Anna's Artists Chat Thread

[Amer]

There were two races of birds, the Rubies and the Onyxs and they hated each other.
also Onyxs is like a tongue plague

 

[Sapphire Sebright]

Uhh
These are way too flowery. How would you like to call your neighbor a Daisy and call yourself a Tulip?
XD

Oops, sorry.
I like to be overly fancy.
Descriptive. Fanciful.
Blood and Bile, how's that?

 

[Amer]

Oops, sorry.
I like to be overly fancy.
Descriptive. Fanciful.
Blood and Bile, how's that?

Lol.
I think I’ll keep the annoying names at least for this draft. I like them.

 

[Amer]

This chapter doesn’t develop the story much. Idk what I think of it.

Spoiler: Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Moonlit Serenade
“Peregrine, wake up!” Gia whispered. Peregrine’s eyes snapped open. Next to him, his siblings perched, and across the room, his parents slumbered.
The day before, Gia and Peregrine hatched a plan. Well, Gia hatched a plan. Peregrine mostly just nodded and ate the sticky bun he had bought at the market. Pearl had said that her family lived a day’s flight south of the village. “Or a night’s flight,” Gia had said craftily. “If we sneak out at night, no one will notice we’re gone until it’s too late.” Gia was not a good influence all of the time. If she knew a handful of her kin existed a day’s flight south of the village, you had to bet she’d get to them somehow, no matter the cost.
So here Peregrine was, waking up not long after finally having fallen asleep. No matter. He was wide awake. Peregrine unpeeled his wing from Mal’s beak and hopped after Gia on silent feet. No one woke up.
He fluttered outside after Gia. The setting sun still set the sky ablaze in oranges, reds, and yellows. In early summer, the sun took its time before finally letting the moon have its turn lighting the sky. Unfortunately, even this amount of light didn’t help very much in the forest. Under the trees, it was cool and breezy and the nighttime shadows had already crept in.
Bird vision is probably even more hopeless than human vision when it’s night time. The pair was blundering into trees like a couple of moths blundering into lanterns. It became very quickly impossible to see your own claws in front of you. Gia resolved that they would fly above the trees, where there was at least a little moonlight, and you didn’t have hazardous tree trunks to worry about. By the time it was completely dark, Peregrine was convinced that flying at night was a very bad idea.
“This is hopeless,” whispered Peregrine. He knew there was no real reason to whisper, but it felt better to do so. The stars were bright and sparkly but the carpet of treetops below him seemed dark and malevolent nonetheless. The wind above the trees was a kind he wasn’t really used to. It was a warm, southern wind, but it resisted his every flap. “I can’t see anything, and the wind is blowing against us.” He wasn’t about to admit how utterly frightened he was quite yet.
“Come on,” said Gia. Her voice was so loud it startled Peregrine. “It’s a clear night. It could be a lot worse. It could be raining. There could be a gale. We can navigate just fine by the moon, since it rose in the east.”
That’s when Peregrine remembered the book he’d read that morning. There were creatures that crept at night. Creatures that could swallow birds like him and Gia in one bite. “What about nocturnal creatures?” he asked.
“Nocturnal creatures are stuck in the forest below. They can’t fly,” Gia replied. “We can.”
“Owls can fly too,” Peregrine pointed out. All of the leaves below seemed to transform with that thought. Now he could imagine tips of wings and eared heads and glowing golden eyes that could see in the dark just as well as a bobcat or a fox. Did I see a little movement down there? Maybe it’s just a bat.
“The Winged B.O.P. Squadron has eliminated all of the owls from our villages,” Gia said confidently.
“Oh. I didn’t know that,” said Peregrine, though he wasn’t really sure what the Winged B.O.P. Squadron was. That’s when a terrifying thought emerged in his brain. “We’re not near any villages.”
Gia faltered. “Oh.”
A couple of wingbeats were spent in utter silence while Gia wondered if it was really worth it to keep going. Her answer came swiftly from the forest below.
A winged shadow blotted out the stars, and in a moment of sudden clarity, sparkling gold eyes reflected the stars, seeming to hold an entire galaxy in their depths. Peregrine was palpably aware of how uncannily silent the bird’s wing beats were and just how huge and close the bird was. It was an owl. It may have seemed like a very small, cute owl to you, but Peregrine hadn’t seen a bird larger than a blue jay before, and that jay had been very far away.
“FLY!” Peregrine screamed. Both canaries flew in opposite directions, causing the great owl to swoop down between them and back up again. It was swooping towards Gia now; with its terrible talons outstretched.
“It’s faster than us!” screamed Peregrine. Somehow, he was filled with precipitant courage when he saw those claws going towards Gia. Peregrine flew up into the owl’s face to distract it, horribly close to that curving beak. He dodged out of its way, as did Gia.
“But we’re more agile!” Gia yelled. “Maybe we should go into those trees to throw it off!”
Peregrine imagined all those grabby invisible branches, and the couple of them trying to dodge them while escaping a hungry, also invisible owl. “Terrible idea! At least we can see it here!”
“Maybe we can confuse it?” Gia shot northward now, and so did Peregrine, as though they had some hope of getting home without being eaten. Now Gia climbed and climbed in flight.
The owl ignored Gia and flew after Peregrine.
“Hey! Now it’ll get ME!” Peregrine yelled. That’s when Gia dived toward the swooping owl, singing cheerfully.
“Little squirrel singing, up in a treee! Said to the fox, you can’t catch me!” Gia hopped on the owl’s head and grasped one of his ears. The owl threw her off and tried to snap at her.
Unfortunately for the owl, there was Peregrine up in his face again, bolstered by the music and continuing Gia’s song. It was one his mother had sung to him when he was just a hatchling. “When the fox got the nerve to climb the first limb, the squirrel was sitting in the tree across from him!”
Gia got away and Peregrine suddenly found himself in her position. He pecked at one of the great golden eyes while Gia tweaked one of the owl’s ears, singing “The fox was very, very mad, but the ground was far and things looked bad!” Peregrine floated up over its head.
The owl screeched and ripped away from Gia’s grip, shooting down through the canopy. It probably hoped to find some meeker, flightless prey.
Peregrine sang the last verse of the rhyme. “An acorn the little squirrel found, and when he threw it, the fox hit the ground!”
“Down! Down! Down!” Gia and Peregrine sang in unison.
Nothing stirred in the trees below.
“Do you think he liked our song, Peregrine?” Gia asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Peregrine admitted. “Personally, I liked it. A moonlit serenade. If the owl’s going to lose his supper, at least he gets to enjoy a nice song.”
The pair flew back to the village, and their flight was now uninterrupted. They sped along, the wind pushing them from behind. “Next time, let’s leave in the daytime. I don’t care if the whole village knows!”
Gia smiled. “Fine.”
Their parents never knew about that midnight escapade, but there was much singing the next day, featuring not a fox and a squirrel, but two brave birds and an owl.

