The Lighthouse Girl

There was once was a little girl, raised in the Village.

The Village was a utopia, walled off for protection and insulated from the world. Even the families in the girl’s section of the Village did not see each other very often, but lived peaceably, like hermits, in accordance with the Code.

When the girl grew to be a maiden, sometimes she crept through cracks in the wall and explored the countryside. 


She gradually even made friends with the woodland folk, discovering new ballads and gypsy dances banned in the Village.

One day, the elders of the Village told the girl that absolute obedience was the only way to honor her parents and the Code. But the girl had dreams, and this meant soul death.

So one night the girl left the Village forever.

Her friends on the outside helped her travel to the coast, where she built a lighthouse with bricks and mortar and timber they brought. That section of the coast was so rugged that the deaths on its rocks were legend. Other attempts to build lighthouses had not survived.

The girl maintained it for years, weathering many storms. Her friends visited often to encourage her and the prosperity of the lighthouse, but sometimes she was lonely. Her friends started to call her Lighthouse, shortened to Light.

One friend was a girl-pirate who was once raised in the Village like her, but they had met beyond the walls.

Another village girl had become a spy for a local Baron. She took shelter in the lighthouse and lived with Light for many moons.

All three of them knew an older girl who escaped a failed utopia several years before. This girl had been cursed by her own Elders and turned into a mermaid, forever chained to the waves and spume. She shared the birthname of the girl-pirate.

The friends often wondered about their kinsmen in the Village, and hoped someday many more could be free from the well-meaning tyranny of the Elders. The four swore a solemn pact against injustice in the land.

A cyclone rolled across the waters one night, spewing hailstones like vomit. The lighthouse girl manned the tower, keeping the light alive. In her telescope, she spied the signal of a small boat foundering on the waves. Two passengers, one with gold hair and one with the hair of a raven, rowed and bailed water to no avail.

Despite the peril, the three friends, followed by the mermaid, took a larger ship. They rode out toward the lost girls, just before their rowboat crashed against the rocks.

Light, the girl-pirate, the spy, and the mermaid embraced the lost girls on the beach and welcomed them to safety. Light helped them to warm inside by the fire and dry their clothes. The lost girls told the friends that they fled another section of the Village, inspired by their love for one another, because their Elders had banned their friendship.

The four friends all knew the value of friendship, and told the lost girls to stay together, no matter what the Elders said, and to explore their newfound freedom.

Soon the spy-girl left on a clandestine mission for the Baron, and couldn’t send letters to the lighthouse girl.

The girl-pirate took the lost girls rafting, teaching them how to navigate currents and giving them sea legs.

Light helped the lost girls find a trade in town with a basket-weaver, but their spirits were wild and young, and they joined a band of traveling gypsies, squandering their earnings on trinkets.

Midsummer gales brewed out in the gulf, and the lighthouse was empty again except for Light. She was lonely once more, yearning for her old friends and for new refugees from the Village. She often visited the mermaid down in the tidal pool on calm, starlit evenings to plan new adventures.

One day, the girl-pirate came to the lighthouse girl and said she couldn’t stay on land anymore. She was bound for faraway oceans and adventures far from the Village.

Light hugged the pirate and cried. They walked down to the docks together.

Light told the girl-pirate how much she had learned from her. She knew how to tie sailor’s knots. She could brew herbal mushroom tea from the Orient. She could debate the Elders now if they confronted her and told her to tear down the lighthouse.

Deep in her heart, Light knew how much the pirate yearned for the sea, how the land was ebbing away at her friend’s spirit.

The lighthouse girl said the girl-pirate needed to sail. It was time. And she understood.

Fable

Once upon a time, a little girl sat in a field releasing the fuzz from seeded dandelions and watching the wind gather the wisps into the sky as it tousled her hair. Sometimes, she danced with the wind, her blue skirt swishing to synchronize with its rhythm.

One day the whimsy of her dance led her to a crater blistered with brambles and dagger-length thorns. She stumbled over the precipice into the midst of them. Her dress tore, and her skin scratched.

A herdsman from the village nearby heard a child crying. He looked down and saw her caught in the briars. He leaped down into it, wincing as the thorns tore at him, but he struggled toward the girl.

When he reached her, he half-smiled and reached out to pull her up. But she was crying so much that his face was blurred, and all she could see was the blood covering his clothes and hands. Shrieking, she drew back from him, wounding herself further.

Finally, she let herself be carried out of the thicket. The herdsman tried to soothe her, singing her a lullaby. All she could hear was the painful undertone in the song.

