My uncle warned me of the hallucinatory effect of smouldering henbane, but it is the essence of my initiation. Surrounded by the maze of megaliths, my body floats. I round up the shrill cacophony of chanting voices, which buck around my head like wild horses at a rodeo, and corral them in a corner of my mind.
My head is clear and I am ready; the only sound I hear is the sweet voice of a nightingale singing.
The message is within me and I am the message.
To this modern world which ransacks Gaia’s riches I bring her revenge.
I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!
humankind turned upside-down keeping safe’s what matters all around the world economies in tatters scientists in overdrive to keep one step ahead corruption, disruption stop now, keep your head mixed message, fake news sops to the masses governments in disarray staying put’s what matters
Image credit; Lance Anderson @ Unsplash The image shows tall skyscrapers lit in the evening light. In the front there is a small pale-coloured house resting at an angle on the ground, one side of it raised from the ground.
This week’s stop on our literary journey through my novels takes us to the town of Northwich in Cheshire, on which I based the fictional town of Greaton, where the Ruling Council meets in my historical fantasy fiction novel for younger readers, Following the Green Rabbit.
Established in Roman times, Northwich is an attractive small town with many historic, half-timbered buildings, located in the middle of the Cheshire Plain, where the book is set. The town is most famous for the production of salt, which has been carried on since its establishment. However, a list of tolls for crossing over Northwich bridge in 1353 shows goods coming into the town including carcasses, fleeces, hides and skins, cloth, fish, alcoholic drinks, dairy products, building materials, household goods, metals, glass and millstones, so it would have been a busy little place.
Like Daresbury, I first travelled to the Northwich on a canal boat holiday. Of particular note for canal enthusiasts is the Anderton Boat Lift, a 50 foot vertical lock, which connects the Trent & Mersey Canal with the River Weaver. Sadly it was out of operation when we took our canal holiday in the late 1980s, but it has since been restored. It would be quite a thrill to take a boat up on it!
The slow pace of travelling the canal on a narrow boat and the silence of the flat, open Cheshire countryside stayed with me, and I drew on that memory when I came to write the description of journey that Bryony takes to Greaton, travelling over that same terrain at that same slow speed. The look and feel of the town seemed right, and although I don’t dwell on any description in the novel, the bustle of a busy market town plays in the background, contrasting with Bryony’s isolation as she sits in the intimidating atmosphere of the Court House waiting to submit her supplication to the Ruling Council in order to free her friends from the clutches of the evil Lord Childecott.
Excerpt from Following the Green Rabbit
Bryony was astonished at the noise and commotion which had greeted them on entering the town. There were people and animals everywhere. Thank goodness John knew where they should go. He reined Rosie in and they came to a halt opposite the Court House, outside the appropriately named Court House Tavern. Bryony slid off the horse, stamping the life back into her legs as John dismounted and patted Rosie’s neck.
“I need to get Rosie some water and let her rest up a while,” said John. “I believe the Ruling Council meets in the building over there,” he pointed at the Court House. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Bryony considered for a moment. “No thank you, John. You and Eliza have been so kind to us already. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with Lord Childecott by delivering the supplication with me.”
John nodded. “I’ll be waiting for you right here. He smiled at her encouragingly. “Good luck, Bryony.” He touched his hat. You’re a brave young lady, he thought as he watched her plod determinedly across the muddy track and up the steps to the Court House.
Bryony felt little of the confidence she shown outwardly to John but, as Hodge always said, if there’s something difficult to do, confront it head on and don’t delay. And so Bryony let her feet take her through the wide entrance to the Court House and into a large vestibule where an attendant was sitting at a tall desk. Bryony took a deep breath and approached. The attendant looked down his long bony nose at her.
“What business have you here, girl?” He squinted at her with obvious contempt.
“Sir, I have a supplication to offer to the Ruling Council.” Her voice echoed around the empty room.
“Council is already in session. No disturbances are permitted. You may wait for the secretary to the Chief of Council.” He pointed at a long bench on the other side of the room.
“But please, sir,” Bryony held up her supplication. “This is urgent.”
