Blood Moon

Source: GoodFreePhotos

It was the night of the Blood Moon. Tanith felt a stirring of unease. The Unseen were gathering, in force.
She could feel it.
When she had been an infant she had been reduced by their amassed energy to frantic cries, which her
parents failed to comprehend. The priests and healers had proclaimed her sound of body but strange of
mind. They prayed and burned incense.
Standing by her window, she stared out over the Fen. Mist swirled in the moonlight. It coalesced and
dissipated, creating fantastic shapes. The other crofters had barricaded their doors, muffled their windows,
and bright fires burned in their chimneys.
She alone watched, hidden in the dark.
Time had taken the edges off her memories: the loss of her precious daughter, the bitter fading of her
angry husband.
Distracted by her reverie she was brought back by the advance of a rider. It flowed over the uneven
puddles as if they did not exist. Transfixed, she watched its form take shape in translucent light a few
paces from her window.
The ghostly mount pawed the ground, the horseman stood in his stirrups, holding out a hand to her.
“Little Sister, it is Time. Come Home.”
200 word stories © Kim Magennis 2018

Hunter

Source: Wikipedia Commons

She swooped, on dream-borrowed wings between the red and gold canyon walls. The up-thrust and cross-draft of the localised air currents brushed against her feather tips. She allowed herself to surrender to the thrill of her flight. Her talons tightened on their load.
“Goshawk, target is 30 seconds away, keep to current heading and current speed.”
“Copy, Austringer. Maintaining current heading and speed.”
Drawn back to the task at hand, she could see her target crouched on a raft, riding the churning water
along the narrow canyon floor.
“I have a visual, Austringer.”
“Copy that, Goshawk. Proceed with caution.”
“Copy, Austringer. I’m going in.”
She stooped to ten meters over the heaving river. The craft grew larger in her view. It bobbed and twisted in the unruly waves. Dropping another five meters she eased down over the raft.
“Locked on to target.”
She kept abreast of the raft and its dissident occupant for just long enough to match its speed and drop another four meters.
“Incendiary device deployed.”
Her talons released their burden and she shot up into the air, up and back along the path of the raft. Five seconds later, a vast flame flower bloomed on the water.
200 word stories © Kim Magennis 2018

Old Magic

Source: Pixabay

The candle flickers in dusky light. Owl song haunts the air. He feels the falling night thrilling in his chest.
The pungent aroma of his offering floods his mind and senses.
Focusing on the flame, he reaches into it with his mind, and finding the portal-key, he flips it open. Light floods his workshop, illuminating the debris of a thousand spells. Quickly, he gathers his etheric self and steps through.
“Hello, Old Man!” Dylan’s bright young face smiles in recognition from inside the glass cage. “Let’s have your ticket, then.”
He hands his precious ticket through the small square, cut in the glass. Dylan snips one of the remaining blocks with a hand held device.
“You must be very happy, Old Man! Your Team looks to have a chance at the World Series, this year!”
He nods, fixing what he hopes is an amiable expression on his face.
Negotiating the darkened corridor, he is intercepted by the Burly Man. “Mr Merlin. Same deal, the score is on the card.” The strap of a bulging satchel and a small white square of card are pushed into his hand.
Looking down at the card he reads ‘Detroit Tigers – 9, Chicago Cubs – 3’.
200 word stories © Kim Magennis 2018

Affliction

Leru has a secret. She guards it, deep in her darkness. She is always vigilant to never expose it to those around her. All her conversations are guarded, especially with Ma and Da.
From childhood she has learned to communicate in generalities, so that she has trained her listeners to fill in the gaps to their satisfaction. The stories she tells, to hide her anomalous state, are simple and brief.
Fortunately, she has grown into a handy creature. Able to conjure elegant jugs, and delicate bowls from clay and glass, her products are highly valued, and she is protected from censure for her modest contribution to the Collective Consciousness.
The Village allows her a seat in a corner of the Tavern, where her silence during Sharing can be overlooked.
“Last night, I was visited by my Father Miso. He told me that the new crop should be planted in the northern fields. There will be Black Beetle this Spring.” There were murmurs among the gathered Community.
“My Aunt Dari concurs.”
The Village Scribe records the comments in his Book of Prophecy, along with the names of the speakers.
She, alone, is un-visited by the Dead, and has nothing to say.
200 word stories ©Kim Magennis 2018

Woodworker

Naime paused at the jamb of her cabin door. The early morning sun dappled through the brilliant canopy. A lung full of air confirmed that today was going to be a magnificent day.

Shouldering her rucksack, she drew the door closed behind her, allowing herself a loving stroke of the battered wood. She followed the faint path at a steady, comfortable pace, barely conscious of following the faint calling that tickled her senses.

Birds and insects trilled to each other across the gently rising land, the trees creaked and rustled in counterpoint. The sound of a small trickle of water was welcome. She paused and filled her water bottles in the stream. Back on her path, Petal-drifters and Blue-wings, followed her progress through the undergrowth.

When she reached the small, shaded clearing, Naime knew she had reached her destination for the day. A delicate Golden Wood Tree had fallen across the path. The smell of crushed White Flower bushes brushed her nostrils.

She knelt alongside the tree, and placed her brown hands on the pale, smooth trunk. Drawing air deep into her lungs, she began to hum, the long sweet note filled the air. The sound gained in volume, and rose in key and, opened in her mouth to an ecstatic ‘ah’.

Naime’s hands and head buzzed with energy. She continued her toning, focusing her attention on the tree beneath her fingers. Time ceased, the forest sounds blurred and faded. The energy shifted, and there was a large crack, as the trunk split in two, its entire length.

