Sonnet to Vamprehood

Forever Sunset

Walking through endless forest,

Under an eternal sunset

With You, it seems to last

Forever, and dreaming I forget

All, but this golden twilight,

A thousand years without night,

Gleaming woods… onwards… never

Ending ruby sky, lit forever…

The Tree of Lost Souls.

This is the beginning of a ghost story for children which I have been writing...

There were ghosts in the old, French house on the end of the street. Blossom knew that because she drank ice tea with them sometimes.

They were not the type of ghosts that you might be scared of on a stormy night, or the type of ghosts that to give food to on special occasions. Most of the ghosts were younger than Blossom, who would be fifteen at New Year. Many of them were too shy to talk to her. There was a girl, called Herb, who had been born in the Year of the Mouse and died in the Year of the Chicken. In some ways she was a little older than Blossom, and in other ways she was much older. She liked to play marbles with Blossom, and braid her hair.

Herb had a cat called Charlie- named after Charlie Chaplin-no one could see him, but you could hear him or feel him if he walked past you or sat on your lap

There was an old lady who owned the house, and she was still alive. Blossom called her Grandmother Snow, but she was no one’s grandmother. She sat outside her house every day on a small chair on the cracked pavement, under a tall tree, and sold tea and red candles.

The tree had wide bows, and thousands of vines that reached down to the street. Old men would sit under the tree and play chess, and working men would sit and drink tea. In summer it gave shelter from the hear and heavy rain. In autumn red and golden leaves carpeted the street. People believed that spirits could live under the shade of that tree, so people put flowers in the nooks of it ancient trunk and burnt incense.

But all the spirits were inside the old French house, where it was more comfortable.

Every New Moon, Blossom went to the temple with her parents. After that, her mother would go to visit her family and her dad would go to drink egg-coffee with his friends, so Blossom was free to go and see Grandmother Snow. She liked to talk to Grandmother Snow, who knew almost everything, and spoke very gently, and wore her white hair down and very long, but she preferred to go into the house and play with the ghosts.  

‘Now you will die!’ he roared.

‘           No…’

‘It’s over for you now.’

            ‘Give me one more chance…’

            ‘No, I am tired of playing with you, it is finished!’

            Uncle Patients and Granddad Mountain always talked like that when they were playing chess, and Blossom always found it funny.

            She watched them tidy up their game, said goodbye to Grandma Snow, then went into the old house.

There were three huge marble steps that led into the porch, then a wide mahogany door that led to the living room. This room had a sink, cooker and table in one corner. In another corner it had a tall shelf full of books, old dolls and broken clocks. There was a big mat in the middle of the floor for sitting.

                On the ground floor there was also Grandma Snow’s bedroom and bathroom. Grandmother Snow only lived on the ground floor (because she was too old to climb the stairs) so it was always bright and clean, but upstairs was very different...

Mr Hyde

Waking up with
    Blood in my hair,
What did I do
   Last night and where?

He does things
   With my face and hand
That I simply
   Cannot understand,

Lustful deeds,
   I don't recall,
Acts I can't
   Regret at all.
  

, Vampiress, a nonsense poem.

Beautiful little vampire,

Your teeth are so sharp,

If I gave wrote you a song,

Would you play it on your harp?

Would we dance together,

If we had the right tune,

On mountains of midnight

In the light of the moon?

If I gave you my throat,

Would you give your heart,

Or drain me and forget me,

Before our dreams even start?

There is nothing outside the forest, 2/6

  Days passed like dreams and nights like nightmares.

  Then eventually came hope.

  The height and density of the trees dropped. Young samplings, herbs and flowers replaced ancient and giant trees. Rabbits, ox and birds replaced deer and boar.

  Then I saw The Sky.

  Not simply a sky, not the specs of light that appear above the forest, or the great sky above the Great Lake…

  An overwhelmingly vast, endless Sky… and a blinding light.

  Burying my eyes in my palms, I fell to my knees.

  Blinded, I crawled back to the shade of a young yew tree. From there I could look across to where the forest ended and a limitless expanse of golden grass lay.

