Night's Final Hour - Chapter 17

Benjamin Delacroix
“Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.” ~ Richard Bach

The rain continues, but now it is falling through me once again. Ivy sits, knees tucked to her chin, in front of my gravestone in frustration. I realize now that she was intentionally being rude moments ago in order to provoke me. It’s not enough just for me to want to be corporeal so that I might speak with her and I cannot seem to make myself angry enough to materialize again, so I sit here, in the mud and rain, aggravated and wishing I could find a way to make her stay until night’s final hour. Inches away from me, she sighs and looks around the seemingly empty graveyard.

“Benjamin?” She asks the cloudy day. “Is there some way, if you’re still there, that you can tell me? Or show me?”

“Maybe…” I say that words aloud, knowing she cannot hear me. “I can show you. It’s becoming quite obvious that I’m incapable of communicating in a state less than rage, but perhaps I can show you.”

As quickly as I can, I scurry to the closest tree and snap off a long, thin twig. Breaking it into six small pieces, I carry them swiftly back to my tombstone. Ivy is still sitting there; either awaiting a reply or losing hope. In the mud in front of us, I lay out three of the tree pieces vertically. One piece is placed between two verticals, connecting them in the middle, while I lay the last two pieces horizontally on the top and bottom of the third vertical. Together, the six small pieces spell out a solitary word: HI.

“Hi.” Ivy breathes out before a twig snaps behind us, startling her and inducing us both to spin around.

“Hi?” Danny’s voice questions as he looks at the stick pieces upon the ground. His eyes travel to Ivy and then around the graveyard. “What are you still doing out in the rain?”

I stop listening and quickly find my way away from the graveyard, leaving Ivy and Danny behind so that they can speak in private. It’s an odd new emotion that overwhelms me as I walk down the dirt road. Some one, other than the reverend, knows that I exist. In truth, it is more than that even; the reverend knows that I exits, but I’m not convinced that he knows I’m not actually living. Ivy, while she may not know much about me, at least knows that I’m not exactly a solid person.

The rain is slowly beginning to ease up and I decide that I should head back to the graveyard. When I get there, Ivy has left, but in her place, the twig pieces have been rearranged. Instead of reading HI as they did when I left, they now spell out her name with only one twig piece used for the ‘I’ in Ivy. At least it lets me know that she got my message.

***

The darkness slowly fades in on Nuitville and the eleventh hour approaches. I sit, leaning beneath an old oak tree and consider how I ought to spend my corporeal night. The thought occurs to me that I might venture over toward the Carter homestead. It would be late, yes, but it would also provide the most opportune moment to speak with Ivy. Within seconds, I have convinced myself that I will carry myself across the small town and knock on Ivy’s door.

As I’m on my way, my pace steadily fluctuates. One moment I’m moving swiftly with anticipation at the chance to speak with another person and the next, I’m dragging my feet through the mud, petrified with the idea of how someone might react to meeting me. Between the quickened pace and the lethargic movement, the two speeds balance each other out and I end up at the Carter home place in average time. Climbing the steps up to the front door, I sigh loudly as I let my knuckles tap methodically against the wooden door. As her grandmother opens the door, the light from the house floods out into the night and I remember my attire. My long socks and undershirt are quite characteristic of the era I grew up in, but I must rely on the varying fashions of the modern day to alleviate any suspicions that may arise from my odd taste in clothing.


Night's Final Hour by Crystal and Pamela MacLean is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Anthromagic ~ Chapter 7

I had two months to figure out how I was going to defeat Sikal and absolutely no plan. Drew and I had put off the inevitable; I still had my soul intact. The entire next week, I didn’t see Drew. He wasn’t at work, he didn’t pick up his phone, and he wasn’t at his apartment (which I had found using some detective work). I was starting to worry and becoming a little freaked out. I began wondering if Drew had made me stand up to the demonlord to simply abandon me, but after that first week, Drew was back at work bright and early when I stopped in to grab my coffee.

“You’ve been gone for awhile.” I stated, stepping up to the counter.

“I have.” He said, automatically handing me a Mocha Latte and refusing my money. “Use it to get a better apartment. I’ll come by this evening and we’ll talk about the plan.”

“I guess I’ll see you then.” I told him and headed on toward a tedious day at work, calling more people about more random services that I wouldn’t even waste my money on.

That afternoon when I got home from work, I tried to straighten up the apartment some. Ever since the morning when Drew showed up there, I had been a little embarrassed about the horrid conditions. My apartment was literally in shambles and I hadn’t even stopped to notice before. I did the monstrous pile of dishes in the sink and hid the dirty clothes in the closet. Leaning with all my strength against the closet, I hoped it would stay shut. As I walked away from it, one door popped off the rusty amber hinges, letting shirts, socks, bras, pants, and other remnants file out onto the floor. Muttering about wasting my time, I gathered up the discarded items and shoved them back into the cramped closet. Pulling ribbon from a drawer in my bedroom, I rigged the closet door in its proper place and tied the two doors together so that they would stay shut. The bow I tied around the door handles looked like it might pass as a decorative display.

