Stories

Dec 08 2016

The Doll House Museum

Victor Armendariz lived happily next to the doll house museum his family had owned for more than a century.

“Careful dusting the Victorians!” his father cautioned him as Victor carefully opened the case and slipped the feather duster inside. This was no normal feather duster. It was small enough to fit into the hand of the motionless man in a dapper black suit and cummerbund. Or to slip into the glove covered fingers of the woman next to him stiffly holding a pence nez against her sightless eyes.

“When you’re finished there, we need to repaint the walls of the Swiss chalet.”

“Yes, Papa.” Victor was well aware that the busiest days were the ones when the museum was closed to the public. While he’d sometimes rather be reading, he didn’t really mind the tasks so much. It gave him the opportunity to visit each house, inspect it, and find out the condition of each of its inhabitants. Victor had given them all names, every tiny character living in the miniature structures, from the cottage the size of a matchbox to the multi-level mansion that took up the center of the large main room.

“You look fine to me, Mr. Black Suit and Ms. See Better.” He slid the glass door on the case closed.

Just as Victor approached the Swiss Chalet, though, he noticed something amiss. Heinrich, the yellow-haired skier, dangled from the wire above his seat on the ski lift that would carry him up to the top of the snow-capped mountain, if the ski lift actually moved. “Papa,” he said loudly so his voice would carry across the wide room. “Something has happened here.”

“What? What is it?” His father scurried from where he’d been working nearby. “Oh, my.”

Victor watched as his father untangled Heinrich from the wire and set him carefully back in the seat. His father had not yet given Victor the responsibility to rearrange or reposition any of the figures yet. Not until he was another year older.

“There. That’s better. But I wonder what caused that to happen?”

“An earthquake?” Victor responded.

“Perhaps. But not likely.” Victor’s father pressed one finger against the side of his nose as he always did when he was thinking. “And it certainly wasn’t caused by the weather.”

The doll museum, and the house that adjoined it, sat far off the road that connected the two nearest towns. For years Victor’s father and mother had journeyed the world collecting small things for the museum’s collection, and when they finally settled down, Victor’s father’s job was to maintain it while his mother and older sister created new objects to fit inside. On weekends, people from the nearby towns or tourists from places Victor had often never heard of paid 20 pesos to visit the building filled with the smallest of things the earth had to offer.

Victor’s father closed the display case door. “Can you finish up here, Victor, while I make a trip into town for more paint?”

“Yes, Papa.” Victor picked up a very small broom and dust pan to continue his chores.

After the car engine turned over and sped into the distance, the museum fell very silent. Victor’s mother had accompanied his father, and his sister was spending the afternoon with friends. Victor didn’t usually mind being alone. He liked to make up stories as he moved from display to display, and had already collected more than a hundred that he’d written down in his display journals.

When he reached the tree house, though, he found another unusual thing: the chefs from the restaurant display were now preparing food in the ornate home suspended in a giant oak tree replica. And when he rushed over to the restaurant display, the group of stuffed monkeys usually found in Serena Pink Dress’s bedroom were now slumped over the counter filled with tiny sliced carrots. “How did this happen?!” Victor said to no one in particular. His voice echoed throughout the building.

Victor went over to his father’s reader, a machine connected to all the other doll house museum owners through a cable that stretched for miles in each direction. He turned it on and saw a flurry of comments. There were usually only one or two on any given day. “Something’s tossed my displays around…earthquakes…like a hurricane in the building…some sort of mischievous creature is playing games!”

Victor had never commented on his own, even though his father, who rarely added one either, never told him he couldn’t. He had watched his father do it a time or two and decided he could manage it. “My name is Victor,” he typed into the old typewriter connected to the machine. “We’ve had some problems with our figures changing displays. Sincerely, Victor Armendariz.” Victor sent the message before he realized he’d introduced himself twice, but he wasn’t concerned as he thought it might make him seem friendlier.

When Victor looked again, he saw his message lost among dozens of other anxious notes. Something was clearly wrong.

Instead of worrying, Victor set about making it right. Even as he was not supposed to move any figure, he decided that returning them to where they belonged, if he did it carefully, would be better than leaving them in the wrong place, and his father might not worry so much. Soon the stuffed monkeys were back with Serena Pink Dress in her storybook cottage and the chefs returned to their places in front of the chopped carrots.

Just as Victor was about to leave the room, satisfied it was back in order, he stopped. His favorite doll from Ghana no longer stood looking out from her wooden house onto a crystal blue sea, but instead leaned against the inside of the case holding the Inuit family building an ice house from snow.

Victor ran as fast as he could through the door and into his house, barely noticing the brisk, cold wind gusting against him. In the rush, he’d forgotten to put on his coat. Shivering from frigid air and fright, he dropped into his bed and pulled the cover over him. After a few minutes of considering what might be causing every figure in his family’s museum to switch places, he remembered something and jumped out of bed. In the corner, he rifled through his stack of copies of “Doll House Magazine” until he found what he was looking for. On one copy, the cover mentioned a story he’d not gotten to yet. “Haunted Doll Houses: Are They Real?”

Victor had heard of haunted doll houses but had never experienced one himself in all the many years his family had tended the museum. As Victor picked up the magazine and thumbed through it, he wondered if ghosts weren’t the cause of all the displacement in the building only a few feet from where he lived.

The story focused on a girl named Laura and her experience with a haunted dollhouse she found when she moved into a new home. She worked out an agreement with the little woman who haunted it. That’s it! Victor thought. That’s what he would do, too.

He rushed over to the museum again, hoping to resolve the situation before his parents got back. The lights for some reason had dimmed so he couldn’t see very well, but he thought he might be able to get the doll house ghosts to behave in a darker room, even though it frightened him a little.

