A Cold Open is when a TV show starts right away without having an opening credit. The Simpsons Halloween shows tend to start this way. I’d been working on revising the storyboards for this year’s Halloween show’s Cold Open for the last week and a half. I managed to finish working on it Wednesday but, MAN, it took me a long time. The Cold open wasn’t even that long. It’s shorter than all the Acts in the show. What really slowed me down was the notorious, one sentence line in the script that takes tons of scenes to fully realize. You know, short script descriptions like, “Mayhem ensues”, “The town riots,” or “The Indians take the fort.”
The Cold Open I was working on had a few of these. Worst part about it is that I still had Act 2 to revise. I’m currently working on it now. I hope I can finish it by tomorrow.
ART
Speaking of simple descriptions that blow up into tons of shots…guess whose guilty of that as well. Yup, me.
I thought I was doing well with my thumbnailing. I though I would be able to crank out all the thumbnails for a page every lunch hour. As long as I worked on it for a full hour. Since I only have six pages left to thumbnail, I thought it would take me six days to thumbnail the whole film. Turns out, the pages are deceptive. I forgot that my script is only dialogue with no description of the action. For the description of the action, I needed to go to my treatment, where I broke it all down for myself.
Well, I was working on page 5 below and got halfway down the script when I realized, I was running out of margin to scribble my thumbnails on. It was taking a long time for me to just thumbnail half the page. I read what I had written after the line “This proves nothing!” and it seemed like, I was almost done:
Then I realized that from the line, “He’s heading toward that exit! Stop him!” to the “(HISS)” of the Viper, entailed two entire fight sequences. There’s FOUR paragraphs of description in my treatment of what happens within those eight lines of dialogue. Looks like I’m going to be stuck on page 5 for a while. It’s time to take out the Post-Its again.
I will say this, I’m really glad that I made the time to brake down all the action that occurs during the fight before I started drawing. It means that I don’t need to think about WHAT is occurring so I can focus more on HOW to best show it all.
VIDEOS
For those of you who liked the first episode:
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This week I’m working on the Halloween episode for this year. I’m a week late since I should have started it last week. I managed to turn in my Couch Gag Friday morning of last week. I didn’t think it would take that long.
The assignment I was given is pretty involved. So far it’s taken me two day to rough out my first section. I hope it won’t take as long when I do the second part of my assignment. I hope we get, at least, the two weeks this episode needs us for.
VIDEO
In March 2010, I wrote about a show I really enjoy. Namely, MACROSS FRONTIER. I’ve been watching it again. Mostly as I board my film. It helps me to have something I’ve already seen playing in the background as I board. That way, if I get tired, I can look up and see something interesting, and perhaps, find inspiration for shots or something. Since it’s not available for purchase in the U.S. I’ve been watching it online through a fan subtitled version. I’d thought I’d share it, since I enjoy the show so much.
I managed to finish two pages of thumbnails this week. I hope I can do that more often. I’ll be done sooner that way. So far, I’ve had a lot of talking head shots. It’s been getting more and more difficult to come up with interesting shots. I’m not opposed to reusing shots (which I have done) but I still needed to come up with new shots, just to add visual interest:
There’s a tad bit more talking heads, on the next page, but by the end of the page, the action part will begin. I think that’s when the thumbnailing will start REALLY getting difficult.
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Back to work this week. Went to sleep early Sunday in order to get up early on Monday. Got up at 4am and made my way to work. There was no traffic, which was nice. I was in early. A little after 6am, I think. It was odd that there where no cars but mine. Usually there are other cars, but then, it HAD been a Holiday. Some people had not yet come back from where ever they went. I went to my office and got to work…well…mostly just reading email and looking at some websites. THEN after that I started work. I took a bathroom break and noticed that even though it was 7:30am, the place was still very quite and no one had shown up. Coming out of the bathroom, I met a coworker who asked me where everyone was. I told him I was wondering the same thing.
“Does work begin today?”
We checked our Holiday memo.
Tuesday was our first day back. We were there a day early. Feeling like a dope, I called my wife, telling her I was on my way home, packed up and was out of the office by 8am.
Oh well.
TUESDAY, I worked on the Couch Gag I was assigned before the Holidays. I was dreading coming in to work. The Couch Gag is a fancy one and it had some problems I needed to solve. Problems that I was much too tired to solve on Friday. I just wanted to come into work and mindlessly draw. I suppose if I wanted that job, I should have picked a different position.
Knowing it would do me good to try to solve the problem BEFORE I actually went back to work, I set my mind to work on the problem on Sunday. In about 20 minutes, I had come up with a solution. Suddenly the stress was gone and I didn’t feel so bad about coming back to work. I guess the time off did me some good.
I executed my solution and found that there where problems with my solution, but since I had gotten the ball rolling, I didn’t mind the work of solving the issues. In the end, I was happy with what I came up with. The director took a look at it, made changes, I redid the roughs as he wanted and am in the process of cleaning it all up. It felt good to be doing my job.
FAMILY
Spent New Year’s with my family at my parent’s house. We had a great New Year’s meal of El Salvadorean food (Pupusas, Tamales, Plantains, refried beans…etc.). It was awesome!
We popped some popper with the kids, instead of fireworks. They played and had a great time.
Even us “grown ups” got a board game in. We played a game of Liar’s Dice. My brother won by one die. We had a great time. It’s been a while since I got a game in.
ART
A few posts back I wrote about Steve Silver’s Pose Book app. Well for those of you who don’t have an iPhone, iPad, on Android, but would like something similar to use to draw, here are some links to some sites that might help. Though these sites aren’t exactly like Steve Silver‘s app, they are still handy to use.
PIXELOVELY.COM is a site that allows you to quick sketch right off the site. It allows you to put in how long you want the poses to be and then a photo comes up which you have to draw within that time limit. The site allows to you pick between nude or clothed models, Male or Female as well as animals (but I think all the animals are nude). It’s great for practicing if you can’t get to a figure drawing class, workshop or zoo.
ARTSYPOSES.COM does the same thing as pixelovely and even shares many of the same photos only it’s searchable. This comes in handy when you’re looking for reference for a costume or pose. The animal section doesn’t really have any animals in it yet but I’m sure it will happen eventually. Just as Pixelovely, Artyposes, has a bar on the side where you put in how long you want the poses to be and then a photo comes up which you have to draw within that time limit.
Hope these links come in handy.
ART
Even though I fully intended to work on my thumbnails over the Holidays, I didn’t . I just wanted to relax. I did other creative things but not on this project. Turns out that it was a good thing. On Tuesday, during lunch, when I sat down to thumbnail, I was totally in the zone. I didn’t want to work on my project but, man, once I started, I didn’t want to stop. I was really having fun. Turns out that break did me good.
Here’s what I did, can’t wait to continue:
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Merry Christmas!! It’s officially the start of Christmas season (before the 25th, it was Advent season).
THE SIMPSONS NEWS
I had the week off this week. I turned in the last of my work on Thursday and started on the Couch Gag for the episode on Friday. It’s actually really difficult. I was given til Monday of next week to finish it, so first thing Monday, I’ve got to get cracking.
BUT last week I found out, one of my co-worker, Liz Heck, has gotten on Tumbler. Her plan is to update it two times a week with her own art.
As I mentioned last week, my wife Alesha is doing her blog tour this week, with an end of the world theme. The first post was on post-apocalyptic recipes. If you have one, feel free to participate.
I’ve participated with a different kind of contribution. I wrote the top three essential things you need, in order to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Here’s a sneak peek:
And if you leave a comment on there, you have a chance to win a $5 amazon gift certificate.