Drew knocked on the door as he walked in and I tossed the remaining ribbon under the sofa in the living room.

“Anyone home?” I heard his voice flow through the apartment.

“In here!” I shouted and realized that I was attempting to straighten out my shirt.

“I brought Chinese.” Drew said, sliding to the ground by the coffee table and setting out a buffet of delicious Chinese food.

“Good choices.” I observed. “Lots of options.”

“I figured we’d be here a while trying to come up with a plan. We might need the leftovers to reheat later.”

With that, we both scrounged down some food, anxious to discuss methods on how I was supposed to beat Sikal without using any magic whatsoever. I was hoping that Drew had come up with some sort of plan or ideas, because I had zilch.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, finishing off an egg roll.

“To train. To train everyday and every night until you’re ready. Sikal is going to be expecting some sort of trick or deception, but we’re going to be straight about it. You’ll quit your job tomorrow and we’ll start training. It’s as simple as that.” Drew explained nonchalantly.

“It’s as simple as that?” I stuttered. “You mean, it’s as simple as ‘you lose.’ That plan will never work.”

“It will work if you trust me, okay?” Looking straight at me, Drew waited for a reply.

“Well,” I said conceding, “If nothing else, this plan of yours got me two more months of freedom from Sikal.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Drew told me standing up. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving already?” I asked confused. “But you said we would be here a while and that we might have to reheat the leftovers.”

“I thought we’d fight about it a lot longer.” He said simply.

“You don’t have to go yet.” I told him not wanting to be left alone just yet.

“I really do. I have some things I need to gather and do before we start training. I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.” Drew headed out my apartment door just as the other closet door burst off its hinges, swung around against the other door and let the contents spill out once again.



Anthromagic by Crystal and Pamela MacLean is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Night's Final Hour - Chapter 16

Ivy Carter

“To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.” – King Stanistaus of Poland

I linger for a moment, staring at the handprint etched in the mud in front of me. Stirring the mud did nothing. The handprint still remains. I place my own hand into the mud in front of me, creating an additional handprint. I move my fingers towards the original handprint and scratch away. The mud oozes between my fingers, creeping under my nails. The handprint remains and I scratch fervently at the mud, trying to make the handprint disappear.

After a minute or so of scratching at the mud, I pull my hand back. Mud oozes from my hand to the ground and I reach down to the soggy grass and attempt to wipe off the excess mud. I hold my hand out in front of me to avoid ruining my nice church clothes. My eyes wander around the empty graveyard, looking for a sign of anyone else. When I spot no one, I turn back to the tombstone of Benjamin Delacroix. This is the oldest grave in the yard and it’s quickly becoming the most intriguing grave as well.

“Benjamin?” I whisper into the air. I’m still not convinced that the dead can hear us, but I’m starting to think it’s worth a try. I place my clean hand to my neck, remembering the pain of last week, when someone materialized and gripped my throat. Could it have been Benjamin? I was standing at his grave, writing a story about him. It seemed plausible that he could have heard me. Maybe I needed to make him mad again.

“I bet you were a worthless man!” I shout into the night, reaching for anything that might anger someone from the eighteenth century. “I bet you were a big disappointment to your father. He was probably glad you passed away.” I stand still for a moment, listening to the stormy air. I can hear thunder in the distance, but I do not hear any other noise. I decide to give it one last try. “I bet you’re still worthless as a ghost.” I don’t like being mean to anyone, even a possible ghost, but it seems to be the only thing that might work.

“I am not worthless!” A voice growls and a man appears in front of me. He looks ready to attack the first person he sees, which would be me. “I am not worthless!” He shouts again into the rain. I don’t think he knows that I can see him right now.

“Benjamin?” I ask, looking down to the mud again. The handprint has disappeared.

“I am not,” he says, sinking to the ground in front of his tombstone. His face disappears behind his hands.

“I’m sure you’re not. I just needed to anger you,” I tell him, trying to cheer him up.

“Well, you – ” His voice cuts off mid-sentence as he disappears in front of me again. I stare at his tombstone, looking for any sign that he remains in front of me. There are no markings in the ground that would alert anyone to his presence. I have no way of knowing whether or not he is still with me. Now, it’s my turn to sink to the ground and bury my face. I was so close to finding out the truth and yet, in a split second, the truth had disappeared.

* * * * *


Night's Final Hour by Crystal and Pamela MacLean is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.