Random Writing

This is where other writing will go. Some finished pieces, some quick fragments of description dashed off in a hurry, longer pieces from One Word Inspiration. Comments and critiques are welcome.

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This is the full text of the story from Day Three of One Word Inspiration. Enjoy.

It helped, of course, that it ran in the family. It wasn't like she didn't have anyone to talk to about it, not with parents who understood so well. Her mother worked in hospitals and smelled only the smells of the gift shop or the cafeteria no matter how bad the smell of the patients she was helping. Dad was the one who most misused his gift; as an advertiser, he could feel how long people spent looking at any given ad, where their eyes lingered, what pulled their attention, and then apply it to his own posters and graphics. Cara had no interest in cooking, so she didn't know how it could possibly help her with a career, but it sure made dieting easier. That was one reason Maggie was a much better friend than Amelia -- lots of hamburgers and Hostess Twinkies replaced an endless stream of peanut butter sandwiches and licorice. Amelia was… Amelia had been a vegetarian, and she hated chocolate. Cara had managed to forgive her this failing and stayed out of her tastebuds with good will.

As they walked from lunch to math class, Maggie discoursing on the various movies her latest boyfriend might want to see, a girl turned the corner ahead of them and vanished down a hallway in a swirl of her long white skirt.

"Amy!" Cara started to move toward her, and remembered, as it always hurt to remember, that this was not Amelia. Now she thought about it, the hair was too long, the figure even taller than Amy had ever been. Cara felt the hot pressure of a blush on her cheeks, and tried to mutter an explanation to Maggie that was vague enough to be acceptable.

The next day it happened again, this time as they walked in from recess. Cara didn't call out this time, just sighed. Snap out of it, she told herself. She's gone and she isn't coming back. She doesn't want to come back… But she still eyed the corners of the school suspiciously, found herself haunting the halls where she'd last seen an elusive figure in Amy's trademark black and white.

But Amy was gone. It still made Cara furious to think of the chaos of that last week or two. The awful scene when Amelia's mother had, screaming, thrown her out of the house for being a "sinful Satanic witch" -- Cara had wondered how the stupid woman had even figured it out. Amelia was always so careful about things like that. Well, Cara had figured it out -- the way Amy tended to vanish sometimes and showed up unexpectedly and without a sound to announce her arrival. But then, Cara had always believed in magic, unlike Amy's mother. However it happened, Amelia had been out a home, and Cara had offered hers.

Sitting on a bench at recess, tuning out the latest mass of babble from her new supposed best friend -- what was a neutrino anyway? It was weird how Maggie could go from ditzy spaz to physics geek in under ten seconds -- she felt her stomach and jaw clench at the memory of Amy standing in front hall with a suitcase and a nervous expression. She heard the quiet, "I said no, Cara. Thanks for offering me a place to stay, but I'm going to live with my dad."

"And what about when he finds out?" Cara had been too hurt by Amy's refusal to bother with niceties. "When he throws you out of the house as well? Then where will you go?"

She felt bad, now, remembering how Amelia had flinched under those words. At the time she had just hoped they would be enough to keep her closest friend, her sole confidant in everything from Superman comics to the supernatural, taste tests to math tests, and boys at school as well.

"I think I can make sure I don't slip up again. And it will be easier, never using it, instead of sometimes doing magic and sometimes--"

"So it's my fault?" Cara couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I'm the only one who treats you like you're not a freak, and it's my fault your Mom--"

"No, Cara, that's not… Look… It's just that this is the best thing I can do for me right now. I need a home with a parent. I can't just stay here forever."

So what, Cara wondered, had become of "best friends forever," anyway? She just said, "So get out and go see your dad. So what if I'll never see you again. You have a great life in California and don't worry about us here." Amelia just stood there, and Cara snarled, "Go! Just get out of here and good luck pretending to be normal."

After a few minutes, Amy had gone, leaving Cara's mouth dry and bitter-tasting. She wondered whose bitterness it was, Amelia's or her own.

"Jeez, Cara, spaz much?" She jerked up to see Maggie looking exasperated. "Did you hear a word I said just now?"

