End of the Year Reflection

Dear Reader,

Basically, I have been having the dumbest year I've had since 2009, but much like 2009, my writing has actually kind of improved for once.  This semester in creative writing, I feel like I became more proficient at writing short stories that do not contain nearly as much rambling as my usual drivel, and especially at flash fiction, primarily because I wrote five of them.

My greatest strength is probably writing long, epic rants that make me lose focus of the story I am trying to tell because my dumb characters are so adamant about complaining about the word rude and how much it sucks.  I am also a fan of witty banter, though I'm not entirely sure how good at it I am.  Luckily, I received multiple opportunities to exercise these skills throughout the year, as well as many more opportunities to practice my weaknesses, which include everything not mentioned above.  The weakness I practiced most was, as said, writing short stories and flash fiction, one of which was from the point of view of a boy, another weakness of mine, seeing as I am a girl.  (Not that writing from the point of view of the opposite gender is hard for everyone, I just usually can't do it without having some sort of existential crisis.)  I also co-wrote a children's story, which was not only short, but aimed at, well, children, a demographic I have pretty much no clue how to write for, on account of you're not allowed to swear or have murder jokes.  All of these new endeavors, fortunately, turned out pretty okay.

This entire semester has been quite a learning experience for me, as I spent the majority of it outside my comfort zone, and I feel I have grown as a writer because of it.

-Ashton

Artifact 1

The first story I've finished in awhile, and my first time writing from the point of view of a boy in six years.

Before you hear about it from anyone else, let me just tell you that this entire thing is technically Michael’s fault on account of he’s the one who made me go in the stupid woods in the first place.  He got it into his head that I needed to get over this irrational fear of leaves I have because he doesn’t know what the word irrational means, and basically blackmailed me into there because otherwise he was going to make me hug Phyllis.

         I go into the woods a lot in the winter when there aren’t any leaves, so I knew where I was going and figured I’d go down to the creek and throw some stones in it or whatever.  I picked one up off the ground and ran down there and chucked it in there, and the resulting splash was about 2934570287590 times bigger than it was supposed to be, which caught me so off-guard that I tripped and fell and landed in this patch of poison ivy.

            I screamed higher than I’d like to admit and almost jumped in the creek, but then stopped myself because I couldn’t remember if you’re supposed to do that if you have poison ivy.  I was trying to think of what to do, except the only thing coming to mind was sticking a watermelon rind on it, and I didn’t have a watermelon rind because watermelons weren’t even in season, and I was just standing there having a spaz attack because I didn’t have a watermelon- and then I saw the harp.

            Harps and I don’t generally have a good relationship- they made us try out like every single instrument ever in fourth grade in case we were like, secretly awesome at one of them so then they could make us play in every single concert until graduation, and I was probably the second-worst at the harp (we don’t talk about what happened with the tuba).  I’m tone-deaf anyway, and then I had to keep remembering to press these pedals every time there was a sharp or a flat, which I don’t even know the difference between, and then my teacher kept saying I wasn’t plucking the strings right, and I sort of tuned her out.  So then I decided harps were basically useless until I saw this one in the woods next to the creek for some reason.

            So this harp was just sitting there… harping, I guess, and I was about to wonder what it was doing there, and then I noticed the spot in the water right next to it was all ripply, like something had just fallen in.  I couldn’t think for the life of me what it would’ve been, until my brain finally decided to start like, working properly, and I figured there was probably a harpist who’d fallen in and was now drowning and I was just standing there like a sitting duck.

            I decided water probably wasn’t too bad for poison ivy, and then I jumped in there to be all heroic and awesome and save the harpist and convince Michael I was cured of my irrational leaf fear so then he’d never make me do this again.  Which would’ve worked perfectly except there was nobody under there.

            And I mean, there wasn’t even anything under there that could’ve made that big a splash.  There was nothing there even though there should’ve been and I figured the poison ivy was either making me lose my mind, somehow, or whatever it was had disappeared and was now trapped in some parallel dimension where everything is black and white and everything you do is narrated by some creepy guy in a suit.

            Whatever it was, I decided getting out of the woods was a really good idea, so I started running back, trying not to step on any leaves. 

