Category Archives: The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

By now, you should now the drill. I’m late getting this up today, and I’ve still got writing to do, so I won’t be writing too much about this chapter (like I ever do that, anyway).

If you need to start from the first chapter, you can find it here. If you need to read the rest of the book right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

Eighteen

Mendleson fell to his knees, nearly dropping Henrietta. His body wouldn’t let him go even one step farther. The ravine and the wraiths had defeated him. He had failed Henrietta. Another wraith would come, and this time, he could not stop it from taking what it wanted.

He laid Henrietta down in front of him and reached out to caress her face. Her cheeks were cold, even in the warmth of the mid-afternoon sun.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” he whispered.

He pulled the sword out in case the wraiths chose to come after them while he rested. “Of course, if they don’t give me a chance to rest, I’ll hardly be able to swing it.

“I just wish I knew where the damned Oracle was,” he said. His voice echoed from the walls of the ravine.

When the echo died out, the only sound to answer was the bubbling of the stream. It soothed him, whispered him to sleep, whispered that everything would be all right.

But he knew it lied. It couldn’t be all right. Henrietta was going to die here, next to him, and he would be able to do little, if anything, to stop it, unless the wraiths gave him time to rest.

He allowed himself to lay on the ground, holding the sword to his chest, and closed his eyes. He decided he should take whatever time he could. A few minutes, an hour, the rest of the afternoon. “The Oracle can’t be much farther.”

“You could not be more correct,” said a woman’s voice from above him.

Mendleson opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but the sword had suddenly grown heavy, and it held him down.

A figure stood over him, shrouded in a dark cloak. Its head blocked the late afternoon sun, leaving the face in darkness. He struggled against the sword, but it would not budge. “Go away!” he shouted, thinking the figure a wraith. “Leave her alone!”

The figure knelt, changing the angle of the light and allowing a ray of it to reflect off the face inside the hood. A woman, not a wraith. “I thought you were bringing her to me. Is this not so?”

Mendleson stopped struggling. Even with the bit of light that illuminated her face, he still couldn’t get a good look at her. At times, the shadows made her seem about the age of Henrietta, but a slight shift of her head would cause her features to appear like they had seen many more winters than even Henrietta’s uncle. “You’re not a wraith,” he said.

She laughed. “I should say not. They cannot enter my land.”

“Then are you the Oracle?” he asked.

“Some call me so.”

“Then you knew we were coming?”

“I am no Seer, young man. I did not know you were coming until you crossed the boundary.”

“Can you help her?”

“It is within my ability,” she said.

Mendleson thought it a strange answer. He turned his head a bit, hoping to get a better look at her, but her face continued to shift its appearance. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I do not know if I should. Does she even desire help?”

“Of course she wants help,” he said. He pushed at the sword again, but it still held him in place.

“There is no need to struggle,” she said. “I will not hurt you.”

“But you won’t help her.”

“Do not misconstrue my words young swordsman. I have not said that I will refuse help. I have only said that I am not sure if I should supply it. You struggle against the powers that rule this world. I must weigh what it will cost me if I interfere.”

Mendleson gave up his struggle against the sword. “Please.”

The woman smiled. “Much better. I will consider it. Put that hunk of iron away and come with me.”

The extra weight of the sword melted away, and he found he could move. He stood slowly. Every muscle shouted at him to stop, but he ignored the shouts and forced himself up from the ground. He slipped the sword back between his pack and his body.

The woman had already started up the ravine.

“What about Henrietta?” he asked.

“Bring her,” she said without turning around.

Silently, he cursed her. You could help.

She continued moving away from him, and he decided he’d better get on with it before he lost her. He bent down to pick up Henrietta, readying himself for the aches he knew he would feel.

But when he picked her up, she had lost all her weight. She encumbered him only as much as a large pillow might.

Witch. The word floated through his mind. Fear welled up within him.

He looked down at Henrietta’s pale face. He blocked off that well of fear and refused to allow it to take over. The Oracle was Henrietta’s only chance.

If she doesn’t help, he thought as he took his first step to follow the woman, I swear I will make her pay.

* * *

Mendleson carried the unnaturally light Henrietta inside the small, round, stone hut the witch called home. A bit of light streamed in through openings in the walls that he hesitated to call windows. It showed him only a single room, a fire pit in the center, a pallet against the wall for sleeping, and a table and two chairs hugging the opposite wall. Where the walls did not host pallet or table, shelves adorned them, and the shelves held jars and pots and tools that Mendleson could not name.

The witch pointed to the pallet. “Set her there.” Then she went to the wall and started searching through her jars.

Mendleson crossed the room with Henrietta, and then bent down and laid her gently on the bedding, which proved softer than it looked. He brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen across her face. He wanted to bend down and kiss her, touch his lips to hers.

How could this have happened?

He whispered to her. “Why did you try to leave last night? After…”

“After what?” the witch asked.

Mendleson turned to find her standing over him. “It’s not important,” he said.

“How can you know whether it’s important? What did you do to her that made her leave?”

Mendleson stood up and faced her. She had removed the hood, and for the first time, he saw her face clearly. Her skin was youthful, like he had thought, but her eyes shone ancient and black. Her head bore a tattoo of a tree instead of hair. A branch of that tree trailed down the side of her head and onto her ear where it circled the lobe. She wore an ornament on that lobe that appeared to be an obsidian raven, creating the illusion that a raven was sitting on the branch.

“Thank you,” she said, and then pushed him aside and bent down to minister to Henrietta.

“Why didn’t you just ask me to move?” he asked.

The witch ignored him. She dipped her fingers in a jar of something that looked a lot like mud to Mendleson, and then spread that mud on Henrietta’s face, her forehead, her eyelids, so that none of her skin remained visible.

“How does that…” he began.

“Quiet,” she said, waving her mud covered hand behind her.

Mendleson decided he didn’t need to know right at that moment. If the witch was going to help Henrietta, he’d do whatever she asked of him.

From behind her, he could see more of the tree tattoo. It had several branches, all bare of leaves, and the trunk ran down her neck. It reminded him of something he’d heard in a half-remembered child’s tale, but he couldn’t place it. He wondered if his exhaustion was playing tricks on his mind.

He moved across the room and pulled out one of the chairs from the table. The legs scraped loudly across the stone floor, and he looked up to see if the witch had reacted. If she had, he couldn’t tell. Her hands were moving slowly over Henrietta’s body, as if they were searching for something.

He let himself settle onto the chair, keeping an eye on the witch.

For all he could tell, she didn’t seem like she had any intentions of hurting them, but Mendleson had never heard anything good about witches, and Karl’s reluctance to send them to her only served to reinforce his wariness.

The witch began chanting in a low, deep voice that did not seem to match her speaking voice. It was slow, somber, and soothing. Mendleson felt his eyelids drooping.

He pushed off sleep as long as he could, but in the end, his exhaustion got the better of him and drew him down into an uncomfortable, fitful slumber.

* * *

At first, Henrietta wandered alone in a fog that hung thick and cold in the air. It clung to her skin like cobwebs. It reminded her of a dream she’d had, but could not place.

The ground was flat, almost barren. In hours of wandering, she had not come across a single landmark that she could use to mark her progress in her journey. The light hadn’t changed, either. She expected it should be near dusk, with the number of hours she had traveled, but the light was as even, filtered, and gray as when she first found herself in this place.

Something troubled her about that. She couldn’t remember arriving, or even where she had been just before. She felt something had happened, that she’d lost something, or nearly lost something, or someone. But her memory was just as hazy and empty as the foggy land she found herself in.

She probed at the haze, but nothing came to the fore. She needed a reminder, and she had nothing.

She continued to walk, in the hope that she would eventually find her way out of the fog. She resolved to keep walking until her legs gave out, until she needed to sleep, but after hours of wandering, she still wasn’t tired.

She put step after step behind her. While she walked, she tried to think of what brought her to this place, and could come up with nothing but shadows.

“Why did they come this time?” A voice intruded into the silence, one she thought sounded familiar. “And why were you outside, looking like you were leaving?”

She spun around, and couldn’t see anyone within her sight, just the gray fog in all directions. “Where are you?”

“Did they come because you were leaving, Henrietta?” the disembodied voice asked. “Or did you decide to go somewhere else? What hurts the most is that you left so soon after I thought we had finally understood each other.”

“Who are you?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“No,” the voice said, as if it hadn’t heard her. “What hurts the most is that you’re hurt.”

“I’m not hurt!” she shouted. “Where are you?”

The voice did not answer her.

“Hello?” she asked. “Who are you?”

She waited, but did not receive any answers. The voice was gone, wherever it had come from, leaving her confused. Who are ‘they’? Who was speaking, and why did he think she was hurt?

She felt fear start to worm its way into her chest. “What’s happening to me? Where am I?” She hoped the voice might answer her, but after her voice faded, no other sounds broke the silence she had previously been used to.

After several minutes passed with no change, she decided to press on through the fog and hope she could come to an end of it. The crunch of her footsteps on the loose ground comforted her.

She wondered for quite a while where the voice might have come from, and if it would come again. She kept listening for it. She somehow trusted that voice. But when she had traveled for several more hours and had not heard the voice again, she began to think she had imagined it.

