Tag: more odds than ends (Page 6 of 20)

Dr. June Porter pressed her lips firmly together to keep from saying anything to the lurker outside her office door. She did not have to like her thesis advisee; she merely had to get him to produce satisfactory work sufficient to get rid of him.

Watching him slouch against the narrow faculty hallway wall reading a glossy periodical known for its style advice for men and the latest trendy whiskey did not give inspire confidence that she’d be rid of him anytime soon.

“Score,” Christian sang out with smug satisfaction, and tucked the item in question into his backpack. “Someone left money in the magazine.”

June rolled her eyes and unlocked her office door. Her eyes drifted to his hand reaching for the floor as she put her shoulder into the usual spot to dislodge the perpetually stuck corner.

“Wait!” She blurted, gaze glued to the floor. Above the worn industrial carpet, the bill burned to her sight with a sickly red glow. It might be masquerading as a fifty — enough to tempt even the students from richer families, as Christian had just greedily proved — but that alluring piece of paper screamed “trap” louder than last week’s drunken space movie fans who’d pew-pewed their way into an overnight jail cell.

“Tell me why?” he drawled, not bothering to hide his disdain as he rose. “Need it to pay the bills?”

She forced a fake smile and a shrug while tugging on a thread to unravel the complicated knot on the parchment. It wasn’t like she could tell him what he thought was a windfall was filled with poisonous magic. “Didn’t you hear about the counterfeit bills making their way onto campus?”

He sniffed and reached toward the floor again. “I’ll risk it.”

Out of time, June went for the Gordian knot approach and sent a spark of magic straight at the paper.

“Ouch!” Christian rubbed his fingers.

“Static’s been getting everyone lately,” June murmured, and set her satchel next to the tray she used as a desk.

He followed her into the tiny room, still muttering.

If he only knew. Nothing good came from lures that attractive.

***

The email I thought I sent, well, didn’t! This week, I snagged a spare instead: Someone left money in the pages of the magazine.

Find more and play along over at MOTE!

“Political weddings,” Lilibeth sighed in disgust. She slapped her clipboard down on the counter and disappeared underneath the aged walnut beams.

I leaned over, wondering what she was doing, but all I saw was a mass of skirts and quickly averted my eyes.

“Right,” came a muffled version of her usual dulcet tones. “Welcome to Castle Steinbeck, Pika.” Her voice became clearer as she emerged, treasure in hand. “I’m sorry to start your first day of work with what we normally won’t do, but it’s all hands on deck for political weddings.”

I accepted the clipboard with a red sheet of paper hesitantly. “The reputation was compelling.” The words swam in front of my face, and I averted my eyes with haste. “You’re saying the castle doesn’t guarantee the marriage will last?”

She paused in the process of securing her own scarlet sheet, the red rippling underneath a fan in an ominous warning. “The castle guarantees nothing,” she said sternly. Lilibeth’s eyes crinkled. “We just make sure it’s too uncomfortable for the poor matches to go through with the deal.”

“I thought…” My lips moved without sound for a moment before I gave up and waved an arm.

Lilibeth took pity on me. “If the bride can’t make it to the altar because she’s trapped in a maze until she meets a better fit, or if she happens upon the groom trysting with another in the gardens, are you suggesting that the castle shifts paths to accommodate a marriage filled with love and partnership rather than misery and doubt?”

“Um, when you put it that way.” I tried to study my clipboard, but my fingers betrayed me and it clattered to the ground.

“Because you’d be right,” she said softly.

I bonked my head on the huge wooden beams of the counter overhang at that. Fortunately not with great force. The castle saved marriages, not head wounds.

When I made it back to my feet, Lilibeth gave me a sad smile. “Political weddings, though. We don’t usually accept them, because the castle doesn’t like unhappiness. The couples often wind up living separate lives, for instance, only kept together for reasons that can only be described as nonsense. As if anyone with a head on their shoulders cares what the press thinks.”

