#the munson's ox

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

a witch!eddie moodboard for @steddie-spooktober day 23: witch

[atimeofyourlife]

As soon as the team was asked for volunteers, Steve was the first to sign up. He usually hated working events, but this was different. This was the first event when they'd get to be themself. He'd been to pride only once before, getting dragged along with Robin the year before, and it had ended up being a world of discovery.

Sure, he couldn't be decked out in rainbows and flags, having to wear their EMT uniform. But their boss had approved pins and bracelets as long as it didn't interfere with the duty. So his uniform had their pronoun of the day pins (They/He), their updated name badge showing his choice of names (Steve/Evie), pins and bracelets of the trans, non-binary, genderfluid, and bi pride flags. And Robin had braided bi pride ribbons into his hair before he tied it back when getting ready. It was going to be a good day.

He was kept busy, like the rest of the first aid team. And being one of the highest trained on duty, one of two AEMTs and in training to become a paramedic, he was tending to deal with the worst injuries and illnesses, and having to triage for if anyone needed to be transferred to the hospital. Robin stopped by a few times, to check in, and to give them snacks. It helped break up the day as he wouldn't get a long break.

They'd had to spend some of the day hurrying around the site whenever the radio buzzed for first-aid assistance at various points around the site. He was making his way back to the first-aid tent after one call, when their eye was caught by the band on the second stage. In particular, the long-haired guitarist. Steve couldn't help watching them as he walked by, until he stumbled and nearly fell into someone. They shook their head, and dragged their eyes away to make his way back to the tent. He was there to do his job, not make eyes at a pretty guitarist. They tried to put it out of their mind, but he couldn't help looking out for the guitarist as the day passed. Not letting it get in the way of their job, but whenever they had a second free.

Late in the afternoon, they were alerted to a group of people making their way to the tent. Two guys supporting a third, with another guy ahead of them to clear the way. Steve pulled fresh gloves on and hurried down to help. As he reached the group, he realized that the guy being supported was the pretty guitarist. They tried to not think about it, needing to remain professional.

"What seems to be the problem?" Steve asked, swapping places with one of the guys supporting the guitarist.

"He nearly passed out on us." One of them responded.

"Right. Come on, we'll get you all checked out." Steve replied, guiding them into the tent.

"You can check me out anytime, sweetheart." The guitarist replied, leaving Steve fighting back a blush.

"Eddie, shut up." The guy in front snapped, before glancing at Steve. "Sorry about him."

"But he's pretty." The guitarist- Eddie- whined.

"Okay, just set him down here." Steve helped Eddie onto the bed at one end of the tent, before turning to the other guys. "Only one of you can stay in here with him because of the space, so if the other two can just wait outside?"

The other three guys looked between them, silently deciding that the shorter, curly haired guy would be the one to stay behind.

"Gare-bear, where they going?" Eddie asked.

"They're waiting outside for you, asshole."

Steve coughed a little to hide the laugh that threatened to burst out, the conversation reminding them too much of dealing with a drunk Robin, or worse, the kids while they were crossfaded for the first time.

"Okay, can I just pop this on your finger for a reading?" Steve asked, waiting for Eddie to hold his hand out so he could fix the pulse ox monitor. They then grabbed a clipboard and a blank paperwork sheet. "And while we wait for that, just a few questions. Can we start with your name?"

"Eddie Munson." The other guy, Gare? replied.

"You can take my last name, angel." Eddie said, which Steve ignored.

"Thank you, and the date of birth?"

The other guy reeled it off, as Steve wrote it down.

"And Gare, was it?"

"Gareth."

"Gareth, sorry. Can you tell me what, exactly, happened? The other guy said he nearly passed out?"

"Yeah. Uh, we were performing earlier. We're in a band. He was fine then. But in the last thirty minutes or so, he's been complaining about not feeling so good, and then he nearly passed out."

"Okay." Steve wrote down all the information, then copied down the numbers from the pulse ox. "I just need to get the rest of your vitals, okay, Eddie?"

"Anything you want. He's so beautiful, isn't he Gare?"

"Anything you say, Eds."

Steve set to taking the vitals, making sure everything was normal, but kept asking questions to get to the bottom of it.

"Any medical conditions?"

"No."

"Do you know if he's taken anything in the last twenty four hours? Any prescription meds, or over the counter, or any other substance?"

"Shhh. Gare, you can't tell him."

"Dude, I'm not a cop. I just need to know if it could be what you've taken, or so if you need any medication it won't react to it."

"He smokes, and we were smoking weed last night. But he smokes weed most weeks and has never reacted like this." Gareth explained.

"Uh-huh." Steve continued to make notes, both the answers to the questions and Eddie's vitals. "Any alcohol?"

"A couple of beers."

"When was the last time he ate?" Steve asked, frowning when they noticed that Eddie's blood sugar was on the low side.

"Wait, I think that was-" Gareth broke off for a moment. "Eddie, you certifiable moron."

"Not eaten much today?" Steve guessed.

"Not eaten at all today. He doesn't eat breakfast, ever, and he felt sick before we went on so he didn't eat lunch. And after he still didn't want anything."

"That pretty much explains everything. Plus drinking on an empty stomach is a recipe for disaster. I'll grab some water and something small so you'll feel less like passing out." Steve crossed the tent to find a bottle of water and the emergency snacks they kept, usually for diabetics.

