Thursday, April 26, 2018

Week 14 Story: Ghost Hunting

Being a paranormal investigator isn't all it's cracked up to be. Emma wanted to uncover the secrets of the supernatural, to prove once and for all that ghosts really existed, and to find a way to help them move on or protect the living from the more hostile ones.

Instead she mostly ended up listening to old houses settle, investigating "cold spots" that were clearly ordinary drafts, and chasing away neighborhood kids who couldn't resist the opportunity to try and freak out the ghost hunter. She was still certain ghosts were real, but now she was even more certain that homeowners were terrible at identifying a haunting.

So when the Henderson family hired her to have a look at their house, she wasn't very hopeful.

The Henderson's had at least done some research on their house before coming to the conclusion it was haunted. A woman named Annabelle Fairchild had died there fifty years earlier, shortly after giving birth to a baby boy. Her husband had moved out two weeks later.

The fact that someone had actually died in the house made it more promising than some of places people hired Emma to look into, so she agreed to spend a night looking into it. The Hendersons let her in and went to spend the night in a hotel. Emma set up motion activated cameras throughout the house, briefly walked through asking for any spirits to show themselves, and settled in the nursery, where most of the activity had been located, to wait for any paranormal activity.

At midnight, the temperature in the room plummeted. Shivering, Emma got up to look for anywhere a draft might be coming from. She was interrupted by her EMF meter let out a sharp whine and she felt something brush past her, moving toward the crib.

Emma turned to face the crib. In the moonlight streaming through the window, she saw the faint outline of a woman in a white nightgown leaning over the crib.

Emma's heart leapt in her chest, and goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold rose along her arms. This was what Emma had been waiting for her whole life. A real ghost. And not just any ghost, a full body apparition. She had enough cameras set up in the room that she definitely had footage. If she could just get the ghost to talk to her, she become a legend in the paranormal community.

Emma pulled out a radio scanner, turning it on to create white noise for the spirit to speak through. She took a step toward the ghost. "Hello? Annabelle?"

Annabelle turned slowly to face her. "Where's the baby?" The voice that came through the radio scanner sounded nearly robotic, but Annabelle's face clearly displayed her anger.

Some of Emma's excitement faded. The ghost's interest in the Henderson's baby wasn't necessarily anything evil, but Emma felt almost instinctively wary about it. "He's not here. I'm--"

"Where is he?" Annabelle had somehow turned up the volume on the radio scanner. The temperature dropped again, a cold wind whipping through Emma's hair, and the furniture began to rattle. "What have you done with him?"

"I haven't done anything!" Emma yelled over the wind. "His parents took him away."

Annabelle let out a wordless shriek. Toys that had been scattered across the room floated up from the floor and flew through the air. "NO! They can't do this to me. Taking him away, just like my husband took my little boy. I watched over him every night, comforted him when he woke up and cried, protected him. And now he's gone forever."

"Annabelle," Emma shouted. When the ghost didn't respond, she raised her voice even more. "Annabelle! He's not gone forever, just for tonight."

The wind cut off abruptly, toys hovering motionless in midair. "What?"

"His parents took him to a hotel so I could investigate. They hired me to find out if the house was haunted, because they were worried about his safety. I'll tell them that you don't pose any danger to him, that you were just trying to look out for him."

The toys dropped back to the floor and the room returned to a comfortable temperature. "So he'll be back?"

Emma nodded. "Yes, he should be back by tomorrow night."

"Very well," Annabelle said, fading from view. "I'll return tomorrow night, then."

Emma stared at the empty space where Annabelle had been for a moment. Then, she hurried over to check the footage on her camera. What she'd witnessed tonight would revolutionize the way the world thought about ghosts.

