Queen of the Longest Day

The Lady wore midsummer’s sun,
Her crown of golden flame,
And every star that crossed the sky
Seemed gathered to her name.

Behind her burned the longest day,
The wheel stood bright and high,
While oak leaves stirred in warmest winds
Beneath the sapphire sky.

She held the light at year’s full height,
When fields were rich with grain,
Yet knew the wheel would turn once more
Toward autumn’s harvest reign.

The bees flew thick through clover blooms,
The rowan berries grew,
And every brook and meadow path
Shone bright with morning dew.

She raised her hand above the earth,
And blessed both beast and seed,
For summer’s wealth belongs to all
Who labor, dream, and need.

Yet in her gaze there lingered still
A wisdom old and deep
The brightest fire must someday fade,
And every sun must sleep.

So gather joy while daylight lasts,
And dance where flowers sway,
For Litha marks the golden crown
Of summer’s shining day.

By Heather Patton / Verdant butterfly

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Poem inspired by photo prompt. Tag:

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By Heather Patton · Launched a year ago

A creative space with over 170 enchanting stories and poems. I write fantasy, folklore and genre bending prose that can step off the path into comedy, adventure or the unsettling at any moment.

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© 2026 Heather Patton · The Verdant Butterfly
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Halls of Pandemonium my final score 2,662

I came in second by 112 points and I am okay with that. was a worthy opponent, and I have a great deal of respect for him as both a creator and a person. His stories were a lot of fun, and through our interactions over the course of the challenge, I can honestly say he’s a genuinely kind human being.

Congratulations, Gary. I thoroughly enjoyed nipping at your heels all month.

▪◽▪

In Pandemonium's month long delight,
We battled with stories each night.
Gary claimed first place,
I stayed close in the race,
Just one hundred twelve points from the height.

Thank ye kindly to everyone who read📚, liked❤, restacked🔁 and commented💬 on all the stories from the HoP challenge. It is a lot to keep up with and I believe fun was had by all!

A special thank you to , , and for all the dedication and work you put into this challenge on top of writing for the challenge.✨🦋

Here is the leaderboard if anyone would like to see the top 5 for each bracket:

Leaderboard Top 5 for all brackets is here

And if you missed any of my stories last month you can catch up here in my Halls of Pandemonium Directory.🦋

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By Heather Patton · Launched a year ago

A creative space with over 170 enchanting stories and poems. I write fantasy, folklore and genre bending prose that can step off the path into comedy, adventure or the unsettling at any moment.

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© 2026 Heather Patton · The Verdant Butterfly
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17th April, 1818 Aboard the Aetheric Dirigible Swift

I write this with cramped fingers and damp sleeves, though Mr. Finch says I ought to sleep whilst I may. The sea showed little mercy today.

We left Dover shortly after dawn when word arrived of a fishing smack overdue from Folkestone. The captain believed the crew might have sought shelter in some quieter harbour. Mr. Finch said there were souls adrift. He said it before breakfast and he said it with such certainty that nobody argued, and when Mr. Finch speaks in that particular tone, one does not argue.

By noon we reached the search area. Wind from the east. Rain enough to sting the face and blur the glass. We found nothing. Hours passed with every eye upon the choppy water, still no sign of the fishermen. Then Mr. Finch rose from his station and pointed. “Three.”

That was all he said. Three. The helmsman altered course at once. I watched through my glass and saw only waves and grey nothing. Then a shape appeared between the swells, a boat scarcely larger than a walnut shell at that distance, with three fishermen aboard. One could still stand. One sat slumped against the gunwale. One lay flat upon the boards.

Mrs. Cartwright lifted the boat clear of the water with her Gift and brought it alongside the Swift as easy as a woman lifts a teacup. I shall never grow accustomed to seeing such a thing. A vessel hanging in open air where every law of God and nature insists it ought to sink. I have witnessed it a dozen times. It unsettles me still.

The eldest fisherman wept when he understood he had been found. The youngest asked whether he had died and passed from this world. The third man was injured and never spoke at all.

Dr. Hargreaves worked on him for nearly an hour. When at last the man opened his eyes, every member of the crew cheered. Even Captain Ward. Especially Captain Ward. The fishermen told us they had drifted two full days. Their mast had broken during the storm. They had no food remaining and scarcely any fresh water.

I keep turning over in my mind how close we came to missing them entirely. A mile farther north or an hour later. A thicker curtain of rain. Any small thing might have turned the outcome the other way.

Mother always said my Gift would amount to little. She called it a parlour trick when I could warm a kettle without lighting the stove, as though usefulness were the only measure of a thing. Today, when the fishermen came aboard soaked through and shivering, I heated every blanket we could find. I warmed broth until the galley ran short of pots. I dried coats and gloves and woollen caps until steam rose from them in little pale columns.

