Word of the Day Challenge – 10/2/10
Word: Mussitate: verb, to silently move the lips in simulation of audible speech
Timeline: Spring 2001 (Viola & Sebastian & Duke)
“Look at this!” Sebastian exclaimed, slamming the booklet of papers onto the table. He ran a hand through his shaggy hair, tugged on the roots in frustration.
Duke recognized the high school’s progress report forms, but these were different. All his reports had usually only had a couple of lines under each section. There were multiple paragraphs under each section on each sheet. Every one of Viola’s teachers had made remarks about her conduct and her attitude.
“Hey guys, what’s going on?” Viola greeted, dumping her backpack on the floor just inside the kitchen. “I checked the mailbox, but there was nothing in it.”
Sebastian’s lips thinned. He had suspected that Viola was intercepting the mail so that he wouldn’t get the notes her teachers mailed home. “I already got it.”
“Oh.” Viola’s face paled for a moment before her jaw hardened and she crossed her arms over her chest. “So?”
“Listen, kiddo, I know you’re a big ball of screwed up right now, but….”
As Sebastian droned on about responsibilities and social workers, Duke glanced over at an unusually silent Viola. He had to bite laugh as he realized that she was mussitating in perfect synch with her brother.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
WotD - 10/1/10 - November 2008 (D/V)
Sorry this one's a bit sappy - stayed home sick and apparently I crave fluff/angst when I'm ill!
Word of the Day Challenge – October 1, 2010
Word: Satori: noun, in Zen Buddhism, the state of sudden indescribable intuitive enlightenment.
Timeline: November 2008 (while Vi is out after facing her father), D/V
His bloodshot, aching eyes caught every tiny twitch her body made. The rhythmic rise and fall of her chest was the tether on his sanity. Her not-so-steady heartbeat reverberated in his head and thrummed under his fingertips.
Viola had been unconscious for two days. She hadn’t so much as made a sound since she’d collapsed on that Cedar Rapids theater stage after going head-to-head with her father. Duke felt as if the ground had been pulled from beneath his feet. He’d remained calm enough to get her to a safe location and examine her for injuries, but his calm had long since faded. Every second that passed without seeing her lovely hazel eyes or hearing her sweet voice, even if it was to tease him, felt like a decade.
He’d confessed his love for her days earlier, had even acknowledged to himself that he’d always loved her, but as he sat and waited, stomach knotted and heart heavy, he was struck by satori. This was more than lust or friend-love, or a comfortable love. She, who drove him crazy and complicated his life and warmed his soul, was everything.
“Please,” he begged, voice cracking, “you have to wake up, sugar.”
Word of the Day Challenge – October 1, 2010
Word: Satori: noun, in Zen Buddhism, the state of sudden indescribable intuitive enlightenment.
Timeline: November 2008 (while Vi is out after facing her father), D/V
His bloodshot, aching eyes caught every tiny twitch her body made. The rhythmic rise and fall of her chest was the tether on his sanity. Her not-so-steady heartbeat reverberated in his head and thrummed under his fingertips.
Viola had been unconscious for two days. She hadn’t so much as made a sound since she’d collapsed on that Cedar Rapids theater stage after going head-to-head with her father. Duke felt as if the ground had been pulled from beneath his feet. He’d remained calm enough to get her to a safe location and examine her for injuries, but his calm had long since faded. Every second that passed without seeing her lovely hazel eyes or hearing her sweet voice, even if it was to tease him, felt like a decade.
He’d confessed his love for her days earlier, had even acknowledged to himself that he’d always loved her, but as he sat and waited, stomach knotted and heart heavy, he was struck by satori. This was more than lust or friend-love, or a comfortable love. She, who drove him crazy and complicated his life and warmed his soul, was everything.
“Please,” he begged, voice cracking, “you have to wake up, sugar.”
Thursday, September 30, 2010
WotD - 9-30-10 (D/V Spring 2000)
So, I started a new challenge at the writing group - am only going to do it for October (and today, obviously). We get the Word of the Day from dictionary.com and then write a 200 word short on it. I'm going to do all of mine Network-related (mostly Duke & Viola with some other characters and maybe a couple Jeremy and Celia)
Here's today's...
Word of the Day Challenge – 9/30/10
Word: lucifugous: adj. Avoiding light
Timeframe: Spring 2000 (D/V)
“Turn off your flashlight!” Viola whispered urgently, thin fingers digging into the flesh of Duke’s forearm.
Startled by the vehemence of her order, he pressed the button so they were once again in utter darkness. He could feel welts from her fingernails forming, but didn’t move out of her grasp. They were in a part of Houston he’d never been to before hunting down a pair of demons he’d never heard of before. The last thing he wanted to do was lose his trainee. “I can’t see a damn thing, Vi.”
“Didn’t you read the book Granny gave us? Iinas are lucifugous.” Viola relaxed. Memorizing the research materials had been a good idea after all. She wouldn’t embarrass herself on her first ‘solo’ assignment with Duke.
“I didn’t know what it meant then, and I sure as hell don’t know what it has to do with stumbling around in the dark like an idiot.”
“It means they avoid light. Keeping that flashlight on would have scared them off.”
“Oh.” Though he couldn’t see her, he was certain Viola was smirking. He wanted to shove her in the nearest garbage can.
“Maybe next time you’ll help me study for my SATs.”
Here's today's...
Word of the Day Challenge – 9/30/10
Word: lucifugous: adj. Avoiding light
Timeframe: Spring 2000 (D/V)
“Turn off your flashlight!” Viola whispered urgently, thin fingers digging into the flesh of Duke’s forearm.
Startled by the vehemence of her order, he pressed the button so they were once again in utter darkness. He could feel welts from her fingernails forming, but didn’t move out of her grasp. They were in a part of Houston he’d never been to before hunting down a pair of demons he’d never heard of before. The last thing he wanted to do was lose his trainee. “I can’t see a damn thing, Vi.”
“Didn’t you read the book Granny gave us? Iinas are lucifugous.” Viola relaxed. Memorizing the research materials had been a good idea after all. She wouldn’t embarrass herself on her first ‘solo’ assignment with Duke.
“I didn’t know what it meant then, and I sure as hell don’t know what it has to do with stumbling around in the dark like an idiot.”
“It means they avoid light. Keeping that flashlight on would have scared them off.”
“Oh.” Though he couldn’t see her, he was certain Viola was smirking. He wanted to shove her in the nearest garbage can.
“Maybe next time you’ll help me study for my SATs.”
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
One-Shot Available!
If you don't mind a spoiler for the whole series (not a huge spoiler and if you read TCC carefully, it's fairly obvious), I've got a short "future-story" (as opposed to all the back-stories) that takes place in October 2009 available.
Send an e-mail to ashwoodtrilogy@gmail.com or comment here if you'd like me to send it to you.
Wfsals + Halloween = Fun!
Send an e-mail to ashwoodtrilogy@gmail.com or comment here if you'd like me to send it to you.
Wfsals + Halloween = Fun!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Glide Like Ghosts - December 2000
December 2000
“Come on, pick up,” Viola muttered under her breath. She clutched the fat cell phone tighter and pressed back against the wall when footsteps approached. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone at all, especially not them. She turned her head, wincing when her hair caught on the rough surface of the brick wall.
“Hello?”
The voice that finally answered was not her brother’s but was just as familiar. “Toby, where’s Bas?”
“Well, hello to you, too Shortcake,” Toby Duke teased with fond amusement.
Viola rolled her eyes. It figured that Duke would only be up for chatting when she didn’t have the time. “Yeah, hi. Where’s my brother?”
“On a date with some chick he met on campus. He left his phone here.” Duke grabbed his boots from beside the door, carried them back to the living room, and sat on the edge of the couch. He cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder while he slipped on his boots and tied the laces. “Speaking of dates, I’m heading out so what’s up?”
Viola bit her lip and glanced at the group of high school boys in the parking lot a few feet away. “I was hoping he could… I need… do you know where he was going?”
“No idea.”
“Damn.” She sighed and ran a hand through her short, dark hair. It was bad enough she’d been humiliated in front of a restaurant full of people, but now she had to drag Duke, the guy she’d crushed on for years, into things. “Could you…”
“Spit it out, kiddo,” Duke prompted, his patience fading as Viola continued to ramble and ask half-questions.
“Never mind. It’s okay. I’ll call Aaron.” She nodded decisively. Aaron would understand. He wouldn’t think less of her or tease her about it.
Duke surged to his feet. He was always Viola’s backup when Sebastian wasn’t available. Who had she found to replace him? He chose to ignore the tightening in his chest at the thought of being replaced. She was an annoying quasi little sister he hadn’t asked for. “Who the hell is Aaron?”
“A friend.”
He scowled as he tried to put a face to that name. He’d met a few of Viola’s friends the handful of times he’d picked her up after detention or when she was sick. “The kid with the blue Mohawk and the bar in his tongue? Looks like he walked face-first into a pincushion?”
“Goodbye, Toby.” Viola’s finger hovered over the button that would disconnect the call. She got that neither he nor her siblings approved of her friends, but she didn’t have to listen to their disparaging remarks. She’d had her fill of that for one night.
“Wait!” Duke called out. “Sebastian mentioned you were going out with friends. Do you need a ride? Is that what you’re calling about?”
“Yeah,” she murmured. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She rapidly blinked the back before they could make her mascara run. The last thing she needed, on top of everything else, was too look like a raccoon or panda. When prompted, she gave the name of the restaurant she was at. After Duke promised to be there in five minutes, she slipped the phone into her pocket and sat down to wait.
To her horror, Duke parked his truck right beside the group of teenage boys. Viola kept her head down and eyes glued to her feet as she rushed to the passenger-side door and wrenched it open. She slammed the heavy door, but could still hear the snickers and laughter.
“What’s going on, Vi?”
“Nothing. Just take me home, please.” Viola hugged her purse to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to talk about her night. All she wanted to do was curl up on the couch, eat a gallon of chocolate fudge ice cream, and watch infomercials until she passed out.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he glanced over at the unnaturally subdued teen beside him. She wasn’t going to freeze him out. Her brother might let something like that slide, but Duke was risking being late for his date with the very… enthusiastic and flexible… Mandy to chauffer Viola around. At the very least she owed him an explanation.
“Were those your friends?” If they were, the two of them were going to have a long conversation about the type of people she hung around.
“No,” Viola scoffed. While she wasn’t Ms. Popularity like Olivia, the friends she did have were loyal. They would never have done that to her. “They’re just some jerks from school.”
Duke’s stomach twisted. He knew Viola had a difficult time at school. After accidentally conversing with a ghost on the first day of her freshman year, she’d been labeled a “freak.” She’d allowed herself to be pigeonholed into the “goth” and “emo” categories. The gossip about crazy, always bruised Viola Ashwood had only gotten worse after her father disappeared and her mother was institutionalized. Since school had started in September, she’d been caught fighting twice and skipping six times. Sebastian was on a first-name basis with both the principal and Viola’s social worker.
“Were they hassling you?” Duke had no problem turning the truck around and showing those boys what happened when you bullied someone. He picked on Viola a lot, but he’d never do anything to intentionally hurt her. His father had raised him better than that.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“How long have you known me, kiddo?”
Viola huffed and leaned her head against the cool window. “Xavier Grant, he’s on the baseball team and in a few of my AP classes, asked me out on a date.”
“Sebastian didn’t say you were on a date!” Duke interrupted. Again, he ignored the sharp pang in his chest.
Viola cracked open an eye and glared at him. “Like I’d tell Bas about it. I’m not stupid enough to subject someone to Sebastian Ashwood’s version of the Inquisition. I guess I should have told him, though. He might have spared me tonight’s round of prank the freak.”
“What happened?”
