A Stone's Throw

I had seen the magician so many times, he no longer seemed strange. I would be gliding down the path, the snow spitting up from underneath my pink sneakers, golden pigtails streaming out behind me, and he would be there. The magician would come out and show us the way the world warped at his fingers. At the time, I honestly believed that it was a magic trick, but only now do I understand how far off I was.
The magician had a black hat that tilted over a mop of dark hair, brushing over a pair of shimmering green eyes. They reflected the sparkling webs of snow that stretched across the town.
The magician stood with his feet on the shimmering concrete, the fresh smell of snow hanging in the air. Wind whistled through the ice-draped trees, and the world was white.

He crouched to my height and lifted his black-gloved hands. Between his fingers slipped the world I knew, images of Ma and the strange man who came to see her at night.

The magician held up his forefinger, and around it swirled the fuzzy images of Daddy and I. These ones were the special ones, the ones I strained to see, but were heartwarming all the same. Daddy lifting me up to see over the crowd until I found a foothold on his shoulder. The time when he came home with the huge, pink teddy bear that I didn’t let go of for weeks. There were flashes of his lively blue eyes, his fingers wrapping a ribbon around my hair, his strong arms around me, blocking out anything there was to fear. These images were Daddy before he disappeared.

It was one of those perfect summer afternoons when everything just feelsright.

The tips of brown-green trees leaned and swayed to the soft, swirling wind. Crispy leaves skittered along the brick path, their quiet stutter weaving into the soft churn of cars somewhere far away. And then there was that smell that you can only get on days like this, that fresh, natural aroma that wafts through the air. The sun peered at me through the branches of the trees, warm and stimulating.

My serenity was crushed by a loud yell.

Izzy loped through my front yard, her flame-red converses slamming the road, briefly outrunning a silver car and half-tripping on a ginger cat. Her thin frame slinked past the tall gum tree and plopped itself beside me. Her orange hair was brittle with twigs and leaves that seemed to be permanently embedded into her body wherever she went.

“Alice!” she screamed again, panting a little, her huge green eyes sparkling. I frowned.

“What?” I grumbled, my voice croaky.

The most important and simple thing to understand about Izzy is her understanding of life. If something sucks, smother it in Nutella. If it still sucks, it’s not worth wasting your time on.

She was crouched beside me, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Okay, so,” she began, her face animated, “I went into my backyard, right, and there was this dog. But I don’t think it was a normal dog. I mean, it was freaking huge! And it looked really hurt, right, and I went up to it,”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you let it sniff your paw?”

“Hand,” she corrected, “and, no. The thing looked rabid!”

“And you still went up to it?”

Izzy shrugged. “Anyway, it hopped away, right, and I saw that it was gonna bite me. So I was, like, okay then, mister freaking enormous dog, I’m not gonna hurt you, and I got closer to it, and it full on attacked me!”

I face-palmed into my book. 

“So,” Izzy rambled on, “I yelled at it,”

“Of course you did,”

“And then, it turned around, and it was full on hurt! It had this massive wound on it’s side, right. Like, it was serious!”

“Okay, so what’s your point?”

She grinned. “I was thinking that maybe you could take a look at it?”

My teeth gritted automatically. Izzy had seen the old veterinary kit that my dad had used to teach me basic surgery, and, despite my sixteen-and-a-halfness, she trusted me to do anything related to animals. 

“Izzy, I can’t”

-thatawkwardmoment

(Source: livelife-befree, via thatawkwardmoment)

thatawkwardmoment:

Knock, knock, knock.

 I don’t know why they’re knocking. They’re coming inside, whether I like it or not. Who knocks on the door of somebody they’re about to kill?

Knock, knock, knock.

 The floorboard is stone cold and uncomfortable, pressing into my spine. My body is frigid, huddled in a loose, fetal position under the blanket. My hair is limp at my shoulders, and my arm is buzzing from being still for so long. The only light is from the weak sun, slushing lazily around the tiny room. I yank the rough, checkered blanket further up around my face, as if it will protect me. But I know it won’t.

Knock, knock, knock.  

There is mumbling on the other side of the wooden door. There’s no escape for me now. There’s only one option left.

