Misty Hill

 

Snowdrop

 

 

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Chapter (1): Misty Hill

 

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"Sorry, Ma," I said, turning my back to her, and, with a low groan, dragged up the zipper of my overly jam-packed travel satchel, "Can’t do it today. The guys are waiting."

 

Holding a jar of her home-made apple jam, she simply tilted her head, both eyebrows rising, the is-this-how-you-reward-me glare peering right through my back.

 

Maybe if I avoided her face she would let me go, just this time.

 

"I packed your new underwear in there!" she called out as I stepped down onto the pavement, closing the creaking gate behind me.

 

For God's sake, I grumbled to myself, the sleek, slightly overgrown, fringes of oddly blue-black hair falling onto my eyes as I lowered my head, concealing the blush. I could hear Nara whining about something, from inside the kitchen, "Oh, and don't forget the flowers for your sister. Be safe."

 

"Okay, don't worry. See you in four days!" I called back, quickly installing myself onto my navy, blue bike and broke out further and down the street, hoping she'd stopped after the 'underwear' part. She would consciously disregard the fact that we were surrounded by neighbors; not the warm, nostalgic, old kind of neighbors, but the nosy obnoxious category.

 

And well, where I'd been sent, before I got to climb into the splendid bus with Dujaun and the bunch, wasn't much different from this environment. I winced as I propelled my feet through the spring-welcoming path, aiming for the misty shack set on that hill.

 

I didn't quiet understand why, my mother, still in her mid-thirties back then, always seemed energized about communicating with wrinkly, allegedly supernatural, residents speckled here and there. I glanced down at the neatly-wrapped, apple-scent reeking jar in the bike basket.

 

Back then, if you had lived in Ivory Town, the air around you would be burdened with much more than apple scent; lots of fruit, flowers, noises of new-born baby birds, and the buzzing of hectic honey-bees. Long, smooth tresses of fresh-green grass would be proudly dominating fronts of house lanes, soils of backyards, and even boldly creeping up from fractures in the poorly, paved road underneath the whirling wheels of my bike.

 

If you had lived in Ivory Town, you would see at the end of the long, continuous dark months of winter, the fragments of spring would be sun-bathed and pleasant.

 

My phone vibrated. The loud ringing tone was muffled by the warm pocket of my beige parka. You can call me ridiculous for enveloping my thin body with that, but I simply I didn't trust the fleeting spring, I always believed it could abruptly be absorbed into the standard, arctic, gloomy fog, so I took my precautions.

 

The bike came to a slightly squealing stop as I seized the breaks on the handles. I slid one hand in my pocket and pressed the green button, placing my free hand in my other pocket, "Alo?" I said, my eyes wandering around the mighty, tall cedar trees compressed in the modest orchard within the borders of the old shack. Various sorts of bushes and vines clothed the surrounding, low fence. On the left, further region of the fence, a noticeably, extended bush of jasmine blossoms draped down and out, shading a resting, soft-grey, furry figure.

 

Haven’t I seen that dog before? I thought.

 

 

"Jad, It's almost 7:30 in the morning, Ali and the other guys are driving me crazy. Where are you?" Dujaun said his voice still calm. I knew he wasn't the one in a hurry; he'd wait for me all day. I could hear Ali saying something like "Leave the skinny wimp behind. Let's go!"

 

The awesome part in Dujaun goes back to his natural ability of making a heap of friends -ones that stay and admire the aura of his self-emitted confidence- and coming up with plain, yet original reasons to celebrate that could change the concept of the "all-year-round boring, wintry town." a  wimpy, occasionally social, sixteen-year-old like myself always clung to. This time, he surprised our friends with this camping trip in small woods beyond the suburbs; everyone agreed to bring treats, sport equipment, and what I naively refer to as the "secret things". There'd be game hunting rides, but I wouldn't participate, instead, choosing to quietly gaze at every little creature I could find in between the moss, shrubs, and trees. I smiled in delight at the thought of all the animals I would be able to see, save in ceaseless digital pictures, and might even approach or touch.

 

He truly was awesome.

 

 

"I know, sorry." I said in a compliant tone, my feet wandering around, and towards the half-open black gate, a faint aroma of herbal tea effortlessly pulling me closer, "Ma asked me to deliver something to another one of her cuckoo-banana'd elderly associates."

 

"Ha, No way!" Dujaun exclaimed in almost defeated awe and a chuckle followed, "Yo, people," his voice faded further, he must have lowered the phone in his hand, "Jad's visiting good ol' Madam Shams!"

 

Madam Shams (pronounced sort of like: Shaums or Shums), the resident of this shack, whom I'd never met before, had been this year's target of rumors and creatively woven myths ever since she suddenly appeared in the hill-side towards the East. I would regularly hear stories of her witchcraft, or the hidden corpses, scattered in her basement, she had stolen from the town's cemetery. I would hear completely different stories from my mother though, who turned out to have been the only one who possessed the courage -or indifference- to actually approach the shack sitting on the misty hill.

