bag and promptly lost it to the depths. “Skadaddle- I’ll catch up.”

            And so I walk up the long, winding staircase towards Splendidus Stultus Academy alone. Looking around my first impression was that I had been transported to a giant’s supply closet. Every single building I passed was shaped like a different object.

            I whistled and thought to myself, Liv, you weren’t kidding… giant beaker… It has a door? What is this place? When they had brought us to orientation it had been dark, and the building with the theatre had had brick architecture straight out of the 70s.  

            “It was Crazy Lyre’s idea—excuse me, Professor Lyre’s idea. He seemed to think that all the buildings should be shaped like what they taught.” Liv said as she caught up to me. I must have been walking slower than I thought, taking in my surroundings.

            “So the giant books?” I indicated the structure we were currently passing which was shaped like a stack of three oversized books with an open book awning over a sliding glass door.

            “That would be the English building. The history building’s where we’re headed. Its that one over there shaped like a globe.” Said Liv, pointing at something round with a Geodesic glass dome donning its top. The rest was obscured by several deciduous trees.

            “Where’d they get all the money to make sculptures out of the buildings?”

Liv laughed darkly. “Donations intended for scholarship kids I’d bet, or else they wouldn’t be so rare. 2000 students in the whole school and there are three tops.”

“How do you know that?” I asked; it was unlike Liv to know about things that didn’t involve social gossip. Academic gossip usually bored her. Then again, we’d never gone to school together. Our relationship had mainly focused around summer and weekend parties and most recently around improving our knowledge of low-level alcohol. I’d stopped minding the taste or the buzz that followed, but I hadn’t found the same solace in being wasted she had. I wasn’t a fan of being out of control. Freedom, she called it.

             “Well, I only know of three scholarship kids, and I guess they all know each other. They’re all from that orphanage.”

            Covenfeld, the Foster Home, I thought. I didn’t know much about it, and Liv probably knew more than I did. She had a friend who was from there. Must have been one of the scholarship kids.

            “I know one, and he says that at the PR photo-ops –the school does those for its generous image—they hire actors to help thicken the pictures. Says you can tell who’s a real scholarship kid by which ones wouldn’t look perfect in a chip and dale uniform … Anyway, here we are!”

            Liv held open the door for me and we walked inside with the stragglers who had moved in only that morning.

            The inside of the history building was just as curious as the outside. When I entered, I immediately came face to face with a wall plastered in old articles, posters and what appeared to be ripped out pages of old textbooks. I didn’t get a chance to examine them though, because Liv immediately pulled me down a hallway to my left unexpectedly.

“What time is it?” Liv asked as she whisked me past various classrooms, all decorated according to their occupants taste.

 “7:59 am.” I replied.

            “Good. It’s just a little further. We should be able to make it in time—shit.” Just as we rounded a doorway marked 415 an obnoxious voice boomed over an unseen loudspeaker, “GET TO CLASS LITTLE DOVES” except because of the strange lisp in the speakers voice, it wasn’t clear at first that it was a sentence let alone English.

            The young teacher inside the room looked from Liv to me and, deciding to be lenient, check marked our names off the attendance sheet as the rest of the class rose from their various desks and exited the classroom. The teacher, a fashionably dressed woman with dark hair and sharp green eyes, walked over to us with purpose.

 “I heard you would be touring a transfer around today Liv, so I’m not going to write you up. But as you know, not all of the teachers in this school will be as… normal. So please get yourself and Miss Doloramor to your classes in succinct fashion. See you girls in a few hours.” †

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© 2014 Lex Vex

Sinner's Halo: Book 1 Weaver of Snares - Prologue

Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why?
Some are born;
Some men die beneath one infinite sky.
There’ll be war, there’ll be peace.
But everything one day will cease.
All the iron turned to rust;
All the proud men turned to dust.
And so all things, time will mend.
So this song will end.

- Pink Floyd, Childhood’s End

Prologue

            † The end of childhood has an unpredictable threshold. For most, the exact moment when responsibility overshadows the comfortable light of youth is a transition that takes years and is still never fully realized. Not for me.

