Maggie Shayne's Blog: Maggie's Coffee House Blog, page 6

Review, Interview with a Vampire

Anne Rice's books are sacred texts to me. Her Vampire Chronicles are a master class in how an author can make readers feel what her characters do--sensually feel. If Anne Rice describes a character petting a dog, the reader can feel its fur against her palm. That's a real example. And it's the humanity of her vampires, not their special powers or monstrous traits that make them so compelling, so relatable... So real.

So real, I decided when I was first reading them, that all other vampires were fictional. Only Anne Rice's were the real deal. Interestingly, the filmmakers of the new series say something very similar in the Behind the Scenes Video I'll link at the end, which is a MUST SEE for anyone into this universe.

Going into this review, please note, I have only seen the first episode.

I'm unashamed to say it was Anne Rice's vampire novels that inspired my own. In fact, I dedicated my first vampire novel, Twilight Phantasies, released in 1993, to her stunning character Lestat. "To the young blond man on the balcony high above Rue Royale."

I remember when the film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire was released in 1994. First, I was skeptical. When they announced Tom Cruise as the lead, I was livid. (I read somewhere that Rice was, too, but I can't source that.)

I just watched it again.

This morning's fresh viewing, though reaffirmed my original notion that Cruise wasn't quite right for the role of the brat prince. But I think Pitt was outstanding as Louis. And Kirsten Dunst--I can't even! The acting she did at age 12 quite blew me away all over again.

So that's where I'm coming from with this review--as a passionate and devoted Anne Rice reader, who has devoured every story she wrote, but most especially her vampire tales. I was more than a fan, I was a student of her technique, and devotee of her vampire universe.

Now there's a series on AMC. When I first heard about it, I was partly overjoyed--because yay, more Anne Rice to feed my own preternatural hunger, and not only that, it was being made by the AMC people, and they know how to tell stories. Need proof? The Walking Dead. Fear the Walking Dead. Breaking Bad. Better Call Saul.

I was also partly dreading it, because I read a teaser quote that almost sounded as if the filmmakers thought they had improved on the story--they didn't say that, mind you, it just hit my brain that way. It felt as wrong as if someone said they were going to "touch up" the Mona Lisa.

So I went into it with a chip on my shoulder, but hoping for the best.

The AMC series is Interview with a Vampire. You'll notice the first difference in the title--a vampire, not the vampire as the novel and the first film were titled.

There are very mild spoilers from here down, so if you haven't seen episode one, watch it first and then come back.

THE SETUPAt first, I hated it...

I wanted to throw something big at the TV screen within five minutes. (I came around, read on.) In the film, reporter Daniel Malloy, the interviewer from the book and film is older. It is clearly 2022.

Louis de Pointe du Lac has sent Malloy the old audiotapes that he made, the original "interview" that gave the book, film, and series their titles. The accompanying letter offers to finish "the work we never got to finish." Malloy meets with Louis to take him up on the offer. Louis tells Malloy, "You weren't worthy of my story back then," to which Malloy replies, "Maybe your story wasn't worth telling."

That's the line that made me want to throw things at the TV. It felt like those tapes in the box were being deemed unworthy, which meant that the novel itself must be unworthy, because the novel IS the interview that was on those tapes. So it immediately pissed me off, to put it mildly.

In those opening minutes, I felt like they were saying, Nothing that came before matters, let's throw it all out and start over. And THAT was not acceptable to me.

I had to see it through, though so I kept watching.

Fortunately the notion that the first interview had been in any way unworthy was never brought up again.

I reasoned, from an author's perspective, that they had to give Malloy and Louis a reason to revisit the interview. At the end of the first film, Malloy pled with Louis to tell him more and Louis answered that there was no more to tell, so clearly they had to come up with something. I just wish they'd come up with something better.

But I let it go and moved on.

And then I loved it...

I loved it so much I watched it twice and dreamed about it in between. Let's talk about why.

LOUIS de POINTE du LAC

Louis' entire backstory has changed, but he's still the tender and tortured Louis who seems to feel everything times ten.

Naturally, making Louis a young Creole man in 1910, rather than a white guy in 1797 would change his backstory. It wouldn't be honest to give him the same history as white Louis. I found this version of Louis' backstory fascinating in its own right. The tale of his brother's death, unfolding as it does in the course of the story, rather than off the page, is compelling. I could feel his heartbreak, and his devastation at his mother blaming him for it.

Moreover, his struggles with his sexuality felt authentic and honest. To be a gay man, much less a gay black man in that time and place, adds layers to Louis' powerful growth arc.

In the time of the first film's release, sexuality was not talked about as openly in our fiction as it is today--unless it was hetero. Rice's books did not shy away from that aspect in any way. It was right there on every page. She wrote with and about passion in myriad forms, and she did it unapologetically. But the '94 film glossed over the aspects of the novel that were referred to at that time as "homoerotic."

Like the novel, this new series does not shy away from it at all, and the passion Lestat feels for Louis adds layers and depth that we found in the book, but were lacking from the first film.

This version of Lestat is better in a whole plethora of ways, but let me get my picayune issues out of the way first. Lestat rhymes with "hot." Okay? In the first film, everybody said it as if it rhymed with "hat." That always bothered me. (I know, it's the little things, right?) In this series, they say it correctly.

The series was clearly sucking me in. (Vampire pun!)

But the scene that won me over completely, was when Louis' shows up at the church, in the night, in the pouring rain, pounding the door, pleading for help from the priests, screaming, "Help me, Father, he's in my head!" It is SO real. You feel that! That's powerful stuff!

LESTAT de LIONCOURT

This version of Lestat is better in a whole plethora of ways, but let me get my picayune issues out of the way first. Lestat rhymes with "hot." Okay? In the first film, everybody said it as if it rhymed with "hat. That always bothered me. (I know, it's the little things, right?) In this series, they say it correctly.

But onward, because holy crap is Sam Reid excellent. Phenomenal. The poker scene, the dinner scene, that scene in the church. He's brilliant. The charm, the charisma, the edge, the sexual energy, the predatory nature. He's perfect. Reid channels Lestat beautifully. He can be cruel. He is unapologetically a predator, a vampire, a killer. Her considers Louis' refusal to embrace his new nature a ridiculous waste that brings him unnecessary suffering. The disrespect Louis tolerates from lesser men makes Lestat insane. How much more powerful is that aspect now that Louis is a black man living in 1910?

Lestat does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, without regret. This is entirely true to the character Anne Rice created, and the actor is just... I keep using the word channeling, but yes, that.

I believe what we create exists separate from us once created, and so in some form, Lestat is real. The energy that is Lestat can be tapped into, and I'm convinced Sam Reid manages that in this series, as does Jacob Anderson with Louis.

I believed him. I believed his portrayal. I felt that it was truer to the Lestat Anne Rice created than anything previously done. I cannot WAIT to see the swamp scene. OMG.

SETTING, COSTUME, EFFECTS

The setting, 1910 New Orleans is so rich and evocative that you feel like you're there. And the costumes are phenomenal. But it was only as I watched the Behind the Scenes feature (linked below) that I understood what an amazing thing the actors were doing and what attention to detail was given to the story's authenticity.

The vampires don't have just one set of fangs they have several, of different lengths. When they're about to attack, the fangs extend longer, and when they are in a calm state of mind, they are barely noticeable. The same with the contacts used to cover the eyes. In Rice's novels, the vampires' eyes seem to glow from within. So they didn't create one color contact for everybody. The contacts are different colors. Louis' are bright green. Lestat's are blue, and from the previews, Claudia's will be a gold/orange hue. And not just one set per actor, either. Their pupils dilate right before they feed, so they have extra contacts to show that.

The detail is amazing. And the attention to detail shows a caring and an honor to the novels that is well-deserved and essential.

I really expected no less from AMC. They have so much fun with the special effects in The Walking Dead and its spinoffs, I knew they'd enjoy painting New Orleans in blood. I mean, that fist through the head gag in the church scene, that was straight out of the TWD. Also, this insider info: they made the fake blood drinkable, and went to great pains to make it taste good. (I hope to God it's made of healthy stuff, because the actors have to drink a lot of it.)

CONS

I could gripe about them making Claudia older. She plays 14, according to what I've read. But I was wrong about other things I expected to take issue with, and in the previews I've seen she is phenomenal, so I'm going to give it a chance. The series-makers promise they will hit all the same major points of the novels, they just might take slightly different paths to get there.

There is one issue I had, and that was technical and probably partly my age. I have a helluva time with accents. I have surround sound so it's a good set of speakers, but I still had to watch the second time through with sub-titles on. I'm so grateful that's an option because the writing is so phenomenal I didn't want to miss a word.

SUMMARY

I went in hopeful, but skeptical. Hopeful because it was AMC--skeptical because they tried to "improve" it. But what they actually did was tap in to the spirit of the novel, the living force of it. They tapped into the creative-stream of it.

Storytelling is a very metaphysical undertaking.

The energy I felt when I read the novels the first time is here in this series. It is familiar to me. It's like experiencing those novels all over again.

CONCLUSION

This series is my new obsession and if you're a fan of vampire fiction, I predict it will be yours, too.

I love vampire fiction. I am passionate about it.

But I honestly believe nobody, nobody, nobody has ever contributed to the genre the way the great Anne Rice did. So much of my life was changed because of her work.

There would be no Wings in the Night had there not first been The Vampire Chronicles.

TWILIGHT PHANTASIESis FREE in ETo celebrate October

The entire, original WINGS IN THE NIGHT vampire series is relaunching with a title every other Tuesday from June 2022 until June 2023.

New stories will follow.

There's no better time to begin than the month of All Hallows!

The Great Wings in the Night Re-Launch So Far:

Review, Interview with a Vampire S1-E1

Anne Rice's books are sacred texts to me. Her Vampire Chronicles are a master class in how an author can make readers feel what her characters do--sensually feel. If Anne Rice describes a character petting a dog, the reader can feel its fur against her palm. That's a real example. And it's the humanity of her vampires, not their special powers or monstrous traits that make them so compelling, so relatable... So real.

