#2nddraft

Soft tapping against the window, pale rain caresses my morning with slim fingers dipped in blue. Light forces its way into my dreams and all I want to do is squeeze my eyes shut, hide beneath shy sheets from all the other people until you speak, and I am submerged in it, lapping gently.

The streets are clean, the air fresh and gentle. Everything and you, smells like rain. We walk towards the sound of a trumpet speaking of a broken metal heart, how it’s blue My fingers, wrapped in yours, missed the sheets, and I cursed them for wanting

more than they should have wanted. Steam caresses my face, the gooey gentle smell of coffee lures me away from warm sheets, and I have fallen in love with the rain. it gushes over my shins, dripping blue- black from that time I ran into the coffee table... Speaking

of that day, the last time we spoke you said I want you to be happy, and I said, I WANT YOU, so we can’t all get what we want. I looked for blue in the skies as you coaxed my cup into the sink, always a gentleman. The window was left open, so cold rain sliced through, rushing in to fill the gap, falling in sheets.

I like to write letters, stuff my feelings into sheets, so they can scream when I cannot speak. It feels like release, the air the day after it rains and the plants got what they wanted. The sun comes up on cue, rising behind my drapes, gentle and cold. Light filters through, it’s Blue.

The shirt you left me, my favorite, was blue my favorite hue. I was curled up in sheets he had to untangle me, where do your hands end and his begin, gently. I miss you and wish I had the guts to speak up, tell you exactly who I want if only you could hear me above the rain?

Blue drops shatter our silence and speak of empty sheets. Do you still want me? I’ve been waiting in the rain. 

Hey guys,

Here's the prologue from the 2nd draft of my debut fantasy novel, Church of the Southern Mice! Keep in mind, I will be taking this down the instant the official release is up ready for publication. Enjoy and consider donating to my Ko-Fi page to help support it!

Cersei Manor, 1890

Rain fell from the sky onto the darkened streets of Salem, Oregon. The cracked cobblestones leading to Cersei Manor were becoming slick with water, and little puddles were forming in their cracks and crevices. Lightning flashed the cloudy sky, briefly illuminating the pervasive darkness surrounding the eerie manor. Inside the manor, the young heiress cast her dark, cerulean eyes around the property unable to see anything but still intensely curious and intuitive as she often was. Something was amiss, she could feel it in the very marrow of her bones. Something evil was afoot.

The young heiress, one Desiree Cersei, didn’t consider herself to be overly superstitious and she most certainly didn’t believe in the folktales her aunts had told her when she was younger in a bid to scare her into being a good girl. There was no such thing as bogeymen, vampires, witches, or things that would otherwise go bump in the night. However, she wasn’t a fool. Just because the supernatural didn’t exist, didn’t mean that evil didn’t exist in the world. A particularly loud clap of thunder made the petite girl jump, her eyes darting frightfully around her room.

“It does you no good to be jumpy,” she scolded herself in a whisper. Ghosts, ghouls, and bogeymen don’t exist, she added mentally. If you aren’t careful Desiree, you’ll start turning into your aunts.

That immediately brought about a change in her. She told her subconscious to stop being so silly and worked to slow down her hammering heart. Becoming her aunts was the last thing that she wanted to do. They were all crazy, and if there was one thing that Desiree was certain of, it was that she wasn’t crazy, and she knew she wanted no similarities to her aunts at all. Aunt Lucretia, was undoubtedly the craziest of all her aunts, having wild, knotted hair and wearing the oddest of dresses. She was always ranting about something silly, like the supernatural or talking about magical artefacts and the like. As a child, the stories had been amusing to Desiree, but as she got older she dismissed them and her aunt entirely.

She wasn’t going to be ostracized from society because of her crazy Aunt Lucretia – she had a reputation to uphold as a member of the Cersei family and she wasn’t going to let it be sullied by a disgraced family member. Of course, despite all of her best attempts it wasn’t quite so easy to distance herself from Aunt Lucretia or the slightly less crazy Aunt Susannah, for Desiree’s mother insisted that she have a good relationship with her aunts and despite all of Desiree’s protestations her mother would not hear of Desiree daring to forsake them. A small frown pulled at Desiree’s lips. Her mother was gone now, and despite what her mother had wished, Desiree now ignored her aunts, shunning them and casting them away from her like they were nothing. It wasn’t her finest moment, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to become the gossip of the town.

Desiree pulled the blankets up toward her chest, staring at the stitching in the quilt her eyes glazing over as she remembered her mother’s bright, contagious smile and her tinkling laughter that made even the worst day seem a little brighter. But now that was naught but a memory, a memory quickly fading from the seventeen-year-old’s mind. It had been eight years since her mother had died, and every day that passed made the festering wound in Desiree’s heart and spirit worse. What she wouldn’t give to have her mother back with her.

The door to her room banged open and Desiree shrieked in fright her eyes falling upon the messenger boy, Thomas, a kindhearted boy with ruddy skin, wheat-colored hair and aquamarine eyes—eyes she had once fancied herself in love with. But then her father had found out, and with his disapproval, she had released any grasp that she had had on Thomas. But he was so achingly familiar as he approached her, his gait familiar and the warmth in his eyes the same as he stared at her.

“A letter came for you Miss Cersei,” he said in his baritone voice that sent warmth rushing to Desiree’s cheeks. “It’s from your Aunt Susannah – it says it’s urgent.”

With trembling hands, Desiree reached out taking the letter from Thomas and thanking him in an unusually shy voice. With nothing else to say, he left. Desiree felt unusually cold without Thomas’s presence there, and she sighed her eyes falling onto the envelope which concealed a letter from her Aunt Susannah. Gathering her wits and courage she withdrew the letter, her eyes falling upon her aunt’s familiar scrawl.

My dearest niece Desiree,

I feel as if since your mother has died, Lucretia and I have been neglecting you and not treating you as we should have. We have become distant, and I must apologize for that. But Elisabet’s death was a dreadful shock and quite unexpected. Nevertheless, I wish to rectify our differences. It would be my wish that you come visit us this week, before the snow starts to fall, so that we may rekindle the relationship that we used to have – or at least some semblance to it. I have already contacted your father, and he is in favor of the idea. But it is entirely up to you.

Forever Yours,

Aunt Susannah

The letter slid from Desiree’s limp fingers, falling onto her lap as she tried in vain to figure a way to get out of seeing her aunts again. But it didn’t seem as if there would be a way. If her father knew, not going was out of the question. Yet, she couldn’t help but hope that maybe Aunt Susannah was lying, that it was just a ploy to somehow manipulate her into going. But she knew that couldn’t possibly be the truth. Her aunts were many things, but they weren’t black-hearted, and it certainly wasn’t in their nature to be manipulative.