Did You Know…About Sprites?

Tags

affinity for the elements, did you know, dobbie, elves, fae, faeries, house elves, J.K. Rowling, mythology, Sprites

Of the fae, most of us are acquainted with faeries and elves the best, but several other categories of the fae-dom tend to go unnoticed. One of them is the sprite, and much like their counterparts, these creatures are unpredictable and mischievous. Unlike faeries and elves, they have more otherworldly attributes.

Most often, sprites are paired with water, generally linked to elemental spirits, like the Nixie, which comes from nuhhussa, an Old High Germanic word meaning water sprite.  Mythology also called them water nymphs, naiads, or nyads, who were divine entities fixed in one place—differing them from gods and corporeal beings, like selkies and mermaids.

Water sprites are typically spotted near or in small lakes and streams. In Sweden, they can look like a man, a horse a bull, and even a cat or dog. The Bäckahästen make their victims ride on their backs to drown them.

Sprites also have affinities for plants. Brightly colored and roughly the size of larger insects, these sprites have dazzling translucent wings. Many are confused with exotic flowers and butterflies at first glance. At night, they may glow, allowing them to hide amongst the fireflies.

These creatures are more common than their faeries and elven counterparts, living deep in the woods—high amongst the branches, down near rivers and streams, or calm and cool-weathered hills.

Wooded sprites travel in swarms that bite if provoked, and they love to pester butterflies, which they fly faster and longer than. Routinely, the wake and bathe before hunting and eating plant pests, feeding their symbiotic relationship with the flowers, grasses, trees, and bushes.

Tree sprites are responsible for aiding trees in shaking off winter’s snow, budding leaves, and bearing fruit, which they love to snack on. They also help turn the leaves in autumn, and pluck limbs bare to complete the cycle. Afterwards, they hide deep within the trees during winter to keep the tree company and sing to the roots. Sometimes, they don’t make it to the next spring.

A Dobbie is another form of sprite, the “household sprite,” originally seen in 1811, earning its name from dobbin, a farm horse in Merchant of Venice. Sussex, England called such spirits Master Dobbs. Much like J.K. Rowling’s rendition of Dobby, appropriately named, the house sprites take interest in the families they’ve adopted. They live in the unused parts of the house and are often retiring about the time their families are waking up.

Have you heard of the sprite? Which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below!

 

Read a Russian Folktale about the Wood Sprite: here.

 

Sources:

https://www.paganspath.com/meta/faeries.htm

https://mythology.wikia.org/wiki/Sprite

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(folklore)

https://aspcwf.wordpress.com/the-many-types-of-tribes-of-wee-folk/alphabetical-listing-of-tribes-discussed-here/household-sprites/

Did You Know…About Dragons?

Tags

anatomy, combat, dragon abilities, dragon riddles, dragon scales, dragon senses, dragon's breath, dragon's lair, dragon's treasure, mythology

Okay, dragons are an immensely varied species, so let’s explore the basics.

Most dragons have wings, like a bat with extended fingers creating the frame, giving dragons six limbs and feet that they can use with versatility. Their tail also has many uses, steering in flight, propelling in the water, and as a defensive weapon. Scales cover dragons’ bodies, growing with them, shielding them, and as they’re used as armor, a dragon does not shed its skin. Their feet tend to have three or four toes forward facing and a thumb-like digit that allows them to grasp objects.

Their teeth are strong as are the muscles of their jaws. With four fangs, the number of other teeth depends on their age and what they eat. Horns that point backwards are meant for grooming and those aimed forward are defensive.

Their senses, on a majority, are heightened. Sight adapted for hunting allows them to accurately judge distances and see in the dark. A forked tongue helps with sniffing and sensing others by their scent. Taste is exceptional, although dragons tend to hate sweet flavors. Blindsense allows them to see invisible things and see with their eyes closed. However, their touch is deadened due to their thick skin, scales, and clawed feet, and their hearing is no better than humans.

Dragons’ brains are large, making them smart. They love riddles and poetry and art and jewels. They tend to be reclusive, solitary creatures, hidden away in lairs. They prefer their own company but makes exceptions when mating and raising children or wyrmlings. They rarely unite and fight together against a foe, which is why most encounter only one dragon at a time. But they will fight each other over treasure, lairs, or mates.

