Nativity, by Faith Elizabeth Hough

“My love.”
The girl whispered the words to her newborn baby. She watched his eyelids flutter and his chest fill with its first breath of air.
“My joy.”
She marveled at his perfection. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Those eyes were so beautiful, dark blue as the sky above them.
“My hope.”
He grasped her finger with his fist, holding tight. And he looked at her, met her gaze and held it, unblinking.
“My son.”
How wonderful to feel his tiny mouth against her breast. He faltered, his body weak still, his neck so small and his head heavy. She pulled him close, cradled his head in the crook of her arm, guided his lips until she heard the soft suckling.
“My Savior.”
What pain would those tiny hands endure? What weight would crush those smooth shoulders? He was so little, so helpless. In his sleep his eyebrows drew together; what painful prophecy played in his dreams? She stroked his cheek; at once a smile parted his lips, and a strain of music burst through the air. The voices of angels and men blended and harmonized, new notes springing from the others as their songs met. Around the baby, the air shone. Above his head, a star pierced the night's darkness.
“My God.”

The Vigil (15-minute-dash), by Faith E. Hough

(PROMPT: Describe the room you're in so as to elicit a certain emotion, other than that which you would normally associate with the room)

The coffin sat at one end of the room, and Jenny sat on the couch at the other end--as far away from the soldier's body as she could possibly get. Grandmother rocked in the chair by the fire, swaying the chair back and forth as she crocheted to stay awake, unaware that every crick, crack of the old wood sounded to Jenny like a last cry from the dead man's soul.

She tried to distract herself by poring over the titles of the books that lined two walls (though Grandmother would have had a fit had she known how irreverantly Jenny was spending her watch). How had she failed to notice before how many of the books had dreary titles? The Tough Winter; The Lost Prince; The Black Arrow; Le Mort d'Arthur. Even the harmless ones, like Charlotte's Web or The Wind in the Willows, seemed to taunt the girl and conjure images of spiders spinning webs from the coffin all the way over to her toes, while a cold, whistling wind fought its way through the cracks in the old window frame.

The wind was only half imagined. From the chimney swept in a draft that the flames licked at but could not warm--it sent goosebumps up Jenny's calves.

The fire was casting weird shadows across everything in the room; Grandmother's old model of Stonehenge looked like a graveyard, and Jenny could easily imagine that there was a vampire or werewolf lurking in the inky darkness behind the armchair.

The framed silhouettes on the wall looked like dark ghosts.

The cat was sleeping so silently on the hearth that she might have been dead.

Even the clock was dead. Its hands were frozen at eleven twenty-five...as if to remind Jenny that that was when it happened.

PROMPT: Use a painting (Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott) as inspiration for a story. (20-30 minutes)



Version 3: The Dream-weaver, by Mark L. Hough



It is a tricky business, weaving dreams. My Lady is the best at it…something everyone knows…and yet even she must occasionally pull apart the entire work of a day. Still, I am fortunate to watch her—for even her worst mistakes would put any other dream-weaver’s work to shame.
Once, it is said, the king himself was taken in a war and a ransom was asked with price too great to be counted. My Lady was called upon to give aid, along with any else who possessed an enchanted eye—though she was hardly out of her apprentice attire. She fashioned a woven kerchief of royal scarlet, with pattern too small to be traced and image so fine the king’s captors thought nothing of it when it was handed to the king on his way to the gallows. The king—who has an enchanted eye himself, it is said…or at least one in the family—knew at once the strange gift was heavy with dark dreaming. After wiping the cloth across his eyes the whole of the city fell asleep…from mouse to mule horse. The king returned wearing my Lady’s kerchief like a scarlet plume in his cap.
All this is said, though none but the king could tell the truth of it. Many times I have asked my Lady, yet she will say nothing. But I have seen the king pass her once at court, and—though it may be treason to say—his head did bow before her… And if the story is not true, then why does she alone—common dream-weaver as she is—go by the title of “Lady” and wear the king’s royal scarlet whenever she chooses?



