Young Adult / Novella Query-The Carver's Son-Ms. Einstein (Analysis)
Dear Ms. Einstein,
I am submitting for your consideration a young adult novella entitled The Carver’s Son. Through poetic narrative, a story is brought to life regarding a young boy named Archivah II, and his struggle to become accepted in a town which has slaved under the tyranny of his father for decades.
This is a literary fiction that alludes to many things (from current events to biblical stories) to illustrate a story of romance and danger that is relevant to every young adult reader. At its core, The Carver’s Son is a story about growing up and becoming one’s own person. On its surface it is a thrilling tale about a town held captive by a brigade of living stone statues and the madman who carves them, their only hope resting in the hands of the madman’s son, who they aren’t sure can be trusted.
Addressing issues from young romance, to recklessness, and even acceptance, The Carver’s Son is an openly moralistic tale that applies to all people of any age, and will be enjoyed and cherished by those readers who have a taste something a little different.
Thank you very much for your time. Included with this submission is the first chapter (each of the seven chapters are divided into four “stanzas”).
Sincerely,
Rylan Batten
rylanbatten@aol.com
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CHAPTER ONE
The Unnamed Norwegian
1. The Town on the Hill
“There’s a carver, a carver, who lives by the harbor.”
A whisper of whistling wind wrapped the chipped, shattered, cracked, cobbled streets, and with its flowing fingers, gathered bits of dust and debris from the cracks, sending them spiraling airborne away past dark dilapidated windows and unlit lamps.
Ghost town? Oh, no!
Plagued town? Not so!
Afraid town, through and through, doors locked tight and fires burning low, curtains pulled shut so eyes don’t go to the outside, to be tempted by the fresh air and light.
No one goes outside.
Children lay in bed, mothers stir their pots and the fathers that weren’t slain left, or lay bedridden next to their children, sinking into the folds of stained white sheets.
A story keeps them scared indoors, told night after night and never less frightful. Fires flare at the mention of the villain’s name.
“Must we hear the story again?” the children ask worriedly when the bread has left their chipped ceramic platters.
Old Mother rose, head wrapped in a basket-laced wool sweater, tan veined hands looking like whicker bound together, and stoked the fire. Old Mother grabbed a chair, sat down a spell, and looked from the fires that burn like hell. She turned her eyes to the children and the fire is in her eyes now, as memories ignite, better tender than dry stiff hay on a hot summer day.
She licked her lips and cast her gaze around nervously, from corner-to-corner of the room like a bird trapped in a cage as it swings to-and-fro for an escape.
The story must be told to keep the children inside, to keep her inside, for fresh air’s temptation is just so great.
So Old Mother took good care to keep the tears dammed, and piercing words passed as the story began.
“There’s a carver, a carver, who lives by the harbor.”
The children gasped and held each other tight, the fire dimmed and the clouds converged, blotting the gossamer glow through the house’s sooty curtains.
“He eats the fish, the bones, the heads, the old, the fresh, the children in beds! Picks teeth with nails, sleeps upon pins, his old mother wails, he just grins.
“He carves and carves throughout the day, ivory monsters that rise and play. They walk the streets when people go out, his statues come, they scream, they shout. They bite the men and chase them away, they kill the others who fight and stay, they slay the horses, they shatter the swords, they’re hard as stone and stiff as boards.
“Once a week on sabbath day, feet are allowed on the streets to pay the taxes, to him, as we assume, invoiced signed with his nom de plume: Archivah!”
The children shrunk together as the fire flared, and bits of ash all choked the air.
“But mother, oh mother!” the youngest cried. “When will he die? Is there another?”
“A son he has, sick sinister lad, enjoys the kill as much as his dad. Wives Archivah takes now that the men are gone, takes them down and in the dawn they vanish, they go the way of the dead, statues take them down...down...”
“To where, Mother, where?”
“To water red.”
“Water red?”
“In a biblical sense, his evil I dread chases water away, and just leaves blood, blood to stay, blood to drink, like a vampire he runs crimson life through his sinks.”
