The Spinning Girl Ursula blew on her fingers mechanically in time with the foot that pressed down, down, down on the pedal of the spinning wheel. The wheel hummed and the spindle rattled, whirling and wavering golden like a summer cattail in the candlelight in the tower. It was nothing like summer here. Ursula shiveredContinue reading “Advent Calendar Story: Day 2”
Category Archives: raven
Advent Calendar Story: Day 1
Hi, my name is MourningDove, and I have an Advent Calendar problem. I collect them indiscriminately–well, not completely. I don’t like the ones with chocolates. But otherwise, if it’s got 24 little doors or drawers or socks or figurines or magnets or stickers or boxes or bows, I’ll take it. I have so many adventContinue reading “Advent Calendar Story: Day 1”
I went east
I went east to meet the mountain this morning It blinked its sleepy, sunny eyes at me rubbed its rosy, stony cheeks and asked, What are you going to do today? I shrugged and said, The same thing I do every day, I guess: Try and fail Fall in love and get my heart brokenContinue reading “I went east”
Friday Favorites: Children’s Books
I’ve always collected kids’ books: I love the illustrations and the stories. I had quite the stash when I worked at a bookstore during college; then, I gave most all of them away when my friends started having babies. Now I’m in a lull–until those babies start having babies (yikes!), so I’m starting to re-accumulate.Continue reading “Friday Favorites: Children’s Books”
Amicae Usque ad Aras: Fin
Dionysia It didn’t take us long to find the Christians in Thessalonika: everyone was talking about them, how they’d been meeting in the agora for days, how every day people with lame limbs got up and danced, lepers stretched out smooth, brown fingers, blind children smiled up into their fathers’ eyes for the first time.Continue reading “Amicae Usque ad Aras: Fin”
Amicae Usque ad Aras, Part Five, Cont.
Phemonoe “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well.” It was pure habit: as Paulos gave his sermon, I split my attention in two, just as I had when I attended the Pythia at her public appearances.Continue reading “Amicae Usque ad Aras, Part Five, Cont.”
Amicae Usque ad Aras, Part Five
Dionysia I don’t remember much of the journey back to Delphi. I went to a place I hadn’t been for a long time, a place inside myself that was like a nest in a tree or on a cliff, high above everything and everyone. Down in the real world, I put on and took offContinue reading “Amicae Usque ad Aras, Part Five”
Amicae Usque ad Aras, Part Four, Cont.
Phemonoe I can’t explain it, still, after all these years, not well at least. The closest I’ve ever gotten to the words to describe what happened to me when I saw Paulos cast the daemon out of the girl are the words he used to describe his conversion to following Iesus Christos: He said theContinue reading “Amicae Usque ad Aras, Part Four, Cont.”
Amicae Usque ad Aras, Part Four
Dionysia By the time we docked at Neapolis, I felt good again–better than good. I felt things were back to the old ways. Phemonoe and I were back on the hunt. We put our merchant disguises back together for the day’s ride to Philippi, which had always sat in a strategic location at the footContinue reading “Amicae Usque ad Aras, Part Four”
Amicae Usque ad Aras: Part Three, Cont.
Phemonoe The portal opened, and Dia stumbled through it–drunk, laughing, and half-naked with the missing Pelios wrapped around her like her tablos. She looked up and saw us standing by the fire–me, the Pythia, and the Dodona guard captain–and a flock of emotions flushed from cover to fly across her face: shock, shame, hatred, lust,Continue reading “Amicae Usque ad Aras: Part Three, Cont.”
The Rookery 