“Excuse me,” he said loudly but not harshly. “I know there are ghosts here moving through the houses. And I want to welcome you, but, well, I…if we could just talk…”

Victor was interrupted by a scattering of voices, whispering and giggling all around him.

“Excuse me,” he said again. “If you could speak a little more loudly, then I’d understand what you want…”

Suddenly, an explosion of voices sounded coming from all corners of the building. “Toys! Books! Stuffed animals! Games!” So many voices that he couldn’t keep up with what they were saying.

Victor ran out the door, shutting it behind him, and hurried back to his room as the sky darkened above him and a moon hung just above the forest. Once he reached his bedroom, Victor quickly read through the article again—and after a few moments of frustration, it dawned on him. He had the answer. “Of course!” The girl Laura was told by the small woman in the doll house that the larger house was also inhabited by ghosts of childhood, the remnants of spirits of people who’d lived there who had grown up and left those spirits behind.

“What if…?” he asked himself. What if, for some reason, the ghosts of childhood all over the world decided to enter the doll house museums everywhere, believing they were places to play.

Victor pressed his palms against both sides of his head, trying to figure out a way to get the childhood ghosts—if that’s what they were—to leave the museum. He took in a frustrated breath and let it out again. He remembered that night was the evening of the winter fireworks, one of his favorite nights. And the view from outside their home was as good as the view from either of the towns. He had to hurry. He had to find a way. He had to…

Victor’s eyes widened. He had an idea. And one more time he ran out of his house and back to the museum, just as he heard the first ‘pop!’ He threw open the door. “Come on, everyone! Look at what’s happening. Better than toys! Better than stuffed animals! Better than games!” And with a big ‘whoosh’ the voices slipped past him and swirled into the sky toward the brilliant colorful lights.

Victor sighed his relief but didn’t spend much time watching the fireworks show. He left the doors open while he set about straightening up the museum. When the last figure was back in its proper place, he stepped out and watched the final stunning moments exploding above his head. Soon after the show finished, the lights of the family car illuminated the snow that had begun to fall from the cotton candy clouds that formed after the fireworks.

“Victor, did you see the fireworks show! Humberto outdid himself this year!”

“I did, Papa. Everything about it was…amazing!”

Victor never told his father what happened at the museum, but he did find time to go to the reader and type in his suggestion. “All of the disruption is caused by the ghosts of childhood and all you have to do is distract them with something outside to encourage them to leave. Sincerely, Victor Armendariz.” Soon, he had so many questions from other doll house owners that he had to return to the reader several times a day to answer them.

So, even though he never said anything to his father about that day, Victor knew his father had to have read his messages. “Good job, my son,” his father once said, smiling, and tapped Victor on his shoulder without explanation.

Aug 18 2016

The Light Keeper

Download The Light Keeper

Night had not yet melded into day when Charlotte Lucero left the cottage and began the climb up the mountain path. The soft breeze barely nudged her hair the color of a starless night sky. She trudged up the mountainside with the lantern lighting the way, even though enough sunlight joined with full moonlight to accomplish the same task. She could still see the thin strands of white move with the subtle waves across the open waters surrounding her island home.

The further Charlotte walked the more the fragrance of the nightly meal dwindled. The aroma of vegetables from the garden simmering in broth on the wood stove faded from her narrow nose but didn’t leave her memory. Charlotte’s stomach rumbled but she knew that at least an hour would pass before she would join the rest of her family at the table.

Every night for two weeks her father had instructed her on the illumination task. “Add a little more oil,” her father had told her the night before. “That’s it. That’s enough. You never want to overfill the bowl.” This night would be her first on her own.

Charlotte approached the steepest part of the hill, setting the lantern on a ridge further up the path and climbed until she reached the lantern, then repeated the action several times more until she finally came to the red door. Once in front of it, she inserted the skeleton key and opened the door, releasing the smell of damp air and salty sea contained within the round stone walls.

Next came the forty stone steps that spiraled upward. After passing the large vat of oil, she took each step while grasping the lantern almost as tall as she was. The circular tower only held darkness and she couldn’t see anything without it. No matter how hard she tried, the metal of the lantern scraped against the wall as she used it to light the way.

When Charlotte reached the top, she moved to a barrel near the center of the room and opened it, freeing a blaze of golden luminescence trapped underneath the wooden cover. She picked up a large ladle hanging on the barrel and began to pour the luminous oil into a large bowl on a stand in the middle of the room. Charlotte could already see the glow reflecting in the windows that surrounded the bowl, glass portals that stood from floor to tall ceiling.

Charlotte narrowed her eyes as she concentrated on the task. The night before, ten ladles’ full had been sufficient to fill the bowl to the right level. And ten ladles that night seemed just right to add to the remnants left from the night before. By the eighth ladle, Charlotte momentarily looked away from the bowl because the light was so intense on her young eyes.

“Narrow your lids,” her father had told her. “Don’t ever take your eyes off the oil or you will surely make a mistake.”

Charlotte remembered what he’d said and returned her gaze to the bowl to watch from the slits between her eyelids. When she saw that each window pane fully reflected the illumination, she knew her job was complete.

Charlotte saw that the barrel was still full of oil before she returned the cover. As she made her way back down the stairs and then the path, she remembered that it was her responsibility to return at midnight to make sure that the oil that remained would be enough to last through the night. When she reached her home, she found food on the table and a warm refuge from the cool and damp sea air.

After supper, her father took her out onto the farthest point of land above the rocky crags where the island met the sea. He planted his hands on his hips, looked up at the illumination tower and nodded. “Very good, little Charlotte. You make our family very proud.”

After she returned from the final trip that evening just before the hour struck twelve, Charlotte felt particularly satisfied as her father’s words eased her mind into sleep.

