After Ever After

*Story inspired by Disney's The Little Mermaid*


"Mamma , Mamma! Look what I found!" Spirited little Trinity splashed through the tide toward her mother, waiting for her on the beach. Proudly, she displayed her found treasure; a golden seashell hung on a golden chain, spotted with algae from its time on the ocean floor.

The woman recognized it instantly and smiled both at the memories it sparked and the joy on her daughter's freckled face. She gently took it from tiny hands and rubbed the algae away with her thumb.

"What does it say, Mamma?" the little girl asked, stretching up on tiptoes to see the engraving on her treasure.

"Sound it out," her mother prompted, kneeling beside her Trinity.

Scrunching her brows together, she did as she was told. "Mmm - elle - oh - dee. Melody. Why does it say your name, Mamma?"

"Because my Mamma gave it to me when I was very little. This necklace is what connects me to the sea." Melody looked out upon the waters, then back at the palace she was raised in, where she now gets to raise her own daughter.

"What's inside?" the little girl bounced in anticipation, snapping her mother out of memories. Melody opened the shell, revealing a projection of her favorite place and playing a tune she had memorized. "Whoa, what's that?"

"Atlantis," Melody breathed.

"That's what Atlantis looks like?" Trinity snatched the shell from her mother and plopped down into the sand, entranced by the vision before her. "When will I get to visit Atlantis?"

"Someday when you're older," Melody consoled the girl, recognizing the innocence and adventurous spirit in the eager little girl that she had possessed as a child. She stroked her daughter's long red hair, inherited from her grandmother, the queen of Atlantis.

"You know, when your Grandma Ariel was younger, she thought a fork was called a dinglehopper."

Trinity laughed, and all the world laughed with her.

In Today's News

"Photographer has been working to assemble body..."

"Are you crazy?! Have you lost your mind?!" She screamed and dug shaky fingers into her scalp, her eyes wide with fear. He simply watched her, and felt her react. He knew he shouldn't have shown her. He knew she would respond this way, but he showed her anyway. Now, he's paying for it.

"This doesn't even make sense! How could you even think that this is okay?!"

He stayed silent. No response. He just let her freak out.

It started with the camera she gave him for his birthday ten years ago. He immediately fell in love with photography, taking his camera with him everywhere, snapping shots of every thing and everyone. He woke with the sun one morning for a photo shoot by his father's old fishing spot. Everything happened as normal - the drive there, following the trail and shooting shots at every step, then returning home - until he was reviewing the photos the next day. A beautiful shot of a waterfall, under closer inspection, contained a sinister object. On one of the rocks protruding from the river, there rested a hand. A human hand.

He didn't know what pulled him back, but immediately after seeing the photograph he returned to the river to find the hand precisely where it had been captured the day before. Careful not to harm it, he picked it up, taking it home with him to place in a jar above his desk. That incident began the strange obsession with human bodies, and after he started, he couldn't stop.

"911 may not find you"

Based also on the tale of Sweeney Todd

Try this new salon, they said, it'll be fun! Adelaide rolled her eyes, encompassed in her thoughts as she traversed one lane roads. "How did I even get to the middle of nowhere? And how the hell do I get out?!" Exasperated as she was, she continued following the directions to whatever desolate place her friend had recommended. Ha, some friend! she scoffed as she turned on to yet another dirt road.

Another fifteen minutes down the road, a lizard slithered across her path. Look at that! Another living organism! The first one in miles. Yet she hadn't spotted any houses or stores. Her phone alerted her that she had no service and that her intended destination was up ahead before it died, leaving her to fend for herself. Sure enough, she began to spot buildings scattered about, then down the road a bit more was the barber shop. She parked in a patch of gravel and sighed, taking note that the nearest establishment was just a speck in the distance.

Well, here goes nothing, she thought as she stepped out of the car into the static heat, taking hesitant steps up the rotting wooden stairs. The door squeaked as she pushed it open into a vacant room which only held two dusty chairs and a hopelessness that made Adelaide want to turn around and run right back out the door.

Then, she blinked and a young girl was in front of her. She had a frail frame and hair almost as pale as her porcelain skin. She smiled with soft pink lips as she approached. "Welcome, my name is Johanna."

"Addie," the traveler forced a smile.  "My friend recommended this place, so I thought I might come check it out."

