Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 110

BLADE OF INNOCENCE, Highlander the TV series fan fiction

Excerpt from Chapter 14 of the fan novel now available on Wattpad:
            "Get in!" Duncan snapped at Joe as he gunned the engine.
            Joe threw himself into the front seat, snagging the door with one hand.  The T-bird roared across the parking lot.  Streaks of lightning streaked out of the building, as if reaching for the two Immortals in the car.  The wheels screeched, bumping on the curb as Duncan missed the driveway entrance by ten feet and shot across the street, up over the corner of the abandoned gas station and out into the next street.  He spun the wheel, judging they were far enough away now, turning the car to face the sagging hulk of the building.
            Blue and white lightning snapped along all the exposed metal beams.  The few bits of whole glass shattered in a white rain, arching out like the spray of a fountain.  Hissing turned into roars.  The whole building buzzed and snapped like a mad scientist's laboratory.
            Darcy pulled herself forward, clutching the backs of the seats and peered out between Joe and Duncan.  Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened and what little color she had regained fled.

            Then with one final boom that shook the ground and threatened to reach out to crack the cement under the car, it was over.
            "Daddy?" Darcy whimpered in the sudden silence.
            "How soon do we know -- "  Joe glanced over the back of the seat at Darcy and swallowed hard, visibly unwilling to go on.
            "Until we know who won?"  Duncan nodded toward the gaping mouth of the door.  "Josh'll know we'd wait, and he'll come out.  Immerman will run and hide."
            They waited.  Twenty minutes.  Martha drove over and joined them and stared when she saw Darcy's bloody shirt and realized what it meant.  She climbed into the back seat of the car and wrapped her arms around the girl and cried.  Darcy didn't cry, but stared with dry eyes at the door of the Allied Glass Works.
            When twenty minutes passed, Duncan said nothing.  He put the car into gear, let Martha get out to drive Frank's car and drove back to his loft.

New Book Excerpt: DORM RATS, A Neighborlee, Ohio book

"You have got to be Lanie and Harry." Emma stood up to greet us when Harry and I approached the building at that end of the street.

I honestly to this day have no idea what to call it—house, shop, office? Hut, headquarters for interdimensional visitation? Intergalactic bus stop, tea shop? After all, it was reputed to be haunted, and people from all different disciplines or theories of haunting and visits from the "other side" (whatever that means) had investigated it. My folks had access to all the historical documents and records of the weird goings-on through the years. How many times the building had burned and even been bombed out during various invasions and revolutions in England's history, how many times it had been added onto and then renovated down to the foundation, and the multiple uses it had been put to. House, store, jail, apothecary, hospital, morgue, schoolhouse, barn, and multiple combinations and variations of the previous uses.

Pop remarked, our second night in the village, that the building wasn't haunted so much as it had grown a personality from all the uses and turmoil it had endured through the centuries, and all the Human energy that soaked into it. It just wanted a vacation. Proof that his theory was probably closest to the truth? People's reactions to the building varied depending on their personalities and beliefs. Five people could go into it at the same time and hear a noise, and everyone would hear a different noise, interpreting it as a different cause. I know this is true because Harry and I went exploring the first time we got inside. We found out later that nobody knew the attic was there until we found it. How could people not see the door and the steep, really skinny stairs all these years? We found them because maybe the building liked us? Who knows?


More proof: We were climbing around in the attic and our folks were downstairs, going through boxes of crumbly historical documents, when a delegation from the village came in to speak with them. They wanted a progress report on what we had found, only our first full day there, after the welcoming party/luncheon. I heard the door creak-bang open and signaled Harry to be quiet. He was in the middle of leaping from one rafter support beam to the next. Kind of hard to land on the next beam without making noise, but he managed.

New Book Excerpt: DORM RATS, A Neighborlee, Ohio book

The building where the investigative society met was reputed to be haunted. Harry and I speculated for a short time that our folks were going to be asked to determine if it really was haunted, or if something else explained the odd noises and lights and visions that people experienced. I was of the opinion that it might just turn out to be another "weak place" in the fabric of space and time, something like what the whole town of Neighborlee protected. I wanted to wander the village and determine if this village had their local equivalent of Divine's Emporium and Angela. It made sense to me that other places in the world needed something and someone to reinforce the weak spots and channel all the magic and weirdness for profitable use. The person and the shop would protect the village from the rest of the world, and the rest of the world from the village.