Finally, dragons are incredible fighters, able to incapacitate their enemies with a range of natural weapons. Dragon’s breath, for instance, stretches amongst various chemicals that are as different as each individual. If one has enough in its lungs, one can blow dragons breath onto its victims. Dragonfear freezes a victim’s muscles, pumps them with adrenaline, and clenches their stomach. And dragons also have a nature talent for spellcasting, which links with their own unique personalities.

 

 

Source: Suncatcher, Sindri. A Practical Guide to Dragons. Mirror Stone Books. 2006.

Did You Know…About the Cave Goblin?

Tags

cave goblin, giants, goblin, hiisi, kobold, Legend, medieval creatures, miner's legends, muki, mythology

Goblins are monstrous Medieval creatures with a wide variety of abilities, dispositions, and forms, but they primarily cause trouble for mankind with their mischievous, unpleasant, vengeful, and greedy ways.

(Photo Credit: Goblin’s Bloody Cloth by Tero Porthan)

The muki live in subterranean caves and are known as miners. From the Central Andes in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, the muki remains consistent in its dwarf-like height (no taller than two feet), its brawny and disproportionate body, lack of neck, deep and husky voice, long/bright blonde hair, reddish face with a long white beard, and deep and aggressively hypnotic metallic eyes. Sometimes, he has two horns to break rocks and search out mineral veins. Sometimes, he carries a mining lantern. Sometimes, he has pointy ears.

 

The muki live in secluded places, and their attacks arouse fear in the local communities, especially as they are known to steal defenseless children. Often, Elders advise using a belt to battle one and not to succumb to fear.

Yet, muki hold great power to help humans they like, making metal veins appear or disappear in a mine, sensing moods and emotions of the surrounding miners, helping their work by softening or hardening veins, and whistling loudly to warn miners of danger. They also make pacts with discreet and honest humans. And several stories tell of capturing these creatures, who often offer to do the miner’s work for some cocoa, alcohol, or a woman’s touch. If the miner reneges their promise, the muki will kill them.

The kobold is a famous German goblin with the versatility of living on ships, in mines, and human homes. They can change their appearance to fit their locale; however, most choose to be ambivalent household spirits—doing chores around the house—or they perform malicious tricks at being slighted. They can materialize as animals, fire, or human, typically taking shape as a small child in homes. Those who live in mines are often hunched and ugly, and those who take up residences on ships smoke pipes and dress as sailors.

Those who live underground were often blamed for cave-ins and rockslides. They favored pranking fool miners into taking worthless ore, mistaking them for rich veins of copper or silver, and when the ore was smelted, it became a noxious pollutant. Miners tried to placate kobolds with gold and silver offerings and respect, but still, sometimes, the kobold returned the favor with cobalt, a poisonous ore thusly named after the creature.

Yet, when treated well, the kobolds could benefit miners, knocking to warn miners not to travel in certain directs and indicating where rich veins of metal could be found—the more knocks, the better mining.

In Finnish mythologies, the hiisi are similar to giants or trolls and are found near striking cliffs, ominous crevasses, large boulders, potholes, woods, hills, and other prominent geographical features or rough terrain. They travel in a noisy procession and attack people who do not get out of their way. They come inside and steal your things when a door is left open. Cultivated areas are the only safe place to hide from a hiisi as they’re seen as sanctified.  Many pre-historic structures and larger stone boulders were thought erected by the hiisi and other giants.

Goblins come in plenty of shapes and flavors, but they all share one thing in common: they prefer being left alone.

 

Sources: thisisFINLAND, Hiisi, Mystic Files, Goblin, Kobold

Did You Know…About the Paranormal War?

Tags

Assetato, atlantean pantheon, atlantis, Boot Camp, Celampresians, must read, mythology, paranormal, Romulus, shifters, vampires

I have two distinct groups in my Broken World series, the Celampresians and the Assetato, who fight for rule over the paranormal world.

First, the Celampresians are named after the queen of the vampires, the first one in existence: Phea Celampresian. She’s vain, so she named her army after herself.

