A Forth of Nature

Dear story snacker,

Yesterday I saw a local production of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery play The Mousetrap.

It was fantastic.

To my surprise, I guessed who the murderer was before the reveal, but not because of clues I’d picked up.

Funnily enough, I thought I knew who it was because, as a writer, I thought, ‘Which character being the murderer would make this play’s ending the most shocking and entertaining?’ And BAM! Christie agreed with me.

I won’t ruin who it was, in case you haven’t watched it, which I highly recommend you do if you enjoy great stories.

JOURNEY JOURNAL

Speaking of great stories, my novel, Hailey’s Horizon, continues its adventure in the deep, mysterious forest of literary agencies. While it waits in a sunny glade for its 78 query letters to find an interested agent, I’ve been writing. For a change.

I’ve begun to plan the sequel to Hailey’s Horizon, which I am tentatively calling REDACTED. Sorry, it’s called REDACTED. Phooey, looks like my subconscious signed an NDA.

Something I CAN disclose is the story below, which I recently finished, and hope you enjoy snacking on.

STORY SNACK

Will and the Wisp

Part 1 of 3

When the light appeared in the woods, Will O’Ryan slipped out of his bedroom window to follow it.

His sneakers sank into the dewy grass of his backyard as he slid the window closed as quietly as he could, looking around to make sure no lights were on in any of the houses along his street.

All were dark.

The stars that stippled the clear midnight sky around a sharp sickle moon were the only lights on now. Except for one, the one Will was going after.

A thrill went through the twelve-year-old as he looked into the thick woods that began where his backyard ended. The little ball of ghostly light still floated in the spot he had seen it when he looked out his window a few minutes ago.

Just like last night. And the night before.

The first time, Will had woken in the middle of the night, feeling like someone was watching him. Tangled in his blankets, he had raised his head above the windowsill at the head of his bed. There, in the black depths of the forest, a luminous white eye looked back.

Will had whipped his head out of sight and not moved for the rest of the night.

The next night the same thing happened, and this time he had looked at the light for a long time, watching it bob slightly in the silent, dark distance, like the tantalizing bulb of an angler fish. Beckoning.

Tonight, his curiosity had overridden his fear. The light was magic, Will was sure of it. And he was going to capture it.

Slinking across the backyard, he made barely a sound as he approached the thick, brooding tree line. Besides his sneakers he wore his striped cotton pajamas, their blue and black pattern blending surprisingly well with the night scenery. In his right hand he held an empty glass jar with its lid half unscrewed.

If it could hold pickles, it could hold magical floating fairy lights. Or so Will hoped.

He stopped a few feet from the edge of the forest. The light was a hazy orb visible between the tree trunks, swaying up and down, tantalizingly close. Wind hissed through the dark trees around it. Leaves shivered in the night, boughs bending toward Will like they wanted to reach out and grab him.

A cold trickle of fear slid down his back. Will turned to look back at his bedroom window. His parents had told him never to go out alone. Especially at night. Especially after the disappearances.

First Brian Thompson two doors down. Then Alvin Specter from around the corner. Both boys gone without a trace.

Will’s hand holding the empty pickle jar felt suddenly slick. He gripped the container with both hands to keep it from falling. He looked back into the forest, at the innocent white light hanging in inky shadow. Did it have something to do with the disappearances?

Grimacing, Will turned and took a step back toward his house. Better safe than…

Cling.

He whipped around at the tiny, bell-like sound. The ball of light bobbed up and down, same as ever.

Cling.  

The sound, like a crystal bell being gently chimed, rang softly from the wispy white orb, seeming to make the shrouded trees around it reverberate. It was a beautiful, eerie sound. Will felt drawn to it, suddenly hopeful that the light would make the noise again.

But it didn’t. Instead, it began to bounce away through the dark forest. It wasn’t moving quickly, but soon it would be out of sight between the trees.

Will took a deep, shuddering breath. His curiosity retook control and bowled away the cold fear and all his parents’ warnings. Gripping his jar, he plunged into the dark trees after the light.