FAMILY
It was a very busy Christmas. Our family tends to celebrate the 24th AND the 25th. We usually stay up til midnight on the 24th but this year, with the kids, it was impossible. The thing is, even though Christmas eve was very different then the way we have been used to celebrating it, it seemed so much more Christmas-y. This year, we went out of our way to really focus on the kids having a good time. And they did.
The big focus of the Christmas Eve party, was the coming of Santa Claus to the house. The kids didn’t know he was coming, but we gave him the invite. It was all going to begin with the kids sitting around the living room as I read them a Christmas book. In this case, it was THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. That went relatively well. My nephew Paolo was his usual, over curious, excited self, and couldn’t stop moving but all the other kids were surprisingly attentive. Including my one year old, Ambrose, who had never had story time before. He sat and listened quietly. I was very surprised. I got to start reading to that little kid.
Once I was done reading, the kids where asked to sing Jingle Bells. It was going great until someone turned up the music. At first, everyone thought it was Jingle Bells and we all sang along until we realized it WASN’T Jingle Bells but something else. It threw everyone off and killed the singing. Luckily, around that time, there was a knock on the door and Santa showed up. He had his sack full of presents and all the kids got really excited. My daughter Elizabeth was jumping up and down with excitement. It was fun. They all got called up one by one to get a present and sit on Santa’s lap.
Lots of pictures and a little bit of crying. Especially from Ambrose, who was pretty sleepy by that point. That was a lot of fun. I’m glad that we did it. I think the worst part of the night, for me, was around the time Santa was going to leave. My three year old, Dante, heard my uncle say Santa had to go because his reindeer where waiting. Well, Dante REALLY wanted to go out see them. I ended up telling him that Santa didn’t really bring the deer. I told him he came by car today. He didn’t believe me, so I had to take him outside to show him there where no reindeer. He was disappointed. That really stunk. It made him sad. Which makes me want to rant about the whole Santa Claus thing, but I’ll save that til the end of this post.
We left the party around 11pm. We had eaten late and the kids had been starving. We should have thought to feed them before we left. Even so, around 8pm or so, Ambrose was an emotional mess. He was so tired, he just wanted me to carry him everywhere, which was a pain since he’s getting heavy. I also wanted to do thing, like eat, and it made it difficult when he just wanted to be on top of me being fussy. So we left early and by the time we where getting ready for bed, it was Christmas.
On Christmas morning, the kids got up and opened presents. There weren’t very many of them. In fact, most of them came from the dollar store. Only one didn’t, CARS SORRY SLIDERS. The kids really liked SORRY SLIDERS and I thought they’d get a kick out of having the Cars one because they call the SORRY SLIDERS the “racer game” anyway. Might as well give them a real “racer game”. Elizabeth was disapionted in her presents (for good reason) mostly because she didn’t get a doll. that kinda annoyed me because she has a ton of them and they just sit there because she doesn’t play with them. Why those she want another one to ignore?
We ate breakfast and tried to get ready as soon as we could. We had a few stops to make that day. We had planned to go to 9am Mass but we weren’t quite ready on time for it. I went alone and Alesha went to the 11am Mass. Around 1pm we were off to Alesha’s sister’s house. According to Alesha, we were there mostly to eat her sister’s gumbo. It was REALLY GOOD. It even had crab legs. The kids played a bit and then watched me play PLANT VS. ZOMBIES, or as they call it, “The bzombie game” (don’t know why they pronounce it with a “b”.
After that, it was off to Alesha’s grandmother’s house. We got there and visited for a while. The kids where all over me because they get bored there. On top of the fact that they were hungry. It was getting close to dinner time. After what seemed like a very long time, we left. We actually had one more stop to make. We had actually stopped off at Alesha’s sister’s house to pick up a document that she needed to take to an aunt’s house. We were going to go there only Alesha forgot to get the document. We canceled that stop and headed over to my parent’s house. We where going to celebrate Christmas there and open the rest of the kid’s presents. We ate there, opened presents and generally had a good time there. Alesha was so tired, I think she slept through most of it. She had done all the driving that day.
We left around 10pm. The kid’s where pretty tired. They had gotten some really great presents. Elizabeth got her doll so she was satisfied.
It was a busy, but fun, kid-centric Christmas and somehow, it was that much better for it.
SANTA CLAUS RANT
I’ve never really been a fan of the whole Santa Claus thing. I’ve been trying to avoid telling my kids that their presents are from Santa, but the culture makes it difficult to do that. I used to tell them Baby Jesus gave them the presents, which to me, is actually true. I suppose, it’s not a lie to say that Santa is real, if by Santa, you mean Saint Nicholas. Since he’s a Saint in heaven before the presence of God and therefore more alive than WE are. And I suppose we can say that it’s through his intercession (by which I mean his prayer for us to God) that we we give them presents. Still…it kinda bugs me, since Santa Claus and Saint Nick are often not thought to be the same person. After all, the popular image of Santa that we have in our heads, was actually made popular by Coca Cola billboards. Before that, there was no definitive Santa Claus look. It was easier to say, it’s Saint Nick back then.
Maybe I’m thinking about this too hard. What do you think?
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Oh boy, tough week this week. I was running behind on my board since I started it late last week. On top of that there were some writing changes that the director questioned. The problem was that a line was changed in the dialogue but the scene took place in a different location with slightly different action. The director was wondering if it was necessary to change the location at all since the scene worked fine in the original location. It would speed up the process and make less work for everyone. That was a big question that the director needed to ask the head director and I wasn’t sure if I needed to work on that new section or not. There were also a few things that the assistant director fixed in layout that I wasn’t suppose to fix in the boards. The problem with that is, it throws me off a bit. I’m not sure when I’m done revising the board or not and it’s very confusing. So I just turned in what I did and hoped it was what was needed from me. Later on that day, the director came over an we hashed out what was needed to finish the act. That helped a lot.
I started Act 2 after that, which, lucky for me, had less rewrites. That went a little smoother. Still, it really stressed me out in the previous weekend since I knew that there were a lot of “spinning plates” left to spin when I started work this week. At least, next week, I have a day off.
December 26-31, my wife, Alesha, will be going on a blog tour with an end of the world theme. Keep an out of for it. I’ll be making a small contribution for it.
Little by little, technology is creeping into board games. As it is, there are already tons of board games that can be played on: iPhone, iPads, and Androids. It was only a matter of time before board game pieces would start being introduced for these devices. Behold, the signs of things to come.
This video shows playing pieces that can be used to play board games on the iPad, using the iPad as the board. It’s called, the iPawn:
This video shows an interesting hybrid board game designed and developed on the Microsoft Surface by a student for a master thesis supervised by MiWi’s colleague. The game uses the Surface, Android phones, and other components. It’s a very odd board game about evolution or something. The video is in German, I believe but just watching what they do with the devices is fascinating.
ART
I was having so much trouble working on my thumbnails for my storyboard. I wasn’t sure why. It’s not like it was the first time I’d ever storyboarded something. It’s very similar to doing comics. So why was I having so much trouble? Turns out, I wasn’t asking myself what I usually do. Once I asked myself that, I realized, I usually sit down, with the hard copy of the script in hand and start doodling all over it as I read the script. I do this and, often, I put in a movie or TV show I’ve already seen, just to have something in the background that may or may not give me ideas for shots. It’s also nice to have something to look at when I want to rest my brain.
Once I realized that’s usually what I did, I printed out a copy of my script and, instead of using Post-Its like I did last week, I just drew on my script.