Nestled in the core of the tree were two, beautifully fashioned staffs. One male, one female. She lifted them reverently, and wrapped them in the special bag from her rucksack.

Her heart thrilled. She had her admittance fee to the Woodworkers’School.

300 Word StoriesãKim Magennis 2016

Dread

It all started with a vague sense of something being ‘off’. As Davidson sat at his desk, grinding through the morning paperwork, it casually brushed his mind. He raised his head and looked around the open plan office. Everyone else was head down, and the clatter of keyboards and buzz of printers masked subdued telephone conversations. From that moment, he had a growing feeling that he was being watched.

The next few days blurred into weeks and then months. The sensation had seeded in his gut, and was taking root. His sleep was disturbed with forgotten dreams, which left him with growing doom. He checked and double checked his work; he locked, opened and re-locked his front door; he became secretive and more withdrawn. He felt his colleagues and strangers watching him as he moved through his day. He hurried down deserted passages, on the verge of flight.

His first panic attack was a surprise. He fled his desk in a flurry of papers, locking himself in the toilet stall. He gasped, trying to draw oxygen into his lungs. His heart was pounding, his hands clammy and shaking. After ten minutes of focusing on regaining control of his breath, he emerged, white and drawn. The rest of the day dragged in agonising discomfort, until at last, the clock on the wall released him. He fled through the tide of homebound commuters to the safety of his tiny apartment, and hid.

A week later, the Supervisor’s Office created an island of light at one end of the darkened, empty workspace.

“The project has been running twenty weeks now, Brown. When will we see results?”

There was a buzz on Brown’s cell. Reading the message, he smiled. “As of 15 minutes ago. Davidson has self-terminated by jumping from his apartment window.”

300 Word StoriesãKim Magennis 2016

Tavern Keeper

Similarity in appearance ran strong in the McKinney Family. Terrence was the latest bearer of the rumpled brow, and square chin. Where his father had been cheerful, Terrence was taciturn. The Black McKinneys were considered a force to be reckoned with, and were known throughout County Tyrone for their stubborn independence.

“What can I do for you?” Terrence’s Irish baritone boomed from across the counter.

“Marian? Would you like a coffee?” The handsome man consulted his companion. The sun made lace shadows on the wooden surface. She smiled.

“Thank you, Lance, my love. That would be perfect.”

They took the table against the picture plastered wall. There must have been over two hundred snapshots pasted on the bland, teal wallpaper. Some were intensely hued and focused, some were grainy, black and white, others had the yellowed sepia of a different century. Lance and Marian browsed through them, pausing every now and then to point at some or other person, or garment, or pose.

Suddenly, Marian froze. “Look, Lance. That face. That’s you. And his partner. That’s me.”

When Terrence delivered the sturdy mugs of fragrant coffee, they pounced on him. Who were their doppelgangers, where were they from, where were they going?

After an extended pause, Terrence pleaded ignorance, and marvelled at the coincidence. Laughingly, the couple asked him to take a snap of them and the photo on Lance’s smartphone. Lance texted a copy to the Tavern email address “to put on the wall, too”.

Asking direction to nearby Loch Neagh, they finally left, happy and smiling. Watching them go, Terrence was profoundly disturbed. Going to the wall, he plucked off the photo. Turning it over, his Grand-father had inked ‘October 1936; Lance and Marian Graham, drowned Loch Neagh in boating accident,’ and then Grand-father had pencilled in ‘2016.’

300 Word Stories ©Kim Magennis 2016

Oenologist

Maister S’vren was a rigid grey apparition in his immaculate lab coat as he stalked between the long wooden benches of Bunsen burners and bubbling beakers. Burets dripped their concoctions into Erlenmeyer flasks, earnestly tended by his students and chemists. Conversations were brief and hushed.

Satisfied with his workers’ industry the Maister took the long flight of stairs down to the Cellar. He typed his personal code into the access keypad and submitted to the retina scan. The heavy metal doors rolled apart, allowing him entrance into the high-ceilinged cave that housed the Guild’s Fermentation Vats.

Walking the length of the darkened subterranean factory took a full thirty minutes. As he strode along the slightly raised metal gangway, the age of the installation settled heavily on his shoulders. These machines had been in service for the last three thousand years, producing the Multiverse’s most acclaimed and sought after wines.

Finally, he reached a small, shadowed door. Again the keypad, and retina scan, but this time he felt the distinctive tingle of a full body scanner. After a fraction of a second delay, the door popped open, released by the gigantic computer brain that monitored the entire forty floor facility.

Unsurprised or undeterred by the jumble of ancient, discarded cleaning equipment and materials, he walked to the back of the small room and opened a rusted metal cupboard door and squeezed through.

He was embraced by pitch darkness, and the smell of rich earth and oaken barrels. A single spot of mellow light painted a circle on the naked soil beneath his feet. It was just enough to allow a hint at the extent of the modest row of barrels. Taking a glow stick from the depths of his lab coat, he found his way to an ancient dusty wine rack. Twelve unlabeled bottles nestled on the wooden frame. He scanned the micro-coding embedded in their corks with the small tablet he took from his pocket. At the third bottle, the scanner shone golden yellow. This was the one.

Being careful not to jostle the precious contents, he wiped the bottle clean with a special cloth from his pocket and gently wrapped it to protect it during its transport. A special order from the Emperor herself.

He paused, briefly pondering the delicacies of politics and power. His place was not to question. He sighed, wondering who was going to die tonight.

400 Word Stories ©Kim Magennis 2018