"Here. Drink some water, and eat these. I know they're not the most exciting snacks, but you should feel better after." Steve handed it over to Eddie, a mini bag of fruit gummies, and a small pack of crackers.

Steve kept a check on Eddie as he ate the snacks. He seemed to be doing better, which put Steve's mind at ease. And kept trying to flirt, which left them fighting to remain professional.

"How are you feeling now, Eddie?" Steve asked after a few minutes, hoping that it wouldn't be too much longer before they could have a moment to freak out, preferably with Robin.

"Better. But you could make me feel incredible, big boy." Eddie said, a clear flirty tone in his voice.

"Not while I'm on duty," Steve replied slightly absently as he made a note on Eddie's sheet. Then, realizing what they'd said, fought to figure out how to backtrack without offending Eddie. "I mean, it's good that you're feeling better. I would recommend you try to get a balanced meal soon, something with carbs, protein, fibre, fats. That will help keep you feeling better, and keep you from feeling like you're going to pass out again. And it might be best if you stay off the alcohol for today."

"Does that mean- ow." Eddie started to ask something, but cut off. Steve looked up from the clipboard, and it was obvious that Gareth had elbowed Eddie to get him to shut up.

"This is your copy of the paperwork, it just has your vitals, and what's happened. If you still feel unwell later, and you need to come back here, or you seek medical attention somewhere else, you can show this, so whoever you see has some background for what has happened today." Steve explained, handing the sheet over to Eddie.

"Thanks," Eddie replied, starting to stand up.

"You're welcome, enjoy the rest of your day." Steve turned to start sanitising and packing away the equipment used, so the space would be tidy for the next person to need it. He could hear a brief, whispered conversation behind him, but ignored it. Until they felt a tap on their shoulder, and turned back to Eddie.

"For you," Eddie said, thrusting a small piece of paper into Steve's hands before leaving the tent with Gareth.

Steve unfolded it, and read the note. 'What about when you're off duty?' followed by a phone number. He blushed a little as he shoved it into his pocket. God, they needed to talk to Robin.

Later, once he was home, he finally had the chance. Not that she was much help.

"You're telling me you nearly fell over yourself because you were staring at this guy, kept looking out for him because you hoped to see him after, he shows up to the tent and is flirting with you, and gave you his number. And you haven't called him?"

"That is missing the point entirely? He wasn't well when he came to the tent, and it kinda feels like I was taking advantage of him to end up with his number after that. I should have given him to one of the others. I shouldn't have let him give me his number." Steve protested, feeling unsure if they had handled everything in the best way.

"You are the only person I have ever met who thinks that getting the number of someone you find attractive is somehow a bad thing. This is why you're still single."

Basically giving Steve my gender here. In this he's genderfluid and uses various combinations of They/He/She pronouns, depending on the day I was at pride today (well, yesterday as it's now after midnight here), and this idea came to me on the way home. Also, idk how first aid services at events work in the US, so this is vaguely based off what I know from what I've seen in the UK.

[izzyontour]

PUNK NET - GEN Z ENTDECKT SUBKULTUR

Diesmal: Schwarz ist das neue Beige

Es ist wieder so weit: Nachdem erst vor einigen Monaten dank der vierten Staffel „Stranger Things“ und dem darin erscheinenden Metal-Fan Eddie Munson alle im DIY-Kutte-Fieber waren, geht es nun weiter mit der Kommerzialisierung von Gothic-Mode. Und wieder steckt eine Netflix-Hitserie dahinter.

[wheres-the-fecking-pie]

Fandoms I write for ( see below )

All my stuff should be under ( #my work ) but tumblr kinda iffy.

:)

* means I will write nsfw for them too.

Hannibal

Hannigram *

Hannibal x reader/oc *

Will x reader/oc *

Marvel

Loki x reader/oc *

Peter Parker x reader/oc

Tony Stark x reader/oc *

Venom/Eddie x reader/oc*

Sherlock

Johnlock

Sherlock x reader/oc

Moriarty x reader/oc

Good omens

Ineffable Husbands

Supernatural

Destiel *

Sabriel *

Sastiel *

Dean x reader/oc *

Sam x reader/oc *

Castiel x reader/oc *

Crowley x reader/oc *

Gabriel x reader/oc *

Bobby x reader/oc (platonic)

Lucifer x reader/oc

Rowena x reader/oc

Jack x reader/oc

Will do poly ships and x reader but no incest of course*

Red Dead Redemption 2

Arthur x reader/oc *

John x reader/oc *

Dutch x reader/oc *

Detroit become human

Connor x reader/oc

Markus x reader/oc

Connor x Hank (platonic only)

Game of thrones

Jon x reader/oc *

Robb x reader/oc *

Sansa x reader/oc

Jaime x reader/oc *

Tyrion x reader/oc

Arya x reader/oc

Daenerys x reader/oc*

Daemon x reader/oc*

Rhaenyra x reader/ox*

Doctor who

10 x reader/oc

11 x reader/oc

Stranger Things

Billy Hargrove x reader/oc

Eddie Munson x reader/oc

Jim Hopper x reader/oc

Eleven x reader/oc (platonic only)