"Gosh, Maggie, of course I was hanging on every word. I really care about your stupid boyfriend and your stupid physics classes." Maggie just stared, so she went on, "I don't even know what a neutrino is. Does that make me an idiot? Do you feel smart sitting there talking about garbage I don't understand?" It had never mattered before, that Maggie talked about science. When they first met, Cara had thought it made her cool, different, exciting. It had seemed like a bonus to have a friend so smart and so interested in everything. Now it was unbearable.

"Cara…" For a second it looked like Maggie might start crying, and because that would make Cara feel even worse -- and because Amelia, even at the worst moments, had never actually cried -- Cara stopped her fast, desperate to get away.

"Just shut up for once, Maggie. Just shut up." She headed for the building, trying not to run. She kept her eyes on the ground, because she didn't think she could bear to see anyone who remotely resembled Amelia right then.

By the end of the week it was abundantly clear to everyone, and especially to Cara and Maggie, that they were no longer friends and not on speaking terms. It was amazing that every time she saw someone who looked like Amy she felt even lonelier than she had before. It hadn't seemed possible that she could feel worse.

Eight days after this latest fight, Cara finally was so desperate that when she saw a figure -- tall, blonde, wearing a long black dress -- move around a corner, she ran after her, hoping madly that it might really be Amelia. When she rounded the turn herself, there was no one there.

For the first time she wondered whether something might be wrong. Maybe Amy had come back, kicked out of another house for a gift she couldn't remove. Maybe she was just so lonely that she was coming here -- invisibly, in hologram form, or by teleportation -- to feel more at home. Maybe she was looking for Cara but there was some magical block. Times like these made Cara frantic to know more about magic. But different people's gifts were so different and worked in such different ways. How could she know if Amelia was in trouble?

From then on she stalked the hallways jumping at every girl who looked remotely like her old friend. Mostly she embarrassed herself, colliding with total strangers who bore little resemblance to anyone she knew. Sometimes girls who were probably ordinary evaded her anyway, because of crowded hallways or Cara's lack of tracking ability. And finally as she walked to math -- alone, coming from an uneasy table that had her at one end and Maggie at the far opposite side -- someone turned the same corner she had seen the first time, half-listening to a litany of recent blockbuster hits.

She didn't call a name, just ran, almost knocking over a cluster of chattering girls in the lunge to get there, staggering around the corner and managing to keep Amy in sight as she turned down a class hallway and kept moving. Cara ran toward her, and it finally occurred to her to use her own skill.

She had been half expecting a taste that would suggest a hurry, or a spell to keep her here, or the dry feeling of panic. More than that, she had anticipated feeling nothing. Surely it was just a projection of Amy, the real Amy was trapped in some horrible danger, and was sending out this weak ghost version of herself to explore the school.

The girl's mouth held nothing more shocking than a lingering taste of brownies. Brownies? How could she… Amelia hated brownies. By then Cara was close enough that at the next turn she could see the girl's profile up ahead. She didn't really look that much like Amelia. The same sort of hair -- though longer, as Cara had noticed the first time. Her clothes were not so different. But there was nothing in her face to suggest a connection.

The rest of the day passed slowly in a cold haze. Cara felt numb, lost. She had been so eager to rescue Amy from terrible danger that she had wrapped herself up in an improbable story where she could be a hero and stop forever being the villain. Because she had, she knew, been the villain, as much as Amy's mom had been. And now she had chased her best friend away with no forwarding address, no way to contact her at all.

The next day she sat down next to Maggie at the lunch table, grateful that no one else had come to sit down yet. She didn't need any witnesses to this miserable interaction. For an instant she really thought her former friend might get up and move to another table, but she only stiffened and pretended great interest in the cheeseburger on her plate.

"Hey." Cara had tried all night to think of a better opening, and failed. Most of the speech she had planned and rehearsed, but there was nothing you could say start out the kind of apology that was required.

Maggie said nothing, took a defiant bite of hamburger. Cara didn't try to taste it.

"I'm so sorry I said those things to you. It's worse because they aren't even true. I… um… I do care what's going on with you and you're not stuck up and I know you aren't trying to make me feel stupid. I do that all on my own, I guess." She glanced at Maggie and still made no eye contact, only watched the steady chewing motion of the jaw.

"So basically I'm a lousy friend and I don't deserve for you to forgive me. But I am sorry, and I'd like to be friends again." They sat in awkward silence for a few more seconds, and then Cara just said, "Well, let me know," and went back to her end of the table to eat her salad and apple in peace. She didn't reach out into other people's mouths. She felt the soggy vegetation was a better fit for her misery. Maggie hadn't come over to sit by her, but she hadn't said anything terrible, either. Someday, maybe, they could be friends again. At least this was one bridge she had not burned.

