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Lydia Erickson

Lydia Erickson

Tag Archives: Children’s Book

The Grey Cloak, Chapter Two, First Draft

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by Lydia Erickson in Uncategorized

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Children's Book, poetry

“How will you find the path?” asked the wolf,
waiting on the water’s edge.

“What need have I of the path?
I am the woodsman’s daughter,
and I would know my way home
in dawn or dusk or clear or storm.
My grandmother’s house lies West,
and the sun is newly risen.
I need no guide
but my own shadow.”

“The forest is no place for a child,
but full of beasts roaming wild.
Take from me a cloak
to replace the one you left below,
that you may walk the woods
unseen, unbothered and unburdened.”

She followed his directions to a nearby tree,
where hung a monstrous hide. At her touch
it shrunk and smoothed into a grey cloak,
as fine and light as spider’s silk,
as soft as ash.

The winds obeyed her
when she wore the grey cloak.
They carried sounds to her,
a bird’s chirp,
a rabbit’s patter,
the heartbeat of each living thing,
for miles around,
and scents, too–
cooking on a stove
three miles West.
And amidst the bacon sizzling,
pancakes crisping,
syrup drizzling,
and tea steaming
in the winter air,
was unexpected company.

She let the winds carry her
the last few miles,
to the highest of the three oaks
overlooking her grandmother’s cottage.
There she sat upon a bough,
her eyes narrowed,
listening with her head tilted
and her ears pricked.

Through the window she could see
a pair of lambskin gloves,
with hands inside, she supposed,
folded neatly upon wool trousers.

“Well aren’t you a sight to see.
I thought you came to visit me,”
came a voice from below the tree.
“Or will you stay up there and leave us
the cookies to bake,
the beds to make,
the mayor’s son to entertain–”

“The mayor’s son?”

“The very same.”

“And what would he be doing here?”

“Come down and see, my ashen dear,
or will you stay up in the sky?”

“Perhaps I will, and learn to fly.”

“Are there cookies quite so high?”

“None I spy, none I spy.”

“And are there fires up there roaring?”

“None I found in my soaring.”

“And none inside, either,
after your mother spilled the tea
and drenched the whole pile of logs.
Be a love and help me gather the firewood.”

“My mother? Don’t you mean
your daughter?”

But she climbed down all the same,
and helped tend the drowned flame
while with the mayor’s son
her father spoke, and finally
he came to speak to her.

She would be moving away,
he told her, to cook and clean
for the mayor and his son.
who her mother did not fail
to remind her was
“so tall,
so fair,
so terribly dashing,” and
so on, and
so forth,”
so the very next day,
in the grey mist of morning,
she set out on the path–
but not before her grandmother
took the mayor’s son and
shook the mayor’s son awake,
and bade him follow after.

She walked the woods,
the mayor’s son drifting after,
commenting, from time to time,
on charming trivialities,
’til at length they stopped and sat.

“What lovely flowers grow by the path,”

he said, plucking one where it trembling stood
and pressing it to her nose.

Not so lovely as those off it,”

she said, pushing it away.

“And none so lovely ,”
and at her stare he stopped,
and let the hand reached forward drop,
“as the roses in my garden.”

“I suppose you’ll say
they smell sweeter?”

“Sweeter still, and even softer
than this cape you wear about you.”

“As fine and light as spiders silk?”

“As soft as ash, these petals red velvet,
and cream white,” he replied.

“How delicious your garden must be,
for you to describe it so,” she said.

“Smell it for yourself,
for I am told it possesses
sweetness to bend the–”

“The very soul?” She asked.

“The very same,” He agreed.
“But how did you know?
Never except in dreams
have I seen you in our garden.”

“Except in dreams?”

“Why yes, but always I have silly dreams,
and strange, my father says… But I remember
now the one long summer
when your father came to work for us.
Like death he was, thin and gaunt,
and father fed him just enough to tend the flowers.
It was for that debt
that your father sent you.
You must’ve come and followed him,
to know the scent and feel of my garden,
and it is that I must remember,
and see again in my dreams.
Strange though, for in my dreams….
but never mind.”

“Never mind what?” Ash replied,
and she could see his smile grow wide.

“You promise not to think me mad?”

“Promises are for… I promise not to think you madder,
than the madness that comes with dreams.
For I too have dreamed strange things.”

“In my dreams you wear
no ashen cloak,
but a wolf’s fur,
and where you walk
grows a path of stone,
perhaps marble, perhaps bone,
and behind you as you walk,
a long and twisted shadow stalks.”

“How strange dreams are!” She exclaimed.
“But not so strange as our own life,
where I am sold to be your wife.
Tell me, did you dream of that?”

“My dreams are not so wild, My Lady,
for your father has but said you’ll cook and clean.
But you too said you have strange dreams–
are these, I wonder, some of yours?”

“I fear I have too limited an imagination.”

“A sign of an honest mind,
which would leave me in, I confess,
quite a bind.”

“And why is that?”

“Because, my dear, I fear what you fear,
that soon we will both be stuck here,
tied together by our fathers,
and honesty would quite destroy
so many of my little joys.”

“I hope you will be more specific.”

“Hunting, cards, chess, roulette,
anything where you can bet.
I’d love an eye over a shoulder,
to make my calls a little bolder.”

“You would like me to help you cheat?”

“So well in town I can’t be beat.”