            Michael and Phyllis started laughing really hard when I showed up- he was all, “Ohh, so close,” and she was all, “God, Max, it’s just leaves,”- and I was soaking wet and scratching my arms and yelling about poison ivy and harps and crap, which just made them laugh harder, and it got to the point where we were all just standing in my backyard yelling at each other, until my next-door neighbor Mr. McPeabody started yelling at all of us to shut the ever-loving hell up, and so we did.

            “Guys, I swear to God, you have to listen to me,” I said, panting.

            “Leaves,” Phyllis whispered.

            “There was this harp-”

            “Leeeeeeaaaaavesss.”

            “A harp, guys, we’re not talking about leaves now.”

            “Haaaaarrrrrp,” Michael intoned, and he and Phyllis high-fived.

            “Yeah, a haaaaarp.  In the woooooooods.  With the leeeeeeeaaaavesss.  Can we not do this now?”

            “Max, why would there even be a haaaarp in the woooooods with the leeeaaaaves?” Michael asked. 

           

“I DO NOT KNOW WHY THERE IS A HARP IN THE WOODS WITH THE LEAVES.”

            “God, Max, you could’ve at least proposed a logical explanation,” Michael said.

            “There is a harp in the woods and I have poison ivy and there is a harp in the woods and there is a harp in the woods and there is a harp in the woods,” I said, hoping I could get my point across.  Maybe.

            Or not.  “Dude, you broke him!” exclaimed Phyllis.  She started waving her hand in front of my face and going, “Maaaaaaaaaaaaxxxx.  Max, can you heeeaar meeee?  Do you understaaaaaaaand?”

            “I am going to throw both of you in the creek, oh my God,” I said.  “Look, all I know is there’s this harp by the creek for no reason and I think the guy who was playing it might’ve fallen in or whatever except no because I couldn’t find anyone so that’s dumb, and also, I NEED A WATERMELON RIND.”

            “WHY DO YOU NEED A WATERMELON RIND?”  Always asks the right questions, that Phyllis.

            “WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?”  Michael is pretty much the same.

            “I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I have poison ivy, which I know for a fact can be treated by placing a watermelon rind on the affected area, and-”

            “You know you can treat that stuff with water, right?” Michael interrupted.

            “Yeah, you of all people should know this, Max,” Phyllis added.  “I mean, you jumped in the creek, so…”

            By this point I was kind of feeling like just falling on the ground and never doing anything again ever, but instead I was like, “Okay, well.  I will go home and take a shower and try to forget any of this ever happened.  Good day to you sir and mada-”

            “There’s water in the creek,” said Phyllis.

            “Where the harp is,” said Michael.

            “In the woods,” I pointed out.

            “With the leaves,” Phyllis and Michael said in unison.

            “Yeah, so, as I was saying, I will go home and take a shower and try to-”

            “RACE YOU!” Phyllis shouted, and she and Michael took off running into the stupid woods.

            I didn’t have to follow them.  I could’ve just gone home and taken my shower and spent the next two weeks in itchy but relatively normal misery.  I could’ve let them find the stupid harp and the gloves and her and him and-

            I sighed, scratched my arm a bit, and ran after them.

            I carefully avoided the poison ivy patch this time, (like it would even make a difference) tried not to notice all the leaves, and found them both standing where I was, staring at the harp.  The water was calm- no ripples anymore, but they were both just standing there, with their mouths hanging open, staring like this was the weirdest fricking thing they’d ever seen ever.

            “Guys, what are you-?”  And then I heard it.

            There was this- this music coming from somewhere and I was about to ask Phyllis where it was coming from, but then I put two and two together.

            “Someone is playing the harp,” I announced.

            I waited for the chorus of, “No, duh”s, but instead, Phyllis whispered, “No one is playing the harp.”

            It was sort of this nice, peaceful tune that probably would’ve put me right to sleep if I wasn’t so freaked out (and surrounded by leaves).  I squinted, and I could make out the strings vibrating, and oh, my God, the harp was playing itself.

            “The harp is playing itself,” I said, because we were all playing Point Out the Obvious, apparently.  Michael and Phyllis just nodded.

