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Glass Masquerade · Original Short Story ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 2000–8000
Show rules for this event
A Woman Tearing Herself in Half




ONE


WINGS SPREAD AGAINST THE BACK OF A DEAD MAN







It is impossible not to hate the Lady Sylvia on sight.

There is arsenic in the way she speaks, bullets hidden behind her eyes that make it unsafe to look at her face. She is nineteen, and looks not a day older than thirty. She is staring at me as I sit down.

“Tea, Mister?”

The voice you just heard is that of Madeleine. She is the Lady Sylvia’s servant and, as far as I am aware, the only person who holds any kind of appreciation for that monster.

The stench coming from the Lady Sylvia is too much for the human nose. It is rotten teeth and putrid fingernails, it is a knife slashing at your wrists and crows pecking at your eyes. It hits like a shot of bourbon and a tablespoon of pepper.

My eyes are watery, and my mouth feels doughy. I am forced to wear my handkerchief around my face. It makes me look malicious, like a bandit waiting gun in hand on the side of the road. That is the reason my voice sounds muffled when I reply:

“No. Thank you.”

Then, immediately after Madeleine leaves, the Lady Sylvia asks:

“Why are you here?”

The Lady Sylvia has a face that says many things, none pleasant, and it says them all at once. In that moment I do feel like a bandit, and I lament the lack of a gun in my hand. I do not know what would have happened, had I had one with me at the moment. I suspect only one person would have left the room.

I explain what I am here to do, as I look at my notes. I try to stay neutral. You can hear the rustling of the book while I read. “Lady Sylvia. On the Thirteenth of March, Jonathan Gard was found dead at the Cathedral.”

“Yes.”

“Father Harrison confessed under oath that you are the one who solicited that the Cathedral be emptied that day. That you were the only one inside, when Jonathan Gard went in. That you are the only one who left.”

“Father Harrison is mistaken.”

“Is he?”

“Yes. Madeleine was there too.”

She speaks not with wit, but rather with bulbous idiocy, a repugnant refusal to acknowledge the point. I have seen pictures of Jonathan Gard’s body by the time we have this interview, and I wish I could snap her neck in two.

You can hear me scribble down. “I see. What happened at the Cathedral, Lady Sylvia?”

The Lady Sylvia’s expression is blood on a snowy field, and it stinks of alcohol and gasoline. It is fangs that eat your heart. It is wings spread against the back of a dead man. “What happened is that Jonathan Gard came into the Cathedral, and we prayed to God.”

“And then?”

“And then we found out God is not merciful.”






TWO



JUDGE OUR WORDS AS WELL AS OUR ACTIONS







The Cathedral is bathed in gold. The light that comes through the centuries-old windows is dusty and oak-scented, and it feels like a punch in the gut. The religious paintings on the walls speak of glory and sweet blood wine, and the angels all look down on those who kneel to pray.

The saints, though, they look up.

They’re still human after all.

The voice you are going to hear now is that of Father Harrison. He is young and handsome, and has stains of lipstick on his wrist, but he speaks with faith and rapturous delight. I am interviewing him near the altar, where the angels can judge our words as well as our actions.

“The Lady Sylvia is anathema to this town. She is God’s mistake, or God’s punishment. I can’t tell which. I wish she could burn, so we could do something to her corpse once she dies.”

This is not the first time I speak to Father Harrison. He is pleasant to me, has warmed to my presence. When he speaks, he looks to me as a friend, fiddling with the rosary he holds in his right hand.

“She killed him. I know that much. She blew Jonathan’s head off.”

He asks me if I mind if he smokes, and I say no. He drags from a long cigarette, which he holds like a lady.

“Did you talk to her?”

“I did.” I am not looking at my notes this time. I trust Father Harrison; by the time I leave this town, I will still consider him my only friend. “She said you lied.”

“Did she, now?”

“Madeleine was here too, in the Cathedral, when Jonathan Gard died.”

Father Harrison’s knuckles turn white, and he fiddles more with his rosary. He takes another drag, and the smoke smells like green apples. “She is not allowed here. I did not see her enter.”

“Madeleine?”

“Yes.”

“Who is she?”

“I wish I did not know.” Father Harrison hugs me around the shoulders, and we pace together around the altar. “She is the Lady Sylvia’s servant, and has been since she was born. I do not know if she is human. I fear she might be.”

“Is that better than the alternative?”

“Animals follow their nature. Humans act on their will. I pity the Lady Sylvia for what she is, the same way I pity the sheep eaten by the lion. But Madeleine? Madeleine is capable of sin.”

Father Harrison takes a moment before continuing, focusing on his cigarette, licking the lipstick on his wrists.

I am forced to interrupt him; I have an appointment. “You pity the Lady Sylvia?”

“As much as I can. She is not human, but she wishes she were. That is deserving of pity, I believe, if anything. Have you noticed her stench?”

I tell him I did. I admit that I had to wear a handkerchief over my face while talking to her so that I could breathe, even though I promised I would not, when Madeleine asked me before the meeting. I tell Father Harrison that I tried to apologize, but they wouldn’t let me.

Father Harrison is understanding, and unsurprised. “They revel in their own hatred. They treasure insults, like you or I may treasure memories. It is how they measure the passage of time.”

“Madeleine was not wearing anything. She breathed just fine.”

Father Harrison shrugs. In his eyes I can see a prayer. “Love knows no bounds.” He finishes his cigarette and throws it to the floor, where it burns bright against the white tiles until he smothers it with his shoe. “She has served the Lady Sylvia since they were both five years of age, she feels nothing but adoration for the demon. I assume she is used to breathing poison by now.”

