NEW: The Squalling Baby

I don't often post new, not yet published stories here, but with the corona virus wreaking havoc around the world I thought I'd distract you for a few minutes with this little story, and the next post, also a new unpublished story- Enjoy!


The Squalling Baby by Susan Buffum, copyright March 2020


Night after night Diana woke to the shrill cries of an infant. Never having been a mother herself she lacked the ability to discern whether or not the infant’s cried were due to distress caused by a wet or soiled diaper or a gas bubble in its stomach, or was due to hunger, thirst, or even pain, like from a first tooth pushing through a tender pink gum. Or, perhaps it was simply frightened of the dark.

Turning her head she discerned the dark mound of Edward beside her. Apparently he could not hear the squalling baby. Men were uncannily deaf to crying babies unless they were watching sports or trying to talk to their buddies on the phone. Women evidently had ears attuned to even the merest hiccoughing whimper, some sort of internal antenna that directed them to any sort of child in distress or need.


She’d gotten up dozens of times since they’d moved into the former Brickman home. The house dated back to the mid-eighteen hundreds. Benjamin Brickman had been the last of that line. He’d been a rather odd old man. He’d seemed very nervous at the house closing—anxious to receive his check and flee the lawyer’s office. She and Edward had had no idea where he was fleeing to. They’d thought that perhaps it would be to an assisted living community, but they’d since heard that he’d left the area completely. He’d been a rather strange man, if you asked her.


But the house had been nice enough—well kept, in good repair, surprisingly clean for an old bachelor having lived there alone since the death of his mother, Beatrice Brickman fifteen years prior to the house having come onto the market.


The only curious thing they’d found in the house so far was a locked door in the master bedroom. Edward assumed it was to a dressing room which was little more, in his opinion, than a walk-in closet. They had ample closet space in the large dressing room; plenty of space for all their clothes, shoes, and accessories.  The en suite was surprisingly large also. Only Diana was bothered by the locked door. None of the keys on  the brass ring that had been handed over to them at the closing had fit the lock. Edward’s opinion was that he’d get a locksmith in eventually and the matter would be rectified. For now, they didn’t need whatever space was concealed behind that locked door.


The crying seemed to come from the other side of that locked door. It woke her every night. She lay there tense and anxious listening to that insidious wailing, the choking sobs. It stirred maternal instincts within her that she’d have preferred to be allowed to lie dormant. She and Edward had decided not to bring children into this world.


Eventually, she turned onto her side, folding her pillow over her exposed ear. It muffled the crying enough so that she was finally able to fall asleep, but her dreams were fraught with empty cradles draped in black crepe, women garbed all in unrelenting black, faces obscured behind black veils. It left her feeling dull and dreary when she woke, Edward’s place already abandoned, empty. He had to rise early for the lengthy commute to work.



She found a tarnished brass skeleton key wedged between the baseboard and a floorboard when she heaved the dresser aside to retrieve a necklace that she’d dropped behind it, the pretty gold one with the diamond teardrop pendant. She had to go downstairs to get a screwdriver from the junk drawer in the kitchen so she could lever the key out of its tight position.


After a few attempts it seemed the key simply leapt from its trap, striking her in the abdomen. “Ouch!” she cried, rubbing her belly a few times before picking up the key. It was a good three and a half inches or so in length. “What do you fit?” she asked it as she got up off the floor, laying it down on the dresser before shoving the furniture piece back into its place against the wall.



Again that night the sound of a squalling baby woke her. In frustration and annoyance she flung aside the bedclothes as she sat up, swinging her feet over the side of the bed. Behind her, Edward sort of snorted in his sleep. Irritation and disgust disfigured her face as she stood up and began walking toward the hall door intending to go downstairs to try to sleep on the couch in the room they used as their family room.


As she came around the foot of the bed she stepped on something cold, hard, and unforgiving. “What….?” She moved her foot, bent and felt for the object, readily identifying it by its shape as a skeleton key. “How did this get on the floor?” she muttered. The key had been on the dresser when she’d paused there to rub a little lotion into her face before going to bed.


The baby’s cries were particularly shrill and demanding tonight. “Oh, shut up already!” she said aloud as she made her way to the locked door. It was dark in the room, but by touch she located the lock beneath the doorknob, rotated the key in her other hand and rammed it into the keyhole.