            And at that, the music changed, slightly.  Like it sounded kind of the same, but like… not.  A bit sadder, maybe.  Scarier.

            “Guys, why is it in minor now?” Michael asked, because he actually knows a thing or two about music and plays like, five instruments because he’s obnoxious like that.

            And then the water started moving faster- a lot faster- we’re talking waves crashing against the creek bank, some of it splashing us, which was great for my poison ivy, but still weirded me out.

            “That’s… uh…” I said, trying to make sense of this.  Michael and Phyllis weren’t taking their eyes off the harp, even though the inexplicable rapids were a lot more eye-catching.

            Thunder crashed.

            “Wasn’t it sunny like, three seconds ago?” I asked, because I hadn’t really been paying attention, what with the harp playing itself and all.

            And then the harp started glowing.  I kid you not.  This thing was like, surrounded by green light, and the music was getting louder for no reason, and the thunder was almost constant, and the creek was rising way faster than it should’ve been, and I started thinking this was a bit… less normal than usual.

            It was when the wind started blowing like mad that I yelled, “WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW,” and took off running back towards Michael’s backyard.

            I heard someone running behind me, and I was glad at least one of them was smart enough to follow me away from that messed-up harp… and then I turned around and saw her.

            I’d never seen her before in my entire life, and she was just standing there, glaring at me like she wanted to shoot me in the face or whatever, and I didn’t have time to deal with this, so I turned around and kept running, and didn’t hear anyone behind me anymore.

            I turned around again and she was gone.

            I figured she was probably hiding behind a tree or whatever, so I started running faster, hoping and praying she wouldn’t jump out at me, and I was almost out of breath because I suck at running, and the woods were never going to end, and I was going to be trapped with this freaky harp and the leaves forever, and-

            I was in Michael’s yard and the sky was clear and the sun was shining and the trees were perfectly still, and the sound of rushing water had vanished.

            I said the only logical thing to say under these circumstances, and that is, “What the frick was that?”

            Michael and Phyllis came sprinting out of the woods as soon as I said that, both of them going, “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God…”

            “Guys, the harp, guys,” I said.

            “That!” Michael panted, “Was not!  Okay!”

            “Max, you didn’t tell us the harp was sentient and could control the weather!” Phyllis added.

            “Did you guys see that girl?” I asked.  “The one chasing me that looked like she possibly might’ve been a murderer?”

            “Yeah, she’s standing right here,” Michael said, gesturing to Phyllis.

            “I will go back into the woods and tame that harp and put it in your bedroom and make it play Cher Lloyd songs at 5:00 A.M.,” Phyllis said.

            “I mean, no, I did not see that girl, Max, nope.”

            “Okay, but there was… one…” I said.

            “Well, that’s great, but we’re dealing with a sentient and probably evil musical instrument here,” Michael said.

            “Seriously, Michael Jacob Aiden Maxwell, control your hormones,” Phyllis said.

            “Don’t call me that!” I exclaimed.  Yes, that is my full name, which I shortened on account of a) Michael is already named Michael b) Nobody wants to spend their entire lives being referred to by a name consisting of six syllables or more c) Seriously, MICHAEL JACOB AIDEN.

            “SENTIENT AND PROBABLY EVIL MUSICAL INSTRUMENT,” Michael repeated.  “I don’t know if you guys like, heard that part.”

           

“Well, what do you want us to do about it, hmm?” I said.  “I mean, we’re not going to go back in there ever again, are we?”

            Phyllis went, “Of course we are- we can figure out how to control the harp and then harness its awesome POWAH and then we can take over the-” 

            “Phyllis,” Michael said.

            “No, Phyllis,” I added.

            She sighed.  “Okay, fine, but we still totally need to figure out why it can control the weather and crap, because that’s gonna haunt me in my nightmares until we do.  Also, my dad said I need to get out of the house more, so…”

            “Alright, well, you can solve the mystery of the scary harp-thing, and we’ll just-”

            “But Mi-chael, you actually know about harps- that could be useful.  And Max, this is how we’re gonna get you over your leafophobia or whatever.”

