It’s the 8th annual “PHEW!” post! We made it through another January!
Some days were tougher than others for me, and honestly there were nights when I was still sitting at the computer past midnight with no idea what I was going to write for my scheduled 2:00am prompt post. But I got through all the story suggestions, which I’m quite chuffed about. And, with a bit of polishing up, I think I might have a few short stories to put into an anthology, so there’s a bonus!
So, how did you do? Did you post every day in January? Let me know in the comments, or write your own “I did it! #JusJoJan21 Edition” post and link it back here.
Congrats to everyone who joined in! Here’s your annual participant badge. đ
Bored with watching the circus perform, a white rabbit named Olive went up to the concession stand and asked for a diva muffin.
âWe have none of those,â the lady behind the counter said. She a name tag; her name was Alice. âAnd why are you not watching the circus? I believe the clowns are coming on soon.â
âI was expecting rabbits,â said Olive.
âThe circus used to have them, but they got stepped on by the elephants.â
Olive gasped. âThatâs terrible!â
âIt was,â said Alice. âI was rather fond of them. Would you like some cotton candy?â
âIf you donât have any diva muffins, I suppose that will do.â
Alice turned to spin some cotton candy. Over her shoulder, she asked, âIâm having a costume party in my trailer later. Would you like to come?â
âThat would be nice,â said Olive as she took the large floof of candy from Alice. âHow much do I owe you?â
Alice smiled. âFor a white rabbit like you? Itâs on the house.â
âThank you.â
âCome back here in an hour and weâll walk to my trailer together.â
âIâll see you later,â said Olive.
She turned to go just as a man with a pitchfork stepped up to the concession.
âHey, Alice,â he said. âAre you still doing the rabbit stew tonight for the party?â
âShhhh!!â said Alice.
Olive dropped her cotton candy and ran home so fast, her little rabbit body flew like a streak across the sky.
THE END
(The prompts were Janet’s: Olive, circus, streak across the sky; and Jim’s: If you are looking for a name, you could go with any one of Frank Zappaâs children, Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet or Diva Muffin. A setting that might work well, would be Wonderland where Alice went. I think that a costume party would make an interesting situation.)
Here are the JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. Iâll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You donât have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggersâ entries â the more you visit others, the more theyâll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing â youâre going to title it, right? Thereâs your jot!
6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If youâd like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
Welcome to the Daily 2021 Just Jot it January Prompt and the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt for SATURDAY, JANUARY 30th!
For those of you joining SoCS for the first time, it’s a little different than the other prompts in that it’s not always a whole word. Much may be left up to your discretion: this week is no exception. Having said that, if you’re joining in from JusJoJan, don’t want to write stream of consciousness style, no worries. It’s up to you! If you do want to try it, please check out the rules below. It’s fun! Here’s your Saturday prompt:
Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “the beginning, the end.” Write about the beginning of something and the end of something. Bonus points if your first sentence contains “the end” and your last sentence contains “the beginning.” <– Read that again. Have fun!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use our SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
You can also use the Just Jot it January badge! To find the rules for Just Jot it January, click here.
Here are the rules for SoCS:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what youâre going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence â one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry â it doesnât matter. Just let the words carry you along until youâre ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say âWrite about dogsâ; the prompt will be more like, âMake your first sentence a question,â âBegin with the word âTheâ,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! Itâs important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If youâre self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other personâs blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If youâre the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, âStream of Consciousness Saturday,â which youâll find right below the âLikeâ button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if youâd like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers youâll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
Dr. Caroline Sams, while walking down the beach, trying to formulate her diabolical plan to create a Covid anti-vaccine for her ex-boyfriend, looked down to find her doggo, Buster, holding something muddy yet shiny in his mouth.
âGood boy,â she said, bending to retrieve the treasure. But as fast as she grabbed it, she dropped it. For it seemed to be screaming, âHelp me!â in a tiny voice.
Caroline crouched down to peer at the bottle-shaped object. She reached out cautiously and rubbed off some of the mud, and there, standing on the bow of a ship was a man, waving frantically.
âHelp me!â he cried.
âHow did you get in there?â she asked.
âI have no idea,â said the tiny man. I was caught in a storm, and the next thing I knew, I was being bounced around in this container. All I could see was a tongue and two rows of teeth. I thought I was a goner!â
âDo you think youâre a genie?â
âNo! Iâm Brayden, captain of this fine crab ship!â
Caroline tried rubbing the glass container just in case, but when she looked inside again, Brayden was standing with his hands on his hips and an I-told-you-so expression on his face.
