I've always been an avid reader and for as long as I can remember stories came into my head. Its such a part of me I thought everyone did it. As an adult, I learned otherwise. Still, I never said,"I'm going to write a book." A particularly vivid tale came into my head and simply wouldn't leave, so I sat at the computer, and it poured out. (thankfully, because I almost felt schizophrenic)

When I finally showed my story to a friend (picked specifically because she is very no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is),she and her daughter loved it, drove me to finish it and encouraged me to get it published.

I cringe at my first query letters, but you know what? I had better response from them then the carefully-crafted-to-all-the blogging-agent-specifications letter I have now. I lost my voice along the way.

I do feel sometimes like a whore or a stalker. My story has changed several times in an attempt to "hook" and meet the word count and starting MC age suggested by agents and editors I've met at conferences.

I'm finding my way back to what I started with- the story in my head, the joy I had writing it, and the "great ride" my friend and her daughter had in reading it.

But I do thank God every day that I don't need to sell this to put food on the table.

Duncan lost his lunch bag the first week of school. He couldn't even seem to find the Lost and Found.
This is his first year at the middle school and he did spent his first 2 weeks on crutches, so I cut him a little slack, this time, for this lunch bag. We had a spare since his older sister is way too cool to take her lunch, but I was raised by frugal parents. The lost bag haunted me. 
So this week when I had to be up at the school for one of the very cool big sister's mulititudinous activities, I sought out the Lost and Found.

The lady at the front desk gave me a key and directions to a closet at the end of an out-of-the-way corridor. 
For a school with 2,000 students, this spot was eerily empty. It was obvious this closet was full of things no one wanted to find. Being the mother of two middle grade kids, I knew to expect mounds of mouldering, cast-off clothing from kids who regularly forget the existence of things like soap, shampoo or deoderant. I approached the closet door with trepidation and a deep lung full of fresh air; yet the stench nearly knocked me on my ass. There had to be a dead body in there. 

Covering my mouth with one hand, I groped for the light with the other. The light revealed an unexpected depth to the closet. There was definitely room for a corpse beneath the piles of crap. And I do literally mean crap. I have to think the custodian took a fiendish glee at preserving some of the specimens, creating this little closet of horrors. After all, what middle school kid is going to seek out and claim a dirty jockstrap? "Hey! Dude, that one with the skid marks is mine."

No, half of the stuff in there should have been thrown into a fiery furnace until it was burned beyond recognition. Especially the unemptied lunchbags whose contents may, or may not, have been causing the rotted flesh odor.

At this point, you may be wondering why I didn't just slam the door and run. It's a valid question. No lunchbag is worth that. But it wasn't just our lunchbag that I spied on the shelf (thankfully flat and therefore empty). I saw BOOKS.  Nice books left to rot in that hell hole. I leapt. I pivoted. I hacked my way to the back shelf of that booby trapped closet, grapped lunchbag and books, and took the books to the school library.

Very cool daughter rolled her eyes. "Only you, mom, could feel sorry for a book." Duncan isn't too thrilled about eating his lunch out of the bag though I did scour and boil it. The librarian, however, was impressed, and she said some kids are going to be very happy I turned those books in. Most likely their parents will be too. And the whole experience has been very good for my diet. I haven't eaten a single piece of Halloween candy since yesterday. And I have a feeling neither of my kids will lose anything for the rest of their middle school careers, as I have no intention of ever entering that closet again.


 

The Morning is Broken

Starlight fell on the farmhouse, but the ancient oak kept its roots cloaked in shadow. It was midnight when the man appeared among them with a woman in his arms. She flailed her arms and legs, but her bulging middle hindered her from leaping to the ground.

“Can you stand?” asked the man.

She tore her gaze from the farmhouse and the joy on her face dimmed as she looked into his. “Oh, Edan. It did take a lot of power from you. But, you did it. I’m here. Now, you should get back. Adam needs you, I’m sure.”

