I’d never seen a curse quite so large or complex. It seemed to originate at his throat and spread from there. Several tendrils disappeared beneath the collar of his white shirt. More of it crawled up the left side of his face, covering one eye. It turned that eye completely black leaving the other a pleasant shade of ocean green.

Curses were supposed to scar the bearer, make them ugly and undesirable—but Tram’s curse—it only made him more handsome. And right now I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off him.  

I'm working on that Victorian fantasy I talked about forever ago. Well, I guess I can't say I'm working on it so much as I'm toying with it. 

Here's the opening paragraph:

Ellie rubbed the curse mark on the underside of her wrist. It appeared on her thirteenth birthday, a sure sign she’d inherited the curse through family lineage. It wasn’t her fault, but people looked at her like she deserved the curse, like it was a punishment for some terrible deed. When in fact, she had no idea where the curse had come from. Neither did her parents. 

Kahne grabbed the TV remote, dropped it on the floor and crushed it beneath a heavy leather boot.

“Hey!” Ashley said.

“Watch.”

Within seconds, the plastic hissed and popped letting loose a cloud of thick, black smoke. She wrinkled her nose, expecting the smoke to smell acrid. Instead, it smelled like vanilla and black berries.

“What was that?” she asked.

“A witch spell.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah right.”

“You believe I’m a damned spirit possessing your best friend, don’t you? A witch is more believable, I would think.”

Well, when he put it that way…

She changed the subject. “How did you know the remote was spelled?”

He went back to the window, pushing it shut. “The smoke you saw? That was magic. And it smells like a witch in here.”

“Why would a witch spell my remote?”

He double-checked the locks on the window, pushing up on the frame testing its purchase. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not a witch, after all.”

There was something wrong with this situation—her taking the spell and the topic of witches with so little reluctance. If Kahne told her Jesus was real and that the Holy Grail existed, would she believe that too? She just might, because if demons and witches were real, maybe everything else was too.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked suddenly. The question stood in the room between them like some unfitting statue.  

Ashley stayed up against the wall farthest from him. “I’m just wondering why you’re here.”

“I came to bring you something.” He nodded at her dresser.

Somehow, she’d missed the small purple box when she first came in the room. Now, she took it in her hands, eyeing Kahne. What if this was another trap?

“Go ahead,” he said. “It’s for your protection.”

I scanned the street beyond the shooter, hoped for someone to saunter past, to save me because I couldn’t save myself.

And then Crowe Santos appeared, suddenly, like an afterthought brought on by the wind. He withdrew a gun from his leather jacket, pulled the trigger. The bullet popped from it's chamber. Blood splattered across my face. I flinched and when I opened my eyes, my would-be attacker was face down on the sidewalk. 
           “Are you all right?” Crowe asked, but it didn’t sound like he truly cared.

I nodded a lie.

I was far from okay.

“Go home, Janie,” he said. “Clean yourself up. Forget this night.”

“Okay,” I answered.

I would never forget that night for as long as I lived.

The writing break went well! I think I needed it anyway, considering I was starting a new job. After overloading my brain with all these new bank rules, it was nice to come home and just surf the Internet or sit down with a book. I finished Bloom, as I said and started Vampirates and Story of a Girl, which the library FINALLY got in. I was bugging them weekly. They're probably happy to get rid of me!

I also watched lots of TV and some movies. I watched an Australian indie remake of Macbeth. I love Australian indies. Ever seen Somersault? SO GOOD. The guy who played Macbeth in the remake was a main character in Somersault. His name is Sam Worthington and he is so yumm. He's been cast in James Cameron's new sci-fi movie, Avatar, so I think we'll be seeing more of him in the US. 

After watching Macbeth, I was instantly inspired to open a new document in Word and just started writing. The thing with Australian indies, they have this haunting quality, quiet and poetic. I just love them. At least the ones I've watched and perhaps it's true too for US indies, but I haven't seen many to know.

Anyway, here's what I just wrote and I love it. It felt so good to stretch that writing muscle after a week or so! That really isn't long at all, but, whatever. For me it is! 

This is a story of death. Of the literal and figurative sense.

Because I saw them dead and because I am not the same as I was when this story started.

Where did it start, exactly?

Where all stories start.

On a day.

On a day that began like any day.

Perhaps it was a Thursday though I can’t remember clearly. After the beginning, the titles of the day blurred together like lights outside a carousel. They were just a flash of golden smudged against the darkness.

But on that day, I twisted shut the lock on the front door of my father’s chocolate shop and that was where the ordinary ended. It was a distinct end, an audible click in the night.

The next sound that reached me, carried on the crisp cool wind of autumn, was a gunshot.

(And since this is technically a teaser, consider it my teaser for Tuesday. I'll be working all day Tuesday, so I won't post.)

            They found the BMW bent around a tree, a deer injured at the roadside.

My mother loved deer. She had an odd talent of summoning animals. They gathered wherever she was. Maybe that deer, that night, had sensed her. Or maybe he’d just been running scared from something else.

It didn’t matter now.

The deer was dead. So was my mother.