At first the lock resisted her efforts, but then, after a determined twist it relented and released. “Well, that’s that,” she said as behind her Edward shifted his legs, grunted, turned on his side and settled back into a rhythmic pattern of quiet snores. “Of course you don’t hear all this racket,” she grumbled.


Grasping the ornate, embossed brass doorknob she twisted it sharply. It wobbled, feeling a bit loose as she pushed against the door. At first it seemed to be stuck, as if sealed shut from the other side, but then there were crackling and odd sort of sucking sounds as old paint or varnish that had adhered to itself on two compressed surfaces separated and the door creaked open with only mild further protests. The crying was louder now, definitely coming from within the room beyond.


She pushed the door open wider as she took a tentative step inside. There was a single window to her right through which a wash of lambent moonlight spilled, muted by the tattered, gauzy remnants of sheer curtains now hanging like scraps from a crooked curtain rod, one bracket having come loose from the window frame.


In the shadows around the perimeter of the room she discerned random darker forms—what could be a chair, a small chest of drawers, a small rocking horse, its dull eye milky in the moonbeam crossing it. She shivered although it wasn’t a cold or even particularly cool night.


The cries grew sharper, more demanding. Insistent. They drew her further into the room. “Be quiet!” she scolded as she made out the shape of a cradle against the wall to her left. “Shut up!”


As she drew nearer to the cradle she saw the gleam of the infant’s eyes within the darkness of the cradle’s interior, the shiny tracks of its tears faintly phosphorescent like little illuminated trials down it’s cheeks. And the dark cavity of its open mouth from which all that wretched, howling noise was emanating.


Groping within the cradle she felt a little kicking leg tangled in a blanket. She tugged the blanket free, hoping that would quiet the baby, but it continued to wail. ‘I’ll cover it. It’s just cold is all,’ she thought as her hands balled up the blanket instead of shaking it out to straighten it.


Bending over the cradle, she pressed the blanket against the squalling baby’s face, muffling its infernal noise, stifling its cries. She felt its little limbs trash, its wet, cold fists strike her wrists. She bore down more firmly with the blanket. “Hush,” she murmured. “Be quiet. Lie still. Go to sleep now.”



Edward frowned as he shoved his feet into the slippers. A cold draft had chilled the bedroom. He’d turned his head to see whether or not Diana had been woken up by it, but her side of the bed was unoccupied. “Diana?” he said aloud as he stood up. Why was it so cold in the room?


It was as he turned back toward the source of the chilly air that he realized that the formerly locked door stood ajar. “Hey, did you open the door? Where’d you find the key?”


He walked to the doorway, sticking his head into the room. Gray, early morning light allowed him to see that the room was small. The thought ran through his head that this room had been a nursery at one time. Old houses like this often had nurseries off the bedroom for convenience. He’d glimpsed the little rocking horse from the corner of his eye. “Diana?”


Pushing the door open wider, he saw her sitting in the rocker in the corner on the other side of the window. “Hey, are you all right? Why’s it so cold in here?” She had a small bundle held against her breast. “Di?”


“Shh,” she said, her voice oddly flat. “You’ll wake the baby. It’s finally quiet.”


“What baby? What have you got there? A doll?” Slowly, he crossed the room toward her. “Let me see it.”


“Every night, Eddie. Every damn night since we moved in it’s cried and screamed. I found the key. I finally found the key. I had to move the dresser and there it was. I used it last night to unlock the door. It was crying again. I tried to comfort it. It was hungry. That’s all it was. It was hungry.”


“Honey, you haven’t been sleeping well. You’re overtired. You were just hallucinating. There’s no baby here. The stress of the move, of not being able to find a new job, of trying to make new friends in the neighborhood...come on. Why don’t you come back to bed and try to get some rest.”


He reached for her to help her up. She looked pale, drawn, exhausted. “Come on, sweetheart. You just need some sleep.” When he tried to pull the bunched up blanket away she fiercely resisted, alarming him. “Diana…”


“No! Stop it! You’ll wake the baby!” she hissed at him. “It took so long to get it to sleep. Leave me alone!”