Just when she had convinced herself that she had imagined it, she heard the voice again, only this time in a whisper. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

Her heart skipped. She whirled around again, looking for the speaker. He seemed so close to her, but she saw nothing. “Where are you? Please, show yourself!”

Again, she waited, calling out every couple of minutes, hoping the owner of the voice would show himself. But the fog remained unbroken, and she remained alone. The more she thought about it, the voice had sounded sad.

“Just tell me where you are,” she said. “I can help you!”

She could only hear the beating of her heart. The voice was gone again.

She resumed walking.

Step after step, she walked toward the unchanging horizon that extended only a few yards around her.

Until a barren tree, its branches twisting through the mist, appeared in front of her. A leafless oak tree, she thought. Leafless and lifeless.

But it brought her hope. The creeping fear that she was wandering in circles subsided. A different unease filtered through her. Something about the tree made her wary.

She approached it slowly, eyes exploring it, looking for any sign of life, any sign of danger.

As she stepped in under the canopy of branches, the fog cleared away, its cobweb touch no longer fouling her. A raven squawked, and she looked up to see it standing on a branch near the trunk, looking down at her with beady black eyes.

“Who are you?” she asked it, but it only stared at her, apparently deeming its one warning squawk sufficient.

Choosing to ignore the raven for the moment, Henrietta looked about her and the tree, hoping to find evidence that this tree would lead her to others. But the tree appeared to live on an island in the fog. She could see no other trees beyond it.

From behind her, she thought she heard a woman singing softly. She spun around to meet this woman, but found only the tree and the raven. The song still sounded like it was coming from behind her. She spun again to find nothing but the fog.

“Show yourself,” she said. “I can hear your singing.”

The song continued, unbroken. It soothed her, and something else happened. She felt herself growing weary. Her legs ached with the effort from walking.

She thought it odd that only a minute earlier, she had felt no sign of fatigue.

“Who are you? The song is beautiful.” Henrietta waited again, but still did not receive an answer.

She turned to face the tree again. The trunk looked like a good place to rest. She went to it, set her back against the trunk, and settled to the ground.

Come back, Henrietta. She thought the words were in the song, but when she listened closer, she heard only a wordless song.

She looked up to the raven. Her eyelids had grown heavy from the moment she sat. She thought they tricked her. A woman sat on the branch the raven had previously occupied. She was bald, but for a tattoo.

She blinked, and saw the raven sitting there again.

Close your eyes.

Find your way.

More words. They reached out to her, called to her.

She fought to keep her eyes open and focused on the raven. She wanted to see if it would change again. She thought she should recognize the woman, but recognition evaded her.

The sky grew dark.

She could no longer keep her eyes open. She thought she saw the raven smile as she let them close.

Who are you that sings? Henrietta asked in thought. She could not make the words come out.

But it didn’t matter that the voice didn’t answer. Her mind emptied, and the wordless song pulled her down into a dreamless sleep.

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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Read Chapter Nineteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Seventeen

August 15, 2012 Mark

Below is Chapter Seventeen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony, my fantasy romance novel. I remember this chapter being difficult to write. I think I tossed one of the scenes and wrote it again because the first attempt wasn’t working for me.

Seventeen

Inside the house, Mendleson laid Henrietta on his bed while he took time to bind his own wounds. They weren’t nearly as severe as the ones he had received in his last battle with a wraith.

When he finished, he checked on her and saw that she was still breathing just as shallow as she had been outside.

He dressed, gathered their things and stuffed them into his pack, then scoured the house for things he might use. A rope, light cooking utensils, heavier clothing. The trip into the mountains was bound to grow colder the farther they traveled.

He took the pack out to the stable, stopping to pick up the sword that he had used against the wraiths. He saddled the horse, and then hung the pack from the saddle. He strapped the sword against it, too. When he was done readying the horse, he went back in for Henrietta.

He lifted her off the bed and carried her outside, then put her on the horse, leaning forward, her head off to the side so that she could breathe. The horse seemed curious as to what Mendleson was doing, turning its head to watch him.

“I should have asked about your name,” he said. “Now you’re all I’ve got to talk to.”

He tied Henrietta down so that she would not fall, and then lead the horse out of the small stable and into the night.

“What do you think,” he asked the horse. “Is there a bridge across this river? I really don’t want to swim.”

When they reached the river, Mendleson was disappointed. It wasn’t much of a river. Only a few paces across at best. He’d also hoped for a bridge right behind Karl’s home, but he didn’t have that much luck. He found a stick and poked at the river bottom with it. The bottom fell away only a couple feet out, and the current tugged relentlessly at the stick.

“More deep than wide,” he said. “Which way, do you think?” he asked the horse.

The horse looked at him, blinked in the moonlight, as if to ask why Mendleson didn’t know the way himself.

“Fine. Upstream,” he decided, thinking that at least they’d be heading into the mountains and closer to the Oracle, and that maybe, nearer the falls the town was named for, the river might grow shallow enough so that he could cross without swimming.

He assumed there had to be a crossing close by.

After a short time, he did find a foot bridge that spanned the river, but he didn’t think it would be strong enough for the horse. Below the bridge, the current ran swift between the banks.

He stared at the bridge for a while before deciding he’d have to carry Henrietta across himself. He’d have to hope the horse would swim across to him.

He took the pack off the horse first and strapped it to his back, then untied Henrietta and brought her down into his arms.

His first step onto the bridge told him he had been right about the bridge’s ability to carry the horse. With each additional step, the wood creaked and groaned, and he worried that the next step might be the one that broke through and carried him into the river.

When he was about half way across, he heard a splash behind him. He spun around and saw that the horse had jumped in the river and was now swimming across.

“I wish I had something for you, horse,” he said as his fear about not having a horse to carry Henrietta dissipated.

He continued on to the other side and said a silent prayer, thanking the Fates for not dropping him and Henrietta into the river.

Soon, he had Henrietta back on the now wet horse, and the three of them set off to find the trail that Karl had said would lead him to the Oracle.

* * *

Mendleson found the trail with ease, even in the fading moonlight. Traveling it was a little more difficult with Henrietta on the horse. More times than he could count, he had to hack away with the sword at low hanging branches that prevented the horse and its unconscious burden from passing.

At one point, after hacking through a branch that was as big around as his arm, he turned to Henrietta and said, “I’m beginning to wonder if carrying you would be easier.”

But he had no real idea how much farther he had to travel.

The trail began to climb, only making the going harder. It switched back on itself more than once, and sometimes thinned to the point that the horse barely fit through gaps between trees, or between a tree and a rock outcropping.

Mendleson checked on Henrietta often, hoping she might wake. But always, she continued her shallow breathing and her eyes did not flutter and open.

“Why did they come this time?” he asked her silent figure. “And why were you outside, looking like you were leaving?”

He led the horse around a large outcropping of stone. He worried that soon it would grow too difficult for the horse to walk.

“Did they come because you were leaving, Henrietta? Or did you decide to go somewhere else? What hurts the most is that you left so soon after I thought we had finally understood each other.

“No,” he said. “What hurts the most is that you’re hurt.”

He almost ran his head into a tree that had fallen across the trail. He could climb under, or over, but the trail had ended for the horse.

He wanted to yell, scream, and hurl invective at the Fates, but he kept his most angry thoughts to himself, asking only, “Why does this have to be so hard?”

No answer came to him.

He took everything off the horse, then brought Henrietta down and set her next to the fallen log. He went to the horse and patted it on the neck. “You’ve been good to us. I wish I didn’t have to leave you here, but you can’t go where we’re going.”

Mendleson slung his pack over his shoulder. He picked up the sword and slipped it between the pack and his back.

He squated down and squeezed himself under the tree, then reached back for Henrietta and pulled her under with him.

Henrietta was light enough that he could carry her and his pack, but he hoped the Oracle wasn’t too much farther.

I wonder if I should rest before continuing on. He decided against it. He had no idea if Henrietta would wake on her own, or if she would need help, or could be helped. The thought that the Oracle might not be able to help almost brought tears to his eyes, but he fought them back.

This is not going to be like Mirrielle! This is not going to happen again!

Those thoughts pushed him forward and up a trail that grew more and more treacherous to his footing.

When the moon set, he wondered how long he had until the sun rose. They hadn’t been traveling at night the last week. He had little sense of its journey anymore, and this close to the mountains, he had little idea when the sun might rise above them.

When he stumbled over a stone that he couldn’t see and nearly dropped Henrietta, he decided it was time to rest until he had more than just starlight to guide him.

He felt around until he discovered a patch of ground that seemed less rocky, and set Henrietta down there. Once her weight was gone from him, the built up ache that he had been ignoring asserted itself as cramps in his arms. He spent a few minutes rubbing at them until he could get the pain to subside.

He sat down next to Henrietta, put his head near her mouth, and listened to her breathe.

“I hope morning light will reveal good news,” he said, and then lay back himself and stared up at the stars.

* * *

Mendleson didn’t feel like opening his eyelids. The sun warmed them. Opening them meant he would have to move.

But resting wouldn’t get Henrietta to the Oracle any sooner.

