DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what was done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.
The Stories
MagicThistle
It’s cold on the terrace this evening. I assumed it would be this time of year, but it’s bitting a little harder than my mind conceived. Speaking of conception. Jesus, it’s all I can think of. I tug on the snug silk of my party dress and lean against the railing. Looking out at the black water It somehow seems more inviting than the soiree behind me. It seems to be getting fairly ruckus in there. The sounds of a good time echo through the coastal mist and crash into the breaking waves. My mind drifts and I begin to imagine dozens of party-goers toppling into the sea. It provides a momentary reprieve from the weight of the thousands of thoughts I’ve carried since I found out.
Despite the cold, the fresh air feels good. Almost numbing. But not quite. A slight shriek escapes me at the feeling of a hand on my puffed sleeve. I shoot my head around to see him. An involuntary smile paints my face and a warm comfort washes over me at the sight of his kind eyes. Then the dread creeps in and its pesky little claws pull the corners of my mouth back down.
“James.” I hear myself say, as though his name is a statement. Wishing it was all I had to say.
“Alice,” he says playfully in the same tone and with a slight smirk.
“You came”.
“You did ask me to, did you not?” Still playful. Like a boy.
“I did.” I wished I hadn’t.
I eke out a pained smile.
“You look nice,” he says, plucking a tendril from my shoulder and gently pulling it taught. He catches my eyes and serves me his signature. A painfully beautiful smile that he knew is a weapon. He lets the ringlet go and It springs back into place.
I didn’t say anything. Just looked at him.
“So…”
Grasping at straws, I pick up one of the several lanterns lighting the terrace and bound down the steps.
“Let’s go to the sea!”
“You’re an odd one, but ok,” he says, grabbing a lantern of his own and following me to the sand.
I know it’s even colder now, but I no longer feel it. The adrenaline has kicked in. I’m manic. But trying to play it off. I could just run into the ocean and never return. I could.
I don’t. Instead, I leap onto the wet sand and do a spin on the shore. The lantern lighting the folds of my white dress a deep orange. The sea breeze catches the fabric, animating it like a ghost.
James watches from dry sand, sitting and handling some seaweed. He hates getting his feet wet. He shakes his head and raises his eyebrows at me.
I do a few more twirls as the water begins to tickle my toes. I turn back to look at James and see him now staring deeply into his hands.
I walk toward him, dry sand sticking to me. I sit next to him. He has a little black pouch in his hand, barnacled and slick with seawater. His face is now stern. The moment of frivolity and coltish evasion has passed.
“You know they call these mermaid purses,” James says.
“I’ve also heard them called the devil’s pocketbook” I retort.
I think my tone was too snarky.
“So I take it, you’ve made your decision.”
I inhale slow and long, holding the air in my lungs until it burns.
“I have” words floating on an exhale. “I just…I can’t…I don’t know how else to put it, it’s a feeling…I just can’t.” These words fall out in a heap and just sit there.
No one says anything for a while. The waves crash, the cool fog grows thicker and colder, and don’t feel any of it. “Ok,” He says. Another pause. “Ok,” Once more to convince himself. He looks away from me and nods silently to the dark beach. Nothing but a small pale moon in the distance. “Well, I guess it’s just a stranger now”.
He places a hand on my lap. Catches my eyes again and forces a smile. No longer painfully beautiful, just painful. “I support you”.
He stands. I stand to meet him. The tide has risen, but James doesn’t seem to care. The little black pouch falls from his hand into the water, and with the current, slips back to where it came.
“I need to take a walk,” he says. And he does. And I watch him go, one hand on my belly and one holding the lantern. It’s cold again.
Mats Evensson
Grace would die tonight, August 14, 1825. Everyone knew it. It was all the maids and footmen
had whispered about for weeks when they thought she wasn’t near. Her poor mother had
prepared by locking herself in her room and refusing to come out, while her father had drunk
himself into a stupor. She imagined he would wake tomorrow with a searing pain behind his
eyes. Grace would not wake at all.
She scooped up the two shilling coins the butler had polished and left on the dresser for her.
Charon’s fee for taking her across the Styx. They were cold to the touch.
The grandfather clock in the grand hall struck once, and the sound reverberated down
empty hallways, up the stairs, and into Grace’s room. She slipped the coins into a pocket and
smoothed down her gown. Then she hurried to light the lantern and strode through empty
hallways, past mirrors covered with black linen. Even at fifteen she knew that a proper lady
never kept a guest waiting.
