A to Z Challenge 2025 - The Ripped Blade: “Poke Fun At”

Priscilla Foster had become the butt of the joke a long time ago. There are people out there who feel as if the entire world conspires against them. Most of them are simply delusional, some literally mentally impaired in some way. Priscilla had been given the evidence basically her whole life.

The man who became known as Tyler Salazar, one of the kidnapping victims from two decades earlier, the same point at which her son had been murdered, the ugly custody battle that had forever labeled her the mother-in-law, the first time anyone associated her with Kate Meadows, the grandchild who would end up herself murdered…

No one listened to Priscilla about Salazar. That was because no one knew who Salazar really was. A conman, who had first come to Berlin in another of his many scams. Who had seduced her mother. Who was in fact her biological father. 

In those days such things were covered up. No one wanted the scandal. No one could’ve known, then, how these things would play out. So much worse. So much infinitely worse.

When Salazar ended up dead, years later, she’d known. He’d killed her son. Everyone would assume she’d killed Salazar. No one ever bothered to find out the truth. The truth doesn’t matter. It’s always the best story. She didn’t know much about what had happened, between Salazar, Dixon, Hargraves, Shelton. Some kind of cult, maybe. Partners in crime, at any rate. Ended badly. Continued in that direction until it got worse. She didn’t care which one had done it, had killed Salazar. Maybe some other pathetic associate. But no one else did, either. They assumed it was her. She’d made too much fuss already. 

So they locked her up. Put on a sham trial. In those days, so much easier. Not as much burden of evidence. Proof by way of hearsay. 

And now, all these years later, she heard…everything. There was actual support for her. Not everyone bought into the narrative. Easier to do that, when you were removed from the chatter in the community. Folks from around the state, who had never stepped foot in Berlin, they looked at the evidence and didn’t see how Priscilla fit in it. But they had no authority. And the authorities didn’t care.

Kate’s mother died of cancer. But she died of a broken heart. She’d never believed what they said about Priscilla. They’d had a good relationship. The custody battle another drama created by the system, by lawyers. But all of it had taken a toll on Kate, and no one had been paying attention. Priscilla saw, but she was powerless. Behind prison bars. 

And then it happened again. She blamed Salazar even though it was irrational. But she was beyond reason. That’s what the life she’d been given will do to you.

A to Z Challenge 2025 - The Ripped Blade: “Off One’s Base”

Wilmut Snee had lived all his life in Berlin, and came from stock that could say the same for more than a century behind him, his father, his grandfather, and at least his great-grandfather…He was no genealogist, but he knew this mostly since he lived in the same house the family had occupied for generations, had built themselves. This is to say, his roots ran deep in this town.

He knew all about the Meadows business. It had become the talk of the diner he visited every morning. He sipped at his coffee and they all sat about, saying much the same thing about it, each day, the way these things tend to go. What a sordid affair. None of them had been too shocked about it. Meadows and her whole family had lived such desperate lives already, had been the subject of gossip since before Kate Meadows had ever been born. The poor girl had always been doomed to a bad end. Magnets for trouble. 

Truth was, Wilmut might’ve helped prevent all this, years ago, if only he’d had the courage. Tommy Bishop’s dad had worked under him at the bait shop for years, until the day he’d had to be fired. Nothing could be proven, and maybe it was just a case of looking for a scapegoat, but it had fallen to Tommy’s old man, and that had been the start of its own desperate spiral, had set Tommy on the wrong foot before he was even born, destined to be the source of cautious advice the likes of Kate would just ignore. 

No, Wilmut didn’t know Tommy Bishop himself, but he knew the type, and as these things tend to go, he assumed he knew the man, and never so much as bothered to find out if there was a difference. That’s how these things go.

Of course he’d killed Kate. Everyone knew that. Anyone who said any different was crazy. That’s what they said at the diner. 

Wilmut was content in such conclusions. 

A to Z Challenge 2025 - The Ripped Blade: “No Ifs, Ands, or Buts”

Haley Hewitt was the director chosen for the film. Haley had broken through with indy films set in Maine. She herself was from Maine, from Westbrook, which for all intents and purposes is a part of the Portland community, but far enough away that Haley could claim her independence, which she’d very much enjoyed for much of her life, up to and including her first films, which made the rounds of the festival circuits, and so were well-known by critics but otherwise unknown by the general public, until she could start casting name actors. Then she was recruited by Disney to helm the live action version of The Sword in the Stone, but that was before the studio had really gotten into the swing of the idea, and there had already been enough King Arthur flicks for a generation apathetic to the idea in the first place, so Haley’s career necessarily came full circle…

She hadn’t followed the Kate Meadows story, too busy in her film work and community to have noticed, but the very minute the announcement had been made, Haley became inundated with requests for her opinion. She opted to be professional. She talked about the production, about the actor she was working with again who’d appeared in a few of those early films. She talked about how happy she was with how things were coming together.

Truthfully, she really didn’t have a take on it. She didn’t care. She liked the script. She’d read the book. And that was it. When the film was released, she continued with all her standard points on the press tour, at the premiere. She recorded a commentary track for the DVD, and anyone who had heard her talk about it before heard much the same thing. She liked the work that had been done. She particularly liked the cinematography, which she always felt never got near the amount of attention it should.

In short, Haley didn’t care about Kate Meadows. The movie made a decent amount at the box office. It allowed her to keep working. That was all.

A to Z Challenge 2025 - The Ripped Blade: “Mountain Out of a Molehill”

Jacqueline Malcolm had written Oscar-winning screenplays. Past tense, as it had, admittedly, been a while. A decade or so, really. Early in the millennium, sure, but the century was no longer quite so young. It was 2013, and the world no longer belonged to the likes of Jacqueline.