For eight nights the lighting went well. Every evening, Charlotte twice made the trip to the top room of the illumination tower. And every night she returned to her bed. When she awoke every morning, she went outside and looked up to see the remaining light in the tower merge with the dawn’s new glow.

On the morning of the ninth day, Charlotte barely noticed the wind tossing around the leaves scattered across the land as she watched from the lookout as her father’s boat left the dock. He began his several-hour journey to the mainland for monthly provisions. After her father’s boat disappeared into the distance, she finished breakfast, read her books, completed her math problems and helped her younger brother and sister, the twins Bridget and Harold, with their science project—filling two glass jars with colored water and using small plates for an experiment on the pressure of the atmosphere. Charlotte stopped midday for lunch with her siblings, joined them in hammocks for a midday nap afterwards, and then settled at her sketchbook for an afternoon spent drawing. While her sister and brother played outside in the garden, Charlotte sketched the new blooms from just a few of the flower pots growing in the nearby greenhouse. The task commanded so much of Charlotte’s attention that she didn’t notice the clinking of glass or the rumble of limbs falling from trees.

After a long time finally completing her last sketch, Charlotte looked at the clock and saw it was after 5:30. When she peered out the window her sister and brother were not in the garden as she expected they would be. She had only a short time to prepare supper and complete her evening task. “Bridget! Harold!” she called to them, fighting the growing fear that she would have too much to do and she wouldn’t get to the illumination tower until night fall. “Why is this the day that da chose to go to shore?” she asked herself.

Outside, she found the broken glass from the jars and plates used in the science experiment. She picked up the shards and saw many branches littering the ground. She called to her sister and brother one more time.

“There you are!” Charlotte grasped her siblings’ collars as she pulled them from behind two large trees where they were studying the insects crawling across a particularly large branch. “Where have you been?! Don’t answer that. I can see where you’ve been.” She took their hands and pulled them against the blustery wind as she made her way toward the cottage. Once inside the kitchen, she led them to the table and pulled the cloth covering the basket in the middle of it. “Now sit there and have a piece of bread. I’ll feed you once I come back.”

“But I’m hungrier for more than that!” Bridget pouted.

“This won’t near fill me up!” whined Harold.

“I’ll be back soon to give you more. Just stay there, and don’t leave the house!” Charlotte grabbed her coat and left through the back door

Panic began to build in her as she fought her way up the mountain path. Her father would have to see the rocks to keep from destroying his small boat when he returned. And she needed to light up the island for any ship that might be seeking shelter there or making its way to the mainland.

After what seemed like hours, Charlotte finally reached the top floor of the tower. She hastily filled the bowl and returned the cover to the barrel. The light filled the top room and she felt satisfied that enough light shone to help any sailors nearby. Her confidence waned, though, when she saw the churning dark clouds above her in the darkening sky. This will have to be enough, she told herself, watching the boat launch as she moved down the path toward the cottage. She didn’t notice that as she came down the stairs, the light immediately dimmed.

Charlotte prepared a simple supper that night of cheese, bread and fruit, listening carefully for the door to open and her father to step inside, safe and sound.

“Father’s awfully late tonight,” Bridget said.

“I hope he hasn’t drowned,” Harold added. He didn’t act that concerned, as if he didn’t really know what it was to drown.

After her sister and brother went to bed and the clock struck eleven, Charlotte grew so worried that she lit the lantern early and made her way out the door in the howling wind. She walked the path but down this time instead of up, while raindrops pelted her like needles. When she reached the boat dock, she felt relieved to see her father’s boat, a small bobbing shadow on the surface of the water. She grasped the lantern tightly, held it out so he could see it as he slowly rowed toward the shore.

When the boat finally reached the dock, she helped him tie the rope to the pillar and he struggled to pull himself up with Charlotte’s help. Just as soon as he got to his feet on the dock, definitely favoring one leg, he told her, “There’s a ship, Charlotte. And it looks familiar.”

Before she’d had a chance to respond, Charlotte followed the direction to where her father pointed. When she looked up at the tower, she saw the faint light coming from inside it.

“Papa! Someone needs to add more oil!”

“I fell and hurt my leg getting into the boat. You’ll have to do it. I’ll never get up there in time.” Her father grasped her shoulders while the wind tossed his hair and the rain glazed his face. “I’ll take care of your brother and sister. You’ll have to make your way to the tower yourself.”

Charlotte tried not to panic or cry, although she wanted to do both. Instead, she helped her father get to the door of the cottage, then accepted his hug and encouraging words while she climbed up the path as usual.

Charlotte had to take small careful steps as the pathway was very slick. She worried sometimes that she would not reach the door without falling off the side of the steepest points. But with all of her efforts she made it to the red door and the top of the stairs. When she looked in the bowl, she saw that she had not put as much oil as she’d thought. And when she opened the barrel, she saw that it was nearly empty.

“How will I ever get the oil from the tank downstairs to the top on time?!” she asked no one. She remembered the ship on the ocean and how important it would be to light the tower as fast as she could.

Charlotte made a plan; she would take the bowl downstairs, fill it, and use the light to come back up the stairs and put the bowl back in its place.

She lifted the bowl from its perch and used the long sleeves of her tunic, doubling the cloth over, to carry the hot vessel. She stepped carefully down one step, then the next and the next. She let out the breath she’d been holding when she reached the bottom floor. There, she opened the large vat and for the first time on her own, syphoned the oil into the bowl until it was full.

I’ll come back tomorrow to fill the barrel, she told herself as she walked, again stepping slowly and struggling to hold the scalding hot bowl to the side so that she could see where she was stepping. Finally, she reached the top, set the bowl in place, and watched the golden light fill the window panes all around.

