A Snippet from A Twist of Rotten Silk

I actually put this novel away for a bit. It lost its muse somehow, but I pulled it out tonight for a look/see and made a few edits here and there. I miss her. Anyway, Beth over in Books and Writers is going to be doing a workshop on metaphor and imagery. I wondered if I had anything. I think this may fit, especially the last paragraph. Must scrounge up some others.

A Twist of Rotten Silk copyright L. Syratt 2007-2008
(my old witch wip) (unfinished and in first draft)

The path to the stream wound like a serpent through the forest. Every bend glowed with torches of twisted rush, smoking with pig's grease. A mist was rising, moving across the forest floor like fairy dancers, changing shapes with every gust of wind. I shivered like a child afraid of the dark and squeezed William's hand as we walked.

I wanted to tell him I wasn't gripped by fear of the dark. Darkness kept no secrets from me. I was gripped by memory and the sudden chill of that remembering. There was still so much I hadn't told him.

I found myself thinking of Mary again, pulling from my memory all the wretched things she said to me in that cell, the constant bray and cackle of her bitterness. “No man will ever want you lass. Look at you, so full of ruts and ridges. They'd as soon spit on you than touch you.”

Some things from those years I'd forgotten, but memory is a mystic thing – always showing itself when you'd rather it didn't. It doesn't allow indolence. It is raw and bloody with a shrill voice. And there, on that serpentine path, I was haunted with it, listening attentively as it slithered behind us.