Being a paranormal investigator was the coolest job in the world.
                                                 Image result for ghost woman
                                                                (Ghost)

Author's Note: This story is loosely based on the Russian fairy tale The Dead Mother. In the original the mother dies in childbirth. The father hires a woman to take care of the baby, and the woman notices that the baby is unusually quiet during the night. She spends the night in the nursery and discovers the dead mother coming in to nurse the baby. The next night, the father and some of his friends wait to catch the mother. When they burst out of hiding, the mother runs away and they discover that the baby has died. I kept the idea of a dead woman coming to take care of a baby in the night, but switched it to a modern setting with a paranormal investigator and got rid of the part where the baby dies.

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Week 14 Reading B:Russian Fairy Tales

Most of these stories end badly for everyone involved. The Soldier and the Vampire is one of the only ones that has a happy ending. It's also not the one that I would have wanted to have a good ending. The soldier in the story is not a very good person. He finds out how to bring the vampire's victims back to life, and then lies about having seen the vampire and makes the victim's family pay him to help them. I guess it might be a cultural difference, but that doesn't seem like the type of heroic action that would make him deserving of the happy ending he gets.

                      Image result for nosferatu
                                                                  (Nosferatu)

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Week 14 Reading A: Russian Fairy Tales

I found the story of The Dead Mother very surprising. I thought that the ghost of the mother was coming back from the grave to take care of her baby, but then the baby died at the end. I wasn't sure if the baby died because the father and his friends interrupted the mother while she was taking care of it and that had some weird side effect, or if she had been intending to kill it the whole time so she wouldn't be alone in the after life.

                                    
                                                                     (Ghost)

Friday, April 20, 2018

Week 13 Story: The Changeling

Bridgett was thrilled when her daughter was born. She'd been trying to have a baby for years, after all. She named the baby Lilly, and doted on her constantly.

One day, Lilly started acting strangely. She no longer cried to be picked up. In fact, she'd sometimes fuss if Bridgett held her for too long, which she'd never done before. She started speaking in full sentences, when she'd only known a few words before.

Despite the strange behavior, Lilly was still a sweet baby. Bridgett loved her regardless of how she acted. But the sudden change worried her, especially since there were tales of fairies in the area. She decided to perform a test she'd heard worked to make a changeling reveal itself.

Bridgett cooked some food and put a small portion inside and eggshell. She carried the eggshell out into the living room where Lilly was playing and set it on the coffee table.

Lilly looked at it. "Mommy, what's that for?"

"I have some guests coming over later, so I'm laying out some food for them."

Lilly laughed as if that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "That's ridiculous, Mommy. That's not even enough food for one person. I've never seen an eggshell of food feed a group of guests."

Bridgett sighed sadly. "You're not my Lilly, are you?"

The changeling stopped laughing. "Yes I am."

Bridgett shook her head. "No, you're not. You're a changeling, left here by a fairy mother. My Lilly is living with the fairies now."

The changeling looked like she was about to cry. "Please don't make me go back. My other mommy isn't nice like you. She didn't want me. I want to stay here with you." She started to cry. "Please let me stay."

Even knowing it wasn't Lilly, Bridgett couldn't stand to see the child in front of her cry. It wasn't the changeling's fault that her mother had left her here and taken Lilly away. She'd been a sweet and mostly well behaved child for the whole time Bridgett had her.

Reaching out to take the changeling into her arms, Bridgett said, "Don't cry. Of course you can stay here. I wouldn't send you away." The child calmed slightly, and Bridgett added, "But I have to bring the other Lilly back, too. You're going to have to trust me."

When the changeling, who Bridgett decided to call Violet from now on, had stopped crying, Bridgett carried her out of the house. The went to a nearby bridge, and Bridgett held Violet out over the water bellow.

"Fairies, come take your child back or I'll drown it. Return my child to me."

An old woman appeared from thin air on far side of the bridge. She was holding an identical child in her arms. Bridgett pulled Violet back from over the bridge and walked over to meet the old woman, who she knew must be a fairy in disguise. She made sure to stop while still standing on the bridge, knowing that the fairy wouldn't be able to walk over running water.

"Give me the child," the fairy woman commanded.

"You give me my child first," Bridgett answered.