I worked beautifully. I put on MACROSS: FRONTIER and began drawing on my script. I managed to finish quite a bit of work that way. Okay, so, even though I wasn’t planning on posting my script here on my blog, it seems I going to do it anyway in order to show you the work I got done this week. So here’s the first page of my script. I doubt you’ll understand what my thumbnails are about, but the point is show you my process, so here it is:
Drawing on the margins forces me to draw tiny, which saves time since there’s less pencil mileage. I actually get more done.
Originally, I was planning to do all the audio recording before I started boarding. Since I couldn’t find a good way to record though, I decided to go straight into the boards. Turns out that was a good thing. I’ve found I change a lot of the script around depending on what I need the visuals to be.
MOVIES
Oh, and one more thing, this trailer premiered Tuesday night:
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I finished my board revisions early last week and was moved to doing story reel work on the Halloween episode for the rest of the week. I even kept doing it on Monday because the revised script of the episode I was going to started on this week, was late. I finally got to work on the new episode on Tuesday. I really like this episode. It’s heart warming and nice. We should do shows like this more often.
His latest endeavor is an iPad/iPhone app for artists. It’s a pose book, but not a pose book. It’s like a traditional pose book in that it has models posing so an artist can use it as reference for their art BUT it uses the fact that it’s not a book to go well beyond what a pose book can do. The best way to understand what this means is for Steve Silver to explain it himself:
I’m impressed. That’s really innovative. This is just the beginning of what artists like Steve Silver will begin coming up with in this new medium. I wonder what will come next?
If you want to see more from this app, CLICK HERE for the official page.
ART/Storyboarding
Production has officially begun on my Illustrated Film (as opposed to what I’ve been doing which is PRE-production). I’ve started the storyboard process. The first day I started it, I stared at my treatment, I stared at my script, and thought,
“I sooo don’t want to do this”. I forced myself to do it. I opened up the storyboarding program (Storyboard Pro) and stared at it. Nothing came to me. My mind was a blank. I felt tired. I have a very difficult time doing creative thinking in front of a computer,
“How do I usually start a board or a comic?” I looked around, “Oh yeah, I sit down somewhere comfortable and draw scribbles on a script, sketchbook or notepad”. I sat down on the couch we have here in our office and stared blankly at the large Post-it pad on my lap. “Where do I begin? What’s the best opening shot? How should I introduce the characters? Should it be an establishing shot? Should I show where the characters are and then cut close? Should I start with a close up of the characters and then reveal the environment? Why? Do I gain anything from either one that the other doesn’t give me? What’s this place suppose to look like again?” I was tired already and I hadn’t even started. I took out my sketchbook where I’d drawn all the designs and opened to the page where I had the rough “floor plan” of the environment:
Okay, that helped a little. I decided to start with an establishing shot. I drew it, it stunk:
I started again:
Better…done for the day. I hoped next time it would get easier.
It didn’t.
The next time, it felt just like the last time. I forced myself to do it again. Before I did though, I looked at some storyboard books I have. Not books ON storyboards but published storyboards by some of my favorite board artist. Namely Hayao Miyazaki and Katsuhiro Otomo. I looked at them, just to see how they used establishing shots. You see, I was still not sure about how I should start my boards. My script, as written, didn’t take into account an establishing shot. I was envisioning starting close on Rob’s stomach. That wouldn’t have worked though. I rewrote the script.
I had a great time. It was fun. I suddenly remembered why I was doing this, because it’s fun.
I’m still working through the shots and what will go where and why, but I now have something to work off of. I found that simply drawing the first shots the came to my head, was a good way to start. By simply drawing shots, in no particular order, I was able to start looking at them and piece them together so that they would make a story. I’d check my script and my treatment and then go and just draw shots. Then I’d stare at them and try to piece them together. I’d even change the script when I added stuff that wasn’t there.
So here’s what all the brain storming looked like by the time I was done. It was a big mess of Post-its all over the place so I tried to put them in some semblance of order:
Yeah, it’s difficult to tell what’s going on. Like I said, it’s just brainstorming. It’s just about throwing out as many visual ideas as I can so I get have the most to choose from. I’ll be continuing with this next week. I think the hardest part will be keeping track of all the thumbnails. It’s gonna take a while.
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I started my week by finishing up a very special Couch Gag. It was 14 shots long and it took me all day to do. Lucky for me, the episode I started on this week has one of the smallest rewrites I’ve seen in a long time. It’s such a small rewrite that I might be done too early. If I do finish early, I hope I don’t get put on something that too high pressure. I hate that.
I was assigned Act 1 and the Couch Gag. The director is thinking that the last two Acts of the show might not even be given to us since it’s such a small rewrite on them. Still, I don’t know why not. We can still adjust whatever needs adjusting. It’s our job.
I’m thankful for these light rewrites. They help us recover from the heavier, high pressure weeks and give us a little chance to breath and go home on time.
ART
Continuing from where I left off last week, I decided to give the vampire bat skeleton a try. I left out the eyes and eye sockets and gave the skull a slightly more human shape:
I think this is it. I’m happy with how weird it looks. The final version might be a bit more “pushed” in it’s basic shape and design, but rather than fine tune the design, I think I’ll move on to last demon design. I want to get to the story board process as soon as I can.
BOOKS
Chapter 5 of my wife’s book THE TOWER’S ALCHEMIST is below. This is the last chapter out of twenty one, I’m posting up. The story is just getting started. If you’ve enjoyed the story so far, please feel free to download a digital copy or buy a hard copy from Amazon. We’d really appreciate it:
Penn Margaux bootlegged liquor, smuggled weapons, and proclaimed to be a spy from Orleans—but for what it was worth, he wasn’t on the Gestapo’s side. I’ve known him for as long as I’ve been working with SOE and he had always managed to obtain information for me when no one else could or hand me a passport at the last minute. I had even bought ingredients off him that I needed for some spells.
I would usually reach him through La Dame Rouge—the Red Lady, Jasmine Léon. She had become a wildly popular entertainer at the Éclat nightclub after moving to Paris. While some of the locals believed that the Gestapo didn’t shut down the club due to the threat of an utter uprising (they adored the Red Lady), the truth was that Éclat served as a useful tool for the enemy in the constant game of espionage. The danger lay in the presence of Gestapo agents, both uniformed and plainclothes. They knew half the spies in there and have blackmailed some into working for them or betraying employers when it suited their interests.
I once knew a spy from Madrid who claimed he was sent to gauge how things were going in France. Though Spain claimed neutrality, the Gestapo didn’t like General Franco sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, and so as the spy left Éclat one night, two agents followed him to a woman’s house—his French sweetheart. The problem was that the spy had a wife back in Spain. They used this information against him and forced him to spy on the Spanish government and even other spies who came into Éclat. I guess he couldn’t take it any longer because one day his Gestapo handlers found him hanging from his necktie in his hotel room.
This taught me to keep a low profile and carefully craft a persona that blended in easily with the many young women who patronized the club. This also reminded me to remain aware of the fact that people still watched me just like the others at the club, which meant that I would have to be careful when leaving, and I certainly wouldn’t leave with a man. But as foolish and single-minded as many men were, I’ve seen several leave with women from the club without a thought.
When evening fell I hailed a taxi to take me down to Éclat. Well, I had to stand near the chapel and flag one down. I kept brushing off my dress and feeling like something was crawling down my back. I swore that I’d find a workable invisibility potion so that I could just go straight to Renée’s front door instead of through that creepy underground tunnel. I felt I needed the cab because it would’ve been awkward to approach the club on foot, and nothing screamed I’m a Spy Who Doesn’t Belong Here like pulling up on a foldable bike and trying to get into a swanky Parisian nightclub.
