All posts by Mark

A Tower Without Doors

New Novella Coming Soon…ish: A Tower Without Doors

Yesterday, I finished the first draft of another novella. This one is called A Tower Without Doors. I started it out thinking it was fantasy, but it turned into a post-apocalyptic science fiction novella. It still reads a great deal like fantasy, I think, so those of you who prefer my fantasy to my science fiction may want to give this a try.

I also thought it would be about half the length. I am SOOO good at guessing how long things will be.

There are a few things that have to be done before it gets to you. Readers, editing, cover art, formatting. For novellas, it seems to take me four to six weeks to get these things done, but for some of them, I am dependent upon other people and their schedules.

You can get A Tower Without Doors for FREE on the day that it comes out if you sign up for my newsletter. Just type your name into the box to the right (under the Follow Me heading) and click Submit. Or, you can read more about the newsletter and what’s in it here.

Success, Writing

My Writing Streak is My Friend

Yesterday was day seventy-five of my current writing streak. What’s a writing streak, you ask? It’s essentially consecutive days that I write.

I have wanted to write every day for quite a long time. I can’t binge very well. I can sit in one place for an hour or two, and then I get distracted by something—kids, the internet, the phone, the internet. I think the most I’ve managed to write in one day is about six-thousand words, but that pace is not really sustainable for me. I wear out on it.

So, since I can’t binge my way to copious production, I have to do it the slow, steady way, which means writing more days than I don’t.

The first half of this year was an exercise in frustration. I had one hundred and one days in the first six months that I didn’t write at all. That means I only wrote on eighty-two of the first one hundred eighty-three days, which I don’t consider to be a formula for success.

I tried and tried to write every day, but I just couldn’t make myself. I would let things get in the way. Up until June, I wrote six days in a row, twice. That was my longest sustained effort. One of those times, I was at a workshop, and had no choice in the matter. In June, I managed nine days in a row near the end of the month. I don’t remember what happened to stop it, but it was probably just a day spent playing Diablo III or something.

Finally, in early July, I got fed up with myself and my lack of progress toward writing every day. I hate the days I don’t write. I hate myself on those days. It’s not healthy. So I decided to challenge myself.

I created a spreadsheet to track my writing progress. Every day that I wrote, I put the wordcount for that day in the cell for that day. I saw where I was at (and how many holes were in it).

And then I started writing, and counting. I told myself I was going to start a writing streak, and I was going to keep it going as long as I could. And then, I told my writer friends. In the early days, I tweeted the day of the streak, and my friends cheered me on.

The first few days weren’t great. I didn’t write a whole lot of words, but I told myself that any number was better than zero, and that if I continued writing, the days would get better.

They did get better. And now, it’s day seventy-six, and I can’t imagine going the entire day without writing something. I can’t imagine doing it tomorrow. It’s become a habit. Something I need to do before I go to bed. There have been a couple days where I slipped the words in right under the wire, but I got them in, and I went to bed happy.

I’ve written 113,000 words in those seventy-five days. I don’t feel like an asshole, any more. I don’t feel like one of those people that talk a good game, but ultimately all they do is talk.

If you’re struggling to write every day, like I was, challenge yourself to a streak and tell your friends about it. Set a goal for a one week streak. On the last day of the streak, set the goal to make it two weeks. Then twenty days. Then thirty. Then fifty, seventy-five. My next goal is one hundred days. Only a multi-day coma or death will keep me from it.

A Tower Without Doors, The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney, Zombies Ate My Mom

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: The Final Chapters

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover

Today is the day! Below are the final chapters of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony.

I wrote the first nine or so chapters in a rush, and then bogged down for the next few chapters, and it took me a couple months to get through them. But the final few chapters came to life in a rush, too.

I was pretty pleased with it, but it hasn’t sold quite as well as I would like. I’m not going to let that stop me, though. I’m going to start another novel next month in the same vein – something with fairy-tale overtones and a strong romantic plot. I’d tell you what the title will be, but I recently decided to change it because my working title is all sorts of bland.

Now, obviously, if you read this, you will no longer need to buy the book to finish reading it, but if you liked it, I’d really appreciate a purchase from one of the vendors listed at the end of the chapter. I’d also really appreciate a review, if you’re so inclined, either in the comments here, or at your vendor of choice.

If you are just discovering The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony, GO HERE to read the first chapter.

There will not be another Free Novel Wednesday after this. Nobody commented (except spammers) and it didn’t generate the sales I had hoped it might. I’ve also learned that I don’t write novels faster than I can post them, and that’s the biggest reason why there won’t be another. I just can’t keep up.

I will have another free novella for subscribers to my email list sometime between now and the end of the year. Back in April, I gave away copies of Zombies Ate My Mom to my mailing list subscribers. The next one will be a new novella called A Tower Without Doors.