            “It’s called phyllophobia,” I corrected.

            “You have Phyllisphobia?” Michael asked.

            “Well, I must be doing something right,” added Phyllis.  “Anyway, here’s the plan.  We’re gonna go back into the woods and split up, because then one of us will totally find something because it will try to kill them, and then we’ll have our first clue, and it’ll be so.  Awesome.”

            “I have to go treat my poison ivy that I think you guys keep forgetting I have now,” I pointed out.

            “Yeah, and as excited I am about being your live bait for an evil harp of all things, I have to practice my decidedly not evil flute,” Michael said.

            “You guys!” Phyllis insisted.  “Okay, you know what, fine.  One of us can go in the woods, one of us can go to the library, and one of us can go interview our suspects.  Dibs on the library.”

            “We don’t have any suspects, Phyll, it’s a harp,” Michael said.  “I’m not sure how you expect us to interview it, I mean that just sounds like it would be kind of one-sided.”

            “I meant Max’s girlfriend back there,” she explained.

            “No!” I exclaimed.

            “Dude, I am like, 384% sure she does not exist,” Michael said.

            “I am going to the library now,” she announced.  “Good luck guys.”  And then she just ran out of Michael’s yard like she was actually going to do this thing.

            “Wellllllllllllllllllllll, that was, uh…” I said.

            “Have fun in the woods with your nonexistent girlfriend, buddy,” Michael said, heading off in the same direction as Phyllis.

            I just stood there dumbfounded, and after he’d gone I was like, “REALLY??”

            Okay, what I’m about to tell you is probably the single stupidest thing I’ve ever done ever.  I mean, we were dealing with this potentially murderous harp that could control the weather, I had poison ivy that I still needed to put a watermelon rind on, maybe, and I really didn’t feel like taking orders from Phyllis Merrill.

            And yet, and yet.

            I ran back into the stupid woods with the stupid leaves to find that stupid harp and that stupid (and possibly fictitious and probably evil) girl because I am a stupid idiot who is stupid.

            I didn’t have to go far before she showed up again, by standing on my right, tapping my left shoulder, and then laughing hysterically when I looked the wrong way.

            “Okay, really?” I said, as she collapsed on the ground, still laughing.  “You’re an evil sorceress who put a curse on a harp of all things, and you just tapped me on the wrong shoulder??”

            “Wow, okay, well, first of all, I’m not an evil sorceress,” she said.  “Second, I don’t even know why you’re talking about a harp, and third, that is freaking hilarious no matter what.”

            “Oh, come on, you are totally an evil sorceress.”

            “And you know this how?”

            “You said the INAES phrase.”

            “What even-?”

            “The INAES phrase,” I clarified.  “The I’m not an evil sorceress phrase.  There is no surer sign of evil sorceressdom than the INA-”

            “Okay, well try this on for size,” she said.  “I’m not not not not not not not not not not not not not not not an evil sorceress.  Figure it out.”

            “Sorcery,” I breathed.

            She rolled her eyes.  “Okay, regardless of whether or not I’m an evil sorceress, I still didn’t touch any harps, so you can just carry on with your woods excursion…”

            She paused.

            “…Michael Jacob Aiden.”

            “WHY DO YOU KNOW THAT?” I demanded. 

            She just gave me this wave and then disappeared behind a bush.  Because I’m still fairly certain she’s an evil sorceress.

            I decided she was totally responsible for all this… harpery, and I didn’t feel like being surrounded by leaves any longer, so I ran off to find Michael and Phyllis and inform them of my discovery.

            I found them walking out of the police station a few streets over.  They spotted me, and Phyllis ran over, with Michael sort of jogging behind her.

            “Oh, my God, Max, oh, my God,” she said, panting slightly.  “We didn’t find anything at the library, so we came here, and somebody just reported a missing person who can play the harp.”

            “It was that girl in the woods; she did it,” I said.  “She’s an evil sorceress who can harness the power of multiple negatives.”

            “Spooky,” Michael breathed.

            “She wha-?  Okay, that’s great, Max, really,” Phyllis said.  “I however, have considered another suspect.”

            “Who?” Michael asked.

