Farida's Blog

In honour of Halloween I decided to post a rather scary (at least that was what I thought when I was writing it, because it was inspired by my fears connected with the uncertainty of the future and its oftentimes nasty surprises) excerpt from Almendra: A Fairy-Tale.

Before entering the sinister shade of the ShawlWood, Joannah warned The Upper Kingdom party to keep as close to her as possible or otherwise face the loss of sanity. It was on this foreboding note that the four of them entered the wood, where they were immediately surrounded by ear-splitting shrieks, coming from all the likely and unlikely directions. Fighting back tremendous desire to screw her eyes shut against the sound-assault, Almendra decided to get a better look around, though not before checking her proximity to Joannah. There seemed to be enough insanity as it was.

Inside the ShawlWood was nothing like a ‘wood’ Almendra thought it would be. Even without a dictionary to support her theory, Almendra knew for a fact that woods in general consisted of trees. But it was not the case here. Not after the initial tree-border. Instead of trees there were women all around, running blindly into each other with their hands held over their heads, producing blood-curdling shrieks on their way.

But that was hardly the worst spectacle the ShawlWood was ready to present and, as Almendra stared around, she saw her Nanny, grey as The Upper Kingdom sky, her face paralyzed with shock pointing with a shaky hand straight ahead.

For there just in front of them was, what Almendra was sure at least once was, a girl. Though now the picture was not exactly clear. It was a lanky, ugly-looking creature with a skull-like head and a batch of long strands of rare black hair protruding from its top. This ‘girl’ was wearing a long, wide, white robe with wide, long, torn sleeves. Her long, white, trembling hands and their just as long and just as white and just as trembling fingers were gripping a middle-aged woman by the neck, hauling her full-force towards a group of the same looking girls that were currently forming a circle sinister are-they-sure-that’s-how-people-smile forming on their are-those-actually-lips.

Each girl pulled the poor woman towards one another before throwing her in the middle of the circle. The girl that had captured the woman drew out of one of her sleeves something black. Something that turned out to be a shawl (not unlike the one Almendra was wearing at the moment) and wrapped it around the woman’s head, who immediately started shaking violently, producing those hysterical shrieks Almendra already knew only too well. The woman’s voice was full of sheer terror as she was convulsing as if in a fit, while she tried in vain to snatch the shawl off her head. The ugly-looking girls meanwhile sang in fear-spreading voices.

‘You came to know what future holds. But isn’t it a crime? To delve in something you can’t know? Now you’re just paying price. But we are creatures kind indeed. And we just want to help. That’s why we show what kind of future is lying on your plate. And our price though high enough is nothing you can’t give. So open up your wallet wide or we won’t let you leave!’

And, as the woman would protest against the terrible future that seemed to await on her, the girls would laugh a terrible laugh, making her try on other horrific shawls.

‘We’ve got lots of lives to trade. We can show you what’s your fate. There are bad and even worse. Choose which one you like the most!’

It looked as though the more she protested the more shawls the ugly creatures were ready to wrap around her wretched head.

‘More! More! Another shawl! Let me hear her scream some more! Put it on and let her see what her life is gonna be!’

Almendra would never have moved from her spot again if not for Joannah who was tugging at her wrist and pulling her into action.

‘Come on. We’d better get a move on.’

And as they moved on through the ShawlWood that consisted of huge circular rooms similar ‘rituals’ were taking place everywhere.

Long live Almendra the High Lady of The Upper Kingdom!

Do you have a character that you have known for ages and decades? A character that appeared in your head and then entered your life, becoming a fixed entity there, a member of your family? A character that stopped being just a figment of your imagination but became a real person that even your family and friends know and treat as such? A character you simply can’t imagine your life without? It sounds rather obsessive when I put it down like this, but I have such a character: Almendra the High Lady of The Upper Kingdom.

I was sixteen when a brooding young woman with pale skin, dark eyes and long, black hair started haunting the back of my mind. I knew that she came from a fantasy land and that she wanted me to tell her story. She was very demanding and wouldn’t leave even though I was not qualified to write down any story at the time, especially such a strange one. She said that she would wait until such a time when I was ready. However, I could write poems and, in order to appease her and maybe make her go away, I wrote a long (about three pages long!) poem dedicated to her.

Later, I found out that the story, I described in the poem, belonged to another High Lady – Nermina the Woman-Snake who founded The Upper Kingdom – but not to Almendra, whose story still remained untold. So I resigned myself to my fate and started working on my writing skills. Several years must have gone by before the woman in my head got her name. I don’t remember for sure – somehow you never know what events you have to fix in your mind – but I must have been already at the university, because I started learning Spanish there and fell in love with the word “almendra” – which means almond and is my favourite nut )

Once I thought that I was ready to tackle down some serious writing, I started working on Almendra’s story. There were many versions, different sets of characters and five drafts before the story I have recently published was produced. It is not long – a novella-length story – and yet I was writing it, editing it and revising it for about five years. At one point Almendra had a brother and a pet mouse. Then she had wings bursting out of her back. There was even a ship involved, a terrible storm and a pair of twins: one good and one evil. But by the end it was Almendra, her Nanny, her great friend Woo the Wolf and her new bff Joannah Nibbler-Pincher.

It was about five years ago that I finally finished “Almendra” and tried to get it published. But I didn’t manage to find an agent and, distraught that no one wanted to take on the High Lady and her adventures on her journey to The Land of Men, I put it away for another five years. At the time, I already had a great deal of backstory on The Upper Kingdom and its High Ladies and even chapter-by-chapter outline of two more books. But I said good-bye to it all and started writing other things. However, last year I felt such a strong surge of nostalgia that I went back and re-emerged myself into the story. I reread it, found it very sweet but simple, revised it, decided that it was a fairy-tale and published it with a small e-pub.

But it is not the end yet! By now the story has evolved into something big, different and complex and will make a three-book series to tell. And this time as a real novel. Not to mention that Nermina is now demanding her own story to be told with all the particulars of the foundation of The Upper Kingdom!

Originally posted at The Australian Bookshelf.

Here I drew Almendra on the verge of setting off for The Land of Men: with a shawl, a sword and a butterfly-shaped brooch. I even drew her face, which is very rare for me, because drawing faces is murder )

Surprise! Surprise! I have two more dresses for Almendra.

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