“You will wait.” The clerk waved her towards the bench with a bony hand.
Bryony crossed the stone floor and sat alone on the hard wooden bench next to the imposing doors which presumably led to the chamber where the Ruling Council was meeting. She glanced at the clerk who was busy writing in a heavy ledger and fingered the edges of the supplication, smoothing down the creases it had suffered from the journey. She stared around the high-ceilinged room then focussed on the door, willing it to open. She sighed. Her hope was ebbing away.
Following the Green Rabbit available in paperback and ebook from Amazon
We assemble at sunset. Goose-bumps cover the bared skin on my back, still tender from the previous pricking of the needle, which has marked me indelibly and for eternity.
Henbane and yarrow scent the air; charms and enchantments encircle the glittering granite standing stones, in a kaleidoscope of crashing consonants, while my uncle, a comfortable presence in the growing darkness, heralds the start of the ceremony with a single beat of an unseen gong.
Blindfolded, I am led to the centre of the circle. The ceremony begins.
In moonlight’s sphere runes on ancient stones ignite; the Mark of Gaia tingles.
I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, (loosely) in the haibun form. Just for fun!
In the new bloom of passion and the early flush of spring we first walked the boulevards of the city of lovers entwining ourselves in darkening alleyways indulging in delights behind closed doors.
In long, lazy, late summer’s days we roamed gardens and parks and wandered through galleries spent evenings in Montmartre listening to a solitary pianist playing our tune.
In the midst of winter now we travel no more but like Bergman and Bogart we’ll always have Paris.
Image credit: Lucas Albuquerque The title image shows a view of the Eiffel Tower at night when it is illuminated in golden light. In the foreground you can see the Seine river reflecting the lights.
Location No. 13 – my former house in South Liverpool
On today’s stop on our literary journey through my novels we find ourselves outside the house in Liverpool where my novel writing journey began. It was here that I started writing The Silver Locket. Built in 1911, the house was pretty run down when we moved there in November 2000. It didn’t even have a kitchen, although it did have a ghost.
It had been rather a grand house in its time, owned by a widow of the Irish Free State and then by a master mariner, prior to the family we bought it from purchasing it in the 1950s. It even had a flagpole out the back. One of the upstairs rooms still had a push-bell to summon the housekeeper. She would, no doubt, have lived in, and the attic rooms at the top of the house would have been the servants’ quarters at one time.
I believe our ghost was that of the former housekeeper.
There was no ghostly apparition, but there was definitely a presence; a warm, benevolent presence that I would sense when the house was quiet and I was upstairs, usually in the day-time. She’d descend from the attic, traverse the landing, passing the two front bedrooms, then turn to go downstairs, at which point the feeling of someone being there would evaporate. The cats were aware of her too. If one of them was in the bedroom with me, they’d look up and follow her progress. Even my husband couldn’t deny that there was ‘something’.
Over time, I came to think of her as Hodge the Housekeeper, who graced the pages of The Silver Locket. Subsequently, as a younger women at an earlier time, she turned up as the housekeeper in Following the Green Rabbit (you can’t waste a good character).
Photo found on Pinterest
We spent several years doing up the house, finishing with the little attic room with the dormer window (top left in the photo), which had a little white-painted fireplace, very like this one. It was this old, untouched room that I translocated to the house, 20 miles away in Rufford, which Laura inherits at the start of The Silver Locket.
The Prologue begins: “The silver locket hides beneath the loose floorboard in a small attic room. Sunlight streams through the window pointing towards the tarnished trinket which waits patiently for its secrets to be unlocked.”
There was, indeed, a loose floorboard by the little fire place, but sadly there was no tarnished trinket to be found in that hidey-hole. I was so disappointed! But where my locket came from is a different story.
Now, let us join Laura who, having settled back in the old leather armchair and closed her eyes, has the first of her mysterious dreams, which seem to be connected to a little locket she’s found.
Excerpt from ‘The Silver Locket’
Laura is in the little attic room. Sunlight and birdsong stream through the open window. She looks around. The room is simply furnished, with a table and chair in one corner and an overstuffed couch facing the window. A large chest has been placed under the window and a small silver framed mirror is propped against the wall on the mantelshelf over the fireplace.
