#I love that this distant shore discussion is like only half about the episode

[firephoenix23]

A Distant Shore thoughts

Alright well I wanted to talk about a distant shore over the weekend since we didn’t have a new ascension episode come out but for some reason I just never got around to it. I don’t know for me this episode like exceed my expectations. Like I remembered that I liked this episode but it’s literally been 5 to 6 years since I actually sat down and watched the whole show

As I have said like multiple times in other tags I do have quite a few thoughts on this episode but I’m gonna try not to make the post too long. So a very brief synopsis but the episode starts with a man named Gar Revelle telling about the burning world aka the surface. He talks about riches and adventure and is trying to convince people to come to with him on this journey.

I’m really shortening the story here but Eli tries to find out how Gar knows about the surface and he tries to do it alone but his friends come along only to get into a shoot out. He sends them back to the hideout and finds out how Gar knows about the surface; through his great uncles journal. Eli steals the journal and makes it back to the hideout only to be followed by Gar and his followers. The episode ends with Eli burning his great uncle’s journal and telling his friends about the surface

There were so many little moments in the episode that just shows that slugterra can have some deeper topics. Like when Kord says we trust you Eli we just wish you could trust us to Trixie not even believing Eli at first after he just told them one of his families greatest secrets to even Eli saying the that shane gang is his family. That scene where Eli has to burn his great uncles journal was so heartbreaking to watch. Like how he can’t even look at it and how Burpy closes his eyes it’s so heartbreaking

All these moments and more show how close they are too each other and how much they care for Eli. I mean they constantly talk about how they are a team and that it doesn’t matter what they are fighting for they just want to remain together. I feel like that’s such a weirdly strong message for a kids show for ages 6 to 10. Maybe I’m reading way too much into it but this episode seems to be about not pushing people away and that it’s okay to open up your darkest secrets with the ones who care about you. And I don’t think I’m wrong in that assumption if you consider Eli’s father

I find it interesting that this episode came right after inheritance because it almost mirrors what happened to Will and Tom Por. Again brief synopsis but Will Shane was keeping secrets from Tom Por who Eli stated was a good friend of his dad’s until he betrayed him. Will was keeping secrets from his friend and when his friend confronted him he lied and instead got into an argument with him and from the looks of it either killed Tom Por or greatly injured him. All of this just to keep the Shane secrets well a secret.

Will values keeping the secrets of the Shanes more than his friend which is heartbreaking. I feel like you can even see it in his face where he knows that this is the way that things have to be. I don’t think he wants to get into a duel with his friend but if that’s what it takes to keep the shadow talker a secret then that’s the way it’s gotta be.

Eli almost does the same thing even in that episode with the shadow talker when he hides it behind his back but his friends say it would be better if they all helped him out together as a team. And the same happens in this episode. He tries to hide what he’s doing to his friends and he tries to push them away but they don��t listen and they even want to fight for him even if they don’t know what it’s for. Like damn that’s loyalty.

I think this shows that while Eli and Will look scarily similar they do have very different personalities and different approaches to how to be a Shane. I mean the core principles are there but Eli tries to open up. You could argue it’s because he’s a kid but I think it could speak to Eli having such good friends and wanting to keep them around. Like Eli was left all alone for so long on the surface after his father disappeared and his mother left him that maybe that’s why he wanted to open up to them because he was afraid to lose them. He would rather risk a few people knowing about the biggest shane secret as long as he’s not alone.

But Will didn’t do that he pushed them all away and that caused him to do almost every thing by himself and make impulsive decisions like with Twist’s and Dana’s father. It’s a little messed up that Will expected that Eli acted the same way he did but maybe that’s the only way Will knew. Maybe if Will had a Shane gang his approach would have been different but he didn’t

#slugterra #slugterra thoughts #poor Will Shane #poor Eli #honestly poor shane legacy they all probably had to do shit like this #I love that this distant shore discussion is like only half about the episode

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Star Trek: Genre and Themes

Considering the fact that Star Trek was pitched as “Wagon Train in space”, it seems almost redundant to discuss the genre of such a show.  

Since the beginning, Gene Roddenberry’s show’s genre seemed pretty obvious: science fiction-western.  And really, it’s hard to argue with that.  Kirk’s style has been outright referred to as ‘cowboy diplomacy’ by future installations of Star Trek.  The adventures and ‘exploration’ of the new territory is very reminiscent of the western television shows of the time, and the setting of outer space would seem to place it pretty firmly in the ‘science fiction’ genre as well.

