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Kristi Gott

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2022

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78 Stories

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Serendipity Calls

Weekly Contest #237

On two different coasts, the warp and weft of the loom of destiny drew two threads together. A fortunate stroke of serendipity began to weave them into one fabric. Two lives, thousands of miles apart, became intertwined.In 1898, on the East Coast, Maryanne sat reading by kerosene lantern light in a house near the harbor. Three-masted schooners and steamships rested on the sheltered waters of her Atlantic Ocean seafaring community.The streets and busy shops were quiet in the evening's twilight. Horses pulling carriages passed occasionall...

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Something in Your Light

Weekly Contest #236

Aquaria missed the artistic engineer, who breathed life into his designs, singing his poetry, and giving her a lighthouse soul.She still missed her original clockwork gears from the 1890’s that rotated the beacon light inside the crystalline, multi-faceted, glass Fresnel lens. Like a giant diamond, it reflected light from all the sharp cuts.Sometimes for fun she made the light pulse against the night sky, bright as a sun then like a dim star in the distance.One night local boy Ray Olson was lurking around the lighthouse. Aquaria did her puls...

24 likes 16 comments 16
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1898 at the Lighthouse - Horses Running Wild

Weekly Contest #235

Flame, Blaze, and Shadow felt pulses of excitement and bolted across the dunes, hooves flying over the sandy hills. The wind sang in their ears and their hooves almost lifted them off into flight above earth."Let's run and run..... ," is what they might have said if horses could speak.Grabbing mane, pulling on the reins, and yelling, "Whoa," the riders struggled to stay on the horses, who continued to sprint ahead with their eyes shining.Running over the sand dune trail, the horses gave in to their hidden, primitive wild urges.The riders bob...

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1898 at the Lighthouse - A Whale of a Secret

Weekly Contest #234

The majestic whale who had seen many decades was floating with the swells near the lighthouse. She knew her time was nearing, when her essence would go on to another life. She began to instinctively look for a soft, sandy beach for her 40-foot-long body to rest. For many years the wise whale taught the younger whales and helped lead when they swam in the migrations up and down the Oregon coast. They liked to spend summers in the Arctic and go south to the warm, tropical waters off Mexico for winters. There they bore their cal...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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1898 at the Lighthouse - When Dreams Are Calling

Weekly Contest #233

Joseph watched whole tree trunks with roots attached bobbing in the churning sea.He saw the wind-driven waves tossing them so they landed in tangled piles on the sandy beach below the lighthouse. "Later we can gather wood, dry it, and use it for the fires in the warming stoves," he thought.Joseph's knitted cap, layered under another hat, protected his head from the windy rain squalls when they blew in from the ocean."I'm still glad we came here," he thought. "I love living by the sea." The gusts chilled his face. He put his hands in his...

10 likes 2 comments 2
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1898 at the Lighthouse - The Hero Puppy

Weekly Contest #232

“Where was that beacon? He should be seeing it flash by now.” Captain Alfonse Belanger knew this patch of the Oregon coast was called “the graveyard of the Pacific.” In the fading light, he scanned the rugged shoreline for the flash of the lighthouse beacon.*****Miles away, off the path to the Mystic Lighthouse high on the bluffs, the lighthouse keeper lay partway down the side of the cliff after losing his footing on the wet, slippery path.Joseph saw the darkening sky and turned, trying to reach a rocky handhold, so he could pull ...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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1898 - Sea Lions, Whales and Lanterns at the Lighthouse

Weekly Contest #231

Samuel and his father fed the horses on their way up the hill to the lighthouse, with Elsie's young, dark-haired dog, Teddybear, trailing behind them. Teddybear could wait in the downstairs lighthouse entry room while they serviced the beacon."Good boy, Teddybear." Samuel reached down to rub the dog's neck and Teddybear looked at him with a big smile.Soon night would fall and they would need to light the wicks for the lighthouse beacon.While Samuel walked up to the highest part of the bluff, he saw the darkening ocean fading into the twiligh...

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1898 - Wild Blackberries and Mischief at the Lighthouse

Weekly Contest #231

The dark Mason jar of wild blackberries caught Elsie’s eye when she looked around the root cellar under the Lighthouse Keepers House. She thought, “If only I could have just a spoonful of those berries, so delicious. I can almost taste them now. That would be enough. Just one spoonful.” Elsie knew it would be a first time she did something like secretly using the family food supplies if she ate some of the blackberries. It would be dishonest.The root cellar’s shelves of Mason Jars full of vegetables and fruits sat in the darkness.&...