He rolled so that he faced Henrietta and opened his eyes. He couldn’t tell if she was getting better or worse. Her chest still rose and fell slowly. Her skin was pale, but he hadn’t seen it in good light the night before.

He turned over to reach into his pack and got his first good look at where he was. Stones and rocks littered the trail, making it almost more rock than dirt. Trees surrounded him and Henrietta, tall and thick with age. In the direction the trail would lead them, it looked like the trees were thinning out.

He reached into his pack, pulled out the remaining dried pork, and quickly ate it while wishing that he had more of Karl’s stew to eat instead.

When he finished, he stood, strapped the pack to his back, and then bent down to pick up Henrietta. She seemed lighter than he remembered, but still substantial enough that he couldn’t carry her forever. It wasn’t quite like lugging bags of feed around, either.

“This hike had better not take much longer,” he said, stepping out onto the trail to resume his journey.

After a mile, perhaps a little more, the trail led him to a small stream. The trail turned to follow the stream toward its source. He looked upstream, and saw that the trees thinned out even more.

His legs ached. He thought about setting Henrietta down and taking a rest. A look at her caused him to choose otherwise. Her breathing had slowed, and where she had been pale before, her skin now looked nearly translucent. It didn’t take much on his part to deduce that she might die on him if he couldn’t get her to the Oracle. He hoped the Oracle could even help. Seers weren’t known for their healing powers.

He turned upstream and picked up his pace as much as he could on the uneven trail. It grew more and more difficult to traverse the farther he went. Larger stones, less soil. He had to keep his eyes on the trail right in front of him to find the best route.

His legs grew tired from the uneven footing. His arms and back grew sore from carrying Henrietta. The stream next to him bubbled along, not caring that he hurt.

A stone Mendleson stepped on slipped under him and rolled. A sharp pain ran through his ankle as it turned from exhaustion and the weight he carried. He fell to the ground, adjusting his fall so that Henrietta would land on him. She came down on his chest, driving the air from his lungs.

After several gasps, he got his wind back. “Why!” he shouted. His shout echoed back to him.

When he looked about, he found that he the ground had risen up around him while he concentrated on the path in front of him. He was in a ravine. Is this it? Am I here?

He hoped so.

He gently pushed Henrietta off of him, then reached down to his ankle to check it out. He prodded at it, but the prodding didn’t produce any sharp pains. The ankle was just sore.

He got to his feet and tested it out a bit, walking around. He could put weight on it. It hurt, but he would live.

He bent down and picked up Henrietta. His ankle shrieked at the additional weight, but after a moment, it subsided enough to let him try a few steps.

The first step was the most painful. He grimaced and clenched his teeth. He couldn’t put all of his and Henrietta’s combined weight on it for very long. He had to adopt a hobbling gate that was sure to slow him down, and every step on that ankle caused his body to shake.

But he didn’t give up, he didn’t set her down. He’d committed to saving her, and he wouldn’t let her down.

Step after painful step, he muddled his way through the ravine, hoping to find a cottage and an Oracle at the end of it.

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 Eighteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony!

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Sixteen

August 8, 2012 Mark

This chapter didn’t turn out at all like I’d originally planned. Things happen in these three scenes that were either planned for elsewhere, or not at all. It’s the fun part of writing for me. I like it when my characters choose to go their own way.

So here’s chapter sixteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony.

Sixteen

Mendleson felt put out when he discovered he could have had a warm bath instead of the practically ice cold wash-down he had suffered through. He didn’t understand. Back at the stable, she had been so warm and comfortable to be around. Now, while she wasn’t pushing him away like she had before, she wasn’t letting him close to her, either.

While Henrietta took her bath, Karl gave him a mug of mead to sip at, and then left Mendleson to sit by the fire that was now burning in the hearth while Karl prepared a meal. Mendleson had asked if Karl needed help, but Karl declined any assistance. It didn’t stop Karl from striking up a conversation, though.

“Mendleson, how did you meet my niece?” Karl asked.

“She lived across the road for about three years.”

“But that’s not how you met her.”

Mendleson took a sip of his mead. “No. The town festival, three, maybe four weeks ago. She came over to me. We struck up a conversation.”

“Did she say why she came over to you?”

“Not then, no. But later, she told me she’d had a vision of herself meeting someone there.”

“You?” Karl asked.

“She never said.”

“It must be you, if she didn’t meet anyone else.”

“How can you be sure?”

Karl laughed. “Has she not told you of me?”

“No. She never mentioned you.”

“Strange.” Mendleson heard Karl stirring something in a metal pot. “Well, I can be sure because my wife was a Seer, as was Hen’s grandmother. It sort of runs in the family.”

“Your wife?”

“Henrietta’s aunt.”

Mendleson stood up and went to stand next to Karl. “She’s not here?”

“She passed away at the same time Henrietta’s mother did. They were close.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. It was a long time ago, and we knew it was coming. I’ve made my peace with it.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how long did that take?”

“Years.” Karl turned to look at him. “Why do you ask?”

Mendleson peered into the boiling pot, avoiding the Karl’s eyes. “My wife and child died in a fire. It still…” He trailed off. He’d thought the pain would go away after he had disavowed responsibility, but it still lingered.

“Yes,” Karl said. “It still hurts. And it will. It’s no easy thing to lose your love.”

They stood in silence while Karl stirred the stew.

“Enough of this talk. I’ve banned melancholy from my life. Tell me, how did Hen manage to drag you along on this trip.” His voice hadn’t regained much of its enthusiasm.

“She didn’t drag me along. Not on purpose, at least. Something happened, I touched her hand on accident while we were talking at the festival, and she pulled away from me and fell. She got up and ran away.”

“She had a vision.”

Mendleson nodded. “I didn’t know it at the time. I thought I had offended her. When I went to apologize, I found a wraith at her door, trying to kill her.”

Karl’s eyes widened and he stopped stirring the stew. “She’s closer than I thought.”

“I stopped it and made her take me along. I wanted to protect her. I didn’t want to let another woman die because of my inaction.”

“You can’t stop it, son. Hen’s time is her time.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“I don’t believe you do. Hen’s mother tried to help my wife. They both died.”

Mendleson heard footsteps behind them. “That’s not what you told me, Uncle. That’s not what Gran said.”

Karl and Mendleson turned to face her at the same time. Henrietta was cleaner than he had seen her in weeks. Her hair had become silk again, her face had lost the smudge marks. But her brow was furled, her jaw set.

Karl took a short breath, then said, “You were so young, Hen. We didn’t want you to be afraid of your gift any more than you already were. You blamed yourself for the things that happened in your visions. We didn’t want to add the death of your mother onto that burden.”

“It might have changed some things if I had known.” She looked at Mendleson.

“I don’t think so, Hen. It can’t be changed. Your mother tried. No matter how many of those things they fought off, there were always more.”

“Why didn’t you help them?”

“I tried, at first.”

“And then you gave up?”

“What was I supposed to do? They just kept appearing. Night after night. More and more of them.”

Mendleson could feel the anger, frustration, and pain radiating from Henrietta, and he understood it. She seemed to recognize it, too. She looked at him, caught his eye. I’ll never stop, Henrietta, he thought at her. He hoped she could hear it, or at least feel it. He didn’t want to say it aloud. Karl didn’t know about Henrietta’s vision, and now did not seem the best time to bring it up.

Karl turned back to his stew, apparently unable to face Henrietta any longer. He stirred the pot a bit, and then said, “It’s done. Perhaps some food will help us all calm down.”

Mendleson didn’t think food would help at all.

* * *

Henrietta tried to decide who she held more anger for: her uncle, or her grandmother. In the dark of the night, alone in her uncle’s bed, she pondered whose offense was worse, and could not come to a conclusion. All she could think was that her grandmother, long dead, was beyond her reach, and her uncle was asleep in a chair in the front room.

Her uncle had given her his room and Mendleson the other room. Mendleson looked like he wanted to argue against it, but after learning what happened to her mother, she didn’t want her uncle to know how close she felt to Mendleson.

She had two minds on that topic, as well. She wanted him to leave on his own, she wanted him to decide it wasn’t worth it, and she wanted him to decide to save himself. He deserved to live, to find love somewhere else where that love wouldn’t die in a week. After all the pain he had suffered, he deserved better.

But, she also wanted him to stay, to protect her, to sleep beside her like they had in the barn. She wanted more touches, another kiss. She craved them every night since, but the vision stopped her. If she gave in to her desires, she knew there would be no way to save him.

What was worse, she suspected her uncle knew how to find the Oracle. She only wished she knew why he wouldn’t tell her.

Her options were growing few in number, if indeed she’d ever had many options. She wanted to talk to someone about them. She wanted to talk to Mendleson about them. They hadn’t been able to talk over supper. Despite her uncles hopes, there was too much tension, mostly from her anger. Few words were spoken at all.

The idea of sneaking into Mendleson’s room and laying down next to him crept into her mind. It excited her, and she sat up in her bed.

“No, Henrietta,” she said. “If you go, you go to talk. Not to lay next to him.”

She ran her hands down along her body over the nightgown her uncle had given her, and imagined they were Mendleson’s hands.

She stopped herself. “No. Just to talk. To figure out what to do next.”