 

[Sapphire Sebright]

The Winged B.O.P. Squadron

"Defending the village to some awesome tunes." (It was the first thing that popped into my head upon reading the abbreviation, sorry).

I did like this chapter -- not much advancement of the story, maybe, but we can see how the two canaries work together, and it sets up their journey south.

Also, yeah, Gia is definitely growing on me.

 

[Amer]

"Defending the village to some awesome tunes." (It was the first thing that popped into my head upon reading the abbreviation, sorry).

I did like this chapter -- not much advancement of the story, maybe, but we can see how the two canaries work together, and it sets up their journey south.

Also, yeah, Gia is definitely growing on me.

I know, it’s hilarious. That’s what I thought too.
Bird of Prey, but the reader needn’t know that. Peregrine be just as confused.
I’m glad you like it.

 

[Amer]

Shy baby found the cabinets that the new countertop will be installed on.
For scale, the wooden edge where just his paws and not his head is over is 31 inches. He’s a medium boy but he sure can stretch long. He’s the cat that likes to squeeze into the smallest spaces for whatever reason, even though he’s bigger than my two other cats (because they’re girls.)

 

[lilmillefleur]

So I didn't completely rewrite the first 2 chapters, but I did some big revisions, including:

- Deleting the whole first segment where Sam is delivering cookies since it's pointless and literally reiterated in the next scene
- Added some details about Sam's father and extra details about Sam's personality/thoughts
- More clarification on the shadow thing
- Made it so Sam goes to the fantasy realm unintentionally instead of being asked to because it sounded stupid no matter how I tried to word it
- Condensed the 2 chapters back into 1 chapter; then actually wrote a whole new second chapter for real! YAY!
- Renamed the chapters
- Changed the name of my story to Observatory to connect to something I added into chapter 1, hopefully the night sky will be a sort of Chekhov's Gun kind of thing (although at this rate the title will probably change again idk)