“I don’t know if it’s possible to get used to it.”

“Me neither. That is why sometimes I tell myself she can’t be a human.” Father Harrison hugs himself, and looks up. The golden light makes him look endless. “A vain hope, I suppose.”

“Do you think it was her, then, who killed Jonathan Gard? Madeleine?”

“It’s possible. I did not see her enter, I did not lie there. But if she was here, she did it. She would do anything for the Lady Sylvia.” Father Harrison looks back at me. “What did you do to that handkerchief?”

“The one I wore?”

“Yes.”

“I burned it. Doctor Harley told me to.”

Father Harrison nods, and sucks the lipstick on his wrists once more. “Good. The stench was never going to leave. That is why I wish the Lady could burn, too. I do not know what we will do, when she dies. I suppose we’ll simply leave town.”

“Why would they want to kill Jonathan?”

“Did she not tell you?” Father Harrison replies instead. His voice is soft. “Did you not ask?”

I did. I tell Father Harrison what the Lady Sylvia said, about looking at God’s face, and Father Harrison laughs a laughter that makes his fangs look longer, and his hands look like claws.

Then he tells me:

“Jonathan Gard was a fool. He came from the farm at the other side of town, and had not a penny to his name. He used to wear his father’s wedding suit, and it looked miserable. He would go to the Lady’s house. And you know what?”

“What?”

“He did not wear a handkerchief. He could breathe around her just fine. Such are the things we do for love. That is why they killed him.”

I leave Father Harrison’s side; I have an appointment, and I can’t be late. I promise I will write, and I know he will write back.

But before I can disappear, I ask one last question.

“Do you hate the Lady Sylvia?”

There is no hesitation in his face when he replies.

“Yes.”

“How can you pity and hate at the same time?”

“Because I know she does not have a will. I know she did not choose to be a scar on the face of Creation, and I pity her existence, because I know she suffers, almost just like us. I know hatred is undeserved.”

“But?”

“But, my Lord have mercy on my soul.” He smiles, and the lipstick has tainted his teeth red. “I am only human.”






THREE



LIKE COURTING A FLAME, LIKE THROWING SALT AT A WOUND








Doctor Beatrice Harley moves out of spite, as if her blood were mercury. She does not look at you when talking, as if she was always asking you to leave. Her face is hidden under a plague doctor’s mask; this is her one and only pleasantry.

“Fuck that child. And fuck her manor. We should set them both alight.”

“Father Harrison told me she does not burn.”

“I know. I am the one who found that out.”

We are talking at Doctor Harley’s clinic. It’s a tight space, stinks of kerosene and sick breath. The plague doctor’s mask does not muffle Doctor Harley’s voice; it is hollow, and it carries sound well.

It’s not the first time we meet, but it will be the last. This time, I ask about the Lady Sylvia, and she answers.

“A wolf seduced a maiden, and so the Lady Sylvia was born. Her mother died of the plague, and the Lady carved her way out of the womb. She ate rats as a toddler, and if you strike she does not bleed. She came out of the river, one stormy night. Maybe she grew from the tree by her manor, like a sick apple.”

“Are any of those true?”

“Fuck if I know. Maybe all of them are. She does not burn. She does bleed, I know that. Her servant, that tall girl?”

“Madeleine?”

Doctor Harley nods. It is one of the very few times I will see her make any gesture whatsoever. “Human. Father Harrison entertains other thoughts, but he’s an idiot.”

“I found him to be pleasant.”

“Then you’re an idiot, too.”

Speaking to Doctor Harley is not easy. Her eyes are invisible behind her mask. Her hands are laced together atop her desk. I look at them during the interview. It is easier than anything else.

“How can nobody know where the Lady Sylvia came from?”

“The manor has been there forever. The Lady Sylvia just popped out of nowhere, one day. Ask Victor Monte, he will know. Are we done?”

“No. What can you tell me of Jonathan Gard?”

“He disgraced the Lady Sylvia.”

“What?”

“It is what she told me. The servant girl, she came here and made me go to the manor. I had to examine that monster, as if it were a fucking human—and she is not. She looks the part, but that is all.”

Doctor Harley sounds like steel bending, like a needle scratching fabric. So I ask: “For example?”

“She bleeds black. She does not have toes. She does not burn when set alight. And the stench, of course. Did you burn the handkerchief?”

“I did.”

“Good. Jonathan Gard did not wear one, and that was his demise. The servant girl, she kept asking if the Lady Sylvia was healthy still, if I could do something to help. Piss on them for taking advantage of my integrity; I did my fucking job.”

“What did they want?”

Another gesture: Doctor Harley moves her head slightly, tilting it to the side. She cannot show a frown under the mask, but I can feel it in her voice when she answers.

“I told you. He disgraced her. Madeleine wanted to know if the Lady was pregnant, if there was anything I could do to her.”

It’s getting dark outside, and the last rays of sunlight enter the clinic and die in the sterile air. There are no lamps inside; if Doctor Harley is caught working after sunset, she will sit in the dark.

I do not know what would be harder to guess: if she would mind, or if she would notice.

“I should have stuck an iron rod up her groin and ended it there.” She spits these words, and I fear the plague doctor’s mask might rot and fall right there. “But the servant girl would have killed me.”

“Would she?”

“She had a gun. She thought I could not see it, but I see everything.”

I believe this.

“So I just gave her the treatment. There are herbs, moonlight petals…” The voice of Doctor Harley drifts away, and I let it go. “She bled, and it was black, and that was it. She is not going to bear child any time soon. Next day, Jonathan Gard was dead, and nobody cried.”

“Did Jonathan Gard force himself on her? Is that why they—?”