I chose that name after some research about Altantis and what type of surnames may have come from their culture. “Celam-” means the noble, and Phea was part of Atlantean nobility as her stepfather held a high-ranking government position. This also plays into her heritage: she was born of an Atlantean human woman impregnated by the primordial god, Chronos; therefore, making Phea the granddaughter of the Earth Goddess, Gaia. I infuse this mythology in her story, “Maiden of the Underworld.” In any case, I’m going off on a tangent, as I do. The second part of the name, “presian,” came from my tweaking two other names: Ampheresian, which means unsophisticated, hardy, and enduring, and Diaprepesian, which means ambitious, untrustworthy, and sly, all of which describe Phea’s personality not long after she becomes a vampire.

Essentially, the Celampresians are the bad guys, an evil coalition that aims to kill off most of the shifter races because Phea wants a dictatorship with all paranormal creatures under her control. This stems from her birth as the first paranormal creature, the mother of all vampires and the grandmother of all shifters.

Second, the Assetato have a bit simpler of a back-story. I knew that Rosalie, the head of the Assetato, was Italian royalty before she was stolen and changed by one of the Celampresians. Once she freed herself from their reign, she banded with important allies and founded the organization in order to undermine Phea’s hold on the paranormal world so that vampires, shifters, and humans can live together. Simply put, I named them the Italian translation for “The Thirsty,” as they work not to kill humans in order to survive.

The Assetato are supposed to be the good guys, but their means of fighting don’t always seem so pure. They combat Phea’s control over them and want to live more peacefully, although they also battle their natural impulses to consume human blood and flesh. They are mostly good-doers in the U.S. but are more aggressive in Europe, as I will explore in an upcoming spin-off novel THE SISTER WITH THE STOLEN POCKET WATCH about a mermaid-unicorn, but that’s a whole new tangent.

This is why they create safe houses, like seen in LOVING RED and “The Mark of the Phoenix.” To house their brethren away from the Celampresians, to protect humans, to let their soldiers heal, and to safeguard humans against their base natures.

The last note I want to make about the Assetato as an organization and all of the links between the two groups is this—Anthemos Romulus Celampresian. You may or may not recognize that name from book one and the short story “The Mark of the Phoenix,” where I give hints of his role in this world. Anthemos, or Mumu as his mother likes to call him, is the Atlantean god of beasts, the only god remaining from that pantheon, and the father of shifters.

To put it bluntly, he’s both Phea’s son and the real driving force behind the organization that combats her. Besides all of the Atlantean threads at play in Ria’s tale—my current perspective, Anthemos’s function is far more strictly tied than I’ve let on. He is, after all, his mother’s son, and their relationship affects a lot more than a few camps of creatures.

Looking forward to revealing more about this magickal place!

 

Want to know more about Altantis? About Phea? Check out Did You Know…About Phea and James, my interviewwith Phea, the vampire queen, and my free download of her creation story, “Maiden of the Underworld.”

 

Did You Know…An Ethology Lesson on Muses.

Tags

Ancient Greek, girl with the glowing hair, influence, inspiration, Lily Graves, Mnemosyne, Muse, mythology, Zeus

Much like Lily, muses are high up on my favorites list—just behind the chimera. This may be because I possess a living muse, my husband, whom influences so much of my writing without being acutely aware of it. And man, did he inspire the hell out of my Lily Graves series, more specifically, Evan Walker, my leading chimera.

In Lily’s world, they’re not so much gods or goddesses like in Greek mythology. Rather, they’re like the fey or elementals—immortal so long as nothing kills them—but their powers are limited to shaping others’ minds.

According to Lily:

Muses were by far my favorite to observe and read about. How they could gather a group of artists, share time with them, and inspire such variations of themselves and their stories. They were creatures that could be found within most characters in assorted story types. Others talked to everyone about anything, spreading seeds on the wind to hope for germination. 

I see my husband do this ALL THE TIME. It’s fascinating.

Lily even gets to experience this:

Starr’s far-off look made me wonder if she whispered to the squirrels outside. Her hand fell to the piece on her easel before her attention followed, like a muse directed her.

I searched the room as casually as I could muster, which I had to admit, wasn’t much. A boy with a blue and purple fade and a flop of curls in front of his left eye moved his lips silently, but the cadence had energy, the kind I felt more than heard. He smiled around his words and a wave hit me.

My pencil hit the paper, scribbling before my mind caught up.

A flower.

