The Skylark Bell - Chapter 15, The Sketchbook

In today’s episode we continue our adventure with Chapter 14 – The Sketchbook – where we get an exclusive, in-depth look into Magpie’s notebook where she records and sketches details from her mysterious visions.

Music: Nightbridge and Visions by Cannelle (www.cannellemusic.com)

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TRANSCRIPT:

Things with Wings Productions, with the support of Whimsical Productions and Collected Sounds presents: Episode 14 of The Skylark Bell.  I am your host Melissa Oliveri.  

In our last episode, Magpie finally came face to face with the mysterious Farfalla, who had a strange reaction upon seeing Magpie. 

In today’s episode we continue our adventure with Chapter 14 – The Sketchbook – where we get an exclusive, in-depth look into Magpie’s notebook where she records and sketches details from her mysterious visions.

Get comfortable… grab a blanket and a warm drink… and let’s get started

Magpie’s sketchbook is bound in dark blue leather with a gold hummingbird etched into the cover. Inside, the pages are completely blank, leaving her the freedom to write or sketch.   The book came in the mail about two years ago, right around Magpie’s birthday. Initially, she thought her mother had bought it for her as a birthday present, but her mother told her that, unfortunately, she couldn’t take credit for the beautiful gift, and the sender has remained a mystery to this day. 

Magpie gently opens her notebook to the first page.

Her scribbled notes describe the vision she had of the woman in the rocking chair, the one that ended up being her Great-Grandmother Elizabeth.  She runs her eyes over the shape of the rocking chair, the woman sitting in it, the green shawl over her shoulders… A short written update scribbled in different coloured pen provides an explanation for the vision and Magpie considers it resolved, but shivers a little none-the-less as she recalls the moment she found the photograph in the dusty, yellowing family photo album that identified the woman in her vision as the Great-Grandmother she’d never met.

Flipping to the next page she sees a sketch outlining several tall buildings, like the downtown area of a large city, with an old-fashioned car parked in front of a large department store. On the sidewalk in front of the store, a woman is standing, holding a little girl by the hand, both of them with their backs turned to the person viewing the sketch and facing the beautifully dressed display windows. Magpie clearly remembers the day she had this vision, it was a few years ago, and she was sitting next to her mother on a city bus headed downtown for the grand opening of a new art gallery. Magpie still has no explanation for that vision, but since it happened in a large city, she can only assume it has nothing to do with Pocket, so she decides to move on.

The next few pages detail visions she had while they were still living in the city, most feel irrelevant to what has been happening recently, but one catches her eye.  It depicts a dream she once had about a young boy, 4 or 5 years old, with wavy black hair and gray eyes, sitting by the side of a desolate country road next to a badly damaged car.  Could it be Lucas?  She has never asked him about his parents and he’s never brought it up, but since he lives with his grandmother, it would make sense that something happened to them – Was it a car accident?  Was he there?  If so, why had she dreamed about it, before even knowing him?!  She makes a mental note to try to find out more and keeps flipping through her notebook. 

A few more sketches of farmland follow the dream about the little boy, some resemble the area around Pocket, like the sketch of a white house with lace-like trim around the windows and a stunning array of colo