Tag: Mealtime

Writing Exercise: When You Don’t Know Everything

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Nathon Oski on Unsplash

Recently, I had an author reach out to me frustrated with a story they were writing. They had a story idea about cake making (with magic – it is a popular them right now), but they are not a subject matter expert. They tried watching videos and read research materials but got buried in the jargon for the tools and the ingredients. They tried reaching out to subject matter experts but said “they ghosted me after a few exchanges for some reason.” They don’t want to write something if someone who know more about it will call foul.

I wrote back the following:

That sounds frustrating. Here are a few ways to work around the issue, most of which you have attempted, but let me go over them in order they should usually be attempted:

One) Research the topic. In this case, like everything with specialists, the industry has created a vocabulary which will add a realistic flavor to the story. This vocabulary is short-hand for things the work must do repeatedly. For examples, doctors say blood draw or drop an IV line, which are two very different tasks – but all the patient sees is a nurse sticking in a needle. But the short hand, including CCs and liquid and pressure all let the doctors explain something in a sentence that someone outside the industry would take entire pages with diagrams to define. But facing vocabulary short-hand, jargon, can make doing research rough. You don’t want to earn a degree on cake-making, you just want to write a story with it as part of the background, setting the story in a real world situation.

Two) Once you have done the preliminary research, you talk to experts. You need to know the basic, otherwise you are wasting your time and theirs – so do the research first. You can contact them via email or other method, but they aren’t getting paid money for helping so after the initial *wow factor** wears off (where they are getting “paid” in enjoyment of sharing their love), they are done. Best to only contact experts once you know what questions you need to ask – limited to two or three questions. Think about if someone asked you about how to write, how long would you be willing to give free advice. Would you prefer specific question or a general “how-to”. Me, I would send a general how-to question to the web location. (This was a gentle way of pointing out why they got “ghosted” after “a few” exchanges – it isn’t their job to teach you anything. One small set of clear questions and one follow-up, that is all you get. And remember even that much is a kindness.)

Three) Better yet, after beginning research (if it isn’t enough), Gain Actual Life Experience – take a trip, make the thing, attend a class, witness a creator. This can get expensive, both time and money-wise. It makes senses for novels, but not for short stories. I did drive to a location about 30 minutes away for a short story I was creating.

Four) Remember the story isn’t about the background setting, in this case cake-making. It is about the emotions and action, the characters and the plot, the cake-making is only a vehicle to carry it forward. If you are writing non-fiction, then you will need to know all the ends and outs of cakemaking, but you are writing genre fiction. You can dodge a lot of the expertise knowledge. Mercy Thompson (see Moon Called by Patricia Briggs) is a mechanic; she tells us the type of car, basic problems the car is known for, the fact she has grease (or doesn’t) on her hands, etc. Do we know what part was replaced? No. Many Urban Fantasy writers have their characters be gun experts; but mostly we readers see them load guns and place them on their person – the writer doesn’t need to know everything about guns. What do you need to know to make the cake-making feel believable? During research on youtube or tiktok or whatever social media you are using, what are the common themes – fine cake flour everywhere, temperature control in an oven, how finicky the cake icing is in high humidity. What do THEY think is important to share with an audience? Where does their reality touch people outside their industry? Those are the point to use. You don’t need to know how to make a cake. Most books I read with bakers as characters talk about getting up early, gathering ingredients, mixing, rolling out the dough, letting it rise, then baking it. Do I know that they are doing with the yeast mixture, or how long they have to mix to get the strong protein bonds so that the yeast creates fluffy air pockets but not so much that the air cannot push its way in for the air holes? No. The STORY doesn’t need that detail. I just need ENOUGH of the reality. They are rolling the dough while complaining about the landlord they are falling in love with; they are covered in flour because the salamander jumped out of the oven and they had to battle it back into the heating element to finish their day’s baking.

Always remember to focus on the story.

Final advise, just write out the story with what you know and put in the places where you think you need more cake details a note to circle back to later and what you are trying to accomplish with it. (Put cake detail here – use as metaphor of moist air making the icing too wet to grief making the emotions too raw.) (Put cake detail here – angry to calm as focus on work.) Get your zero draft written. Then come back for the first drafting pass and add in the cake detail notes; you may find that the details you thought you needed can be approached a different way. Or you may find you just need answers to three very specific questions from an expert. Or that now that you have the questions written out, you can shape a Google search to answer that question easily.

WRITING EXERCISE: When you know know everything. Write a 500-word story where you are NOT a subject matter expert. Use any or all the techniques above. Bonus points if you leverage the final one (write out the story and add notations of where expertise will be added later).

My Attempt: Jacks and Sleds (1/18/2026) is a steampunk story with an engine repair. Do I know ANYTHING about steam engines? I do not. But I do know how to Google search on a steam engine diagram and I saw “rod” prominently featured and a “crankshaft”. I knew I wanted my MC to fix the engine and I knew those thing break, so I used the jargon. Steampunk feel achieved.

“But what if someone understands how steam engines work and says it isn’t real.” – It is SANTA’S sleigh…being pulled by jackalopes. I think we are a little beyond what is real at this point. All it has to do is feel real enough.

 

Flash: Rent to Own

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Max Kleinen on Unsplash

The walls are bleeding, again. Not the typical horror haunted movie with the slow run of what is actually chocolate syrup but looks like blood on camera starting from the ceiling and dripping down the plaster in long streaks. That would be doable.