With tear-drop petals.

A waterlily.

Floating.

I nabbed a pack of pastel sticks.

Water emerged around the pad.

Green, one dimensional under the lily.

I highlighted it with the blues and greens. Lightly. As the energy swirled and died around me.

I sucked in a breath as I set down the pastels.

Starr laughed at me. “You are funny.”

The elegant coloring of the flower struck me. I wasn’t being humble when I said I didn’t have any talent. But this…was one of those moments you get blessed with every now and again—that one when you’re in the right place at the right time and stuff works out perfectly.

“How am I funny?”

I got a shake of the head for an answer.

It’s how I’ve often experienced getting hit with inspiration, so it only made sense to reflect that in my version of the muse.

In fact, they seem to combine the current culture’s depiction of muses with the Ancient Greek variety. The mythological muses are often seen as nine goddesses, the daughters or Zeus and Mnemosyne, who presided over the arts and sciences, becoming both their symbols and their protectors.  Essentially, they were inspirational goddesses and embodied poetry, history, music, tragedy, hymns, dance, comedy, and astronomy.

In any case, these are some interesting folks, and I can’t wait to discover more about them.

 

Stay tuned for more mini-ethology lessons from Lily Graves’s world and sign up for an ARC of the first in her series, GIRL WITH THE GLOWING HAIR.

Sarah Lyn Eaton, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

artistic process, dragons, editing tips, good reads, Magical Native, must read, mythology, passive voice, phoenix, submissions

If you haven’t heard of the On Fire anthology, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet Sarah Lyn Eaton.

How long have you been writing?

I wrote my first story when I was nine. I illustrated it and everything. Doesn’t everyone say that? It’s true. But I’ve been seriously pursuing writing for the last four years. I set a list of goals for myself, to keep me on task. I’ve been sending out submissions regularly… I don’t know how regular, but I always have submissions out to publishers. It’s a way of making what was a hobby into a career. If I get too many rejections and there are only a few stories with people, I get itchy. If no one’s reading my work, I can’t get published, can I?

What did you edit out of “The Last Seven Tribes of the Ketchari”?

A lot of passive voice. Not that passive voice is a bad thing. It can be done well. But when it’s (mostly) not, it makes for an interesting but dull story. In real life, I am a fairly take-things-as-they-come person. But for a good story, you want your protagonist to have agency and curiosity that gets them into situations they then have to get out of. I’m working on leading with agency and not storytelling. I was taught description, description, description but most of the feedback I get says it’s too much for a short story and it’s getting in the way of the pace. We continually grow as writers, and I can finally see it in my drafts. I look forward to the day I catch most of it on my own.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

The most difficult part of my artistic process is that all-or-nothing feeling. Either I have five stories in my mind fighting for dominance over my fingers or I can’t drum up one interesting character. Sometimes I know a passage is not ready yet, that it doesn’t quite say what I want it to say and I can spend hours on one sentence—the lynchpin sentence—just to make it what I want it to be. What it needs to be. It can look quite obsessive, I’m sure, when I am yelling at the thesaurus for failing me. But I follow my gut. It hasn’t failed me yet.

 

From “The Last Seven Tribes of the Ketchari” by Sarah Lyn Eaton:

The Old Ones stretched themselves in creaks and groans to protect Rochelle’s flight. She ran with long, practiced strides, gaining distance from the hunters.

Birch dryads flung splintered arms at the men, bowling and pinning them to the ground. Roots snapped, tripping the hounds and their masters. In a wave, the grove stepped out of Rochelle’s path, setting themselves between predator and prey.

A scream pierced the air. Rochelle stumbled. Her heart froze.

Marta.

A thin whistle in the crisp cold night. A burning sting sliced her shoulder. She fell against a young sapling, her cheek pressed against the snow. The birch curled itself low to shield her from sight.

Frightened, they both held their breath.

The forest filled with hounds and human cries and crackling flames, a cacophonous chorus shearing the night.

The dryads. They’re dying. She ran a hand down it’s trunk. The wood trembled.

I can fix it.

“I’m sorry. Hawthberskielth. Gruttberski—”

A sharp steel blade tore through the root. She screamed as thick fingers grabbed her mouth.

“Now, now. You went to all the trouble to wake the wooden bastards.” A dark face replaced the axe.