So real, I decided when I was first reading them, that all other vampires were fictional. Only Anne Rice's were the real deal. Interestingly, the filmmakers of the new series say something very similar in the Behind the Scenes Video I'll link at the end, which is a MUST SEE for anyone into this universe.

Going into this review, please note, I have only seen the first episode.

I'm unashamed to say it was Anne Rice's vampire novels that inspired my own. In fact, I dedicated my first vampire novel, Twilight Phantasies, released in 1993, to her stunning character Lestat. "To the young blond man on the balcony high above Rue Royale."

I remember when the film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire was released in 1994. First, I was skeptical. When they announced Tom Cruise as the lead, I was livid. (I read somewhere that Rice was, too, but I can't source that.)

I just watched it again.

This morning's fresh viewing, though reaffirmed my original notion that Cruise wasn't quite right for the role of the brat prince. But I think Pitt was outstanding as Louis. And Kirsten Dunst--I can't even! The acting she did at age 12 quite blew me away all over again.

So that's where I'm coming from with this review--as a passionate and devoted Anne Rice reader, who has devoured every story she wrote, but most especially her vampire tales. I was more than a fan, I was a student of her technique, and devotee of her vampire universe.

Now there's a series on AMC. When I first heard about it, I was partly overjoyed--because yay, more Anne Rice to feed my own preternatural hunger, and not only that, it was being made by the AMC people, and they know how to tell stories. Need proof? The Walking Dead. Fear the Walking Dead. Breaking Bad. Better Call Saul.

I was also partly dreading it, because I read a teaser quote that almost sounded as if the filmmakers thought they had improved on the story--they didn't say that, mind you, it just hit my brain that way. It felt as wrong as if someone said they were going to "touch up" the Mona Lisa.

So I went into it with a chip on my shoulder, but hoping for the best.

The AMC series is Interview with a Vampire. You'll notice the first difference in the title--a vampire, not the vampire as the novel and the first film were titled.

There are very mild spoilers from here down, so if you haven't seen episode one, watch it first and then come back.

THE SETUPAt first, I hated it...

I wanted to throw something big at the TV screen within five minutes. (I came around, read on.) In the film, reporter Daniel Malloy, the interviewer from the book and film is older. It is clearly 2022.

Louis de Pointe du Lac has sent Malloy the old audiotapes that he made, the original "interview" that gave the book, film, and series their titles. The accompanying letter offers to finish "the work we never got to finish." Malloy meets with Louis to take him up on the offer. Louis tells Malloy, "You weren't worthy of my story back then," to which Malloy replies, "Maybe your story wasn't worth telling."

That's the line that made me want to throw things at the TV. It felt like those tapes in the box were being deemed unworthy, which meant that the novel itself must be unworthy, because the novel IS the interview that was on those tapes. So it immediately pissed me off, to put it mildly.

In those opening minutes, I felt like they were saying, Nothing that came before matters, let's throw it all out and start over. And THAT was not acceptable to me.

I had to see it through, though so I kept watching.

Fortunately the notion that the first interview had been in any way unworthy was never brought up again.

I reasoned, from an author's perspective, that they had to give Malloy and Louis a reason to revisit the interview. At the end of the first film, Malloy pled with Louis to tell him more and Louis answered that there was no more to tell, so clearly they had to come up with something. I just wish they'd come up with something better.

But I let it go and moved on.

And then I loved it...

I loved it so much I watched it twice and dreamed about it in between. Let's talk about why.

LOUIS de POINTE du LAC

Louis' entire backstory has changed, but he's still the tender and tortured Louis who seems to feel everything times ten.

Naturally, making Louis a young Creole man in 1910, rather than a white guy in 1797 would change his backstory. It wouldn't be honest to give him the same history as white Louis. I found this version of Louis' backstory fascinating in its own right. The tale of his brother's death, unfolding as it does in the course of the story, rather than off the page, is compelling. I could feel his heartbreak, and his devastation at his mother blaming him for it.

Moreover, his struggles with his sexuality felt authentic and honest. To be a gay man, much less a gay black man in that time and place, adds layers to Louis' powerful growth arc.

In the time of the first film's release, sexuality was not talked about as openly in our fiction as it is today--unless it was hetero. Rice's books did not shy away from that aspect in any way. It was right there on every page. She wrote with and about passion in myriad forms, and she did it unapologetically. But the '94 film glossed over the aspects of the novel that were referred to at that time as "homoerotic."

Like the novel, this new series does not shy away from it at all, and the passion Lestat feels for Louis adds layers and depth that we found in the book, but were lacking from the first film.

This version of Lestat is better in a whole plethora of ways, but let me get my picayune issues out of the way first. Lestat rhymes with "hot." Okay? In the first film, everybody said it as if it rhymed with "hat." That always bothered me. (I know, it's the little things, right?) In this series, they say it correctly.

The series was clearly sucking me in. (Vampire pun!)

But the scene that won me over completely, was when Louis' shows up at the church, in the night, in the pouring rain, pounding the door, pleading for help from the priests, screaming, "Help me, Father, he's in my head!" It is SO real. You feel that! That's powerful stuff!

LESTAT de LIONCOURT

This version of Lestat is better in a whole plethora of ways, but let me get my picayune issues out of the way first. Lestat rhymes with "hot." Okay? In the first film, everybody said it as if it rhymed with "hat. That always bothered me. (I know, it's the little things, right?) In this series, they say it correctly.

But onward, because holy crap is Sam Reid excellent. Phenomenal. The poker scene, the dinner scene, that scene in the church. He's brilliant. The charm, the charisma, the edge, the sexual energy, the predatory nature. He's perfect. Reid channels Lestat beautifully. He can be cruel. He is unapologetically a predator, a vampire, a killer. Her considers Louis' refusal to embrace his new nature a ridiculous waste that brings him unnecessary suffering. The disrespect Louis tolerates from lesser men makes Lestat insane. How much more powerful is that aspect now that Louis is a black man living in 1910?

Lestat does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, without regret. This is entirely true to the character Anne Rice created, and the actor is just... I keep using the word channeling, but yes, that.

I believe what we create exists separate from us once created, and so in some form, Lestat is real. The energy that is Lestat can be tapped into, and I'm convinced Sam Reid manages that in this series, as does Jacob Anderson with Louis.

I believed him. I believed his portrayal. I felt that it was truer to the Lestat Anne Rice created than anything previously done. I cannot WAIT to see the swamp scene. OMG.

SETTING, COSTUME, EFFECTS

The setting, 1910 New Orleans is so rich and evocative that you feel like you're there. And the costumes are phenomenal. But it was only as I watched the Behind the Scenes feature (linked below) that I understood what an amazing thing the actors were doing and what attention to detail was given to the story's authenticity.

The vampires don't have just one set of fangs they have several, of different lengths. When they're about to attack, the fangs extend longer, and when they are in a calm state of mind, they are barely noticeable. The same with the contacts used to cover the eyes. In Rice's novels, the vampires' eyes seem to glow from within. So they didn't create one color contact for everybody. The contacts are different colors. Louis' are bright green. Lestat's are blue, and from the previews, Claudia's will be a gold/orange hue. And not just one set per actor, either. Their pupils dilate right before they feed, so they have extra contacts to show that.

The detail is amazing. And the attention to detail shows a caring and an honor to the novels that is well-deserved and essential.

I really expected no less from AMC. They have so much fun with the special effects in The Walking Dead and its spinoffs, I knew they'd enjoy painting New Orleans in blood. I mean, that fist through the head gag in the church scene, that was straight out of the TWD. Also, this insider info: they made the fake blood drinkable, and went to great pains to make it taste good. (I hope to God it's made of healthy stuff, because the actors have to drink a lot of it.)

CONS

I could gripe about them making Claudia older. She plays 14, according to what I've read. But I was wrong about other things I expected to take issue with, and in the previews I've seen she is phenomenal, so I'm going to give it a chance. The series-makers promise they will hit all the same major points of the novels, they just might take slightly different paths to get there.

There is one issue I had, and that was technical and probably partly my age. I have a helluva time with accents. I have surround sound so it's a good set of speakers, but I still had to watch the second time through with sub-titles on. I'm so grateful that's an option because the writing is so phenomenal I didn't want to miss a word.

SUMMARY

I went in hopeful, but skeptical. Hopeful because it was AMC--skeptical because they tried to "improve" it. But what they actually did was tap in to the spirit of the novel, the living force of it. They tapped into the creative-stream of it.

Storytelling is a very metaphysical undertaking.

The energy I felt when I read the novels the first time is here in this series. It is familiar to me. It's like experiencing those novels all over again.

CONCLUSION

This series is my new obsession and if you're a fan of vampire fiction, I predict it will be yours, too.

I love vampire fiction. I am passionate about it.

But I honestly believe nobody, nobody, nobody has ever contributed to the genre the way the great Anne Rice did. So much of my life was changed because of her work.

There would be no Wings in the Night had there not first been The Vampire Chronicles.

TWILIGHT PHANTASIESis FREE in ETo celebrate October

The entire, original WINGS IN THE NIGHT vampire series is relaunching with a title every other Tuesday from June 2022 until June 2023.

New stories will follow.

There's no better time to begin than the month of All Hallows!

The Great Wings in the Night Re-Launch So Far:

TWILIGHT HUNGER - Free chapter!

Copyright MS Lewis - All Rights Reserved

CHAPTER ONE

We children were supposed to be asleep....

But we woke, as if in response to some silent summons. We crept to the entrances of our tents and wagons, drawn like moths to the snapping flames of the central fire and the dark, leaping shadows the strange woman cast as she danced.

There was no music. I knew there was none, but it seemed to me that music filled my head all the same as I peered around the painted flap and watched her. She whirled, scarves trailing like colorful ghosts in her wake, her hair, black as the night, yet gleaming blue in the fire’s glow. She arched and twisted and spun round again. And then she stopped still, and her eyes, like shining bits of coal, fixed right on mine. Scarlet lips curved in a terrifying smile, and she crooked a finger at me.