Her fists clenched and throat tightened at the memory. “Apparently, he’d only asked me because of a dare. He had to take the ‘violent, psycho chick’ to the restaurant and then after ordering, go to the bathroom and never come back. All his loser friends took bets on how long I’d sit there before I realized what he’d done.”
Duke had to restrain himself from doing a U-turn in the middle of the highway and racing back to the restaurant. The demons he hunted had nothing on the cruelty of teenagers. “How long did you wait?”
Viola grinned fiercely. “Dumbass didn’t pay attention to where we were sitting. I watched him try to sneak out of the restaurant. I grabbed my purse and followed him to the parking lot.”
“Good job, Vi. I hope you beat the hell out of him.”
“Let’s just say he’ll never try to do anything like that to a girl wearing steel-toe boots, that’s for sure.” Viola’s smile faded. “Monday’s going to suck beyond belief, though.”
Duke pulled into Viola’s empty driveway and put the car in park. He brushed her bangs out of her eyes with gentle fingers. “I’m sorry, Via-mia.”
The hint of pity in his tone grated. Viola jerked away from him and quickly unlatched her seatbelt. She wrapped her anger and indignation around her like a piece of armor. “It’s okay. I don’t care what they think, anyway. They’re all self-absorbed sheep.” Her fingers closed around the door handle. “Thanks for the ride. Hope your date goes better than mine.”
“Hold on a sec.” Duke grabbed for her arm, but she slipped out of reach. The stubborn set of Viola’s jaw was familiar, but the pain lingering in her eyes made him ache. “Are you hungry? You didn’t get to eat at the restaurant.”
“I’m fine. Get out of here. You don’t want to miss your chance to get laid, do you?” Before Duke could respond, she jumped out of the car, shut the door, and ran to the front door. Once the door was unlocked, she turned and waved then stepped into the dark house.
She waited until she heard Duke’s truck backing out of the driveway to relax. Her shoulders slumped and her knees gave out. She slid to the floor, buried her face in her hands, and let the tears fall. She tried not to care what people said about her, but it was impossible to ignore a group of ten guys laughing in your face. She’d never felt so pathetic in her life.
Once the tears dried up, she reluctantly trudged upstairs to her bedroom then changed out of her “date clothes” and into her comfiest pair of pajamas. She washed the streaky makeup off her face and winced at the redness of her eyes. She looked as pitiful as she felt. It was definitely ice cream time.
A sharp rap on the door interrupted her search for the carton of triple chocolate chunk ice cream she swore was in the freezer. Holding a steak knife behind her back, Viola peered through the peephole before unlocking the door. “Toby?”
Duke pushed past Viola. The temperature had been steadily dropping all night and it was downright cold outside. He eyed the knife in her hand, nodded approvingly. At her curious stare, he held up a paper bag bearing a familiar logo. “I brought dinner. Burger Barn, of course.”
Viola followed him to the kitchen. She returned the knife to its drawer and watched as he retrieved a couple of paper plates from the cabinet. “What happened to your date?”
Duke shrugged a shoulder. He unwrapped a burger, lifted the bun to check for onions, and set it on one of the plates. He dumped a carton of greasy, golden fries next to the burger then pushed the plate towards Viola. “I’ll see Mandy tomorrow night. With Burt sick, I decided that I should stay available in case the team on rotation gets overloaded. I figured hanging out with you was better than sitting at home alone.”
She wasn’t buying his excuse. Demonic activity was always lowest in December. There was no way the two Trackers on rotation would be busy. She loved him even more, though, for lying to her. “Thanks, I think.”
Duke winked as he finished unwrapping his own meal. In the living room, they settled on opposite ends of the couch with a mountain of throw pillows between them. Duke snatched the remote out of her hand but didn’t switch on the television.
“Now, I haven’t cleared this with Warden Bas yet, so don’t get your hopes up. I’m on rotation in two weeks. From 11:59 on Wednesday night to 11:59 on Thursday. If you promise to do everything I tell you to do and not be a pain in my ass, you could spend the day with me.”
A bright smile lit up Viola’s face. Not only was Duke offering to spend her birthday, the day of the year she hated because it was the anniversary of her father’s disappearance, with her, but he was going to let her be on rotation with her. It was a better present than the used convertible her brother had already bought! “Thank you!”
“No guarantee there’s going to be any calls,” Duke warned, smothering his own smile. Making Viola happy was ridiculously happy. He turned on the television and punched in the number for the all-cartoon network. “Now shut up. They’re doing a marathon of all the ‘60s Christmas specials.”
“You’re such a dork.”
“Like I won’t be hearing you singing along in a few minutes.” Duke chuckled and picked up the fry Viola had flung at his head. He sank further into the couch cushions as the commercials ended. It wasn’t a loud, smoke-filled bar and his companion wasn’t a busty blonde, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Friday night.
“Come on, pick up,” Viola muttered under her breath. She clutched the fat cell phone tighter and pressed back against the wall when footsteps approached. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone at all, especially not them. She turned her head, wincing when her hair caught on the rough surface of the brick wall.
“Hello?”
The voice that finally answered was not her brother’s but was just as familiar. “Toby, where’s Bas?”
“Well, hello to you, too Shortcake,” Toby Duke teased with fond amusement.
Viola rolled her eyes. It figured that Duke would only be up for chatting when she didn’t have the time. “Yeah, hi. Where’s my brother?”
“On a date with some chick he met on campus. He left his phone here.” Duke grabbed his boots from beside the door, carried them back to the living room, and sat on the edge of the couch. He cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder while he slipped on his boots and tied the laces. “Speaking of dates, I’m heading out so what’s up?”
Viola bit her lip and glanced at the group of high school boys in the parking lot a few feet away. “I was hoping he could… I need… do you know where he was going?”
“No idea.”
“Damn.” She sighed and ran a hand through her short, dark hair. It was bad enough she’d been humiliated in front of a restaurant full of people, but now she had to drag Duke, the guy she’d crushed on for years, into things. “Could you…”
“Spit it out, kiddo,” Duke prompted, his patience fading as Viola continued to ramble and ask half-questions.
“Never mind. It’s okay. I’ll call Aaron.” She nodded decisively. Aaron would understand. He wouldn’t think less of her or tease her about it.
Duke surged to his feet. He was always Viola’s backup when Sebastian wasn’t available. Who had she found to replace him? He chose to ignore the tightening in his chest at the thought of being replaced. She was an annoying quasi little sister he hadn’t asked for. “Who the hell is Aaron?”
“A friend.”
He scowled as he tried to put a face to that name. He’d met a few of Viola’s friends the handful of times he’d picked her up after detention or when she was sick. “The kid with the blue Mohawk and the bar in his tongue? Looks like he walked face-first into a pincushion?”
“Goodbye, Toby.” Viola’s finger hovered over the button that would disconnect the call. She got that neither he nor her siblings approved of her friends, but she didn’t have to listen to their disparaging remarks. She’d had her fill of that for one night.
“Wait!” Duke called out. “Sebastian mentioned you were going out with friends. Do you need a ride? Is that what you’re calling about?”
“Yeah,” she murmured. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She rapidly blinked the back before they could make her mascara run. The last thing she needed, on top of everything else, was too look like a raccoon or panda. When prompted, she gave the name of the restaurant she was at. After Duke promised to be there in five minutes, she slipped the phone into her pocket and sat down to wait.
To her horror, Duke parked his truck right beside the group of teenage boys. Viola kept her head down and eyes glued to her feet as she rushed to the passenger-side door and wrenched it open. She slammed the heavy door, but could still hear the snickers and laughter.
“What’s going on, Vi?”
“Nothing. Just take me home, please.” Viola hugged her purse to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to talk about her night. All she wanted to do was curl up on the couch, eat a gallon of chocolate fudge ice cream, and watch infomercials until she passed out.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he glanced over at the unnaturally subdued teen beside him. She wasn’t going to freeze him out. Her brother might let something like that slide, but Duke was risking being late for his date with the very… enthusiastic and flexible… Mandy to chauffer Viola around. At the very least she owed him an explanation.
“Were those your friends?” If they were, the two of them were going to have a long conversation about the type of people she hung around.
“No,” Viola scoffed. While she wasn’t Ms. Popularity like Olivia, the friends she did have were loyal. They would never have done that to her. “They’re just some jerks from school.”
Duke’s stomach twisted. He knew Viola had a difficult time at school. After accidentally conversing with a ghost on the first day of her freshman year, she’d been labeled a “freak.” She’d allowed herself to be pigeonholed into the “goth” and “emo” categories. The gossip about crazy, always bruised Viola Ashwood had only gotten worse after her father disappeared and her mother was institutionalized. Since school had started in September, she’d been caught fighting twice and skipping six times. Sebastian was on a first-name basis with both the principal and Viola’s social worker.
“Were they hassling you?” Duke had no problem turning the truck around and showing those boys what happened when you bullied someone. He picked on Viola a lot, but he’d never do anything to intentionally hurt her. His father had raised him better than that.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“How long have you known me, kiddo?”
Viola huffed and leaned her head against the cool window. “Xavier Grant, he’s on the baseball team and in a few of my AP classes, asked me out on a date.”
“Sebastian didn’t say you were on a date!” Duke interrupted. Again, he ignored the sharp pang in his chest.
Viola cracked open an eye and glared at him. “Like I’d tell Bas about it. I’m not stupid enough to subject someone to Sebastian Ashwood’s version of the Inquisition. I guess I should have told him, though. He might have spared me tonight’s round of prank the freak.”
“What happened?”
Her fists clenched and throat tightened at the memory. “Apparently, he’d only asked me because of a dare. He had to take the ‘violent, psycho chick’ to the restaurant and then after ordering, go to the bathroom and never come back. All his loser friends took bets on how long I’d sit there before I realized what he’d done.”
Duke had to restrain himself from doing a U-turn in the middle of the highway and racing back to the restaurant. The demons he hunted had nothing on the cruelty of teenagers. “How long did you wait?”
Viola grinned fiercely. “Dumbass didn’t pay attention to where we were sitting. I watched him try to sneak out of the restaurant. I grabbed my purse and followed him to the parking lot.”
“Good job, Vi. I hope you beat the hell out of him.”
“Let’s just say he’ll never try to do anything like that to a girl wearing steel-toe boots, that’s for sure.” Viola’s smile faded. “Monday’s going to suck beyond belief, though.”
Duke pulled into Viola’s empty driveway and put the car in park. He brushed her bangs out of her eyes with gentle fingers. “I’m sorry, Via-mia.”
The hint of pity in his tone grated. Viola jerked away from him and quickly unlatched her seatbelt. She wrapped her anger and indignation around her like a piece of armor. “It’s okay. I don’t care what they think, anyway. They’re all self-absorbed sheep.” Her fingers closed around the door handle. “Thanks for the ride. Hope your date goes better than mine.”
“Hold on a sec.” Duke grabbed for her arm, but she slipped out of reach. The stubborn set of Viola’s jaw was familiar, but the pain lingering in her eyes made him ache. “Are you hungry? You didn’t get to eat at the restaurant.”
“I’m fine. Get out of here. You don’t want to miss your chance to get laid, do you?” Before Duke could respond, she jumped out of the car, shut the door, and ran to the front door. Once the door was unlocked, she turned and waved then stepped into the dark house.
She waited until she heard Duke’s truck backing out of the driveway to relax. Her shoulders slumped and her knees gave out. She slid to the floor, buried her face in her hands, and let the tears fall. She tried not to care what people said about her, but it was impossible to ignore a group of ten guys laughing in your face. She’d never felt so pathetic in her life.
Once the tears dried up, she reluctantly trudged upstairs to her bedroom then changed out of her “date clothes” and into her comfiest pair of pajamas. She washed the streaky makeup off her face and winced at the redness of her eyes. She looked as pitiful as she felt. It was definitely ice cream time.