“There’s no baby. You’re just over-tired. Let’s just get you back to bed now.” He used a little more force to pull the bundle away and that’s when he saw the blood on her bare breast. “What…!” He looked down at the bundled blanket, at the fierce, shriveled little face with the yellow eyes, the pug nose, and the bloodstained mouth. “Oh, my…” he began to say but it opened its mouth and he saw the sharp little bloodstained teeth. He yelled as he leapt backwards away from it. “Put it down!” he cried. “Put it down, Diana!”


“You woke it, Eddie. You woke it and it’s going to start crying again,” she said, her voice both accusing and bleak. “I can’t bear to hear it cry anymore. It’s hungry, that’s all. It’s just hungry.” Her eyes begged him to understand as she brought the blanket and what it held back to her breast. “It’s the only way to keep it quiet.”

Observations from the Medical Field

I'm an author and artist but my full time position is working in a medical office. I get an MD office view of what's going on as our nation deals with the corona virus. People are in panic mode which is never a good thing. Here are some observations from your medical service providers' side of the equation:

1. There are a number of viruses out there in the community. Flu A&B is still rearing their ugly heads as well as an acute bronchitis virus, a common cold virus, pneumonia virus, other assorted upper respiratory viruses, and now seasonal allergies due to the mild winter and no snow cover. Differentiating between viruses is not an easy task. Keeping patients safe from exposure and treating those who have symptoms are two top concerns for everyone in the medical field. The way to limit exposure is to call your doctor's office and not just drop in and say, "I'm sick!" Honestly and accurately describe your symptoms. Do not exaggerate them. Have information the doctor needs written down before you call such as- have you traveled outside of the country, have you been exposed to anyone with a virus, do you have a fever, what is the highest your fever has been, chills, sweating, do you have muscle aches and pains, post nasal drip (mild-moderate-severe), a runny nose, a cough, chest congestion, difficulty breathing, how long have you had the symptoms. are they worsening or beginning to improve? The doctor will evaluate your illness by the information you provide and determine your treatment course. Remember, there are chronically sick and elderly patients being seen. If you are told t come into the office, put on a mask (most offices will provide one wen you arrive). Seat yourself in the designated area. Follow instructions. If you are told not to come home, that medication will be sent to your pharmacy, if there is someone who is not exhibiting symptom in your household send that person to pick up the medication and whatever else you need. Self quarantine for 14 days. If symptoms worsen, call your doctor again and you'll be told what to do.

2. In the office I work in we have had patients yelling and screaming at the window and over the phone. Behaving like that only stresses the staff who are working in an already stressful environment to help you. If you are expecting a call back from the doctor it is imperative that you answer the phone when the doctor calls you. If you do not recognize the number as your doctor's it could be because many offices have multiple phone lines and doctors are using whatever line is available. Call volume is at a maximum. Do not be angry and hostile if you have difficulty getting through. You have to wait your turn just like everyone else. Also, if you have provided only a cellphone number make sure your incoming calls do not immediately direct a caller to your voice mail. If you haven't set up a voice mail box the call will be disconnected. If your voice mailbox is full the doctor is not going to sit there all morning trying to reach you. There are numerous other patients to call. It's your responsibility to make sure your phone is accepting calls and that you answer them. The office is busy taking calls. The doctors are seeing patients and making calls between patients. If you call and expect a call back have the common courtesy to make sure your phone is going to receive the call and don't get made if you fail to clear your phone for incoming calls. Answer the phone if you want to talk to the doctor or you go to the bottom of the list, simple as that.

3. Your doctor's office is under no obligation to your employer to provide you with face masks, gloves, or anything else your employer is asking you to wear for safety. Go to the store and buy these items, order them online, and do not go to work until you have supplied yourself with the safety precautions your employer has asked you to. Doctors do not hand out supplies for free because you have to go to work.

4.Be aware that waiting rooms are being wiped down but not every germ can be eliminated. Do not bring babies or small children with you. Leave them with a healthy friend or relative. Or, if you have no one, call your doctor's office and ask for a tele-visit. Do not unnecessarily expose babies and children to germs. This also goes for people with autoimmune diseases, mast cell disorders, weakened immune systems due to chemo and radiation treatments, dialysis, and other medical procedures that have lowered your body's ability to fight germs/viruses. Call and ask for a tele-visit.