âWould you like to try three wishes?â Brayden asked sarcastically.
Not to be made fun of (and just in case it worked), Caroline said, âI wish Covid didnât exist.â
Brayden cocked his head. âWhatâs a Covid?â
âItâs a disease.â But that was a bit of a stupid thing to try to wish on, because how could she know it worked? âNever mind,â she said. âOkay, how about this: I wish for a million dollars.â
And poof! a million dollars appeared, luckily in bound stacks so it didnât fly into the sea.
âAhhh!â Caroline exclaimed. âIt works! So theoretically, if I make one more wish, youâll be out of there.â
âEspecially if you wish me out of here. AND,â he added hastily, âmy regular size, please.â
âHmm,â Caroline said. What to do? The diabolical plan to allow her ex, Jim, to get Covid wasnât going to happen if Covid was no longer infecting the world. Should she find another way to get rid of him? Or should she rescue this little man who, despite is sarcasm, probably deserved to be rescued?
âCome on, I havenât got all day,â Brayden said.
Caroline frowned. âWhat do you think, Buster?â she asked her doggo. âShould we rescue the little fisherman or should we do away with Jim?â
âWoof!â said Buster.
âOr, should I wish for a pickup truck to carry all this money home?â
âIâll help you carry it!â said Brayden.
âOkay, fine. I wish Brayden and his ship could get out of the container theyâre in and be regular sized again.”
And thatâs how diabolical Dr. Caroline Sams got crushed by a crab boat on dry land while walking her dog and thinking up a plan to kill her ex.
And everyone else lived happily ever after, Covid-free.
THE END
(The prompts were; Anita’s: How about Dr. Sams or nurse Sams where they have finally got a vaccine for Covid at their hospital but they donât want anyone getting well so they contaminate it; Cath’s:Caroline is walking her doggo in the woods as usual when doggo trots back to her with something muddy but glittering in her mouth. What if itâs a lost treasure?; and Kim’s: How about Brayden for the name, on a crab ship as the setting, and what if a freak storm sent them into another dimension?)
Here are the JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. Iâll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You donât have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggersâ entries â the more you visit others, the more theyâll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing â youâre going to title it, right? Thereâs your jot!
6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If youâd like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
Brayden knew, deep down inside his old fishermanâs heart, that there was a storm brewing. But the forecast was clear, and he needed to pay off a debt or get his knees broken.
So he went out on his crab ship, though all the other boats on the pier were locked up and deserted for the night.
An hour out to sea, Brayden started to think he’d been crazy to think there’d be a storm. He’d never seen a sea so calm. But the whispering of a wind began at midnight, and by twelve-fifteen, the sea churned like a water trough in the back of a pickup truck on a washboarded dirt road. Try as he might, he couldnât keep his vessel straight. Tossed from port to starboard and back again, he wondered if he should have just taken the broken knees, for he was sure to end up with a few broken bones and only half his usual catch anyhow.
The lightning crashed around his ship as he tied himself at the wheel, and just as he thought that maybe heâd get out of it alive, a giant wave hit the boat. The last thing Brayden saw before he blacked out was the hand of the devil come to scoop him and his boat from the sea.
(To be continued.)
(The prompts were; Anita’s: How about Dr. Sams or nurse Sams where they have finally got a vaccine for Covid at their hospital but they donât want anyone getting well so they contaminate it; Cath’s:Caroline is walking her doggo in the woods as usual when doggo trots back to her with something muddy but glittering in her mouth. What if itâs a lost treasure?; and Kim’s: How about Brayden for the name, on a crab ship as the setting, and what if a freak storm sent them into another dimension?)
Here are the JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. Iâll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You donât have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggersâ entries â the more you visit others, the more theyâll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing â youâre going to title it, right? Thereâs your jot!
6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If youâd like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
Photo: Screenshot of a Facebook question in a Paranormal Romance authors’ group: Is there an official term given to women who vampires feed from?
My expert answer: Lunch.
Disclaimer: I might be wrong.
If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the âOne-Liner Wednesdayâ title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure.
Here are the simple JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. Iâll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You donât have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. Youâll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
2 a) The rules that Iâve made for myself (but donât always follow) for âOne-Liner Wednesdayâ are:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!
5. Have fun!
Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggersâ entries â the more you visit others, the more theyâll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if youâre blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing â youâre going to title it, right? Thereâs your jot!
