Labels: treo

The prince

They were closing in on me, though their movements were ever so subtle. They looked at me, and averted their eyes when I saw them staring. I knew I must stand out from the dancers in my plain clothes, but there was something more to it than that.

Suddenly a hand grabbed my wrist. Grips came around my arms. I cried out, frightened. I found myself leaning against my dance partner and staring as Angelica approached me. Her eyes had gone pale: the pupils were slits, even though the room was shadowed.

The grip on my arms tightened. "You fool," he said to me. "I told you to leave, that it was dangerous for you."

I turned and saw that Lysander held me. I was speechless as when we had last met, each time with the expectation that I would not see him again. I was so beguiled by his presence I could say nothing intelligent.

Impatiently he looked passed me to the others that had crowded close, dispelling them with a glinting look. In a moment it became clear to me.

They were all wolves, and he was their prince.

Labels: excerpt

This is to me not like Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is dramatic and melancholy, a true period romance, while Villette contains too many little heartbreaks and no large ones that would constitute a romance.

Lucy's wild delirium of loneliness is the most emotional interval I have read in the story. In this she reveals fully the passions that lie beneath her cool exterior. Soon after we learn that she has closed even the reader off in some information, such a private person she is, and she has returned to her cool reserve.

She describes in painful yet analytical detail what it is like to make a living as a woman, and even more interestingly, in a woman-dominated work. As a reader I identify, I recognize, I rage. As a working woman I feel I am looking into a mirror, examining a world nearly two centuries ago full of the same kinds of people in this one.

Two older matriarchs dominate Lucy's life, and are remarkably similar to each other. One is genteel, the other dishonest and underhanded, but both dote on the same spoiled young man, the son of Lucy's godmother, the one, and the doctor of her employer, Madame Beck. There is nothing really wrong with John Graham, but I find myself disliking him, as I dislike nearly all of the other characters. There is no warmth in them, and I'm sure that's very deliberate on Bronte's part to set a stage, and yet it's remarkably similar to real life.

There is one character who has warmth, another teacher, M. Paul, who has brought color and excitement into Lucy's life by putting her in hot water numerous times. He is the only character who can bring her flashing temper to the surface.

Labels: Villette

• Continue to edit Winter Light Done.
• Look at Love's Image
• Do more writing exercises
• Write up a new chapter of Cinderella

Love's Image has evolved into three different versions.

1. Marianne chooses Conrad. Jamison is unhappy.
2. Conrad leaves the picture fairly soon. Marianne realizes she loves Jamison.
3. A different, more sensitive Conrad is tormented by a mermaid who caused the death of his mother and father and is coming after him. Marina wants to save him.

They knew a peace and solace in the old summerhouse that was mixed with pain. A cold wind with a bitter note of burning timber filled Delphinia's lungs as she stood in the doorway, watching Oskar's terrible looks.

He was like a restless cat pacing, penned in by his own grief, about to fight, like a cat, with unbending will.

She too had bitter memories in this place. They were so few, so brief, but they consumed all of her. Gauvain would never hold her again. Soon he would belong to someone else, and she had not even the consolation of his love. He viewed her and her love as utterly wrong. Now that she understood the integrity in him she knew he would not spare her another look. This mingled bitterly with the sweet sting of knowledge that she had found, she was convinced, the person she had sought all of her life, someone who had loved her genuinely and unreservedly.

In that moment she knew she would never marry Christoph. She felt equal to the burden of disapproval, loneliness and perhaps even poverty. She saw herself hobbling, hulking in the shadows of a London alley and was not daunted. The only thing she feared now was the ownership of a soulless man who had never wanted for anything, who would soon realize the deep imperfection of his pretty new piece.

"'Her eyes are with her thoughts, and they are far away,'" quoth Oskar softly.

Delphinia was startled. "They are in England," she said.

"You have a serenity about your looks that seems much at odds with the scenes I have witnessed in the past two days."

"Peace comes with decision," she said, "no matter the decision. And what is your interpretation of what you have seen?"

"I have seen that you and my brother are in love, and that he is to marry your friend. Through a system of errors not yet explained to me you arrived in her place, became fond of Gauvain, and now you are to play your original role of organizing the bride."

"Everything you have said is correct, but there may be things you believe that are not correct."

"If you think so, how do you allow me into your presence alone?"

"Because..." Because she knew too much about him to be worried for her virtue, she thought. She sensed that Oskar's ardour lay in the grave forever.

"Because men are not the threat protective mamas and strident fathers would have maidens believe. Sometimes we are the threat."

Oskar laughed. "That is only too terribly true. I lost my poor virtue to a maid like yourself."

"Tell me about her," Delphinia said lightly, but suddenly the lingering wisteria and decay scent closed in on her, stifling her breath. The wind was like a caress of silk across her face.

"She is dead," he said. "My brother separated us, and she died alone of a lingering illness."

"It is Oriente," Delphinia said, because she knew it was what he was implying. "Can you forgive him?"

"How can I forgive someone who repeats the same sin again, who regrets not his wrong? He seeks now to punish himself far worse than I ever could." He looked at Delphinia more closely. "Or perhaps I could punish him still. See how strictly he can hold to his lofty integrity."

Labels: excerpt, The Soul of the Rose

I stared into those eyes, memerized like a mouse by a cobra. Something whispered in the back of my mind to take caution, but I could not logically associate it with the strange but evidently benign gathering.