This is the full text of the story from Day Six of One Word Inspiration. Enjoy.

This is the full text of the story from Day Six of One Word Inspiration. Enjoy.

Sarah used to perch on the window seat in all weathers and at all times of day. Even when her parents sighed and scolded and tried to draw her up to bed, she preferred to curl up on the stiff red cushion and wrap herself in the long curtains -- gray now, with age, and their small embroidered flowers half picked apart and entirely colorless with years of use and sunlight and small children -- and stare out into the garden.

It's dark, they told her, sighing, always sighing, what can you possibly be looking at, Sarah, that is better than your own bed? And she sighed back at them, much smaller sighs from tiny lungs, and scrambled off the ledge and out of the tangles of curtains and dropped to floor, the drapes falling closed over the window behind her. She knew that questions like that didn't want answering, they wanted obedience to orders already spoken. Answering those questions was like answering back.

In the day, sometimes, her parents would stand behind her and oh-so-carefully bend the fabric aside so they could see over her head and outside, trying to see what she saw. They saw their half-brown vegetable patch and the marigolds Mother had planted last summer and that now ruled the back half of the lot. Sometimes they saw rabbits or squirrels or small birds with squinting dark eyes. They looked down, trying to see Sarah's eyes, trying to guess what she examined with such intensity. So far as they could tell, she ignored the rabbits and disregarded the marigolds after no more than an approving glance. She stared, for the most part, into nothing.

Long after she was in bed one night -- for, as with many small children, she was sent to bed hours before anyone else in the house intended to sleep -- her father had an odd thought. He wondered whether there was something different to be seen by night than by day. They had assumed that the garden at night was the same as the garden by day, only obscured by long shadows and dim moonlight. But perhaps there were some other creatures that wandered the lawn in the evening. He excused himself briefly from the conversation, leaving his wife and her parents and his own father to talk amongst themselves a few moments while he peered out into the darkness.

It was even blacker outside than he had guessed. Instead of vague shapes of plants and stones, he saw darkness almost without form in it. Where the light touched the nearest climbing ivies there was some texture, but beyond that he saw nothing. Even his face was only a dim blur with so little light coming through the drapes. He sighed, as was his wont, and trailed away into the house with one more hope of comprehension lost to him.

Almost a week later, as the conversation turned once again to their daughter's disquieting habit, the grandmother walked in complaining of the recent heat and was exasperated to find them paying more attention to Sarah's eccentricities than to her own discomfort. Well, she muttered, for she muttered nearly everything she said, it's all very well for a girl to look out a window, but that is such a window! I suppose she's only looking at her own reflection all day, as you do when it's dark. Her son-in-law stared at her for a moment, thinking of his reflection, hard to see but far clearer than the rest of the midnight garden. Was this all she was looking at? Why, then would she spend so much time there during the day, when the bright light would make her reflection much fainter? He asked, not addressing his family but wondering aloud, and received another sour mutter in return.

Haven't you seen that glass? The bottom pane is practically black. I thought it was just dirt, but now I rather suspect it's just a mess of the tinting.

An inspection proved her correct. The window was a dark bluish brown, as the oldest glass sometimes gets -- darker even than might have been expected -- and only on the lowest pane, where Sarah sat staring, not on the higher windows where they always stared out when they tried to guess her thoughts. The mystery was explained -- she likely spent much of the day and night daydreaming, sometimes gazing outside but more often making faces at herself in the crude mirror she had there in the privacy of a sort of curtained alcove. After this, they left her alone about it, though they still, of course, called her to bed when it got late.

And then, one day, Sarah went missing. Her parents noticed at breakfast, but imagined she had gone with her grandmother to bridge in town. When the old woman returned without her, they hoped she might instead have joined the grandfathers for fishing, but they too returned without having seen Sarah since last night. Was there any way she might have slipped out of bed in the night and gone out? They hoped not, but there was certainly the possibility that a child so small could have crept down the stairs and through the house without being seen. But where would she go?

They rang the police, and searched the house, and wandered the garden for hours calling her, but she remained very thoroughly gone. By two days later they were in a state of panic and grief, and Sarah's mother crept miserably to sit at the window sill, as though hoping Sarah might return to chase all comers from "her" seat, as she had with their last cat.