A sharp rap on the door interrupted her search for the carton of triple chocolate chunk ice cream she swore was in the freezer. Holding a steak knife behind her back, Viola peered through the peephole before unlocking the door. “Toby?”
Duke pushed past Viola. The temperature had been steadily dropping all night and it was downright cold outside. He eyed the knife in her hand, nodded approvingly. At her curious stare, he held up a paper bag bearing a familiar logo. “I brought dinner. Burger Barn, of course.”
Viola followed him to the kitchen. She returned the knife to its drawer and watched as he retrieved a couple of paper plates from the cabinet. “What happened to your date?”
Duke shrugged a shoulder. He unwrapped a burger, lifted the bun to check for onions, and set it on one of the plates. He dumped a carton of greasy, golden fries next to the burger then pushed the plate towards Viola. “I’ll see Mandy tomorrow night. With Burt sick, I decided that I should stay available in case the team on rotation gets overloaded. I figured hanging out with you was better than sitting at home alone.”
She wasn’t buying his excuse. Demonic activity was always lowest in December. There was no way the two Trackers on rotation would be busy. She loved him even more, though, for lying to her. “Thanks, I think.”
Duke winked as he finished unwrapping his own meal. In the living room, they settled on opposite ends of the couch with a mountain of throw pillows between them. Duke snatched the remote out of her hand but didn’t switch on the television.
“Now, I haven’t cleared this with Warden Bas yet, so don’t get your hopes up. I’m on rotation in two weeks. From 11:59 on Wednesday night to 11:59 on Thursday. If you promise to do everything I tell you to do and not be a pain in my ass, you could spend the day with me.”
A bright smile lit up Viola’s face. Not only was Duke offering to spend her birthday, the day of the year she hated because it was the anniversary of her father’s disappearance, with her, but he was going to let her be on rotation with her. It was a better present than the used convertible her brother had already bought! “Thank you!”
“No guarantee there’s going to be any calls,” Duke warned, smothering his own smile. Making Viola happy was ridiculously happy. He turned on the television and punched in the number for the all-cartoon network. “Now shut up. They’re doing a marathon of all the ‘60s Christmas specials.”
“You’re such a dork.”
“Like I won’t be hearing you singing along in a few minutes.” Duke chuckled and picked up the fry Viola had flung at his head. He sank further into the couch cushions as the commercials ended. It wasn’t a loud, smoke-filled bar and his companion wasn’t a busty blonde, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Friday night.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Glide Like Ghosts - December 1983
Have had this one for a while but forgot to post it.
Welcome to Viola's birth and the beginning of the end for Alicia Ashwood.
December 1983
Until the birth of her third child, Alicia Ashwood had happily lived under the notion that she was her husband’s entire world. Gerard was kind to their two other children. He had started training Sebastian in the ways of the Network, and he paid sufficient attention to Olivia, but he was not overly affectionate with either of them. It was Alicia that he doted on, that he complimented and brought gifts. After nearly two decades under her mother’s distant, tyrannical thumb, Alicia had basked in the attention.
She didn’t mind being solely responsible for raising Sebastian and Olivia. She didn’t mind that he disappeared for days on end on Network business. She ignored the snide remarks her mother made and prepared Gerard’s favorite dishes when he came home. After Olivia’s difficult birth, she was even willing to give him the third child he wanted. It was, after all, the only thing he’d ever requested of her.
She had assumed, foolishly she realized later, that he would treat this third child the same way he treated the first two. The present but remote parent. She could handle a third on her own. Sebastian was in school all day and Olivia attended class in the morning. With her mother’s help, Alicia could raise another child. A girl, if Gerard’s special tricks worked.
Her water broke while she was washing breakfast dishes. She called her mother first and her next-door-neighbor Mrs. Gibbons second. Mrs. Gibbons, whose husband had been killed twenty years earlier and adored both Ashwood children, helped Alicia retrieve the duffel bag she’d packed at the start of her eighth month and agreed to walk Olivia home from the bus stop.
Opal Ashwood drove like a bat out of hell to the hospital. She didn’t know why, but the third child was important to the Burke family. She’d seen the look on Warwick Burke’s face, recognized a fellow predator. She didn’t want to be responsible for anything happening to the baby.
Both Alicia and Opal were surprised when Gerard and his aunt Hattie Burke met them at the hospital’s front desk. No one had called them. How had they known it was time? Moreover, why was Gerard there? He hadn’t been present for the birth of their first two children.
“How are you, darling?” Gerard bent to brush a kiss across his wife’s head. “How’s our daughter?”
Alicia didn’t get a chance to answer. The nurse helped her into a wheelchair and wheeled her down the hall. Peering over her shoulder, she saw her mother and husband arguing. Opal shoved the duffel into Gerard’s arms and stormed out of the hospital. Hattie chased after her.
By the time she was settled in the bed, the contractions were growing more regular. When asked if she wanted an epidural, she nodded frantically, remembering the pain from her previous childbirth experiences. Her mother had called her a sissy during Sebastian’s birth, but Alicia didn’t care. She hated pain or even the promise of pain.
“No,” Gerard spoke up from the doorway. He set Alicia’s bag on the chair near the door and ventured further into the room. “No pain medication. Labor won’t last that long. Could we get some water for my wife, though?”
The nurse, after glancing at Alicia for confirmation, dashed off to get a glass of water. Alicia grasped the hand Gerard held out to her. “Are you that certain Gerry? I don’t handle pain well. I had the epidural for Sebastian and Olivia.”
“Please understand, Alicia, I don’t want to risk harming our new daughter.” Gerard pulled a syringe out of the pocket of his overcoat. He uncapped the needle and injected a milky fluid into Alicia’s arm. “This will take care of the pain, darling. I would never make you suffer.”
Alicia licked suddenly dry lips, blinked blurry eyes. “’Kay. Thank you, Gerry.”
Gerard returned the syringe to his pocket. He brushed sweat-dampened hair off her forehead. “Of course, darling. Just relax. This will be over before you know it. Very soon, we’ll be holding our precious… what did you decide to name her?”
“Viola,” Alicia responded drowsily.
“Ah, yes. Continuing with your Twelfth Night theme, I see. I suppose if it had been a boy, you’d have named it Cesario?”
“You said it would be a girl.”
“Yes,” Gerard smiled broadly, “yes, I did. It will be. A beautiful addition to our beautiful family. Would you like for her to have your features, darling? Those Ashwood genes do seem to be dominant. I swear, I cannot see any of myself in either of the other two.”
Confused but pleased by Gerard’s continued presence and his lighthearted conversation, Alicia shook her head and grinned. She liked that Olivia and Sebastian had inherited her fair hair and light eyes, but she wanted a child who was the spitting image of her beloved Gerry. “I want her to have your eyes.”
Gerard chuckled darkly. “Oh, that’s already a given.”
He stayed in the room while she continued to dilate at a rate that pleased the doctor. He scrubbed up when the nurse suggested it. He held her hand during the worst of the contractions, but moved towards the doctor when the baby’s head crowned. Though his face was masked and her eyes were filmy with tears, she thought she caught a glimpse of a broad smile when he cut the baby’s umbilical cord.
He refused to let the nurse take the baby away. He held her close and helped clean her off. The tiny purple cap placed on her soft, dark hair was one he’d picked out himself. Dressed in clean scrubs, he cradled the baby against his chest and perched on the edge of Alicia’s bed.
“Look at her, darling. Look at our precious Viola Melinoe,” he urged, voice gentler than she’d ever heard before. She wanted to pretend that the tone was for her, but his eyes were glued to the baby.
“Melinoe?” Alicia hadn’t chosen a middle name. She’d still be torn between ‘Grace’ and ‘Elise.’ Gerard had picked the middle names of the other two, but hadn’t offered any suggestions for Viola.
“Yes. You have your themes, Alicia, and I have mine. Melinoe was also a Greek goddess.”
Alicia nodded to herself. He’d chosen Iaso, the goddess of recuperation, for Olivia and Apollo for Sebastian. She was unfamiliar with Melinoe, though. “I like it.”
Gerard reverently stroked the side of Viola’s cheek. Tiny eyes fluttered open. They were not as blue as her siblings’ had been. Alicia held out hope that they would darken to the same green-gold hazel as Gerard’s eyes.
“Hello, my precious violet. Welcome to the world,” he whispered in the baby’s ear. He tickled the bottom of her small foot. She let out a squeak of protest. Gerard’s grin broadened. “Daddy’s going to help you rule it someday, precious. I promise.”
“C-can I hold her?” Alicia held out her arms. The baby looked hungry and she wanted to hold the child she’d carried for nine months. Truth be told, she also wanted to divert Gerard’s attention to herself for a bit.
“No,” Gerard snapped. His eyes flashed with anger and something darker that made Alicia shiver. He curved his torso over the baby, turned from Alicia. “She’s going to sleep and then I will have the nurse put her in the incubator. Aunt Hattie is going to help you bottle breast milk. If Viola can tolerate it, that’s what she will drink.”
“I breastfed the other two,” she protested weakly. Whatever he’d given her in lieu of the epidural was wearing off. She hurt, she was tired, she didn’t know why he was angry, and she wanted to hold her damn baby.
“Yes. I am aware of that.” Gerard’s lips compressed. He bit back a remark about how the other two still acted as if they were breastfeeding. Neither of them seemed inclined to have an independent thought.
Without another word, Gerard swept out of the room with Viola in his arms. He didn’t return. Hattie appeared an hour later to help Alicia express milk into bottles. The older woman’s motions were gentle but her face was unreadable. Alicia had never been entirely comfortable around the formidable woman.
“H-hattie?”
“Yes, child?”
“Who was Melinoe?” Alicia kept her eyes on the bottle in her hands. She missed the gleeful smile that appeared on Hattie’s face. “It’s the middle name Gerry gave the baby.”
Hattie patted Alicia’s hand softly. “That, my dear, is Gerry’s sense of humor in action. Melinoe was the daughter of either Hades or Zeus and Persephone. She was the goddess of ghosts.”
“Thank you,” a stunned Alicia murmured softly.
“Child of the underworld?” Hattie hummed to herself, resumed capping a bottle. “Rather fitting, I suppose.”
The bottle Alicia had been holding slipped out of her hands. It shattered upon impact with the floor. Breast milk, glass, and Alicia’s dreams littered the hospital floor.
Welcome to Viola's birth and the beginning of the end for Alicia Ashwood.
December 1983
Until the birth of her third child, Alicia Ashwood had happily lived under the notion that she was her husband’s entire world. Gerard was kind to their two other children. He had started training Sebastian in the ways of the Network, and he paid sufficient attention to Olivia, but he was not overly affectionate with either of them. It was Alicia that he doted on, that he complimented and brought gifts. After nearly two decades under her mother’s distant, tyrannical thumb, Alicia had basked in the attention.
She didn’t mind being solely responsible for raising Sebastian and Olivia. She didn’t mind that he disappeared for days on end on Network business. She ignored the snide remarks her mother made and prepared Gerard’s favorite dishes when he came home. After Olivia’s difficult birth, she was even willing to give him the third child he wanted. It was, after all, the only thing he’d ever requested of her.
She had assumed, foolishly she realized later, that he would treat this third child the same way he treated the first two. The present but remote parent. She could handle a third on her own. Sebastian was in school all day and Olivia attended class in the morning. With her mother’s help, Alicia could raise another child. A girl, if Gerard’s special tricks worked.
Her water broke while she was washing breakfast dishes. She called her mother first and her next-door-neighbor Mrs. Gibbons second. Mrs. Gibbons, whose husband had been killed twenty years earlier and adored both Ashwood children, helped Alicia retrieve the duffel bag she’d packed at the start of her eighth month and agreed to walk Olivia home from the bus stop.