  Shielding my eyes under my hand, I gazed up at an infinite blue canopy.

  Then I saw the children. Children of the People, but with subtle differences. They were fully dressed, for a start, maybe to protect them from the sun, and their hair was cut short. Their faces wore an intense pride, like a stag deer, or an ancient woman introducing her many descendants

  Until they saw me….

  Then they screamed and ran.

  Soon after the fighting men came, led by an old woman.

  They were dressed in metal, like the orc use for their blades. Foot to neck in metal, like creatures from a nightmare- they shone like the moon. Bright hats towered over faces that were too proud. The men held massive spears and the old lady bore a mace.

  ‘Stand down,’ the woman commanded her men in an accent which I could barely understand. ‘Only one of them.’

  She took a place towards me. I stood to greet her, totally overawed.

  I had found something outside the forest. An open, golden land and a strange branch of the People.

  ‘You have wandered too far, beast.’ she said to me with utter disdain.

  I looked at her, trying to show respect, but utter confused and still dazed by the light.

  ‘Monsters are unwelcome here…’ she continued,’ how did you get past our guards?’

  I laughed, hysterically… what was this about?

  ‘Grandmother, you think I am Orc?’ I asked.

  ‘No, Beast, I know what you are!’

  ‘Fey?’

  ‘Yes. Worse than the orcs. Orcs can be tamed, taught, controlled. They are our watch dogs. We breed them and train them to guard us.’

  ‘Guard you against what?’

  ‘Against you! To guard us against your barbarian people… You savages who live in trees full of skulls. Who eat raw flesh from every animal you see. Who live in darkness and worship death! Fey!’

  It was time to go home. There was nothing outside the forest for me.

  I had, at least, seen and known Great things.

THE END

There is nothing outside the forest, 2/5

The details are blurred and faded now.

  It was the day we… lost… it is too sad to say.

  One moment we were walking, the next, falling.

  My arms flailed out and caught the ground.

  Desperately, I leld the leafy earth, my feet kicking at the emptiness of the pit that had opened.

  There were cries of pain.

  Shocked, I pulled myself up and looked down at horror and blood.

  My brother was murdered… my loyal brother the aurox lay impaled on cruel spikes, thrashing, bleeding, dying.

  Tomm too, lay impaled through his arms and legs. He stared up at me, his eyes wild with pain.

  “Run,” he yelled.

  The orc were coming. Maybe I obeyed Tomm. Maybe my instinct compelled me to run like a frightened rabbit.

  In blind panic, I climbed up a tree and hid… Looking down, I saw the orc inspecting their trap. Silent tears ran down my cheeks and I knew I was watching Tomm’s last moments.

  How is it that we must be born in pain, live in chaos and fall again into darkness so easily.

  As I watched them kill him, I asked myself, is there anything more to life than this?

  When the orc had finished with him, I scurried down from my hiding place and cut off his head.

  It had to be done. I cut off the head of the might I might have loved because that how we show kindred with the dead. I placed tomm’s head atop a yew, and hoped dearly to see him again in his next life.

  I walked on. There was nothing left to do but to walk on- to some thing outside of all this.

  It was a slow walk, and intolerably lonely. Constantly dodging orc and orc camps.

  Often there were marker stones beside rivers and the tallest trees.

  ‘FEY DIE HERE.’

  They read, or…

  ‘NO FEY.’

  ‘NO WELCOME FOR FEY.’

  ‘FRE- FREE OR DIE.’

  I suspected that I understood the word Fey by then, but still I walked on. What did I have to lose?

  There was another great river, to wide and fast to cross. Lookin for a ford, I found some thin else.

  Some thing new.

  A path made of stone, in the air! Maybe a home for a river creature… but so clearly built to cross the river.

  Stealthily, I crept closer. It was made of stone, cut into blocks. It was shaped like a crescent moon, lying with its points touching the earth.

  The People do not build such things. The orc, surely, could not.

  It both amazed and shocked me, yet still I walked across it.