I tried to swallow, but the lump of cold dread in my throat wouldn’t let me. I glanced sideways at the tents and painted wagons of my kin, and saw the other children of our band, peering out at her, just as I was. Some of my cousins were older than I, some younger. Most looked very much like me. Their olive skin smooth, their eyes very round and wide, thickly fringed and lovely beyond words. Their hair was uncut, like mine, but clean and raven black.

We were Rom all, and proud. The dancing woman...she was Rom too, too. I knew that at a glance. She was one of our own.

And crooking her finger at me still.

Dimitri, older than me by three years, gave me a superior look and whispered, “Go to her. I dare you!”

Only to prove myself braver than he, I stiffened my spine and stepped out of my mother’s tent, my bare feet covering the cool ground by mere inches with each hesitant step. As I crept closer, the others, taking courage in mine, began to come out, too. Slowly we gathered round the beautiful stranger like sinners come to worship at the feet of a goddess. And as we did, her smile grew wider. She beckoned us closer, a finger to her lips, and then she sat down on a log near the fire.

“Who is she?” I whispered to Dimitri, for he had joined us now, too, ashamed of himself, I thought, not to have been leading us all from the start.

“Stupid, do you know nothing? She is our aunt.” He shook his head disgustedly at me, then returned his enraptured gaze to the woman. “Her name is Sarafina,” he said. “She comes sometimes...though I suppose you are too young to recall her last visit She’s not supposed to be here, though. When the grown-ups find out there will be trouble.”

“Why?” I too was entranced by the mysterious stranger as she lowered herself to the log, spreading the layers of her colorful skirts around her, opening her arms to welcome the young ones who crowded closer to sit on the ground all around her. I sat closest of all, right at her feet. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful. But there was something else about her, as well. Something...unearthly. Something frightening.

And there was the way her eyes kept meeting mine. There was a secret in her dark gaze—a secret I could not quite see. Something shadowed, hidden.

“Why will there be trouble?” I whispered again.

“Because! She is outcast!”

My brows drew together. I was about to ask why, but then the woman—my Aunt Sarafina, whom I had never seen before in my life—began to speak. And her voice was like a song. Mesmerizing, deep, beguiling.

“Come, little ones. Oh, how I’ve missed you.” Her gaze swept the faces of the children, the look in her eyes almost painful to see, so intense was the emotion there. “But most of you do not remember me at all, do you?” Her smile faltered. “And you, little Dante. You are...how old now?”

“Seven,” I told her, my voice a mere whisper.

“Seven years,” she replied with a heavy sigh. “I was here the day you were born, you know.”

“No. I...didn’t know.”

“No matter. Oh, children, I’ve so much to tell you. But first...” She tugged open a drawstring sack that dangled from the sash round her waist, and from it she began to take glorious things, which she handed around to one and all. Sweets and confections such as we had never tasted, wrapped in brightly colored paper. Shiny baubles on chains, and glittering stones of all kinds, carved into the shapes of animals and birds.

The one she gave to me was a stone of black onyx in the shape of a bat. I shivered when she placed the cold piece into my palm.

When the sack was empty and the children all quiet again, she began to speak. “I have seen so many things, little ones. Things you would not believe. I journeyed to the desert lands, and there I saw buildings as big as mountains—every stone larger than an entire vardo! Perfect and smooth they are, and pointed at the top.” She used her hands to make the shape of these wonders in the air before us. ‘‘No one knows who built them, nor when. They have been there forever, some say. Others say they were built as monuments to ancient kings...and that the bodies of those rulers still rest inside, along with treasures untold!”

When our eyes widened, she nodded hard, making her raven curls dance and her earrings jangle. “I’ve been across the sea...to the land below, where creatures with necks as tall as...as that yew tree there, walk on stilt legs and nibble the young leaves from the tops of the trees. Yellow gold they are, and spotty! With sprouts atop their heads!”

I shook my head in disbelief. Surely she was spinning tales.

‘‘Oh, Dante, it is true,” she said. And her eyes held mine, her words for me alone, I was certain. ‘‘One day you will see these things, too. One day I will show them to you myself.” Reaching down, she stroked a path through my hair and leaned close to me, whispering into my ear. ‘‘You are my very special boy, Dante. You and I share a bond more powerful even than the one you share with your own mother. Remember my words. I’ll come back for you someday. When you need me, I will come.”

I shivered and didn’t know why.

Then I went stiff at the sound of the Grandmother’s squawk. "Outcast!” she yelled, rushing from her tent and jabbing her fingers at Sarafina in the way that was said to ward off evil, the two middle fingers folded, forefinger and little one pointing straight out. She made a hissing sound when she did it, so I thought of a snake with a forked tongue snapping.

The children scattered. Sarafina rose slowly, the picture of grace, and I alone remained before her. Almost without thought, I got to my feet and turned to face the Grandmother, as if I would protect the lovely Sarafina. As if I could. My back was toward the woman now, and as her hands closed on my shoulders, I felt myself grow a full inch taller.

Then the Grandmother glared at me, and I thought I would shrink to the size of a sand flea.

“Can you not tolerate my presence even once every few years or so, Crone?” Sarafina asked. Her voice was no longer loving or soft or kind. It was deep and clear...and menacing.

“You’ve no business here!” tihe Grandmother said.

“But I have,” she replied. “You are my family. And like it or not, I am yours.”

“You are nothing. You are cursed. Be gone!”

Chaos erupted around us as mothers, awakened by the noise, dashed out of their tents and wagons, gathered their children and hurried them back inside. They acted as if a killer wolf had appeared at our campfire, rather than an outcast aunt of rare beauty, bearing exotic gifts and amazing tales.

My mother came, too. As she rushed toward me I tucked the stone bat up into my sleeve. She stopped before she reached me and met Sarafina’s eyes. “Please,” was all she said.

There was a moment of silence as something passed between the two women. Some message, unspoken, that left my mother’s eyes sad and welling with tears.

Sarafina bent down and pressed her cool lips to my cheek. “I’ll see you again, Dante. Never doubt it. But for now, go on. Go to your mamma.” She gave me a gentle shove and let go my shoulders.

I walked to my mother, nearly hating her for making me leave the mysterious Sarafina before I’d had a chance to learn her secrets. She gripped my arm tightly and ran to our tent so fast that she nearly dragged me off my feet. Inside, she closed the flap and cupped my face in her hands, falling to her knees before me. “Did she touch you?” she cried. “Did she mark you?”

“Sarafina would not hurt me, Mamma. She is my aunt. She is kind and beautiful.”

But my mother seemed not to hear my words. She tipped my head to one side and the other, pushing my hair aside and searching my skin. I tired of it soon enough and tugged myself free.

“You are never to go near her again, do you hear me, Dante? If you see her, you must come to me at once. Promise me!”

“But why, Mamma?”

Her hand came across my face so suddenly I would have fallen had she not been gripping my arm with the other. “Do not question me! Promise me, Dante. Swear it on your soul!”

I lowered my head, my cheek stinging, and muttered my agreement. “I promise.” I was ashamed of the tears that burned in my eyes. They came more from shock than pain. My mother’s hand rarely lashed out in anger. I didn’t understand why it had tonight.

She knelt now, her hands on my shoulders, her worn face close to mine. “It’s a promise you must keep, Dante. You endanger your soul if you break it. Mark me well.” She drew a breath, sighed, and kissed the cheek she had so recently wounded. “Now, into bed with you.” She was marginally calmer, her voice nearer its normal pitch.

I was far from calm. Something had stirred my blood tonight. I crawled into my bed, pulled the covers over me and let the tiny, cold stone bat drop from my sleeve into my hand. I held it, rubbed its smooth surface with my thumb, beneath the blanket where my mother could not see.

Mamma watched over me for a long moment, then blew out the lamp, and curled up—not upon her own bed, but on the floor beside mine, a worn blanket her only cushion.

In the silence, I rolled toward the side of the tent and thrust a forefinger through the tiny hole I had made in the fabric, so I could watch the grown-ups round the fire long after they had sent the children to bed. I tugged the hole a little wider in the darkness. And through that tiny hole, I watched and I listened as the Grandmother, the crone of the band, the eldest and most venerated woman of the family, faced off against the most vibrantly beautiful female I had ever seen in my life.

“Why do you torment us by coming back to our midst?” the Grandmother asked, as the dancing flames painted her leathery face in orange and brown, shadows and light.

"Why? You, my own sister, ask me why?”

“Sister, bah!” The Grandmother spat on the ground. “You are no sister to me but a demon. Outcast! Cursed!”

I shook my head in wonder. What could Sarafina mean? Sister? She could no more be the old one’s sister than I could.

“Tell me why you come, demon! It is always the children you seek out when you return. It’s for one of them, isn’t it? Your wretched curse has been passed to one of them! Hasn’t it? Hasn’t it?”

Sarafina smiled very slowly, her face angelic and demonic all at once, and bathed in fire glow. “I come because you are all I have. I will always come back, old woman. Always. Long after you’ve gone to dust. I’ll be coming back, bringing gifts to the little ones. Finding in their eyes and in their smiles the love and acceptance my own sister denies me. And there is nothing you can do to prevent it.”

Before Sarafina turned away, she looked past the Grandmother and right into my eyes. As if she had known all along that I was there, watching her from the other side of that tiny hole in the tent. She could not have seen me. And yet, she must have. Her lips curved ever so slightly at the corners, and her mouth moved. Even though no sound emerged, I knew the word she whispered. Remember.

Then she turned, her skirts flying, and vanished into the night. I saw the trailing colors of her scarves like tails behind her for only an instant. Then the blackness of night closed in where she had been, and I saw her no more.

I lay down on my pillows, and I shivered in inexplicable dread.