“No. You cannot force yourself into the Lady Sylvia. She has ways to defend herself.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I did not find signs of violence either. Whatever happened, it was consensual. Much to the servant girl’s distaste.”

You can hear me writing everything down in the recording, to buy time. I did not know what Doctor Harley just told me. If Father Harrison did, he hid it from me, but I do not blame him for the courtesy.

To lay with the Lady Sylvia would be like courting a flame, like throwing salt at a wound. To picture her face, her teeth, close to flesh. To picture her dress falling down, her legs welcoming the touch of another.

The thought alone screams against my own mind, bangs its fist against the inside of my eyes. To confront this fact, to observe the aftermath up-close, would be maddening.

The plague doctor’s mask makes sense, now.

I do not hate Doctor Harvey anymore.

When I change the topic, I do it out of necessity. “You were the one who examined Jonathan Gard’s body after it was found?”

“Yes.”

“How did he die?”

“They blew his fucking face off. The bullet entered from the chin and went out of the top of his head. Whoever shot him, they shot from the hip.”

“Is that shot even possible? From the hip, aiming up, all the way to the head?”

“If you are good enough. Anything else?”

“Yes.” I feel Doctor Harley’s distaste from my seat, it’s like bitter tea on the tongue, but I keep talking. “You said you cannot force yourself on the Lady Sylvia?”

“You have seen her. You tell me.”

I agree with Doctor Harley. “But you said you tried to set her alight?”

“Yes.”

“How did you manage that?”

“She begged me. It didn’t work. You may leave now.”






FOUR



THE ONLY THING THE HEART REMEMBERS








Victor Monte grins without teeth and his cane is made out of stone. He shakes like he’s dancing and refuses to sit down. His house sits atop a hill, far away from the Lady’s manor. His eyes are glassy, but his gaze is piercing.

“The Lady Sylvia is not human, but she was not sired by a wolf.”

His voice reflects his age, but he is perfectly understandable.

“Doctor Harvey told me about that. She also said the Lady Sylvia came from the womb of a dead woman, or maybe grew out of a tree.”

“Yes, yes. I am aware of those tales. But that is not true either.”

“How come nobody knows where she came from?”

“Because the Lady Sylvia carries death.”

Victor Monte is walking me around the town, aimlessly. The only light comes from the lamp I carry; candlelight dances in his eyes and I believe, for a moment, that he is blind.

“Is that why nobody remembers her?”

“Nobody remembers her because nobody was here when she came. Nobody but me.” Victor Monte pats my arm. “They all passed away, they just left me behind. The Lady Sylvia forgot about me. One day, I think, she may remember, and then I will leave too.”

“…Everybody died?”

“Father Harrison came to town ten years ago. Doctor Harvey has only been working here for three, but she does not have the Father’s faith, and she is already breaking. I’m the only one who has anything to remember in the first place.”

You can hear in the recording how I stop, how I make Victor Monte sit down on a nearby rock so I can look through my notes. You can hear how I read through them.

You can hear the confusion in my voice.

“Nobody told me about this.”

“It is hard to count time around the Lady Sylvia. She clouds one’s mind with her poison, she makes hours feel like years, and minutes feel like seconds. Father Harrison does not lie when he says they count insults to mark the days. It is the only thing the heart remembers.”

“So the town is… Everybody came after the Lady? And still decided to stay?”

“Because she stays in her manor, and life is easier when there is something to hate.”

Victor Monte signals me to help him up. I am forced to put away my notes and obey; his eyes won’t take a no for an answer.

Once we are walking again, he talks once more.

“The Lady Sylvia,” he says, “is not the first, but she might be the last. Her kind used to roam the Earth long ago, and they had many names. Some called them monsters, some called them demons. Doctor Harvey would call them the plague. All of them are right.”

“So what is she?”

“A carrier of death. A beast. A scar in the face of Creation, or God’s punishment, or God’s mistake. All at one.”

“Yes, but… Where did she come from? What is her origin?”

Victor Monte takes a moment to reply.

“Sometimes children are born wrong. They bleed black, or do not cry. Sometimes the parents were born wrong in their turn, and the child inherited the worst out of both. Did you know the Lady Sylvia asked Doctor Harvey to burn her to death?”

“I was aware.”

“That is because burning them used to work. We called them witches, when I was younger. But if life moves on, so does death.”

We have walked all the way up to the manor, now. We are lighted by candles, but the manor has its own light. It’s white, and sickening. Dark mist pours out of the windows, as if the stench of the Lady had taken a physical form. Grotesque and captivating, like an open wound festering with maggots.

When I look at Victor Monte again, he is offering me a handkerchief. I do not take it. Instead, I ask.

“What about Madeleine? The servant?”

Victor Monte shakes his head. “Love is strange. She is human. The Lady Sylvia has forgiven her; why, I do not know. She was there when the Lady was but a child, and they took care of each other.”

“The Lady took care of Madeleine?”

“The Lady Sylvia is the only thing Madeleine has. I do not know if the Lady Sylvia can understand love, not like we do. But I know that she looks like a human, that she talks like a human. She lives in a human house and moves like a human girl. She does not need to do any of those things. It is merely a mask she wears.”

I think back of the Lady, of her teeth, of her eyes. “It is not very convincing.”

“It is a mask made out of glass. The point is not that it hides who you are. The point is that you are wearing it.” Victor Monte is still offering me the handkerchief. I am still not taking it. “She did not choose to be born a witch.”

“And Madeleine plays into that?”

“Madeleine loves the Lady, and the Lady knows this. The Lady does not love her back, even though a human would, but she can pretend. Or try to pretend.”

