Rachel Bostwick

Her Betrayer

July 11, 2014 by Rachel Bostwick

She was alone. Utterly alone.

She shook her head. Damp flew off her face, bounced off the white walls all around her. Where was she?

A hot ball of hatred dropped into her gut. Betrayal.

She took a deep breath and looked around. She had tried and failed to scale the walls. They were slick, soaking wet, and towered four times above her height.

Without assistance she’d never get out of here. No one was coming for her. No one. Except perhaps the one who’d dropped her here to begin with.

Her betrayer.

Her extremities shook. In her mind, she saw him. Relived his betrayal again and again. The torture. The cold. The water. The drowning. The agony. Even now, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. As soon as that venomous liquid reached her chest, she had screamed, high pitched wails heaving from her chest, begging for mercy, but none came.

The man who brought her here was not the man she had loved. He was not merciful. He was relentless.

“It’s for your own good,” his voice had vibrated, rough and dominant against her ear. She shuddered remembering the strong stroke of his fingers against her dripping hair. “It will be over soon, my love.”

Bile rose in her throat at the memory. “Why?” she screamed. “Why have you done this to me? Leave me alone!” She had to escape. She scrambled to the wall again, tried to scale the smooth, white surface. She tumbled down again, her head banging up and down against the slick floor.

After he had broken her will, after she had cried over and again, he’d wrapped his arms around her and pressed her into his chest. He made sounds, protective sounds, possessive sounds, even laughter. She struggled to break free, raked her nails into his skin, but he only laughed again.

Then he dumped her, shivering and wet onto the smooth, white floor.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered.

How long had it been now? A month? A year?

She shrank against the floor. What was left to live for, now? If he, her protector, the man she thought she loved, could do this to her, then what was left for her?

At the end of the room, a black hole marred the surface of the smooth white floor. A drop of water trembled and fell from a terrible apparatus above the room; plummeted into that darkness.

Muscles aching, she dragged her limp body across the floor, pace by pace, her joints straining, and peered down into that hole. Nothing but black. Dank whiffs of mildew and rotting human hair wafted up from the deep. Who else had he done this to? What would happen to her now?

She looked up and saw her twisted reflection in the shining steel that arced above her. Her bright green eyes were dull with sorrow.

If a silver grate, dotted by drops of filthy water, had not guarded the gaping mouth of the dark, she would have taken control of her fate, cast herself into that bleak night and been done with her miserable life. Instead she dropped her face onto the putrid metal and inhaled the welcome scent of death.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please just take me away now. Please let me go…”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

Her heart stilled. Her betrayer had returned. His voice reverberated against the walls. What fresh hell did he have for her now…?

A warm, rough blanket wrapped around her quivering flesh. Strong arms pulled her up and out.

“You poor darling.” He touched his face to her nose and his big brown eyes met hers. “You’ll be dry soon. I know you hate baths, but we can’t let those nasty fleas eat the little kitty alive, can we?” He stroked his fingernails against her scalp, then gently pressed his lips to the top of her head.

Maybe she could forgive him. Maybe.

With quiet dignity, she brushed her whiskers against his face and began to purr.

Lux and the Messenger (excerpt from The Seventh Judge)