Exhausted, she made her way down the stairway, through the red door, and locked it behind her. Even with the storm, she could see the wide open sea surrounding the island and mirroring the churning black clouds. A large ship moved toward the dock through the angry waves with the wind beating hard against its sails.

Charlotte moved cautiously but swiftly down the pathway, sometimes stopping to pull her feet from the sucking mud as she made her way. She passed the cottage and by the time she reached the boat dock the rain had drenched her. Watching the ship quickly approach the dock, she worried that even with the light, it would crash against the boulders before it reached the slightly calmer lagoon just below the cottage. She realized how gargantuan the ship was, its masts rising high above her when it finally reached the end of the long dock. After the anchor dropped, figures lowered small boats brimming with passengers. Charlotte looked carefully at the portals lit from inside, searching for a familiar face as many of the passengers and ship’s crew poured out of the smaller boats, all soaked to the skin. She wouldn’t relax until she finally saw the ship’s first officer approaching the dock like a tall and willowy shadow. The captain didn’t wait for the boat to arrive at the dock but made a precarious jump and landed with a thud a few feet in front of her. Charlotte took her lantern and walked up to the imposing figure barely affected by the wind and rain. She shone the lantern light in line with her own face.

“There’s the light keeper!” The captain pulled her into an embrace.

“Just bringing my mama home safe again from a long voyage,” Charlotte whispered and pulled back to see the light of the lantern illuminate her mother’s smile.

Subscribe to the monthly Stories are Journeys and receive a free ebook of Wendy Darling Bedtime Stories when it’s published later this year.

Jul 21 2016

Excerpt from Golondrina and the White Butterflies

Download this Excerpt from Golondrina and the White Butterflies

It was one of those days of summer, one of those hot days when the sweat from the feet of insects makes sizzling sounds on the rocks. On the banks of the Cuadrante Lake, Golondrina sat mending a fishing net. The cool blue waters lapped at her feet. The tall grasses around her swayed in the slight breeze. Even when the grass grazed her cheek and jumping fish splashed water over her toes, Golondrina couldn’t think of anything but the discomfort of a tiny desire, a desire so small that if you were to hold it in your hand you would see it was the size of the seed of a copinol tree. For a moment, she looked up from the fishing net and toward the path which led from her village, Santa Maria de las Diez, to the nearby town of San Benito de las Once, and she wanted more than anything to move with her family to San Benito.

In San Benito, she’d heard, they played many games that had not yet reached Santa Maria and, in San Benito, the mangos that she loved so much grew to the size of pumpkins. Most of all, though, after growing up in Santa Maria, she wanted to live in a new place with new people and make new friends. In Santa Maria, the village celebrated with a feast every time the moon was full, and in San Benito, they celebrated with a feast every new moon under a sky filled with twinkling stars.

“I really wish my family could move to San Benito,” Golondrina said to no one in particular. A swirling cloud of mayflies stopped to listen, but only for a moment. Golondrina let out a deep sigh, and the desire in her heart burst like a dandelion in a strong wind and fed an idea that she should try to do what she could to make her wish come true.

Golondrina pulled up the fishing net up from the water and, seeing a caterpillar, decided she would explain to it what she had started to relate to the mayflies. “You know, caterpillar, in a few days we will celebrate the Day of the Fiesto fo the New Faces. If my sister or brother is born before then, we may be the famly chosen from Santa Maria to move to San Benito.” The disinterested caterpillar twisted about and continued its journey around her and toward the path up the mountain. “I guess caterpillars aren’t concerned with such things.”

Each year, during the Day of the Fiesta of the New Faces, a family of four was chosen from each village to move to the next one. On that day, a big celebration took place to welcome the new family. Golondrina’s family, made up of her mother, father and herself, lacked one member to make four. For six years, Golondrina’s mother had awaited the birth of her second child. The baby would not be born until the passing of Santa Maria’s oldest resident, Don Cuervo.

Santa Maria de las Diez was one of the twelve villages which surrounded the bright blue waters of the Cuadrante Lake. The edge of each village stood exactly forty meters from the lake. Exactly ten kilometers separated each village from the next. Even when the strong winds blew and lifted the thatched-roof huts from the ground, the villages never varied from these positions. Surrounding them all were the cloud-topped Mountains Bastante Altas.

It was curious, but at that time, in each of the towns on the lake, a visitor could ask each woman, man, child and baby to line up and the visitor would always scount one hundred people—never more, never less. A new baby was never born unless someone, usually the oldest person in the village, died. Most people were healthy and lived very long lives, except in the rare case that someone did something extremely foolish. This hadn’t happened in Santa Maria since years before when a man named Pavo ate two dozen pears, tied wooden paddles to his hands and feet, and attempted to swim the circumference of the Cuadrante Lake. When he was not seen for days and a new baby was born, it was believed that Pavo had drowned somewhere alon the way.

Golondrina’s mind was still preoccupied with her longing as she folded her net, as she dropped the day’s catch into a basket after throwing back the smallest of the fish, and as she made her way up the path toward her home. She had never told her parents of this longing. Her mother had attributed Golondrina’s constant sighing to the spores from the grasses growing up the mountainside. Everyone knows that the spores sometimes lodge in the throat or in the stomach. There they turn into hard objects which make sleeping and eating difficult and bring on constant sighing.

As she walked up the path, Golondrina passed the other women preparing to end their day fishing. None was a better fisher than Golondrina. Every morning, without fail, her net filled with fish of many sizes and many colors. It was the custom in all of the towns on the lake that the women fished and the men tended the crops planted on the side of the mountains for half of each year. When the half-year was over, the women changed to farmers and the men to fishers. But all year long, Golondrina fished, because hre net always filled with fish and because, in this way, her life passed contentedly.

Just before reaching her home, Golondrina heard noises coming from inside. The noises were rhythmic, as if the house itself were drawing in deep breaths and exhaling loudly through the breaks in the walls.