But, like always, there’s a little more to it than that.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, very few pieces of media can be categorized as only one genre.  Even the most seemingly obvious and one-dimensional examples have elements of other genres.  No show is designed to fit into only one genre, with any individual television program carrying many characteristics of one specific genre, while sharing many elements of other genres.

And while it may be easy to look at the setting of a film or television show and use that to determine a genre (space = sci-fi, medieval = fantasy), that doesn’t mean it’s terribly accurate.

Such is the case of Star Trek.

As a matter of fact, despite Roddenberry’s initial pitch to the studios, Star Trek actually doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the westerns of the day (Besides Spectre of the Gun).  Kirk’s ‘cowboy’ nature actually doesn’t come into play nearly as much as one would think.  Captain Kirk’s decision making isn’t quite the same as a traditional western lead, weighing more factors than just ‘frontier justice’.  For another, the setup is totally different.  The Enterprise is a military exploration ship, full of people on a mission, not just of exploration, but of diplomacy.  Kirk’s job is not only to defeat ‘bad guys’, but to find the best solutions for problems of other cultures.

So while Kirk’s ‘good old fisticuffs’ solutions may seem a bit more of the ‘Wild Wild West’ than later incarnations of the show would resort to, it doesn’t make it a western.  In fact, Star Trek has far more in common with future versions of science fiction shows than one might think.

Star Trek, at its core, is a show about an optimistic utopia, a future where humanity has learned to straighten itself out.  A future where there is no oppression, no prejudice, no poverty, but of a unified, educated, compassionate Earth, reaching out into the galaxy to explore, extending a hand of friendship.  This is Kirk’s job: being the hand of friendship.  Set in a distant future, a twenty-third century where Earth’s problems are solved, as such, there is no need to examine humanity’s flaws as they are.

At least, not directly.

As is done with many examples of the soft science fiction (or speculative fiction) genre, Star Trek uses its setting and set-up to examine the problems with our own society through the disguise of another.  Routinely, Kirk and the gang land on a planet or meet a people that represent a part of humanity that is less than pleasant to look at.  Episodes like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield take a scathing look at racism, a huge social issue in the late 1960s.  Other episodes examined topics like the Vietnam war, labor, and, a science-fiction favorite, the dangers of technology.  

Add this onto the ‘traveling through the stars’ plotline of Star Trek, and you’ve got yourself a pretty good argument for a solid science fiction show, with or without the western elements to it.  With that said, that doesn’t mean there’s more to the show than just sci-fi.

Star Trek’s storylines typically fell into the category of action or adventure.  There were gunfights (or phaserfights), fistfights, chases, daring escapes, and space-battles galore.  There was typically at least one hair-raising action scene per episode (with a few exceptions, such as The Trouble with Tribbles or The Way to Eden).  Even the episodes without ‘action’ per say as it would later be solidified in shows like The A-Team or Magnum P.I. turned out a decent ‘adventure’ story, with emphasis on the journey and adventure as a whole, rather than action-packed sequences that kept audiences on the edge of their seat.

Star Trek was all about the adventure, as even the opening credits will make clear.  The voyage of the Enterprise is aimed at discovery and exploration.  The setup of the show is, at its core, the greatest adventure: exploring the unknown.  Every episode is aimed at the exploration of the human experience and curiosity.  By definition, an adventure is a risky undertaking, and the exploration of deep space and discovering new civilizations and planets is nothing if not risky.

It’s pretty easy to say that Star Trek fits pretty neatly into the ‘sci-fi/adventure’ category, although it does have shades of other genres.  Episodes like Shore Leave, The Trouble with Tribbles, I Mudd, and A Piece of the Action have a distinct comedic slant to them, whereas episodes like Catspaw, The Enemy Within, Wolf in the Fold, and The Man Trap have a rather sinister, horror/thriller edge.  Other episodes have dabbled into courtroom dramas, tragedies, westerns, and even war, giving all three seasons a wide range of types of stories that they tell.  However, one genre that Star Trek has always been the absolute master of, even more than science-fiction or adventure, has been the genre of drama.

