Ermengilda's kitten

         Ermengilda climbed off the tall horse. Her slippers crunched on the frozen snow, and a sweet breeze tugged her hair free of its net. With a groan of cold Aunt Mildred tied the horse to a tree and hurried after Gildy through the Scots pines. Mildred walked with stiff tread, but Gildy danced.                          “Dearheart,” the aunt called. “You are walking too fast. You will fall in the snow and catch your death of cold. Careful on the bridge!”

        Gildy scooped up some snow, formed a ball, and threw it at Mildred. “Mildred, you are too fussy.” She wiped her wet hand on her soft red cloak. She turned her face to the wind, closed her eyes, and sniffed the air, which was rich with the pines. “Isn't the wind beautiful?”                                                             Mildred buried her near frozen hands in her clothes. “I think it very cold.”
        “I like cold wind. Warm wind makes you sluggish, but a chill wind puts fire into you, and makes you feel you are really alive, and it is a good day to be alive.” Ignoring Mildred she laid down in the snow and made angels. Mildred sighed, and sat down on a clear patch beneath a tree. Gildy crept behind her, and shook the branches of the pine, dropping snow on her aunt's head. Laughing, she retreated from Mildred's wrath across a low stone bridge. There she had played all through the spring and summer. Whenever she had wanted to get away from the smoke and laughter of her father's longhouse she would come here, to sit by the brook and think, or gather yellow cowslip and burnt orchid. Now, the world was blue and white and gray and...orange?  A fluffy orange ball lay in the snow some feet away. Now, it moved, and meowed. A kitten! Gildy approached, and held out her hand. It stretched a long neck toward her, shivering. She ran her hand down its spine and felt every bone. She picked it up around the middle, and it did not fight her. Tucking her cloak tight around her, she held the kitten close. “Oh, you look so cold and hungry. I will keep you, and no one needs to know.”                                                                                    
        “Ermengilda, what are you doing over there?”
        “I'm coming.” She held the kitten under her cloak and meandered back to Mildred.
        “What is the matter?”
         The kitten scrambled around, and sunk tiny claws into Gildy's chest. “Nothing is the matter. Can we go home? Ow!"
         “Are you alright?”
         Gildy twisted her body, trying to dislodge the claws from her clothes without dropping the kitten. “Just a stitch in my side. Can we leave?”
           A clatter of hoof beats rang on the road behind. Mildred screamed and threw Gildy on the ground. “Danes!” She drew her sword and stood astraddle Gildy. Gildy arched her back so as to not crush the kitten beneath her.
         The clattering stopped, and a bridle jingled. “What are you doing in the snow?”    
         Gildy looked up from beneath her aunt's foot. A black horse stood before her, champing its bit. And on the horse was a man. His saex was at his side, and he wore his helm. He pulled off the helm to reveal the kind face of Gildy's uncle Cynefrid. “What are you doing?”
Mildred yanked Gildy to her feet. “We thought you were the invading host.”
         Cynefrid smiled through his thick beard. “They have not come this far yet. And will never, if King Æthelred can start winning battles.”
         Gildy squeezed the kitten by the scuff of the neck. If only it would stop clawing and meowling. “Why do you come here, uncle? I thought you were waging battles in East Anglia alongside Prince Alfred.”            Cynefrid stared at the bulge in her cloak that was the kitten . “Your father invited me. I want to meet your sister's husband.”
         “He is one good man.”
         Gildy, what is meowing in your shirt?”
         Gildy retrieved the kitten and showed it to Cynefrid. “I found a kitten. I will keep him.” Mildred had disappeared into the pines, and now returned with Hrodgar the bay. Gildy put the tiny orange kitten in her uncle's huge hand. “Take him to my home. If I carry him I am afraid I will drop him, or Mildred will see him.” Two hours later they rode up the hill to the long house of Cynemaer Ealdraed, Gildy's father. It was black against the sunset, but the top of the roof gleamed gold. Gildy swung off her horse and ran to the back door. The sounds of singing floated through the door, along with the odor of roasting meat. Her older sister, Leofdaeg, approached with quick steps. Leofdaeg glittered with ornaments and necklaces, and her golden hair hung free.  
        “Where have you been? Cynefrid arrived long ago.” She began brushing Gildy's tangled hair with her fingers.
         “Mildred insisted on taking the long route.” She felt as if her hair would be yanked out by the roots. “Come.” Leofdaeg seized Gildy's wrist with her slender hand and hurried her to the mead hall. Gildy could only hope that she would be as beautiful as Leofdaeg when she was eighteen.
          A great cheer rose when the girls entered the hall. Father's housecarls raised their glasses and called out, “Leofdaeg!” The color burned brighter in Leofdaeg's cheeks; she adored being adored by all. She passed around goblets of mead and a three gold torques, before sitting down beside her new husband on the high bench. Gildy crawled up on Uncle Cynefrid's lap. He had been her foster father for her first seven years, and she still felt closer to him than her own father, whom she had only known for five.
         Father sat on his little throne at the high end of the hall, looking very much a fierce ealderman of Mercia. The warrior was still in his eyes, as he looked down at his men clustered on the benches around the hearth. “Brother,” he said, turning his gaze to Cynefrid. “How does battle with the Danes fare?”
        “Bad, bad. Æthelred lacks the greatness to combat our enemies. Look to his younger brother for that. He is the real hope. Besides, the Danes keep coming. As fast as we defeat them, more arrive on our shores.” “Hmm.” If Father had not lost the use of his left leg in a hunting accident, he would join King Aethelred on the coast as fast as a housecarl could drain a mead glass.
        After dinner, Cynefrid reached down to the helmet between his feet and pulled out something warm and fuzzy. “I fed it some milk, and tidbits of meat. That kitten can eat.” Gildy held the kitten and stroked it. It stretched out a tiny paw and flexed its claws. Gildy snuggled against her uncle's chest and hummed, looking at the firelight, and petting her kitten. The next she knew, she was being carried to her room by Mildred. The kitten! Where did it go? Gildy did not have it, so where was it? Oh dear... Mildred tucked the sheepskin over her, kissed her, and left. She climbed out of bed, walked with curled toes across the cold dirt floor to the door, and peaked through a crack. The men were quiet, for the scop played his lyre and chanted stories of dragons and warriors. The orange kitten sat in Cynefrid's lap, gazing wide eyed at the splendor of of the house of Cynemaer Ealdraed. She opened the door just enough to poke her face through, and looked at Cynefrid intently. After a while he noticed, and brought the kitten to her.
        She carried it with her back to her little bed and laid on her front, listening to the story. She drifted away to sleep, and her dreams were filled with handsome heroes, terrible winged monsters all going by the name of Dane, and one tiny orange kitten.

