No,
really. We interrupt the on-going novel to bring you “Rejoice: A Burden,” a
short story by Elizabeth Inglees-Richards.
Why? Because here’s the blurb—read it, and you’ll understand.
It’s the last game before Christmas
and Arttu, forward for the Nor’easter ice hockey team, is having a hard time
with his asthma. When his fiance is kidnapped from the teams
[sic] Christmas party by Nuuttipukki, a
Holiday spirit trying to punish her for using magic on people without consent,
will he be able to save her, or will Nuuttipukki drag her to hell?
And
to be fair, I already knew from previous research that this is a short story in
a series of them that are about this particular hockey team- which is made up
of werehyenas. (I don’t know if all of them are werehyenas, but I believe so.)
That’s
all I knew going in. The story is supposed to be available in an anthology
called Wicked Slapshots, which I
assume would explain everything if you read all of it. But it’s also sold as a
stand-alone and since when I got an ebook copy of Wicked Slapshots it didn’t actually contain this story, I bought
just the story itself. I have no intentions at this time of reading the rest of
the stories, so I’m going in blind.
It’s
not a very long story, so I’m just going to break it into two parts to talk
about. (There’s no chapters or even scene breaks.)
First,
let me point out that the typo in the book’s blurb (a missing apostrophe) did
not give me a great deal of hope for this self-published work. Fortunately, I
was pleasantly surprised to discover that the grammar is not atrocious. (There
are no page numbers, but in the first 28% of the book, I’ve only found three
errors. I suspect only one of them would have been noticed by an average
reader*.) In fact, the writing is good at the sentence level, better, in fact,
than some things that get published by big houses (looking at you, Fifty Shades).
“Rejoice:
A Burden” is written in the first person, which is not my preferred POV,
personally, but as long as the author sticks with it, it’s probably less
irritating than the perspective jumping of other books (looking at you, Play the Man.)
The
story opens with our main character, Arttu, in church on the last Sunday before
Christmas. He’s apparently supposed to be preparing to play the last hockey
game for his team before Christmas, but his fiancé, Anna, also sometimes known
as Branna for reasons that are not entirely clear to me yet, is singing with
her band at the service so he felt that was more important. This band plays
“mostly loud versions of traditional music” and is of the genre “Celtic Punk”
(7%). First, Celtic punk sounds totally like something I’d listen to, although
perhaps more when I was younger. But second, “louder versions”? They just take
ordinary songs and, what, scream them? That sounds much less interesting.
Also,
I think (Br)Anna might be a werecrow? But I’m not sure?
Probably not this kind of werecrow
What
I do know is that her family is apparently super Catholic and thus ignores “the
magic that ran in their veins”, unlike Arttu who introduced (Br)Anna to magic
in the real world.
So
if they’re super Catholic, they’d be at mass, I assume, although the text
doesn’t call it that. I fact checked this in roughly 60 seconds by texting a
friend who, although not Catholic any more, did grow up Catholic including many
years of Catholic school. (You can still tell, too, since she has the most
amazingly precise handwriting.) Her response?
Uh…Catholic churches would never,
ever have a secular band of any type play during Mass. Especially during the
last Sunday of Advent, since the whole of Advent is kind of a big deal. So…
just… no.
(We
texted, so that’s word for word. Thank you Ali!) She said they might play
before or after a service, but not during. I double checked and while the text
is very clear on the church being full of pine and holly, it’s lacking on some
other details, like anything else you’d find in a Catholic church. Except it
does specifically mention that the choir is there, too (not the band, the
church’s “normal choir” (10%)), so I’m thinking this is supposed to be an
ordinary Advent service. But I’m also
assuming that the author has never attended a Catholic mass and is basically
describing one that’s some flavor of protestant.
I
hope that the hockey in this text is more believable than the church service.
(And yes, I know I’m getting bothered
about a detail in a book about werehyenas, but the only way that paranormal
books work, in my opinion, is if all the other details work properly, too.)
At
any rate, Arttu just flew back from a game in Georgia (back to where, I’m not
sure. Somewhere in New England) and he’s tired and is talking with (Br)Anna’s
grandmother during the music, which is, in my opinion, frankly rude. He’s all
“No! I won’t go home and nap until I hear her sing!” and then proceeds to gab
through the song? Pfft.