July 10, 2014 by Rachel Bostwick

“Bite of jerky?” Lux ripped off a strip, plump with salt and juice, and held it out to the messenger. “You smell that? That’s good jerky.”
The messenger took a polite whiff and nodded. “Yes, sir. No, thank you.”
“I have a funny question for you, Eleazar. I’ve never seen any of you eat. Can you?”
“We eat sunlight and drink oxygen, sir. We rest once a week and our systems are highly efficient. We have no need for further sustenance.”
“Yeah, I read the pamphlet, Eleazar. That’s not what I want to know.”
“We have no pamphlet, sir. None were printed for the MSNGR3000. Nor an instruction manual of any kind.”
“It’s a metaphor, Eleazar. Nobody has pamphlets anymore. There aren’t too many manuals left these days, either. I just meant, everybody knows what you told me.”
“Well, what did you want to know, sir?”
“Are you equipped with the physical ability to process what humans consider to be food and drink?”
“An unusual question, sir.”
“Well, not that unusual.” Lux chuckled. “I caught one of your boys taking a leak off the bridge last night.”
The messenger laughed. “That was Job, sir. He is curious about human experiences. Yes, we are able to process the pleasures and the pains of human digestion.”
“And human humor, apparently.”
“We find things funny to a degree. We share the humor of our creator.”
“What about reproduction?”
The messenger shot Lux a penetrating look. “You are asking me if we are able to experience the act of reproduction, though we are not human?”
“That’s what I want to know. Job had a jangle. I was curious if it was a working part.”
Eleazar nodded slowly. “We are equipped with the ability to feel apparently random chemical attraction to human females. The chemicals serve as a motivational stimulus as well as positive reinforcement for interaction. We possess the physiological apparatus normally used for human reproduction, at least from an external perspective. We appear to feel a detailed facsimile of the joy and the sadness of the desire for human pairing. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Yes,” Lux said. “And also can you… can you do it?”
“Sir?”
“Can you, you know? Can you do it?” Lux laughed.
Eleazer shook his head. If Lux didn’t know better, he would’ve said the robot was blushing. “I can’t answer that question from personal experience, sir. The sadness seems to outweigh the joy. And I have too much work to do to explore it otherwise.”
“You and me, both, Eleazar. Looks like we might be a bad influence on you. Come on, I want to have a look at this bridge before we do the lightning rods. Sound all right?”
“I will assist you as directed, sir.”
Lux stepped toward the bridge. Gooseflesh crawled up his arm. “There’s a disturbing odor here, Eleazar. Can you smell it?”
“Yes, sir, I am able to do so. The messengers are also in possession of superior olfactory senses.”
“I know that. I mean do you currently smell a disturbing… something?”
“I detect freshly rotting flesh, if that is what you mean. The odor has become increasingly apparent for the last half hour. I believe we are approaching the source.”
“Of course it’s what I mean! Why didn’t you say something?”
“I have developed a tolerance for it over the last few decades, sir. The smell raises no alarms.”
“Let’s go see what it is. Could be human.”
“It is human, sir.”
Lux stopped in his tracks. “And that doesn’t raise any red flags?”
The messenger stared at him. “I experienced the slow decay of seven and a half billion humans following the plague. The death of a single human does not trigger any unusual alarm.”
“Well, if you are able to refresh your alarm patterns, you might want to do so. For now, at least, a human decaying out in the open is a cause for concern. “Come on, let’s have a look.”

Sarah Elizabeth Jones, Time Traveler

July 6, 2014 by Rachel Bostwick

Teaser for a serial story.

“Just tell me, Matthew. I’m not in the mood for guessing games.”
He scooched closer on the mat. He looked up at me, his honey-colored hair tucked behind his ears and his warm brown eyes hidden behind his thick round spectacles. “You’d never guess anyway. In the year 2230, there’s a big book revival. The wealthy start going bonkers for just plain old written books. They start re-reading all the classics. It’s mad and beautiful. Anyway, they find this world. It’s not exactly habitable, but they build domes there with giant VR systems.”
“Virtual reality?”
“No, Vegas roulette. Yes, virtual reality. Let me finish my story.”
“Go on, then.”
“They create this beautiful hub world full of doors, and each door is a portal to the worlds of all the great stories of all time. Alice’s Wonderland, of course. The Wizarding world. Middle Earth. You can spend a week at the half-blood camp or trip down the yellow brick road. Whatever you like. Whatever you love. How does that sounds for an eighteenth birthday adventure?”
My smile grew until I was sure it reached my ears. “Pretty damn promising, Professor.”

How to Make Movie Theater Popcorn at Home

June 16, 2014 by Rachel Bostwick

So the Chief and I love popcorn, and we find it’s a very affordable snack for our big family. But we have always hankered after that magical, salty-buttery taste that movie theater popcorn has. There are a few factors that go into making the very best movie theater popcorn.

First Variable: What Kind of Popper Should I Use

The healthiest popcorn is made in an air popper They are cheap and very easy to use, and I used one for years. They look like this:

…and you dump a handful of kernels into the slot, put a bowl in front of the chute, plug it in, and watch the magic. They are a lot of fun. Add a little salt and they are the cheapest way to make popcorn, too.

Does the scoopy thingy up top work to melt butter? Thank you for asking. It does not.

Another fun way to make popcorn is in a Whirley Pop Popcorn maker. They sit on a stove eye, you dump a little butter in, and churn the crank to stir the kernels. This is fairly cheap and it can make delicious movie theater popcorn. It is also a LOT of work.

For $10 more, I prefer this kind:

The Stir Crazy

The Stir Crazy takes oil in its base and will stir your popcorn for you. Totally worth the extra ten bucks.

You can also just use oil in a sauce pan and stir it constantly, but for me the guess work of getting it the right temperature and the constant stirring would have me making popcorn less.

Second Variable: What Kind of Oil to Use?

First, let me save you some heartache. Do not use butter or margarine in your popcorn maker. Movie theaters do not make it that way, and if you do, you can burn out your popcorn maker. Yep, I’m saying that from experience.