The mother crouched there, staring out through the bright panes into the garden. Then, head dropping in despair, she found her eyes on a level with the low pane, the dark glass where Sarah's own eyes spent most of their hours. For a moment she sought the dim reassurance of her own face, tear dampened and frowning. With a faint start, she realized her mother had been wrong -- there was no reflection here. And with growing unease, she knew there should have been some reflection, at least a faint one… But there was nothing at all. Now she stared harder, through the shadowy window and into the sunlit garden. At first it looked like the garden always looked, albeit more gloomy with the darkness of her view. Then she looked more carefully, examined the garden as Sarah might have, as they rarely bothered to. The marigolds were not just copious but overwhelming, taking almost a third of the garden in their wild outgrowth. Even through the muddiness of the lens, the colors were bright, like watching a fire in the evening. The vegetable patch was also larger, and looked well tended, the tomatoes nearly as glorious and firey a red as mingled with orange and gold in the flower beds. The lettuce had a pale green luminescence from this view, and there were no animals scrambling among the perfectly weeded rows. As she gaped, a short wide man with scarlet hair wandered into view at the edge of the dark pane and began watering the plants. His watering can was huge, almost bigger than she was, and the same pink as the geraniums on the front porch. She watched him pour and wander away again, and then from the other side a whole trail of beasts and humans rushed across and began zigzagging wildly through the garden. Several horses and tall glossy dogs ran and leaped and veered through the plants, pursuing and being pursued by giant foxes, yellow snakes, and tropical birds in exuberant flight. The tallest horse was skinny, almost skeletal, and covered in shining blue fur. Atop its shoulders rode a tiny laughing figure with curly hair in chaos. Sarah had never looked so happy or so free as she did clinging to the horse's mane and being tossed and jolted in the mad ride.

It was too much, and Sarah's mother jumped to her feet to rescue her daughter or demand an explanation. She saw the garden, dismal and empty of all but a few birds and squirrels, for an instant before she toppled and crashed to the ground, dragging the curtains with her as she fell. For a few moments she lay winded and in agony from her landing, trying to gasp in air. At the dark window, a face appeared, small and round like the gardener of before but with white hair and large black eyes. It bared pointed teeth at her and glared triumphant malevolence into her face. She wondered if it was possible for an imaginary monster on the other side of a window to make her fall and hurt herself, and thought it seemed no less improbable that that such a beast could steal her daughter away. And then her family arrived and, despite all her protests, rushed her to the hospital. As she lay in the back seat, she could hear them saying they thought she must have hit her head quite badly, to be babbling such nonsense, and she promised herself she would keep the whole event secret until she could get out of the hospital.

Sarah had been having a marvelous time. Everyone was nice, here, and it was such a relief to be a part of the action and not merely an observer under flowered curtains. But she wondered how much time had passed. When is it? she asked the dragonflies, and they sang to the boy on the giant dog, and he turned and smiled at her with bright green teeth. Does it matter? Here you have no need of sleep. Here you never must go to bed. She smiled, but wasn't so sure about that. Bedtime was a real thing, and slowly she was beginning to wonder if any of this was real. If you couldn't fall asleep, did that mean you were already in a dream?

Finally, when she had played tag a dozen ways a hundred times, when she had eaten the vegetables in the garden -- so much fresher and sweeter than at home, and the small creature with the watering can was so proud of his carrots and peas -- and climbed the trees and ridden all the horses and dogs, Sarah decided it was bedtime. But when she curled up on the grass to go to sleep, it wasn't very nice -- the garden looked so soft, but the grass blades had edges and the soil was cold and hard, and the dogs came sniffing at her to see what was wrong, and the boy laughed at her for trying to sleep, and she couldn't keep her eyes closed. Something was strange, here, and for the first time she really wasn't sure that she liked it.

By the time Sarah's mother had healed and they would let her go -- they only believed in her sanity because she kept her mouth strictly closed about Sarah and the garden -- her daughter had been missing for over a week and she was nearly frantic. Her family thought she was eager to get home and worried about her daughter, but they had no idea these two emotions were so closely intertwined.