The forest enveloped him like a cloak. Dank shadow dripped from the trees to drag at his shoulders as he forged forward. Refusing to obey his urge to look around and behind, Will scampered after the tiny orb weaving away between horny trunks.  

His feet were getting cold, moisture from the loamy forest floor soaking through his sneakers and socks. A sharp branch snagged his pajama shirt as he passed, tearing a rent in it as he pulled free, desperate to keep the light in sight.

Cling.

The light’s voice tolled softly through the trees, almost inaudible over Will’s heavy breathing. Wiping sweat from his forehead to keep it from blinding him, he didn’t notice the fallen log, eyes riveted on the bouncing light.

He was getting closer. He put on a burst of speed and— “Aah!”

His feet slammed into the log and he fell, crashing into the forest floor so hard he lay there for several seconds in the wet grass, groaning, head throbbing.

Both shins feeling as though they’d fractured, Will struggled to his feet. Making sure his jar was still intact and giving the dead log a good kick, he looked up to find the ball of light.

It was gone. The night was total.

“No,” he whispered. The word hung in the thick darkness like a corpse on the gallows.

His throat constricted and his stomach acidified as he stared around blindly, desperate to catch a glimpse of ghostly light. All he saw was night. Shadowed tree branches swayed like tentacles in cold, black water.

Panic encircling him in its coils, Will turned on the spot, feet ice cold. He had lost all sense of direction; he could neither tell the way he had come or the way the wisp had been going.

Breathing raggedly, he chose the direction he hoped pointed back to his house and began to run. Brambles and branches ripped at his damp pajamas, grasping at the glass jar clutched to his chest as if trying to snatch it away. Will half-snarled, half-sobbed as he pulled free of a grabbing creeper, surged forward and rebounded painfully off the ribbed trunk of an ancient elm.

Tasting blood, Will slumped down on the knobby roots beneath the tree. Hot tears burned down his clammy face as he stared around, praying he would see his house through a break in the trees. Nothing but night.

Wet, cold, scratched and bloody, he bitterly wished he hadn’t left his warm bed. He wished he’d listened to his parents’ warnings. He wished he was somewhere, anywhere except lost in these dark, dank woods. He wished—

Cling.

Will jolted upright, the faint sound electrifying his deadened limbs. He scanned the black corridors between the trees encroaching on all sides, but saw no point of light piercing the swarthy night. Biting his lip, he turned and tripped over clawing roots to look behind the elm.

There it was.

The white wisp floated in a tiny clearing, a hundred feet of forest shadow separating it from the twelve-year-old.

Body tingling, jar clutched white-knuckle-hard in one hand, Will took a tentative step toward the tantalizing ball of light. It didn’t move. He took two more steps. When the ghostly lamp still didn’t flee, he broke into a run, covered the intervening darkness in seconds and arrived, gasping, at the edge of the clearing.

He stood a handful of steps from the gleaming mote of pale light. This close, he could see it was the size of a baseball, misty tendrils of starlight curling and shifting around the radiant, alabaster orb, which rose and fell ever so slightly in the night air.

Will reached over with one hand and opened the lid of his jar. Looking into the light’s starlit depths, he felt something looking back from within the soft, pure glow, beckoning him forward. He barely noticed his feet moving, carrying him forward in a trance toward the shining wisp.

It’s magic, he thought sluggishly. Cold water seemed to strike his brain, his feet jolting him to a stop half a step from the floating light. He remembered suddenly what happened in the fairy tales to people who followed lights. He needed to—

Too late.

In total silence, the floating light shot forward, hitting Will in the chest…and passing straight through. The little boy gasped as he felt the wisp inside him for an instant. It felt cold, like a ball of ice. He cried out as he felt it slide all the way through and out his back.

Chest feeling frozen from the inside, Will whirled, swinging his hand holding the glass jar in a wild arc. There was a loud, furious CLING and a sound like a pinball bouncing around its machine.

Screwing the jar’s lid shut, Will looked down in dumb amazement at the orb of wispy white light ricocheting frantically around the inside. He had caught it.

Then the ground disappeared out from under him.

End of Part 1