All Better

 

Glynn A. Germany

green tea with almond biscotti

 

 

‘Luellen Chandler!’ Maizie called through the open window. ‘What are you doing sitting out there in the hot sun?’

‘I'm waiting for Daddy to come back,’ the child answered.

Maizie straightened with care, one hand to her back, and put the lace curtain back in place at the window. She frowned and shook her head.

‘Oh my,’ she muttered. ‘What has gotten into that poor girl now?’

Maizie ambled to the kitchen and poured a glass of iced lemonade with a straw. She put it on a polished wooden tray with a white doily then carried it to the porch.

‘Come sit up here in the shade,’ Maizie said as she patted an oversized wicker chair.  Luelleen climbed into the chair and kicked her bare feet back and forth.

‘I told you before, it is not ladylike to sit in the sun. You'll get covered in ugly freckles. You don't want that, do you?’

‘I'm not a lady. I'm only six years old.’

‘That's lady enough for me. Here, I brought you some lemonade.’

‘Thank you, Maizie.’

Maizie eased herself into an adjacent chair. The wicker crackled under her and gave off a musty scent of dust, the smell of furniture outside all day. The hot, humid afternoon air brought out the sweet scent of the honeysuckle climbing on the railing. Afternoon thunderclouds were building rapidly, leaden with rain. She was grateful for the cool shade of the wide veranda that wrapped about the house.

Mrs. Chandler emerged at the end of the veranda where hydrangea and azalea nestled in the shade of dogwood trees. A tall erect figure in a pale cream gown with a broad-brimmed sun hat fastened beneath her chin with an emerald ribbon, she walked at a regal pace through the garden, touching a blossom here, a leaf there.

Maizie watched her, then brought her attention back to the child beside her.

‘Now, tell me again what you are doing out here,’ Maize said.

‘I told you. I'm waiting for Daddy to come home.’ Luellen's cheeks puckered as she drew deeply from the straw. She craned her neck to see down the drive that led to the house.

‘Your father's been gone quite a while,’ said Maizie in a gentle voice. ‘What makes you think he is coming back today?’

‘Because I made it all better,’ said Luellen. She rocked back and forth with the straw in her mouth.

‘How did you make it all better?’

‘Well, me and Jim was down at the woodshed this morning--’

‘You went down to that place? After all the times I told you not to?’

Luellen sat with her mouth open, then nodded without making eye contact.

‘That pile of lumber is older than me,’ Maizie said. ‘Ready to fall down on you at any moment. I don't know why Mr. Chandler didn't have it torn down before he... The important thing is it's dangerous. Full of hornets, black widows, cottonmouths, and who knows what else. I don't want you down there. Hear me?’

Luellen nodded. ‘Yes, Maizie. That's what Jim said, too. But I was so bored and it is so quiet around here now.’ She spoke in a plaintive tone. ‘Jim said we shouldn't be there. I said it was okay, but he said it was not okay. He said he was going to tell, so I pushed him down.’

‘Louise Ellen Chandler! You pushed your little brother down? You can't go picking on him just because you are bigger.’

‘But he was going to tell.’ The child's voice took on a whining note.

‘I don't care, Missy. That wasn't ladylike. You want to grow up and be a lady like your mother, don't you?’ Maizie glanced back to the flower garden where Mrs. Chandler held court on a bench under the oak tree that backed the garden.

‘I want you to apologize to your little brother.’

‘Right now? I want to wait here for Daddy.’

Maizie wiped her mouth and sat back in her chair.

‘Well, maybe we can take care of that later,’ she said. ‘I still don't see what you disobeying me has to do with your father.’

Luellen rushed forward, her eyes wide.

‘It was all scary inside, just like you said. Then I found this box, old and falling apart like it was a million years old, filled with the most wonderful stuff. Coats and hats and that thing queens wear...’

‘A crown?’ asked Maizie. Luellen nodded and Maizie gazed across the yard to the horizon. ‘Goodness me, I forget about all that stuff.’ She was silent a moment, then turned back to Luellen.

‘When your mother was not much older than you, we used to play dress up. We had all kinds of getups, wigs, cheap costume jewelry--necklaces, rings, that sort of thing.’