Golondrina opened the door and found her mother, Paloma, sitting in the middle of the room, her weighty body covered with perspiration and planted in a chair. “Ay de mi!” her mother lamented. “It has been so lon since I was comfortable! And how long it has been since I slept in peace!” She rose slowly from the chair and began to wash the table in front of her with long strokes of her rag in a rhythm that matched her breathing. Golondrina rushed forward to help her.

“Sit down, mama!” Golondrina begged her suffering mother.

Her mother continued her lament. “All night long, all day long, I hear his little voice crying from inside me, ‘Free me! Free me!’ I don’t think I can stand anymore!” With her last word spoken, Golondrina’s mother fell back into the chair.

The moment had arrived, thought Golondrina, for something to be done. She gathered up her courage and left for the house of Don Cuervo.

In the late afternoon sun, Golondrina walked up the hill past the children playin and through the sparkling water streaming down the mountain. Across the stream, she came upon a tiny house tucked away in the hillside. In a small chair pressed against the outside wall of the hut sat the aged man, a man who had lived more than 100 years. As he slept, his snores echoed loudly through the clearing. On his ihead he wore a red cap. From his face great a long, gray beard which moved upward as it was drawn in by his breath.

The scent of the day’s catch, clinging to her clothing and pressed into her hands, always preceded Golondrina. As she inched closer to him, the elderly man awoke with a start and shouted, “What swims this way?!”

“No one, Don Cuervo,” she said. “It’s me. Golondrina.”

“Ah, muchcacha.” He laughed a cackling laugh. “I must have been dreaming.” He stretched his arms above his head and yawned. For several moments he was frozen in that position, until he dropped his arms and asked her, “Why did you come all this way to talk with me?”

“I wanted to talk with you…” Golondrina paused, unsure of what else to say. “I wanted to talk with you about…about…the state of my mother, Dona Paloma.” After that, no matter how much she trie,d no words would leave Golondrina’s mouth.

Don Cuervo raised his eyebrows—first one, then the other, then both together. He jumped from his chair and let out another laugh. “I already know why you are here, Golondrinita,” he said. “You want to know why I’m still alive, no?”

“No! That’s not…” The unexpected movement caused Golondrina to jump back against a tree.

Don Cuervo inched closer, looking into her eyes while wearing a sly smile on his face. He again raised one eyebrow and lowered his voice. “I will tell you why. You know my two great-great-grandsons, don’t you?”

Golondrina did know them, two foolish young men who acted just like their father, Pavo. “They both love the fish you bring from the lake. If you move from Santa Maria—and I know that you will if you have the opportunity—then you will no longer bring them so many wonderful fish.”

With the sound of his laughter still ringing in her ears, Golondrina walked back down the path and toward her home.

The day of the fiesta came. There was music and dancing and food and games, but Golondrina sat alone away from the party. She didn’t even join everyone to say goodbye to the family that was leaving, nor to greet the new family that arrived that evening.

The day after the fiesta, Don Cuervo went to sleep in his chair as he did every afternoon. When his grandson came to wake him, all that was left was the sound of Don Cuervo’s snores echoing throughout the clearing. A red cap rested on the seat of his empty chair.

Shortly after, Golondrina’s brother was born.

Purchase the novella, Golondrina and the White Butterflies on Amazon.

Jun 23 2016

Marcella

Download Marcella.

Marcella Bianchi always enchanted Nils Fleming. He did not think of her as he would a girlfriend. She was six years older than he. He never wanted to hold her hand or take her to the cinema to watch the latest Audrey de Lejos movie. But from the first moment he saw her through the window of his classroom, walking through the courtyard separating upper from lower school, she fascinated him.

Whenever Nils Fleming heard his mother mention her former student, the first words from her mouth were, “Oh, that Marcella!” And his father, who also taught her in the lower school when she was 9 years old, would simply grip his forehead and say, “Marcella. That Marcella.”

Marcella still intrigued Nils as he followed her up the cobblestone streets of the village of Les Oiseaux. She sauntered in front of him, a bright blue satchel bouncing against her side and a small cage containing a white rabbit hung from her opposite shoulder. She walked by the flower shop and Ms. Orlande’s Emporium of Stunning Apparel. She did not pause at the frozen custard stand, although he crossed his fingers that she might, but passed it and made her way through the wafting and warm smells of the bakery beside it. Nils stayed close behind her as she took a turn around a corner and quickened his pace so he wouldn’t fall too far behind.

“Was she not a good student?” he’d asked his mother.

“Oh, no. She was very bright and completed her assignments on time.”

“Did she talk in class?” he’d asked his father.

“Only when I called on her.”

“Then what is it about her?”

“You could always tell that she never took anything seriously,” his mother interjected.

His father added, “And, well, her eyes are so large and her smile so, so…”

“So mischievous.” Nils’ mother pursed her lips after saying it.

His father furrowed his brow. “Yes. Like she knew something you didn’t, and that it was something you should know.”

Marcela came from the village of Occhi Grandi, a scattering of houses on the tree covered mountain above Les Oiseaux. His father repeated a well-known saying about them: “They eat unusual grasses and travel good distances.”

His mother scoffed, “That’s what they say about their goats.”

Nils’ father corrected himself reluctantly. “Ah. You’re probably right.”

Occhi Grandi was known for its goat herding—you could see from Les Oiseaux the white and brown dots of their collective herd scattered across the mountain. The animals weren’t the only ones associated with Ochi Grandi who liked to wander. Most of the villagers, too, were travelers, a not unexpected phenomenon given that they spent their early lives above everything, taking in so many sights in the distance that they wanted to explore and sometimes, like Marcella, to settled down in.