            “So you know that music store on Rollins Street where the owner looks like he wants to kill people whenever they buy instruments, like, no, how dare you take my babies, YOU WILL RUE THIS DAY?”

            “No,” I said.

            “Well, what if the harp was from his store, and he was all, IF I CAN’T HAVE THIS HARP, NO ONE CAN, and then put a curse on it or booby-trapped it or whatever?”

            “Okay, first of all, he’s way too monotonous to ever sound like that,” Michael said.  “And second, I’m still not entirely sure curses even exist, you guys.”

            “The harp can control the weather, man, I think we can be fairly certain something curseish is going down at present,” Phyllis said.  And then she grabbed both our arms and hauled us over to the store.

            Peterson & Chase’s House of Music is pretty much the oldest building in North Shore, (that stupid suburb we live in) and almost by definition, the creepiest.  It’s the only building on Rollins Street with a peaked roof, and I’m guessing, an attic, because none of the other buildings ever have bats flying out of them at ungodly hours of the night.  But maybe they just don’t have bat infestations, I don’t know.  Parts of the place fall off like, every day, usually when Mr. Chase, the less creepy owner who apparently takes offense to Mr. Peterson out-creeping him every minute, slams the door when he storms out after work.

            Mr. Peterson was at his usual place by the register, looking, as he always does, like he wanted to murder us.  I was about ready to run out of the store and go home and finally take my stupid shower, but then Phyllis just marched right the frick over to him and went, “Hello, Pete.”

            “I don’t think you can call him by his first name,” I hissed, but of course, she didn’t care.

            “It’s not his first name, it’s a shortened version of his last name,” she said like I was the actual dumbest living specimen of human.  “So anyway, Pete, I’m sorry for harping on you like this, but I was just hoping you could help us with an, er, harp issue.”

            For a second, Mr. Peterson looked like he was contemplating killing himself rather than us- I couldn’t entirely blame him for this- but then he was like, “And what is your harp issue?”

            Of course Phyllis had to launch into this long-winded description, most of which wasn’t even relevant.  “Okay, I’m… Fiona, and this is Matthias and… Margaret…”

            “You’re Margaret,” Michael whispered.

            “Okay, Matthias,” I whispered back.

            “So anyway, Matthias has this irrational fear of leaves, which is called like, Phyllisphobia or whatever…”

            “You were saying?” I whispered.

            “And so we made him go into the woods because he needs to CONQUER HIS FEAR, right?  So he goes in there, and he’s like, ‘Oh no, poison ivy, ahhhh,’ and then he just like, rolls around in it because he’s really dumb, Pete, I don’t know.  So that happens, and then he sees this harp and he’s all, ‘HAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRPPPPPPPP,’ and then he ran away because apparently he’s afraid of harps too, and then he came and found us and we were like, ‘Hahaha, you’re afraid of a harp,’ but then he and his poison ivy made us go see it anyway, and we’re like, ‘Dude, it’s just a harp,’ but then the harp started doing stuff, Pete.  Like, stuff harps aren’t supposed to do, because, what even are harps supposed to do?”

            “This is the greatest story I’ve ever heard in my life,” Michael muttered.

            “I mean, it was like, controlling the weather, Pete!  What harp does that?”  She narrowed her eyes.

            “A cursed harp, that’s what.”

            Mr. Peterson lifted an eyebrow.

            “It also made a guy disappear, fun fact.”

            Mr. Peterson just stared at her for like, a minute, and then was like, “Are you finished?”

            “Also there’s an evil sorceress in the woods, but I don’t think she did it.”

            “Are you finished now?” Mr. Peterson asked.  Phyllis nodded, because I guess she’d exhausted her voice, and he went, “So, you presume that curses exist, and someone has put one on a harp in the woo- you said it was in the woods?”

            “Yeah, by that creek with the crayfish that tried to chop Margaret’s leg off once.”

            “We don’t talk about that!” Michael said.

            “You found a harp in the woods by the creek?”

            “With the leaves,” Phyllis added.

            “Was anyone playing it?”

            “It played itself at one point because it’s freaking cursed, but there was no harpist or anything.”