 

"She is such a sweet, lonely old lady, living in the most beautiful, little shack I've ever seen. And the tea she makes is delicious!" my mother enthusiastically explained at the four-seat dining table, " Jad, she's going to absolutely love having you come over for tea sometime."

 

Frankly, I didn't know whom to judge. I didn't care anyway, since I never thought I'd have to actually reach that hill someday.

 

"How did you know I was going there?" I asked Dujaun, seriously unable to recall having told him anything about this.

 

"I know everything. Remember?" I could hear his grin over the phone.

 

I grinned back, looking down, glad that I did, pausing before I took another step crushing the bare, newly-hatched bird under the shadow of my right shoe.

 

"What are you doing down there?" I talked to the little bird in a lecturing, yet sympathetic tone, gently scooping it off the ground with my open palms and unhurriedly searched with my ordinary, dark brown eyes for the nest, my marginal vision constantly glancing at the grey, furry figure resting beneath the jasmine bush.

 

"And now you're probably rescuing some hungry cat or dog or something." He continued predicting in a semi-serious tone. This one wasn't exact, but, close.

 

God, he's good! I thought sniggering into the phone that I pressed against my ear with one of my shoulders and tilted head.

 

"You really f*****g are!" He said laughing along, but my smile gradually died away as I observed the little bird weakly twitching in my palms, "You do love animals, Blue Head. You know you can always find a way to raise one or two, even if your parents dislike having them at home…" Dujaun continued, I think I missed the rest of his usual mild jokes about the possibility of me establishing an animal care shelter, while I frowned at the hushed evaporation of the bit of life in the featherless newborn. "So, when are you coming?"

 

"Um…" I mumbled, kneeling down, my palms splitting apart, carefully freeing the little bird onto the moist earth, taking one last sad look at it before I started digging beside him with a few of my fingers. "I'll be there as soon as I can." I said unsure, slowly resting the bird into the small grave I whole-heartedly created, taking pinches of soil in between my fingers to coat its peacefully, still structure  with, "We meet at Exit 7, right?"

 

"Right…Don't take too long or we'll get over there and pick you up." He said, his neutral voice followed by a click before I could protest.

 

I stood up, brushing the tips of my fingers against my dark jeans, concluding the brief burial ceremony.

 

I exhaled after a deep breath, both shoulders drooping, head retreating back and up to the sky as my eyes traced a soft cloud steam out of my lips and into the air.

 

Ha, I was right. I internally praised my choice, slightly patting the left sleeve of my warm parka.

 

I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand with a sniff, grabbed the nicely-wrapped apple-jam jar into my hands and stood facing the old shack. There was no bell to ring or door to knock, so I thought I'd walk in through the half-open gate to the main entrance. I was strangely pulled in by all the, vividly assorted arrays of roses, young fruit trees and herbal breath befriending the air, triggering my usually dangerous, thoughtless urge to know more.

 

A dimmed growl contrasting to all the joyful sounds of spring distracted my attention. I turned around, and away from the black gate, freezing in my tracks as the growl grew louder. Closer…

 

The light-grey figure of a medium sized husky dog rose from beneath the jasmine bush, its legs spread apart in an aggressive position, razor-sharp teeth appearing from behind the grimace, and strongly familiar, gorgeous, scowling baby-blue eyes almost spoke to me. I swallowed, not moving one inch, momentarily submissive to the creature's warning growl.

 

Am I ever going to actually reach Dujaun's bus today, I thought, already attempting to visualize the frantic escape in my ordinary mind. 

Author's Note

So, I'm going again through the storyline, cutting a bit here, adding a bit there. Re-editing is annoying, because you're freezing time in critical spots where you'd rather imagine and venture and walk in the character's shoes...slippers...anyhow, I'd appreciate feedback on the whole thing. Enjoy.

Reviews

[Erin]

“I didn't quiet understand why, my mother, still in her mid-thirties back then, always seemed energized about communicating with wrinkled, allegedly supernatural, residents speckled here and there.”
I think you meant to say “quite” instead of “quiet.”
Overall, this chapter was very consistent. You didn’t have any terrible moments, you didn’t have any terribly brilliant moments. Your style in which you wrote this was very well thought out. Nice job.
PBP

[TL Boehm]

Such foreboding in that dog. This is well penned and interesting. It left me with questions that made me want to keep reading.

[Daydreamer54]

I think it's a good start and u left us with a cliffhanger which is awesome, that gets uos to see wat will happen next! ^^ i like ur detail and descriptions, but i think ur over doing the discriptions just a bit, might want to tome it down some.

[.shalynn.009.]

