There's a light

Helene raised her lantern as high as she could, feeling (rather foolishly) like a girl in a gothic novel.

The fog had swept up through the canyon on the back of the wind, and it took very little imagination to turn their campsite in the California hills into a windswept moor in Victorian England.

"Heathcliff?" she whispered, and was startled to hear an answering, "Cathy?"

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel
Trellis Series rope tutorial by NED Beads Artisan Jewelry, Ionic Polyhedra beaded beads pattern by beAd Infinitum. Hand fabricated.

Times Squared

She thought about Sylvia Plath as she walked from the subway to her office. Not for the usual reasons; she wasn't a poetry groupie or the sort of person who identified with tortured souls.

No, her thoughts of Plath were purely practical.

As a teenager, she'd read The Bell Jar and remembered only one thing from it; the image of the heroine walking across New York City, late at night, counting the blocks across the grid of Manhattan to her destination. She counted them, too. And worked them into math problems.

She called then her Plath patterns.

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel lIonic Polyhedra beaded bead designed by beAd Infinitum. Snake Chain designed by Good Quill Hunting Hand fabricated.

Skaði

She cupped her hands and gently blew over her palms; the children saw only the snow, falling from her fingers. She was tall, very tall, and slim as an icicle. Her skis flew down the mountain she loved; straight as the path of an arrow, and twice as fast.

She loved winter; she was never cold, never tired of snow and ice. Her mother had known her name in the womb; Skaði, Skaði, Skaði she whispered, sending chills down her mother's spine.

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel Glass icicle by Glasswich. Beadwoven from seed beads; embellished with quartz chips, angora rovings and vintage glass.

Darkness into light

She rolled over and squinted at the clock. 3: 04. Wide awake, she'd hoped it was later than that. The light from the neighbor's yard made it look like dawn in her bedroom, even through her shades.

Groaning, she turned her face resolutely to the wall and tried to go back to sleep. It's not morning, she told herself; not even close. If I get up now, I'll be ready for bed at 7:00 tonight.

Click. The light turned itself off automatically. It was night again.

At least until the next raccoon wandered by.

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel
Time Machine Beaded Bead Pattern by Gwen Fisher and Florence Turnour of beAd Infinitum.

Ice Queen

It was snowing outside but she knew she'd never feel the cold. She would be whisked from her penthouse apartment into a heated car so fast that she wouldn't even need a wrap.

She hadn't always been rich; deep in her consciousness was a visceral memory of cold and hunger; of nearly freezing to death on nights like these. She'd hungered for everything in those days; she'd dreamed of living warm and protected. She smiled, graciously acknowledging her host and benefactor.

It was a different kind of cold.

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel. Swarovski crystals and seed beads. Pattern available in my Artfire and Etsy Shops.