With a hiss, the old woman shoved Lilly into Bridgett free arm. Bridgett shifted the two children so she could hold them both while freeing up one hand for a moment. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a handful of salt and threw it to the ground at the fairy's feet.

The fairy shrieked in rage, glaring murderously at Bridgett, but was unable to keep herself from stooping down to count the grains of salt.

Bridgett ran away as fast as she could while the fairy was distracted. When she got home, she warded her house against fairies as best as she could without harming Violet.

The next day, she began looking for places to move so she could raise her two daughters in peace.


           Image result for twin baby girls
                                                                  (Twin Girls)

Author's Note: The story this is based on is a Welsh fairy tale called Brewery of Eggshells. In the original, a mother of twins leaves her babies home alone for a few minutes while she runs to the neighbor's house, and they are replaced with changelings. She visits an old man who knows things about the fairies, and he says to test whether the babies are actually changelings by cooking some food in an eggshell and saying she's going to feed it the the threshers, and if the kids laugh or say they've never seen anything like that, to take them and throw them in the river.





Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Week 13 Reading B: Celtic Fairy Tales

I find changeling stories like Brewery of Eggshells really fascinating. In general I think that the idea of some otherworldly creatures replacing a person with one of their own kind, and the fact that this idea is so pervasive, is interesting. I used to have a book of Welsh legends that included multiple changeling stories where the mother cooked food in an eggshell to fool the changeling into revealing itself, which seems like a really weird and specific thing to get included in changeling lore.

                                
                                                                  (Changeling Twins)

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Week 13 Reading A: Celtic Fairy Tales

I liked the story of Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree for the most part. I don't like the idea that the mother would try to kill her daughter over something as stupid as beauty, but I guess that's kind of inevitable in a Snow White type of story. I like the addition of the prince having a second wife, and her being the one to save Gold-Tree.

                                   
                                                                        (Silver-Tree)

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Week 12 Story:Lady Knight

Ana had always wanted to be a knight. She'd grown up hearing her grandma Britomart's stories of her time as knight, all the adventures she'd had and the people she'd met, and every tale filled Ana with longing to have some of those adventures for herself. Britomart always wanted to talk about the lovey parts of the story, and how it was really only for love that she'd set out as a knight in the first place, but Ana didn't care about any of that. She wanted to hear about the daring rescues and fights, not about how her grandparents met.

It wasn't hard for Ana to convince her father to let her learn how to fight growing up, especially not after her grandma agreed that she should be taught. So when Ana finally decided that she couldn't live another day without going on an adventure of her own, she was confident that she would be able to make her way as a knight.

Ana told her grandmother that she had seen a knight who would be her own future husband in the magic mirror, and that she must set out to find him at once. If Britomart was suspicious of Ana's sudden interest in love when she'd been nothing but indifferent to it before, the old lady kept those suspicions to herself. She gave Ana her magic spear and helped the younger woman get ahold of some armor and sneak out of the castle.

The first few weeks of Ana's time traveling as a knight didn't quite live up to her expectations. Adventures, it seemed, were not as easy to find as they had been during Britomart's time, and it was no longer the custom to have a friendly fight with any knight you happened to come across.

Eventually Ana did find what looked to be the start of a promising adventure. Riding into a clearing, she discovered a knight weeping outside of a derelict tower.

"What is wrong?" Ana asked the knight.

"The lady I love is locked inside this tower," the knight answered. "I cannot reach her. Whenever I try to go through the door, a mighty flame springs up in my way. I fear that my love has become the prisoner of some foul sorcerer."

Ana remembered one of her grandmother's stories, of a lady trapped in the same manner. She wondered if that same magician could still be at large after all these years. It really didn't matter if it was the same man or not. Either way, Ana would defeat him and rescue the lady in danger.

"You should not give up so easily," she told the other knight. Then, remembering her grandma's story, Ana held her shield in front of her and walked resolutely toward the door.

As she approached, flames sprang up in her path. Ana ignored them and continued walking forward. The flames did not burn her at all, and she walked easily through the threshold.

