The Investigators—Snippet

This is a snippet of what was eventually to come. I wrote it down while it was  fresh in my head. It doesn't quite connect with the rest of the story, yet.
 

Elle was busy putting out the new Christmas decorations at the bookstore where she worked when she heard someone coming up behind her.

"Let me empty my arms," she said without turning, "and I'll help you in a second."

The customer said nothing, so she continued putting the decorations around the tree. But after several moments when it became apparent that the customer was still; behind her, she turned.

"What can I help you--" She gasped as she recognized that this was not a customer. It was her ex- husband Vincent. He grabbed her hard.

"Who else is here?"

"Vince, you're hurting me!"

"I said, Are you the only one here!?!" He got right up in her face. His hot breath reeked of onions and ketchup.

Unable to speak any longer, Elle just nodded her head. Then she swallowed hard and said weakly, "I'm the only one who comes in on Sunday mornings, we're alone."

"Good." He said, and he dragged her to the back room where the lockers were.

"I want your cell. Which locker is yours?"

She pointed.

"Open it and give me everything inside." He ordered.

She fumbled with the combination and he got impatient.

"You're doing that on purpose! Open it right now or I'll open it with your face!"

She pulled down on the lock and it unlatched. She pulled the locker open slowly.

He shoved her out of the way, and began greedily looking through her belongings. He pocketed a few things: her box knife, her wallet, the unopened present from her boss. And then he tossed everything else on the ground as he dug in the back to reach her purse. He reached inside, grabbed the rest of her money, and then his hands found her cell phone. He hurled it across the room, at the wall opposite the door and it shattered against the cement wall.

With his hand still grasping her arm tightly, he bent and started throwing things back in the locker. He let her go and commanded that she pick up the pieces of the phone and put them in the locker as well. There was no way she could escape, because she'd have to walk past him to leave the room.

She gathered her once smart, but now dead, phone and carried them over to Vincent. She let them roll out of her hands and into the locker. Then Vincent slammed it and replace the lock.

"Now you're going to write your boss a note that you had to step out for a minute so he doesn't worry."

"I can't leave. Who will watch the store?"

"Who gives a--" She censored his bad language in her head as Vincent dragged her to the checkout counter.

He began rummaging through the drawers, much less aggressively than he had looked through Elle's locker, careful not to disturb the contents inside. He finally found what he was looking for and shoved a yellow legal pad and a blue pen in Elle's hand, finally releasing his death grasp on her.

"What do you want me to write?"

"That you left, something believable. That you won't come back later."

"How can I make it believable and still leave the store? I would never abandon the store. IF I ever had to leave I would find someone to come in and watch the store while I was gone."

He grabbed her once more, this time grinding his nails into her shoulder.

"Write!"
 
 
Craig walked up the sidewalk towards the bookstore where he was to meet Elle after her shift. He walked in and the bell above the door clanged a cheerful greeting.

"Merry Christmas to you to," he said to the bell, feeling on cloud nine. Totally and uncontrollably in love. But he couldn't tell her that. No, but any second now her face would peek around the corner and brighten his day even more. Young couldn't remember ever being happier in his life.

Instead of being greeted by a beatifically Elle, he found himself face to face with a very distraught May.

"Oh Craig! Elle left, I think there must be something wrong. She left a note for me, but it's . . . well here, read it."

He picked up the note and read:


Boss,
I had an emergency I had to attend to, Mrs. Young. I'll lock the door behind me so the store will be safe. I hope you don't fire me over this. Merry Christmas, Elle. PS. Young, MY phone is dead sorry you don't call me.

"Why did she call me Mrs. Young? She's worked here for four years and has always just called me May.

And my last name is Andrews." Elle's boss looked understandably confused.

"My last name is Young. This note must be for me," Craig said, tapping the note against the table.

"But it's addressed 'boss' and she asks me not to fire her."

Craig sighed.

"Maybe it's for both of us then. But I think you're right. I think she must be in trouble."

He put his finger on the word "my", which she had written, albeit subtly, in caps. Craig already knew that
Elle's phone was broken, she had told him so last night. She had also told him that she would be using her mother's phone. That must be why she had emphasized that word "my".

Without a second glance at May, Craig bolted out of the shop and onto the street.

Around him all the plants looked dead. The trees that lined the road had lost their leaves for the winter and looked cold and bare. There was no snow on the ground or in the air, as one might expect on Christmas Eve.
The only snow lay in piles, black and dirty in the curbs.

The scene reflected perfectly the disorder Craig felt inside. He pulled out his cell phone to call Elle and see if she was allright. And if she was to ask her about the cryptic note she had left. But before he hit the send key, he was prompted to look once again at the message in his hand.

He looked over the note again. Something else was bugging him. "My phone is dead . . . sorry you can't call me." But that's not what it said. It said, "you don't call me." Was it a typo or a message hidden in a message?

Sorry you don't call me.

You don't call me.

Don't call me.

Craig dropped his cell phone as the thought startled him. He picked it up from the muddy ground, feeling foolish as a few last minute shoppers gawked at him. He wiped in on his pants and then shoved it in his pocket
 
 
Elle found herself in a dark room that smelled of mold and bleach. She wasn't tied to a chair, or anything, but her hands and feet were both bound with duct tape.

She tried to use her hands to reach the phone in her bra. She'd been lectured a hundred times not to put it there, that it made her look bad when he chest vibrated and lit up at fancy restraunts. But since it embarrassed everyone but her, she continued the practice. Now it had come in handy. Maybe even could save her life. She had a spare phone in her bra and her captors had no foresight to check.

The only thing she could see going wrong was that her mother always had her phone ringer on as loud as it would go and if it went off now she'd be punished severely. That's why she had to get to it before anyone tried to call her.

She hoped that Craig wouldn't try to call when he realized she wasn't at the bookshop any more. She hoped he was smart enough to get the message "don't call me" but then again, men never picked up on hints. For being a detective, Young was especially bad at picking up her hints it seemed to Elle.

After straining and twisting her hands and arms for what felt like forever, Elle was able to reach the phone just as it began ringing. She hurried and hung up, but it was too late, she could her chairs being pulled back from a table on the wood floor above.

Not wanting the phone on her body when they came down the stairs, she removed the battery and slid both across the floor to a dark corner of the room.

"Amelia," Vincent said in a singsong voice as he came into the room, letting in only enough light to silhouette his ugly figure. "We thought we heard a noise. Was that you?"

"Yes." She lied. "I was calling you to bring me a drink of water."

"It didn't sound like you. But it did sound like someone calling."

"I don't know what you mean." Elle stammered, her voice rising in pitch.

"I could have sworn I heard the beginning notes of the Monk theme song."

At this Elle began to laugh. As dire as her situation was, she couldn't imagine Vincent watching one episode of Monk, let alone recognizing the theme song from a ringtone from another room. It made him seem so . . . human. After they had been married for a few months Elle always thought of Vincent as more beast than human being. And Monk was such an endearing show for such a horrible man to watch.

"What do you think you're laughing at?" He swore.

"You think I was watching Monk down here? You think I have an iPad hidden in my bra?"

"Well it wouldn't hurt to check." He made a move to grab at her, but before he could she hit him over the head with her bound hands.

"You will not touch me!" She screamed. And then she hit him again.

"You're not getting no water!" And with that he was back up the stairs and the room went dark again. It
seemed even darker than before.

The Investigators—Chapter 5

This work is copyright Amanda Mayne November 2011.

Craig's slumber was cut short when Aaron called him at 9am.

"It's too early!" He half-yelled into the receiver of his cell-phone.

"I thought you've been up like 4 hours already?"

"I stayed up all night. I've only been in bed four hours."

"Oh, well I just wanted you to know that the Penshaws left a message on the machine at work. Oh and I'm sitting here without you and I'm bored!!"

"The one day you show up to work on time and I'm not there to see it. Give me two hours and I'll come over."

"Ok . . . if you're sure."

"What did the Penshaw's want?"

"They just wanted to see if you've found any leads. Should I call them back and tell them we found the girl and the kidnapper and that we're going to turn them in?"

"No!" Craig shouted, then he straightened, "I mean, not yet. I'm not sure if I quite trust the Penshaws."

"They had their little girl taken away from them, I can't imagine what that would feel like."

"I can."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, Craig."

"I just have a feeling about them. I just want to make sure that we're getting the whole story before we show them all our cards. Need I remind you they haven't paid us yet. If they paid us I'd feel guilty about with-holding this kind of information. I'll call them, I'll tell them we have a lead, but that's it. I won't tell them that I know what Amelia is going by now or that we've even been to their house."

"Ok, I think you're overreacting, but you're the boss."

They disconnected the call and Craig rolled back over to continue his rest. But he couldn't fall back to sleep.

To Previous Chapter

The Investigators—Chapter 4

This work is copyright Amanda Mayne November 2011.

