Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 8

Excerpt: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished), Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 4

 "Have you heardfrom Kurt?" she asked, when the present ended up on the table, designatingit as a keeper.

"Nope. Nothingeither way."

"Did you thinkhe'd have some success this time?" Her face seemed to melt into thatsomber, little-girl-worried expression that I had always hated.

Kurt was out of town,following yet another lead on Lost Kids who had left Neighborlee while theywere still minors. Lost Kids were the abandoned children who appeared on theoutskirts of town, usually toddler age, no language skills, no identification, anddespite the best searching methods available, no one ever claimed them and theynever appeared in missing persons reports. At least, no one claimed them untilstrange things happened around Neighborlee Children’s Home, and then suddenlypeople swooped in with paperwork proving they were long-lost relatives. Andthose Lost Kids vanished. As far as we knew, Felicity, Kurt and I were the onlyones with unusual talents who'd stayed in Neighborlee. Sure, lots of Lost Kidshad stayed in town, made lives for themselves, and became upstanding andsometimes integral parts of the community. The ones who didn’t show any unusualabilities, or who weren’t in the vicinity when odd things happened.

That was the patternwe assembled since we decided to investigate why we were the way we were, andwhy or how we had ended up at Neighborlee Children's Home. Once we had thoseanswers, or at least hints at those answers, maybe we could get closer tosolving the really big question: where were we from and why weren’t we thereanymore?

There were a lot ofwhispered stories and fragments of rumors to investigate. We had discovered aninteresting and pretty consistently frustrating tendency for memories to behazy when it came to the Lost Kids who vanished. Always around adolescence. Accordingto the comic books and science fiction encyclopedias, and all the books ofsupernatural phenomena that my parents regularly debunked, psychic andsuperhuman powers usually manifested in adolescence. Mixed in with the storiesof the just plain weird, amusing, or frightening things that happened inNeighborlee, there were true stories of children discovering their abilities.

Mysterious people in dark cars were usually seenloitering in the vicinity of Neighborlee Children’s Home just before the LostKids vanished. Those people knew enough to watch the children’s home for oddtalents to show up in the Lost Kids. They knew how to make official recordsvanish, so those of us trying to pick up the trail years later came up againstdead ends. So far, anyway. We knew as much about these mysterious people andthe vanished Lost Kids as we knew about the enemy forces who tried to break throughto Earth from other dimensions of reality. Neighborlee served as a patch on aweak spot in the fabric of the cosmos, or a lock on the gate. Lost Kids,whether we had semi-pseudo-superhero powers or not, often ended up asguardians, holding the door closed, slapping reinforcements on the weak spot. 

Excerpt: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished), Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 4

 

Back when I was a kid,I hadn't realized that I broke just as easily as any ordinary mortal.

"Hey, you canstill fly, with Kurt's help. Thank goodness he's the Handyman." Sheslipped the lid on the box with Mum's sarong and tossed it to me.

I caught it withbrainpower and tossed it down the hall and around the corner to my office. Icouldn't see where it landed, but since I didn't hear a crash, chances weregood it hadn't knocked over any stacks of papers or CDs or books.

"One down, adozen to go," I muttered, and mentally marked present number one off mylist.

"Speaking ofKurt…" She flipped anominously plain brown plastic bag upside down, emptying a half-dozensorting-and-storage boxes onto the floor. "What do you think? He canadjust the sizes of the compartments."

"Justright."

The perfect gifts forKurt had always been mechanical, in one form or another. I admired the sortingboxes she had chosen, in varying depths and widths, and promised to help herwrap the presents.

Excerpt: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished), Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 4

 Saturday morning,Felicity came over to show me all the loot she had dragged home from shopping.When she was in super-shopper mode (not one of her superpowers, no matter howamazingly fast she moved) she was definitely a Felicity, rather than what wesometimes called her: Zap. Thinking of her as Zap, unable to control herpowers, helped me ignore the fact she was gorgeous and looked like she was interminal ditz mode, with those big, Bambi-wide eyes, coffee-and-cream skin, andall that curly hair. Currently she had it tinted amber, but it could be jetblack tomorrow and platinum blond the day after, without her resorting to abottle of dye.