The inside of the tower looked nothing like the outside. From without, it looked long abandoned and on the verge of collapse, but inside it was apparently in good condition. Ana climbed up a staircase which was as sturdy as if it had been built the day before and well lit from sconces set regularly into the wall. When Ana looked into one of these, she saw not a candle but a floating orb of light. Clearly the sorcerer was still here.

Ana reached the top of the staircase, and found a closed door. Holding her shield in front of her with one hand and readying her sword in the other, Ana kicked down the door.

A beautiful lady who had been sitting and reading shot to her feet at Ana's sudden entrance. The lady didn't look hurt, or sick, or like she was being held captive at all.

"Who are you?" the lady asked. "How did you get in here? My fire should have burned any man who tried to enter."

"Your spell?" Ana asked.

The lady scowled. "Yes, my spell. Which is why I'm interested in how you got passed it. Has my magic begun to fail."

"No, it has not." Ana pulled of her helmet. "The spell didn't stop me because I am not a man."

The lady's eyes widened. "Why have you come here?"

"The knight outside seemed convinced that you were being held captive by an evil magician, so I thought I'd help. Clearly that's not the case."

The lady looked offended. "Me. the sorceress Minerva, captured by some magician? That's ridiculous. I locked myself in here because that knight would not stop declaring his love for me and demanding we be married, no matter how many times I told him I wasn't interested. I really didn't want to kill him, so I thought I'd just go where he couldn't follow until he gave up. But it's been weeks, and he's still out there waiting."

Ana frowned. "That is unacceptable behavior. If you said you weren't interested, he should respect that. Stay here, I'll go fight him for you."

"Lady Knight," Minerva called. "Not that I doubt your ability, but it might be easier if I simply used a spell to put him to sleep so we can leave. I would have done it before, but I didn't think I would be able to get far enough away before he woke up and followed me. If we left on your horse, we could put some good distance between us and him while the spell holds."

"I would rather fight him."

Minerva shook her head. "He fights unfairly and is a coward. Wouldn't it be better to let me take care of him so you can fight a more worthy opponent? And besides, while I appreciate the offer, I would like to take care of him myself. He has been vexing me for nearly a year now."

Ana nodded. "Very well. If you feel you must defeat him, I will not stand in your way."

And so Minerva placed the other knight in a magical slumber, and she and Ana rode away together. As they rode, Minerva said to Ana, "If you're still looking to fight some villains and rescue someone, I know of a town nearby that has been harassed by the undead for years."

Ana smiled. It seemed like having company might make life as a knight more interesting.


File:Harold piffard joan of arc.jpg
                                                       (Joan of Arc by Harold Piffard)


Author's note: Britomart is a princess who becomes a knight in order to find the knight she's supposed to marry, according to a magic mirror made by Merlin. One of her adventures as a knight involved rescuing a lady from a sorcerer who'd locked her behind a gate of fire. It was never explained why Britomart could walk through the fire and the male knight she was with at the time couldn't, so I decided for this story to have the spell be gender specific since the lady in question wanted to get away from an overly persistent suitor. I also wanted my protagonist to want to be a knight for the adventure, not because she wanted to find a husband.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Week 12 Reading B: Britomart

I find the character Artegal to be really annoying. He's set up as this ideal man who's fair and kind and humble, basically the best guy in the world, but he fails to live up to that promise. Instead, he gets so upset over losing to Britomart at a tournament that he swears vengeance against her and attacks her the moment they cross paths again. And despite this obvious character flaw and the fact that he literally just tried to kill her, Britomart forgives him and falls in love instantly once she finds out who he is.

                                                 
                                                                     (Knight on Horse)

Friday, April 6, 2018

Week 12 Reading A: Britomart

Overall, I love the story of Britomart so far. She's a really cool character. She's great at fighting, always willing to help people, and doesn't take any crap from anyone. One thing I could do without, however, is the whole lovesick thing. I get that she's trying to track down the person she loves, but all the talk of how she'd rather die than be without him gets really tiresome.