Version 4: The Girl in the Tower, by Faith E. Hough



My hand wearies of the constant chafing from the linen threads I am weaving. Enchanted thread, for an enchanted tapestry, is no easier on my fingers than the normal sort.
It is my mother that has placed a spell on the string. It will never run out. When my hand touches a spool, it becomes exactly the color I need. And it is she who has enchanted the tapestry, still in its making. Its images tell a tale, ever-changing, meant to lull me into contentment, though I am a prisoner…never to leave my tower of wonders.
What wonders? I have trays that never empty of rich and delectable sweetmeats; I have shelves of magical books; I have a flute that plays for me with no musician to wield it; I have a bureau that provides me with a newly-sewn dress each time I open its heavy, oaken doors. Today’s dress is red…red as blood. Red as my strange namesake.
I also have a magic mirror, which I abhor; it taunts me with its reflections of life as it could have been. I glance at it now and quickly turn away from the sight of a river, freely running its course, its banks tread upon by a maiden my own age. She leans into the shoulder of a handsome lad as they walk, hand clasping hand.
I frown, and stroke my hair to soothe my fingers. Black as night, softer than silk and soothing as a stream’s water it is—or as soothing as I imagine a stream’s water to be, at least. I love it—and, alas, it too is enchanted.
From the window I hear my mother’s voice, reverberating up the endless stone:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”
I sigh and let it drop, hoisting it over the window’s edge and watching the braid shimmer like the long, glassy river in the mirror.
Do I grudge my mother her means of entry? I do. But ‘twas she who made it as it is. She made all of it.

Bring Out the Silver (15-minute-dash), by Faith E. Hough

(Prompt: Woman meets her son’s fiancé for the first time—and must convince son that fiancé is a witch. 15-minute-dash.)

There’s that old saying women have—about how some young little thing comes and casts a spell on their sons so they’re never the same again… Those women always seemed rather overdramatic to my way of thinking, but I’m afraid to say I now have to number myself in their ranks.
The thing is, anyone who saw Eloise Sylvester with my Eddie couldn’t think anything else. She’s not even a pretty young thing—I almost couldn’t keep myself from staring at the wart on the tip of her pointy, Cyrano de Bergerac nose when Eddie introduced her—but her resemblance to a witch only became more pronounced when I got around to looking at the rest of her.
“Mums, this is Eloise Sylvester,” Eddie told me, with that satisfied tone in his voice that he used to get when I’d made his favorite chicken dumplings and raspberry pie for a meal. “I’m going—that is, we’re going to be married.”
I barely heard him, on account of I was still looking at that nose.
“Mums,” he said again, “Aren’t you going to say something? Congratulations…or pleased to meet you…hello, maybe?”
“Oh…yes. Yes, of course. I’m enchanted to meet you.” Now, why would I say that word—enchanted—if there wasn’t something…amiss…with Eloise? I didn’t plan it—it just popped right out.
Dinner only confirmed my worst fears.
First of all, by some twist of fate, I’d made mushroom soup. Mushroom. It might as well have been toadstool.
“This is divine, Mrs. Paulsen,” said Eloise, “I simply adore mushroom soup.”
“Oh, do you?” I said. I couldn’t help it. “Well, around here, we only adore God…do you?”
And then Eloise Sylvester laughed. Giggled, in fact—as if there were something terribly funny about worshipping God like a civilized person. She said, “Oh, of course, of course,” but I took note of the fact that she never did say “yes” outright.
Next, because I really was curious by this time, I asked her what she did for a living.“Oh, you know,” she said. “Just twiddle around, mixing things up…some of my concoctions turn out better than others.”
There! She had said it, right in broad daylight, so to speak—even though the dining room was lit by chandelier.
I jumped right out of my chair and into the kitchen. I kept my silver teaspoons in there…I’d read in one of those old stories somewhere that witches can’t abide sight nor smell of silver, so I wasn’t taking any chances. Served me right for using the stainless flatware for a guest, I suppose.
I was just opening the silver chest when Eddie followed me in.
“What’s the idea, Mums?”
I put my hands on his two big, grown-up shoulders, but I spoke to him like my little boy that he was. “Eddie,” I said, “You need to watch out for her. You know I’m never one to meddle, and I always let you make your own choices, but I have to warn you. Here, take this.” I handed him one of my monogrammed spoons.
“What? What in the name of—”
“Now, Eddie, don’t you start swearing. Next thing you know, that girl will have you at those Black Masses and everything.
“Mother.” Eddie never calls me “Mother” unless he’s mad. “What are you implying?”
“Implying?” I gasped. “I’m not implying anything. I’m just saying, she’s a witch. All that talk of brewing concoctions and worshipping toadstools, and who knows what else!”
“Mother, Eloise is not a witch,” Eddie said. His hands were on my shoulders now. As though I were a silly child. “She is a pastry chef. And she is a lovely girl. You’ll like her…just give her a chance, at least.”
If that is not the work of a spell, I don’t know what is.