‘That's what I found! A ring!’ Luellen bounced in excitement. ‘It was all dirty and yucky but I was so excited. I ran home and washed it up. I had to use Jim's toothbrush to get all the yuck off--’

‘You did what?’

‘You should have seen it. It is the most beautiful ring in the whole wide world. With all kinds of pretty stuff on it, green and blue and red. So much better than the old plain ring Mommy used to have, and I knew then that everything was going to be okay.’

Maizie wiped at the sweat on her brow and frowned. The air seemed thicker with the approaching rain.

‘Honey, I don't see it. How does an old ring make everything okay?’

‘Do I have to explain everything to you?’ asked Luellen with an exasperated look on her face.

‘Yes, child. Your old Maizie's feeling her age today. I think you better spell it out.’

‘Well,’ said Luellen, as if she were lecturing a slow student. ‘Mommy doesn't wear her ring anymore, right?’

‘You're talking about her wedding ring?’

Luellen nodded. ‘And that's why Daddy had to go away. You can't be married without rings. That's the rules.’ She emphasized her point with a sharp nod of her chin. ‘It's kind of like magic. Two people want to get married, so they get rings and that makes it okay.’ She took a sip of lemonade, then added as an afterthought. ‘And that's where babies come from.’

‘Whoa. Wait a minute. Babies come from rings?’

‘Of course. Don't you know anything? The mommy and the daddy put their rings together and then the baby appears in the mommy's stomach. Like with Jim.’

‘And with you, as I remember.’

‘Me, too?’ Luellen stopped to consider this, then rushed forward with her lecture.

‘Anyway, that's why Daddy had to go away. Don't you see? Mommy lost her ring! That's why Daddy was so mad all the time. He knew he would have to leave and, of course, he didn't want to, so he got mad. But now I've found an even better ring for Mommy, so Daddy can come back and things will be even better than before.’

Luellen took a deep draw of lemonade and craned her neck again to look down the drive.

‘Did you give this ring to your mother?’ Maizie asked.

‘Yep. And I told her how everything was going to be okay now.’

‘And how did she like that?’

‘She didn't say much, but I could tell she was happy because she was almost crying. You know how she gets when she is real happy, like when I drawed that picture for her last Christmas. She told me to run along, so I came out here. I want to be the first to see Daddy come back and tell him how much we all missed him.’

Maizie batted her eyes, then dabbed at them with a tissue she kept tucked in her bodice. She looked at the honeysuckle, listened to the low thrum of hummingbirds working among the blossoms. A breeze, laden with the scent of rain, carried a rumble of thunder.

Then she spoke, picking her words with care.

‘Sweetie, you know I've always been here for you. Whenever you got hurt, I was there to make it better. Wasn't I?’

Luellen broke off her surveillance of the drive and turned to Maizie.

‘Like that time I stepped in that red ant bed and you spit that icky stuff all over my feet?’

‘Girl, a paste of snuff for bee stings and ant bites is a cure older than me. It worked, didn't it?’

‘But it was icky!’

‘Well, that taught you to be more careful where you stood, didn't it?’

Luellen nodded.

‘My point is this,’ Maizie said, then paused. ‘My point is this,’ she repeated in a softer tone. ‘I'm still here. And I will always be here. Anytime anything hurts you, you can come to me.’

‘Like if I step in another anthill?’

‘Yes. Or, maybe, if you want something really badly and you don't get it. That would be bad, too, wouldn't it?’

Luellen shook her head. ‘That won't happen now that I've made everything better. It's like in fairy tales. We're all going to live happily ever after.’

Maizie closed her eyes, and after a few moments, bowed her head. The old woman and the child sat without moving. The heavy afternoon air muffled all sound. Even the hummingbirds fighting dogfights in and out of the honeysuckle, driving each off with angry buzzes, seemed to be at a distance. Suddenly the hummingbirds darted away like a school of fish before a predator. The leaves of the pin oaks in the front yard, awakened by the freshening wind, whispered among themselves. The pine trees murmured in agreement. Out of sight down the drive, a dog barked once. Then all hushed as the wind died away. The world held its breath for three eternities until Luellen slurped the bottom of her glass with her straw.