Now, without any further delay, the final chapters of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony

 

 

Twenty-two

 

In the dark of the night, despite the light of the stars and the moon, Mendleson decided he wouldn’t stray far from the hut. As angry as he was at Henrietta, the thought of leaving her still tore him apart, and he just couldn’t make himself give up.
He reached the trees on the other side of the stream and then sat down just inside the tree line, leaving himself with a view of the hut.
When she came out, calling for him, he almost went to her. He could hear the anguish in her voice, and his body stood, and even took a step, but he wrestled control of his body away from his emotions.
She wanted this, he thought to himself. She wanted me gone, and now I am.
And when she finally gave up and went back inside, he let himself slide down against a tree, where he spent long hours pondering his decision before sleep stole over him.
Sunlight woke him as it broke over the top of the mountains. He was damp from early morning dew. There was a chill to the air, brought by a light breeze, but the sky was cloudless, and he knew the day would soon warm him.
He cast one last look at the hut before turning to head downstream.
He walked perhaps twelve feet before a short, older woman stepped out from behind a tree. He stumbled to the ground in his effort to avoid running her over.
“Careful,” she said. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
She put out a hand to help him up, and he took it.
As soon as he had a good look at the woman, he let her hand drop, and he backed away.
Her head was shaved, covered in a tattoo of a tree, much like Lindyral, but this wasn’t Lindyral. This was another Fate. She had a bird for an earring like Lindyral, but this wasn’t a raven. He looked closer at it.
“It’s a nightingale,” she said.
“Who are you?”
“The Oracle of Arabeth,” she said.
Something about her unnerved him. She felt familiar. “You’re not the Oracle, you’re a Fate. Why are you here?”
She nodded. “I’m your Fate. Lindyral should not have let that piece of information loose. As for why I am here, you came to me. I should be asking why you are here.”
“I didn’t come here for me. In fact, I was about to leave,” he said.
“You don’t have any questions for me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I do have questions, but they seem a bit pointless, now.” He kicked at a stone embedded in the ground.
The woman frowned. “Are you so sure?”
“She made me promise to leave, to save myself. But I’m not sure anymore what my life will be without her.”
The Fate lifted herself onto a fallen log to sit. “I see,” she said. “And a promise will stop you?”
“She made it clear.” Last night, she made it clear she wants you back. He ignored the voice in his head.
“Then there is nothing else you would ask of me?”
Mendleson thought about it. He’d had so many questions last night, and now, he had the opportunity to get them answered. Why aren’t I asking those questions?
“Yes,” she said. “Why aren’t you asking them?”
“You can read my mind? You know what I want to ask?”
“Yes, but I can’t answer any question you don’t actually ask. I’m here to help you, Mendleson. You and Henrietta.”
Mendleson understood the familiarity, then. It was a family resemblance, a matter of carriage. “You’re Henrietta’s grandmother.”
“I may have been, but I have no ties to her anymore.”
“You gave her the vision that had her meet me.”
The woman’s eyes went wide. “Please, do not speak of it.”
“Why not? Why did you do it?”
“Please, I do not want Lindyral to hear of it.”
Another voice broke in. “It is too late for that, Essorin.”
A look of fear crossed the woman’s face as Lindyral stepped out from behind a tree.
“Please, I didn’t mean to…”
“But you did. You interfered with my charge. You sent her the vision to meet with this man, didn’t you.”
Essorin nodded slowly. “It didn’t harm anything, and it gave Mendleson a choice.”
“What?” Mendleson asked, but the two Fates ignored him.
“It didn’t harm anything? It only threw off all my work, and you knew it would. Henrietta would have jumped at the chance to become a Fate, had you not interfered. Instead, I had to expend far more of my energy than I should have to convince her.”
“That’s not what she wanted,” Essorin said, seeming to recover herself. Her voice grew stronger as she spoke. “You never gave her a choice from the time she was born. She wanted love, and you took it away at every opportunity.”
“Love was not her destiny, and you know it. You knew it when I gave you the choice. You repay me like this?”
Essorin hopped off the tree and stood toe to toe with the taller Lindyral. “I was told when I was made that my task was to guide our charges, to give them opportunities to change their fate. You have never done that for Henrietta. You took every opportunity away from her. You made certain that she would only choose the way you wanted her to choose. What would Clothoro say if she knew?”
“You dare!”
Mendleson tried to get their attention. “Excuse me.”
“I have been tasked with overseeing the sighted for a thousand years,” Lindyral continued, completely ignoring Mendleson. She seemed to have forgotten he was even there.
“Maybe it’s time for a change,” Essorin said.
Mendleson was scared. He remembered the rush of the fire when Lindyral had grown angry at him. He didn’t want to be around when the two of them started using more than words to fight.
“Excuse me,” he said, raising his voice.
Lindyral turned on him. “You are not welcome here. Your part in this is over.”
Essorin pushed her out of the way, and Lindyral, surprised, tripped backward over a stump. “If you wish to save her,” Essorin said, “you must get to the Standing Stone before sunset, and you must get her to admit her love to you before the stone. If you can do that, when the wraiths come, do what they ask.”
“What will they ask?”
“I cannot tell you that,” she said. “I can only tell you that you must be strong and unwavering in your love for her, or you both will die.”
Lindyral was getting to her feet behind Essorin. She had a dark look on her face.
“One last thing,” he said. “Would I have died in the storm if I had not met Henrietta?”
“It was a possibility.”
“Watch out!” Mendleson said, as he saw Lindyral reach up behind Essorin, to grab Essorin by the hair. But it was too late. Lindyral put an arm around Essorin’s neck, and there was nothing the shorter woman could do.
“If this is what you wish,” Lindyral said, “If you wish to die for her, then go. Die for her.”
The two Fates vanished, leaving Mendleson standing alone in the forest.
He didn’t hesitate. He did have a chance to save her after all, and he knew what he had to do. He hoped he could get there in time and could somehow convince Henrietta to admit that she loved him.
His heart pounded just thinking about it. He hadn’t imagined a few weeks ago that his life could change so much. He hadn’t imagined that he could fall in love again, but he had. He had, and she was in danger.
A thread of fear ran through him that she would be too stubborn to admit it, too stubborn to risk his life to save hers.
“No,” he said. “Don’t think that way. If you get there, you’ll find a way to save her.
He ran out of the woods, splashed across the stream, and entered the Oracle’s hut. It was empty. Henrietta had already left.
He ran out the door, found the trail, and followed it, hoping he could catch her before twilight.