It was me. My aunt had come for me. I knew it in my soul. What she wanted of me, I could not guess. How I knew it, this was a mystery. But I was certain to the core of me that she did have a reason for returning in the face of such hatred.

And the reason...was me.

* * *

* * *

Slowly, slowly, the smoke from the Romani band’s campfire thinned. The light thrown by the flames dulled, and the heat—so real she had sworn she could feel it on her face—went cold.

Morgan De Silva blinked out of the fantasy. She was not looking at a campfire through the huge dark eyes of a small boy. She was sitting on the floor of a dusty attic, staring down at the time-yellowed pages of a handwritten journal, bound in leather covers so old they felt buttery-soft against her hands. The vision painted by the words that spiderwebbed across the aging pages had been vivid. It had been...real. As real as if she’d been in that camp in the distant past, instead of on the coast of Maine in the early spring of 1997.

Morgan turned the page slowly, eager to read on....

The ringing of the telephone, floating faintly from no small distance, stopped her. With a resigned sigh, she closed the large volume and returned it carefully to the aged trunk, atop a stack of others just like it. When she closed the trunk’s lid, its hinges groaned and a miniature explosion of dust puffed out at her. Brushing her hands against each other, then her jeans, she blew out the candles that were the only source of light in the room and hurried down the narrow, steep attic stairs.

She hadn’t expected to find a thing up there other than cobwebs and dust. Exploring more of the ramshackle house had been an experiment in procrastination, not an act of curiosity. If her own work had been going anywhere, she never would have bothered poking around this aging, sagging house at all.

And that would have been a crying shame.

She ran through the hallway, between walls of crumbling plaster, the lath beneath it visible in places, to the next set of stairs. These were wider, but not in much better repair than anything else around the place. The third step from the top was missing a board, and she skipped it automatically and trotted the rest of the way down as the phone kept on ringing.

If it were another lawyer or bill collector, she thought breathlessly, she would hunt them down and kill them.

The wide staircase emptied itself into a huge room that must have been glorious once, a century or so ago. Now it was filled with nothing but heartbroken echoes and a tangle of bare wires sticking out of the domed ceiling, where some magnificent chandelier must have once been. Beyond that room, through a pair of double doors, was her room. Her...office. For the moment, at least. But only until she earned back her fortune and returned to L.A. in triumph.

Pretty much the opposite of the way she had left.

Her heart was pounding from exertion by the time she got that far, and she was out of breath, slightly dizzy, and pressing one hand to her chest. Ridiculous for a twenty-year-old woman to tire so easily, but there it was. She had never been healthy, and she knew she wasn't ever going to be. But at least her condition hadn’t begun to worsen yet. It was too soon. She had so many things to do.

Finally Morgan snatched up the telephone, which was as antiquated as the rest of the place. The handset weighed at least two pounds, she guessed, and the rotary dial seemed to mock her high-tech tastes.

If her “hello?” sounded irritated, it was because she was dying to read more of those journals up in the attic, to find out more about their author. She might be on the verge of admitting that she was a talentless hack, but she still knew good writing when she read it, and what she had been reading upstairs was good writing. Painfully good.

“Morgan? What took you so long? I was getting worried.”

Her irritation fled at David Sumner’s familiar voice. Her honorary uncle—a title she’d stopped using long ago—was the only person who hadn’t turned his back on her when she had gone from spoiled rich girl to penniless orphan in a matter of hours. He was the one person she didn’t mind hearing from just now.

“Hey, David,” she said. “I was just...exploring. This place is huge, you know.”

“No, I don’t know, never having laid eyes on it. You sound a little out of breath.”

“Two flights of stairs will do that.” She noticed his hesitation. He tended to worry about her far more than he should.

“How is the place, anyway?” he asked at length.

“It’s a wreck,” she told him, her tone teasing, partly because she was trying to ease his mind and partly because she enjoyed teasing him. “Which serves you right for buying it sight unseen. Who does stuff like that?”

She could almost see his puckered face, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, his balding head. David had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. “A friend of the family,” her parents had always called him. But it had seemed to Morgan that he’d barely tolerated the family.

Of course, he had known the truth about her parents all along. She had only learned it recently, through tabloid headlines and courtroom vultures.

“I bought it for the location, and you know it,” David told her. “And I trust my real estate guru on such matters. The building is coming down, anyway.”

“Yes, it is,” Morgan said. “As we speak.”

He was quiet for a moment “That bad, huh?”

She could have slapped herself. Sometimes she could be such a self-centered little... “It’s not,” she said quickly. “I was joking.” She looked around her at the room she had chosen to inhabit. It had been somebody’s library or study once upon a time.

She thought of the little boy she had been reading about and wondered if it had ever been his. In his older years, perhaps, when he had decided to write his memoirs.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him—a dark, broad-shouldered silhouette, bent over the desk with a quill pen in his elegant hand. Her heart jumped, and she caught her breath and turned toward him. But there was nothing. No man, no form, no quill pen. Just her computer with its electric blue screen. Whatever she had seen was there and then gone. A vision. A thought form. A little overactivity of her imagination, perhaps.

A shiver worked its way up her spine, but she shook it away.

“Describe it to me,” David was saying.

“What?” she asked, dragging her eyes away from the old desk.

“The house. Describe it to me.”

She flicked her gaze toward the desk again. Still no one there. Sighing, she tried to comply with David’s request. “It must have been incredible once. The scrollwork around the fireplace mantle is worn and faded, but lavish. I think it’s hardwood. You’re going to want to take that entire piece out before you tear it down. And there’s hand-tooled casing that borders every one of the tall windows. This place has...I don’t know. Something.’’

“It’s far from what you’re used to, though,’’ David said.

“Yeah, well, it’s not Beverly Hills, and we aren’t having movie stars over for poolside parties...but I wouldn’t be getting any work done that way, would I?”

“And are you? Getting any work done?’’

Morgan looked at the blank page on her computer—which had only escaped the notice of the estate lawyers because it had been with her at UCLA when her parents had been killed and the true state of their finances revealed. They were broke, and so far in debt Morgan could barely wrap her mind around the actual numbers. She hadn’t been able to make sense of it, at first. Her father was a successful director, her mother an actress who had reached her zenith a decade ago. She’d been doing smaller roles lately, but had still seemed content with her life.

Or so Morgan had thought. She soon learned she had been living in a bubble. The level of cocaine in her parents’ systems the night of the accident was so high the coroner wondered how they had even managed to drive.

They’d been addicts, their entire lifestyle a lie.

The house and everything in it had been sold to pay off a portion of their accumulated debt, and Morgan had to drop out of school. Her tuition had already been months overdue. And apparently her friends were as shallow as David had always tried to tell her they were, because once the truth came out, they had abandoned her like last year’s wardrobe, while those she had always considered beneath her seemed amused by her troubles.

The last few days on campus, she had found tabloid pages tacked to bulletin boards in every hall, screaming about the secret, drug-infested life of the famous couple who’d seemed to have it all. The story was irresistible; the nightmare behind the fairy tale, and the poor little rich girl who was left to pick up the pieces.

She had run from L.A. with her tail between her legs, with nowhere to go and nothing left besides the things she managed to take with her. She’d pulled into David’s driveway with nothing but her Maserati—the registration in her name, thank God—and the stuff she had crammed into its minuscule trunk. He was her last hope, and she had half expected him to turn away from her in disgust, just like all the rest.

But he hadn’t turned away. He’d helped her sell the car, buy a modest used one and pocket the difference. When she said she needed a hideaway where she could go to lick her wounds, he told her she could use this place in Maine, free of charge, for as long as she needed to.

Which wouldn’t be long, she thought silently. She had always intended to become a wildly successful screenwriter. It was just going to have to happen a bit sooner than she’d planned. David was a producer. He would help her make the right connections, maybe even produce her screenplay himself. He’d promised to give her a shot and help her all he could.

All she needed...was the material.

“Morgan?” David’s voice jerked her away from the path her thoughts had been wandering. “Did you hear me? I asked, how’s the script coming?’’

She glanced at the blank computer screen. The blinking cursor mocked her. “Fine. Great. It’s coming great.” So great that she had decided to go exploring this ancient wreck of a house rather than continue the battle with the blank screen. The only key on her keyboard getting a steady workout was the one marked “delete.” She’d been producing garbage since she had arrived here. Garbage.

“You know, it’s only natural you might have some trouble getting started,” David said. “Don’t push yourself. You’ve been through a lot. Your mind needs time to digest it all.”

Morgan shrugged. “That’s not it,” she told him.

“No?”

“Of course not. It’s been six months. I’m completely over it.”

“Completely over losing your parents, your fortune, your home, your education and what you thought was your identity?” He made a clicking noise with his tongue. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I am. And to tell you the truth, finding out I was adopted explained a lot of things. I mean, you know my parents were never all that...involved.”

“That was the cocaine, hon. Not the adoption. Not you.”

She cleared her throat when it started to tighten up, gave herself a mental kick. “As for the rest of it… I’m going to get it all back, David. Everything I lost and then some.”

She heard the smile in his voice when he replied, “I don’t doubt it a bit.”

“Neither do I,” she said, glancing again at the blank screen, feeling those doubts she’d denied nearly smothering her. Damn, why couldn’t writing a blockbuster script be as easy as she had always thought it would be? She used to watch films with the feeling that she could do better in her sleep.

“So when can I expect the screenplay?’’ he asked.

She wished to God she knew. “A masterpiece takes time...and it’s...so unpredictable.”

“I need a fall project. I’m saving a slot for you, Morgan. Three months. I need the material in three months. Can you do that? Write it over the summer and get it to me by September?”

Lifting her chin, swallowing hard, she said, “Yes. I’ll have it finished by September. No problem.”

Big problem.

“Great,” David said. “You’re gonna be fine, Morgan. You can get through this.”

“Of course I can.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No, no, I’m fine.”

“Your funds still holding out?”

