Obviously if you were expecting Hellion today, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. I know it’s no longer Halloween but I wrote this up for Halloween and I’ll be damned if I waste my time on something I’ll never use. So you’ll just have to get over it. I’m giving Hellion a well deserved Friday break and there is no picture today because I’m rather long-winded- Sin.

 

 

I couldn’t run any faster than I was pushing my scrawny legs forward. Yet, she kept yelling for me to hurry! Hurry! C’mon, we’re gonna miss it!

 

I didn’t know what we were gonna miss but it better be better than grandpa’s beer rolls fresh from the oven and melting in your mouth. And there wasn’t nothing better than that.

 

The ground was covered with leaves of all colors, turning into brown sludge over the dying grass. After a long, wet spring, Indian summer just faded away to dead winter. There was no snow yet, but the wind whipped through my hair and my hot pink stocking cap. My ears burned with the cold. My fingers ached and my toes hurt and we’d ran through the woods for what seemed like eternity. We could be anywhere by now.

 

I slowed behind her. Her blonde hair was always a mess and her clothes always too small or too big. Sam and I were like two peas in a pod. I just wished I understood her better than I pretended to. Sam was in a different world from mine. Her sister was older. Older than my oldest cousin and could drive. And Sam’s sister’s best friend drove the coolest car I’d ever seen. A camaro. When I grew up, I was going to own one just like it. You could take the roof off and stick it in the trunk and drive around looking at the sky.

 

“Are you comin’ or what?”

 

I broke a branch off the oak tree I was standing beside. I looked up toward the sky and looked around the surrounding woods. I started smacking the limbs with the branch I broke off.

 

“Where are we goin’? It’s gettin’ dark and I’m hungry.”

 

“Don’t be a cry baby,” Sam worked her way back to me and I held my ground. “Ain’t nothing gonna get you in this woods that we can’t handle.” Sam was tougher than me and meaner than me. Sometimes we hid in her closet when her daddy came home early because it meant he was drunk and feeling mean. Sam would sneak me out the side door so that he couldn’t find me and I’d run through the woods like the wind until I was safe on my grandpa’s land. I’d watch her house from the safety of the trees separating the properties. I’d watch for any sign that she was okay.

 

“Looks like we’re goin’ towards the graveyard.”

 

Sam came up beside me and took off her ball cap. She yanked her hair back up in her ponytail holder and shoved her cap back over her eyes. At any given time Sam could have one black eye or two. Depending on what kind of trouble she’d been in. Sam wasn’t a troublemaker. Her daddy just liked to tell her she was until she gave up and started believing it.

 

I didn’t like her dad. He had crazy eyes, like he was dead inside and wasn’t afraid to take someone with him on his way to hell.

 

“We are. I heard Lou and Stace talking about some of the older boys were gonna try to raise the dead.” Chills shot down my arms. I’d seen a ghost one time before. Scared the beejeebus out of me when she walked into the kitchen to turn on the faucet. She looked at me before she walked out to the porch and ran down the stairs. I ran to the door to watch her run across the yard and to the garden, but once I got to the screen door, she was gone. 

 

Sam knew I didn’t like the graveyard. Shivers of souls raced over me like a blanket of goosebumps when I went by there. I might not believe all that hocus pocus crap they spout on the TV but I did believe in souls. And they were there in the graveyard waiting for me to come back.

 

“No. I ain’t going to the graveyard. You know I don’t like that place. Gives me the creeps.”

 

Sam put her hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side. “Awh, now, don’t be like that. It’s Halloween. We’re too old for that trick or treat crap.”

 

I didn’t know about her, but I was never too old for candy. Especially those full size candy bars the Joneses handed out. I even had the most perfect costume this year. Mama had bought me the witch’s hat I wanted and painted a broom black. She promised to paint my face green when she got home.

 

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna chicken out.”

 

I narrowed my eyes and stalked up to her. I stopped just a hair shy of stepping on her toes and stuck my finger in her chest. “I am not chicken.”

 

A wide grin spread across Sam’s face. “Yes you are. You’re chicken. Chicken, chicken, chicken.” She stepped away from me and stuck her hands under her armpits and started flapping her arms. “Brock, brock, brock- chicken.”

 

She looked so stupid and I could feel my face getting hot as my temper started to heat up.

 

“Darn it, Sam. Let’s go so I can get home before Mama gets there and finds me not in the house. If you cost me my chance to get candy, I’ll never forgive you.”