Spoiler: here's draft...4?? 5??? of Ch1. read it if you want, idc

Sam’s new house, admittedly, wasn’t quite as cute as the neighbors’. But it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, either, since many of the houses on the street looked just like hers. It was a plain and shabby one-story house, and you could even call it ugly looking, with its peeling gray shingles and odd brick siding. But it was the only house her parents could afford, so it was good enough for Sam.
“I’m home,” Sam called to the house. She could hear the TV blaring from the living room as she sat down and pulled off her sneakers.
“Did you deliver those cookies to Mrs. Crane?” Her mother called.
“No,” Sam said.
“You heartless little thing. Did you refuse to give to that poor lady? After all she’s been through?”
Sam was caught off guard for a moment.
“Get in here and answer my question!”
Sam trudged into the living room. Her mother turned around on the couch to face her. Even with her arms dangling over the back of the sofa, she seemed intimidating. “So? What’s your excuse?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Sam submitted. “She was there. She taped a sign in the window telling me to come back tomorrow.”
Sam’s mother narrowed her eyes. “The audacity!”
“I--no. I think there was something going on--”
“I work so hard to make a place for myself in this neighborhood and she had the nerve to brush aside my kind offering! Now I look like a fool! And my poor baby had to wait out in the heat for such a long time…” Her mother’s rant was starting to turn into a blubber.
“Well...maybe.” Sam sighed. “I’m going back again tomorrow.” She had grown accustomed to such rapid changes in mood, and in logic, from her mother.
“How about you give her a piece of my mind, while you’re at it,” her mother hissed. “Tell her she doesn’t deserve what we’re doing for her.”
“Then why are we doing it?” Sam squeaked. She had a lot of thoughts on the situation, but that was all she could manage.
“Just...just get out of here and let me be!” The poor woman had finally lost it.
Sam, feeling a bit hurt, slunk away to her room and sat on her bed. She was thinking hard now. There was nothing wrong with new neighbors delivering cookies to the old ones, surely. Besides, mother claimed this woman had been through a lot. She recalled that the other day when she had asked about it, her mother had deemed her too immature to tell her about their situation. “Such horrible, horrible things,” she’d said. “The world is cruel, but you are still young. You won’t be a child for much longer. Just enjoy it while it lasts.”
Sam thought she was plenty old enough to know what was going on around her. That was her greatest desire--to understand. To learn. To see something--anything--and be able to connect with it on a personal level. But her mother had never given her such things. She was strong-willed, and she was vibrant and emotional and people-pleasing--but she was also shallow-minded. She never asked for the why of anything, only the who’s and the what’s and the where’s. She only cared for what she could see right in front of her nose. And she could never be persuaded to reflect on her opinions.
Sam got all of her deep-flowing thoughts from her father. He was the unassuming type, who worked a quiet job and lived as quiet a life as he could with a wife as loud as his. He was the one who gave her the telescope, the one who showed her the stars at night and named every constellation for her: Cassiopeia, Orion, Sirius, Draco, Cygnus, Pegasus, Ursa Major and Minor. They were just a few lines connecting pinpoints of light, but someone long ago saw a story there. All Sam wanted was to know what that story was. Why it was so important. Maybe the lessons she learned from them could fix the parts of her life that needed fixing.
Sam switched off her lights. It was dark enough outside now that she could turn on her Observatory. The Observatory was a black sphere covered with tiny holes where the light bulb from inside could penetrate, covering the walls and ceiling with stars that matched the night sky. Her father had made it for her out of an old globe when she was very young, and she had turned it on every night before bed ever since. Sam spun the black shell of the Observatory and watched the stars spin around and around the room, naming them as they sped past her.
It was at that moment when Sam saw the Shadow. This was the third time she had seen it since she had moved to this little nothing town, and now it was standing in the corner of her room, absorbing the stars that crossed its path. It was tall and ominous, and its eyes were glowing like huge dying stars. Besides that, however, she could not make out any distinct features of this creature. The first time she had seen it, she had been terrified, but since then she had tried to forget about it. She didn’t know if it could see her or not, since it seemed to always leave her alone, but her skin was crawling anyway. She shook her head violently, hoping that this thing was a hallucination that would just go away.
At last, the shadow began to fade until the stars had absorbed it again. She began to wonder whether this shadow was a trick of the imagination or if it was some demon coming to deliver some message or revelation. She wasn’t much of a believer in the supernatural, but from her point of view, anything could be possible.
Sam had not told her mother about the Shadow. But Sam’s mother never told her about her own childhood, either. It was always something that was eluded so craftily in every conversation, the subject always so cheerily changed. It was unsettling to see her mother smile the way she did when she was hiding something. So naturally, Sam assumed that her mother’s childhood must have been difficult in some way. Besides, it made it easier to sympathize with her whenever she got unusually unreasonable.
Sam did know one thing about her mother, however. She knew that for her mother, delivering cookies wasn’t a warm hello or a gesture of kindness for someone in need. Those were normal reasons you give cookies. No, Sam’s mother had to give cookies to re-establish her reputation as a respectable human being.
---
Sam was on that porch again the following morning, with the plate of cookies once again in her hands. She knocked, tap tap tap, on the cheery yellow door. The wind blew gently, tickling the wind chimes that had been hung beside a window, and lifting up the wonderful smell of their garden from the backyard. This time there was an immediate response from inside the house. It sounded gentle yet deep, with a kind of sad sweetness to it.
“You can come in, sweetheart.”
Sam grabbed the doorknob and it twisted under her hand. She left the door unlocked for me. She pushed it open, albeit cautiously, and tiptoed inside. She didn’t see anyone immediately, but she could see that the rooms of the house were just as fresh and bright as the exterior was. The walls were a crisp white all around, and the kitchen windows off to the left were full of potted herbs and flowers and streaming sunlight. And there were a few crayon drawings held up by magnets on the fridge. I didn’t know she had children, Sam thought. I wonder if there are any who are my age.
Now Sam could hear the woman shuffling around upstairs. She left the cookies on the table and continued a slow walk through the house. She listened for the children, but she couldn’t hear any other happy noises coming from upstairs.
“I brought cookies,” Sam said finally. She tried not to yell. The house was so much different from her own that it seemed almost sacred to her.
The shuffling stopped for a moment. Then the woman spoke again and began to descend the staircase. “Sugar cookies, I know. Thank you.”
She had the same kind of freshness as the rest of her house: she was wearing a green checked button-down shirt and a stained white apron. Her wavy auburn hair was tied behind her neck in a loose ponytail, and her round face was spotted with freckles. Unlike her bright appearance, however, her eyes looked exhausted. They widened for just a moment when she saw Sam, as if there was something about her that was startling. Sam tried to brush aside the thought that this woman was judging her over some small thing, but her hands were up in her long black hair now, twirling strands of it around her fingers.
“I’m glad you like them,” Sam stammered nervously. She felt herself turn to leave.
“No,” the woman cut in. And then, “--I’m sorry. Don’t leave yet. I have something to show you.” The edge of sadness in her voice felt like such a contrast to her outfit, her surroundings...even for a woman with such a gentle and motherly aura, Sam couldn’t help but feel a bit wary.
“Tell me your name,” the woman pressed suddenly.
“Sam,” said Sam. She smiled, trying to act calm.
Sam followed the woman as she crossed through her living room and took down a vase of beautiful flowers from the fireplace mantle. They were of all colors and shapes and sizes; a mix that was almost chaotic, but perfectly complementary to each other at the same time. “They’re all wildflowers,” she said. “My favorite kinds. You can keep them. You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yes....that’s awfully sweet of you.”
There was a long pause. Sam could tell the woman was thinking hard.
“Sam,” said the woman. “Do you want to know a secret?”
Sam didn’t answer. Now her mind was churning, too. She couldn’t comprehend the woman’s emotions, nor her intent. The woman smiled warmly at her, but Sam could tell there was something behind the warm facade. What it was, she didn’t know. But she couldn’t place her trust in her neighbor just yet.
“These are magic flowers. You believe in magic, don’t you?”
Sam nearly rolled her eyes. What kind of question is that? She was almost fourteen years old. Even her own mother gave up on convincing her that those stories of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy were real. That was a long time ago, too. But the picture of the shadow in her mind would not go away. Her face grew hot.
“These magic flowers,” the woman continued. “They can make your dreams come true...but...they have also done terrible things to me. Terrible things...” Her eyes were fluttering, as though trying to keep them from wetting. Now Sam could read her emotions...she was distraught.
Sam almost felt sorry for the woman. She is probably mentally ill. Although Sam was curious as to what she could mean, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She turned as if to leave. And that’s when she saw it again. And this time, it could see her too. The shadow lunged at her, jaws wide open. Sam screamed. In an instant she could feel the woman holding her close, whispering in her honeysweet voice. It’s okay. It’s okay. It can’t hurt you.
But the monster would not go away. Sam could feel her grip on the woman loosen as if her arms were going numb. Sam panicked. She needed something real, something grounding. Something that would bring her back and make the shadow go away. She grappled for the wildflowers. They smelled so nice...
As Sam put her nose to the sickeningly-sweet flowers, she felt her legs buckle under her. The woman caught her and held her in her arms. The shadows engulfed their vision, and the stars began to spin, faster and faster and faster...until the shadows became a blur of light.