Her guide stood by the door, a deeper shadow in the dark. Had she not expected him, she
would never have seen him.
“I am ready,” she said, proud that her voice did not crack.
Come.
He turned and held the door open for her. As she passed and walked down the stone steps
to the gravel path, she caught the faint scent of damp mulch. And something else, something
sweet. Rot.
Sheets of mist passed in front of the pale moon. Her skin prickled even though she knew it
would be cold this time of year. Perhaps she should have brought a shawl. Too late now.
Her guide lit a lantern of his own and walked ahead, leading her away from the house. Grace
knew exactly where they were going, had paced the route too many times to count, ever since
she was old enough to walk of her own accord. Her whole life had been in preparation for this
night.
When the sound of waves crashing against the shore reached her, she suddenly felt a shiver
run from the small of her back to her neck. The world shifted under her, and she stumbled,
sidestepped, righted herself. Her father had warned her that this might happen. “You mustn’t
waiver, Dove.” She repeated the words in her head. Mustn’t waiver. This is your fate, you’ve
have always known this day would come, even longed for it to come sooner.
The path sloped down now. Soon the house would disappear behind the cliffs. She thought
of casting a glance over her shoulder to see if they were watching from the windows but
thought better of it, for she would surely waiver if she caught sight of them.
Faster.
She quickened her pace, letting her bare feet slide through the cold, wet sand until the path
levelled out. They had reached the beach. It would all be over soon.
Come.
Her guide moved along the shoreline, so she followed, her gown dragging in the mud. On
any other day it would have been a shame to ruin such a pretty dress. The cresting waves
gleamed in the moonlight before breaking against her feet.
Grace reached up and undid the knot that had kept her hair up. She wanted to feel the wind
in her hair one last time. How many times had she stood on this beach, looking out over the
endless ocean, thinking about this very moment? A thousand? Five thousand? None of those
times had it felt real. She swallowed hard, tasted the salt in the air.
Stop.
Grace obeyed immediately, heart pounding in her chest so hard she thought it might
explode. Mustn’t waiver. She sucked in a breath of frigid air, exhaled, and turned to the black
horizon.
Her guide drew near.
Ready thyself.
“I am ready.” This time her voice did crack, and she felt her cheeks turn red.
Behold.
She stared out over the water, eyes burning with tears she dared not wipe away as the waves
suddenly disappeared. For a breathless moment the ocean was as blank and clear as a frozen
pond.
Then, some ways out, how far she couldn’t tell, the surface rose—and rose and rose—until it
broke, sending waves crashing out in every direction. Through the tears, Grace caught
glimpses of water cascading down the sides of a herculean mass rising impossibly high and
blotting out the moon.
Her resolve drained. “I am not ready,” she whispered, feeling the dread fill her gorge. “I
want to go back.” She turned to her guide. “Take me back, I want to go home. Please.”
He did not move.
“Please?”
No reaction.
She drew herself up and glared at him, then said, in a tone she had heard her mother use so
many times before, “I am Lady Grace Feathersby, eldest daughter of the duke of Otterlea. I
demand you return me to him immediately.”
He slowly turned his head to look at her, then back to the sea, his face as expressionless as a
rock.
“I don’t want this, I never wanted this. Please, take me back, find someone else,” she
rambled, feeling her knees buckle.
His arm shot out and caught her before she hit the sand. Behold.
Too afraid not to, she turned again to the sea. The hideous mass, writhing as if still finding
its shape, came towards them, glittering insectoid wings dragging along after it.
The first waves reached the shore and rolled over her feet, bringing with them a foul, rotten
stench. “Please, I beg you, release me. Give me another year and I will come willingly next
time you call, I swear it!”
He shook his head.
No bargain.
Panic coursing through her, she dug her feet into the squelching sand, tried to wriggle and
punch her way out of his grip—but she might as well have tried to move a mountain. It is no
use. This is my fate.
He is here.
Jason Fuhrman
Eliza woke with a chill on her birthday’s eve. Her vision foggy, she reached for her blanket. It had somehow managed to gather beneath her, as if she had fallen asleep that way. Maybe she had. It had been a long day with all the preparations, but her mind, as clouded as well, didn’t divulge answers.
Her leaden arms and legs were unwilling to free the blanket, so she rolled onto her side to find her human fireplace, the man who always kept her warm: her George.
