The Land of Grimney - The Illustrated Adventures of Cora Pearl, aged 12

How about starting a chain story, written by any who happen to be passing through the wonderful world of Grimney?

The only rules are...........
Each post must be no longer that 300 words
Each post must lead on from the one before to create a uniform story
If someone feels they have written the last piece that concludes the tale in a satisfactory manner they write FINISH at the end.

How about this for a start?


Marlen sighed, was it a just punishment to be confined to the shores of Grimney lake? It was fifteen years since.........

_________________
Nydas
http://www.walkerbroad.co.uk
http://www.thesanitycompany.co.uk/

the body of her husband had been found floating face down in the still waters. The Grimney Courts had found her guilty of his murder, but in truth she knew that she had not been responsible. The cell in which she was kept overlooked the lake, and each day she gripped the bars and watched the sun fall and the moons rise over its eerie surface.

She could cope with the darkness, mostly. It was what came along with it that made her grip the bars. It was so unpredicatable. Some nights there was nothing; then night after night it came, sweeping in on the moonbeams.

_________________
http://www.missdemena.co.uk

She dare not sleep. The terror that gripped her from within as she watched it soar across the angry skies, shone through her eyes as it tore her very soul apart. She could only watch and wait. More easy to bear was this terror than the fear that would swell in her heart if she were to sit in the shadows of her cell.

And yet, within the terror was an attraction, a longing to join with the phantom, if indeed that could describe it, as it terrorised the clouds and evaporated the raindrops. To feel the air moving across her skin and to join the ever present song of despair that accompanied it's arrival and remained long after the thing had departed. What matter if she lost her soul? There was no life for her in this barren cell with a window on life and death.

_________________
Nydas
http://www.walkerbroad.co.uk
http://www.thesanitycompany.co.uk/

One dusk, just as the mist was beginning its eerie ascent from the lake, Marlen felt something change. There was a slight shift in the air, there was a new sensation in the fear that usually crept on with the dark. She dared to peep from the window, brushing her once lustrous locks of dark hair from her forehead. Nothing looked different and yet, there was definitely a change, what was it?

Marlen blinked only for a moment, her jaw fell in wonder as she gazed down on the shore of the lake opposite her prison cell window. Beauty amongst the terror, the mist and the fear. The sight that met her was beyond beautiful.................

_________________
Nydas
http://www.walkerbroad.co.uk
http://www.thesanitycompany.co.uk/

...it was poetic. Another voice joined in song with the phantom's usual lamentations of torment and woe. The voice was clear, crisp and bright. It gave the formless entity, shape and density. Within the vapours of the swirling mist Marlen saw a young boy emerge. A stream of pure light emanated from his open mouth, a physical manifestation of the one note he sang so well. Despite his diminutive frame, the boy had a valiant air. He raised one arm as if to serenade the insubstantial, unphazed by the phantom's screams of pain.
Marlen watched as ethereal arms reached down to him from the mist, to simply touch the source of such a heavenly sound. His voice set the mist in motion. It became almost opaque, gathering in a tornado of movement, swirling so violently Marlen had to close her eyes against the dust and dead leaves that flew against the bars of her cell window. When the wind died down she opened her eyes and saw that the phantom had settled into a female form and the boy had stopped singing. Her heart sank as she began to accept she would never hear anything so bewitching again, but then the boy opened his mouth once more and began to sing his song...

She felt the music slip underneath her skin like a summer breeze. The notes plucked at her mind, cascades of light blistering her minds eye. Sounds became sensations became thoughts became a path to somewhere impossible. She moved beyond the mortal, beyond herself. Subsumed in the music she moved......elsewhere.

_________________
http://www.missdemena.co.uk

Part of her felt she should fight against this invasion that strongly gripped her soul, pulling at it, ripping into it and then surrounding it with hot emotion. She dropped to her knees for a few seconds, momentarily numbed by the intensity. Then, quickly, coming to her feet, she looked out again, drinking in the beautiful sounds that her heart couldn't fight against. There seemed no end to this euphoria. She was hooked...addicted. Her head moved slowly from side to side as the hypnotic rhythm continued to absorb her thoughts, leaving her empty and bewildered.

It must have been hours later that she came to her senses again for the moon had dropped way behind the trees and dawn was rising. She was sat with her back against the wall but, reaching behind her to steady herself as she rose, it was not the cold brick that met her fingers but the warm life of wood. Spinning, Marlen saw that she was in the wood, no longer confined by her prison, the lake was no where to be seen.

_________________
Nydas
http://www.walkerbroad.co.uk
http://www.thesanitycompany.co.uk/