The Writ of Years by Brit Mandelo
My rating: 3/5 cats
bless me, goodreads, for i have sinned. it has been more than a week since my last free tor short read.
but now i am back.
There was once a quill that could not be held by any hand
i absolutely loved the writing in this one. the story itself was fairly predictable, but she does such a good job with pacing and tension, it wasn’t really a deal-breaker.
she also does a great job setting the scene—full of rich sensory detail that makes her writing really come alive and create atmosphere, and fortifies the narrator’s status as a writer himself:
I was digging through an estate sale in a creaky old bastard of a plantation home when I found the box. The cellar was cold and the air tasted of soil and dust; my rolled-up sleeves were smudged grey with a muddled mixture of the two. I was on my knees, flashlight in one hand, picking through a wood crate full of classic but ill-packed stationery items, mouse-nibbled envelopes, and rusty penknives. None of the lot was salvageable. Footsteps treaded over my head. I was the only one mad enough to tromp down into the cellar with only an electric torch to light the way, but it also meant that I would be the first to find anything good.
there’s almost a poe-like quality to this story, in which the narrator passes restless nights, tempted by a pen said to have supernatural powers enabling its wielder to write astoundingly, wrenchingly beautiful works, but which naturally comes with a terrible price. the measured cadence of this reminds me of the raven or the tell-tale heart, with its classic-horror story tone and buildup:
The tick of the clock kept me company, whisking its way methodically past the first numeral, then the second, and finally the third. I watched lamplight glitter through the tumbled tower of ice blocks inside my glass, turned burnished gold through the whiskey I’d left unfinished. Sleep, despite my lassitude, remained distant. The lacquered box sat on my desk across the room, half-swathed in shadow. I wriggled my toes against the softness of my reading chair and sat up, unfolding my legs from beneath me. The rush of blood through my calves tingled. My first step was more a stagger, but I straightened and paced across the room. The carpet was chilly under my feet.
things come to pass pretty much as you’d expect them to, but the excellence of the writing rescues it from itself. it’s definitely a good haunted-object story, and i’m going to look for more of her contributions in this free tor short project.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/12/th…
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