Opal Ashwood drove like a bat out of hell to the hospital. She didn’t know why, but the third child was important to the Burke family. She’d seen the look on Warwick Burke’s face, recognized a fellow predator. She didn’t want to be responsible for anything happening to the baby.
Both Alicia and Opal were surprised when Gerard and his aunt Hattie Burke met them at the hospital’s front desk. No one had called them. How had they known it was time? Moreover, why was Gerard there? He hadn’t been present for the birth of their first two children.
“How are you, darling?” Gerard bent to brush a kiss across his wife’s head. “How’s our daughter?”
Alicia didn’t get a chance to answer. The nurse helped her into a wheelchair and wheeled her down the hall. Peering over her shoulder, she saw her mother and husband arguing. Opal shoved the duffel into Gerard’s arms and stormed out of the hospital. Hattie chased after her.
By the time she was settled in the bed, the contractions were growing more regular. When asked if she wanted an epidural, she nodded frantically, remembering the pain from her previous childbirth experiences. Her mother had called her a sissy during Sebastian’s birth, but Alicia didn’t care. She hated pain or even the promise of pain.
“No,” Gerard spoke up from the doorway. He set Alicia’s bag on the chair near the door and ventured further into the room. “No pain medication. Labor won’t last that long. Could we get some water for my wife, though?”
The nurse, after glancing at Alicia for confirmation, dashed off to get a glass of water. Alicia grasped the hand Gerard held out to her. “Are you that certain Gerry? I don’t handle pain well. I had the epidural for Sebastian and Olivia.”
“Please understand, Alicia, I don’t want to risk harming our new daughter.” Gerard pulled a syringe out of the pocket of his overcoat. He uncapped the needle and injected a milky fluid into Alicia’s arm. “This will take care of the pain, darling. I would never make you suffer.”
Alicia licked suddenly dry lips, blinked blurry eyes. “’Kay. Thank you, Gerry.”
Gerard returned the syringe to his pocket. He brushed sweat-dampened hair off her forehead. “Of course, darling. Just relax. This will be over before you know it. Very soon, we’ll be holding our precious… what did you decide to name her?”
“Viola,” Alicia responded drowsily.
“Ah, yes. Continuing with your Twelfth Night theme, I see. I suppose if it had been a boy, you’d have named it Cesario?”
“You said it would be a girl.”
“Yes,” Gerard smiled broadly, “yes, I did. It will be. A beautiful addition to our beautiful family. Would you like for her to have your features, darling? Those Ashwood genes do seem to be dominant. I swear, I cannot see any of myself in either of the other two.”
Confused but pleased by Gerard’s continued presence and his lighthearted conversation, Alicia shook her head and grinned. She liked that Olivia and Sebastian had inherited her fair hair and light eyes, but she wanted a child who was the spitting image of her beloved Gerry. “I want her to have your eyes.”
Gerard chuckled darkly. “Oh, that’s already a given.”
He stayed in the room while she continued to dilate at a rate that pleased the doctor. He scrubbed up when the nurse suggested it. He held her hand during the worst of the contractions, but moved towards the doctor when the baby’s head crowned. Though his face was masked and her eyes were filmy with tears, she thought she caught a glimpse of a broad smile when he cut the baby’s umbilical cord.
He refused to let the nurse take the baby away. He held her close and helped clean her off. The tiny purple cap placed on her soft, dark hair was one he’d picked out himself. Dressed in clean scrubs, he cradled the baby against his chest and perched on the edge of Alicia’s bed.
“Look at her, darling. Look at our precious Viola Melinoe,” he urged, voice gentler than she’d ever heard before. She wanted to pretend that the tone was for her, but his eyes were glued to the baby.
“Melinoe?” Alicia hadn’t chosen a middle name. She’d still be torn between ‘Grace’ and ‘Elise.’ Gerard had picked the middle names of the other two, but hadn’t offered any suggestions for Viola.
“Yes. You have your themes, Alicia, and I have mine. Melinoe was also a Greek goddess.”
Alicia nodded to herself. He’d chosen Iaso, the goddess of recuperation, for Olivia and Apollo for Sebastian. She was unfamiliar with Melinoe, though. “I like it.”
Gerard reverently stroked the side of Viola’s cheek. Tiny eyes fluttered open. They were not as blue as her siblings’ had been. Alicia held out hope that they would darken to the same green-gold hazel as Gerard’s eyes.
“Hello, my precious violet. Welcome to the world,” he whispered in the baby’s ear. He tickled the bottom of her small foot. She let out a squeak of protest. Gerard’s grin broadened. “Daddy’s going to help you rule it someday, precious. I promise.”
“C-can I hold her?” Alicia held out her arms. The baby looked hungry and she wanted to hold the child she’d carried for nine months. Truth be told, she also wanted to divert Gerard’s attention to herself for a bit.
“No,” Gerard snapped. His eyes flashed with anger and something darker that made Alicia shiver. He curved his torso over the baby, turned from Alicia. “She’s going to sleep and then I will have the nurse put her in the incubator. Aunt Hattie is going to help you bottle breast milk. If Viola can tolerate it, that’s what she will drink.”
“I breastfed the other two,” she protested weakly. Whatever he’d given her in lieu of the epidural was wearing off. She hurt, she was tired, she didn’t know why he was angry, and she wanted to hold her damn baby.
“Yes. I am aware of that.” Gerard’s lips compressed. He bit back a remark about how the other two still acted as if they were breastfeeding. Neither of them seemed inclined to have an independent thought.
Without another word, Gerard swept out of the room with Viola in his arms. He didn’t return. Hattie appeared an hour later to help Alicia express milk into bottles. The older woman’s motions were gentle but her face was unreadable. Alicia had never been entirely comfortable around the formidable woman.
“H-hattie?”
“Yes, child?”
“Who was Melinoe?” Alicia kept her eyes on the bottle in her hands. She missed the gleeful smile that appeared on Hattie’s face. “It’s the middle name Gerry gave the baby.”
Hattie patted Alicia’s hand softly. “That, my dear, is Gerry’s sense of humor in action. Melinoe was the daughter of either Hades or Zeus and Persephone. She was the goddess of ghosts.”
“Thank you,” a stunned Alicia murmured softly.
“Child of the underworld?” Hattie hummed to herself, resumed capping a bottle. “Rather fitting, I suppose.”
The bottle Alicia had been holding slipped out of her hands. It shattered upon impact with the floor. Breast milk, glass, and Alicia’s dreams littered the hospital floor.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Blog Only! "Untitled Short Story" Part 1/5?
Chapter One:
"Come out with us," Meghan Wheeler cajoled, tugging on her best friend's hand. "Lisa and I will buy all your drinks tonight, and we won't even make you dance unless you want to. It'll be a quiet night."
Kacy Adams shook her head and slipped her hand free. She loved Meghan like a sister, but they had different opinions on what constituted a 'quiet night.' In college, where they'd met as roommates, Meghan had always been the more out-going, party girl while Kacy spent most of her time in the library or computer lab. After eight years of friendship, Meghan still didn't understand that Kacy preferred historical texts to modern conversation.
"I think I'm going to order a pizza and veg out on the couch. My DVR's almost full so I need to watch and erase what I've got recorded."
Meghan rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. You're going to read those letters again."
Kacy shrugged a shoulder but didn't deny the accusation. Seven months earlier, she'd purchased an old trunk at an estate sale. To her surprise, and pleasure, the compartment below the trunk's false bottom contained letters written by Confederate Captain Samuel Crowder to his mother Annie and his brother John, a First Lieutenant in the Union Army. As she'd concentrated on the Civil War for her Master's, she'd eagerly devoured all forty letters.
Crazy as it sounded, she'd also fallen in love with Captain Crowder. He'd agonized over the split between him and his brother. He'd written to John and Annie about how he still loved his "Yankee" brother, and looked forward to the day they could all be together again. He'd tried to shield his mother from the true horrors of the war and constantly reassured her that he was fine. Kacy admired his spirit and his selflessness. It was a shame he'd been killed during the Battle of Chickamauga.
"You need a real boyfriend, Kace," Meghan remarked. It was an observation she made at least once a week. "I know it hurt when Paul the Prince of Pricks screwed you over, but that was two years ago. Stop licking your wounds and hop back in the saddle, kiddo."
"Oh please." Kacy waved her hand dismissively. "I am so over Paul."
Meghan playfully tugged on the end of Kacy's chestnut braid. She'd been there when Kacy had stumbled in on her fiancé Paul doing the horizontal mambo on the kitchen table with his "lab partner." Rather than falling apart or getting angry, Kacy had erected a wall around herself so thick that only her closest friends and family members could get through. And, of course, the Captain.
"Face it, kiddo, no one will ever measure up to the Captain," she teased. "Are you sure you don't want to come? Lisa and I have a bet going. She swears that if we hit the bar near the university, we can cash in on your fame and not pay for a single drink."
Kacy groaned. Shortly after reading the letters, she'd written an article on the Crowder brothers for one of the leading Civil War publications. The article had gotten quite a bit of attention and led to a short segment on several news programs as well as stint as an "expert" for the History Channel's most recent Civil War mini-series. Though the series had only aired a week earlier, she was already tired of the spotlight. Lisa, an AV whiz, had strung all Kacy's "bits" together and sent the e-mail to all their college friends. More than one had commented on her "crush" on Captain Crowder.
"I'm going to take that as a no." Meghan puffed out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout, but knew it wouldn't sway her friend. Once Kacy made her mind up, there was little that could change it. It was one of the things she both loved and hated about the other woman.
"Get out of here," Kacy laughed, shoving her friend towards the French doors that opened out onto the courtyard separating their townhomes. Meghan waved cheekily through the tinted glass as Kacy locked the deadbolt.
To prove to herself and Meghan that she didn't need to spend every night with the Crowder letters, she ordered a Hawaiian pizza from her favorite pizza delivery and settled on the couch with the remote and a glass of Hill Country Merlot. Halfway through her third slice of pizza and two hours into her mini Spirit Sleuths marathon, her eyes slid to the packet of letters on her desk.
"Stop it, Kace! They're just letters," she muttered under her breath and turned the volume up. When she got up to pour herself a second glass of wine, she took a long, winding path around the desk. By the time she got to the kitchen, her fingers were shaking and her heart was pounding. "This just proves you need time away from Samuel Crowder, moron."
She tried to sit still on the couch and pay attention to her favorite show, but her attention kept wandering. She'd catch her eyes drifting to the desk and her feet swinging to the floor and pinched herself as punishment. When the ending credits rolled across the screen, she realized that she didn't remember a single detail from the episode's plot. Disgusted with herself, she clicked the television off and picked her laptop off the coffee table. T.V. wasn't a good distraction, but work always kept her mind busy.
As a researcher and assistant-curator for the Texas Heritage Museum in Hillsboro, there were always things that needed to be verified and cataloged. She loved the museum and her job, but was looking forward to the following fall when she was slated to start her Assistant Professorship at her alma-mater in Huntsville. The only downside was that it meant leaving Meghan, an instructor for Hill College's Fashion and Design program, behind.
An e-mail from Juan Hernandez, one of her old study partners and a staffer at the Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, caught her attention. As she was downloading the attached files, she noticed an e-mail from Nancy Jacobs from The Pearce Museum with a similar subject and attachment size. Was there a reunion or seminar she'd missed that they were filling her in on?
Scanned photographs from the Civil War covered her screen. They were from the Battle of Cold Harbor according to what Juan had written. While it wasn't one of her "favorite" battles, she appreciated the images. In two of the photos, a tall, lean man dressed in a shabby uniform standing so that only his profile was visible caught her attention. She zoomed in as closely as the program would allow. She knew the curve of that twice-broken nose and the line of that strong, square jaw!