During
this conversation, the grandmother reveals that she knows that Arttu isn’t
Christian—apparently this was something that the couple had decided not to
share with (Br)Anna’s super-Catholic family. That strikes me as odd. I mean, I
get not making a big deal out of it, not proselytizing about Arttu’s belief in
“gods that live in the forest” (13%), and doing one’s best to keep her family
from evangelizing at him, but to not reveal it seems deceitful.
So
let’s talk about this “Celtic Punk”/”loud versions of traditional music” band….
(Br)Anna wears a pink dress and the four men wear purple ties, for reasons that
are apparently important but not important enough for Arttu to remember. They
begin with the song “Gaudete” and the text includes the first two lines:
Gaudete,
gaudete! Christus est natus
Ex
Maria virgine, gaudete!
(Translation:
Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary, rejoice!)
This
is actually a piece of music I know as done by the band Steeleye Span, so now
it’s stuck in my head. At least it’s seasonally appropriate. You can hear the
Steeleye version here. It even has four men and a woman singing it.
After that, the words were repeated
with Branna’s voice lifted and falling and soaring over the others like a bird.
She told me that this song about rejoicing at Christmas was called a burden. I
remembered because I found it cool in an ironic sort of way. (10%)
That
would actually not be the correct definition
of the term “burden” – even ironically. A burden in music is a repeated
refrain.** “Gaudete” has a burden, in
other words, but it isn’t a burden.
I
frown at this. I frown a lot at this. If you’re going to use “Rejoice: A
Burden” as your story’s title, get the
definition right. Harrumph! I need to move to the next point because it’s
important, but you’re on notice, story.
It
turns out that (Br)Anna’s singing is magic. When she sings, her voice projects
her will. So when she’s singing that everyone should rejoice, everyone in the
church who hears her is commanded to, well, be happy. The text points out that
this is against the belief of modern pagans—forcing your will on someone
else—but that (Br)Anna didn’t grow up pagan (super-Catholic, in fact!), and
that (Br)Anna thought of it as more a “suggestion” than a command.
I wished she wouldn’t blanket a crowd
with whatever emotion she thought they should feel, but I loved her and
wouldn’t force her to stop doing something she thought of as harmless
(13%).
Arttu,
I’m side-eyeing you so hard right now. There are tons of things that someone
can do that’s harmful (to themselves or others) that they might think of as
“harmless” and it’s because you love
someone that you should convince them to stop if you can. And normally I’m
thinking about things like smoking, or video-game addiction, things that only
harm the user. (Br)Anna is essentially mind-controlling anyone who hears her
and I don’t care that she points out later that she’s not “going out there and
becoming some sort of rock star” (19%). Something isn’t really less wrong just
because it’s on a smaller scale. I mean, sure, I guess if you’re going to get
technical it’s slightly more ethical
to mind-control a church full of people instead of an arena full of people, but
only in the same way that a single murder is more ethical than mass murder.
Arttu
leaves before the church service is over so that he can take his pre-game nap.
(Br)Anna joins him at home. One thing I didn’t mention in the first part is
that Arttu has terrible allergies three times a year (“fall, spring blooming
and right at Christmas” 7%). Not only was he tired from playing/flying when he
gets to church, he’s also allergic to pine, holly, flowers, and incense, all of
which cover the church and get to him despite his preemptive antihistamine use.
So when (Br)Anna comes home he’s sneezing and then gets a nosebleed. (This? This is all very familiar to me. I
don’t know that anyone can actually be allergic to holly, but all the rest I
believe. And my own allergies tend to act up at the same times that Arttu’s do,
except that as a kid that essentially meant all the time periods ran together
and made me sick from October until May. I wonder if werehyenas, if indeed
Arttu is a werehyena, can get allergy shots? That’s what helped me.)
(Br)Anna
gives him a face massage and tells him to use his inhaler before the game,
which Arttu thinks is odd as he hasn’t had an asthma attack since September.
…when I’d stood in the dusty ruins of
our arena. I wasn’t the only one either. Before that, my last attack had been
over two years ago (22%)
First,
if it’s December and his last asthma attack was September, I would think that
yeah, he’d keep his inhaler around; it hasn’t been years since the last attack. Second, an editor would have suggested
an author clarify what in the world “I wasn’t the only one either” means. He
wasn’t the only one having an asthma attack in the dusty ruins? What kind of a
hockey team is this? Are werehyenas (if indeed Arttu is one) particularly prone
to asthma? I mean, breathing in dusty ruins doesn’t sound healthy, admittedly,
but for everyone to have asthma attacks seems unlikely. If it’s in reference to
not being the only one standing there, well, so what? That’s irrelevant to this
particular bit of description.