I wore a slinky purple gown and a black sequined wrap—and of course, my Agate stone ring, which I never took off. Renée had to beg me to wear full eye makeup but I must admit that I liked the rouge on my cheeks and lips, and my hairstyle. I looked damned good if I did say so myself. I checked my makeup in a compact mirror one last time before tossing it into my purse and instructing the bloated taxi driver to halt.
“If you leave that club alone tonight,” he said facing me, “out of compassion I will take you home with me.”
“Go to hell.” I threw him a few francs and slipped out. Maybe I looked a little too good.
I strutted toward the entrance like I was a Hollywood starlet, making sure to give the doormen a wink and a smile. They readily admitted me and I came in just as Jasmine began singing Blue Moon up on stage. People swayed to the music, oblivious to the haziness created by cigarette smoke. The scent of perfume wafted toward me and I narrowed my eyes as I silently critiqued or approved of some of the ladies’ choice in shoes.
I acknowledged a group of handsome guys at one of the tables with a smile, but kept it moving since most of them were spies. I could taste the essences of silverware, gold jewelry, and even guns. There were about twenty tables in there, and those closest to the stage were reserved for Jasmine’s most ardent admirers and paramours—or those pretending to be.
I nearly stumbled when I saw him sitting at one of those tables. At first I pretended not to see him, but then my gaze met his and I headed straight toward him like a moth to a flame. I probably shouldn’t have made a move to join him, but sitting in that area made it easier to keep an eye on who entered the club; besides, it looked like both of us had business with Jasmine tonight.
“Fancy seeing you here, Emelie.”
“It’s good to see you again, Drake.” His real name was Kenneth Aspen. He knew mine as well. We had obtained illegal copies of one another’s files after we first met, which wasn’t quite your typical romantic gesture.
“How long are you in Paris?” He pulled out a seat for me next to his and gently brushed his thumb against my cheek. I forced myself not to smile.
“I’m here long enough to enjoy the scenery.” I clapped along with the audience and gazed at Jasmine as she finished her ballad. She came down and stopped at a nearby table where an enthusiastic man with a thick mustache greeted her with flowers.
“The Boss sent me to take a look at some cars.” He took his seat and offered me some of his pochouse. I couldn’t refuse the stewed fish as it smelled delectable, having been cooked in red wine and flavored with a savory spice.
“Then I’m glad your Boss sent you.” I grabbed a knife and fork and dug in.
By “Boss,” he meant the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the American counterpart to SOE, and by “looking at cars,” he meant sabotaging factories that produced machinery and weapons for the Nazis. I thought I heard him say that I looked beautiful, but I was already on my feet welcoming Jasmine into my arms. We planted kisses on one another’s cheeks and gave each other a tight hug. As befitting her stage name, she wore a red rose in her hair and a scarlet dress.
“Well, look who’s in town!” She accepted a cigarette from a waiter passing by and asked for a lighter. Apparently both Ken and I had messages to slip her (conveniently hidden within our cigarette lighters) because we eagerly asked for her to keep them as gifts. She wiggled her way between us, lighting her cigarette with her own lighter and giving a rich, sultry laugh.
“I’ve missed you, Emelie…you too, Blondie.” She patted Ken’s cheek. I glanced toward the front entrance to see who entered and left before facing them again.
“By the way Jasmine, there’s another gift waiting for you in your dressing room.” He gave her a knowing look. It was probably the stipend OSS paid her for her services.
“Is it five thousand, like I asked?” She blew out a thin stream of smoke, her deep-set eyes watching Ken like a hawk.
“Would you mind telling me why you needed an extra two?”
“Things are getting tough around here.” She shifted toward me and lazily eyed the band that had started up a tune.
Ken leaned in. “I know about your side operation. For goodness’ sake, Jasmine, don’t get yourself killed.”
Not satisfied with just being an informant, she also took it upon herself to hide and smuggle stranded Ally soldiers across the border, Maquis resistance leaders with bounties on their heads, and Jews who’ve fled the slaughter in Czechoslovakia…anyone who needed it. I had always been meaning to ask her how she did it and who helped her.
She rolled her eyes and faced me. “How are you, Emelie?”
“I’m doing well, and I love being in Paris. Do you miss New York?” She acknowledged my code phrase referencing Paris, which meant that the city would be ripe with action within the next week or so, and that the Maquisards should be on alert. This time Ken watched the door.
“I’ll tell you what, I don’t miss performing in New York.” She faced Ken and I turned to watch the front. “Tell that to your Boss. Tell him as long as I can’t walk through the front door of a New York club that I’m performing in, then he can kiss my black ass and keep paying me my five grand.”
I smirked.
“Jasmine…” Ken began blustering.
“I know, I know—times are changing.” She fell back into her earlier jolly mood, welcoming the glasses of cocktails another waiter had brought over. “But I just love that Eleanor Roosevelt. Remember that incident a couple of years ago where she left that women’s organization and told them off because they were talking about being whites-only? Ha! We need more people like her!”
“Yes we do.” My cocktail glass chimed with hers in a toast and I drank.
I always hated when people told me not aspire to certain things because I was a woman. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be told this simply because of my skin color. One of the many things I’ve learned is when you’re holed up in a safe house with someone who doesn’t look like you or speak the same language, but who’s ready to break bread with you and even fight by your side, or when you’re alone in a foreign land and feel lost because you could barely communicate but by chance you run into someone who looked different but grew up in the same city as you and could talk with you for hours, you quickly realized that there were a lot more important things to gripe about, and at the end of the day people were just people—blood, sweat and tears, heart and soul.
“Jasmine,” Ken said, gazing at the front entrance, “get your things and go lock yourself in your dressing room. Emelie, I think our covers are blown.”
I looked toward the front and saw four Gestapo agents heading through. Ken covertly drew his pistol as Jasmine hid the cigarette lighters beneath her flowers and rose from her seat; she wasted no time in leaving the lounge.
The music died and people shied away or headed toward the exit. For a moment, I had hoped that the Gestapo were after someone else, but sure enough they came straight toward Ken and me. I felt the presence of other wizards as easily as I could detect metals, and despite the fact that the agents all wore black gabardine jackets with swastika armbands, I knew one or more of them were warlocks in disguise.
I turned back toward the table and immediately retrieved my golden knife from my purse and began carving the alchemical symbol for the sun on the table’s smooth surface. It was a simple circle with a dot in the middle, and since it dominated gold, any spells I performed would be amplified. I then carved next to it the zodiac sign for Libra, which would set off my Sublimation spell, which turned solids into gas. I charged the symbols with magical energy until they glowed and held off the effects until I was ready.
I looked at Ken. “Remember that crime lord in Cairo?”
“You mean the sadistic wacko who wanted to sell a ship-load of grenades up here to the Nazis? Yes, vaguely.”
I had to steady my hands from shaking. “And do you remember when he and his goons confronted us in that bar one night?”
In one smooth move he jumped away from the table and took a shot at one of the Gestapo agents. All remaining employees and patrons had finally broken into an open panic and evacuated the building. Two of the Gestapo officers shot back at him as he dove behind the bar for cover, while the other two agents—the warlocks—came after me. I used more of my energy to create an invisible shield with my Agate stone ring, which helped deflect bullets.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood when I saw the warlocks approaching with searing red daggers. I had seen less fortunate wizards hit with those, and as soon as it touched a person’s flesh, the skin would tear and fold, and blood would sizzle and spill forth. Though my stomach churned and all I could hear was the distant sound of gunfire, I reassured myself with the fact that at least these two warlocks weren’t Black Wolves.