Dressed in official looking suits and ties, the two detectives showed up at the home of Elle and Charles Bennett.

"I didn't realize that Elle was married," Aaron commented as they wiated on the porch.

"She's not, unless she's in her 60s. But judging by that picture I'd say she's remarkable younger than that. This house has been owned by one Charles Bennett and his wife for at least 35 years."

Just then the door clicked open and a gray- haired lady greeted them.

‎"Oh my! Charles, come quick! Look it's some of them Mormons!"

Before they could say or do anything, the elderly woman closed the door in their faces. The two detectives exchanged a curious glance.

"Well, that went well," Aaron stated after an awkward moment or two standing on this woman's porch, "Now what genius?" He added, his voice thick with sarcasm.

Detective Young just shrugged and they turned to leave to go regroup and come up with a new plan. They were sure they'd have to go back to square one when the door opened again.

"Come on in, Elders!"

"We're not--" Aaron started, but Detective Young elbowed him in the side.

"Just go with it," He muttered under his breath to his less-experienced partner.

Shed led them through an entryway and into the living room. It was small but tidy and well decorated. The men took seats on the large tan leather couch and waited as Elle, sr. gathered her family.

Charles came in first. His hair had more color than his wife's, but he had a considerably smaller amount of it. The top of his head shined in the artificial lighting in the room.

He had an annoyed glare on his face and he stared down the "missionaries" with obvious disdain. Young didn't know much about Mormons, but he didn't think they'd done anything to earn this man's obvious hatred. Or maybe Charles just hated Young and Ackerley in particular. He continued to glower at them as he sank into his over-sized recliner.

Elle, sr. came back in the room with a plate of cookies.

"Growing boys need their cookies," she told them when they tried to refuse the offer. Then they each took a cookie to be polite. The motherly woman seemed satisfied with this and placed the platter on the glass- top cofee table.

Finally, the two people central to the case entered the room, hand- in- hand, both looking very much like their respective photographs.

"I'm Elle," The Elderly woman began, "and this is my husband Charles. These two beautiful ladies are my daughter and granddaughter, Elle and Julie. If you get us Elles mixed up you can just call me Janice. That's my middle name, and I've been going by it almost exclusively since my daughter moved in." She grinned at them and sat on the loveseat across from Aaron and Craig. She patted the seat beside her and Elle sat down and placed her daughter on her lap.

Janice turned to Julie, "We're going to listen to these nice men as they tell us about Jesus."

Julie didn't say anything, but stared at the men with an interest that most children didn't display when religion was brought into conversation.

"I'm--" Craig struggled to find the right word. Janice had used it earlier. It started with an "E." Oh that was it, "I'm Elder Young and this is my . . . um"

"Companion," Aaron supplied.

"Yes," Craig started again, "I'm Elder Young and this is Elder Aaron. I mean Ackerley. Elder Ackerley."

"Young, now that's a good solid Mormon name, isn't it. You're first name Brighton? Wasn't that his name? Brighton Young, founder of the Mormons?"

I thought the founder of the Mormons was Mormon? Craig wondered to himself. And what kind of name was Brighton?

Then things got silent. Everyone in the room was staring at Young, "Oh, right. We were talking about Jesus, huh? Um. who knows who Jesus was?"

Immediately Craig regretted asking the question. It sounded really stupid. Who hadn't heard of Jesus? But no one complained and after only a few moments Janice chipped in.

"Jesus was a great teacher. Some people say he was a Savior."

Young waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't appease him.

"Ok, good. Um, we," again he was lost. What religion did she think they were? The one with missionaries, right? They were just BARELY talking about this. Brighton Young. What was it?! Jehovah's Witnesses? No! "Um, we believe Jesus was a great teacher too. Elder Ackerley, tell the um," he looked at the family portrait above the piano for help. It said in big letters BENNETT. "Ackerley, tell the Bennett's about Jesus' teachings."

The look Aaron gave Craig said that we was going to tear his head off when they got back to the car, but when he turned back to face the family he was Mr. Cordiality.

"Julie," He said addressing the little girl with dark hair, "Do you know something that Jesus taught?"

Oh great, Young thought, I pass the buck to Ackerley and he passes it to the youngest person in the room. But to the surprise of everyone, Julie replied, "Jesus said to not be mean to people even if they're naughty and don't get presents from Santa."

"That's very good Julie," Ackerley cooed. Then he gave Craig another expectant look. The look said, I don't want to talk about this anymore, you're the one that was eager to pretend to be missionaries, you take over.

Criag nodded half to Aaron and half to himself and then took over. "Jesus said love everyone. Didn't he? He said we should be kind?"

There was general nodding going around.

"Who's Mormon?" The little girl asked.

Mormon! That was it! They were pretending to be Mormons. Well, pretending sounded so . . . they were undercover as Mormon missionaries.

"Mormon was a very important man in our Church. I mean without Mormon, we wouldn't be Mormons. If you know what I mean. Mormon's like the head honcho. Mormon is or was um a great teacher too."

Craig hated that his speech was riddled with "ums." Hadn't he always been the one to scold those that talked like that? "Find your words before you speak!" He would lecture. And now here we was "um um um."

"We also believe in Heaven," Ackerley said to change the subject.

"No, I," was he really about to blow their cover over that. Get in the game, Craig, he scolded himself, "I mean, of course we do. I thought he said we believe in 'Heather' and I was, like, what?"

Crap, now he was using "like" as an interjection. What was it about this investigation that was making his grammar leave him? He sounded like a teenaged girl. Or maybe it was the subject matter. Talking religion was never one of Craig's strong points. In hindsight, maybe "just going with it" was a really bad idea. He'd been thinking that Elle would be able to "confess her sins" more easily to a couple of missionaries who promised of a God who loved them, than to confess to detectives who were trying to prove she was guilty of kidnapping her daughter, potentially taking her away from the family and landing Elle in a jail cell.

"Aren't you boys a little old to be out proselyting?"

And now Janice was using words that Craig wasn't sure what they meant! Could this day get worse? Luckily, Aaron had this one.

"Most guys start proselyting when they're younger, but we kind of slacked off, and were just born again recently. That's why we're older."

"Born again?" Elle asked, with a hint of suspicion in her voice.

"Like, we found our faith . . . Again." And there he was using the "like" again.

The first thing Craig did when he got home from the Bennett house was turn on his laptop. While it was booting up he took of the tie that had started to feel like a noose very early in the visit. Next the shoes were kicked under the bed, and then the jacket was placed on the back of his computer chair. If they kept this guise up, there was no way Craig was wearing that suit jacket again. Even in cold October, it was way too hot.

Finally he heard the boot up jingle that said his computer was ready for him to begin his midless browsing of the world wide web. Only tonight he wouldn't be catching up on 90s tv shows or endlessy clicking stumble to see what stick-figure comics would appear. No tonight he was going to find out more about the Mormons.

He opened a browser, then his favorite search engine. He lightly tapped his fingers agains the keys, trying to decide what to look up. Then he shrugged and typed in: Brighton Young. It seemed like a good starting point, if Brighton really was the founder of the faith.

After finding a whole lot of nothing useful and a whole lot of United Kingdom maps he rephrased his search. Mormon Brighton Young. Did you mean Brigham Young? Craig wasn't sure what he meant. But he clicked in the affirmative.

He found himself skimming an encyclopedia entry. Words like polygammy, American Moses, and Utah stood out to him. He also found that the website called Mormonism the LDS Church. He followed the footnotes to mormon.org.

He scanned the tabs before deciding to begin with the one labled "Our Faith." It seemed like a good place to start. If he was going to pretend to be a Mormon preacher he would have to know at least something about the faith. From there he found links that said things like "The Restoration", "God's Plan for Happiness", and "Joseph Smith." He did not see a link for any Youngs, Brightons, Brighams, or otherwise. He clicked on the "Joseph Smith" link.

There he rad about a time and place of "theological turmoil." A phrase that struck a cord somewhere inside Craig. He could say that he himself was in a state of theological turmoil. He had always wanted to believe in God, but he wasn't sure if he ever really had. And now he wasn't sure that he could. How could a loving God take his family away from him? They'd done nothing wrong. Don't Christians believe that you reap what you sow? Karma? You put good energy out and get good energy in return? Why then had his wife and daughter been taken so long before it was their time. They were both so young. Too young to die.

He looked back at the website. At the painted blue eyes of the man some called a prophet. He was no longer doing research. He now needed some answers. He clicked on a link labled "God's Plan of Happiness." And wondered as the page loaded, doe God care for our happiness as human beings? Does he care for MY happiness personally? Does he know that I even exist? If I don't believe in Him does he still believe in me?

The page loaded, and it looked pretty boring. He scrolled down, not really reading. There were pictures and videos and big quotes from the bible. Did Mormons read the bible? He wasn't sure.