Steve Harrington x reader/oc

Any of the main kids x reader/oc (platonic only)

BBC Dracula

Dracula x reader/oc *

Lucifer

Lucifer x reader/oc *

The last of us

Ellie x reader/oc

Joel x reader/oc

Abby x reader/oc

Umbrella academy

Klaus x reader/oc*

Viktor x reader/oc

Five x reader/oc (platonic only)

Diego x reader/oc

Star Wars

Han Solo x reader/oc*

Obi Wan Kenobi x reader/oc

Mando x reader/oc*

The Boys

Billy Butcher x reader/oc

Hughie Cambell x reader/oc

Frenchie x reader/oc

Kimiko x reader/oc

Starlight x reader/oc

Homelander x reader/oc

Maeve x reader/oc

Castlevania (Netflix)

Alucard x reader/oc

Trevor x reader/oc

Alucard x Trevor x Sypha

Black Butler

Sebastian x reader/oc*

Grell x reader/oc*

Undertaker x reader/oc*

Ceil x reader/oc (platonic only)

Resident evil 8

Lady dimitrescu x reader/oc*

Labyrinth

Jareth x reader/oc*

The Magnus Archives

Jon x reader/oc

Jon x martin *

Michael(the distortion)x reader/oc

Martin x reader/oc

Elias x reader/oc *

Rocky horror

Frank n furter x reader/oc*

Fnaf Sb

Freddy x reader/oc*

Sun/moon x reader/oc

Monty x reader/oc*

Arcane

Silco x reader/oc*

Jinx x reader/oc

Vi x reader/oc*

Viktor x reader/oc*

Sevika x reader/oc

Peacemaker

Peacemaker x reader/oc*

Vigilante x reader/oc*

Peacemaker x vigilante*

Peacemaker x reader/oc x vigilante*

Our flag means death

Gentlebeard*

Steddyhands*

EdIzzy*

Stizzy*

Wwdits

Will literally write for any of them! Wether it’s a pairing, poly or x reader! Both show and film*

BBC Ghosts

Will write for most of them x reader/oc or PatCap. Probably best just ask if you have a request :)

Ghost (the band)

Copia x reader/oc*

Terzo x reader/oc*

Any of the ghouls either x reader, or x other ghouls, or x Copia*

Baldur’s Gate 3

Will write for any of them x reader/tav*

Feel free to send requests and I’ll try my best to do them. I mostly write with a GN reader unless requested otherwise✌🏻

Sorry for the long intro

😇

[classicfilmfreak]

New Post has been published on http://www.classicfilmfreak.com/2018/03/08/the-red-house-1947-starring-edward-g-robinson-and-judith-anderson/

The Red House (1947) starring Edward G. Robinson and Judith Anderson

Shared by a man and his sister, what was their secret of the red house in the woods that aroused the curiosity of two young lovers?

Edward G. Robinson is best remembered as a gangster.  And he made quite a few of those black and white cops and robbers films of the ’30s and ’40s, Tommy guns blazing, most notably Little Caesar (1931) . . . “Is this the end of Rico?,” remember? . . . The Last Gangster (1937), Brother Orchid (1940) and Key Largo (1948), with the similar name of Rocco.  In Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), in a major, but uncredited role, his character, “Big Jim,” crime boss of all Chicago, is gunned down in a volley of fire from his “friends” at his birthday party.

Robinson didn’t make, however, as many gangster films as one might think.  True, he is a brutal and sinister sea captain, “Wolf” Larsen, in The Sea Wolf (1941), truly malicious without being a gangster.  But he is often on the good side of the law—in Double Indemnity (1944) an insurance executive, in Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944) a hen-pecked husband who turns into a war hero, in the pre-World War II Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) a hunter of Nazis in the German-American Bund and, similarly, in the post-WWII The Stranger (1946) a War Crimes Commissioner after Nazi criminal Franz Kindler (Orson Welles).

So, as it fell to him in The Red House, he might have escaped his gangster typecasting, but as with his “Wolf” Larsen, he retains his bad guy image in another form, his Tommy gun replaced by a hunting rifle.

Suspicions about the integrity of this man, however, are aroused rather early—is he naughty or isn’t he?—building into a delicious affirmation that, yes, he is.  Not a surprise, really.  Robinson makes this journey, which in many respects is the heart of The Red House, with a restrained, nuanced performance.  In the end, his bad guy image is maintained, and he would return the following year to full-fledged gangsterdom in Key Largo.

Teenager Meg (Allene Roberts) arrives home from high school with her twelfth-grade friend, Nath Storm (Lon McCallister).  She has been adopted by Pete Morgan (Robinson), who has a stiff right leg.  The two, along with his sister, Ellen (Judith Anderson), share an isolated farm near some dark woods, Ox Head.

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While Meg has never felt completely at ease around Pete, she convinces him to hire Nath to help out on the farm.  Pete warns him to stay out of the woods, that it’s dangerous—nothing further said, no reasons why.

But Nath’s curiosity is aroused and he ventures into the woods, only to be knocked out by someone—and it wasn’t by Pete.  He was home with Ellen.  Undeterred, Nath, now with Meg and his girlfriend, Tibby (Julie London), explores the woods again.  Nothing is found.  When Pete finds out, he threatens to whip Meg if she goes into the woods again.