He shook his dark head. “I’ll be here until…it’s done. I’m fine. Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

Edan set her down among the ferns at his feet. She took a step toward the farmhouse, but her rapt expression transformed to one of pain. She staggered.

His arm shot out holding her steady. “Lillie, you must tell me what I can do.”

The anguish in his voice made her smile, though it took a moment of deep breathing before she could answer him. “Through fire, battle, black magic, monsters, and very beautiful women, I’ve yet to see you nervous.”
          She straightened slowly and released her death grip from his arm in order to reach up and pat his cheek careful of the gash along his jaw. “I’m having a baby, Edan. It’s perfectly normal. For humans. In this, you cannot help--.” She bent double and fell against his chest, rock hard and steady. “Well," she said, "you can help me to the door.”

He picked her up and ran to the farmhouse. Setting her gently against the wall, he made to bang upon the door.

 “No,” she gasped. “You would terrify them.”

“There’s only four. I can sight them all, nearly at once---“

“It’s the sight of you, right now, that would scare them.” She waved a weak hand at him.

He glanced down noting for the first time the blood, gore and scorch marks strewn all over him. “Oh.” He looked up quickly. “I’m afraid it’s on you.”

“They’ll probably just think it’s from the…labor.” She gasped again clutching at her belly. “Please, just wait by the tree. You’ll hear. And when she comes… I don’t think it will be long now…you can return, to tell Adam.”

Edan nodded, banged on the door and walked back halfway towards the stand of oak. He was almost glad Lillie had been too distracted by pain to look him in the eye. He’d told her Adam was acting as decoy, so Edan could get Lillie away. It was true of course. A faerie can’t lie outright. What he hadn’t told her was that Adam was wounded, badly. Edan himself could barely stand to think on it.

He’d never have left Adam like that, if he hadn’t been ordered to find Lillie and get her home. Adam had trusted him, and only him, with not only his wife but the most jealously guarded secret of their clan. Edan slipped his hand inside his tunic, fingering the soft charm against his skin, and began to pace back and forth, like a caged wolf.

Adam would never have relinquished this charm, unless he suspected eminent death. Edan looked up at the stars, praying this birth would come quick. He was needed in Faerie this night, not here, at a birth. The sound of sliding bolt broke into his thoughts.

 The farmhouse door opened a crack. A sliver of golden light fell across Lillie still leaning against the wall. “Whose there?” came a wary male voice.

“Father! It’s me. Lillie.”

The door was thrown so wide it nearly knocked Lillie over. The light fell on her beaming face and the chestnut waves encircling it. The old man reached out and touched a curl. “Lillie. Can it be? We…believed you to be dead.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Father. I couldn’t get home. Until now.” She laughed and stumbled across the doorway falling into her father’s arms.

The lantern fell to the ground and went out, but Edan didn’t need it to see. He thought surely even humans could see the glow that came to the old man’s face, as though a candle had been lit inside him, lighting an expression of nearly childlike, exquisite joy.

Edan stood transfixed, but the old man began to holler, “Rachel! John. Mary. Come quick.”

A woman was at the door within seconds, pulling Lillie into her arms. But she pulled back almost instantly and looked down at her daughter’s waist.

“Yes, mama,” said Lillie. “And she’s coming.”

Lillie’s mother didn’t so much as blink, but Edan did.

The mortal woman assumed a look he’d mainly seen on captains leading their men into battle. She put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders while calling completely clear-voiced, “John, get water. Mary, get the fire going. Jacob, help me get her into our bed.”

Edan heard a door opening and saw a chestnut haired young man run from the side of the house with a pail in his hand.

 But Edan’s head snapped back at the tiny plunk he heard at the front door. Lillie had dropped the acorn, the one which had pulled her here, directed by Edan’s own magic. He ran to get it as it rolled across the doorstep. It was warm and damp from her hand.

He straightened up just as the door shut in his face.

He turned and walked back to the tallest oak, the one from which the acorn had come. He put it in his pocket and leaned against the thick trunk waiting for whatever was coming now.

