Friday the 13^th…

As always in tales of this kind, it was on a dark and stormy night. More than that, the day was Friday and the date was the 13^th. Now, really, would you go out alone, with the school Adonis, to a secluded spot, with the wind howling, the rain pounding, on the unluckiest day ever known? Well, Neve thinks it’s a swell idea. She sees nothing wrong with a ‘Friday the 13^th’ rendezvous with the most popular boy in the school, and she certainly isn’t going to let a mild storm scupper her twilight plans.

“I can’t actually believe I’m here!” Neve laughs nervously as she gazes deeply into Mike’s eyes. I say eyes but I mean shades. In recent days he’s not been seen without this cooler than cool accessory, increasing his popularity ten-fold, no doubt. He flashes her a dazzling smile, the kind you see in the toothpaste ads on telly. “Hmm,” he purrs and moves ever so slightly in his seat, “Why shouldn’t you be here, with me?” His hand softly touches hers and Neve instinctively casts her eyes downwards, a slight blush descending on her normally pale cheeks. “You um, you do have a certain reputation, I mean…”

“All completely untrue!” Mike interrupts. Then, smile on full beam, he adds, “I mean Neve, I’m really just a normal guy, looking for that special someone…” That last word hangs between them; Neve’s head fills with something like hopes and dreams as he moves his hand gently to move her hair away from her pale blue eyes. Her heart pounds hard to the beat of the rain on the car roof. In the background the radio continues to deliver the local news, Neve’s eyes drift to the dim light on the dashboard, the broadcasters voice draws her in:

“In a statement earlier today, DCI Lee confirmed that ‘the net is closing in on the serial killer. During his last attack the unfortunate victim managed to spray a repellent into his eyes….”

Mike smoothly switches the radio off, the dim light disappears and the car is plunged into darkness. Neve’s gaze snaps up to his shades. The winning smile has gone; instead he wears a crooked smirk. “Ahh, Neve,” he sighs, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. Leaning forward towards her, he reaches his hands up to her throat… In a flash she’s on him. A blood-curdling CRACK as his arms are forced unnaturally backwards, brings a wicked smile to Neve’s face. Almost instantly the smile turns to a snarl, revealing a set of cold, sharp fangs. Mike tries to pull his head back, dislodging his shades, which tumble onto his lap. But all to no avail; as Neve sinks her teeth into the soft flesh just below his left ear she sighs and closes her eyes. Calmness descends all around. The storm abates, clouds part and the bright moon fills the car with an eerie light. As the vampire drinks her fill, the killer’s infected eyes begin to close.

© Lisa Lee, 2015

Squirrel

Strolling through the woods, fallen leaves all squelchy and soggy under my wellies. One long step to get over the fast-flowing brook that's carrying twigs to the bottom of the hill. 

Silence, except for the snap of dead wood as I pass.

Looking up to the morning sun, reaching through the boughs of the naked trees, stretching her warms fingers over the strange woodland inhabitants. As the sunlight bathes the huge body of the oak, I tiny door is lit up at his base. A tiny, wooden door with a tiny holly wreath fixed to its knocker. 

Silence, except for the snap of tiny crackers being pulled behind the tiny door.

Several pairs of eyes are watching me. Looking up, I catch a glimpse of two, no, three bushy tales, spiralling up and up, to the uppermost branches. 

Giddiness, from the sunlight and the motion cause me to look away. But as I do, I notice something drop from the mouth of one of my watchers. It spins like a sycamore seed in Autumn. I catch it as it gently bounces into my hand - a tiny green stocking. For a tiny squirrel's paw.


©Lisa Lee, 2014. Sleeping in Elvegren Tales

'One Giant Leap'

One bright and starry night, on a planet far, far away from here there sat a little alien called Graham.

He was the youngest Graham on the planet and a great weight was weighing down upon his bumpy, orange shoulder-like things.

"Oh dear," he sighed, "Whatever is to become of us all?" Graham glanced at the bare 'leap patch'. Not a single leap had grown there since Graham had been made 'Watcher of the Patch' and unless one grew very, very soon, the planet would die and that would be the end of the Grahams. He sighed again and lifted one of his heads, the green one, up towards the stars. "Stars, please hear me tonight," his green head said. "Without leaps in our tummies, nothing will live and the whole planet will die!" But the stars just shone. Except one. On the right. Which seemed to throb and then fall. Graham didn't notice though as he replaced the green head and rested his red one in his hand.

The next morning, as the stars shone brighter, Graham cautiously opened his eyes. "Wow!" he gasped. Then, getting up to his foot, he hopped over to where the other Grahams were still napping. "Wake up!" he shouted.

"What's all this young Graham?" questioned the elder Graham, as he too hobbled to his foot. "Look! Look at the leap patch!" They all followed Grahams gaze and with joint amazement, started swaying backwards and forwards on their feet. There, right in the middle of the patch there was a green shoot just surfacing above the pink soil.