Henrietta reached over, and turned up the lamp a bit so she could see. She swung herself out of bed and crossed the room to the door. She pulled it open with care. She didn’t want her uncle to hear, though with the amount of mead he had consumed after supper, she thought he might not wake to an earthquake.

The door at the end of the hall was shut, the hallway dark. She stepped across the hallway, her bare feet making little sound, and tried the handle on the door. It was unlatched.

She opened it and stepped through, shutting the door behind her.

“Who’s there?” Mendleson’s asked from somewhere in the dark.

“Henrietta,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I need to talk.” I need you to touch me.

“What about? You should be sleeping. We have a long day tomorrow.”

She moved toward the bed. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. Do you mind if I climb under the covers with you? It’s cold out here.” What am I doing? I’m just going to talk, get answers. But her body wanted more, and she could feel it.

She heard him move in the bed. “Climb in,” he said. He sounded nervous. She wished she could see his face in the dark, but all she could make out was a vague shadow.

She slipped in next to him, and felt his warmth. Her hand accidentally came to rest on his chest. She left it there.

“What are we talking about,” he asked.

“My uncle. I think he knows how to find the Oracle, but he won’t tell me.” Her fingers idly traced a pattern in the hair on his chest.

“Why won’t he tell you?”

“He fed me a story about how she requires payments for her advice that are often greater than the advice is worth. It seems he thinks she is a witch or something.”

Mendleson rolled to face her, even though they could not really see each other in the dark. Her hand fell from his chest, but she made sure it was still touching him.

“If he won’t tell us, then we’ll have to find someone who will. There’s got to be someone else around here who knows.”

His hand idly took hers and rubbed it.

In front of them, stood a monolith. Ancient and implacable. She walked toward it, but Mendleson pulled away. He looked around in a terrified movement. He pulled out his knife.

The wraiths descended on him like a flock of crows on carrion. Soon, he was smothered, and she could not see him. Her feet were stuck to the ground. She couldn’t move. The wraiths stood, leaving Mendleson’s body crumpled on the ground, the life gone from it.

They came toward her. She backed up, and backed up, until her back came to rest against the monolith.

The wraiths spread out around her. Trapped. They closed in, until she could no longer see anything but their hungry eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she heard him say as she came out of the vision.

“No, don’t be sorry.”

“But I know it’s painful for you.”

“No,” she said, trying to comfort him. “I’ve seen it so many times. I just don’t like seeing you…”

She reached out and put her arm around him, careful not to touch his hand with hers again. “Come close,” she said.

“But…”

And then, with him so close to her, she decided she wanted to know, had to know, before the Fates brought her end. For the moment, she didn’t care what Mendleson would think. They hadn’t been able to change that vision. Not yet.

She pulled his head to hers and kissed him. This time, their bodies were warm, and she could feel him along the length of her body. She wanted the nightgown off.

She pulled her mouth from his. Her heart raced. She didn’t know if she was doing the right thing, but it felt right. Her body wanted it, ached for it. “I want to lay with you, at least once,” she whispered to him. “I want to know what it would have been like.”

“But you’ve been so distant these last few days.” He sounded confused.

She moved her hand down his back. She felt his creep tentatively on to her hip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve just been confused—afraid.”

“What changed?”

“Please, Mendleson. Isn’t this what you want?”

She slipped her hand farther down, and discovered he wasn’t wearing anything at all. She pulled herself closer to him, so that she could feel his hardness against her.

His tentative touch grew stronger, slipped around to her backside, and he pulled her tight to his body. His mouth came down on hers again, insistent and probing. His free hand tangled itself in her hair. Her body tingled in anticipation.

His hand on her backside started pulling the nightgown up. She lifted her body a bit from the bed to help him, while their tongues still explored each other’s warmth.

Their lips parted for a moment as the hem of her nightgown slipped past her hips, and the hard length of him had unhindered access to her.

“I do want this,” he said.

She brought his head back down to hers. He slipped his fingers down from her nightgown, slipped them between her legs. She opened herself to them, and they touched her gently, and rubbed until she felt her moisture come through and his fingers grow wet.

Then, he rolled her onto her back, put himself between her legs, and slowly slid himself into her. At first, she felt pain, and she wondered for a bit if it would last, but she soon forgot it as he moved within her and other sensations spread throughout her body.

They moved against each other, and she grasped him, pulled him deep into her, again and again, until lights flashed through her mind and her body spasmed like nothing she had ever felt before. She almost didn’t feel his own spasms through the sea of pleasure that enveloped her.

He came to a rest on her, his body somehow not crushing her beneath it.

She held him close when it seemed he would roll off. She wanted him to stay there forever.

But she knew it wouldn’t last, and probably wouldn’t happen again.

And then she allowed him to roll off, and they both lay there gasping for a moment.

Tears came to her, and she had to choke them off. She couldn’t let him throw away his life for her. I have to do something.

She slipped out of the bed.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my bed. I don’t want Uncle to find me here. It’s best he not know, I think.”

“Right,” Mendleson said. He sounded disappointed. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Goodnight,” she said.

“Goodnight.”

She went through the door and shut it behind her before she whispered, “Goodbye, Mendleson.”

* * *

“Mendleson! Help!”

At first, he thought the words were part of his dream, the nightmare that he slipped into after Henrietta left his room and he fell asleep.

He had felt so good after she had opened to him. He hadn’t wanted her to leave, but he understood. After what she had learned from her uncle about her mother’s death, she hadn’t wanted to tell him anything more about the relationship between her and Mendleson. When Karl had tried to probe, Henrietta shut him down every time. Mendleson couldn’t tell if she was angrier at him for lying about her mother, or for not helping her. Mendleson had come to the conclusion that, despite the man’s strong appearance, he was a bit of a coward.

And then the dream came as he slipped into sleep. Henrietta running, then laying on the ground, then Henrietta limp in his arms while he searched through a dark forest for something he couldn’t find.

“Mendleson! They’re here!”

He woke.

“Mendleson! Uncle!”

Henrietta’s voice, screaming.

Mendleson fell out of bed, then raced for his door. Instinctively, he knew why she was screaming. The wraiths had come for her.

He yanked the door open and looked down the hallway. He couldn’t see anything.

But why did they come for her? We were going where they wanted!

He ran across the hall and opened her door. There was no one inside.

“Help!”

That sounded like it was coming from outside.

The hallway door that led to the front room opened, and Mendleson saw Karl standing there looking at him.

“She’s not here. I think she’s outside,” Mendleson said.

“Fool girl.” Karl ran back into the front room, and Mendleson chased after, ignoring his nakedness.

He ran into the room to find Karl pulling the swords from the Mantel. He looked Mendleson up and down once, but said nothing and handed one of the swords to him. “Do you know how to use that?”

Mendleson shook his head.

“Well, don’t stab me with it. Come on.”

Karl led Mendleson out the front door. It was cool outside, but not nearly as cool as it had been during the storm.

Mendleson followed Karl around the side of the house. Fortunately, the moon rode high in the sky, bathing the landscape in enough light to see Henrietta, her back up against a tree, and the three wraiths that surrounded her.

Karl shouted at them. One of the wraiths turned to face him. The others closed on Henrietta.

Mendleson raced along the uneven ground, holding his sword high. He hoped to get to Henrietta before they could hurt her. When he saw he couldn’t, he shouted like Karl had, and another wraith turned to face him.

The wraith came at him swiftly, its arms held up. Mendleson brought the sword down on its head, knocking it sideways, but it was not enough to stop them from colliding. The sword hadn’t killed it, either. The wraith clawed at him, tried to bring him to the ground.

Mendleson felt the claws tear his skin, just like the last one had. But this time, he had the sword. He pushed the thing off him, turned the sword in his hand, and swung. By luck or fate, he would never know, his blade severed the wraiths head from its body.

The body fell to to the ground and continued to twitch and writhe.

He looked at Henrietta and saw the third wraith had its hand on her forehead. Mendleson yelled, but it ignored him. It had what it wanted.

Mendleson ran toward it, sword extended, and ran it through the neck from the side. It fell away from Henrietta, and Henrietta slumped to the ground. Mendleson turned to the wraith, which was trying to get back up, and chopped at its neck until the head rolled away.

The night fell quiet. Mendleson looked for Karl and found him sprawled out on the ground, covered in blood. The wraith he had fought lay near him, twitching, but dead.

Mendleson dropped his sword and checked on Henrietta. She was breathing, but her breaths were slow. She felt cold to his touch. A pack lay near her. She had been leaving.

Why?

But he knew why. She was trying to save him. But if you were trying to save me, why call out? Why call for help?

It didn’t make any sense to him at the moment.

He picked her up and took her over to Karl.

When he got closer to Karl, he saw that Karl’s wounds were worse than he thought. Karl lay gasping, his head turned to the side, his mouth leaking blood.

Mendleson set Henrietta down and went to Karl’s side. “Karl?”

“I’m still here,” Karl croaked. “They all dead?”

“They’re dead.”

“Henrietta?”

“I don’t know. She’s breathing.”

Karl coughed, spitting out more blood. “You must take her to the Oracle.”

“What? She told me that you wouldn’t tell her how to find the Oracle.”

“She didn’t tell me…”

“Tell you what?”

