One of the questions writers are asked the most is where do
you get your ideas. The answer to that question depends a lot on the writer. My
answer is everywhere and sometimes that everywhere starts with a single concept
or even image, and usually, a question will follow. A conversation I “overheard”
on the treadmill inspired Altered Destiny.
My epic fantasy series began with a dream and a name, Ilythra.
I was discussing this with my husband—who is not a
writer...or even a reader. He likes movies—and he commented that a writer’s
brain fascinated him for this reason. We started talking about how a writer,
depending on their choice of genre, could take the same image or concept and
write a very different story.
Which leads to this blog. (Glad I was going somewhere with
this, aren’t you?_ ; )
I asked our Here Be Magic writers if they’d like to have
some fun with an experiment. Many of them did. I gave them an image and asked
if they’d write a short story. Now obviously we all write some subgenre of
science fiction/fantasy but the differences in each story are astounding!
So here is our writing image: There is a rocking chair in
the middle of the forest. How did it get there?
*****
"Zane! Zane!
Come see! I just teleported something!"
Zane stared at the
empty spot on the patio for a long moment before venturing, "Am I supposed
to be seeing something?"
"It's what
isn't there," his cousin Jed said triumphantly. "I teleported a chair to another
place."
Zane blinked,
coming fully awake for the first time.
"A chair? Do you mean
Katie's special rocking chair? The one she dragged me into four baby furniture
stores to find?"
Jed frowned, his
glasses slipping down his nose. "I
think you're focusing on the wrong thing.
I. Just. Teleported. Something. Scientific breakthrough? Eureka?"
Zane stared at him
without an ounce of humour. "Bring
it back."
"Zane!"
"The baby has
colic. Katie and I hadn't slept in three weeks until she got that chair. Now bring it back. You do know where you sent it, right?"
"Of
course." Jed looked offended.
"I used GPS co-ordinates."
Zane relaxed. "Okay, good, that's good. Let's drive out there and collect the rocking
chair before Katie and the baby get back from her Mom's."
Jed flushed. "Well, uh, there's one small
problem. See, I didn't want to risk
hurting anyone so I set the co-ordinates for the middle of the national
Forest. There, uh, aren't any
roads."
Zane took a step
forward; Jed shrank back. The sound of
wheels on gravel brought them both to a halt.
Zane exhaled
sharply. "Jed, you're my cousin and
I'm fond of Aunt Margie, so I'm going to give you a word of advice. That's Katie now in the driveway. Start running. Now."
****
Cautiously, his big feet barely disturbing the pine needles
and dry leaves of the forest floor, he approached the chair. It was too clean,
too perfect to have been dumped here, to new to be the remains of some
long-crumbled cabin. So how…
A song in the distance swirled through the clearing. He
caught his breath, easing back behind the nearest large tree as a woman wafted
toward the chair. She was beautiful, inhumanly so, her hair sparkling gold in
the dappled sunlight that filtered through the branches. She carried a wrapped
bundle in her arms as she moved toward the chair, crooning in a voice that was
too beautiful to be real. She seated herself, hugged the bundle—it had to be a
child—to her chest and began to rock.
He blinked, almost shocked to see the vision didn’t go away.
Had he hit his head? Fallen somehow and now become delirious with exposure? He
was a man of science. He didn’t believe in fairies or ghosts, or…
She stilled, turned to look at him, as though she’d heard
his thoughts. Piercing eyes of the deepest forest green narrowed as she held
his gaze. Whoever she was, whatever she was, now she knew he was here, and she
wasn’t pleased at the intrusion. She tipped her chin in an imperious gesture,
drawing him closer. He complied, almost as if pulled by an invisible string.
She pulled back the blanket covering the baby’s face. He
made himself look. A vision of his future? The past he couldn’t recall? He
focused his eyes on the child.
And then he screamed.
****
Shawna Thomas
He stared at the old rocking chair. At times he’d hated that chair. It reminded him of the life his wife had forsaken to marry him, of the things he could no longer give her. It was a finely made chair, the kind passed down from one generation to another. Quality. Like Serene.
