Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-4893169-20160228043611

“Fifty-two, fifty- three, fifty four, fifty-five…”

It was yet another housebound Humboldt County day with the rain drumming hard on the apartment roof, and gushing down the street in heavy, ankle-freezing torrents. It was on gray wet days, such as this one when there was nothing but reruns on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and all the board games and videos had already been played, hide-and-go-seek seemed like a worth-while idea.

“Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine…”

It was seven-year-old Olivia Satoui’s turn to be seeker, and she already had a good idea where her older sisters were. They were always hiding together and in the same spot. Being triplets, they seemed to like sticking together like glue.

“Sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two…”

Olivia got tired of counting and uncovered her eyes.

“Okay!” She hollered, getting up from the sofa. “Ready or not, here I come!”

Tiptoeing down the hall, she listened for the sound of stifled giggling and the rustling of clothes.

“Say, where’d you all go?” she said loudly. She peeked into their shared room scattered with toys and tween novels. “I will never find you and then I’ll be an only kid! Unless…!” she dropped to the floor and flipped back the covers of Kyoto’s bed.

“Oh, guess not…” she muttered upon seeing only monster movie magazines and horror and sci-fi paperbacks. “Well, how about…here!” she shouted, going to Izumi’s bed. Nothing was there but funky shoes, socks and a huge pile of trendy teenage magazines. A third inspection of Mizaki’s bed revealed only a neat stack of science books and magazines, and a box of Beanie Babies.

“Well, gee-whiz,” Olivia mumbled, brushing the dust from her denim overalls. “They must have gone somewhere else then…Unless.” Her eyes soon fixed on the closet door, and then walking stealthily over, she reached out to slowly turn the knob.

Then her smile faded as a warm breeze blew across the room. It brushed over her face and fluttered her short, bobbed hair. The smell of warm, green grass and moist earth filled the cramped space.

“What…?” Olivia’s eyes grew wide as the door swung slowly open.

She froze as she stared into the space beyond. Her brow wrinkled as she cocked her head, confused and bewildered.

There was no trace of clothes, shoes or sports gear. There was no trace of anything resembling the interior of a closet. It was now a hollow opening facing a lawn surrounded by dry fields and woods.

Olivia scrunched her nose and frowned. “Is this like Narnia?”

She blinked a few times and then pinched herself hard on the arm to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. It hurt and the summer landscape was still there so she knew she wasn’t dreaming.

Olivia pursed her lips into a pout, tapping thoughtfully at them with a grubby finger. After a few minutes of pondering, she stepped cautiously over to the door, reaching out to grasp the threshold.

“Hey!” she shouted her voice shaky and hoarse. “Are you guys out there?”

She listened as cicadas hummed and chirped in the soft, springy grass and bushes, while birds swooped and skimmed in the crystal-blue sky.

Again she called out, more loudly this time. “Izzanami! Miiiiizzzzzaaaakkkiiiii! Kyyyyoooto!”

No response.

Olivia swallowed back the anxious lump in her throat and released her grip on the door frame.

"Augh, you all can be a real pain in the hinny sometimes!" she grumbled. “When I find you, you owe me a big cheesy pizza, and some strawberry ice cream with sprinkles and a cherry on top. Oh yeah, and don't forget a video rental—either Pixar or Miyazaki!”

With a huff of annoyance, she stepped determinedly across the threshold, the sweet heavy scent of loamy earth and blossoms soon filling her nostrils and coating the back of her throat.

Seconds stretched into minutes, with only the ever-increasing rain and thunder to break the lonely silence. Then an icy wind whipped through the room, scattering papers and posters like startled birds. It rifled through the pages of a souvenir scrapbook resting on Mizaki’s writing desk, coming to rest on a particular page with a taped parchment fragment labeled:

'Story Bit found by Mizaki Satouri, 7 ½ in squirrel’s nest behind Holiday Gardens Apartments in Murrelet CA, Mar. 13 1996. Writer—No Name.'

''Several centuries ago, there was a sorceress named Algrisa, and she wrote a book. The purpose behind writing it was neither for profit nor fame, but for revenge at the unexpected demolition of her house.''

''Algrisa lived on the icy, wind-swept coast of northern Mur. Some scholars claimed her house was a grand crystal palace, but this was very unlikely, for she wasn’t a show off. Most reliable sources agreed it was a hut fashioned from driftwood, fragments of wrecked vessels, and whalebone.''

''Despite the remoteness of her house, people came from all around for advice on their various problems. Although she preferred to be left alone, poring over volumes of archaic lore, Algrisa often answered her visitors’ queries out of politeness. However, not all the pilgrims sought her sage counsel; some sought her hand in marriage.''