 

She instantly stopped making chicken noises at me and threw her arm around my shoulders. “I knew I could count on you. Now let’s hurry so we don’t miss anything.”

 

We ran full tilt through the thick thatch of trees and piles of leaves. We knew our way through these woods even if you’d put a blindfold on us and turned us around a million times. The moon was starting to come out, the sun behind us as we slid down the last hill and ran up to the clearing. We danced over the huge cracks in the ground blackened by coal and across the road to the cemetery. There wasn’t enough light to see the boys or even where they were standing but that didn’t stop Sam from slinking around in the shadows and laying flat on the hill leading up to the gravestones.

 

I was a little more cautious in my approach of the graveyard. All of the hair on my arms was standing straight up and I had a knot in my throat the size of Texas. Hadn’t been to Texas but I saw it on a map and it was huge.

 

I stood on the road overlooking the graveyard unable to move forward. I could see the boys towards the back lot. I could see the cherry on the end of a joint they were sharing.

 

“Psst!” Sam said over her shoulder and waved me over. “Are you comin’?”

 

“Yeah,” I whispered. My palms were sweating with the effort of trying to budge my feet from the pavement. I had the creepy crawlies. The heebee-jeebees.

 

Sam half turned on her side and looked at me. She frowned, “C’mon then. We’re gonna miss it.”

 

My heart was beating way too hard and my skin was crawling. I pushed myself forward and stumbled into the ditch. I crawled up the hill beside Sam and together we danced in the shadows towards the boys. We could hear them snickering and a couple of the boys had their arms slung around the shoulders of girls.

 

“Sit on the grave stone Sarah,” one of the boys said and the group howled with laughter. “I dare you.”

 

“No!” Sarah squealed and I watched as the boy pushed her towards the stone and she pushed back and skipped away from him as he reached out to grab her.

 

The trees rustled with the wind and the kids ahead of us stopped suddenly. Sam leaned around the tree she was hiding behind and I army crawled towards her. The moon didn’t loan enough light to see them, only their shadows and my heart leapt in my throat as one of the kids jumped out and yelled, “Boo!”

 

Everyone squealed and started to run. The girls held hands as they ran towards us. They slowed down and sat on a stone bench near the more decorative section of the graveyard. Sam waved me over, she was closer to the two girls and I knew exactly what she wanted to do. She was going to spook these girls so bad they’d pee their pants.

 

I moved towards her and leaned against the tree like a ninja. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

 

She nodded and I looked towards the back part of the graveyard. I couldn’t see the boys anymore, but I didn’t think they were going to raise the dead either. Everyone knew you didn’t sit in the graveyard at night on Halloween. Wandering spirits just waited for young souls to steal. You didn’t sit and give them time to make you a zombie.

 

We stayed in the shadows, slinking towards the girls tittering like twits. An owl hooted in the distance and my head whipped around. Bad omen to be in the graveyard on Halloween and hear the owl; goosebumps raced along my skin.

 

Sam and I got right behind the girls and on a head nod we reached up at the same time and grabbed their shoulders and pulled them backwards. The girls screamed loud enough to wake the dead and Sam and I sprinted off into the night. We could hear the boys yelling and the sound of their footfall behind us only made us more desperate to get into the woods and lose them. We split up and ran headlong into the woods at breakneck speed. I slid down the hill on my butt and ran to the west.

 

Mama was yelling my name and I cringed each time she yelled. Louder and louder, I was sure you could hear her in the next county. The leaves rustled and spurred me faster and I jumped the holler and splashed through the creek. I was almost to the clearing, just a few more steps…

 

And that’s when I heard it.

 

Heavy footsteps. Heavy breathing. Shadows rising in the night. I stared wide eyed as I tried to move forward and it was like I forgotten the way home. Nothing looked familiar. Nothing looked real.

 

I spun around, over and over again. Mama wasn’t yelling anymore and the moon wasn’t shining. Oh god, the ghosts found me! I was going to pay for being in the graveyard on Halloween!

 

Just as my stomach flip flopped, I heard footsteps right behind me. I didn’t look. I just ran. I ran so fast and so hard, branches smacked me in the face and on the arms and legs. The footsteps followed me step by step and finally when I broke the clearing, the light streaming from the house was like a lighthouse. I ran full tilt towards it and didn’t slow until I got to the porch.

 

“Boo!” Arms reached for me and I struck out blindly. My fingers touched an eyeball and I snatched my hand back.

 

“Owwh!”

 

“I could’ve hurt you!” I screeched.