He spent all night on mormon.org. He learned that Mormon's do in fact read the bible as well as the Book of Mormon and maybe even more books. He found out that they preferred to be called Latter-day Saints. That they believed in being with your family forever.

Somewhere along the way he bagan taking notes. PArtially for himself, and partially so he and Ackerley could be more convincing as they contiued their investigation.

Before he fell asleep--at the time he usually woke up--Craig put in an order for three copies of the book of mormon. One fore him, one for Ackerley, and one fore the Bennett family. He couldn't believe they were giving them away for free. And he hoped they'd arrive before their next "lesson." He wondered if he should get a bible as well, since he now knew that Latter-day Saints also read that, but he figured he could find used bibles anywhere. In fact, he was pretty sure that they put a used bookstore where the music store used to be a couple years back.

He was also surprised to find that they had all the LDS scriptures available online for free. The book of mormon, the bible and a couple of books called the doctrine and covenants, and the pearl of great price. He'd check those out later, for now he was going to sleep.

To Previous Chapter

To Next Chapter

The Investigators—Chapter 3

This work is copyright Amanda Mayne November 2011.

Young awoke at the usual time the next morning. Five am sharp. He didn't have any reason to get up that early, and he wouldn't call himself a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a habit he had picked up from sleepless nights. His biological clock would not let him sleep past 5, and now he had become used to it. But he still stood by what he had always believed: the worst part of everyday is having to leave your comfy bed, and your dreams, behind in the morning.

He wanted to get some thinking done before he called Aaron. He had no idea what time Ackerley woke up on Saturday, but he didn't care either. He would call him at 7 o'clock. It seemed a civilized time to assume one would at least be out of bed.

He had decided sometime last night that there was no one he could find this girl on his own. At least not with the method he had thought up, namely following her until she led him to her home. Ackerley was sharp, if not inexperienced. He had only been a detevtive for about, how long had Torchlit been in business? One month longer than that. He was in his late twenties where Young was in his mid- thirties and had ten years of detective work behind him. Not that it mattered. All he was worth now was the profits made at Torchlit, which at the moment were inching towards the negative numbers.

Once he had been a successful cop, working his way quickly through promotion to promotion. Being a detective is what he had dreamed of since he was a kid. He had loved to sit in front of the tv, a lot longer and more often than his mother liked, and soak in the cop dramas and mysteries. He remembered he had like Macgyver, though he, Macgyver, wasn't really a cop or a detective per se, but now, years later, for the life of him, the only thing Craig Young could remember about the show was what they recreated on mythbusters.

Ackerley was eager to join Young in this business endeavor. There wasn't room for him on the local police forse, and there wasn't enough money in the town to make room. So, when he heard about an ex- detective coming out of "retirement" and starting his own agency, Ackerley had jumped at the opportunity.

Young hadn't really wanted a partner. He hadn't wanted to rent an office. He didn't want his business to be named "Torchlit Investigations." But in the end Aaron rubbed off on him, and eventually so did all his quirks. Well, he still wasn't sure about the Torchlit thing, it sounded like some secret agency from some science fiction show. But it was a name, which was more than Young could come up with on his own.

Well, it was about 7, so time to call Aaron and bounce the ideas off him.

The phone rang six times before Young decided to hang up. Ok, he'd wait until eight o'clock.

Young slumped down on his sofa and stared blankly at his television, deciding whether or not to turn it on.

"I guess I could watch the morning news." He thought aloud.

He click on the tv and switched to channel 5. But after about ten minutes of that and still no weather the sports came on and he switched the tv off again.

Then he decided to make some breakfast. He pulled out the only cookbook he had left, he'd given the rest to good will after . . . a long time ago. The one he had left had been his grandmothers and many pages were falling out or missing. At least he assumed it was his grandmother's because no one in heck was it his mothers. He could remeber her cooking a meal that didn't come out of a box except maybe once or twice at a Thanksgiving.

He found a recipe for crepes that sounded esy, but turned out to be the hardest thing he had ever tried to cook in his life. He threw the batter out and looked at the clock. 7:25. Forget this! He would just show up at Ackerley's house. That way he'd have to get out of bed and answered the door instead of just letting his phone vibrate and roll over and go back to sleep.

Ackerley was twenty five years old. He'd gotten his degree in criminal justice two years earlier, but hadn't been able to find a real steady job that didn't require moving. He liked Colorado. That's where he grew up. Colorado was where his family was, and skiing and mountains and red rocks. Everything he had known or loved in his life was in Colorado and he wasn't about to leave it.

Aaron was very comfortable working alongside Craig Young, a man known around as Mr. Scrooge. To strangers it seemed Young hated everyone and looked down on them. But Aaron had discovered that Young was just deeply introverted. He didn't like to put himself out there. And he didn't like to let anyone in. Aaron wouldn't have been surprised to learn that he was Craig's only friend.

But the friendship was wearing thin, or so it seemed to Aaron when his doorbell awoke him at 7:45. Who on earth was waking him before 9 o'clock on a Saturday? Who ever it was was going to feel his wrath.

Aaron threw on some pants and slippers and headed for the door. The cold October air chilled him as he invited Young in.

"What are you doing at my house, Craig?"

"Ackerley, I've been doing some . . . reconassance, um without you." He eaxplained, llooking somewhat ashamed.

Then Craig explained how he had had that meeting with the Penshaws and how he had thought he knew the woman they claimed was the kidnapper.

"But I didn't tell them, because I had to be sure. And now I know I'm sure. It's the same woman. But I don't know who she is, where she lives, or how to find out. I tried to follow her this morning but--"

"Wait, slow down," his young partner interupted, "You followed who? I'm a little confused. You know the woman in the photograph, but you don't? You don't know where she lives, but you followed her? You aren't making any sense."

Young started over from the beginning.

"As I sat across the table from the Penshaw's looking at that photgraph I recognized her. She jogs past my house almost every day, sometimes twice a day. Sometimes with a dog. But I didn't tell the Penshaw's I recognized her."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I guess I didn't want to get their hopes up or . . . I don't know it's like . . . I felt like I shouldn't. It was almost like there was a voice inside me telling me not to tell them that I recognized her."

"Sounds a little nuts, to me."

"It is nuts. But when she jogged past my house this morning at 5:30, I knew it was the same woman."

"5:30?! What time do you get up man? It's SATURDAY!"

"That's not the point." Craig's patience was wearing thin. "The point is I don't know who she is or where she lives or . . . I don't know where to begin. I haven't had a REAL case in SO long, Aaron!!"

"Well, if it makes you feel anybetter, I've never had a REAL case, at least not by your definition of a real case."

"Somehoe that doesn't make me feel any better, but thanks for trying." Young paced across Ackerley's living room in long strides. "Do you have any . . . breakfast?"

"That depends. Are you going to promise to let me in on all details and activities going on in this case?"

"Yes."

"Fine. I hope you like cold cereal."

"I hate it. Where are the bowls?"

While they sat and ate Young pulled out the pictures for Aaron to look at.

"Sorry nothing is clicking."

"Ok, so the Penshaw's told me her name was Amelia, but that she had most likely changed it. Which makes sense and sounds perfectly plausible to me. What do you think?"

"Ya, sure."

Young rolled his eyes and began tapping his spoon on his bowl while he thought. She always jogged past his house, but not at any particular time and he couldn't catch her on foot. Tailing her in a car would be a lot harder to stay inconpiscous. She had a dog, but tracking that dog to a vet and then back to her would be much harder than just following her. They needed someone to help. Young wished more than ever now that he had connections, contacts, informations, whatever. Just someone who could do their reconnaissance.

But since he quit the force it was like the only person in town he knew was Aaron, and that was no good. In terms of being able to find this girl he was a step up from the blonde lady that worked at the bakery. Ok, so there was one other person in town that knew Craig was alive.

"We need to go to the bakery," He said suddenly, and he started hitting the spoon harder against the bowl.

Maybe there was a chance the blonde lady knew this woman, pretty much everyone in town went to the bakery. That's part of the reason Craig got up so eary. The bakery opened at 6 and by 7:30 all the good stuff was gone, namely the maple donuts. Maybe she'd recognize her. It was worth a shot.

Suddenly the bowl broke in three pieces and milk and cheerios spread out all over the table, down the sides, and onto the floor.

"You just broke my bowl!" Aaron exclaimed.

"Sorry, I guess I got distracted. Why do you have carpet in your kitchen?" He asked looking at the floor under the table.

"I don't know, but you're cleaning it up!"

"So, tell me again why we're going to the bakery?" Aaron was sitting in the passenger's seat of the "company" car, a red 2004 Ford Focus with little leg room for anyone over 5 feet tall, fiddling with the radio.

"I have a . . . hunch," Young cringed inwardly, he hated that word, and the whole concept behind it, "I think we need to talk to the blonde lady."

"Is she the cranky one who scolds you about eating too much?"

"Um, no. That's the cranky witch lady. We want to see the blonde lady."