Nobody cheered for that. Nobody entered it in the log. Still, three men sit alive below deck drinking hot broth and beginning, I think, to believe in their own survival. Perhaps a parlour trick is enough.

The bell has struck ten. Mr. Finch is snoring in the next hammock and someone has begun a card game in defiance of the captain’s standing orders. I ought to sleep. We make for Aberystwyth tomorrow. If fortune smiles, the sea will keep her dead and surrender her living.

By Heather Patton / Verdant Butterfly

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By Heather Patton · Launched a year ago

A creative space with over 170 enchanting stories and poems. I write fantasy, folklore and genre bending prose that can step off the path into comedy, adventure or the unsettling at any moment.

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The Lake by Edgar Allen Poe

In youth’s spring, it was my lot
To haunt of the wide earth a spot
The which I could not love the less;
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound.
And the tall pines that tower’d around.
But when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot — as upon all,
And the wind would pass me by
In its stilly melody,
My infant spirit would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright —
But a tremulous delight,
And a feeling undefin’d,
Springing from a darken’d mind.
Death was in that poison’d wave
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his dark imagining;
Whose wild’ring thought could even make
An Eden of that dim lake.

Return To The Lake

And oft in years that wander’d by,
Beneath an autumn tinted sky,
I sought again that lonely strand
Of pine dark hill and blacken’d land.
For still its quiet waters bore
A charm I had not known before.

No more the tremor of a child
Awoke beneath its aspect wild,
Yet something in the evening air,
Half sorrow and half rapture there,
Would draw my thoughts from common things
To shadow’d and forgotten springs.

For in that lake I seem’d to see
The shape of old mortality,
Not grim as priests and sages tell,
But gentle as a vesper bell.
A reminder that’s soft and low
Of all the dreams we cannot hold.

And thus I loved that solemn place,
Its dark reflection and its grace.
For there I learn’d that gloom may keep
Its own strange harvest in the deep,
And that the heart may beauty take
From even such a lonely lake.

By Heather Patton / Verdant Butterfly

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The Poe-tato Writing Collective

Prompts from The Valley Nis - The Lake

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17 days ago · 11 likes · 1 comment · Hazel

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By Heather Patton · Launched a year ago

A creative space with over 170 enchanting stories and poems. I write fantasy, folklore and genre bending prose that can step off the path into comedy, adventure or the unsettling at any moment.

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© 2026 Heather Patton · The Verdant Butterfly
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Blade Mistress Gail, Formerly Known as Pam

The first thing she noticed was the weight.

Not emotional weight. That would come later. This was actual, physical, “wow I could probably carry a barrel under each arm and complain about it only mildly” kind of weight.

She lifted her hands. Paused. Stared. “…these are not my hands.”

Still feminine but bigger. Scarred. The kind of hands that had done things. Important things. Possibly illegal things. Definitely calloused things. She flexed her fingers.

“Oh no.” Her voice dropped out of her throat like it had somewhere better to be. A little huskier than she expected. “Oh no, I sound like I give orders now.” She coughed. Tried again. “Hello?” Still commanding. Still dangerous. Still very much not Pamala.

She took a step forward. The ground crunched under heavy boots. Boots she did not remember putting on and a posture that felt like it came with expectations..

“I asked for a new life,” she said, glancing around the open hills and distant village. “This feels like a management position.”

The memory came back in flashes. A well. A coin. A vague, poorly worded wish about wanting something different. Something bigger. Something where she stopped feeling like a background character in her own life. She looked down at herself again.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “So the universe heard ‘different’ and said, excellent, here’s a full career change.”

A voice called out behind her. “You’re late.”

She turned. A guy stood there, arms crossed, sword at his side, giving her the kind of look usually reserved for people who had absolutely done this before.

“Late for what?” she asked.

He blinked. “The escort job. Dawn meeting. You said, and I quote, ‘I’ll be there, don’t worry, I’m extremely reliable.’”

She winced. “That does sound like something I would say in a moment of reckless optimism.”

He stared at her. “Are you… all right, Gail?”
She froze

“…Gail.”

He frowned. “Yes. Your name.”

Pamala took a slow breath. “Right, Of course it is.”

Blade Mistress Gail. She did not say that part out loud, but it arrived anyway, fully formed, with a kind of dramatic weight suggesting people had whispered it in taverns. Blade Mistress Gail.

Pamala, formerly a mild inconvenience at work with a strong background in apologizing for things that were not her fault, now apparently a legend.

He sighed, then gestured toward the road. “We’ve got a caravan heading through the pass. Bandit trouble. Standard work.”

Bandits. Of course there were bandits.

“Oh this is going to go badly,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m thriving.”

They walked together, and Pamala, now Gail, practiced moving like someone who knew what she was doing. It helped that her body actually did know what it was doing.

