CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

June 6: New Novel! New Subgenre! Free Reads! 3277 wc

         


         


         When I went to sleep last night I surely wasn't considering starting a new novel, much less in a subgenre I have never attempted (though enjoy occasionally reading). But I had an odd dream, or series of dreams, very early this morning, and when I woke up, I decided to record what I could remember.





         Voila! A new novel commences-an urban fantasy of all things! So Finding the Abandoned Child has begun, at least a Prologue. I also uploaded the epigrams, prologue, and first two chapters of Remembrance at Morning, The Civil War Series Book One; through Chapter Eleven of Season of the Night-Riders, The Civil War Series Book Five; and yesterday's new chapter, Twenty-One, of Child Puppets of The Testament Logging Corporation, The Testament Logging Corporation Chronicles Book Three. All three of these novels are now available, although as yet incomplete and unedited, to Registered Authors and above, rather than on private status.





Today's free read: continuation of Child-Puppets of The Testament Logging Corporation and a short story/flash piece:

Chapter Eight

         Lisabeth and Alice played in the park till almost twilight, though Alice, who still wasn't feeling quite well, remained quietly rocking in a low, slow arc on the swings. Lisabeth was always a much more active child, and she bounced from merry-go-round to monkey gym to slide to seesaw, where she commanded Alice's presence but wasn't successful. Alice's stomach was upset and her head ached; she certainly wasn't going to attempt the up-and-down motions of the see-saw, nor the spinning of the merry-go-round. Swinging low and slow was enough, and even that was almost too much. What she really wanted to do was go home and lie down, but of course she was not going home till Monday evening after Daddy's work, a full three days away. She was pleased when Mrs. Hudson arrived to call the girls home.





         Alice had only gone to an H&K Root Beer Concession a very few times, usually when Daddy took her and Mamma to the City to shop, a few times a year, on Saturdays. Daddy always brought groceries on Friday afternoons, after work, at the big S&S Foods on the Southwest side of the City. That grocery was part of a chain (Alice had heard Daddy say that S&S Foods had stores even as far West as Kenozsha, and Southeast to Collins Junction) and this particular location happened to be the headquarters. In addition to a very large Store outlet, also had the warehouse behind it, so just about everything a person could want to buy for food was here. Since Mamma didn't like the City, Daddy picked up the groceries on his way out of town, even though it was somewhat of a detour, as they lived Northwest from the City center, and the grocery store was Southwest. But several times a year, Daddy, Mamma, and Alice all went in to the City to do other shopping, such as clothes for Alice, who although slender, grew tall quickly, and shoes, and so forth. Sometimes they even got a new item of furniture, or dishes, and when Alice was small they had to buy feed for her pony. Unfortunately, the pony had died of old age when Alice was five, and Mamma and Daddy asked her to wait until she was eleven or so; then, they had promised, they would buy her a horse of her own.


When they went on these occasional trips shopping, they drove all the way diagonally across Madison Mills from Northwest to Southeast to shop at what to Alice was a very huge Department Store: The Testament Corporation Emporium. Yes, this was a Testament Company Store, much as mining companies and railways had provided employees throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, in both the Old World and the New World. The Testament Emporium, popularly known simply as The Emporium, also carried a stock of foodstuffs as well, and many of its employees did their one-stop shopping there. But their prices were higher than S&S, and their variety much more constrained, so Mamma and Daddy preferred S&S, a fact that did not go unnoticed by The Testament Logging Corporation's Vice President of Personnel-Jerralld Cavendish's superior (even though the positions were both labelled Vice President, as was Jed Hudson's job, Jerralld and Jed were secondary figures reporting directly to the Vice President of Personnel, who of course reported to the ectoplasmic Chief Executive Officer).