Members of our family were strangers here, too, at one time, Nils said to himself, although he never said it out loud to his parents or his two older brothers who would use his remark as another reason to taunt him.

“That’s different,” Guy would likely say. “Everybody knows that.”

“The Fleming family has lived here at least a decade. Or ten years.” Nils’ brother Boris wasn’t very good with math. “Everybody knows that, too, Nils.”

Nils was certain that, if such a conversation were to take place, his parents would pretend they didn’t hear him, because the topic of when they arrived in Les Oiseaux was always a sensitive one.

Marcella finally stopped and Nils did, too, after ending his brief visit with his distracting thoughts. He paused well before he reached the abandoned shop with its broken window and shingles falling from its roof. Nils knew that building because he always passed it on the way home from school. What could Marcella possibly want at that place?

Marcella didn’t seem to notice him a half block to her right when she pulled a skeleton key from her pocket and opened the door to a flurry of paint chips settling to the ground. She went inside and shut the door behind her.

Nils took a few steps slowly until he reached the broad but very clouded and dirty window with its jagged bread from top to bottom right in the middle. He found a streak where the grime wasn’t so thick and peered inside. Marcella meandered around the deserted shop, empty except for a wooden display case with a glass front. She cradled her elbow in her hand as she walked and tapped on the tip of her nose with one finger of the other. Nils’ gaze crawled to the ceiling of ornate but rusted tin, followed the dark trail of a roof leak along the top of one wall, and lowered it to fix on a high forehead and very large eyes that stared back at him. Marcella lifted the corners of her mouth slightly pausing for a few moments before she disappeared behind the dark curtain of grime pasted to the window.

The door opened. “Aren’t you Nils Fleming?”

“Yes.”

“Then come in.”

Slowly Nils stepped to the door and slipped inside to be greeted by a cloud of light dust and an unpleasant musty smell.

“I though I saw you following me here. Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” She scanned the ceiling without waiting for his answer.

“No. I. Just. Like your bird.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t look his way. “This is my new candy shop. What do you think?”

He didn’t respond for a few moments. “You’re opening a candy shop?”

“I finished my post-academy studies in confection management and I’m ready to put that to use.” Her voice trailed off, as if she’d just given a brief presentation that no longer interested her.

“I’m glad you have a plan.” Nils could hardly hear himself talk his voice was so low.

“Upstairs is a small apartment where I’ll live while I work here during the day. Nils,” she said as if an idea had just sprung into her mind and she finally looked directly at him. “Would you be willing to help me? I could pay you. Not much, but maybe two quarter francs for each afternoon you come by? Double that for several hours on Saturdays?”

Nils wasn’t absolutely sure what to answer. He had other plans but the prospect of candy and money to pay for the next installments of the Adventures of Louis and Louise that he’d seen at the bookshop finally dislodged the answer he’d been holding between his slightly gapped front teeth. “I’d be happy to help you, Marcella.”

“Good. Pick up a broom and we’ll start right away.” Marcella grabbed a mop and bucket from one corner for herself.

That afternoon when he arrived home, Nils thought it best not to mention to his family that he was helping Marcella. At dinner he announced he would be spending his afternoons and Saturdays at the small village library, which would have been true if he hadn’t received Marcella’s offer.

Nils came to the shop one Saturday morning and saw Marcella again tapping her nose and looking about. “Nils, I would like to name this Marcella’s Candy Shop. What do you think?”

“Well, I…” How could he break it to her that so many people would associate the candy with her and might not come in? “I think you should name it something, well, more descriptive.”

“Maybe you’re right. I know that people think of me as someone who thinks she knows more than they do.” Having worked with her for a while, Nils had come to believe that their view of her was somewhat accurate. “I know what to name it.” She reached for a paint brush and began to sketch a few words on the board resting on a table in the middle of the room.

The following week, after Nils returned from a visit to his grandparents in the country, he found the place to be even more transformed. A sign hung above the door with a pair of smiling lips painted over the words, “Bouches Animés Candy Shop,” Inside, colorful paintings filled the walls and the wood of the display cases gleamed with oil. Behind the glass, white plates held candies of many colors, colors like none Nils had ever seen before.

“Would you like some ice custard? Today’s flavor is berry.” Marcella held out a small cup cradling a dome of milky white threaded with purple.

Nils took it and ran the cold goodness over his tongue. “It’s tangy.”

“That’s because it’s made of goat milk cream. I’m glad you like it.”

“It’s beautiful, Marcella. I never would have thought you could turn this into such a place.”

She opened the case from the back and pulled out a plate of blue candies. “Try these. They’re Himalayan snow candy.” Nils picked one up and placed it on his tongue. It disappeared rapidly, leaving behind a puff of cold air in his mouth and a vivid memory of a snowy landscape off a high peak, even though Nils had never climbed a mountain before.

Marcella tapped under his chin. “I always have to remind people to close their mouths when they taste these.”

“But how did you…?”

“The people of my town do not eat grasses, but we do travel distances. And as we’ve traveled through the years, all types of recipes for candy have returned to us. Many of these are created with very special products from a very special emporium.” Marcella closed the display case. “Now, I expect that you will continue to work on the weekends, except when you have to visit someone, and that you’ll help me with clean up then on a couple of days a week of your choosing. If you work for me faithfully, I can teach you how to make all of these. You’ll find that to be important someday.”

“I should be available those times.” Nils felt very pleased that he could continue to work with Marcella and the prospect that she’d teach him her secrets made him very happy.

“This is for you.” She handed him a piece of paper.

He turned it over but couldn’t read the very small printing. “What is it?”

“It’s a promissory note for your work these last four weeks. I should be able to make good on it by the end of the month.”

Nils stuffed the paper in his pocket, disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to visit the bookshop yet and buy what he wanted. His list of books had grown very long.