6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If youâd like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
(FICTION) (Thanks to Judy Hendrickson, awesome newsletter subscriber, for the idea for the story. This is Part 5 of the story. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, Part 3 is here and Part 4 is here.)
It took Lavender two days to brew the right potion to correct Triggerâs eyesight. In that time, sheâd discovered that his real name was Tehtholonli Smith, and that his mates had nicknamed him Trigger because of his proficiency with a gun. That certainly wouldnât do.
So she began calling him Smithy. He didnât like it. Then she tried Tehth, but he asked her why she kept spitting on him. Finally she attempted to call him Lonli, but he corrected her, pointing out that he had Grant to keep him company. All the while, Grant laughed at her, even as she rubbed a salve on his sore foot so he could walk comfortably. Ungrateful beast.
At a loss for anything to address him by other than âhey you,â she added a little something to the potion.
Finally, after two full days of picking up broken vases that had fallen from tables her visitor had stumbled into and one awkward moment when heâd changed into Lavenderâs britches, thinking they were his own, she sat Tehtholoni Smith down at her kitchen table and handed him a steaming cup of potion.
âDrink this,â she said.
âAre you quite sure it will work?â the man previously known as Trigger asked.
âI am,â Lavender replied.
So he did. He drunk it all the way down and sat with his eyes clamped shut. When Lavender asked him why he didnât open them, he said, âBecause Iâm deathly afraid of disappointment.â
âBut if you donât open your eyes, youâll never know that it worked and that you can see perfectly.â
âPerfectly? Do you really think âŠâ
He opened his eyes, blinked a couple of times, and shouted âEureka!â
And then he saw Lavenderâs face and his jaw dropped. âYou are the most beautiful woman Iâve even seen!â he cried.
âWell then,â she said with a smile, âbeing that youâre the best shot in the land, maybe you should take my picture, ShâShâShutter.â Yes, that will do for a name, she thought as she handed him a camera.
And lo and behold, he was and excellent photographer. He took crisp, focused, unblurry photos of Lavender, and pictures of Grant, and the trees, and the rich, lush mountainside.
And Lavender and Shutter the sharpshooter and Grant lived happily ever after in their quiet, cozy cabin.
THE END
(Judy’s prompt was “Lavender Quill, a solitary witch that is into crystals, candles, herbs and crochet (hidden spells she weaves for friends and family), is alone at the cabin after her parents both died three years ago. She finds a man out on a trail, hurt and unconscious. Grant is a marine sharpshooter who saw too much and wants to find solace in the quiet mountain, but someone is after him and he managed to get away after a desperate chase. She uses her skills to patch up his wounds and he slowly comes around. With her visions and other gifts, she assists him in getting to the truth and forms a bond with him, as he gets under her skin and awakens her soul. Together, they get the bad guys and help each other heal on the mountain.”
This would make an awesome novel! Me being me, and keeping it a short story, I turned the idea on its head a bit. Hope you don’t mind, Judy! *waves to Judy*)
Here are the JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. Iâll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You donât have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggersâ entries â the more you visit others, the more theyâll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing â youâre going to title it, right? Thereâs your jot!
6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If youâd like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
(FICTION) (Thanks to Judy Hendrickson, awesome newsletter subscriber, for the idea for the story. This is Part 3 of the story. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, Part 3 is here .)
On the way back to Lavenderâs cabin, Grant the horse explained to her that Trigger (not Mr. Trigger) normally wore eyeglasses, and thus, he couldnât see where he was going. Since the man was carrying the horse (much to Grantâs delight), Lavender devised a way for Grant to guide Trigger, using his back leg to nudge the man when he wandered too far to the left, and his front leg to nudge him when he strayed to the right of the path. In this way, they made good time. Trigger himself didnât speakâhe was likely too winded from carrying a horse across his shoulders.
By the time they arrived at the cabin, night was beginning to fall. Lavender left horse and man outside and went in to tidy up a bit while Trigger caught his breath. She made coffee and brought a cup out for the man and a bucket of water for the horse.
âAre you badly injured,â she asked Trigger.
âNo, not really. I have a bit of a bad backââ
At that, Grant rolled his eyes.