 

* * *

 

At first, nothing happened. She’d expected the wraiths to show up and take her the moment the sun touched the horizon, but the plateau remained empty.
She walked over to it, put her hand on it. The stone was still warm from the sun. She felt a small tingle in her fingertips as she ran them across the runes that were carved into the surface.
She heard a noise among the trees again. A tremor of fear ran through her. This is it, she thought, and she turned to face the wraiths she knew were coming.
I’ll stand my ground. I won’t show fear.
The plateau was empty.
“Hello!” she called. “Hello?”
A few slow seconds passed. She could hear her breath in her ears. The sun had sunk lower, and the light was beginning to fade.
With a crash of branches, someone broke free from the treeline near the path and ran out onto the plateau.
Her breath caught in her throat. She could only see the outline of the man, as he stood against the backdrop of the sun, but it couldn’t be anyone else.
“Mendleson?”
He ran toward her, and she took a few steps forward. When he’d crossed about half the distance between them, she heard his voice call to her. “Henrietta! I made it. I know how to save you!”
Just then, dark shapes appeared at the edges of the plateau, just as they had in her vision. Mendleson stood, outlined by the setting sun, in just the spot where she knew they would overwhelm him.
“Mendleson!” she screamed. “Run!”

 

* * *

 

The path to the Standing Stone proved more arduous than Mendleson had anticipated. He’d been able to run at first, but it went uphill very quickly. Between rocks, fallen trees, and the general steep rise of the path, he didn’t think he was catching up to Henrietta at all.
When the sun had sunk low in the sky, he began to despair of getting there in time. He feared that he would arrive on the plateau and find her corpse at the foot of the Stone.
And then he worked his way around a bend in the path to find a last climb ahead of him. He hoped he wasn’t too late.
As quickly as he could, he climbed the last rocky slope. When he got to the top, he stood among the trees that ringed the edge while he caught his breath and looked for Henrietta.
He found her, standing near a massive monument of a stone that nearly tripled Henrietta’s height. Its black faces were covered in runes of a sort, and in the glow of the setting sun, it appeared to shimmer with a strange sort of energy. He had a feeling that it was waiting for something, or someone.
And then Henrietta called out. “Hello! Hello?”
He waited for a moment, looking around, looking at her, taking the vision of her in. He had loved his wife, and he dearly and truly missed her, but the weeks he and Henrietta had been on the road had forged something even stronger in him, and he hoped between them. Watching her, as her half expectant, half fearful face glowed in the last light of the sun, only brought home to him that his original goal, to help this woman because he had failed Mirrielle, had become a desire to help this woman because he couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
He ran out onto the plateau.
“Mendleson?” she asked, an almost unbelieving tenor in her voice.
She probably doesn’t believe it. She thought I left.
“Henrietta!” he yelled across the distance between them. “I made it. I know how to save you!”
Henrietta stiffened, and a look of fear came over her. She wasn’t looking at him, she was looking past him.
He turned around and saw for the first time the view beyond the lip of the plateau. It would have taken up all of his attention, but for the movement at the edges of the treeline, and the dark shapes that emerged.
Wraiths. I’m too late!
“No. No, I’m not.”
He turned and ran for Henrietta. He only had to reach her before the wraiths, he only had to get her to declare her love for him, he only had to trust that she did love him.
As he took the first steps toward her, she took a step back. “Mendleson!” she screamed. “Run!”
He looked around and realized that the wraiths weren’t coming for her, they were coming for him.
He put all his effort into running to Henrietta, but the wraiths were too quick. They swarmed over him, their hissing voices telling him to stop, telling him to give in. “Mendleson,” they said, almost as one, “will you give what you must for her?”
He struggled against them, but they were too strong. He was without his sword, having forgotten it in his rush to catch Henrietta. They weren’t attacking him like the others had before. They were holding him, their cold hands on his arms binding like shackles.
“Will you give what you must?”
Through the swarm of wraiths, he caught one last sight of Henrietta, and she had tears in her eyes. She saw this, he thought. This was her vision, her fate, our fate.
How can I change it? How can I get her to declare her love?
And then he remembered what Essorin had said. Do what the wraiths ask.
He relaxed in their grip. This was why he had come. “Yes,” he said. “I will give anything for her.”
“It is done,” said the chorus of hisses.
A hand came up to his face, the palm, covering his eyes.
At first, there was no difference. But all too sudden, pain lanced through his eyes and into his head. This is when I die, he thought.
“Henrietta!” he shouted, hoping she could hear him, hoping he was really speaking and not just imagining it. “Henrietta, I love you!”
He saw a burst of light, for a moment, and then everything went black and time stopped.

