A Touch Of Magic

"No! I said, no! I will not join you, not to be hurt and harrased again!" 

My fingers automatically relocate to my scarred wrist, at the word hurt. It happens all the time. 

"Oh really...what if I...forced you to, then?"

At the last words, Lillie's eyes turn dark and stormy. 

I struggle to get out of her grip. Suddenly, I feel a certain power wash over me. 

I look Lillie in the eye. 

"How 'bout no?" 

Lillie laughs mercilessly. 

"Then I'll kill you off. Just like all my lovely victims..." 

Suddenly, a dagger appears in my hands, glowing an eerie blue. I slice through the ropes effortlessly and the dagger turns into throwing knives, carved with a rune. I hurtle the knives, one after the other, pinning her by the shirt to the wall of the warehouse. 

A pleading look comes in Lillie's eyes. 

"Please, Luna, I never did anything to hurt you.." 

I toss back my head and laugh. 

"That's Moonshadow, to you. You hurt me...remember that night? The scars? Huh? Huh?" 

Lillie suddenly breaks free of the throwing knives and pulls out a dagger, pinning me to the wall. I summon some axes, and toss them at Lillie, who in turn is forced to dodge and duck them, leaving me enough time to pull out the dagger. I summon some chains, but vines snatch them and toss them away. I summon some obsidian knives, and they glow blue and start to fight with the vines. The vines are now cut- and I deliver the fatal blow, and toss three throwing knives- two at her shoulders and one at her neck. She manages to summon a last vine and throw the one at her neck away, but she's bound by her shoulders to the wall. 

I smirk.  

A sticky silk rope materializes itself in my hands, and I bind her hands tight to the wall of the warehouse. 

"I have magic..magic you dream of, and it never comes. When did I get it? I got it for being a survivor. For helping others." 

Lillie throws a last glare my way, and I smirk. 

"We'll see how you last through the night. The weather forecasters said it would be snowy...and it will be, if I'm not mistaken. And you know me, I'm never mistaken." 

With that, I effortlessly pick the lock of the door- something you pick up from living at the streets for a while- and push it open, then slam it behind her. A sticky silk chain appears in my waiting hands, and I bind the door closed with it. 

Freedom.