The tree above her shivered.

The hunter twisted the arrow she’d caught, grinding it into her shoulder. Biting back a yelp, her teeth drew warm blood.

“A shame to put them back to sleep before they fully experience life.”

“They’re going to die,” she said.

“See what destruction your magic has wrought? Isn’t it beautiful?”

The axe chopped through the wood twice more, raining splinters against her skin.

They dragged her out by her hair.

The bottom of the arrow scraped a sharp root, and she lost a moment to a blinding light of pain. Her breath came in uneasy gulps.

“It was sweet of this tree to protect you, but the trail of blood gave you away.” He dropped her and swung hard, imbedding the axe deep in the birch’s trunk.

Rochelle gasped at the stitch in her own side.

“Check her.”

Twelve scarred hunters and two wolfhounds paced the forest. A bald man with pocked cheeks pushed her over and ripped her tunic, exposing her back. The men nodded at each other triumphantly.

“We got ourselves a winner, Nico.”

Rochelle’s skin crawled at the violation. The tattooed feathers on each shoulder blade were gifts after the grueling Ketchari rites of passages.

And strangers groped them.

Her nostrils flared.

Nico lifted her chin with a calloused hand. His ice-blue eyes assessed her like a trophy—another kill. He hacked off a handful of her hair.

Rochelle’s heart wavered as he held it out to the other men. The hazy sky heavy with smoke and the sounds of genocide.

“I think this one is the leader. Her feathers are more elaborate than the others.”

Rochelle ducked her head and winced at the pain.

Oh, right. There’s an arrow in my shoulder.

How many got away?

Did any of them escape?

Dark bitterness filled her mouth.

Nico set her ebony hair on fire.

It flared bright but did not turn to ash. The black color burned away, revealing a brilliant clutch of red hair, which shimmered like fine gems.

Nico’s demented smile chilled her deeply.

 

Sarah Lyn Eaton is a writer who has survived both flood and fire. She lives with her wife and cats where the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers meet. Her published stories can be found in Pantheon Magazine, as well as the anthologies Dystopia Utopia, Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America, The Northlore Series, Volume One: Folklore, What Follows, and Elf Love. When not writing she can be found taking photos of fungus, collecting rock specimens, and mediating an end to the cucumber and bean plant turf war in her garden.

ON FIRE is available now: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and our press store.

Did You Know…About the Leprechaun?

Tags

ancient mounds, fairy folk, gold, ireland, irish, justice, leprechaun, mythology, norse mythology, shoemaker, St. Patty's Day

Traditionally, the leprechaun is depicted as the dwarf-like man, dressed in green with buckles on their shoes, an apron, and a high-crowned hat. They bury their gold and treasure and are quick, so if you catch one, you’d better keep him in your sight if you want him to hand over his riches. But careful, he’s a trickster and will do everything in his power to keep his gold for himself.

As the “national elf” of Ireland, he often represents Irish hospitality, telling stories over a roasting fire and sharing his poteen, but he is anything but innocent and nice. A dark and gloomy creature and not very good company at that, the woes of the world have soaked into him. Selfish little creatures, they’re not much for sharing and kindness. In fact, they’re rather spiteful. Because of this, Irish households left offerings of milk, cheese, and twists of tobacco on their doorsteps to keep them from wreaking havoc on their homes. An offering of whiskey often had the reverse effect, however.

Further back, leprechauns were thought to be descendants of fallen angels, and they maintain their Irish origins from words such as: luch (mouse), lúth (agility), and lurga (ankle), thus creating the myth that they were tiny and fast, like the mouse, with rather large feet.

More interestingly, lore depicts several types of leprechauns, like the grogochs, pechts, tallas, cluricauns, Sheela-na-gigs, or dwarves in Norse mythology. The grogochs were opposite what many think of leprechauns today, slow, dim-witted, and dirty with no desire for riches. Instead, they sought gratitude for their labors and had good hearts, but more on them in a different post.

Most often invisible, leprechauns were noted by clouds of smoke or dust, creating the tradition of throwing one’s shoe into it. This would force the leprechaun to drop what he held, like a load of gold or a human—most often unbaptized babies—being carried off to the faerie world.