At the heart of every Star Trek episode, no matter how cerebral or action-packed, is an overarching sense of drama.  Not drama in the ‘soap opera’ sense, mind you, but drama as in real character interaction and growth.  The drama in Star Trek is in McCoy and Spock’s argument in Bread and Circuses, in the death of a recently married lieutenant in Balance of Terror, in the death of Kirk’s brother in Operation: Annihilate. Star Trek’s dramatic moments are rooted in character, from Spock’s admittance and sharing of Vulcan rituals in Amok Time and his muted desperation at thinking that he’s killed his Captain in a burst of uncontrollable rage to the doomed romance between Kirk and Edith Keeler in City On the Edge of Forever. The drama in Star Trek is in people, whether human or not.

The examples of Star Trek’s use of characters, be they regular or not, is truly groundbreaking.  From Spock’s mind-meld with the Horta in Devil in the Dark to Kirk’s terrifying identity crisis in The Enemy Within, Star Trek’s strength is in the people, in the personal dynamics between the characters, most notably between the main trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.  Even the other, more minor characters on the show received levels of characterization unheard of for the time: Sulu’s love of botany and retro weaponry, Uhura’s musical ability, Scotty’s intelligence and romantic troubles, and Chekov’s obsession with spouting totally innaccurate Russian history, possibly just to annoy the rest of the crew.  Even Nurse Chapel’s flashes of snark helped her stand apart from the many nameless crew members who came and went throughout the series.

In short, Star Trek’s characters were people.  Nowhere was this more evident than in Mr. Spock.

By the 1960s, most ‘alien’ characters on television were either jokes or monsters, cast as gimmicks in My Favorite Martian or as evil conquerors in shows like The Twilight Zone or The Invaders.  But in Star Trek, the ‘alien’ was as ‘human’ as the rest of us, if you’ll pardon the phrase.

A Mr. Spock type character was unheard of in 1966.  A half-human, half-alien, treated as a respected equal of the rest of the crew, was a completely foreign concept at the time.  Spock’s development as a character, and indeed, his criticism of the human condition proved to be one of Star Trek’s best elements of its use of character and drama.  Spock as a character was constantly at war with himself, torn between the outwardly emotionless Vulcan half, and his emotional, illogical human half.  Spock’s internal struggle proved to be one of the most gripping elements of the show, and as his interactions with Kirk and McCoy proved, although Spock did not like to be compared to humans, in many ways, he was more ‘human’ than we are.  His subtle flashes of emotion and occasional bursts of illogical behavior proved repeatedly that there was a lot more to Spock than what he tried to let on.  He, along with the other members of the cast, had layers.

And Star Trek was very good at exploring those layers.

No science-fiction show would introduce characters with layers to explore if they hadn’t had every intention of making the show hang on the relationships of the characters.  And the relationships of characters is the absolute core of drama.

In the end, Star Trek is a science-fiction adventure drama, a speculative look at the nature of humanity and people in general.  Star Trek is a look at a better future, an improved society turned to exploration.  It’s about the new frontier, about the best and worst of humanity, about friendship, adventure, and morality, full of good and memorable stories and characters.  It paved the way for even more complex shows to follow, and remains one of the most thought-provoking and earnest shows of all time.

Even now, audiences remember those characters, those stories, those little moments with these people that they grew to know.  They hold up, remaining just as genuine and heartfelt as they were in 1966.

And they owe that, in no small part, to those wonderful characters.

But that’s a discussion for next time.

Thank you guys so much for reading!  Don’t forget that my ask box is always open for conversation, suggestions, or questions.  Stay tuned for the next article, where we’ll be looking at the crew of the Enterprise and their roles in Star Trek.  I hope to see you there!

#Star Trek: The Original Series #Star Trek #Television #TV #TV-PG #60s #Drama #Action #Adventure #Sci-Fi #Science Fiction #William Shatner #Leonard Nimoy #DeForest Kelley #Nichelle Nichols #James Doohan #George Takei #Walter Koenig #Majel Barrett #Gene Roddenberry

[tamitha-t-shepard]

Episode No. 1: The Past is Always present

Our Dearest Everleigh,

We are sorry that our last letter caused you such misery amid unexpected joy. Though, you must feel, as we do, that our concern is only natural given the circumstances. We hope this letter finds you well—and still unmarried.