“And Jonathan Gard…?”

“I can only guess so much. You should ask them about this.”

I hesitate. I can see the dark mist pouring out of the manor’s window. I can remember the stench of the Lady. I do not wish to go back.

But I take the handkerchief Victor Monte is offering me.






FIVE



ONLY HUMANS ARE CAPABLE OF SIN








Madeleine has hair of sugar and diamonds, and she wears no handkerchief over her mouth. There is sawdust in her voice and hot ice in her chest. She is nineteen, and looks not a day older than twelve.

She is snarling, and holding a gun. She points from the hip but aims up, straight towards my head.

I am wearing a handkerchief, and raising my hands above my head. I have no time to speak before Madeleine speaks.

“What do you want?”

“I am here just to investigate. I’ll ask some questions, and then I’ll leave.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I search for the truth. Nothing else. I will not harm the Lady Sylvia once this is over. I don’t think I could, even if I tried.”

The stench is killing me. The Lady Sylvia must be next door. I can see Madeleine taking a deep breath, and the sight alone is enough to make me nauseous.

“I know you killed Jonathan Gard at the Cathedral. Everybody knows. But we’re not going to do anything. The Lady Sylvia won’t burn even if we try.”

You can hear the alarm in Madeleine’s voice when she speaks next. She does not lower her gun at any point.

“How do you know that?”

“She asked Doctor Harvey to try to—”

When?

I have to answer the truth. “I… do not know. I think their perception of time has been affected. I myself don’t know how long I’ve been here.”

There is a pause. Madeleine is looking at me for a while before she replies.

“A week.”

“I thought it had been a day.”

“It has been a week.”

“Do you know why the Lady asked Doctor Harvey to try to burn her?”

“I…”

“I know she’s a witch. I know she is… wearing a mask. But… why did Jonathan Gard have to die? What did he do?”

“He disgraced the Lady Sylvia.”

“What does that mean?”

Once again, Madeleine says nothing for a while, and simply looks at me.

But then, she lowers her gun, and her gaze, and all I can see is her hair made out sugar and diamonds covering her face.

“The Lady does not love me. I know that much. She tries, but she cannot comprehend what it feels like. Only humans are capable of sin. But I am a woman. The Lady Sylvia hoped that might be the reason.”

“Is she capable of hope?”

I can feel the venom in Madeleine’s voice when she replies. I can sense that she wants to shoot at me for that—but she does not point her gun at me once more.

She says:

“She is capable of longing.”

As if that were enough.

I have to push her. “And then, Jonathan Gard…?”

“He was a fool. He could see past the mist, and the poison, and her teeth. I do not know if he fell in love for real; I fear he did. The Lady Sylvia thought laying with him might be her last chance.”

“Her last chance to what?”

“To try to feel something other than longing.”

“And it did not work.”

Madeleine looks at me. “Jonathan Gard had his fun, and then he left. The Lady Sylvia felt nothing. Nothing. She is not capable of love, no matter how hard she tries.”

We stay in silence. Slowly, I lower my arms. I get the feeling I am not going to get shot after all.

Madeleine speaks again.

“It broke her heart.”

“So you killed him.”

“He took the last thing she had. He took her hope, and he—” Madeleine visibly chokes. She needs to rub her neck to speak again. “He touched her.”

I push the thought out of my mind. With the Lady Sylvia so close to me, with the stench around me, I would not be able to survive it. “Who decided he had to die?”

“We did it together. I sneaked into the Cathedral so that the Lady Sylvia would not have to do it herself.”

I will forever remember this moment.

I will never stop asking myself if this is my fault.

“Do you…?” I start, then I stop, then I start again. “Do you think the Lady Sylvia asked Doctor Harvey to burn her after she laid with Jonathan Gard, or after you killed him?”

The clatter you can hear in the recording is the gun falling from Madeleine’s hand.

“What?”

“I…” I wish I could look through my notes, but I can’t. I need to rely on my memory. “Victor Monte told me that the Lady Sylvia does not understand love, not like us. But maybe she understands it in a different way. You said she can feel longing. Maybe, once Jonathan Gard was dead, she realized she could…”

I am not able to finish this. I lack words to describe the way Madeleine looks at me. In that moment, I would believe she carved her way out of the womb of a dead woman.

“I tried to ask Doctor Harvey.” I’m stuttering, I talk too fast. I’m afraid. I keep talking. “But time is—she can’t quite tell. I think, if we ask the Lady Sylvia, she might be able to—”

“Leave.”

Just one word, but it is wrapped in finality. Madeleine does not reach for her gun. She does not need to.

“Leave now.”

“I—”

“Please. If—if she loves that man, even after death, I…”

The recording is completely silent for the next three seconds.

“Please. I need to be alone.”

I leave.






END


A WOMAN TEARING HERSELF IN HALF







I flee the town, not bothering to say goodbye to Father Harrison. I will send him a letter later, and he will say he understands. I turn off my recorder.

I have not returned to the town yet; I doubt I’ll ever do. The death of Jonathan Gard was written down as an accident, and nobody but me ever came down to investigate. The Lady Sylvia was left alone.

As I was leaving town, I could hear a scream coming from the manor. It was undoubtedly Madeleine’s voice; I wish I had not turned off my recorded. It was the howl of a woman tearing herself in half, the screech of the sun dying every sunset. It was wood being split by lightning, and silk being torn to shreds.

Next, a gunshot followed, and the screaming was no more.