I followed her down the hall toward the soaring cathedral. Our footsteps echoed as we walked, and I started to understand why walking softly had been part of the job qualifications.

“So the political couples – they’re special, somehow?”

“Paying for it, more like.” Vinegar was less acidic than her words. “We don’t take many customers like them, as mentioned, but those we do, are well aware they get the reputation of a solid match without the Marriage Guarantee.”

Her voice grew hard. “I make sure of it, and at least when they enter into the deal, they believe the consequences. I won’t have fools ruin our reputation.”

“Consequences?”

She paused and turned, barring her teeth. “They’re unable to separate without repercussions.”

As we entered the cathedral, I suddenly wondered with trepidation if I was the one who now got to dust the intricate alcoves and statues, two-thirds masked in the soft morning light. Yipes! I’d be here a week trying to get dust under control.

“It’s all on the checklist.” She blew out her breath in what the generous might label a sigh and sounded remarkably like my neighbor’s brown and white cow. “First off, get the screaming candles. They warn of a poor match. We can guarantee the couple already knows that, and they’ll go through with it anyway. No need to interrupt the service.”

“For which I thank you,” a soft voice came from – below?

I blinked, and a mouse in black garb but for a priest’s collar twinkled beady eyes and twitched his whiskers in greeting. Crouching down, I extended a hand, then rethought it into a finger. “Ah, greetings, Father?”

“Pika, this is Father Windfolk.” Lilibeth’s sharp eyes were watching my reactions, even more than during my interview. “He came to us one day by way of the sacramental garden – a door just popped into view on a tree, and suddenly the hawks stayed away. We don’t hold weddings in that area, either, only the others.”

His paw was warm and dry on my fingertip. “I wouldn’t want weddings in my yard either,” I managed. “I’m glad the hawks leave you alone. Will yardwork be part of my duties?”

***

This didn’t come out quite how I’d like, but I’m leaving it here for now. This prompt incorporated a spare from last week about screaming candles as well as Becky Jones’ prompt this week about a tiny door in a tree. My prompt about the Linear City went to Leigh Kimmel, and I can’t wait to see what she does with it.

Find more at MOTE!

The icon for the new AI art bot was an anthropomorphic raccoon with an artist’s palette and a big grin. Art – as he was of course named – cheerfully painted alongside the AI’s user, no matter the subject.

The bot’s misplaced empathy had gone viral after Art cheerfully painted a Victorian funeral, a woman sobbing, and a gloomy Scottish ruin – all on social media fame.

The AI owners took full advantage of the viral publicity and built a cheerful robot that went on tour as it “painted” using the AI.

The trick kept the momentum rolling until the hottest day of the year…

“I quit!” spat the tiny man as he fell out of a hidden compartment inside the purported robot. He lay on the ground, stunned and panting, and then ran for the woods.

The AI owner smoothed his mustache as the crowd pulled closer. “Ah, folks – eep!”

***

This week’s belated prompt was a trade with Leigh Kimmel. Check out the fun and join in over at More Odds Than Ends – next week’s inspiration is already posted!

“Medina!” June tightened her eyes in frustration and wished her mother were still alive to answer life’s unanswerable questions about raising stubborn children. She opened her eyes to find her hands on her hips, a pose she remembered her mother holding in faded, damaged photographs.

“Peanut’s on the loose again, Mommy.” Medina batted big eyes at her mother. “I scared him with the magics.”

She felt her eyes sliding shut again in self-defense and stopped herself before the indulgence gave way to defeat. “You know, not three weeks ago, I was wishing you’d show signs of magical ability.”

“An’ I did!” she said proudly.

June bent and picked up her daughter, letting out a slight oof as she settled her in on her hip. It’s been a lot of change, kiddo. Are you sure you’re not tired?”

Medina shook her head, pigtails flying, and otherwise silent.

“And the magic you did that scared Peanut?”

Medina stayed quiet and bit her lip as they maneuvered around plastic bricks and scattered books.