While her top-of-the-line photo printer, one of the few things she'd splurged on, printed the photos, Kacy set her laptop on the coffee table and launched herself off the couch. Shortly after acquiring the trunk of letters, she'd exploited all of her contacts and managed to purchase a Crowder family photograph taken shortly before John and Samuel went to war as well as a photograph of Samuel in his uniform. She grabbed the framed photo of Samuel off her bookcase and dashed to her printer. She bounced anxiously on her toes as she waited for the picture to print.
As soon as the last photo slid onto the tray, she held it up to the light and peered at it through her magnifying glass. She held the Cold Harbor picture and the pre-war photo side-by-side to compare images. Though she'd have to use a facial recognition program to be absolutely certain, she was sure she was looking at a picture of Captain Samuel Crowder burying bodies at the site of a battle that took place nine months after he was killed in action.
Her hands trembled as she scrolled through the contact list on her cell phone. She drummed her fingers on the desk while she waited for Juan to answer. "Do you know what this is!" she exclaimed as soon as she heard him grunt a terse greeting.
"Kacy?"
"Of course, moron. Who else would it be? I just got your e-mail. Do you have any idea what those pictures mean?" She collected her photographs and collapsed on the couch. With the tip of her index finger, she traced the outline of Samuel's face through the glass.
Juan's voice dropped off. Static buzzed in Kacy's ears. Before she could hang up and redial, the static cleared. "Kace, I didn't send you an e-mail."
"Of course you did. Five Cold Harbor photos were attached."
More static. "I'm not working on any Cold Harbor projects. I've been working day and night on our Battlefield Medicine exhibit."
Kacy's smile faltered. She leaned forward to double check the contents of her inbox. The e-mail from Juan was still there and it had come from his museum e-mail address. She opened the e-mail from Nancy and found the same photos. "You sent it to me. Nancy sent me the exact same pictures an hour before you did. I've got to tell you, I'm not sure I like knowing you both have better contact than I do."
"Kacy," Juan drawled, his West Texas accent more prevalent than ever. He said her name the same way he had when she'd gone nearly catatonic over Paul and when he'd accidentally deleted all their notes for their big Western Expansion project.
"What?" she whispered, heart thudding painfully. Juan wasn't the type to play practical jokes. He was one of the most serious, straight-forward people she'd ever met. If he said he hadn't set the e-mail, she believed him.
"Nancy's in Belize. She's been there for a week, remember? Big destination wedding for her sister?"
"Oh." Kacy slowly closed the top her laptop with her e-mail still open. She drew her knees to her chest and cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder. Though it was October and relatively warm, she shivered and goosebumps dotted her arms. "T-thank you, Juan."
"Is everything okay, honey? You sound far away."
"I-I t-think I n-need to go now." With her thumb, she pressed the button to disconnect the call. Her teeth were chattering and tears stung her eyes. She licked dry lips and glanced down at the photos beside her. Captain Samuel Crowder, eyes dark and face grim, stared back at her. If Nancy was in Belize and Juan swore he didn't do it, who had sent the photos?
She let out a low screech when the wind picked up and rattled the French doors. Blowing out a shaky breath, she laughed at herself and stood on wobbly knees. They were finally getting the thunderstorm the weatherman had been promising all week. "Calm down, scaredy-cat. You know that always happens when you don't bolt the doors."
Kacy froze, hand extended towards the deadbolt. It wasn't locked. She'd done it after Meghan had left. She knew she had. She always locked the bolt when she was by herself. Was the wine messing with her mind? A lump in her throat, she flipped the bolt for the second time that evening and shoved her hands in her pockets.
As she shuffled back into living room, the sound of a low growl sent shivers down her spine.
AN:
So? Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Come on...
"Come out with us," Meghan Wheeler cajoled, tugging on her best friend's hand. "Lisa and I will buy all your drinks tonight, and we won't even make you dance unless you want to. It'll be a quiet night."
Kacy Adams shook her head and slipped her hand free. She loved Meghan like a sister, but they had different opinions on what constituted a 'quiet night.' In college, where they'd met as roommates, Meghan had always been the more out-going, party girl while Kacy spent most of her time in the library or computer lab. After eight years of friendship, Meghan still didn't understand that Kacy preferred historical texts to modern conversation.
"I think I'm going to order a pizza and veg out on the couch. My DVR's almost full so I need to watch and erase what I've got recorded."
Meghan rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. You're going to read those letters again."
Kacy shrugged a shoulder but didn't deny the accusation. Seven months earlier, she'd purchased an old trunk at an estate sale. To her surprise, and pleasure, the compartment below the trunk's false bottom contained letters written by Confederate Captain Samuel Crowder to his mother Annie and his brother John, a First Lieutenant in the Union Army. As she'd concentrated on the Civil War for her Master's, she'd eagerly devoured all forty letters.
Crazy as it sounded, she'd also fallen in love with Captain Crowder. He'd agonized over the split between him and his brother. He'd written to John and Annie about how he still loved his "Yankee" brother, and looked forward to the day they could all be together again. He'd tried to shield his mother from the true horrors of the war and constantly reassured her that he was fine. Kacy admired his spirit and his selflessness. It was a shame he'd been killed during the Battle of Chickamauga.
"You need a real boyfriend, Kace," Meghan remarked. It was an observation she made at least once a week. "I know it hurt when Paul the Prince of Pricks screwed you over, but that was two years ago. Stop licking your wounds and hop back in the saddle, kiddo."
"Oh please." Kacy waved her hand dismissively. "I am so over Paul."
Meghan playfully tugged on the end of Kacy's chestnut braid. She'd been there when Kacy had stumbled in on her fiancé Paul doing the horizontal mambo on the kitchen table with his "lab partner." Rather than falling apart or getting angry, Kacy had erected a wall around herself so thick that only her closest friends and family members could get through. And, of course, the Captain.
"Face it, kiddo, no one will ever measure up to the Captain," she teased. "Are you sure you don't want to come? Lisa and I have a bet going. She swears that if we hit the bar near the university, we can cash in on your fame and not pay for a single drink."
Kacy groaned. Shortly after reading the letters, she'd written an article on the Crowder brothers for one of the leading Civil War publications. The article had gotten quite a bit of attention and led to a short segment on several news programs as well as stint as an "expert" for the History Channel's most recent Civil War mini-series. Though the series had only aired a week earlier, she was already tired of the spotlight. Lisa, an AV whiz, had strung all Kacy's "bits" together and sent the e-mail to all their college friends. More than one had commented on her "crush" on Captain Crowder.
"I'm going to take that as a no." Meghan puffed out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout, but knew it wouldn't sway her friend. Once Kacy made her mind up, there was little that could change it. It was one of the things she both loved and hated about the other woman.
"Get out of here," Kacy laughed, shoving her friend towards the French doors that opened out onto the courtyard separating their townhomes. Meghan waved cheekily through the tinted glass as Kacy locked the deadbolt.
To prove to herself and Meghan that she didn't need to spend every night with the Crowder letters, she ordered a Hawaiian pizza from her favorite pizza delivery and settled on the couch with the remote and a glass of Hill Country Merlot. Halfway through her third slice of pizza and two hours into her mini Spirit Sleuths marathon, her eyes slid to the packet of letters on her desk.
"Stop it, Kace! They're just letters," she muttered under her breath and turned the volume up. When she got up to pour herself a second glass of wine, she took a long, winding path around the desk. By the time she got to the kitchen, her fingers were shaking and her heart was pounding. "This just proves you need time away from Samuel Crowder, moron."
She tried to sit still on the couch and pay attention to her favorite show, but her attention kept wandering. She'd catch her eyes drifting to the desk and her feet swinging to the floor and pinched herself as punishment. When the ending credits rolled across the screen, she realized that she didn't remember a single detail from the episode's plot. Disgusted with herself, she clicked the television off and picked her laptop off the coffee table. T.V. wasn't a good distraction, but work always kept her mind busy.
As a researcher and assistant-curator for the Texas Heritage Museum in Hillsboro, there were always things that needed to be verified and cataloged. She loved the museum and her job, but was looking forward to the following fall when she was slated to start her Assistant Professorship at her alma-mater in Huntsville. The only downside was that it meant leaving Meghan, an instructor for Hill College's Fashion and Design program, behind.
An e-mail from Juan Hernandez, one of her old study partners and a staffer at the Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, caught her attention. As she was downloading the attached files, she noticed an e-mail from Nancy Jacobs from The Pearce Museum with a similar subject and attachment size. Was there a reunion or seminar she'd missed that they were filling her in on?
Scanned photographs from the Civil War covered her screen. They were from the Battle of Cold Harbor according to what Juan had written. While it wasn't one of her "favorite" battles, she appreciated the images. In two of the photos, a tall, lean man dressed in a shabby uniform standing so that only his profile was visible caught her attention. She zoomed in as closely as the program would allow. She knew the curve of that twice-broken nose and the line of that strong, square jaw!
While her top-of-the-line photo printer, one of the few things she'd splurged on, printed the photos, Kacy set her laptop on the coffee table and launched herself off the couch. Shortly after acquiring the trunk of letters, she'd exploited all of her contacts and managed to purchase a Crowder family photograph taken shortly before John and Samuel went to war as well as a photograph of Samuel in his uniform. She grabbed the framed photo of Samuel off her bookcase and dashed to her printer. She bounced anxiously on her toes as she waited for the picture to print.
As soon as the last photo slid onto the tray, she held it up to the light and peered at it through her magnifying glass. She held the Cold Harbor picture and the pre-war photo side-by-side to compare images. Though she'd have to use a facial recognition program to be absolutely certain, she was sure she was looking at a picture of Captain Samuel Crowder burying bodies at the site of a battle that took place nine months after he was killed in action.
Her hands trembled as she scrolled through the contact list on her cell phone. She drummed her fingers on the desk while she waited for Juan to answer. "Do you know what this is!" she exclaimed as soon as she heard him grunt a terse greeting.
"Kacy?"
"Of course, moron. Who else would it be? I just got your e-mail. Do you have any idea what those pictures mean?" She collected her photographs and collapsed on the couch. With the tip of her index finger, she traced the outline of Samuel's face through the glass.
Juan's voice dropped off. Static buzzed in Kacy's ears. Before she could hang up and redial, the static cleared. "Kace, I didn't send you an e-mail."
"Of course you did. Five Cold Harbor photos were attached."
More static. "I'm not working on any Cold Harbor projects. I've been working day and night on our Battlefield Medicine exhibit."
Kacy's smile faltered. She leaned forward to double check the contents of her inbox. The e-mail from Juan was still there and it had come from his museum e-mail address. She opened the e-mail from Nancy and found the same photos. "You sent it to me. Nancy sent me the exact same pictures an hour before you did. I've got to tell you, I'm not sure I like knowing you both have better contact than I do."
"Kacy," Juan drawled, his West Texas accent more prevalent than ever. He said her name the same way he had when she'd gone nearly catatonic over Paul and when he'd accidentally deleted all their notes for their big Western Expansion project.
"What?" she whispered, heart thudding painfully. Juan wasn't the type to play practical jokes. He was one of the most serious, straight-forward people she'd ever met. If he said he hadn't set the e-mail, she believed him.
"Nancy's in Belize. She's been there for a week, remember? Big destination wedding for her sister?"
"Oh." Kacy slowly closed the top her laptop with her e-mail still open. She drew her knees to her chest and cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder. Though it was October and relatively warm, she shivered and goosebumps dotted her arms. "T-thank you, Juan."
"Is everything okay, honey? You sound far away."