5. Get sunshine and fresh air. Sunshine activates your vitamin D which helps boost your immune system. Take a walk in your yard, or sit on your porch, patio, or deck.

6. The medical field is overwhelmed right now. Accept that they are working hard to keep you as healthy as possible. Your health is important to your doctor, and so is the health of every other patient the doctor sees. The medical staff is working hard to triage your phone calls and get the information to the doctors quickly. Calls can be delayed if there are medical emergencies in the office. Wait for your doctor to return your call. Do not keep calling which but only ties up the phone lines but is redundant since you are already in the queue. Drink fluids, rest, and wait for the doctor to call back. If you have difficulty breathing, go directly to the ER.

7. Common sense and common courtesy will help get ALL of us through this health crisis. The doctors have never seen this particular virus before. They are keeping up with current information while treating patients. It's their job to weed out the fiction from the fact and treat you appropriately. Let them do their job and stop stressing yourself out reading misinformation on social media and the internet.

8. If you haven't gotten this virus yet, stay safe and healthy. Don't take risks. While some preventatives put into place in the community and across the country seem absurd and excessive it's being done not to prevent the spread but to lessen the ever expanding cases of it. All viruses run their course. This one got out of hand and we need to do what we have to do to slow it down and let it play itself out.

I don't often write non-fiction but in unprecedented times I thought I'd give it a shot. Work is stressful enough in a medical office without people shouting and screaming at the staff who are following the new procedures put in place to keep patients safer from exposure. When you reach your doctor's office kindly do not rant and rave about how long it took to get through because people doing the same thing are who kept you from getting through sooner. Just state what's going on in a detailed but succinct manner and remember someone else is trying to get through, too.

Thanks for reading this.

New Novel in Progress-The Bowmen

I started writing a new novel this past weekend. I haven't done much writing since November, and January was just a complete loss due to multiple health issues. The origin of this novel is twofold. I love the Black King/White Queen series, have started writing several more sequels to that one, but then I had a dream, a magical dream and in this dream there were Bowmen, warriors of an elite class, and there was a young sorceress who was also a potions master and a bookseller. Thus, the idea came to me to write this novel as a companion novel to the previous series, but also a possible stand alone novel that meshes some of the characters from the series into this novel since Romney and Ivy Sharpe are the King and Queen of all the united practitioners of the dark arts and white arts.

In this novel young Mara Breton lives with her great-grandfather in Wichell, MA. It's a small city through which the Stanhope River flows. Mara runs the Breton Books. Her great-grandfather Mayhew Egerton is a much sought after potions master. Mara has been his apprentice since childhood. She has been kept rather isolated by her family, but she's lost the majority of her family members through the twenty-three years of her life, most recently her father and grandfather in the first major battle fought in Old Furnace and surrounding communities when Rayna Sharpe sent a demon to kill her father, the King, and her brother Romney who would be king upon his father's death. At the time of this story, that took place about six years ago when Mara was seventeen or eighteen (as she will be celebrating her twenty-fourth birthday in the present year.)

One day her great grandfather is lured out of the shop. Jeweler's son, Ardis Locke, arrives wanting a potion her great grandfather has prepared for him like NOW. Mara goes to the basement, which is under a strong spell that prevents anyone but her great grandfather and herself from descending into. But there is a powerful intruder who nearly kills her. She manages to kill him but a toxin invades her body due to a knife wound. When she manages to get back upstairs and give the potion to Ardis she witnesses something no one has ever seen before- she sees Ardis as a Bowman.

From there her life takes on complications. There is a sinister, cruel, and evil man named Dermit Sloan who wants to literally pick all the knowledge from Mara's brain in regards to the potions craft. Mara is not merely an apprentice potions master, she was actually born a master potions maker who has just been having her knowledge accessed by her great grandfather as he's been preparing her for her role in their magical world that co-exists with the real world. She is a valuable being that others want control of. But Sloan wants all her knowledge for himself and Mara dead and out of his way.

The Bowmen have been assigned to protect her-unseen.

That's what I'm working on at this time. I'm 25,000+ words into the novel and working on chapter eight. As usual I have no outline. The story is just flowing every time I sit down to write. That's how I always write- I let the story tell itself. Sometimes it changes direction and I have to go back to put everything back into alignment, but so be it. I'm almost to the point where I have to pause, read, jot down some notes, note any lost threads of connections I need to make- but so far I'm satisfied with the direction it's going.