I groaned, but didn'teven think of complaining, when she spilled all her shopping bags on thekitchen table. And into the TV room. Mi casa es su casa.

I had to bite mytongue while she enthused about all the bargains and treasures, andcontradicted herself every three or four sentences about who would get whatgift. There were an even dozen presents in the pile of loot she had bought forme, to give to people. Gotta love having a shopaholic at my beck and call.Especially when I hated shopping. And not just because I loathed going intocrowded malls when I couldn't see over people to navigate. The malls generallystruck me as a ski slope obstacle course. The problem was that the poles movedwithout warning, and they had a tendency to scream when I hit them.

"How about thisfor your mom?" Felicity held up a neon green-and-purple sarong withmatching foam-rubber sandals. "They're still in Bermuda, aren'tthey?"

"Probably."I caught myself twitching, trying to reach back and scratch that tender spotbetween my shoulder blades that always seemed hyper-sensitive when there wassomething wrong with the person I had just been thinking about.

Uh oh.

"What'swrong?" She paused in folding the sarong to put back into the gift box.Felicity might have looked like Lobotomy Barbie, but she regularly out-thoughtthe Prime Time TV detectives and would have been a millionaire if she everauditioned for Jeopardy.

"They missedtheir last two check-in calls." I shrugged. "You know how Mum and Popare when they're tracking down the strange and unique. They forget there arepeople back home who want to make sure they're still alive. But it's not like we'relittle kids, left home with the babysitter."

"They never leftyou home with a babysitter when they went hunting down the inexplicable.Remember those pictures, jumping over Stonehenge? You always had the bestfamily vacations." She giggled. "You could make a mint gettingimpossible photos, getting past all those no-fly zone restrictions."

"Could have. Past tense." I grinned,remembering all the stunts I had pulled as a kid, thoughtless tricks that evenSuperboy wouldn't have thought of. I had done them just because I knew I could,or wanted to find out if I could.

Living Proof QUIZ Time! Earn points for free books!

 How do you play?

ü Listento Chapter 1 of LIVING PROOF either on the Ye Olde Dragon’s Library storytellingpodcast page on YeOldeDragonBooks.com, or on your favorite podcast app.

ü Answerthe questions.

ü Sendthe answers to 2OldeDragons@gmail.com

Points add up to geta free ebook or audiobook or print book in the Neighborlee series.

All month, thefeatured book is at a discounted price, if you need to fill in the holes inyour collection. I mean, there are 13 books altogether. If you have all 13 already,THANK YOU!! But chances are good you don’t have all of them.

Yet.

This is your chanceto get more and catch up on the weirdness that is Neighborlee, Ohio.

 

 1) Whatwas the weather like on Senior Prank Night?

2) Whatwas stolen?

3) Wheredid Lanie, Kurt and Felicity go to look for those stolen items?

4) Whatwas the name of the boy Lanie rescued?

5) Whatdoes "semi-naturalfour-wheel drive” mean in snark-speak?

6)  Whatjob did Lanie give up, and what job did she take full-time?

7) Whatis the name of Lanie’s basketball team?

8) Whois Lanie’s new boss?

9) Whatwas missing when Lanie got to the comedy club that night?

10) Whatline did Lanie quote from The Muppet Movie?

Excerpt: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished), Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 4

 

For someone to beskulking around outside anyone's house was odd enough to be creepy. A lot ofthe older generation still didn't bother to lock their doors. If someone cameto visit, they would have left a note, or walked next door to ask Makenzie onthe left or Joe on the right to tell us they had stopped by. Skulking andsetting off Felicity's dogs added up to something that just didn't belong inour town.

Maybe it was someonefrom out of town?

I almost didn't hearPete bark "amen," but survival instincts overrode my temporaryparanoia. I snagged three slices of pizza before I got my eyes open.