No, my haunted house gets splatter patterns in the dining room. A screech of metal and *splush* – a dozen of bright red dots, which starting running just a little where the drops were the heaviest before drying in place.

I roll my eyes. “Is it that time of month already?”

The house moans in response, the floor shivering underfoot as I set the table for dinner. A louder high-pitched scream follows and another connect-the-dots pattern appears beside the first, a little lower. A bit of a void is on the left side, as though blocked by a head and part of a shoulder.

Built in the double-oughts for an up-and-coming executive, the house witnessed the end results of the tech-bro who borrowed “just a little” money from his company’s coffers to cover things after a slow month. In the end, the embezzlement toppled into investigations when an audit showed missing millions for which the man blamed his wife “wanting good things” according to his murder-suicide note. He took out the kids first because he didn’t want to leave them orphans but was vindictive enough to make his wife watch. Bastard.

What a way to baptize a house’s first year. That sort of thing leaves an impression on brick and mortar.

“I feel you.” I said with sympathy, putting out the bowls. Tonight was going to be tomato soup with grilled cheese. Returning to the kitchen, I ignore the clinking china in the other room, She is good at avoiding breakage. Sighing, I put a lid on the pot of simmering red soup and move it off the heat. I’ll repackage it for the freezer to be eaten later, once the monthly bloodfest is done. After pulling down another pot, I go to the pantry to see what other cans are in there. Carrot soup should work. And Mercy likes it better anyway, though Wolfgang will complain before digging in.

The gunshot makes me jump, like normal, but it gave me the extra push when opening the soup can, so the lid came off cleanly for once with the can opener instead of having two small burrs opposite sides of the can which prevent the actual removal of the lid. A thud reverberates out of the dining room into the kitchen as though a heavy body just hit the floor. The soup glopping into the pot makes a similar thud.

The timbers moaned and the floor creaked as wood shifted.

I pat the counter after I add water and set the soup to heating. “It’s okay.”

And it is.

A real estate investment firm snapped up the house from the foreclosure company after the quadruple homicide plus suicide. But, surprise surprise, they couldn’t find reliable renters. The firm kept dropping the price until a single mom with two kids – plus “sure you can have pets without a deposit, it’s not like the downstairs has carpet” desperation got Prince Albert, our Siamese, Doofus, our loveable but extremely dumb lab, and Cunningham, my ex’s last purchase to try and regain Wolfgang’s favor after missing yet another track meet – without consulting either me or Wolfgang if we wanted a second dog, which we didn’t but Cunningham is a better bed partner for me than my ex ever was, even if the German shepherd hogs the covers.

I liked the price. I fell in love with the house after the first time the ex picked up the children for the weekend. She did not like him. I thought she was dramatic BEFORE. The glass paperweight didn’t actually hit him, but that is only because Mercy caught it in the baseball glove she was showing off to her dad. The squishy puddles of blood did ruin his shoes, though, and I know from experience the blood splatter does not come out of clothes, not even with iodine.

We now do the exchange at the local McDonalds like reasonable adults, and I no longer worry about him breaking in and keeping any of the threats he made during the divorce.

“I’m going to buy you.” I promise while pulling the grilled cheese from the oven. “It might take until the kids are grown, but I will find a way to buy you.”

(words 749; first published 9/29/2025)

Flash: The Biggest Wall

Erin Penn

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

“Dang illegals taking honest work from honest men.”

I was stuck at the table with him again. My wife and his wife got along great, but him and I, well, our views on life didn’t match. But side-by-side we sit at another church potluck.

“Oh, you want to work in the fields in 100-degree heat in the summer?” I couldn’t help but prod him.

“No. I’m retired. But you know, someone could.”

“Yes, I suppose.” I debated if it would be bad to take a third turn around the dessert tables, not to pick something up but to get away. “But then they would have to be paid minimum wage and given safe housing. I think the studies show that the price of produce will double, unless we start underwriting it like we do the meat industry.”

“Harumph. We don’t underwrite the meat industry. Farmers are hard workers.”

“Yes they are. God’s own.” This time I wasn’t sarcastic. My brother and the family he married into operated a farm just outside of town. “I thank God for them three times a day. Every meal is possible because of them and the immigrants they hire.” I should have stopped before I added the part about immigrants, but “welcome the stranger” had been drilled into me by my Southern upbringing. I don’t know how others didn’t get the same message.

“Dang immigrants. Always sneaking across the border. We need to get that wall finished.”

“You know, there is a solution to stop immigration, better than a wall.”

“A wall is the best thing.”

“Walls always fail. The Great Wall of China didn’t keep the Mongols out. The wall the Romans put up to keep the wild Scots out after they conquered England was a complete fail. The Berlin wall fell in our time.” I gathered my wife’s cardboard plate and my own to take to the trash.

He followed me with his wife’s stuff. Of course he followed me. “So what would be your solution?” he hissed, like nothing could beat a wall except his hard head.

I leaned against the foldable wall carefully, the one usually dividing the fellowship hall into classrooms. “First, you need to define the problem. And it isn’t immigrants coming here, but why they leave where they are. Stop and think a moment. How bad does where you are has to be to make you leave everything behind and go to a country where you don’t speak the language or understand the laws. Where you have no friends and no support? Your family gone, your community gone. Think about that situation. People don’t come here lightly.”