ââbut the only thing thatâs actually wrong with me is that I canât see. I seem to have broken my spectacles in the fall.â He pulled a pair of bent and cracked eyeglasses from his pocket. They were, indeed, broken badly. âI donât suppose you can fix them, young lady?â
âNo, I donât think so,â she replied. âBut I might have a potion that can fix your eyesight, so you wonât need them.â
âJolly good!â Trigger cried. âThen I shall be able to go back to my work!â
âAnd what is that?â Lavender asked.
âWhy, Iâm a sharpshooter.â
Lavender stared, her heart suddenly in the pit of her stomach. A sharpshooter. âThat means ⊠you kill people?â
âWell of course!â
Rather than say what she was thinkingâthat killing people, or animals, or insects was against everything she believed in–she clamped her mouth shut and went back into the cabin to think about what she was going to do.
(To be continued.)
(Judy’s prompt was “Lavender Quill, a solitary witch that is into crystals, candles, herbs and crochet (hidden spells she weaves for friends and family), is alone at the cabin after her parents both died three years ago. She finds a man out on a trail, hurt and unconscious. Grant is a marine sharpshooter who saw too much and wants to find solace in the quiet mountain, but someone is after him and he managed to get away after a desperate chase. She uses her skills to patch up his wounds and he slowly comes around. With her visions and other gifts, she assists him in getting to the truth and forms a bond with him, as he gets under her skin and awakens her soul. Together, they get the bad guys and help each other heal on the mountain.”
This would make an awesome novel! Me being me, and keeping it a short story, I plan to turn the idea on its head a bit. Hope you don’t mind, Judy! *waves to Judy*)
Here are the JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. Iâll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You donât have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.
3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggersâ entries â the more you visit others, the more theyâll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing â youâre going to title it, right? Thereâs your jot!
6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.
7. If youâd like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
(FICTION) (Thanks to Judy Hendrickson, awesome newsletter subscriber, for the idea for the story. This is Part 3 of the story. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.)
Lavender followed Grant the horse down the side of the mountain for a minute before he stopped and looked around. âMy rider fell off somewhere around these raspberry bushes,â Grant said, âbut heâs gone.â
Grant continued to limp along on his sore forefoot, more cautiously now. Just as Lavender began to create a recipe in her head for fixing a sore horse foot, Grant stopped again.
âHoy! Who goes there?â called out a rather British-sounding man just ahead.
Lavender stepped around Grant and found there a tall, muscular man, walking in their direction with his arms out, feeling around as though he couldnât see.
âAnswer me, or Iâll shoot!â the man said.
âWhatâs his name?â the witch asked the horse out of the side of her mouth.
âTrigger,â answered the horse.
âMr. Trigger! âTis I, Lavender Quill of the mountains. Iâm here with your horse, Grant, and Iâve come to take you to my home to heal you.â
âWith Grant?â the man said incredulously. âHow do you know my horseâs name is Grant?â
âDonât tell him you can hear me talk,â Grant whispered to her. âHeâll stop trusting you and weâll be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere forever.â
Lavender cleared her throat. âUm ⊠er ⊠It was a wild guess,â she said as confidently as she could.
âJolly good,â Mr. Trigger said. âLet us be off then.â The man felt his way forward with his arms still outstretched, causing Lavender to dodge this way and that so as not to be grabbed in an inappropriate place. When he got hold of Grantâs reins, he made to get on the horse.
âPerhaps you should walk,â Lavender suggested. âYour horse has a sore foot.â
âA sore foot?â Mr. Trigger said, aghast. âThen I shall return the favor so bestowed upon me by my gallant steed.” At that, he turned and bent at the knees, picked up Grant like he was a giant scarf, and said, âLead the way!”
(To be continued.)
(Judy’s prompt was “Lavender Quill, a solitary witch that is into crystals, candles, herbs and crochet (hidden spells she weaves for friends and family), is alone at the cabin after her parents both died three years ago. She finds a man out on a trail, hurt and unconscious. Grant is a marine sharpshooter who saw too much and wants to find solace in the quiet mountain, but someone is after him and he managed to get away after a desperate chase. She uses her skills to patch up his wounds and he slowly comes around. With her visions and other gifts, she assists him in getting to the truth and forms a bond with him, as he gets under her skin and awakens her soul. Together, they get the bad guys and help each other heal on the mountain.”
This would make an awesome novel! Me being me, and keeping it a short story, I plan to turn the idea on its head a bit. Hope you don’t mind, Judy! *waves to Judy*)
Here are the JusJoJan Rules:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but itâs never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the âjot itâ part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesnât have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a âjot.â If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
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