The first thing she did was to kneel before the window seat, wrapped in the curtains -- new ones had been put up, long pale blue ones, and she worried that it would ruin whatever magic had been operating -- and stared hard through the dark pane. No evil face arose to snarl at her, but even at this awkward angle she could see the vast array of marigolds and the edges of the enlarged farming plot. She sighed, relieved at seeing that the window still worked, though not wholly reassured, as Sarah was not in the image.

It may seem like sentimental silliness, but won't you just look through the window with me for a time? I just can't help feeling Sarah would want us to watch over her garden for her. She excused herself the lie by considering it a fair trade with their refusal to believe the truth. And when her husband saw the marigolds and the lettuces -- and checked half a dozen times through the clear windows to be sure their own garden had undergone no remarkable change -- he finally began to believe. Together they kept vigil until at last their daughter appeared, this time riding a white dog the size of a donkey and talking merrily with a green-skinned boy on a matching dog beside her. For the first time, Sarah's father really believed in what he was seeing, and gasped, and stared through the clear window desperately, his gaze flipping between them, the strange world with his daughter and the familiar one empty of life.

The next day after she had tried to sleep -- perhaps two after that -- well, the next time she thought on it -- however long it had been -- but she decided she simply must think of it as tomorrow or she was likely to go mad -- the next day she crept through the garden during their game of hide and seek with a hope of looking through the window to be sure it wasn’t dark back home and her parents weren't missing her. When she stared through the clear windows, she saw only more gardens, as if this whole house were just a wall's thickness and beyond it were hills and flowers and trees, ripe for exploring. But Sarah kept firm to her purpose and stared through the little dark window and into her house, expecting to see faded flowered curtains and, perhaps, the dining room through the crack between the drapes, the family sitting and talking and not at all worried about her.

The curtains were blue. Sarah froze, lost in awful horror at the notion that she was looking into the wrong house, but past them she could just see the floorboards and window seat she expected.

They've forgotten about you already, said the Magician, the one who had smiled and brought her through, the one who had offered her the run of the garden. They no longer want you. They've put up new curtains so they won't be reminded of the rotten lazy little brat who used to live here. He smiled, all pointy teeth, as though this idea pleased him no end. Sarah shuddered and pulled away. As soon as he turned his eyes away from her and into the house, she turned and ran, to get away from him, and to get away from the house where her family didn’t want her.

But there was a party going in the back of the garden and they wanted her to be jolly and dance with them, so she had no space to cry, no time to cry, and it took her -- another three days? Who knew for sure? -- before she realized it was deliberate. They were taking away her time.

She began trying to make her way to the window, and every time as she approached, another game of tag began, another new vegetable had been found in the garden, a bird had laid a dozen golden eggs -- there was always something to do, something to see, some fun to be had. But they never again played hide and seek, and Sarah knew there was a lie, here. She wondered if they were all in on it, plotting against her, or whether some of them really thought it was all in fun. Mostly she just felt terrible and deceived, and played with little enthusiasm and no real joy.

As Sarah's father leaned toward the window, about to press his face to the glass, the monstrous gnome his wife had described appeared with an expression less triumphant but far more full of murder. Sarah's mother lunged, grabbing her husband and pulling him back, so that he just avoided being blinded by the creature's claws, reaching through the glass. Just before it pulled away, she caught the hand and clung to it and her husband remembered the weak plan they had imagined and wrapped his silver wristwatch tight around the creature's pale arm. She let it go before it scratched her bloody and the hand jerked back through… and halted as the silver clanked against the glass.

Sarah's mother gasped in relief. Her husband grabbed her shoulder for support, both of them shaking. The monster hissed at them and pulled harder, bending its fingers to try to slide through the watch, but was tight enough that there was no removing it. After a few minutes, it stopped struggling and just watched them, eyes glowing and lips curled into a snarl.

What do you demand of me? There was no voice that either could hear, beyond a little more hissing, yet neither were they solely reading its lips. Somehow they understood.

We want our daughter back, they said, almost one in their speech. It hissed again, and the black eyes sneered at them.

She does not wish to leave. She is happier with us than she ever could be with you. Another horrible revelation of multitudinous fangs, this time in a cruel grin. You wish to steal her from us, though she came willingly?

Both parents recoiled from the words as from a physical attack. Of course Sarah hadn't wanted to be stolen. Granted, she looked happy enough there, but she must be under some dark enchantment to forget her family. Surely she missed them as much as they missed her. But deep inside it seemed as though he might be right.

