Thanksgiving Surprise, Part 2

Thanksgiving Surprise 3

Thanksgiving Surprise, Part 2
By
Carol Marrs Phipps

Illustrated By:
Lana Dobbins Cramer

“Let’s stop here for just a bit, Gobbler,” Krista said as she planted herself down on a large, flat-topped tree stump and motioned that he should draw near for his usual session of scratching, petting and being told him how extremely magnificent he was.

He went to her at once and leant blissfully into her hand. As she began her deft ministrations, he gobbled a sigh of utter contentment.

“I have a surprise for you Gobbler. Today is a very special day, my sweet,” Krista crooned as she wove her nimble fingers through Gobbler’s satiny feathers. “It is a holiday we humans call Thanksgiving. It is a time when we gather together with our loved ones and give thanks for our bounty. This year, dear one, you will be the guest of honor and from then on you will forever be a part of me. How does that sound?”

ACEO - Turkey Dinner, Thanksgiving

In answer Gobbler simply pushed his head further into her soothing fingers and closed his eyes dreamily. He didn’t see farmer Stanz coming up from behind his wife to hand her the freshly sharpened hatchet and then step back by the rail fence to observe Gobbler’s execution at the hands of the woman he adored.

Suddenly, Krista’s fingers tightened painfully in Gobbler’s neck feathers and his eyes flew open in shock. He stared up into Krista’s beautiful green eyes imploring her to tell him what he had done for her to suddenly treat him in this manner. The odd gleam in her eyes and the humorless grin she gave him in return frightened him nearly senseless. He began to struggle frantically to get away from her.

“Oh no, my pet, it is much too late for that,” Krista said as she grabbed him by the throat and stood, putting her hatchet down on the stump she had just vacated. With her other hand now free, she grabbed his beak and held it shut so he couldn’t bite her. “I’ve been feeding you up for months in anticipation of the fine meal you would make for my family on Thanksgiving and I’m not about to let you get away…” With those fateful words she twisted Gobbler’s neck and he went limp at once. She smiled broadly in satisfaction and laid him carefully out with his head and neck draped over the stump. She studied him for just a moment to make certain he was dead or at the very least, safely unconscious. She picked up her hatchet and raised it to chop off his magnificent head. Just at that moment Gobbler opened his eyes which were now glowing an eerily blood-red color. He stared straight at Krista with such hatred she gasped and backed away trembling.

Farmer Stanz at once sprang towards his wife. “What are you doing, Krista? Chop the damn bird’s head off!” he commanded as she took another step back and stumbled over the bucket her husband had put there to throw Gobbler’s severed head into. Her arms instantly began to pinwheel backwards and she lost her grip on the hatchet. It spun end over end through the air then lodged deeply into the middle of the farmer’s forehead, splittting it open. Krista landed smack on her backside just in time to sprayed with blood and brains and gore from her husband’s split skull as he, too, crumpled to the ground. She let out an unearthly shriek then stumbled to her feet and tried to jerk the hatchet from her dead husband’s head. It took her three mighty attempts before she freed the instrument from where it had lodged, deep within Ben’s skull. Wildly she spun back to where Gobbler had been draped across the tree stump, but he was no longer there. He was on his feet staring at her with those unearthly glowing eyes.

“But you can’t still be alive!” she rasped. “I wrung your neck…what are you?”

Gobbler continued to stare at her as he silently advanced toward her.

Krista’s eyes bulged in terror, she raised her trembling hand with the hatchet held in her white-knuckled grip. “Stop now or I swear I’ll kill you!” she warned. But when Gobbler continued to advance she spun around and fled. Running in blind fear she tripped over her husband’s body and fell forward. Instinctively she flung her hands out before her to break her fall. Her only sound a sharp, “umph!” as she hit the ground and lay still, her life’s blood flowed from her chest and seeped away into the dirt. Krista’s chest had been ripped open when she landed on the upturned hatchet blade. It had cleaved her breastbone and sliced clean through her heart.

Thanksgiving Surprise 4

Gobbler surveyed the morbid scene for several long minutes as his glowing eyes slowly returned to their usual beady dark brown. “What do you think of your Thanksgiving surprise, now?” he asked, then slowly strutted back to his barnyard home.

 

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOURS

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Who are the Beaks?

The Beaks are the nation of humans who live in the Kingdom of Mar, a territory that takes in the extensive fens within the Chokewood Forest known as the Beakmore (Beakmoor). The Beakmore surrounds a raised and well drained pastoral area known as Caistealbeak which supports the town of Caistealbeak that in turn surrounds the Beak castle, known as Caisteal-Beak, an early Iron Age style circular stockade within a moat, which encloses a massive earthworks crowned by a rambling wooden castle proper that overlooks the surrounding countryside.

The Beak nation is widely regarded as dangerous and barbaric and takes extended spells of making raiding forays against neighboring communities. Troops of naked tattooed soldiers, their bodies smeared with a blue stain known as woad, are led by captains who in turn are commanded by the king who is addressed by either the title “ru” or “brude.” In Stone Heart, book three of The Heart of the Staff, Brude Taylorg, Ru of Mar, governs every bit as naked and even more tattooed and stained with woad than his soldiers and believes himself to be the direct descendent of the deity Eochaid, the fastest luathas unicorn who ever lived, and also believes that he is watched over and protected by the mighty wolf deity, Madadh-Allaidh Neartmhor. Taylorg’s daughter, the beautiful Princess Tramae, is half-sister to Queen Myrtlebell. When Myrtlebell is murdered by Queen Spitemorta of Goll, Taylorg seeks vengeance by sending Tramae to arrange an alliance with Myrtlebell’s father, King Theran of Bratin Brute.

 In the days when Ugleeuh created the Peppermint Forest from part of the Chokewoods, Brude Taylorg refused to be cowed by her threats. To force matters, she cast a spell on the Beaks to keep them in perpetual submission and humiliation by turning them into a nation of pot-bellied, marshmallow suckers, known as the Gobblers. So in The Collector Witchbook two of The Heart of the Staff, Taylorg was known as Greedygut, Caisteal-Beak was the Gobbler Castle and the Beakmore was known as the Gobbler Marsh.

 

Are there fearsome blue meanies that you know about? Please let us know.

 

Carol Marrs Phipps & Tom Phipps