Five hours later, he’d nearly torn out his hair.

How did humans stand this? How could one, tiny baby wreck so much suffering? Upon its own mother! The only thing that kept Edan sane was a cocoon he noted hanging from a knot on the old tree’s trunk. The tiny husk had been trembling through the night as the life inside it attempted to break free. Edan had kept his gaze fixed upon it, willing it the strength it needed, until the farmhouse door suddenly flew open. Edan watched Lillie’s mother stepped out pulling Lillie’s brother by the arm. “John, something is…” her voice cracked, “very wrong. Get the midwife.”

The young man tore off down the lane.

Edan began to pace. Adam’s orders or not, he was about to march into that house, pick Lillie up and take her back to the House of Healing where surely Sylvia would know something to do, when he was stopped dead still by the scream Lillie gave.

Edan stumbled falling to one knee. He’d heard many men die in battle: strong men, armed, marching onto the field prepared for what was to come. This sweet, gentle woman was in her home, in a bed, and yet, her flesh was tearing.

 He assumed that even the humans were stunned for the cry was followed by utter silence. Edan was about to leap up, march in there and take Lillie for help when another cry made him pause. A cat? What in the world was a cat doing in the birthing room? But before his dazed brain could even begin to guess, Edan heard Lillie’s mother’s voice full of tender pride. “Oh, my darling, it is a girl. A beautiful baby girl!”

Edan stayed on his knees, blinking at the rose colored light spreading above the eastern horizon. He’d heard a baby’s cry. A laugh welled up out of him, so that it took a moment before he realized Lillie was speaking. Her voice was so weak he could only catch the last words, “I loved him. Her name’s Rose. Help her grow.”

There was silence again until the old man’s quavering voice said, “Rachel, there’s so much blood. Should there be so much blood?”

Edan jumped to his feet, but the next sound knocked him back as surely as a blow to the heart. The cry was unearthly, beyond any language he knew, though it ended in sobbing words. “No! No, my darling, no! Not when you’ve just been returned to me.”

And as the last of the night’s stars faded and the sun burst over the edge of the earth, Edan knew what had happened.

He’d been so surprised to find Lillie alive when they’d stormed the Clan of the Snake’s Castle. Edan supposed lust had saved Lillie’s life. Blooming as she was with this pregnancy, she was simply too lovely for Sarcon to kill, until he could have her. But Edan had been wrong. Sarcon had cursed Lillie so that her own baby, Adam’s child, would kill her.

 Had Sarcon known it would happen here at the home of her family, the children of his most hated foe, the mortal who had foiled him? In bringing her here, had Edan and Adam done exactly as Sarcon had planned they would do?

Edan slammed his fist into the tree trunk, shaking it so the tattered cocoon fell among the maiden hair ferns. Oblivious to the shimmering butterfly sailing into the new morn, Edan stared at the torn, empty husk until it and a few fallen leaves rose in the wind that whirled around him blowing the little farmhouse and the harrowing sobs away.

When the whirling stopped, Edan was in a thicket of pine standing beside a sorrel stallion. The horse turned its head nuzzling him in the chest. He quickly kissed the white star between its eyes and leapt upon its back.

Horse and rider wended through the trees silent as a shadow. No beat sounded upon the thick layer of needles No clink of metal came from the light leather harness. No word of command came from Edan’s lips. With pressure from his thighs, he moved the horse through and around the thickets moving steadily west though constantly shifting direction making them hard to follow, until they rode up the last wooded ridge.

The meadow stretched before him and Edan could not help but pause a moment looking past the waving grass up to the mountain and the castle nestled upon its lap. The flags flew high. Adam was still alive. The thrill Edan felt lasted only until he remembered the news he must deliver.

In that one pause of movement, the first arrow flew.

Edan heard its whine just in time. Horse and rider, leapt down the ridge as the black cloud of arrows sailed over their heads.