Johanna reached up and stroked the visitor's hair, studying her features. "So beautiful. It's a shame."

Confusion struck Adelaide as the girl played with her hair, but she didn't speak.

Johanna met her eyes and whispered, "If you hurry, she won't see you. Leave while you have the chance."

But she didn't have a chance. With her usual perfect timing, the barber entered the room. "Trying to run off my customers, Jo?" she said with a sly smile. Unlike the first girl, she brought a dark feeling to the room. Dark hair, dark eyes, deep ruby lips, and a black dress that whispered secrets with the creaky wooden floor. The only thing that related them was their near white skin.

Johanna let her hands fall to her side and her head fell with it, a somber expression on her face. The other girl stepped forward, reaching a hand out to her customer.

"I'm Imogene. Imogene Todd. Are you ready for a trim?"

Missing Pieces

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

Her name is Margaret Helen Carrington; that much I know for sure. Every Tuesday morning at precisely seven minutes after nine, she enters the bakery to buy bread. On Monday and Friday afternoons she has tea with Miss Porter, the sheriff's mother, and she never misses a Sunday service at the church. These are all things I have seen with my own eyes and therefore must believe are true. The spaces between, however, are a mystery.

When my sister Louisa and I first arrived in this town near six months ago, she immediately made herself known. Within a week, young men were knocking on our door and asking for her company. She is a sight to behold, and it is for that reason only, I'm certain, that she is given everything she wishes. When she asks for bread, a loaf is baked specifically for her. When she cries that her hair is windswept by the coming storm, it is fixed up for her in the parlor, free of charge. Not long after she was labeled Town Princess, she began to pick up stories about the town. The first name she heard was Margaret's. As she grew curious, she received less and less answers. The shop owner, the mayor, even her gentlemen callers replied with silence when she spoke the girl's name.

That's when I began to watch.

Just barely too old to attend the schoolhouse for lessons and too young to work at any of the town shops, I needed something to occupy the vast amount of time I possessed. Beginning on a sunny Monday morning just two weeks after our arrival, I visited the bookstore at seven in the morning, borrowed a book, and sat in an old wicker chair outside the storefront to watch people, pausing only for lunch at the cafe and returning whatever book had accompanied me that day at four in the afternoon to return home to fix supper. That became my routine for five of the seven days of the week; Saturday was labeled market day and Sunday as resting day.

Sitting in that chair, I learned more than I thought possible. I overheard conversations between kinship and friends that alerted me of conflict as well as celebration. At first, the people were wary of me. They smiled and tipped hats as they passed, being friendly but not open, but when they became comfortable with me, my book more often rested closed in my lap. Children waved from their mother's side or stopped to chatter on their way home from school. Young Isabelle Hartley was my most precious companion, and proved to be a quite reliable source of information. On days when her mother went to market in the afternoons, she skipped across the road to sit with me and tell me wonderful tales. When she revealed her age to me, I could hardly believe it; for an eight year old she was extremely intelligent. She was a watcher, like myself, with wide eyes and a heart too big for her tiny chest.

Little Isabelle lived just down the road from the mysterious Margaret. Every week I received at least one story of the Carrington home and its strange happenings. There was often yelling at noontime, yet only Margaret's voice could be heard. Isabelle was once awakened to singing before the sun had begun to wake. These occurrences only grew more frequent, yet no one was brave enough to investigate.

Are there any questions? Of course, plenty. However, the presence of questions does not secure the existence of answers.

Memorable Passage

   "But the books are all behind bars!" she said. "It's like a literary sort of prison!"
   Will grinned. "Some of these books are dangerous," he said. "It's wise to be careful."
   "One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us."
   "I'm not sure a book has ever changed me," said Will. "Well, there is one volume that promises to teach one how to turn oneself into an entire flock of sheep-"
   "Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry," said Tessa, determined not to let him run wildly off with the conversation.
   "Of course, why one would want to be an entire flock of sheep is another matter entirely," Will finished. "Is there something you want to read here, Miss Gray, or is there not? Name it, and I shall attempt to free it from it's prison for you." . . .
   "Well, I want novels," said Tessa. "Or poetry. Books are for reading, not for turning oneself into livestock."
   Will's eyes glittered. "I think we may have a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland about somewhere."
   Tessa wrinkled her nose. "Oh, that's for little children, isn't it?" she said. "I never liked it much - seemed like so much nonsense."
   . . ."There's plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it."

