Let Them Eat Distortion

My eyes wake in these black skies

When I find answers, I'm torned by signs

- Tesla.

- - -

The chromatic view of the sky above Atiak was one of pure wonder for his own lucid mind. The occasional insect reminded him of the colorless reality and pushed his dream sequence further from him. Partially, he wanted to be in such a world invariably, as the one where reality resided seemed monotonous compared with the harsh design of his imagination. Or rather, amenable with everyday life. There was no fight, no retaliation. To Atiak; there was just nothing worth moving for right now and the azure skies were enough to let drowsiness progess on its course and slip into his conciousness. However - daylight was too clear and lucent to have any influence on sleep. Instead, he took it upon himself to cleanse his mind while clouds over head dragged away thoughtlessly.

- - -

In your darkest days, when you feel lost. Fear the darkness. It binds you, and imprisons you. It saves you, and revives you when you leave. The darkness is your friend, it can do no wrong. But even friends can be deceptive.

In your brightest days, when you find your way. Ardor the light. It frees you, and liberates you. It asphyxiates you, and poisons you. Feeding you lies until you bleed them from your own mouth. But even liars can be truthful.

Faith {Poem}

God has no heart, He has no heart!

For twenty years I fell apart,

For twenty years I was sewed up,

By moral candles - now all snuffed.

For twenty years I found my Art,

In gutter, palace, nature, fort,

In hollow parts of Holy Word,

I was unheard, I was unheard!

It was all dark, it stayed all dark!

For twenty years no angels harked,

The influx of a hallow light,

Was concave bound by cracks of night.

‘Till one day came up in the spring,

I did not wrestle with this thing,

Enthralled by black parts of the sea,

I wandered in, eternally.

__

Catherine McManus 

There is nothing below our skies
Nothing in our streets
Peer through our windows
And nothing you will see

Kaiserlund's Zieger clan: Myth or Reality?

About the spoof people, documentaries and families.

I made a lineage, I called it the Ziegen clan. They are the royals of Kaiserlund (Just between Germany and Poland) ever since Bane overthrew Larry King.

I made a family tree. Link here - http://i48.tinypic.com/wlw1no.png

We had to list five major events in the family's history. Mine were;

- A civil war was quelled after everybody was given sweets to calm down.

- A laws was imprinted - Lederhosen are daily dress and must be worn.

- An attack was repelled by Pennsylvanian vampires, but New Yorkian zombies were able to sneak in during the distraction. Within three years the entire populace of Kaiserlund contained at least the carrier gene. If they didn't - they were infected.

- Italians with the name of Intrube were banned.

- A Ziegen read The Princess Diaries and then watched the films. They were offended by Anne Hathaway because she ruins everything. War was declared on the fictional land of Genovia and Anne Hathaway was declared a public enemy.

We wrote documentary style pieces, and here's what I have so far:

It all started with Bane Ziegen, the suspiciously good-looking sire of the Ziegen line. Bane rose to fame as a local bad boy and general class clown, however, when the yearly takeover arrived, Bane and his gang of hooligans stormed into Gesicht's beloved monarchy palace. They fed the king of the time, Larry King, into the nation's candy-making machine, Bessy. Bane declared himself as king and sole ruler of Kaiserlund, then abolished the yearly takeover. But his rule of tyranny was only just beginning.

Bane's first act as king was to replace the title of 'doctor' with 'EYE DU MEDEESINS'. Qualified medical practitioners were furious, two in particular being the reasons behind Bane's eventual downfall. EYE DU MEDEESINS Freytag and EYE DU MEDEESINS Kunze created a revolutionary cause which they named the Bane Fanclub in order that Bane would never find out their true intentions. However, young Kaiserlundian girls everywhere also misunderstood the title and were joining up left right and centre. Freytag and Kunze just couldn't keep them away. Then, Kunze came up with an idea to use them in a cruel scheme to rid the country of Bane's presence. The King's one true weakness was his playful nature; he couldn't refuse when challenged to a game. It was settled a few days later, Freytag and Kunze sent Bane an extremely sarcastic email, challenging him against the Bane Fanclub in a water pistol fight. With all the weapons girls would be holding, the two EYE DU MEDEESINS would easily be able to sneak in weapons. In the two weeks leading up to the challenge, Freytag and Kanze recruited almost the rest of the country into their cause, hoping that Bane would be stupid enough to not cancel the event. Their suspicions were correct, but since they had gone without any training in gunmanship, both shot themselves before they were able to kill Bane.