“And what of the son?” the oldest boy asked. “Does he make his father’s bidding be done?”
“And what is his name?” the oldest girl pried. “Is he sweet or brash, wild or tame?”
The Old Mother just sighed, and looked to the curtains. “Now children, you be quite certain, when Archivah’s son comes to town one day, you better stay far, far away! His name no one knows, his demeanor a mystery, but his blood is tainted, given his history. A sweet girl from Norway, taken during the night, never said much, wispy and trite. Down to the harbor, down to his bed, down to the bank where the water runs red.
“The boy was born from such unholy communion, of lust and greed, of ultimate sin. Probably worse than his father, you see, pray for your lives he never comes in!”
And with that past her lips the Old Mother sat down, and the children scurried to bed without another word said.
The oldest boy tucked under the covers, fantasies of saving the world flashing through his sandy-colored head.
The youngest boy shivered and tried to pretend that the shadows were gone, that there was a world where he could play on the lawn.
The youngest girl cried a little beside her brother, then ran to the elder and sunk her face in his tender arms.
The oldest girl sat and looked at the ceiling, trying to ignore a curious feeling; the terrible legend no one did find fun. But what of the boy?
What of the son?
2. The Son
Down by the river where the red water ripples, no otters play, no herons glide. The grass all browns long before winter, the birds don’t perch, the bugs rarely chirp.
A manor sits here, a history dark as the empty windows, the graves of widows, the peeling white paint faded to gray.
But one boy does go out to play.
Archivah Junior, Archivah II; the second, the younger, the legacy carrier.
He’s tall for his age, nine to the day, dressed in dusty black slacks and a vest and a tie. His eyes are bright blue, his hair manor-window-black, his skin as pale as porcelain, clammy as clay.
His nose is a bubble like many like him, a rosy pale rise on a pallor of skin.
His chin is rounded, not jutted or pronounced, though potential for growth cannot be renounced, for his cheekbones riding high like two discus in flight support long curling eyelashes; threads of night. Royal features all, save the chin, a dignified asset that’s yet to grow in.
“A child, I saw one!” said Little Archivah to the otter in the water he wished he saw. “Out in a window, peeking through the fabric. Saw me and vanished, disappeared, like magic! Why do they fear me? Why do they run? Father says the townsfolk are killers of fun. They’re not to be trusted, but to be shunned, to be hated. Lovers betray, friendship’s overrated...But I’d like just once to know a person that’s not from the pages of a book or on a canvas or grave plot.
“What they’d be like, would they fight, would they run? Would they dance like in the paintings from Spain?
“Would they punch, or kick, or bring out their guns? Would they sing and talk, and play in the rain?
“Maybe they sound different, maybe they speak other words, like languages in the big books my father’s got.
“Maybe they’d love me and hold me and cook me stews in their pots!” Little Archivah looked at his dreary, wavering complexion in the water. “Then again, maybe not.”
His father the Carver stood in the doorway, dressed the same but carrying it stiffly. Eyes downcast like plump pale crescents, above similar cheeks of gibbous moons, to which clings a beard, curled lively and dead, a black twisted abandoned cocoon. He watches his son on his birthday, among the fairy tale otters, the dreamed-up birds, and sighs as he says a few scathing words.
“Archivah, my boy, the world is cruel. Here you must stay,” he said it with vice, but too soft to be heard. “They’re mean, absurd, for them to act that way.”
He turned and went back into the manor, with a chisel and plate and a brush on his belt.
Little Archivah swirled his hand through the red-glass lake, brushing the green-spotted algae with his fingertips.
Suddenly, a ruckus arose from behind the manor, a near-deafening and frightening clamor. An ivory horse galloped slowly around, footsteps sinking deep into the marshy bank ground.
“Bartimus!” Little Archivah exclaimed, running up to the horse to pet his slick stone mane.
Bartimus the Horse stood as Sir Archivah’s oldest statue, and time had taken a deathly toll. Cracks lined his neck, his hooves, his tail; the back right leg was completely gone.