         When the Cavendishes shopped at the Emporium, Mr. Cavendish always treated the family to a stop afterward at the closest H&K Root Beer Concession, conveniently located at a corner of the parking lot. The Emporium stretched for three-quarters of a block, and an L-shaped parking lot ran alongside it, with the long bar of the L across the front, the short segment on the left. All along the long block behind the Emporium were thickly clustered, so that any view behind the Store, or from the houses beyond it toward the Store, was completely restricted. The Testament view was that this created an aura of “country in the city,” or so it was explained to customers by the Store's Managers (all of whom were reanimated Dead Tools except for one).





         The H&K Root Beer Concession stand nearest to the Testament Emporium stood in the far left corner, at the edge of the parking lot and within full view of a busy intersection, as the Emporium parking lot ran alongside a less-travelled East-West road, and the North-South road was a major City street, with much traffic. So the Stand was handy to shoppers and passers-by alike, and as it did so much business seven days a week (for the Emporium was open daily) it sported an outdoor seating area on the grass beside the building, plus indoor stools in front of a long counter. It was much larger than any other H&K Stand, except of course the “headquarters” stand in the City center, located just beyond the Testament Tower (which itself was separate from the only H&K sit-down restaurant, located on the ground floor of the Testament Tower). This particular venue also served food, including barbecue plates for enterprising Emporium shoppers, and thus was an extremely popular destination for shoppers and travellers both. The Cavendishes always enjoyed spending a half hour or so on each shopping trip, after the visit to the Emporium was completed, lunching on chili dogs, root beer floats, and a banana split for Mrs. Cavendish, who enjoyed those almost as much as did Lisabeth Hudson. Indeed, sometimes the Cavendishes stopped in at the Hudson home on their way into town, as their neighborhood was in the Western part of the city and so not much out of the way, and collected Lisabeth to go along. With every trip the Cavendish adults became aware of how much more Lisabeth Hudson had become quite a handful in terms of misbehaviour. Afterwards at home, out of Alice's hearing or once she fell asleep, they would discuss Lisabeth, wondering whether she would continue to be a suitable playmate for Little Alice, a much more reserved and always well-behaved child. Mr. Cavendish would wonder why Jed Hudson did not take more of a disciplinary role with his daughter; Mrs. Cavendish attributed the misbehaviour to Lisabeth's tenure in the City's public school system. Jerralld Cavendish would add that the two girls were brought together because of the fathers' careers, and that perhaps it might not be wise just yet to refuse Alice her friend. Even then Jerralld had begun to have niggling, although still mostly unconscious, doubts about the security of his position-but he had not yet learned to fear for his life. He did think, though, that Alice should continue to associate with Lisabeth for the time being, at least until the older girl became too completely unruly.





         Lisabeth was an uproarious child by nature, and due to lack of discipline as well. In this Jerralld Cavendish had discerned accurately. Yet the lack of parental control was not due to any dedication on the part of the Hudson paretns to permissive parenting; no, they allowed Lisabeth her head solely out of fear-fear of the child, not for the child. The “little monster” into which Lisabeth was fast turning had been formed, not so much by innate evil, as in the case of newborn Clyde Jenks in November 1900, but by the careful attention and molding efforts of The Testament Logging Corporation.





         All Child Puppets of The Testament Logging Corporation were by necessity experimental. The Testament Core, like its connected evil entity concealed deep in the heart of The Big Forest, had long understood how to work with the Dead, the reanimated Dead, and the evil (or at least malleable) Living. But working with Child Puppets was a relatively new venture, and one that had come about only in the New World, after the emigration of The Testament Core following its destruction (or so it thought) of  the mortal incarnation of Alamathera Knutson in 1718, in Cornruush, in the Old World.





         Its first venture into the employment as Tools of Child Puppets did occur with Clyde Jenks, but he came into evil on his own recognizance. Testament had indeed hoped for a useful Tool to come along in Callwood Jenks' family line, for Callwood had himself been a boon, and very effective in steering trouble into the reach of The Testament Core, and of identifying folks in his area who could be either effectively suborned, or who might be difficult and thus needed to be put out of the way. But Callwood had managed to produce only one child, and that was shiftless, good-natured Willis, who was no use to Testamwent at all. Nor was he in Testament's way, so he was allowed to survive, going along in his aggravating lazy manner, of no use to anyone-until he met Clytie and the two of them produced newborn Clyde, a regular bundle of evil wrapped in a cloth shirt and nappy, an infant who single-handedly at the age of six and eight days, eradicated both parents, delivered himself by so doing into the care of his already bent-to-evil GrandPappy, and endeared himself mightily to The Testament Logging Corporation and The Testament Core.