You can use any good vegetable oil for your popcorn, but we have had a slightly better experience with coconut oil. Coconut oil doesn’t lend any taste to the popcorn. It is light and clear. For our ideal popcorn, we use two tablespoons of solid coconut oil.

When we run out of coconut oil, we use canola oil.

Last Variable: Seasoning (Movie Theater Popcorn, the secret ingredient)

In our research, we discovered that there is a salt you can buy for popcorn that makes it taste exactly like movie theater popcorn. The salt is called Flavacol. You can buy Flavacol right off Amazon, or you can look for it at your local restaurant supply store. For us it was a little cheaper locally.

The process:

We melt two tablespoons of coconut oil in our popcorn popper.

Once the oil is hot, we add a cup of kernels to the popper – we don’t have a favorite kind of kernels right now. We’re just buying cheap store brand corn. I’ll update this later if that changes.

Sprinkle 1-2 teaspoons of Flavacol right over the kernels.

Wait for your corn to pop.

If you love movie theater popcorn, you will never go back to cooking it any other way. Enjoy!

p.s. There is also a glaze you can buy to make kettle corn at home. It cooks right in the machine just like the Flavacol. The kids love it!

p.p.s. There are affiliate links to Amazon in this article. Thank you for your support!

How I Feel About Facebook, Part 2

June 1, 2014 by Rachel Bostwick

Originally published in 2012

Today my mother left sleepy central PA to visit her friends in Bangladesh. If you don’t know where that is, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. But they make a lot of our clothing. Now that I told you that, you will start to notice more and more of your clothing labels … “Made in Bangladesh.” I apologize in advance for that.

I can never remember things like dates and times so I was puzzling over whether she left today or next Saturday. In other words, we didn’t say goodbye. But it was cool, because she sent me a Facebook message from Chicago O’Hare telling me about the people around her and about how she got bumped up to first class for the 13 hour portion of her flight, which is pretty awesome. And I know, it’s not the same as being in the same room, so people say we are becoming disconnected as a society. But I know what O’Hare looks like, I’ve been there a few times myself, and I know what it feels like to fly, and I know what my Mom looks like, from her smile and the texture of her skin, and if I hear her coughing in a restaurant I already know that it’s her even if I didn’t know she was there, because, you know, she’s my mother. So, really, it’s not that big of a deal that she’s not here, because I got to peer into the things that I don’t know, like what she’s thinking and how she’s feeling right this second. And if it weren’t for the bizarre interconnectedness that Facebook brought us, it wouldn’t be there at all, it would just be, oh, I guess Mom did leave yesterday, because there aren’t any posts on her wall and my siblings are a bit more wild than usual.

And, really, that’s just magic.

Part 1

How I Feel About Facebook, Part 1

May 31, 2014 by Rachel Bostwick

This Was Original Posted on my personal blog in March 2011. I still feel this way and I want to expand on it a bit more later.

A lot of people don’t like Facebook. And I respect that. I see all the drama. And I understand people are worried about their privacy. But I love Facebook – I do. And here’s why. If it weren’t for Facebook:

I would not have spent four or so hours last night talk to my sister about life, being a woman, and of course, God.

I would not have had a wonderful conversation with my dear kindred spirit friend from high school about children and Amazon and teethers (and tack onto that ALL THE OTHER conversations we have had about children and marriage and crafting etc etc etc) (That’s her with her baby)

I would not be sending photos of my children to my mother five minutes after they are taken so that even when I don’t get to see her all the time because life refuses to leave any spots open, at least she can see what my children look like every day.

I would not have, earlier this year, received a wonderful package of books in the mail for my children, from my friend’s mom… who is now also my friend.

I would not have, last summer, been able to both receive and deliver an apology for something that happened in high school that, despite being long past, somehow made even the present just that much better.

I probably would barely be aware of the fact that my second cousin had a beautiful baby girl, let alone be able to enjoy weekly photos and in-progress pictures of the beautiful nursery.

I would not currently be working with one of the loveliest mission-focused entrepreneurs in Central Pa.

I do not play games on Facebook. It’s not that I don’t like them. I liked them too much, so I mercilessly deleted all of them. For me, Facebook is for connecting with people, not for passing time. I have PLENTY to do without trying to make the time pass. I do not do quizzes on Facebook. I like those, too, but I don’t need them to tell me who I am or who my true love is or whether or not I am 100% sexy today (We’re holding at 85% today, thank you for asking). For me, Facebook was and is a way to find and stay connected with those people who are in different geographical locations, but I still want to be very close to my heart. And for that, I am grateful to be alive in 2011.

Part 2