I have got to watch how much I do that. It’s a bad habit she doesn’t need to pick up. “Hmmmmmmmm?” She drew out the ending. “Did something break?”

“Go boom,” Medina whispered.

“You know Peanut’s got big ears. Loud noises will bother her until she grows into them.”

June opened the front door to find a small, shell-pink dragon huddled at the end of the driveway, watching intermittent foot traffic. She let out a low whistle.

Peanut’s ears flipped backward in relief as she raced for the townhouse. “Milady, you may have to talk to the neighbors again. Apparently I lack the demeanor for a convincing golden retriever.”

She let her suddenly kicking daughter down and the pair raced off. June rubbed her face with one hand and pulled her phone from her back pocket with the other. “I’d better tell Peter we need to step up the house hunt.”

***

This week’s prompt was inspired by Becky Jones and a dragon. My colorful prompt went to Leigh Kimmel. Check it, and more, out at MOTE!

“Are those…” Mikhail trailed off and squinted, trying to get a better view. He grabbed the edge of the rowboat as if his bobbing viewpoint would stabilize.

Long peels of paint stabbed into his hand, which he ignored in favor of squinching his eyes still tighter. The moonlight, bright as it was, wasn’t enough to see clearly in a fleet of dilapidated boats that were certainly not seaworthy, even if they passed muster in a large pond. “Narwhals? In a freshwater pond?”

“Well, don’t underestimate the campus pond,” Liza pointed out. “Or Oren will dump another wave on you. I think the point of this class is to discover what’s in the lake, don’t you?”

“Seasickness,” he muttered, as the boat caught the eddy of another set of oars. “It contains seasickness.”

Professor Kasia Edyth laughed from the next boat over. “Your first answer was closer, Mikhail.” The science professor shoved her ever-present sunglasses firmly atop her nose, though the gorgon’s snakes were coiled tightly to her head in the cool evening air. “They’re not narwhals, but they’re close.”

A white body rose in front of his boat, just as Liza gave an enormous heave of the oars. The creature let out a strange, burbling screech before diving out of the rowboat’s way.

Professor Edyth held up a hand, and the boats more or less drifted to an untidy stop. “Close enough. Now, we wait.”

“For what?” Liza whispered.

Too loudly, although the professor ignored it but for a faint smile.

In the middle of the pond, underneath the moonlight, came rippling flashes of white and silver in the water, led by the horns that Mikhail had mistaken for narwhals.

The flashes formed patterns, one after another, gaining in intensity and speed as more of the shining creatures joined into the dance. Intricate lacework formed, a mosaic of leaping horns and bodies.

It dazzled his eyes, all too brief that the unicorns’ watery dance was, and it took a few seconds for him to realize it had ended. Mikhail gasped once the realization struck him, longing for more.

In front of him, Liza surreptitiously wiped a tear.

“Synchronized swimming,” Professor Edyth murmured into the disappointed crowd. “Everyone hates to see it end. Your reactions are normal.”

Mikhail was the first to manage vocalization. “I…I’m just glad I saw it.”

The gorgon grinned, and propped her oars against her knees. “That’s the right attitude.” She raised her voice. “Once a quarter, coinciding with the solstices and equinoxes, the unicorns dance. We don’t know why, as no one known to our recorded magical history has ever received an answer to any attempted communications.”

The lecture continued, but Mikhail’s attention was caught by the glimmer of a single horn, briefly piercing the water, and dark, watchful eyes.

***

AC Young prompted me this week with unicorns swimming under the light of the full moon. My prompt of mixed emotions went to nother Mike. Check more out and play along, over at MOTE!

Mikhail stood so still his muscles ached with the effort of breathing slowly and unnoticeably, nose to horn with a rhino.

“Just move already,” Liza said with dismissive boredom. “He won’t do anything. We’re kids.”

“Won’t I?” rumbled the rhinoceros. “This adolescent male challenged me. He deserves a lesson!”