-The Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare



When I first read this book, I had to stop on this passage and read it again. I love everything about it. Despite the fact that this passage really defines the characters involved, the deeper meaning of it gets me every time. First of all, the books in the Great Library are all kept enclosed in cases, or, like Tessa describes, a "literary sort of prison." And just as Will offers to free a book from its prison for her, I believe a book is the result of an author freeing themselves of their ideas. They chase all their ideas like butterflies and trap them within the pages of a book, taking them out of their mind, and there the ideas wait until a reader comes along and frees them.

Will explains that the books are behind bars because some of them are dangerous, to which Tessa agrees. My favorite line is her words in that moment, which go far beyond books and sneak into our everyday lives: "...words have the power to change us" in so many ways. Bullying, hate, and judgement are words that change us, but also compliments and affirmations. Likewise, the words in a book can reform our thoughts, stretch our imagination, and influence our entire being.

I also very much enjoy the last line of this passage. Sometimes it seems our lives make no sense, but truly they do. Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forward, so the situations that we believe to be nonsense may actually be the ones that change us the most. Also, being that I love the story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I agree that nonsense has a deeper meaning than just nonsense. Maybe somewhere way down deep inside, the nonsense is actually what makes the most sense.

I Know Why She Doesn't Speak

Inspired by Maya Angelou


Silence speaks volumes
Silence is golden
Silence is louder than words

She sits in the classroom
She wraps herself in silence
She observes without her mouth

They ridicule her
They taunt her silence
They try to rip her from her somber home

Life has abused her
Life makes her smaller
Life locked her inside a cage

In sadness she watches
In loneliness she wishes
In silence she screams

*Original Photo*

If I Were In Charge of the World...

If I were in charge of the world
I'd cancel bad news
super photo-shopped models
ex-friends and also
all sports ever

If I were in charge of the world
there'd be free lollipops
on the street corners and
smiles for sale if you lost yours





If I were in charge of the world
you wouldn't have labels
you wouldn't have hate
you wouldn't have enemies
or "You stole my shoes."
you wouldn't even have shoes


If I were in charge of the world
pineapple whip would be
a staple of our diet
all money would be abolished
and a person who sometimes forgot to think
and sometimes forgot to sleep
would still be allowed to be
in charge of the world

Dream Threads

I see fire. It dances across the floor and disintegrates the curtains, cackling as it consumes the house. The battery powered alarm wakes me from my half sleep, knocking sense into me. This is really happening. I slide out of bed and onto the floor, remembering what they teach in elementary school about crawling under the smoke.

"Jenna!" I called, attempting to yell over the roar of the flames. "Jenna, wake up!" In the fog I felt my way to her bedroom, climbing over the toys scattered on her floor. "Jenna, wake up! We have to get out."

I shook her from her slumber. When her bright blue eyes fluttered open, panic filled them. "Ellie," she breathed, coughing and sputtering to expel smoke from her already aching lungs.

"It's okay, Jenna. Stay calm." Stay calm. I helped her slide out of her bed and onto the floor, tucking her into my side. We crawled together out of the room and towards the stairs. One by one we descended on our knees, backwards, keeping our faces low to the ground. I tried to guide her, but quickly found it hard to lead backwards. She sped up, eager to reach the bottom. "Slow down," I warned her as the crackling grew louder. Too late. The next step crumbled underneath her and she tumbled down the remaining stairs.

"Jenna!!" I slid down the stairs and gathered her into my arms. Her chest rose and fell just barely, her eyes fluttered closed. "Stay with me, Jenna."

I tucked her face into my shoulder and ran through the rest of the house. Smoke attacked my lungs, but I didn't care. I just knew I needed to get out. The heat seared my eyes and blurred my vision, so I tried to journey through the house by memory.

I burst out the front door, wheezing. My lungs felt small and weak, like no oxygen was actually reaching them, but again, that didn't matter to me. I kneeled on the ground with my baby sister in my arms, knowing that seven years wasn't enough time for her to do all the amazing things she wanted to do. "Jenna wake up."

Her eyes fluttered open, just long enough to look up at me. "Ellie," she breathed. Then, I watched as the color drained from her eyes. The essence of her left her body in colorful wisps and danced into the air, wrapping themselves around me. Her soul was in my body. I was feeling what she was feeling. And she was so scared.