''Now this wasn’t at all surprising, despite her one hundred and twenty-three years, Algrisa appeared to be no more than eighteen years old. However, she preferred a withdrawn life of prophetic wisdom to one busy with chores and babies. So she refused them all, including one who was a very proud and powerful wizard.''

''The wizard saw her refusal as a sign of arrogance and contempt. He waited however, biding his time patiently. It wasn’t until the sorceress left for a hunting expedition that he acted. Conjuring up a fierce storm, he sent it plowing inland. Lashed by the howling wind, the sea unleashed a raging series of monstrous waves that swamped the entire shore, completely obliterating the hut along with its contents. By the time Algrisa got back, all that remained of her hermitage and libraries were some splintered timbers and a few pathetic scraps of parchment.''

''Immediately, Algrisa set to work. Scouring the market place and various magicians’ guilds for writing material, she finally pieced together a book of magic. Some of the spells were perfectly safe, but most were designed to backfire with hellish results.''

''One night, she went down to a crossroad where the wizard was known to pass. Placing the book in the middle of the road, she then hid herself in the hedgerow to watch.''

''The bait was soon taken. What specific spell he used afterwards the tale doesn’t tell, except to say that what remained of him was enough to fill a snuffbox.''

''Several more centuries elapsed, and eventually, the sorceress died. No one, not even the most wisest and well-preserved magicians could escape Death. '' The Algrisa, as it came to be known, still existed—and still unleashed its fury on any incautious person who discovered it. It soon earned the reputation of the third dangerous magic book in the world right after the Grisly Grimoire by Oglath Azgroth of Zilth and possibly the most dangerous book of all--the Spontaneous Combustible Besephalaminon*, which, even a mere mention of its name, caused one’s shoes to burst into flames. 

After traveling from one library to another, and generally making life miserable for countless monks, scholars, and meddlers alike, the book was eventually lost.

The clock in the laundry room now read twenty to two. A piebald cat slept in a bundle of laundry. It opened an eye when the phone on a shelf began to ring— once…twice… three times…. Where the heck was that baby sitter at? Four…five…six…

The broom closet suddenly burst open, and Mizaki tumbled out in clatter of brooms and mops. She struggled to her feet and scurried to the phone, yanking up the receiver.

“Yeah, hello?” she said groggily. “What?” she winced at the shrillness of the voice at the other end. “No, Ellie. I don’t want to see what you found in an old shed. It’s probably something really gross and disgusting…like a dead junkie or some anime porn!”

The cat yawned then proceeded to retch up a hairball.

“Well, why don’t you call one of your Wiccan friends then?” Mizaki was now wide awake and very irate. “Maybe that creepy brujo kid with the glasses, get him to translate the darn thing for you.”

She jerked the receiver away as another shrill babbling erupted from it.

“Oh, he’s in juvie?” Mizaki nodded slowly. “For setting fire to this guy’s bed?” She was silent for a moment as she mulled over this latest news. “Yeah, well what do you expect…the guy was a complete and total nutjob, even if he was able to run a freakin’ Tarot racket and dupe people out of their savings.”

She gritted her teeth as shriek after outraged shriek drilled like needles into her eardrum.

"Well, Ellie," she told the caller sternly. "Maybe if you stopped hanging around with weirdos like that then people will quit bitching on you about all this witchcraft crap. Anyway, can't you think of a more better way to get attention? All this occult stuff won't make popular or help you fit in. It just make you look like a goddamn freakin' retard!" Mizaki stiffened and glared at the phone. "What did you just call me?"

The house was a hovel not a home: standing dark and deserted, its decrepit tiled roof and wooden porch nearly swallowed up by the surrounding trees and bushes. The walkway leading up to it was heavily overgrown with weeds and tangled tree roots and bushes.

Olivia studied the dilapidated structure in front of her. Her small hands tightly clenched at her side as she resisted the urge to suck her thumb. Nervously, she looked the way she came. And then turning back, she swallowed the lump in her throat and slowly climbed the creaky, lichen-infested porch. When she yanked at the front door, she found it was locked.

Olivia began to frown. Then she peered through the large window beside it. Through the grime and patches of mildew, she saw that the inside was even worse than the outside. Everywhere she looked, in the lounge and kitchen area, there were piles of rubbish, and it wasn’t the old-fashioned sort you tend to see in movies or read about in books. The mess looked new as if the owners had simply left it all behind only a month or two ago.

Olivia shook her head in disbelief. Gross! She thought. Why would anyone live out here in this dump?

As she turned away, the shadows beyond the murky glass seemed to shift and lengthen. She froze then glanced back over her shoulder; her sharp eyes probing the filthy corners of the rooms and straining her ears through the deep quiet. The only sounds she could hear were that of her frantically pounding heart and harsh rapid breathing. Taking a shuddering breath, she took a step back while rubbing the goose bumps now sprouting up on her arms.