Spoiler: Also, at long last! I finally wrote a chapter 2!! Enjoy!

Sam woke up with her face buried in bitterly cold snow. The snow? It’s summer! What’s going on?
She sat up sharply. Looked left, looked right. Sure enough, there was a blanket of it covering as far as she could see. And it was falling gently from the nighttime sky, too. It was lit up like the stars as it fell. The snow around her was bathed in a warm glow.
Sam turned to look behind herself and saw two straight rows of the tallest trees she had ever seen, with massive trunks that branched out into massive bare canopies. But in these trees there were little lights dotted among the trunk. Sam squinted hard. They were windows.
Was she losing her mind? Was she dreaming? I must be dreaming.
She pinched herself. The sting of her fingernails on her bare arm was lessened from the cold, but it was still there.
What had brought her here? What was this place? How did she get here? What did this all mean? She retraced her actions that led her to this moment. The neighbor’s note in the window, the woman, the shadow, the wildflowers, the stars. Could it be?
It had to be magic. It had to be. What other explanation could be given that could be described with words?
A shiver went down Sam’s spine, and she remembered she was still wearing her gray t-shirt and jogging pants. She stood up slowly, brushing the snow from her soaking wet legs. She concluded rather quickly that her best bet was to make her way to the trees, and so she did. One painful step after another, the 5 or so inches of snow finding its way into her sneakers and chilling her socks.
Sam was growing dangerously tired by the time she reached the closest tree, and she found herself on the doorstep of a strange residence for the third time that day. Has it been more than a day? There was a little arched door at its base, with intricately carved flowers and fantastical creatures dancing across its wooden frame. A small diamond-shaped window in the door spilled a golden light across her body. Although it emitted no heat, Sam still felt a bit warmer.
“Please, let me in,” Sam called out. “I think I am lost.”
After a few moments, Sam could hear the sound of footsteps coming down a staircase. When the door opened, Sam could hardly believe who she saw. It was her neighbor--that woman--standing before her once again. She looked different, though--if Sam remembered correctly, the woman she’d met before didn’t have skin the texture and silvery color of cherry tree bark. And she didn't have hair that was as thick and white as the snow on the ground.
Sam opened her mouth, but the woman was already speaking. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I.” Her smile was just as warm as the air that came from inside the strange house.
“I think so,” Sam whispered. That was all she could muster to say.
“Come in. Your lips are blue, you poor girl.” The tree woman placed a gentle hand on Sam’s back and led her inside. “You can call me Ammil.”
The walls of the interior were carved to hollow out the tree, and they gently sloped where the walls met the ceiling and the floor, so it felt almost cavelike but perfectly log-cabin cozy. Leather and buffalo check fabric chairs and couches were placed neatly throughout the room. A roaring iron stove was in the center of it all, and a carved staircase wrapped around the flue, leading up to another floor. Towards the back of the room there were several dining tables and a counter, and a door leading into what Sam assumed was the kitchen. Ammil sat Sam in front of the fire and then hurried off back up the stairs, chattering as she went. “I know you’re full of questions, but for now you need your rest. Let me get you a blanket. Pirr! We have a newcomer!”
She descended the stairs again quickly, this time carrying a gray wool blanket. It was itchy, but it fell heavy on Sam’s shoulders as the woman draped it across her body.
“Shall I make you something to drink?” Ammil murmured.
Sam looked up and nodded weakly.
Then the tree woman was off again to the back of the room, where another door led into what Sam assumed was a kitchen of some sort. In a minute or two, Ammil was back with a steaming mug of something dark green in color. It tasted strange, almost piney, but Sam drank it. It must have been some sort of tea. Sam shut her eyes and began to drift off to sleep, her thoughts still a muddle of who’s and where’s, and most importantly, why’s.
---
Sam woke up with her face buried in a soft flannel pillow. A pillow? I was sitting on the--wait a minute.
The sun was shining through another one of those odd diamond-shaped windows. Sam got up and looked down at herself; she was still wearing her t-shirt and pants. Good. No one changed my clothes while I was asleep. She shivered at the thought and looked around the room. It was a carved tree hollow, like the other room had been, but this one was much smaller. Her bed’s frame was made of logs, and it had a white-edged quilt on it that was covered in colorfully patterned squares of fabric, besides the gray woolen blanket that had been carefully spread underneath it to better trap the heat. On top of the quilt there was a dark green dress folded neatly for Sam to wear. There was a wooden side table next to the bed, and another iron heater, this one much smaller, was in the corner. But besides that, the room was empty. The only sound Sam could hear was the low humming noise coming from the heater. She could tell that this room had not been used in a while, as she could see more dust particles than usual floating through the air when the light hit them.
Sam peered out of the small window and discovered that she was at least 30 feet from the ground up in the tree. The snow below was full of footprints; and she could see a few people bustling below her, coming in and out of the trees on some sort of business. Sure enough, they were not humans, but rather centaurs, nymphs, faeries, sphynx, and all manner of creatures that could only be seen in the imagination. Right. Surely this place can’t be found on any map. I wonder where it is, exactly.
Although the heater was on, the room was still chilly, so Sam pulled on the dress and opened the bedroom door. To Sam’s surprise, she was met with a tiny kitchen, living room, and a door to the bathroom, all as bare and dusty as the bedroom was. This wasn’t just some hotel room--this was a whole apartment.
When Sam finally opened the door connected to the kitchen, she found herself in a long hallway that wrapped around in a circle so she could see the many doors on the opposite side. The flue and staircase were still in the middle of it all, spiraling up to a still higher level. She saw little carved numbers above each door, too: 306, 307, 308. All the way around to her door, 314. She guessed that there must have been 20 rooms in all on that floor alone. Who knew how many there were in the whole tree!
Sam tiptoed down the staircase, unsure of how early in the morning it was, and hoping to not wake or startle anyone who might still be in bed. Three stories later and she was at ground level again, where she could smell something delicious cooking, and she could hear the faint hum of cheerful singing. Ammil was standing behind the counter, weighing some breakfast items for a blue-skinned customer.
“You’re up early,” Ammil exclaimed.
“Yeah.” Sam rubbed her eyes. “I guess I am.”
“Can’t sleep much when you don’t know where you are,” Ammil said. “I know how you feel. Here, come sit down.” She beckoned to one of the wooden tables in the dining area of the room. They sat down together on opposite sides of the table.
“How did you get here, anyway?” Sam hoped she would get more information than she asked for, but she didn’t want to sound grating.
Ammil hesitated, as though she were thinking. “The flowers I gave you,” she said finally. “They are able to give you...what your heart desires.” She looked past Sam briefly, as though there was someone watching her. Sam spun around, but saw no one. She turned back.
“The shadow you saw...I see it too. It came to me, one day,” she continued with a deep breath. “I was scared. But it gave me those flowers, and it told me they were magic, and that they would grant me my deepest wish.” She blinked a few times. “I had...just lost my daughter in a car accident…” she sniffed. “And I wanted her to come back. I thought surely that was my deepest desire.”
Sam held her breath. This information was a revelation! Her mother had never told her that their neighbor had lost a child. It was heartbreaking, yes, but it didn’t seem like something that needed to be kept such a secret.
“But the way these flowers work,” Ammil continued slowly, “is not like I thought. You do not tell them your wish. They look inside you, into the center of your heart, to find it.” She closed her eyes. “And the flowers told me that having my daughter back was not what I wanted most of all.”
Sam’s expression softened. She truly felt bad for this poor woman. Imagine being told you were so selfish that there was something more valuable to you than your own daughter?
“So then what happened?” Sam asked as gently as she could.
“I found myself here.” She said. “I keep the flowers on my bedside table and they take me home whenever I like. But really, this has become my refuge. I don’t question what or where this place is, I just embrace it for whatever it is.” She laughed a nervous laugh. “It’s more a home to me than my house on your street. And most importantly, I feel happy here, Sam. And I hate that I do. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it lets me forget everything that life threw at me...my daughter...”
Sam frowned empathetically. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know that about you. My mother never told me about your daughter. I don’t know why she did.”
“Some people think they can control the kinds of things you should know about. It’s just the way they are.”
“I guess.”
“You know something?” Ammil whispered in a low voice. “I never knew what my deepest desire really was. It’s always unconscious. But I think I know now. I think I needed you, Sam.”
That’s a bit early to tell, Sam thought.
As if she could read Sam’s mind, the woman responded. “You were the only one to see that shadow, Sam. No one else has been able to. They’d call me crazy. I thought maybe I was just struggling with grief. And now it seems your deepest desire has led you here.”
“Maybe.” Sam squirmed a bit in her chair, running her fingers along the shaved wood.
“But I guess neither of us can really know unless we’ve lived a bit longer.” Ammil smiled and stood up. “So. What would you like to eat this morning?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“I didn’t expect you to. It’s okay.”
“Do you have plain buttered toast?”
“M’hm.” Ammil turned and disappeared behind the kitchen door. When she came back, she was holding a hot plate of toast.
“How am I supposed to pay you back for letting me stay in one of your apartments?” Sam asked. “...which is lovely, by the way,” she added.
“You know I could use an extra hand around here,” Ammil said. “Pirr and Mack and I are the only ones keeping this place afloat. I’ll pay you 20 chips a day.”
Sam didn’t know what a chip was, or what it was worth. But as desperate as she was for knowledge, she was also reserved. If knowledge meant constantly pestering someone for a tidbit of information, it wasn’t worth it. Only her mother would do a thing like that.