With a swift move of his arm, the warlock on the right sent a red-hot dagger flying toward me as he charged. I dodged the blazing weapon by dropping to the floor and then grabbing hold of him. I flipped him over and made him land on the other side of me with a thud. I quickly rolled in the direction of my table where I had carved my symbol. The other warlock flung another fiery dagger toward me and I released the Sublimation spell, letting the flames mingle with the gas accumulated in order to create an explosion. The building shook as I dashed away to avoid the blast, and I took cover behind the bar where Ken had been. One of the Gestapo agents that had engaged Ken lay dead by a doorway that led to an emergency hall exit. I could hear a physical fight ensuing in the hallway.
I began coughing from the smoke that filled the room from the fire and knew that I had to leave the lounge if I wanted to keep breathing. On hands and knees, I peaked around the corner of the bar and saw only one of the warlocks still standing. The bastard had been waiting for me and spun a pestilential black mist that flew straight toward me. I didn’t jerk back quickly enough to completely escape it and grunted in pain when my eyes burned. My vision blurred and darkened to black—I had been blinded.
In a panic I rushed toward the doorway, tripping over the dead agent’s body and bracing my fall with my hands. I crawled in the direction where I remembered the door to be and heard the warlock’s footsteps and heavy breathing. I stiffened and timed the swing of my leg just in time to kick him. I didn’t know where my stiletto landed, but the kick stunned him and I got back onto my feet and rushed through the doorway and staggered down the hallway.
Believe it or not, I began to worry. I wondered why the warlock hadn’t blasted me with another spell since I was vulnerable and running blind. When the obvious answer dawned on me, I started running even faster. I cursed when I stubbed my toe against a utility box against the wall in the hallway and nearly lost my balance. The warlock caught up to me and I swung my knife and drove the blade into him. He cried out in pain and struck me; I hit the wall with a smack and tried to pry his forearm away from my neck.
I quickly froze when I felt the blade of my golden knife sweep across my cheek. I could hear his harsh breathing and felt the heat of his breath near my neck. I squirmed when he made a cut across my shoulder with the knife.
“God, no…” My voice grew hoarse and I was sick to my stomach. With revulsion I felt his mouth on my wound, lapping up the blood flow.
A single gunshot reverberated throughout the hallway and I jolted. I felt the pull of his body as we both slid down and hit the floor.
“Isabella! What happened?” I heard footsteps and knew that it was Ken who rushed to my side. I heard a rustling of clothes and felt his jacket being wrapped around me as he helped me to my feet.
“Ken…” My darkened sight seemed to spin in gray and red colors all about me. I tried to speak but my throat burned with every syllable uttered.
“That’s a nasty cut you have. We need to get you patched up quick to stop the bleeding.”
“Ken…”
“What is it?” He held me with a firm grip and pulled me along down the hallway.
“Cut his head off.”
“What?”
People in the normal world called them vampires. To wizards, they were a nasty bunch of warlocks called Cruenti. Blood Magic was one of the most powerful forms of magic, and Cruenti fed off of other wizards. They drank wizards’ blood to cast spells, enhance their own powers…and to regenerate from gunshot wounds.
“Hurry up and do it before we both die.”
I imagined that he must’ve looked at me as if I had gone crazy, but he didn’t bother to argue. I gripped the extra pistol he pressed into my hand and was about to tell him that I couldn’t see anything, but decided to say nothing so as to not delay him. I heard him go over to what sounded like the utility box and he opened it, probably grabbing an axe, and stalked toward the Cruenti.
I heard his nervous breaths, and then a pause. “He’s dead.”
Suddenly I heard Ken shout in disgust and shock, and the Cruenti roared as repeated thuds filled the hallway. I visualized the sickening tearing of flesh and crushing of bone, and forced myself to speak when I heard Ken’s attack cease.
“Did you get him?”
He breathed heavily and the axe clattered against the floor down the other end of the hall. “Yeah…I got him.”
“Do you see my knife?”
“Erm…do you still want it?”
“Please? I’d get it myself but he blinded me with a spell.” I heard him make a low grunt and grab my knife, and then he walked back toward me in quick strides. My legs grew weak and my head throbbed and grew feverish. I sank to my knees and pressed my hand against the wall for support.
“Let’s get out of here and get you healed.” Though his voice shook, his hold on me remained firm. Under any other circumstances I would’ve refused to let him carry me, but my legs felt like rubber and I could barely stay conscious.
“Got a first aid kit in your car?” I hissed through clenched teeth as the cool evening air stung my exposed wound. I heard sirens blare and fire trucks pull up toward the front of the club.
“Yeah, but baby…you’re going to need a lot more than that.”
“Renée Apolline…my jade powder.”
“I’ll get you there.”
“Thank you.” I shut my eyes and leaned into him as I closed out the spinning gray and red colors. I hoped that the jade powder would completely restore my sight.
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I managed to finish my Act on this very odd episode I’m on. I wrote about it last week but the post has been lost.
The co-worker I share an office with is doing boards on next year’s Halloween show. It’s epic. So epic in fact that there was no way he was going to get the boards done by deadline. It didn’t help that they want him to be done with it early because of the holiday this week. So production asked me to help him out. Thing is, I was also suppose to finish a very special Couch Gag for the other episode I was taken off of. It was kinda involved but I was given only given Wednesday to do it all. That was a pain. Lucky for me, they extended the deadline for that Couch Gag til Monday. That helps a lot.
So enough complaining. I will say this about working on at the studio:
Production has been nothing but supportive with my current situation at home. They sent flowers and have put up with my crazy schedules (coming in late, working half days, being out for bereavement). They’ve helped take the edge off all these events that I’ve had to deal with in the last few days, and for that, I’m very grateful.
FAMILY
My five year old daughter Elizabeth, had a fever for five days two weeks ago. Just as she recovered and we thought we could get on with our week, my three year old, Dante, got the fever.
The problem was, we had my mother-in-law’s wake and funeral to go to. In the end, I ended up coming home early on the day of the wake to take care of Dante so my wife could go.
We had other plans. My wife’s best friend Miriam, was going to come over to watch the kids while we both went to the wake but she has a little girl named River. We didn’t want River to get sick, so I ended up having to do it. This said, Miriam actually came by and dropped off dinner for us that night, for which I was VERY grateful since it was a bit overwhelming to take care of the sick kids and get them their food. It also helped that, not only did she bring chicken soup for the kids but she brought Pupusas, that her neighbor made. SO GOOD.
Thank you again Miriam.
In other news…
My wife and I went to my mother-in-law’s funeral. It was a very nice funeral and some VERY inspiring things were said that day. Once it got to the end though, it got real brutal for everyone. Saying good bye, “officially” was SO hard.
MY WEEK
My ten year old laptop stopped working this weekend. It was an IBM Thinkpad laptop and it was my workhorse computer. It was still running well, and I took it everywhere. I had it backed up so I didn’t really lose anything.
There’s still a possibility that I can get it working again. The computer actually didn’t die. What died was the AC adapter. It stopped charging the computer. The computer ran out of power and so now it’s not working. I’m going to see if I can’t buy another adepter (this will be the third one I would have bought). It might wake the computer back up, IF the battery hasn’t died on me.
Why don’t I get another laptop? I can’t afford one. Finances are REAL bad right now.
Sux.
Now I have to do all my home computing on my 12 year old Del.