“Shit!” I caught myself before I skinned my knee on the jagged broken sidewalk block. Once again the strums of the guitar and fast paced rhythms on my iPod consumed me, and, not bothering to watch where I stepped, the thick edge of raised cement snuck up on me.

“Damnit! Every single time!” Sighing, I brushed off my pants with the back of my hand and glanced up at the wrought iron gate in front of me.

By day, the gate towered above: the entrance to an imposing mansion of desperate, decaying beauty. But by night, its cold, swirling bars felt like a prison to the outside world. Each piercing spire pointed dramatically towards the heavens, creating a monstrous jaw line that zigzagged across the summer night. I wanted inside. Badly. Glancing along the line of iron above me, I counted the number of small gargoyles perched gleefully on top of each of the wider posts. Thirteen posts in all, counting the one I stood in front of now, but only 11 gargoyles. Two of them had been demolished down to the base. Each one clearly depicted a half human chimera.

            I had never walked this route alone before tonight. Walking the route after school with my brother or a bunch of friends was one thing, but going at dusk all alone was different. I couldn’t help twisting around to look behind me before I cautiously made my way foreword once again.

            This gate encircled a grand estate, colossal by the scale of the other mansions of the area. From the outside, I could see past the towering pine trees just enough to catch a glimpse of the columned entrance of white marble. The last occupants had vacated the mansion many years ago and for the last hundred the townspeople said it was haunted. I shivered again at the thought.

            The teachers had thought it would be a fun way to fill the end of orientation for the new freshmen, ghost stories at a campfire on the back lawn, and I, being a sophomore, had volunteered to work the grill. School wouldn’t start for another month., but now I had to walk past the mansion the three blocks it would take to reach Uncle Monty’s house with all those damn fables running through my head. I should’ve taken that shot before I left the house.  

            Most of the teachers stories sucked, and weren’t worth remembering at all. Others though... One caught my attention in particular. It told the legend of the very house I crept past, through the narrative abilities of my history teacher, William Felis.

            Not being too much older than us, ten years at the most, Mr. Felis started in a low gravelly voice uncharacteristic of his normal chipper one:

 “230 years ago, there lived a man more happy than any man can be, for he had just married the sweetest, kindest, most trusting woman alive. They lived in their mansion, the first and last occupants it would ever house. The couple would give shelter to any who needed it. A token gesture, but very foolish. One day, a traveller came to the mansion, wishing to spend the night. Noticing her poise and striking beauty, the man immediately welcomed her in. The wife, although unnerved by the way the woman gazed hungrily at her husband, trusted his judgment and said nothing as they showed the girl to her room. That night, while the wife bathed in the brass footed tub of the master bath, the woman left a note for the man sticking out of the chest of the grandfather clock in the main hall, just beneath the staircase. Lured by her note, which claimed a reward for the couple’s generosity and honesty, the husband went to the guest room. She opened before he knocked and she stood before him, wearing nothing but a red rose in her hair.”

            He paused to gaze slowly around taking in the wide-eyed faces of the freshmen. Fixating back on the ground, he continued in almost a whisper: “When the wife came from the bath, she began to search the house for her husband. She looked through all of his normal spots—loveseat in the back garden, the window seat in the library. But it wasn’t until the entrance hall that she found a clue: dead rose petals wafted down the stairs on a breeze. Like breadcrumbs on a trail, the wife picked them up one by one. As she approached, with an ever-deepening pit in her stomach, the petals became more and more red and filled with life. She…” a strange look flashed across Mr. Felis’s features but he covered his lapse with a cough. He finished quickly with a breeze to his voice that had not been there before, “Behind the door, she found them together. Shocked, she started to run from the door, but as she did so, the woman’s form changed into a scowling beast and using one sharpened fingernail, she slit the poor wife’s throat on the spot.” Once again Mr. Felis had paused long enough for one of the boys in the front row to ask loudly, “Well, what happened?” Mr. Felis gazed sadly down at him and finished,