Aaron finally found a station he liked and turned the volume up. But it didn't matter, because Young was almost to the bakery. He parked the car on the road in front of the small building, and turned off the engine. He reached for the door handle when Aaron stopped him.

"Hey, wait until the songs over!"

But Young opened the car door anyway and headed for the bakery front door.

"Well, at least wait for me, I'm coming!" He called as he tried to get out of the car while he was still buckled in. He unclicked the belt, and ran to catch up with Young.

Young said a few cuss words under his breath and then yelled at his partner, "Go back and close the door!"

"Oops."

"Idiot."

As Ackerley went back to the car, sheepishly, Young walked into the bakery.

"Back already, Craig?" For the first time ever it made Young feel bad that she knew his first name and he just called her the blonde lady at the bakery. "Didn't I give you a half dozen doughnuts yesterday? Maybe Charlotte is right, you do eat too much."

She laughed a light laugh.

Aaron walked in the shop and waved at the baker.

"I'll help you in a minute, sir," she called.

Aaron's cheeks turned red, "I'm actually with him. He's my partner."

"Oh, Craig," She said, her cheeks began reddening as well, "I had no idea. How long have you been together?"

"Four months," Aaron said, before Young could stop him, "It's hard to make ends meet now day, though, you know. We might not even be able to pay next month's rent, and he's buying baked goods at least once a week."

"Wow, four months. That's amazing. Congratulations. I'm sure you'll find a way to pull through with the finances without cutting back on your baked goods." She winked.

"So when did you move in together?"

Both Aaron and Young protested at this comment.

"We don't live together. It's nothing like that." Young said, angrily glaring at his partner.

"But you said . . . rent?"

"We're business partners. We're renting office space on main street. Torchlit Investigations. Which is actually why we're here."

"Ok, I'm listening, I'm not like a suspect am I?" She folded her arms across her chest and stared them down. When they didn't answer immediately she added, "I liked it better when I thought you were gay."

"You're not a suspect," Ackerley began.

"But we figured since you know everyone in town you might help us locate our suspect." Young finished.

Young pulled out the picture of the women with the short hair and slid it across the counter to the baker.

"What's your name, by the way?"

She pointed to her name tag: Jenna.

"Oh, Jenna. What a lovely--"

"That's Elle Bennett you got there." She slid the photo back. "Now you gonna buy something?"

"I bought half a dozen doughnuts yester--" But Young melted under her scowl, "Ok, maybe just a dozen sweet rolls."

"That's better."

The two detectives left the shop half an hour later with a bag full of groceries and a name: Elle Bennett.

To Previous Chapter

To Next Chapter

The Investigators—Chapter 2

This work is copyright Amanda Mayne November 2011.

Young came into the office with a box of doughnuts, "The Penshaws are coming in a few minutes, they're going to bring us the photos they said they had."

When Ackerley didn't respond, Young set the doughnuts on the counter and looked into the backroom. It was empty.

"Ackerley, where are you?" Young grumbled to himself. He checked his watch, wondering who would arrive first, his partner or his clients.

Sure enough, the Penshaws arrived even before Ackerley called in and said he would be late.

Young sat across from them at a cheap card table on cheap folding chairs that didn't match each other, let alone the table. And as ugly as they were, Young had to admit he was a little bit glad when Ackerley brought them over from the thrift store across the street. Eventually that would have a nice executive- looking wooden table, oak probably, with padded wooden chairs, but since they couldn't even pay the rent from one month to the next, Young and Ackerley would have to wait. And if this case went through that day might be sooner than later.

Derek and Lydia Penshaw looked hopeful. No that was an understatement, they looked excited. Young didn't want them to get their hopes up too soon in the game, but the excitement was contagious ad he thought of all the things he and Ackerley could buy with the promised reward money, $40,000, if they cracked this case, plus $150 a day they worked on it until then.

Mr. Penshaw pulled out a thin folder from his fat, full briefcase. Written on it in pen was only one word, the name of their daughter, Tara. He opened it and held up an official looking document.

"This is what the tip- line sent us that said our daughter may have been sighted in this town."

He put the paper back when Young reached over to grab it, and handed him a wallet- size portrait in its place.

"This is a photo of our daughter at four years old, it was taken the same year she went missing, was kidnapped."

He then handed over a 4x6 photo. The face was of a woman in her late- 20's to early- 30's. Her face looked strikingly familiar to Young, but he couldn't place where he'd seen her.

"This is the woman that our daughter was last seen with. We'd find her ourselves, but she's probably changed her name and look. That's why we're hiring professionals, that's why we're hiring you."

Young merely nodded, not wanting to admit that Torchlit was probably premature, and the familiarity of the suspects face was still nagging him in the back of his brain.

"I know two photographs aren't a lot to go on to find our daughter, but we're paying you enough that you shouldn't have any problems." It was the only thing Lydia had said the whole duration of their consultation.

The Penshaws got up to leave, their doughnuts untouched on the counter. Young then realized he did know that woman. She walked her dog past his house a few times a week. He knew her by look, but she'd probably never seen him. That could be an important asset in their investigation. He was about to tell the Penshaws that he thought he recognized the woman his sudden realization, but a feeling or thought, almost like a voice in his head, told him to keep the information to himself for the time being.

As the bell above the door signaled that the Penshaws had gone, Young was suddenly glad that Ackerley hadn't been there. He would have recognized the baker immediately and would have told the Penshaws so. Even though he didn't understand it, Young was glad that the Penshaws didn't know where to find their only suspect.

Young stood at his front door, looking out the small round window. He was waiting for the girl whose picture the Penshaw's had showed him. He finally remembered where he had seen her. She jogged past his house everyday, sometimes with a golden retriever, but most the time she ran alone. He didn't think she had ever seen him, because usually when he saw her he was in his car ready to leave for work, or getting his mail, and she always seemed in her zone. He imagine she had earbuds in and just let the whole world fade away. It was just her and her excercise. At lest that's how it was when he worked out.

The problem was, this woman wasn't like clockwork. Sometimes she ran past at 9am, sometimes it wasn't until he was coming home from work at almost 7pm.

But today Young didn't have to wait more than 15 or so minutes before the blonde woman came jogging past, today with her cocker spaniel. He waited until she reached the end of the block before he stepped outside himself. Good thing it was a nippy day. He pulled on a beanie as he started at a steady pace.

He would jog slowly, or speed walk while she was in sight, he decided, and when she turned a corner he'd sprint to catch up.

This plan worked for a good half hour before Young completely lost the woman. He wasn't in as good a shape as he thought he was. He never missed a workout, but he had to admit that he was a slacker when it came to cardio and aerobics.

Young walked back to his home, cursing himself the whole way. Now what was he going to do? Would he try again tomorrow? Certainly even she would notice she was being followed if it happened two days in a row. Or maybe he hadn't been as careful as he thought and she had seen him and did know she was being followed and purposely lost him. He couldn't say. And speculating about how he lost her or if she had seen or would see him wasn't actually helping him formulate a plan to find out who she was and where she lived.

No, he wasn't going to run after her tomorrow. He'd already been humiliated that he couldn't catch up. He'd have to follow her in his car, but he'd have to be very careful about it. It would be easier to notice being noticed by a car than by a man on foot. Because even at top running speed, a car driving that speed would look suspicious. How was this possibly going to work?

When he arrived at his house, Young stomped through the living room, pulling off his jacket and hat, kicking off his shoes, just leaving the articles in the middle of the living room floor. He stormed down the stairs where he went to brood. The room was a vacant bedroom, that still had the bed and a lot of the items that belonged to the last occupant of the room. Many times he'd fallen asleep on that bed after a bad day like today. He looked at the minnie mouse clock across the room it wasn't even noon yet and he'd already made up his mind that today was a lousy day.

He couldn't just let this kidnapper jog out of his life, not when there was an innocent little girl involved. He sat up, with a new determination. Brooding was over. This wasn't about him being a fast runner or a good detective. This was about a little girl who had been taken away from the parents who loved her. No parent should have their child, their little princess taken away from them at such a young age.

She was only eight, he thought, thinking far away thoughts. Then he corrected himself. Tara Penshaw was four when she was kidnapped, she'd be eight now. Eight years old.

He had to find this girl no matter what it would take.

To Previous Chapter

To Next Chapter

The Investigators—Chapter 1

This work is copyright Amanda Mayne November 2011.

Detective Craig Young was sucking on the end of a candy cane, twisting it every few moments to make the tip pointy. A few feet away, his partner, Aaron Ackerley, was trying (and failing) to play with a paddle ball.

" I can't believe people can actually do this," he grumbled, muttering a few choice expletives under his breath, "What the world record? Like three hits in a row maybe?"

Young's face remained stoic, but he laughed inwardly, thinking about his young partner and rethinking going into business with the knuckle- head. If you could call it business, that is. Their little Private Investigations office had received only two visitors, not counting Ackerley's family, who frequented the place nearly as often as Ackerley himself.