This act caused a domino effect over the country and they blamed the death on the king's reckless and vain demeanour and the next day, citizens had gathered outside the palace gates to protest against his rule. Afraid for his safety, Bane threw Disney actress Ashley Tisdale into the crowd, hoping their hatred for her would overpower their feelings for him. It satisfied the crowd, for a time. She had started to sing, so the crowd stuffed her mouth with an apple and spit roasted her over a fire, however, they left her unattended for too long and she burned into nothingness.

Second Update.

Another update from Lucy: The Planet 125 deviantART is created!

Visit http://www.deviantart.com/

When logging in, you can use an email, so the login details are the same to log in there as they are here.
But the username had to be planet-125 (with a dash) since planet125 was taken.

If you go onto the profile gallery, you can create your own folder if you wish, or just submit the piece anonymously if you're devilish.

It was created today, so there isn't anything on except from a Journal entry I just posted.

I would like to ask, so the account doesn't get clogged up, to not create a journal entry every time a piece is submitted. Instead somebody can post a weekly entry about any new deviations that week along with any news or announcements.
It's just an idea, but I always hate to see a dA profile with thousands of journal entries... Maybe that's because I'm too lazy to go through them though...

Anyway, go and check it out and if you want to edit the profile to make it look fabulous or interesting, then feel free to do so. ^^

Nostalgia

We remember in peculiar ways

With senses rather than with thoughts

A scent on the wind, or a bitter taste

Can remind us of such different days.

Of ice cream cones with lemon slices

Shining red apples, sliced in dishes,

Of home grown berries fresh from the garden

And soup or pies with unknown spices.

Sitting outside in the afternoon sun,

Running through grass from unwanted insects,

Playing guessing games to pass the time,

Peaceful things that still seem fun.

Long summer walks through winding lanes,

Late nights watching mindless programs,

Falling asleep to a soothing tune,

You know so well but cannot name.

Midweek treats and bare brick walls,

Listening just because you can,

A cat so large it waddles out of the door at night,
Gentle hands to pick you up when you fall.

The very last time you heard them laugh,
and the things you can’t remember saying,
the smile you remember even after it’s faded,

And what you wish you could have asked.

We remember in the strangest sense,

Of things that shouldn’t really matter

But that when combined complete our vision of a person

Of everything they were and more than they could ever be.

---------------------

- Jayne

Perception

When Alfred Stone was 9 years old
He was afraid to go bed.
The blackness that engulfed his room
Just filled him up with dread.

The darkness, he feared,
was full of things, that children should not see.
Monsters, ghouls and foul creatures,
from which he could never flee.

Then one day, in his teenage years,
Led on a dark and grassy moor,
Alfred gazed up at the stars,
And was drawn by their allure.

He replaced the stars with people,
fighting against the tide, 

To be seen to shine so brightly,

And it filled him up with pride.

Alfred wished to catch a star,

Right there upon that hill.

So he swung a rope around the moon,
- it is rumoured it’s there still.

As legend goes, on that very spot,

If a person is of true heart,

They can pluck a star out of the sky,

And that’s only just the start!

But one must be carefully how they use,

This gift of fame or glory,

For not everyone can have a perfect,

Happy ending story.

Alfred Stone was young and pure,

As you would never find him now,

So wish wisely upon that lonely hill

Or you will perhaps discover how…

A boy with so much talent,

though lost as he had seemed,

Sees nothing now but darkness,

in a dream that cannot be.

In his room he sits alone,

Curtains drawn to keep out light,

Older now and much more worn,

Too busy wanting to shine,

That he forgot to live at all.

----------------

- Jayne

Kites.

Once released into the vast sky,

They fly,

Keenly, serenely, freely.

 

Their goals different, but their journeys the same,

As they live up to their name

And soar among the clouds.

 

Colourful and beautiful little sculptures,

All emerging from various cultures;

A truly wonderful sight to behold.

 

Together, they rush in their groups,

Performing spectacular loops,

As they enter the world’s playground.

 

Signs of purity, youth, and innocence,

Coming together in their tonnes,

Triggers off a smile in all those who witness.

 

These kites, young faces of the future,

Are released into the wild, and befriend every creature.