         Clyde never needed much instruction; he could figure out evil doings all on his own. It was later in life, as Testament tried to mold him into their tool, that he began to prove intransigent, and so ended up himself, exterminated. Once he was Dead, he proved much easier to use.





         All Child Puppets of The Testament Logging Corporation were not like Clyde Jenks, though; in fact, so far none others had been found. In 1932 The Testament Core had tried to use Rory Lewes; It had deemed the time had come for his maternal grandmother Ilsa Knutson Calhoun, to depart from this life. With increasing middle age, her psychic Intuition had sharpened and she now saw far too much, and what was worse, she had begun to discuss it with her husband, and had decided to share her visions with her daughter. The Testament Core could not let such a disaster occur.





         It first went to her only grandchild, Rory, for help. Thinking that because he had not objected three months earlier, in February 1932, when The Testament Logging Corporation had first opened a Savings account in his name at First StoneForth Bank of Rennald, with a signature allegedly by him, and then composed a Last Will and Testament, again in his name and with his alleged signature, bequeathing his entire estate to The Testament Logging Corporation, its heirs, subsidiaries, and assigns in perpetuity (so that its lease remittances would eventually return to it of course). Rory showed no reaction to either of these events, nor demonstrated any inclination to battle back nor to cause conflict. Of course, any human would realize that little Rory Lewes was only two years old, had just turned two, and as yet had no concept of banks, savings, money, wills, or any other of these official and legal instruments.





         But nothing about Testament was human, and not much ever had been. It was evil, but in some ways not very clever. It often misunderstood the ways of the Living, which was its sole vulnerability. Since it expected Rory to be malleable, it first tried to mold his mind and bend his consciousness to the goal of destroying his mother's parents. But Rory was by nature too good and pure, like little Alice a few years later-born to Knutson and raised by Cavendishes and then a Cloverdale aunt married to a Grisham in the Village of Knox-and his mind would not bend to the whims of The Testament Core. All that was achieved were temporary blinding headaches for the child, and sheer frustration for The Core.





         So that option was out, and in this particular event, The Testament Logging Corporation was forced to give up on the use of a Child Puppet (even though its “evil” heart had been set on just that) and instead turned to two old reliables, Clyde and Callwood Jenks. Clyde was now thirty-one and a half, and Callwood approximately fifty years of age. Callwood was loyal in his allegiance to The Testament Logging Corporation Core, whereas his grandson Clyde was as always, pretty much of a wild card. Yet when Callwood learned of the mission, and let Clyde know the details, Clyde was immediately raring to head out, even before the situation had been prepared. Clyde liked destruction, almost as much as he liked summoning Demons, and this mission would provide plenty of destruction along with a tremendous agony for the victims. Clyde was on this one for certain.





Flash Fiction:

Hannah's Mail Order Mate

                   He stumbled on the steps of the small commuter plane which had transported him from Chicago's O'Hare Airport to a small town in Northwestern Wisconsin, Opal Bay. A shorter-than-average man in a pale beige windbreaker open to the elements over a khaki polo shirt and brown trousers, he walked unsteadily, possibly because of the left leg, missing below the knee. Thick brown hair tousled gently in the breeze.





                   I relented and stepped forward to offer my help.

“Martin? Hi, I'm Denise, Denise Lincoln from Mail-Mates.”

                   He looked up then and scowled at the sight of me, but when I reached for his left hand, he allowed me to help him maneouver the stairs. Silent crossing the tarmac, he spoke only after we reached my LandCruiser.





         

“So where is she-my new wifey, then?”