            Mr. Peterson slammed his fist on the table and went, “Percival.”

            “Yes!” Phyllis exclaimed.  “Wait, who?”

            “Percival,” Mr. Peterson snarled, “Is that… individual who insists on spending the vast majority of his leisure time pilfering my priceless instruments and fooling around with them IN!  THE!  WOODS!”

            “So you put a curse on that harp and made him disappear, you fiend!”

            “Phyllis!” I said, because you don’t just go around calling people fiends, I don’t think.  I mean, who does that, really?

            “He’s probably hiding, he’s an ‘eccentric,’” Mr. Peterson said, punctuating this with really over-exaggerated air quotes.  “Chase reprimands me whenever I say nutcase.  Apparently it’s politically incorrect or some such nonsense.”

            Apparently this was all the information Phyllis needed, because she was like, “Thanks, Pete!” and then pulled us out of the store.

            “What was that about?!” I demanded.  “I thought he was a suspect.”

            “Well, we should probably try and find Percival before we go around accusing people of making him disappear,” she said.  “Get his side of the story and all that.”

            “Well, I’m not going back in the woods again,” I announced.

            “Don’t even lie; you are,” Phyllis said, and I knew she was right.

            I didn’t see the evil sorceress girl again- probably because Michael and Phyllis were with me- which made things only slightly less stressful, on account of I was still itching a ridiculous amount, and the wind hadn’t died down entirely, which occasionally caused leaves to fall off of trees and scare the crap out of me.

            “Oh, my God, Max, they’re just leaves,” Phyllis said when I flinched for like the forty-seventh time.  “I thought you were like an expert on them- you know they can’t actually hurt you.”

            “I researched them because I’m scared of them,” I said.  “And I know most of the trees in these woods are just acer pseudoplatanus- maple trees, and their leaves are harmless, but that doesn’t even matter.  It’s just irrational.”

            “But if you know they can’t-?”

            “Guys, there’s a cave,” Michael said suddenly.

            “You can’t just get over an-”

            “There is a cave, guys,” Michael said again.

            “But if there’s a rational explanation-”

            “CAVE,” Michael said.  We stopped and he pointed at this really tiny opening in what I’d previously assumed was just a huge rock.  Phyllis immediately darted inside it…

            …And we heard a decidedly not-Phyllis-y scream.

            Michael and I ran in there and were like, “Oh, my God, Phyllis, what did you do?” and found her standing there, looking pleased with herself, while some forty-something guy in a giant purple coat huddled in the corner.

            “I found a guy,” she announced.

            “Did you really?” Michael said.

            “You can’t just burst in on someone’s private quarters,” Purple Coat said, his voice shaking.

            “Are you Percival?” Phyllis demanded, because she needs to work on her people skills.

            “Yes, I’m Percival, will you leave now?” he asked. 

            “I need to talk to you about the harp,” Phyllis said.

            He buried his face in this bed of leaves he’d made- I took a few steps back- and was like, “Don’t talk to me about the harp.”

            “But somebody put a curse on it-”

            “There’s not a curse on it, it’s just eeeeevil,” he said, drawing the word out.  “It was made evil.  It was constructed by the hands of evil.  It was-” 

             “Who made it?” I demanded.

            “It doesn’t matter who made it!” he shouted.  “All I know is I… borrowed it from Peterson & Chase’s, brought it here to play, and next thing I knew, I was nearly drowning.  I came in here to dry off, where I witnessed its… lovely otherworldly abilities, and decided it ought to be destroyed.  I was trying to figure out how to go about that when you three so rudely interrupted me.”

            “We’ll help you destroy it!” Phyllis said.

            “Yeah, can we burn it?” Michael asked.  “I mean, we don’t have to, I just…”

            “It would probably just make the creek go all rapids-y and put the fire out,” I said.  “Let’s drop a boulder on it.”

            “How, exactly, are we going to do that, Michael Jacob Aiden Maxwell?” Phyllis asked.

            “We’re going to cut its strings,” Percival announced.  “That is what we’re going to do.”

            “Will that work?” I asked.

            Percival just glared at me, like how dare you question me and my infinite wisdom, and Michael was all, “I’ll go get some, uh, hedge clippers,” and ran off to do that.

