Good Day Sunshine

Vic over at Glowstars is a blogger extraordinaire who has two gorgeous kids, works full time, talks about parenting and life and all sorts of other things. And as if that wasn’t enough, she can also write good fiction. I had the pleasure of getting to know her writing when I used to run the now defunct writing prompt blog Search Engine Stories. When I closed the blog down I was so sad I couldn’t check out everyone’s writing anymore so I was delighted when Vic told me she was thinking about starting up a writing prompt of her own. She is running it on her blog and it is called The Friday Fictional.

Naturally, I had to participate. You should too if you like a bit of a writing challenge. It is good for the old grey matter to write from a prompt – especially at my age. Ahem.

Without further ado here is this week’s prompt:

sunshine in her blood.

My story has a bit of a Friday the 13th theme.

Here ’tis….

Black witch, white witch, red witch, blue

Better run and hide cause she’s coming for you

Which witch? That witch

Bent and old

Run for your life or she’ll turn you stone cold.

Marigold Goldenrod heard the songs every day. The children marched in the street, chanting.

They really had no idea about witches, mulling around in front of her house as if they were experts on the extraordinary and unusual.

Yes, there were black witches. Her Aunt Morcheeba was one. She was not one to be trifled with. She could make the blood boil in their bodies and spill up into their throats coating them like hot, black viscous wax until they suffocated, if she wished it. It was lucky she found their songs amusing.

White witches were a given – the true caretakers of the planet. Under-rated and under-appreciated, so her Aunt Gwyneth said.

But Marigold was unusual even in witchy circles.

She was a yellow witch.

It was sunlight that gave her the magic. Filling her with yellow, white, golden radiant light. It was true to say that she had sunshine in her blood.

There were a lot of misconceptions about yellow witches. The other members of the coven thought she was supposed to spread good cheer, throw light into the darkness, give people a feeling that it was Christmas every day; all that kind of stuff.

Your role is irritatingly jolly, said Hannah Hawthorn. It’s like you’re a freaking witchy version of the Dalai Lama or something. You make me want to puke.

Marigold didn’t care what Hannah thought of her. She knew how important she was. All the happy, shiny stuff was just a front for what she really did.

Something that not many other witches did.

Marigold was a vampire killer.

It was a little known fact that witches hated vampires. People clumped witches, vampires, werewolves, zombies, demons, ghosts and various other things all together as if they were a gang that liked to hang out together.

Wiitches didn’t mind ghosts but they had no time for anything else, especially vampires.

It was another little known fact that the only thing that terrified a vampire more than an Archangel was a genuine, no holds-barred witch.

They screamed like the cowards they were when they saw one.

Marigold went out every night with her Aunt Sabine and her Uncle Sebastian – both of the yellow persuasion – and hunted vampires.

At first she felt bad – it was so easy to kill them – but seeing them turn to liquid blood and brimstone right there in the middle of the darkened streets was a thrill like no other.

All she had to do was redirect the sunlight. It emerged like screaming from every orifice, covering the vampires, as Aunt Sabine said, in sunshine and smiles, and saving their poor, lost, blackened hearts.

They burned quickly, there was no suffering. But as they shrank and turned to ash their eyes locked with Marigold’s, pleading for mercy.

She mentioned their eyes to Aunt Sabine. It bothered her. She thought of Lestat and the vampires from Twilight who seemed to retain a semblance of their humanity.

They are no longer human, said Sabine. Their souls are dead no matter what their eyes say.

Marigold had seen a vampire rip out the throat of a woman. Her bones shattered on the pavement. Some of the blood spattered on Marigold’s hand, still warm. She turned the vampire to ash in under thirty seconds.

She became obsessed with vampires in popular culture, wondering where the myths about their positive attributes came from.

She went to the premiere of the Twilight movie Eclipse and saw the real boy who played Edward walking on the red carpet. Robert Pattinson. He was pale and gaunt around the eyes. Prepared for the role. She caught the scent of vampires around him and wondered if they were keeping watch.

Robert looked at her as if he knew what she had done to his comrades. What she did.

It unnerved her.

It angered her too. It would end in tears with those vampires sniffing around him like they were his number one fans.

He wasn’t in Hollywood now.

Marigold mentioned how she had smelled the vampires around Robert Pattinson, waiting for the spark of his celebrity to dwindle. Uncle Sebastian, not keen on vampire fiction or young human actors who were widely regarded as handsome, nonetheless felt compelled to stand guard all night.

Aunt Sabine was amused. She always laughed when Sebastian was taken out of his comfort zone.

It’s just you and me tonight, dear Marigold, she said. Let’s kick some vampire butt.

Marigold and Sabine hunted all night, shooting daylight into the dark sky. In the morning the papers reported meteor shower sightings all over the city. People didn’t realise it wasn’t meteors they were seeing – just the sunshine in the witches blood.

When the hunt was over Marigold and Sabine gave thanks to the sky, casting golden orbs of daylight through the purple clouds.

Then they did what they always did and walked home singing their favourite song –

Good day sunshine.

Good day sunshine.

Good day sunshine

I need to laugh and when the sun is out

I’ve got something I can laugh about

I feel good in a special way

I’m in love and it’s a sunny day…..

Marigold felt good to have the UVA and UVB rays pulsating in her blood.

It felt good to make a difference.

She was a child of the light and the sun, casting out the darkness.

It felt good to carry a little bit of daylight around in her heart.

HAPPY FRIDAY the 13th EVERYONE!!