“Percival,” interjected their guide. She used a wheedling tone that somehow fit perfectly with the enormous straw hat that covered a head of curly hair and no obvious face. “Mikhail is a very promising magical zoology student. Wouldn’t you rather want him to help you with that finding a mate problem?”

Percival snorted, his horn reddening. “Lucky I don’t charge him. Boot him right out of this apartment complex, I would.”

The blast of hot air hit Mikhail in the face, but at least the staring contest had broken. “I didn’t mean to be challenging, sir,” he tried, studying the rhino with peripheral vision. “I’ve never been to a—a place like this before.”

He’d nearly said the forbidden words and called the facility a magical zoo.

“Quite the place,” rumbled Percival.

“Obviously, Percival here isn’t your normal rhino,” Hat Lady — her real name subsumed by layers of woven straw and lost to memory — said. “He’s a wallywompus.”

“Ah,” Mikhail managed, swallowing with difficulty. No wonder Percival hadn’t liked a direct stare.

“Which you’d have known if you’d remembered to do the spell on the sign to reveal the real information on the creatures who have kindly , and then I’d not have to have rescued you.”

The tart words stung. “Yes, ma’am.”

Liza shrugged, the djinn’s ever-present floating fire extinguishers clanking with the movement. “I don’t see why you’re so upset.”

“I should have known,” Mikhail said with misery, and turned back to Percival. “Have you tried online dating apps? I assume you’re having trouble luring the female wallywompi out of the rainforest.”

“Worse,” Percival said sadly. “They don’t like condo living, most of them. That’s wild ‘wompi women for you. This is the greatest place ever! But maybe it makes me look old rather than stable. Retirement living, like that state that looks like —”

“Um, you mean Florida?” Mikhail interrupted quickly. He felt his face flushing and wondered if the heat was enough to trigger Liza’s fire magic.

A squeal behind him cut off the conversation. “I thought regular families weren’t allowed in today?”

She gave a crisp nod. “Magical families only. They’re good. You see her bear?”

The stuffed creature in question morphed from blue to purple, then flashed iridescent.

“Wouldn’t work for a normie.” She started to yawn, then froze with her mouth and eyes wide open.

“Cool.” Mikhail tried to pretend animals on the loose — in the walkways, out of their pens, condos, whatever pretense of a barrier gave the illusion of safety — at what the mundanes thought of as a zoo was perfectly normal and didn’t make his heart stutter.

The giraffe ambled over to the little girl and bowed. “Good morning, my dear,” he said.

***

This week’s giraffe prompt was inspired by Becky Jones, while mine went to nother Mike. Find more at MOTE!

Mikhail stared at the door, hanging loose on its hinges and splattered with streaks of neon orange and pink. “A funhouse?”

“Midterms,” Professor Bleekley bellowed cheerfully. “Makes it more interesting, doesn’t it?”

Behind him, Liza clamped her hands over her ears and shook her head. Lefty and George, the fire extinguishers that floated above the djinn’s shoulders slid from side to side in definite agreement.

“You’ll be working in teams,” Professor Akira said gently, her tail bobbing in what Mikhail had learned was a conciliatory manner. “And against another team. Practical applications make a more efficient metric for judging how much you’ve learned so far.”

“Improvements!” Professor Bleekley yelled with obvious glee, his slippers and astronomy robes swirling with the storms of Jupiter. “Continual improvements! It’s the Wizurg Magical Academy way!”

“My clan calls the concept kaizen,” Professor Akira said with a smile. “It lets us tailor next semester. Don’t worry—we keep a close eye on how you’re doing.”

“All you have to do is get through the maze,” Bleekley shouted. “That’s all, boyo, get on with it now, there’s a good lad.”

Liza bounced, her fire extinguishers mimicking the movement. “Let’s go! This is the last exam.”

Mikhail’s movements were positively sluggish as he followed Liza through the brightly colored door. A blinding light stunned his vision, and he was alone after blinking spots away.

Alone, that was, as long as he didn’t count the endless reflections of funhouse mirrors. He tried to avoid meeting his twins’ eyes, digging instead into his bag.