 

* * *

 

Henrietta stood and watched as the wraiths closed in on him, just as she had seen. He had tried to run to her, but the wraiths quickly surrounded him, and he had stopped.
In her vision, she had always seen herself, standing, watching, until they left him and came for her. She had let it happen.
Only, the first time, it was different. She hadn’t felt anything for him. Now, watching it for real, watching it happen in front of her, she felt her heart breaking, knowing that there was nothing she could do.
And she didn’t understand why it hurt so much. Others in her life had died, her mother, her aunt, her uncle, her grandmother. Each one had hurt, but they had mostly hurt because she blamed herself for their deaths. Her grandmother had tried to tell her different, but Henrietta had known better.
This time, she couldn’t blame herself. She’d done everything she could to drive him away, to make him leave her, even at the end when she didn’t want him to go. Even when she needed him.
Yet, here he was, by his own choice. She shouldn’t feel any responsibility. It shouldn’t hurt this much that she knew he was going to die.
She took a step forward without understanding why.
Another step.
Her heart beat so that she could feel its pressure in her neck, behind her eyes.
Another step.
You must change your heart. A voice in her head. A voice who had never said those words to her. It sounded like her grandmother.
One more step.
What am I doing? I can’t stop these things. But, somehow, it didn’t matter. She decided that she couldn’t allow him to sacrifice for her. And this time, the why of it had changed. This time, she knew she only wanted him to live, not for herself, but for him. Not because she would blame herself, but because he deserved to live. Because he had already helped her.
“Henrietta!” His voice called out to her from amidst the blackness of the wraiths.
And it was then that she realized why it hurt so much. It was then that she broke into a run, that she defied her vision of herself standing, waiting.
“Henrietta, I love you!”
She ran as if her life depended on it, but she already knew she would die. She ran to hold him one last time, to feel his touch.
She struck the back of a wraith as hard as she could, hoping she could break through to Mendleson. “I love you, Mendleson!” she cried as she collided with it. “I’m coming!”
She caught a glimpse of him laying on the ground, his eyes closed, as the wraiths turned to ward off her attack. She felt defeated, but she fought even more.
She punched one in the face, and felt the bones in her hand crack as she made contact. She didn’t care. The pain in her hand could not compete with the pain in her heart.
She hit another, breaking yet more bones.
She felt herself grabbed from behind, her arms pulled back. She tried to kick out at the dark monster in front of her, but missed.
“Mendleson!”
She could see him better now, but she couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
“Mendleson! Please!”
And then the sobs came. Great wracking pains followed by tears. She could hardly catch her breath. The cold arms that bound her, and held her in place, held her up. If they hadn’t, she would have fallen to the ground.
“You killed him!” she managed to say between sobs.
They ignored her, and spun her around so that she could no longer see him.
Instead, through her tears, she saw the Standing Stone, lit from within, the glyphs shining as if they were on fire.
The wraiths brought her to it. She didn’t fight them. She couldn’t fight them. Even at the end, when she had changed, when she had seen what she’d done, even then, she hadn’t changed her fate. I love you Mendleson.
And there, she decided what her answer to the Stone would be.
The wraiths stopped their movement toward the stone when she was close enough to reach out and touch it. Standing so close, the light from the glyphs was blinding. She had to shut her eyes.
“Touch it,” she heard from a hissing voice. One of the wraiths behind her had spoken. “Touch it.”
Henrietta didn’t understand why it was different in this place, why they didn’t just put a hand to her forehead like before and take her sight. And she didn’t understand why she had to touch the stone.
But she did as they asked. The stone was cold and smooth under her fingers, like glass.
There you are, said a voice in her head. I have been waiting for you.
“Waiting for me?” she said between sobs.
Come, don’t cry. You have choices. For the second time, she thought it was her grandmother speaking in her head.
“I don’t want choices,” she said. “I want Mendleson to live.”
For yourself?
“Oh.” I want to spend eternity with him, was her first thought, though she knew it was impossible.
Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be a Fate? You could live forever.
“I do not want to live forever without Mendleson.”
Done. I am proud of you.
The wraiths pulled her away from the stone.
“Wait,” she cried out. “What does that mean?”
She didn’t get an answer.
A wraith stepped between her and the stone. It put a hand up to her forehead, and it began to draw something out of her, just like the other times. As she slipped away into blackness, she thought she heard her grandmother’s voice one last time. The gift must still pass.
But her last thought was of Mendleson. I’m coming, my love.