This latest venture has served only to arouse Meg’s growing attraction to Nath and her jealousy of Tibby.  Tibby, however, soon leaves Nath for Teller (Rory Calhoun), a vagrant Pete has hired to keep people out of the woods, and the author of Nath’s blow on the head.

One day, Meg finally finds the red house, overgrown in vegetation and beside an unused dirt road.  Teller frightens her away with gunshots and, in fleeing, she breaks a leg.  After she is treated by Dr. Byrne (Harry Shannon), Pete—a menacing silhouette—enters her room and calls her “Jeanie.”

Pete’s depression and bouts with insanity are caused by haunting memories of the red house.  In an argument with Pete, Ellen reminds him, as if he needed reminding, that he had killed Jeanie’s husband in that house fifteen years ago.

Wishing to wipe out the past, Ellen enters the woods to burn down the red house and the nearby icehouse.  In trying to scare her off, Teller accidentally shoots her.  Pete refuses to help, saying she had defiled the red house.  Meg telephones Nath for help, but Ellen dies before he arrives.  After calling the sheriff (Arthur Space), Nath takes Pete’s rife and goes after Teller.

In a lengthy scene, Pete confesses to Meg that, years ago, malicious rumors had been spread in town about his relationship with Jeanie.  It was an accident at the red house, he said, that he had suffocated her with his hand over her mouth, trying to stifle her screams, but admitted he did kill her husband when he entered.  He placed their bodies in an old surrey and sank it in a mud hole at the icehouse.

Pete further confesses that Meg is Jeanie’s daughter, the reason he had adopted her and has been so possessive of her.

The plot now moving toward a climax, Pete takes Meg in his truck to the red house, and, once inside, now fully deranged, relives that night fifteen years ago, again calling her “Jeanie.”  The sheriff, who has captured Teller, arrives with Nath in time to rescue Meg.  Pete flees in the truck, but it sinks in the icehouse tarn and he drowns, a carriage wheel floating to the surface.

Before a serene, broad landscape—without any woods!—Meg and Nath stand together.  He has burned to the ground the red house and they are ready for a new life together.

Except for Julie London, who is nothing more than an attractive bauble, and Rory Calhoun, who is a little wooden, Robinson is given excellent support.  Judith Anderson is much more subdued than in her most famous screen role as the omnipresent Mrs. Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1941).  She serves as Pete Morgan’s moral conscience, yet insists that their secret be kept.

Allene Roberts as Meg, nineteen at the time, is convincing as a high school student and admirably carries her weight in the film, especially in her many ambivalent scenes with Robinson.  While Lon McCallister as Nath was twenty-four at the time, his 5’ 6” height and youthful appearance make him equally believable in his role and with acting as expert as Roberts’.

As a small footnote, Ona Munson, Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind (1939), has a small part as Nath’s mother.

With good reason, Miklós Rózsa felt he was “plagued” by the theremin, an electronic instrument that emits a wavering, or oscillating, sound, controlled by the movement of the performer’s hands.  Rózsa was the first composer to use it in a film score—initially to express Gregory Peck’s paranoia in Spellbound (1945) and to convey Ray Milland’s alcoholism in The Lost Weekend (1945).  To the point of a cliché, it is still used to convey spookiness, insanity or anything disturbing.

When asked to use the theremin yet again in The Red House to express, not Morgan’s insanity as might be expected, but the “haunting” episodes for the red house, Rózsa resisted but complied.  Afterward, he never used the instrument again.

Rózsa had one last confrontation with the theremin when it was proposed for the scene in Ben-Hur (1959) when an unseen Christ gives Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) a drink of water.  The composer was able to substitute an organ instead.

For anyone familiar with the composer’s music, the Red House score is full of his trademarks and agile ability to intensify and contrast varying moods.  The ominous main title music with its disturbed orchestration, for example, is followed in the next three or four scenes by calm, rustic sounds as students leave school and swim in the local pond.

When Nath first goes into the woods and the wind howls and he becomes disorientated, the music is front and center, a tour de force for Rózsa’s invention, though this may be the least interesting part of the score.  In the climax, when the hallucinatory Morgan threatens Meg at the red house, the music reaches its greatest intensity, even utilizing a wordless chorus.

The score is only one reason—but a most important one—why The Red House is a satisfying experience, all around.

[christinaepilzauthor-blog]

Oh, the places you'll go! A History of Tourism

By Jude Knight The privileged English tourists of the late nineteenth century reached further than ever before, but they were not the first to travel for education and entertainment. Tourism is probably as old as civilisation; it is certainly as old as writing. As soon as social structures produces a class with money to spare and time on their hands, the rich have travelled as a leisure activity, and some places and times have opened the opportunities to those merely comfortably placed. Tourism's ancient roots Privileged groups of Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Chinese, and Harappans went up into the mountains for the summer, or up the river to see the newest edifice (my goodness, Cheops, take a look at the size of that pyramid), or to a famous temple to gawk at the statues and paintings, and leave an offering for the local God.