By the time they returned to the dandelion field, the girl had cried herself to sleep. The herdsman laid her down under a tree, cleaned her scratches with a damp cloth, and kissed her forehead. And he went back to tend his flock.

The girl awakened the next morning. Glancing at her scabs, she sobbed again, remembering the herdsman’s wounds. She sat in the field all day staring at the dandelions. She had lost the dance.

In the evening, she crept back to the edge of the valley, grasping at the brambles.

She separated out the thorns from the stems of the plants, clenching them in her fist.

If she hadn't fallen into the crater yesterday, she wouldn't have cried out, and if she hadn't cried out, the herdsman wouldn't have come, and if the herdsman hadn't come, he wouldn't have bled. It was all her fault.

She used the thorns like claws across her arms. Surely she must hurt, because she hurt him. Only her own blood could satisfy this.

Every night for years, she returned to the crater. The bleeding was never enough. The craving to satiate the guilt was as fresh each night as the one before. Sometimes the coyotes came out to follow, nipping at her heels, licking up the warm blood dripping from her wounds.

She thought she must be an outcast, even though the villagers never mentioned it to her. A word or sharp look made her tremble, thinking they blamed her. Surely everyone knew what she had done to the beloved herdsman.

She sometimes would see him or other men leading their flocks over the distant misty hills. He tried to approach her on a street corner a few times, but she shuddered and turned away, lest she see his blood. The blood. She could never forget the blood.

But the coyotes never left. They became the girl’s companions when she felt like the village hermit. They walked with her when no one else would.

The girl grew into a maiden. A lonely maiden, wearing a ragged blue gown that barely covered the dried clotted mess covering her arms and legs.

One night at the crater, she returned to the top with her fist full of brambles. A coyote was waiting for her. She could smell him. He would lick her wounds before he'd let her pass by. She wondered when he'd just lunge for her throat and the pain would end. Coming over the edge, lantern light fell across her form and she shrank back into the shadows.

"Little girl."

The voice.

"Little girl. Don't be afraid. You aren't lost, are you?"

She trembled and clenched her teeth. Of all the villagers, he especially she could never face. Not with her scars.

He reached down for her hand.

"Come on. It's all right."

The coyote snarled in the brush nearby.

"Wait here." She heard his sandals crackle against the dry grass, and the swish of his club.

His footsteps returned, and he peered over the ledge down at her. "It's safe now." He smiled.

She dared herself to glance into his eyes. "Thank you." A girlish whimper.

She let him pull her up into the lamplight. They both sat down, each looking off into the distance. Her gaze wandered to the herdsman sitting beside her, to his rough cotton robe, to his ragged sleeves.

His arms. So many white echoes of pain. But just echoes. No blood.

Without thinking, she traced one of them lightly with her finger, then drew back. "I'm sorry."

He turned to her. His eyes twinkled in the dim light. "No need to apologize."

Pulling her arm closer to his, he drew it into the light. "Those look painful," he said as he traced the dark crimson lines on her arms.

One wet drop fell onto the lap of the blue gown.

"You know," he said, "If a little girl fell into the crater tomorrow, I would pull her out.”

The sob couldn't be stifled. She looked down, eyes memorizing every hole and rip in her dress. His arm wrapped around her shoulder like a winter's cloak, warm and safe.

“I carry my own lambs high above the thorns when I pull them out of the crater. I can handle being scratched, but I don’t want them to bleed,” he said.

Tears trickled, refusing to be shoved back. At last, she relaxed and lay against his shoulder.

He plucked a dandelion head and handed it to her. They blew it out together.  And dandelion seeds floated past in the moonlit breeze, the wind gathering the fluff up into the stars.

He spoke again, his hand held out towards her. “Would you like to dance?”

CP AAP III Project - Part 2

Okay, just for you, Celeris. Post two. :P

Thunk, Thunk. Thunk, Thunk.

Sarahi twitched her right arm and rolled over on her side in the grass, feeling the tingling of the dewy spikes against her skin. Her eyelids quivered.

Thunk, Thunk. Thunk, Thunk, Thunk. The sound was closer now. A man hummed and then whistled almost under his breath, blending in and yet distinguishable from the morning songbirds. She blinked, trying to remember why she was sleeping under a bush.

Kathunk, Kathunk, Kathunk. Two shiny black hooves glinted in the morning light not three feet away from her head. Sarahi flinched, rustling the surrounding leaves. The rider stopped whistling, and the hoof beats ceased.

The rider’s brown leather boots appeared on the ground between the front and rear feet of his ebony mount. Sarahi’s heart pounded. No use running now.

A hand lifted back a branch, and a bearded face peered back at her.

“My lady?” he asked.

