Category: Writing

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-seven: Oh My Stars!

Inktober Prompt: Coat
GoldspotPrompt: Outbreak

27 October, 2019

Dear Bridget,

My thoughts have been swirling so that I have been roused from my bed these several nights. I have bundled myself up against the chill of the darkling hours and gone to sit on my balcony to watch the Orionids. With the collar of my jacket turned up, I have watched the falling stars coat the sky with movement, one startling wonder after another, then returned to bed to dream of the woods, the pond, and the sense of dragon.

Last night ~ this early morning really ~ perhaps I dozed while star-gazing, but it seemed to me that there was an outbreak of brilliant meteors and that, in one of those elongated flashes of time, they coalesced into the same semblance of a dragon that the sunset casts upon the pond in my dream. The dragon-stars’ head was pointed toward your house, and all the meteors streamed in that direction so that the dragon seemed to fly.

I must have dreamt it; there was nothing in the morning papers about the occurrence.

I write this before the post has had a chance to bring a note from you, but I wanted to jot it down before the rational light off day could persuade me the vision was mere nonsense springing from the fevered brain of

Your
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-six: A Choice to Make…

Inktober Prompt: Dark
GoldspotPrompt: Haunting

26 October, 2019

Bridget,

Now I apprehend why you were reluctant to tell me about the last page that you have in the book. After your experiences in the wood, the thought of going back, of returning to the source of thoughts and memories so haunting, cannot be easy or comfortable. But if the women in the story brave the trees, the fog the path, the pond, perhaps that is what must be done?

Have you heard from Dr. Torres yet? Do not keep in a dark as grey as that between the innermost trees

Your anxious companion,
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-five: The Other Clichè Drops…

Inktober Prompt: Tasty
GoldspotPrompt: Weird

25 October, 2019

Dear Bridget,

I suppose we should have known that the last tale in the tome would be the one you needed. But it is maddening and too, too cliche that the last page is missing! Have you asked Dr. Torres if she has it? It might have dropped out at her house or office.

Forgive me ~ I know you’re busy ~ but I have questions. Your summary says that, in the story, a weird has been placed on the family, but does the legend say by whom or why? And the illness that strikes the men has the same sense of duality that Dr. Torres discerned? It is strange, fantastic even, that the woods and pond as described in the book are exactly like the woods and pond now. One would expect many changes to have been wrought by Nature over the generations. Tell me in more detail about the last page whose paragraphs seem to point to a missing resolution.

I have, by the way, done something selfish. In order to soothe my sense of uselessness, I have sent ’round to the bakery a note, asking them to deliver a box of pastries and treats for you and your father. I wanted you both to have something tasty from

Your hapless friend,
Hannah

#30Inks30Days 4 April, 2020

 

This ink is Benitsuchi from Taccia’s Hokusai set. I’m not sure how much I’m choosing inks that suit the unfolding story (I don’t have any of it planned out) and how much I’m suiting the story to the ink. This ink wanted to draw people, so people showed up in the story. What will tomorrow’s ink bring? I don’t know either.

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-two: The Ghosts of Lethargy…

Inktober Prompt: Ghost
GoldspotPrompt: Revenge

22 October, 2019

Bridie,

I still feel like a ghost unto myself ~ my present, weary incarnation constantly haunted by the specters of who I was and who I might have been. I would dress as Lethargy for Hallowe’en were I not already cloaked in it.

Why do you think someone might be seeking revenge on your father? He has always been ~ always seemed to me ~ a kind and decent human. Whom do you suspect? Whisper more in the epistolary ear of

Your friend,
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty: Watching the World Go By…

Inktober Prompt: Tread
GoldspotPrompt: Fever

20 October, 2019

Bridie,

I had the dream again, though it had a different feel to it. This time I wasn’t part of the dream; I was more of a spectator gazing out over the landscape from a height. I watched the wood turn from a place of sun to one of mist. I saw the fog tread over the trees like a fever over the forehead of a sick child. And like a fever, it seemed to play a dual role, inflicting suffering while burning out a disease.

The world turned under me and our pond came into view. Again, the setting sun emerged and illuminated the pond and again I thought —— dragon.

The dreams mean something; they must, don’t you think? I feel the connection is just out of the reach of

Your

Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Nineteen: The Oracular and Confounding…

Inktober Prompt: Sling
GoldspotPrompt: Heart

19 October, 2019

Bridget, dear Bridget,

You are ~ you always are ~ kindness itself. Even with our long friendship, I don’t know how you tolerate my moods. I also don’t know I’d tolerate the world without you. You are the one person who will never sling my heart around.

Dr. Torres seems genuinely to want to help, but she is Sibyllic in her utterances. The riddle is in the parted ash? What might that mean? Are you as confused as

Your puzzled,

Hannah?

Inktober 2019, Day Fourteen: Ashen Answers?…

Inktober Prompt: Overgrown
Goldspot Prompt: Spell

14 October, 2019

You know, Bridget,

I can just see you sifting through the ashes in your father’s fireplace ~ a desperate Cinderella with no ball to attend. How did you father take to your post-incendiary exploration?

I share your disappointment. The logical part of my brain told me ~ tells me still ~ that it was silly to look for answers in the ash. But the part of my mind that is both hopeful and worried harboured overgrown expectations that some sign or cure would be there waiting ~ some vial with a curative potion tempered by the fire.

I applaud your intention to visit Dr. Torres. After the way she departed so abruptly, I’m not sure I would have found the courage. I hope you can see her today. The weather is lovely, I see from window, and it will do you good to get out for a spell. I am, as you know,

Ever yours,
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Thirteen: Good Counsel?

Inktober Prompt: Ash
Goldspot Prompt: Shriek

13 October, 2019

Goodness, Bridget!

I swear I heard your shriek before I finished slicing open the envelope! But I can’t blame you. You have had shock after shock, and there’s no way you could have seen this one coming.

I was so relieved when Dr. Morgan found a psychotherapist so quickly. You write that Dr. Morgan knew the — was she a psychologist or a psychiatrist? — counsellor was into some alternative practices, but that she had no idea the woman was a curandera! I suppose I wouldn’t have thought to ask that either.

You say that at first the examination seemed to go well, but when the new doctor looked at your father’s eyes, she turned pale, and — and here I am not sure, because your writing falters — I think you wrote that she rushed out, promising Dr. Morgan a report. Is that right? And that as she. Left, you heard her repeating, “The ash, the ash”? How strange!

Write me back and let me know if I have read your missive correctly. I am sitting here,

Your curious and puzzled,

Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Eleven: Blessing, Curse, Snow…

Inktober Prompt: Snow
Goldspot Prompt: Curse

Bridget,

You are quite right. This snow that keeps the doctors from your father is a curse. But it also gives you an excuse to stay away from the woods, so it is also a blessing, and for that I am

Grateful,
Hannah