Maizie opened her eyes and straightened.

‘Would you like some more lemonade?’ she asked.

The child considered the question for a moment, then nodded.

‘Wouldn't you like to come inside, honey? I've got some bread-and-butter pudding about to come out of the oven. Wouldn't you like some of that?’

The child considered this question in turn, then shook her head and craned her neck again.

Maizie sighed and eased out of her chair. She took the empty glass, put it on the tray, and walked to the door. As she turned, she saw Mrs. Chandler on the garden bench under the oak in the garden, crumpled forward, face in hands, with her hat tumbled to the ground. Her disheveled hair blew in the gusts that rushed before the coming storm.

About the author

Glynn Germany is a short story writer working from the high desert of Albuquerque. Recently retired, he has returned to a long-standing writing habit that refuses to die, despite his best efforts. His work has appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Fabula Argentea.

 

Granna

 

by Nick Young

black coffee sweetened with sugar

 

She couldn't know -- how could she? 

 

She was but five, so she couldn't know that the ancient figure across the room was anything but stooped by the weight of time.  She couldn't know that once that woman with brittle skin etched by life's toil was as full of joy as she, reveling in the summer sun as she ran, laughing, through the dazzling wildflowers sprinkled up the slope of the low hillside that rose toward a patch of thick timber behind the faded brick farmhouse.  How could she know that as a schoolgirl the old one was bright, full of curiosity about the world and thirsty as a sponge for knowledge?  Or that in her teenage years, she kept a secret diary, confiding in its deckled pages the thrill of kissing a boy for the first time and her dreams of going to a college in the ivied East and living in a city with soaring buildings of dizzying heights.  She couldn't know how those yearnings were crushed away to dust by parents who put no stock in a girl having "them notions," prodding her relentlessly so that she finally surrendered, exhausted, abandoned her books and fell in with a fast crowd, living loose, for the thrill of the moment, roiling convention, flouting rectitude.  How could she know that the woman before her with lank gray hair and a stolid thickness about her once had a pin-up's face and a body that was all tightness and curves, driving men to frenzies of passion and jealousy sometimes settled with fists or a knife.  She could not know about the barroom nights that ended, panting, in a back seat or a shabby room in a rundown motel on the far side of the railroad tracks.  And she could not know how the people of the town whispered cruelly behind the woman's back, even as she strove to pull free of wantonness, refashion her life and let the past slip into the distance of memory.

 

No, she didn't know -- how could she?

 

What she knew was that this is old soul in the faded cornflower-blue shift who shuffled so slowly, hardly lifting her worn slippers as she moved, would never fail to bring her favorite teddy, to see them both safely tucked within the cocoon of blankets infused with the faint scent of cedar as the evening drew down.  And she knew this woman would bend low to stroke her hair with tremulous hand, place a gentle kiss upon her forehead, smile and whisper that the night would hold no terrors, and the morning would come with warm sunshine and bright birdsong.

 

About the author 

Nick Young is an award-winning broadcast journalist whose career included twenty years as a CBS News correspondent. His short stories have appeared in the San Antonio Review and Volumes I and II of the Writer Shed Stories anthologies.

 

 

Edward, The King

 

by D R Miller 

root beer on the rocks

 He clung on for dear life as everything around him broke apart. The ground churned and split, then a chink of bright light blinded him momentarily from somewhere above. His terror rose exponentially as a metal spear thudded down beside him, cruelly impaling his brother. He could only watch in anguish as his sibling disappeared into the blazing brilliance which seeped in from all sides now.

What in earth was happening? Everything had been calm and serene in his kingdom. Without warning, an apocalyptic earthquake had struck. He had heard of such things before, in other kingdoms, but had always dismissed it as lurid fairy tales.

Something grasped his sister and dragged her screaming into the encroaching brightness. Only he and two of the babies remained now. He vowed to do everything he could to protect them.

The aggressor came again, narrowly missing him with its metal spears. He tried to take cover, but it was no use. Wherever he went, he knew they would find him, but still he was not about to give in easily.