 Leaning low over his horse’s withers, Edan seemed to meld with his mount, one creature streaking across the grass, his own body protecting his horse’s neck. Wingfoot would run even if his haunches were pierced. He would get Edan home, even if it was only a corpse he carried, for the charm hidden in Edan’s pocket could not be taken by the enemy.

Wingfoot was the fastest horse in Faerie. He would outrun arrows no matter how fleet the feet of the archers running behind him. That’s why they’d released the snake which had long lain hidden in their castle growing unnaturally long and strong.

Wingfoot came to a rearing, screeching halt as the huge green snake rose up in front of him. Its black hood spread wider even than its mouth. Venom was already spilling from its fangs. The lush meadow grass shriveled and smoked as the drops fell upon it.

For a split second, Edan considered leaping from the saddle, sending the horse to safety and the charm to the castle. But more traps could be waiting. And he didn’t want even one glimpse of the charm to be had by the sharp eyed archers. He wheeled Wingfoot around while pulling out his sword.

Mouth gaping, fangs gleaming, the snake lunged like a perfectly thrown spear aiming for the horse’s foreleg. Edan leaned low driving his sword out ahead of him. The snake recoiled with lightening speed and cunning, keeping itself between the horse and the castle, knowing the rider could not retreat.

The leading archer smiled as he lifted his big ebony bow, without slowing his pace. The great horse was rearing in fright, making the back of its rider a perfect target. The narrowed gray eyes were so intent upon the shoulders he aimed between that the archer didn’t see what those same broad shoulders and the rearing horse were blocking from his view.

 A falcon, nearly as over-sized as the snake, had dropped from the sky aiming for the flared hood. The falcon’s strike drove the snake’s head forward just as Edan’s sword came down.

The hooded head lay upon the smoking grass. The long, body flipped and twisted so that Wingfoot leapt to keep his legs from becoming entangled. Edan’s arms seemed to move as wildly as the twitching corpse but each move struck arrows from the sky. The falcon had already surged forward screaming as it flew, no longer needed to be secret.

A horn sounded from the castle walls. As the wide wooden doors began to open, gleaming horsemen streamed onto the meadow. The archers fled beneath the trees seeking their secret tunnels. Edan and Wingfoot thundered toward the castle.

Once in the large stone courtyard, Edan did leap from the horse. Aware that grooms were already running forward, he merely patted the sweat soaked neck before heading to the staircase on the courtyard’s opposite side.

But a strong grip close round his arm. “Whoa, Edan. Thank the Stars your alive! We had no idea what had happened to you. But, look at you! When’s the last time--”

“Robyn, I’ve no time for---“

“You’ll have no time at all, if you don’t tend to that arrow.”

Edan looked down at his arm. A black feathered shaft stuck from his shoulder. “Cut it out.”

“Sylvia will beat the way out of me!”

“Robyn!”

 “All right!” Robyn pulled a knife from his belt. “But it’s undoubtedly poisoned, and you know it. Basil,” he called over his shoulder, “wine and bread, please. Now, hold still.”

As Robyn cut deep and deftly, Edan asked, “How is Adam?”

“Not good. He’ll be better now that you’re here. He’s been asking after you. I suppose you can’t say where you were?”

“Not until I’ve spoken with Adam. Did you capture Sarcon?”

“Really, Edan, You think he was doing any of the fighting? I believe he was long gone by the time we got there. Down one of their tunnels like the rat he is. He’d bewitched his guard to attack only Adam. It made it easier for us to kill them, but…they managed to wound Adam many times. Easy, now.” Robyn slid the arrow out of Edan’s flesh just as Basil hurried up with the food.

Robyn plopped the arrow on the tray and took the goblet. He poured a heavy splash over the wound. Edan cursed beneath his breath.

Robyn handed him the rest of the wine. “Drink, all of it!” 

Still holding Edan’s arm, Robyn reached in his tunic pocket and drew out a small wooden box with a silver tree upon the lid. He inclined his head toward the loaf Basil still held. “Make him take it, Basil, and could you please open this box for me. If I let go his arm, he’ll bolt. Thank you. Now, I’m sure Sylvia will want to see that arrow.”

