It’s Hump Day again and that can only mean one thing……flitting from blog to blog for a jolly good read of some amazing ‘hooks’ from equally amazing authors by clicking here.
Now, because I’ve had a particularly trying week or two, I haven’t written much of my WIP so I’ll let you read a snippet from something I wrote for my sister two years ago when I first started writing again. It is a ‘supernatural/time slip story and it is set at Pontefract Castle in South Yorkshire. It is called The Cloud of Unknowing.
Two sisters, one a history buff, are visiting the castle….a storm is brewing and one sister (not the history fan) has gone to sit in the shade to nurse an aching head. She wakes up and well…….read on;
She began to relax a little in the cooler shade cast by the lush greenery of the trees, and the soft cooing of a wood pigeon added to the air of tranquillity.
It was all very well coming to these places with Iz, and she had done it many times in the past. But following in the slipstream of her sisters enthusiasm could be trying at times, especially when A, one had a head likely to split, and B, when one had very little interest in history or old ruins, and her sister’s passion for it was all consuming at times.
Sometimes, Phil imagined Iz was on more intimate terms with the entire court of Henry the Eighth or Edward the Fourth than she was with her own family.
The cooing of the pigeon was having a hypnotic effect on her now as, eyes still closed; she began to drift into a slight doze. Her head still ached a bit, but not as sharply, and the sick feeling was passing too, thank God.
She did not know how long she had been asleep, but she was suddenly jolted into full wakefulness, as though something or someone had shaken or pushed her quite violently.
‘What the f…?’ She spoke aloud, as heart thumping; she stared around her, fully expecting to see Iz grinning down at her.
But there was not a soul to be seen.
She also noticed how eerily quiet it had become. There was not a sound, no voices of other visitors, no sound of distant traffic; even the pigeon had ceased its monotonous purring.
It was, she recounted later, as though her ears had been stuffed with cotton wool.
She also noticed that the whole area had become somehow ‘two dimensional’ and dreamlike and, even more alarming, the air around her seemed to crackle with static.
Oh God! She thought; it must be a storm brewing and I’m about to be struck by lightning. She felt the first stirrings of panic.
Get a grip, girl, she told herself now. Get away from the trees for starters. Go on GO! NOW!
But, when she tried to stand, she found to her horror that she could not move as much as a muscle. The very air seemed to be weighing her down and her first thought now was, God help me! I’m having a stroke.