The wood had paled to gold where loving hands had rested, but elsewhere the chair shone deep mahogany in the filtered light. The sun had crested the trees, but here, under the thick canopy of new leaves, the air held on to winter’s chill. He shivered. Rays of dusty light pierced the darkness, highlighting the bracken-littered forest floor. Old ivy and the occasional fern grew thick near the trunks of the ancient trees, but here, in the clearing, only thin grasses grew from the rich soil. Grasses he imagined would bear flowers later in the spring. He almost smiled. Serene would like this place. He could almost see her there, rocking in the chair, their babe in arms, her dark eyes flashing with mirth. Even weary Serene had a ready smile.
If he strained, he could almost hear a faint melody as though the mahogany wood had absorbed her songs. Many nights he’d drifted to sleep to the faint creak of the runners against their rough wooden floor playing accompaniment to her sweet voice.
When the king had offered free land to anyone willing to settle in the new lands, he’d jumped on the chance. A man could work all his life for another man and never accomplish anything. But living by your sweat and blood? That was living. At least that’s what he told Serene. He’d finally be able to get ahead, give her the life she deserved. She’d kissed him, told him he was silly, but packed up and put everything they could on the old wagon.
It was a good land, full of promise, except for the small problem
of the Svistra to the north. The king had assured them they’d be safe. There
was even a fort nearby.
He stared at the chair again. Had it moved? No, that was just the wind dancing through the thick foliage overhead, caressing the old wood with shadows.
He’d tried to talk her out of bringing it. Told her there was no room for the awkward chair. He’d make her another once they arrived, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Her grandfather had made it for her grandmother, back when they lived far south of here where the sun shone and the air was sweet with the scent of ripening fruit. He’d managed to carry it north with them. She insisted they would to the same.
Once Serene had made up her mind, there really wasn’t anything you could do. So he tied it to the top of the wagon, nestled between the baby’s bedding and their clothes. He had to admit, it made a nice shelter for the babe at night as they slept under the stars.
Like with most things, he eventually had to admit that Serene was right. The rocking chair belonged with her.
He glanced around the clearing. It was a sacred place, he could feel it in his bones, but the gods would forgive him. And if they didn’t, what more could they do?
It had happened so fast. One moment she was laughing... the next...
He stared at the chair once more, watched the shadows play and wished so hard, he thought his heart would press out of his chest. And then he turned, walking away from the clearing, leaving the old rocking chair to stand guard over the two freshly dug graves underneath.
****
Eolynd was fascinated by The Rocking Chair in the woods,
from the age of five, which is when first she saw it. She and her brothers and
sisters were berry picking with their mother and other village children.
“Look,
someone’s left a new chair here in the clearing,” Eolynd said, tugging on her
older sister Mairea’s hand. “I want to rock in it!”
“No,
little one, you can’t sit in that chair.” Her older sister’s voice was hushed.
“Why not?”
“Twas left
here by the Elf King himself.” Mairea glanced around uneasily. “it’s a trick,
an enticement for the unwary.”
“Truly?”
Eolynd retreated a step, chewing her lip and thinking this over.
Her sister
made the sign of the evil eye. “See how there’s a ring of moss around it and
nothing else grows within five feet?”
“If you
sit in the chair, the Elf King takes you to his hidden realm and you’re never
seen again,” said one of the older boys from the village, grabbing Eolynd and
swinging her high in the air. He was the red headed one who liked to keep
company with Mairea.
“What
happens to you there?” Eolynd wanted to know as he set her down.
“We need
to be picking berries, not standing here gawking at the Elf King’s chair,” her
mother said. “Just you listen to your elders and stay away from that thing.”
“But – “
“Enough,
girl. There’s work to be done.”