 

Some fly high, and some low,

But one day, there will come a time, when all will grow.

(A poem. It's pretty simple. And, well...simplicity was what I was going for. I hope you like it. I also hope you guys get the double meaning. And who the 'kites' actually are. (:  Thanks for reading! )

Blue Times. - A poem inspired by Rob Auton's poem 'Yellow Party'

Blue birds dart across a blue sky,
the colour of sky blue ink,
as I float
in my blue boat
on a sea of
blue WKD.
Periodically,
dolphins arch out of the water,
creating ripples
the texture of blue cheese
on the surface.
How could anyone feel blue
faced with such a view?
A shout breaks into my thoughts
and I remember David Cameron,
wearing his blue tie,
tied up with blue twine
in the back of my boat.
The country is afloat.
So I hatched a plan with the smurfs
who also want to defend their turfs
and reclaim the colour blue.
We knew what we had to do.
Blue, the blue Power Ranger,
no stranger to danger,
eyes glinting like the foil top
of a full fat milk bottle
left out in the sun on someone's doorstep, 
ambushed him,
stuffing a Man City football shirt in his mouth.
He started to turn blue,
and my friend from that animated film
where the characters have blue faces said
"not you too?
What will we do if you steal our shade of blue too?"
So we took the Man City football shirt out of his mouth,
tied him up with twine,
and rowed him through the wintery waters,
our oars caressing the surface of the bluebell sea
like butterflys wings,
and dreamed of better things.

Thursday Afternoon

(It's a bit long, so please forgive me. I spent the entirety of Sunday morning writing this without being able to stop. It's not perfect, but I thought I'd put it on anyway.)

‘People always ask me how I got this scar on my finger.’ Said the man, pushing up his flat cap with his thumb and placing his other hand directly on top of his knee. His ancient face scrunched into a grin as something flashed behind his eyes. He wore an odd-looking blue cagoule, and his shoes were so close to being slippers I wondered how he could wear them in this kind of weather. The clouds were getting darker. It would rain soon.

I gripped my bag tighter. It was Thursday afternoon, and this was the fifth week that I had seen this man sitting at my bus stop. Whenever I would walk over there his face would crease in a smile. Every time, however, I had pretended I hadn’t seen him and sat wherever else I could. This week, unfortunately, had left me with no choice. The seat next to the man was the only one available.

‘Funny things, scars…’ He held his hand in his other, palm outwards, fingers splayed, to show a long, winding white line that went from the tip of his index finger to the bottom of his palm.

Again, I wasn’t sure of what to say.

‘I remember it well though…’ He sighed, and began to talk in a slow, resonant, slightly gasping voice. ‘I was only a boy. It was a beautiful Thursday afternoon and I wanted to play outdoors. Our back garden gate led out to a small wood, and I would always play out there. ‘He looked at me as though he expected me to add something, but when I did nothing he carried on.

‘The trees were wonderful. I loved the smell of them, the feel of the bark on my hands as I climbed them. It was heaven.’ He paused, and took a wheezing breath. I wondered if that was the end of his story.

I was terribly wrong.

                ‘I remember that on that morning I had stolen my dad’s pen knife. Not for anything bad, of course. I just wanted to carve my name into my favourite tree. The one that lay over a small river. I liked to sit there, and listen to the rushing and thrashing of the water on the rocks. If I’d been able to read back then, I know I would have loved to have taken a book out with me.

                ‘I began to slice my first initial in; T. I carved and carved, but as I finished the spine of the letter, my knife slipped and flew out of my hands.’

                ‘Is that how you got the scar?’ I asked, hoping this was the end of the story.

                ‘No.’ He said, vacantly. ‘That was when I met Ruby.’

                ‘Ruby?’

                ‘Ruby Kenwick. She was my age. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. She caught my knife as I dropped it. She was so fast it was… well, she was… She was a bit different, Ruby. I asked her where she was from and she said a farm in the forest. I said I’d never known there was a farm in there. She asked me to go back with her. Said she was scared.’

                It had begun to rain. Enormous, fat drops splashed on top of the bus shelter, pouring down the sides like some kind of odd, murky waterfall.

                ‘Did you go with her?’ I asked.

                ‘I did.’ He replied with a sigh.

                ‘Why?’

                ‘I have no idea.’ He pushed up his cap again. ‘I ran through the forest with her, trying to figure out which direction we were going so I might be able to find my way back. I was too optimistic choosing to follow her, of course. Within minutes, something horrid happened.’