The first visitor was an elderly couple, the Nelsons, who were very sure that someone was breaking into their house every night. When asked why they came to that conclusion, they just said "The dog's in the house when we go to bed, but when we wake up in the morning he's leashed up outside." Young spent more time putting up surveillance equipment than it took to solve the case once the equipment was up. Within the first twenty- five minutes after Mr. and Mrs. Nelson fell a asleep, the cameras showed the culprit. Mrs. Nelson had a sleep- walking problem.

Their next client wasn't much better. A Madame Daisy Paine, who seemed too Texan to be a Madame, demanded that they track down the person who hit her car in the Nordstrom parking lot. The only thing to go on: a spot of red paint left on the bumper of her black mustang. When Young tried to explain that they couldn't track down the manufacturer of the paint, let alone the make and model of the car or the driver, she was very offended. She stormed out of the building, without paying, yelling and complaining the whole way to her barely- damaged 'stang.

"If you were real detectives the guy would be locked up already!"

No, this business wasn't fairing at all. If they didn't get someone soon they'd have to give up. They'd set aside ten months rent on this office space and it had already been three. Even if a client walked through the door right that instant, they'd have to fork over a lot of dough to allow Torchlit Investigations to keep its head above water.

As if some unnatural force had heard Young's thinking, the front door opened and the brass bell clanged as a couple in their twenties made their way into the small reception area. Even though Young and Ackerley saw their entrance from their desks in the back, they allowed the couple to walk slowly and awkwardly forward and ring the small bell on the counter.

The detectives exchanged a silent look, both wondering what kind of disaster this could lead to. Both the husband and wife were wearing long black coats, his all buttoned save the top button, and hers loose revealing a very fancy green dinner dress underneath. She had tight blonde curls that just barely touched her shoulders and earrings that did almost the same thing. He was wearing a black fedora and looked like a PI himself.

Young rose deliberately and made his way up front. Ackerley beat him there and greeted the couple.

"Hello, and welcome to Torchlit Investigations! I'm Aaron, and this is my partner Detective Young." Aaron walked around the counter to firmly shake their hands.

The woman looked clearly distraught, while the husband remained placid.

"You have to help us." Her green eyes appeared to get bigger as tears started to make paths of burgundy eyeliner down her sallow cheeks, "We've been waiting so long, but the police won't do anything, and I don't know why. Why won't they help? Don't they care anymore? She's just a child! A child! And she could be . . . she might be . . . it's possible she's alive!"

Aaron placed a comforting hand on the woman's shoulder, "Hey, take it easy. Slow down. Tell us what we can do to help."

What we can do to help, thought Young, I don't even know what she's blabbering about. But despite his annoyance at the state of this woman's emotions, Young was intrigued by the urgency of her remarks and the pleading in her face. This just might be a real case. And from the looks of that designer gown, it might save them from eviction.

The man looked down at his wife, who was now crying into Aaron's neck, and frowned. Ackerley was patting her hair and whispering consoling words. The man's eyes met Young's, and he introduced himself.

"My name is Derek Penshaw, and this is my wife, Lydia." He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. "I'm not really sure where to begin." He stopped talking and looked at Young expectantly.

"Well, your wife--"

"Lydia."

"Lydia was talking about a child, a girl. Who's that?"

Mr. Penshaw put his hand over his brow and looked up at the ceiling. It was almost a full minute before he answered. Lydia Penshaw had calmed down and was watching the two men with wide eyes. "The girl was our daughter; she was kidnapped four years ago. She'd been eight years old now if she were still--"

At this point Lydia began sobbing, loud wailing sobs. Mr. Penshaw looked embarrassed for her.

"She's eight years old," he continued over the volume of his wife, "but we haven't heard from the police in at least five years, probably more, until yesterday."

Young nodded. "What happened yesterday?" He prompted when Mr. Penshaw didn't continue.

"Yesterday the police called us and told us they received a tip that our Tara might be living here in Colorado, so we got on the first flight available, we just drove in from the Denver airport."

"And the police won't talk to us!" Lydia chortled between gasps of air.

"I don't know why not. Some BS about jurisdiction, or cold cases, or something. They just said they couldn't help, wouldn't help and that if we wanted to investigate the tip, we'd have to do it ourselves or hire private detectives."

Lydia pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her coat pocket, "This was inside our rental car, shoved between the seats." The paper was one of the flyer's Young had made Ackerley put up months ago. "Your ad appeared moments after we made up our minds to go back to California and forget this whole thing. We thought it was a sign."

"She thought it was a sign," her husband mumbled, audible enough Young could here it, but not Lydia or Aaron.

"Let me see if I understand," Young began. He grasped the counter behind with both hands and jumped up to sit on it. "The cops call you and tell you they've received a tip that your missing daughter might not be missing anymore. And then they tell you they can't help you?"

"Um, did we say the police called us? It was the National Missing Kids Agency."

Young glanced over at Aaron, who had taken up the paddle ball once more, then looked back at the Penshaws. Something . . . no it was nothing.

"You mean the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?"

"Ya, that was it. That was definitely it. They called us up and told us that someone found our daughter."

Young just nodded lost in his own thoughts. Something was tugging at his brain, some feeling was trying to fight it's way out. But Young wasn't one for feelings or irrational gut instincts, so he shrugged it off and held out his hand to the Penshaws.

"We'll take the case."

Back to Prologue

To Next Chapter

The Investigators—Prologue

This work is copyright Amanda Mayne November 2011.

"Hey, boss," Vincent Palmer shouted as he burst through the doors of the small office. "You can't be mad at me anymore."

"Oh," said his boss hardly glancing up from the spreadsheet he was studying, "and why's that?"

"I found her!"

The boss set his documents down and gave Vincent a hard look.

"Found who, Vincent?" As he said it, his eyes lit up as if he were hoping he already knew the answer. Vincent saw this and used the moment of anticipation to slip in a joke.

"The Easter bunny."

His boss did not appreciate the humor, his eyes looked about to shoot white hot flames. Vincent swallowed and continued.

"Oh, you know, I found Amelia."

The boss jumped up from his chair and beckoned his wife, who was waiting at the door, to come in.

"Honey, Vincent said he found Amelia!"

His wife grinned a deep grin that made it seem as though her whole small frame were smiling as well. She winked at Vincent.

"I'm always proud of my Vincent." She smirked.

The boss stepped toward Vincent and looked directly into his eyes, grabbing either side of his face to maintain it. "How did you manage it?"

Vincent held his bosses gaze and began, "Well, you know that joint account Amelia and I set up with our wedding money after our honeymoon-- thank you again, by the way, for that generous gift-- anyway, you know how I was supposed to close it after she left? I didn't."

"Shame, Vincent." The Mrs. Boss interjected.

"But that's how I found her. After all these years, she used the account! She withdrew about $2000 from a branch in Colorado!"

To Next Chapter

NaNoWriMo

I tried (and failed) to do NaNoWriMo this year. For those of you who don't know what that is, it stands for Nqtional Novel Writing Month. You can find more about it here: NaNoWriMo Wesite.

The story I had outlined didn’t really get far off the ground. I still hope to finish it someday, but maybe when I have more motivation.

It’s about a PI who falls in love with an alleged kidnapper while undercover as a Mormon missionary. Sound cliché to you too? It has it’s moments. My favorite part I would most likely have to cut out if I ever got it published, though. Partly because it’s for a Mormon audience, who may think even mentioning homosexuality is in bad taste.

As you can see from this lovely pie chart. I didn’t even get a quarter of the way to the required 50k in order to “win.”

But the pie chart looks a little more forgiving than the line graph you see below.

 

See, the gray line is how many words I was supposed to have written each day. The brown bars are how many I actually wrote. And yes, not only did I quit writing, but I quit updating my stats.

In the end I only ended up writing 9421 words. But it’s still likely the longest thing I’ve written by myself.

What do you sense you're supposed to do before your life is over?

Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,  I know that this life is meant for more than just sitting around, playing Wii, wondering why on earth you are watching Doctor Who (and debating whether you actually like it or not), just waiting to die.  We are supposed to be actively, and anxiously engaged in a good cause.  The greatest cause, I suppose, is loving and serving those around us.  What could be a better way of spending our time than that?

I sense I’m to continually try to improve myself: at writing, piano, getting to bed at a decent time, health wise, etc.  I also sense that should get married and raise a family, though at the rate that’s going . . . Just kidding, I’m only 20.
This stuff is great and all, but kind of boring. Instead of what I’m supposed to do, what if I write out what I want to do instead??

My Short-Version Bucket List

1. Eat a meal with someone important. This isn’t necessarily someone famous, but it’s also not my family either. They’re important, but I can eat with them whenever I want.

2. Have a significant role in a play. I don’t have to be the title character, but I’d like to be in more than two or three scenes and have a speaking part I’d actually have to work at memorizing.

