Mary Jackson
Bio
movies, fashion, fiction, fantasy, poetry, nature...
Stories (14/0)
The Darkness - Part II
The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own. As I passed through the veil between Hatherden and The Otherside, the home I knew was gone. Replaced with a replica that was all wrong. As I walked forward the cool forest behind me faded into a burning place. The path ahead was hot and dry and it bit at me with a violent gust. The shapes of the trees and land were the same but the colors were all perverse. Green bouncing leaves melded away into shades of brown. Dead and dry. Everything in me screamed I was going the wrong way but this was the only passage to the dragons. The one last chance I had for revenge on those creatures and the witches that wielded their fire breathing powers. I inhaled the new realm and stagnant air singed my nostrils. I turned to look one last time at my home and there turning back at me was the stark reflection of my body. It moved like me and I recognized it like seeing a ghost of myself. Never having encountered this obscure opening before, I wasn't alarmed at first. Rather, I compared things carefully. The likeness of the forest I knew so well was still there. The same huge trees. The same stones and shapes. Even the bushes in the small gap where the doe had leapt away were still vibrating from her hasty departure. But where there should have been lush leaves dipped in orange sunset hues, these trees in The Otherside were bare and dead. I looked back at the forest from where I had come. Where the sweet air sparked with evening dew. When I turned to look into the path ahead, in the space that filled in around the veil, the air was just black and empty. Only dust swirled with the hot, dry dimension. There wasn’t a bird song to be heard and there were no little animals watching from the safety of the thick forest. I immediately felt its emptiness. A halo was cast around the veil where I had just stepped through and in it I could see my reflection leaving Hatherden. I could see myself coming and going at the same time. I lifted my arms to my face in curious confirmation. The dark shadow that was me lifted her arms too. I dropped my hands to my sides and the figure dropped hers too. Then just as swiftly her arms seemed to grow into the ground. They doubled in length until her hands touched the dirt and then disappeared into the soil. I watched in horror as my limbs in my reflection descended like this. Both arms and then my shoulders seemed to melt into black streaks. Then my torso lengthened and my silhouette grew as tall as a tree. Around the reflection I could still see the green and gold of Hatherden but now my body was unrecognizable. My face melted into my neck. Where my eyes should have been were empty, black sockets. Where my mouth should have been there was only a gaping hole. My teeth grew from it like long fangs that then reached past my chin and as they did so did my fingers curve and grow into long claws that stretched across the ground like roots. I looked to my own hands in panic but here on The Otherside I could no longer see them. I looked at my torso but it had also vanished. As had my legs and my feet. I tried to feel for my face again and as I did, so did my grotesque reflection. But I couldn’t feel anything. There was nothing tangible to touch. Had I evaporated into the hot air in The Darkness? Panic filled me as I searched the space for any trace of my body. As I did I could see the demon looking at me searching her body in unison. Her gaping mouth opened in despair. Her claws scraped at the lines of what should have been my frame. Then, faintly all around me, I heard them. The cries of the dead. Respit had warned me when I touched the green flame and now I remembered her fairy cautionings. The price was my soul and the green flame would seal that agreement with the dead that haunted The Darkness in The Otherside. I had thought the price was the dragon's head or my soul and I had never doubted myself that I would find the dragon or die trying. I just hadn’t expected I would lose my soul upon entry. Never had it occurred to me! That was not what I had asked of the fairies! If only Piz was here with Zen and Bali in tow, they could pull me loose from this nightmare. We would gallop away from this evil place. But now I had nothing. No horse! I was nothing! No body to fight with! Was this my soul looking at me? I stared back at her and she stayed still. So still she just looked like a shadow in the forest that framed her.
By Mary Jackson2 months ago in Horror
The Darkness
There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Until tonight when the veil appeared thinnest, barely a fine mist hanging in the air. Through it Mina could see the Otherside. The darkness here contained all the relics of the past. As the clouds parted across an empty sky behind her in Hatherden she could see orange fire streaks billow and disappear in all directions beyond the soft brume. She squinted at the mirage, questioning for a moment the truth of a place she knew existed but had never seen. The place where darkness was alive and watching her every move now. Her word was her bond and even in death, Vaggar had said, the darkness would still see her. Even in death her debt would not have been paid and so darkness, laying its claim, would follow her wherever her soul wended.