Father Harrison writes me in his letters that the Lady Sylvia lives alone now. Sometimes, at night, when the guilt won’t let me sleep, I idly wonder if she has learned to love Madeleine, now that she is not with her anymore.
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#1 · 1
· · >>Pascoite >>Aragon
Let me make this clear from the get-go: I do not like this story. At all. But in the interests of useful feedback and constructive criticism, I'm going to set that aside because subjective experience like that won't mean a lot to you when it comes to future writing. At the very least, I'll try to be usefully constructive in my technical response here.

First of all, the general structure: I'm fine with subdividing it into chapters, and the mystery element works well. A little too well, perhaps: the red herrings and constant reiteration of certain points does make it harder to piece together if you're reading casually, though they do serve to give the story some realism and it helps to add to the mystique when there are multiple choices and ambiguities. Plus the unreliable narrator aspect makes it compelling on top of the seedy nature of the whole dark business, so tone fits style fits content well here. Although it feels a bit slow to get going after the first thousand words, it picks up again with the last two chapters, so pacing is largely well done.

Second of all, the characters. It took a while to realize that the descriptions in the first two chapters weren't some excessive hyperbole but an actual sign of some supernatural shenanigans going on. "Lady Sylvia" and how horrible she is feels like it dominates the story a little too much; yeah, she's the central figure in the backstory, but Madeleine and Jonathan Gard are the more interesting characters, if only because of their bizarre association with this creepy demon. Given that this is a demonic entity, it's good to get a religious figure commenting in the second chapter. The other characters were fine and serviceable to the story, fulfilling their roles. Obviously, this is about the demon et al, so they don't need to snatch the spotlight, though I will confess to a bit of confusion involving lipstick on the Father Harrison's wrists.

Plotwise, I think I got the gist by the end: Madeleine and Gard both loved or sought to love "Lady Sylvia", though it seems to me Madeleine had the bigger stake, given their intertwined backstory. "Sylvia" wants to be human, tries to conceive with Gard, fails, tries to commit suicide, and then I presume really has him killed for the same reason she later has Madeleine killed; as an alternative way to try to get that love through grief and loss. For Madeleine, there's also a sort of disgusted jealous protectiveness which motivates her to kill Gard and later threaten the investigator.

It's not my cup of tea, feeling a bit like OTT gothic melodrama, but I'll concede that what it sets out to do, it does with wild success. Helping greatly is the prose, which while also a bit OTT at times, especially its repeated emphasis on showing just how alien and unpleasant "Lady Sylvia" is, at least sets up the ideal visceral, creepy tone required for such a story. Kinda like if Lovecraftian horror had wrapped its tentacles around a classic English murder mystery.

I will, though, complain about the second-person interjections. They not only don't feel necessary to tell the story - pure first-person would have done the job elegantly - but set up an "I'm talking to you" framing device I felt was at odds with the decision to split it up into chapters like a traditional book. You don't split a conversation or interview into chapters, certainly not when the overall tale's this short. And there's a gamble in depicting a character as so foul while simultaneously acting like the reader is an involved party to all this unpleasantness. The effect is more to jar the reader out of the experience, especially if - in my case - they're having a hard enough time as it is getting into said experience. Perhaps a more detached third-person tone would help to make the horror stand out too.

Also, it took a while for me to realize that no one in the story was surprised by this supernatural entity (disgusted, yes, but they seem ready to expect and explain it), so it took a while to realize the author in the first chapter wasn't just being OTT with their description. Maybe if they'd mentioned that supernatural things really exist early on, I'd have adjusted faster.

Overall, one or two hiccups aside here and there, the presentation and execution certainly seem professional enough and solid enough. I predict this one will do quite well. But given my own opinion on it, odds are I'm gonna abstain, so at least hopefully you'll get something useful out of this comment, if nothing else.
#2 ·
· · >>Aragon
There is arsenic in the way she speaks

I don't expect you to know this, but it's also a way of saying she has garlic breath. :)

The voice you just heard is that of Madeleine.

For the same reason I dinged "Two on a Raft," I'll say that if you're going to include me as an acknowledged audience, I need to know what my role is, why I'm there, why this narrator wants me there, etc. Without that, it actually has the opposite effect, creating a distance between me and the story that you're attempting to reduce through the effect. So far, it's not working.

I explain what I am here to do

This one's more of a temporal disconnect. He says this, then he goes on to the actual explanation (the redundancy of which is another problem), but it takes him a few sentences to get there. So he tells me he's doing it, but he's not. Until later.

I like all the imagery you're using, but it gets to be a bit much. When you use two or three metaphors for the same thing, and the metaphors aren't really complementary, it does create a jumbled feel, a sense that something is hard to describe, yet that also makes the imagery more distant for me, like it's simultaneously precise and vague. And there are times that's a good effect to go for. I just don't think it's a good effect to pound relentlessly, because it keeps me from connecting to the story as well. Maybe it's just because I'm not the kind of reader who really tries to dig into these and see how they feel, but if I did, that means I'm continually pausing in my reading, and that's not necessarily a good thing either.

The short version is that you might have too much of a good thing here, but that will vary by reader. If the majority of reviews are telling you that, you might have a problem. It's very literary and very well done, but a little restraint could help.

The only other issue that might cause is that you're using a first-person narrator. That means this narrator is the one choosing to describe things this way. And this is very fancy language for a regular Joe to be using. I don't know anything about him yet. I don't know if this narrative style matches his personality. It may be a poor fit for him. I think it'd improve things if you let this first scene delve more into his character so that I get a sense of what he's like and if this language is appropriate for him. The situation as well--he's investigating a crime, at least I assume so thus far, and in a way this works for that, and in a way it doesn't. The way it does is that it makes him look very observant, a good trait in an investigator. The way it doesn't is that he should be turning over the particulars of the case in his mind. In other words, his attention isn't going to be on crafting flowery language. The present tense exacerbates this. It puts me in the moment with him, precisely where his attention shouldn't be on purpling up the narration. In past tense, it would create more of a sense that he's telling this after the fact, once he's had time to reflect on it and ham it up.

by the time I leave this town, I will still consider him my only friend

This I don't get. It suggests a lot of background, both about the narrator and his time here, but then never even hints at what any of it is. It leaves me more mystified than making a connection. Maybe this is the narrator editorializing after the fact, but there's nothing in the story to this point to set up your framing device, so it makes it sound like a prediction.

