Seraphina
The hammer came down. A sickening crack. Someone screamed.
Again. And again.
The sound echoed through the room until I couldn't tell if it belonged to them...or me. Blood splashed across the floor. Across my shoes. Across the white kitchen cupboards.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The hammer slipped from my hand. It struck the floor with a dull clang before spinning lazily in a widening pool of crimson. Round and around and round it goes. The smell of iron filled the room. Warm, metallic. Familiar.
Then... Silence. Not quiet but complete silence. The kind that presses against your ears until your own breathing sounds too loud. A single drop of blood rolled from the edge of the countertop.
Tick.
It landed beside the hammer.
Another lands.
Tick.
Somewhere behind me. A floorboard creaked...heavy breaths, someone’s choking, moving, trashing.
Slowly I turned
My eyes snapped open as I bolted upright, sucking in a sharp breath. Morning light spilled through the curtains. My heart hammered against my ribs for a few seconds. I simply stared at the ceiling. Waiting for the dream to decide whether it had truly let go of me. Eventually, my breathing slowed.
"So."
I rubbed a hand over my face.
"That was dramatic."
I looked at you. Yes, you. Don't look at me like that. Dreams are strange things. We all have them. Authors just sometimes dream more dramatically, characters wander in, plots wander out. Sometimes you wake up with the perfect ending to a novel.
Other times...
You wake up convinced you've accidentally committed murder before remembering you fell asleep with a crime documentary playing. Occupational hazard. Besides… Dreams are funny like that. They borrow memories, fears and ideas then stitch them together into something that makes absolutely no sense.
Usually. Mine…well mine tends to be a little more vivid. Still… It's only a dream. Isn't it? Nah, who am I kidding, it's just a dream. The clock on the bedside table glared at me.
6:02 a.m.
Of course. My body had long since accepted the fact that sleeping past six was simply not something we did anymore. Four hours, maybe five if I was lucky apparently, my brain believed unconsciousness was an unnecessary luxury.
"I hate mornings."
"You hate sleeping." Gerald groaned from somewhere in the room.
I rolled my eyes.
"I like sleeping."
"You like the idea of sleeping."
"Same thing."
"It really isn't."
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stretched until every joint complained in protest. The cottage answered with familiar creaks.
Old houses always sounded as though they were waking up with you a sigh in the hallway, a groan from the staircase, the gentle rattle of the kitchen window whenever the morning breeze wandered through.
Frank stood proudly on the dresser with his arms folded.
"You were talking again."
"I don't talk in my sleep."
"You apologised."
"To whom?"
Gerald snorted.
"The hammer."
I blinked. See, weird dreams…
"That's embarrassing."
"You also said, 'Not on the rug.'"
"I have standards."
"I'll say."
I wandered toward the bathroom, scratching absentmindedly at the back of my head. The mirror greeted me with exactly what I'd expected. Hair that appeared to have survived a small electrical incident mascara smudged beneath one eye, one sock and no memory whatsoever of removing the other one.
"Huh."
"You look like you've wrestled a raccoon."
"I won."
"The raccoon disagrees."
Coffee first, be human later. The lights clicked on with a familiar click while I padded barefoot across the kitchen.
Morning sunlight poured through the windows, bathing everything in soft gold.
Dust floated lazily through the beams. Books covered almost every available surface.
Stacks beside the couch. Stacks beneath the coffee table.
Stacks balancing somewhat irresponsibly on the windowsill.
Someone once told me I owned too many books, we don't speak anymore.
The coffee machine sputtered awake. That beautiful sound, better than birds, better than church bells and possibly better than world peace.
I leaned against the counter, mug warming my hands as the first sip chased away whatever remained of the nightmare. Much better, civilisation restored.
Frank climbed onto the fruit bowl. Or you could say I picked him up. Same thing…
"Garden day."
"I know."
"You've been ignoring the roses."
"I've been writing."
"The weeds don't care."
"They should."
"They're weeds..."
Fair point. I carried my coffee to my room, throwing open the wardrobe doors. Gardening required a very specific outfit. Something comfortable, something I wouldn't mind covering in dirt, paint, and coffee. Or all three.