"Hello," she said, her eyes sweeping me up and down, delineating the plainness of my clothing, saying as politely as possible, you were not invited.

"What's going on?" I stammered. "I thought this building was abandoned."

"Why, so did we," she returned. "We thought we would have a gathering without disturbing anyone." I could not tell if she meant for me to go, or if she meant to apologize.

"I'm Angelica," she said, turning and, over her shoulder, "You are welcome to join."

I was soon so lost in the whirling costumes, haunting music and tantalizing sweets I forgot that I was an intruder. Others watched me while they danced, and I stared at them; they were all smiling, but not overtly.

Soon I was invited to dance. I drew into the whirlwind and was passed from partner to partner, as though I was a novelty in the group, something desirable. I sensed the interest of everything. Soon I grew breathless, and there was that haunting suspicion that something was wrong.

Labels: excerpt, The Empty City

They were dancing, dozens of men and women, in tattered costumes that looked as though they had moldered in attic trunks for a hundred years or more. I knew not one among them, but I stared raptly at the largest gathering of people I had seen in years.

The source of the music was an old crank phonograph, loud even above the talk and laughter. No one seemed to notice me, so I drew closer to watch. The dance tune it played was lively, but hectic would be a better description for it than cheerful, and the flaws in the record the phonograph played rasped and crackled as loudly as the music, making it sound as dilapidated as the dancers' costumes, as the room itself.

Spread along one wall was a tempting assortment of sweets. Where had they secured this repast? I looked at the food hungrily. I had probably forgotten what such treats tasted like. They would be better than I could imagine. I found myself drifting into the room.

Finally someone noticed me. A woman in a watered silk gown of rose mauve, with long, curling black hair and eyes like coals. Her lips curved in a smile of welcome I had not expected. My eyes widened, and I stared.

She turned to her dancing partner, whose gold hair was bound in a queue and whispered something to him with a sly look. As her eyes drifted back to me I colored, certain somehow she must be mentioning my intrusion.

It was very poor manners to barge into a party this way, uninvited... once. But if only I could speak to someone, ask what this was about, I would not trespass further. I only wanted to speak to someone.

The reel ended. There was crackle through the horn that reminded me of electricity, which was only a distant memory to me. The couple broke apart, and the dark-haired woman moved toward me purposefully.

As I met her gaze I felt a brief shock.
Her black eyes were like two bottomless pits.

Labels: excerpt, The Empty City

• Why is our dishwasher not working? I need to see if debris is stuck.
• In what do I need to rinse the glasses to remove hard water stains after washing?
• How do I remove tea and coffee stains from my dishes?
• Winter Light, I have put my design on hold in favor of my project with Josette. The site elements I planned to use may change. I am putting the project off indefinitely.
• Writing goals, what do I want to work on this week? I may take some general story time to index and take notes since I don't have a specific story to do.
• Continuation of The Empty City. I like writing it. I am copying some scenes directly from Cambriel. Obviously I am going to excise those scenes from Cambriel. Then, Red Rose. This will make a great trilogy. It's hard to believe I planned all this out in college, then abandoned the project. It's turning out just like I predicted.
• Josette's site, continue to learn PSP's mask function, edit background image, continue to format text and make layout more liquid.

I stood in the stillness for a long moment, watching dust motes drift on the gold-colored space, aware of shadows shifting subtly, the sun rising.

I moved to the window and watched the rising sun with a sense of awe. I had not seen it in longer than I could remember; it brought memories of warmer, gentler times that grew around me momentarily stronger than the present darkness. I dreamed of Lysander, though briefly, for we had shared such a small time, and then further back my mind's eye reached, to my time with my mother.

She had disappeared when I was sixteen or seventeen. My father I had never known, and without her I was completely alone, except for old Agatha on the roof, here, and some other neighbors.

It was not a question of my dependence on her. She and I needed each other emotionally far more than I needed a parent. Our world was too decentralized already to allow for the traditional means of income. We both foraged for what we had. But without her, I noticed the cold that had slowly permeated our world, and all alone I found that void unbearable.

I never learned any clue about where she had gone, though others I knew disappeared around the time she did with the same abruptness.

I listened to the morning sounds with a sense of acceptance: the clear air ringing in my ears, branches scraping a glass window, even the faint chirp of a bird. In that void I heard music rasping out of tune, echoing somewhere from the reaches below.

Startled, I focused on the sound, prickles going all over me as I realized I was not alone. But a wolf could not play music and a human, no human could give me cause for fear now. I, once timorous of strangers, would be happy to meet anyone.

I moved slowly down the stairs toward the ghost sound. With the stirrings I created it vanished, and only when I stilled for a long moment could I sense it again. On the landing I leaned into the window. I could hear it more clearly. I looked down the dizzying length of the building. I would have to descend fifteen, maybe twenty flights of stairs to reach the source, but the beckoning melody offered me a diversion I could not refuse. I descended quickly.

Labels: excerpt, The Empty City

Contains a lot of things I've not had before: olive leaves, grape leaves and pomegranate leaves. Has a distinctive Mediterranean flavor. The bitterness and tang would complement Mediterranean food. It is definitely something I would buy again. I like how it combines so many flavors without using actual fruit flavors.

Labels: tea