            “The man came to his senses and ran from the house carrying his wife’s body. The woman chased after him and, not wanting to be captured, killed him as well. She claimed the grounds as her own and lives there still, not dead but not alive. On some nights, she comes out of the building and stalks the land, waiting to kill any who venture on to her property. Their possessions still haunt the place. Peer through the bars, and you will see the bench in the back of the house and loveseat window in which the couple used to read each other stories and think up dreams. If you peer into the foyer, you will even see the grandfather clock, stopped at the exact time the wife was killed. With all the spirits that haunt the place, angry, violent, betrayed, evil, it may be the last thing you will ever do. Think on it wisely.” With that, he had stood up and relinquished the spotlight.

            I shivered as I recalled the details, repositioning the bag of clothes for my uncle’s house to a more comfortable position. I wished again that my brother hadn’t had an episode; despite the irregular limp he’d begun to develop, he simply refused to use the cane my mother had spent her most recent paycheck buying. The most recent fall and the coughing fit that followed had required more professional nursing than I wanted to be around to witness. But I also hated staying alone with Monty, whose TV-less house led so easily to boredom. The expression of abandonment on my brother’s face, so much like my own, had done nothing to ease my conscious as I walked out with my backpack and overnight bag. I left just as his nurse arrived.

            Just as I shuddered, remembering the gleam of sweat on Zack’s face and the buckling of his body that had little to do with his wheezing, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Something large. Luckily, it seemed to have moved on the other side of the fence. Quickening my step, despite the lingering pain in my knee, I walked along the farthest edge of the sidewalk away from the gate. There were only three more posts to pass before Monty’s street. I forced myself to ignore the sounds of rustling in the trees from the behind the iron. Soon I was unwillingly able to distinguish a purr-like sound emanating from the nearest brush. Breaking into a sprint, I overtook the second to last post, one empty of a gargoyle, but hearing another growl to my right I finally had to peer into the murky trees. I almost tripped again from shock. A tufted tail had flicked like a whip just above the brush line before disappearing into the greenery. Mid-stride, and not looking where I ran, I tripped over some upturned cement for the second time that night.

            I tumbled over the sidewalk before skidding to a stop a few feet from a telephone pole. Forcing myself to stand up, I tried a step but the cuts all over my body stabbed heat and knives everywhere exposed to the air. Leaning back against the utility pole, I slid down into a crouching position. Involuntarily, my eyes began to water.

“Shit!” I issued a few even more colorful words as I opened my eyes for self-triage. The skin on my knees was red, torn and grimy, as if it had been blasted by a high-powered-sander. One of the scrapes was bleeding steadily. A pool had formed on the ground already.  

             Groaning, I leaned my head back against the post. I gazed up into the dark, cloudless sky.

            “I’ll rest here for a minute.” I said to no one. I reached for my overnight bag, which had dropped a few feet away, and felt something hot trickle down my elbow. Another scrape. I choked out an expletive I’m sure my mother would have grounded me for, had she heard it.

            Reaching into my bag I felt around for the old T-shirt I’d brought to sleep in. I sighed as I pulled it out, and heard another growl. My eyes shot up, but when I saw nothing, I resumed pulling out the shirt. It tore deftly into three long strips I could use as makeshift bandages.

            I started with my elbows, tying the strips into messy but effective knots. I had begun to tie a strip around my knee when the snarl sounded again, only closer this time. The dark foliage in front of me rustled, but nothing could be seen. A feeling of dread over me, I tied the strip I’d been working on in a knot and moved on to my other knee. The rustling and growling became more pronounced as I scrambled to finish, my fumbling completely undoing what I had achieved. Grabbing the ends once more, I tried to tie it hastily, stopping only to wipe some accumulated sweat from my forehead. A further sounds caused me to jump, but I finished in seconds anyway. Grabbing and re-zipping the bag, I stood and found the gate with my eyes.