“Little Archivah, how are you, Master? I must admit I’ve just come from disaster. The old bust of King David is talking again, this time to the Buddhist stone mural-men. They’re exciting the chessboard of Jews and Romans, who are rallying the box full of pagans, and omens are flying, curses are spoken, help me before statues are broken!”
Little Archivah climbed upon his tripod-steed and in an awkward gallop they rounded the manor to the stone yard, a little section of land quarantined by a fence where incomplete projects reside peacefully; usually.
“What is going on here?” Little Archivah cried, pounding on the fence as he dismounted his ride.
“Good morn young master!” King David’s bust cried. “Take the Buddhist statue and damn it! Claims his ivory belly’s made and proved to be more solid than my granite!”
“Buddha,” Little Archivah said, turning to the wall carving. “Don’t excite King David, please. For every spiteful word spoken, every arm broken, its another trip to the quarry for me.”
“I do not excite, young master! I merely enlighten, it’s knowledge I’m after! He’s raising an army to take over the stone yard, to convert and conquer my engraved monks. I could not let this happen, so I merely tried to teach him a lesson; so I shattered the garden gnome and began throwing chunks.”
“The gnome, the gnome!” all the other gnomes cried. “We saw his insides, and your father is home! We will tell, we will tell, and raise all hell! Blast the King, blast the wall, blast the murder of gnomes!”
“No, no, no, the gnome is fine, just give me some glue and a little more time. As for you Buddha, and King David too, I should be able to leave you alone! Deities and Kings can exist peacefully when all you command is plaster and stone!”
Their anger quelled, the stone yard fell to rest, and Little Archivah climbed atop broken Bartimus.
And through the window his father saw it all; the dispute as it rose and settled down.
“What a peacemaker I’ve raised,” his Father said. “What a useful little tool for the Town.”
3. The Gray Regiment Arrives
The crimson halo of Saturday evening sunk below the jagged horizon, and in a good many hours appeared again on the flat horizon, unfurling its shine like like a brand new carpet of gold and warmth on the Town.
Long trailing shadows connected the huts to the shacks, the shacks to the houses, the houses to the larger houses, for this day they all felt the fear, regardless of stature or pay.
The doors of the houses opened one by one as their curtains played in the light. It was Sunday, tax day, day of rest, the day they were let outside.
The Old Mother opened the door first, turned to look the street up and down, first with a smile, then with a frown.
“Now Timothy be calm,” she warned with spite. “The monsters, they come back tonight, and you must stay out ‘til they’ve gone. As a boy of seven years old, you’ve always been told to run away from the fight. If the fight breaks out, run, run, the statues are killers and kill for fun.”
Timothy nodded, the youngest brother, two years ahead of the youngest girl. He took a deep breath, and stepped outside, his first fresh air in a week.
Sarah Jay, the oldest girl, stood ten years old with a head lost in curls, of obsidian, black ink pulled into strands, glistening like jewels that she combed with her hands.
The Old Mother looked at her sadly.
“Now Sarah Jay, you’ll see the day when in the mirror it’s a lady you’ve found. It has not arrived yet, but don’t you forget, here your beauty’s a curse, not a crown.”
Sarah Jay nodded and took a deep breath, then out into the world she stepped.
Michael the eldest, not wisest by far, stepped into the light of the buzzing bazaar, as people set up stands, lined up for taxes to pay; Michael felt the chill today.
“Michael, my oldest, my dearest, the nearest thing to your father I have. Your broad shoulders are frightful to those who are spiteful, as is the haunting depth to your laugh. So talk like a mouse, run like a fox, even if you feel strong as an ox, for stone is always stronger than man, no one can beat them, no one can.”
Michael nodded, not heeding the tears in Old Mother’s voice or the desperate pleading, and stood with Timothy near the house, looking up and down the awakening street.
Taxes in this town were a curious thing, as people were confined and couldn’t sell much. But taxes were paid in any way possible.
Taxes were paid.
Old Mother turned and shut the door as the youngest sibling came running.
