Reminder - You can follow along with all of the bout results right HERE. Here's how WRiTE CLUB cage bouts work. Instead of two writers competing against one another, now it's THREE AT ONCE. But there's a twist. All of the winners have been given the opportunity to absorb the feedback offered during their preliminary round and submit an edited version of their original submission. As a writer, utilizing feedback can be a tricky proposition - because frankly - not all feedback is equal. This is our chance to see how the contestants used that feedback (if at all).
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House
of Whispers
The house had outgrown them.
No, I have not misspoken: truly, the Château
du Chuchote was bigger than when the family first arrived. Like a quiet
cancer, it swelled and spread—stairwells unrolling from drywall, corridors
sprouting from halls, porticos appearing where they hadn’t been the day before.
The youngest of them was the first to notice, one
fog-softened afternoon in August. “We’ve a courtyard now, Mother,” she
announced over tea.
“Of course, Nicolette.” The mother did not spare a glance
from her cup or a care for the courtyard. Like all the house’s additions, it was
easy enough to trivialize with reason or diagnose as imagination. It has
always been that way, the adults would say, even as the foundation groaned
beneath them.
Nicolette spent her day exploring the cour d’honneur all
the same, delighted to find it trimmed with fieldstone and ripe roses. She
tucked her dolls among the buds and armed their porcelain palms with thorns. For
a perilous moment, she considered hiding herself in the roses, too, deep in the
brambled shadows.
But she knew it would not matter. He would find her anyway.
Nicolette took a nascent hallway back to the nursery, so narrow
she had to turn sideways to pass. There were tiny white flowers metastasizing
down its length, and when she touched one, it rained petals at her feet as
though this were the nave of a chapel and she the bride. It was both sad and
beautiful, she thought, not unlike the house itself.
She did not tell the mother about the hallway. Or about the
door that had begun to etch itself into the nursery wall. She knew it was not
her imagination, because she would watch the door’s light inch closer each night—to
the toy chest, to the chair, to the foot of the bed. She would watch the light
whenever the yelling swelled below her, and the rumble of his voice grew closer.
The next morning, she ate peaches and regarded the new window
in the parlor. She skipped through the rambling enfilades and sunk her dolls to
the bottom of the new fountain. And that night, she found the new door in the
nursery had cracked open, the light beyond it coaxing and warm. While other
children might have been afraid, Nicolette knew there were bigger things to
fear. Like the sound of his footsteps thundering down the hallway, her name a
curse in his mouth.
When he arrived in the nursery that night, he did not find Nicolette.
He found only a melting lantern, only an empty wall, only a new porcelain doll left
in her stead.
The house had outgrown them, you see. It’s said the Château
du Chuchote had once been home to many daughters. Now, the grounds are quiet, save
for the occasional creak of a beam settling into place. It has always been
that way, the adults would say.
But if you listened, the house would say different.
Dull kerosene lamplight framed the dead
firing squad. Alexei and his family stared at the shadowborn crows plucking the
eyes out of the Bolsheviks.
“Thank God,” Alexei whispered. He wiped
away the splattered blood on his hands and face, searching for cuts and
bruises. “Thank God. The blood’s not mine.”
“We must go.” His father took the lead.
Every crow turned to watch. “Go!” He hissed. Alexei’s four sisters obeyed, but
were forced back to the wall by beating black wings. His mother clutched him to
her chest and rushed back. Alexei winced as they hit the wall, aching pain in
his skull. He bit through his tongue. Warm, bitter blood filled his mouth. He
braced at what came next.
“No!” Wild eyed, his mother swatted crows
away before falling to her knees. She ran her hands over him head to toe. They
came away clean. “Does anything hurt?” Her eyes were looking for lies.
Alexei swallowed and leaned in to whisper.
“No.”
Her eyes closed, whispering fervent
prayers. He silently cursed the doctor who’d infected her with fear of his
illness.