And its waiting for me. 

~~~#~~~

For some info- this is the ending scene draft of my book. So, for the summary, it's where Luna Moonshadow joins the Shadow Group, only to be abused and hurt/harrased by the leader, Lillie Greens, and then Luna leaves, but helps people. She's summoned to the temple, where the gods grant her magical powers, she can make anything appear, and then she keeps it a secret. Lillie hunts her down in an old warehouse, and they have a little showdown of powers. Then Lillie reveals she managed to steal greenery powers from the gods and yeah. 

Hope you liked it- it was a bit short.  

When is judging?

So sorry everyone! I'll post results as soon as soon as I can tomorrow! Thank you all for your patience <3

Hey there everyone! So sorry that I’m a little late with the judging! Everyone did such an /amazing/ job and this was impossibly hard to judge.

Honorable Mentions: (in no particular order)

Moonshine - I loved how much emotion you were able to fit into such a small piece! You also did such an awesome job tying this one back to your previous entry and how they fit together perfectly. The uncertainty of what happens next is very suspenseful.

Lazerbat - Even though your piece had more of a serious vibe, the ending still made me laugh; it didn’t go in the direction I expected at all! Sora is such a wonderful character and your take on magik was very unique. Thank you for sharing it with us!

Nightskiies - The dynamic between your two characters was very interesting, and I loved that even though they were different species they still helped each other. The last bit at the end with the wedding was lovely :) 

Fourth Place:

Rainbow Riot - This story was so wonderful to read! The fact that Karl so obviously admires/has a crush on Alex and doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that Alex is magic is very interesting to read. Karl’s internal conflict feels very realistic and I can’t stop thinking about poor Alex still standing in the rain.

Third Place:

Strawberri - I thought the writing here was great! I love the little worldbuilding details you slipped in there, like the country of California part. I think that the storytelling here implies a lot of other characters and events that add to the mysteriousness of the story. The open ended ending was awesome.

Second Place:

Summer - I loved this piece! The contemporary take on classic magic is super cool, and the bracelets and secrets had me on edge the whole time. The ending was pleasantly surprising and I think that the writing was done extremely well. Wonderful job!

FIRST PLACE:

Sky NightStar - The fact that this was an excerpt from your book really showed the amount of worldbuilding and character development that took place before the warehouse fight. I read the background first and I thought that it seems like a very cool idea for a book, but it also made sense on it’s own, without the synopsis. The differences and similarities between these two girls are super cool to witness, and I thought the fighting scene was done wonderfully. 

~~

SNS, you are the next judge! Thank ALL of you for contributing your awesome stories and let me just repeat that judging was VERY, VERY hard.

Sorry this took so long.

the new prompt is music and the due date is 2 weeks from now. Sound good? 

I am a musician, so I can’t wait to do one of my other favorite things and write about it!

I step up to the keys, only meaning to mess around to waste my time. Our upright piano is old and rickety, and usually out of tune. Some of the keys are especially worn down, a fact I never noticed until now. Maybe if I played them in a specific order I’d get a song. 

Two weeks later

*BANG* My arms slam onto the ivory keys. I don’t want to try anymore. I’ve played the worn keys all day long for weeks, in every order I thought possible. It always sounds good and then somewhere along the way there’s a note that’s just wrong.

Two more weeks later

I’ve done it. One more day and I would have quit forever. I persevered, and I’ve figured out the mystery of the worn keys on our ancient piano. ‘Prehistoric’ my mother has always joked. We received the piano many years ago. Well, technically I wasn’t alive. It was given to my mother when she was only my age, 13. Nobody knew where it came from except my great grandmother, who died just last year. I can’t ask my mom if she got any clues, she would just well up with tears and sob again. I guess I’ll never know the origin, but at least I know the song. I play it over and over, and it brings me back to the days of saloons, sheriffs and tumbleweeds. I end up playing it anytime a piano is within sight, which happens to be frequently. Everyone credits me on my playing, and I just smile, nod and thank them. 

One week later

The city has put in pianos downtown for the people to enjoy outdoors, and so downtown has become my favorite place to go, to see and play the colorful pianos, painted by high school students. My favorite one looks like clouds will lift me straight up into the night sky. One day I’m playing my song when a young woman comes walking by. She’s wearing a suit, with ‘History Archives and Musem’ embroidered onto it. She notices my music, stops, and stares. 

“Where did you learn this song?”

She seems like the kind of person who you tell these things to, so I told her the whole story, from my mother receiving the piano, to just a few weeks ago, not even two. Her face is amazed, and the rest of her is too. I think her arm is twitching, so I ask her if she’s alright.

”Quite alright, quite alright!”

Huh. I’ve never seen anyone’s arm twitch. I ask her if there’s a reason why she’s so excited. She tells me that she found a story, along with handwritten sheet music, in the archives for the Old West. She asks if I’d like to look at it, and of course I accept. 

In the archive she shows me the story, which is about a piano from old west days, on which only one song was played, every day, all day, for years. It was played so much that the keys wore down. There was a drawing. The piano has the exact same marks on the side, which I hadn’t acknowledged until now.

“Your piano could be an important historical artifact!”

I ask her why.

”There was a very famous saloon piano player, her name was Molly, but we don’t know anything other than that. Now we may! Your piano was hers.”

Two years later

I love spending my days in the living history museum, playing as Molly. It’s better that playing the song for myself, and I get to play it on Molly’s very own piano as well! I’ll spend my days here forever if I can, or at least until another musical mystery comes along.

——