3. Visit another country.

4. Go on a date with a man who has a British, Irish, Scottish, Italian, or French accent.

5. Kiss someone absolutely spontaneously. Like they do in the movies! Could be under mistletoe, or after running to each other from opposite sides of the room/street/airport, or even right after I’ve slapped him in the face.

6. Read the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

7. Write a novel, get it published, and have people who don’t even know me read it.

8. Weigh 130 pounds again, for at least a few days, lol. Wouldn’t that be great? I haven’t been 130 pounds since 8th grade. My “healthy” weight is actually around 118-160 (according to this website), but hey, if I’m dreaming I might as well dream big! (or small technically, lol).

How do you feel about the holidays?

It’s a haul of a heliday!   What’s better than a bunch of weird people dressing up in silly costumes and then for candy from complete strangers?  As pointless as Halloween is, you gotta admit everyone loves candy.

Sure, sure Halloween used to mean something.  I’ve been told it’s Celtic or Pagan or something, but obviously that meaning has been lost over the centuries.  And you know what? It’s not just Halloween that’s lost it’s meaning.  Consider St. Patrick’s day and Valentine’s day, do either of these holidays have any meaning?

Everyone already knows that the purpose for Valentine’s and Mothers’ day and Fathers’ day is to buy each other hallmark cards. You can tell someone you love them any day, but they’ve set aside a day and jacked up the prices of dollar store quality candy so you don’t forget. Isn’t that nice of them.

Now, I’m sure you’ve figured out where I’m going with this.  If holidays like Halloween and St. Patrick’s have lost their origins to commercialism, what does that say about Christmas and Easter? 

Well I’m taking the easy way out of this one.  I’m already running late, and I haven’t even had breakfast yet.

Roses

Not all roses are red.  Some are yellow, some are pink . . . in fact, I’ve been told that some roses are black.  Or, at least, appear to be black.  My point is that many, many roses are NOT red. I probably wouldn’t be far off base if I were to say that most roses aren’t red.

The yellow roses are perfectly happy being yellow.  A rose by any other color smells just as sweet.  The world needs the whites and pinks, the yellows and blacks, and even a few roses here and there that have touches of multiple colors.

How boring would this life be if all the roses were red and all the violets were blue?  Each color of rose has a special meaning.  Red is for love.  Pink signifies gratitude.  Show your friends you care with yellow rose.  White roses are the beginning of something wonderful, and black are the end of a tragic life.

If every rose were red confusion would rule.  “Johnny gave Misty a rose, what does that mean?”  “Well I heard roses can sometimes mean ‘Thank You’ or ‘I’m glad we’re friends.’”  “I thought a rose meant he loved her?”  “I thought you sent roses to funerals . . .”

So what am I getting at? What do roses have to do with you?  Here’s the thing, if a rose can be content being white instead of red, why can’t a girl be content with who she is?  A yellow rose bush will never produce a red rose.  But the plant is still beautiful and fragrant.

Not all girls are super models.  In fact, most aren’t.  Some girls feel they are too tall; some too round.  Some believe they have mousy hair; and some thinks they are too skinny.  But they are real girls.  They are girls as much as any super model is.  They are beautiful and talented and their lives have meaning.  Maybe we’re not all actresses, we’re not supposed to be.  We need mothers, doctors, teachers, real women to be a role model for the future women and daughters of the world.

Love who you are.  Begin to love the skin you’re in, because it’s the only skin you’ve got.  Love your life because it is yours alone.  No one can live like you can because no one is exactly like you.  Now doesn’t that make you feel special?  Out of all the billions of people in the world, you are the only you.  You are the only one with your genes combined as they are, the only one that knows what it’s like to be the 5th or 3rd or 8th child of your parents.  No one else can say that.  You are the only person on this entire planet that learns the way you do and can do everything you can do.  Wow!

The world needs you! We need you! I need you!  I need you to let me know that even though I am one-of-a-kind that I am not alone.  I will try to do the same in return.  We all need each other.  Every person in you come in contact with in the course of your live is changed just by knowing you.  People you’ve never seen before and will never see again were affected by you, if only in the smallest, but not insignificant, way.  “Hi, how are you doing?” “You look nice today”  “Is there anything I can help you with today?”   Sure, it’s what I’m required to say when I greet customers, but doesn’t it mean so much more.  “Is there anything I can help you with today?”

Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need? Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad? If not, I have failed, indeed.


We are all beautiful roses growing amongst the thorns of life.  At times it feels like these thorns are choking us out.  But nothing is so dire that we cannot ask for help.  Sometimes we feel like people are pruning us without our permission with their criticisms and chastisements, but then we realize that this pruning has helped us grow back stronger and even more beautiful.

Once you realize that you are beautiful, it will be so much easier to help pull others out from within the midst of weeds.  Help those around you see their divine potential.  As you help others see their beauty, you will only become more beautiful yourself.

Not all roses are red. And some violets are pink.
We’re not all the same. We are truly unique.

Pick ten people you know and write a one-sentence description for each of them.

Ashley has these caring eyes that always show concern, if not betraying her underlying curiosity to know what’s going on.

His Bieber haircut was NOT what he wanted, but my little brother, Mitch, wears it reluctantly everyday, waiting for the hair in back grow out.

A blonde beauty on a mission, Andrea has learned Spanish and up an moved to Texas to spread the word of the restored gospel on earth.

Jeni always seems to be getting into trouble, but somehow those chocolate brown eyes and her winning smile seem to get her right back out of it.

Tina is a traveler at heart—moving three hours away, then across the country, and then across the world, always wearing her neon running socks.

I hate to admit that I don’t know Candie very well, but her loving charity outshines the stars.

Marty is the classic nerd with his glasses, curly hair, and hi-tech mechanical pencil, and he’s always speaking in mathematical jargon.

Her dark hair that had once been all the way down her back in a long braid had been cut off and dyed red, but I love April just the same.

In Sarah’s profile picture she had a short, blonde pixie cut, and was wearing what appeared to me to be a pillowcase—either this girl was cosplaying as a house-elf, or my new roommate was a theatre major.

I always wanted to be just like her when we were kids, my goofy sister Deanna, with her long blonde hair and bubbly personality, and I loved to stay up late talking about boys and giving them codenames.

Writing When I’m Angry

As he lay on the wet, muddy ground, Alair could think of nothing more than how badly he wished the rain would wash him away. He wished for the water around him to rise and to be swept in a vast, fast-moving current that led to nowhere in particular, anywhere but here. The rain pelted the bare skin on his arms, neck, and face, each drop hitting with enough force to cause a small stinging sensation for a moment or two. Though there were hundreds of drops, thousands, millions, Alair felt that each one must have represented something he had done wrong in his life—evil deeds, sins of omission, imperfections at work and school, the things he had taken for granted—as each raindrop reached his skin, Alair’s depression sunk deeper and deeper.

Mixed Heritage and Eyes in Tayo’s Search for Self and Cure

In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony the color of Tayo’s eyes comes up frequently. Tayo’s eyes are an outward representation of the deeper characteristics beneath his surface. His eyes signify that he is of a mixed ancestry, but more than that, they signify that Tayo is a mixed up person. Tayo’s whole existence is two-sided—not just because he’s half-white and half-Native American but also because what people expect him to be and do is only half of who he really is and what he does. He’s of the new generation but he respects the old way. All these things that are a part of his inner self are visible on the outside in his eyes. By coming to terms with his differences in appearance, Tayo will be able to be cured from the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder he suffers with after fighting in World War II, and in the end, discover who he truly is.

It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. This means that by just looking into the eyes of another person, you can learn a lot about who they are. Tayo’s eyes look physically different from those of the other Laguna Pueblo people around him, and so looking into them reveals his mixed heritage. When Tayo and Rocky meet with the Army recruiter, he doesn’t believe the two are brothers because Tayo looks obviously different: “The Army recruiter looked closely at Tayo’s light brown skin and his hazel eyes” (Silko 66). Hazel eyes are a “light greenish-grayish brown” color that in Tayo’s case came about because of his mixed parentage (“hazel”). His eyes here show his connection with two cultures, but his inability to truly exist in either alone. Being this mix of two races, two eye colors, two worlds, really disconnects Tayo from the people around him, especially Auntie.

Besides being lighter skinned, Tayo’s eyes are the only physical difference between him and say Rocky or Harley. But these physical differences cause an emotional rift separating Tayo from the rest of his group. Being half-white brings about contentions and hostilities from almost everyone around him—from Auntie who nearly neglects him as a child, and from Emo whom Tayo tries to kill, to Rocky and Harley who are just trying to understand. His eyes are a big clue that Tayo is not a “full-blood.” Tayo gets a lot of reactions because of his ancestry and people think he shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the Native American Culture.