By Mary Jacksonabout a year ago in Horror
The Loneliest Man on Earth
The first time he saw her she was floating next to the boat like a dead body. Then something splashed in the darkness and glittering ripples radiated out across a moonlit ocean. He could see through the surface of the water the mysterious silhouette was actually the stark figure of a thin woman. Her arms moved silently in front of her in wide strokes one at a time. With each extension she glided closer to him. Where her legs should have kicked behind her he saw the thing he dreaded. A fat shape that pulsated behind her like it had a mind of its own. A tail. Like a fish. She was not dead at all. She was alive and she was swimming quietly through the darkness towards him. He watched, his heart beating, as she began to slink slowly, smoothly all the way around his small boat. Percy suddenly found himself fumbling nervously through the twilight, his finger on the trigger of his gun still in the holster at his hip. He tried not to make eye contact with it, but he couldn’t look away. Her slinking black shape, like a shadow in the water. A thin layer of fresh fog rolled in and through it he could see the thing’s eyes twinkling up at him with a soft blue spark. Like light catching sharp edges of finely cut crystal, the cool azure pierced the mist for an instant then quickly disappeared back into the dark water. Percy searched the smooth surface tensely. He stood anxiously, coughing into the static air. For a while he saw nothing. Everything around him seemed to stand guard silently with him. He heard nothing. The ocean was serene and smooth like luminous glass. He finally inhaled. Maybe he’d imagined her. Then, another soft splash and this time he caught her leering. Wide obsidian pupils set in thick, white eyeballs that ate him up, as her face furled past the small boat. She rolled in the water, her whole body floating upwards towards him. Billowing clouds suddenly parted overhead and Percy could see out over the entire ocean. The moon shifted shapes on the surface and his shadow transformed with the water. He squinted, struggling to see what was real through the fine, glimmering ripples. Her pale face rose up again. Then her silhouette released into a long black curve. She paused and then slunk quietly around the boat, her eyes flashing. They were crisp, ghostly marbles floating in the middle of the deep sea. Her body sauntered behind them like a snake, circling him.
By Mary Jackson2 years ago in Fiction
She Speaks Like Fall
Mother. Your gold words fall around me. Sometimes violently they blow by. Sometimes softer, more yellow and quiet. Brightly they move, blowing off each branch. They scatter, some in patterns that fit. Some in piles of thoughts that crave sorting. Moving only in the chaos of what comes naturally. Here in nature. I walk amongst them, hear each one crunch underfoot. I see some, as they fall from your mouth to where the wind then rests. Where ever. I shuffle through, understanding only parts from time to time as much as my mind wanders with my feet through the golden hues. That orange one is a memory. The red one is this moment. The shades of yellow are all of love's hues. The warmth of each one, where they lay, where they fall, where the breeze blows them. Scattering again. It's hard for me too, I try to say with each step. I'm focused on my path through this green forest where I keep walking, even if they keep falling around me. Even if they keep lining my way. Confounding in my face sometimes, but constant from full, white branches that stretch out across a periwinkle sky. This forest is ours and it is beautiful and it glows in yellows and golds.
By Mary Jackson2 years ago in Poets
Finding Bliss
I met my husband in the Winter of 2015. I had recently quit a job that I loved but had become too comfortable in. I needed a big change. After twelve years as an Executive Assistant at Warner Bros. I left with no real plan except to follow my bliss. I wanted to travel. To get uncomfortable and see new things. That is in fact exactly how I met my husband. The first conversation I had with him he quoted Joseph Campbell. “Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.” Thinking of that moment now, I knew it was special but I also had no idea the path he and I were about to embark on was a long one that was going to require all the patience and love two people, who live in two different countries, could muster.
By Mary Jackson2 years ago in Humans
My Favorite Fairies On Film
Fantasia (1940) NUMBER ONE FAVORITE Fantasia (1940), Disney’s masterpiece showcases Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies with a swarm of fairies flying about a beautiful garden touching flowers with their magic and making for one of my favorite Disney moments ever. These fairies were illustrated by a Disney team who received an Honorary Academy Award in 1942 for their visuals put to classical music. This is one of the most memorable sequences in the movie and in all of Disney film history. Bright lights in candy colors dance across the screen; fairy ballerinas dusting spiderwebs with dew before dawn.
By Mary Jackson2 years ago in Geeks