This relates to their profession—the cobbler or shoemaker. They were known to create new shoes for faerie balls or were merely those who repaired and restored old shoes worn from frivolous dancing. This stems from a time when shoes and boots were expensive and seen as highly-prized pieces of clothing. Thus, the leprechaun was seen as an artisan, a central and much-beloved figure in the faerie world, for they loved to dance.

However, shoemaking was not the only occupation the leprechaun took, like builders and stonemasons—sometimes credited for building the ancient Irish mounds—metalworkers or smiths, distillers or musicians, and bankers.

Leprechauns adapt well to their surroundings, finding places to hide and live, like old churches, ruined castles, and ancient fortresses, or they might dwell in human artefacts, abandoned beehives, the eaves of barns, old boxes, or discarded kettles.  Essentially, they seek shelter from the elements in already constructed places rather than forming their own.

Often seen as solitary creatures, they actually formed clans—the four best known represented the four provinces of Ireland, Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught—each with their own special skills and talents. Other than some sweeping generalizations about the groupings, not much is known about the way they classified themselves, but what we do know is that the leprechaun courts often held judgements against humans, especially those who slighted a faerie, and there were no appeals to sentences, such as absolute bankruptcy, twisted limbs or spine, illness, and occasionally, a long and painful death.

It might surprise some, but there is a wealth of knowledge about leprechauns, their origins, and their society beyond the gimmick we see on St. Patty’s Day. If you want to know more, let me know in the comments below.

Until then, look forward to further peeks into my shelf of mythological books…okay three shelves. Shh, don’t judge me.

 

Want to know more about my take on the leprechaun? Sign-up to be get your ARC copy of “The Shoemaker’s Apprentice,” my short story about Boden’s journey home.

Long ago, the death of his little sister broke his family apart.

After a close call left him blind in one eye, Boden must return to the home he fled as a young leprechaun.

For hundreds of years, he has feared facing his family and punishment for his sister’s death.

Boden needs to make up for his mistakes before he can fight a war for the woman he loves.

Find out what secrets are unleashed in THE SHOEMAKER’S APPRENTICE.

 

 

Source:

Curran, Bob. “The Truth About the Leprechaun.” Wolfhound Press, 2000.

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Did You Know… About the Phoenix?

Tags

bennu, chinese virtues, endurance, mythical bird, mythology, phoenix, ra, renewal, spiritual totem, yin and yang

The phoenix is a well-known symbol for rebirth, renewal, and resurrection and is often depicted as a long-lived bird that experiences a cycle of fiery end and birth from the ashes. Traditionally, only one is allowed to exist at a time.

In Egypt, the Bennu was the sacred bird of Heliopolis and was associated with the sun or as the soul of the sun god, Ra. His cry marked the beginning of time at the world’s creation. Also, the manifestation of Osiris, the god of transition, resurrection, and regeneration, Bennu appears with the atef crown.

In Greece, the red-gold phoenix (or phoinix) emitted rays of pure sunlight, lived for five hundred years, and feasted upon Arabian balsam and frankincense. Upon its death, a new and fully-grown phoenix emerged, having been encased in a myrrh egg of the parent.

The phoenix has reign over all other birds in China and is a symbol of feminine grace, the sun, and the south. Sighting a phoenix indicates a wise leader has ascended and begun a new era. As the representation of Chinese virtues, such as goodness, duty, propriety, kindness, and reliability, they believed that this mystical bird was sent to assist mankind’s development.

Because of the connections with death and revival, Christianity adopted it as an early symbol and analogy for Christ’s death and resurrection three days later. The phoenix was often used on early Christian tombstones.

 

As a spiritual totem, the phoenix is the keeper of the fire of all creation. Ultimately, they are symbols of strength and renewal and regarded as the representation of the seasons, coherence, longevity, imagination, and protection.

Typically, the phoenix is seen as the coming together of two, one male and female, or as the yin and yang and signifies the inherent need for balance in the world. The female phoenix totem—or the yin—denotes an energy characterized as passive, psychic, deep-thinking, the moon, darkness, and winter. The male phoenix totem—or the yang—deals with assertion, bold action, warmth, light, and summer. Because of this connection, a pair of phoenixes was often given as a wedding gift.