 

Twenty-three

 

Henrietta opened her eyes. She hadn’t expected she’d feel them open when she was dead. She hadn’t expected, really, to open her eyes at all. The Fates were often clear as to what happened in life, but not a Seer that had ever been known was able to see beyond it.
Which explained why…
Which explained what? She couldn’t remember what she had just been about to think. She tried for moments to remember, but wherever that thought was going to lead, she had lost the strand.
She sat up. Around her, she saw a familiar space. A small hut where she’d met the Oracle.
“I’m not dead,” she said.
Was it a dream? Another vision? She didn’t think so. It had seemed too real. The pain, too great.
And then she remembered. Mendleson, dead at the hands of the wraiths, and she started to cry. She realized, in that moment, that he had accomplished his goal, that he had set out to save her, and had succeeded. But at what cost, Mendleson? What cost to you? What cost to me?
She missed him already.
A hand touched her on her arm, and she jumped off the pallet she had been sleeping on. Her heart raced.
She hadn’t even noticed the man sleeping next to her. She hadn’t noticed Mendleson sleeping next to her.
Instead of slowing down, her heart raced even faster.
She rushed back onto the cot and hugged him. He was warm. “You’re alive!”
She kissed his forehead as he began to sit up. The blanket slid down his bare chest. She pulled him against her and felt his skin upon hers. Her tears of sorrow became tears of joy.
She pulled back a bit to look at his face.
He opened his eyes for the first time, and she gasped.
His eyes were white. “You’re blind,” she said.
She ran her hand through his hair, and realized she didn’t care.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It was the price I paid for you. I would have given a lot more.”
“But…”
He put his fingers to her lips, quieting her. He found them easily, which surprised her.
“Henrietta,” he said, “don’t be sad. They didn’t take everything. I am blind when you are not near me, but when you are close, I can see all that I need to see.”
Henrietta was confused. “What do you mean?”
He lay back down and pulled her down with him. He put his hand on her bare back and massaged it. His other hand pulled her head to him and he kissed her, warm, strong, and deep. A spark seemed to exist between them, a connection that she didn’t understand, but it ran down the length of her body as his legs pulled hers to him.
“When you are close,” he said, pulling away only far enough to let the words come out, “I can see you.”

 

If you’ve read this far, and you just have to read the rest right now, you can get the eBook or a really awesome paperback from the following retailers.

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The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Twenty-one

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover
I’m sorry that this week’s chapter is so short, but I don’t have much choice. I either combine it with next week’s chapter, and leave you hanging for a week to find out what happened, or I combine chapters twenty-two and twenty-three for a more satisfying read next week.

I prefer doing the latter.

So, here is Chapter Twenty-One of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony in all its brief glory.

If you haven’t started reading The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony, with only one week left, now is the time! You can find the first chapter here. If you just have to find out how it ends right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

 

 

Twenty-one

 

Henrietta woke with the early morning sun streaming through the hole in the roof, bathing her face in its light. She’d hoped she’d dream again, that her vision of her end would have shown itself to her again, and that it would have changed.
But her night had been devoid of dreams, and she didn’t know if Mendleson’s leaving changed anything.
She stood up and stretched. Lindyral hadn’t given her much more than a thin mat to sleep on. It was better than the ground, with which she was all too familiar lately, but it still left her shoulders and her back sore.
She looked around for Lindyral, and couldn’t find her anywhere. She saw a plate on the table, and it held a loaf of bread and a vine of berries. She sat down to eat.
Putting berry after berry into her mouth, all she could do was think about Mendleson. After her conversation with Lindyral, she found herself wishing she hadn’t driven him off. Her heart still ached because of it. More than once as she ate, she caught herself crying.
She choked the tears back each time. “Dammit Henrietta,” she told herself after the third time. “You are not going to spend the day crying over your decision.”
She finished the bread, and then stood up. She looked to the hearth. The coals were cold. Lindyral had seen to that before she stepped out.
No. It was obvious Lindyral was not coming back.
“I guess I got what I wanted,” Henrietta said. It’s not what I wanted. It’s what I asked for.
She didn’t have a pack, but where she was going, she didn’t need one. “Less than a day’s walk,” Lindyral had said. “Up the trail until it ends.”
What surprised Henrietta at first was that it was the same place her vision had her going. It seemed she hadn’t changed her fate at all. Perhaps, she thought, this is what it would have been all along had I not met Mendleson.
The tears came again, and she wiped at her eyes. I can’t think about him. Think about the other possibility.
To become a Fate. To be able to touch the world in a more direct way, to help people, the idea excited her.
She stepped out into the early-morning mountain sun and moved toward the trail at the top of the meadow that sat behind the hut. It was only near the stream where the ground was rocky. Elsewhere around the hut, the ground was covered in grasses that came to her thighs.
She thought about what Lindyral had told her while she waded through the grass.
“Becoming a Fate isn’t the easy decision that it sounds like. You don’t get to chose the lives you touch. You don’t get to have contact with them unless they seek you out, and you will rarely, if ever, talk to another Fate. You will be alone—like the rest of us.”
“That doesn’t sound as bad as death,” Henrietta had said.
“It doesn’t? To never be able to talk to your love? To always remember the chance at love that you had and didn’t take? I know what’s been in your heart, and I am not sure that you would cherish becoming a Fate.”
“Then why tell me about it?”
“So that you can make a choice. You came to me for advice, and it is my charge to provide it. I cannot tell you what to choose.”
“I have time to choose?”
“If you are at the Standing Stone as the sun drops below the horizon, you will be given a choice. Think hard before then, for whatever choice you make, it cannot be undone.”
Henrietta had asked more questions, until Lindyral told her that she would not answer another.
And now she was entering the forest on her way to the stone that she’d seen in her dreams all her life, and she found herself wishing Mendleson was with her. This time, the tears came, and she let them. There was no one to see.

