Storytime Bloghop January 2020

It’s time for the Storytime Blog Hop again already. Why does it always surprise me so? This time I’m quite unprepared what with my grandson’s birthday and so on. We’ve had several small parties (with his father, with his great-grandparents, with his friends) and now he thinks he’s gong to get presents forever. I’m seeing a big disappointment in his future. 😀 But now we’ll get to the reason you’re here: my story for the blog hop. It’s a mini fairy tale retelling. I hope you’ll like it. As always, remember to visit the other participants (list below the story).

Rogue Ring

I woke up in a different place and heard people whisper outside my window, just as I had planned. The one thing I hadn’t expected was the fact that I didn’t understand a word of what was said. How could that happen? Had I done something wrong? I looked at the ring on the low table beside the cushiony something that should have been my bed – bed as in “the bed I had slept in for years before dad got himself caught by my Beast.”

No, I wouldn’t think of him. I got up and dressed. Luckily, some of my nicest clothes had come along with the ring. I put it back on my finger. One day was all he had agreed to, so I’d better make the best of it. I opened the shutters in front of the window and sunlight fell in. It was my room and it wasn’t at the same time. Pictures painted on paper as thin and smooth as the thinnest leather I had ever seen hung on the wall. They showed demons with spiked, colorful hair and metal studs all over their faces. Still, below all that, they did look vaguely human.

Like Beast – if it would be possible to remove the ugly and scary bits. I turned and looked out the window. Two kids sat in the grass dressed like the demons in the strange paintings. Hardly older than my sisters when I left them, they were trying to eat each other mumbling gobbledegook. I watched them a while until I realized they were kissing, not eating. Blushing, I closed the shutters silently. I tiptoed out of my room and down the stairs. A real painting hung at the wall half way down. I stopped in amazement. It was my face staring at me. A black veil surrounded my head like a sad halo, and words in my father’s familiar hand sagged along the bottom. I bent down to read.

In memoriam of a daughter who did more than her duty for her guilty father.

A giant fist squeezed my heart.

“You like it?” A boy, surely no more than six or seven, grinned at me from the bottom of the stairs. I’d never seen him, but he spoke my language. He wore short, blue pants and nothing else and dripped water all over the floor. Where did he come from? My gaze went past him. How much this part of my home had changed! The floor was no longer stamped earth and cobbles as it used to be. Shiny wooden floorboards, soft carpets and comfortable looking furniture made my home resemble that of the ugly love I had left behind.

“Hello-o… Do you like it?” The boy climbed the stairs.

I nodded, meaning the house, not the picture but he obviously misunderstood.

“It’s my great-great-great-and some-grandaunt Belle. She was eaten by a monster, and no one has ever found her corpse. Maybe it ate all of her, hair and bones and all.” His eyes sparkled with excitement.

He could have hit me with a hammer and I wouldn’t have felt worse. Great-great-great-and some-grandaunt? What had happened? Where had all the time gone? Beast must be frantic. Then, it dawned on me. Beast would be dead after all this time.

“Say,” the boy had reached the step below me. “You look awfully like her.”

I stared at the ring. Would it be strong enough to take me back to my time? Without a word, I fled up the stairs toward the bedroom that had once been mine. I had to go to sleep. I had to!

After locking the door to keep out the boy, I slammed the ring on the nightstand and flopped on the soft bed. A single beam of light fell through the shutters onto my face. I tried hard, but sleep wouldn’t come. The sunlight was my greatest enemy.

 

Visit the other participants:

Shores of Lamentation by Melanie Drake
Syrojax Lends a Claw by Nic Steven
Culture Sharing by Angela Wooldridge
Sisters by Barbara Lund
Grim Failures by Bill Bush
Secrets by Gina Fabio
The Daughter of Disappearing Creek by Karen Lynn
The Gynnos Seeker Project by Juneta Key
Mugging Morpheus by Vanessa Wells
A Little Off the Top by Tyler Vawter

 

14 thoughts on “Storytime Bloghop January 2020”

  1. Bill says:

    I need more! What Happened???? Great job!

  2. Juneta Key says:

    Great storytelling. So enjoyed.

  3. I hope she makes it back too!

    1. Cat says:

      I might have to write a longer ending to this…

  4. Karen Lynn says:

    Oh, I hope she manages to get back! It would be terrible to wind up stuck in the eighties.

    Happy Birthday to the grand baby!

    1. Cat says:

      I’d think so too. And thanks from the grandson.

  5. Enjoyable story – I hope she makes it back to her Beast!

    1. Cat says:

      Can’t say, haven’t written the story any further than that. 😀

  6. Vanessa says:

    As usual, I am totally hooked by this. Your writing always sucks me in.

    1. I think my strongest are short stories…

  7. Nic Steven says:

    Interesting take on the Beauty and the Beast story. Enjoyed this very much.

    1. Thanks. I’m glad you liked it.

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