            The sack hit the ground with a dull thud. I stared petrified at the iron bars. Or, more accurately I stared petrified at what was behind the iron bars. A white lion with glowing red eyes glared at me, the only thing between us the iron gate, which, at the moment, appeared far too small for my taste. The glowing animal took one step towards the gate then another, and another. It approached slowly, growling like a low and dissonant chord on an untuned piano. Another sound rustled leaves from somewhere next to me, but petrified by the lion, I wasn’t too concerned. As the rustling grew closer, the lion’s growl escalated into a full roar. Raising its haunches the lion rushed at the gate with tremendous force causing the entire fence to reverberate on the dull and silent street.

            Coming to my senses at last, I sprang to my feet as the lion was knocked backwards and tumbled over itself. Rising up, it rushed again at me, roaring while it sprinted. I had barely taken one step when a sudden pain pierced my leg. Another thunderous clash of beast and metal sounded as I stared down to see a black serpent attached by the mouth to my ankle. The pain that had seeped into my left foot replaced itself with a numbness that seemed to travel up my leg at an impossible rate.

“That’s a snake…” I thought dumbly as reptile twitched with shivering delight.

            The lion snarled, and the snake, in answer, extracted its fangs from my ankle. Following the snake’s progress with dazed eyes, I could only barely stay awake in a world gone woozy as it rubbed itself against the fresh bite marks before slithering back through the gate. My eyes were losing focus. Everything that had been in focus was blurry. Falling to my knees, not even feeling the pain of landing on my already beat up kneecaps, I looked through the useless spears of gate again to watch the lion saunter away through the trees, going in and out of focus. When it had finally disappeared into the thicket, I blinked a few times, trying to keep the landscape clear. Somewhere, a bell tolled eight. My eyes involuntarily closed and my head hit the pavement with a loud thud as my mind faded into darkness. † 

Next Chapter

©2014 Lex Vex

Wind Rises

sparrow molts on the window ledge
a fallen feather
clings to the maplewood
stabbed by a splinter
Summer moons die in embers
and rise in the
flaming leaves
icicled twigs
pollen frosted buds
and humming heat again
but the feather never evolves.
flattened by gravity
the down, speared by the sill,
no longer flutters, not even in thunderstorms.

©2014 Lex Vex

we are born from children

The moonlight fell as snowflakes
whenever the pheonix died
and children's hands
balled up the ashes
causing the creation of Man.
       Youth was as it is
       realizing nothing about how special
       that such automatons
       could bare their teeth and
       blacken their lungs with silt
and emboss their cheaks in the color
of fire's feather.
Impatient youths fed them and watered
till suddenly their automatons
looked like the children
      as the children themselves no longer did.
     Spying their own faces in a looking glass
     the spheres dashed from all sight
     abandoning us their creations
     who would forever wonder why

we are from the death of suns
we are born from the cremation
of children.

©2014 Lex Vex

Pictures on your skin

the ink seeps in rivers
between the desert grooves
that grace
the surface of my skin

the drawings and notes
grace hands
like a holy scripture
of colored ink

a shopping list.
a tribal tattoo.
a holistic symbol of mainstream
pop fizz.

mother doesn't understand
the visceral nature
of drawing on hands
instead of paper.

Ink's blood is
blue
but this ink's blood
is pink.

©2014 Lex Vex

The Fate Book - a first experiment that may go deeper

Jordan read the passage and shut the book, keeping track of the pages by gruffly shoving a forefinger in the slot.

Jordan read the passage and shut the book, keeping track of the pages by gruffly shoving a forefinger in the slot.

      And then he felt annoyed.

He pulled back open the book to check what was written next.

And then he felt annoyed.