Harry liked my theory, and we had an enjoyable two hours going about on scooters provided by our host at the little guest house/hotel where we were staying. Then we had to get down to the haunted building to meet up with everyone for lunch. We got there about five minutes early. We could look down the street that ran straight through the village to the other end, where the bookstore was, and see the people coming out the front door.

A couple was sitting on a bench in front of the building. This was our introduction to Jake and Emma Crowder. They were researchers like Mum and Pop. And Harry's parents. I never made the connection until years later. Emma and Jake were midway between Mum and Pop and Harry's parents, meaning they did a lot more "unofficial" government-type investigations than our folks did, but they didn't get into trouble and danger to the point of threatening their lives, like Harry's birth parents did. At least, not at the time we met them.

New Book Excerpt: DORM RATS, A Neighborlee, Ohio book

Our first two weeks in England, we pretty much stayed in London and the suburbs. We hit a bookstore every day, sometimes two in a day. Two kinds of bookstores. In the first, Mum and Pop dug through musty, dusty, shadowy old bookstores for research books, sending twenty-pound crates home, in care of Angela and Divine's Emporium every other day. The second type was newer, sometimes glitzy shops, where our folks did booksignings or talked to reader groups. Depending on the store, and if they were searching or talking, Harry and I had assigned tasks, to help search or to help set up for the talk and signing, or to run errands. Honestly we preferred the last option, because it left us free to explore the village and find something fun to do in the afternoon or evening when our folks were free.

Harry caught on to the whole weird money system on the first day, so he was in charge of making purchases and deciding if something was worth the price being asked, or if we should move on to another shop. I learned the bus routes and how to read village maps and route markers, and had a good knack for deciding if we should rent bikes or hike or take a cab or bus to our destination. I was good with maps. Maybe it had something to do with my ability to kinda-sorta fly, like built-in radar or something. Admittedly, it helped to be able to raise myself up fifty or a hundred feet in the air and get a bird's-eye view of the terrain, orient myself on the roads and fields and spy out landmarks to compare to the map.


Our sixth day in England, Mum and Pop had a booksigning followed by a hike to the other end of the village for a private luncheon with an investigative society. The village and historical society must be left nameless because of security reasons. Not because that particular village was a trouble spot, but because of the people who might want to cause trouble years later. To prevent them following Mum and Pop's route and kind of triangulating to identify other places where we stopped, people they talked to and things-that-shall-be-left-unspoken that they did. Don't like that restriction? Take it up with Col. Hayward.

New Book: DORM RATS, A Neighborlee, Ohio novel

DORM RATSThe next Neighborlee, Ohio novel, starring Lanie Zephyr.
From  Uncial Press

Lanie is off to college. While it's good she stays in Neighborlee -- she is one of the guardians, after all --there are some down-sides. 

Such as what happens when someone manipulates the dormitory situation at Willis-Brooks College to tap into the power of belief and imagination, lumping all the geeks and fans and creative types in one place. 

Or when some self-styled Time Lords realize that despite their best efforts, they can't control time. 


And then there are all the trials and tribulations of student teaching and settling into her career as a teacher, all while Lanie and her semi-pseudo-superhero friends keep their fingers on the pulse of the strangest little town in the state, maybe the country -- maybe the world.

BLADE OF INNOCENCE, Highlander the TV series fan fiction

Excerpt from Chapter 13 of the fan novel now available on Wattpad:

            "So, you're a friend of Duncan MacLeod's. How convenient," Immerman purred.
            "Who?" Joe blinked blood and sweat out of his eyes and tried to focus on the chiseled face leaning over him.  He sat on a pile of rubble, wondering what new brutality the Immortal would use next.  "You know, your idea of hospitality really stinks." His whole body felt bruised by the trip from the car into the black pit of a building.  Immerman had pushed him along with the sword point to his back.  When Joe didn't move quickly enough, he clubbed him with a convenient scrap of lumber and kicked him when he fell. Once he had even grabbed Joe's cane and cracked it against the back of his head.

            "Isn't that just too bad?" the Immortal said in that same mildly pleased tone.  The flashlight he used to illuminate the corner of the moldering room cast his face into a spectral mask.  "According to these papers, printed out by our dear, late Andrew Blaine, you are the head of the Watchers in this section of the country, and you are assigned to Duncan MacLeod."  He tugged a much-folded sheaf of papers from his jeans pocket and waved them in front of Joe's face.
            "Andrew Blaine?  Mister, the kid must be a mystery writer. I don't know what you're -- " Joe bent double, Immerman's elbow in his gut.