"and, with a low groan, dragged" should be "dragging"

"quickly installing myself onto my navy, blue bike and broke out further and down the street, hoping she'd stopped right there." A confusing sentence that I'm pretty sure is a run on. I'm also pretty sure "broke" is the wrong form of this word, based on the use of "ing" in "installing"

"I didn't quiet" should be "quite"

" You can call me a retard for enveloping my thin body with that, but I simply I didn't trust the temporary spring, I always believed it could abruptly be absorbed into the standard, arctic, gloomy fog, so I took my precautions." Another run on that could be broken down into probably three sentences. Also, you're using soo many commas, often where they aren't needed. It's making the sentences more complicated than they need to be, putting pauses where there shouldn't be any.

"I thought." This shouldn't be italicized.

"The awesome part in Dujaun goes back to his natural ability of making a heap of friends -ones that stay and admire the aura of his self-confidence- and coming up with plain, yet amazingly original reasons to celebrate that could change the concept of the "all-year-round boring, wintry town." a wimpy, rarely-social, sixteen-year-old kid like myself always clung to." Because of how long and convoluted this sentence is, I got completely lost and had to read it three times to understand what you were trying to say.

"I grinned back, looking down, glad that I did, pausing before I took another step crushing the bare, newly-hatched bird under the shadow of my right shoe." Another run on. It 's making your writing not just confusing, but rushed. Slow down and take a breath. Let your readers absorb the details of the story.

"gently scooping it off the ground with my open palms and unhurriedly searched" Because of the "ing" in "scooping", the 'searched" needs to be in the same form. Also, this sentence is another run on. I'll stop pointing them out now, since you probably get the picture.

I like the scene about the bird. I wonder if it will be foreshadowing. Birds often symbolize freedom, so the death could mean a death of Jad's freedom. Or, because it was a baby bird, it could symbolize innocence, and the death of Jad's. Either way, it was an interesting way to start out the story.

However, as I said before, it was really rushed with about a million commas, half of which you could take out. The sentences got too long and convoluted, so that meaning was lost in all of the layers. Watch out for that. Other than what I've mentioned, this is decent so far, and my interest is piqued. Good job opening it in media res, as well as ending the chapter on a bit of an exciting note. Keep writing.

[Shellie]

There's a few misplaced commas, and i found some of it was getting tedious to read but then it got good again.
Apart from that it has potential and theres a mystery to it thats going to take a great imagination to execute.

[Calypso]

Very interesting.

[iamkim]

A very intriguing story. I think I could save half of my day on Saturday reading the next chapters. I'd put the next chapter in my reading list. I think this is going to be a nice story.

I love the way how you ended up the first chapter. It allow your readers to think of what chapter two could be. Or what's going to happen to the character there.

Great chapter you have here!

Keep it up!

It's wonderful :)

[Havatara]

It seemed to me that you had a few dangling modifiers and misplaces commas and such, so maybe just go back and edit it. What I really did like is that you had a lot of description, and that made it all the more vivid and amazing. Well done.

[Jon McDonald]

Finally get time to begin you ready your work. Just finished the first chapter. There are a few errors here and there but it reads well with a nice youthful energy. I look forward to reading more to see where this goes.

[Nothing Personal]

Well maybe in terms of plot development , this one didn't go too far. But i noticed what you did here. I'll show some examples.
"I didn't quiet understand why, my mother, still in her mid-thirties back then, always seemed energized about communicating with wrinkled, allegedly supernatural, residents speckled here and there."

"Back then, if you had lived in Ivory Town, the air around you would be loaded with much more than that apple scent; lots of fruit, flowers, noises of new-born baby birds, and the buzzing of busy honey-bees. Long, smooth tresses of fresh-green grass would be proudly dominating fronts of house lanes, soils of backyards, and even boldly creeping up from fractures in the poorly, paved road underneath the whirling wheels of my bike.

If you had lived in Ivory Town, you would see at the end of the long, continuous dark months of winter, the relatively short, fragments of spring would be sunny, flourishing, and pleasant ".

These lines show the quality of a really great writer in the making. It has vivid imagery, beautiful textuality and an impeccable touch of a deft storyteller. I loved them.

"I said, my eyes wandering around the mighty, tall cedar trees compressed in the apparently, cramped orchard within the borders of the old shack. Various sorts of bushes and vines clothed the surrounding, low fence. On the left, further region of the fence, a noticeably, extended bush of jasmine blossoms draped down, shading a resting, soft-grey, furry figure.

Haven’t I seen that dog before? I thought." Another stroke. Oh you have done it so well.

And of course, there is this protagonist's race to reach out to her friends, stop being a shy outlier to the happening group, and also escape from the inextricably mundane existence with her mom and her wrinkled, apparently supernatural friends..Keep it up girl..

[Blossom]

I like the beginning. can't wait to read more.