You have this effect where you're in the middle of a conversation, then you summarize part of it. That obviously wasn't necessary to come in under word count, but perhaps it was to meet the deadline? I can't say it's a bad thing, necessarily. For me, it's pretty neutral, but it does strike me as an odd choice. I suppose it's a way of skipping the mundane parts of a conversation, except by the subject matter reportedly covered, it's not actually mundane.

I'm kind of doing a more stream-of-consciousness review here, where I record my impressions as I read, so things I wonder about may get explained later on, and I may or may not come back to edit the review accordingly.

Madeleine was described to sound much younger than Sylvia, yet by appearance, they look very different ages, or at least it seemed so to me. "Mister" is a fairly childlike way of addressing someone, after all. That's an interesting effect. When the narrator says Madeleine wore nothing, I realize he hadn't described her clothing, so I don't know if he only meant her lack of a breathing mask.

I can't imagine how Sylvia could have ordered the cathedral empty. Why would Harrison obey her?

I don't understand the meaning of the lipstick at all, but there are a couple of explanations nipping at me. Maybe he had some on and got it on his wrists while smoking? He is described as holding it in an effeminate way. I'm starting to think this is kind of an "Exorcist" situation going on, and perhaps Harrison and Sylvia are the same, or at least inhabit the same body. [Edit: and that ends up not being the case, so I never understood this.]


I suppose we’ll simply leave town.

What's keeping them there? Him, I could possibly see, but everyone?

Doctor Beatrice Harley moves out of spite, as if her blood were mercury.

You went a whole scene without being so purple, but we're back to it. At least it's a quick hit, but it's one that's indecipherable to me. I have no idea what mercury would have to do with spite. An allusion to "mercurial" might evoke a shifting whim, but that's not spite.

Doctor Harvey

Is this just a typo? Or is the name change supposed to mean something to me?

You can hear in the recording how I stop

It took an awful long time to establish who the audience is. You really ought to lay this out as early as possible. It does introduce new questions, especially about the purple language. Is he self-narrating all this on the recording? Or is he saying it "live" to someone listening to it with him? Or in a written supplement to the recording? In any of those cases, I still don't see the purpose in him being so purple. Except one, and we'll see if you go there.

All at one.

Seems like you meant "once" there.

made out sugar and diamonds

Missing word.

I doubt I’ll ever do

I wish I had not turned off my recorded

Yeah, these typos cropping up near the end lead me to believe you were running up against the deadline.

At the end now. Okay, the only thing left that I never understood was the lipstick. My best guess, and this is a real stretch, is that you were saying he was breaking his vows and didn't really care to hide it, but that would be kind of a throwaway thing. At first, I thought the narrator was mistaking blood for lipstick, particularly after he mentioned Harrison's "fangs." There's a cool mystery here, with a sympathetic eye toward two initially hateful characters. The plot arc is well done. My only objections are ones I've voiced before, but since they didn't get cleared up, I'll reiterate.

There's an explicit audience for the narrator, but it's never defined what, or the medium through which it's being delivered, which leaves your choice of how to tell the story feeling incomplete. It also leaves questions about how much sense it makes for the narrator to wax poetic about his experiences. This puts me in a mind of Lovecraft, where his narrators speak in very fancy language about terrible things, but they're always given a purpose in doing so, usually in that they're recording their experiences in the hopes that they can warn people or prevent further bad things from happening. I don't see that purpose here. I don't know why this narrator is telling this story in this way. My immediate assumption is that he's filling out a police report or some such, but it sure doesn't sound like one. Plus I never got to know the narrator. I couldn't tell you one thing about his personality.

The thing is, that's not even a hard problem to remedy. Is this a written record? For whose use? Or is he talking to someone? Who, then, and why? And why does it make sense to present it in chapters? All this is really the story's big flaw to me, but I don't know that it'll knock it down my ballot much, if any.

I differed from >>BlueChameleonVI in my interpretation of the ending, but I could see either one being valid. He thinks that Sylvia ordered Jonathan to be killed because of her failure to feel anything for him, and then when she actually did feel something about his death, she went for that experience again by killing Madeleine. My interpretation is that Sylvia ordered Jonathan's death because she failed to feel anything for him, but then she realized she did afterward, and it made her even more upset. Madeleine didn't realize this, but once she did come to the conclusion that Sylvia actually had fallen in love with Jonathan, and the related conclusion that she had now deprived Sylvia of that one source of true feeling she'd ever had, Madeleine couldn't take it anymore and killed herself. Though if both are true in part, perhaps Madeleine's death, even at her own hand, will give Sylvia the emotion she longs for.