The Grahams all leant forward, eyes widening as the shoot carried on growing!

By the end of the day, as the sky grew even darker, the leap covered the entire patch. Little Graham watched in wonderment as it stopped growing and became still. A leap. One giant leap. Big enough for all the Grahams on the whole planet to share. He looked up into the sky once more. "Ooo," he said. "What's that?" Up in the sky, to the right there was a new star. It was bigger and brighter than all the rest. A glow grew around it and moved towards the planet. "Could this be what helped the leap grow?" he thought. All of his eyes widened as the sky lightened. He felt warmer too and a smile spread across his green head.

And so the Grahams lived. The planet lived. All thanks to a massive, glowing star and one giant leap.

©Lisa Lee 2010, edited 2014. Sleeping in Elvegren Tales

Three Degrees of Separation

Rachel keyed in her unique four-digit number, pressed ‘enter’ and waited. It was bitingly cold on this street corner, she thought, as she instinctively pulled her coat tighter, shuffling from one foot to the other. Her card was returned to her just moments before the crisp, ten pound note was dispensed from the slot above the keyboard. She hastily folded it and placed it into her purse. Then she marched herself back to the café, where her skinny cappuccino and granola slice was being prepared.

‘Sorry about that!’ Rachel smiled at the cashier and handed over her money.

‘Not a problem, madam.’ The cashier counted out her change. ‘Where will you be sitting?’

Dropping the loose coins into her purse, she looked around. The room had filled up quite a bit in her absence. ‘Oh damn, it looks like I may have to…’

‘There’s a table over there, madam,’ a waiter interrupted as he breezed passed her and into the kitchen beyond.

‘Ah, yes. Marvellous. Thank you.’  She bustled through the packed tables, trying not to knock anyone’s coats to the floor, mumbling her apologies until she reached her destination. Then, with a shoppers sigh, she took the weight off her feet and tucked into her lunch.

The waiter emerged from the kitchen with a hearty laugh,

‘Deb, we need more milk! I’m taking a tenner from the till, okay?’ He was out of the door, still wearing his pinny, before Deb, the cashier, nodded her agreement.

Come on, come on, thought the waiter. He rose himself up onto his toes to see what the hold up was. A little old man was stood behind him and was trying to get a view of the situation himself.

‘There’s never enough people on these bloody tills, lad!’

The waiter turned round and laughed, ‘No sir, there is not!’

‘Cashier number 4 please.’

Finally, he thought, strolling towards number four. His smile broadened as he recognised the pretty girl about to serve him.

‘Well, if it isn’t Callum, as I live and breath!’

‘Hello Ruth. How’s tricks?’

‘Good Cal. You? That’ll be £2.78 please.’ Cal thrust his hand into the pinny pocket and pulled out the £10 note,

‘Cheers. Yeah, it’s all good! Listen, you doing anything for New Year’s Eve?’

‘Nooo, why? That’s 2.78, 2.80, 3, 4, 5 and a fiver is 10.’ She slammed down the lid of the till.

‘Well a few of us are getting together at Po-Na-Nas. You don’t need a ticket just, well…’

‘Sure, why not! You remember where I live, Cal. Pick me up, yeah?’ Ruth smiled. Cal smiled back,

‘Yeah,’ he nodded.

‘Cashier number 4 please.’

‘Sorry, I was miles away! You’re not ‘cash only’ are you?’

‘No love. We’ll take your money any old way here!’ Ruth’s still smiling with thoughts of Callum in her head. Rachel was exhausted,

‘Only I had to draw cash out earlier for a coffee but I clean forgot I needed to buy milk too! Honestly, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on…’ Then she noticed the ‘Cash-Back’ sign, ‘Oh, do you do cash-back?’ she asked,

‘We do my love. How much?’

‘Oh, I’m not sure, um, a tenner I think. Yes, a tenner.’

‘There you go,’ Ruth’s fingers lingered a little on the crisp ten pound note that she had only moments ago taken from Callum. Rachel hastily folded it and placed it in her purse. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘and Happy New Year!’

©Lisa Lee 2014, sleeping in Elvegren Tales

Diet

My name is Bess. Bess May Smith and I have a tale to tell, though it isn’t really mine. It is the tale of my Granny but she is unable to tell it anymore.

Back in the black and white days, when ladies wore murky, long dresses and men were all uptight and combed their moustaches, my Gran was born. It was a rubbish time to be born, she told me. There was no colour in the world and children were not really liked by anyone, not even their own parents! That is why, she said, her mother left her in the village orchard. 

Her first memory is the smell; a gentle, soporific scent that wafted from the soft, green grass that enveloped her tiny body until she stopped crying and then lulled her into a dreamless sleep. From that first peaceful night she bloomed, protected by the canopy of the oldest tree in the orchard and nourished by the fruits it dropped beside her. She spent her first twelve years alone, my magical, beautiful Granny, toddling through the trees with an apple in each hand, then shinning up her ‘mother’ tree and weaving in and out between it’s limbs. Idyllic days, filled with innocence and an abundance of fruit. No one entered that beautiful orchard. It was a lost paradise, the railings and rusty gate overgrown with bind weed. Even the magisterial tree in the middle was viewed from afar as just part of the landscape. So she was safe, in one sense but quite lonely in another.

