Stories in Chronological Order
Mother Tongue, part 1 (Lisa 1962)
Father has misgivings when 7 year old Vincent forms an instantaneous bond with a traumatized little girl, whom he and Devin have found Above and brought Below.
Exile, part 1: Yearning (Lisa 1971) ORIGINAL VERSION
This was the original version, conceived in response to a batbland.com challenge called After Arabesque: “what was going through Lisa’s mind after she left the tunnels that night?” (Shorter, less personal background on Lisa than version below)
———————————————————————————————-
Exile, part 1: Yearning (Lisa 1971)
Inseparable, Lisa and Vincent share an extraordinary bond not understood by anyone around them. When the teens begin to come of age, Father’s mistrust of Lisa combines with his well-intentioned protectiveness toward Vincent to destroy their love.
Exile, part 2: Love and Fate (Lisa 1971)
Once again an orphan, banished from the only home and only family she has ever known, and unable to conceive of life without her soulmate, a shattered Lisa makes a desperate, fateful decision. [author working to finish parts 3, 4, 5, and 6]
(Work in progress! Please check back often as I am expanding it daily.) Brooding on the past, Father is haunted by the knowledge that, due to his deep mistrust of Lisa combined with his protectiveness toward Vincent, he may have misunderstood the events of one pivotal night and inadvertently destroyed an extraordinary love– and the two young lives wrapped up in it.
ORIGINAL VERSION: Breath of Life (April 12, 1987)
25 years after bringing child Lisa to the Tunnels, once again Vincent alarms Father by bringing home a beautiful wounded creature whose life he holds in his hands. (Original version; ends on different slant than CABB micro-fic version below.)
——————————————————————————————-
Breath of Life (April 12, 1987)
Vincent never told Catherine that the night he found her dying in the park, her heart stopped while still some distance from Father’s healing hands. But Death and Vincent understand one another. (CABB 1,000 word micro-fiction version.)
The Quality of Mercy (Baby Rabbit)
Takes place April 13, 1987, just a few hours after Vincent has discovered the gravely injured Catherine in Central Park and brought her to the tunnels into a very worried Father’s care. Story originally conceived in response to a batbland.com challenge: a nighttime photo of a rabbit, w/no accompanying text. I used the prompt as an opportunity to take yet another run at my ongoing series of interlocking stories that explore the period of time skipped over in the pilot– that (72 hours? week?) after Father did his best to address her injuries, and before Catherine regained consciousness– especially in terms of the ripple effects on the Tunnel community.
The Thing I Came For (original)
[Original version, June 2017] Takes place April 14 1987, two nights after Vincent has found Catherine in the park and brought her below, but must accept a terrible bargain with Death. First conceived in response to a batbland.com challenge (a photo of an anxious little girl, w/no accompanying text), I used the prompt as an opportunity to take another run at my series of interlocking stories that explore the period of time skipped over in the pilot– that (72 hours? week?) after Father did his best to address her injuries, and before Catherine regained consciousness– especially in terms of the ripple effects on the Tunnel community.
[Alternate version of the above story, 2/12/18; experiments with an idea I’m playing with re: the origins of The Bond.] As in original version, takes place April 14 1987, two nights after Vincent has found Catherine in the park and brought her below, but must accept a terrible bargain with Death.
———————————————————————–
Conceived in response to batbland.com’s June 2016 challenge. Rules: story had to begin on a line from opening sentence of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; had to end on “Not exactly…” and somewhere in between had to feature the line “Vincent rolled his eyes.”
Return from Exile: The Last Moment Before (Lisa 1989)
Vincent’s first love, Lisa, briefly in New York for a role and deeply troubled, is surprised backstage by a visit from Catherine on Vincent’s behalf.
*This is a continuation of my series of deep dives into the Arabesque episode. When I came across the very first version of the script I was stunned to discover my instincts were dead-on, re: what the original writer (an actress as it turned out) had originally intended this episode to reveal. The version of the script that ended up on the screen reduced Lisa to a stereotype, and her visibly profound relationship with Vincent to a lifeless and harmful cliche which it’s my intent to rectify.
———————————————————————————————–
A Voice of Heaven/Madonna and Child (Helena 1988, NYC)
(Vincent/Catherine/new character Helena, 1988)
Originally written as Ch. 4 of WFOL2014 Classic round-robin. Though she and her son remain unaware of one another in this chapter, I introduce Vincent’s mother (more about her and the love of her life, Vincent’s father, in Solace: Part 1 below.)
Moving between World War II Poland and 21st century New York City– and between Heaven and earth– Vincent’s parents’ tragic history unfolds, as does the mystical Bond between them, a bond that transcends even death– and one that they share with their extraordinary son; it is this Bond between the three that will allow Vincent’s mother to at last, near the end of her life, set the necessary events in motion to find her son. (author working hard on multi-part completion)
(S3) (Vincent, new character Ynadin)
Now in middle age, Vincent takes a leap of faith to embrace an entirely new chapter in his life when a mysterious aristocrat– who seems to know everything about him– sends an unusual ship to bring him across the world so that he might– in her words– at last meet ‘another of his kind.’
(Work in progress) As Vincent looks on, Lisa and Helena– Vincent’s mother, a character I invented and introduced way back in ‘A Voice of Heaven’ and continued in ‘Solace’ (see above in index)– somewhat transform Mary with a *very* different, and very alluring, look for a blind date. Warning: S3
Takes place in approximately 2016. I started this story years ago back when every BatB fan fiction writer seemed to be presenting a “Lisa Dies, And About Damned Time, Good Riddance!” type of story; but it was too painful to finish and I stopped when I realized I had a lot to say about her life, both in the tunnels and out in the world, before I could think of tackling her death. Then I realized I should use Winterfest2018 as an opportunity to exhume this long-abandoned draft as a writing exercise. Note: this story, like all of my stories, is a work-in-progress and will be evolving.