"I-I t-think I n-need to go now." With her thumb, she pressed the button to disconnect the call. Her teeth were chattering and tears stung her eyes. She licked dry lips and glanced down at the photos beside her. Captain Samuel Crowder, eyes dark and face grim, stared back at her. If Nancy was in Belize and Juan swore he didn't do it, who had sent the photos?
She let out a low screech when the wind picked up and rattled the French doors. Blowing out a shaky breath, she laughed at herself and stood on wobbly knees. They were finally getting the thunderstorm the weatherman had been promising all week. "Calm down, scaredy-cat. You know that always happens when you don't bolt the doors."
Kacy froze, hand extended towards the deadbolt. It wasn't locked. She'd done it after Meghan had left. She knew she had. She always locked the bolt when she was by herself. Was the wine messing with her mind? A lump in her throat, she flipped the bolt for the second time that evening and shoved her hands in her pockets.
As she shuffled back into living room, the sound of a low growl sent shivers down her spine.
AN:
So? Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Come on...
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Blog Only! One-Shot -- Network Universe -- "The Sisterhood"
So, this takes place sometime after The Chaos Child (spoilers, beware!) and after Imperfection's Glory. Just a short piece.
"I am so, so sorry."
Viola tore her eyes away from the scene a few feet away and patted new her friend's twisting hands sympathetically. A particularly loud crash and familiar voices shouting out streams of expletives had both women wincing. "I keep telling you not to worry about it, Celia. Besides, if anything, I should be the one apologizing. It's my demon-dar that went off two blocks from the restaurant."
"Oh, please." Celia's nose wrinkled. "Like we wouldn't have gotten the call about it anyway. I suppose I should be thankful that it happened before dinner. Calls like that always come during -."
"Dessert," both women finished in unison. They shared an eye roll and giggled.
Viola was glad she'd met Celia Buckley, the New England Region Director's girlfriend. It was nice having someone who understood what it was like to have plans ruined by demons. She glanced down at her watch and frowned. "Do you think we're going to miss our reservation?"
Celia went still as she checked the timelines. "Not if your husband...," she broke off to shove Viola's head down seconds before a metal garbage can lid flew through the air. "Yes, yes we are going to miss our reservation."
While Celia dug her cell phone out of her purse, Viola hopped over the short wall they'd been sitting on to retrieve the lid. After calling out Duke's name, she tossed it to him as if it were a Frisbee. She tried to use their link to ask if he needed any help, but he shut her out before she could form the question. Furious and hungry, she crossed her arms over her chest and rejoined her friend.
Celia bit back a sigh as the restaurant put her on hold. If the Buckley and Whittier names weren't enough to get the stuffy man to cut her some slack, she was going to have to resort to bribery or threats. It made her jealous of Jeremy's influence over people. If he was on the phone, the droll Mr. Baines would have been tripping over himself to accommodate them. Then again, if Jeremy had been free enough to be on the phone, there wouldn't be a reason to change their reservations.
Fortunately, the Buckley name, and sympathy over her brother's recent death, were enough to get their reservation bumped back thirty minutes. That gave the boys twenty minutes to take care of the rampaging D'vork and ten minutes to get cleaned up. Celia snapped her phone closed and shoved it into her small evening bag. She smoothed the knee-length pleated skirt of her grape sateen dress. The '50s style dress was perfect for a night out with friends but not a night with demons.
"I love your shoes," Viola remarked, eyes on Celia's sparkly silver platform sling-back sandals. Her own black-and-rhinestone ballet flats looked dull in comparison. Even though the short, black sheath dress was one of her favorites, and Duke's if the glimmer in his eye meant what she thought it did, she felt frumpy seated next to fashion-plate Celia.
"Thanks. Wish I could pull off your look. That dress is amazing." Celia fingered one of the ruffles along the hem of Viola's dress. After three weeks of wearing nothing but black, she'd opted for a bit of color to cheer herself up. Was it too soon, though? Would people think her tacky or disrespectful of her brother's memory? "I can't wear flats with evening wear. I end up looking like a little girl caught playing dress-up. Not the look I want to go with in a room full of gold-digging sharks after my Jay."
Petite by modern standards but inches taller than Celia, Viola understood completely. Luckily, her job allowed her to dress casually and back home in Houston she and Duke weren't social butterflies. She'd go crazy if she had to wear heels or fancy dresses more than a couple of times a year. "I know I'm sidelined because of the spawn," she patted her slightly rounded stomach lovingly, "but why'd Jeremy bench you?"
"Oh, he does this all the time. He thinks that being chivalrous and acting like a superhero is going to help him get lucky at the end of the night."
"Does it work?"
"Not if I pass out from starvation first!" Celia snapped loud enough for Jeremy to hear. Her eyes narrowed when he impulsively tried to tackle the D'vork and ended up being thrown against a brick wall. She could already picture tiny rips and tears in the fine fabric. "I told him to take that jacket off. He's going to ruin it."
"Is that why you packed an extra in the car?"
"Of course. I never go anywhere without a spare set of clothes for Jeremy. Honestly, sometimes it's like having a three-year old."
Viola chuckled. Duke was the same way. He couldn't go a rotation without ruining a pair of jeans or a shirt. "You mean he doesn't listen to you when tell him you've seen him tear up his clothes?"
"He swears that the timelines don't cover fashion issues," Celia huffed. Sometimes she used the timelines for fashion issues. With the sometimes unpredictable weather in Baltimore, it was a necessity. "He can be such a... guy... sometimes."
Viola didn't need premonitions to predict that a night in the guest room was in Jeremy's future. Ripping a pair of old jeans or a t-shirt like Duke often did was one thing. Ruining what looked like a very expensive tailored suit jacket was a hundred times worse. She couldn't blame Celia for being miffed.
Viola's stomach rumbled to remind her that all she'd had for lunch was a salad and that had been hours earlier. Feeling out Duke through the link only told her that it was still on lock-down. Stupid, overprotective idiot. "Think we should step in to help?"
"Help? Oh, honey, we're taking over." Celia yanked off her shoes and set them on the wall beside her purse. She leaped off the wall and bounced daintily on her bare toes while waiting for Viola. "I'm through watching those two screw around. It's cold, I'm hungry, I’m going to ruin yet another pedicure, and if I end up missing Flavio's tiramisu, I will feed them to a pack of savage Zilas."
"Amen, sister." Viola grinned. She linked her arm with Celia's and marched across the asphalt. "What's the plan?"
Celia paused for a moment to check the possible timelines. "Swing around to the D'vorks left side and distract him. I'll shoot it in the flesh part of its neck with Jeremy's tranq gun. We'll let the boys do the clean up."
"Works for me and, since I'm just the distraction, it should keep Duke from flipping his lid."
Viola watched with amusement as her blonde friend angrily tapped Jeremy on the shoulder. When Jeremy turned around, Celia ripped the gun from his hands. He looked as stunned as Duke had when Viola shoved him out of the way. Oh yeah, she definitely liked spunky, little Celia.
"Tag, boys, you're out. Let the pros handle this one."
"I am so, so sorry."
Viola tore her eyes away from the scene a few feet away and patted new her friend's twisting hands sympathetically. A particularly loud crash and familiar voices shouting out streams of expletives had both women wincing. "I keep telling you not to worry about it, Celia. Besides, if anything, I should be the one apologizing. It's my demon-dar that went off two blocks from the restaurant."
"Oh, please." Celia's nose wrinkled. "Like we wouldn't have gotten the call about it anyway. I suppose I should be thankful that it happened before dinner. Calls like that always come during -."
"Dessert," both women finished in unison. They shared an eye roll and giggled.
Viola was glad she'd met Celia Buckley, the New England Region Director's girlfriend. It was nice having someone who understood what it was like to have plans ruined by demons. She glanced down at her watch and frowned. "Do you think we're going to miss our reservation?"
Celia went still as she checked the timelines. "Not if your husband...," she broke off to shove Viola's head down seconds before a metal garbage can lid flew through the air. "Yes, yes we are going to miss our reservation."
While Celia dug her cell phone out of her purse, Viola hopped over the short wall they'd been sitting on to retrieve the lid. After calling out Duke's name, she tossed it to him as if it were a Frisbee. She tried to use their link to ask if he needed any help, but he shut her out before she could form the question. Furious and hungry, she crossed her arms over her chest and rejoined her friend.
Celia bit back a sigh as the restaurant put her on hold. If the Buckley and Whittier names weren't enough to get the stuffy man to cut her some slack, she was going to have to resort to bribery or threats. It made her jealous of Jeremy's influence over people. If he was on the phone, the droll Mr. Baines would have been tripping over himself to accommodate them. Then again, if Jeremy had been free enough to be on the phone, there wouldn't be a reason to change their reservations.
Fortunately, the Buckley name, and sympathy over her brother's recent death, were enough to get their reservation bumped back thirty minutes. That gave the boys twenty minutes to take care of the rampaging D'vork and ten minutes to get cleaned up. Celia snapped her phone closed and shoved it into her small evening bag. She smoothed the knee-length pleated skirt of her grape sateen dress. The '50s style dress was perfect for a night out with friends but not a night with demons.
"I love your shoes," Viola remarked, eyes on Celia's sparkly silver platform sling-back sandals. Her own black-and-rhinestone ballet flats looked dull in comparison. Even though the short, black sheath dress was one of her favorites, and Duke's if the glimmer in his eye meant what she thought it did, she felt frumpy seated next to fashion-plate Celia.
"Thanks. Wish I could pull off your look. That dress is amazing." Celia fingered one of the ruffles along the hem of Viola's dress. After three weeks of wearing nothing but black, she'd opted for a bit of color to cheer herself up. Was it too soon, though? Would people think her tacky or disrespectful of her brother's memory? "I can't wear flats with evening wear. I end up looking like a little girl caught playing dress-up. Not the look I want to go with in a room full of gold-digging sharks after my Jay."
Petite by modern standards but inches taller than Celia, Viola understood completely. Luckily, her job allowed her to dress casually and back home in Houston she and Duke weren't social butterflies. She'd go crazy if she had to wear heels or fancy dresses more than a couple of times a year. "I know I'm sidelined because of the spawn," she patted her slightly rounded stomach lovingly, "but why'd Jeremy bench you?"
"Oh, he does this all the time. He thinks that being chivalrous and acting like a superhero is going to help him get lucky at the end of the night."
"Does it work?"
"Not if I pass out from starvation first!" Celia snapped loud enough for Jeremy to hear. Her eyes narrowed when he impulsively tried to tackle the D'vork and ended up being thrown against a brick wall. She could already picture tiny rips and tears in the fine fabric. "I told him to take that jacket off. He's going to ruin it."
"Is that why you packed an extra in the car?"
"Of course. I never go anywhere without a spare set of clothes for Jeremy. Honestly, sometimes it's like having a three-year old."
Viola chuckled. Duke was the same way. He couldn't go a rotation without ruining a pair of jeans or a shirt. "You mean he doesn't listen to you when tell him you've seen him tear up his clothes?"
"He swears that the timelines don't cover fashion issues," Celia huffed. Sometimes she used the timelines for fashion issues. With the sometimes unpredictable weather in Baltimore, it was a necessity. "He can be such a... guy... sometimes."
Viola didn't need premonitions to predict that a night in the guest room was in Jeremy's future. Ripping a pair of old jeans or a t-shirt like Duke often did was one thing. Ruining what looked like a very expensive tailored suit jacket was a hundred times worse. She couldn't blame Celia for being miffed.
Viola's stomach rumbled to remind her that all she'd had for lunch was a salad and that had been hours earlier. Feeling out Duke through the link only told her that it was still on lock-down. Stupid, overprotective idiot. "Think we should step in to help?"
"Help? Oh, honey, we're taking over." Celia yanked off her shoes and set them on the wall beside her purse. She leaped off the wall and bounced daintily on her bare toes while waiting for Viola. "I'm through watching those two screw around. It's cold, I'm hungry, I’m going to ruin yet another pedicure, and if I end up missing Flavio's tiramisu, I will feed them to a pack of savage Zilas."