The Queen's Old Fool (10-minute-dash), by Faith E. Hough

(PROMPT: a ten-year-old orphan named Amanda goes to meet her grandmother—who lives in a castle—for the first time. 10 minutes.)

Mandy stared across the vast expanse of the throne room.
“Meet your grandmother,” Jack told her.
She stared up at the queen hopefully until Jack nudged her. “Not Queen Alice,” he muttered. “Don’t embarrass yourself. Over there, on the left.”
To the left of the queen’s throne stood another elderly woman, hunchbacked where the queen was regal, salt and pepper gray where the queen was white, but—on a good note—smiling where the queen was framed in forbidding frowns. She waved Mandy over to her corner.
“Pleased to meet you, Mandy,” she said. “Don’t mind my outfit—it’ll grow on you.”
The outfit was strange—a bizarre conglomerate of colorful patches, none of them matching in color or texture.
“You,” Mandy stuttered, “You’re a fool?”
“Well, that’s not a very nice way to say hello. Some people think me right smart.”
“No—I mean…you’re a jester?”
The grandmother sighed. “Well, that’s what I was hired for, but I haven’t done much of a job of it yet.” She lowered her voice. “That queen is a piece of work. About as happy as a criminal with his neck in a noose. And her husband just laughs at me because I look ridiculous, he says.”

(And the complication, in the form of a second 10-minute-dash: Amanda discovers her grandmother is going to die...on the fourteenth of January, to be precise.)

“Well, what am I supposed to do here?” Mandy asked. “I’m not funny,” –and I’m definitely not about to dress up in a crazy 17-colored-outfit, she added mentally.
“As I see it, you can mostly do as you like, so long as you don’t get into trouble. And even if you do, I won’t be around long to worry about it.”
“What do you mean, you won’t be around long? Uncle sent me to live with you.”
Grandmother pursed her wrinkled lips. “It’s very inconvenient to you and your uncle, I know, but Freddy needs to learn to check other peoples’ schedules before he makes plans. I’m leaving on the fourteenth of January.”
“Leaving? Can’t I go with you?”
“Not unless your eternal soul is prepared and the Lord is willing. I’m going to die.”
“What? How can you possibly know that now?”
“Because that’s what Queen Alice told me. If I haven’t made her laugh by the fourteenth day of next month, it’s the end for me. Beheading.”
“But that’s only three weeks away!”
The old woman sighed and hugged Mandy to her chest. She felt all padded and squishy and warm; something about realizing she would only be around for a matter of days made her grandmother suddenly very dear to Mandy.“Well, it’s three weeks I’ll have to get to know you, and I’m thankful for that. As long as I don’t make her mad.” She pointed her gnarled old thumb to the queen. “Then it could be sooner.”

The Burning Sun (3-minute-dash), by Faith Hough

PROMPT:Begin a chapter, using a setting to create a mood opposite the cliché, expected one: Setting, bright sunlight. Mood, despair. (3 minutes)

The sky was perfectly blue, reflected into an equally blue ocean. The hot sand hurt my feet, and the double sun—the one in the sky and its rippling reflection—burned my eyes. As for the rest of me, I was already burning. My chest was burning with anger. My tongue was burning with the thousand things I should have said and didn’t. My legs were burning with the desire to walk myself right off that old dock, to make a splash, some defect in that aggravatingly perfect sea.