10 likes 7 comments 7
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1898 - The Lighthouse Beacon and the Baby Owl

Weekly Contest #230

Elsie watched her older brothers, Edward and Samuel, who were smiling while they held their spelling bee awards and stood at the front of the one-room schoolhouse. The pale winter sun came through the window and washed the room in a soft light.Heat came from the wood-burning warming stove, and the little wooden schoolhouse was cozy and toasty despite the December weather. The students could hear the rushing sound of the nearby creek flowing over the rocks. The air smelled salty from the sea, mixed with a fragrance of fir trees.Elsie smi...

14 likes 8 comments 8
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1898 - Campfire Meal in the Lighthouse Cave

Weekly Contest #228

Elsie's grey eyes took a last look at the snow falling on the lighthouse as the bright beacon rotated, lighting the shores and ocean. She tucked the dark, shaggy puppy back inside her heavy brown coat, pulled her hat down tighter over her dark hair, and ducked back down into the cave from the opening in its ceiling.Tomorrow everything would change.Aromas of spicy fish, beans and herbs simmering in a stew over an open campfire floated through the cave, along with the distant voices of her family. Elsie felt the emptiness in her stomach. She t...

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1898 - Snowfall at the Lighthouse

Weekly Contest #227

Elsie and her new puppy, “Teddybear,” gazed at the first winter's snow falling like white cotton balls on the lighthouse. Her eyes widened, her breath slowed, the corners of her mouth turned up, and she felt a sense of wonder.Earlier, on the grey, drizzling morning, their trail guide had the horses saddled and the pack horses waiting for Elsie's family when they got to the corrals. Smells of horses, hay, salty ocean air, and Douglas Firs blended into a fragrance that Elsie found pleasing. The river lapped at the shores and fir...

9 likes 5 comments 5
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Campfire Tale of the Sasquatch Temptation

Weekly Contest #226

The Sasquatch Temptation “Silent steps beneath the trees, Blending with the whispering breeze, In emerald worlds of mystery, Sasquatch walks with secrecy.” Myths and legends, fantasy tales, Mystic Beach, where the storm wind wails, Blowing over spindrift foam,Tales of Sasquatch in its home. Adriana brought her Sasquatch books to the family reunion at Thanksgiving. Their large group gathered every year in the Mystic Beach wilderness on the Oregon coast. She could retreat and read if she needed some peaceful time. The family often g...

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The Enchanted Mirror of Mystic Beach Lighthouse

Weekly Contest #225

"Gateways to moments suspended in air, Time's threads in the fabrics it weaves, Blessed with enchantments, unseen and rare, The Mirror makes Magic for one who believes."Luiza Maria felt a shock as she looked at the strangers around her wearing clothing from over 100 years ago. She remembered gazing into the old-fashioned mirror from the antique store. It's wood frame was intricately carved. She recalled reading the poem engraved on the back of it.Luiza Maria recalled looking into the wavy glass of the old mirror and seeing her dark eyes...

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Life at Mystic Beach and a Meetup with the Rebuilt Time Machine

Weekly Contest #224

The storm whooshed in. Waves surged up covering the beaches.Rain and sleet slammed the Oregon Coast rainforest wilderness.Wind roared. Douglas Firs swayed and creaked. Heavy rain hammered the roof. Water drops hit the windows like bullets. My little blue cottage deep in the forest shook in the gales.It was a good day to stay home. But that is not how the day unfolded.What happened is absolutely true. This is all in my new book “Visiting with Sasquatch - And Other Surreal but True Stories from Mystic Beach on the...

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The Twilight Time Travel Zone - The Sunset Spell

Weekly Contest #214

Eerie music sounds. Like a drumbeat, a deep, slow voice speaks rhythmically. “Ladies and Gentlemen, fans of the hidden dimensions and unseen energies of the universe, where the physics of time, space and power intersect. I give to you a story of life in the Twilight Time Travel Zone called The Sunset Spell.”“Before us you see a group of friends celebrating the end of summer on a beach. They are wishing they could relive their summer. That it would never end. But they need to be careful with these wishes. The orbits a...

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