                ‘What happened?’

                ‘A fox. That is what happened. Not a nice little sneaking common fox that might try and steal your wellingtons from your front steps; this fox was enormous, with claws on its feet and it teeth – I’ve seen dogs with fangs before but never like that. The fox jumped at me – ’

                ‘Is that how you got your scar?’ I asked.

                ‘No.’ He said. ‘Ruby Kenwick jumped in front of me before I could get hurt. Told it I was a friend.’

                ‘She talked to the animal?’

                ‘Yes. But that’s not the strange thing, you see, the fox… it listened.’

                The rain was pouring harder now.

                ‘How could a fox listen?’

                The man ignored my question and carried on. ‘The fox ran away, whimpering, back into the trees, and Ruby and I set off again.’

                ‘Where did she take you?’

                ‘I’m just getting to that! We reached a small clearing, just in the middle of the forest like she’d said. There was a small wooden house that looked… well, a bit dodgy if I’m honest. The walls were mouldy and the chimney crooked. Wasn’t much of a farm, either. She pulled me inside. A fire was burning in a corner, next to a woman who looked as though her own skin had grown too large for her. She was cutting up carrots on a little wooden chopping board with the speed of an old mule.’ He laughed to himself; throaty, sonorous, ending with a coughing fit which brought more than a few others at the bus stop to stare at us.

                I asked quietly if he was okay. He ignored me again.

                ‘The woman… when she saw me…. The woman lifted her knife up.’ He held out his hand as though he was holding a knife himself. ‘And threw it at me.’ He gestured throwing.

                ‘And…’ I was hoping this was the last time I would have to ask this question. ‘Is that how you got that scar?’

                ‘Nope.’ He snorted. ‘Ruby.’

                There was a pause.

                ‘Ruby jumped in front of it. Sliced off part of her cheek. Her face was never the same after that.’

                I gasped. ‘But who was this woman? Why did she have a knife Why did Ruby take you to her?’ My voice as becoming loud and panicky, and more of the bus stop dwellers turned to stare at us.

                ‘She was your great grandmother.’

                He had said this as calmly as though he was telling someone the time.

                ‘What?’ I said. ‘But… what?’ I had begun to shiver from the cold.

                The man let out a chortle. ‘Your grandmother… she was called Ruby Kenwick.’

                A wave of something swept over me. He was wrong. ‘But – but – my grandparents… I have two grandmothers, none called Ruby.’

                The man smiled.

                I opened my mouth to say something else, but quickly closed it. He was just a mad old man, that was all. I wouldn’t take this any further.

                ‘What’s your name?’ He asked.

                I couldn’t ignore a mad old man. ‘Erica Devlin.’

                ‘Erica, Erica.’ Rolling my name around his mouth as though addressing an old friend. ‘My name is Thomas Letterchewt.’

                He held out his hand. I shook it.

                ‘I am your grandfather.’

                Again I ignored him.

                ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to believe me. You see that, woman was a witch.’

                I knew he was completely insane. But I had to listen.

                ‘She was Ruby’s mother – a horrible woman! She made Ruby do everything for her. Too lazy to get her own victims. And on that day she had told Ruby to go and get a boy from the village and bring him to her. I was the boy.  But she didn’t want me. She couldn’t use me for what she wanted. I was terrified.. Ruby’s mother became so angry. I asked why she couldn’t use me. She snorted, glared at Ruby, and that was when she threw the knife. The knife held the curse. It was aimed at me. I was supposed to be the one with a hundred grandsons who couldn’t remember.’

                ‘Remember what?’ I asked. I completely forgot I was supposed to ignore him.

                He ignored me. ‘When that knife hit Ruby in the face, I knew what had happened. I should have known she was a witch form the start, with the listening fox and all. Anyway, there was only one thing a witch could do. Well, could really do. They lie – they say magic can be good. It never can. The day Ruby was cursed was the day I became cursed too.’

                ‘You became cursed?’

                ‘Yes, but not in the same way. I became cursed with Ruby. I loved her at first, but after years… It became unbearable.’

                ‘What did?’

                ‘Some curses are – ’

                ‘Just tell me what the curse was!’ My cheeks overheated and I tried placing my cold hands onto them to cool them down. The other bus stop residents stared at me.