I will probably not need to make tons of crazy edits to this chapter like I did with the other one. This one was a lot easier for me to write.

 

[Amer]

So I didn't completely rewrite the first 2 chapters, but I did some big revisions, including:

- Deleting the whole first segment where Sam is delivering cookies since it's pointless and literally reiterated in the next scene
- Added some details about Sam's father and extra details about Sam's personality/thoughts
- More clarification on the shadow thing
- Made it so Sam goes to the fantasy realm unintentionally instead of being asked to because it sounded stupid no matter how I tried to word it
- Condensed the 2 chapters back into 1 chapter; then actually wrote a whole new second chapter for real! YAY!
- Renamed the chapters
- Changed the name of my story to Observatory to connect to something I added into chapter 1, hopefully the night sky will be a sort of Chekhov's Gun kind of thing (although at this rate the title will probably change again idk)

Spoiler: here's draft...4?? 5??? of Ch1. read it if you want, idc

Sam’s new house, admittedly, wasn’t quite as cute as the neighbors’. But it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, either, since many of the houses on the street looked just like hers. It was a plain and shabby one-story house, and you could even call it ugly looking, with its peeling gray shingles and odd brick siding. But it was the only house her parents could afford, so it was good enough for Sam.
“I’m home,” Sam called to the house. She could hear the TV blaring from the living room as she sat down and pulled off her sneakers.
“Did you deliver those cookies to Mrs. Crane?” Her mother called.
“No,” Sam said.
“You heartless little thing. Did you refuse to give to that poor lady? After all she’s been through?”
Sam was caught off guard for a moment.
“Get in here and answer my question!”
Sam trudged into the living room. Her mother turned around on the couch to face her. Even with her arms dangling over the back of the sofa, she seemed intimidating. “So? What’s your excuse?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Sam submitted. “She was there. She taped a sign in the window telling me to come back tomorrow.”
Sam’s mother narrowed her eyes. “The audacity!”
“I--no. I think there was something going on--”
“I work so hard to make a place for myself in this neighborhood and she had the nerve to brush aside my kind offering! Now I look like a fool! And my poor baby had to wait out in the heat for such a long time…” Her mother’s rant was starting to turn into a blubber.
“Well...maybe.” Sam sighed. “I’m going back again tomorrow.” She had grown accustomed to such rapid changes in mood, and in logic, from her mother.
“How about you give her a piece of my mind, while you’re at it,” her mother hissed. “Tell her she doesn’t deserve what we’re doing for her.”
“Then why are we doing it?” Sam squeaked. She had a lot of thoughts on the situation, but that was all she could manage.
“Just...just get out of here and let me be!” The poor woman had finally lost it.
Sam, feeling a bit hurt, slunk away to her room and sat on her bed. She was thinking hard now. There was nothing wrong with new neighbors delivering cookies to the old ones, surely. Besides, mother claimed this woman had been through a lot. She recalled that the other day when she had asked about it, her mother had deemed her too immature to tell her about their situation. “Such horrible, horrible things,” she’d said. “The world is cruel, but you are still young. You won’t be a child for much longer. Just enjoy it while it lasts.”
Sam thought she was plenty old enough to know what was going on around her. That was her greatest desire--to understand. To learn. To see something--anything--and be able to connect with it on a personal level. But her mother had never given her such things. She was strong-willed, and she was vibrant and emotional and people-pleasing--but she was also shallow-minded. She never asked for the why of anything, only the who’s and the what’s and the where’s. She only cared for what she could see right in front of her nose. And she could never be persuaded to reflect on her opinions.
Sam got all of her deep-flowing thoughts from her father. He was the unassuming type, who worked a quiet job and lived as quiet a life as he could with a wife as loud as his. He was the one who gave her the telescope, the one who showed her the stars at night and named every constellation for her: Cassiopeia, Orion, Sirius, Draco, Cygnus, Pegasus, Ursa Major and Minor. They were just a few lines connecting pinpoints of light, but someone long ago saw a story there. All Sam wanted was to know what that story was. Why it was so important. Maybe the lessons she learned from them could fix the parts of her life that needed fixing.
Sam switched off her lights. It was dark enough outside now that she could turn on her Observatory. The Observatory was a black sphere covered with tiny holes where the light bulb from inside could penetrate, covering the walls and ceiling with stars that matched the night sky. Her father had made it for her out of an old globe when she was very young, and she had turned it on every night before bed ever since. Sam spun the black shell of the Observatory and watched the stars spin around and around the room, naming them as they sped past her.
It was at that moment when Sam saw the Shadow. This was the third time she had seen it since she had moved to this little nothing town, and now it was standing in the corner of her room, absorbing the stars that crossed its path. It was tall and ominous, and its eyes were glowing like huge dying stars. Besides that, however, she could not make out any distinct features of this creature. The first time she had seen it, she had been terrified, but since then she had tried to forget about it. She didn’t know if it could see her or not, since it seemed to always leave her alone, but her skin was crawling anyway. She shook her head violently, hoping that this thing was a hallucination that would just go away.