I
am now totally picturing werehyenas in hyena form but in hockey gear all having
asthma attacks in the “dusty ruins of [their] arena” because of course I am.
So
let’s talk about what the text has revealed
thus far about this hockey team, which isn’t much. The team is the Nahant
Nor’easters and they play in the Pan-Am Hockey League. (Before you go googling,
let me save you the trouble. There’s no such thing. The closest you’ll find is
the Pan-Am Hockey Federation, which is field hockey.) Clearly it’s meant to be
a pretty big league, since the team flies to other team’s arenas for games.
(Which the NHL does as well, of course, but which the next biggest league, the
AHL, does not. Those players use busses.) Arttu also describes the Pan-Am has
having “luxury” (22%) but it’s unclear as to what that’s to mean.
The
Nor’easters have been playing in a “community arena” until the league decides
what to do—what with something having caused their previous arena to be left in
“dusty ruins”. I’m sure another story about the Nor’easters would explain what
caused this destruction, but this text has not so far. Arttu is stressed that
the league might move the team or fold it and portion players off to other
teams, which is certainly logical and which would definitely be stressful.
Arttu
gets to the rink and hangs out with the goalie, Vále, “a fellow Finn with a
Swedish first name,” his best friend who is also a werewolf and named after
Loki. I’m beginning to think the werehyenas are a myth.
Vále beat me to the rink and I found
him pacing around in the full body long underwear that we all wore under our
pads and uniform. (25%)
This
team is weird, man. Full body long underwear? I’m totally picturing those red
flannel jobs with the footies and buttflaps.
Yes,
hockey players were clothes under their pads and uniforms and not, like,
dockers and a polo shirt. But if you watch interviews with players after games
(even on tv I mean, the NHLers) they all wear different things. Often it’s a
t-shirt. Chris Higgins (of the Vancouver Canucks) apparently prefers to not
wear anything under his pads/jersey. There is proof, and if you like to see
very good abs, click here. That’s my other Christmas present to you.
;)
Other
players were compression shirts and pants. Some wear pants specifically made
for hockey that have these Velcro sections where you can hook your hockey socks
although I’ll be honest here that I’m not sure how that works with the kind of
hockey socks that NHLers wear, which are made of jersey material instead of
knits.
My
point is, the undergarments aren’t standard issue. And as far as I know, no one
wears long underwear—which would be way too warm—and none of the options are a
grownup onesie. I mean, as Ali asks, how would they fit the footie part
in the skates?
The
werewolf goalie tells Arrtu to use his inhaler because apparently he can hear
our asthmatic’s breath even though he himself at the moment isn’t feeling a
problem. Apparently using the inhaler and giving it to a trainer is a good
idea, however, since during this, the only game in the story, Arttu gets
elbowed and ends up unable to breath. He gets off-ice and heads for the locker room,
where a trainer—despite having his
inhaler—gives him a “cup the size of a large shot glass” (31%).
The heat spread through me as fast as
the taste of liquorish and wormwood.
“Absinthe?” I gasped, but I could feel
that my lungs were starting to work again.
“No,” the trainer told me. “Well,
yes, but only partly. It’s a family recipe” (31%).
Um.
First, yes, “liquorish.”
That
word does not mean what the author
thinks. First, I suspect it’s supposed to be “licorice” which is something you
can actually, y’know, taste. On the other hand, it could be tasting sort of
like liquor, so, liquor-ish, I guess, except that’s not a word. Liquorish is a word, but it means lecherous, and,
in later use, eager for food or alcohol. Either way? Not something that can be
tasted.
Second,
what the hell, trainer? Giving booze to a player during a game? (He gets this
same concoction during every intermission to the point of feeling it by game’s
end). That seems like a terrible idea and also not something that would happen.
At
any rate, the game ends by going to the shoot-out but the Nor’easters win
because their goalie is a werewolf and therefore impossible to beat as long as
he can see the puck.
This
story makes me grumpy. Join me next time when we head to the team party.
------------------------
*Average
here probably means something closer to “well-adjusted” and is not meant to be
a negative. Keep in mind that I have spent many years teaching composition and proofreading for an ebook company.
I’m trained to see typos and grammar errors. And I did find a lot more of them
in the second half of the book, but they’re all typo type things instead of
truly atrocious grammar. It’s still annoying, but at least everything is understandable.
My favorite is that apparently napping with someone else in the car is “next to
imposable” (34%).
**It
can also be the bass sound of an instrument that has a drone, like bagpipes.
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