                ‘She was made to live the same day until her death. Every day for her was that Thursday afternoon. Every day, inside her head, she took me from the woods and met her infuriated mother. Every day, I had to listen to the screams.’

                I looked at my lap. Why was he telling me all of this? What did this have to do with me, even if he thought that woman was my grandmother?

                ‘Why are you saying this to me?’

                The man smiled. ‘Because the curse didn’t remain in one body. That’s not how they work. Ruby was cursed to live the same Thursday afternoon forever, and so every girl who would be born from Ruby, or Ruby’s children, or Ruby’s children’s children, they would always live the same Thursday afternoon. You’re cursed too, Erica.’

                I laughed then. I laughed for so loud and so long that I couldn’t care less what the bus stoppers thought of me or who this man was. I laughed until my cheeks hurt with strain, I laughed until my throat dried up and I could laugh no more.

                ‘You know you mother?’ He said. ‘She had fair hair like me, and blue eyes. She didn’t possess the curse. But you, with the same dark hair and eyes as Ruby. I knew what would happen. It knew it as soon as you were born.’

                ‘I’m not cursed!’ I cried with the last laugh I could muster.

                ‘Erica,’ his face had become serious now, ‘do you remember the fifth of November, in 1997?’

                I laughed again. ‘That’s todays date!’

                ‘No. It isn’t. That date was the first Thursday you ever experienced. You weren’t even a year old.’ The old man’s face turned sour.

                ‘What are you talking about? What is all this? Why are you saying all of these things? And you never even told me about the stupid scar on your hand! That’s what all this was about, right?’

                ‘You’ve been living this same Thursday afternoon since you were tiny. When your mother had you I hoped you would be like her. I hoped the curse wouldn’t pass on. It couldn’t have, she didn’t have it in the first place. But Monday came, you were born. Tiny and fragile, but healthy. Tuesday came; you lay in your mother’s arms. Wednesday came, everything was perfect. And Thursday… On the fifth of November 1997, you shivered, coughed, spluttered and ran. You ran from your mother’s arms, away from the house; a child who had never even known how to crawl.’

                I really didn’t know what to say anymore. This man was scaring me now. I wondered why the bus still hadn’t arrived.

                ‘You came here. You realised you wanted to go home, and waited at the bus stop. Alone. A baby. Just a baby. People gave you odd looks. There were people searching for you everywhere.  But that’s when I came. I found you first. I came to take you home.’

                That’s when I noticed the rain wasn’t there anymore. In fact, I wasn’t sure if it had been there in the first place.

                ‘I tried to pick you up at first, but you refused… kicking and biting…’

                I saw that the sky was no longer the murky blue Thursday afternoon that it had been a second ago. It was now pitch black.

                ‘I placed you down on this seat here, next to me, and tried to talk to you. Which was ridiculous. You wouldn’t have been able to understand me.’

                I watched as the people who had been waiting at the bus stop slowly disappeared.

                ‘What’s happening?’ I asked. ‘Where’s… why’s everything…’

                He smiled.

                As I looked around me now I saw nothing but darkness. Just the man, the bus stop, and myself. ‘When did it get so dark?’

                ‘It is the early hours of the morning. You should expect it to be dark.’ The man smiled weakly.

                ‘But it was afternoon not long ago.’

                ‘Yes. You have been living in that Thursday afternoon since you were a baby. I came to try and get you out again.’

                I stayed silent for a moment. Everything that had happened seemed so completely odd that I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going mad or not.

                ‘You never did tell me how you got that scar.’

                He grinned then, and held it out again as he had before, fingers spread.

                ‘You were a strong baby. It must have a been a lovely Thursday afternoon, because you wouldn’t let me take you out of it.’

                I lost all of my words. They seemed to have tumbled off my tongue with my sanity. I just sat there, stuttering. Trying to make sense of everything that was happening.

                ‘And now you can see.’ He smiled again. ‘That this is the real world.’ He gestured to the dark background surrounding us.

                ‘It’s a bit too dark.’ I said.

                He laughed.

                ‘So what now?’ I asked. ‘Do I go home? Am I cured?’

                The man’s smile faltered. ‘I’m – I’m afraid not.’

                ‘Well what do I do then?’ I stood up. ‘I’m going home. Which way’s home?’

                He just stared at me blankly.

                ‘WHERE DO I GO?’ I cried. ‘TELL ME!’