"Amen, sister." Viola grinned. She linked her arm with Celia's and marched across the asphalt. "What's the plan?"
Celia paused for a moment to check the possible timelines. "Swing around to the D'vorks left side and distract him. I'll shoot it in the flesh part of its neck with Jeremy's tranq gun. We'll let the boys do the clean up."
"Works for me and, since I'm just the distraction, it should keep Duke from flipping his lid."
Viola watched with amusement as her blonde friend angrily tapped Jeremy on the shoulder. When Jeremy turned around, Celia ripped the gun from his hands. He looked as stunned as Duke had when Viola shoved him out of the way. Oh yeah, she definitely liked spunky, little Celia.
"Tag, boys, you're out. Let the pros handle this one."
Thursday, July 8, 2010
One-Shot - "Sucker Punch"
A/N: This was an experiment and, hopefully, the start of another story. It takes place in the same “universe” as the Family Lies series, but in a different region of the Network. Sadly, Duke and Viola won’t be making an appearance. Thanks for giving it a shot
Sucker Punch
Before I even knew her name, I fell impossibly and irrevocably in love with a grinning, golden-haired angel.
It started the way most of my evenings usually ended: in an alley or secluded area with a dead demon at my feet and some of the bitter anger that eats at me every damned minute of every damned day temporarily appeased. Except this time, the demon wasn’t dead. I’d feigned right when I should have ducked left, and I’d misjudged how little traction I had. I lashed out with my foot, hoping to catch the demon in its fleshy stomach, but it anticipated my move and countered with a punch that left me seeing stars.
Pinned to the wall by a Fwar claw crushing my windpipe, my life did not flash before my eyes. As fifteen out of my twenty-eight years had been downright hellish, I was grateful. There was no white light beckoning me into the great beyond, either. As I made peace with the end, a harsh, shrill scream and something heavy slamming into the Fwar caused the demon to drop me to the ground. My head cracked the edge of a protruding brick on the way down. The world spun and went gray.
“Well, this blows,” was my last thought as I sucked dirty rainwater into my nose and lungs. It was an undignified, but oddly fitting, way to die.
Rather than fluffy clouds and harps or burning flames and brimstone, the toes of scuffed running shoes were the first thing I saw when I reluctantly opened my eyes. I followed the curve of the shoes to the daintiest pair of ankles I’d ever seen. The shadows over my head shifted and the ankles were replaced by a pair of denim-covered knees.
As my skull throbbed in pain, I rolled over onto my back and spat when more filthy water tried to trickle down my throat. The knees dropped and splashed into the puddle near my head. Small, pink-polished fingers fluttered at my temples. As even the dim light in the alley hurt my concussion-sensitive eyes, I kept them half-lidded and could not see my angel’s face.
“Oh,” she muttered. Even with my senses dulled, I picked up on the self-recrimination oozing out of her. “Oops.”
Oops? What kind of angel says oops? Soft fingers brushed wet hair off my forehead before lightly pressing against the pulse throbbing in my throat. Seemingly satisfied with my heart rate, the angel breathed out a relieved sigh.
“Who’re you?” I managed through swollen lips and a tongue that felt like a stone.
“I am so, so sorry,” my angel apologized, sincerity and guilt flooding my senses. I watched as she tugged off a short denim jacket, balled it up, and gently placed it under my head. “I swear I didn’t see you with the Fwar. I mean, from his position I knew he had a victim, but I didn’t know he’d drop you!”
“S’okay,” I responded partially to reassure her and mostly to stop her from rambling at a thousand miles an hour. My aching brain couldn’t keep up with the stream of hastily uttered words.
She moved, bent so that I could see her face. A riot of unruly blonde curls and sorrow-rimmed green eyes filled my vision. The tip of a pink tongue poked out from between a pair of perfect lips. “Are you all right?”
I lifted a leaden arm and massaged my right temple. A bump had already formed. Fortunately, there was no blood trail so I hadn’t broken the skin. “I’ve had worse.”
Those perfect lips thinned. A crease formed between her fair eyebrows, and her left eye twitched. After a long moment, she cocked her head to the side and frowned. “You have, haven’t you?”
An unfamiliar, but enticing, scent wafted across me. Beneath the musk of jasmine and bitterness of dust, I caught the sharp tang of magic. Had she peeked into my mind and seen one of my memories? I growled at the thought of the intrusion. I hated telepaths who had no sense of personal boundaries.
“I’m no telepath,” she held her hands up and leaned backwards. “I see things.”
“Seer.”
“Chronos cursed,” she corrected with an apologetic smile.
I was familiar with the term. My angel did not see flashes of future or past events, she saw all future possibilities. Timelines, split off at key decisions, appeared to her. Skilled possibility-viewers, the Network-approved term for people like my angel, could see the past as well as the future.
I was not aware that there was a viewer in the region. Was she not associated with the Network? Before I could ask her if she was in the Network and which region she was with, she ran those smooth, cool fingertips along my jaw. I winced at the certainty that the coarse stubble I’d neglected to shave that morning had abraded her soft skin.
“I am so, so sorry,” she repeated, misreading my wince. Her compassion was a soothing balm to the anger that constantly burned in my chest. I wanted to bottle her emotions, so clear, cool, and honest, and carry them with me. When tears sparkled in her eyes, I gathered my wits and sent a warm wave of reassurance crashing over her.
She rocked back, eyes wide. One of her hands went to her throat. Her mouth gaped open. “Oh! Oh! You’re a projector! Well,” she gasped, “that’s so not fair.”
“You peeked at my timeline,” I reminded her, not the least bit apologetic for having used my gift on her. I had a feeling that if I allowed it, she would keep on apologizing until the sun came up. As an empathic-telepathic projector, I could not only sense others’ emotions but could project them so strong that it could actually make a person cry from sorrow or faint from fear. Unlike regular empaths, I could narrow my focus to a single person or cover a crowd of twenty people and I did not need to be feeling the emotion myself in order to project it. It was an ability that had served me well.
“True,” she conceded with a nod of her head. Seemingly not minding her wet capris, she rose to a crouch and linked her fingers with mine. “Ready to sit up?”
I wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to tell my angel that, either. With surprising strength, she helped me sit upright. I swallowed down a swell of bile. I’d be damned before I threw up in front of her. Craning my neck, I glanced down at her jacket. It was utterly ruined.
“Don’t worry about it.” She lightly hopped over my outstretched legs and gracefully dropped to the ground beside me. Though we were hip-to-hip, the tips of her toes didn’t even reach my ankles. “I was looking for an excuse to buy a new jacket.”
Beneath the lingering guilt, it was obvious that cheerfulness was her natural state of mind. Glancing at her with all my shields down, the brightness of her aura nearly blinded me. Rarely did I see anyone over the age of ten with such light. How had she managed to maintain such a positive disposition, especially if she was at least peripherally involved in the Network?
“I should call you a cab or an ambulance.”
“My car’s around the corner.” At least I thought it was. Chasing down the Fwar, I’d lost track of what street we were on. For all I knew, my SUV was four blocks back.
“You’ve got a head wound. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to drive.”
She did, unfortunately, have a point. My head was killing me and spots danced before my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I harmed anyone in a car accident. “You’ve seen one of my memories. Knowing my address at this point is nothing compared to that.”
“I can’t drive.” At my confused stare, her cheeks flushed and small, white teeth bit down on her lower lip. I’d never been so jealous of a pair of incisors before. “I mean, I can. I passed my test ages ago, but I don’t have my license. Not anymore. It’s dangerous.” She tapped the side of her head for emphasis.
It made sense. I knew many Seers who refused to drive. As I tried to remember where my car was and if I still had my keys, I felt the warmth I’d been sending her double back and hit me. The gentleness of it eased the ache in my head. “Are you doing that?”
My angel shrugged a slim shoulder, her cheeks still pink. “I figured you needed it more than I did.”
She smiled at me, her hand slipped under mine, and a few of the ice bricks I’d used to wall up my heart melted. She wrinkled her nose cutely as the scent of garbage and dead Fwar was picked up by a cold northern wind. “What do you say we get out of this alley?”
To my dismay, I had to rely on my angel to both stand and stagger out of the alley. My car, thankfully, was at the end of the block. Small hand darting into the pocket of my jeans, she retrieved my keys, helped me into the backseat, and slid behind the wheel. She smiled at me in the rear view mirror. “One more quick peek and then I should be good for a while.”
Before I could ask for clarification, her lips thinned and her eye twitched. Was that what happened every time she got a vision? With a shake of the head, she turned the key in the ignition. “Fourth Street, right? Big green house third from the left?”
“Yes.”
“Only a few blocks from where I live. I can jog to the bus stop at the corner after dropping you off. Perfect.”
While she carefully navigated the rain-slick Baltimore streets, I used my cell phone to have two of the Trackers on rotation take care of the Fwar corpse. I also informed my second-in-command that I was done for the night. A bit of reassurance sent through the line kept him from worrying too much. I’d only been head of the region for six months and he feared I was only one bad night from cracking under the pressure. I hadn’t had the heart to tell him that I’d broken long before my return.
“You live here?” I asked when she pulled into my driveway.
SUV parked, she whipped off her seatbelt and spun in the seat. Her eyes were dark with concern. “No,” she stretched the word into three syllables, “you live here.”
“I meant in the city.”
“Oh,” she giggled, rolling her eyes at herself, “yes, I do.”
“I don’t have any viewers on the roster.”
Her eyes dropped to the leather headrest. Her fingers plucked at a loose threat in the stitching. “No, I’m not part of the Network. Not anymore.”
The regret, anxiety, and guilt that poured off of her hit me like a sledgehammer. She obviously wanted to be part of the Network. People who turned in their membership cards yet tracked down Fwars were not people who had left voluntarily. Had something happened in her old region? Focusing my energy on her, I caught a flash of annoyance, familial annoyance. Had someone forced her to quit?
I fished a wrinkled, damp business card out of my wallet. All of my contact information, along with my title, was printed on the plain white card. With the way things were, I could use a viewer’s help. “You can call me anytime.”
The smile and bubbling affection she sent me were blisteringly warm. I wanted to bask in her warmth until the long-neglected corners of my soul were as clean as her spirit. Did she have a century or two to spare? She practically slithered out of the car and skipped around to open my door. Her fingers automatically wrapped around mine as she helped me out of the car. Like an old-fashioned gentleman escorting his date home, we walked arm-in-arm up the short walkway.
“See you again, Mr. ‘J. Whittier?’”
“You’re the one with the pipeline into the future,” I teased, pleased when a fresh flush darkened her cheeks. I regretted the decision to put only my first initial on the cards. I wanted to hear her say my name.
Her eyes glazed over for a second and she swayed against me. The previous times she’d had a vision, I hadn’t realized just how vulnerable she appeared when she zoned out. All my protective instincts rose to the forefront in response. After a second, she grinned beautifully. “We will. Under better, nicer, circumstances, too.”
She pressed my keys into my hand and popped up on the toes of her sneakers. Warm lips brushed across my cheek. “Bye for now.”
I reached out to stop her, but she was already out of reach. Her curls bounced and shimmered in the light as she jogged down the street. I hadn’t gotten her name. I’d given my card, and quite possibly my heart, to a complete stranger.
I hadn’t felt happier in years.
Sucker Punch
Before I even knew her name, I fell impossibly and irrevocably in love with a grinning, golden-haired angel.
It started the way most of my evenings usually ended: in an alley or secluded area with a dead demon at my feet and some of the bitter anger that eats at me every damned minute of every damned day temporarily appeased. Except this time, the demon wasn’t dead. I’d feigned right when I should have ducked left, and I’d misjudged how little traction I had. I lashed out with my foot, hoping to catch the demon in its fleshy stomach, but it anticipated my move and countered with a punch that left me seeing stars.