Odd thing: I didn’tthink about that flash of impressions, the sparks in the air and tingle in myfingers and seeing Sylvia and the dirty oil slick in the air, until I wasnearly asleep. It was like something had been blocking my memories until Istarted sliding down into sleep.

I didn’t have achance to think too long about it, but the impressions affected my dreams. Atleast, when I woke up the next morning, I hoped they were just ordinary dreams,trying to interpret the stress of the day before. My other option was that mydreams were warning me of something about to happen. I did not want that. Mylife was already stressful enough. Christmas shopping season had officiallystarted, and I hated shopping.

The PIGGIES Are Coming!!! Fairytale Anthology #5: TROUBLE COMES IN THREES

 

Coming May 1

Fairytale Anthology #5

TROUBLE COMES IN THREES

They say"three's the charm," but is that true?

When it comes tothree pigs, of all different kinds, who can be sure?

Inside these pageslurk evil pigs, silly pigs, brave pigs, musical pigs, magical pigs, lazy pigs,diligent pigs, arrogant pigs, manic pigs, and pigs fleeing a future as bacon.

Oh, and then thereare the houses of straw, sticks and bricks, and multiple interpretationsthereof.

And don't forget thewolves. Evil wolves, professorial wolves, vengeful wolves, defender wolves, andwolves just trying to help their friends out of a sticky, piggy mess.

If the story of thethree pigs isn't your favorite fairytale … it might just be by the time youfinish reading.

Come inside and seepigs through our authors' eyes. You'll never look at pigs and straw and sticksand bricks and bacon the same way again…

NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS

You can get TROUBLE COMES IN THREES in ebook EARLY -- and Save $$$.

Go to YeOldeDragonBooks.com and click on the storefront NOW, and download the ebook to read before everybody else!

Excerpt: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished), Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 4

 

"Hey, Gordon.Who reported us?" I tipped back, pivoted to face him, and balanced on myback wheels for a few seconds.

"Mr.Poldruhy." He stepped over to the railing at the bottom of the ramp andleaned on it. The two-inch pipe groaned in protest.

"He's threeblocks over. Man, those dogs have lungs."

"Joyce says shesaw somebody creeping around the fence just before the dogs woke up. All thissnow reflection, even with the lights out, it's hard to find a dark spot."He hooked his thumb over his shoulder at my neighbor across the street and onedoor down.

I would have to wheelover to Joyce's place tomorrow with a plate of cookies and thank her. Problemwas, I hadn't even started my holiday baking. The combination of my folks beingin the vicinity of the Bermuda Triangle and missing their last two check-inphone calls took a lot of the steam out of me.

Harry came outsideand retrieved the big spotlight from under the passenger seat of the Jeep. Pophad insisted that I needed to have one, just in case I had car trouble in themiddle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. What was I going to do? Turn itinto a klieg light and wave it at the sky until the Mounties showed up? Well,Pop would have been laughing now, as Harry helped Gordon look around theperimeter of the fence for footprints.

Problem was, betweenthe melting and freezing of old snow and the blowing of new snow for the lastthree hours, it was hard to tell what footprints all over the yard were new andwhat were old, what belonged there and what didn't, and what had been coveredup already. Gordon loved to play with his CSI toys, but he didn't even make ahalf-hearted offer to take footprint casts and try to match the soles withfamous brands in the national registry. I knew that had to depress him, so Imade sure he took two pieces of pizza when he left. From the boys' meat-loversbox, of course.

"So, who waspoking around, do you think?" Pete said, when we finally settled down inthe kitchen. He flipped the lid open on the top pizza box and didn't go throughhis routine of inhaling loudly and smacking his lips. The boy was distracted, forsure.

"If the securitycameras Kurt installed in the fence posts were working…" I shook my head.Felicity felt bad enough about breaking Kurt's newest toys. I didn't want torub it in, even though she wasn't even in the house.

"Whoever it iswill come back, eventually." Harry opened his mouth and turned the pizzaaround so he could devour it crust first. The glitter in his big, dark eyeschallenged me.

"Pete, say theblessing this time?"