Danish longhouse in Fyrkat, Denmark. An example of the architecture of the time. 

. 

Two Years

It is two years from the day I decided to write a book.  I have one completed and edited manuscript under my belt, and one many hovering at the top of my head. Roughly one and a half years ago, before I had finished Escape From Iasse, I started Twilight Mountain. I never got anywhere, and really was hating the plot. Finally, I decide operation was the only option. It was a painful prospect, and I avoided it for a long time. Finally, with help from my Mama, the patient survived. I have reworked my ideas, and am ready to restart with a totally new beginning. 

Another Butterfly Bush

        

          Clara wriggled under the electric fence from the cattle pasture to the road. You had to be extra careful when you went under that fence, and it helped that Clara was small for her eight years. She came up on the road side of the fence and brushed the grass particles off her skirt. A grasshopper jumped out of the tall grass onto her head. She squealed, shook it off and ran away. The grasshoppers had been everywhere that summer. “Poochie,” she called to her dog, who still roamed the pasture. “Lady, come.” Far out on a hill Lady was a little red dot against a rolling sea of green Missouri prairie grass. Over the hills was a bright blue sky. The evening sun shone upon the trees on the top of the hills, casting beautiful shadows on other trees and the ground. The neighbor’s black cows munched on grass down in a valley. Mr. Eathram kept his cows and horses on the Berkleys' land. Well, Lady would come, so Clara skipped across the highway toward the house, walking on her toes so that less of her feet would be roasted to perfection on the blacktop. She raced up the hill, giggling, despite the grasshoppers jumping around her. A breeze swept down from the pig-pens, and Clara wrinkled up her nose. She had a little black pig of her own to take care of, but she wouldn’t have to go down to the pig pens for another thirty minutes. Laughing with the joy of an evening in July she climbed the tree in front of the her trailer. Emerging from the top branches she observed her farm the way a sailor looks down from the crow’s nest. The sun glinted off the metal roof of the chicken coop. They had guinea fowl too, but they slept in the walnut tree. Ooh, that walnut tree, and its tempting black nuts lying all over the ground. Clara wanted to pick up the nuts and use them as squirrel ammo, but Mama always said, “If you get walnut juice on you or your clothes, it will never wash off,” so Clara avoided the nuts. The wind rushed over the hill and shook Clara’s tree. “Captain,” she called, “We are in for a Nor’easter!”