But to change would break the promise. I promised myself that I would never go back.

But I can feel the claws shoving up underneath my fingernails. My beautiful, pink-and-white fingernails. I had worked so hard on them, clipping and filing them to perfection. I would never see them again. It’s a silly thing to worry about, my fingernails, as I huddle here on my deathbed. I might never see the sun again, if I co-operate with these men.

But the time for decision making is over. My skin is stretched back and my throat closed over, making way for the wolf inside me.

Her ragged body was tossed against the wall, looking as if it was slowly soaking into the grey brick. Blood was streaked across her brow, blossoming into her shirt, pooling on the cement floor. There was a strong, impossible stench of moss, grime and sick that saturated the air. The only sound was torn breathing and a slow, steady dripping from somewhere behind us.
But what petrified me most about her state were the numbers. From two to twelve, they were chiseled around the edges of her face with prongs and knives. Her twinkling sapphire eyes were bruised, and mostly closed, the left one to make space from the still bleeding number 2 above her temple. It was a recent addition to the ruined canvas that her beautiful face had been twisted in to, crimson blood sparkling on her cheek. The number 12 was an ancient scar on her forehead, scabbing over, brown. They all went clockwise in a brutally well-set-out pattern.
I fell to my knees, to her height. My left hand traced around the edges of her semi-conscious face, my right feeling the long chains that were bound to the wall.
Her blood-crusted lips parted slightly, and a gust of shuddering breath blew from them. I saw her struggle, her fingers shaking. Every breath she took was another try at forming a word. I watched her, unable to help, my heart tearing to shreds at her pain.
“The clockwork demon…” she whispered, the words twisting to a shaky cry of pain at the end. I gasped in horror, as the loud, ragged sound of her breath stopped in an instant. I whipped around to look behind me

I wiped my ashy hands on the crispy white tea towel, streaking it with black. The sweet, waxy scent of candles was banished by the thick, smoggy smell of smoke.

Alex’s voice was husky, coming from somewhere through the thick black air. I couldn’t see more than two feet through the smoke, and even that was blocked with hazy grey mist.

“Boiled eggs,” he growled, his words getting clearer as he approached, “how could you make this from boiled eggs?”
He coughed heavily and waved the black from around his face. Once his blond, tanned face was visible, I hesitantly scooped up a clump of ash with my plastic cooking spoon. A greyish, eggy ooze seeped from a crack in it’s skin.
“Breakfast?” I offered, and he took a few steps back through the smog in denial. I shrugged, and tossed it into where ever the bin was meant to be. A satisfying clatter announced that it had found it’s place.
The fog began to dissolve, and the kitchen slid into it’s mismatched place. The yellow cupboards above the green sink, the patchwork chairs and the patternless arrangement of tiles. The chandelier was torn and patched, making it red, orange, green and blue.

The whine of traffic rang from the french windows.

Alex ran his fingers through his thick, blond hair and shook his head. “How the hell did you do that? You grab the eggs, put them in the water above the flame, and…”

“Wait, above the flame?” I asked, confused. Alex rolled his eyes, waving away the rest of the smog with a loose left hand.

The Scarlet Stiletto writing competition goes on once a year. It must be written by a girl, come from the point of view of a girl, and revolve around a crime.I had an attempt at writing for it, and here is the beginning (before the story slipped away from me) The tall, white walls of the over-populated office were slowly closing in on me. The dark wooden desks dotted around the room changed into monsters every time I looked away. The smell of cleaning liquids and dust made something lurch at the back of my throat.

I needed a break. The images in this autopsy report were gruesome, and not what I needed to see on a Friday afternoon. Will anyone notice if I leave the room? The silence was crawling on my skin, the occasional sniff or clatter of a pen on the floor suddenly too loud for my ears.

Twenty skidded into the room, flinging his black hat and coat onto Giles’s desk. “Okay,” he began, “Forty-three year old woman. Doors locked from the inside, lying on top of her bed. No signs of poisoning, heart attack, illness, or wounds. Her body was in perfect condition, apart from being… what do you call it?”

Perched at his desk was my new boss.

Now, I’ve heard that you should never judge a book by it’s cover, but I think that in this case it’s good that I did.