“They hop the border all the time.”

“They cross desert. Sometimes walking hundreds of miles. Why would a person walk hundreds of miles from everything they know? They have to believe where they are going is going to be better than where they came from.”

“Exactly. They’re lazy no-goods wanting to take our social security.”

“I thought you said they were stealing jobs?”

The red either side of his neck started going up. I had promised my wife I wouldn’t get in a yelling match with him again.

“Back to the solution that is better than walls. I am working from the hypothesis, and I admit I could be wrong, but immigrants are always functionally refugees. That sounds bad. My white male privilege is showing. Sorry. But essentially where they are has become inhospitable to them or their family. Either no chance of a better future for their children or things are actively endangering them. They see our ‘Land of Opportunity’ as being better than where they are; a chance of survival and maybe even thriving. Despite language differences and uprooting their entire lives.”

He crossed his arm and braced his legs. I chose to ignore two of the gossips at the next table watching us like we were their soap operas.

“Based on that premise of why they are coming here, which, you have to admit is more important than what they do before they get here, right?”

“Right.” He nodded.

“There are two solutions, better than a wall to prevent them from coming, because anyone willing to walk hours, days, weeks even,  through a desert isn’t going to be stopped long by a wall. Right?”

“Right.”

“The solutions are: one, make things better where they are, so they don’t need to leave, or, two, make things worse here so they don’t want to come.”

He frowned.

“A good international presence, working to make lives better for everyone—”

“And send our money to foreigners?” He cut me off.

“To help our neighbors, as Jesus told us to do.” I snapped. A quick inhale and exhale had me refocused. “Safer places to live mean people don’t feel the need to escape to save their children.”

“Still, sending money overseas sound like socialism to me.”

“Well, the other option is making America so inhospitable and dangerous no one wants to come here.”

“That isn’t going to happen. We are making America great again.”

“That should do it.” I started walking to the table where our wives sat. My beautiful, loving wife saw my approach and picked up her purse from under her chair.

(words 873, first published 6/21/2025)

Flash: What’s Wrong with Me?

Erin Penn

Photo by Shivansh Sethi on Unsplash

“What do you mean, the beginning?” Dara asked.

“Pretend you never told me anything.” Reaching across to touch Dara’s hand, Alledria said, “I was a stupid teenager then a distracted adult. I tried to solve the issue, but I never properly listened. Not really and I am sorry, but I am listening now. Go ahead.”

Wayne squirmed in his seat, but Alledria was his wife and nothing ever stops her once she gets in her mind to do something. When the server dropped off the refills, he whispered to her, “No more beer for me after this, but if you could drop off a water or two.” The server nodded, she also touched the console on the table, turning it toward him to indicate it was ready whenever they were.

Noticing the exchange, Dara pulled out her credit card and pushed it to the server. When Wayne opened his mouth, she immediately said, “Who asked who out? It is a book birthday party.”

Wayne shook his head and used Dara’s credit card to process the payment before the lunch-dinner shift-change.

“Stop stalling.”

“Alright.” Dara whipped her face with her hand, then used the same hand to tap the notebook in front of her. “I don’t remember the first time I had a random bleeding hole in me, but I remember the first time I realized I had a chronic problem. It was sixth grade, Mr. D’s math, you remember him?”

“He threw erasers way too accurately.”

“Never hit a student but woke you up every time when it hit the desk. Yeah, well, I was bleeding from the wrist and it was making a mess on the assignment, so I reached for my purse where I kept the band-aids. While wrapping my wrists I was thinking how nice it was not to go down to the nurse for band-aids anymore now that I got the purse.”

Wayne held up a finger. “About that, why were you carrying a purse in the middle of middle school? I mean a backpack should be enough.”

“Period supplies. The purses were absolutely necessary during the ‘must be clear’ backpack stage. Duh.” Dara responded.

“I feel dumb.” Wayne scooted down on his side of the booth. “All the girls start carrying purses in fifth or sixth grade, and all the guys are like what is that about?”

“It’s okay. I still love you.” Alledria bumped her husband’s shoulder. “Now back to you, Dara.”

“Where was I?” she stalled.

“Mr. D’s class.”

“Yeah, well, I realized that no one else needed to keep band-aids on hand for random bleeding. I mean I could hit you up for a tampon if I ran out, but you didn’t carry band-aids. If I didn’t want a lecture about scratching leading to blood poisoning every nurse’s visit, I had to bring my own. Or visit the Mrs. Marshall and have to go over whether everything was good at home and self-mutilations isn’t the answer.” Dara tapped her notebook. “Health said to document our periods to figure out the cycle and I thought, why not document this other bleeding, to figure out if there is a cycle there. So I started.”

“What did you find?”

“Well, after nearly twenty years, there is and there is not a cycle.”

Wayne hummed a question mark inquiry. As a high school math teacher, that last statement interested him.

“I’m getting to it. So not much else happened in school, not until college. I kept having small holes between three and eight millimeters in size appearing somewhere on my body every four to nine days. I gave up wearing white anything because I never knew when or where a stigmata would happen. It was really annoying on my back or on the back of my legs where I couldn’t see it, but people would notice a patch of blood. Black, burgundy, and brown became my color choices to hide the blood spots. Ally would poke at me to branch out fashion-wise, and after four years of data, I would borrow a shirt or wear a skirt if it was day two or three after the last hole. By senior year, I thought I knew everything. Then I went to college.”