Presently, the phoenix embodies a renewal of energy to keep us fighting the good fight as we all struggle with tough times and negativity, as Aderyn does in my story, “The Mark of the Phoenix,” where he fights to do good and keep people safe after being sentenced to die.

The phoenix reminds us that we can endure.

 

Want to know more?

Check out my guest post on Transmundane’s blog, “The Cycle of the Phoenix.”

 

Sources & Other Information:

Wikipedia, Ancient Origins, Mythical Realm, Greek Mythology, Labyrinthina, Theoi, Whats-Your-Sign, Sun Signs.

Will Waller, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

devil, editing, fairy tale, hellfire, hope, irish, Marketing, must read, mythology, on fire, writing

If you haven’t heard of my new project, the On Fire anthology over at Transmundane Press, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet Will Waller.

 

What do you find to be the easiest thing about writing? What is the hardest?

By far the easiest thing for me to do is come up with premises for stories to write. The hardest… I don’t know if difficult is really the operative concern, but my biggest fault as a writer is being too easily satisfied. Since I have so many premises, when I finish drafting and editing one, I want to be done. So, sometimes I’m too easily satisfied. Unfortunately, good writing rarely works like that.

What did you edit out of this story?

The mean-spirited parts.

What are you doing to market yourself?

I’m not, really. The audience I have I have because I’m mouthy and opinionated, and because I’ve been part of a few different publications, including The Fantasist Magazine, which I founded and still run with my fiancé. I’ve always been strange, I think, in that I don’t really enjoy talking about my own writing. Working in publishing gives me something else to talk about at the bar at a con, or any other context, really. If that helps me market myself, and I’m not sure it does, it’s really only because people remember me as the odd young person not trying to tell everyone who will listen about his novel.

 

From “Torch” by Will Waller

This is the story of Stingy Jack:

You’re a blacksmith in a small Irish town. You’re a gigantic fucking asshole, so naturally people try to kill you, but this is a fairy tale, so even with an axe in your back, you get to bargain with the Devil while you both get a pint. You say, “I have a great idea,” and nothing good ever happens after that. There’s a thing with a coin and a plan to steal some souls, then a cross, and it all ends with you getting another year of life. You spend that year having an affair in a small town with a woman who doesn’t tell you she’s already pregnant. After she leaves, the Devil corners you under an apple tree, but you’re still not ready to let it go. Again with the crosses, but this time, you’re stupid. While he’s stuck in that tree, you make him swear to never take your soul. When you try to catch up with the woman, she tells you about her new baby girl. You’re supposed to act like the summer never happened. The pearly gates are closed. She doesn’t want you near her good china. So, you hit bottom and head to Hell to set up shop, but when you get there, the Devil laughs at you. He won’t let you in. You made him swear he wouldn’t, but he remembers your college days, and he has a sense of humor. He sticks some Hellfire in a turnip, so the burning smell can light your way while you wander. He says it’s to help, but the fire carries the memory of the summer, and the memory, with the smell, clings to every new relationship. You fall into old habits and become a shadow of yourself, but the only thing that people see is a hopeful, little light bobbing in a stinky mist. Other people mistake your light for guidance and lose themselves in a swamp they don’t see following your little light. Knowing you’re lost anyway, you wander west, chasing an old college friend, hoping he can set you right.

 

Will Waller is an author of speculative fiction, scholarship, and experimental writing originally from the Finger Lakes Wine Region of New York. After two years in San Francisco spent working as an editor for Eleven Eleven Journal, he relocated to St. Louis to found The Fantasist Magazine. His writing focuses on memory, music, and the weather, and has been featured by Bay Area Generations, Heavy Feather Review, Rivet Magazine, and the On Fire anthology of Transmundane Press.

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I have been thinking about Ria’s parents for a long time. What their stories are, how they came together to make Ria—the spontaneous meeting that changed the world.

And no, I’m not being dramatic. Although Ria is not the one, she’s the catalyst for the one.

Cue the fake stadium roar that kind of sounds like a ghost instead.

Aderyn proved to be more of a mystery than Tatiana did, but his growth into mortality has made him such an interesting person for me as does his connection with the children in this story.