The Duel (15-minute-dash), by Faith E. Hough

(PROMPT: A boy or girl of 13 must be the moderator of a duel. 15-minute-dash.)

Sandy began to back away slowly, so her dress wouldn’t swish and give her away. Why did they have to fight over her so much? If only she were able to tell them the truth—that she wouldn’t give two beans for either of them (in a romantic way, that is)—they could all just go back to being friends again and everything would be fine. But her father had made her promise…and a lady must keep her promises.
“Where are you going, Sandy?” George called, and Sandy racked her brains for an answer but discovered none. Her hat was heavy and her hatpins were poking into her head until it was nearly impossible to think. She knew it was only polite to stay and watch when two admirers were risking their lives for you…but she rather wouldn’t and rather they didn’t.
George’s reason for desiring her presence, however, was a surprise: “If you go, who’s going to tell us how many paces?”
“What?”
Apparently George and Eric had finally found something upon which to agree again. “You know,” Eric said, “Someone always has to count out the paces…decide if satisfaction has been made…”
“I think satisfaction has already been made,” Sandy argued, but George cut her off.
“Anyway, somebody has to stick around to run for the doc when Eric blows his own hand off because he’s too stupid to aim—”
“You’re one to talk, mister—”
“Don’t you start this again—”
“I didn’t start anything, I just—”
“STOP!” Sandy silenced them with a word. “If you want me to moderate, you have to listen to me.”
Both young men nodded and blushed—that may have been the one and only advantage of having them in love with her.
“First I must examine the weapons for any foul play,” she said, trying to conjure into her voice the authority that emanated from her father when he spoke to the new soldiers about to march off and fight the Yanks. He had an authority no one, herself included, dared resist, but she suspected that a little bit of it may have seeped into her own blood.
The men passed the weapons from their white-gloved hands to her own.
“I’ll examine them in private, if you don’t mind,” she said. She gave each boy a tender look that she hoped would keep them from strangling each other when her back was turned.
“Don’t discourage suitors,” he father had ordered. “Make yourself appealing,” he’d said, “Make sure and get yourself a fine man.”
Well, he hadn’t said anything about letting two fine men kill each other, so she wasn’t about to. Behind the screen of her wide skirt, she emptied the barrels of both guns, dropping the bullets into her silk hand bag.

The Dying King (15-minute-dash), by Faith E. Hough

(PROMPT: Write a high-stakes scene in a way that is dramatic without being melodramatic: the king is dying, and leaves the kingdom to his son. Time: 15-minutes)

Robert regretted his heavy lunch. His father’s bruised face, misshapen nose, still fingers made acid rise to the young man’s mouth. Monitors, needles, tubes were stuck into or coming out of the old man’s body in practically every spot not covered in casts and bandages.
When the king spoke, it was so jarring Robert thought he might lose his lunch right then. His father’s voice was harsh and dry.
“Robert…it’s you, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes. How do you feel?” Robert grimaced. What a question.
“Honestly,” the king answered, “I feel like I’m dying. Surprise, surprise.” He croaked out an ugly laugh.
Robert nodded, holding back the thousand things he felt ought to be said in this situation; his father would hate them.
The king coughed once. “Of course you know you’ll be in charge now,” he said. “I should ask how you feel.”
“Do you think I’m ready?”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then you’re more ready than I was. You’re likely to bungle everything up completely, of course. That’s to be expected.”
Robert tried to laugh—couldn’t quite. He suspected that his father might, for once, be speaking to him seriously.
The monitors started going like crazy. A queer look came over the king’s face as half a dozen nurses in joltingly cheerful medical scrubs came running in, sneakers squeaking with every step.
Robert reached for his father’s hand, but he must have squeezed too hard and pulled on the IV because the king muttered, “That hurts, Robert,” in an annoyed whisper.
“I’m sorry. I…I mean, you know…Father…” The wild thought to say I love you crossed Robert’s mind, but he abruptly abandoned it for fear of being ridiculed. “Oh, forget it.”
“I want you to have my pigskin vest, Robbie,” the king said. For a second, his eyes were as tender as Robert had ever seen them.
The nurses’ voices got as squeaky and frantic as their motions. The monitors stopped; the nurses stopped, too.
Lord Brock, in his corner of the room, jotted something down on a piece of paper and turned his business-like attention to Robert. “The press will expect a statement, but I’ll hold them off as long as possible, Your Majesty. Would you like to call your mother, or shall I attend to that for you?”
“You go ahead,” said Robert. He didn’t want to make a bigger fool of himself. He just wanted to sleep now.