*

One day, so the story goes, a young man came wandering into the gated orchard and ambled purposely towards her tree! His legs were long and thin and he wore a jacket of velvet to cover his narrow back. She saw him through the boughs of her tree and her clear, bright eyes bore through his thick, curly blonde hair. He picked a fallen apple from the ground, sat himself down and leant back against the wide, gnarly trunk where he promptly fell asleep. As she held her gaze she found that she could see into his mind, his thoughts were like an open book to her, and they mirrored her own. She fell hopelessly in love that day, reading his soul through the leaves, breathless and still. She watched as his closed eyes flickered and a smile played upon his lips. Then, suddenly, one eye opened, followed quickly by the other! Granny squealed and (this is my favourite bit) fell from her branch, landing rather luckily and romantically, in his long velvet-clad arms. Now he was breathless, the only sound was the rustle of the leaves in the tree above them. Love is a magical thing you know. Really, it is.

*

That’s how my Granny met my Grampy. They built a hut in the orchard, to the left of Granny’s tree, and made a comfortable home. It wasn’t long before my mum, Rosie, came along. Never was a child more loved, never was a child so wanted. Her skin was pale, like her father’s but her cheeks were touched with the red that her mother held in hers. She fed on her mother’s milk for nearly two years - no wind-fell apples for this precious girl. 

Now the world had kept moving, the sun rose and set and progress, well, progressed. Rosie was a child of natural rebellion and so soon outgrew her orchard in the same way that we all outgrow our childhood home. The time came for her to branch out (that’s how Grampy put it, with a chuckle). But Granny was confused. She had never left the orchard, contenting herself with her beloved’s tales of ‘life beyond.’ My mum always said she was scared. You see, over the years and a diet purely of apples, Granny’s skin had taken on a slight green tinge. I think she looked beautiful but there was no denying that she looked different to other people. Grampy never pushed the issue, choosing to protect and cherish his wife wherever she wanted to be. That day, the day of Rosie leaving, everything in the orchard fell still. The tree bowed her boughs as Rosie wrapped her arms around it’s trunk, her tears soaked into the bark. They saw their precious girl to the now almost invisible gate. Granny watched as she slid through the slight opening. Grampy gave a jolly wave, put a reassuring arm around his wife’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze.

The End

The end? Of course not! All good daughters visit their parents and when you have two as special as my Granny and Grampy, well, you just try and stay away! Mum’s first visit was to introduce them to my dad. We don’t talk about that. All I can say is that, according to the tale, the tree, on seeing his face, shook her branches so ferociously, all her apples just dropped to the floor. One caught him a fine clout on the side of his head and fetched the tree a swift kick in return. Granny looked at her beloved and said, ‘Now there’s a bad apple if ever there was one.’ He nodded in agreement.

The next time mum visited, she was alone. Well, almost alone. There was me, like a little pip inside her tummy. Her parents received the news with delight and by the time I put in an appearance, mum was back in the orchard. She had a hut of her own, with a nursery for me and a tended garden roped off for my safety. That’s how I grew up! The same way my mum did and, almost, the same way Granny did. We were one very wonderful, magical  family with my exceptional grandparents holding us all together. Until Grampy died. Oh dear reader, my poor Granny. Never was a soul left so bereft. Death had never visited the orchard before, it had never even come up in their many conversations. He fell asleep one afternoon and just never woke up. 

*

In the days, weeks and months that followed, my mum and I pulled Granny through. Mum, by keeping house and organising the funeral. Me, by singing and dancing, with a smile on my face. There were many tears too but we did manage to raise the occasional chuckle from her. As she grew more peaceful and accepting of the passing of her beloved, Granny’s skin became darker. When she stood beneath the tree it was hard to tell the difference! Then one day, after mum had finished the housework and come looking for me, we found her stood there, smoothing the tree’s bark and speaking softly. ‘Mum?’ my mum called. ‘Granny?’ I added. But it was as if we weren’t there. Her body was still, as still as the tree she was caressing. We looked at her, her face was still so beautiful, still had the apple red blush on each cheek, the wide, dimpled smile that lit up her eyes, but her skin was now a deep green colour. Together we stepped forward and both put a hand on each of her arms. A flicker of recognition in her eyes, a single tear and she was gone. My Granny had become part of the orchard that had given her life, protected her, found her her soulmate and nurtured her precious family. Now it was time for her to pass on and I can think of nothing more fitting for my amazing Gran than to be forever rooted to the spot where she first cried, fell in love and said goodbye to my Grampy. 

Now, that’s an ending. 

©Lisa Lee 2013, sleeping in Elvegren Tales