                                                 
                                                           (Britomart Stained Glass Window)

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Week 11 Story: Wolf Pack

Rebecca had loved her husband once upon a time. At least, she had loved the man she thought he was. But he had changed, bit by bit, after they got married, until he became so cruel she could no longer recognize him as the man she had once loved.

She left him one day. She had nowhere to go, but she couldn't stay with him for one more day. Anywhere else would be better. She'd figure it out.

Rebecca met Lucy in a bar. Lucy smiled kindly, and asked what was wrong. Lucy listened with genuine concern to Rebecca's troubles, and offered her a place to live.

Maybe it was stupid to agree to move in with someone she'd just met, but she really had no where else to go.

Lucy's apartment was almost always full of a group of other women. None of them technically lived there, they were all neighbors, but they came and went as they pleased and there was always at least one other person there. Everyone was friendly to Rebecca, but they all seemed like they could be dangerous if they wanted to be. They referred to themselves as "The Pack."

For a while, Rebecca was pretty sure her new roommate was in a gang. And then the night of the full moon came around.

Walking into the living room and finding it filled with giant dogs was a shock. Then all the dogs turned to look at her, and Rebecca realized that they weren't dogs at all. They were wolves. One of them leaped at her. It knocked her to the ground, and she was certain she was about to die.

The wolf licked her face. It's tail wagged excitedly. Cautiously, Rebecca pushed the wolf off of her so she could sit up. The rest of the wolves had gathered around her. They all nudged against her, and several tried to climb into her lap. They seemed friendly enough, and Rebecca didn't know what else to do, so she spent the night playing with a pack of wolves.

Rebecca fell asleep at some point, and when she woke up, the wolves were gone. Instead, she was surrounded by Lucy and her friends.

Lucy apologized for not warning Rebecca about the apartment full of werewolves earlier. She explained that the pack had been planning on transforming somewhere else that month, but they'd lost track of time the night before and ended up wolfing out in the apartment. Lucy insisted that Rebecca had never been in any danger. Sure, werewolves acted almost entirely on instinct in their wolf form, but wolves were social animals. They had pack based instincts as well as hunting instincts, and the pack had bonded with Rebecca. They would never hurt her.

Lucy said she would understand if Rebecca wanted to leave, if she didn't feel safe there anymore.

But Rebecca had never felt safer anywhere else. She knew for certain, now, that Lucy cared about her. That all of these women cared about her, and had no intention of ever harming her or letting her be harmed.

So Rebecca stayed. A few months later, her husband showed up and tried to convince her to come back to him. He didn't get very far. After all, Rebecca had been taken in by a pack of wolves, and the pack always protects its members.

                                       
                                                                      (Wolves)

Author's Note: This story is based on the Sioux Story of the Lost Wife. In the original, a woman runs away from her abusive husband. She follows a man who promises to lead her to safety. The man turns out to be a wolf, and she lives with the wolf pack until her tribe finds her again. She goes home with her parents, and eventually ends up back with her husband. I decided to have the wolf pack be werewolves because that's the first place my mind goes when I read about a person turning into a wolf. I changed the ending so she doesn't go back to her husband.

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Week 11 Reading B: Sioux Legends

The story of the War-Like Seven was interesting to me because it introduced these seven character, but they didn't really do anything. Five of them drop dead on their way to the fight, and all that the fish and the turtle really accomplished was surviving the other tribes incompetent attempts to kill them. Iktomi was there, and ended up accidentally killing everyone for the turtle and fish so they were celebrated as accomplished warriors, but it really isn't a story about Iktomi like the others were.

                                
                                                       (Illustration by Angel de Cora)

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Weel 11 Reading A: Sioux Legends

I like The Story of the Lost Wife  because it shows a woman escaping from an abusive situation, but I don't like that she ended up reconciling with and returning to her abusive husband in the end. Presumably he had changed in some way and that was why she agreed to live with him again, but this isn't really shown in the story.

                                  
                                                                          (Sioux Tepees)