Please understand, it is not that we believe him to be unworthy of you, but that it is impossible to know one way or the other. For a young man of such striking abilities as you describe to remain wholly unknown to our kind for the first thirty years of his life is an unusual and unlikely occurrence. But for him to suddenly appear on The Furthest Shore without any recollection of a past or home, family or friends is inconceivable. As no one has yet come forward that can claim any knowledge of him, we must urge you to postpone your marriage until our return. Even as I write, Ophelia is booking our passage, and most of the morning has been spent packing in such scramble and haste as to be comical were it not for our anxiety that we are already too late. I know that what we write must pain and disappoint you, but we cannot help but fear for your sake—nay, for both your sakes, if he is as friendless and innocent as he appears to you. There is darkness at the root of this, we are sure, and until any light can be gained, you must guard your heart.

Remember, “the past is always present.” Those words followed our family from The World That Was to the shore where you now stand, and they have served us well for over three thousand years. While most of the Others have perished, our kind has not only survived but flourished in The New World. It is because we do not forget. We are The Living Memory of all that was. If a Darkwell knows anything with certainty, it is that, however deeply buried or seemingly distant, the past is inescapable. It will always find you.

With Much Trepidation and Ceaseless Love, Your Aunts,

Odessa & Ophelia

P.S. —And so will we—find you that is— if you even think of eloping and abandoning the manor before our return. It is much better to defy us in the comfort and safety of Darkwell and risk our displeasure rather than undo the work of many generations. The last time it was left uninhabited, it took your great-grandmother six months to find it and six more to coax it back to The Furthest Shore. So much can happen in the space of a year; who has the time to go chasing after a cross, anxiety-riddled house with unresolved abandonment issues?

The Goring Letter, as it later became known in the Darkwells’ Book of Books, was written after Odessa and Ophelia Darkwell were booted from Portal Travelers’ Grand Tour of Royal Coronations Through the Ages.

Organized by the sisters and arranged through the Interrealm Historical Society of The New World, of which they were longstanding members, it was meant to be a long and well-deserved holiday. Their guide, Shaemus McPhail, accused the sisters of intentionally referring to him as Shameless McPhail, constantly correcting him on ‘historical inaccuracies of grave error,’ and despite repeated warnings, wandering away from their group to discuss current events with the locals. There was also a confrontation that resulted in an altercation between Ophelia and Richard III over the return of a Darkwell family heirloom ‘borrowed’ by the York brothers before the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461.

After being banned from their tour group (and all future Portal Travelers historical tours), they decided to travel onto its last stop alone. While in London, they received a letter from their niece, Everleigh Darkwell, informing them of her intention to marry against their wishes. Everleigh wouldn’t discover their reply until a few months into her marriage while she was weeding the garden, tucked inside one of Odessa’s prize rhododendron bushes. Until that moment, it never occurred to her to question their absence. Only the Darkwells’ neighbor, Nettle Larkspur, was convinced something must have gone wrong when the sisters weren’t among the guests at Everleigh’s wedding. As she told her own niece while walking home from the reception, ‘it is not in Ophelia Darkwell’s nature to have missed the opportunity to put a stop to the wedding and deny everybody of The Furthest Shore a piece of the cake.’

Still, the sisters weren’t expected to return from their holiday for several weeks after their niece found their letter. It wasn’t unusual to have heard nothing from them. The mail was no more reliable than the weather in a place like The Furthest Shore. Even an express (and its hapless messenger) could be lost for weeks or months, and sometimes, years before turning up. Besides, Everleigh was in no rush for the return home of her aunts. She knew that while Odessa may not approve, she would resign herself to her niece’s choice sooner than later and welcome her new nephew into the family. Ophelia, however, was most likely of the opinion that Everleigh’s marriage to an unknown witch without a name or family was a tarnish on the Darkwells’ reputation only an annulment could remove.

Ophelia would return home ready to wage war, doggedly determined to rampage down the path she believed was ‘the only proper way,’ dragging the others along until eventually they fell into step beside her. That was how it had always been as long as Everleigh could remember, but this time, she could not—would not—bend to her aunt’s will. As painful as the thought was, the possible necessity of leaving the only home and family she knew occurred to her more than once. Her first responsibility was now to her marriage, and like all young wives, she was eager for the comfort and happiness of her husband. Where he was not welcomed, she could no longer remain.

