Candle in the Attic Window(9)

The tribe was no longer camped in the foyer. Even the burn mark was gone, although the missing furniture has not been restored. I don’t understand, but I know that I will never be one of them.




Later. I am more confused than ever. I found the nursery again, although this time, my childhood toys and furnishings were mixed with more recent items: the desk from my study, the mirror I brought back from Paris.

I have gotten into the habit of avoiding my reflection in the bathroom mirrors, and the haggard and unshaven man who looked at me with panic in his eyes seemed like a stranger. But I paused this time and took stock of myself. True, my hair was long and my beard full, but neither was as disreputable as I had imagined. In fact, the longer I regarded my image, the more content it appeared. There was something familiar about the eyes and the expression, something that I finally recognized.

There was a touch of the doe in my face, or a touch of my face in the doe. I don’t pretend to understand that, either, but I think I am beginning to comprehend what has happened to me.

I glanced down into the foyer a few moments ago and something seemed out of place. It took a few seconds to register, but then I realized what it was. The front door was back. Stunned, I turned away, wondering what it meant, excited by its presence but worried, as well, worried about what it might mean, what might lurk beyond the door. Whatever it was would be the unknown; I was certain of that.

Suppressing my anxiety, I descended, but by the time I arrived, the wall was back in place. I expected to feel shattered by the discovery, but that wasn’t the case. I know now that when I am ready to face what lies beyond, a world in which the rules aren’t known in advance, and in which I have to find my own way and decide for myself what paths are worth following and which are not, the door will be there and I will open it and walk through and never look back.

But first, I have to get my house in order.






Don D’Ammassa is the author of seven novels and three non-fiction books, as well as 150 short stories and several hundred articles related to speculative fiction. He has been writing full time since 2001.





Stone Dogs





By Paul Jessup





Thursday: English Lit





The trees outside of the window are crystallized, frozen into a dance by the ice storm. Mister Harvey is reading a passage from The Wasteland. But I can’t hear the words.

I only see his lips.

Thick, beautiful lips. The words coming out of them deep and bellowing. I hear some girls whisper and giggle behind me. I know they are thinking the same thing I am – picturing him naked.

Maybe binding him up with his tie to the radiator in the back of the classroom. Gently ripping the clothes from his body. Forcing him to love me, even though it is forbidden. Maybe I shouldn’t be writing this down? But that’s part of the thrill, I guess. Maybe he will come over, spy my notebook. Spy my trembling hands writing this. Peek over my shoulder and see these hidden words. This language shoved between pages like skin in a sheet.

I get a small thrill, a quick chill, even as I write this. He walks closer. Do I keep the book open? Leave the page naked for him to see? Yes. Of course.

He didn’t even notice. Walked past me. Invisible girl. I see his eyes spy the ones behind me. Always the ones behind me, the murder of pretty girls in the back of the room. Those beautiful little waifs, black hair cropped around their shoulders like feathers. The dark, staring, unthinking eyes. Like pools full of drowning children.

All guys look at them. The three of them – all alike. Dressed alike, eyes and hair and mouth alike. Petite, perfect. Like swords lined up in the back of the room.

I will not write their names here. This is a book that will be buried under an ash tree. In a jar filled with broken glass and used coffee grounds. The names and words written here have power. I will not honour them with such a thing. Instead, I shall call them “the crow girls”. “The sword girls”. “The unkindly ones”.





Thursday: Algebra





The numbers on the chalk board do not look like math equations. They look like alchemical recipes. Like magical formulae. Circles, overlapping. Plotted with strange symbols, letters that contain hidden meaning. I wonder if there is a connection, somehow. Between the mental world that imagines such equations and the physical world, where such equations enact out their duties.

Maybe that is what magic is. That bridge between the two. Occult power existing in the actuality – the merging of two worlds.

You may think I’m a strange girl, to think such thoughts. You’re right.

But that doesn’t mean you know me.

The trees outside dance faster. Sped up, animated dance. Whirling wittershins in sleet dresses. The ice smacking against the window. It sounds like a man, sitting outside and rapping against it.

I see snow and ice piling up. The trees are waist-deep now. Frost crystals spread across the pane of glass, like white, spidering fingers, crawling. Fractals. I could plot out their course in equations and predict how they will grow.

There is power in that.

Magic.





Thursday: Study Hall





This is a windowless room. I cannot see the snow, the ice. I cannot see the trees dance. But I feel them, hidden behind the molding, grey walls. Shaking their bodies. They tinkle-tinkle-tinkle when they dance. Like a music box.