In other news…
You can’t really tell but, as I posted this weekend, I updated WordPress on my blog. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while now but I was afraid of losing everything I’d ever written. I was using a four year old version of WordPress that didn’t have the “update” button. In the end, everything turned out okay. I lost last week’s post but I honestly think it might exist in a database on my server somewhere. I have to do some investigating but It’s possible I might be able to recover it. It’s not necessary for me to do this but I just want to, for the sake of having it.
In the mean time, I’m also considering changing the look of this blog to be more up to date. I have yet to find a theme I like but don’t be surprised if things change a bit sometime soon.
ART
Okay, I’m re-posting the Serpent Demon design I posted in last weeks’ lost post. Too bad I completely forgot what I wrote about this and what I wanted to say about it so I’ll just write whatever I think to write now:
The demons are the source of the Sorcerer’s power. They allow themselves to be “possessed” by them in exchange for power. This is hardly an original idea. It’s a common motif in the Swords and Sorcerer genre. Especially in the Conan stories. The more powerful the Sorcerer in those stories, the less human they are. Magick in that genre is a very dangerous and corrupting force. I took that idea and did my own thing with it.
The Serpent demon below, is the demon the Lead Sorcerer made a pact with. It gives him the power to manipulate and control other peoples minds.
The rough drawing on the bottom of the page above, is an experiment on my part. I was seeing how it might look like when the demon visibly manifest, near the end of the story. Design wise, I was trying to play with the shape contrasts. If the eyes are big and far apart, perhaps the nose should be small and high up. If the head is small and squished, perhaps the neck and body should be long and thick. I also gave it no arms, just where you think it should have some, so that it was a bit more creepy to look at. It also matches the serpent motif I was going for.
Even though I was sick this week and didn’t feel like drawing at all, I forced myself to work on designing demon number two, The Entropy demon. The idea is that this demon gives it’s possessor the power to destroy things by speeding up how fast a thing decays through the ravages of time. Organic things rot and die, none organic things rust, turn to dust, or whatever. I figured, it’s a bit of a death demon. I wanted it to look like, it too, was falling apart.
The first thing I did was make a web search for animal skulls. The first two roughs at top where the first sketches I did, but they didn’t have the creepy look I was looking for:
I then made a search for insect faces, since they tend to creep me out. I found a photo of a very nasty looking fly face that had a hole in it’s front, like a nose cavity. I drew the sketch on the middle left off it, but I didn’t really like it. It reminded me of the Thumper design in Pixar’s BUG’S LIFE.
I then searched for close ups of vampire bat faces. This inspired me to draw the cloaked figure on the page. This was much closer to what I wanted. I’m not sure if it’s exactly what I want yet. It doesn’t look enough like it’s falling apart or rotting. It’s also a tad too cartoony to be creepy.
When looking at the vampire photos I saw a photo of a vampire skull. Those things are really weird and creepy looking. I tried sketching out some drawings on the bottom of the page. I was attempting to capture what I thought was creepy about them. Not sure I succeeded. I’ll try again next week.
Perhaps I should just leave out the eyes…
BOOKS
I posted this last week but it got lost so I’ll post again this week. for anyone who didn’t get a chance to read it. Chapter four of THE TOWER’S ALCHEMIST:
At the first rays of dawn I awoke and went to soak in a hot bath, trying to expel my bitter feelings from last night’s encounter. This was neither the first nor the last time I would run into officers like Adelbert and Gerhardt. Sometimes I wanted to shed my façade and just start hitting them with spells that would make them run back home with their tails in between their legs like the cowardly dogs they were. However, being a vigilante wizard wasn’t part of my mission, though sometimes I wished it were.
My limbs still ached from last night’s assault and my shoulders burned with soreness, but otherwise I felt fine. As I relaxed in the warm water I noticed on an adjacent shelf a display of waxy soaps, some wrapped, from different regions of France and even other countries.
These were probably small gifts left by guests who’ve come and gone, some perhaps forever. Looking at the display reminded me of my father, who’d bring my brother and me treats from the different places he had traveled to. And for my mother, he’d bring exotic flowers and a heartfelt kiss.
I laughed to myself when I remembered how he would always warn us not to stay up late eating candy, and Johnnie and I would hide our treats all over the house in the most unlikeliest of places so that we could grab them whenever we’d want—and my father found each and every one of them without fail. As a child, I never understood how he knew and anticipated every plan and move we’d make. My favorite part though was when he’d tuck us in and read me Emily Dickinson poetry until I fell asleep. Though I was only eight and didn’t completely understand it all, I had always found her poetry fascinating, and I enjoyed the fact that a girl wrote it.
After nearly an hour in my thoughts and memories, I tore myself away from the tub with lethargic movements and got dressed. I hid my supplies beneath a secret panel in the floor before heading to the kitchen. My stomach rumbled when I caught a whiff of the fresh pastries just coming out of the oven.
I greeted Renée, the woman who had admitted me last night, and sat at the table and helped myself to a cup of coffee. She looked rather pleased at my enthusiasm as she placed a couple of pastries on my plate. Though I didn’t know her, I knew of her, and that she had been with the Resistance since the beginning. I was glad that she had accepted the task of hosting me.
“My husband fought in the Free French Army until a Maquisard betrayed him and murdered him in his sleep.” She gestured toward her husband’s portrait hanging on the wall. “My son and daughter-in-law were sent off to Dachau and I’ve never heard from them since.”
I shook my head. “Our enemies knew you were hurting them…you were important.” Those Gestapo bastards often kidnapped or killed members of people’s families as retribution.
“Have you lost anyone, Emelie?”
“Yes…I mean, I hope not.” Stella, where are you?
“I once had a guest tell me that he at first thought I was a hard woman because I still fought despite everything. The truth is I’m the type of woman who would go into my son’s old room and dust off his belongings, fluff his pillow, and sometimes just sit or cry.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss.” It reminded me of Stella and how I acted as custodian over her items, though I feared the most likely outcome of her fate.
“Thank you.”
“May I ask you about Veit Heilwig? Do you know anything about him?” I breathed in the heady and aromatic scent of the coffee before taking another long sip.
“Dr. Heilwig fashions himself a man of great intellect,” Renée said as she escaped her somber mood and poured herself some coffee. The fine lines in her face softened. “He is at the university lecturing and poisoning minds.”
I broke off a piece of my pastry and ate it before speaking. “Do you know anything else about the chemical weapons being used?”
“I heard that they’ve transferred more from the south where Mussolini’s men are stationed, but no one really knows where they are coming from. They’re probably in a factory in this region, though the Maquis haven’t been able to find out which one.”
“Perhaps Mathieu could help us with that,” I said.
Mathieu Perrine had become the unofficial voice of the Maquis during occupation. His nightly radio broadcasts were a constant thorn in the Gestapo’s side. If you ever needed a message to be sent out or coded instructions to the nearest safe house, or a simple word of encouragement, Mathieu could deliver.
“I’ll try to contact him and see, but it won’t be easy.” She sipped her coffee. “We lost a safe house last week and I fear the Gestapo is becoming more ruthless.”
“I understand. I’ll most likely have to get into the university to keep an eye on Heilwig.”
“Without credentials?”
“Is Penn in Paris? He can give me the papers I need.” I looked askance when she kept staring at me.
“So young,” she shook her head. “I don’t know if you just seem familiar to me or you remind me of myself. Believe it or not, I was like you once, and now I am just old and tired.”
“You were one of the first.” Though I gazed at her with pride, it was tempered by the sadness in her eyes.
“And perhaps I will be one of the last. Only God knows. Just remember to stay true to yourself, no matter what…that’s what I’ve learned.”