Throwing himself across the babies, he gritted his teeth and waited for the inevitable. Despite the tumult, he was suddenly calm. He noticed his skin was still pale and smooth despite his age. It was a strange thing to think about in the circumstances, he knew, but better that than his impending doom.

He gasped as the spear blasted through his back and out of his chest, skewering one of the babies at the same time. As he flew backwards, his final heroic act was to push the last of the little ones away in the hope it would be safe.

The light surrounded him and burned his pale skin with its heat. He was blind against the harsh glare. Only his hearing remained to give a cruel, aural glimpse of his destiny.

‘Damn it, be careful, would you? We don’t want them all with holes in.’

‘Sorry dad,’ came the reply. ‘It’ll still make good chips though, won’t it?’

‘It will, son. It will. Now pick up the fork and let’s go peel them.’

 

About the author 

D R Miller published his first novel, Victorian Gothic: The Uncanny Death of Katherine Kramer in February 2021. The sequel is due for release on 21st June 2021 and a free novella is available on his website, www.drmillerauthor.co.uk. He loves anything historic or artistic and is a keen photographer.

 

Burrington 5: Autumn

 

by Robert Ward

Earl Grey tea and crumpets- a final portion

 

Autumn came, and with it the falling of the leaves, the twittering of the swallows gathering on the telephone wires, the return of the novice priests to Burrington. Winchcombe had resumed his pastoral duties at the college, and with them, a new adventure.

   ‘They’ve asked me to teach a little,’ he told Millicent, excitedly. ‘Who’d have thought it? They’re a man down, of course, since losing the late Vice-Principal, and they’d no-one to teach the latter part of the doctrine paper: The Communion of Saints, and the life of the world to come.’

   ‘Really, Reverend?’ Millicent gave him a look that spoke volumes. ‘What on earth can you tell them about that?’

Winchcombe looked sheepish. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ’I get it from a book.’

   ‘A book? Just one book?’

   ‘My way of saying sorry, I suppose. Making amends. It’s the book our late V.P. was still writing when he died. He’d done all the research. Written all the notes. Jocelyn found them in the library. I have them here, in my study.’

   'But Reverend...didn't Jocelyn say that the book was never finished? That the old man appeared to him  precisely because he wanted to make sure that one day, it would be?'

   'Well..yes. Yes, he did.' The canon reached under the chair he was sitting on, and pulled out an enormous bundle of dog-eared papers, tied together with string. These are the  notes,' he said sheepishly. 'They're rather muddled. Looks like someone might have dropped them. But they're enough, they'll serve. It's all about pointers, you see. Nothing too distinct. Clues, intonations, partial understandings.' Winchcombe smiled, then chuckled, highly amused. 'Let's face it, Miss Lake, gIven the subject matter, that's as much as anyone could ask for.'

 

‘Miss Lake!’ The Principal extended his arms in welcome and beamed at her. ‘How nice to see you back again. Alfred, you really should have warned us in advance.’

   ‘You mean, so you could put up the barricades?’ she smiled, teasingly.

   ‘Not in the least, Miss Lake, not in the least.’ He took her by the hand and looked into her eyes. ‘You know you’re always welcome here. You do know that, don’t you?’ He held her gaze for what seemed an unconscionably long time, and Millicent was the first to lower her eyes. Any embarrassment she might have felt was dispelled by the arrival of a troop of students, among them the Senior Student and the young man Jocelyn. They exchanged greetings, the last two in particular paying court to their female guest as though she were Guinevere at the court of King Arthur. As they moved on down the corridor, Father Principal caught the look in Millicent’s eye.

   ‘I’m pleased to say that young de Courcy’s back amongst us this term,’ he explained. ‘A term away and the summer to recover have made all the difference. Allowed him to get things in proportion, as it were, and put all that publicity behind him.’

   ‘Allowed the college, more like,’ was Winchcombe’s comment later on, but at the time he held his peace.

   Millicent lowered her voice in in order not to be overheard. ‘There’s something quite delicate I need to ask you, Father,’ she said, seizing the moment.

The Principal looked surprised. Millicent pressed on.