Her aunts’ lack of faith in her judgment and the family pride that ranked higher in their consideration than the niece they brought up and treated as a daughter, taught Everleigh the importance of self-reliance. This resulted in the further discovery that she, too, possessed a strength of will as formidable as theirs. In other words, she was determined to have her own way and for everyone involved to be happy about it. She was no longer in the business of pleasing her aunts or fanning the flame of their inflated sense of what she owed her family to be worthy of the name of Darkwell.

It was a long-honored tradition in The Furthest Shore for the groom to take the family name of his bride. She had half a mind to further shock her relations and neighbors by taking her husband’s last name, but that would have to wait until he either remembered what that name was or his family came forward to claim him. But apart from her daydreams of rebellion, Everleigh clung to her belief that time and distance would smooth the ruffled feathers of her aunts’ pride. If not, the impending arrival of the newest member of the Darkwell family would serve to heal the breach once Odessa and Ophelia returned. At least, that had been her hope until she read their letter.

Portal Travelers were prohibited by their lawyers from discussing any details relating to the Miss Darkwells, Richard III, or the events that transpired during his coronation feast at Westminster Hall. They were currently under investigation by the Interrealm Portal Authorities (IPA) in conjunction with the Time Travel Sanctions Enforcement Agency (TTSEA). The only thing that IPA could confirm with certainty was the Miss Darkwells were asked to leave the tour shortly after the incident, and their current whereabouts were unknown. They wondered if Everleigh would be so kind to let them know of any word from her aunts as the Miss Darkwells was still wanted for questioning and apologized that their agents had been prevented from contacting her sooner.

Both organizations attempted to reach her several times by phone and letter. No sooner did they dial the number then they were put on hold while “God Save the Queen” played on an endless loop; every letter came back marked ‘return to sender’—and stamped with a smiling and winking skull. They couldn’t understand it as The Furthest Shore was well within their jurisdiction. They even sent agents to Darkwell Manor, but like her aunts, they were now missing and could not be located.

Everleigh wasn’t surprised to learn that her aunts’ tour was short-lived. Or that they were responsible for a time anomaly and a new portrait hanging in the east wing dated 1483 by an unknown artist, portraying Richard being accosted by two finely dressed noblewomen, or that they took off on their own without a word to anyone, including herself. In the best of circumstances and on their best behavior, Odessa and Ophelia could be impetuous and unpredictable. Revered throughout The New World for their brilliance as witches and the integrity that marked their practice of the craft, they were also infamous for their outlandish, eccentric, and contrary natures.

Everleigh could trace them as far as the Goring Hotel in London on the afternoon of June 3, 1953—the same date as the Goring Letter—but not beyond. They, had in fact, booked their passage home to The Furthest Shore, but an unidentified woman canceled the booking by phone less than an hour after it was made. Similarly, a Ms. H—only the ‘H’ of her signature was legible—paid their bill at the desk and politely asked to have a handful of the sisters’ letters mailed directly. Everleigh couldn’t think of who the woman was, and no one at the hotel was able to give a satisfactory description of her beyond her being rather tall and of indiscriminate age with no discernible accent. But what struck their niece as odd and out of character wasn’t that a mystery woman was running their errands, but that no one remembered seeing her aunts leave the hotel after their bill was settled.

Above all, Odessa and Ophelia enjoyed being seen, heard, and attended to while traveling—and causing as much trouble and inconvenience to others as was in their power fulfilled their two main requirements of any holiday—entertainment and relaxation. The sisters were always curious and impatient to see how enthusiastically they were wished away by the hotel staff and other guests by the end of their stay. Surely, there must have been at least one disgruntled employee or cranky patron of the hotel who’s good nature was tested by Odessa and Ophelia as they left.

For reasons unknown, they went to great lengths to conceal themselves—and to keep their niece in the dark as long as possible. As the months passed and there was still no word of them, Everleigh, like her aunts, could not shake the feeling that darkness was at the root of it. She couldn’t bring herself to mention her suspicions to her husband, but in the privacy of her own thoughts, she couldn’t help wondering if her aunts had stumbled upon something to do with his past—or the reason for his lack of one.