Pinned to the wall by a Fwar claw crushing my windpipe, my life did not flash before my eyes. As fifteen out of my twenty-eight years had been downright hellish, I was grateful. There was no white light beckoning me into the great beyond, either. As I made peace with the end, a harsh, shrill scream and something heavy slamming into the Fwar caused the demon to drop me to the ground. My head cracked the edge of a protruding brick on the way down. The world spun and went gray.
“Well, this blows,” was my last thought as I sucked dirty rainwater into my nose and lungs. It was an undignified, but oddly fitting, way to die.
Rather than fluffy clouds and harps or burning flames and brimstone, the toes of scuffed running shoes were the first thing I saw when I reluctantly opened my eyes. I followed the curve of the shoes to the daintiest pair of ankles I’d ever seen. The shadows over my head shifted and the ankles were replaced by a pair of denim-covered knees.
As my skull throbbed in pain, I rolled over onto my back and spat when more filthy water tried to trickle down my throat. The knees dropped and splashed into the puddle near my head. Small, pink-polished fingers fluttered at my temples. As even the dim light in the alley hurt my concussion-sensitive eyes, I kept them half-lidded and could not see my angel’s face.
“Oh,” she muttered. Even with my senses dulled, I picked up on the self-recrimination oozing out of her. “Oops.”
Oops? What kind of angel says oops? Soft fingers brushed wet hair off my forehead before lightly pressing against the pulse throbbing in my throat. Seemingly satisfied with my heart rate, the angel breathed out a relieved sigh.
“Who’re you?” I managed through swollen lips and a tongue that felt like a stone.
“I am so, so sorry,” my angel apologized, sincerity and guilt flooding my senses. I watched as she tugged off a short denim jacket, balled it up, and gently placed it under my head. “I swear I didn’t see you with the Fwar. I mean, from his position I knew he had a victim, but I didn’t know he’d drop you!”
“S’okay,” I responded partially to reassure her and mostly to stop her from rambling at a thousand miles an hour. My aching brain couldn’t keep up with the stream of hastily uttered words.
She moved, bent so that I could see her face. A riot of unruly blonde curls and sorrow-rimmed green eyes filled my vision. The tip of a pink tongue poked out from between a pair of perfect lips. “Are you all right?”
I lifted a leaden arm and massaged my right temple. A bump had already formed. Fortunately, there was no blood trail so I hadn’t broken the skin. “I’ve had worse.”
Those perfect lips thinned. A crease formed between her fair eyebrows, and her left eye twitched. After a long moment, she cocked her head to the side and frowned. “You have, haven’t you?”
An unfamiliar, but enticing, scent wafted across me. Beneath the musk of jasmine and bitterness of dust, I caught the sharp tang of magic. Had she peeked into my mind and seen one of my memories? I growled at the thought of the intrusion. I hated telepaths who had no sense of personal boundaries.
“I’m no telepath,” she held her hands up and leaned backwards. “I see things.”
“Seer.”
“Chronos cursed,” she corrected with an apologetic smile.
I was familiar with the term. My angel did not see flashes of future or past events, she saw all future possibilities. Timelines, split off at key decisions, appeared to her. Skilled possibility-viewers, the Network-approved term for people like my angel, could see the past as well as the future.
I was not aware that there was a viewer in the region. Was she not associated with the Network? Before I could ask her if she was in the Network and which region she was with, she ran those smooth, cool fingertips along my jaw. I winced at the certainty that the coarse stubble I’d neglected to shave that morning had abraded her soft skin.
“I am so, so sorry,” she repeated, misreading my wince. Her compassion was a soothing balm to the anger that constantly burned in my chest. I wanted to bottle her emotions, so clear, cool, and honest, and carry them with me. When tears sparkled in her eyes, I gathered my wits and sent a warm wave of reassurance crashing over her.
She rocked back, eyes wide. One of her hands went to her throat. Her mouth gaped open. “Oh! Oh! You’re a projector! Well,” she gasped, “that’s so not fair.”
“You peeked at my timeline,” I reminded her, not the least bit apologetic for having used my gift on her. I had a feeling that if I allowed it, she would keep on apologizing until the sun came up. As an empathic-telepathic projector, I could not only sense others’ emotions but could project them so strong that it could actually make a person cry from sorrow or faint from fear. Unlike regular empaths, I could narrow my focus to a single person or cover a crowd of twenty people and I did not need to be feeling the emotion myself in order to project it. It was an ability that had served me well.
“True,” she conceded with a nod of her head. Seemingly not minding her wet capris, she rose to a crouch and linked her fingers with mine. “Ready to sit up?”
I wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to tell my angel that, either. With surprising strength, she helped me sit upright. I swallowed down a swell of bile. I’d be damned before I threw up in front of her. Craning my neck, I glanced down at her jacket. It was utterly ruined.
“Don’t worry about it.” She lightly hopped over my outstretched legs and gracefully dropped to the ground beside me. Though we were hip-to-hip, the tips of her toes didn’t even reach my ankles. “I was looking for an excuse to buy a new jacket.”
Beneath the lingering guilt, it was obvious that cheerfulness was her natural state of mind. Glancing at her with all my shields down, the brightness of her aura nearly blinded me. Rarely did I see anyone over the age of ten with such light. How had she managed to maintain such a positive disposition, especially if she was at least peripherally involved in the Network?
“I should call you a cab or an ambulance.”
“My car’s around the corner.” At least I thought it was. Chasing down the Fwar, I’d lost track of what street we were on. For all I knew, my SUV was four blocks back.
“You’ve got a head wound. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to drive.”
She did, unfortunately, have a point. My head was killing me and spots danced before my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I harmed anyone in a car accident. “You’ve seen one of my memories. Knowing my address at this point is nothing compared to that.”
“I can’t drive.” At my confused stare, her cheeks flushed and small, white teeth bit down on her lower lip. I’d never been so jealous of a pair of incisors before. “I mean, I can. I passed my test ages ago, but I don’t have my license. Not anymore. It’s dangerous.” She tapped the side of her head for emphasis.
It made sense. I knew many Seers who refused to drive. As I tried to remember where my car was and if I still had my keys, I felt the warmth I’d been sending her double back and hit me. The gentleness of it eased the ache in my head. “Are you doing that?”
My angel shrugged a slim shoulder, her cheeks still pink. “I figured you needed it more than I did.”
She smiled at me, her hand slipped under mine, and a few of the ice bricks I’d used to wall up my heart melted. She wrinkled her nose cutely as the scent of garbage and dead Fwar was picked up by a cold northern wind. “What do you say we get out of this alley?”
To my dismay, I had to rely on my angel to both stand and stagger out of the alley. My car, thankfully, was at the end of the block. Small hand darting into the pocket of my jeans, she retrieved my keys, helped me into the backseat, and slid behind the wheel. She smiled at me in the rear view mirror. “One more quick peek and then I should be good for a while.”
Before I could ask for clarification, her lips thinned and her eye twitched. Was that what happened every time she got a vision? With a shake of the head, she turned the key in the ignition. “Fourth Street, right? Big green house third from the left?”
“Yes.”
“Only a few blocks from where I live. I can jog to the bus stop at the corner after dropping you off. Perfect.”
While she carefully navigated the rain-slick Baltimore streets, I used my cell phone to have two of the Trackers on rotation take care of the Fwar corpse. I also informed my second-in-command that I was done for the night. A bit of reassurance sent through the line kept him from worrying too much. I’d only been head of the region for six months and he feared I was only one bad night from cracking under the pressure. I hadn’t had the heart to tell him that I’d broken long before my return.
“You live here?” I asked when she pulled into my driveway.
SUV parked, she whipped off her seatbelt and spun in the seat. Her eyes were dark with concern. “No,” she stretched the word into three syllables, “you live here.”
“I meant in the city.”
“Oh,” she giggled, rolling her eyes at herself, “yes, I do.”
“I don’t have any viewers on the roster.”
Her eyes dropped to the leather headrest. Her fingers plucked at a loose threat in the stitching. “No, I’m not part of the Network. Not anymore.”
The regret, anxiety, and guilt that poured off of her hit me like a sledgehammer. She obviously wanted to be part of the Network. People who turned in their membership cards yet tracked down Fwars were not people who had left voluntarily. Had something happened in her old region? Focusing my energy on her, I caught a flash of annoyance, familial annoyance. Had someone forced her to quit?
I fished a wrinkled, damp business card out of my wallet. All of my contact information, along with my title, was printed on the plain white card. With the way things were, I could use a viewer’s help. “You can call me anytime.”
The smile and bubbling affection she sent me were blisteringly warm. I wanted to bask in her warmth until the long-neglected corners of my soul were as clean as her spirit. Did she have a century or two to spare? She practically slithered out of the car and skipped around to open my door. Her fingers automatically wrapped around mine as she helped me out of the car. Like an old-fashioned gentleman escorting his date home, we walked arm-in-arm up the short walkway.
“See you again, Mr. ‘J. Whittier?’”
“You’re the one with the pipeline into the future,” I teased, pleased when a fresh flush darkened her cheeks. I regretted the decision to put only my first initial on the cards. I wanted to hear her say my name.
Her eyes glazed over for a second and she swayed against me. The previous times she’d had a vision, I hadn’t realized just how vulnerable she appeared when she zoned out. All my protective instincts rose to the forefront in response. After a second, she grinned beautifully. “We will. Under better, nicer, circumstances, too.”
She pressed my keys into my hand and popped up on the toes of her sneakers. Warm lips brushed across my cheek. “Bye for now.”
I reached out to stop her, but she was already out of reach. Her curls bounced and shimmered in the light as she jogged down the street. I hadn’t gotten her name. I’d given my card, and quite possibly my heart, to a complete stranger.
I hadn’t felt happier in years.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Is May Over Yet????
It's been a very long month. I'm ready for June, and not just because of my birthday. I'd like to leave May far, far in the past.
From what I've posted on FP, it may seem like I've done a ton of work on TCC but most of those chapters were already written. I've had a hard time doing much more than that.
Work has been absolutely crazy. JT's been sick and I've misplaced my patience. I'm supposed to be doing some WWII interview transcriptions for my grandfather. I've got two cats that need to go to the vet (one for shots and one to get spayed) and my car is dying for an oil change. Also, I've had three migraines in two weeks.
Needless to say, all the plans I had to finish 3 chapters for Glide Like Ghosts have been scrapped for now.
On the plus side, Daughter of Deception is continuing to do very well on Amazon and is up at Barnes&Noble, though I need to figure out why the cover didn't load. Glide Like Ghosts is up as a free e-book for anyone interested.
Hope everyone has a great weekend! I'm going to clear off my chore-list and then enjoy a few episodes of The West Wing and Doctor Who.
From what I've posted on FP, it may seem like I've done a ton of work on TCC but most of those chapters were already written. I've had a hard time doing much more than that.
Work has been absolutely crazy. JT's been sick and I've misplaced my patience. I'm supposed to be doing some WWII interview transcriptions for my grandfather. I've got two cats that need to go to the vet (one for shots and one to get spayed) and my car is dying for an oil change. Also, I've had three migraines in two weeks.
Needless to say, all the plans I had to finish 3 chapters for Glide Like Ghosts have been scrapped for now.
On the plus side, Daughter of Deception is continuing to do very well on Amazon and is up at Barnes&Noble, though I need to figure out why the cover didn't load. Glide Like Ghosts is up as a free e-book for anyone interested.
Hope everyone has a great weekend! I'm going to clear off my chore-list and then enjoy a few episodes of The West Wing and Doctor Who.
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