He hadn't even gottenhis pizza onto his plate, let alone lifted it to his mouth. He groaned, let histwo slices drop, and licked sauce off his fingers before folding his handstogether to pray.

I barely listened tohim recite the standard lines he had been using since he was seven. My mindswitched back and forth between the rotten turn my day had taken, and themystery that greeted us when we got home. Sure, we had some weird characters inNeighborlee, but on the whole even the weirdos were friendly, and mostlyharmless. Other than the Grandstones, and some of the wackos who ignored thesubliminal “go away, we don’t like you” vibe the town gave off.

Save $$ on this month's featured book!

 

This month's featured book in the Visitor's Guide to Neighborlee is ON SALE all month on the YeOldeDragonBooks.com website.

Go over to the storefront and save $$ on the print, ebook or audiobook version.

And remember to check back on April 10 for the quiz, to earn points toward free Neighborlee books. All you have to do is listen to Chapter 1 of LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished) either on the Ye Olde Dragon's Library podcast page on the YeOldeDragonBooks.com website, or on your favorite podcasting app, then answer the questions, and presto! Points toward free books.

Excerpt: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished), Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 4

 

Felicity's dogs weregoing nuts, or rather, more nuts than usual, when we pulled into the drivewayan hour later. (For those joining the confession late in the game, Felicitylived in my three-car garage, which had been turned into an apartment, and hada bunch of dogs. We're talking rescued strays. Big, drooly, smelly mutts.Felicity was a dog person, part of her semi-pseudo-superhero talent, along withuncontrollable EM bursts.) Between the usual letdown after a performance highand the knots of hunger in my stomach from the smell of that heavenly pizza, Iwasn't in the sweetest mood. The big fence around my property kept the dogsrelatively contained, but it didn't keep them quiet. When they were noisy, itmeant someone had tried to break into my property.

Too bad security wasoften noisy. No lights were coming on in the houses around us, up and down thestreet. Translation: those dogs had been yammering and throwing themselves atthe fence long enough for everyone to go back to whatever they had been doingbefore the alarm went off. Which meant, oh joy, the cops would show up any timenow.

"Save a slicefor Gordon," I warned Pete.

He slid out of theback seat and headed for the ramp to the kitchen door, holding the pizza boxeswith all the care such treasure deserved. It was more important to get the foodinside and keep it hot in this weather, than it was to get me and my wheelchairinside, after all.

The dog clamor meantFelicity hadn't come home yet. Big surprise. As soon as Harry swung mywheelchair out of the back of the Jeep and unfolded it, they shut up. For alltheir noise and smell, those dogs were smart. They knew I was the boss. It wasmy house, and they knew who was the alpha when Felicity wasn't there. Too badmy brothers hadn't learned that lesson yet.

I got to the top ofthe ramp and paused to use the towel hanging by the door to wipe the ice-meltgrit off my wheels before going inside. The big black-and-white truck belongingto Neighborlee PD pulled up before I could go in. The dogs yapped once, thenslunk around the side of the house to their kennels. They understood whatpolice were for.

"Hey, Lanie." Gordon unfolded himself fromthe cab. There was a reason why the PD kept the truck they'd confiscated fromsome idiots who thought they'd set up a meth lab on the outskirts ofNeighborlee. Gordon didn't fit into regular issue vehicles. In fact, he madethis heavy-duty machine look a little delicate when he stood beside it. Andover it. One of these days, I knew I had to ask him who made his uniforms. Hadto be special order.

Firsty Freebie Day!

 

The April FreebieFirsty is JAX. A short story from the AFV Defender series, taking place after HERETHERE WERE DRAGONS.

 

Only a Talent canestablish communication with the Castitaran dragons, known as numenjax. Butwhen the communication short-circuits Confri and knocks her out cold, shethinks her part in the project is over. Until the numenjax come up with a muchmore creative plan!

 Use these links toclaim your free short story – only good through Wednesday, April 2:

 

Ebook: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/wojxtz6lc0

Audiobook:  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/rr5gf10iuv