Letters of request from one king to another, requesting passage for a traveller, began at least in Babylon, and were applied intermittently from that time, eventually becoming passports. Romans set up their own summer beach resorts, which became so crowded with the hoi polloi that the really rich took over private islands, where they could relax in peace. And with Roman roads stretching to the edges of Empire, possible destinations were limited only by the travellers' pocket, imagination, and sense of adventure. Pilgrimage for fun and (spiritual) profit In medieval times, tourism took another guise. Scholars and journeymen travelled for education (and undoubtedly took in a little entertainment along the way. Pilgrims travelled for the education of their souls, and we have Chaucer's word for it that some of them found it very entertaining. A wealthy English pilgrim might choose to visit Rome or the Holy Land, but even the comfortably circumstanced could find an abbey or a holy well that boasted the relic of a saint.

The Grand Tour From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, young English noblemen took the Grand Tour, an educational journey between being recognised as a man and being expected to behave like one. Their sisters' travel was usually much more curtailed, but they might enjoy a journey from England to Paris to attend court, refresh their wardrobes, and acquire a little foreign polish at French entertainments. In seventeenth century France, Louis XIV required travellers to have a letter of request or passe port (literally, to pass through a port) and a visa given by his own government. Soon most of Europe had followed suit, and the age of queueing at the border had begun. Tourism takes off War closed much of the Continent at the end of the eighteenth century, but Napoleon's final defeat opened it again. The English flooded out across Europe, in a tourist boom that gathered pace and continued until the First World War. From England alone, the volume of travel grew from 10,000 in 1814 to 250,000 in 1860, to one million in 1911. So great was the temporary migration of pleasure seekers that the passport system was abandoned in the mid-1860s, and not reinstituted until 1914 (as a temporary measure, but they kept it after the war). By the middle of the nineteenth century, steam engines had opened the world, near and far, facilitated by entrepreneurs like the original Thomas Cook. If you were middle class, you could go near, so the super-rich needed to go far.

The rich go far, far, away And New Zealand was as far as you could get: a one-way trip for working people, but a six month pleasure cruise for tourists. By the 1880s, the British Medical Journal was endorsing sea voyages as a cure for whatever ailed you, and steamships made travel easier, safer, and more certain. Travel agencies in England would extoll the sights, and travel guides in New Zealand would take you to see them. Most people would manage to fit in the hot lakes of Rotorua, the cold lakes of Queenstown, and the glacier landscapes of the Southern Alps. In the words of one English traveller, James Froude:

"We could stand on the brim and gaze as through an opening in the earth into an azure infinity beyond. Down and down, and fainter and softer as they receded, the white crystals projected from the rocky walls over the abyss, till they seemed to dissolve not into darkness but into light. The hue of the water was something which I had never seen, and shall never again see on this side of eternity. Not violet…turquoise…sapphire. Comparison could only soil such inimitable purity. The only colour I ever saw in sky or on earth in the least resembling the aspect of the extraordinary pool was the flame of burning sulphur."

Volcanic theme parks have one disadvantage The town of Rotorua was built by the government in the early 1880s, to accommodate tourists (mostly English and German) coming to see the hot pools and the world-famed Pink and White Terraces, hillsides with cascading silica sheets grown over millenia from limestone deposits in the ever-seeping thermal water.