 

Sam grinned at me, one hand covering her eye like a pirate. “Argh! Me bestie is a scaredy cat!”

 

I punched her in the arm and marched up the steps to the screen door and yanked it open. “You comin’ in or what? Granpa had dinner on the table.”

 

She uncovered her eye and pushed me through the door before retreating back down the step. “I gotta get home. Besides I don’t want to be here when your mama chews you up and spits you out.”

 

“I hear you out there! You better get your butt in here right now!”

 

I groaned and Sam danced off into the night laughing. Damn Sam and damn Halloween.

 

 

 

Alright, now that I’ve bored you to tears, let’s just have a general Friday melay of subjects. Who was your favorite partner-in-crime as a child and how did you incorporate all the troublemaking mischief into your characters and their PIC’s?

I figure today we’re all going to be on a sugar rush, raiding the candy bowl and making merry with co-workers and friends. Or if you celebrate the Celtic traditions or practice the Wiccan religion this is a more traditional holiday for you and we minus the candy and sugar rushes and add in the festivals that start after the sun goes down. So let’s not work too hard at this blog thing, okay?

 

Either we celebrate Halloween as the holiday we grew up loving for its ability to make us into a character for one whole day, or we celebrate All Hallow’s Eve to recognize our beloved(s) who have passed on into the afterlife, and/or rejoice you’ve made it to the New Year by Celtic traditions, we’re all celebrating. So grab some rum and settle in. 

 

Two years in a row I’ve blogged on All Hallow’s Eve. I figure the pirates think I’m spooky. Enough to put me on the spookiest day of the year. Today, October 31 is traditionally the day where the veil between our world and the spirit world is the thinnest. But as we found out on Wednesday with Aunty Cindy’s blog (Loucinda McGary’s book The Wild Sight is now on a bookshelf near you. Get thou off the ship and grab a copy before it’s sold out!) we all have a few ghostly stories to tell even when it’s not Halloween, and today is no exception.

 

So today, I bring you story time by Sin. 

 

The wind whipped against the window. The branches on the old Oak tree in my friend’s front yard tapped against the glass ever so gently. The noise didn’t bother anyone else; but here I was wake in the middle of the night in someone else’s home. After a night of some of the girls holding séances to call out to spirits wandering around nearby, they became frustrated when no one contacted them. With a conspirator’s laugh, one of the girls ran into Emily’s bedroom and came out with the Ouija board. I shuddered at the thought of the black board with its oppressive letters and FAREWELL blocked at the bottom and goosebumps shot down my arms. The shock the board gave me was enough to keep me up all night. I just wanted to forget that feeling racing over my skin. The way it made my blood run cold. It moved even as I took my fingers off the operator. The girls squealed in delight. I felt sick to my stomach. They continued to play with it even after I locked myself in the bathroom.  

 

I couldn’t go home. That was so uncool. I stood on the fringe of all cliques, not readily accepted by anyone running in a pack. I was scrawny and pale and sort of weird with pale blue eyes. Kids made fun of me because I was pale and called me a ghost. This was my last attempt to fit in with the “cool” kids and make my remaining school years a little bit easier.

 

My fringe friend, Emily, lived in an old farm house on thirty acres. Their back porch was screened in and on the hill. When you stepped outside you could see the fields in the valley and the old barn was just to your right. Her dad had a stockpile of big round hay bales lined up along the old barbed wire fence and they were the only ones around for miles. I wasn’t great friends with this girl, but I just loved her house. There was something about this house that called out to me, and also compelled me to run away. I didn’t know how to place the feeling I had when I walked inside. Almost like all the air had been sucked from my lungs- a sucker punch to the gut. I felt uneasy but I still refused to go home. I didn’t want to be labeled a weirdo. A social outcast was not on my agenda for Junior High and High School.

 

At first, I just heard footsteps- a creak in the floorboards in the kitchen. I pulled the blanket down just enough so I could see into the living room and dining room. It was pitch dark. Quiet. The only sound I could hear was my heart beating in my throat. I listened without moving until I thought whoever got up had gone back to bed. I pulled the cover back up over my eyes and rolled over. I tried to relax but now I was wide awake.

 

Then I heard it again.

 

No lights were on in the house. Strange, I thought. But I could see in the dark pretty well, maybe I wasn’t the only one. I figured I could sneak a peak at whoever was the culprit freaking me out.

 

So I got off the couch and padded quiet to the wall between the dining room and living room. I peeked around it, holding my breath to keep from giving myself away. But there was nothing.