She took Marty’s call. She would’ve anyway, of course, but in her desperation, and knowing Marty, which everyone in Tinseltown did, she knew exactly what he was thinking, and in the seconds it took to hear his voice, after she picked up, she had already been drafting a script in her head. She listened as he explained his vision, but she could already see hers.

She didn’t much care about Kate Meadows. Provincial. If someone had written a novel, and some actress, or Oprah, had recommended it in their book club, it would’ve been a different story, of course. That was a win for the culture. Jacqueline kept his finger on the pulse. Important, in this business. “Important to the culture” was the wave of the future, especially if Hollywood said so.

She didn’t like Marty’s take, but there was no way she was going to tell him that. She worked on two separate drafts, one that followed his ideas, and the other that followed hers.

Jacqueline’s story revolved around the sword. She had no idea why. She called it the ripped blade, exactly as the media had it, exactly as, or so she’d heard, some mystery writer had called theirs. Competitor. She didn’t worry about it. Marty could iron out the details.

Why it was her subject was very much original to Jacqueline. Somewhere she’d read about Ursula Shelton having once been in possession of the sword. In Jacqueline’s mind the thing was cursed. Kate Meadows was cursed. She had a private investigator straight out of classic film noir pursuing it. 

In the end, like The Maltese Falcon, the sword is found, but it offers no real answers. Buried, in this instance, in Kate’s heart (creative license). But a great visual. The stuff dreams are made of, you might say…

But she couldn’t. That one had already been used, alas.

A to Z Challenge 2025 - The Ripped Blade: “Lickety Split”

Marty Nichols really wanted the movie called Lickety Split. A lot of people tried arguing such a decision would be in incredibly poor taste. Marty didn’t particularly care. He was a movie producer. He was used to getting it his own way.

Smaller production companies, from in-state, had tried to claim the rights. Marty scoffed at the very idea. This was a national story, now. People all over the country had been riveted to news broadcasts, to their phones, concerning poor Kate Meadows. She’d filled endless copy in the tabloids, in the weekly magazines, in the papers, where her name hadn’t left the top of the front page since it first appeared, at least in the local ones.

In short, Kate had become a household name. License to print money. Cable networks had already filmed shitty TV movies, several streaming services. 

Marty had a vision. In recent decades the most reliable source of box office returns had been massive, corporate-owned IPs. Bookstores had shelves filled with Kate Meadows books, too, eventually. That one author who seemed to have a new book cowritten every week just released. He had one, too. Marty saw Kate as a commodity, like anything else. He knew at least one young actress with just the right amount of sex appeal to sell the tragedy in all the right ways, young actors maybe not so much with name recognition but talent enough to seduce poor Kate in celluloid. 

He didn’t have an opinion of what’d happened. He didn’t care. He saw it as a timeless, classic piece of Americana, another dream lost in a life cut too short. Out in the wilderness. Like all the best stories.

In his mind, Marty saw Bishop hopping aboard his fishing boat and setting out of Casco Bay, Malkovich hopping into his Outback and speeding toward Portsmouth.

Lickety split. Bad luck, Kate…

A to Z Challenge 2025 - The Ripped Blade: “Know the Ropes”

Wendy Webster was a friend of the family.

That was how she knew all about the so-called “ripped blade.” The sword had been in and out of the family for generations, in and out of pawn shops, up and down the coastline, whipped about like a Nor’easter, a local legend, really, but only among those who knew, and that wasn’t much of anyone, really, outside of the family, and all those collectors, constantly disappointed.

Honestly, when Wendy had first heard about what happened to Kate, she assumed it had something to do with the sword even before it came up. When it became just a curiosity, a footnote, a bizarre term to hang the whole thing on, Wendy kept it clearly in her crosshairs.

She began asking around, too. She discovered that all the infamous kidnap victims from the past had had possession of the sword at some point, or someone in their families, anyway, and Wendy wasn’t much one to believe in coincidences.

She worried what would become of it. Kate’s mother-in-law asked Wendy the likelihood of reclaiming it at some point. Wendy was one for pessimism, too. She believed it would be locked up in some evidence box (a long one!) for years to come.

When they gathered for meals, these days, at the Muddy Rudder, talk was rife with allusions to the sword. Some at the table had the good sense to at least appear guilty about it.

Wendy sometimes wondered about the damned thing’s origins. She hoped it was all worth it. She always had tissue packs with her, these days. She told herself it was for Kate Meadows.

A to Z Challenge 2025 - The Ripped Blade: “Jaws of Death”

Matt White was the other neighbor.

Matt was the one who got the bum of that particular deal. Matt had actually known Kate Meadows, and he very much preferred not to talk about it. He wasn’t going to be allowed such privilege.

He found himself constantly interviewed. He considered it an invasion of privacy, even if, in the early days, it might’ve helped Kate. The thing was, as he’d tried so hard to make clear, was that it couldn’t possibly have helped.

The Kate he knew had been terribly unhappy. He’d been perfectly happy to listen, whenever she came over. He knew she needed to vent. Sometimes he wished he knew how to help. Sometimes he’d feared there was nothing he could do, except listen. Sometimes he wondered if he could’ve tried harder.

After the body was found, that third option? That was all he thought about.

His opinion, the one thing he kept to himself, was that she’d done it herself. All of it. She’d used a couple of local idiots to confuse the situation, successfully, but in the end, she killed herself.

Matt didn’t particularly care to speculate about all the details, how she’d done it, especially that business with the sword. Nasty, horrible, not anything he wanted to think about, so of course the world insisted on nothing else.

Matt really just wanted to move, now, find a fresh start. Maybe all the way out of state. He’d never lived anywhere but Berlin.

He also knew such a gesture would be futile. He’d never be able to leave Kate Meadows behind. He’d need to make peace with it. He owed her, after all. It was just, it was a heavy debt indeed…