 

* * *

 

Henrietta emerged from the forest and onto the plateau, and she still hadn’t made her decision. Her tears were gone for the moment, and she was happy for that. It let her look out over the edge of the plateau to see the world below, and the view took her breath for a time.
Because the sky was clear, she could see Berelost in the far, far distance. Closer, she could see the rivers and the lakes surrounded with trees. She saw farmland and roads. She felt almost like she could see the whole of the world.
She could also see the sun as it neared the horizon, a blazing orange ball that would herald her new life, or her death. It wouldn’t be long, either. She had, at most, half an hour before the sun touched the horizon and began to sink out of sight.
She turned around, and for the first time with her own eyes, she saw the Standing Stone, the monolith, that she had envisioned since she was a girl.
It was hexagonal in shape. Its rounded top towered above her, some fifteen feet or more in height. Glyphs covered each of its black granite faces, glyphs she did not know how to read. It had been imposing in her dreams. Here, in front of her, it inspired a sense of awe. Her mind could not have brought words forth to describe the sense of ancient power that it radiated. There had been none of that in her vision.
What had Lindyral said? ‘You only need embrace it, and say the words.’
But in its presence, she could not remember the words. Even having seen it, she wasn’t sure she wanted to say them, anyway.
She thought she heard something in the trees, the snap of a branch, and she turned to look in that direction, but among the late evening shadows that inhabited the forest, she could see nothing that moved.
She turned around to watch the sun, to wait for it to complete its daily journey across the sky, to wait for her doom, whichever doom she chose. She knew it would happen tonight.
Fear crept through her. No matter what happened, she would lose what she was, she would lose her sight, and she would no longer be able to look forward along the branches of a life. If she chose to become a Fate, she would live for generations, but she would forever be denied another chance at a real life.
“If only I hadn’t driven Mendleson away,” she said softly. “I would have liked to say goodbye.”
And, she realized, she would always be haunted by that mistake.
The bottom of the sun touched the world, and she knew the time had come at last. She would have to chose, and she didn’t like either choice.

 

If you’ve read this far, and you just have to read the rest right now, you can get the eBook or a really awesome paperback from the following retailers.

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Go here to read the final chapters of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony!
 

Grim Repo Files, Writing

New Novella Series: Grim Repo

Grim Repo 1 Cover
My latest novella is available right now from Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords. Barnes & Noble should be up soon, and the paperback should follow some time next week, assuming no major screwups. I’ll update the table with the appropriate links when they’re available.

I’m pretty excited about this book. It was really fun to write, and I hope you enjoy it.

I’ve included the first chapter below. You can read the first four chapters on the Grim Repo page.

 

 

Aboard the Grim Repo, starship repossession specialist Grimm and his crew don’t often fail to repo their targets.

But when his latest repo goes terribly wrong, Grimm finds himself caught between the bank that hired him, the delinquent who tried to kill him, and an ex-lover who may want to help him . . . or may want him dead.

 

E-Book Paperback
Amazon
BN.com
Kobo
iBookStore (Coming Soon)
Smashwords
DriveThruFiction.com (Coming Soon)		 Amazon (Coming Soon)
CreateSpace (Coming Soon)

 

 

: : 1 : :

 

 

Pain. I had known pain for as long as I could remember. I’m sure I knew it even before I could remember, all the way back to the day I was born, when I shot out from my mother’s womb with my arm broken.
My father once told me I was already screaming. That they didn’t need to spank my ass to get me going.
“Grimm, are you alive in there?”
The voice came from outside my head, outside the memories, outside the pitch black cocoon I had sealed myself inside.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.
“Grimm? Make a noise if you’re alive.”
I even recognized Alice’s voice, the subtle timbre that spoke of love and kindness and things I didn’t understand. But no. Those weren’t there. She was a Synth.
I tried to kick for her, but I couldn’t move. The cocoon had collapsed on me in the crash. They weren’t supposed to do that. Centat Systems claimed they could survive a three hundred gravity collision and keep the occupant alive.
Maybe it had done that. After all, I still lived.
But I couldn’t move enough to make a sound Alice could hear with her ears. If she had been using a listening device, she should have heard my breather, my heartbeat.
That she wasn’t using a device only meant that things were bad outside my cocoon.
I tried, anyway. I attempted to strike out with my right arm, the one limb that didn’t feel broken or crushed, but I couldn’t move it more than a centimeter. The protective gel held me too tight.
I heard two thumps against the exterior of the cocoon.
“Open it up,” Alice said.
I don’t know why I could hear her at all. The protective gel should have kept the noise from reaching me. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t complaining.
“I don’t care if you think it’s a waste of time. Grimm might still be alive in there, and I want it open.”
Thank you, Alice.
One of the problems with the cocoons is that they’re difficult to open. They’re made that way to protect the occupant. Once the cocoon is sealed, the cocoon won’t open for anything except its own electronics or some seriously heavy duty cutting tools. The electronics had to be smashed, or the unlock mechanism damaged. Most likely, both, or they wouldn’t have had to resort to yelling through the cocoon wall.
I just hoped that when they cut me open they didn’t cut my leg off. I didn’t want to spend three months growing yet another leg, or worse. I could tell the damage was already bad enough.
The only thing keeping me alive was the breathing tube that had jammed itself just a little too far down my throat. I wanted to cough, but even that was impossible.
The whine came through tiny and tinny at first when they started up the saw. It must have been Mickey. I hoped it was Mickey.
And then the real sound and light show began as the saw cut into the outer shell. I knew, outside, sparks would be flying everywhere. Inside, the gel stopped them, but I could still see the light, a bright blue flame. The first light I had seen in three days.
Three days since I bailed out of the cruiser I had been trying to repossess. Three days since the owner shot it out of orbit.
The light moved down the length of the cocoon leaving a trail of molten metal-plastic ooze behind it. I had no idea what the cocoons were made of, but it had done its job. A fall from orbit without a parachute, and I was still alive.
As the seam of light grew longer and longer, the pressure on me began to ease, and I felt more and more of my injuries. I’m amazed, honestly, that I even stayed awake that long.
The saw stopped.
The cocoon cracked open.
I looked into Alice’s bright gold eyes.
“Welcome home,” she said.
The pain throughout my broken body erupted and overwhelmed me.
I don’t remember any part of the next three weeks.