Once you go from part 3 to part 4, Doctor Harley becomes Doctor Harvey, and I never figured out why. Just a mistake? Maybe her name is Harley Harvey, and the narrator backs off his sense of familiarity, going from the first name to the last? Nah, you said her name was Beatrice. Maiden name, then? In the warped perception of time, she got married or divorced or... yeah, gotta be a mistake.
#3 · 2
· · >>Aragon
Also, I found a few of the names delightfully ironic. Victor, as in "winner," and Beatrice = "blessed," at least by association, though the true root means "traveller." Monte has to do with mountains, while he's a stooped, slight man. Madeleine derives from Magdalene. Sylvia derives from "forest," which wouldn't seem to apply, but it also occurred as Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus and Remus, who founded an empire, and she's kind of in control of the town, but at the opposite end: she's the last of her kind, or so Harrison says. Harrison branches a couple different ways, but all refer to some sort of ruler, one of them in a military sense, though this one differs in that it's his last name. Everyone's name is quite the opposite of what they are, though in a twisted way, Madeleine may actually fulfill the function of hers, if not on the good side.
#4 · 3
· · >>Pascoite >>Aragon
I quite enjoyed:

All the nutty metaphors. 'Cause that's what hard-boiled detective novels're s'pposed to have, right? I also wasn't bothered by the narrator addressing his audience directly. I got the impression that he was playing the tape recording he made during the investigation and telling a listener the rest of the details as the tape goes along.

But I didn't get the significance of the lipstick, either, and given the story's ending and given that he's telling someone about the events after they've happened, why does he use the present tense at the beginning when describing Madeleine? Other than that, though--and straightening out the doctor's name and the spelling errors here and there--I'd say this is ready to submit to some short story market.

Mike
#5 ·
·
>>Baal Bunny
See, even if he is describing it to someone listening to the tape with him, it's not really formatted like that. Is he actually speaking the narration to the person with him? Or was it a "note to self" thing that's also on the recording? If so, is he pausing the recording to fit all this discussion in, or does it miraculously line up? When's he saying the dialogue tags? Is he interjecting them for the listener's benefit? Did he say them on the recording? And what's the purpose of chapters in that context? What's the point of being so purple? It certainly could work as him sharing the recording with someone, but I'd still want to know who and why, and parts of the format aren't really consistent with that.
#6 · 1
·
I think anything I would have said has already been addressed. I'll just say that I enjoyed this story, and it should be reworked into a story that the wider public gets an opportunity to read.
#7 · 2
· · >>Pascoite
Tara-taaaa.

So yeah this one was mine, and that was kind of obvious according to Cassius! Who also guessed me for No I'm Fine! So yeah, not that obvious, no matter what y'all say in the Writeoff Discord. Y'all more full of shit than me, AND THAT'S SAYING SOMETHING.

Anyway yeah no love this story. I was juggling two different stories for this prompt, because the whole thing about the glass mask ("It is a mask made out of glass. The point is not that it hides who you are. The point is that you are wearing it") made me think of an interpersonal drama sorta thing? But the whole idea also sounded gothic to me, and I'd been toying with writing something in that vein for a while.

So at like, 2am of the last day, I went 'aah fuck it just write both at the same time'. Bam. Seeing how I was going experimental already, I just threw everything at the story I'd been meaning to do for a while -- experiment with the narrative purposes of a chapter, as well as the aesthetic ones, this particular brand of perspective and framing device, a more extreme version of the "describe how things feel rather than how things look" thing... Just, just do everything at one. Fuck it.

Yeah this story is me firing on all cilinders and just having as much fun as possible. I genuinely like the story, though. I think it has heart! I'll keep working on it a bit and I might try to do something with it, because no kidding -- love it.

>>BlueChameleonVI >>Pascoite

Yeah, nobody liked this story. A lot of people in the Writeoff discord went 'oh god I hate this shit, it's my #1 but I don't like it'. CALL IT QUALITY.

I'm a bit surprised at how the ending wasn't clear? Pascoite got it right; Madeleine killed herself. Both because of the guilt of taking the only love Sylvia ever knew, and because that way, as the narrator says -- hey, maybe Sylvia will love her too. Fun for all the family.

That said -- the 'second person injections' were pretty much what >>Baal Bunny said. I wrote this while picturing simply a recording, and there's a voiceover of the main character now and then to gloss over the bits that take too long or are unneeded. I had a couple podcasts in mind while doing this; establishing that it's a recording a bit harder at the start would maybe make it clearer?

There are no dialogue tags per se, if you pick it up. There's never a "blahblah," Father Harrison says. There are injections, as in, the narrator interrupts dialogue to add a bit that is not seen in the recording -- mainly thoughts about who's talking or descriptions of body language.

(For the record -- I don't think "this should not be split into chapters because interviews aren't split into chapters" is totally fair? Seen a shitton of those, my man.)

Harley turning into Harvey is just me not knowing how to write -- that much is obvious I guess. Bleh.

Also like, the fucking lipstick. Which nobody got! And that's totally my fault. After posting it I picked up the main reason, I think? It was meant to be just another bit of surreal imagery. It's got no real plot significance, it's merely descriptive, to add to the air of weirdness. I mean, it has meaning, mind you, but it's all symbolic and shit?

Problem is, this is the only time the surreal imagery happens in-story, instead of being merely part of the narrator's monologue. It's diegetic symbolism, and that's why it looks so weird, while describing Sylvia's smile as wings spread against the back of a dead man is simply brushed off.

As per what it means, Father Harrison is portrayed in sensual imagery all through-out (he holds the cigarette like a lady and the smoke smells delicious! He's handsome! He's touching the main character constantly and eve hugs him!), to create a dichotomy both with himself (he's a priest, so sensuality shouldn't be associated to him) and against Sylvia, who through the whole story is explicitely described as disgusting, and the narrator almost has an episode trying to picture her fucking Gard.

So, lipstick. It implies that he's not fulfilling his vows and getting some action on the side -- and the fact that it's on his wrists evokes imagery of stigmata, and, like, holy stuff and all that. Only instead of blood, it's lipstick! I pictured it as kiss marks, but I didn't specify that, and that was another mistake -- it's clearer that way. Sensual stigmata, yes? Odd shit.