            "I need you alive, Mr. Dawson, but I don't particularly need you in good shape. Duncan MacLeod seems to find some value in you, since he hasn't killed you for discovering his secret or intruding into his life.  I will use that for my own benefit.  Do try to prolong your life as long as possible."

Book of the Week: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

The last and most recent Neighborlee, Ohio book, leading up to the release this week of DORM RATS, the newest Neighborlee book -- which also happens to be the sequel to this week's Book of the Week.
From Uncial Press
Excerpt:

 "What's a facet?"

"It's like the flat part of a diamond." Yes, I must confess, there was some scorn in my voice. I had a habit of devouring every book I could get my hands on. After I had learned where the tiny library was at NCH, I had read through the entire encyclopedia. Between the start of school and Thanksgiving. That put me in possession of a great deal of scattered, unrelated bits of knowledge, and I felt rather superior every time one of those fractured pieces became useful.

"Hmm, accurate, if not totally… Well, maybe it is applicable. There are many faces or sides or dimensions to what you can do, or possibly could do someday," Miss Angela said. "There are many futures, full of possibilities, and no true means exist to see clearly which one is for sure." She guided us upstairs, to her living quarters on the second floor. Both of us were astonished and enchanted, because it had never occurred to either of us that someone could actually live in the same building as their business.

While we put together a lunch of sandwiches and soup and hot chocolate, Miss Angela made phone calls. First, she called Mrs. Silvestri and told her not to worry, that we had made a slight detour and come to see her about advice for Christmas shopping. She promised Kurt would get back to school before the lunch hour was over. Then she called Mr. Longfellow and asked him to come to the shop. Then she called the school and left a message for Mrs. Longfellow, who was Kurt's teacher, and told her that Kurt was helping her and Mr. Longfellow, and might be late getting back to class. That was when we learned Mr. Longfellow's first name was Ford. Then she told us to set the table for four.

We were sitting down to the most incredible chicken soup we had ever had in our lives when Mr. Longfellow came into the shop. He ran right upstairs, knocked once on the door of Miss Angela's apartment and walked in before she answered. Then he flung his long rusty black pea coat onto the ottoman, and slid into the fourth chair at the table.

"Hey, kids. How come I'm not surprised it's you?" He winked, and then nodded to Miss Angela.

BLADE OF INNOCENCE, Highlander the TV series fan fiction

 Excerpt from Chapter 12 of the fan novel now available on Wattpad:
            "Uncle Karl -- "
            "You know," he continued with a smile and a little shrug, "you're a grown woman, Darcy.  Don't you think you could leave off the 'Uncle' from now on?  You make me feel rather ancient."  He chuckled.
            "I'll try."  Silently, she promised herself she would never address him by name again.  Darcy realized that calling him 'uncle' somehow put a nice safe barrier between them.  She didn't want to lose that protection.
            "Now, I want you to know that I will always be here to look after you, Darcy.  I promised your father when he first adopted you that I would watch over your welfare."
            "You don't have to."

            "But it's my duty.  I promised Josh."
            "Daddy asked Duncan to look out for Mom and me.  I heard him," she couldn't resist saying.
            Darcy felt a chill when she saw a flicker of anger in Immerman's eyes.
            "Be that as it may, my dear, you are, as they say, stuck with me."  He chuckled and patted her hand.  His felt cold and heavy.  "Now, to cheer you up, I have decided to give you one of  your birthday presents early.  Are you ready?"
            "No, please -- "  She stopped short, knowing herself defeated when Immerman set a tiny, antique, brown velvet-covered jewelry box on the table in front of her bowl.
            The velvet was worn off at the corners.  The trim was gold and it had a tiny, sparkling clasp.  Darcy hoped it wasn't a diamond.
            At his urging, she picked up the box and opened it.  Inside, nestled in white satin slightly yellowed at the edges, was a ring of yellow gold studded with sapphire chips.  Despite the cold, heavy feeling settling into her stomach, Darcy couldn't repress an indrawn breath. It was beautiful in simplicity. Nothing could negate that.
            "I knew you'd like it." Immerman chuckled and took hold of her hand to slip the ring onto her finger.  "I have been waiting nineteen years to give you that ring, my dear Darcy.  It belonged to someone very precious to me."
            Everyone precious to him, Immerman had killed.
            Darcy managed to stumble through her thanks. Immerman seemed to think she was stunned, and chuckled as he walked away.  She waited, wishing she could sense an Immortal's presence like her father so she could be sure he was gone.  She forced herself to finish her breakfast.  It had no taste.