         “Clara, Clara. Where are you?” Mama rang the cow bell on the porch. “Mother ahoy,” Clara called, scrambling down from the tree. When four feet from the ground, she jumped down. “Here I am,” she chirped. Mama tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear, said, “Come inside,” and went into the trailer that was the Berkeley’s home. There was a stick bug on the door handle, so Clara traipsed around to the back door. She went into the living room and found her little brother, Eddie, playing with his train set, and making a lot of noise. Shane, who was two, copied Eddie in everything. He made even more noise. Mama and Daddy sat on the couch. A big black bug crawled along the wall near the piano.  

         “Is it time to feed the animals?” Clara asked.  

         Daddy smiled. “We have some big news.”

         Eddie looked up from his trains. His white-blond hair peeked out from his train conductor cap. “Is Mama going to have two babies, instead of one?”

        “No, we are moving to town.”

        “Town!” Clara shrieked. “Why? I like living here. Why can’t we stay?”

       “Clara!” Mama said. “Control yourself.”

       “Town, town, town,” yelled Shane. A ladybug flew into the lamp, sizzled, and fell on the table, joining several other dead bugs. That summer had brought a lot of ladybugs.

        Clara sank into the rocking chair, trying to hide herself in the cushions. How could they move away? They had lived here as long as she could remember. “I am sorry, Mama,” she said in a quiet voice. “When are we leaving?”

         Daddy put his arm around Mama, and she snuggled against him. How could they both be happy about all this? “We move in September.”

Eddie drove his trains across the piano keys, then jumped track and drove them across Clara’s head. Clara tossed her hair and flung his trains across the room. Undeterred, he picked them up and began driving on his track. He seemed happy about the move, too. “When do we see the house?”.

          "Next week,” Daddy said. Clara cried herself to sleep that night. The next day Daddy brought home a carload of boxes labeled California Peaches, and Smart Smith's Printing paper. There weren't any peaches in the peach box. That disappointed Clara, because if she had a peach she could go out on the playground and swing while eating her peach. While she would swing the sticky peach juice would get all over her clothes, and that would not be nice. However, she did not have a peach. Mama said they would pack up their things in those boxes.

           Before the time came to visit the new house Mama had packed up all the picture frames and knickknacks, even the two porcelain giraffes that sat on the piano. Those giraffes had been there forever, during every piano lesson Clara had cried through. Every Christmas the giraffes were joined by little angels bearing candles. Clara cried when Mama wrapped the giraffes in paper towel shrouds and entombed them in a printing paper box. She went outside and hid inside the butterfly bush that Mama had planted next to the porch. If you went around to the back of the bush you could get inside, and see out without anyone seeing you. You could even spray a passerby with a squirt gun, and they wouldn't find you. Whenever she felt sad she would sit inside her bush and smell its purple clusters of flowers. Whenever she hid in her bush she would start thinking about other things, and that always made her feel better. But now, nothing could cheer her. She hugged her knees and rocked back and forth. A stick poked into her back. What would she do at her new house without a butterfly bush? 

          “Clara, Clara, please come out of that bush.” Mama had come out on the porch, and was now looking at Clara's bush. Clara held still. Why is it that whenever one needs to be quiet one suddenly needs to sneeze? The tickling in Clara's nose grew worse, but as the sneeze came out she stopped it. Instead of 'achoo,' it came out as 'honk.' Mama came down the porch and stuck her head in Clara's bush. “I see you there. Why are you hiding?”