Up to thirty tourists a day arrived to stay at one of the four Ohinemutu hotels (Ohinemutu was the Ngati Whakaue town next to which Rotorua had been built), having travelled overland from Auckland or Tauranga. Another four hour trip would take them to the Maori village of Te Wairoa, and from there they would be taken by canoe to the terraces. Until the night of the volcanic eruption that is the background for my novella Forged in Fire in this year's Bluestocking Belles' anthology. On 10 June, 1886, Mt Tarawera erupted, utterly destroying the terraces and burying nine villages, including Te Wairoa. The descriptions given by my fictional English tourists are drawn  directly from those of witnesses who survived that terrible night. Thermal activity is only fun until someone gets hurt. Sources: Gyr, Ueli. The history of tourism: Structures on the Path to Modernity. Retrieved from http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/europe-on-the-road/the-history-of-tourism/ueli-gyr-the-history-of-tourism The Rosbifs arrive. A review of The Smell of the Continent: The British Discover Europe, by Richard Mullen and James Munson. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/13940943 History of Passports, from http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/games/teachers-corner/history-passports.asp Various articles about tourism in New Zealand, from https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/maori-tourism/, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/keyword/tourism, and https://teara.govt.nz/ Quote from James Froud, https://teara.govt.nz/en/visitors-opinions-about-new-zealand/page-2 Images: Women travelling: Assyrian women travelling by ox cart Lydgatepilgrims: Pilgrims on the road, attributed to Gerard Hornbout. C. 1516 to 1523 Steamer: The P&O Paddle Steamer William Facwett Pink and White Terraces: The beautiful Pink and White Terraces, painted by JC Hoyte in the 1870s

~~~~~~~~~~

Jude Knight's writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place, where they can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, delight in a happy ending, and return from their virtual holiday refreshed and ready for anything. She writes historical novels, novellas, and short stories, mostly set in the early 19th Century. She writes strong determined heroines, heroes who can appreciate a clever capable woman, villains you'll love to loathe, and all with a leavening of humour. Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/ Buy links for Never Too Late Amazon: US: amzn.to/2y6oBg7 AU: http://amzn.to/2fycyAx BR: http://amzn.to/2wjyWkm CA: http://amzn.to/2yFvxxS DE: http://amzn.to/2xA0Udb ES: http://amzn.to/2yFIgk4 FR: http://amzn.to/2yF7gbg IN: http://amzn.to/2fzQkhv IT: http://amzn.to/2xzPPbW JP: http://amzn.to/2xK5yqS MX: http://amzn.to/2xJTlCK NL: http://amzn.to/2hvRYkV UK: http://amzn.to/2fyBesx iBooks: http://apple.co/2yY4gXC Kobo: http://bit.ly/2fK7vJR Smashwords: http://bit.ly/2xDMQkb Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/2y0DPjd

Hat Tip To: English Historical Fiction Authors

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

i had a worm wiggle it's way into my head when 'work song' came on on my way home today.

pairing: steddie | word count: 2,949 | rated: T

cw: major character death (no gore, nothing descriptive, though it's stated that Eddie was sick and getting weaker, then implied that he dies.)

Eddie Munson’s mother was a witch.

He didn’t know this until he was stricken with the same sickness that took her from him years and years before, but he knows now.

He knows from the small chest he found buried deep in his and his Uncle’s attic one day after learning of his ailment, and the handful of months he should expect to have left, from the local doctor. 

The chest was brimming with scrolls, tomes, candles, stones, herbs, vials, even a small pewter cauldron.

“I shoulda known,” was all Wayne had said, heeding Eddie’s beckoning call that hazy afternoon. 

Eddie sorted through everything he had found; spending hours every day flipping through each book and journal, deciphering his mother’s handwriting and the spells she had inscribed onto the pages. 

He even started to try a few; his mother’s ‘powers’, per sae, had come from the earth around her, writing in the largest, most disheveled of the journals that all she had needed to do was to listen to Mother Earth herself, listen to what she had to tell her.

So, Eddie practiced.

Small things at first, like seamlessly re-attaching the snipped off head of a daisy back to it’s stem, snipping it off again only to regrow an identical one in it’s place. Even starting a broken branch of the pine outside the Munson home on it’s way to a new green version of what was lost.

Eddie counted himself very lucky that Wayne was not one to believe the church’s nearly unhinged ramblings about witchcraft being the work of the Devil, and let Eddie practice a couple of the other simpler things on him.

“Jus’ don’t go thinkin’ I’mma let you chop my head off, boy.”

Wayne’s body aching from following their ox around all day with the plow? “Here, drink this, it should help.” It did.

Couple of Wayne’s fingers get snapped under the same ox’s hoof? A little harder, but he managed; the digits sore and achy that night, but good as new come morning.

“There a hair spell in that book, Ed?” Wayne joked one morning over breakfast, a good three quarters of the way through the six months the doctor gave Eddie, and a couple after finding Maggie Munson’s secret.

“Hmmmm….I dunno Uncle Wayne,” Eddie flips through his journal absently, “I think a Get Your Hair Back spell is too close to a love charm to work right. You could end up with hair all over your body and not just on that beautiful, shiny, head o’yours.”

“Love spells are touchy,” Maggie’s journal had said, “There are a rumored few that work, but only for the truest forms. I’ve tried some simple potions and charms…Al still left..and if they didn’t work…” the rest was easily filled in. 

“Oh yeah? Then how's about a Cure What Ails Ya spell? Got one’a those in that there book?”

“Why? You feeling sick, Wayne?” Eddie half-jokes, trying to veer away from having this conversation with Wayne again.

Wayne’s quiet as Eddie focuses intently on the book infront of him, trying, and failing, to scoop up a bite of egg onto his fork without looking away.

“Ed,” his uncle starts, soft and pleading once again, “Is there really nothin’ that can help ya?”

Eddie huffs, dropping his fork onto his plate and pushing it and the journal away from him. Definitely something a younger boy would do, not the nearly 25 he is now. “Why don’t you give them a look, huh? ‘Cause I already have.”