Sarahi parted her dry lips to scream, but could not find her voice. It was as if it had floated away on the light breeze.

“Are you Sarahi?” he asked again.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“My lady, I represent your kinsman and I have come for you. But we must hurry now to put distance between ourselves and the invaders. I will tell you all later.” He extended his arm, covered in burnished chain mail, and offered his gloved hand. Her fingers trembling, Sarahi grasped it.

She stepped out into the sunlight, brushing dead leaves and dirt from her skirt. The knight swung her light frame up into the saddle of his black steed and then mounted in front of her. He clucked to the horse and they trotted off along through the thicket. Sarahi held on, her arms around his metal-clad waist.

He did not speak for several leagues, and kept looking back over his shoulder. Every so often, he changed direction and avoided following anything that looked like a footpath, heading into a thicker part of the forest.

About half an hour later, after they crossed a shallow brook, Sarahi felt the knight let out his breath. He glanced back at her and smiled. He said, “Well, I suppose you are wondering who I am. Now I’ll give the proper introduction I couldn’t give you earlier, m’lady. I am Johcyn Ranvir. The noble Shacol Wardant, Lord Sarwil—my lord and your kinsman—sent me to seek you and bring you to his castle so that you can be restored to your proper place and receive your inheritance.”

Sarahi studied his face, his dark brown beard and hair cascading over his shoulders, and his blue-green eyes, calm as the mellow ocean waves she remembered dancing around her feet as a child.

Johcyn said, “I’m very glad to have found you. When my companions and I arrived at Evandav late last night, we found the whole village in smoke and a band of Lawrshans marauding the place. I thought you might have been killed or captured like the others, so my men and I spread out over the countryside to look for you.”

Sarahi felt her cheeks warm. “Thank you—”

A long, dark streak whizzed above their heads and struck a tree across the brook. Johcyn turned in the saddle and pulled her down closer to him. He studied the dense clump of trees to their right, his eyes narrowing. His right hand wandered toward the hilt of his sword, and he tightened his grip on the reins in his left hand.

“Is that you, Johcyn?” a rough voice said. Sarahi drew in her breath.

“Thorold!” Johcyn said. “You know never to shoot unless you can see if your opponent be a friend or foe! I’m going to have to redact your badge of knighthood if you do something like that again, man.”

“I’m quite sorry, captain,” Thorold said as he tumbled out of the leaves and into the sunlight, a bow in his hand. “I mistook you for someone else and got a bit nervous is all.”

Johcyn sighed. “You are too easily made nervous. Where is your horse?”

“With Peremar. He’s made a little camp a league or so ahead,” Thorold said, slinging his long yew bow over his shoulder. “I can lead you there.”

Releasing her breath, Sarahi settled back into the saddle again, enjoying the rhythmic sway of the stallion’s gait and the warm rays on her back as they stepped out of the shadowy trees and rode along the edge of a dandelion-spotted meadow. The golden wildflowers reminded her of home. Did Petehjas and Mari survive the raid? Her stomach twisted at the realization that they likely didn’t. She tried to push away the thought of the soldiers’ bright spears and the houses flaming in the moonlight.

“We’re almost there, not too much further,” Thorold said. The group was heading deep into the forest again. Sarahi noticed how the flickers of shadow and light played on Thorold’s reddish-brown hair. His round face made him look as if he should still be a squire. To her, Johcyn seemed at least several years his elder.

Johcyn led the horse through narrow spaces between trees and undergrowth. Brown leaves crackled under its hooves, and the light continued to dim even though it was only midday. Sarahi smelled a faint tinge of smoking meat.

“Here we are,” said Thorold.

CleanPlace Adopt-A-Plot III Project :)

At the end of last semester, the teen/college age writer's forum I'm a member of, CleanPlace, had an extra-credit project called Adopt-A-Plot. It was the third time they had offered this particular ECP, and I was really excited to do it because members who'd been on there several years had done it before and it looked really fun! Everyone who wanted to participate posted three or more plots for other members to choose from, and then you chose someone else's and wrote a six-part short story, with each part being between 800-1000 words.

Since it was at the end of last semester and I was under a time crunch with schoolwork, I ended up not being able to finish the project by the deadline, but now I'm working on it as I have time. I'm enjoying it quite a bit! It's fun to develop a fantasy world. :)

I decided to share the first part of my story on here. :)


The last low notes of Petehjas’s panpipe hovered like a resonating mist in the warm, airy moonlight over her head. Sarahi lay on her side in her narrow cot under the open window. Marirya told her that even as a young girl when she first came to them that she’d curled up in this little corner of the attic.