“About you. Take her… Across the river. Find the path. It leads to a ravine. The ravine will lead you to the Oracle.”

“What about you?”

“I’m dying.”

“But she talked of a price…”

Karl hacked up even more blood, then spit it onto the ground. “There is always a price. I wasn’t willing to pay. But you…”

“What price?”

A spasm ran through Karl’s body, his eyes rolled back, and then a last bubble of blood escaped through his lips.

Mendleson looked around at the carnage, wondering what he should do about it, if anything, but he decided helping Henrietta was more important.

He picked her up again, said a silent prayer for Karl, and went back into the house to dress his wounds and clothe himself before trying to search out the Oracle.

He hoped he could find her in time.

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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Read Chapter Seventeen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Fourteen & Fifteen

August 1, 2012 Mark

This week, you get a bonus, sort of. You get chapters fourteen and fifteen for Free Novel Wednesday!

Why two? They’re both a bit shorter than average (fourteen is quite a bit shorter than average), and I didn’t want to leave you with a five minute read.

Fourteen

The storm raged on another two days. Mendleson was more than happy to spend the time with Henrietta, huddled around the fire, keeping warm. She’d put her clothes on once they were dry enough, and he lamented silently that she had done so. They never quite approached each other so intimately during those days as they had the first night and morning, and he yearned for another kiss.

But they each had their vulnerabilities, and they tiptoed around them while they talked. She didn’t push him away, like she had before, but she didn’t bring him closer, and he feared to push too much lest she change her mind. He satisfied himself with the little touches: putting his arm around her, rubbing her back, sharing their one spoon.

He’d gone looking for other utensils in the house, but could find nothing left that was useful. Anything that had survived the fire had been taken.

On the third day of their stay in the stable, the rain let up, and the wind ceased to howl. He peaked outside and found that, while the sky was still filled with clouds, they had grown light and thin.

“Do you think we should wait a day for the road to dry up some?” he had asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. The wraiths seem to stay away if we are moving toward the monolith.” He knew she was thinking of her vision. “I don’t know if they will hold off another day.”

So they let the horse graze on what he could find while they packed their few things into Mendleson’s pack. They still had a bit of salted beef left, and they packed that too. When the sun had risen to its highest point, they set off, once again, toward the fate Henrietta envisioned for them.

The road turned out to be fairly solid, despite all the rain. There was a layer of mud on top, but it was only a few inches thick. Mendleson dug down at one point and found a layer of stone underneath. It had been paved at one point, long ago.

They took turns riding the horse. They didn’t want to tire him, in case they needed to ride quickly.

They didn’t bother to travel at night anymore, either. Henrietta expressed enough confidence in her theory that the wraiths would not harm her as long as she was moving toward her fate that Mendleson agreed when she said she’d prefer to travel when she could see.

The next day, Mendleson caught his first glimpse of the mountains where, if Henrietta was right, they would meet their end. Mendleson still thought there should be a way to change it, and he kept trying to get Henrietta to work with him at trying to find a way, but every time he came up with an idea, she pointed out why it wouldn’t work.

As they grew closer and closer to the mountains, Mendleson found himself growing more and more worried. Whatever had happened between them in the stable seemed less and less real. Their impending doom cast a shadow that Mendleson believed had come to dominate Henrietta’s thoughts. As the miles disappeared behind them, Henrietta spoke fewer and fewer words, and would not talk about what was ahead of them at all.

By the time they rode into Tearing Falls, three days later, Henrietta had not made a sound for hours.

Fifteen

Mendleson was leading the horse, and Henrietta was riding it, when they entered a small town at the foot of the mountains. A small decrepit sign declared the name of the place in burnt script to be “Tearing Falls”. Dusk was upon them, and it would not be long before they would need to find shelter.

All of the buildings had stone walls and wore steep roofs covered in wood shingles. They lined the road like they were watching a parade. Children played in the street, despite the late hour. Men and women strolled the road, directing guarded looks toward the two strangers.

“Have you been here before?” Mendleson asked Henrietta.

“Years ago,” she said, but she didn’t elaborate.

“Is there an inn or somewhere else we can stay?”

She said nothing for a while, but just about the time Mendleson was going to try and ask someone, she said, “There’s someone at the far end of the town that might take us in, if he still lives here.”

Mendleson looked up at her and found her staring off into the distance, up somewhere into the darkening mountains.

Mendleson led the horse on through the town. It didn’t take them long to get through it. Mendleson guessed fewer than a hundred people lived nearby.

When they reached the far edge of the town, Henrietta pointed him toward a home that was a bit larger than the rest of them.

“Who lives here?” he asked.

She didn’t have time to answer before the door to the house opened and an older man stepped out, his balding head bare to the night air.

“Henrietta,” he said. “Good to see you.”

Mendleson saw as the man walked toward them that, despite his age, the old man was still in strong health. He stood straight, his shoulders back, his arms still wrapped with muscle.

“Hello, uncle,” she said. “Do you think we might stay the night?”

“Of course,” he said as he reached up to help his niece from the horse. When Henrietta was down, he gave her a big hug. “I haven’t seen you through here in years. I thought you had…”

“Not yet uncle. Not yet, but soon.”

He gave her a more tender hug. Mendleson realized her uncle knew about her future.

“It’s a shame it must come so soon,” her uncle said. Then he stepped back and turned to Mendleson. “Are you going to introduce me to this man you’re with, or do I need to run him off.”

She laughed, a sound Mendleson hadn’t heard in days. “You don’t need to run him off. Uncle, this is Mendleson. He’s my…” She stopped.

“Your what?” He stepped over and shook Mendleson’s hand, clapped him on the back, and pulled him close. His grip was strong enough, Mendleson wouldn’t have been able to resist. “I don’t care what you are,” he said. “If you hurt her, you’ll have to answer to me.”

“I’m actually hoping to prevent any hurt to her,” Mendleson said.

Her uncle clapped him on the back one more time. “Good. I’m Karl. Nice to meet you.” Then Karl stepped back. “Give me the horse and I’ll stable him. You two head inside and get cleaned up. You look like you’ve had a long road.”

Mendleson handed him the reins, took his pack from the horse, and followed Henrietta through the open door.

Inside, the home looked well kept. It had a front room that shared a kitchen area. A painting hung on one stone wall, and a pair of swords held a place on the mantle above the fireplace.

“Come,” Henrietta said. “Follow me.”

She led him through a door at the back of the room that opened into a short hallway. She led him to the end, past a pair of opposing doors, where he found a third door. She opened it and the entered a small room that had a tub. It had a water pump.

“A well inside the home?” he asked.

“The well used to be outside, but in the winter, it gets cold enough that my Uncle decided to build a room around it. The house grew from there.”

She started pumping water into the tub. Mendleson tested it and found it nearly ice cold.

“You’re going to get in there?” he asked.

“No. This is for you. I’m going to talk to my Uncle while you clean up. You smell like a pig.”

He put his hand in the water again. “I’ll freeze.”

“Look behind you. There are washrags on the shelf. Just wipe yourself with them.”

She stopped pumping, then squeezed around him so that she could leave. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have her touch him.

“Don’t take long,” she said, and then she left.

Mendleson kept watching, hoping she might poke her head back in. When she didn’t, he stripped off his clothes and resigned himself to another cold bath.

* * *

She was sitting in one of her uncle’s soft chairs, resting, when her uncle came in from stabling the horse.

“You’re not cleaning up?”

“Mendleson is going first. I’d hoped you could start the fire so I could have a warm bath.”

He laughed. “Of course. You’re going to make him suffer the cold?”

Henrietta smiled. “I guess it isn’t very nice, but he has a musk about him right now that needs removing.”

He sat down across from her. “So tell me why you are here. I had thought you left so that you might avert your fate, that you might change your vision.”

“I did. I didn’t intend to come back, but I think the fates have conspired against me. Everything I do leads me back.”

“Your grandmother told you this might happen.”

“I know. But she… she lived so long with her sight. Why am I given so little time?”

“Hen, that’s not for us to know. You know that.”

She couldn’t respond to that in any way that didn’t sound like she was a little girl again. “I met someone who told me that there might be a way.”

“A way?”

“A way to avoid my fate. She told me of the Oracle of Arabeth.”

Her uncle sat back in his chair and rubbed at his bald pate for long moments without saying anything.

“Do you know of her? It sounds like she might be a Seer, too.”

He sat forward, and leaned toward her. “Look at me. That woman is no Seer. I’ve heard a great many strange tales about her. Some say that she’s been hidden up in the mountains for hundreds of years, that she’s not even human. It is not safe to go to her.”

“Uncle, how can it be any less safe than my current fate?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. I only know that the help she offers is supposed to carry a price that is often heavier than the petitioner is able to bear.”

A silence hung between them, until he said, “Even if I knew where she could be found, I wouldn’t send you to her.”

And then he stood, looking weary for the first time. Henrietta suspected he knew more than he was telling, but she knew once her uncle decided something, it stayed decided.

“I’m going to get some wood for your fire.” He walked out and left her staring into the empty hearth. If he won’t tell me how to find the Oracle, did I come all this way for nothing? Did I drag Mendleson this far to die?