The Prince with the Peasants...Continued (Copycat Balderdash), by Faith E. Hough

(RULES: Continue the excerpt from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. Time: 5-10 minutes.)

From the book:
“Who art thou, boy?”
“I am the king,” was the grave answer…
“The king? What king?”
“The King of England.”

My invented continuation:
The smaller of the two girls stared, innocent eyes like brown pools. “By’r Lady,” she sighed, “the king! Is it true you eat plum cakes every day?”
Edward intended to answer, but the other girl spoke first. “He’s no king,” she scoffed.
“Said he was,” retorted the younger.
“He’s a liar—like Ugly Jack.”
“Is not! Ugly Jack hasn’t got hair so pretty.”
“Is too! The hair isn’t important. Where’s his crown if he’s king, halfwit?”
“I’m not a halfwit! You are a halfwit!”
“You smell like a pig!”
“You look like a horse!”
From there, the conversation degraded to insults volleyed from one girl to the other in such high-pitched whines that Edward saw no choice but stop them.
“Quiet! The king demands it.”
Both quieted and the taller girl cocked her head to one side.
“Who says you’re the king?”
“I say it.”
“Why’re you dressed ugly, then?”
“’Twould be a long explanation… Suffice it to say: these are not my clothes.”
“Oo—ooh,” the girl giggled. “And don’t you talk high and mighty? I think you’re just a beggar with a big head.”
“You are an insolent fool,” Edward answered.
“You are crazy,” said the girl.
“You…” For once Edward found himself at a loss for words. “You—look like a horse!”
The girls erupted in peals of laughter that made Edward’s ears throb.
…

From the Diary of Young George III (10-minute-dash), by Faith E. Hough

(RULES: Write a fictional diary entry for a historical character...in ten minutes or less.)

Uncle enrages me. He is so stupid. I hate stupidity, more than anything.
Today, as we were brushing Sampson and saddling him for my ride, we heard two boys quarreling in the stableyard. Uncle said it was none of our affair, but I overrode him on that at least.
"You always say to be a good king, I must have an unquenchable love for my people and concern for their troubles," I said.
That settled it and we went out. The boys were fairly stupid themselves, truth be told--as it must be, here at least, though Uncle would try to have diplomacy come before honesty at every turn. But the boys were fools. They had got themselves all abroil in a fight over who should get to ride a certain horse--a horse that, it was soon established, belonged to the elder of the two.
Now, is it not perfectly clear that if a boy owns a horse, he should be the one to ride it? I told them so very plainly, and the matter should have been settled without further trouble, but for the interference of my father's half-wit, conciliatory, stupid brother.
"They ought to share the horse," he said.
Share! I thought I would lose my dinner.
"Have you no compassion?" he asked. "The younger boy has no horse, and his foot is lame."
"Precisely," I answered. "He has no horse. The other boy has. If God has seen fit to bless their fortunes so, we should not meddle in His providence."
Uncle took me aside. "George," he said, "If you are ever to be a good king, you must learn mercy."
"Uncle," I said, "If you are ever to be a good advisor, you must learn something. Anything. The whole world of knowledge is open to you. You should look into it sometime."
And so I am confined to my room for the rest of the day. That is well enough for me. I would rather be alone.