I am a native of California who lives in Southern California. I have a background in healthcare and Special Education. Writing is a new adventure for me.
This Halloween season has been especially exhausting for Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever since the vampires joined forces with the zombies. Buffy knew how to dispatch a vampire without breaking a sweat. But these zombies were another story. How do you kill the living dead? She could hear them pounding on the castle doors as she tried to collect her thoughts. She looked up and, as her eyes caught the flicker of the candle flame, an idea sparked in her brain. I think I still have some of those old flame throwers in the dungeon that Granny picked up from the Army Surplus Store. It’s a good thing I listened when she told me not to throw them out. She said I might need them someday. Granny you were so right!
“I watched the vulture looking at me hungrily as I lay on the ground bleeding and injured.” I felt like such a klutz. I knew better than to wear those high heals but I wanted to look good. I was late and rushing to get to the Halloween party when I tripped on the hem of my Glenda the Good Witch costume and fell in a heap.
I gazed up at the vulture and our eyes met, Didn’t your mother ever tell you that it’s not polite to stare! I shouted.
Don’t worry about Agatha. She’s already had her dinner, a stranger said in a low voice as he helped me to my feet.
Thanks for stopping to help, I replied as I limped along on his arm.
No worries. You were irresistible, he smiled and the moonlight gleamed off his fangs.
I love movies and have a special love for classic films. Even though they do not have the special effects of modern films they often make up for it with the writing, acting, and cinematography. The film makers of those days had to work harder to create the effects with set decoration, lighting, music, and the acting itself. There are times when I watch a modern film with all the bells and whistles of computer generated effects and feel that that is all that is carrying the picture. Like “where’s the beef? ”
Via Jack T You Tube:
A classic film I just watched again is Drums Along the Mohawk, (in color), based on the novel by Walter D. Edmonds, starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert about the first pioneer American settlers of the Mohawk Valley in New York State. William Faulkner was an uncredited contributor to the screen play. It takes place during American Revolutionary War times. I was reminded about this film by the blog Cinematically Insane. The restored film was chosen to be among those shown at the 53rd Annual New York Film Festival this year. The settlers have a beef with the British (The Revolutionary War) and some of the Native Americans the British have convinced to fight with them. John Ford is the director. I am a big fan of John Ford movies and the cast is made up of some of his regulars like Ward Bond, Chief John Big Tree, Francis Ford, and Arthur Shields. Edna May Oliver is very funny as the widow Mrs. Mc Klennar. There is a scene where two Seneca braves raid her house and she orders them to carry her bed downstairs before burning down her house. The film is not historically correct in that the Seneca did not raid with the British in the Mohawk Valley. But the British did send in a small force. There is a battle that the local militia men are involved in in the movie which is based on the Battle of Oriskany (1777) which was one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War. I love the performances of many of these great character actors. I have wanted a copy of the film for a while. After seeing the post about the film’s screening at the festival I decided to order it, and I did.
This is the original trailer for the film and I do not know why it is in black and white via retrotrailer on You Tube:
The Senior Center sponsored the trip to Las Vegas. The package included a hotel and 2 meal vouchers at a cheap price. The bus had seen better days but it was a cheap getaway for those with low paying jobs or on a pension. The bus made a stop in the middle of the desert which was not listed in the trip’s brochure. The passengers looked around confused. The front door creaked open and a dark figure climbed on. Thank You Roy, the Master will love this bunch, as he spoke they could see his sharp pointy teeth.
This is my contribution for Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Above image by Ron Pruitt.
I remember going to the Saturday matinee at our local movie theater when I was a little girl. We would usually see comedies like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein or a Jerry Lewis movie and eat a lot of candy. Those movies weren’t scary but made me laugh hysterically. I loved the scenes where the monster keeps appearing to Costello and then, when he tells Abbott, the monster has disappeared from sight. The old horror movies were not so funny but would be considered campy and dated today. There were a couple that stuck with me for a long time and in a bad way. These were ” The Fly”, ( 1958), screenplay by James Clavell and “The Tingler” (1959), directed by William Castle. Both had Vincent Price in the cast. He was great in all those old horror films. Which reminds me of “The House on Haunted Hill,” (1959), also directed by William Castle. Now I want to go out and get that one. The others still creep me out too much. What was disturbing about The Fly was how the main character ends up with a fly head, for a head, and then in the end is going to get eaten by a spider. AAAAH! With The Tingler it was that creepy centipede like creature that was supposedly in our spines and the bathtub full of blood with an arm reaching out of it. The centipede creature is supposed to break your spine if you don’t scream. Vincent Price plays the mad pathologist who uses LSD in his research and autopsies executed murderers for the state. I probably shouldn’t have been allowed to watch those movies….
Posters via IMDb:
Now for my story:
Darkness Comes
On Samhain, the villagers tell of a stone circle that is in a grove of ancient oaks deep in the forest. There you can see upon old pikes the severed heads of the Cinn Dorcha. They were placed there by the Druid Priestess Aine in the olden times. The heads are covered with rotting flesh, the eyes bulging, and mouths contorted. People swear they can hear them talking to each other when they walk through the grove late at night.