But he was gone, nothing but a depression in the mattress and rumpled blanket indicating anyone had been there at all. She touched the spot. Cold.
Why hadn’t he tucked her in? She slapped the mattress where he should have been. Selfish man.
She sat up, her frustration invigorating her limbs. Curtains billowed across the room, wreathed in silver. No wonder she was cold. Completely exposed and the window left open. Selfish man, indeed.
The scent of seaweed permeated the air, and strangely, the scent of lantern oil. No blanket could stave off this frigid air, her anger unable to warm her, she dipped her toes into the bedside darkness, awaiting plush slippers. None came. Just the wooden floor.
She stormed to the window, hoping when she slammed it closed George would hear it wherever he was, and know that he had ruined her birthday.
The source of the silver light caught her eye, but more than that, something else bobbed below it. Not silver but gold.
She thought it was a trick of the light, the moon reflecting on the water, somehow transformed, perhaps by the mist or oil riding the water’s surface. Either was unlikely, considering their remote location. No docks for miles. And why would someone venture to an island with nothing but a couple and their humble acreage.
Then the light moved across the water.
“George?” she called.
A wave crashed in answer.
It must be him. What was he doing out at such an hour? He’d catch cold, or worse.
She called his name again and was answered by waves again. Curse that sea, so cold and boundless. She much preferred the countryside far from the shore, where the evenings didn’t bring such a ruckus, such a chill. Such lonliness.
She rubbed her arms and found a grittiness there. Smudges of sand she saw in the moonlight. She huffed through her nose. Such a careless man, bringing the day’s work to the bed.
Sleep no longer and option, she went to the door to find this foolish man. The coathanger was absent of her coat, the boards beside the door absent of her boots. What kind of joke was this?
For a moment she considered going out into the dark without a light to catch George unaware and scare the life from him. But the thought of no light, no beacon, no grounded sense of home with her out there alone, in the dark and cold, well . . . that was a more frightening prospect than any fright she could bring upon her neglectful husband.
Lantern at her side, she steaded her breath before opening the door, focusing on the dim warmth that pushed through the glass.
She stepped outside. The air was no colder than inside the cottage, and no wonder. That gave her some comfort, feeling the acclimation. She held her head high and strode down the path to the shore, toward the light that must be George.
The ocean air keeping her eyes moist, she didn’t need to blink. The ground unyielding to her weight, she didn’t stumble. Immune to the cold, she glided.
She felt a smile as she thought of George seeing her out here, in her nightclothes, shoeless, with nothing but a lantern and a stern gaze.
The man who must be George slowed, knelt in the sand, the waves colliding with each other and his stooped form before retreating back to the sea. She wouldn’t even have to sneak up on him, the frequent waves cacaphonous.
A handful of paces away, George stood, hefted something into his arms she hadn’t noticed from afar, and continued. He rounded a stand of rocks, where they’d explored tidepools countless times, beyond which lay a secluded beach, where they’d made love countless times.
Eliza forgot her anger, the cold, the bedful of sand, the open window.
A surprise this must be. Stowing hidden gifts, for their cottage had nowhere to hide. Whe she caught him, he would yelp with fright, and they would roll in the sand, and he would protest and explain, and she would hush him with a kiss. Then more.
She snuffed the lantern, the moonlight enough. There he was, where they had lay many times, though farther near the cliffs, his shadow thrown on the walls.
Eliza approached. She climbed the rocks. So many rocks, slick and sharp. Her excitement chased away any fear of the ascent. A clever hiding place, indeed.
She confirmed it was George now, the bearded silhouette as he turned to catch his breath. The square of his shoulders. The slight nose. The silly newsboy hat.
So close now, any misstep would alert him of her presence.
He held something to the light. A blanket? Then tossed it down. Shoes? Then tossed them down.
A gust drove Eliza to her stomach and overturned George’s lantern. She stifled a cry. Tasted sand. She was done with games. All she wanted was George to carry her back to bed, to make her warm.
George dropped his burden, then moved rocks piled at his side. Finished, he stood and turned to Eliza.
“Happy birthday, Eliza,” he said, approaching her, his warmth approaching her.
She reached up to him, anticipating his arms, but instead receiving the unbearable weight of his crushing boots.
She couldn’t breathe. She lay on her back, her view occluded but for a sliver of moon.
“George,” she said beneath the weight of sea-carved stones.
A wave crashed in answer.
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