And when she thought of him, all of her worry that she’d been feeling since they left the safety of the stable came to her. She knew he was confused because she had stopped talking to him, stopped touching him, and erected a barrier that he hadn’t been able to scale. But she’d decided that, even if he would come along, and even though she wanted him with her more than just about anything else, she wouldn’t be a party to his death. She wouldn’t encourage him in any way.

If only the sight of him didn’t make my mind lose all semblance of reason.

But if I can’t find the Oracle, what then? Will all of it be for nothing?

When Mendleson emerged from the short hallway and interrupted her thinking, she almost smiled before she remembered herself. He had even shaved the beard he had grown over the last two weeks. She wanted to go to him and touch his face.

No. Not until I know he’s safe.

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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Read Chapter Sixteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Thirteen

July 25, 2012 Mark

Every Wednesday, I’m putting up a chapter from a novel that I’ve written. I’m calling it Free Novel Wednesday, and for the last twelve weeks, I’ve put up chapters of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony, a fantasy romance novel that came from a proposal I wrote in 2011 that I fell in love with.

Thirteen

Mendleson lifted Henrietta’s arms over his head and pulled away from their embrace. It felt good to get rid of the cold damp from the clothes that were still stuck on her shackles, but he missed the closeness of her almost immediately. He got one last peek at her breasts before she covered herself with the blanket again. He could still feel them against his chest. It had been a long time since he’d been that close to a woman.

“What do we do now?” Henrietta asked.

He looked at her wrists where they held the blanket up close to her. In the orange of the firelight, it was hard to tell, but they looked like they were starting to rub raw.

“I think we need to find a way to get those shackles off of you. I wish we had the key.” He stood up.

He almost felt dizzy. His mind raced in at least three directions. How to save her from her fate, how to get the shackles off, and how to get that close to her again. But for the last, those shackles had to come off.

“How do we get them off?”

“If there was a forge here, with tools, I could get them off. But the tools are gone, and I haven’t looked outside to see if they had a forge.”

“Couldn’t you just pick the lock on them?”

Mendleson laughed. “Of course.” What can I use? He bent down to his pack and rummaged through it. The blade of his knife was too big to fit. Everything else, flints, extra clothes, was useless for the job. He looked around the stable, but he’d already searched most of it. Whatever had been of use here had already been taken.

“What about nails?”

That kiss must have addled my brain. “Good thought. There should be some around here.” Unless they shod the horses elsewhere.

A quick search of the stable turned up three nails of different sizes. There were probably more, but he thought he’d give the three he’d found a try first.

He sat down next to her, and she laid her hands in his lap. He turned the shackle on her right hand so that the keyhole was visible to him, and then he went to work with the nails. After several minutes of fiddling, he managed to slip the nail into the mechanism so that the bar of the shackle popped free.

Henrietta immediately pulled her hand free and used the other to rub at the wrist. “That feels so much better,” she said.

“Let me see the other.”

She gave it to him and it went much quicker this time. In only a minute, he got that one to pop open also. She rubbed at her wrist a bit, then reached over and hugged him properly. “Thank you,” she said into his ear.

The blanket started to slip down again, but she stopped it with one of her newly freed hands and sat back.

Mendleson fished the shackles out of her clothes, then hung her clothes up on the line next to his own. When that was done, he patted his own shirt and found it dry. He put it on. Away from the fire, and away from Henrietta, the stable was still cold.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, about the need to move on.” He had only just started thinking about it since he stood up, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “I think I’m going to go look over that house.”

“You’re going out? In this storm?”

With everything that had happened, he’d nearly forgotten the storm. He had still heard the wind, the rain on the roof, the drips where it leaked into the stable, but the closed door had kept most of it out and Henrietta had kept his mind occupied. “Yes. I won’t go far. I need to look at it. I need to confront the memories. I think you’re right.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

He shook his head. “No, I think I should do this on my own. You stay here, tend the fire. Check on the horse and see if you can find more oats or something for him to eat.”

She looked up at him with big eyes that reflected the firelight. “Don’t be long,” she said.

“I won’t be,” he said as he turned and went to the stable door.

He opened the door a crack. Wind and water rushed in. He slipped through the opening and shut the door behind him. Within moments, he was soaked and chilled. He thought about putting this off until the storm stopped, but for the first time, he wanted to be free of the pain his memories had given him for the last four years. He wanted to be able to give himself completely to Henrietta, now that she would no longer try make him leave.

He hunched over as he walked the distance between the stable and the house. He had to negotiate the soup of mud that the stable yard had become. It sucked at his feet and made the going slow.

The burnt out house loomed in front of him, and the memories of his own home, the smoke rising from its shell, the cinders falling from the air, came back to him. He made his way to where the door of the building used to be. A stone arch surrounded it.

A strong gust of wind blew and pushed him sideways, but he refused to let it knock him over.

He stepped through the arch. Inside the stone, there was little left. Burnt timber, the broken bones of the house, lay where it had fallen, spread out on a stone floor. Fired pots lay smashed and shattered among the wreckage of the house. He stepped over each shattered bone with reluctance, expecting to see the charred bodies of his wife and son as they were when he’d found them, Mirrielle clutching Josua in a final, protective embrace.

But he never did see them. They weren’t here. This wasn’t his house. It wasn’t his life. He looked up into the rain falling from the cloud blackened sky and let the drops fall on his face. The wind couldn’t move him. The rain couldn’t beat him down.

He reached back to that day, when his boat sailed into the harbor, its belly full of fish. He’d seen the smoke. He’d known, even then. He realized, as the rain pounded on him, that he’d lost two loves that day: his family and the sea. The one would never come back, not as it was, and it wasn’t his fault.

“It wasn’t my fault!” he shouted into the fury of the storm.

But the other, the sea, he had given that up to tend his memories. I gave up the sea for something that was already gone.

He thought of Henrietta, back in the stable, waiting for him. Am I doing it again? Am I giving up my life for something I can’t have?

That he even asked the question bothered him. He pulled his eyes from the sky, wiped them free of water, and looked around the house. It was empty, burnt out, ruined. There are no ghosts here to answer my questions.

Off in the corner, where the kitchen might have been, he saw something on the floor. A ring of iron. A panel of wood that was charred but not burnt through. A large beam lay atop it. He ran over to it, and saw that with some effort, he might be able to move the beam.

It was an answer, of sorts.

* * *

When the door opened again, a blast of cool air caused the small fire to sputter. Henrietta had to dive for her blanket to cover up. She made it just before Mendleson stepped through the door carrying a large, nearly full, burlap sack. He shut the door behind him, and the fire returned to its natural dancing self.

“Look what I found,” Mendleson said as he came to the fire bearing his burden.

As he approached, the light of the fire showed his clothes covered in soot and charcoal. His hands were black with it, too. “What were you doing?”

“The place had a cellar filled with food. Much of it spoiled, but there were still some treasures. Salted meats, and a bunch of potatoes that don’t look too bad.”

“But you’re covered in soot.”

“A large beam had fallen across the cellar door. I had to lever it out of the way.”

“Let me see what you found, while you dry yourself and change.”

He handed the sack to her, and then started to strip off his clothing. She looked through the treasure he had found. It wasn’t a lot, and in the light of the fire, she could see a few of the things he had found had spoiled more than he thought. However, there was enough to last through the storm for them, if they were careful.

“I wish there was a pot to cook these potatoes in,” she said.

“Look in the bottom,” he said.

She looked up from the sack for a moment and saw him kneeling at his pack, naked but for his small clothes. She admired his shoulders and chest for a moment, until she saw his hands again, still covered in soot.

“Go wash your hands,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Go outside and wash those hands before you get your other clothes dirty.”

He looked at his hands and grinned. “Right.” He left for the door, and she watched him walk away. The farm work had been good to him.

She pulled her eyes from him and delved into the bottom of the sack. She reached a hand down to the bottom and found, to her delight, an iron pot. The idea of hot potato soup warmed her stomach without having even cooked it yet.

She had found a workbench in the corner while Mendleson was away. She took the sack over to it and emptied its contents onto the bench, setting things in order as she did. Once that was taken care of, she went back to Mendleson’s pack for his knife. She stopped by her clothes and tested her blouse. It was still damp. It would be so much easier to cook without this blanket.

Mendleson came back in, his hands, and most of the rest of him, clean. This time, she got to admire the front. And then she thought of the pot.

“I saw a well outside,” she said.

“Let me guess,” he said.

She ran to the bench to get the pot. She took it to Mendleson, and he sighed. Henrietta laughed. “You’re not even going to ask me what I want?” she asked.

“I know already,” he said, taking hold of the pot and turning back to the door.

She went back to her makeshift kitchen and began to slice up the potatoes. She looked at the other things he’d brought and decided adding salted beef might flavor the soup a bit. She cut up a portion of the beef into tiny bits. Enough to flavor, but not enough that they’d run out before the storm abated.

She turned around when the door opened again and saw Mendleson enter with the pot of water. She smiled. It looked like he’d also managed to find a couple metal rods that might serve to hold the pot off the fire. For a moment, she wondered at her earlier desire to make him leave. Of course, thinking that brought the vision to her mind, her fate, and now his. Her smile faded.