She forced the lie out. She’d cleaned out her accounts on David’s advice, before the lawyers and creditors could get hold of her money, and she’d had the cash from the car. But while she had no rent here, there were other expenses. The phone, the electricity, and she had to eat. Truth to tell, the money in her checking account was dwindling.

“I’m fine,” she said again.

“Good,” David said softly. “Good. You let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“I will, David.”

He was quiet for a moment “How about your health?”

She took a deep breath before replying. “You know how I hate being thought of as sickly.”

“Did I say you were sickly?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“The brisk clean air up here is working wonders on me,” she lied. What could she tell him? The truth? That it was cold and dreary and damp here, and that she resented having to think of a sixty-degree day in late April as a heat wave, when she would be basking in eighty-degree heat beside her parents’ pool, working on her tan by now, if she’d been home?

But it did no good to wish for what she couldn’t have.

“I ought to go, David,” she whispered around the lump in her throat. “If I’m going to have this done by fall, I should get at it.”

“Okay, hon. Just call if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Morgan replaced the old receiver on its hook and gnawed on her lower lip. She turned the rickety wooden chair toward the computer screen, assured herself once again that no one was in it and finally sat down. She poised her hands over the keyboard, told herself to write something, now, today, or else give up for good and go out and find a job. The problem was, she couldn’t do anything.

Writing was the only thing she had ever wanted to do, and she’d been good once. Or...she thought she had. In school, her essays got raves. The theater group had even produced one of her plays. Everyone had loved it—the campus critics, the local press...

But that was when she’d been Morgan De Silva, the brilliant daughter of a famous director and a beloved actress, the girl leading the charmed life and destined for success. Now she was Morgan De Silva, disgraced has-been, penniless, homeless, practically run out of town and staring into a future more bleak than she’d ever imagined.

Now...now she didn’t know if her talent had ever been real, or if it had been her name winning her praise all this time. She didn’t know anything anymore, not who she was, or what she was doing or why the words had just stopped coming. It was as if the well inside her had been a part of the illusion her life had been. As if it had dried up when that illusion had been shattered.

She lowered her hands, having put not one word on the screen. Outside, the wind howled; the lights dimmed, then came back. The old house groaned when the wind blew. Probably, if she was as old as it was, she would groan, too, she thought. And then she wondered just how old that was.

Those journals...there had been no dates inscribed, but it was obvious they’d been written long, long ago. At least a century...and maybe closer to two.

That thought brought her back to the one she’d had earlier, about the journal writer. Dante. Had he lived here, that man who’d been a Romani boy, entranced by his outcast aunt? Had he been in this very room, perhaps, pacing before a fire, his quill pen lying untouched on some polished antique desk? Had he courted his muse as impatiently as she did, and grown frustrated when the words wouldn’t come?

Drawn as if by an unseen hand, she rose and walked out of the office, through the ghostly front hall and up the wide staircase. She traversed the hallway, ignoring the doors that lined either side. She hadn’t even ventured into most of the rooms up here. There were so many.

But her goal was none of them. Her goal was beyond, up the back stairway into the attic, where spiderwebs held court and dust ruled the day. She knelt as she had before and fished the book of matches from her jeans pocket, then lit the candles in the gaudy candelabra she’d found downstairs.

As their soft yellow glow spread, she opened the hand-tooled chest, took out that first volume, stroked its cover and opened it slowly, careful not to tear the fragile pages. Turning to the place where she had left off, she began to read. And once again she lost herself in the words.

Visit the Wings in the Night series page to see all the covers and planned release dates!

TWILIGHT HUNGER Excerpt

Copyright MS Lewis - All Rights Reserved

CHAPTER ONE

We children were supposed to be asleep....

But we woke, as if in response to some silent summons. We crept to the entrances of our tents and wagons, drawn like moths to the snapping flames of the central fire and the dark, leaping shadows the strange woman cast as she danced.

There was no music. I knew there was none, but it seemed to me that music filled my head all the same as I peered around the painted flap and watched her. She whirled, scarves trailing like colorful ghosts in her wake, her hair, black as the night, yet gleaming blue in the fire’s glow. She arched and twisted and spun round again. And then she stopped still, and her eyes, like shining bits of coal, fixed right on mine. Scarlet lips curved in a terrifying smile, and she crooked a finger at me.

I tried to swallow, but the lump of cold dread in my throat wouldn’t let me. I glanced sideways at the tents and painted wagons of my kin, and saw the other children of our band, peering out at her, just as I was. Some of my cousins were older than I, some younger. Most looked very much like me. Their olive skin smooth, their eyes very round and wide, thickly fringed and lovely beyond words. Their hair was uncut, like mine, but clean and raven black.

We were Rom all, and proud. The dancing woman...she was Rom too, too. I knew that at a glance. She was one of our own.

And crooking her finger at me still.

Dimitri, older than me by three years, gave me a superior look and whispered, “Go to her. I dare you!”

Only to prove myself braver than he, I stiffened my spine and stepped out of my mother’s tent, my bare feet covering the cool ground by mere inches with each hesitant step. As I crept closer, the others, taking courage in mine, began to come out, too. Slowly we gathered round the beautiful stranger like sinners come to worship at the feet of a goddess. And as we did, her smile grew wider. She beckoned us closer, a finger to her lips, and then she sat down on a log near the fire.

“Who is she?” I whispered to Dimitri, for he had joined us now, too, ashamed of himself, I thought, not to have been leading us all from the start.

“Stupid, do you know nothing? She is our aunt.” He shook his head disgustedly at me, then returned his enraptured gaze to the woman. “Her name is Sarafina,” he said. “She comes sometimes...though I suppose you are too young to recall her last visit She’s not supposed to be here, though. When the grown-ups find out there will be trouble.”

“Why?” I too was entranced by the mysterious stranger as she lowered herself to the log, spreading the layers of her colorful skirts around her, opening her arms to welcome the young ones who crowded closer to sit on the ground all around her. I sat closest of all, right at her feet. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful. But there was something else about her, as well. Something...unearthly. Something frightening.

And there was the way her eyes kept meeting mine. There was a secret in her dark gaze—a secret I could not quite see. Something shadowed, hidden.

“Why will there be trouble?” I whispered again.

“Because! She is outcast!”

My brows drew together. I was about to ask why, but then the woman—my Aunt Sarafina, whom I had never seen before in my life—began to speak. And her voice was like a song. Mesmerizing, deep, beguiling.

“Come, little ones. Oh, how I’ve missed you.” Her gaze swept the faces of the children, the look in her eyes almost painful to see, so intense was the emotion there. “But most of you do not remember me at all, do you?” Her smile faltered. “And you, little Dante. You are...how old now?”

“Seven,” I told her, my voice a mere whisper.

“Seven years,” she replied with a heavy sigh. “I was here the day you were born, you know.”

“No. I...didn’t know.”

“No matter. Oh, children, I’ve so much to tell you. But first...” She tugged open a drawstring sack that dangled from the sash round her waist, and from it she began to take glorious things, which she handed around to one and all. Sweets and confections such as we had never tasted, wrapped in brightly colored paper. Shiny baubles on chains, and glittering stones of all kinds, carved into the shapes of animals and birds.

The one she gave to me was a stone of black onyx in the shape of a bat. I shivered when she placed the cold piece into my palm.

When the sack was empty and the children all quiet again, she began to speak. “I have seen so many things, little ones. Things you would not believe. I journeyed to the desert lands, and there I saw buildings as big as mountains—every stone larger than an entire vardo! Perfect and smooth they are, and pointed at the top.” She used her hands to make the shape of these wonders in the air before us. ‘‘No one knows who built them, nor when. They have been there forever, some say. Others say they were built as monuments to ancient kings...and that the bodies of those rulers still rest inside, along with treasures untold!”

When our eyes widened, she nodded hard, making her raven curls dance and her earrings jangle. “I’ve been across the sea...to the land below, where creatures with necks as tall as...as that yew tree there, walk on stilt legs and nibble the young leaves from the tops of the trees. Yellow gold they are, and spotty! With sprouts atop their heads!”

I shook my head in disbelief. Surely she was spinning tales.

‘‘Oh, Dante, it is true,” she said. And her eyes held mine, her words for me alone, I was certain. ‘‘One day you will see these things, too. One day I will show them to you myself.” Reaching down, she stroked a path through my hair and leaned close to me, whispering into my ear. ‘‘You are my very special boy, Dante. You and I share a bond more powerful even than the one you share with your own mother. Remember my words. I’ll come back for you someday. When you need me, I will come.”

I shivered and didn’t know why.

Then I went stiff at the sound of the Grandmother’s squawk. "Outcast!” she yelled, rushing from her tent and jabbing her fingers at Sarafina in the way that was said to ward off evil, the two middle fingers folded, forefinger and little one pointing straight out. She made a hissing sound when she did it, so I thought of a snake with a forked tongue snapping.

The children scattered. Sarafina rose slowly, the picture of grace, and I alone remained before her. Almost without thought, I got to my feet and turned to face the Grandmother, as if I would protect the lovely Sarafina. As if I could. My back was toward the woman now, and as her hands closed on my shoulders, I felt myself grow a full inch taller.

Then the Grandmother glared at me, and I thought I would shrink to the size of a sand flea.

“Can you not tolerate my presence even once every few years or so, Crone?” Sarafina asked. Her voice was no longer loving or soft or kind. It was deep and clear...and menacing.

“You’ve no business here!” tihe Grandmother said.

“But I have,” she replied. “You are my family. And like it or not, I am yours.”

“You are nothing. You are cursed. Be gone!”

Chaos erupted around us as mothers, awakened by the noise, dashed out of their tents and wagons, gathered their children and hurried them back inside. They acted as if a killer wolf had appeared at our campfire, rather than an outcast aunt of rare beauty, bearing exotic gifts and amazing tales.

My mother came, too. As she rushed toward me I tucked the stone bat up into my sleeve. She stopped before she reached me and met Sarafina’s eyes. “Please,” was all she said.

There was a moment of silence as something passed between the two women. Some message, unspoken, that left my mother’s eyes sad and welling with tears.