“Very sound advice.” I drummed my fingers on the table and stared at my Agate stone ring.
“Well, I might as well show you around, Emelie. Would you care to see the garden?”
“Please.”
I followed her to the back door that led to the plot of land behind the house. A picket fence enclosed the garden and I could see three small crosses peeking out from beneath the hyacinths. Inscribed on each cross were the words “Se Souvenir,” which meant “Remember.” For most of us, remembering something painful often proved to be difficult, but Renée seemed to embrace it because it was all she had left.
“Do you see the tool shed over there?” She pointed at the wooden structure with its peeling white paint. I cringed a little at the thought of me slamming the trapdoor so hard last night.
“I had one of those…at my parents’ old house.”
“Make sure that you always take the underground passageway beneath the floor that leads to the chapel down the hill. No one must know that you’re staying here.”
I gazed at her in amazement. “You made that passageway yourself?”
“I can’t take credit for it. My husband did it years ago during the Great War when we thought Paris might be taken.”
“Your husband must have been a great man.”
“And to think, when he first proposed to me I turned him down.” She chuckled. “He was very intelligent, but not always the best at showing his emotions. Even when he proposed to me it was more of a logical argument as to why we would be compatible mates. One day, he showed up with flowers and a poem he had written for me. I knew then that I wanted to marry him.”
“And the crosses are for him, and your son and his wife?”
She smoothed her hair right where a streak of gray stood out. “Three reasons to get out of bed every morning and keep doing my work. I used to hide maps, weapons, and even passports back here. So many people have come through this house, each leaving his own mark.”
“What do you hide there now?” The air was quiet—a good quiet, but a sad quiet.
“Nothing. I haven’t had a guest in eight months. Soon, SOE will forget about me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “This can’t be the same woman who I hear inspired so many SOE agents and even saved lives.”
She folded her arms. “Is that what they say about me?”
“Well, I don’t think the Gestapo has forgotten about you.” Even from here I could hear trekkers speeding up the hill, and I exchanged glances with her.
“Wait here,” she said. “If they come to the door, I’ll talk to them.” She patted me on my shoulder and headed toward the front, either apathetic to her possible fate or resigned to it.
My heart jumped at the shouting and loud knocks at the door. I listened carefully just in case Renée needed me. I heard two agents speaking with her, and then a pair of heavy shoes pounding against the floor throughout the house. Doors opened and shut, closets were ransacked, and I thought I even heard the toilet being checked. As the pounding footsteps grew louder, I placed my back against the wall and tiptoed side ways. Just as I turned the corner, the back door opened.
Not waiting to see if the Gestapo agent would explore the backyard further, I made my way toward the front but froze in place when I heard the second agent with Renée from an open window right above me.
“Adelbert caught a suspicious woman riding around last night. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?”
“Mister Karsten—”
“Agent Karsten.”
“I’ve only been up a couple of hours.”
I flinched and bit my tongue when I heard a thunderous slap. “I asked you about last night, not about this morning.”
I was just about to turn the corner and make it to the front of the house when I saw the second agent coming from the other side. I ran back toward the garden, hoping he hadn’t seen me from the corner of his eye. I didn’t want to chance running into him so I stayed in the back, listening for footsteps. When I heard none, I slipped in through the back door, my bare feet tiptoeing once more. I quickly went into Renée’s son’s old room and stood against the wall, straining to keep track of the conversation and praying I could make it over in time if he decided to pull out a weapon.
“Who had breakfast with you?”
“The old man, Otto, who lives down near the chapel. He’s a friend of mine.”
“Lorenz, go see Otto.”
“Yes, sir.” Lorenz left and shut the door.
“How are your Maquis friends, Renée?”
“They cost me my family. I wouldn’t quite call them friends.”
“I might as well have some refreshments while I’m here. Got anymore coffee?”
“Of course,” she responded in a stiff voice, but I heard her go into the kitchen and return.
“Ah, looks delicious. The old man must’ve left in a hurry.” I could hear him scraping a spoon against the bottom of a coffee cup.
“Is there anything else I can get you, Agent Karsten?”
“Sounds like Lorenz is coming back up the road. Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to confess?”
“Only the guilty have something to confess, sir.”
“Well let’s see if you’re the lying whore that I think you are.”
The door opened and Lorenz’s boots scuffed the floor. “Sir, the old man said he had breakfast this morning with her…and asked if she had any more pastries left.”
A torturous silence filled the house and I stepped closer to the doorway, my heart pounding in my chest and my palms sweaty. If anything happened to Renée, I would feel responsible, and I didn’t know if I would forgive myself for that.
Karsten grunted. “Then let’s not waste any more time. Perhaps we’ll stop by later.”
As soon as I heard them depart and the loud rumble of their trekker fade in the distance, I ran into the living room toward Renée. I gently touched her left cheek and felt a burning sensation where Karsten had struck her. I delivered a cool flow of healing energy through my fingertips and shrank the swollen bruise on her face.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” she sighed. “They know about my husband and son, so every now and then they come and try to scare me.”
“Cowards. Thank goodness Otto went along with your story.”
“Yes, and it helps that I make only pastries for breakfast anyway.”
My hand fell to my side. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”
“So did I, Emelie.” Suddenly she jolted. “Emelie…I knew there was something familiar about you. This may sound strange but Otto came by a month ago and said he had a letter for you. I didn’t know what he was talking about since I hadn’t hosted anyone in months, but he was adamant that the letter be given to an Emelie.”
“Me? Are you sure?” I didn’t receive letters while undercover. This was either extremely important or terribly dangerous.
“I don’t know.” She frowned. “But he’s very loyal and discreet. You can go see him this afternoon and find out about it.”
The letter certainly piqued my curiosity, but it also made me uneasy. I ran through nearly all the people I knew as I tried to guess who would attempt to send me a note under these circumstances. I managed to put aside my worries and offered to clear the table and wash dishes for Renée. I didn’t forget to thank her for the meal, and especially for her protection. After I got rid of my milkmaid’s dress and the jumpsuit, I borrowed one of Renée’s old shift dresses and a sun hat to cover my head. She had already packed the remaining pastries and set them in a picnic basket, asking me to thank Otto once more for his aid. I headed out the back door carrying the basket and made my way to the tool shed. Using a candle Renée had given me, I made my way through the dark tunnel.
Wooden beams reinforced the ceiling and walls, and I went a little faster when I thought I felt something scurry across my toes. I exited through the trapdoor in the chapel. Otto wasn’t there, and so I walked through the front and headed toward his house, stiffening with each car that passed and refraining from making eye contact with others.
I wanted to cringe when I spied three SS officers with weapons drawn, and four young men and two women on their knees in a line, hands behind their heads. The situation startled me, and though I’ve seen death and have sent enemies to their deaths, the idea of shooting innocent and defenseless people in the streets like that filled me with a sickening dread. I started running toward them but when the first gunshot rang, I knew I was too late.
“This will be the punishment for all terrorists!” one of the officers shouted to horrified passersby and witnesses. Once again, the cowards had used murder to intimidate their foes.
I slowed my pace as each subsequent shot ripped away the façade of tranquility that the mild summer weather presented. I held back tears of anger as I slowly went up Otto’s front steps. I had made sure to look at each officer, remembering their nametags and faces, promising that they would one day get what they deserved.
Otto opened the door and ushered me through, and gladly accepted the basket of pastries I brought him. He led me to his sofa and had me take a seat, all the while asking me who had been shot in the street. I shook my head and let the matter go; I was still upset at the sight, and I didn’t know who the people were, but they certainly weren’t terrorists. The real terrorists were wearing swastikas.