“You must be imagining things,” Olivia murmured. “There’s nobody living here…if there was, I would have heard them making noise.”

Still she took a few more steps back, afraid to get too close. The window seemed darker now, as if the remaining sunlight was being bled out. It was like someone was slowly twisting a dimmer all the way off. . Something also seemed a little off with the dirty splotches speckling the window pane, the patterns seemed more distinct now—almost like faces staring back at her. Some of them blurry and indistinct while others showed misshapen yet still recognizable human-like mouths, eyes and noses.

Something scuffled dryly on the rough-hewn steps behind her. And when the porch creaked and moaned, she gasped and whirled around…only to be met by nothing at first, until her eyes caught sight of a series of small smudgy prints along the edge of the porch. Despite her nervousness, she bent closer to examine them. Very carefully, she traced her finger around one of the paw prints.

Olivia was no zoologist, but was not entirely ignorant of different animal tracks. She knew it wasn’t a cat due to the prints’ tiny size and didn’t think it was a dog either due to the human-like ‘fingers’, quite possibly it was a rodent—a mouse or a rat, maybe even a lizard of some kind—which had apparently scurried up the stairs giving her a major fright. She glanced around the porch curiously, alert for still more tracks or small scurrying forms. There was no sign of the creature anywhere and somewhat shaken, she finally decided to head back home. She found this place way too creepy/disturbing for her tastes and wished only to return to the crowded yet familiar suburban apartment, plus she didn’t want to get stranded in this strange world should the door to the closet ever returned and was shut. Perhaps she might be able to convince her parents and even her sisters to accompany her on her next trip through the magic portal where they might even help her unravel the mystery of this strange deserted house way back in the woods. . And speaking of her sisters, she could almost hear them coming.

“Olivia!” a faint voice shouted through the trees. “Hey, Olivia! Where are you pipsqueak?”

“Come on, Olive!” You win, we give up!” Another voice yelled. “Olly olly oxen free!”

''There's nobody out there. You're just hearing birds. Nope, that’s not right. You’re just hearing things from your own feather-brained head. There's nobody here for like hundreds of miles, just you and this cruddy dream place. It’s all just your wild imagination playing tricks on you.''

Stubbornly, she closed her eyes and just sat there, hearing the summer breeze ripple the leaves above and whistle around the eaves of the old house. She began tapping her heels together all the while mumbling that famous movie mantra, “There’s no place like home…there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home.”

“Olive! Where are you!” The first voice called with more urgency. “Stop playing around! It’s time for lunch! Caelyn’s going to get into serious trouble if Mom and Dad come back and you’re not here!”

“Where do you think Caelyn is anyway?” the second voice asked. “It’s not like her to be an hour late. You think she might be blabbering on the phone with her boyfriend or one of her airhead friends?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Kyoto,” The first voice grumped. “Maybe she had appendicitis or her car broke down.”

“Dude, she like rides a bicycle and lives half a block away,” the second voice pointed out.

“Well, I don’t know then,” the second voice barked in frustration. “All I know is that she must have a good enough reason for coming and at this very moment, I’m hating our kid sister for going off to hide in the woods out back all by herself.”

Izumi’s cross voice jarred Olivia back to reality. She snapped open her eyes as she ceased her Dorothy Gail mantra.

“But I didn’t go into the woods out back,” she mumbled. “I went into the closet.”

There was a sudden heavy thud and thrashing of underbrush followed shortly by swearing in English and Japanese.

“Izumi! Are you okay?”

“No!” was the bellowed reply.

“Ugh. Not only are my leather boots are soaked through, my Cabrini slacks are smeared with dog doo!”

“Dude, why didn’t you wear your wellingtons?”

“Because I was in a hurry to look for Olivia, that’s why?” came the disgusted reply. “And I still don’t know why she decided to go hide in the middle of freakin,’ possibly weirdo-infested woods.”

There was a long pause. The only sounds were from the warm, gentle wind sloughing through the trees and the hammering of Olivia’s heart thundering in her ears.

“Maybe she wanted to go see the haunted house,” Kyoto murmured.

“W-w-what haunted house?” Olivia stammered. A chill soon enveloped her from head to foot, seeping into her bones. She tried to move her legs, but found herself unable to budge an inch. As Olivia concentrated on trying to get up with all her might, she heard that dry rustling behind her again.

She slowly glanced back and was startled to see the front door cracked open “Hello?”

“Oh, puh-leez,” Izumi groaned. “You actually believe all that stuff about those kids dying of some disgusting, demonic disease at a slumber party séance?”

“Actually they got murdered by some unknown killer,” Kyoto corrected her. “All of them poisoned by this mandrake-like plant root that was vaporized in this kerosene lamp. Worked faster than arsenic and pretty horrible too—their skin was all blistered and purplish-black and it was flaking off in blood strips—“

“Kyoto!” Izumi yelled at the top of her lungs. “This isn’t the time and place for discussing some creepy urban legend. We got to find our bratty little pest of a sister and get our butts back home before our parents come back and find out!”