“What happened?” Alledria asked.

“Nothing the first month. No holes, no blood, other than the normal period, for thirty-six days. I thought going away to college, crossing state lines, maybe I had been allergic to something back home. But I was cured.”

“I caught that,” said the writer. “What happened after thirty-six days.”

“I got a hole every two days for three weeks.”

“Until you were back to your average,” Wayne speculated. “Whatever the schedule was.”

“That is my best guess, yeah.” Dara agreed.

“Hmm.”

“And when I went home for Christmas, no holes until the tenth day. Return to college after winter break, only twenty days before they restarted. The second year, the window continued to shrink as I bounced between the locations, but always took at least seven days if I moved more than one hundred miles, like doing one of the college service projects. Then I met Kase and dropped out Junior year. Since that hadn’t been in the planning for getting all the right classes, I didn’t even qualify for an Associates of Business Administration. Two and a half years of college for nothing.” Dara shook her head in disgust at her younger naïve self before continuing. “No holes during the honeymoon, but then most of it was moving out of the dorm room into his place. I had been ecstatic when I had a hole the day before the wedding, which meant I wouldn’t bleed on the white gown. After the honeymoon, I’ve never gone on a trip longer than four days away from home.”

“Any other anomalies?” Wayne asked.

“Time-wise? There was a seven-week hold which overlapped with a skipped period our second year of marriage. I think it was a failed pregnancy. The stigmata restarted three hours following my period restarting with a very heavy bleed.”

“Interesting. If they, for whatever ‘they’ are, assuming intelligence, don’t take blood samples during pregnancy.”

“Yeah, I thought of that. The stop really does seem like intelligence.” Dara shuddered.

“Oh,” Alledria reached across and held onto Dara’s hand, “I’m a so sorry for not listening better.”

Dara shook her head. “I wasn’t living near you when I was married to Kase. By the time we got back in touch properly, I was dealing with other issues and I don’t think I ever mentioned this link to anyone before now.”

Squeezing her friend’s hand, Alledria asked, “And were there any anomalies which weren’t time-cycle related?”

“Not in body placement.” Dara gave Alledria a squeeze of reassurance, then let go her hand. She removed the pen from the spiral spine of the small notebook and opened it up to a half-filled page. “I write the notes like this.” She drew a line. “First the date and time. And before you ask, it seems to happen at any time, even while asleep. All the little blood dots on the bedsheets annoyed Kase to no end. I write the size if I am in a position to measure it. Then write left or right side – it does happen more on the right side, but that could just be happening because I notice it more on the right, since I am right-handed – and the body part. Next I draw,” she drew a hand and forearm, “and mark where it occurred. I wasn’t consistent about that at first, but I did better in college. And it occurs anywhere on the body except, and this gets weird, no nose bleeds and nothing in hairy areas. Even though hair covers the area, I’m positive no blood on the scalp and…other areas…no clotting.”

“Well, little holes don’t produce much blood,” Wayne commented.

“You would think. But here is the other anomaly. These holes have prolonged bleeding time. Like between seven and ten minutes before clotting, unless I bandage them. But after the clotting occurs, they just bleed the normal two to three minutes before stopping if the wound gets reopened. So I drop a lot of blood out of the holes initially. It just wells and wells and wells.”

“That sounds like something out of one of my horror books.”

“Yep.”

“Anything else we should know?”

“Well, other big things. Kase never believe me.”

Alledria jumped in, “Again, I am so sorry.”

Dara gave her a look of, I am going to forgive you unless you keep on asking for forgiveness, so shut up now.

“Shutting up now.” Alledria responded aloud to the facial expression.

“He never believed me until, while we were having make-up sex one night and he was staring at my face for once, one of the holes opened on a cheekbone. He was looking right here.” She touched the bone line under her left eye. “And bam-oo, bleeding. Freaked him out and he moved out of the bedroom that weekend. He didn’t want to catch whatever it was I had.”

“What a douchebag,” Wayne said.

“After everything you did for him, all those hoops he made you jump through, giving up your degree to support his dreams, draining your funds, everything. He dumped you when he finally thought you were ill?” Alledria closed her hands into fists. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“He isn’t worth it.” Dara said, years of emotional exhaustion weighed the words down like cement shoes. “Back to this. I finally got a doctor to believe me by going on a trip over 100 miles away for ten days, lost all my vacation time to do it, but I had them put me in a room, stripped and recorded it. Within four hours of returning to town, a hole appeared two inches above the right-side butt cheek dimple. They were able to test the bleeding time and confirm something temporarily impacted bleeding time. That doctor is the one who gave me the official diagnosis for all the good it did me. Now I have a permanent medical condition which keeps me from qualifying for health insurance. Yipee.” She closed the notebook and moved to thread the pen through the spiral spine.

“Hey, can I see that?” Wayne held out a hand, and Dara passed it over. He started flipping through it, stopping at some of the entries, turning the book to see some of the drawings.

“Wow,” Alledria leaned forward on her elbows. “That is something. If this was one of my horror stories, you would have invisible leeches or lice. Something whose saliva prolonged bleeding. Patient zero, slowly infecting everyone around you. Except invisible fauna doesn’t make sense if it disappears when you leave the area, but only temporarily.”