The Druid Priestess
I am a Druid priestess. Some say I am a witch. I descend from a long line of Druids through my maternal side. My earliest memories are of my mother making beautiful swirling clouds of color appear over my crib and hearing the voices of all my maternal ancestors singing enchanting lullabies and cooing to me, “Aine, the blessed one, our beautiful child, and joy of our hearts!”
I watch over the village near the sacred grove. The people come to me for divinations and interventions with the gods. It is a peaceful time but it has not always been so. It was around this time of Samhain, two years ago, that a dark evil descended on our village.
I stood in the sacred grove after the Samhain bonfires. I was in despair about what had come to our land. Darkness was descending. Ta dorchadas a thagann. Ta dorchadas tar eis titum thar ar dtalamh. Cloisim an caoineadh mo mhuintir. Mo mhuintir caoin amach. Ta fulaingt i bhfad. Ta fulaingt i bhfad.
The Darkness comes in the form of the Cinn Dorcha, the Dark Ones, and their quest to coerce my people to their ways. Whether it be by tricks or by intimidation. They speak against the old ways and call them evil superstitions. They tell the people that in order to survive they need to reject our old ways and practices. They tell us how we have to dress and how we are to behave as men and women. The women of my country were used to freedom and shared with men equally. The Cinn Dorcha tell us that this is no longer to be allowed. Women who resist this are made their slaves and are abused and violated. They replaced our old holiday celebrations with their own. They destroyed the ancient temple of Tlachtga. Their leader, Olc, labeled our Druid priestesses as witches. The people are afraid and do not know how to fight them. Ni mor dom a cabhru leo. Ni mor dom a cabhru leo!
I have been in hiding in the forest. Olc has proclaimed he will give a great price for my capture. I have been able to shield my cottage with a powerful ward. The enemy have searched the forest many times and walked past it only seeing an old burnt out ruin.
I began a campaign of harassment against the invaders. I use my shape-shifting ability to become first a falcon strafing them with my talons and next a wolf tearing at their throats. The shape-shifting takes a lot of energy and I am exhausted for days afterward.
The Day of Fire
I was resting in my cottage when I heard the raven. Bran alerted me with his shrill cries as he swooped down into my garden, “Aine, hurry they are near the grove and they have Isibeal!”
I questioned Bran as I ran toward the grove, “Why would they take Isibeal? She is only a herbalist who mixes potions for the villagers. She is not a threat to anyone.”
I was able to blend into the surrounding trees with my cloak and from there I watched them. Olc was with them.They dragged poor Isibeal by a rope that was wound around her neck. Her hands were tightly bound behind her back and her face streaked with dirt and tears. They took her to the stone circle in the sacred grove and tied her to a tree.
I stepped out from the trees and called out, “Olc, I heard you will give a great price for my capture.”
” You will join your friend at the stake,” Olc snarled. ” Seize her, seize the witch!” he cried to his men.
I raised my arm and called upon the powers of the wind, Thogairm me an ghaoth! A dark cloud blew across the sky covering the sun and the sky turned a metallic grey. The air, cold as ice, circled around the men like a whirlwind. It blew with such force it sounded like the wail of a thousand banshees. The cinn olc were all immobilized with fear. I quickly untied Isibeal and told her to run into the forest. Stepping outside of the stone circle, I raised my arm, and recited the ancient incantation, Teacht chun cinn laochra mor. Scriosann ar naimhde!
The ancient oaks in the grove began to sway and moan. With a loud roar the trees released their sharpest branches like spears toward the enemy. The Cinn Dorcha and their leader were impaled where they stood. I raised my arm again and called upon fire, Thogairm metine! ,and an arc of flame shot out from my fingertips setting them all ablaze. They met the fate they had planned for Isibeal.
Like the Cinn D’aois in long ago times, I placed the heads of my enemy on pikes at the entrance to the sacred grove. The villagers say that when you walk through the grove in the dark of night you can hear them talking to each other.
Aine
The Sacred Grove
Tlachtga
Isibeal the Herbalist
Bru na Boinne
Cnoc Aine
Bran
Sacred Grove
Aine’s cottage
Goddess by Banks Vevo on You Tube:
Rhiannon [a cousin of Aine] by Fleetwood Mac via muzicchnl on You Tube:
The chemical manufacturer representatives swore to the Congressional Committee that there was nothing to worry about. All these claims by environmentalists that their chemically altered corn seed would be a death knell for the Monarch Butterfly were just voodoo science. No validity to them whatsoever. People started spotting the Ghost Monarchs during the next year’s migration. Their wings were bleached of color and looked ragged. The butterflies barely had the stamina to make it to their usual wintering grounds. Their pale carcasses were found littering the ground at the Monarch Sanctuary.
“Not knowing what to expect, he made his way into the dark of the forest.” His doctor had told him at his last checkup that he must get some exercise. He decided this was the day to begin. It was the first day of his vacation. He walked determinedly toward the hiking trail. It was a 2 mile loop and he thought he was up to the challenge. As he hiked further and further along the trail he thought to himself, This seems longer than 2 miles and I should have brought a water bottle! That was when he heard it. A loud snorting and the thumping of a heavy footed creature. The kids must have hidden the warning sign again, the Ranger remarked. Every year we get one of these hikers run through by the wild boars.