She could recite every word of their letter faithfully, and the concerns and fears which seemed so trivial and unsubstantial when she first read it, now struck her as natural and reasonable. She had rushed into a marriage to a man who was not only a stranger to her, but to himself; he had no memory of who he was or the life he led before Everleigh found him wandering the shoreline alone. Her aunts were troublesome, demanding, and often exhausting, but they also spent the better part of their youth raising, teaching, and loving her without complaint or ever implying that they would have had it otherwise. She was their joy and preoccupation for the first twenty years of her life, and in that time she was treated with kindness, affection, and most importantly—especially for a young girl who lost both parents at an early age—they made her feel safe and wanted. Her aunts’ disappearance and the mystery of her husband’s origins became so intertwined in her imagination she could no longer untangle the one from the other.

Darkwell Manor was too quiet, too somber, and lost much of its color and vibrancy without the presence of Odessa and Ophelia. One by one, the sisters’ familiars wandered away from the manor and did not return. Even Ophelia’s favorite, a large black tomcat that called himself Pagan, gave up hope, and one afternoon, Everleigh watched him saunter out of the work kitchen and through the back garden gate without a word to anyone. He didn’t look back as he went, and no one had seen him since. Inside the walls of Darkwell, there was stillness, darkness, and a chill to be found in every room. The garden her aunts were so proud of sunk into despondency and decay. When it became impossible for Everleigh to tend to it herself, the Larkspurs were kind enough to take over its care. Still, even the deft hands and horticultural prowess of Nettle Larkspur wasn’t able to restore it to life. Only the rhododendrons continued to thrive, growing large and lush, overwhelming the smaller plants withering away nearby. Everleigh began to hate them and refused to have them in the house any longer. Darkwell was in mourning—for whom or what she wasn’t sure—but grief, like a shroud, descended over the manor.

The evening that marked the first anniversary of Odessa and Ophelia leaving Darkwell before embarking on their grand tour, Everleigh lay awake in bed, her hand over her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds of her sobs. Her husband lay beside her pretending to sleep as he listened. The next morning, she woke with a start to the sound of her husband’s voice calling her—and another’s as well—a familiar voice and the only voice that was capable of yelling the entirety of her name as though it were a string of obscenity-laced expletives. Ophelia Darkwell was home.

Before she could lift herself out of bed, her husband came through the door and breathlessly announced, “Everleigh, there’s a madwoman in the garden that wants you.”

“Yes, I know. It’s the Aunts,” Everleigh said brightly as she pointed to her robe lying on a chair near her husband, “Can you help me, please?”

“Is Odessa out there too?” she asked as he helped her into the robe.

“No, I didn’t see anyone else,” he said.

“Well, she’s never far behind Ophelia,” Everleigh said and turned to see the state of her husband’s mess of thick curls, rumpled clothes, and unshaven face, “Look at you—they’ll think I don’t take care of you.”

“Beloved, your eight months pregnant,” he pointed out. “I think that’s more likely to be the topic of our conversation with your—”

“Everleigh— Morgana— Gloriana— Alberta— Odeira— Darkwell!” Ophelia yelled, “If you do not come down here at once—what has THAT WOMAN done to my garden?”

“Maybe we should just pack and skip the introductions,” Everleigh suggested. Her husband only smiled and held out his hand which she took, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

As they came down the stairs and into the main hall, they could hear every word Ophelia uttered clearly and distinctly, which was no small feat considering the size of the house or the thickness of its walls. Everleigh was sure that the whole of The Furthest Shore now knew that the Darkwell sisters were home. Once outside, Everleigh stopped on the steps leading into the garden holding onto her husband’s hand to prevent him from going any nearer. They watched as Ophelia, on her knees and turned away from them, was attempting to pull the gnarled remains of a dead rose bush from the ground with only a trowel and her bare hands.

“—and to imagine that this is what I come home to! A slack-jawed nephew-in-law that runs away as soon as he sees me— as if he’s never seen a proper witch before; a ruined garden—what could Everleigh have been thinking to let Nettle Larkspur near it? I know it was her—daft woman left her trowel behind. Just like her, too, to do more harm than good. DO NOT THINK I DO NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR HAND IN THIS NETTLE LARKSPUR! Where is that girl?”

“Here, Aunt,” Everleigh called out as calmly as she could manage. “Good morning, Aunt Ophelia. Where is Aunt Odessa?”