Sarafina bent down and pressed her cool lips to my cheek. “I’ll see you again, Dante. Never doubt it. But for now, go on. Go to your mamma.” She gave me a gentle shove and let go my shoulders.

I walked to my mother, nearly hating her for making me leave the mysterious Sarafina before I’d had a chance to learn her secrets. She gripped my arm tightly and ran to our tent so fast that she nearly dragged me off my feet. Inside, she closed the flap and cupped my face in her hands, falling to her knees before me. “Did she touch you?” she cried. “Did she mark you?”

“Sarafina would not hurt me, Mamma. She is my aunt. She is kind and beautiful.”

But my mother seemed not to hear my words. She tipped my head to one side and the other, pushing my hair aside and searching my skin. I tired of it soon enough and tugged myself free.

“You are never to go near her again, do you hear me, Dante? If you see her, you must come to me at once. Promise me!”

“But why, Mamma?”

Her hand came across my face so suddenly I would have fallen had she not been gripping my arm with the other. “Do not question me! Promise me, Dante. Swear it on your soul!”

I lowered my head, my cheek stinging, and muttered my agreement. “I promise.” I was ashamed of the tears that burned in my eyes. They came more from shock than pain. My mother’s hand rarely lashed out in anger. I didn’t understand why it had tonight.

She knelt now, her hands on my shoulders, her worn face close to mine. “It’s a promise you must keep, Dante. You endanger your soul if you break it. Mark me well.” She drew a breath, sighed, and kissed the cheek she had so recently wounded. “Now, into bed with you.” She was marginally calmer, her voice nearer its normal pitch.

I was far from calm. Something had stirred my blood tonight. I crawled into my bed, pulled the covers over me and let the tiny, cold stone bat drop from my sleeve into my hand. I held it, rubbed its smooth surface with my thumb, beneath the blanket where my mother could not see.

Mamma watched over me for a long moment, then blew out the lamp, and curled up—not upon her own bed, but on the floor beside mine, a worn blanket her only cushion.

In the silence, I rolled toward the side of the tent and thrust a forefinger through the tiny hole I had made in the fabric, so I could watch the grown-ups round the fire long after they had sent the children to bed. I tugged the hole a little wider in the darkness. And through that tiny hole, I watched and I listened as the Grandmother, the crone of the band, the eldest and most venerated woman of the family, faced off against the most vibrantly beautiful female I had ever seen in my life.

“Why do you torment us by coming back to our midst?” the Grandmother asked, as the dancing flames painted her leathery face in orange and brown, shadows and light.

"Why? You, my own sister, ask me why?”

“Sister, bah!” The Grandmother spat on the ground. “You are no sister to me but a demon. Outcast! Cursed!”

I shook my head in wonder. What could Sarafina mean? Sister? She could no more be the old one’s sister than I could.

“Tell me why you come, demon! It is always the children you seek out when you return. It’s for one of them, isn’t it? Your wretched curse has been passed to one of them! Hasn’t it? Hasn’t it?”

Sarafina smiled very slowly, her face angelic and demonic all at once, and bathed in fire glow. “I come because you are all I have. I will always come back, old woman. Always. Long after you’ve gone to dust. I’ll be coming back, bringing gifts to the little ones. Finding in their eyes and in their smiles the love and acceptance my own sister denies me. And there is nothing you can do to prevent it.”

Before Sarafina turned away, she looked past the Grandmother and right into my eyes. As if she had known all along that I was there, watching her from the other side of that tiny hole in the tent. She could not have seen me. And yet, she must have. Her lips curved ever so slightly at the corners, and her mouth moved. Even though no sound emerged, I knew the word she whispered. Remember.

Then she turned, her skirts flying, and vanished into the night. I saw the trailing colors of her scarves like tails behind her for only an instant. Then the blackness of night closed in where she had been, and I saw her no more.

I lay down on my pillows, and I shivered in inexplicable dread.

It was me. My aunt had come for me. I knew it in my soul. What she wanted of me, I could not guess. How I knew it, this was a mystery. But I was certain to the core of me that she did have a reason for returning in the face of such hatred.

And the reason...was me.

* * *

* * *

Slowly, slowly, the smoke from the Romani band’s campfire thinned. The light thrown by the flames dulled, and the heat—so real she had sworn she could feel it on her face—went cold.

Morgan De Silva blinked out of the fantasy. She was not looking at a campfire through the huge dark eyes of a small boy. She was sitting on the floor of a dusty attic, staring down at the time-yellowed pages of a handwritten journal, bound in leather covers so old they felt buttery-soft against her hands. The vision painted by the words that spiderwebbed across the aging pages had been vivid. It had been...real. As real as if she’d been in that camp in the distant past, instead of on the coast of Maine in the early spring of 1997.

Morgan turned the page slowly, eager to read on....

The ringing of the telephone, floating faintly from no small distance, stopped her. With a resigned sigh, she closed the large volume and returned it carefully to the aged trunk, atop a stack of others just like it. When she closed the trunk’s lid, its hinges groaned and a miniature explosion of dust puffed out at her. Brushing her hands against each other, then her jeans, she blew out the candles that were the only source of light in the room and hurried down the narrow, steep attic stairs.

She hadn’t expected to find a thing up there other than cobwebs and dust. Exploring more of the ramshackle house had been an experiment in procrastination, not an act of curiosity. If her own work had been going anywhere, she never would have bothered poking around this aging, sagging house at all.

And that would have been a crying shame.

She ran through the hallway, between walls of crumbling plaster, the lath beneath it visible in places, to the next set of stairs. These were wider, but not in much better repair than anything else around the place. The third step from the top was missing a board, and she skipped it automatically and trotted the rest of the way down as the phone kept on ringing.

If it were another lawyer or bill collector, she thought breathlessly, she would hunt them down and kill them.

The wide staircase emptied itself into a huge room that must have been glorious once, a century or so ago. Now it was filled with nothing but heartbroken echoes and a tangle of bare wires sticking out of the domed ceiling, where some magnificent chandelier must have once been. Beyond that room, through a pair of double doors, was her room. Her...office. For the moment, at least. But only until she earned back her fortune and returned to L.A. in triumph.

Pretty much the opposite of the way she had left.

Her heart was pounding from exertion by the time she got that far, and she was out of breath, slightly dizzy, and pressing one hand to her chest. Ridiculous for a twenty-year-old woman to tire so easily, but there it was. She had never been healthy, and she knew she wasn't ever going to be. But at least her condition hadn’t begun to worsen yet. It was too soon. She had so many things to do.

Finally Morgan snatched up the telephone, which was as antiquated as the rest of the place. The handset weighed at least two pounds, she guessed, and the rotary dial seemed to mock her high-tech tastes.

If her “hello?” sounded irritated, it was because she was dying to read more of those journals up in the attic, to find out more about their author. She might be on the verge of admitting that she was a talentless hack, but she still knew good writing when she read it, and what she had been reading upstairs was good writing. Painfully good.

“Morgan? What took you so long? I was getting worried.”

Her irritation fled at David Sumner’s familiar voice. Her honorary uncle—a title she’d stopped using long ago—was the only person who hadn’t turned his back on her when she had gone from spoiled rich girl to penniless orphan in a matter of hours. He was the one person she didn’t mind hearing from just now.

“Hey, David,” she said. “I was just...exploring. This place is huge, you know.”

“No, I don’t know, never having laid eyes on it. You sound a little out of breath.”

“Two flights of stairs will do that.” She noticed his hesitation. He tended to worry about her far more than he should.

“How is the place, anyway?” he asked at length.

“It’s a wreck,” she told him, her tone teasing, partly because she was trying to ease his mind and partly because she enjoyed teasing him. “Which serves you right for buying it sight unseen. Who does stuff like that?”

She could almost see his puckered face, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, his balding head. David had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. “A friend of the family,” her parents had always called him. But it had seemed to Morgan that he’d barely tolerated the family.

Of course, he had known the truth about her parents all along. She had only learned it recently, through tabloid headlines and courtroom vultures.

“I bought it for the location, and you know it,” David told her. “And I trust my real estate guru on such matters. The building is coming down, anyway.”

“Yes, it is,” Morgan said. “As we speak.”

He was quiet for a moment “That bad, huh?”

She could have slapped herself. Sometimes she could be such a self-centered little... “It’s not,” she said quickly. “I was joking.” She looked around her at the room she had chosen to inhabit. It had been somebody’s library or study once upon a time.

She thought of the little boy she had been reading about and wondered if it had ever been his. In his older years, perhaps, when he had decided to write his memoirs.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him—a dark, broad-shouldered silhouette, bent over the desk with a quill pen in his elegant hand. Her heart jumped, and she caught her breath and turned toward him. But there was nothing. No man, no form, no quill pen. Just her computer with its electric blue screen. Whatever she had seen was there and then gone. A vision. A thought form. A little overactivity of her imagination, perhaps.

A shiver worked its way up her spine, but she shook it away.

“Describe it to me,” David was saying.

“What?” she asked, dragging her eyes away from the old desk.

“The house. Describe it to me.”

She flicked her gaze toward the desk again. Still no one there. Sighing, she tried to comply with David’s request. “It must have been incredible once. The scrollwork around the fireplace mantle is worn and faded, but lavish. I think it’s hardwood. You’re going to want to take that entire piece out before you tear it down. And there’s hand-tooled casing that borders every one of the tall windows. This place has...I don’t know. Something.’’

“It’s far from what you’re used to, though,’’ David said.

“Yeah, well, it’s not Beverly Hills, and we aren’t having movie stars over for poolside parties...but I wouldn’t be getting any work done that way, would I?”

“And are you? Getting any work done?’’

Morgan looked at the blank page on her computer—which had only escaped the notice of the estate lawyers because it had been with her at UCLA when her parents had been killed and the true state of their finances revealed. They were broke, and so far in debt Morgan could barely wrap her mind around the actual numbers. She hadn’t been able to make sense of it, at first. Her father was a successful director, her mother an actress who had reached her zenith a decade ago. She’d been doing smaller roles lately, but had still seemed content with her life.