                He just stared at me with his miserable eyes glinting in moonlight. ‘You can’t.’

                ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T?’ I was breathing quickly now, waiting for him to say something reasonable. Something realistic. Something real. Just one thing would have done. Just something to make some sense of everything that was happening. I ran.

                I ran through the dark streets; passing building after building, not caring where I was or why those buildings were there or who lived in them or what purpose they had. Because I had no purpose. My Thursday Afternoon had never happened. It had all been a long dream that wasn’t even gone long enough for it to become recurring.

                I tripped and fell over something. I don’t even know what. But it made everything turn darker than it already was.

                I awoke, sometime after, to a bright, sunny day in a place bustling with people. I saw a calendar in the window of a shop.

 The fifth of November.

 It was Thursday afternoon, and I was late for my bus. 


R

deviantART?

Update from Lucy: I talked to Miss Sharples about deviantART today and we agreed that it might be a good idea to sign up.

I was thinking of either creating a group or a profile. A profile would be more accessible, but we can submit pieces ourselves with a group. I'm still not sure so I'd like to hear some suggestions/discussions.

However, I've just checked username availability and the following are already taken: planet125, Planet125. But; planet-125 and Planet-125 were not taken. So if we make it, it'll have to be one of them.

But I'd like to hear about usability opinions before we just go ahead and create a profile. How many of us are going to use it as frequently as a blog? I just thought the upside of a dA profile/group is that since everyone will have their own folder, you'll be able to submit longer pieces and even chapters periodically.

I leave the creation, if they want to do it, to those who already use deviantART. Because I'm not in Creative Writing next Wednesday. You guys know what to do! 

Anyway, I'd just like to hear any comments, ideas or suggestions in the comments. Because at the moment it's just an idea. ^^

Dreaming of a Different Life where I'm Married to the Man Across the Road Who Looks a Bit Like Prince Charles.

4pm. Sandra took the air freshener out of her desk drawer and sprayed the room liberally. The stench of teenage sweat was immediately masked by Glade - the scent of the rainforest. Teaching was probably not the most prudent choice of career for someone who hated children she reflected once again. But, Sandra loved the holidays and their potential for visiting to museums, collecting shells from the beach at Morecambe, and spending all afternoon looking out of her attic window on the off chance that the handsome silver-haired gentleman from number sixty four, across the road, would be out in his garden. He always seemed to decide to do his gardening during a thunder storm, and Sandra loved to watch him straining to trim the unruly privet hedge at the front, or exerting his dominance over the bush outside his front door, the rain dripping down his face and running off the wax jacket he wore that made him look a little like an older Prince Charles...

   

Disciple of the Creed.

It's still a work in progress, but here's a GorillazxAssassin's Creed crossover fanfic I've been working on. It's too long to post here, so here's the link.
I'm working on Sequence 4 now, but it's going rather slowly.

If you can find the links in the Sequence/Chapter titles you get a prize.... I'll stop being annoying... For a time. xD

Anyway - here it is:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8224323/1/Disciple-of-the-Creed



- Lucy

Well if we're doing quotes now...

Good ol' Waterstones.
No but really I'm actually going to go and pack instead of spamming the blog...

"Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go - it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow."
-Alice M. Swain                                      

New Layout

Forgive me for playing with the theme template and HTML codes, although I think it looks rather nifty! I was trying to distract myself from the fact that starting after I have finished typing this post I have to pack my life into a few boxes and I think I'm going to actually die. (Bit of Hyperbole for you there.)

Anyway, if y'all don't like it I can change it back... let me know.
- Jayne

A Little Bit Like Magic

[A/N - largely for Miss Sharples because she wanted to see. Keep in mind it's still rough and probably needs a lot more description and stuff and, well... yeah. Happy writing and what not.

- Jayne]

Chapter 1

- A Little Bit Like Magic -

People will often insist that it’s impossible for a boy to be best friends with a girl, or a girl to be best friends with a boy. They, (‘they’ more often than not being parents, or the sort of slightly bonkers aunt that tends to smell of musty perfume), seem to believe that at some point, the boy will be presented with a dainty pinkish doll, or the girl with a rather dissatisfying handful of dirt, and the suitably offended child will wallow away from their former companion, vowing to never set eyes on them again. These people, of course, are idiots: idiots at least, by the standards of Jo Wringly and Oliver Moon. Jo and Oliver have been best friends since, well, forever, and they don’t intend to stop any time soon - especially not because a bunch of grumpy old adults tell them that things change as they get older. As far as they're concerned, nothing has to change unless they want it to. 

