Elfwood is the worlds largest SciFi & Fantasy community.
- 93548 members, 13 online now.
- 55211 site visitors the last 24 hours.

User:		Password:
Not a member yet? Click here to join! (Help)

StartWhat's NewJoin UsPopularSciFi & Fantasy ArtStoriesTutorialsCommunityFindRulesAbout

Stories / Stories / Julia W. Harme / Text 3 of 4 / The Grey Lady

"The Grey Lady" by Julia W. Harme

SF&F Picture 3 out of 4 by Julia W. Harme

This story is just beggining. I shall write more of it as soon as i can. A young woman, called Talia, moves to the country. she soon finds out of a curse that has been killing people of the country. anywhere she goes she hears about a dead man and a black stallion who kill anyone who wanders into the northern field and the woods- and the only way to brake the curse is to find the grey lady. Talia is joined by her child hood friend Edward and together they go through things they could have never imagined. (i have editied a bit now. please tell me if i still need to edit something. id be greatful for it!)

THE GREY LADY

As she gazed into the small pond at her backyard, thinking, small butterflies danced in pairs past her shoulder length blond hair. Smiling, she stood up and straightened her light yellow dress. The sun was shinning bright that day and nothing could go wrong. Picking up her shoes from the ground she serenely walked to the large brick manor house. The green grass tickled her feet at her every step. Humming tunelessly to herself, she opened the glass door. The air was cool inside and somehow smelt a bit dusty. Well she couldn’t blame the cleaning ladies. The house had been abandoned for years before her father had bought it.

“Miss Talia, I have a letter for you” a voice from her right side said, with a taste of bitter meekness in it.

“Oh, it is you” Talia said to the maid. The maid curtsied, holding up a tray with an envelope on it. Talia picked up the envelope quickly and studied the writing which said: Miss Talia Quant, “why thank you”.

She bowed her head and walked to the wooded chair opening the seal carefully.

Dear Miss Talia Quant

I am planning of coming to visit your father and you in south Petherton. How is the country turning out? Last time I visited Kingina—which I think the manor is called—I was fifteen. Everything is well here in Essex. Or well almost everything. As I was writing this letter, I was distracted by the most shocking news. The old lady down town had died of a sudden seizure and fallen down her stairs braking her neck and back. Most horrendous news, don’t you think.

Yours truly

Edward Izzard

Reading the letter again, Talia’s mouth fell open. Edward was coming here!

“Father! Father! You will never ever believe what im about to tell you!” she screamed as she ran to her father, who was seated in the corner of the sitting room, reading the days newspaper. Setting down his reading glasses he placed his hands on his knees and he sat there beaming at his beautiful daughter,

“What is it my dear?”

“Edward is coming here! To visit us! Isn’t this great! Oh I am ever so happy!”

Her father stood up and walked to the window, “it is good news indeed.”

“Father, may I buy a new dress? I would get so happy”

“You already have loads of dresses” her father snapped, but when he saw Talia’s face he smiled again, “oh very well. But only one dress! I will not waste my money on too many dresses as I did last year” he gave her an accusing look and Talia gave her best innocent smile she knew.

Edward sat in his horse drawing carriage, staring out of the side window. How long had it been since he had seen Talia. Her father had promised him that he could propose to her. But before he could think more about Talia something caught his eye on the road. A man on a black stallion, stood still. The wind began to howl, but the stallions mane or tail didn’t move, nor did the man’s travelling cloak. He heard the horse that drew his carriage snort with fright as they got closer. He could hear the black stallions hooves impatiently hit the ground, eager to charge at the carriage and the cloaked man’s maddening laughter. As the coach passed the strange pair, he could feel the man’s eyeless gaze on him and then disappear into thin air.

