“Don’t touch that.  You might break it.”

Kelly jumped at the sharp admonition from her grandmother.  If she had been holding the cup right then, it would have slipped from her hand for sure.

“I’m sorry, child.  I didn’t mean to startle you, but it mustn’t break.”

Grandma stared at the teacup, wrung her hands in her apron.
“Why?  It’s just a little pink cup.  It doesn’t even match anything else on the shelf.” 

At ten, Kelly now had the privilege of entering her grandmother’s parlor, a place off-limits to the younger kids.  The antiques lining the shelves were just odds and ends to her, but grandma said they each had a story to tell.

“That pink teacup has been in the family for over one hundred years,” her grandmother said, settling into the overstuffed chair to wait while the cookies baked.  “Would you like to hear the story?”

When she nodded, her grandmother’s eyes took on a faraway look.  Kelly sat on the floor next to the chair to listen.  Grandma always told good stories.

“The woman who originally owned it was said to have evil powers.  Family members recorded that right before she died, she asked for that cup. 
 

“They said that tears flowed down her face as she held it and several drops fell into it.  As she drew her last breath, she muttered an incantation and smoke filled the room for a moment.  After she died, the tears in the cup formed a black stain that wouldn’t wash out.  After that, people swore that the cup whispered to them.”

“Like it was haunted or something?”  Kelly watched the muscles in the old woman’s right cheek twitch, a pained expression cross her face as she fell silent.  She looked unhappy.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing – nothing at all.”

Grandma spoke quickly, tried to smile but her lip trembled now.  Kelly didn’t understand the woman’s nervousness, but it had something to do with that dumb old cup.

“Why don’t you get rid of it if you don’t like it?”

“It won’t let me.”

The muttered words were so faint that Kelly imagined she heard wrong.  The timer rang in the kitchen, announcing fresh-baked cookies waiting to be pulled out of the oven.  Her grandmother left to attend to them, reminding the girl not to touch anything.

Kelly tiptoed over to the teacup, peering into the bottom of it while clasping her hands firmly behind her back.  The black stain rested in the bottom, just as grandma said it did.

“What?”  Kelly whirled, sure that someone had just spoken to her.  Off-balance, she stumbled into the shelf, causing it to rattle.  A low laugh emanated from the cup, its sound pitching into a screech as it became louder.  Unnerved, Kelly picked up the offending cup and threw it onto the floor where it shattered, silencing the brutal sound.

Her grandmother entered the room and moaned, collapsing to the ground in utter despair.  Kelly didn’t have time to wonder about grandma’s well-being, as a cloud of smoke rose from the broken pieces to claim the young girl.

©2009 Laura Eno

Laura Eno (http://lauraeno.blogspot.com) has written two YA fantasy novels and a paranormal romance.  Her flash fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Twisted Dreams, The Monsters Next Door, Flashes in the Dark, 10Flash, House of Horror, The New Flesh, Everyday Weirdness and MicroHorror.

I interviewed Gordon Clemmons, Editor In Chief of ShadeWorks, an ezine that specializes in “the land of make-believe.”  We talked about the joys and challenges of running an ezine, common mistakes writers make, and why there will always be a place for good, scary fiction.

LT:   What sparked your interest in starting a horror website?

GC:  I looked around the web for good horror zines, and while there were some, they were few and far between. Most were either hideous with no standards, or they were long-dead.  I know a thing or two about building websites, and I work with authors and publishers every day, so I thought, why not create a clean, ad-free space for aspiring horror writers.

LT:   What obstacles did you encounter?

GC:  The biggest obstacle was getting on writers’ radar.  I knew what to do to up our page ranking in Google, but getting traffic was only half the battle.  Establishing trust with writers was the other half.  It took several months and two published issues before a regular stream of submissions started coming in.  I’m grateful to those writers that took a chance and submitted their stories to ShadeWorks before it was a proven entity.

LT:   What have you learned about writing from being an editor?

GC:  A lot!  But probably the biggest revelation for me was the importance of length and pace.  The best tip I can give to writers is: keep it short.  Trim and trim some more.  I’m sure a lot of aspiring writers think about short story length as measured by the anthologies they read.  I know I did.  Read through Night Shift and you think that 7,000 to 15,000 words is typical–that a slow build with lots of character development is normal.  Those things are normal when you’re successful and publishing regularly, but when you’re trying to get your foot in the door, keep it short and sweet.

LT:   What appeals to you in a story?

GC:  Believable characters and good pacing. If the characters are cliché or the story drags though pages of mundane narrative, I put it down.  That may sound like a contradiction to question 3, but it isn’t. A character can behave believably without the reader ever knowing anything personal about them.

LT:   What pitfalls would you like to see authors avoid?

GC:  There are quite a few.  We put together some tips for writers on our site that cover the pitfalls we regularly see:
http://www.shadeworks.org/tips-for-writers/

One of the most common is a good story ruined by a lack of self-editing.  The author has the writing chops but hasn’t learned what to fix in the redrafts.  Hopefully our tips are helpful.

LT:   How did you find your submissions editor?

GC:  Bill was the first good writer to submit a story to ShadeWorks.  He was a breath of fresh air, and we struck up a personal dialog through emails during those early months.  It turned out that, not only was he a good writer, he taught creative writing (among other things).  So I asked him if he would be willing to help out and, lucky for me and for ShadeWorks, he said yes.

 
LT:   What plans, changes, or goals do you have for your site?

GC:  We’ve talked about a few next-steps.  We’d like to host an annual Halloween writing contest, and we would like to release a printed anthology each year. Initially I think we need to find one more editor–perhaps an art editor.
 

LT:  What would you like to see more of in the horror genre?

GC:  I’d like to see more blurring of the lines between horror and other genres.  Despite the conventional terminology, I think that all fiction is speculative, and I really enjoy works that illustrate this by bridging into mainstream “literary” fiction, sci-fi, mystery, etc.

 
LT:   What authors do you like to read in your spare time?

GC:  Bill Bryson, Weis & Hickman, Kelley Armstrong, J.K. Rowling, and Stephen King.

LT:   What scares you?

GC:  Loneliness.

 
LT:   Are there any particular types of stories that you’d like to see that haven’t crossed your desk yet?

GC:  A good old-fashion, well-written haunted house story.  And, while we’ve had a few, I can never get too many werewolf stories.  I have a soft spot for lycanthropes.

LT:   What do you find enduring about horror as a genre?

GC:  Oh, I think our innate love of being scared in a safe way.  We love the thrills and the spine-tingling that keep us turning the pages and pulling the covers a little tighter.

LT:   Is there anything you’d like to add?

GC:  Just a word of encouragement to aspiring writers:  keep reading and keep writing.  You have stories that no one else has.  Find them and tell them as best you can.

To take a peek at ShadeWorks latest issue, click here:

http://www.shadeworks.org/in/crypt/v2-issue3/

©2009 Lori Titus