Ten minutes later I reappeared wearing faded denim overalls over an oversized cream sweater, old boots I'd promised myself I'd replace three winters ago, and my favourite straw hat.
The hat wasn't necessary. It simply made me feel like someone who knew what she was doing.
I absolutely did not. Gerald looked me up and down.
"You look like you're about to host a gardening show."
"Welcome back to Digging with the crazy lady."
Frank pinched the bridge of his tiny ceramic nose.
"Please don't."
"Today we're discussing roses."
"And?"
"And why talking nicely to them definitely helps."
"It doesn't."
"You don't know that."
"I literally do."
I slipped my gardening gloves into my back pocket before reaching for the wicker basket beside the door. Pruning shears. Twine. Small trowel. Plant food. Everything exactly where it belonged. Ready. The garden was waiting. It always was.
I stepped onto the dew-kissed grass, breathing in the crisp morning air.
Mist still clung lazily to the flowerbeds, weaving itself between the roses like tiny ghosts reluctant to leave before sunrise.
Somewhere in the oak tree beyond the fence, a robin began singing as though he'd personally been hired to announce the morning.
Show off.
I slipped my gloves over my hands before reaching for my pruning shears. The familiar weight settled comfortably into my palm. There was something oddly comforting about routines.
Coffee. Garden. Write. Repeat. Most people meditate. I deadhead roses.
Tomato - Tomahto.
Lily stood near the oldest rose bush; her little watering can clutch against her chest.
"They missed you."
"I know."
"They've been sulking."
"I would too if someone ignored me for three days."
"You ignored them for four."
"Let's not be technical."
She giggled. Ceramic giggles are surprisingly cheerful. Well, if they could’ve giggled. I crouched beside the nearest rose bush, gently lifting one of the fading blooms between my fingers.
"Sorry, sweetheart."
Snip. It dropped neatly into the wicker basket.
The bush looked happier already. Gardens teach patience, not immediately.
No, nothing worthwhile ever grows immediately.
You plant something. You water it. You wait and then one morning...
There it is. Life has a funny way of rewarding the people willing to wait.
I suppose stories work the same way. People think writing begins with inspiration.
It doesn't. It begins with showing up. Even when nothing comes or every sentence feels wrong and you'd rather reorganise your spice rack than stare at another blinking cursor. You show up anyway.
Gardens don't care whether you're inspired. Neither do deadlines.
Snip. Another faded bloom disappeared into the basket.
You know...
Readers ask strange questions.
Not all of them. Most. They want to know where ideas come from.
Whether Joey is based on a real person. That one always makes me smile.
I usually tell them every character is made up of tiny pieces borrowed from real life.
A conversation overheard in a café. A woman who laughed too loudly.
The man who always bought lilies every Thursday.
Someone's habit of tapping their fingers when they're nervous.
Writers are magpies. We steal shiny little things. Not wallets.
Relax. Moments. Expressions. Secrets people accidentally leave behind. Those are far more interesting.
I trimmed another rose. Flowers don't argue when you cut them. They simply bloom again. People could learn something from that.
The truth is...
Writing horror isn't nearly as glamorous as everyone imagines.
There's no haunted attic. No mysterious typewriter.
No raven perched dramatically outside my window judging my word count.
Although... That would be rather on brand.
Mostly it's coffee. Deleting twelve pages because one sentence sounds wrong.
Then writing another twelve. Over. And over. And over again
It’s also lots and lots of research…
Fun Fact: do you know burying a body isn’t so easy…
That where you bury a body must be calculated, yes, you probably know about the “dig 10 feet, body in 5 feet dirt then a dead animal above it so that if sniffers come then they won’t notice…
” Hilarious actually. Did you know they started digging deeper if that was the case so don’t go do that… But where were we…
Oh yes,
Burying Bodies…
Different places give different human decompositions or in other words how fast the body disappears. It's quite fascinating. For instance, the earth does not merely hide secrets; it slowly, hungrily digests them, adapting its cruelty to the specific patch of ground where a body is buried .
If you bury a body in the damp shadows of a forest, the moist leaf litter acts as a welcoming bed for immediate, aggressive colonization, where blowflies and flesh flies track the scent to feast on exposed flesh while crawling root systems slowly encase the bare bones in an eternal embrace.
Awesome right?