“It’s a shame,” he said as he took a seat next to me. “I fought in the Battle of the Marne over fifteen years ago and thought the Germans wouldn’t dare come back after that. Now I must sit here and suffer them shooting people in the streets.”
“Do you still work with the Resistance?”
He snorted. “They say I’m too old. They’ll let boys who are barely old enough to shave carry messages back and forth, but me? No…Old Otto might break his foot coming down the steps.” He muttered a curse word in French and I reluctantly smirked.
A steaming kettle whistled from the kitchen and he excused himself. I glanced at his coffee table that was covered with newspapers and magazines, and I could hear the low humming of the radio. It seemed Otto spent much of his time trying to keep up with current events, though the Nazis filtered or censored most of the information. Mathieu Perrine’s radio broadcasts were the only trustworthy source of what really went on with the Allies and the Resistance. I grinned when I saw Otto return with a hot cup of tea for me, and I politely listened as he began telling me about his son Lucien.
“My boy fought alongside the Maquisards and eventually joined the Free French Army.” He smacked his lips when I handed him a pastry from the basket. “He’s on special assignment in Spain with some Americans. They’re trying to bolster public support for the Allied forces—secretly, of course, since General Franco would not openly have any of it. Perhaps you can meet Lucien one day as he is a fine young man, and unmarried!”
I smiled again and took a sip of tea as he showed me a picture of Lucien. I didn’t want to be rude, but elders were notorious for holding you hostage in a conversation if you let them. I needed to grab my letter and find out who tried to contact me.
“Renée told me you had a letter? May I see it?”
“Yes, yes…I will get it.” He nodded his hoary head and shuffled over to a cupboard where he had a secret compartment. At least two pictures of his son Lucien hung on every wall. There were also pictures of a beautiful young woman, probably his deceased wife when she was younger.
“Here it is, and it’s still sealed.” He handed me the letter and then sat across from me, filling his pipe.
“Who gave it to you?” My heart nearly skipped a beat when I recognized the handwriting.
“A courier. I took it and thought maybe he had intended it to go to Renée since she has people stay at her house sometimes. I brought it to her the day I received it but she insisted that I keep it. I think she was waiting to see if I was fool enough to get caught.”
I opened the letter and unfolded the sheet of paper. It had no signature or date:
Safe in their alabaster chambers,
untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
rafter of satin, and roof of stone.
I should have shielded you from our friends.
We will meet again.
I re-read the note until I had committed it to memory. I promptly took it over to the stove and lit it on fire, watching the paper blacken and curl. The note confused me, and scared me. My head wagged back and forth in denial, and for a moment I thought someone was playing a cruel joke on me.
“My dear…why did you burn that letter? Was it not important?” Otto had come into the kitchen with an anxious expression.
“If you were still active, you’d know to never keep any papers or letters on you. If they were lost or if you were captured…then what?” I didn’t want to snap at him, but I had little patience to spare these days.
“I apologize.”
“You don’t need to…thanks for the letter, and I hope your son safely returns.”
I gave him a peck on the cheek and trudged toward the door, once again being faced with walking back to the chapel. The bodies of the victims had been removed, but their blood still stained the street. I felt like I would go berserk if I saw another SS officer out on the road but luckily I didn’t.
When I returned to the house, Renée saw me trembling and she pulled me to sit down at the table. I barely heard her questions and didn’t even reach for the glass of water she pushed in front of me. I kept arguing with myself in my mind about the note and how my father couldn’t have sent it. First, I knew for a fact he wasn’t in France, nor would he have been within the last month. Second, he was a very straightforward man, much like Renée’s husband. Why would he send me such a cryptic message? Renée kept rubbing my shoulder in a consoling manner and staring into my eyes, finally falling into silence because she seemed afraid of what I would say.
“I got the letter…from Otto.” A letter that was either a lie or pointing toward one.
“Wh-what did it say?”
I took a moment to clear my dry throat. “I think it’s from my father.”
“Is he in France?”
“He died sixteen years ago in Rome.” Both the U.S. Army and the Gray Tower confirmed it.
“My God…” She placed her hand on her chest as she exhaled; her shocked expression mirrored my own. “Are…are you sure he’s dead?”
“I don’t know anymore.” I felt my stomach tighten. If this note had truly been penned by him, then that meant I had been lied to about my father, and so everything I’ve believed about him…I didn’t know what I believed anymore. It was his handwriting, a reference that he knew I would recognize, and it had been addressed to my codename—eerily enough the same name as my favorite poet.
“What did the letter say?”
I repeated the lines to her and realized that the first four lines were an excerpt from an Emily Dickinson poem about time and eternity. Why this poem?
“I have that poetry collection!” Renée shot up and went into her son’s old room, leaving me to recall what I did know about my father.
He rose through the ranks of the U.S. Army and had also been trained by the Gray Tower. Both institutions readily assented to my father being a liaison between the military and the Order of Wizards, and by all accounts he served honorably. One November evening when another Elite Wizard, Serafino Pedraic, came from the Gray Tower to meet with my father in Rome, his bloodstained apartment had been ransacked and he hadn’t been seen since.
After a lengthy investigation Serafino had arrived at our house along with General Robert Cambria and delivered their final verdict—Major Carson William George was dead. Though I was ten years old, certainly old enough to understand, part of me wanted to deny it and keep believing that my father would come through the front door any day with candy for me and Jonathan, and flowers for my mother. But he never came home.
All other kinds of emotions rose inside me, and I didn’t know what to make of them. I believed my father had written the note, but where was he if he was alive, and why had he been missing all those years? I kept ruminating over his words. What exactly did he mean by shielding me from our friends? He mentioned alabaster chambers and resurrection; could it be about death? Dickinson was a bit preoccupied with it. Maybe it was a warning that someone would die.
“Here it is.” Renée nearly bumped into the table. She held a book open and started reading the poem to me, pausing after each stanza to see if I recognized any significance in them.
I shook my head, having only listened to half of her words. “I need to think about all this.”
“Sooner or later, it will come to you. You say you haven’t seen your father in years…perhaps there were things he said to you or that you’ve heard while he was still around.”
“Maybe.”
She closed the book. “Penn is with The Red Lady. Will you be going down to the nightclub later?”
I gestured toward the back where my guestroom stood. “Do you have any extra dresses in that armoire?”
“Do you like purple satin?”
“I’ll take it.”
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Sorry. I updated my version of WordPress today, (it was 4 years old). Unfortunately I backed up my site earlier in the week and it didn’t have a copy of my latest post. So it was only up for two days and now it’s gone. I’ll see if it still exists in a database on my server but I’m pretty sure it’s lost. Things will continue as usual next week. I’ll rewrite some of what I put up this week next week.
Personally, I think it could have been much worse.
Bad news happened last Thursday. I’ve missed three days of work so far because of it.
More below.
FAMILY
My mother-in-law, Sharon Mcdade, was murdered Thursday morning. The circumstances are such that I don’t think I want to go into details. Needless to say that we’ve been hit pretty hard emotionally. I thought about maybe drawing a picture specifically, in her memory. But just thinking about it made me want to break down. I don’t think I’m capable of doing it nor do I have the time even if I was strong enough to do it.
Instead, I’m putting up this painting of a rose I did years ago. I thought it would be appropriate:
I don’t think I should really put anything else up on this blog this week. It doesn’t seem right.
I do ask you for your prayers for my wife and her family, who are devastated. My mother-in-law, was only fifty. She was so young and happy. I loved her and miss her.
Okay, that’s it from me.
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