Has anyone else been following this story? A star has been spotted between the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra during a joint survey of 150,000 stars by the Kepler Space Telescope and amateur astronomers. They have been looking for signs of planets circling these stars. What is unusual about this star according to an article in the Atlantic, The Most Mysterious Star in Our Galaxy, is that there was a strange light blocking pattern seen that may indicate not a planet but a very large alien madestructure or structures that are blocking the light of the star as it orbits around it. The SETI Research Center at UC Berkeley is planning on pointing a very large radio dish toward the star in January to see if they can pick up any electronic transmissions. This is scary to me because what if it is an alien structure and they get wind of us pointing our listening devices toward them. And then decide to see who is listening. Dr. Michio Kaku says that ifthis is an alien structure, itmay be as big as our planet Jupiter, and they are far advanced to our civilization. I think I am going to start wearing an aluminum foil hat.
I was still hoping to see another form of intelligent life here on earth close up last weekend, whales. I was a bit disappointed in my whale watching expedition. I went out on a whale watching boat this past Sunday with my daughter. It was a beautiful sunny day off Monterey for the most part. We did hit some fog out at sea on the way back to Monterey Bay harbor. I had high expectations and I think that was the problem. I expected to see huge whales breaching right near the boat. I wanted to get fantastically exciting photos. I realize now that you do not get to see breaching whales close up every day and that taking a photo, from a boat that is moving up and down, of whales and other sea life who are also moving up and down and various other directions requires luck and probably the talent of a professional photographer and at least a camera with a telescopic lens. Our whale watching was originally planned for Saturday but was canceled by the tour company due to rough weather at sea. So on Saturday I attempted to find the Monarch butterflies and found some at the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary. There were not many near ground level and I had to look through a telescope, assisted by a sanctuary worker, at the top of a eucalyptus tree. She helped me get a nice photo through the telescope as well.
One of the things I learned on the whale watching boat is when the guide sights a whale or other interesting sea life and calls it out, all the people go to that side of the boat and, unless you are fast, it is hard to get a good view. Like when he sighted a pod of orcas and a dolphin stampede. That’s right, I said a dolphin stampede. The dolphins were in the hundreds and were stampeding because they knew the orcas were around. The stampede caused a large patch of turbulence and some of the dolphins were leaping out of the water. Unfortunately some of them swam straight to the orca pod. Next the orca pod is chasing a dolphin and it did not end well for the dolphin. I am glad I did not see it all close up. Then we went out quite a distance in the ocean to off of Moss Landing. We saw some Humpback Whales, dolphins and sea lions there. We saw a whale in the distance do a partial breach, saw others spouting and some flukes. A dolphin popped up doing a partial breach, called spy-hopping, as well. Later we went to a different location and saw the orca pod again. The guide called the large male orca “Fat Fin.” This orca had already been identified by scientists. The whole trip was about 4 hours. This is a video from the Monterey Bay Whale Watch website. We did not have the owner or her dogs on our tour. Their research vessel was near us at the different viewing locations.
And here are a few of my photos:
Monarch Sanctuary
A few monarchs here
View through telescope at Pacific Grove Butterfly Sanctuary
“Now this is living the life of Riley.” Total relaxation, no obligations, and no worries. Except my name is not Riley and this is not my life. My name is Cornelius and I am married to Esmeralda, the Good Witch. We have a happy home life with our cat Cassiopeia. Well we usually have a happy home life unless I happen to get on the wrong side of Esmeralda. It was really not premeditated on my part. I was foraging around looking for a sweet and found the stash of Intense Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt. It was very tasty. Later that night my dearest wife was about to read her favorite collection of “Cat Tales and Broomsticks” when she got an urge for something chocolate. The last thing I remember is her eyes, that strange glow, and poof! I found myself covered with fur and had a strange urge to eat a mouse.
How can a person fit a life into a U Haul trailer? I couldn’t take everything. I had to leave quickly or I might lose my nerve. It was like when we had to evacuate that night the wild fires came. Deciding what was essential to take with us. I ended up taking some books, a few clothes, and mementos from my kids. My daughter’s baby shoes, a valentine card from my son when he was little, and some of their photos. A friend is letting me stay at her house on the rocky Monterey shore.
This is my contribution to Friday Fictioneers hosted by the gracious Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
This Halloween season has been especially exhausting for Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever since the vampires joined forces with the zombies. Buffy knew how to dispatch a vampire without breaking a sweat. But these zombies were another story. How do you kill the living dead? She could hear them pounding on the castle doors as she tried to collect her thoughts. She looked up and, as her eyes caught the flicker of the candle flame, an idea sparked in her brain. I think I still have some of those old flame throwers in the dungeon that Granny picked up from the Army Surplus Store. It’s a good thing I listened when she told me not to throw them out. She said I might need them someday. Granny you were so right!
Notes Tied On The Sagebrush 