She had got quite close to the windows in the latest game of tag -- the big skinny horse was it, and she always chased the dogs first and the children after -- when the gardener called her over to inspect his raspberry canes.

They're my favorites, you know, for all they put out so few berries for the trouble. And they are a lot of trouble, and he shook his head fondly at them. Sarah tried to catch her breath and wondered how she could get away. Suddenly he looked up with his yellow eyes and smiled a sad smile and said, They're all his, you know. They all used to be someones, people of their own, but he keeps them here and makes them do as he bids. They came seeking games and now they have them. Games and jests and pleasure-sport. They help him with his spells in all their running, tracing out the pentagrams without even knowing it. You're a random factor, you represent chaos in his spells. Must have all the elements, you know. He is order and you are chaos, and all of them are air and fire and wind and earth. I'm a quieter sort of order, and a quieter sort of chaos. When he said order he nodded to the rows of cabbages; on chaos his eyes drifted to the marigolds. I doubt there's any hope for them now. No hope for you either, really. I'm not strong enough to hold him off, but you looked through the window so you're no blind lamb to be led to the slaughter. You'll see it coming whether I speak or no, so I think you ought to go with your eyes not just open but knowing what they see. He sighed to himself, and there was something about the sigh that went straight to the core of her homesickness. Have a raspberry, he said. She reached without thinking and plucked one -- a golden raspberry, but splashed with red as her careless fingers hit the thorns on the stem. With the pain and the blood came a moment of clarity. The garden faded and a feeling of energy shot through her, and for a moment there was something in the gardener's gaze… then the feeling faded, leaving behind it only a vague certainty of magic.

The next, well, soon after anyway, Sarah fell and scraped her knees bloody on the grass and dirt playing Duck, Duck, Goose. They stared at her uncomprehending; no one ever fell, here. Here she wasn't clumsy and awkward, as she often was at home from all her time sitting still, but graceful like they were. It had taken great effort to fall.

Help me up, she said, reaching a bloody hand to the green boy and another to the nearest snow-white dog, and when they touched her hands their eyes changed color, just for a second, and the world seemed to crackle a little around her.

By the end of the next three games most of them had got a little bloody. Sarah had to try hard not to cry at the pain, but she told herself sternly it was in good cause and her eyes only watered a very little bit.

Still, she had a chance at an army, and she knew where the window was, but to stop the evil sorcerer hurting her new maybe-friends, his previous victims, and to be sure he would not follow her home, she had to be able to find him, and in a weak moment. The Magician was rarely about, and never weak. And then one day as she was watching the window -- for she always kept an eye on her home window -- she saw something strange. Just the body of the Magician dangling from the window, one arm through it and his face pressed up against the glass. Sarah stared for a long moment, then shouted to his fellow prisoners and together they swarmed to the pane.

Sarah's mother said faintly, I can't believe you. Even if… even if Sarah would rather be there… Well, even if she would, we are her parents.

Sarah's father said, Maybe it is her choice, though she's full young to know her own mind. I still won't believe a word of it unless she tells me herself.

And into the air came a faint shrill cry of Mother! Father! and through the inch or so left where the evil gnome's head was not in the way, they could see a colorful mass approaching at speed. The gnome thrashed around, cursing and shouting wild words and nonsense syllables, and then a huge dog lunged and sank its teeth into the gnome's leg, and the other animals followed suit.

Sarah gaped in horror as the animals who had so frivolously and pleasantly played the days away with her attacked the magician and… well, they seemed to be eating him. She looked at the green boy, who neither joined in nor seemed frightened that they had, and then over at the gardener, who just said, Tis poison to eat such a man. But they were done for long ago. All

will be well. You did fine work here, child.

Sarah turned back and saw that the animals were melting into the Magician, as they ate him becoming him and then fading away, until all that were left where the skinny horse and the green boy and her parents staring through the glass. Her mother and father looked horrified and delicately her father pried something off of -- oh, off of the Magician's remaining arm, how horrible -- and the arm slid through and fell to the grass. The horse lunged in one graceless motion and chomped down and the arm and horse became one and were gone.