“Now, now, Anne Marie, you know well as me not ‘til seven are you let outside. Not ‘til you’re quick enough to evade the stony steeds, the taxmen’s ten-ton rides.”
Anne Marie huffed and turned back to the gloom, lost in the shady depths of the room.
Sarah Jay fell lightly upon the sparkling grass field kissed by dawn, and at the edge of the street her pale slender fingers ran tallies in the powdery dirt.
Michael approached and knelt beside her, face reflecting the sorrow he saw on hers.
“You know little Jay, my dear, it’s scary, a world run by cold hearted stone. Locked indoors, every day, always wary, wherever you are you’re alone. But don’t look so afraid, so worried, my dear, as surely as our taxes our paid and I have two ears, someone will free us from these chains. Invisible chains of cement and stone.
“I’d do it myself if my strength would allow, for the memory of father and others lost. But daunting obstacles like ‘when’ and ‘how,’ drop the benefit far below the cost.
“So we’ll live like this for however long, living life by each fresh-aired Sunday endeavor. But however long, little Jay, remember; long is not forever.”
Sarah nodded and brushed her cheek, let Michael wipe away the shimmering streaks, and stood upon the dewy grass overlooking the dell, which led to the hedgerow and the manor behind it, the lake farther still.
Suddenly a rumbling arose, trembling the foundations of the houses. Sarah Jay’s own trembling clashed with the street’s, uneven and out of sync, as cold fear gripped her heart and her lungs beside it, cramping her stomach further still.
The trees all swayed unnaturally in one area, not from wind or the jet-black thunderhead of crows taking wing, but from something worse than pain, than death, than hell further still.
They first appeared far off where the crest of the hill burned in the sunrise. Like enormous, liquid boulders unbound by laws of nature, the gray regiment plowed through man-high golden grass, dark, pebble eyes scanning the line of buildings and the people who stood outside ready to pay.
The larger ones stood twice as tall as man, in likenesses of centaurs, Greek gods, or warlords, solid as fragments of mountain that rose and began strolling, stomping, packing the earth so tightly that they seemed to sink as they advanced, as if they walked on sand not soil.
Following them were the beasts of the wood, the bear and the buck whom gored when they could. Stone fur shimmered and swayed like real, but cold bound them to stone. Cold is all they were.
Sarah Jay clutched Michael’s broad arm like every Sunday, forced to witness why they so willingly stayed inside.
The windows rattled.
The pebbles on the streets danced like Sarah Jay’s roaring heart, which pumped and crashed painfully into her ribcage. Her face drained of color, cold, alone, and for a moment looked like stone.
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At first I felt a little bombarded with detail, however you later place detail perfectly; my only problem was “the chipped,shattered,cracke,cobbled streets..”
Maybe you could have cut a couple off those out, or spaced them out.
What I do like a lot about this tale, is the rhyming; it adds a melody to the story and keeps it interesting. Just make sure that you don’t focuse only on rhyming to the point that you have to cut out important descriptions. So far, though, the rhyming has been great.
To be honest, I think that if I saw this in a bookstore, I’d probably buy it; it’s interesting.
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I love how you put this in a partial poetic style. You also did very good for pacing. The questions that i had at the beginning were answered as the chapter progressed. I do have one question. If the townsfolk are forced to stay inside all days but Sunday, how do they work and get food. Do they do this all on Sunday?
There are a few typos. Actually they look like code lines that were put in when you copied the story. Other than that I see not errors.
Off the bat I found an issue with too much information.
“A whisper of whistling wind wrapped the chipped, shattered, cracked, cobbled streets”
You’re not giving your reader the opportunity to imagine the scene. Instead we’re bombarded with every detail.
I really like the mystery of The Carver mythos. This is ominous and keeps me wanting to find out the history of the rhyme.
With chapter 2 you’ve set a gloriously gloomy tone which fits nicely within the piece.
There are some minor grammatical errors here and there but it’s nothing which cannot be rectified with a keen eye once the tale is completed. There are an abundance of exclamation points so re-read and pay attention to tonality.
All in all I felt this story is true to itself but could be expounded on with a fresh set of eyes.
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