“Good morning?” asked Ophelia, getting up and wiping the damp dirt from the front of her skirt while turning towards her niece, “Does any of this look good to you, Everleigh Darkwell? I am seriously displeased that you allowed—all of this,” she said, making a vague gesture that appeared to encompass the state of the garden, Everleigh’s large stomach and the husband who’s hand was beginning to tingle and grow numb in his wife’s unrelenting grip. “Where is everybody? Where is that tomcat—I gave him one job to do while we were away—to keep out the mice and rabbits. BILE OF THE BEAST—where is that damned heretic of a feline— Pagan!”

“He’s gone,” Everleigh told her.

“What do you mean, gone?” Ophelia asked incredulously.

“They’ve all gone, Aunt Ophelia. I’m sorry, but when you and Aunt Odessa didn’t return all of the familiars went off too—where is Aunt Odessa?”

Ophelia did not answer. She made her way to an old stone bench as the young couple watched as Ophelia began to rock where she sat, wrapping her arms tightly around her as though to prevent a sudden pain from escaping, before finally and quietly saying, “Not here, obviously. Do not you have eyes, child? Cannot you see that I am alone?”

A cold spell had come to The Furthest Shore during the night, and it began to snow—a light, soundless fall that clung to Ophelia. She was wearing only a thin, yellowing blouse and a long, slim gray skirt torn at the hemline, now damp and stained with dirt. She was shivering. She seemed diminished and older and yet, more childlike and at a loss than her niece had ever known her.

Everleigh’s eyes began to sting and cloud as she took in her aunt, and the meaning of her words began to sink in. She was startled by the sudden revelation of what she had always known but taken for granted. Her aunts were but two halves—only whole when they were together. A ‘split soul’ is what their kind called it. To Everleigh’s knowledge, the sisters had never been apart from one another for more than a few days at a time.

“I do not know how it happened,” Ophelia said, looking up at her niece, “I turned only for a moment, and when I turned back, she was gone. Vanished. I do not know how I let it happen.”

Everleigh could not move or speak but felt her husband let go of her hand and watched as he approached Ophelia, slowly and carefully. He took off his coat and put it around her shoulders.

“You aren’t dressed for the weather,” he said. “Should we go in?”

Everleigh watched him help Ophelia from the bench, marveling at the unlikely sight of her aunt leaning against him as they walked, his arm around her, and her hand clasped in his.

“What are you called, or are you still wandering about with no name?” Odessa asked him.

“Marc,” he told her. “Marc Darkwell.”

“Hmm, it is an ancient name—an auspicious name,” she said thoughtfully.

“Yes, Everleigh said so too.”

“A family name, of course. And was the naming done properly? Were you named at The Veil?”

He replied he was.

“It is a good name for a great man to have,” she told him. “The spirits of The Veil do not make mistakes. They see further and know better than the rest of us.”

“I’m honored to bear it.”

“As well you should be if you are to be a Darkwell.”

When questioned by Everleigh, her neighbors— and the IPA agents that finally found their way to the door of Darkwell Manor— about Odessa’s disappearance or her own unexplained absence, Ophelia would change the subject to the unusual weather for the time of year, or how unkempt the Larkspurs garden was looking these days, before abruptly leaving the room.

She was not home many days before she discovered she preferred the company of her nephew-in-law to her niece’s. He asked incessant questions, too, but they were questions that did not pain or disturb what was left of her peace of mind. He wanted to know everything about the Darkwells’ family history, the manor, and especially, his namesake. Ophelia would tell him the stories she knew while pretending not to notice Everleigh as she hovered nearby, silent and scowling at Marc and herself while rubbing her stomach as though she and the unborn child were plotting their revenge.

When Everleigh could no longer stand it, she declared that unless her aunt was prepared to tell her everything, she had nothing further to say to her. This suited Ophelia better than Everleigh knew. She had promised to say nothing, and a Darkwell keeps her promises. Even if she had not, Ophelia knew she couldn’t bring herself to tell Everleigh how close she had come to danger—how close they had all come—and may yet still be.

Thank you for reading the first episode of The Daughters of Darkwell.

If you enjoyed it, please consider becoming a patron. However much you give, however often you give, your support matters. Your patronage not only keeps me in pens, but makes it possible for me to share this story with you, earn a living as an author, and fund future projects.

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United States Scary Account.

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