            When he returned, we all looked at Percival expectantly, waiting for him to go be awesome and defeat the cursed harp with a pair of freaking hedge clippers, but he was all, “Oh, no I couldn’t possibly do it.  It may recognize me from before and unleash the full brunt of its power.  It has to be one of you.”

            Phyllis rolled her eyes, grabbed the clippers, was like, “Y’all are freaking useless,” and ran out of the cave.

            “Why are there so many of them?” she shouted as soon as she saw the harp up close.  “There’re like, fifty strings here!”

            “Forty-seven!” Percival corrected.

            “Just cut them!” I yelled.

            She started snipping them- one at a time- and got through about five before the harp started glowing green again, and the wind picked up.

            “Keep going!” Michael shouted.

            The harp started playing itself again, certain notes cut short as Phyllis cut the strings.  The creek flowed faster, waves crashing against the bank where Phyllis and the harp were.  Thunder crashed.  It was about as bad as last time, and it was steadily getting worse…

            So much worse, in fact, that the harp like, zapped Phyllis’s hands and she collapsed right there.

            “No!” Michael and I shouted.

            “She’s just unconscious,” Percival informed us, and before I could ask how he even knew that, Michael ran out and grabbed the clippers and continued cutting the strings.  He wasn’t quite as fast as Phyllis, and ended up on the ground after like, ten strings.

            “Go, boy!” Percival commanded, and I went, half-wondering what would happen if the harp knocked me out too.  I pried the clippers out of Michael’s hands- God, I hoped they were really just unconscious- and went to work.  There were twelve strings left- the higher ones- and they were still playing, which was just obnoxious.  I got through seven and figured I was probably in the clear…

            …And then the wind blew this leaf right into my face.

            I froze.  My hands were poised to cut another string, but I couldn’t make them move the clippers.  I also couldn’t make them drop the clippers and pull the leaf off, so I was basically just standing there, useless, with a leaf on my face.

            “What are you doing?” Percival shouted at me, and suddenly I hated him and his stupid purple coat and his harp thievery- like seriously, who steals a harp?- and I grabbed the leaf and hurled it in his direction.

            It wasn’t much, but it made me feel better.

            I snipped the string, and then the next three.  One left.  I half-expected another leaf to blow onto my face, but the harp just zapped me instead.  Predictable.

            There was a flash of green, and then everything went black.  I wasn’t even sure I was entirely unconscious- I could still feel my hands holding the clippers, and I could hear someone yelling, “Get up, you idiot!”

            I was about to tell Percival just where he could shove it, but then I opened my eyes and saw her, looking more pissed off at me than anyone ever has.

            “Cut the string, Michael Jacob Aiden Maxwell!” she commanded, and she was definitely an evil sorceress, because I did it.

            Instantly, the wind, thunder, and waves stopped, the harp went silent, and Michael and Phyllis woke up.  Phyllis shoved the harp’s frame into the creek for good measure, and we all just stood there.

            Percival emerged from the cave, cheering.  He hugged Michael, and then Phyllis, both of whom looked extremely uncomfortable with this.  I thought he was going to hug me and the evil sorceress too, but instead he just fell to his knees and went, “Success.”

            “That.  Was.  So.  Awesome!” Phyllis proclaimed.  And then she finally noticed the evil sorceress and went, “Who even are you?”

            “I’m Ellyn,” she said.  “Ellyn Caspian.  And contrary to what I can only assume is a relatively popular belief, I am not not not not not not not an evil sorceress.”

            Phyllis just stared at her.  “So are you or not?”

            Ellyn Caspian shrugged, and darted back into the woods.

            “So are we gonna like, solve the mystery of her now, or…?” Michael asked.

            “Yes!” Phyllis shouted.

            “No!” I protested.

            “Aw, come on, Max,” Phyllis said.  “It’ll be fun and probably won’t involve harps.”

            “I still have poison ivy,” I reminded her.

            “Okay, well, next mystery for sure,” Phyllis said.

            “For sure,” I replied wearily, and didn’t wonder until much later what I’d gotten myself into.