Hoping to have this written and available at Articulture on May 1st and 2nd. Just need to keep my health on track. Fingers crossed on that!

Battling Brain Fog

I have an auto immune disease- rheumatoid arthritis. It's progressing, stealing from me fluid movement and what little grace I once possessed. Sometimes I feel like a disjointed marionette staggering and stumbling along. Walking on uneven surfaces is a jarring challenge.
   I can live with the joint pain and stiffness, the random muscle spasms and contractions, the tendinitis flare-ups, the feeling of being locked up inside my own body. I can deal with all that. What bothers me the most is the fatigue and brain fog that accompanies this disease. I miss the ability to have clear thoughts and remain focused. It has really made writing a challenge. I cannot concentrate and stay focused on what I am doing. I'm more easily distracted and discouraged. I have all these ideas in my head, but it can be exhausting trying to express them.
   Writing used to come so easy for me. I would sit down and the words would just flow out of me as if I was possessed by some spirit or other, a genie who'd escaped from a bottle and had so many stories to tell!
    I miss that. I find myself resenting what this disease has done to me.
    I've tried various medications but have had adverse reactions to them. I'm limited to one medication that I cannot quite tolerate at the max dose. I worry all the time about the time when my RA overwhelms the medication, stomps right over it and ravages an already war torn body and psyche.
   I am tired all the time. Everything I do requires a mind over body decision. The body wants to rest and not struggle and hurt. The mind wants to accomplish things, even though that means fighting through the fog and fatigue. I've never been one to sit and do nothing. RA is locking me down more and more. some days are worse than others. There are no good days anymore.
   There are so many things I want to do still...I'm just an awful lot slower at getting anything done these days.
 

New Novella Published in January

Back in 2017 the short story Fugitives was published in an anthology titles butterscotch-a collection of stories. The majority of stories in butterscotch were about people struggling with some issue of the other, or involved in domestic situations, or encountering unusual situations and having to make moral choices as to what to do. Fugitives is about two young people, both victims in abusive domestic situations. Their lives collide on a rainy pre-dawn morning and due to their individual circumstances they form a bond of mutual need. James needs Jade's help with a medical issue, Jade needs financial assistance which James can provide temporarily. A bond forms between them due to the abuse they've suffered. A Massachusetts police officer helping the Pennsylvania police investigate a murder in their state questions Jade, a suspect in the murder, when she takes James to the ER for treatment. There is no direct evidence  connecting Jade to the murder, although the Massachusetts officer feels she could have done it, but seeing the evidence of the abuse she's suffered, documented on James' cellphone camera, he chooses not to look to hard for evidence that could connect her to the murder.

One of the most frequent comments I receive in regards to my short stories is that readers want to know what happens to the characters after the story ends. They want to know more. so, about a year and a half after writing Fugitives I wrote it's continuation in Survivors. Survivors has never been published and probably never would have been published, but I was recently rereading butterscotch, and remembered I'd written more of Jade and James' story, so I found it in the files, fixed up the continuity issue, cleaned it up and decided to publish both stories in one slim volume as a novella in two parts, much like Bending Birches combines two connected stories.

Fugitives/Survivors is about how two damaged young people run away from emotional, psychological and physical abuse and violence in their homes. James and Jade have both taken as much as they can, are aware that the abuse and violence has escalated and they could end up dead if they don't get themselves out of the situations they're presently in. One f them commits murder. One thinks he's committed murder, but it turns out he hasn't killed his father, only injured him. One crime was committed in self defense, the other a spontaneous act after a violent physical assault when Jade knows the next time he attacks her he could very well kill her.

