Endora(short story)-Prologue

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The sun set slowly over the cragged mountainside, dragging shadows into its wake. The shadows slowly climbed the mountain, bending themselves over rocks, around trees, thorough branches; blanketing the mountain home, nestled deep in the woods of Montana. A young girl peered from the Victorian style farmhouse, watching the farm hands head into the bunkhouse. She waited semi-impatiently, until the last farmhand had closed the barn door. soon dinner would be served and she'd have to wait just a timny while longer til she could sneak down to the barn to nurse her sick pony.

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Strangles is a terrible disease her father had told her, and her pony dying, was her greatest fear. They'd already lost some of the horses their family sold for a living to the vicious disease, and Endora had determined that the pus bubble that had grown under her beloved Trixie's chin, would not kill HER pony. So while dinner plates chinked against the mahogany table in the dining room, she planned how to sneak down to the barn to sleep beside her dearest friend. For six years, Endora already had a stubborn streak a mile wide. In her short six years her tantrums and "wicked ways" had put the family through 7 nurses, she was presently on her eighth. Endora rather liked this nurse, for she spent all her time in the garden or washing Endora's plethra of clothes. This meant she could get away with murder, and this suited the tiny girl just fine.

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At last, desert!! It would soon be time to "go to bed". Her satchel packed and tucked slyly beneath her bed, Endora counted the bites it took for her to finish her sweet cakes and cream. Then sweet as could be she pleaded in her most adorable ploy to be excused to wash up for bed. Her Nurse tended her, very sweetly, and with all the love in her heart, for she'd never had children of her own. Soon the child was tucked into bed, and when all the lights went out, so did the sprite of a child.

She crept through the halls into the Buttler's Pantry to fetch one of the kerosene lanterns. As she did the girl wondered if the scientists of the world would build a better light sometime soon. It seemed to her, that even for the great inventions they'd come up with, for it being the grand year of 1810, there'd be something easier to light the way with. Besides she really wasn't supposed to light it, so to keep anyone from seeing what she was doing she waited til she was in the barn before she struck the match.

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once the lamp was lit the girl slowly closed the large barn door and slipped the latch just like she'd seen her father do a thousand times. There she thought, I'm locked in ... She would now know when the hands were coming in to milk the family's cows for the daily milk. That would be her cue to clean up her evidence and clear out up to her room before the sun rose again. Unfortunately it never worked out that way. Instead Endora fell asleep lying against her Welsh pony and in her sleep kicked over the lantern..

The blaze caught so quickly that Endora barely had a chance to get to the swing door of the barn since the carriage gate was latched by her own hand. She coughed and sputtered and she struggled to free the latches on each horses stall so they could escape. She reached the back swing door just as she ran out of air. She collapsed and was trampled by fifteen horses, as they too slowly suffocated to death. when the ashes cooled all that was to be found as evidence that there had ever been a barn OR a little girl were the metal door latches, hinges, and Endora's favorite charm bracelet. Her parents, devestated by the loss of their onnly child, sold the farm back to the bank and left the mountains for good.

The house sat vacant for the majority of its existence, riddled and tainted by stories of the barn and the fields being haunted by a tiny, blonde girl, who threw things at you, and screamed like the howling wind.

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"Emerald and Sapphire"
present day

The sun seemed to yawn and stretch, as it lazily rose to herald a new day. Emmy had come to love this morning ride. The ragged edge of the cliff she sat upon offered the most incredulous views of the sunrises. It also held admittance to the freakiest sunsets EVER. There has always been talk of Urban Myths, ghost stories, and tall tales that Emmy had always taken for false-hoods; a wicked twist in the inner-most imaginations of human kind. However, after what she, her brother, and their cousins had experienced this gnarly crazy summer, she could honestly say she and this whole part of her family KNEW better.

She laid back so that her feet dangled over the cliff's edge, and she could see the upper crests of the monsterous ridge behind and above her. Instead all she saw was Timber's huge pink nose. " Damned horse...." she muttered to her self, "stay tied UP!! I swear they shoulda fucking named you Houdini!" She quickly rolled into a standing position, startling the horse for a second. She re-tied the horse to the tree just to the side of the trail, and returned to her previous position, to continue watching the sun rise.She loved to watch the sunlight spill into the meadow and the valley beyond. But first, it had to crest the ridge above her, reminding her of water trickling slowly down hill. Only this was like being washed in warm, golden, brilliance, instead of mud.