I rather enjoyed the surprises he’s brought me. So, let me introduce him to you:

 

New York City was heavy with fog and exhaust as Aderyn Tanguy returned to Tisch Hospital to check on his person of interest. Little Avery’s long limbs reanimated with uncanny energy, but the pale sheen to her dark skin drove suspicion into his gut.

The night before she’d been so close to death that he pulled out every trick he had to keep her heart beating, but he left her weak and steady when her mother arrived for visiting hours. This, however, was miraculous and not his handiwork.

Her wide nostrils flared as he stepped into her new room, closing the door behind him. “Morning, precious. How long have you been awake?”

She blinked at him, long lashes and wild eyes. Her nostrils flared again.

Cachu hwch, he’d given her everything she could handle, but she’d died anyways.

Freshly awake. Must have been. Avery sat with her hands bunched in the white sheets around her lap. Disinfectant and bile lingered in the room. No hints at fresh blood. She hadn’t bitten anyone yet.

Thick canines pressed against her plump mouth as he breached the end of her bed.

“Where’s your mother? Hmm? Had any other visitors?”

Uninhabited hunger dilated her pupils, but she posed him little danger. Vampires rarely attacked healers. Most creatures didn’t. Perks of being a phoenix. The phoenix.

“It hurts.” Her words slurred, saliva sputtering from her thick lips.

“I know it does, precious. I know.”

Her fingers loosened from the sheets, but Aderyn grabbed her face and immobilized her with his gaze. Delving into her mind produced a blur of muted colors and bright red blood. Cold. Sharp. Prickling. Pain. The soft edges of a face passed through her vision before nothingness.

She didn’t remember anything. Just as well.

Aderyn snapped her neck, cringing at the blow that rebounded within him as he laid her back against the white pillows. “Sorry, precious. You didn’t want that life, no way.”

Layers of lemongrass lingered on her pillow, but no other traces were distinct enough to lend to a trail. Pushing back the curtain for the yellowed window. Entrance after he’d left was possible, but no clues. The place was clean, as it should be.

Eyes closed on the way out the door, he’d take the memory of her with him—the one’s full of hope instead of death.

Fog danced with his boots on the streets of lower Manhattan. Four blocks north, he used a payphone to check in, popping a quarter and dialing his handler.

“What?” Fury seethed in the breath on the other end of the line.

Why was the big guy answering the phone? “Sir, no go on the mini-human.”

“Leads?”

“Minimal.” Aderyn leaned over the payphone box and cleared the smell death from his sinuses with a shift in the air. Lemongrass weaved through wind.

“Stick around.”

The phone clanked dead, and he replaced the receiver.

Not an investigator, Aderyn scouted the street. Beyond the wet gravel and litter, the ghost of other paranormals laced through the human scents.

At his back squatted a small storefront with a sparkling window. Inside, a mane of blonde curls shook and shimmied under the command of two equally pale hands. Her hair shifted to reveal startling blue eyes, lined with extravagant lashes, and guarded by a spattering of freckles. They looked right through him.

Into him.

Her smile rivaled the sun.

And it disappeared before the ching of storefront bells revealed her again.

“Bad news?”

“That obvious?”

An elegant one-shoulder shrug lifted the sage in her hands. “Well, when you have to answer a question with a question, you’re in deeper than you want to be.”

Disposable lighter flicked under her thumb, the sparks refused to light, and he took it from her before he thought not to. Aderyn ignited the fumes spitting from the top.

“Well, you’re handy to have around.” She leaned in, dropping the end of her bundle into the flame and blowing it out to plumes of smoke. Stepping around him, her fingers trailed over his shoulder, and she waved her smudge stick in the corners of the entrance.

Holding the door open, she peeked out. “Pure enough to follow me inside?”

He did.

“Lock the door. My foot traffic doesn’t start until the afternoon.” Smoke circled in on itself as she looped the store and stubbed the stick out gently. “Back here, bad news.”

She disappeared behind a waterfall of beads, fingers catching the cascade like a mating dance. The back was warm and dark, illuminated by Christmas lights. As the heat closed in around them, Aderyn caught the hints of nutmeg and clove.

“Did you want to talk about your trouble?” The space maneuvered him beside her, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her touch danced up his arm, filling his senses like a drug. “Or forget about it?”

The way her thumb brushed his mouth drowned him in hope. This type of thing didn’t happen. Not to him.

 

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