“A maze,” he muttered, and pulled his notebook from his ever-present satchel. He’d sacrifice a page away from magical zoology if it meant finding a clear path out of this carnival of nightmares.

He tried to ignore the flashing of silver in the mirror as he was suddenly surrounded by stainless steel pens. If he looked up, he’d have to admit there was no way out of this room of glass and mirrors.

One of the pens caught his eye, and he made the mistake of looking directly into the face of a twisted version of himself.

His reflection tapped the tip of his pen on his nose and winked, then faded from view.

***

A snippet of something I’m working on, inspired by this week’s prompt of stainless steel pens from Cedar Sanderson.

Want more Mikhail and Liza? Check out Fantastic Middle Schools and Fantastic School Hols!

Want more prompts, to see what Leigh Kimmel did with my suggestion, or to play along? Check out more at MOTE!

“Nope,” June said, and inched backward until she ran into Peter’s shoes. “I’m out.”

“Let me take a gander?” He nested his chin over her shoulder and peered down into the circle of gaping darkness. “Ah, well. I can’t imagine why you’d want a hole that leads into the dark abyss hidden in your office, but now you know why they went to so much effort to conceal it behind a secret door.”

“Inside a locked cupboard.”

“And under magic seal,” he finished, and she could hear the grin in his voice.

“Maybe we should have left well enough alone,” she muttered, and leaned down to tug at the heavy wheel, the painted steel still looking almost new. Her efforts were futile, only making her wobble with fatigue as she straightened.

“Maybe if they hadn’t made such a bags of it,” he mused with an absentminded steadying hand. “Though if you didn’t want the answer…”

She blew out a breath, strands of hair tickling her face as they moved. “I know, I know. Don’t ask the question. I’d rather know there’s a gaping, malevolent portal to hell in my office before a demon pops out.”

“Malevolent. Hmm.” He tugged her gently backward with a hand on one hip.

She didn’t need the encouragement. “I was joking.”

“Were you?” He leaned down to close the hatch and spin the mundane wheel shut.

June didn’t answer, just wrapped her arms around her middle with a shiver. “I’m not up for resealing that properly. Too tired and too hungry to concentrate. It’s making me shaky.”

She glanced longingly at the empty coffee cup precariously balanced on the overstuffed bookshelf that concealed the passage to her real office, closet that it was. “And too uncaffeinated.”

“The metal blocks it for now,” Peter said, his Irish lilt soft. “You can feel the difference, can’t you? Whatever’s down there is more at a distance now.”

Her shiver turned into a full-body shudder of dread. “An eternal darkness of roiling anger.” She backed away again, making a gesture of aversion. “Righteous rage. I’ve never felt the like.”

“Worse,” he said slowly. “I suspect…I think it’s lonely.”

***

Find more at MOTE!

“Can’t deny it any longer,” June told Peter without looking up from the paper she was grading. “The evidence is undeniable. Three students have been bitten so far.”

“But -” Peter looked down the hallway behind him and inched into her tiny office. He lowered his voice. “But the threat on this campus has always been magical. Not physical.”

She quirked an eyebrow, the product of her eleven-year-old summer. “Magic brings physical danger. And magical creatures.”

“An unusual amount of critters,” he allowed, and tapped a hand on the doorway in frustration. “Something on campus is attracting the paranormal.”

She shrugged, still typing, and finished her last comment. June shut the laptop lid with a thump. “And something on campus is hungry.”

He winced, though it could have been at her aggressive treatment of technology rather than her words.

“Dr. Porter?” The voice wafted into her office along with the overwhelming scent of plumeria. “I had a question about the paper due next week.”

June’s stomach flipped over as every magical alarm in her office started blaring.

***

This week’s prompt was a trade with Becky Jones. She proposed: The scent of plumerias floated in the air. In return, I challenged her with: “Ah, yes, the awkward silence best found in a large group of technology experts put in uncomfortable positions.”

Check out more over at More Odds Than Ends!

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