“Thank you for that thought.” Dara said.

“Another option is a fantasy or science fiction, where … a demon is drawing your blood invisible or maybe a time traveler? But why you? Are you famous, of a special lineage?”

“Not to my knowledge, and I did put this out there a couple times in social media to see if anyone responded. The internet has been great to connect people with unusual problems together, but all I got was crickets.”

“So, really, as near as you can tell, it is just you.”

“Best guess.”

“It happened just now. We didn’t see anyone touch you. You didn’t touch your arm either. I’m sorry to accuse you…”

Dara gave her the look again.

“Anyway, in an intimate moment, even on camera. Whatever is doing it cannot be seen or felt, able to enter closed rooms.” Alledria considered fictional options. “Multi-dimensional scientific research?”

“Did you do more than track the days?” Wayne asked.

“What do you mean?” Dara replied.

“Like maybe the reason there is no clear tracking on time is the sampling is happening on a schedule of, say, shoulder every 20 days, arm every sixteen, etc.”

Dara boggled at him. “No. That would take like some serious medical programming.”

“Just statistical, and I got a classroom of students needing to work on statical programming.” He waved the notebook in the air. “Do you got more of these? This one started October of last year.”

“I have a box of about fifteen back at home.”

“I would love to see if we can work out anything statistically significant out of this data. It might give us a hint.”

With a crooked smile, Dara finished his statement, “Of finding what’s wrong with me.”

“Maybe. I doubt it, because this is some weird shit, but we can try.”

Dara look at her best friend and her husband. “Yes. Let’s try.”

(words 2,110; first published 4/11/2026 – Finally, if you put all the pieces together, you have the story I was trying to tell. Problem is, even after all that chatting, there still isn’t an ending. What should happen next?)

Anniversary Dinner Series
Chapter One: Anniversary Dinner (9/11/2022)
Chapter Two: What’s Wrong (9/8/2024)
Chapter Three: What’s Wrong with Me? (12/29/2024)

Flash: Water Finds a Way

Erin Penn

Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash

(note: written in one sitting. Ran out of time, so didn’t do a re-read pass. This is just one flat out stream of consciousness without editing of any sort – not developmental, not proofreading.)

The storm rolled in dark and menacing, black clouds walls reached from seafoam to starlight, hiding the late afternoon sun behind them. Crashing waves tried to outrace the storm, only to be pushed from behind by the strong winds, falling against the sharp rocks beneath my shelter, an old abandoned lighthouse of a sort. I could see the rain smear the cloud edges from mid-way above the horizon to the wave crests.

I pushed my black hair behind my ears just to have it be pulled back out by the stray breezes slipping through the cracks in the thick glass of the tower. Normally, I light the torch with one olive branch and one beechwood split log when the sun set. On long winter nights, I might make my way up the stairs after the mid-night for a second log. Today, with the summer storm changing day into night early, I stirred last night’s ashes with the branch with nearly half the after-noon to go. Most days, this close to summer’s first eve, the coals were little more than white nothing by sunset, the days are so long. The early start today had the branch flaming quickly from the surviving coals. I laid the deadfall wood down in the rusted metal bowl. Next I rolled the log, one determined shove at a time, from the pile I had stored up. I’m sweating by the time I get it to the edge of the fire bowl.

Tipping the log on end, I crouch down and lift up with all my strength until I am able to tilt the beechwood into the bowl. It slid in next to the olive branch and the shaved curls I had cut into the log lit easily. The mirrors and glass and prisms took it from there, doubling and redoubling the light.

I squinted against the brightness as I headed for the spiral stairwell to take me down into my home. Counting carefully since my eyesight dark vision was completely, though temporarily, destroyed, at tread thirty-two, I grabbed the handrail rope on the left and step onto bottom, thicker rope and slid hand-over-hand, sidestep-by-sidestep. Around the time the bypass of the rotting wood steps was complete, my vision had cleared of the extra spots. At the third landing (or first, depending on which direction you were going up-and-down), I turned around on the stone portion of the staircase. The tuff blocks for the first four steps below the landing had been repurposed somewhere, where exactly I didn’t know because it was before my time. A few handholds had been carved into the porous rocks and I used them to lower myself to the final flight of stairs.

Outside, the second of the storm bands arrived, whistling through cracks and tiles. I heard the front door banging. I had rushed back from where I had been pruning olive branches in the grove and dumped what could carry inside the door before heading upstairs. The pruned branches were for my personal firewood; the lighthouse required the olive branch to be deadfall.

Though I wanted to rush to the door, I walked carefully across the tile lining the terraced pool.

This was the most spectacular and weirdest part of the bottom third of the decathagonal tower where the building widened to five times the width, like a mini-fortress with a tower rising from its center. Blue and white tile work with the troy keystone pattern lined the floors and walls. The first four top-most terraces seemed like normal steps changed into drop-offs of three feet for another four steps and then one sixteen-foot drop into a pool of fresh water. The walls of the entire room had the spectacular tilewok, the bottom of the pool, when light hit it, made it look like the floor was level and the mosaic of seacreatures and fish gathering around one fintailed humanoid being holding a creature appeared to be walkable, not sixteen feet below the surface.

