It’s fortunate for me that the day is overcast.

From a safe distance, I watch the limousines pull up in front of the cathedral. I watch the passengers get out–a Supreme Court justice, a Congressman, a Senator, another Supreme Court justice. I watch the photographers try to take their pictures as they enter the Romanesque church building.

They are there for the Red Mass, a service for lawyers and judges to ask for and to receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It’s all show. It’s all spectacle. Meaningless. It would be naïve to believe otherwise.

And the guidance of the Holy Spirit would not save them from me in any event. My hunger is almost unbearable, but I’m patient. I’ve waited years. I can wait a few minutes more.

They say that the Red Mass gets its name from the red vestments that the priests wear. They are wrong. They don’t remember. I do. Doubt me all you like, but I was there at the very first Red Mass at the Cathedral of Paris in 1245.

Much has changed for me since then. I can no longer enter a church, but when the ceremony is finished, they’ll scatter back to their homes and their places of work, and I will follow. I will make them remember what they have forgotten. I will remind them of what the color red means.

(For Booking Through Thursday)

Things I have used as a bookmark:

• airplane boarding pass
• receipt (for the purchase of the book)
• credit card (used to purchase book)
• business card
• finger
• pen
• napkin
• lollipop (still in cellophane)
• candy cane (still in cellophane)
• Post-It note
• envelope
• photograph
• paperweight
• USB drive
• greeting card
• clip-on name tag
• paperclip
• CD
• another book
• cell phone
• post card
• U.S. currency
• Canadian currency
• U.K. currency
• concert ticket stub
• refrigerator magnet
• duct tape (folded in on itself)
• magazine
• electric bill

Can you spot what’s missing?

...And then Buffy staked Edward. The End

I bought this t-shirt a while ago, and I’m thinking about wearing it to the movies this weekend (to see a different movie). But that may be a bear best left unpoked, given the notorious viciousness of thirteen-year-old girls, especially when they roam in packs.

(This piece is a companion piece to the short story “Visions”. You might want to read it first and then come back.)

I do not like lying. It is bad for business.

Everyone knows of my little shop on Tenth Street where I, Mme. Lafarge, sell perfumes and herbal remedies, and also where I predict the future for those who know how to ask. I have been reading the cards since I was a little girl. I am never wrong.

He told me why he was there, but of course, he didn’t have to. I could see it plainly, as if it were written on his face. He was Marked. The shadow world hounded him. It constantly sent its emissaries to claim him. Where I am from in Louisiana, we call one of these entities a Loogaroo. He called them vampires. The name does not matter, though. Their purpose is the same–to claw and to bite and to drag souls into the darkness. He wanted to know if he would ever be free of them.

He watched me anxiously as I laid the cards down on the table, one by one. The Devil. The Knight of Swords. Death. The Magician. The Queen of Cups. Justice. When I was finished, I stared at the cards for a very long time, longer than I usually do. I think I may have inadvertently upset him. He asked me what the cards said several times. I needed to be sure though, that I was reading them correctly, so that I could convey the message I was meant to convey. When I finally spoke, I told him they said that the shadows would eventually overtake him.

It was a lie.

I did not want to lie to him. I can see every decision that he will make. I can see the anguish he will cause himself. I can see how he will hurt those he loves the most. I can see all of it.  He will endure so very much pain because he believes what I have told him, but I had no choice. It was in the cards. I cannot see his ultimate fate, but I know that by lying to him, I have given him a fighting chance. And, as I said, I am never wrong.

(For Sunday Scribblings No. 189.)

Vampire.

He’d run through all of the possibilities, and it was the only one left. He stood facing a genuine vampire, fangs, glowing red eyes, and all.

He supposed it was his own mistake, staying in the university archives so late. He had come to Kraków to research his next book on the life of Jan Sobieski, the Polish king, and he was not above slipping a few złotych into the hands of a librarian or two to stay after hours. Now he wished he had called it an early day.

It had attacked him just as he was replacing some manuscripts on a shelf. It would have killed him right then and there, perhaps, if he hadn’t seen it out of the corner of his eye and been able to dodge it. He didn’t know what it was then, some psychotic homeless person who had somehow made it into that part of the library, he guessed.

That he figured it out was a complete accident. The thing had managed to grab his shirt and tear off the top button, revealing the crucifix he always wore around his neck. Upon seeing it, it screamed and backed away. It just stood there, glaring at him. He realized then that he was standing between it and the only way out of the room. Apparently, it couldn’t get past him as long as the crucifix was visible. The sun would rise in only a few hours. He could keep it there. He could kill it permanently.

Or…

How many times had he spent months on research only to hit a brick wall? How many times had he wished for an eye-witness account of some event? How many times had he needed an eye-witness when there simply wasn’t one? If what he was looking at was truly a vampire, there was no telling how old it was, what it had seen, what it remembered.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said to it in Polish, hoping it understood, “I’ll let you go if you let me go. How does that sound?”

It continued to glare at him, but slowly, it nodded.

“First, though,” he said, “I have a few questions for you….”

(For Sunday Scribblings No. 188.)

Since last year’s public service announcement seems to have fallen on deaf ears, I fear I must repeat my warning. Perhaps I can convey the message better using a different format:

EXT. NIGHT – A NICE SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOOD

It’s Halloween in a nice suburban neighborhood. Little kids dressed up as ghosts, cowboys, witches, and the like are out with their parents trick-or-treating. Some groups of older kids are out, too, without parental supervision. CAITLIN and MADISON are both thirteen years old. Caitlin is dressed as Bella from the Twilight series. So is Madison. As they’re walking they see a group of devastatingly handsome boys without costumes. They are maybe a few years older than the girls are.

CAITLIN

Wow, look at those boys! They are devastatingly handsome.

MADISON

Yeah, they’re really cute.

CAITLIN

They have pale skin and supernaturally clear complexions for their age. I bet they’re vampires! Let’s go introduce ourselves. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could fall in love with them to the point where we’re obsessed with them, and nothing else matters in our lives, not even our families?

MADISON

I don’t know, Caitlin. They could be dangerous.

CAITLIN

Oh, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. What’s the worst that could happen?

FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)

You could die.

Caitlin and Madison both look in the direction of the voice. It’s SCARLETT from G.I. Joe.

CAITLIN and MADISON

(together)

Scarlett!

SCARLETT

Your friend is right, Caitlin. They are dangerous.

CAITLIN

How do you know my name?

MADISON

I’m not really her friend.

SCARLETT

(ignoring them)

You should never approach a vampire unarmed. He’ll just suck all your blood, and that’s no fun.

CAITLIN

But they could be good vampires. You know, ones that don’t feed on people. Or they could at least be morally conflicted. And they’re devastatingly handsome. They’re probably also very charming in a self-loathing, brooding sort of way.

SCARLETT

(shaking her head)

That’s only in books and movies. Real vampires are always evil. There are no exceptions.

CAITLIN

You mean they don’t sparkle? And they won’t fall in love with me and stalk me in my sleep?

SCARLETT

No, I’m afraid not. Real vampires are incapable of love. If they say they love you, it’s just so they can get close enough to suck all your blood.

Scarlett is attacked by two of the vampires. She pulls wooden stakes from somewhere on her skintight catsuit and easily dispatches both of them. She then hands the stakes to the girls.

SCARLETT

Here, take these wooden stakes. It never hurts to be prepared.

Caitlin and Madison each take a stake.

MADISON

Gee, thanks, Scarlett

CAITLIN

Yeah, thanks. Now we know.

SCARLETT

And knowing is half the battle.

FIN

More from BLAZONED, for Halloween.

Transylvania

See t-shirts with this design.

The name Transylvania literally means “the land beyond the forest.” The Romanian name is Ardeal, and the Hungarian name is Erdély. In German, it is known and Siebenbürgen, which literally means “seven fortresses,” referring to the seven fortified towns founded by German immingrants to the region in the Middle Ages.

Though it was made famous by Bram Stoker in his novel Dracula, Transylvania is an area rich in history and has long been a crossroads for different cultures, a fact represented in the coat of arms.

The black bird in the upper portion of of the coat of arms is often mistaken for an eagle or even a raven, but it is actually a turul, a mythical falcon from Hungarian legend. It represents the Hungarian nobles who ruled Transylvania for several centuries. The sun and moon represent the Szeklers. The Szeklers speak Hungarian, but they are a distinct ethnic group. The seven red towers on the lower part of the coat of arms represents the seven cities of the German immigrants, who are commonly refered to as Transylvanian Saxons. Because Transylvania is now part of the modern state of Romania, these cities are normally referred to by their Romanian names, but sometimes the German names are used. The seven cities are (with German names in parentheses): Braşov (Kronstadt), Sighişoara (Schäßburg), Mediaş (Mediasch), Sibiu (Hermannstadt), Sebeş (Mühlbach), Bistriţa (Bistritz), and Cluj (Klausenburg).

Sighişoara is significant because it is the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, also known as Dracula, Bram Stoker’s real-life inspiration for the vampire.

Interestingly enough, the Romanians, who have been the majority of Transylvania’s population for much of its history, are not represented in the coat of arms.

This is a short video I posted on YouTube to promote my t-shirt company. It’s a little cipher puzzle. There will be more if I get enough interest. (And if someone solves the cipher!)

“Strangers in the Night”

“Strangers in the night exchanging glances / Wond’ring in the night / What were the chances we’d be sharing love / Before the night was through.” I suppose that this one might be slightly more appropriate if the ice cream truck came out at night. But there’s still the problem of to whom, exactly, this song is addressed. The kids?  The delicious frozen treats? “Hello, randomly blue-colored, raspberry-flavored snow cone that’s blue only because they already have every other color including red but needed a blue one and couldn’t find a naturally blue fruit that would work since blueberries are really sort of blackish purple and someone high up in the Ice Cream Truck Company really liked raspberries and didn’t care that there’s no such thing as a blue raspberry. Where have you been all my life?”

“O Come, All Ye Faithful”

Although, when you think about it, it may not be so inappropriate.

“Windmills of Your Mind”

In addition to being one of your more insidious earworms and just generally creepy, this song is inappropriate because the lyrics (such as they are) are about the passage of time and a failed relationship.  “Pictures hanging in a hallway / And a fragment of this song / Half remembered names and faces / But to whom do they belong / When you knew that it was over / Were you suddenly aware / That the autumn leaves were turning / To the color of her hair.” It’s like the ice cream truck is taunting you. “That’s right, kiddies, eat your ice cream now, because soon you’ll grow up and get married and have children and a mortgage and a job you hate, and after you’ve watched all of your dreams die one by one, you’ll die, too!  Muahahahaha!”

“We Wish You a Merry Christmas”

The inexplicable thing is that someone has to make the recordings of the songs that the ice cream truck plays.  Why would they make Christmas songs?  It’s never appropriate for the ice cream truck to play Christmas songs because the ice cream truck only comes out in, you know, summer, and Christmas is in, you know, winter. Unless you’re in Australia, which I’m not. Maybe the Ice Cream Truck Music Company mixed up the shipments. Do they have ice cream trucks in Australia?  They probably don’t call them ice cream trucks, though. Maybe ice cream lorries.

The theme from Love Story

What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died? Apparently, the answer to that question is, “Ice cream!”

Things have been a little slow around here because we’re currently in the middle of a massive cross-country move.  We’re leaving Southern California and moving to North Carolina.  This has been a long time in coming.  While we don’t regret moving to California ten years ago, we realized a few years ago that California can’t give us the life that we want.  So we started taking steps to leave.  Last week, one of the last pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place when we sold our house.  Immediately, we were confronted with a reminder of why we’re leaving.

But first, a short (I promise.) lesson in property law.  Way back in Ye Olde England, the rule used to be strict caveat emptor when it came to buying real estate.  The seller didn’t have to tell the buyer anything about the property.  It was the buyer’s job to find out if anything was wrong.  The English imported that rule to the colonies, and up until the turn of the twentieth century, it was pretty much the rule in every state.  Today, most states require the seller to disclose major problems, but California goes farther.

We had to disclose that we lived in a condo.

Really?  I’d love to see the lawsuit that resulted in this particular disclosure being included.  “Plaintiff began to realize something was amiss when he noticed doors to which he did not have keys.  He became even more suspicious when he saw other people using these doors to enter and exit the building.  These observances led Plaintiff to believe that there were large areas of the building to which he did not have access, but others did, and that in fact, he was not living in a single-family dwelling, but a condominium.”  I’m sure it’s the same guy who’s responsible for the “Warning: may contain nuts” label on packages of peanuts and the “Warning: may cause drowsiness” label on sleeping pills.