A writing challenge courtesy of Tales from the Ridge: 250 words with the title “Jackson’s Rock”

Their relationship still felt new, the first time he took her to the woods. She loved him, and could see he loved the cabin like an old friend, so she didn’t complain about the lack of water pressure, the mouse droppings in the back of the pantry, or the miss-matched sheets. She simply took half an antihistamine, and began cleaning while he went to light a fire, and turn on the boiler for hot water.

She asked if they could go for a walk before it got dark. (Before the mosquitoes came out in force, to eat her alive.)

He grinned and said that would be a lovely idea. (She liked that he could use the word ‘lovely’ and not lose an ounce of masculinity.) He made her change into clunky hiking boots, and then took her by the hand.

They wandered toward the creek, a merrily burbling stream of water, with a beach just big enough for two chairs and a cooler. At the end of the beach was a smooth expanse of sun-bathed rock that jutted out into the center of the creek.

He told her as a kid he’d spent hours there, with books and the neighbor’s old retriever for company and that he was always yelled at for not wearing sunscreen, and coming home sunburned, but happy.

They stood on the rock, and kissed in the sunshine, and then he asked her a whispered question, and slipped the ring onto her finger when she answered yes.

I’ve begun the arduous process of editing my 2003 NaNoWriMo project, Illusions of Motion. Here’s a very raw excerpt.

The problem with having an over-active imagination is that things stay in the back of your mind, lurking over your shoulder and waiting for the worst possible moment to make themselves known. The fall after my seventh birthday, one of the murky figures that took up residence in my brain was the Headless Horseman.

I don’t remember how it began that Tia and I would visit Aunt Goody on weekend afternoons. Possibly it had to do with the fact that we both missed distant grandparents. Equally possible was the fact that we both saw the spark of mischief and good humor beneath the old teacher’s crusty exterior.

In any case, it was on a Saturday shortly before Halloween that we both ended up in front of the old Goody house. It was a cozy little place, at the end of a road and surrounded by aspen and pine trees. I always thought of it as being a bit backwards, because the front door opened into the street level living room dining room and kitchen, and the bedrooms were below, nestled against the hillside. And truly, it probably wasn’t actually an old house, as much as it was decorated with old things, an eclectic collection of ornate wooden furniture.

Aunt Goody always had some kind of a project planned for Saturdays, though it’s only now that I’ve begun to wonder whether she expected us, or was just such a creative thinker that whipping up something for two small girls to do was nothing to her. On this Saturday, before the year’s first snow, with the bite of fall and the rustling of leaves filling the air, her plan was to make caramel apples and watch a movie.

And so we did. As the afternoon sunlight thinned into twilight, we sat on the floor with our backs against the sofa, munching candy-coated apples, and watching The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - I don’t remember which version, only that the horses were pretty, and, at seven, I couldn’t figure out how they made a man look headless.

We were having so much fun, that I never noticed how dark it was outside. Twilight had fully descended, and the moon was visible. Aunt Goody called my parents, and let them know I was on my way home, on my bike. Tia only lived two houses away, so I walked my bike that far, with her, then hopped on and began to ride.

Half a mile never seemed so long. Clouds kept moving in front of the moon, changing the light and making the shadows move around me, and the trees, which I’d always thought were pretty, suddenly seemed to close in. And…what was that sound? Was that the swish of a cape brushing against a tree branch?

My small hands gripped the handle-bars of my trusty red bike tight enough to turn my knuckles red, then white, and my feet slipped off the pedals more than once, as I tried to get out of the woods and onto the lit streets near our building before …. I didn’t know what.

I did know, however, that Rule Number One is never look back, and so I didn’t. I forced myself to hear music in my head (Shaun Cassidy’s “Teen Dream” is great biking music, by the way), and pedalled as fast as I could, not coasting down the hill, the way I had every other Saturday, and not stopping til I got to the brightly lit front door of Lyon’s Ice Cream, where I paused to catch my breath in the protectiive amber glow of the lion head sconces.

I sat there for about five minutes, still not daring to look behind me, just breathing. Ahead, I could see light in the corner of the front window of our apartment above the store. Across the street, I could see Russ the Librarian, locking up the library. He saw me, and waved, and I waved back. Then I continued down the block and around the corner, and home.

The edited, more interesting version will be posted in a day or two.