“And she’ll want to see the both of you,” Basil said. “When she hears of this.”

“So don’t tell her where we are,” said Robyn. Edan was busy chewing knowing he wouldn’t get away until he’d eaten.

 As Basil walked back toward the gatehouse, Robyn smeared salve from the box into Edan’s wound though his sharp eyes were peering into Edan’s face as he said, “I notice you aren’t asking about Lillie.”

Edan swallowed the last of the bread but said nothing.

Robyn bowed his head, so that Edan’s shadow fell across it dimming the golden hair. “So all hope is lost, then?”

“No,” Edan said softly. “Rose is born.”

Robyn lifted his head, but the wide smile on his face vanished as he looked into Edan’s.

“And now, I really must see Adam.”

Robyn nodded. “You’re a brave man. I’ll walk with you.”

Their light steps barely sounded on the stones of the courtyard or the steps built into the mountain’s side leading to the quarters above. At the top of the stairs, the two men went through an arch, into a small walled garden. Edan’s heavy heart sunk lower at the heady scent of roses where Lillie used to sit and sew singing with the silvery gurgle of the fountain. He passed on to the wide, beautifully carved wooden doors and the chamber built in the mountain’s side.

Inside, Robyn halted. “You should see your father’s uncle alone. I’ll be here.”

My mother’s family never called her by her name.

To them, she was “Ready.” When I asked my grandmother why, she told me,

“When your mom was a little girl, she always had her nose in a book.”   One of my earliest memories is going to the public library with my mother.

 It was the one errand I never minded. Perhaps it’s genetic, perhaps it was taught, but I loved the library. My mother could leave me sitting cross-legged on the tile floor in front of the children’s shelves quite certain that I would be there when she returned with her books. And I would be. The only change being the pile of books beside me as I attempted to decide which of these treasures would be mine for the week. These were the days when the librarians had to stamp and file each book card by hand, so there was a limit on how many I could check out.

It was agony to choose, but I remember quite well that I almost always went home with Dr. Seuss.  I don’t know whether that was because our small town library didn’t have many other children’s books or because Dr. Seuss was my favorite, but if I had to guess, I’d say the latter. 

These are old memories and like old photos, they’re blurry at the edges; and they’re in black and white. I see myself in shorts and sandals but of no color. I can see my mom standing at the end of the row and smiling at me. I can see the check out counter, the car in the parking lot, but its all in black and white except the Dr. Seuss book in my hand. Who could think of If I Owned the Circus and imagine it in black and white?

Yet, doctors believe hearing is the last sense to go. My mother recently died after a long struggle with a rare degenerative disease. I was there the week before sitting beside her bed, holding her limp hand and reading to her.  

Every day though, I went for a walk. That was another thing Mom taught me, the importance of daily exercise. She used to come through the den, turn of the TV and say amidst the howling of her three children, “time to get outside and get the stink blown off ya.”

As I was walking past the houses where so many of my childhood friends grew up, a gray haired woman drove by, honked, smiled and waved at me. She was the mother of twin boys I had gone to school and church with. I knew she was a few years older than my mom, but there she was driving, waving. A fierce stab of anger burned through me.

Why, I railed to the heavens. Why couldn’t my mom even walk or talk? Why couldn’t I have had even just a few more years with her?

She began to get sick when my youngest child was seven. He barely remembers the walks she used to take him and his sister on or the hours she spent singing and reading to them when she was supposed to be putting them to bed.

Strangely, it was a comment from my son that comforted me most.

At the funeral, he said to me, “Mom, don’t be sad that’s its over, be glad that it was.” It’s a quote from the Cat in the Hat. And he was right of course. I was no longer felt angry but blessed. Blessed to have had the mom I had, a mom that I would so badly miss. And I understood, then, that she was not truly gone as no one who is truly loved and remembered ever is. I knew my son would know my mother if only by all the wonderful memories she left in me.