He slammed the book shut, this time losing the pages to the collective mass of uneven parchment.  Jordan looked out over the ravine of the quarry, where finely stepped terraces of blocky rock dove down into the still pool of the underground spring. Daylight swept closed in an ember blocked by the dark opaqueness of a summer storm, and already the quarry swimmers that usually permeated the terraces like Irish sheep had turned in for the evening. The cool air swirled through the ravine, the current licking Jordan gently towards the cliffs edge with its sharp pine needle fingers. But Jordan did not move. The thought of a night swim, when the moon was absent from the sky and the last of the family circuses had packed up their hump-backed sedans gave him uneasy chills. Setting his pack on the ground, Jordan picked up the heavy thread bound book once again.

Page 468.

The number rumbled through his mind like the rustling of the leaves as the towering cumulous sizzled it’s way across the horizon, blocking out the last of the sunlight. Jordan knew the words he had read on the page before he snapped the book shut.

Her eyes were not white, but misted over in a fog. He tilted her dying gaze back and when Jordan kissed her, he could taste the iron on her lips.

Her dying gaze.

He could not jump forward again in the pages to see how it played out, because if he did, he knew that it, like his winning streak at the poker game, like the answers on his geometry test, like poor mowed down Rolly, who’s crushed body was cradled in the garden, marked only by a small rock, that this death too would come to be. He nudged a small rock, glinting of pyrite and quartz, off the edge of the cliff face and watched as it fell, suspended in the air. In those brief moments he pretended the rock veered itself away from its course directly below. But just as he knew it would, it splashed with an embracing gulp into the dark water. Even though he could no longer see the rock, he knew it fell deeper and deeper until it would hit the bottom and could gaze up to the surface where its impact rippled waves against the surface.

      Jordan sat back down and thrust the tome away from him, sending up a weak cloud of dust. He glared at it. He did not know who the “her” was, only that she was dying and that he would kiss her as she did. He was terrified of the iron taste, and he knew it sickened him to think about. A breeze lifted the humid chill and the birds that had gone to roost in the dying light cackled throughout the treetops. When the dust settled, a light glinted off of the leather of the binding, irritating Jordan’s eye with its brightness.

      Kneeling forward, Jordan gingerly grabbed the book and set it spine facing him. In letters almost too faded to read was a name.

M. Lexi Vecchio.

Jordan reread the name a few times. It seemed like a name far too modern, too Italian, too female, too twenty-first century for a tome who’s binding had half fallen off and was stuffed with handwritten pages underneath.

      Jordan’s head jerked up suddenly and a rumbling of thunder electrified the air. A spark of an idea flitted through his brain like an elusive hummingbird. He could not bring himself to read any more of the future, any more of page 468, but he knew roughly the page he was on now. Page 203, maybe 204. He could not read the future, but what if he read the present? How did the author, this M. Lexi Vecchio write it? A smile curled onto Jordan’s mouth. He carefully opened the book and turned the pages until he found where he was. He marked the page with a finger once again and shut the book. After he asked each question, he opened to book to see his own words and the response to them.

“Who are you?” Jordan felt silly asking the question to the open air. He heard nothing, and when he checked, he found that the author had written nothing.

“I know you’re there.” He said. “I know because you are typing everything I am saying. I know you are typing away, sitting on your roommate, Robin’s, bed, the one who is abroad. You’re drinking chai, even though you aren’t sure you even like chai tea, because your best friends mother raves about it and you think it seems like something a real writer would drink. Your cardigan is grey and I know you can read what I am saying.”

            He knew he was correct. And he is. Jordan checked the book for a response and smiled.

            “See? I know things about you too. So why don’t we cut the confusion and have a real conversation.”

            Ok.

            “Who is the girl?” he asked.

I can’t tell you that. I might change my mind.

            “You mean you don’t know who it is?!”

Not exactly. I thought I did, but now it seems too obvious.

            “Why kill anyone? This is my life!”

I know it is, I made you.

            “And why would you choose this… this fucked up fortune telling shtick?”

I wanted to make a Cassandra tale.

            “A what?”

Its part of Greek mythology. I like Greek mythos. And I didn’t plan it like this.

            “Like what?”

I want you happy, but you have to earn it.

            “Should anyone have to earn happiness?”

People in books.

            “Bitch.”