          “I don't want to move to the new house,” Clara sniffed.

          “Don't worry, it will be wonderful."      

          “It won't be, I just know it won't. We won't be able to have chickens and pigs and guineas.”

          “We won't have chickens and pigs, but we will have air conditioning, and no bugs. Maybe there will be a little neighbor girl to play with.”

           Clara looked up. “Do you think so?”

           “I don't know for sure, but when Daddy and I saw the house we saw a girl's bike lying in the neighbor's grass.”

            “What if she's a toddler with a stinky diaper, or a big girl who doesn't have time for dolls and play pretend?”

             “The bike looked just your size. Come, let's go pack up books.”

             Clara followed mama into the house to pack up the books. Mama even let her label boxes with a permanent marker. Shane and Eddie never got to use permanent markers. Finally the dreaded day came to see their new house. They piled into the car and drove over the hills into town. Clara loved the feeling she got in her stomach when they went over a hill and rushed down into the valleys. However, she did not like the feeling she got when they drove into their new neighborhood. There was just a bunch of apartment buildings for college students, and none of them had much yard. Daddy stopped in front of a funny looking house. The right side of the house had a garage, a small porch, a door and a bay window. The left side of the house had a garage, a small porch, a door and a bay window. The two sides were exactly identical. Daddy saw Clara's look of amazement. “It's called a duplex,” he said. We will live on the left side of the house, and other people will live on the other side. 

           Clara frowned. “I don't like it.”

           While Mama unbuckled Shane and wiped graham cracker goo off his face with a wet wipe. Eddie unbuckled himself and clambered into the trunk of the van. “Why don't you like the house, you’ve barely seen it.” She grabbed Eddie by his belt and dragged him over the back seat and out of the car. “Edison Berkley, behave yourself!”

           Clara blinked and looked at the ground so Mama couldn't tell she was crying. “I don't want to live with those other people.” Daddy began laughing. Clara openly started crying. “You’re laughing at me. Don't tease me.” 

            Daddy stopped laughing and hugged her. “I didn't mean to tease you. We aren't going to live with the other people, there is a wall between the two homes. Just the building is connected.” Clara was so embarrassed she wished she could hide in the trunk of the car. The realtor lady arrived, and they looked at the inside of the house. There were only two bedrooms, but there were three bathrooms. One of the bathrooms had a screen door to the outside. The way to get to the basement was through the garage. While Eddie hooted over everything and ran up and down the stairs with Shane whenever Mama turned her back, Clara felt like weeping.

          “It has a good sized yard,” the realtor lady said as they went out the back screen door. There, out at the edge of the yard, could it be? It was. It was a butterfly bush, nearly six feet tall, its flowers nodding in the wind. It was a butterfly bush, but was it a special bush that you could go into? Clara let go of Daddy's hand and advanced toward the bush. She walked around on all sides of it. There was a little girl inside the bush!                  “Oh, hello,” the girl said. She had such blue eyes; Clara had always wanted blue eyes. “Are you the people who are going to move into that house?”

         “We might.”                                                                                                                                                 “Every time people come to look at that house I hide in my bush and watch them. Do you like to play with swords?”                            

           “Yes, I pretend I’m a pirate.”                                                               

             “How about dolls? Do you like dolls too?”                                                                                                  “I like dolls.”                                                                                                                                               “Oh good. You like what I like. We will be friends when you move. My name's Emily, what's yours?”                                                                                                                                                                   “I'm Clara.” Mama and Daddy were heading back inside. “I really have to go, bye.” Clara ran after her parents. As she left she saw a hand wave at her from inside the bush. That night when mama came to tuck her in she told her all about Emily. “She likes swords and dolls and hiding in bushes! She said she'd be my friend."                                                                                                                                                                Mama stroked Clara's hair and kissed her forehead. “I told you everything would be all right. You even have another butterfly bush.”

Writing Goals For 2014

Jill Williamson at GoTeenWriters  listed her writing goals for the year, so I have made my own list.

My goals are: 

            1. Finish first draft of Twilight Mountain by June.

            2. Finish editing Escape From Iasse by April/May

            3. Start Ellyanus in September

            4. Write one short story for the bog every other Wednesday.