“Almost as well,” she laughed,
if you want men to play you.”

“Already thinking like a winner.”

“Or a dirty lowdown sinner,
but–”

“You’ll help me if I let you tend the garden,
I would bet.”

“That’s one game won.”

“Then it’s set.
As for marriage, let’s wait and see
what our fathers’ plans will be.”

The Grey Cloak, Chapter One, First Draft

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by Lydia Erickson in Stories in Progress

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Children's Book, poetry, Stories in Progress

LISTEN CLOSE my grandchild dear,
and I will tell of far and near,
of how to conquer death and fear,
of little girls and wicked witches,
of empty chests without their stitches,
of rivers deep and forests wide,
and wolves that on the West Wind ride
of how our family came to be,
the story ours, both you and me,
and of another.

This is the tale of Ash:
she of the grey cloak,
who tasted the blood of the wolf,
and found strange powers,
who knew the color of the wooden sky,
and could smell, upon the wind
a lie.

Once upon a time,
in lands untouched by song or rhyme,
there lay a cottage in the woods,
where lived daughter and grandchild,
of the surname Riding Hood.
Her I think you will remember,
and in a dark and drear December,
grandchild grande dame went to see,
out in the darkness of the trees.

With scarves thick her mother wrapped her tight,
in every layer the dust of firelight.
For luck she spun her three times round,
then pushed her out into empty sound,
a wood of silence, dark and deep,
where she daren’t stop to sleep,
full of rustles but no noise,
not a place of children’s toys.

Long she walked and in dusk took seat,
eager to rest long-aching feet,
when suddenly to her surprise,
she caught a glimpse of brilliant eyes.

She followed far into the trees,
through roses dense that scratched her knees,
over a river with ice so thin, so very thin
that in she fell, as down a well,
and down
and down
and down
she sunk, ’til with a thunk,
she landed upon solid ground,
with air to breathe and all around,
a soft sound,
as of the wind sweetly soughing
as of a dust mite gently coughing.

Above her ran the rushing river,
down below a silver sliver,
a mirror of reflected sky,
sleek as satin, a blue velvet sigh,
and still within gold eyes’ sway,
she found her way in stolen twilight.

“Well isn’t this a sight to see.
I thought you came to visit me?”

In the dimness she spun worried,
the spell broken, her movements hurried.
She remembered she could not
breathe.
There was no way,
no way to leave.

She unwrapped her water-weighted cloak,
and from it brilliant firelight woke,
that burned away the water creeping,
that kindled eyes ’til now just sleeping.
She found that she could take a breath.
She thought that she had tasted death.
But still her way had yet to learn,
amidst the winding Windworld’s turns.
There was no back or up to go,
so through she fought with progress slow.
Awake the wind is hard to ride,
but she could do it if she tried.

At last the path turned to stone
or was that marble
or was that bone?
A vertebrae,
a cage of ribs,
a jaw that stretched her whole height,
a carcass of tremendous might,
a beast to freeze one’s very soul
that little girls could swallow…
could swallow…
That soughing
sighing
sickly
sound,
almost like,
breathing?
And all around…

Unsure if demon, god, or ghost,
Ash searched the tomb for her host.
When at her nape, she felt a prickle,
an icy creeping shivery tickle,
and in the water’s reflection saw
something rising from the maw,
a quickly coalescing cloud
that shook from the bones like a shroud.
She saw rows of teeth wide, agape,
and soon a furry, canine shape.

Lithely round her slunk the creature,
hunger in his every feature–
his silver mouth dripping fog,
in his stomach seething smog.
She felt small, a petty feast,
before so great a ghostly beast.
Smoky whiskers kissed her skin,
and at her scowl, the great wolf grinned.

She listened to his voice red velvet, cream
thick, warm like a shiver
of nighttime rain in jungles naked and unseen,
richer for their obscurity.
It was a growl possessing
sweetness to bend the very soul,
that promised (as no man could promise)
to be heard by her alone.

Starlight flowered around them.
They sat in pooling silver
and she let the night pass in stories,
and if he on occasion asked too probing a question,
“And where does your grandmother live?”
she would reply, “Oh, in the woods,
but that’s enough about me. Tell me about wolves.”
And then the wolf would tell her of lost things,
of wolves who chased the moon and sun,
of witches, winds, wolves and once,
of cheating death.

“Cut out the heart,
a pinkie bone,
nothing smaller,
and hide it in a sunless place,
or on the highest peak.
Death and love are stubborn wolves,
and eat their prey in one gulp
or not at all.”

“And can you conquer love also,
by cutting out your heart?”
The wolf considers.

“Both heart and host will decay
if left unwatered even a day.
Hearts cannot be kept
under lock and key, but put in earth,
like bulbs below frozen ground.
If anything, hearts alone call
for greater care than those in chests.
But the sun rises, and you will be missed.”

“Let me stay longer,” she asked,
until you have told me every story
Or if not, promise only that we shall meet again.”

“Lies are the domain of men and Gods,” the wolf replied.
“Why would a wolf make promises?”

Whilst passing the wolf’s bones,
she took off her scarlet cloak
and wrapped it around his cage of ribs,
tucking it in on either side.

“I would not see my mother’s or my brother’s bones
lie naked in the wind,” she said.

“The sun is rising,” said the wolf.

And missed she was,
if not by those the wolf intended.

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