 

My shoulders slumped. I was all freaked out over nothing. I was a big chicken.

 

I turned away from the wall and headed back over to the couch. I touched the armrest of the couch and went to fling myself on the cushions and I heard the faucet start to drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. It was annoying enough that I went back over to the wall and peeked around it again.

 

That’s when I saw her. An older teenager- in a white nightgown. One of those old style, floor length, long sleeved gowns. It was really pretty. She had long blonde hair that hung down her back and big eyes that were black. The moonlight hit her just enough to cast an eerily glow off her hair and her white gown. She wasn’t pale. Her skin was a golden sun kissed color at her neck and hands. She had her hand on the faucet and she smiled to herself like she was playing in the water, amused at a faucet. Creepy.

 

She was slimmer than Emily’s older sister Abby. Her hair was a little lighter and longer, with a curl in the ends. But it had to be her. Who else could it be? Maybe the moonlight was just playing tricks with me.

 

“Abby,” I whispered. “Abby! Shut off the water! You’re driving me crazy!”

 

She obviously didn’t hear me. She kept her eyes on the water dripping onto her fingers. It glistened like diamonds as it trickled through her fingers and splattered onto the sink.

 

I narrowed my eyes and tiptoed into the kitchen. I didn’t want to wake their parents. She didn’t look my way as I approached her and I leaned around the wall between the dining room and kitchen.

 

Maybe Abby was sleep-walking.

 

“Abby!”

 

She was a frightened deer in the headlights. Her head swung around so fast, a normal person would’ve had whiplash. We stared at each other, wide-eyed for eternity, seconds stretched into decades. And suddenly the light bulb flickered on over my head.

 

“You- Uh- Um-,” Holy crap! This wasn’t Abby!

 

She took a step closer to me and I stumbled backwards into the table. Her nightgown seemed to float in the air and it drifted closer and closer to me without her moving an inch.

 

I wanted to look away.

 

I tried to look away.

 

Looking at her was like looking at the sun. It was so beautiful in a destructive sort of way that you never realized it until you never saw her again.

 

Blankets rustled in the living room. One of the girls at the sleepover sighed and the spirit took one last look at me and turned towards the door. I wasn’t scared enough that I was compelled to run away now that I could. I watched her go to the door and shut it behind her. As soon as I thought she’d cleared the back porch and I stepped silently over to the door.

 

She was gone.

 

Weird. Weird. Weird. I must be dreaming, I thought as I turned back around and Emily was standing in the kitchen doorway.

 

“What are you doing?” She whispered. She waved me over and I pursed my lips. I couldn’t tell her the truth. She’d never believe me.

 

“Getting something to drink. Can’t sleep.”

 

She smiled and I smiled back. We got bottles of water and went back into the living room. I never stayed at her house again. I didn’t want to tempt fate. You never ever know when a spirit is going to claim your body as their own.  But I think Emily knew why I never accepted any invites over again.

 

Emily saw her too.

 

The Real Pirate Song

 

 

Clearly titles aren’t my talent, but let’s face it, Goats on a Boat was taken, and there’s no topping that.

 

 

Perhaps you’ve been a bit curious how I got to be a pirate writer, despite my decided lack in title-cleverness; how I came to follow my bliss on the high seas, in pursuit of finished WIPs and Happily Ever Afters. I know it’s easy to imagine I sailed out of the womb, brandishing a cutlass and yelling, “I want to publish romance novels” but invariably with legends, the reality is much more sedate.

 

So on this very first blog on the new ship, while I’m still reminiscing about how far I and me crew have come, I thought I would share how I came to be the pirate writer I am today—only slightly dramatized.

 

It went something like this.

 

3^rd Period, 1992, Ms. Yount’s English class

 

(Ms. Yount)

All right. Listen up, you rocks with hair, you’re in my class now, and you’ll be passing this class if it’s the last thing you do, because I’ll be damned if I have to have you next year. Oh, yes, I’m talking right at you, Roberts. You all will become enlightened and learn to quote Thoreau and Emerson and Twain if I have to pull your strings like little wooden puppets! Open your books to page 394 and start reading, “The Open Boat.” There will be no talking….

 

(Hellion)

I don’t like it.

 

(Ms. Yount)

You don’t like it?

 

(Hellion)

I don’t like it, and I don’t want to do it. It’s boring. Boring, boring, boring…except for maybe that Byron fellow. And don’t look at me that way.