She approaches the fireplace, intrigued by the metal fire surround. Someone has started to decorate the raised sunflower pattern in yellow and green paint. Then she notices that she has a paint brush in her hand. It is she who has been carefully painting in the flowers on the dull metal.
She looks in the little mirror and is surprised to see another face reflected in the glass, the face of a young girl, her long dark hair drawn back in a thick plait. She is wearing a white cotton pinafore and the front of it is stained with yellow and green paint.
“Miss Cathy! Miss Cathy! Are you up here? What are you doing?”
The face looks guilty and turns toward the door.
The woman appears in the doorway, her face flushed from climbing the stairs.
“There you are… and look at the state of you,” she says. There is an Irish lilt to her voice and although she is frowning, she doesn’t seem cross.
Laura feels the girl’s guilt and puts the paint brushes in their water jar, which is balancing on the narrow mantelshelf.
The woman is well-built and dressed in a stiff white blouse and long black skirt, Laura judges her to be in her thirties. She advances into the room and stands next to her, viewing the newly-decorated fireplace.
“That looks much more cheerful, so it does. This little sitting room of mine could do with a spruce up, not that I have time to use it.” The woman turns and smiles. “Now come and get cleaned up. Your mother’s ready for her afternoon tea.”
As she is gently escorted from the room, Laura catches sight of her reflection in the little mirror. The face looks pleased, but her eyes look sad.
Obediently she follows the woman down the narrow stairs onto the landing. The house is familiar, but the furnishings are different and the layout wrong in some way, which Laura can’t identify. The woman takes her into a bedroom and pours water from a heavy-looking jug decorated with dark blue roses into a matching porcelain bowl.
“Now wash those hands while I find you a clean pinafore. You know how a mess upsets your mother.”
The Silver Locket (written under pen name Holly Atkins) is available in paperback and ebook from Amazon.
My uncle is ebullient this morning, remarkably so. He is a man transformed; overjoyed outpourings spill from his lips as he beams at me across the breakfast table.
I, however, having ploughed through piles of obscure texts and ancient tenets from the towering oaken shelves of my uncle’s library (previously off-limits to me), am less so. The taste of the delicious food on my plate is spoiled by the knowledge I have swallowed down over the weeks since my discovery.
I am to prepare for my initiation, he declares.
Passing the baton gladdens the master’s heart; yet the burden remains.
I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, (loosely) in the haibun form. Just for fun!
Beauty transcends reason Eloquence reaps her just reward.
Take a moment to tiptoe past your worries Recall tributes, triumphs and tenderness Augment your vessel of contentment Negate all negative thoughts Quelling the armies of anxiety Under a big bright blanket of hope Infuse yourself with inner strength Life’s about the journey; go now, walk in peace today.
First of all, let me reassure you, I have not got the virus!
A little while ago, I was delighted to be invited to write a guest blog by writer, blogger and podcaster, da-AL. Then, just as she was preparing to publish my piece her husband came down with Covid! Thankfully he’s on the mend, and so is she, having also fallen sick subsequently.
Talking of masks, as she does, you can see one of mine on my desk in the photo of Luna, next to my ‘Pride and Prejudice’ mug. Looking at that messy desk, I could write a whole post about that. But I didn’t.
Instead, here it is, my guest post, in which I explain how my new novel came to be…
Note: Earlier this week, my husband became feverish and unwell. Turns out he has COVID-19. He’s doing his best to get well while I feel healthy and am awaiting my test results. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve been super careful. I’m letting you know this as a reminder that one can never be…
There is no going back from here, for what I discovered up in that dusty attic on that cold winter afternoon has marked me out.
Now I am one of them.
I should have obeyed my uncle’s directive, but I’d been determined to find out the truth. The secret that was hidden from me, that was buried along with my parents, whose mysterious disappearance has never been discussed.
But now I have the truth, I must face the challenge ahead: the one that all our people must face.
On the lonely road our kind must travel alone; destiny calls me.
luna's on line 