This was my fresh-water source. In the height of drought season, the water would recede to the pool level. Right now, only the top two steps remained above the water with the recent summer storms and the lower one had the water lap it. I might not be able to get to my quarters after tonight’s inflow. The optical illusion of the water and the mosaic hid slippery shadows. I don’t know what else was resident in the lighthouse, but I respected it.

I didn’t know a lot of things about the lighthouse, having taken it for shelter on this lonely island a while ago. The years blurred. The olive grove fed and supported me in many ways; the birds drawn by the olives and the fish which didn’t make it back into the sea after a storm provided meat. Seaweed washed ashore provided bread and greens.

I shuffled past my roommate, careful not to slip into its abode on the slick tile.

After securing the front door, I moved the wood into the seasoning room. Three logs from a fallen beech tree stared at me angrily. I needed to split the fully-dried wood and then get the twelve quarter-logs all the way up the stairwell, an exhausting full-day task. A basket of olive branches also waited to be lifted to the highest level.

My previous pully system had failed, the rope worn out. Sometime last winter. I think.

If I remember rightly, this is the third time the ropes had failed. The first time I had used rope found within the lighthouse. The second time, a storm had brought a mass of rope from some destroyed ship to rest in the cove on the leeward side of the island. The wood of that shipwreck allowed me to fully repair the floor of the second level for my sleep area. I had been fixing it piecemeal for it seemed like years. It had been nice to finish it in a single season. The third, a group of people from the mainland had landed here, blown off course by an early winter storm. I didn’t speak their language, not well. Their words were so accented it may as well have been a different tongue. We traded rope for fresh-water; olive oil, which I keep in abundance, for empty bottles. I fed them per the rules of hospitality and lighthouses, while they repaired their sails and we parted on good terms. I believed. They never came back and it has been long enough for the rope to wear out.

I paused as I see movement out the window. Another weirdness of the house was the seasoning room’s window, as wide as my arm’s stretched out and going from floor to ceiling. I have looked for it from the outside but have not been able to find it. Strangely, it didn’t look out at the front patio area where I ate most of my meals when sun and air permitted, but along the switchback leading from the small pier at the front of the island facing the ocean. A group of people were coming my way.

The leader lacked two teeth and wore a droopy hat with a feather. His hair was matted except for a cluster of braids with gold beads and his beard thick. Thick brown linen pants tucked into hightop boots that folded over at the very top. His blouse was covered with a leather vest, several blades tucked randomly about on his person. He stood a good head over all of his companions. Rings decorated his every finger and he was yelling in someone’s ear before pushing him away, six of the other ruffians of the group broke away with the second-in-command as they came to the top of the rocky cliffs.

The second group circled to the side of my minifortress, near the area where I was still rebuilding the wall. As soft as tuff stone is, I don’t have the correct tools to cut it into blocks. The wood I have gathered from driftwood and shipwrecks blocked off the area, but the barrier wouldn’t be visible from where they were.

The rest of the party stayed with the leader. One other male and three females. Two of the females were dressed in blue linen flattening against them by the wind and rain, their braided hair whipping about like snakes. One had braids with gold metal and lapis-lapis beads. Embroidery decorated her gown’s neckline, the sleeves from wrist to elbow, and the outer skirt’s frontal panel. She stayed close to the two men. The other two women huddled together sharing an oiled blanket. The second one wearing blue linen had only a modest strip of embroidery at the wrist and a scallop-stich edge around the neck; the third female wore an even simpler and plainer garment, her hair tied tight to the head in a kerchief, her braids pinned securely.

I wondered if I could trade her some pins. Nothing as delicate as pins ever made it ashore, and the one group of visitors I had had had been all plainly dressed men with hair shorn close to the scalp. I pulled the rat-eaten curtain I had stitched from a sail over the window and made my way to the front door, sealing off the seasoning room door behind me by dropping a forgotten rug which had washed ashore to keep the storm’s moisture from invading the room.

Arriving at the front door at the same time the pounding began, I yelled, “One moment.” I lifted the bar of wood and set it aside then unchocked the bottom before opening the door to the squall and the five visitors.

The woman in the leader group demanded, “Shelter. For the love of the gods and humanity.” Her whipping beaded braids her the companions, the two large menacing men standing either side of her. In her hands, the woman held a box which gleamed in the stormy night. A small engraved golden ball lay within, decorated with waves, blue stones, and silver inlay which was turning black with age, yet shined near while where she obviously rubbed it. I felt magic press at the door’s threshold demanding entry, wanting to sweeten the order she was giving.

I lived in a lighthouse. There were rules. “Be welcome under the laws of hospitality of the sea and under guests rights and duties.” That said, I stepped aside allowing them entry. The three older people tumbled in, shaking the water off their persons, then wringing the water from their clothes, and stomping mud from their boots on the stone floor. The two under the oilcloth stopped at the threshold and shook the water under the narrow eaves of the front door and wrung what water they could at that location before closing the door behind them. The woman in the brown outfit reached for the bar to have the second ruffian slap her arm hard, stopping her.

The tallest of them had gray in his beard I hadn’t see through the window, and the woman’s hair had a change in hair color from a rich reddish-brown to a dim faded gray at the top of her braids.

“Blessings upon you.” The oldest of the females said with a smooth voice which carried to fill every corner of the room. She closed the box and tucked the charm away in a gold-work embroidered bag attached to a multicolor woven belt.