At last, the shadow began to fade until the stars had absorbed it again. She began to wonder whether this shadow was a trick of the imagination or if it was some demon coming to deliver some message or revelation. She wasn’t much of a believer in the supernatural, but from her point of view, anything could be possible.
Sam had not told her mother about the Shadow. But Sam’s mother never told her about her own childhood, either. It was always something that was eluded so craftily in every conversation, the subject always so cheerily changed. It was unsettling to see her mother smile the way she did when she was hiding something. So naturally, Sam assumed that her mother’s childhood must have been difficult in some way. Besides, it made it easier to sympathize with her whenever she got unusually unreasonable.
Sam did know one thing about her mother, however. She knew that for her mother, delivering cookies wasn’t a warm hello or a gesture of kindness for someone in need. Those were normal reasons you give cookies. No, Sam’s mother had to give cookies to re-establish her reputation as a respectable human being.
---
Sam was on that porch again the following morning, with the plate of cookies once again in her hands. She knocked, tap tap tap, on the cheery yellow door. The wind blew gently, tickling the wind chimes that had been hung beside a window, and lifting up the wonderful smell of their garden from the backyard. This time there was an immediate response from inside the house. It sounded gentle yet deep, with a kind of sad sweetness to it.
“You can come in, sweetheart.”
Sam grabbed the doorknob and it twisted under her hand. She left the door unlocked for me. She pushed it open, albeit cautiously, and tiptoed inside. She didn’t see anyone immediately, but she could see that the rooms of the house were just as fresh and bright as the exterior was. The walls were a crisp white all around, and the kitchen windows off to the left were full of potted herbs and flowers and streaming sunlight. And there were a few crayon drawings held up by magnets on the fridge. I didn’t know she had children, Sam thought. I wonder if there are any who are my age.
Now Sam could hear the woman shuffling around upstairs. She left the cookies on the table and continued a slow walk through the house. She listened for the children, but she couldn’t hear any other happy noises coming from upstairs.
“I brought cookies,” Sam said finally. She tried not to yell. The house was so much different from her own that it seemed almost sacred to her.
The shuffling stopped for a moment. Then the woman spoke again and began to descend the staircase. “Sugar cookies, I know. Thank you.”
She had the same kind of freshness as the rest of her house: she was wearing a green checked button-down shirt and a stained white apron. Her wavy auburn hair was tied behind her neck in a loose ponytail, and her round face was spotted with freckles. Unlike her bright appearance, however, her eyes looked exhausted. They widened for just a moment when she saw Sam, as if there was something about her that was startling. Sam tried to brush aside the thought that this woman was judging her over some small thing, but her hands were up in her long black hair now, twirling strands of it around her fingers.
“I’m glad you like them,” Sam stammered nervously. She felt herself turn to leave.
“No,” the woman cut in. And then, “--I’m sorry. Don’t leave yet. I have something to show you.” The edge of sadness in her voice felt like such a contrast to her outfit, her surroundings...even for a woman with such a gentle and motherly aura, Sam couldn’t help but feel a bit wary.
“Tell me your name,” the woman pressed suddenly.
“Sam,” said Sam. She smiled, trying to act calm.
Sam followed the woman as she crossed through her living room and took down a vase of beautiful flowers from the fireplace mantle. They were of all colors and shapes and sizes; a mix that was almost chaotic, but perfectly complementary to each other at the same time. “They’re all wildflowers,” she said. “My favorite kinds. You can keep them. You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yes....that’s awfully sweet of you.”
There was a long pause. Sam could tell the woman was thinking hard.
“Sam,” said the woman. “Do you want to know a secret?”
Sam didn’t answer. Now her mind was churning, too. She couldn’t comprehend the woman’s emotions, nor her intent. The woman smiled warmly at her, but Sam could tell there was something behind the warm facade. What it was, she didn’t know. But she couldn’t place her trust in her neighbor just yet.
“These are magic flowers. You believe in magic, don’t you?”
Sam nearly rolled her eyes. What kind of question is that? She was almost fourteen years old. Even her own mother gave up on convincing her that those stories of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy were real. That was a long time ago, too. But the picture of the shadow in her mind would not go away. Her face grew hot.
“These magic flowers,” the woman continued. “They can make your dreams come true...but...they have also done terrible things to me. Terrible things...” Her eyes were fluttering, as though trying to keep them from wetting. Now Sam could read her emotions...she was distraught.
Sam almost felt sorry for the woman. She is probably mentally ill. Although Sam was curious as to what she could mean, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She turned as if to leave. And that’s when she saw it again. And this time, it could see her too. The shadow lunged at her, jaws wide open. Sam screamed. In an instant she could feel the woman holding her close, whispering in her honeysweet voice. It’s okay. It’s okay. It can’t hurt you.
But the monster would not go away. Sam could feel her grip on the woman loosen as if her arms were going numb. Sam panicked. She needed something real, something grounding. Something that would bring her back and make the shadow go away. She grappled for the wildflowers. They smelled so nice...
As Sam put her nose to the sickeningly-sweet flowers, she felt her legs buckle under her. The woman caught her and held her in her arms. The shadows engulfed their vision, and the stars began to spin, faster and faster and faster...until the shadows became a blur of light.

