Writing Prompt #1: October 2019

This post first appeared on jazifresh.com

I went ahead and wrote to this particular one because Halloween and I wanted to play with some of the imagery this prompt immediately evoked. I took WAAAAY longer than I'll ever allow myself to do one of these ever again but the concept kinda made me go a little haywire (in a good way) and I didn't want to half-ass it SO...it's long :) but hopefully worth the read.

Here is the prompt (found via Pinterest)...

The graveyardstretched out like the ocean, as far as the eye could see…

Neat rows of headstones stand cold and unyielding as fogcurls around them escaping to the farthest edges of my vision. The clang of thewrought iron gate closing fills the air and a flock of crows spills out fromthe mossy oak framing the entrance to the lawn, squawking with their wingsbeating furiously against the cold night air.

“Could you be any louder?” I hiss, tensing as my sister, Sienna,brushes up on my left. She bounds forward as she calls back to me. “Fear not,Little Sister…everyone here is dead.”

Yes. And Minta, too.I think silently of my youngest sister, senselessly snatched from us. A lumptakes form in my throat but Sienna motions for me to hurry before I can befully be taken again by grief. I pull my too-thin coat collar up around my chinas I finally will myself forward after her in the long divide between the markedgraves.

I give up trying to close the distance between my sister andme and settle for matching her long strides from behind. When did Sienna get so tall? It’s as if I’m observing her for thefirst time. Her long figure is at least half of a foot taller than the lasttime I checked. Her even longer shadow dances across marble and grass as wepress towards the center of the yard.

Her steps are sure and filled with purpose. A thick blackbraid swings rhythmically with each bouncing motion, silvered under themoonlight. It’s as if she’s taking hermorning walk to lessons and not to…

War. We are hereto incite what will certainly mean war and Sienna seems almost ecstatic. Herexcitement radiates from her in powerful waves.

Then there is me, a shivering mess and ambling with all thegrace of an injured doe.

More than my physical body, it is my heart that hurts the most. The last attack took so much; the worst part of it was losing Minta. My sweetest baby sister. The last soul who could deserve to be caught in the crossfire of a greedy empire and its starving subjects. She was too young to be hardened and cynical and for that reason she was truly the freest among us. Her death had shrouded our camp like a gulf hurricane gathering strength and in the nights that followed, Sienna’s mourning bubbled over into a plot of vengeance.

In my heart, I also want revenge. I want to avenge Minta with every ounce of my being, but I am too afraid to do anything about it. I'm not at all like Sienna.

“We’re almost there, slowpoke.” Sienna calls back coolly. I’mtoo cold to humor her with a response. I catch a glimpse of the leather-bound bookshe has been carrying with us. This is a book I have seen a hundred times beforebut it’s never looked more heavy and foreboding than it does now. Most likely becausewe ignored multiple warnings from our Nan and foolishly stole it from her tobring it here.

I finally find my voice again. “We don’t have to do this, Sienna!” I say too loudly into the heavy air, my echo returning to me in a loud whisper. I am afraid and sad and uncertain. I want nothing more than to tell my big sister that I’m tired of fighting and I just want to run but I’m using every ounce of my energy to make sure I don’t fall and break my neck over someone’s final resting place.

“We do have to do this, Dot. We need to put an end to all ofthis.” Dot. My childhood nickname. Sienna’s feeble attempt at comforting me.Ordinarily, it would work except life, and subsequently death, have made it thatI haven’t been Little Dot for a very long time.

“Minta is the last one who will die here.” Sienna’s pacenever changes until we reach a clearing and the final row of headstones. Freshsoil tops the sites of newly dug graves all from the last wave of fighting.Their deaths are so recent that their headstones are not even in place.

I finally make my way to Sienna’s side. I turn to her pleadingyet weighing each word carefully. “Sienna, there’s no coming back from this.Whether this works or it doesn’t, we’re on our own from here.”

My plea hangs there as Sienna turns around facing the new graves and all of those we passed to get here. In the next moment she opens the purloined book to the page she marked for this night. I look down and realize she’s standing directly in front of the plot where Minta is laid.

“That’s the thing I finally realized, Dot.” She turns herface to meet my gaze.

“We have never been on our own.”