When Old Grandma is worried about Tayo’s condition and wants him to see the medicine man, Tayo’s own Auntie, who brought him up, even thinks this is wrong: “You know what people will say if we ask for a medicine man to help him. Someone will say it’s not right. They’ll say, ‘Don’t do it. He’s not full blood anyway’” (Silko 30). It seems Auntie is worried what other people would think, but that is actually exactly how she thinks, too. Tayo doesn’t only get these feeling from his family, but from complete strangers as well, “he remembered how the white men who were building the new highway through Laguna had pointed at him. They had elbowed each other and winked” (53). Most people in the novel, white or Pueblo or Mexican, see this mixing of blood as a bad, negative, and almost nasty thing.

Tayo’s eyes, a symbol of his mixed ancestry, separate him from the Native American culture and the white American culture simultaneously, but oddly enough, his eyes, his heritage, connect him to these two different worlds. Because of who Tayo is, because he is half-white he has a connection to the white world that his immediate family and friends can never understand. He resides in neither world alone, and with his eyes observes them both as an outsider while he also has the benefits of an insider.

Tayo was raised on the reservation by his Auntie, Rocky’s mother. Since childhood he’s been taught the legends and stories and ancestries of the Laguna people from the beginning of time. He is immersed in this Native American world, but not allowed to fully be part of it by his Auntie because he is impure in her eyes: “since he could remember, he had known Auntie’s shame for what his mother had done, and Auntie’s shame for him” (53). One would expect a child having roots in white culture would not appreciate the ceremonies and legends of the Native American culture, but Tayo respects and understands these important stories probably even more than the full-blooded Pueblos— at least more than Auntie’s own son Rocky does, and probably more than Auntie herself. He loved to hear Old Grandma tell the old legends, and he believed them:
“He never lost the feeling he had in his chest when she spoke those words, as she did each time she told them stories; and he still felt it was true, despite all they had taught him in school—that long long ago things had been different, and human being could understand what the animals said” (87).

Tayo can see why these stories are important. The past provides insight into the future. The past is what makes people who they are in the present and who they will be in the future.

Symbolically, as well as literally, eyes represent seeing and vision. They can represent hindsight, or foresight or how things are perceived as they are occurring. Because Tayo’s eye color, hazel, is the result of a white father and a Native American mother, he can see both of the perspectives. He participates in things of the white culture and also in things of the Native American culture. Tayo is part of neither culture, but really part of both, so he can understand the prejudices more. This view as an outsider with knowledge of the inside is how Tayo becomes aware of the Lie.

Deep down everyone knows brown-skinned people are somehow worse than white people, they do worse things, they are the only ones that steal, “only brown-skinned people were thieves; white people didn’t steal, because they always had the money to buy whatever they wanted” this is the Lie (177). And Tayo realizes that “only a few people knew that the lie was destroying white people faster than it was destroying Indian people” (190). He is one of them. He sees how prejudices doesn’t make people better than others, but just makes hatred.

Emo is a fine example of how racism and prejudice breed hatred and violence. Emo fights and murders and nothing good ever comes from him. Hatred begets hatred, violence begets violence. Tayo is normally peaceful, but when driven to hatred by Emo’s racist remarks, Tayo stabs a broken bottle into Emo’s stomach. He hates the whites, he hates the Mexicans, he hates the Japanese, and he hates those with mixed blood. Because of this negativity coming from Emo and others like him, Tayo is never part of the group.
Tayo’s light skin and eyes separate him from his immediate family and friends, but they also provide a greater connection between him and some other important characters. Tayo is not, in fact, the only character in the novel described as having these light eyes, a result of the mixing of two cultures. Night Swan, Josiah’s girlfriend, has hazel eyes too, “she was an old cantina dancer with eyes like a cat” (81). Betonie’s Mexican grandmother had green eyes while his Native American father most likely had brown eyes; because of this Betonie has hazel eyes. When Tayo first meets the old medicine man he looks him over “then Tayo looked at his eyes. They were hazel like his own” (109). Both Night Swan and Betonie help Tayo find his cure. Because they have this connection through their light eye colors, these characters are able to see the world similarly.
From what I can tell Night Swan is not actually from mixed origins, she is Mexican. Night Swan is interesting because she is not white or Native American, but Mexican, the third race of people that play an important role in this novel. Whether or not she is the product of “interracial breeding” or not, she still manages to teach Tayo a few things about it and about who he is, after they make love. Night Swan says something of great significance to Tayo and to this novel, a key quote in the entire book:
“‘They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians or Mexicans or whites—most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing. . . . They are fools. They blame us, the ones who look different. That way they don’t have to think about what has happened inside themselves’” (92).

Tayo, Betonie, Night Swan and others like them are evidence that things are changing. Tayo has been taught to believe that this sort of change is a bad thing, but Night Swan and Betonie try to help him realize that change can be good and that just because people say you are one thing doesn’t mean that you have to be the thing they say. This helps Tayo accept himself the way he is and to find his cure.

Betonie also comes from mixed ancestry. His grandmother was a Mexican woman who also had light eyes. Betonie is a crucial part in Tayo’s journey for a cure and is a crucial part in Tayo finding out his place in this messed up world. Without Betonie’s guidance Tayo would never be able to come to terms with his illness—PTSD from serving in WWII—and cure it with the Ceremony. Then frankly we wouldn’t have a novel.

Betonie helps Tayo see how the Native American, Mexican, and white worlds coexist. Betonie sees past the lie that “all evil resides with white people” (122). He believes the stories about the creation of Indian people and the creation of white people. Betonie helps Tayo understand that he doesn’t have to be scared of the white people or their ways: “I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place” (122). Understanding how the two worlds are just two parts of a whole is a very important concept. When Tayo begins to understand this better, he begins to understand himself better, and therein lies his cure.

In the beginning Tayo’s mixed blood makes him insecure. His peers in the rising generation don’t understand how or why Tayo believes in the stories. But the stories are what keep Tayo connected in the end. Though he looks different on the outside, he is still just a human being. His differences make him able to comprehend things that his friends and family could never hope to understand.
 
Works Cited
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. Deluxe ed. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 2006. Print.
“Hazel” merriam-webster.com. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2011. Web. 3 May 2011.

Irony and Expectations in “The Story of an Hour”

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” though extremely short, as far as stories go, is figuratively filled to the brim with Irony.  Irony pulses through Mrs. Mallard’s veins by her afflicted heart.  It seeps in through the open window and the view that gives the promise of spring.  Life and death, love and bondage, these themes play off each other in unexpected ways.  Chopin seems to foreshadow one outcome and then plays out another; she sets up very clear expectations and then doesn’t quite follow through. The eventual outcome does not meet the expectations of the readers, because irony is deeply embedded in this fine story.

            The first line of the story sets up the irony nicely: “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart condition, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (157).  This sort of beginning is straight forward and readers are led to expect the outcome of really only one possible scenario: Louise Mallard will take the news badly and her heart will fail her.  But Kate Chopin masterfully uses irony, and the expected outcome is not how the story ends.  If it were the story would be pointless, as would this essay.

            At first, Mrs. Mallard takes the news exactly as we, the readers, would expect her to.  She weeps “at once, with sudden, wild abandonment,” as any woman would who had just received such terrible news.  She glances out the window and sees “tops of trees . . . all aquiver with the new spring life”.  In a story about death, it is interesting that the setting would be springtime.  She, Mrs. Mallard, believes and we as readers are led to believe that Mr. Mallard is dead.  The spring image of “countless sparrows . . . twittering in the eaves” does not quite seem to give the right mood of life ended, of death.  Spring implies new life and rebirth.  In this case, it symbolizes Mrs. Mallard’s new life without her husband. (157)

            Instead of dying, like one would expect, or dwelling in sadness, Louise starts to think a little differently on her new life alone: “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully”.  And we get another reference to her heart: “Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously”.  This is the moment where the story takes a dramatic and ironic turn, this is the moment where Louise Mallard comes to her realization that without her husband she can be “free, free, free!” (157).

            As this turn takes place, we get yet one more mention of Mrs. Mallard’s heart as its’ “pulse [beats] fast, and the coursing blood [warms] and [relaxes] every inch of her body” (157).  Now instead of being her weakness, ironically her heart is what relaxes her, courses blood through her and ultimately keeps her alive.  Instead of killing her this weakness makes her strong enough to hold onto her new vision.  She abandons her sadness, at least in this moment, for she knows that she will “weep again when she [sees] the kind, tender hands folded in death,” but she does not “stop to ask if it were not a monstrous joy that held her”.  But she also realizes that she can become free from that “powerful will bending her” to her husband’s will.  Only through death does she realize that she can truly live. (158)

This is not the way a widow is expected to think minutes after hearing the news that her husband has died.  Louise sees her marriage as bondage, and ironically thinks that it “was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life may be long” (158).  Little does she know that the dream of today, freedom from the “bondage” of her marriage, will only come to pass by way of yesterday’s desire, that her life will be short. 