Sarah ran and climbed through the pane and her parents pulled her through. The boy slid through more warily behind her, and he looked very strange, all green and wild in the soft tans and browns of the dining room. He glanced nervously at Sarah, and proudly at her parents, and whispered, I remember rooms indoors. It has been a long time, long and long. Sarah whispered back, We can take care of you here. Mother and Father can fix anything. And she saw her parents smile at each other, and her mother gave her a suffocating hug and her father clasped her next, and both of them smiled uncertainly at the boy as though afraid he might say yes. But he only said, No, there are other ways for me to take, and bowed to her, and walked out of the house through a nearby wall. At least when they looked out the ordinary window they still could see him, striding away along the sidewalk as though most people were green in the usual way, and Sarah was rather proud of him, and wished him well.

Sometimes the best way to learn things is to suspend disbelief, to sit on the sidelines and learn. Sarah soon had half-forgotten this way, lost in the way of doing, of living, of experiencing. But when she was old and had children of her own, and grandchildren, she watched them and understood them as no one else in their family could, because she knew a little of the magic in watching and listening and believing.

This is the full text of the story from Day Nine of One Word Inspiration. Enjoy.

The heads of state had gathered in the court. They always did when a member of the nobility was being punished. With a member of the royal family, the excitement was greater, the crowds larger -- unless it was this member of the royal family, since, after all, he was punished as often as five times a year.

Jarin tried not to think about this with any bitterness. After all, it wasn't as though he didn't deserve nearly everything they threw at him, though they did always pile the consequences on. Most nobles got only slap-on-the-wrist punishments for crimes as small as stealing a cat or repainting a hallway, while he was generally beaten in public and forbidden from important gatherings. It was half of why he did it -- there was no other escape from the deadly boredom of long meetings and elaborate banquets. Besides, he had come painfully close to chasing away a few ambassadors with his deliberate ignorance of court customs. So he was a prince, what of it? The king had five sons and three daughters in line for the throne before there was even any discussion of possible heirs, and of all the fifty or sixty candidates for the throne -- the siblings, the cousins, the nieces and nephews -- Jarin was probably about forty-five places down on the list, beating out the infants and the madmen, though not by much.

The crowds kept filing in, though, as he watched. This was the turnout they might have given had his cousin Briana -- well-behaved and smart enough to maybe make it to the throne if the king's children all died unexpectedly -- been accused of a real crime. He sighed. So they knew the whole of it, then.

Common criminals were expected to kneel on the floor in the center of the amphitheater and hunch to set their foreheads against the tiles. Nobles were usually permitted a chair. Any other prince or princess would be allowed to keep their thrones and have the court shift to face them as they were judged. Jarin counted himself lucky that he got a stool on the ground below. He eyed his throne, more often empty than full these days, and tried not to make eye contact with the relatives sitting around it.

"Prince Jarin-Arif, son of High Prince Arif-Corell, the court of the King Sior-Corell calls you to this reckoning." Jarin had heard it before. The only interesting parts were when they listed his crimes and when they sentenced him. First came a long rambling prologue about his position in court and the importance of the justice system in their great kingdom. For the most part he tuned it out.

"You have been accused, first, of burning or causing to be burnt an entire section of the library, with an estimated value of nine hundred silver and several irreplaceable books. Second, you are accused of having done so using illegal magic, namely, solar power." There was a mild gasp from the audience; this was audacious indeed, and dangerous by their estimation. They had no gifts, and so they had no idea of how easy it was to use and control the sun's magic, and no sense for how desperately that magic wanted to be used. "Third, and perhaps most egregious of all, when questioned by the interrogators, you lied for three days and still refuse to name any accomplices." Of course he wasn't going to ruin Amark's life as well. Sure, Jarin's eldest brother might be absolute swine about most things, but he had a clue about how to run a country. Someday he would be a valuable minister and advisor to the king and queen, and Jarin wasn't letting his career collapse because he had stood look-out for his least favorite sibling. It was a mark in his favor, in fact, that he had understood without being told what a danger those books posed with the ambitious scheming that had begun, and instead of taking them had sought their removal from the game.

There was a silence while everyone waited, perhaps hoping he would repent then and there of his lies and evasions and reveal an entire squad of professional thieves and assassins who had aided his heinous deeds. He sat still and tried not to kick his feet, a bad habit from when he was younger. If he was about to be executed, it would never do for the court's last image of him to be nervous fidgeting. His feet remained still, his hands rested in his lap, and his eyes focused strictly on the seven foot high magistrate reading the charges. A good man, Lord Dóreli, but rather strict and old-fashioned. If he was the member of the council set to read the punishment, it was going to something he approved of -- something severe and lasting.