Spoiler: Also, at long last! I finally wrote a chapter 2!! Enjoy!

Sam woke up with her face buried in bitterly cold snow. The snow? It’s summer! What’s going on?
She sat up sharply. Looked left, looked right. Sure enough, there was a blanket of it covering as far as she could see. And it was falling gently from the nighttime sky, too. It was lit up like the stars as it fell. The snow around her was bathed in a warm glow.
Sam turned to look behind herself and saw two straight rows of the tallest trees she had ever seen, with massive trunks that branched out into massive bare canopies. But in these trees there were little lights dotted among the trunk. Sam squinted hard. They were windows.
Was she losing her mind? Was she dreaming? I must be dreaming.
She pinched herself. The sting of her fingernails on her bare arm was lessened from the cold, but it was still there.
What had brought her here? What was this place? How did she get here? What did this all mean? She retraced her actions that led her to this moment. The neighbor’s note in the window, the woman, the shadow, the wildflowers, the stars. Could it be?
It had to be magic. It had to be. What other explanation could be given that could be described with words?
A shiver went down Sam’s spine, and she remembered she was still wearing her gray t-shirt and jogging pants. She stood up slowly, brushing the snow from her soaking wet legs. She concluded rather quickly that her best bet was to make her way to the trees, and so she did. One painful step after another, the 5 or so inches of snow finding its way into her sneakers and chilling her socks.
Sam was growing dangerously tired by the time she reached the closest tree, and she found herself on the doorstep of a strange residence for the third time that day. Has it been more than a day? There was a little arched door at its base, with intricately carved flowers and fantastical creatures dancing across its wooden frame. A small diamond-shaped window in the door spilled a golden light across her body. Although it emitted no heat, Sam still felt a bit warmer.
“Please, let me in,” Sam called out. “I think I am lost.”
After a few moments, Sam could hear the sound of footsteps coming down a staircase. When the door opened, Sam could hardly believe who she saw. It was her neighbor--that woman--standing before her once again. She looked different, though--if Sam remembered correctly, the woman she’d met before didn’t have skin the texture and silvery color of cherry tree bark. And she didn't have hair that was as thick and white as the snow on the ground.
Sam opened her mouth, but the woman was already speaking. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I.” Her smile was just as warm as the air that came from inside the strange house.
“I think so,” Sam whispered. That was all she could muster to say.
“Come in. Your lips are blue, you poor girl.” The tree woman placed a gentle hand on Sam’s back and led her inside. “You can call me Ammil.”
The walls of the interior were carved to hollow out the tree, and they gently sloped where the walls met the ceiling and the floor, so it felt almost cavelike but perfectly log-cabin cozy. Leather and buffalo check fabric chairs and couches were placed neatly throughout the room. A roaring iron stove was in the center of it all, and a carved staircase wrapped around the flue, leading up to another floor. Towards the back of the room there were several dining tables and a counter, and a door leading into what Sam assumed was the kitchen. Ammil sat Sam in front of the fire and then hurried off back up the stairs, chattering as she went. “I know you’re full of questions, but for now you need your rest. Let me get you a blanket. Pirr! We have a newcomer!”
She descended the stairs again quickly, this time carrying a gray wool blanket. It was itchy, but it fell heavy on Sam’s shoulders as the woman draped it across her body.
“Shall I make you something to drink?” Ammil murmured.
Sam looked up and nodded weakly.
Then the tree woman was off again to the back of the room, where another door led into what Sam assumed was a kitchen of some sort. In a minute or two, Ammil was back with a steaming mug of something dark green in color. It tasted strange, almost piney, but Sam drank it. It must have been some sort of tea. Sam shut her eyes and began to drift off to sleep, her thoughts still a muddle of who’s and where’s, and most importantly, why’s.
---
Sam woke up with her face buried in a soft flannel pillow. A pillow? I was sitting on the--wait a minute.
The sun was shining through another one of those odd diamond-shaped windows. Sam got up and looked down at herself; she was still wearing her t-shirt and pants. Good. No one changed my clothes while I was asleep. She shivered at the thought and looked around the room. It was a carved tree hollow, like the other room had been, but this one was much smaller. Her bed’s frame was made of logs, and it had a white-edged quilt on it that was covered in colorfully patterned squares of fabric, besides the gray woolen blanket that had been carefully spread underneath it to better trap the heat. On top of the quilt there was a dark green dress folded neatly for Sam to wear. There was a wooden side table next to the bed, and another iron heater, this one much smaller, was in the corner. But besides that, the room was empty. The only sound Sam could hear was the low humming noise coming from the heater. She could tell that this room had not been used in a while, as she could see more dust particles than usual floating through the air when the light hit them.
Sam peered out of the small window and discovered that she was at least 30 feet from the ground up in the tree. The snow below was full of footprints; and she could see a few people bustling below her, coming in and out of the trees on some sort of business. Sure enough, they were not humans, but rather centaurs, nymphs, faeries, sphynx, and all manner of creatures that could only be seen in the imagination. Right. Surely this place can’t be found on any map. I wonder where it is, exactly.