It had been so long since I heard another human’s voice, tears raised in my eyes. “I do not have towels for drying, but you are welcome to share my soup to help warm you.” All cooking was done on the ground floor with the stone walls. I started walking to the cooking area in the broken area I was still fixing. “I can stoke the fire to help get you dry faster.”

“Is it flesh, fowl, or fish?” The woman walked passed me, once the light and smell showed the way. “Today is a flesh day, so I must have flesh.” She sat down in the single chair in the room. The two men dropped on the bench I had made the last time I had visitors, stretching on legs and arms on a bench I had made for four grown men to share, so that the two other women stood in a corner near where my construction equipment lay.

Broken wood, stone I was reshaping with rocks, drop cloths, and one intact bucket of precious tar strewn in that area.

“The soup is roots and fish.” I reached for the ladle and one of the wood bowls I had. Kitchen gear was the one thing I didn’t lack. One of the eight rooms on this floor had been stacked with battered old bowls and plates; half of them had been unusable, but that still left more than enough even for this crowd.

“Well, I can’t have that.” The woman declared. “Go, kill a goat or something.”

I offered filled bowl to the closest male and he sneered at it. “I’ll wait for something better.”

The other man took it greedily as I moved down the line, but respected the heat and didn’t gulp it down. Taking the tendered spoon, he balanced the hot bowl between his hand and blew on it. I ladled soup into two more bowls and gave them to the standing women, then filled my bowl and squatted down on the wood box to eat.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

I looked up. I know my face went through a lot of expressions because I couldn’t remember how to say things through it anymore. I blew on the soup and took another bite.

“I am your guest.  Why are you just sitting there?” The woman huffed. “You should be making sure I eat.”

“Ma’am, per lighthouse hospitality, I must offer the food on my table, the shelter over my head, and the heat and light of my fires.” I took another bite. “I have done all that. Even if I had any animals I could kill or salted meat in the pantries, which I don’t, I am not required to impoverish myself while offering succor. If you can’t eat it, I am sorry. I got three jars of olives left from the last harvest, but fish soup is pretty much it for the two-week. As it is, I am hoping I get some storm gifts to refill the pot otherwise I will be very hungry until the carrots and onions are ready to be pulled up.”

“What?” The woman rose, tightening her belt. “Go. Get your husband and I will discuss your insolence with him.”

“I’m not married.” The soup had cooled enough to sip from the bowl. “There is no one here but me. And Ichthys.”

The men exchanged sharp-eyed glances and satisfied smiles at my words. “Who is Ichthys?” asked the older one.

“A fish. It comes and goes.”

Both of the men chuckled. The younger man, who had a wicked scar cutting from half an ear and skimming his jaw, recent considering how red it throbbed. “Yeah, I’ve talked to plenty of fish while on long watch.”

The woman shot him a look, and the big man beside him kicked his leg, “Shut up, Darus.”

Taking the bowl from her companion, the woman in the simplest outfit place both their bowls in the box where my other dirty dishes were waiting for me to take a walk down to the pier to do washing.

“If you want more, you are welcome.” I waved my hand toward the pot.

“Get me some, Page,” the man who had refused the soup earlier ordered the servant.

Darus spoke up. “And while you are at it, I need seconds.”

Page glanced back at her companion, who shook her head, then at me and I nodded my acceptance. Food would be tight, but so far the lighthouse hadn’t failed to keep me feed on the regular. I had missed a night or two, but never three in a row. The seaweed in bloom at the moment was my least favorite, but I could eat it.

“Fine.” The woman sat back down, loosened her belt, and then held out her hand, before saying, “Page.”

She moved to serve everyone in the room; placing the first bowl into the woman’s hand. Taking the second bowl, she gave it to the older man, then took the soup bowl Darus used and refilled it.

I got up. The pot was nearly empty. Placing two bowls on the floor, I tipped the pot until the last of the soup poured out into the first. I used the ladle to scrape out the bones which had settled and stuck to the bottom and chase out the last of the root vegetables. Crouching down, I picked out the bones from the bowl of soup dredges and transferred the roots into the bowl before taking the thick leftovers over to the men.

“So what’s for breakfast?” Darus joked quietly as I stooped down to place the bowl on the ground.

“Olives.” I stood and shrugged. “Whatever washes ashore in the storm.” I walked over to the dirty dishes area and transferred the bowls into the pot. “Excuse me, I am going to leave this outside to get rained on.” Lifting the pot, I made my way to the front door.

Words and whispers broke out behind me, the echoes finding their way to me as I walked.

“Where are those men?” the old man hissed.

“Don’t look at me,” Daus replied.

“Ari?”

“Give me a moment,” the older woman’s voice seemed to have only one volume, which is carry orders.

After the moment asked for, while I opened the front door to the blistering wind and rain, something seemed to hum within my belly. The threshold around me crackled in annoyance louder than the storm. The edges of the light house beam brightened my porch area and I could see no evidence of the second group of seven men. I put the pot under one of the drainage pipes, and it filled nearly instantly. I moved the pot beside one of the tables for tomorrow’s full cleanup.

Once back inside, I hear the whispers again, “I can see them right on the other side of this wall. There should be a door somewhere. Oceanus guide us.”

“You think the gods would move faster.”

I heard Daus get smacked hard for his comment.

“Don’t blaspheme around the priestesses, idiot.”

“This way.”