Yeah, I guess I kindof am. But it’s supposed to be interesting.

Jordan held the book shut for a moment, considering. He was reading the book, and when he had started, it was interesting. He had found the similarities to his own life fascinating enough to stay up all night reading. He had even used his knowledge. Then it had gotten dark, and he had liked it more. Then his dog had died. Then he had read page 468.  But if this was a book then he was not the only reader.

            “What do you think about the story?” Jordan said aloud, feeling foolish.

He’s asking You, dear reader.

            “Can they speak?” Jordan asked?

Yes, but we can’t hear it.

            “So how can I tell if they think its any good?”

We can’t. But they should at least ask themselves.

            “Well, I’ll ask for them: Do you like the story? Should I have gotten the author involved? Yes, person reading this text, I am asking you.”

He is, I promise.

            “I dunno if I want to keep reading… Is this stuff they’re reading… Is it happening to them the same way it is happening to me?”

           

No, it is not.

            “Why not?”

This story is about you.

            “Can you tell me what to do now?”

Not if you want the freedom to change the story.

            “I can change it?”

Not what you’ve already read. Not page 468. But the rest… I haven’t written it yet. Things will turn out how you make them turn out.

            “What if I skip ahead? What if I see another page?”

Then those words too will come true.

            “And I can’t change them?”

The words will not change, no.

            “Will I be able to contact you again? To ask questions? Will you answer?”

I haven’t decided.

            “You owe me.”

Do I?

            “It’s my life you’re screwing with.”

I’ll think about it. In the mean time, I’d get out from under that tree if I were you.

Jordan shoved his things in his arms, jumbling them around as he clambered his way out from under the tree.  He was fifty yards off and panting when he turned to look at the maple’s greenery blowing in the wind. Nothing happened.

“What the hell? Nothing happened?”

-

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Sorry I was chuckling.  You can be kindof gullible.

“You’re such a freaking bitch!” Jordan said, clenching his jaw.

God, Chill, Jordan. Wait like three more seconds.

He did. A magnificent cacophony of superheated air thundered through the canyon. The tree under which Jordan had been sitting shattered into a thousand splinters as the lightening’s blinding brightness lit the quarry. Jordan’s eyes stung with burned rhodopsin.

            “Thanks…” Jordan said, a weak chuckle crossing a twitching smile.

You’re welcome. 

©2014 Lex Vex

Marone Lisa

The woman’s lips naturally sank on her face like those of a parrotfish. In color they were of raspberry-mocha, a color just as unnatural gracing her lips as it was in her hair. The roots upon hear head were spackled with grey in uneven rows, and the pepper line of her part divided her mottled hair just off center. Its bushy consistency was pulled back in thick blobs of crimped locks through the repetitive obsessive compulsive brushing of tightly curled hair.

            Her visage was almost monochromatic: she wore the brown college sweatshirt of someone thirty years younger and 40 pounds heavier, over an almost orange merone blouse. Her skirt was oaken; her nails copper mist; her shoes, salt crusted cowhide. Her chin she held high so that her nose could reign over the culinary talk unfolding below her. Each nostril gazed in strict judgment over the scents of buttermilk, eggs, sauerkraut and wine, inhaling the sour cheese and olive groves from a cafeteria-dining box. There are barrettes trying to stretch the corners of her face like a taut sheet. She sits, bargain knockoff feet resting on the third stair from the top, trying to retain, with posture, the indignity of crouching on the stained carpet in a velveteen walnut ankle biting skirt.

            Deep-set eyes gloom upon the scene, lit only by faint skin colored eyelashes. Her lips purse and suddenly she is Mona Lisa, frowning at the spoken words of carbs, from a supermodel no less, wishing she could eat like an Italian and stay that skinny. She adjusted her seat, tossing her stretched mane like a painter’s muse. She shall never know that she was the inspiration for this small scribbled moment. She will not know her frown fish lips, angular and drooping face, and olivmatic skins have made her immortal in print. Yes, I have made you immortal.

©2014 Lex Vex