So that’s my story! Not true, but I wish it were. We do, though, have pianos downtown painted by students, and my favorite has clouds on it. Thank you for reading! 

Eek, this is late, but thank you so much for the second place in the first round! That means a lot, and all of you had stunning work.

I might participate in more rounds, later if I feel less lazy. 

I also submitted this story for the Writing & Art contest but I orginally wrote it for this round's prompt and only a few people have entered so I will enter it here too. It's way over the word count but the word count is just a suggestion anyway. 

~ 

Miriam’s mother loved to sing. She sang the dishes clean and stirred melodies into bowls of stew. Her voice was not refined, it had not been sculpted by lessons. It was filled with pure emotion and a bit out of tune. It was beautiful. 

Miriam disagreed. “Stop!” she screeched, stabbing the harmony with a twisted sound. “Do not sing! Your voice is too scratchy, too unprofessional and too grating on my soul!”

Miriam’s mother only laughed, hiding the pain behind the creases of her face. 

“No!” Miriam said, and so eventually the house was quieter and the stew was a bit bland. 

And yet, Miriam had a secret. She liked to sing. She hummed as she poured over schoolwork and danced to hidden operas in the early chords of the morning. When she was the only one home, she would sing, lifting her voice to the rafters and sliding it down to the wooden planks. But Miriam’s voice was raw and she was ashamed of it. 

When Miriam was old enough, she joined a choir. Her mother raised an eyebrow but her lips stayed pursed. Miriam loved the songs that the choir sang, but she was scared. Her voice fell flat and the notes taunted her from the crisp white sheets. She left the choir with regrets still in her throat. 

Miriam dreamed of joining the theater. Of twirling and swirling on the stage. Her stomach clenched to stand in the lights and her mind reminded her that her singing was broken. She cried a bit about it one afternoon before going to the kitchen to tell her mother to be silent, to step out of a rare bout of song. 

Miriam moved away to the city, to a cramped apartment. She was alone but she did not sing. She was no longer young enough to dream. She nabbed an office job and heard autotune scream through the radios and her ears bled in pre-packaged stews.

“Mom?” she called on the phone one chilly evening. “Do you ever sing now that I am gone?”

Miriam could hear her mother’s frown through the distance and knew that it was a habit broken by time. 

“I love you.” her mother said. Miriam echoed the words, hanging up. The silence around her was thick and she stumbled, falling to the itchy rug. 

It felt good to let wet warm tears slip on her cheeks. Heavy air pressed on her chest, coaxing harsh breaths that tasted of cracking dreams out in the world. 

A few months later, Miriam took a taxi to the train station. Her head bounced on the windows as the reflections played like a skipping record. She walked through the weeds to her parent’s house with its crumbling red roof. Vines embraced the white stucco walls and the flower garden laughed with a thousand tongues. Her father stumbled out of the arched door frame and stared through red-rimmed eyes. 

“Miri...your mother...she” his voice cracked into a million different pieces, leaving a sobbing mess. The shards pierced Miriam’s heart and she tripped into his arms. 

“Dad? What…” she swallowed her hope. “Where is she?”

He took taut moments to compose his face, holding his tears.“Your mother had a… a heart attack. She’s in the hospital.” 

Miriam cried out as fear raced through her body. It split through her soul and broke into her mind. The fear stomped in her stomach as her father drove her to the hospital. 

Her mother lay in a hospital bed hooked up to machines. Their flashing lights made the sterile white floors into a disco ball and the beeping ricocheted over the window blinds.

Miriam was at her side in an instant, clasping their hands together. Her fingernails were cut raw and bleeding. “Oh, mom…” She said through a waterfall of tears. 

Her mother smiled faintly, tracing the wrinkles across her face. “Miriam..” Her voice was soft and rough, polished by hope. “I love you so much, sweetie…” She broke off in a fit of coughing. 

“Mom?” Miriam's breath was a battle between uncertainty and desperation. She continued in a run. “Mom.. do you remember that lullaby that you used to sing me?” 

“Of course I do.”

“Could you sing it? Please.” 

“Miri is asking me to sing? I never thought that this day would come.” 

Miriam laughed a little, tears falling into her dimples and her mother grinned in harmony. 

“I will.” Her mother said, now solemn. She cleared her throat and began. 

“Little birds yearning to fly,

Shiny birds reaching for the sky,

Sticks and stones to build a nest

A place to let your soul rest

Have you yet learned to sing with sounds

Little bird, come visit my garden in the clouds.” 

Miriam joined her for the final verses, and it was the first time that her mother had ever heard her sing. Their voices clasped together, flowing as currents joined by one river. And their tears flowed as an avalanche once more, dewdrops on their cheeks. 

And then it ended, and machines grew fainter.

“I love you.” Miriam rose to her feet, stroking her mother’s hair one last time before stepping quietly out of the room. Her mother echoed the words through tired eyelids. 

Her father sat silent in the dark waiting room. She slid into the chair beside him and covered her eyes with her hands. Their breaths were falling drums, echoing off the caves in their hearts. 

Her mother’s funeral was a few days later. It was a somber ceremony in a children’s church. Black and white with an accent of an old organ. Miriam stood, a stone sinking in the water. 

She nodded at the service and was only present when it ended and the guests mingled with each other, holding glasses of grief. 

Miriam slipped out the back door, walking through the weed-ridden passage that opened to a meadow with a few of the setting sun. She ripped her black cardigan off, leaving a white dress that was soft on her skin. 

The wildflowers swayed against her feet, smiling with red and blue and yellow teeth. 

Miriam tilted her head to the sky and opened her lips. Her voice leaped out her mouth, soaring high with the birds. The stars appeared and shined as notes on the music sheet of the universe. 

Her voice was rough and pure, salty from her tears and raw. Her voice was a rainbow of shapes, the sound of freedom. It was raw like a garden in the clouds and it was her. 

Miriam sang to her mother on the steps of the world because they loved to sing.