I arrive to find the lot of them moving toward the east entrance. Each of the lighthouses walls had an entrance set in the middle of its side. I had all of them barred and chocked, having just reset the front door when I came back in. And while I don’t remember the last time I used the eastern door, two grown men should make short work of it even if it had swollen shut with age. “Are you ready to sleep? I can get the guest rolls.” I stepped in the room, and the three instigators froze beside the construction area with the two others standing near the bench. “I do have another room set up for guests, but this is the only room with a fire other than the torch room and you won’t be able to sleep up there.”

The woman recovered first. “Yes, here is fine. Page, Cleo, help our hostess. Haemon and Darus can straighten up in here for your return.” She paused, perhaps for the first time remembering her manners. “If that is alright by you.”

“Of course.” I walked over to where they were and took the woman’s elbow in hand. Her arm jumped in my palm, but she suppressed her urge to jerk away. I transferred my hand to her back and pressed against her waist, guiding her back toward the center of the room. “Please be careful. I’m still repairing the lighthouse. I would recommend staying in this room for everything. I know it is only human to explore. I promise a full tour tomorrow once the sun is shining, but for your own safety as guests, please stay here. I’ll get your some nightwater containers after we get the bedrolls.” Per hospitality rules, I have stated my warning. Less politely, I palm the pouch holding her special box. The lighthouse didn’t like her using the box; the lighthouse got whatever it wanted from me. “Please, sit.” I gently tug her belt down until she sits back into my eating chair.

Walking quickly, I leave the room, the two other women hurrying to follow me. We curve around the entrance room until we reach the tile room. The two stopped, stunned. The light from the topmost room poured down the stairwell and lit up the pool room. Brilliant white and blue tile work shined with wetness. The water lapped the top step.

“You are going to need to stay here.” I stepped up to the top tier of the terraces and slipped my feet very carefully along the path. Midway through, I tossed the pouch into the pool. I figured a water god wouldn’t mind a dip, even if it was a fresh water instead of sea.

“Move quickly,” the woman ordered back in the kitchen. Shuffling feet followed.

Once safe on the other side, I looked back to see if the others could hear the echoes, but they were whispering among themselves. “Miss, we can’t let this happen, the gods—” “I can’t leave Aristrate, she owns my apprenticeship.” “But pirates Miss.”

I moved quickly to the guest area near the west door.

“They were the only ones she could hire.” “This is wrong, guest rights state—” “Shh. I promise we will get through this.”

“Why the FUCK won’t this door move?” “I saw a crowbar in the construction shit.” “Then why are you still here?” “Move it moron.”

Rats had gotten into the rolls. I picked up the two that looked the best and headed back, while listening to the men prying at the eastern door. I slung one over each arm to set on my back.

Something cracked loudly.

“Come one in. Move it your motherfuckers. Why the fuck are you just standing there? Come on!” “Wait, patience. Remember you couldn’t jump across the threshold before? The building might be more than it appears, let me have Oceanus remove the barrier.”

Was slipping across the tiled floor to where the women waited when Aristrate shirked. As with everything, the noise carried to where I was.

I guess she find that her pouch was missing.

Then…the poolroom danced with lightning centered on the underwater box, outlining a black silhouette in the pool. Webbed hands, ridged shoulders, long spikes like the poisonous fishes in the nearby reefs about obscuring the head’s outline.

Oh, my fishy roommate wasn’t going to be happy.

“Run.” I said to the women, and they followed me, ducking under the rug and into the seasoning room. We slammed the door behind us.

Screams followed. I heard them clearly. The other two only got the muffled version through the rug and door. Then Ichthys went outside into the storm. That part I didn’t hear.

I offered my surviving guests the bedrolls, which I curled in the corner with the olive branch deadfall waiting to be taken upstairs. Page helped get Cleometria ready for sleep, then unpinned her hair and laid down herself.

The morning was silent; the storm finding another shore to assault. Around me, the lighthouse creaked with its normal morning grumps. “Will it be okay for me to take our guests out to scavenge breakfast before checking the third floor?” In response, I felt the urge to check out the area need the ancient concrete pier. “Thank you.”

My two guests moved slowly, in clear pain. They had likely gotten used to sleeping in sailor hammocks, and the stone floor, even with a bedroll, had hurt. After assurance that whatever made the screams was long gone, (it wasn’t, but it would be sleeping off its feast for days) we made our way back to the pier. Tied with a ton of rope were remains of two rowboats and one intact one. Around us on the pier and along the shoreline was the remains of a sailing ship. Slipping into the ocean, I started tossing up barrels, boxes, and whatever still floated. I would dive later.

Breakfast came from a watertight box packed with apples in straw. Another box ended up being Airstrate money box, containing both the second half of the payment for the mercenary sailors and Cleometria’s apprentice contract. With the mistress dead, the spelled box responded to the apprentice. She cried when I showed her how the false bottom worked and it contained two sacred texts she needed to study to challenge the teachers to end her apprenticeship and be recognized as a journeyman.

During the next three days, they helped me clean up the kitchen and outside the eastern door. I retrieved the box from the pool while my roommate slept. The storm gifts were generous with a ship breaking apart so close to the island; we sorted through the largess, and I let the women keep whatever they wanted.

In return, when they left in the functional rowboat to head to the mainland visible from the lighthouse island, I ended up with Page’s hair pins and all the ship’s rope.

(words 4,256; first published 1/22/2026 )