Him 'licking it' was just him kissing it back, really, only also coded to look like he's drinking blood. Blood of Christ, communion, you get me. Holy stuff and sex stuff mixed together so that they're one and the same. The fact that after he's licked it it looks like blood on his teeth is even more blatant, really.

So yeah that bit was just me not doing symbolism properly. There's nothing to "get", it's just adding to the oneiric idea of the whole story. Every character is flawed and has something going on 'n stuff. This is all very wanky, which is why I like it so much.


Also, gotta apologize to >>Pascoite here because the names mean absolutely nothing. I just went down a list of names from the Castlevania franchise to get a feel for gothic-sounding shit and then either mix-n-matched or made up shit that sounded right (Victor Monte in particular was all mine, 'cause I like how it sounds). Madeleine is only called Madeleine because I like how it's spelled 'Madeleine'. It looks like transliterated French! Hahah.

But yeah no that's you reading too much into it, mate. Names are random.


And I think that's it? That's all I've gotta say, right? Dunno if I missed anything. Uuuh.

The only other issue that might cause is that you're using a first-person narrator. That means this narrator is the one choosing to describe things this way. And this is very fancy language for a regular Joe to be using. I don't know anything about him yet. I don't know if this narrative style matches his personality. It may be a poor fit for him.



Well dang, double-daddy, literally the only thing you know of him is that he speaks like that. I've no idea why you would look at the character-establishing narration and immediately go "this is out of character". That's some assumin' there. It's very fancy for a regular Joe, so maybe he ain't a regular Joe, unno. His personality is his narrative style, on account on him being the narrator!

Originally I had like, more narrator shit going on -- HE EVEN HAD A NAME HOW CRAZY IS THAT -- but then I went, nah, that's fucking boring. What's interesting is everything else. Narrator is just there to narrate, and then the ending is caused by him, because you can't observe something gruesome without affecting it, or being affected by it.

Yaddah yaddah. Very wanky, I tell you. I'll try to edit this and sell it maybe. Would love that, though I unno if any publisher will see "me waxing poetic about how there's a hidden knife made of pearls hidden behind the lady's eyes" and not feel an overwhelming urge to shoot me in the spot.
#8 · 1
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>>Aragon
There are no dialogue tags per se

I thought of this just as I was starting to leave that part of my review, so I went to check, in case I needed to head off saying it at all. You're right, it avoids dialogue tags. For the most part. Though you do have these:
the Lady Sylvia asks:

“Did she not tell you?” Father Harrison replies instead.

Then he tells me:

So I ask: “For example?”

“The Lady Sylvia,” he says, “is not the first

“Do you…?” I start, then I stop, then I start again.

I could buy a couple of those with colons that break the actual quote to a separate paragraph. The last one is a gray area, too, but an awfully strange thing for him to say to someone listening to the recording. But a couple of those are pretty blatant speech tags, and even the ones that aren't would require him to sync up incredibly well with the recording, unless he's pausing it.

Then something like this also bugs me, because wouldn't it be on the recording?
He asks me if I mind if he smokes, and I say no.

There are several spots that do this.

I don't think "this should not be split into chapters because interviews aren't split into chapters" is totally fair?
I don't know if this was directed at me? It's not really what I said, though I did object to the chapters, mostly if it's supposed to be a real-time narration, because it completely takes me out of the effect that's supposed to create. That is, it puts a meta story element in there that explicitly couldn't work for that conceit, except it seems that's not what you were going for. Even as someone listening to him talk through a recording later, it does interrupt the feel a bit. Yes, other authors have gotten away with that, but I don't know of one in this short a format. You wouldn't want to read a whole novel in one unbroken chapter, for instance, but in this case, you didn't have to break it into chapters, and I don't get what doing so buys you. At best, this was a neutral effect for me; it didn't enhance the story any.

I didn't figure there was anything to the names, because Harrison didn't fit in any way, just leaving him with a last name. I was just having some fun there. The only one I knew offhand was Beatrice, so I went and looked the others up for the hell of it.

Well dang, double-daddy, literally the only thing you know of him is that he speaks like that. I've no idea why you would look at the character-establishing narration and immediately go "this is out of character". That's some assumin' there.

Well... no, I didn't assume. I explicitly said it may be a poor fit for him, but that I didn't know, and as I said later, I don't know anything about him. It's kind of a weird prospect to inhabit a perspective and yet be so uninformed about it. I know he likes to purple it up in front of an audience of one, and I can guess at what his job is, and that's it. When you commented on some of the art you got for this story, you acknowledged that there wasn't much physical description of any of the setting. Stories can get by without that, but a point I've seen several good authors make, like GaPJaxie and bookplayer, is that this is a good tool for informing the reader what the character is like. What catches his eye, what shades of word choice he uses for it (i.e., reacting positively or negatively to things that wouldn't seem to inherently be either), what assumptions he makes—all those say a lot about who he is. There's some of that going on here, with how he reacts to people, but the only way he reacts to the setting or his environment is noting the smell around Sylvia. And maybe more to the point, the reactions he does have are all completely expected ones. Of course nobody would like the smell, of course nobody would like Doctor Harley's immediate antagonism, of course everybody would be on edge around Madeleine, so none of those really do anything to characterize him. The only one that surprised me was how he had an instant affinity for Harrison, so in all those opportunities to shift my mental picture of him from "just an average Joe," only two got taken. And maybe that's not going to bother most readers, but I was hoping the character I spent all my time with would be interesting.