“Got it,” Kyoto affirmed. “Find Olive and get out pronto before parental units get back and turns us into yakitori.”

A sudden icy breeze rustled the knee-high grasses and surrounding bushes. “Who’s there?” Her voice dryly caught in her throat. She could see nothing but pitch-black in the long narrow crack. Somewhere in the distance, the voices continued on with their diatribe, although they now sounded muffled as if her ears were jammed-packed with cobweb and cotton balls. She could only make out a few words—“unknown killer, lamp, legend, and yakitori.”

“I’m starved,” Olivia muttered. “Yakitori sounds way better than pizza and ice cream.”

She took a deep breath and scooted closer to the edge of the porch. A sudden prickling on the nape of her neck told her that she wasn’t alone. The wind had picked up, the temperature suddenly dropping. The freeze cold penetrated her sweater, going straight through flesh and bone. Yet her rasping breath produced no puffs of steam and the bright sun still shone on the luxurious deep green of early summer.

Whatever was watching her was standing right behind that partially opened door. She squeezed her eyes tight, afraid to look, afraid to turn around and see something hideous in that shadowy recess. When she realized her eyes were clamped shut, she snapped them open again.

Pushing through her quivering fear, she slowly stood up.

As she inched forward, she heard a faint scraping behind her followed shortly by a creak.

She shot a wild look over her shoulder as something rubbery and cold coiled around her ankle. She thrashed desperately against its grip, her screams echoing through the rapidly darkening clearing, but the more she fought, the tighter the grip got.

Suddenly hundreds of shadowy arms, like black plumes of spiraling smoke surged from the yawning doorway. Olivia flailed wildly about as long spindly fingers clutched her hair and clothes.

The porch blurred past her as she was then yanked backwards toward the void. Then warm and strong hands caught her flailing feet and arms and then she was yanked back. Then she was in Mizaki’s arms, shocked and winded as auburn-haired Caelyn stood tall and straight, glaring furiously into writhing black void.

“Nobody messes with my kids!” the elf-like babysitter snarled, hands balled into fists at her side, “especially ghosts of spoiled rotten fucking brats who poisoned her siblings and their friends because she was sent to bed without dinner as punishment. Be gone from here, you murderous witch brat before I rip your maggoty soul apart and flush the pieces down the nearest public toilet. You had your chance at life, and you blew it! And no way in hell are you coming back again in a stolen body of an innocent lil' kid, forcing demons and lost souls to do your filthy trickster bidding…like you did to the living when you were alive. Now get out of hell outta here you goddamn mind parasite, you stinkin’ skin stealer, strigoi mort, you worthless worm spawn who ruined a good many lives—both Mortal and Faire Folk! You are not welcome here! Get back to the Shadow Realm! This Way is closed to you!”

“Hey!” Izumi’s voice suddenly shouted, shrill with hysteria. “Caelyn? Is that you yelling? Is Olivia with you? Where the heck are you guys? It’s so dark out here! Is there a tornado coming?”

There was a sound of feet splashing through puddles and thrashing through the underbrush. Then Kyoto and Izumi burst into the clearing, sweat and rain streaming down their pale faces.

“There you are!” Kyoto shouted. “Finally!”

“We’ve been looking all over for you guys!” Izumi burst out. “It’s like the Blair Witch Woods out here!”

They skidded to a halt, their eyes growing huge with astonishment.

“Is that the ‘house’ you were telling me about?” Izumi asked. “The one where all those kids got whacked by that poisoned lantern?”

“I don’t get it.” Kyoto shook her head baffled. “The kids at school said it was a huge Victorian mansion with stone pillars and a big iron gate.”

“Yeah?” Izumi wrinkled up her nose in disgust. “Well, it looks more like a crack house than a haunted house to me. Maybe if there were clowns, garden gnomes and zombie militias chasing us with chainsaws and weird escaped mutants trying to sell us timeshares then it would be kind of an improvement.”

Had the two sisters arrived a minute earlier, they might have seen what the other three were staring at. They might have seen that door was wide open, and beyond it that room that yawned as black as a bottomless pit, the only light visible coming from an old-fashioned trainman's lantern. They might have seen the thin, scraggly-haired person who held in one frail hand while the other was stretched toward a cheval glass mirror.

They might have even felt a felt an intense wave of sheer panic and fear at the plain pointed features of the girl quietly regarding her partially emerged reflection in the murky glass. Their mouths might have dropped open with shock as the pale face contorted into dried up shriveled rags of skin upon a hideous old skull as the lich-thing slowly turned to fix them with a cold, silent stare before the door slammed shut with a thunderous crash. 