Survivors is set three years later. James has settled down in New Brunswick. Jade was with him until one night when the police came and arrested her for murder, returning her to Pennsylvania to face charges. Her charges were reduced and she's been released from prison after serving her sentence. She returns to New Brunswick exhausted and unsure of the future. Her life is full of unknowns. She suffered further traumas while in jail. James takes her in and wants her to stay, but she has difficulty adjusting. He doesn't quite know what to do to help her. While their individual situations and their mutual need bonded them initially, Jade no longer feels worthy of James' love. She's unsure of everything, wary, depressed, but stays with him because she has no where else to go. James still loves her and wants her to stay, but he's afraid she'll take off and life will consume her, use her up, and she'll be gone. Survivors is about forging new lives from the wreckage of the past and building a better future, about finding someone who understands and cares and can relate to what you've been through, who gives you time and space to begin to heal and a safe environment in which to work on that. It's about learning to trust someone not to hurt you, and discovering love when your heart has been through hell.

This novella is about two damaged young people reconnecting, deciding that they want to stay together, and beginning to lay down a new future for themselves, taking the first steps into that future, and realizing they have a few older friends whom they can count on and turn to for advice and guidance should they need it.

When the family one is born into fails you it's easy to fall between the cracks. Some do not survive. Some survive, but at a terrible cost. Others forge bonds and find others who understand what they've been through. Some still slip and fall between the cracks, but some find a path that leads them away from the past. Some survive.

Breakfast With Kelly

Our adult daughter Kelly moved into her own house last April. Since then she and I have meet nearly every Sunday morning at a Dunkin Donuts shop about halfway between our homes for breakfast. It's nice to have some quiet Mom/Daughter time with her. We both have such busy lives. We have breakfast, talk about this and that, and then go our separate ways to run errands, return to our own homes, and later she usually joins her father and me for dinner in the evening. It keeps us connected as a family.

This morning talk turned from finding the source of the problem with one of the cars at the trolley museum where she volunteers in the Maintenance and Repair of the fleet department to writing. She has been busy editing her NaNo novel which I am anxious to read. She's found a place where she wants to add a little more to the story, but overall she's satisfied with what she's written.

I have a new novel in the development stage. It's all been cerebral up to this point, where I'll wake up in the morning and spend a few minutes thinking about what I want to write, potential character names and settings, the story plot... I flew the basic idea by her this morning and she liked it, so I jotted down some notes this morning when I got home and started coming up with additional character names.

Also at breakfast we discussed a never-ending adventure story I'd begun writing for her when she was in first grade. At that age she was prone to frequent bouts of bronchitis and was often home sick. We had a twin bed in the den and she would nap while I typed on an electric typewriter borrowed from my mother. When she woke up I'd read her the new section or sections of the story. We got to the point of the main character's first quest during that year. Kelly outgrew the bouts of bronchitis and the story got set aside. New stories were written to entertain her, but the never-ending story that was never finished still disappoints us. She even went so far as to type the typewriter pages into Word on the computer when she was in middle and high school. Still, Mom has failed to continue the story, however, the main character did appear in a partial magical fantasy story which connects to the original story in the future. So, at breakfast this morning we were talking about working on this story at some point in the near future.

We also have a story we were working on together around four or five years ago while on vacation. Once we got home and back to work life got busy and the story fell by the wayside. We need to continue that as well and get that joint project done.

Lots to accomplish this year!

New Books!

Over the past two months I've self-published three new books.

Cherry is about a young woman whose life shatters when violence explodes in her home one evening. It's about how rapidly a seemingly perfect life can become anything but, how a young person can suddenly find themselves homeless and adrift. It's about how friendship and love in can rescue not only stray animals, but stray human beings, too.

Memento Mori: Quella & Garnet was intended to be the first in a new series about how ghosts can bring people together, but it turned into a novel that is going to just be that, with no others in the series. The novel was written three times and started at least thirty more times before I finally shoved all attempts aside and went with the first version. It's a romance novel with gothic overtones and dark psychological aspects with subtle shades of how the past repeats at times, but with twists.

Fugitives/Survivors had its origins in butterscotch-a collection of stories published in April of 2017. Fugitives was a short story in the collection. Often I hear from readers that they like my short stories, but they want to know what happens to the characters. They want more. So, I wrote Survivors as a continuation of Jade and James' story from Fugitives. I never published the story though. It's set three years later. So, since it's been three years in real life since Fugitives was published, I put both stories together in one volume so readers can learn what's happened with these characters. Maybe three years from now we'll check in with Jade and James and see where they are at that time!

All three books are available on Amazon and as Kindle ebooks. (Fugitives/Survivors is in review but will be available this coming week- the week of January 12th)