With the book held open in her left hand and her right handoutstretched towards the dead, Sienna begins to chant the incantation she haswhispered to herself for the last fortnight. She grows louder and more determinedwith each repetition and I find myself immobilized by my fear. Everything in mewants to run but I can’t do anything but breathe and wait helplessly foreverything Nan warned us of.

Sienna is still chanting when the ground beneath me beginsto tremble. I gasp as Sienna falls to her knees but never abandoning her task.The incantation and tremors are deafening as I finally become too shaken tokeep my feet.

I crawl towards Sienna with tears overtaking my vision as athunderous clap fills the graveyard. The air around us fills with the sound of athousand splitting headstones. I reach Sienna just as we are thrown back by theground bursting open before us. The earth begins to belch up every box of everysoul lost to the Empire. A few centuries of resistance had filled Freedman’s CemeteryNo. 4 and many others to nearly full capacity and because they could neverstand for even the dead to mingle, Freedman’s holds the poorest and blackest ofus all. Just not for much longer.

My eyes are squeezed shut so tightly it becomes painful tohold. But I won’t open them. I don’t want to see. As all of the wooden boxesbegin to groan open I am rocking clutching my knees and Sienna in the darknessand sobbing uncontrollably. Pleeeease.I don’t want see her. I can’t see Minta this way and yet I can’t escape what hasbeen done. How would the risen corpse ofmy eight year old sister appear? Would she look like Minta? Act like Minta? Or somethingelse?

For a time I can’t measure my eyes remain shut until Irealize Sienna is no longer shouting and the graveyard is still and quietagain. I feel Sienna moving to stand and I grasp for help to come to my feetagain. With my hand placed in Sienna’s, I find the will to open my eyes.

It is just as Nan had cautioned and like nothing anyone could rightly imagine. Rows and rows of swaying corpses stood facing us in varying states of decay with their rattled breathing in eerie unison. The longest dead, our eldest ancestors, appear almost bodiless, mostly vapor and shadow, and the newly dead…

There she was—not ten feet from us. Chest heaving and dress swaying in the wind. The bows I placed at the end of her braids are still intact. The moonlight bathes her in an iridescent glow that still pales in comparison to the glow of Minta that I knew in life. She is still beautiful though her presence is a far cry from the curious and energetic child I cared for. Her lithe body is animated yet lifeless with eyes completely void of color and luster. Not Minta’s eyes. All at once, I am flooded with the guilt of failing to save her and for what we have come to ask of her remains.

Sienna regains herself and takes a step forward. As shedoes, each corpse does the same, mirroring all of her movements. Sierra wavesone of her hands and turns to me excitedly as the Risen do the same. “This isit, Dot! We did it! I knew we could.” I am still awestruck and numbed by what Iam seeing as Sierra turns back to the Risen to speak.

“Ancestors, brothers, and sisters! I call upon you now tofight. I call upon you to avenge your deaths and the deaths of many others inthe name of your children, the lost and the living.” Sierra voice carriesthroughout the yard and I am warmed by the vibrato of her delivery. Her handsare outstretched in open invitation and she is standing on the balls of herfeet pushing her voice as far as it will go.

“Without you, we are outnumbered and hopeless. But with you,we have a chance to make right that which is wrong and to end a senseless waragainst our people.” Each word steels my resolve and I begin, again, to find apurpose for the rage that’s been welling up inside me for weeks. A rage I setdown to sit with my sadness. But Sienna is right. We desperately need to fight.

Sienna places her hands by her side as she looks directly toMinta. Minta’s face, like all of the others, is a mirror of Sienna’s, tough andresolute.

“And although we know we will one day join you in death, webelieve that, like every other being, we deserve a chance to live. We deserve achance to really be free.”

Sienna steps back, taking my hand in hers again. I do notnotice before this but she is crying—her whole face is wet with tears. She squeezesmy hand tightly as she closes.

“So if you fight with us…we will fight for you. Like wealways have. Until the war is won.”

At that moment, each of the Risen stands erect and echoes her last words.

“Until the war is won.”

I look on Minta one last time, her tiny face bent into asmile as she looks back at Sienna and me.

From her tiny body emerges a whisper and a promise: “Until the war is won.”