The summer holidays had always been Jo’s favourite time of year, because despite being free to do anything she liked, she was also perfectly content with doing nothing. That didn’t mean she didn’t daydream though – imagine the sort of pastimes that can usually only be done in storybooks, or on television. Jo was almost 12 years old, and people had started to tell her that she needed to grow up, and stop dreaming so much. The images in her head, of going on adventures and meeting wonderfully strange people in equally wondrous places, were, apparently, too far fetched for her to humor any longer. She needed to be realistic. 

Of course, Oliver never told her such mean things. He couldn’t care less whether or not people thought he was being childish - just because they were in high school now, he said, didn’t mean they had to suddenly start reading the paper or thinking about the future.
Oliver, though was the youngest of three boys, so his parents were quite content to let him be as childish as he liked, for as long as he liked. They didn’t want him to grow up either. Jo, on the other hand, was an only child and her parents would probably be rather pleased if she started talking about which university degree she’d like to take, or something equally far away and pointless.   

It was early evening, after an almost uncomfortably warm day in June, when Jo confided in Oliver just how very anxious she was about having to return to school.
“We wont be the youngest anymore!” She complained, “we’ll have more responsibilities and choices. We’ll have to look out for the younger ones, and do more homework. I just wish it’d all stop.”

“You worry too much,” Oliver said absently, far more concerned with running his hand along the wall that followed their current path, dislodging bits of loose concrete that rested there and flinging aside a few wandering insects.

“We’re barely 12 Jo,” he said, “we don’t even have to choose which classes to carry on with for a year.”

Jo pouted slightly and went back to kicking the dusty gravel of the road. She hated roads with gravel on – she almost always tripped, and got the unpleasant little stones stuck in her hands when she landed on the ground.

Olivers’ grandparents had just moved out here, to the part of Moorside that has always been more country than town – with the winding graveled roads, green and yellow fields, and the occasional stray cow that tended to appear out of trees or from around corners of it’s own regard, completely undeterred by the presence of humans.

Jo didn’t like the countryside, especially at times like this, when it was growing dark, and the trees on either side of the road were shrouded in shadows. Anything could be hiding in the shadows, she reasoned. And, as a rule, she tended not to like places where things, or people, could hide. It made her feel uneasy.

“Anyway,” Ollie said, as they turned a sharp corner onto an even longer stretch of even more uneven gravel, “you know you like school. The amount of time you spent last year trying to teach me fractions, it was as if you were personally offended I couldn’t do it or something. It’s not normal if you ask me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jo sighed. “How much further is this house anyway? It’s almost dark already.”

Oliver gestured vaguely ahead of him, “Up ahead. There's another lane just up here, then about 5 or 10 minutes."

“What’s down the other lane?” Jo asked, spotting the path that led away between thickets of trees as it came into view.

Ollie shrugged. “I don’t know, haven’t been down there before.”

The trees leading to the lane stood taller than those surrounding it, casting long black silhouettes across their path.

Jo hesitated, drawn inexplicably towards them and peering down the little lane.

“Do you want to go and look?” Ollie asked, already marching with little care towards the tall trees.

Nodding, Jo followed.

           

“What is it?” she asked, for Oliver had stridden towards the mouth of the lane, then come to a standstill with no explanation.

“It’s…” But Ollie couldn’t finish the sentence. Speech felt inadequate, as if it might spoil it. Because this place wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen before. His grandparents new house was nice enough, but the tracks leading up to it were dirty and lined with a wonky brown fence and prickly bushes. This was different. It was…

“It’s like magic,” Jo whispered.

Oliver nodded.

The lane that stood before the children looked, to them, almost as if someone had taken a pot of black ink and created it straight from their imagination. The towering trees on either side of the track blocked out the remaining daylight, making a canopy of dark green above their heads. Jo however, didn’t find it scary. In this case, the darkness seemed to bristle around the two of them, speaking of something far from normal, but far from frightening. The leaves above them appeared to twinkle with a silver glow and when the pair instinctively took a step forward, their feet didn’t crunch down on hard gravel, but instead came to rest on a soft, sand-like substance. To their left, there even ran a small stream, filled with the soft trickle of water, just audible in the stillness of the night. Further down, the water gathered in a small, gushing waterfall, before disappearing neatly under the earth.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Oliver said.