In spite of not yet being paid, Nils continued to work with Marcella. Almost immediately she introduced him to each of the many types of candy she made. Orange blossom drops from Siam. Cardamom nut clusters. Turkish delight. Dark chocolate candies shaped like tiny bowls that occasionally emitted puffs of smoke. A deep red sour cherry that darted around inside the mouth of anyone who tried to consume it.

Each candy left a memory. Of riding on an elephant. Navigating a frothy river. Sailing over a field of dandelions attached to a giant kite. But for a week, no one seemed interested in the shop and much of the candy went to waste. Then one day, a very small girl, a hat perched on her mounds of tight amber curls, came inside. She spent a long time surveying the different candies without speaking until she handed Marcella one coin. “A daffodil cream, please.”

Marcella smiled her usual half smile and placed two pieces of the golden candy into a small bag. “You’re Penelope Moraine, aren’t you? Please tell your mother I enjoyed studying art with her at her studio.”

“I will,” the girl said in a voice much like a new baby’s if it could talk. She took her candy and went on.

“I’ve never seen her before,” Nils said.

“She’s been looking in the window every afternoon for the last few days. I’m glad she finally got up the courage to come inside. I hope she’ll be back. Now, Nils, this is a good time for me to show you how to make the candy.”

Nils perked up, even as he wondered who he was making the candy for.

That afternoon Marcella showed him how to create the sugar dough, kneading it against the marble slab in the back of the shop. After showing Nils when it was the right consistency, she went to a cabinet and opened it to reveal shelves of small brown bottles. She studied the bottles before selecting one with a green label.

“This one is very special,” she told Nils. “It’s Irish clover essence.” She pulled out the dropper and counted to seven as each drop of essence splattered onto the dough. “Always seven and never more or less for any of these.” She returned the bottle to the cabinet, closed the door and locked it with the flick of her fingers over a small wooden panel.

“You should know, Nils,” she told him as she worked the essence into the dough which slowly turned from frosty and colorless to a bright green color. “That I purchase the essences from a small shop on the Rue des Reves on the outskirts of Paris.”

The bell on the front door sounded. Nils followed Marcella out into the main room of the shop. The girl had returned, but this time with a woman holding her hand and looking very stern. “My daughter tells me that you have candy that makes you hallucinate gardens. Is this true?”

“Bonjour, M. Krauss. I just told your daughter this morning how much I enjoyed your painting class. Would you like to try the daffodil cream?”

The little girl’s mother seemed reluctant, but finally held out her hand. “Penelope shared one piece of the candy with me, but I never expected…” She looked at the yellow candy resting in her palm, then popped it into her mouth. Her face lit up and she drew in an obvious breath through her nose. “I can smell them. How do you do this, Marcella?”

“I use only the finest flavorings for my candy, M. Krauss.”

“I see. Well, I would like a dozen of these.”

“I’ll box them up.”

Not within days but within hours word had spread of Marcella’s wonderful candy and a trickle of villagers turned to a stream as they lined up through the door of the shop. Well before closing time, Marcella placed a sign on the door: “No more candy today. Please come back tomorrow.”

Over the following two weeks, business increased and, as much as Marcella made more of the candy than she’d made the day before, she still had to place the sign on the door, earlier and earlier in the day. She hired Nils every afternoon after school, and soon after that, gave a job to little Penelope, too, who proved to be quite efficient at making candy. Nils found that he had to work later and later, and often came home so tired that he immediately went to bed after supper and always turned down dessert. It didn’t take long before he had to admit to his parents where he went every day after school and every Saturday.

At first, Nils’ parents, once they found out where he went, tried to stop him from working there. “You have schoolwork that needs to be done, son,” his father told him.

“But I do finish my homework and I’m not falling behind.” Luckily Marcella gave him breaks to do his tasks when the crowds thinned or he’d never have time to finish.

“What does Marcella tell you?” His mother elevated one brow.

“She tells me how to make candy. That’s all.” And I think of her as a friend, he thought to himself, but didn’t say it.

The next afternoon, Nils was surprised to look up from placing a new batch of candy in the case and seeing his parents walk through the door of the shop. “Madame and Monsieur Merkel-Fleming. What candy would you like today?” Marcella did not acknowledge that they’d both been her teachers.

“We just came to…” Nils’ mother scanned the case, dazzled by the choices, it seemed. “What’s that?”

“Ah, Andean marzipan. It’s perfect for the open minded person.” She reached in and plucked several from the plate and handed one to each of Nils’ parents.

They studied the candies before reluctantly biting into them. Nils’ mother was first to react. “These are delicious and…what’s this? Who are these people with large eyes? And where am I? And will I fall?” She stared at something at Marcella’s feet, something only she could see.

“For a brief moment, you walked the forbidden portion of the Inca Trail with some of my relatives,” Marcella said. “It happens all the time.”

“They’re quite skilled at climbing. And very nice. One shared his drink with me.” Nils’ mother wrinkled her brow as she seemed to exit the memory. “The candy is delicious, but I’m not very fond of the hike, I have to admit.”

“I’m sure they were happy to have you along regardless.” Marcella closed the display case.

“Possibly,” Nils’ mother answered.

When Nils looked at his father, he seemed very pleased at wherever the candy took his imagination because he couldn’t stop laughing.

“Could I?” His mother pointed at a deep red candy. “Try that one.”

“Of course.” Marcella reached inside the case to fulfill Nils’ mother’s wishes.

From that point on, Nils’ family were regular customers and his parents no longer objected to his working there, though they did insist that he limit his hours so he still had time for school work and reading and hiking in the woods on Saturday mornings. Marcella then hired two others, a girl and a boy, to help her as well.