“Ed–”

He snaps his head up to glare at the older man. “What is it Wayne? What?” Eddie snatches the journal back up off the table without looking. “I’ve looked okay? Through Mom’s and through every damn book in that attic. And there was nothing. Nothing! You think she would’ve left if there was?” He stands sharply, knocking the small faded blue table away as he does. “Would’ve left m—”

His free hand wraps around his middle, nausea and the spins taking him for a ride a the sudden movement.

“Hey, Hey, sit back down son.” Wayne stands as well, coaxing him back into his chair. 

The nausea spells have become more frequent, the dizziness even more so, as the months have worn on, so Wayne ties up Eddie’s hair (growing thinner by the day), walks the short few steps to the pitcher of water he’d pulled from the well that morning, and pours some into a bowl, grabbing a clean(-ish) rag on his way back. 

Wayne smoothes the cool damp rag over Eddie’s face and neck, slowly and deliberately until the nauseous feeling passes.

“‘M sorry, Uncle Wayne, I know you’re just worried.”

“It’s alrigh’ boy, I shouldn’t’a pushed.”

“I’m still doing better than most,” Eddie says, voice tilting up at the end, “I think it’s ‘cause of the magic.”

“Thoughtcha said there wasn’t no cure in that book.” Wayne states, moving to empty the bowl. 

“There’s not,” Eddie closes his eyes, relaxes back into his chair. “Doc thinks Ms. Wilson had the same as me and Ma, and you saw how quick it took her.”

“Mrs. Wilson was nearly 70, Ed.”

“Then how about that boy Carver? He was my age, and Doc gave him six when he came down with it too, was gone in two.”

Wayne shrugs, “The devil wanted him back sooner.”

Eddie barks out a laugh, lifting his head to catch a glimpse of his Uncle’s ‘desperately-trying-to-hide-his-smile’ smile.

Wayne jokes, but Eddie’s been contemplating this for a while now. When he had hit his second month, he was about the same as he was, steadily growing weaker, as what was expected, but nothing like how Ms. Wilson and Jason had looked in theirs. 

Hell, Jason had worked on the docks with Eddie since they were boys; both fit and lean, healthy young men with the musculature to show for their work.

That was when he’d found his mom’s books, and ever since, his health had slowed to a crawl. 

“I think using mom’s magic is helping me.”

Wayne is quiet, cleaning their plates from the table and dumbing the leftover eggs out the window to the pigs. 

“I think it’s your magic now, Eds.”

—---

And so it went.

Eddie’s given six months turned into a year, his magic growing from healing fingerbones, to mending their ox’s broken femur with ease. 

His year didn’t come without worsening symptoms though, and his previously well filled out overalls hung loose around him, his calves barely filling out the tops of his boots tied all the way tight. 

Wayne always kept the faith, so to speak, not a religious man by nature, but Eddie could hear him sometimes in the early morning and late night praying to “Whoever’s got their ears on up there,” to keep Eddie safe, to keep him in their sights when the time came. 

Eddie had been doing work of his own, too. Writing down anything new he found out while sitting with the Earth, listening, watching….

Mother told him through the whispers of the trees, the soft humming of the grass, that he’d know when it was time. 

And that time was within the next few days. 

He felt it in his bones, he felt it in the air when Wayne passed him his birthday gift (a flaky scone with the biggest chunks of chocolate in town, an amazing treat he got once a year) on the morning of his 25th year, he felt it in the very ground he walked on…

He was ready, though he did harbor one regret. One thing he knew he missed out on.

He’d never fallen in love.

Over his last year, Eddie would sit with Mother; amongst the trees, lain back in the field of grass on the hill behind their house, and tell her about them. 

The ‘they’ that he’d likely never meet, the they that would love him for nothing but his love in return. 

Nothing was ever specific, only the vaguest feelings he’d get about them, about the way they’d love, the humor they’d possess, the love for Eddie’s stories they’d have.

And every time he’d speak of them, Eddie’d leave with something that he didn’t realize he had picked up until he was nearly back home. 

A chain of daisies Wayne had plucked from atop his head when he sat down for dinner, a scrap of dark blue fabric he’d found walking through town, a bouquet of bright yellow daffodils, the tiny sun bleached skull of a bat.

And he’d write. Over and over, never quite getting it right, but there was something he knew he needed to get out of his very being before he left for good. Something that felt like a promise.

–

The morning came, and Eddie awoke to a silent house. 

Wayne out on the fields already, most likely out helping the folks on either side of them with whatever they needed doing, with only the hens’ clucks and pigs’ snorts keeping him company with the calls from the birds in the trees. 

Eddie got up, slow as slow could be, got himself into his clothes, shuffled down the hall to the kitchen to their small blue table, tore out a blank page of his mother’s notebook and wrote.

Pouring all of what remained within him, Eddie thought of the Earth, of his mom, of Uncle Wayne, and them. His unknown love.

-x-X-x-

Steve Harrington’s mother was not a witch.

But for the last few years, he’s had a suspicion that his Grandmother is.

Everyone says that their food tastes so good because “It’s made with love!”,  but with Mama Harrington, it was real. The love and intent she imbued into her meals was there. And she could cure any ailment.

She would always go on and on about the importance of food, each recipe’s ingredients’ healing powers, and of the recipes and their stories that had been passed down through the years from her mother, and her mother’s mother, all the way to now, where they ended up in a cookbook that’d gone untouched since it was given to Steve’s mother in the late 60’s.

“A gift! Unused for so many years, Steven!”

“I know, Mama,” he nods again, dropping some green something into the pot of sauce bubbling on the stove. “Almost 25 years.”

“Aye! You have catching up to do.” she says, shaking a thick wooden spoon at him.

“Me?” he scoffs, “I don’t know the first thing about cooking, Mama!” Baking? He’d hold his own. Cooking? If his grandmother wasn’t there to help him of on the phone to guide him through a recipe? Kitchen would go up in flames.