For this month’s Blogging for Books choose which genre of fiction best represents your life - whether it be literary, mystery, romance, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, magical realism, etc. - and write a fictionalized account of some incident in your life based in that genre.

It was when they reached Needles that they realized there was no going back, that this wasn’t just a weekend excursion. They stopped at the local Dairy Queen at ten in the morning, to fill gas, to make sure they had water, to let the dogs do their business, to get an ice cream. She was wearing a peach tank top over a sage green one, and khaki shorts, and she stood in the slight shade made from the awning, licking her cone.

The summer heat, even that early in the morning, made the ice cream melt faster than she could eat it, and he watched her, standing there, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, then wrapped into a bun and pinned at her neck – she’d forgotten that all her hair sticks were packed, he recalled, and had used an unsharpened pencil snagged from the hotel. He watched as the ice cream melted, and a drop landed on the suntanned skin of her breast, just above the edge of her shirt.

“Did you get napkins?”she asked, as she lifted a finger to wipe away the spill. She dropped it as quickly. He smiled slightly. She never liked her hands to feel sticky, he knew.

“I’ll take care of it.” He waved a napkin at her, and stepped closer, but he didn’t use it. Instead, he ducked his head, and licked the melted ice cream away. Her skin was hot and a little tangy from sweat, and combined with the cool sweetness of the ice cream, it was enough to make him shudder.

“Heyy!” She giggled, and pushed him away. “We’re on a public sidewalk!”

“It’s ten AM, and there’s no one out. It’s too hot.” He kissed her cheek, oblivious to the melting ice cream that was splattering near them on the sidewalk. “You’re hot,” he whispered, not referring to temperature. “I love you.”

She tossed the remainder of the ice cream cone into the nearby trash bin, and laughed softly, as he claimed her sticky fingers with his mouth. “What’s got into you?” she asked.

“You. Us. This.” He kissed her mouth, softly, then more urgently, satisfied only when her answering kisses met his in intensity. “It’s a new life, love. A new start. Shouldn’t we start it right?” He paused, adding, “There’s a hotel across the street.”

She didn’t answer, not in words, but she kissed him, and squeezed his hand. “We’re not on a schedule,” she reminded, speaking the words for herself as well as for him. “We could spare a day.”

* * *

The hotel was a brand new Best Western, and the woman behind the counter was perky in the way that only brand new employees were. “Welcome to Needles.”

The woman with the pencil in her hair smiled, “My husband’s in the car. We drove from the bay area, yesterday, and I know it’s early for check-in, but we’d like a room. We have dogs.”

“It’s no problem,” the hotel-woman answered. “We’re pretty empty. Where you headed?”

“Texas. We’re moving there. My husband got transferred.”

“Aw, you’re gonna miss California.”

“Maybe…but this feels right.”

* * *

They brought their things, and their dogs, to the hotel room, using only minimal speech. The dogs curled up on one bed, tired from the heat, and confused by the series of new places.

They each took a moment to collect themselves, and then they came together, kissing again, touching each other with slow caresses, finding their rhythm quickly, in the way that only couples who’ve been together for years really can.

And then they slept, waking at dusk. She ordered delivery pizza while he walked the dogs. It arrived with two complimentary beers, and even though he didn’t drink, she cracked hers open, and sipped the cold foamy liquid.

They laughed at silly things while they ate. He teased her about sleeping through most of the journey. She said she wasn’t sleeping, that she was counting the cars on the trains they kept passing. She told him her childhood fantasies had included riding the rails like a hobo from a story.

“You don’t like to rough it,” he reminded her.

“It’s why I never tried it,” she confessed, laughing.

* * *
Later, after they’d made love a second time, she sat up in bed, awakened by the combination of moonlight and the buzzing of the traffic signal outside. She looked at her sleeping husband. She reached down and scratched behind the ears of one dog, then the other, and then she got up, and went to sit in the chair by the air conditioner.

He woke briefly, saw her sitting there, nude, in the moonlight. “Bad dream?” he asked.

“No.” She gave him a soft smile, knowing he’d catch the gesture even if he didn’t really see it. “Just too many thoughts.”

“Regrets?” he asked.

“Nope,” and she smiled again, and crossed the room to return to bed, to nestle against his shoulder. “Possibilities.”