As time went on, Marcella’s shop became a fixture of the village of Les Oiseaux. Nils and Penelope grew up and continued to work at the shop, and fortunately Marcella finally made enough money to regularly pay them. They learned to make all matter of sweets, including iced custard, and in time, came up with their own ideas for different candies and sweets. Nils eventually finished school and was accepted into the program for the study of confectionery at the local university.

At the end of one day, Marcella and Nils finished cleaning up together after Penelope, in her last year of school, went home early to study for an exam the next day. As Marcella pulled the empty platters from the display cases, she told him, “Nils, it has always been a pleasure working with you.”

He looked up. “Thank you, Marcella.” She’d never said anything like that before. Instead of her mischievous smile, the corners of her mouth barely turned upward at all.

As he looked in her eyes, visions slowly appeared and drew him in. He found himself in a small boat on a churning sea, rising on a wave to meet a path on a cliff that took him through a forest of evergreens. He ran the path as soft as a pillow and at the end of the path, bounced toward the clouds that carried him for a while through the sky until he dropped down into the canopy of a rainforest surrounded by howling monkeys and brilliant red and blue parrots.

“Are you all right, Nils?”

Nils blinked and shook his head. “Oh, yes. I’m fine.”

“Good.” Marcella picked up the empty platter and took it away.

The next morning, Nils came into the shop and saw Penelope peering down at a card in her hand, one solitary tear rolling down her cheek.

“What is it?” Nils asked.

“It’s Marcella. She’s gone.”

“What?” Nils took the card from her.

“Nils and Penelope, it’s time for me to travel for a while, to have new adventures and open new candy shops and discover new confections. I’ll send you letters to share those. In the meantime, the shop belongs to both of you. Over the last year, I divided the apartment upstairs which was too large for me into two apartments with one shared kitchen. You’re both welcome to live there while you finish your studies. And please take care of the rabbit. Her name is Laurette.”

Nils wasn’t sure what to think and he wanted to cry himself. Instead he set aside his sadness and told Penelope, “It’s time to make the candy this afternoon. We promised everyone the lavender-lemon kisses.”

“I know,” Penelope wiped away the tear. “Everyone seems to be excited to try those.”

Nils put on the apron and went to the back room leaving Penelope to open the door to the line already forming. He thought of where Marcella might be travelling and what she might see. Just as he stepped into the back room, his eyes caught sight of something on a table. There, he found two small plates, each with one bright pink round on it. One had a small piece of paper with his name labeled on it and Penelope’s on a paper in front of the other. When he picked up the pink candy and took a bite, he immediately found himself walking a path with a forest on one side and a stream beside it, breathing in the fresh air filled with the scent of flowers and woods. In front of him, he saw Marcella, walking briskly up the path, her blue satchel bouncing against her side.

Apr 29 2016

Kiara

Click to download Kiara

Padraig Doherty sat on his favorite stump, the one most comfortable in that spot of green between his family’s cottage and the woods just behind it. The stump was just the right height and not to0 far from the back door making it easy to reach, an important consideration with one of his legs not as sturdy as the other. Though he’d never be able to run a race, his hearing was far superior to anyone his age studying at the Village Academy of Boys and Girls Learning Together. Just then, he made out the faint trill coming from a cloud of butterflies lofted by papery red wings lined with yellow and black.

Padraig shared the cottage with his father Michael and his sister Lyric, his snug cubbyhole of a room barely large enough for a narrow bed. He didn’t mind it was small. There was still enough room for his bookcase filled with books, gifts from both his father and his sister. Lyric often passed down her favorite books that she believed he would like.

Sometimes, just after dusk, if his father didn’t come for him or Lyric failed to call him to evening meal from her upstairs window, Padraig ignored his empty stomach and waited with his eyes closed, his curls of brown hair touched lightly by a soft breeze. And if he waited long enough, fingers of mist would wind around the trees and brush against his face.

And so it was that late afternoon. He often wondered about the mists, if they came from someplace or someone who might do him harm. Nothing had ever happened to him. But something was different. Something moved against his dangling legs. Something brushed from one side to the other. His eyes popped open. He saw nothing but the gauzy cloud extending from the woods.

The cloud thinned, and Padraig looked down. A small cat sat just at his feet, looking up at him as if she’d always been there, as if she were exactly where she belonged. The tiny cat, not really a kitten he realized when she jumped into his lap, pressed her gray head marked by black lines against his cheek as if wiping away the remnants of the mist.

“What’s this?!” Lyric approached them both and picked up the cat.

“She came from the woods, Lyric.” Padraig stood and gave the cat a few welcome pets while Lyric rubbed the top of her head.

“How do you know she’s a girl cat, Padraig?”

“I don’t know. I just know…somehow.”

“Sounds like she found us, don’t you think?”

Padraig could see the worry lines on Lyric’s forehead. “I think so.”

“But I don’t know if Dad will let us keep her at all.” She put the little cat down, but the creature didn’t move very far.

“Why not?”

“Well, she’s another mouth to feed. And the people of Na Crainn don’t really like cats at all. I do.”

“And I do, too. We should call her Kiara.”

“Why’s that?” Lyric leaned over to again stroke the cat at her feet.

“Because if we give her a name, Dad will have to let us keep her, no matter what people think.”

Lyric smiled. “Kiara. I like that name. And it does seem to suit her. Let’s go inside then, and if she stays at the door, we’ll know she’s intended to be here.”

“Especially if we both tell Dad together that our house needs a cat.” He took Lyric’s outstretched hand.

“Because she’ll keep down the rats, for sure.” She smiled as she walked toward the back door, Padraig and the cat Kiara just behind her.

After dinner and much convincing and several days when she proved her skill at rat catching, Kiara joined the Doherty household. Only later would they all come to know just how important it was to have her there.

What’s New on the Island