The man was hardly four foot five, greasy flops of grey hair scraped over his bald head. Wound around his chubby throat was a sickening purple-and-green striped tie. His desk was overflowing with novelty items that seemed to be bought at gift shops, all of which were drowning the actual need for the desk, an ancient grey laptop. The centrepiece, a plaster garden gnome, stared me down ominously as I approached.

“Hi!” the little man exclaimed over-excitedly, “Welcome do Dale Industries! I’m Jacob Williams, but you can go ahead and call me Jake!”

Hey guys, here’s one of the Harmonizer stories I wrote at about grade 5. Enjoy!

Twenty was slumped in his chair, his eyes half-shut, his body seeming dark. He was drained of energy. We both were. I collapsed in the seat next to him, sweat dripping down my face. The discovery itself was too much for me, let alone having to fight it back.
“They’re everywhere now, aren’t they?” I whispered, “in every country, every state, every city. They’ve taken over the world,”
Twenty made no response. I sighed, and rocked back in the chair.
“The entire human race, gone. Can you imagine that? Everyone in the world. Everyone we know, have known, or will know. The witnesses of our pasts, presents and futures, snatched away by the little ghost girls,”
I could feel tears streaming down my cheeks. My breath caught, and a sob tore up my body. “And we’ll be taken too, won’t we? We’ll be taken, just like every other person. We’ll be wiped out by their race. And for what? For what, Twenty?”
I grabbed his shoulders, but he was heavy in my hands. I gasped and leaped back. My captain slumped over the chair, his lifeless body folded.
“Twenty!” I shrieked, leaping out of my chair and grabbing him again. I shoved him back into a sitting position, but he stumbled off the chair. His dead body was strewn across the floor.
“No!” I wailed, grabbing his head in my arms, scrunching his crusty black hair in my fingers. His neck bowed back into the floor, supported only by my arms that wrapped around it.

I screamed.

And then I saw it.
His half-open eyes were black. The whites were grey. There were dark blotches spreading out across his skin.
A scream rang out in the air. It was mine.
“I’m sorry,”
The little girl’s voice was the last thing I needed to hear.
“That’s it?” I mumbled past my tears, “you’re sorry?”
“Really, I am,” she said sincerely. I turned around to her faint glow.
“We needed him for the Harmony,” she said, frowning.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re getting at,” I growled, “but this isn’t harmony,”
I was panting.
She frowned. “Oh, but it is,” she said, “can’t you see?”
I self-consciously patted my hair back from my eyes. “No, I can’t. You keep killing and killing, but what are you achieving? Why do you do it?”
Her head tilted. “Oh, but we are not killing, Misses Nightingale. We are only saving,”
I let Twenty’s head drop and stood up, over-towering the little blond girl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She recoiled. “Like I said,” she snapped defensively, “Harmony needs it,”
My jaw fastened. “I know! Jesus, I know…”
Realisation dawned upon me. “Wait… what did you just say?”
She frowned again. “Harmony needs it,” she repeated.
I straightened. “I haven’t heard you say that before,” I muttered, “I thought I had, but I hadn’t,”
A little smile flickered on my lips. “You referred to the Harmony like a person,” I said, “it wasn’t harmony, like, peace, that you wanted. You want to help a person!”
She tilted her head. “But of course! We fight for Harmony! She needs us. Truly, she does,”
“Who is Harmony?” I asked shortly.
A little grin opened on her face. “But I thought you knew,” she replied, “the little girl who comes late at night,”
I collapsed back into the chair, next to Twenty’s body. “Oh,” I breathed. Little Harry Harper, who came to me every night. The sick, coughing girl who stumbled through the dark, her hair cut short but ragged, her eyes weak and sore, unable to breathe. She told me, every day, that she didn’t need me. That she was being helped already.

“She comes past your door on the way to see us, doesn’t she?” the little girl whispered, “and we help her. She needs us. She needs the minds of those in need. She is struggling against the illness of this city,”

Her eyes lit up, excited. “And we will save the world! We will keep their minds! Everyone in need will soon be at peace!”

She giggled and clapped her hands, while I stared at her, shocked. “No,” I breathed, “no, no, no…”

Her face dropped. “What do you mean, no?” she demanded.