                   A gentle Welsh accent did nothing to render Martin Crossley any more appealing, as his words were strongly flavored with resentment. Perhaps he had been less than successful in his home country at finding a mate, or maybe he hoped to successfully emigrate to America via marriage-a guarantee of new citizenship. Whichever the case, he didn't impress me, but then I was only the Matchmaker, not the Mate.





                   

“You'll meet Hannah shortly, I'm afraid. You do understand she has the right to rule for or against you, don't you?”

                   That stopped him in his tracks. He whipped around to face me so quickly that he stumbled once again, nearly lost his balance, and fetched up against the side of the truck.

“What-what do you mean, missy? For or against me? I'm a mail-order mate! I've flown from Cardiff to London to Chicago to” (and here his voice rose to a whine pitched at the peak of a chainsaw motor) “HERE! And I am NOT GOING BACK!”

“Well, Martin, you've indeed made that quite clear. But would you please just step into the vehicle” (oh I knew that was a poor choice of words when he scowled even uglier)


“and let's get on to the office where you can meet with your intended Bride.”

                   As he shifted his weight away from the passenger door, I opened it for him and gave him a fair push in. Then I slammed the door and walked around to the driver's side, schooling my face into a pleasant if robotic expression. Not a word was said during the twenty-minute trip into town, and not until I had parked in my assigned space did he react.

“What if she doesn't like me, then, Missy? What then?”

                   I turned to look at him, and I so wished to say, “I'll drive you to Lake Owewosabee myself and throw you in,” but I remembered just in time that this job made the LandCruiser's payments and kept me dressing fashionably. Instead I simply smiled and replied,





         

“I'm sure that will be no problem,”

meanwhile gritting my teeth so firmly I thought I could taste enamel chipping.

*^*

                   Once inside the office, I grimaced at the receptionist and inquired whether Hannah Mylee had arrived. Ginger replied that Hannah was waiting in my office, so I steered Martin into the conference room and suggested he have a chair, a coffee, and a pastry. He agreed to the chair and the pastry but declined the coffee, instead demanding tea! I explained that might take a while, and headed to my office to collect Hannah.





                   Hannah Mylee had applied to my division some three months before, with very specific criteria. She had inherited a dairy farm and then expanded to raise beef cattle as well. Now thirty, she had decided it was time for a Mate, and she came to us to find her one suitable to work the farm along with her and to provide big strapping sons to inherit when she eventually went the way of  all flesh. To that end, she had requested a tall (6'2” or above),hefty (225 lbs or better), muscular, strong, individual-of Slavic descent, preferably Russian or Eastern European. Hannah really could not care if he spoke English well, as long as he was strong, a hard loyal worker, and able to father many sons.





                   Well, she was in for just a little surprise.





                   Walking to the conference room, I told her,





         

“Hannah, your requirements were a little on the stringent side, and I must say, we had to relax them just a bit; but I'm certain you'll be very pleased with our results. After all, Mail-Order-Mates has been in business in this location for over six years now, and we have dozens of satisfied clients.”

“I know, my best friend Ginny and my cousins Irene and Charles all swear by your service. I trust them; that's why I decided to try it. But you know, I'm getting older, and I really need a husband now-my biological clock is ticking, and I'm almost getting too old to properly run the farms by  just myself.”

                   Oh, this could DEFINITELY become a problem.





                   I opened the conference room door and stepped back as I announced,





         

“Hannah, Martin, MEET YOUR MAIL-MATES!”

                   The expression on Hannah's face would have won First Prize at a photography exhibition, if the subject had been Rage. One glance at the short, wiry man slumped casually in the chair on the far side of the table, pastry crumbs decorating his polo shirt and jacket, would have been sufficient, but as she rushed forward and saw, stretching away from the table, his wooden peg-leg, Hannah lost all sense of reason. She lunged, spit at him, yanked away the leg, then pounded him in the head with it, all the while screaming incoherently. I stammered a demurral, but closed my eyes in resignation as she turned on me waving the wooden peg leg threateningly overhead. As it came whistling down on me I decided that perhaps Mail-Order Mates had been the wrong career choice for me.