            Mrs. Mallard conceives that “a long procession of years” awaits her that will “belong to her absolutely” (158).  The word procession here is ironic in and of itself.  Procession means “continuous forward movement” which definitely makes sense in this context, but I’d like to suggest another reason why Chopin may have chosen this word instead of progression or succession or any other of its synonyms (“procession”).   Procession isn’t used extremely often in common vernacular, and when it is the word “funeral” usually precedes it.  Ironically, this type of procession is in her future; It will not be her husband’s funeral, but it will “belong to her absolutely” (158).

            When Josephine, Louis Mallard’s sister, tells her that she will make herself ill, Louise replies, emphatically, “Go away. I am not making myself ill”.  We are told that she is in fact “drinking in the very elixir of life through that open window”.  The scene outside of spring represents something that she can never obtain, but it is not the elixir of life, for in five very short paragraphs, Louise Mallard’s life will be over.  At that moment, however, “there was a feverish triumph in her eyes” as she concocted her story that only lasted an hour. (158)

No, she was not making herself ill, and that is what is ironic.  Maybe if she had been making herself ill she would have been prepared to see her husband alive again.  But she was making herself well, she was freeing herself: “Free! Body and soul free!” (158).  Unfortunately, her body and soul wanted freedom so badly that they couldn’t take it when they say Mr. Mallard alive and well and unaware that he had ever even been presumed dead.

The most ironic thing in the entire story is the very last sentence.  It reflects the opening sentence about Louise Mallard’s heart affliction.  After she has seen her husband and is dead, the story closes like this: “When the doctors came the said she had dies of heart disease—of joy that kills” (158).  The eventual outcome, Mrs. Mallard’s death almost meets the expectations of the readers, but not in the expected way.  Irony weaves its way through the story and emanates from the spring day outside.  Mrs. Mallard’s heart did fail her in the end.  She did not get the new life she expected and the disappointment killed her.  She didn’t die from joy but from melancholy, ironically enough.

Othello's Weakness

At the beginning of Shakespeare’s Othello we are given evidences to the great warrior Othello has been in the past.  These are given through the way he speaks and how others speak to him and of him.  Unfortunately, these strengths as a general do not transfer over into his personal life.  The entire play is an evidence of Othello’s weakness in marriage as a husband.

Even though Iago hates Othello, he still respects Othello as a great general.  Why else would Iago be so jealous that Othello chooses Michael Cassio to be his second-in-command?  It is not just Iago who respects him, apparently his strength is well known.  Othello himself boasts that Bronatio can accuse him of whatever he wants because the “services which [Othello] has done the signiory shall out-tongue his complaints” (1.2.20).  This means that the governing body of Venice recognizes all the fine military services Othello has accomplished for them and that even if Brobantio’s accusations were true, they would defend Othello.

Othello used his strength as a war general to gain his wife.  He told her war stories to woo her: “These things to hear would Desdemona seriously incline” and “she’d come again, and with a greedy ear devour up [Othello’s] discourse” (1.3.170-174).  If it weren’t for his strength in battle, Othello would have never won Desdemona, would never have married, and wouldn’t have found his true weakness that eventually led to several deaths including his own and Desdemona’s.

Othello’s biggest weakness in marriage, I believe, is that he doesn’t put enough trust in his wife.  When two people get married, they are agreeing to put each other above everyone else.  Othello fails at this, as he always goes to Iago first for advice and not to his wife, Desdemona.  He takes all his information second, third, fourth hand from Iago instead of just asking his wife and getting the firsthand account.  This is just really confusing.  Is it that Othello doesn’t trust his wife?  He probably trusts his wife at the beginning, or he wouldn’t have married her, but he is so scared of being hurt that he won’t take any risks.  He’d rather get false information from “honest” Iago than take a risk and confront his wife.

Othello does a little foreshadowing in Act 3. Sc. 3 before all heck actually breaks loose:

“Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul

But I do love thee! And when I love thee not,

Chaos is come again” (3.3.100).

Othello is slightly frustrated with Desdemona at this point, but Iago hasn’t been in his head yet.  When Othello says “chaos is come again” I don’t believe he’s plotting her murder and his suicide at this point.  What I think he means is that his life would be chaos without her in it.  It’s just a romantic little thing to say.  Unfortunately, when he no longer loves her, chaos does come, out of Othello’s own weakness in putting too much trust in the not-so-honest Iago and not his guiltless wife.

            When Iago plants the idea in his mind that Desdemona is cheating on Othello with Cassio, Othello is too quick to believe him.  He tries to act cool, to give his wife the benefit of the doubt—“Make me see ‘t, or at least so prove it That the probation bear no hinge nor loop To hang a doubt on, or woe upon thy life!”—but his needing solid proof with no room for doubt and his death threats to Iago last a very short time.  Very quickly, Othello goes mad with jealousy and vengeance towards his innocent wife.

            It’s unfortunate to watch a person who is so strong at giving orders and commanding respect become so gullible and desperate.  Othello’s past cannot redeem him from how he reacted to rumors and false accusations.  He treated his marriage like a battlefield, his wife like the enemy.  If Iago says she’s sleeping around, she must be and if she is I must kill her—perhaps this is what Othello thinks as he carries out his devious plan.

Othello puts far too much trust in the one person who is vying for his demise.  Iago is the antagonist; he’s the driving force that makes everything fall to pieces.  Yet, Othello trusts his word absolutely.  He does not believe his own wife when she says she is innocent.  Instead, with his veins pulsing with rage, he smothers her to death.  Only after she is dead do the pieces begin to fall into place in Othello’s mind that Iago is dishonest and his wife, Desdemona, was true.  By then it is way too late.

Tragedy vs Comedy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

While A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy itself, it also encompasses the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe.  These elements of comedy versus tragedy are an important part in A Misummer Night’s Dream.  The first scene of the first act of the play could really set it up to be either a comedy or a tragedy.  In fact, the way love is defined in the beginning is a tragic view. 

Hermia’s father, Egeus, come to Theseus demanding that he make her marry Demtrius, and not Lysander, or else:  “As she is mine, I may dispose of her.  Which shall be either to this gentleman, or to her death.” This threat does not sound in any way comedic.  Another example of how love is portrayed tragically is when Lysander gives his speech about love, “the course of true love never did run smooth,” he says.  He talks about all the things that stand in the way of people falling in love—or staying in love—Lysander continues, “[Love is] momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as a dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night.” His meaning is tragic, but his words are flowery, eventually rhyme enters in, and the feeling of the play remains merry.  This is a comedy, and as much as the tragedy tries to come through, the comedy smothers it and comes up victorious, making this play comedic. 

The attempts at tragedy are just that: failed attempts.  The way this play is written, the way it is meant to be, is comedic, and the characters and situations do not allow for tragedy to take over or even really take shape in the plot.  The biggest attempt at giving this play a tragic undertone is in the production and rehearsals of Pyramus and Thisbe.  The content of this inner play is totally tragic, but the characters playing the actors are just too foolish and incompetent to make it tragic.  Everything they do strips the tragedy away and makes their rehearsals and production funny.  The entire production is hilarious because the actors just don’t have a tragic bone in their bodies.

The way they are cast is especially funny.  At first Bottom wants to play every role himself, and then they start adding extra roles for inanimate objects.  They decide they will have somebody play the moon, up onstage, holding a lantern.  Then they decide that the wall will be played by a person holding his fingers out for them to talk through.  Snug, who plays the lion, doesn’t want to scare the ladies, so they show his face through the neck of his costume.  And then, just in case anyone in the audience might feel sad about how Pyramus and Thisbe both end up dead, they’ve written a prologue:

“If we offend, it is with our good will.

That you should think, we come not to offend,

But with good will. To show our simple skill,

That is the true beginning of our end.

Consider then we come but in despite.

We do not come as minding to contest you,

Our true intent is. All for your delight

We are not here. That you should here repent you,

The actors are at hand and by their show

You shall know all that you are like to know.”

This prologue is long and unnecessary to the Pyramus and Thisbe play, but it does provide some importance to the lager play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  The prologue seems to prove that this production will be in no way sad, as it was written, the actors, whether consciously or not, have seen to that.  Just from this prologue, before the play even really begins, the audience at the wedding knows what to expect. Theseus’ comment on the prologue is actually true of the entire production when he says, “His speech was like a tangled chain—nothing impaired, but all disordered.”  Meaning that there is nothing wrong with the play, it serves its purpose, which is to entertain, but it accomplishes this through foolish disorder.  The tragic words of the script or Pyramus and Thisbe are buried under the foolish and silly actors.

Tragedy continuously comes out the loser in this play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Fools and love and fools in love take over and encompass the inner tragedies in comedy and merriment.  This is how the play was intended to be, simply a comedy, and it fulfills that role very well by turning what could have been sad things into hilarious situations.