←- Evil Stides | The Keeper of Oblivion (part one) -→

Date	Name	Comment
22 Feb 2008	Lynn K Hollander	Loading... Yes, your punctuation needs work. You also run-on many of your sentences. Your spelling is a little eccentric. (beggining, brake, kiling in your intro, for example.) Like Gwen, I wonder if English is your first language. Some of your idioms are unusual. (It’s a horse drawn carriage, anlthough you don’t really need to state the ’horse drawn’ bit. The default carriage is drawn by horses. Horseless carriages are automobliles. ) Just to review the possessive --horses’ manes and tails(Two or more horses have two or more manes, etc.). Man’s maddening laughter. Animals’ fright. I gather that something disappears in your next-to-last sentence, but I have no idea what. PS -- A maid would present the letter on a tray or salver. Honest. Julia W. Harme replies: "Yar like a said up above, i forgot to proof read this. i will edit it soon and i hope you will read it when i have added more to it and edited it. Cheers for reading my story and giving me some examples of mysmall mistakes"
29 Feb 2008	Matthias Schmidt	Loading... Nice atmospheric tale, this would surely make a good beginning for a bigger story. I don’t care about your linguistic mistakes, since English is not my mother tongue Also I’m never sure about punctuation in English, by the way Julia W. Harme replies: "hi mattias and thnx for stopping by! even though i am grateful for people telling me about my mistakes i do not rly like it when they try to tell me off. what is your mother tounge, if i may be so bold to ask? "
3 Mar 2008	Lynn K Hollander	Loading... Beyond the letter/tray part, I don’t see any changes. Did you make any more? Also, did you know that you can edit the blurb without going through the whole publish the changes routine? I didn’t, until just last month. I was surprised how easy it was to correct my mistakes. You may have noticed that Matthias, while doing an admittedly poor job of punctuation in his comment, did manage to spell beginning correctly. Not to mention tongue. Julia W. Harme replies: "i did do some small corrections... i doubt u can see them... What do u think i need to change sighs i dont know what else to change..."
5 Mar 2008	Lynn K Hollander	Loading... Well, I did mention some misspelled words: it’s beginning, not beggining. A homophone is a word that sounds like another word. Hear, here; their, they’re, there etc. Brake is the spelling for a device that slows a machine or the action of slowing a car or bicycle. The correct past tense of brake is braked. When spelled BREAK it means to shatter, as in break a glass; void, as in void or break a contract; or to render in operative, as in I broke the bicycle; or stop, void or render inoperative a curse, as in I broke the curse. The correct past tense of break is broke. It’s grateful, not greatful. In your response to Matthais: It’s tongue, not tounge, and Matthias’s name is not mattias. Your punctuation needs a lot more attention. I can’t go into that here, for reasons of space. If you’re reading Harry Potter(by J. K. Rowling), or the Young Wizards Series (by Diane Duane; first title: So you want to be a wizard.), you can observe examples of good spelling, punctuation and other writing skills. Both authors write an educated, standard English. Emulate them, not in their story lines or plots -- yours is as interesting as any of theirs -- but in their skills. Julia W. Harme replies: "well ye.. and i just typed fast with the tongue thng... but thnx anyway but i still hope u liked my story, or do u thnk it is filled with mistakes?"
6 Mar 2008	Heidi Hecht	Loading... This is a good start for your story. It could use some proofreading but, since above commenters already did a good job of pointing out the typos, I don’t think I need to go into it too much. You could go more into how her father reacts to the news that Edward is coming. Does he act angry, or does he seem to resent Edward at all? I do like the little bit of mystery you work into the ending. Julia W. Harme replies: "oh yes. thnx! i might edit it still--no i will edit it, not might. anyways, im going to goand watch a movie s****s"
7 Mar 2008	Jacob Bowdin	Loading... Ok, I’ll get the painful portion out of the way first =) 1."I am planning of coming to visit your father and you in south Petherton. How is the country turning out? Last time I visited Kingina—which I think the manor is called—I was fifteen. Everything is well here in Essex. Or well almost everything. As I was writing this letter, I was distracted by the most shocking news. The old lady down town had died of a sudden seizure and fallen down her stairs braking her neck and back. Most horrendous news, don’t you think. -I think it should be ’planning on coming to visit’ in the first sentence here. -Umm, ’Everything is well here in Essex. Or well almost everything.’ I feel this would be better as, ’Everything is well here is Essex, well, almost everything.’ 2. “Father! Father! You will never ever believe what im about to tell you!” she screamed as she ran to her father, who was seated in the corner of the sitting room, reading the days newspaper. -Okedoke, im should be I’m -After a quote that is a complete sentence, you should capitalize the next word, as it begins a new sentence, in this case, ’she screamed’, she should be She =) The same with a complete sentence that is in quotes.
7 Mar 2008	Jacob Bowdin	Loading... With that said and done, sorry, I tend to be a mite bit picky at times. :heepish grin:: Otherwise, a good start to a story. It makes me wish there was more to read! I like the black rider, reminds me of a Myrddraal from the WOT books, though a touch more insane. Keep it up! Julia W. Harme replies: "heh thnks, and dont worry, i like getting feed back and how to improove and i do need to improove some what ^^ uuuh! r u a WOT fan too! hihi! Lan and nynaevei are my favorites wtbt urs?!"
15 May 2008	Mandy Burnham	Loading... undefined Julia W. Harme replies: "undefined"
30 Jul 2009	Lena Bazhenova	Loading... Ooh, that last scene is quite eerie! And intriguing There are some punctuation errors, but I think this could make for a really good story! Julia W. Harme replies: "thnx lena =)) Yeah, the truth is, i havent rly been writing much anymore so i cant rly be bothered to correct these small mistakes. maybe one day i will get around to it DD hehe, im very lazy grins "
8 Aug 2009	Melissa "Bee" Stephan	Loading... Ooh, beautifully done. I like the beginning, I could almost feel the sun and the grass, just from hearing about it. I really like the quickness of the story. Great job, very intriguing start.
Page: [1] 2