Book of the Week: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

The last and most recent Neighborlee, Ohio book, leading up to the release this January of DORM RATS, the newest Neighborlee book -- which also happens to be the sequel to this week's Book of the Week.
From Uncial Press
Excerpt:

Angela was, is, and likely always will be, one of those ageless women, with long, oval face and sculpted cheekbones. She has an incredible, thick, long fall of hair in a dozen shades of gold, with hints of strawberry in it, and big eyes that are usually blue—different shades, depending on her mood—but can sometimes seem gray and sometimes hint at green. The day I met her, she wore her usual handkerchief print blue dress with draping sleeves and no waist, what some might call a granny dress or hippie dress. Since it was August, she wore sandals.

"Do you know what a wish is, Lanie?" Angela asked me, once I was settled on the counter, with my legs hanging off the edge, braced on one arm and gazing into the Wishing Ball.

"It's something you want really bad lots, only it's kind of hard to get." I saw her reflection next to mine in the dark rainbow swirling surface of the ball, and tore my gaze away from it long enough to meet her incredible blue eyes. "And sometimes it's something you want really bad lots for other people, because they need it a whole lots more than you."

"Really? Like what?" Her smile softened and turned thoughtful, and she glanced at Mrs. Silvestri, who was standing behind me with one hand resting on my back. Like she thought I might fall off the counter?

"Like…" I turned to look at Mrs. Silvestri. Thinking back, I can't really say what concerned me more. Revealing orphanage secrets? Or revealing that I was very good at standing by the fence and listening to the children talking and playing on the other side of the tall wooden slats, to learn about the world outside the baby cottage? "Ginny Olsen wants her aunt to come back from Indiana and adopt her."

"How in the world…" Mrs. Silvestri patted my back and let out a little sighing chuckle. "Ginny's only worthwhile relative is a missionary in India. She wants the girl, but the other relatives won't let her take custody and take her out of the country. At the same time, none of them will bestir themselves to take custody themselves. They'd rather let the government be responsible for her." She stepped around the side of the counter to look me in the eye. "Where did you hear that, Lanie?"

"At the playground."

For some reason, after staring at me for a moment with her mouth dropping open, Mrs. S laughed. Then she kissed me on my forehead. Angela smiled and nodded, and for the first time I got that full-chest feeling that was partly relief, partly amazement, and the knowledge that I had pleased her.

Book of the Week: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

The last and most recent Neighborlee, Ohio book, leading up to the release this January of DORM RATS, the newest Neighborlee book -- which also happens to be the sequel to this week's Book of the Week.
From Uncial Press
Excerpt:

The thing is, for a nearly-five-year-old, I had no idea that I couldn't or shouldn't kinda-sorta fly or hover or whatever the formal label was for what I could do. I just figured it was another ability that was part of growing up, like tying my shoes, counting past one hundred, telling time, and reading. By this time, I had already figured out that learning a new trick before one of the adults showed me how to do it earned some uncomfortable attention. I didn't get in trouble for learning to read and tie my shoes faster than normal, but the fuss and extra attention made me uncomfortable.

Explain to me why it's so unusual to learn how to read by leaning over the shoulder of the person reading to us before bed, and picking out the words on the page and following along? Just pay attention, and it's easy to learn dozens of necessary tricks to get along in the world. Of course, being less than five years old, I didn't have that reasoning worked out in my head, I just did what worked. Explaining what I hadn't verbalized was next to impossible.

By the time I walked into Divine's, I had figured out that it was smart to keep new tricks hidden until I saw other kids near my age doing the same thing. So, I kept my hovering to myself, and practiced at night, when everybody was asleep, or when I was alone on the playground behind the cottage.

That day in Divine's, though, I cast my five-year-old caution aside and was ready to raise myself up for a closer look at the Wishing Ball. I was still attached to Mrs. Silvestri, like a kite on a string.

Angela walked in just as my feet got about three inches off the floor. She smiled at me, winked, and gestured down at the floor with a flick of her fingers. I settled back down and she came around the counter, pulled out a four-step ladder, and put it next to the counter on the end, giving me a more ordinary path up to the Wishing Ball. Right that moment, I knew this pretty blond lady who smiled at me like we had an enormous secret—and who didn't shout in astonishment at what she saw—was going to be a very good friend. Mrs. Silvestri introduced me to Angela while I climbed up, my gaze on her the whole time, and that was when Angela told me it was called the Wishing Ball.