As she
grew older, Eolynd often went to the
little clearing in the pines to admire the chair. It seemed rooted in the mossy
earth, like a tree perhaps, although it was clearly meant to be a rocking
chair. Had it been there so long the earth was swallowing it up? The center of the chair’s back was a
beautifully carved woodlands scene, with a proud stag filling most of the
center. At a certain time of day a shaft of golden sunlight poured directly on
the mysterious item, revealing intricate flowers and leaves carved into the
arms and the rockers. The Chair never
aged, its wood always gleaming and shiny, no matter how much snow had fallen in
the winter or how hard the summer sun baked the forest.
Years
passed. Mairea married her red headed suitor and started a family which soon
grew to five children. Eolynd’s other siblings became adults, those who didn’t
die in the Great Sickness, which also carried off Mairea and both of Eolynd’s
parents.
The world
became a darker place, with rumors of a war raging between the lord Eolynd’s
clan owed alliegance to and invaders from beyond the seas. Most of the men in
the village went off to serve as soldiers in the war, leaving the women to keep
life going as best they could. Only a few elderly men and younger boys remained
and that wasn’t enough the day a marauding band of the enemy fell upon the
village, slaughtering everyone they encountered.
Taking
Mairea’s youngest girl in her arms, Eolynd fled the carnage and the violence,
running headlong into the woods with no clear idea of where she was going.
Behind her she heard the screams of the dying mixed with the harsh war cries of
the enemy.
And then
she heard the baying of the hounds that ran in a fearsome pack with the
invaders and her blood ran cold. They’re hunting down the survivors. They’re
hunting me!
Now she
fled like a terrified doe, the toddler clinging to her silently, but the sound
of the dogs came closer and closer. Without clear thought Eolynd ran to the
clearing and slid to a halt beside the Chair, silent and beautiful as always.
“I can’t
run any more,” she said to the child in between panting breaths.
“They’re
coming, Auntie.” The tiny girl hid her face in Eolynd’s skirts. “I’m scared.”
She stroked
her hand through the child’s tangled black hair with one hand and leaned on the
Chair for support with the other. The wood was satin soft under her hand, cool
and faintly scented. The elf king takes you away. That’s what the legend said.
“How much worse can it be, to live as a servant of some kind in elfdom?” she
said out loud.
Picking up
her niece, she sat took a deep breath and sat in the chair, pulse racing.
For a
moment nothing happened. The shouts of her pursuers grew louder.
Eolynd
scooted back more firmly, holding the girl.
“Please, please, elf king, if you exist, take us away.”
Thunder
rolled overhead in the clear blue sky. The chair rocked under her. Startled,
Eolynd made an attempt to rise but her tired legs wouldn’t obey the command.
“You know
the consequences of sitting in my chair,” said a deep voice from the edge of
the clearing.
With a
half shriek, Eolynd turned to see a black haired warrior astride a magnificent
stag, with two wolves sitting on either side. The man was handsome, with a thin
golden crown on his brow and rich green and purple raiment. An uncut emerald
glinted dully in the massive ring on his finger.
“Yes, yes,
I do. Please, the enemy soldiers are coming. They’ll kill us as they’ve done to
my entire village. Can you – will you, save us?”
The stag
paced forward and the man smiled. “And your name, maiden?”
“Eolynd. This
is my niece Roschae.” She patted the child on the shoulder.
“Devonn,
king of Elfdom, at your service.” He
dismounted, landing beside the Chair. Bowing he, said, “I’ve waited a thousand
years for the woman brave enough to sit in my Chair and become my Queen, as the
legends foretold.”
As thunder
rumbled through the skies, Devonn handed her up into the saddle, placing the
child in front of her and led the stag from the clearing, the two wolves
trotting behind. The trees closed in
behind them, creating an impenetrable barrier. Already forgetting the specifics
of her ordeal, Eolynd hugged Roschae and looked eagerly ahead, to their shining
destination, off in the distance.
And when
the bloodthirsty enemy soldiers burst into the clearing, they saw only an old
tree stump, gnarled and bent, hollowed out with age.
(Me again)
Come back tomorrow for more of these awesome stories.
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