Friday Fictioneers is on Facebook hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. You can read other stories or, better, join in and write your own at https://rochellewisoff.com/. A complete story in 100 words in response to a photo prompt. This week I realise I’ve been trying to channel my inner Merricat (I recently read and fell in love with Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle and there are some wonderful descriptions of what’s kept in the cellars and the rituals of how it is used or not.
When we moved here, the cupboard under-stairs was chill and full of forgotten things:
Ten jars of lavender honey
Plum preserve prinked with peppercorns and cloves
Old bottles of gin with sloes burst
A tray of skeleton mice laid out
Pickled frogs…
Which we ate and drank and threw away (the mice we buried in the garden).
Cleaned out the cupboard, added light and silly things, unmended-or-not-needed-now-but. Someone, someday will wear red monster slippers.
It is airy too with space for things we fear. These have multiplied of late. That clock for instance, always stopping at exactly the same time.
Dear Rachel,
I’m glad they buried the mice in the garden. For a moment I feared they would be part of the repast. Good one.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Hi Rochelle, but who knows how they came to their deaths! Thank you!
This is a very chilling story to for some reason. I get an unsettled feeling of what those fears might be and how they might connect to the clock. Well done.
That spooks me out too …. so thank you
What an atmosphere you have created here! I’m so glad the mice got tossed, not eaten 🙂
Thank you so much. Me too!
The clearing of space for the things we fear is brilliant, Rachel
Thanks Neil. It started off as a piece about someone who keeps everything extremely tidy and puts anything that doesn’t fit into the cupboard.
I like the idea
Such imagery – for a moment I thought the cupboard might have belonged to a witch.
Hi Sandra, that’s what I started to think…
Lovely piece of writing with a stunning final paragraph!
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
HI Susan, thank you so much. We had a clock a bit like that when I was growing up and it seemed to me then that it had a life of its own!
I too found the atmosphere foreboding and spooky and am not entirely sure why!? Wonderful descriptive writing.
Spooky and evocative. Leaves me with many haunting questions.
Great ghost story! What a turn-round you achieve, from sunny optimism to ‘Brrrrr’!
I adore this, Creepy but beautiful, gorgeously written descriptions with a chunk of mystery thrown in. No matter how much they renovate that cupboard, still the darkness reasserts itself. My favourite FF this weel, Rachel
Thank you so much Lynn. Really appreciated.
My pleasure – really loved this story, so atmospheric
Here it is and thank you! New to blogging and not always sure I’m clicking where I should.
I sympathise! I groped my way into Word Press a couple of years ago, not being very tech savvy and not knowing how to add links or images or videos. But I discovered it all eventually. A link to your book would be good – it sounds wonderful, by the way 🙂
I thought it was a witch\s cupboard at first too. I guess all those preserves were well preserved and not past due!
Not sure…maybe they started the fear…
Love the story. I’m thinking the house belongs to a retired witch! Quite intriguing ☺
Thank you!
Interesting collection of items in there. Beautifully written.
An interesting list of items. You set the closing up well. Beautifully written.
(don’t know what happened to my first comment. perhaps it’ll show up after I click “post”)
Things we fear. Perhaps the cupboard was chill because the previous owner used it for the same purpose.
Such an imagination you have and you lay it out in simple layers, making it even more beautiful.
Thank you so much. I hoped that the different elements would come together – but you can never be sure!