He brought the pot to her and set it on the bench. She shoveled the potatoes and meat into it while he went to the fire and worked the rocks around to support the metal rods.

She carried the pot to the firepit and the blanket gaped open, but she decided to ignore it. Mendleson was practically naked, and he’d already seen her. He’d already lain next to her, their skin touching.

She felt her skin flush as she thought of it and hoped he didn’t see. She looked up at him, but he wasn’t watching. He was using a piece of cloth he’d found somewhere to dry himself.

She set the pot on the bars, then sat down in front of the fire and closed the blanket around her. She watched him dress, and found herself wishing he wouldn’t.

“The other thing you were doing at the house,” she said. “How did that go?” She wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear.

He finished putting his clothes on and sat down next to her before answering.

“I’m not sure how to answer,” he said. “I still feel a hole within me that I don’t think can ever be filled. It hurts.”

She found herself holding her breath.

“But I think I know now that you are right, that Paulus was right. It’s time to stop blaming myself for it. It’s time to stop punishing myself.”

She let her breath out. Please don’t say that you’re leaving. “When I was young,” she said, “having just come into my sight, I would see things, and then they would happen. For the longest time, I remember thinking that what happened was my fault. No matter how many times my grandmother told me that it was not my fault, I couldn’t believe her.”

“How old were you?”

“I came into my sight when I was six.”

“You couldn’t know,” he said.

“You’re right. I couldn’t. I had to learn. But a couple years passed, I think, before I had a vision and saw a future that didn’t happen.” She looked away from him and into the fire.

“What was it?” he asked.

“A friend of mine, a young boy. I saw him crushed under falling rocks. There is a cliff near where I grew up. A lot of the children liked to try to climb it. That’s what I saw him doing in my vision.

“So I told him… I told him to do anything else in the world, but please don’t go climbing the cliff.” Talking about the memory brought back the hurt that she had buried so long ago.

“And he did, didn’t he.”

She nodded. “He stayed away from the cliff face. The rocks fell, just as I saw in my vision, but no one was hurt.

“That day, he chose to go swimming in the river. He lost his footing, his head hit a rock and split open, and he drowned.”

“You must have hated yourself.”

She reached out and stirred the soup with Mendleson’s knife. “For a while, I think I did. But I was confused. I believed what my grandmother said about the visions I had before that one—the ones where I did not intervene. They weren’t my fault. But after my friend died, I had to decide if I was responsible.

“It’s the basic philosophical problem that all Seers face. Do you tell the subject of your vision about the bad things so that they can avoid them? Do you encourage other actions? If something happens because of those other actions, are they your fault? If you don’t tell the person, do you share responsibility for what happens to them?”

“Is there a right answer?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. My grandmother told me I had no responsibility for the visions, but I had a responsibility for what I did with them. I decided that my responsibility extended only to telling the subject what my vision of their future was, and that the choice of what to do with their knowledge was their own.”

They sat in silence together for a moment. The wind outside, and the lesser sound of the crackling fire were the only things she heard.

“If that’s what you decided, why did you keep pushing me away?”

“I don’t want you to die, Mendleson. Not for me. For the longest time, there was no one in my vision but me, and then we touched at the festival and you were in it. Somehow, I had changed your future. I am responsible for you being here.”

He moved closer to her and put his arm out, as if he would put it around her. She leaned into him, and he did put his arm around her shoulders. It felt good, and comforting.

“I don’t believe you are responsible for my being here. My actions are my own, and you’ve said yourself that fates can be changed. That I’m here is proof of it.

“And if you think about it, if we can’t really change our ultimate fate, perhaps the Fates manipulated you into meeting me. Couldn’t they have left me out of your vision so that you would try to change your fate and take your journey to find me? Didn’t you say that you had a vision where you saw yourself meeting someone at the festival?”

She nodded. Could it be possible? Was I supposed to find him? Have I ever been given the complete vision at any time before I met him? Do I even have it now?

She stirred the pot a bit more and decided it was done. She would reserve those thoughts for another time.

She remembered their bowls had been in her pack. “Did you happen to find bowls on your search?”

“No,” he said, but he reached into his pack and pulled out a spoon. “I’ll share my spoon, though.”

She laughed. “It’s going to take us a long time to finish this soup.”

He put his hand to his ear and made a show of listening to the storm. “We’ve got time.”

Yes, she thought. But how much?

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Read Chapters Fourteen and Fifteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony!

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Twelve

July 18, 2012 Mark

This week, with Chapter Twelve of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony we pass the halfway point. It’s all downhill from here. Oh, and hey, look! It’s up before Noon PST!

I find myself wishing that some of you reading would make comments. I don’t know if anyone is reading, or if it’s just the comment spammers that come by and boost my visitors and page reads. Wait – that’s not true. I did have one person say they were enjoying it. It’d be nice to hear from others!

Twelve

Mendleson liked the feel of Henrietta’s head against his back, her arms around his stomach. He wished the storm would take its leave so that he could spend his concentration on the feel of her. Instead, he pushed the horses through the gale and the sheets of water, looking to find shelter.

He didn’t want to shelter too near the city for fear the magistrate had authority outside its gates. But the storm would soon force him to find shelter, he knew, or it would kill them both.

Knowing they would need both horses, if he managed to rescue her, he had asked Perry to get the other ready and wait for him to return with Henrietta. The kid had agreed without even asking for coin when he heard what Mendleson planned. He had even wanted to come along, but Tara had heard and put a stop to that nonsense.

Mendleson rode out into the storm, praying he could catch up to them before they turned off.

When he found them, his heart had stopped. They were fighting already—fighting wraiths. He kicked the horse into a gallop, pulled out the club he’d borrowed from Tara out and swung it as he crashed through the guards and the wraiths. He pulled Henrietta up onto his horse after swinging the club down onto the head of a wraith, knocking it back, then turned the horse and galloped away.

He had to keep a hold of her so that she didn’t slide off. He didn’t want her arms around him for fear of being hindered should he need to fight.

When they stopped at the inn to get the other horse, Henrietta refused to climb down to get on it. “I’m too tired,” she said.

Instead, she put her arms up over Mendleson’s head, shackles and all, then slid them down around him. He didn’t protest.

They tied a lead to the other horse, and left Tara and Perry standing in the shelter of their stable.

Now, in the fury of the storm, the horses were exhausted and frightened. Every boom of thunder threatened to panic the horses and tumble he and Henrietta to the muddy ground.

When he felt they had passed beyond the immediate influence of Berelost, Mendleson started looking in earnest for a place to shelter both them and the horses. He needed a farm with a barn or a stable, a place they could hide for the few days that Henrietta insisted the storm would assail them.

He feared the storm would kill them. He also feared that the wraiths would appear again if they stopped.

And that, more than anything, frightened him. There were more than one. The black shadows, only outlined by guttering lamps and flashes of lightning had brought the fear back to him. They’d gone so long without seeing one, he’d begun to think they’d managed to escape.

“Mendleson,” Henrietta shouted over the sound of the wind. “We’ve got to stop. We’ve gone far enough.” Her shout sounded strained.

Lightning, and then an immediate report of thunder caused his horse to rear and almost throw them. He dropped the lead to the other horse in his effort to not fall off, and it ran into the darkness.

Once their horse settled down, he concluded Henrietta was right. They had to stop somewhere, soon.

“The next farmhouse,” he shouted, “we’ll stop and ask for shelter.”

He didn’t hear a reply, so urged the horse onward.

A few minutes later, as they came around a bend in the road, he spied a darkened farmhouse in the distance, and rode toward it. Beside the house, he thought he saw a stable, and hoped he’d find feed for the horse, maybe hot food and a mattress for them to sleep on.

As they approached, however, he saw scorch marks around the windows in the stone walls and soon discovered that the roof had burned away. The farm was lifeless, like his own farm had been when he returned from the sea that day.

The memory rushed through him to fill every nook in his mind. The pain, the sight of Mirrielle, Josua, it all came back.

He shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to push it away, but failed. Someone had lived here in this home, and it had burned, and they were gone. They were all gone.

He kicked the horse into a gallop.

“What are you doing?” Henrietta yelled over the gale.

“I can’t stay here!”

“We have to, Mendleson! We need shelter!” She sounded weak, desperate.

But the memories. He couldn’t make them go away. He couldn’t lock them back up in whatever box he’d managed to hide them in the last couple weeks.

“The house, it burned, just like…”

“Please, Mendleson! I need to rest.”

He turned around as best he could to look at her. In the dim light the storm let through, he could see she was worn out. Her hair, normally vibrant, hung limp in the rain to cover her face. She couldn’t even use her hands to brush it away, chained together as they still were around his waist. She couldn’t keep her shoulders straight. She could barely even sit up, and he suspected if she wasn’t chained to him, she would have fallen already.

He eyed the burnt out house once more, then took a breath and directed the horse to the stable. Whatever pain he felt at staying here, he would endure for her.

Fortunately, the disaster that fell upon the house spared the stable. The door was open, the animals gone, but the roof still held, and they were able to ride in, out of the fury of the storm.