She hummed softly to herself, Smiling at the fact that she'd had SOLAT stuck in her head for two days; not like she really minded. She began to sing quietly, but it wasn't long before she realized she was all alone, save for the favorite of her uncle's Paint horses. As a matter of fact, she was soon swinging her legs to the beat in her head and singing so loudly that she didn't even hear Timber's neighed greeting to her brother's mount Odessey

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Her brother had an even stranger name than she did. She'd have felt sorry for him, if he wasn't just so fucking cool that he pulled it off...Their parents were old school hippies who'd met during their "criminal phase". They'd both been casing the same jewelery store, in hopes of accomplishing "the big dirty", and living the good life. What ended up happening was, they never robbed the store, they got married, and had her brother and herself; naming them after the jewels that had brought their parents together. So there ya have it, two wanna-be jewel thieves meet up on a case, fall in love, and badda-boom-badda-bing, ya got two kids named Sapphire and Emerald. When Emmy was little this was her favorite family story. She would tell anyone she met how she and her brother had gotten their rediculously odd names.

Sapphire, who preferred to be called "fire", spelled P-H-I-R-E, joined in right as his sister got to the chorus, startling her.Suddenly it was just Phire singing, and believe you me, it wasn't pretty. Deer were pulling the triggers themselves. At least that was the visual Emmy got from listening to her brother kill her favorite song.
"hey, dude, who sings this again?" Caught off guard, Phire responded automatically, "Pearl Jam." Emmy once more rolled to stand as her brother dismounted, "Well brother," she put her hand on her older brother's shoulder,
"you're no Eddie Vedder, so can it. Somewhere in this forest, brother, rabbits have hung themselves." He grinned slyly and pretended top be hurt by his sister's comparison. "That bad ?" "Worse,... what brings YOU up here skater boy?" " I was just wondering what we're gonna tell Mom and Dad, I know they don't believe what we told them." "Well Uncle Perry's seen it too he's the one warned us about the meadow, where some old barn used to be, did you think Dad would say his OWN brother is crazy?" "I have no real idea sis, that's what scares me, and the lawsuit, I mean this was turning out to be a kick ass summer for Hickville ya know? Then Sandy's friend dies so fucked up like, and it all goes to shit. And no one's gonna believe him if Uncle Perry tell them that the same thing happened to him a year ago, that he just happened to get out of that area and live."

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Emmy trudged ponderously past her brother, to untie her horse. Phire and his horse followed. They mounted up and began to make their way back down the treacherous cliff-side trail, following the liquid light as it trickled ahead of them into the meadow and valley beyond. They negotiated the last of the cliff-side trail with great caution, as this was a dangerous part of the trail that required their horses to place their feet on the rocks just right or risk breaking a leg getting caught up in them. They plopped down onto the meadow portion of the trail and skirted back deep into the forest before the investigators could see them. How crazy was it that both of them had managed to bust out of Fort Knox this morning, AND be gone for hours and there wasn't a search party from "Them"? The Police were forever "Them or They" to her brother who thought Government was for the weak minded. Or at least that's what he wanted everyone to think. As the trail widened into a "hunter's road", Phire pulled up alongside his sister and whispered, just in case, "What if the Lawyers get that crazy lady from the Grocery, the bagger lady that calls this place Endora's Meadow to testify that it really is haunted, maybe we could even get Ghost Hunters out here.." Emmy giggled, " Brother did you just hear yourself? Although that COULD work." Somewhere along the line SOLAT had become "Alive" which seemed oddly twisted to Emmy. But she still sang it sort of to herself, sort of to her horse as she petted his neck.

chadwick

very nice
i like the first section best

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this is only the first part.... there's two more parts left, but I'm in the middle of managing this humungous house for my friend while she re-cooperates from a double hernia release. So she will be down for like two months, and I'm playing nanny, house manager, and housekeeper til Nancy re-cooperates. Please be patient I will finnish this story.. I promise.