Or so Morgan had thought. She soon learned she had been living in a bubble. The level of cocaine in her parents’ systems the night of the accident was so high the coroner wondered how they had even managed to drive.

They’d been addicts, their entire lifestyle a lie.

The house and everything in it had been sold to pay off a portion of their accumulated debt, and Morgan had to drop out of school. Her tuition had already been months overdue. And apparently her friends were as shallow as David had always tried to tell her they were, because once the truth came out, they had abandoned her like last year’s wardrobe, while those she had always considered beneath her seemed amused by her troubles.

The last few days on campus, she had found tabloid pages tacked to bulletin boards in every hall, screaming about the secret, drug-infested life of the famous couple who’d seemed to have it all. The story was irresistible; the nightmare behind the fairy tale, and the poor little rich girl who was left to pick up the pieces.

She had run from L.A. with her tail between her legs, with nowhere to go and nothing left besides the things she managed to take with her. She’d pulled into David’s driveway with nothing but her Maserati—the registration in her name, thank God—and the stuff she had crammed into its minuscule trunk. He was her last hope, and she had half expected him to turn away from her in disgust, just like all the rest.

But he hadn’t turned away. He’d helped her sell the car, buy a modest used one and pocket the difference. When she said she needed a hideaway where she could go to lick her wounds, he told her she could use this place in Maine, free of charge, for as long as she needed to.

Which wouldn’t be long, she thought silently. She had always intended to become a wildly successful screenwriter. It was just going to have to happen a bit sooner than she’d planned. David was a producer. He would help her make the right connections, maybe even produce her screenplay himself. He’d promised to give her a shot and help her all he could.

All she needed...was the material.

“Morgan?” David’s voice jerked her away from the path her thoughts had been wandering. “Did you hear me? I asked, how’s the script coming?’’

She glanced at the blank computer screen. The blinking cursor mocked her. “Fine. Great. It’s coming great.” So great that she had decided to go exploring this ancient wreck of a house rather than continue the battle with the blank screen. The only key on her keyboard getting a steady workout was the one marked “delete.” She’d been producing garbage since she had arrived here. Garbage.

“You know, it’s only natural you might have some trouble getting started,” David said. “Don’t push yourself. You’ve been through a lot. Your mind needs time to digest it all.”

Morgan shrugged. “That’s not it,” she told him.

“No?”

“Of course not. It’s been six months. I’m completely over it.”

“Completely over losing your parents, your fortune, your home, your education and what you thought was your identity?” He made a clicking noise with his tongue. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I am. And to tell you the truth, finding out I was adopted explained a lot of things. I mean, you know my parents were never all that...involved.”

“That was the cocaine, hon. Not the adoption. Not you.”

She cleared her throat when it started to tighten up, gave herself a mental kick. “As for the rest of it… I’m going to get it all back, David. Everything I lost and then some.”

She heard the smile in his voice when he replied, “I don’t doubt it a bit.”

“Neither do I,” she said, glancing again at the blank screen, feeling those doubts she’d denied nearly smothering her. Damn, why couldn’t writing a blockbuster script be as easy as she had always thought it would be? She used to watch films with the feeling that she could do better in her sleep.

“So when can I expect the screenplay?’’ he asked.

She wished to God she knew. “A masterpiece takes time...and it’s...so unpredictable.”

“I need a fall project. I’m saving a slot for you, Morgan. Three months. I need the material in three months. Can you do that? Write it over the summer and get it to me by September?”

Lifting her chin, swallowing hard, she said, “Yes. I’ll have it finished by September. No problem.”

Big problem.

“Great,” David said. “You’re gonna be fine, Morgan. You can get through this.”

“Of course I can.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No, no, I’m fine.”

“Your funds still holding out?”

She forced the lie out. She’d cleaned out her accounts on David’s advice, before the lawyers and creditors could get hold of her money, and she’d had the cash from the car. But while she had no rent here, there were other expenses. The phone, the electricity, and she had to eat. Truth to tell, the money in her checking account was dwindling.

“I’m fine,” she said again.

“Good,” David said softly. “Good. You let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“I will, David.”

He was quiet for a moment “How about your health?”

She took a deep breath before replying. “You know how I hate being thought of as sickly.”

“Did I say you were sickly?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“The brisk clean air up here is working wonders on me,” she lied. What could she tell him? The truth? That it was cold and dreary and damp here, and that she resented having to think of a sixty-degree day in late April as a heat wave, when she would be basking in eighty-degree heat beside her parents’ pool, working on her tan by now, if she’d been home?

But it did no good to wish for what she couldn’t have.

“I ought to go, David,” she whispered around the lump in her throat. “If I’m going to have this done by fall, I should get at it.”

“Okay, hon. Just call if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Morgan replaced the old receiver on its hook and gnawed on her lower lip. She turned the rickety wooden chair toward the computer screen, assured herself once again that no one was in it and finally sat down. She poised her hands over the keyboard, told herself to write something, now, today, or else give up for good and go out and find a job. The problem was, she couldn’t do anything.

Writing was the only thing she had ever wanted to do, and she’d been good once. Or...she thought she had. In school, her essays got raves. The theater group had even produced one of her plays. Everyone had loved it—the campus critics, the local press...

But that was when she’d been Morgan De Silva, the brilliant daughter of a famous director and a beloved actress, the girl leading the charmed life and destined for success. Now she was Morgan De Silva, disgraced has-been, penniless, homeless, practically run out of town and staring into a future more bleak than she’d ever imagined.

Now...now she didn’t know if her talent had ever been real, or if it had been her name winning her praise all this time. She didn’t know anything anymore, not who she was, or what she was doing or why the words had just stopped coming. It was as if the well inside her had been a part of the illusion her life had been. As if it had dried up when that illusion had been shattered.

She lowered her hands, having put not one word on the screen. Outside, the wind howled; the lights dimmed, then came back. The old house groaned when the wind blew. Probably, if she was as old as it was, she would groan, too, she thought. And then she wondered just how old that was.

Those journals...there had been no dates inscribed, but it was obvious they’d been written long, long ago. At least a century...and maybe closer to two.

That thought brought her back to the one she’d had earlier, about the journal writer. Dante. Had he lived here, that man who’d been a Romani boy, entranced by his outcast aunt? Had he been in this very room, perhaps, pacing before a fire, his quill pen lying untouched on some polished antique desk? Had he courted his muse as impatiently as she did, and grown frustrated when the words wouldn’t come?

Drawn as if by an unseen hand, she rose and walked out of the office, through the ghostly front hall and up the wide staircase. She traversed the hallway, ignoring the doors that lined either side. She hadn’t even ventured into most of the rooms up here. There were so many.

But her goal was none of them. Her goal was beyond, up the back stairway into the attic, where spiderwebs held court and dust ruled the day. She knelt as she had before and fished the book of matches from her jeans pocket, then lit the candles in the gaudy candelabra she’d found downstairs.

As their soft yellow glow spread, she opened the hand-tooled chest, took out that first volume, stroked its cover and opened it slowly, careful not to tear the fragile pages. Turning to the place where she had left off, she began to read. And once again she lost herself in the words.

Visit the Wings in the Night series page to see all the covers and planned release dates!

Coffee vs. Computer, Round 2

I swatted my coffee cup this morning. I had just topped it off and I don't know what happened. A demon possessed my arm like Ash before the chainsaw and whack! The mug tipped directly onto my MacBook Pro. Which is not yet two years old. And which I've been using with an external mouse because of the last time I dumped coffee on it.

This time was way worse. I mean, it's in a half-bushel of rice right now, but it's not looking good.

And I heard myself say to myself, "Self, nothing happens to you. Everything happens for you." And then I wanted to smack myself.

But it's true. It's what I really believe, so I had to take a step back from the bucket-o-rice, which I keep on hand and call my "e-rice" for just these (frequent) occasions--and really think.

I have been saying for at least two week, "If I keep sitting on my ass all day, I am going to be in trouble." That's a quote. My back has been warning me and warning me.

As you know, it's been a busy summer. We had 40+ books to move to a new publisher, no small task, and then we got 20 books back from Harlequin, another huge pile of work. And me with a broken wrist. (No, you are never going to hear the end of the story of how I got more done than at any other time in my entire life with one hand.)

Most of that work has been done from my sofa, on my laptop. I sit cross-legged until my right hip screams, and then I stretch my legs out in front of me, because the sofa is modular and extends out on that end. Lather, rinse, repeat. And that's bad enough with my normal schedule, but this year, it's been way more hours sitting and my body is upset with me.

Bear with me, I have a point.

The other thing that's been bugging me lately is the laptop. It's awful. I use the trackpad out of habit, but during the coffee spill incident before this one, the trackpad was damaged. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works with great difficulty. Sometimes it doesn't work at all. And sometimes it highlights things and drags them off to Neverland. It deleted Safari last week. I've been using an external mouse. But half the time I forget and use the trackpad and delete things by accident. When I'm writing it'll suddenly highlight a half a sentence and move it two paragraphs up and just drop it there. Just yesterday I said to hubby, "Sooner or later, I'm going to do something I can't fix with that effed-up trackpad." Hand to Goddess, that's another quote.

So this morning, the second major coffee spill of the year. And you know, I'm not entirely done with the busiest period of my life just yet. (Though I do have both hands now.) I could not work with my laptop buried in the e-rice.

Couldn't I, though?

I mean, I have a two-year-old desktop computer in my upstairs. I do not use my upstairs office because of my geriatric, ever-more-clingy, OCD bulldog. She needs to be on the sofa, so I need to be on the sofa. Sometimes she needs to be in the bed, so we have a desk in the bedroom. Sometimes I can convince her to come outside and let me work out there for a little while. Lance built her a nice doggy cooling area right beside my outside workspace.