 

Read the first four chapters of Grim Repo!

 

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Twenty

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover
This week’s chapter of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony is Chapter 20. After this week, there are only two weeks left until you learn the ultimate fate of Henrietta and Mendleson.

If you haven’t started reading The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony, yet, you can find the first chapter here. If you just have to find out how it ends right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

 

 

Twenty

 

Henrietta walked down to the edge of the stream and found a rock to sit on. She stayed in sight of the cottage. She worried a bit about the wraiths, wondering if they would come for her here, but felt that she was safe for the moment.
She looked up at the sky and found it clear. The stars shone as bright as she could remember having seen them, and they were a comfort to her. There was possibility in them, and certainty. They hung in the sky, every night, always in the same pattern as they moved through their slow progression.
She remembered back to a time when she had listened to her grandmother tell her that the stars were the eyes of the Fates looking down on them. Henrietta had wondered which one was her fate. The memory grew hazy. She couldn’t remember exactly what her grandmother had said. Just an admonishment against looking to the stars for her fate.
But since then, Henrietta had always wondered, when she looked up, which was hers.
Having met Lindyral, though, she no longer thought the stars were fates. The stars were too constant and distant for that to be possible. She couldn’t imagine one of them interfering in her life, or interfering in Mendleson’s.
It has to be that woman, she thought. What I can’t figure out is why. Why is it so important that I lose my sight here in the mountains? Why do I have to come here to die?
Behind her, the dim light escaping the cottage flared up, causing her to turn just as Mendleson fell backward through the door.
Why did that woman have to make me responsible for his death, and why does she now have the stones to tell me that it might have saved his life?
Mendleson didn’t get up right away, and a tingle of fear ran through her. What happened?
She stood and shouted out to him. “Mendleson!”
He rolled on to his side, and she breathed a sigh of relief. He pushed himself up to his feet, and when he started walking her way, she sat back down on the rock and waited for him.
When he was near enough she didn’t have to shout, she asked, “What happened?”
She could only see an outline of his face in the starlight as he shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I asked her a question, and she got angry with me. The fire flared up, and for a moment, she no longer looked human.”
“What did she look like?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t describe it.”
He made as if he wanted to sit down next to her. She moved to make room for him. When his body pushed up against hers, she felt a different tingle than the tingle of fear.
“What did you ask her that made her so upset?” She let her hand fall so that it touched his thigh.
“The last thing I asked was if she was the Oracle of Arabeth, but I don’t think that was the only thing that made her upset.”
“What do you think it was, then?”
“I kept pushing to find out about my friends back home,” he said. “She wouldn’t answer me. She said she wasn’t my fate.”
She could feel his warmth, and she snuggled in closer to him. The air around them felt chilly. “Did she say anything else?”
“She told me I had to come for you if I wished to see you live beyond the taking. I didn’t understand that at all.”
Henrietta’s breath caught in her throat. I can live!
Then she thought about what that might mean, about what her vision meant for Mendleson. “Leave me now, Mendleson. Save yourself. I may get to live, but I’m sure that you’ll die.”
He turned to face her, and even though they were shadowed, she thought she could see his dark green eyes as they took her in. “If she’s right, I have no place to go. My home is in ruins.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to die for me. Everyone I’ve ever loved has died. My mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and now my uncle. And every one of them died trying to protect me.” She reached up and touched his stubbled cheek, let her hand slide around behind his neck. “I don’t want that fate for you, too.”
“What about what I want?” he asked. She could feel his breath on her lips. “I don’t want you to die. I realize now that my wife’s death was not my fault, and I’ve accepted it, but if you think for a moment that I wouldn’t do everything within my power to save your life, you’re a fool.”
She didn’t know why, but his assertion made her feel warm inside, not angry. “A fool?” Am I really a fool?
“Yes. If you push me away, you’re a fool. Let me in. Let me help you.”
Henrietta just couldn’t imagine doing that. She pulled her hand from his neck and leaned away. “I can’t, Mendleson. I can’t see you hurt.”
“Then, please, come inside and talk to that woman. She thinks you can live beyond the loss of your sight. At least listen to her for me. What harm could that do?”
“Only if you promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“Promise me that once I’ve heard what she has to say, you’ll leave.”
“No,” he whispered.
“Promise me, Mendleson. Promise me you’ll go live another life, or I won’t go listen to her.”
He stood up and backed away from her. “I can’t do it,” he said. She could hear the anguish in his voice. She hated it.
But she couldn’t let him die for her. She stood, too. “If you don’t promise me, I will walk out into those woods and let the wraiths take me.” Mother! Grandmother! What do I do? I’m hurting him, but I can’t let him die for me!
After tortured moments, he bowed his head. “I promise,” he said, and then he turned back to the cottage and left her standing at the edge of the stream.
She ran after him with a thought toward holding him and telling him that it would all work out, but when she caught up to him, he resisted her touch.
Her heart ached, as she knew instinctively that she had managed to create a barrier between them that hadn’t been there before. Somehow, she had thought she’d feel better about convincing him to leave, but instead there was now an emptiness in her heart that she hadn’t known had been filled.
They walked back to the cottage together in silence, and just about as far apart as they’d been since their meeting at the festival.