 

(Ms. Yount)

We’re not doing him. He’s too unboring for you lot, you hormone thrumming twits. Okay, I bite, what do you want, dare I ask?

 

(Hellion)

I want to publish lots, I want to publish lots

I want to be like Nora and make the Times completely nuts.

Writing Love that conquers all, and wild sex outside the box.

I want to publish lots.

 

(Ms. Yount)

You want to write trash novels, do you? You don’t like real writers like Emily Dickinson? Or Jane Austen? If you’re going to write a novel, why don’t you write a good one? One with a plot, and a theme, and no sex? Something literary that will broaden your mind, change the world, enrich the intellect of your peers and bring about world peace. That’s the kind of book you should write—something that Oprah will read. Why don’t you write something like that, something worth reading?

 

(Hellion)

I don’t like it.

 

(Ms. Yount)

You don’t like it?

 

(Hellion)

I don’t like it and I don’t want it….

 

(Ms. Yount)

You don’t want it.

 

(Hellion)

And I won’t do it…I’m a pirate.

 

(Ms. Yount)

A pirate? Well, Miss Pirate, what do you want?

 

(Hellion)

I want to publish lots, I want to publish lots

I want to be like Nora and make the Times completely nuts.

Writing Love that conquers all, and wild sex outside the box.

I want to publish lots.

 

(Ms. Yount)

Now listen here! This isn’t a Kathleen Woodweiss Breeding Ground for Oversexed Housewives and Repressed Amish Farmers’ Daughters. This is an English class, and we will only be reading boring, real life-like stories with real unhappy endings…and there will be no sex, do you got that? I would have you thrown out of the classroom if you weren’t one of the few students in this section that shows signs of intelligence. (No, Roberts, you’re not one of the few; read the assignment.) So, missy, you’ll crack open that book and you’ll start liking Stephen Crane….

 

(Hellion)

I don’t like it.

 

(Ms. Yount)

And you won’t crack open your book, will you?

 

(Hellion)

I don’t want it….

 

(Ms. Yount)

And you’ll probably continue to read your romance novels during class, as if you think a 2-inch thick book can be hidden inside your schoolbook, with you sitting in the front row and all…you’re not going to read the assignment, are you?

 

(Hellion)

Well, deep down, you want to know the truth—it’s not me, I don’t like it….

 

(Ms. Yount)

Well, what do you want, as if it takes a freaking rocket scientist to figure it out at this point?

 

(Hellion)

I want to publish lots….

 

(Ms. Yount)

I know, I know…and make the Times completely nuts. I got it, I got it…though why you couldn’t do that with a book without sex in it, I don’t know. All right, fine, we’re all going to write… (grumbling)… Get out your notebooks. It’s not like you guys couldn’t use refinement with your writing skills anyway. 1^st graders have better cursive skills than you do, Roberts. Get out your paper, now…okay, all together…one, two, three….

 

(Chorus of 3^rd Period English class)

We want to publish lots, we want to publish lots

We want to be like Nora and make the Times completely nuts.

Writing Love that conquers all, and wild sex outside the box.

We want to publish lots.

 

(Hellion)

I like it…I like it!

 

(Ms. Yount)

I kinda like it too. This might pay for little Yount’s college education….

 

(Hellion)

I think that’s what Nora said.

 

(Ms. Yount)

Pen and paper, guys. I don’t want pencil marks all over hither and yon….

 

(Hellion)

I don’t like pens.

 

(Ms. Yount)

You don’t like pens?

 

(Hellion)

Well, no, actually…I like using a plume with a sharp nib.

 

(Ms. Yount)

A plume?

 

(Hellion)

With a sharp nib.

 

(Ms. Yount)

With a sharp nib, Hellion likes a sharp nib. Well, aren’t you bloody Charles Dickens?

 

(FADE OUT)

 

And that was basically it. This scenario repeated itself about a dozen times throughout with college as I vexed one professor after another. After all, they found I could write—and be analytical about it, but why did I want to rot my brain and throw away my talent on genre fiction?

WHY?

 

Because it makes me happy and it’s what I want. And that’s all the justification any pirate ever needs to make.

 

So, what makes you happy—and what do you want? And how do you plan to go about accomplishing it? What were your English classes like, and do you remember any of the stories you had to read? (I still don’t remember The Open Boat.)

You may ask: what does the bed-mussed Jeremy Northam have to do with this blog? Absolutely nothing, but when you’re a pirate writer following your bliss, you can post whatever pictures you like. Enjoy.