People waved. Someone called her name. “Morning!” a woman called. “Thought you bailed on us!”

“Never,” she said, with the confidence of someone who had absolutely considered it for half a second. “Just fashionably… delayed.”

The woman laughed. “You’re in a mood today.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered under her breath.

The caravan set out soon after. Wagons rolling. People chatting. Everything felt… oddly normal for a situation that absolutely was not normal.

Pamala leaned closer to the man. “Quick question.”

“Yes.”

“Am I good at this?”

He gave her a look. “You’re Blade Mistress Gail.”

“…that is not an answer,” she said.

“It is the answer.”

She nodded slowly. “Great. Love that for me.”

“You’re acting weird,” the sword guy said.

“I woke up in a different body,” she replied.

He nodded. “Fair.”

She stopped walking. “Wait. That’s all you’re going to say?”

He shrugged. “Last month we had a wizard turn himself into a chair for three days. You’re still upright. That’s a win.”

“…I love it here,” she said.

They reached the pass. Naturally, that’s when the bandits showed up. Because of course they did. Figures stepped out onto the road. More appeared along the rocks. Weapons drawn. Very dramatic. Honestly, points for presentation.

The caravan slowed. The sword guy glanced at her. “You good?”

She considered that. Emotionally? No. Physically? Surprisingly yes. Socially? Debatable. She exhaled, rolled her shoulders, and stepped forward. “…annoyingly yes,” she finally answered. “Okay,” she drew the weapon at her side in one smooth motion that felt way cooler than she deserved. “Let’s all take a moment to rethink our life choices.”

The bandits stared.

One of them squinted. “Is that… Gail?” Another shifted back slightly.

“…oh,” Pamala whispered. “That’s promising.”

“You’re outnumbered,” another of them said, though with less confidence than expected.

She glanced down at her hands. Then at the sword. “…I feel like this body disagrees.”

There was a pause. Then someone made the mistake of moving first. Everything after that happened fast.

Her body took over. Clean movements. Precise. Efficient. A level of competence that Pamala, mentally, was very impressed by.

When it ended, the bandits had scattered. She stood there, breathing a little heavier, staring at the sword in her hand. She blinked.

“…did I just do that?”

“Yes,” the sword guy said. “Very impressively.”

Someone clapped her on the back hard enough to nearly send her forward.

“Well fought!” the woman called from the wagon.

“Thank you,” she said, still staring at her hands. “I remain confused, but optimistic.”

The caravan started moving again.

“You’re definitely different,” the sword guy said.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I think I upgraded. No offense to my previous self.”

He smirked. “So what now?”

She looked ahead at the road stretching out through the hills. New world. New body. New expectations. Same brain, unfortunately.

“Well,” she said, adjusting her grip on the strap across her chest, settling into the stride. “Step one, learn how to live up to my title. Step two, try not to die. Step three…” She smiled a little. “…lean into whatever this is.”

The road curved forward. And for once, she didn’t feel stuck behind her own life. She felt like she had been dropped directly into the main quest, halfway through, underqualified, slightly confused and absolutely ready to see what happened next.

By Heather Patton / Verdant Butterfly

Written for Wandering Prompt #65 Write a 1000 words or less about a character trapped in the wrong body.

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A creative space with over 170 enchanting stories and poems. I write fantasy, folklore and genre bending prose that can step off the path into comedy, adventure or the unsettling at any moment.

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Echo of a Friend

I met you in a place
where dawn had no meaning
a world strung together
by whispers and starlight.

You laughed like I had always known you.
Familiar as breathing,
you folded into my life
like you had always been there,
a thread I hadn’t realized was missing
until it tugged in place.

We were not lovers.
Yet something rare.
A bond carved not from fire,
but from calm.
Easy as rain on old stones.
Soft as the hush between heartbeats.

And I didn’t know I was dreaming.

In that false world,
you held my grief like it was yours.
We spoke in the shorthand of souls
who had walked beside each other
for a thousand quiet days.

I woke
with your name on the tip of my tongue
and no sound to give it.

You vanished
like a mist pulled back by morning.
And the ache came rushing in,
Heavy with truth.

I cried for you
a person who never walked this world,
but who held me
as no one ever had.

For days I searched faces,
waited for echoes.
But you are the ghost
of a moment that never was
a flicker trapped in my heart
when the world is still.

Two years on,
you are quieter now.
A shadow I no longer chase.
But sometimes,
just before sleep,
I feel the weight of your hand
on my shoulder.

And I miss you.
Still.
Even if you were only a kindness
I gave myself
once.

Heather Patton / Verdant Butterfly

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Written for Mina Howell’s Micro Fiction March prompt: in 300 words or less, you are tasked with creating a story or poem about a character who’s dreams are actually memories of a past life!

My substack is filled with over a hundred short stories and poems, If you like what you’ve read here consider subscribing.