“But… we might as well look, now we are here.”

Jo looked at him pleadingly, but it didn’t take much convincing, he was just as entranced as her.

They walked forwards a few more steps, but jumped violently when a large toad hopped out of the grass at the side of the lane and straight into their path. Ollie bent down to try and pick it up, but before he got halfway to the ground the toad turned towards him indignantly, gave a loud ‘ribbit!’ then bounced away, disappearing with a gentle splash into the river.

Jo couldn’t help but laugh then, both at the shock on her friends face, and the absurdity of the situation: the fact that they were acting as though they were honestly about to stumble upon a real witches house, or some other magic realm; because those things didn’t happen in real life, and certainly not to two regular almost 12 year olds.

“This is ridiculous,” she said out loud and turned to grab Ollie, before guiding them both towards the foot of the lane with an air of confidence.  

Upon reaching their destination, Jo and Oliver were confronted with a rather bland looking house. It may have once been grand, but now the white washed walls of its exterior were flaky in patches, the garden was overgrown and heavy curtains blocked anything of the interior from view. In a place that hummed with life, the house looked strangely derelict and not at all like it belonged.

Despite not really believing they’d find anything spectacular, Jo felt a surge of overwhelming disappointment.

“Come on,” she said, “this is stupid. It’s just a regular house. I don’t think anyone even lives here.”

She turned to leave, but the sound of Oliver crying out forced her to spin back around. “There!” he gasped, pointing at the house, “There was someone there - a woman. She looked through the curtains at us than shut them again, quick as anything!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course!” Oliver said. “I’m not daft. She was right there!”

“We should go.” Jo replied, a strange feeling of panic washing over her. “We can’t just stand around at the bottom of someone’s garden.”

Jo and Oliver retreated back to the road in a heartbeat, walking the rest of the way towards Ollie’s grandparents house in near silence, each lost in their own thoughts about what had just happened.

Eric and Flora Moon greeted Jo the same as ever, with many “haven’t you gotten tall Joanna!’s” and “would you like some sweeties dear?” But despite their kindness, Jo couldn’t wait to get away from them, and speak privately to her friend about the thoughts whirling around her head.

Eventually, Oliver managed to convince them that he and Jo were worn out, and would really just like to get to bed. A claim which they thankfully, didn’t question.

The airbed that Jo slept on whenever she stayed over with the Moons was already made up next to Oliver’s, in the spare room, and she collapsed down onto it rather dramatically when the door was finally shut.

“What are we going to do?!” She demanded of Oliver, who had perched on his own bed, and was currently looking quite lost.

“Who was that woman?” He asked.

“How on earth would I know? I didn’t even see her! But there’s something funny about that house, I’ll tell you that much.”

“The lane,” Oliver agreed, “it was like… it was like we’d stepped into Narnia or something. Couldn’t you just feel it?”

“Like magic,” Jo said, for the second time that day. “But, it’s impossible Ol! Magic, stuff like that, it isn’t real. It’s probably just some crazy old lady who lives in a run down house.”

“You think we’re making this up in our heads?”

“Maybe.”

“Still,” Oliver grinned, “doesn’t stop you wanting to go back there, does it?”

“No.”

Oliver stood up and moved towards the bedroom window, looking out over the now completely black sky outside. He’d often peer out of his bedroom window at home, onto the streets in the evening, watching people hurrying to and fro under the glare of the streetlamps. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d wished that something, anything exciting would happen to cure his boredom. Now, it seemed that something interesting might finally be happening to him.

He hoped so, anyway.

           

“Tomorrow.” He stated, turning back around to face his best friend. “Tomorrow, we’ll go back, in the afternoon this time, and we’ll knock on the door.”

“But what are you planning on saying?” Jo asked, frowning. “You can’t just go up to someone and ask if they’re a witch, or if they have a magic house.”

“Well obviously!” Ollie said, “I don’t think she’s a witch! I’m just going to ask her if she needs anything. Offer to mow the lawn or something. Then when she’s invited me in I can have a snoop around, see if there’s anything in there.”

“And what do you think you’re going to find? A nice bubbling cauldron by the fire? You’re crazy.”

“You’re coming though?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m coming.”