   ‘When we spoke to Jocelyn’s mother in the summer, she told us that after Fr. W’s funeral there was no burial. She seemed to imply the body just... disappeared.'

   ‘My dear Miss Lake, that’s utterly preposterous.’

   'Then - what did happen to him?’

Millicent and the Canon were ushered hastily into a private sitting room just along the corridor, where the Principal invited them each to take an armchair, whilst he stood with his back to a low burning fire.

   ‘Of course there was a burial. It was a private affair. The family insisted.’ He cleared his throat, shifting uneasily. ‘We kept it quiet at the time. We didn’t want any more press intrusion, so we didn’t tell the students, at the family’s request.  They were content to let us handle the Service of Thanksgiving, but the interment was a different matter. They’re Catholics, you know. I’m afraid they considered our late Vice Principal the black sheep of the family.’

*

The following day they made an expedition to the nearby Parish Church of St. Aloysius, serving the Catholic community of Burrington, just as the Priory served the Anglican: and in particular, to the place where Fr. Wiesoslavski had been laid to rest. The glorious October sun came slanting through the slender trees, picking up the colours of chrysanthemums and the other floral tributes left on the more established graves.

   'All Saints, All Souls,' said Winchcombe. 'The Catholics remember their dead. All the faithful departed, all the host of heaven…they pray for is, as we pray for them. On a day like this, you can feel it.'

   'And Hallowe'en, Reverend. Much more my kind of thing. Hobgoblins, ghouls and evil spirits.'

   ‘Communion with the dead. A dodgy business, Miss Lake. Open season I’m afraid for all kinds of charlatans to get in on the act.’   

   Millicent stifled an exclamation, remembering her earlier life and the Canon's current occupation. They walked on for a bit in silence through the churchyard, the damp grass and fallen leaves striking chill through their shoes. At length they came to the area laid out most recently, where the grass had been strimmed to enable easy access to the newer graves.  The plot they were seeking was easily found, standing proud above the grass around it and marked by a simple wooden cross, as was the habit of the community.

   ‘No one to make a fuss of him, I suppose, Reverend,’ offered Millicent. 

   ‘No money, more like,’ said the other, his tone and the expression on his face softening slightly as they stood at the foot of the grave.

   ‘No doubt where he is now, then,’ said Millicent: adding almost immediately, ‘Well, after a manner of speaking.’ Her eyes rested on a small brass plaque fastened to the centre of the cross. ‘Though they die, yet shall they live,’ she read. Then underneath, ‘Resquiescat in Pace. May he rest in peace.'’ 

   ‘He’ll live on, of course,’ said Winchcombe. ‘In the lives of those he taught. In the life and ministry of that young priest, Jocelyn-’

   ‘And in your lectures, Reverend.’

Winchcombe made a noise. They stood in silence for a time. Millicent realised that she was physically as close to the late Vice Principal now as she, or anyone else, would ever be.

   It was Winchcombe who broke the spell, reminding her of their foray into the west of England earlier in the year. ‘You remember, Miss Lake, when we were guests of the de Courcys, taking tea at the family home… it seemed for a moment as though you’d had a moment of enlightenment. You said, I think, that you were “beginning to understand.” The timing was hardly propitious. You clearly didn't want to elaborate, and afterwards I’m afraid I failed to follow it through. Do you remember what it was that struck you then?’

   ‘Oh yes. Oh yes, I do.’ The moment seemed right for them to turn away from the grave, and they began to walk slowly back towards the gates. ‘It was the brother, Reverend. Mrs. De Courcy’s elder son. Seeing the whole thing through his eyes, and how different his world was from the world that Jocelyn was just coming to know. You see, Reverend, the problem I think is that he just thinks it’s all true.’

   Winchcombe stopped in his tracks, causing Millicent to do the same, and fixed her with a baleful look. ‘I think it’s more serious than that, Miss Lake,’ he said, weighing his words carefully. ‘It’s not just that he thinks it’s all true. It’s that he knows it is.’

 

About the author

Robert Ward has been writing short stories for many years but has only recently found an outlet for some of these through Cafelit. His interests include history (particularly that of the medieval religious orders), theology, and travel within Europe and more widely.