Howling winter winds blew out of the
basement’s shadows. Alexei’s family huddled, pushing him between his four
sisters, leaving his mother and father to stand alone.
“Leaving before giving thanks. Romanovs
never fail to disappoint,” the raspy voice cackled. The crows added their
cawing chorus. Alexei covered his ears.
“Show yourself and we will thank you!” His
father shouted over the din.
Stone tapped against concrete. Alexei
pushed his sisters aside to watch the darkness. Old stories echoed in his
memories as gnarled hands holding a pestle thrust into the light.
“What can a former Czar offer me?” Eyes,
bluer than Siberian ice, gleamed at the light’s edge. When they passed over
him, liquid warmth rushed down Alexei’s leg.
“We can pay-” One moment his father was
standing tall, and the next he was on his knees gasping for air. One rush of
wind and Alexei stared open-mouthed into the fishhook grin of Baba Yaga. The
child eater of legend tightened her grip on his father’s throat.
“Keep your bloodstained gold. I want
Russia’s future.” Her eyes found Alexei again. His mother spat pious damnations
on the witch.
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Baba
Yaga spat back. “Your lives are owed to me. I claim his.” She swung the
pestle’s stone tip into his mother’s gut. She doubled over, heaving. Alexei
tore away from his sisters and grabbed the wrist killing his father.
“Please, let him live. I’ll go with you.”
The fishhook grin never changed, but her
eyes softened. She leaned in close to his father’s red face.
“Your son is braver than you.” She shoved
his father back into his mother. His family huddled and fussed over each other.
Everything in Alexei wanted to run back to them. Baba Yaga’s boney fingers
wrapped around his shoulder.
A Tender Moment
Julia
was sitting at the base of one of my favorite hiking trails. She loves hiking,
and that day she’d worked up a light sweat that gave her skin a little shine.
The setting sun cast her in amber; her lopsided smile and flowing hair glowed
in that one perfect moment of light.
When
she was in Rome, she tossed a coin into the Trevi Fountain wishing for love but
told her family that she only did it because it was tradition. That vacation
was the first and last time she ever left her hometown. She still calls herself
a world traveler though, and dreams of visiting other countries.
Her
eyes have a little green mixed in the light brown. When she wears mascara and a
little eyeliner they seem to sparkle with an ethereal glow. It’s as if she
could look into my eyes and see every thought laid out like pages from her
favorite glamor magazines.
She
likes to dress casually—jeans and colorful blouses—but she’s not afraid to show
off her knowledge of fashion when the occasion calls for it. Long flowing
dresses, slit high to the hip, low slung necklines showing almost too much
skin. The look says classy and sexy at once.
I
imagine she’d be the talk of the night if we ever showed up at one of my work
parties dressed like that. Her arm around mine as we made small talk with my
colleagues. Steve and Carlos giving me the silent bro nod of approval. Dancing
and sipping chardonnay ‘til the early hours before walking home hand in hand,
her high heeled shoes slung over my shoulder.
When
we get home, she’d look into my eyes and without saying a word know how much I
appreciated her in my life. We’d kiss and make love and when the first light of
the sunrise comes through my bedroom window her eyes would still be on mine,
those little green specks glittering in the sun like tiny emeralds.
Later
that day she’d convince me to do a quick hike up Little Turtle trail to help
exorcise the demon spirits we consumed the night before. While we hike, we’d
talk over plans for our vacation next October. She’ll push for Spain and I’ll
argue Thailand. By the time we get home we’ll have decided on Cyprus.
The
thought of the sundown casting her in that same amber glow as we looked out
over the Mediterranean is everything. Her hand in mine as we talked about how
great the food is and how welcoming the locals are. I’d lean over and kiss that
lopsided smile of hers and she would kiss me back. Before she notices, I’m on
one knee, proposing with my grandmother’s ring.
Julia
loves cats. She has three of them.
I’m
allergic to cats. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Swipe left.
This is WRiTE CLUB—the contest where the audience gets clobbered!