Nestling under the colorful, roughly woven patchwork quilt, Sarahi wriggled in her homespun shift. She liked its grainy feeling—it sometimes made her think of those blurred early memories of going to the coast land with her parents and rubbing her bare toes along the sandy shore.

A pair of pattering feet scuffed against the narrow wooden ladder leading up to her room. The fifth rung creaked a little. Marirya peered up into the loft. Her dusky brown hair, sprinkled with gray, was bound up in a braid extending over the shoulder of her dull, ashen-colored wool cloak. “Sarahi?” she whispered.

“Yes, Mari?” Sarahi answered.

Tiptoeing up the last two steps, Marirya crept across the room, bending so she wouldn’t hit her head on the low thatch roof, and then plopped down on the end of the bed. Marirya cleared her throat, then paused. She said, “There is somethin'…that you must know. I canna avoid telling you any longer, even though Petehjas wanted me to wait until the mornin'. But then it might be too late.”

Sarahi caught her breath.

The older woman said, “Canna you remember your mither and faither?”

“A little.”

“You were not more 'n three years old when he—they—brung you to us, all bundled up in a sheepskin.” Marirya’s eyes grew watery. “Now you’re a lady.”

“Mari, I’m only nineteen—” Sarahi said.

“—at your age, I was married to Petehjas,” the matron said.

“You’re not saying I need to marry, are you?”

“No, lemme finish. You're not who you think you are. Your parents were of noble blood, and you have kinsmen in this country. Last week, they sent us a message saying they’ll be comin’ for you this week—to take you home.”

Sarahi’s stomach felt like it was being turned on a spit over an open fire. “But this is my home.”

Marirya shook her head. A drop rolled down her crinkled face. “Petehjas and I always knew all these years that we couldna keep you forever. You, dear, have grown too big for this little village.” She struggled to unbend her stiff knees and stand up, then bent over to kiss Sarahi's cheek, and edged out of the moonlight toward the wooden ladder.

“But I want to stay and help you and Petehjas. Who will gather the spices in the garden and take the pots into town to sell at market for you?”

Marirya wiped a shadowy hand against her cheek. “It's not us you must be thinkin' about now.”

Sarahi listened to her slow footfalls fading into the darkness. A nightingale trilled some distance off in the forest, echoing over the hillside. She rolled over and over on her mattress, trying to find a cool spot.

The air hung close and heavy like her woolen mantle in the winter. Sarahi could never remember afterward how long she lay there until she fell asleep.



Sarahi’s nose burned. She rubbed it with her hand. Her lungs ached, and she choked on dense air. Was it smoke? Maybe Marirya burned the breakfast porridge. She opened her heavy eyelids. Silver moonlight streamed in through the window, but the room was filled with thick gray curls floating upward in the breeze.

Jerking back the quilt, the girl snatched up her cloak and scrambled to the ladder. She couldn’t see down into the hut past the smoke, but livid flames rippled down the side wall and along the far end of the roof.

“Petehjas! Mari!” she shrieked. No one answered. Stumbling down the ladder and into the main portion of the hut, Sarahi’s eyes darted around the room. The fire cackled above her.

Then she heard the voices. Rough male voices speaking in a guttural tongue. Could the Lawrshans be invading? The border with Lawrsha was only a few miles from her village, Evandav, but their last raid in this area had been more than eight years ago.

A man yelled, “Alendravich khrizarleb!" She knew enough Lawrshan to understand he was saying, "Find the girl!" Someone kicked at the wooden door. It cracked, but didn’t give way. Sarahi dashed back up the rickety ladder. Clambering over to the window, she looked down into the garden. She didn't see anyone there yet. Gulping in a breath, she leaped.

The ground came up at her much harder than she expected. She lay among the herbs for a few minutes, gasping for air.

Sarahi noticed a faint bittersweet fragrance beside her. Gavrilwort! she thought. She snatched up a clump of the healing herb and stuck it in her pocket.

Heavy footsteps thudded around the corner of the hut. Her heart skipped. She crawled among the garden plants into the tall grasses and underbrush several paces from the house before glancing back.

Brawny, armored men with long spears, carrying shields that glinted in the moonlight, marched around the flaming huts in the village. Her insides sank like a millstone in a river. Where were Petehjas and Mari?

One of the men, who appeared to be a leader, said, “Search the woods! There be a handsome reward for the one that finds her!”

Sarahi crept toward the line of trees a few feet away and then bounded through the tangled forest. Brambles clawed at her legs, and she kept falling and cutting herself on jagged stones.

After she had gone almost half a league, she spotted a thicket of alder trees and underbrush and crawled beneath it.