Chapter the Second: "Maia Eyemieye and the Ungrateful Dead"

In honor of Halloween, I’m resurrecting Maia and Jackson’s story, which was the subject of my very first blog contest. This week’s story won’t be part of a contest, but I’m hoping it will be a diverting way to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve.

Here’s how it will work: I’ll begin the second chapter of Maia and Jackson’s story at the bottom of this post. Then the first player will continue the story in the comments WHEREVER I LEFT OFF. And the second player will continue where the first player left off, and so on. Sometime around Halloween, I’ll finish off the story.

I only have two rules for our little game: Keep your story comment PG-RATED, and keep it somewhere around 100 WORDS. Oh, and I don’t mind if you play more than once--just make sure you don’t make consecutive story comments.

Here’s the first chapter of Maia and Jackson’s story (don't forget to read the comments of that post), and here’s the last 100 words of that chapter. And here’s the start of the second:

The gaslights cast crazy shadows across the cobblestones, and overhead, a raven cawed. Maia winced as Jackson helped her hobble up Doornail Avenue. Sure, it might have been Purgatory, but did they really have to buy into the whole Halloween motif?

Jackson patted her remaining shoulder. “It’ll be okay. First, we’ll go back to school and get your stuff.”

Maia looked down at her crutch, her moth-eaten backpack, and, of course, the ring. “But I already have all my things.”

“I meant your arm and leg.” He glanced at the ring and shuddered. “Then we’ll have to do something about that amulet.”

Maia hoped his shudder was for the ring and not her missing limbs. “You think Cleveland Codswallop will be back?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

The End + the Winner

My thanks to everyone who entered, and especially to those of you whose entries made me laugh out loud:) Our story took a few turns, but in the end, it came together. Here’s how I finished it off:

The end of the story “Not my father?” Maia tripped over the threshold, but Jackson held her up. “But he looked just like--”

“Maia, darling!” the man called after her. “Wherever are you going?”

“Darling?” She forced herself to hobble faster, ignoring the cobblestones underfoot. “Yeah, there’s no way that’s my dad.”

At the end of the alley, Jackson dragged her around the corner and into a recessed doorway. She collapsed against one side of the doorframe; he pressed his shoulders into the other and peeked around the edge. But the sidewalk was empty.

“Who--was that?” Maia asked around (unnecessary) gasps for air.

“Who else?” Jackson muttered. “The enchanting Cleveland Codswallop, the city’s favorite son.”

“Why was he pretending to be my dad?”

“He must need another Carryon--and you happened to be fresh meat.”

She blushed, or tried to. It was hard to blush without any blood. “I don’t feel very fresh. Or meaty.”

“Oh, you’re fresh, all right. Freshly dead. Which makes you just the kind of partner Codswallop needs to pass back over.”

“To the other side, you mean?”

“No. To the living.”
It’s just begging for another chapter, isn’t it? We might have to come back to that:) And now for the winner!

The winner After much sorting of comments (to identify the story ones) and lots of random die-rolling (well, two die rolls, to be exact), the winner came up as…Esther Vanderlaan! Esther, please e-mail me at kvandolzer@gmail.com and let me know which book you’d like (here’s the list again), and where to send it.

Thanks again, everyone, for playing!

My First Blog Contest

Feels like a great day for a contest, doesn’t it? And we all love stories, right? So let’s smash ’em together! I give you my Story with a Thousand Comments Contest.

Here’s how it will work: I’ll begin a story at the bottom of this post. The first player will then continue that story in the comments WHEREVER I LEFT OFF. And the second player will continue where the first player left off, and so on. Once the contest closes, I’ll finish off the story and pick a random comment, the writer of which will be the winner.

The Rules

1. Your story comment must be PG-rated.

2. Anyone may story-comment once. If you’re a follower, you may story-comment again. If you mention this contest on another blog, forum, or Twitter, you may story-comment again, for a total of three possible entries. (Just be sure to include the link at the end of that last comment.)

3. Your story comment must be (around) 100 words. (Not that I plan to count--unless someone clearly violates this rule. In that case, the someone will be disqualified, although I’ll leave the someone’s comment for the story’s sake.)

The Prize The random winner will win one of the books I’ve recommended on the blog. (He or she will get to pick.) Here’s the list, in alphabetical order:

ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTIN’ by Rick Bragg
THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak
THE FIRE IN FICTION (Plus a Really Long Subtitle) by Donald Maass
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET by Jamie Ford
LEVIATHAN by Scott Westerfeld
THE LIGHTNING THIEF by Rick Riordan
OUTLIERS: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead

You got all that? You ready? All right, here’s the story:

The Story High school was hard, but dead school was harder. Being dead, it turned out, wasn’t nearly as easy as it looked.

“Rule number two hundred and ninety-one,” Mr. Biggs droned. “Avoid cows at all costs, as they’re fluent in dead-speak. And the living never quite know how to respond to a one-sided conversation with a cow.”

Maia sighed and clunked her forehead on the desk, narrowly missing her shiny new copy of William Shakespeare’s collected works (which had cost her an arm and a leg, literally, in registration fees--good old Willy was still collecting royalties in Dead Man’s Land). According to the pamphlet, they only had three hundred and twenty-two more rules to go.

Contest closes on Monday, May 17, at 11:59 p.m. PDT. The winner will be announced the following Tuesday, May 18. Thanks for playing!