"For your first crime, you are charged with the full worth of the books you destroyed. Because some of them were rare and cannot be recreated, the cost of every book we cannot buy again you will pay thrice over." Jarin did his best not to shrug. There had to be worse coming; even trying his best to pile on the costs, the magistrate could not make it an expense that Jarin's personal funds would not cover. "Your second crime receives the traditional punishment for a rebel mage who cannot be trusted to stay within the laws. You will be punished for this assault on the castle as for an assault on the king. The punishment for your black magic treason is thus: that your gift for magic will be stripped from you and kept in the treasure rooms until such time as you have proven your ability to accept the responsibility as a loyal adult and not as an uncontrolled child; and that your left thumb shall be removed and stored, pending the same." For several moments there was utter silence in the room. Before the magistrate could continue to the third proclamation, though, the room exploded into conversation, whispers that added together into a roar loud enough to drown him out completely. Jarin himself would have been incapable of speech. He was not even sure he could breathe. Strip him of his magic? Cut off his thumb? These were traditional only in the sense that they were so barbaric that they had become antiquated. He had heard tales of mages who, on losing their powers, lost some of their soul and their sanity as well. They thus could never become trustworthy and so never regained their magic. Even once the sound of the crowd had died down he was still shaking slightly, struggling to focus on the magistrate's final doom. "For lying to members of the king's most esteemed justice committees, and for concealing other traitors to the throne, you are found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of the king's justice. You will receive thirty lashes and five years in prison, and upon your release you are to be stripped of all title, all holdings, all royal connections, and all familial ties. You will be issued a new identity as a commoner and--" Lord Dóreli stopped because the uproar had overpowered him again and held up a hand for quiet. When they had quieted he continued, "As I said, a new identity as a commoner and a position in the further reaches of the country. Any attempt to make contact with any member of your kin or the court will be treated as assault on a member of the nobility and, as a treasonous commoner, you will be hanged forthwith." Having had his say, the magistrate paused and let the commentary fill the room.

The noise was building and building with no sign that it would fade, and then the king arose. Within seconds the room was silent, the sort of sucking empty silence that comes in the lull in a conversation between two near-strangers -- guilty and eager to be filled.

"Thank you, Lord Magistrate, for announcing the verdict." The king had a voice that deserved silence to be heard, rich and melodious. "Prince Jarin, have you any argument with the fairness of these results?"

What he wanted to do was jump up and cry, "Of course I do! Everyone in this room knows those are unfair results dictated by a backwards and biased court that already loathes the sight of me! The verdict is absurd!" It would do no good, though, so he said, "No, my king. The wisdom of the magisterial council is not to be questioned." And his uncle nodded.

"Then will you accept the terms of your arrest and submit quietly to your punishment?" Jarin blinked. He had heard both questions asked before, of course, with as many trials as he had had. He had always said no to the first and yes to the second. But they were never both asked at once, viewed by the court as interchangeable. The king was making a point. And for the first time it occurred to him that an outlaw could use the sun's magic as he chose, and a sunmage would be a very free outlaw.

For the first time in his life, he said, "No, I don't think I will." And then, because somewhere inside of him all the nervousness and impudence that had to be suppressed in court had been building, he added, "Thanks all the same."

Jarin took a deep breath, and reached out to the windows of the room where the sunlight poured in to illuminate the wrongdoer before all witnesses. He felt it, a ripple of heat across his skin, a thrill as his insides turned golden and fire spread through his bones. As he had never dared to do, not even in burning the library, he let go of all the restrictions and was truly free, bursting out of custom and out of clothing as he became one with the sunlight and rode fast away. The shouts of the mere humans below became a faint sea breeze sound and then faded to silence as he raced into the noiseless radiance of the sunlight and darted away, spinning from beam to beam and escaping. He dropped into his bedroom, splashing into a puddle of sunshine on the carpet and arising human long enough to gather a few belongings. He surrounded them with a ring of candles and turned the flame to sun's fire, wrapping the parcels in magic and pulling them to him as he raced away on the light and off into the world. Jarin had chosen the exile they wanted to impose on him, and in doing so had made it his freedom.