“Bah! Watch closely, dear.” she says, shuffling to the pot that stands nearly as tall as her where it’s perched on the stovetop. “It is always your intent behind what you are cooking. You can make anything be anything as long as the intent is there.”

“Even eggs?”

She nods, her nearly fully white bun flopping back and forth on top of her head. “Even just eggs.”

“So if I want a carbonara to help get my friend a passing grade?” he asks, incredulous, but immediately thinking of Robin, who’s coming up on her finals in a couple months (for her doctorate! A PhD! Can you believe that!).

“The intent! Put it into the eggs, into the pasta, I don’t care! But make it for That!”

She throws a concerningly large handful of pepper into the pot on the stove, and gives it a stir.

“Now, this is my Mama’s recipe, and it will help your Pa’s back.”

“How so?”

“Because I told it to,” she growls, glaring at the pot and raising her spoon as if she was going to smack some sense into it.

“Alright, Mama,” Steve chuckles, “What do you need me to do?”

He spends the next hour helping his grandma roll out some of her premade dough for some fettuccine looking noodles, grabbing a wrapped up blob “from the top shelf, Steven. That’s the stuff I made for you.”. 

He rolls, folds, and cuts it as he’s told, then goes to pick Robin up from campus while she finishes everything.

“It won’t take long now, dear, and you shouldn’t either.” Mama scolds, waving her spoon around once again.

“Got it, Mama, be back soon.” He slips on his shoes, looks in on his grandpa in the living room as he passes, grinning at the loud snores he hears from the direction of Pa’s recliner, and slips out the front door to his car. 

In no time, he’s picked up Robin, stopped for a movie from Blockbuster, and is home to the smell of fresh bread.

“We’re home Mama!”

“I’m just setting the table, grab your Pa!”

“Come on Pa, Mama’s got some pasta for you.” Steve says, coaxing his grandfather out of the chair and into his slippers. 

“Ah, perfect, my back’s been real achy lately.”

“That’s ‘cause you sleep in the recliner, Mr. Harrington.”

“How many times do we gotta tell you, Robin? Just call us Ma and Pa.”

Robin plops down in her designated spot across from Ma, “Hey, you should get used to it now; Once I finally get up the nerve to Chrissy out, she’ll come over here all “Mr. Harrington” this and “Mrs. Harrington” that.

“And how’s that coming, Bobs?” Steve asks her, sitting down beside his grandma and immediately passing the plate of bread across the table to Robin’s waiting hands. 

She starts going off at a million miles a minute about her longest standing crush, while Steve shares a look with his grandma, both smirking conspiratorially as Robin takes a bite of the bread.

That’d been Steve’s suggestion, a bread imbued with luck.

It wasn’t a “Love Spell”, Mama said there was none in existence that were worth the pain. But the minimal luck that she had sown before into countless baked goods (especially near February), have had a surprisingly great track record.

With everyone but Steve.

She couldn’t quite figure out what it was that kept him from getting the benefits too, every time she had tried, they had tried, it was an astounding failure. 

First with Tommy Hagan, the carrot cake cookies Steve had presented him with as a special birthday treat back in middle school ended with two missing front teeth and a broken arm.

Then again without even thinking about it, he’d added some luck and hope to homemade chicken pot pies he’d whipped up when he and Nancy were on the rocks. 

It had somewhat worked with Billy Hargrove, but that one hadn’t even been intentional, and he shudders to think about it to this day.

“I don’t know my dearest, maybe it is because you are already tied to someone else?” She had said after her tried and true pot pie recipe failed.

“But it didn’t even work with the one I was already with!” he yelled, sighing deep and pinching the tears away from the bridge of his nose. “She jumped right into Byers’ arms.”

Mama had just given him a pitying look, which was worse, honestly.

Now, he stays far away from any of Mama’s lucky foods, especially with the weird twisting feeling he had gotten the few times he’d tried over the years after leaving Hawkins.

He and Robin came up to Indy for Robin to go to U of I, a year after she graduated, and when Steve was fired from the job that had been paying the majority of their apartment's rent when he was spotted kissing his then boyfriend by his manager….they came to live with Steve’s grandparents, taking to them both with open arms and hearts.

He comes back to the present when his third bite of pasta clears away the last of his headache.

Steve shoots his grandma a knowing look, which she ignores with a sip of wine. 

–

They’re nearly finished with dinner when it happens.

Steve’s listening intently to a story Pa is telling them, something he’s sure he’s hears a dozen times before, when he absentmidedly picks up, then takes a bite of the bread Ma made for Robin.

It’s more than he’s ever felt before.

In the past, whenever Steve’s tried to gain some luck in love, he’s been inundated with flashes, feelings, words, a warmth in his bones that he’s wanted to hold onto forever. 

The feelings grew stronger the older he got, and now, Steve finds himself sitting on a rolling grassy hill. 

It’s not a flash of a vision like before, he’s sitting in the tall soft grass, and his hands are already making a chain of daisies. Nearly done, in fact. 

He finishes it off, turns it around in his hands, then when he goes to put it on…

He’s back at the table with his family, the slice of bread in his hand, and Pa still telling his story.

Steve jumps up, startling the other three, and beelines it to the kitchen, flinging open drawers, searching for just a damn scrap of paper. 

Mama follows him, “Steve, the bread?”

“I was on a hill, chaining daisies, and now I have to get these words out.” He probably doesn't make a lick of sense, but he doesn’t want to lose them.

Suddenly, a pad of paper and pen are passed into his line of sight. He snatches them up, and starts scribbling down as much as he can.

He and Mama stare down at the words on the page. 

“Mama, what is this?”

She is silent for a handful of breaths.

“This is why the luck never worked.”

now with a part 2!

also: i don’t know the first thing about being a witch or anything of the sort, nor do i know anything but the basics about cooking; hope im not way way off on anything!!! this is all in fun 😅