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© 2026 Heather Patton · The Verdant Butterfly
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“This’ll work,” she whispered, palm pressed flat against plaster. Cool. Steady. Safe enough to paint on.

They’d told her the hallway was unused. Left her alone with her brushes and gentle guidelines for the commission. Make it soothing. Soft greens. Pastoral themes. Nothing too sharp.
Kira started with blues. Gentle strokes across the faded wall. Let it forget itself.

Then came the noise.
A soft scuff. Like movement behind the wall. She paused. Listened.
Nothing but the sigh of old pipes.
She kept painting. The brush whispered across the surface like wind through grass.

You promised...

She froze. Not a memory. Not her thoughts.

A voice.

Her hand trembled, the paint trailing downward like a tear. “Old buildings talk,” she murmured. “That’s all.”

The next day, the sound returned, fingernails tapping wood, slow and patient.
She painted faster.

In the fresh green of a hillside, a shape emerged, a girl. Slumped shoulders. Pale strands like dandelion silk. Kira blinked, and the figure was gone. She grabbed whitewash and scrubbed. Erased. Buried it. The wall didn’t fight, but the silence turned heavier.

You said you’d visit. Just once.

Kira stumbled back, breath catching. That voice… was familiar.
That night she found a note scrawled in her sketchbook,

Don’t paint the door.

But she hadn’t written it. Not really.

The next morning, the mural had changed. Trees leaned too far in. Shadows stretched like arms. And at the base of an oak, barely there, was a door. Narrow. Ajar. Painted in shadows she didn’t recall using.

You see it now, don’t you?

Memories cracked through her like thunder. Her sister. Screaming. Clawing the walls of a hospital room.

Kira, outside the door. A hand gripping her shoulder.
“She’s not your responsibility.”
The guilt returned like a tide.
And behind the mural’s door, the sound of knuckles. Five knocks. A pause. Five more.

Lainie’s knock.

She tried to cover it. Layer after layer. But the door remained. Wider now.

You left me.

“No,” she whispered. “I was just a kid.”

You believed them.

The mural changed. In the willow’s shade were faces. Eyes. Silhouettes hanging from branches. And among them, Lainie. Crying. Bleeding. Alone.

Kira reached into her bag, searching for anything to anchor herself.
Her fingers found a patient file.
Her name on the cover.
Her handwriting in the margins.
Believes herself commissioned.
Mural reflects delusional memory scaffolding.
She dropped it. Looked up.
The padded wall beneath the mural showed through, bleeding pastels like old bruises. The paint peeled itself backward. The hallway collapsed.

There had never been an east wing.
Only this room.
Only her.

She staggered to the mural, what was left of it,
and pressed her palm against the painted door.
Warm.
Beating.
And behind her eyes, the memory rose again

Lainie screaming, “It’s me in the walls!”

And Kira, silent.

“You’re not painting a hallway,”
said the voice, now fully her own.
“You’re painting your way out of remembering.”
The mural rippled.
A final creak.
The door split open.
Inside, a mirror.

Real.

Her reflection, thin, pale, flecked with color like madness. Beneath it, a nameplate:

KIRA LORNE – PATIENT 306
Schizoaffective Disorder. Art therapy ongoing.

She laughed.
A dry, crumbling sound.
It echoed like a scream.

Epilogue

Outside Room 306, two orderlies paused.

“She’s calm again,” one said. “Started painting a field this time.”

The other shrugged. “Let her. It helps.”

Inside, Kira sat cross legged, humming softly. Green stained her fingers. Her brush dipped with reverence. She whispered to the wall,

“It’s alright. I’ll paint it shut.”

And from deep within the padded room, a soft knock answered.
Five beats. A pause.
Five more.

~by Heather Patton / The Verdant Butterfly

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They came not cloaked in shadow’s thread,

But whispered through the mind instead.

No footfall graced the creaking floor,

No knock was heard at thought’s back door.

Their wings were smoke in spiral form,

A hush before a lightning storm.

They touched not skin, but thought and breath,

And fed upon the mind’s slow death.

Their eyes were gaps in sanity,

Black holes that drank reality.

Their voices, oh! a chorus drowned,

A lullaby that coils and hounds.

They slid between my waking sighs,

And nested deep behind my eyes.

Each dream they pressed was thick with rot,

Of teeth that smiled where mouths were not.

My tongue grew foreign in my throat,

My name a tattered, fluttering note.

The walls began to hum and bleed

My memories crawled out to feed.

I begged them go. They only laughed,

And sucked my thoughts like poisoned draft.

They laced my truths with wicked seams

Turned prayers to knives, and songs to screams.

And now I walk, but not alone

Their wings have grafted to my bone.

A sylph, they say, should dance on air

But I drift mad, and unaware.

~Heather Patton / Verdant Butterfly

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