Although the heater was on, the room was still chilly, so Sam pulled on the dress and opened the bedroom door. To Sam’s surprise, she was met with a tiny kitchen, living room, and a door to the bathroom, all as bare and dusty as the bedroom was. This wasn’t just some hotel room--this was a whole apartment.
When Sam finally opened the door connected to the kitchen, she found herself in a long hallway that wrapped around in a circle so she could see the many doors on the opposite side. The flue and staircase were still in the middle of it all, spiraling up to a still higher level. She saw little carved numbers above each door, too: 306, 307, 308. All the way around to her door, 314. She guessed that there must have been 20 rooms in all on that floor alone. Who knew how many there were in the whole tree!
Sam tiptoed down the staircase, unsure of how early in the morning it was, and hoping to not wake or startle anyone who might still be in bed. Three stories later and she was at ground level again, where she could smell something delicious cooking, and she could hear the faint hum of cheerful singing. Ammil was standing behind the counter, weighing some breakfast items for a blue-skinned customer.
“You’re up early,” Ammil exclaimed.
“Yeah.” Sam rubbed her eyes. “I guess I am.”
“Can’t sleep much when you don’t know where you are,” Ammil said. “I know how you feel. Here, come sit down.” She beckoned to one of the wooden tables in the dining area of the room. They sat down together on opposite sides of the table.
“How did you get here, anyway?” Sam hoped she would get more information than she asked for, but she didn’t want to sound grating.
Ammil hesitated, as though she were thinking. “The flowers I gave you,” she said finally. “They are able to give you...what your heart desires.” She looked past Sam briefly, as though there was someone watching her. Sam spun around, but saw no one. She turned back.
“The shadow you saw...I see it too. It came to me, one day,” she continued with a deep breath. “I was scared. But it gave me those flowers, and it told me they were magic, and that they would grant me my deepest wish.” She blinked a few times. “I had...just lost my daughter in a car accident…” she sniffed. “And I wanted her to come back. I thought surely that was my deepest desire.”
Sam held her breath. This information was a revelation! Her mother had never told her that their neighbor had lost a child. It was heartbreaking, yes, but it didn’t seem like something that needed to be kept such a secret.
“But the way these flowers work,” Ammil continued slowly, “is not like I thought. You do not tell them your wish. They look inside you, into the center of your heart, to find it.” She closed her eyes. “And the flowers told me that having my daughter back was not what I wanted most of all.”
Sam’s expression softened. She truly felt bad for this poor woman. Imagine being told you were so selfish that there was something more valuable to you than your own daughter?
“So then what happened?” Sam asked as gently as she could.
“I found myself here.” She said. “I keep the flowers on my bedside table and they take me home whenever I like. But really, this has become my refuge. I don’t question what or where this place is, I just embrace it for whatever it is.” She laughed a nervous laugh. “It’s more a home to me than my house on your street. And most importantly, I feel happy here, Sam. And I hate that I do. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it lets me forget everything that life threw at me...my daughter...”
Sam frowned empathetically. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know that about you. My mother never told me about your daughter. I don’t know why she did.”
“Some people think they can control the kinds of things you should know about. It’s just the way they are.”
“I guess.”
“You know something?” Ammil whispered in a low voice. “I never knew what my deepest desire really was. It’s always unconscious. But I think I know now. I think I needed you, Sam.”
That’s a bit early to tell, Sam thought.
As if she could read Sam’s mind, the woman responded. “You were the only one to see that shadow, Sam. No one else has been able to. They’d call me crazy. I thought maybe I was just struggling with grief. And now it seems your deepest desire has led you here.”
“Maybe.” Sam squirmed a bit in her chair, running her fingers along the shaved wood.
“But I guess neither of us can really know unless we’ve lived a bit longer.” Ammil smiled and stood up. “So. What would you like to eat this morning?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“I didn’t expect you to. It’s okay.”
“Do you have plain buttered toast?”
“M’hm.” Ammil turned and disappeared behind the kitchen door. When she came back, she was holding a hot plate of toast.
“How am I supposed to pay you back for letting me stay in one of your apartments?” Sam asked. “...which is lovely, by the way,” she added.
“You know I could use an extra hand around here,” Ammil said. “Pirr and Mack and I are the only ones keeping this place afloat. I’ll pay you 20 chips a day.”
Sam didn’t know what a chip was, or what it was worth. But as desperate as she was for knowledge, she was also reserved. If knowledge meant constantly pestering someone for a tidbit of information, it wasn’t worth it. Only her mother would do a thing like that.

I will probably not need to make tons of crazy edits to this chapter like I did with the other one. This one was a lot easier for me to write.

Yayy!!! A new chapter!
Only a couple suggestions for your first chapter.
Can you make it more evident at the beginning that Sam is coming home from her neighbors house? And give the reader a clue that Sam is a new neighbor. I thought Ammil was the new neighbor, not the other way around.

 

[Amer]

@puffypoo It would be cool if you drew the sphinxes you mentioned.
I think it’s so cool that there are sphinxes.