 

* * *

 

Back in the Fate’s hut once again, Mendleson tried to stay as far away from the woman as possible. He was grateful that the Fate took Henrietta across the room so that the two of them could talk together without being overheard.
He kept telling himself, as he sat at the table watching them, that he should leave now, but he couldn’t make himself do it. He’d given up far too much already to leave before he was sure Henrietta had listened to the woman and would do what was necessary to survive.
And as he watched them talk, he dreamed about her, thinking that maybe a day would come when he could be with her, thinking that he could find her again after he left.
She completely befuddled him. He’d thought she had accepted he would be there until the end after what had happened in the barn, and then at her uncle’s home. He thought, when she woke, she would be grateful, that she would finally see what he’d come to see.
But she hadn’t. She maneuvered him into a corner so that he had to give in to her demands.
And that had angered him. She was so stubborn, and for a woman given such an incredible gift of sight, she was blind. Blind to his need, and to her own.
They’d been weeks on the road together, and still she kept working to make him leave despite her obvious desire for him to stay.
She is the same as me. She can’t accept that she’s not responsible for the fate of others. He chuckled darkly to himself, and Henrietta turned her head to look at him, before turning back to the Fate. Her Fate.
Mendleson stood, then. I’ve done all I can. It’s time for me to go.
With one last look at Henrietta, who didn’t turn away from her conversation, he stepped out of the hut into the dark of the night, unsure of where he would go next.

 

* * *

 

“You can’t change the future through your actions,” Lindyral said. “If you want a different future, my daughter, you must change your heart.”
“I don’t understand,” said Henrietta. “How can changing my heart affect the future more than changing actions?”
“Every action that you take ultimately flows from your heart. In the short term, you can take an action that goes against your heart’s desires, but your heart will ultimately undermine that action and your fate will not change.”
Henrietta heard Mendleson chuckle from behind her, and she turned momentarily to look at him. He didn’t seem to be chuckling at her. The look on his face was dark. She ached to walk over to him, to tell him he didn’t have to leave. But this is for his own good, isn’t it?
She turned back to Lindyral so that she wouldn’t waver in her decision.
“But what about my heart must change? How do I avoid my Fate?”
“You cannot avoid me, my daughter. I must take your sight and pass it on to another.”
“But Mendleson said you knew how I could live beyond that.”
Henrietta heard a chair scrape, but didn’t turn around. She didn’t want to look at him again. Then she heard his footsteps, and knew he went outside. She knew he left.
She wanted to jump up, tell him not to go, to come back, that she was wrong. But she wasn’t. It was better for him this way.
“That,” said Lindyral, “is unfortunate.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Your love for him, and his for you, that was the easiest path to what you seek. I had hopes that you could change your heart, that you could learn to love and receive the sacrifice of others, and that you could do so without blaming yourself.
“Your aunt died because your uncle would not sacrifice of himself for her. Your mother blamed herself for your aunt’s death. And you, you blame yourself for it all. Your heart is closed to real help from others.”
“But I can’t let him die for me!”
“It is of no matter, anymore,” said Lindyral, with a look of concern and sadness on her face. “He is gone.”
“No,” Henrietta said.
She jumped up and ran to the door. She went outside into the night air and yelled at the top of her voice. “Mendleson!” Again and again, her voice echoed into the dark. He had to have heard her, but he didn’t return.
For the first time since her mother died, she felt a real sense of loss, a hole in her heart, an emptiness where something had grown these past few weeks. Tears stung her eyes as she continued to cry out for him. “I’m sorry,” she said.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and after several more cries, she acknowledged the hand. “What have I done?”
“What you have always done,” said Lindyral. “Come inside, and I will tell you of another possible way, but the result may not be what you want.”
Henrietta followed her inside, a little bit of hope amidst her misery. “How is it different?”
“You would become a Fate.”

 

If you’ve read this far, and you just have to read the rest right now, you can get the eBook or a really awesome paperback from the following retailers.

E-Book Paperback
Amazon
BN.com
Sony
Kobo
iBookStore
Smashwords
DriveThruFiction.com		 Amazon
CreateSpace
Barnes & Noble

 
Read Chapter Twenty-one of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony!