1st 5 Pages May Workshop - Garrett

Name: Catherine Garrett
Genre: Young Adult with the genre: Urban Fantasy
Title: Randa Rune and the Erie Street Witch
 
There is a house on Erie Street,
Where ravens, and spiders, and rodents creep.
The man who lives there is a witch you know,
With gnarled fingers and a crooked nose.
 
I clasp the tree limb in my hands while standing in the snow-covered front yard of the alleged haunted house of Erie Street. The rhyme flits through my thoughts, as with me, rhymes always do.
 
There’s enough light from the street lights to see in the dark. The house looks like a sunken soufflé with its sagging roof, the attached conservatory’s dome of stained-glass panes soiled from time and neglect. My breaths drift upward in frosty white pillows, my gaze following to the peak where three ravens rest. They always squawk when anyone gets near. Now they are as silent as death.
 
Under Asher’s arm, my precious Chester Pug whimpers and kicks his hind legs. He hates when anyone holds him, except me. All I want is to get my dog and rhyme journal back, then I’m out of here. As Asher grips Chester Pug tight, I edge toward him, opening my mouth to protest. But before I can speak, he snaps his fingers near my treasured companion’s buggy eyes. His little legs go limp, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth like it does when he’s settling in for a nap on the sofa.
 
“Quit stalling and break a window, Randa,” Asher says in a sharp tone.
 
“What did you just do to my dog?” I say squeezing the branch tight, considering what he would do if I just charged him.
 
Like he can read my mind, he steps back and says, “Don’t worry about your dog—just do it.”
 
I look at the branch in my hands, then at helpless Chester Pug under Asher’s arm, my rhyme journal tucked between them. Bolting to the street is not an option, but I don’t want to break my neighbor's window. “Break it yourself,” I say. I  pitch the tree limb on the ground near his feet.
 
He huffs and picks it up, all the time his eyes on me, and raises the branch like a one-handed batter. I stagger away only to stumble to my knees in the snow. Then he faces the conservatory and swings. The branch makes contact with one of the small windows, but nothing happens, not a shatter, nor a crack, or even a dull thud.
 
“Now, you try,” he says. He flings the branch to the ground. All but my heart remains statue-like, my mouth hangs open. Asher crouches, eyes unblinking from beneath pierced eyebrows. The branch lays in the snow between us. “Just hit a window,  any window.”
 
“Why?” I let loose a held breath and breathe out the word.
 
“Because I know you can break it,” he says, his voice calm, like he’s soothing a child who’s just tumbled off a bike. But I’m not buying it. “Do it. Now get up.”
 
With my blood pumping like fire in my veins, my vision blurred by tears I won’t dare let pass the border of my eyes, I grab the branch and haul up my body. The shadow of the old oak’s limbs sways in the icy winter wind like gnarled fingers summoning me to escape. I step near the dreary dome of glass, my long blonde hair whipping across my face. Taking aim at a single window, I swing with everything I’ve got.
 
The branch hits my mark. I know it because I feel the sting of impact in my hands, the aftershock vibrating up my arms, but as with Asher’s attempt, there’s no sound. I toss the branch aside, hug my arms across my chest, and move back a few steps when a shower of glass rains onto the snow followed by Asher’s cry of victory. “Booyah!”
 
Before my brain can register the distinct pause that took place before the rain of broken glass, sparkling green vapor seeps from within the conservatory. It curls around the edges of the shattered glass, followed by finger-like slithering vines.
 
Dissipating into a mist, the vapor drifts in the air around us. I detect a sweet aromatic fragrance, perhaps flowers, but remain fixed on the creeping plants filling the jagged gap. Asher too watches in awe, and I consider charging him but worry Chester Pug could get injured in the process. So I look back at the window, and the glass has appeared again. The vapor and vines are gone.
 
“You did it,” says Asher. He shoves Chester Pug into my arms, but my rhyme journal remains in his grasp.
 
I inch near the window. Not a mark or a crack is visible, so I slip off a mitten to bravely tap it with a fingernail. “What just happened?” The words glide across my lips in barely a whisper. The more I mull over what I just saw, the more my brain spins.
 
Then Asher is beside me, asking if I’m okay. He grabs Chester Pug from my arms and sets him on the ground. “Randa?” he says, touching my shoulder.
 
My body is paralyzed, but I feel every beat of my heart, hear the rush of blood in my ears. Tingles run up my back raising the hair on the nape of my neck.
 
“Look,” says Asher. He thrusts his palm so close to my nose that I stumble and fall. Chester Pug bounces through the snow to the cast aside branch which he proceeds to pee on, then I see Asher is holding something red.
 
I find my voice, and with no care for who hears, I yell, “Did you see that? The window…how did that happen?”
 
Asher crouches beside me and in a calm voice says, “Randa, calm down. Yes, I saw it.”
 
I look at him with my mouth open. “Okay…so…it was real?”
 
“It was real,” he confirms. His voice is now soothing. “I told you something was going on here. And we’re gonna figure it out. Together.” He shows me what he shoved in front of my face—a red pyramid-shaped stone. “This is the second one of these I’ve found. See those?” he says pointing toward the conservatory.
 
“What?” Having somewhat gathered my wits, I look at the dome of glass, half expecting more creepy green gas to seep from the windows.
 
“Those indents in the snow. I bet more of these are buried there.”
 
When I realize he’s aiming at a snowdrift and not the conservatory, I laugh. It’s not a hearty, joyous laugh, but one that stems from nerves on overdrive, which releases some of the tension in my chest. He’s right. There must be over ten divots spaced evenly apart, but I still can’t shake what I saw. Then Asher produces a cotton bag and drops the stone in. Who carries stuff like that around?
 
While Asher digs in the drift, I scoop up Chester Pug and creep backward into the shadows, then dash in the direction of the street. But before I can even make it to the oak tree, Asher seizes my arm.
 
“Where do you think you’re going? I didn’t say you could leave.”
 
“Let me go,” I yank free. Asher Eastwyke isn’t just a bully, he’s nuts. “Keep my journal. Show everyone my rhymes, I don’t care. Like that can make my life any worse.”
 
“Just help me dig up the rest, then you can have your journal.”
 
“Fine,” I bark.