Once inside, Mendleson slipped out from under Henrietta’s arms and let himself down from the horse. He helped Henrietta down and to a nearby stool. He tied up the horse in a stall, then searched for feed. He found a bucket that had a little left in it, but it wouldn’t last out the storm. He hoped it hadn’t turned. He gave it to the horse anyway.

While looking for the feed, he found a ladder that led to a loft. He tried to climb it, but his legs ached from the ride, and he found himself at the end of his energy and gave up. It can wait.

Instead, he found the cleanest stall in the barn and brought Henrietta over to it. She slid down against a wall. He went to the horse, retrieved his pack, and brought it to the stall. He delved into it and pulled out his blanket. The oiled leather of the pack had kept it mostly dry. “At least something went right,” he muttered.

Henrietta didn’t even respond.

He bent down and put a hand to her cheek. She shivered under his touch.

“Come on,” he said. “We have to get out of these clothes and let them dry.”

“What?” she said, perking up a little. “No, just let me rest.”

“No, you need to get out of them or you’ll get the chills. I’ve got a blanket. It’s dry and will keep us warm.”

Her head came up so that her eyes could look at him. “Us? What are you after, Mendleson?”

“What?” he asked. “I’m not after anything but keeping us alive.” He was so cold and tired, he hadn’t even thought of anything else.

She looked at him, and for a moment, he thought he saw disappointment on her face. But when he looked harder, he couldn’t see anything but exhaustion, and he decided it must be a trick of his mind. She’d pushed him and pushed him, and despite what Tara had told him, he saw little evidence that Henrietta had changed her mind.

“Fine,” she said. “I trust you, but we have a problem.” She held her hands out, and he realized immediately what it was. There was no way to get her clothes off completely while her arms were still shackled.

He looked around the stable, hoping to see a tool he could use to pop the pin or break a link in the chain, but he couldn’t find anything. The stable had been stripped of most of the useful items.

He came back to her, and ultimately, they decided to remove her garments as much as possible with the shackles still on. Her top hung from the shackles, but it would at least keep the moisture away from her.

He pulled all but his underclothes off and hung them from the wall of the stall.

As he came back, he averted his eyes as best he could, and in the low light, it was easy not to see the detail of her body, but he still felt stirrings within him that he hadn’t felt since Mirrielle died.

And that thought killed any of those feelings.

He stepped up next to her with the blanket, helped her to lie down on the straw covered floor, and then lay down next to her and pulled the blanket around them both. Her skin was cold and clammy on his, but his couldn’t have felt much better next to her. He wrapped his arms around her to try to speed the warming.

After a while, their bodies filled the space under the blanket with enough warmth that they both stopped shivering.

“Mendleson,” she said.

“What?” he asked.

“Thank you for coming to get me.”

“You’re welcome, Henrietta.”

A warmth moved through him that had little to do with their bodies being so close together.

* * *

Henrietta woke to the snapping sound of a fire. Around her, she could see the flickering light it threw off as it danced, but she couldn’t see the actual fire. She began to stand up, but stopped when the shackles, and the still damp clothes hanging from them, reminded her that she only had the blanket for covering—when they reminded her of what had happened, and what hadn’t.

The memories insisted that Mendleson had slept next to her, their skin touching, his warmth feeding her, the hair on his chest tickling her back, his arms holding her tight without straying where they shouldn’t. But she couldn’t see him.

“Mendleson?” she called out.

She heard footsteps, and then he entered the stall. He was wearing his pants, but his shirt was off. She had little choice but to admire his chest.

“You wake,” he said.

“Where’s your shirt?”

“Hanging by the fire with your…”

For anyone to see? She didn’t yell at him for it. They did need to get them dry. “Come help me up. I want to move near the fire.” It’s cold under this blanket without you to hold me. She didn’t want to say that aloud, either. She was grateful he had saved her from the magistrate and whatever fate he had planned, but she wasn’t going to encourage him any further.

He bent down and very carefully helped her up. They managed to get her standing without exposing too many parts he shouldn’t see. Together, they stepped out of the stall, and she saw the fire in the middle of the stable. He’d set stones in a circle to keep the fire from spreading. He had a line running across the stable, from one stall post to another, near enough to the fire to get the warmth, but not so near as to be dangerous. His shirt and coat hung from it, as well as her lower garments.

“How did you get it lit?”

“I had flints in my pack. That, straw, and a few stored pieces of wood in this place.”

She sat down near the fire so that she could feel the warmth.

“How do you feel,” he asked.

“Better,” she said. She was still cold, but much of her fatigue had bled away while she slept. “Hungry.”

Mendleson nodded and sat down next to her. He reached into his pack and pulled out a bundle of dried pork, which he handed to her. “Here, this should help.”

“Where did you get this?”

“Tara stuffed it into my pack as I was leaving. She seemed to feel guilty about something.”

Henrietta took a bite of it. Salty and dry, but it was better than nothing. “She felt guilty about turning me in,” she said after she finished chewing.

“Turning you in?”

“She sent Perry to warn me as soon as she saw the magistrate outside, I think. But I also think once the magistrate came in, she told him where I was.”

“You don’t seem upset at her.”

“She tried to help. It didn’t work out. She couldn’t risk her inn over me.”

Mendleson looked up at her, his eyes dark, but bright at the same time. “I don’t see why not,” he said.

“You wouldn’t. But then, you don’t have a lot to lose, do you?” As soon as the words escaped her mouth, she wished she could take them back. The wound in his heart spilled out through his eyes before he could look away.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that,” she said.

“What else could you mean?” He didn’t look at her. “You still want me to leave. Fine. When the storm lets up, I’ll leave.”

Dammit, Henrietta. What do you want? She wanted to reach out to him, but the shackles made that awkward. She’d have no way to keep herself covered. “I only meant that you didn’t have anything tying you to your home, that you were free to do anything. Tara, she’s got Perry to think of…”

He turned back to her. “But what about my family?” Tears streamed from his eyes. “What about them? I had them.”

On instinct, she withdrew her shackled hands from under the blanket, not caring that the blanket slid down, and put them over his head and around his shoulders. She pulled him close so that his head was next to hers, and she locked his gaze with hers. “They’re years gone, Mendleson. You only have the memories. You have to move on, go forward. Live your life.”

“The memories eat at me,” he said. “I could have saved them.”

“If you had been there, could you really have saved them? Or would you be dead, too? A fire like that, in the middle of the day, they weren’t asleep. If they could have escaped, they would have. You would have been trapped, too, or you would have watched helplessly.”

“But…”

“You were out at sea, Mendleson, where you were supposed to be. It wasn’t your fault. You have to move on.”

The tears had stopped, but his eyes were still moist. His breath on her was warm. She had a sudden urge to lean forward and kiss him, but she resisted. She had no idea what he’d think.

“I’m trying to let them go. I’m trying to leave that all behind. It’s why I’m still here even though you keep pushing me away.”

“I thought you were here because you were trying to save me to atone for how you think you failed your family.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. She thought maybe she’d said the wrong thing again. Then he said, “I was.”

“I don’t understand.”

“At first, you were right. I thought I might atone for my failure if I saved you. But then, after the second, or maybe the third time, it became…” He stopped, and then looked down.

She grew acutely aware that the blanket had fallen away to expose her breasts, but she ignored the urge to try to cover herself. “What did it become?” she asked.

His eyes came up to meet hers again. “Tara told me that you love me. Is that true?” he asked.

What? Tara told him? Is it true? Her heart fluttered in her chest. She didn’t know how to answer the question. “What did it become, Mendleson?”

He moved a little closer. Their noses were almost touching. “You keep pushing me to leave, to save myself from you.”

It’s true, but not any more. “You keep saying that. Tell me why you continue to stay with me.”

“It became about saving you for me.”

Her heart split. She pulled her hands from his shoulders and put them on his head and pulled his lips to hers. They were rough from the weather, but so warm. He seemed to want to pull away at first, but a moment later, the tension in him evaporated. His tongue probed at her lips. She let her tongue meet his, and it was so soft, gentle, yet strong. She had imagined kissing a man for most of her life, yet had never imagined this.

He put his arms around her and pulled her tight to him, so that her breasts were against his chest. The hair tickled her nipples at first, and then she forgot about it in the depths of their kiss.

Time passed, she didn’t know how much, and then their lips parted. Neither of them said a word for long moments as they stared into each other’s eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something.

“I don’t know what love is,” she said. “But I do know that I don’t want you to leave.”

“Good. I’m not leaving,” he said.

“But my vision, my fate, your fate. If you stay with me, you’ll die. I don’t want that either.”

“Henrietta. You’ve seen how I am just thinking about Mirrielle. How do you think I’ll be if I let you go, too? We’ll find a way. You can always change someone’s fate. The fact that I’m now tied to yours only proves that yours can be changed. Why do we even have to go to that place? Why can’t we go somewhere else?”

At his question, the part she’d been missing, the idea that she had just been able to touch while the guardsmen had her, finally took shape in her mind.

“Mendleson, we can’t go anywhere else.”

“Why not?”

“The wraiths only appear when I am not on the path to my fate. As long as I move toward it, they leave me alone.”

He leaned in to her again and gave her a tender kiss. “We’ll find a way,” he said. “I won’t let you die.”

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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Mark Fassett – Science Fiction & Fantasy Author

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