Ten winters have slipped away since I last dipped my quill into the well of my fantasy worlds. My dreams became shadows. My mind transformed into a darksome vault, locked tight against the light of inspiration. In my despair, my thoughts wandered through a wasteland of endless heaths, seeing only the ghosts of half-finished chapters and the forsaken magicians I had abandoned to the void.
The ink of my written words ran thin while I was away; I allowed distractions to consume my wits. My fantasy worlds trailed into silence.
Time passed.
But a fortnight ago now, I felt the first tug of the anchor. A single image—a tarnished key nestled in an open book—broke the surface of my thinking. The hellish brain fog lifted. Begone from this wretched place! were my thoughts. I grasped the key, disregarded its metallic bite in my palm, and fled my somber prison.
I trudged over moors and mountains to my castle in the Northern Realms; as a traveler I returned to a ruin with the key as a torch to reawaken the way. I kindled the castle’s cold hearths and swept away the accumulated filth of neglect. The relit lanterns again warmed my study.
My sleep is still heavy with shadow-wrought omens, but for the first time in a decade, the ink flows. The once-abandoned stories resume their breathy whispers. Again, I will transcribe the eager words of the beguiling Enchanters, and mad clockwork wizards.
Next Time: Lita’s Literary Skeletons
Lita Burke 
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