So I have to be downstairs. Bulldog will not stay upstairs. That's part of the OCD. This not what we do. This is not normal. This is not the way. But I have that gorgeous desktop up there. I bought it in 2020, and I don't think it's had more than a couple of hours use all that time because it was upstairs. On my adjustable standing/sitting desk, with the treadmill under it. Hmmm.

The answer was clear. So I did some re-arranging with hubby's help, and now my stand up/sit down desk and treadmill are tucked in a corner of the living room that used to hold my Monster High Doll House.

As a result, I'll no longer be writing on the sofa, killing my back. I have no choice now but to be at a proper desk, in a proper chair, or standing up, or even walking while working. This is going to be WAY better for my health. Secondly, I'm using a computer that's just like new, and it's big and pretty and functional and doesn't have a possessed mouse maniacally trying to delete my life.

Guess I'll file this day under "Everything happens for a reason."

Summer's End

I don't know what the heck was up with this summer. It's been weird. Hubs started his own business only to have an accident with nerve damage to his hand that required surgery. So he couldn't work for several weeks during the first half of the summer. Then the day after his stitches came out, I broke my wrist, leaving it useless for the second half of the summer.

"I can't have a broken wrist! I'm a writer," I whined to the ER nurse.

"Oh, no!" he replied. "Which hand do you use?"

It's okay. He got it after a split second, and I didn't have to answer "Same one I use to sharpen my quill," but it was close.

Don't you hate those brain-blank moments?

Good things!

At the same time, some excellent things happened too. First, as you know, my entire backlist and future front list titles (except Wings in the Night) were picked up by Oliver Heber Books. Everything's going to be released in mass market paperback editions! That hasn't happened since pre-2014. Brick-and-mortar bookstores will be able to order my titles from their favorite distributor, Ingram's. This is wonderful for me. It's a process and will take some time to complete, but it's happening as we speak.

But this change brought work. Every link to every title changed. Many of the covers changed as well. It took hours of work to gather and update all the new links (5 for each title, 40+ titles) and replace them on my website. Days of work, and it kept going and going, as retailers went live one by one, each at a different time.

But I did it! All the books contracted to OHB have made the transition. All their links and new covers are in place on my site. Phew!

Wings Return to the Nest

Simultaneously, another great thing happened; I got back the publishing rights to my entire Wings in the Night series! I was sure I'd die before these books reverted, and they are my babies. But of course, this meant more work. First cover art design and creation. Then every title (20) had to be scanned, then formatted, then proofread. Back cover blurbs had to be written, a publishing plan put into place. Plus, I decided to create a series of short stories from Rhiannon's childhood to release with every Wings book, so I had to get those written. AND I had to recreate every book's page with all new links on my website. Again.

With one hand.

And I did it! Well, I'm doing it. Wings in the Night books are dropping every other Tuesday until the full series has been re-released. 1-5 have come out so far, and 6-13 have pre-order links. They all have cover art. I'm only one release ahead on the short stories, though, so I need to get hustling on those.

Wings in the Night flies into the Future

Here are my future plans for Wings:

The 3 Wings in the Night: Reborn books will be integrated into the main Wings in the Night series. I only made a new series because I didn't have rights to the old one when I left Harlequin. Now I do, so they can be in the same series as they always should have been. So Twilight Guardians, Twilight Vendetta, and The Rhiannon Chronicles are Wings 21, 22, and 23. Or will be, when it's their turn. These three are on sale now, with their old covers, but the new editions will include more of the Rhiannon stories, so you might want to wait. The novella Dead by Twilight is still owned by Berkley. Because we can't control it, we can't number it within the series--it's a whole logistical thing. So it's unnumbered, but still listed as part of the Wings in the Night series on my website, and we're trying to get it added to the series page at Amazon. Fear the Reaper , which was a serial story for newsletter subscribers a couple of years ago, will finally be fleshed out into a full length novel and released, also, I hope, in the summer of 2023 as Wings in the Night book 24. The Young Rhiannon in the Temple of Isis stories that appear in each Wings re-issued title, will all be published together in one book in the summer of 2023, after they have all been written and have had a proper edit. This will be Wings in the Night 25. Fiona: Aberrations , sequel to Fiona: Origins is also planned for release in 2023. These are their own series, but are set in the Wings in the Night universe and Rhiannon and company appear. So they're crossover novels. I am absolutely committed to creating new books in the ,Wings in the Night ,series going forward. A Writer Writes

Finally, all of the logistical stuff is done on my end. It's September 1st, and this is the month when I can really dive back into my writing! I will be wallowing in The Fatal Series book 4, Fatal Phantasm, which has a deadline now. I have also set a deadline for the next Brown and de Luca Novel, which I'll be writing next. At the same time, the Young Rhiannon stories will keep coming. They have deadlines too–two of them a month, but they are flowing beautifully so far.

Balance Restored

Hubby's hand is mostly healed, though his forefinger still has very little sensation. It can take up to a year for the nerves to heal, though, and we expect full restoration. My wrist is mostly healed too. Range of motion is reduced, and some things still hurt, but I can type on my computer at the speed of sound again, and that's what counts.

The Autumnal Shift

I feel like this has been a summer of great change all around me as well as within my own life. Challenging times are always followed by leaps of improvement. Hubs' new biz is taking off now that he's healed. I can devote more time to creating new stories with OHB helping me to manage my old ones. I feel like things are getting ready to pop again in my life and businesses.

In nature, (in the northern hemisphere) the energy of summer–action, growth, expansion–is shifting gently into the energy of fall–harvest, reward, gathering. It's the time when all that has been expressed begins to return. It's the Rule of Three in action. What we put out returns to us, tripled. "Ever mind the rule of three, three times what thou giveth returns unto thee."

Hard times always come to instigate the change it will take to convert them into better times, into great times, and into the very best of times.

May Autumn of 2022 be better times for all of. I welcome it with open arms.

Behind the BRAND (series)

The Littlest Cowboy is celebrating THE TEXAS BRAND series' new duds (cover art) and new home at Oliver Heber Books with a 99¢ sale on Book 1. All the links are below this Behind the Series post

Questions abounded.

I had written one romantic suspense, one modern gothic, and a handful of paranormal novels, when my then-editor Melissa Senate asked me to try my hand at western romance. My first reply was, "No, thanks." But then she pressed me. Your readers have seen that you can write a good paranormal. Don't get yourself typecast. Show them what else you can do!

In hindsight, I wonder if she had seen the writing on the wall. It was before Silhouette Shadows had folded, but not much before, and she wanted to see me do well in case I had to stop writing them. I kept hearing a voice in my head saying, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

Her advice made its way through my stubbornness to my brain, and I decided I would give in and write JUST ONE.

To set the mood

I started reading Louis L'Amour novels. Let me amend that. I had long since started reading Louis L'Amour novels. Better to say I re-started. I fell in love with the Sackett family, and read every book in that series, some twice. I knew almost immediately that I was not going to write just one book. I was going to create a family like that. A family where when one member got into trouble, the others came to help. A family with branches. The existence of the Clinch Mountain Sacketts absolutely inspired the Oklahoma Brands.

In addition, I watched the old TV show "In the Heat of the Night." Set in Louisiana, not Texas, but it wasn't so much the location that got me as it was one big, soft-hearted, slightly awkward cop named Bubba Skinner. I loved a lot about him, and he was the character who ignited the spark that became eldest brother Garrett Brand. Just the spark, mind you. Garrett is smarter, hotter, and even sweeter if that can be a thing.

I think this might be the reason too, that every single Texas Brand book has a crime/suspense subplot. In some it's a small thread, and in others it's the whole enchilada, but there's always a bad guy. Every good story needs and antagonist!

One became nine

I thought there would be six books in the series, one for each sibling; Garrett, Ben, Wes, Adam, Elliot, and Jessie. But then a couple of things happened. First, my publisher was creating a mini-series about super-hero type men, and populating it with characters linked to other existing series. They wanted me to create a super-hero linked to the Texas Brands. I came up with Marcus, city guy, a batman type, tragic childhood, family murdered -- The link to the Brand family is a huge revelation and there's a touching holiday reunion that melts this loner's heart. (That's The Lone Cowboy.) And then his story spun off into another, because of a reason I can't tell you without ruining the book. (Texas Angel.) And then I was offered the chance to do one as a single title release. The rest of the books were category romances, published within Silhouette Intimate Moments (Later Silhouette Romantic Suspense, later Harlequin Romantic Suspense.) Single title books are where category books go when they grow up. They are "bigger, longer, and uncut," to paraphrase South Park. So I wrote Texas Homecoming.

The nugget that became Oklahoma

There's a scene in one of The Texas Brand books where one of the boys blurts something like, "You think we're bad, you should see the Oklahoma branch of the family."

That was it. I was writing along, and he said those words, and my fingers typed them, and I looked at the screen and said, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" And I just left it there and kept going. It was a throwaway line that I would probably delete in the second draft.

Only I didn't. I suspect the girls in the basement were already composing book 1 of the Oklahoma Brands, The Brands Who Came for Christmas.

The Texas Brand Series[image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error] UK taking a little bit longer to lower the price. It wouldn't hurt to gripe a little. :

If your retailer doesn't have it for 99¢ they're being slow to implement the price change. Griping about it might help. :)

Born in Twilight - An Excerpt

The Wings in the Night relaunch continues with book 5, Born in Twilight dropping about 36 hours from this writing on Tuesday, August 23rd.

Here is the opening scene of this bigger, thicker, lusher Wings in the Night novel. At the end there's button to click you through to the page with the blurb, all the order links, and the rest of the series. Paperback coming to Amazon any day now.

COPYRIGHT MS LEWIS 2002, 2022 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. COPYRIGHT ENFORCED

BORN IN TWILIGHTBY MAGGIE SHAYNECHAPTER ONE

“I am damned. I am damned. I am damned.”

Those words were the only ones I could utter as I stumbled through the city streets that first night of my new life. My hair was in tangles, my clothes torn and dirty. Passersby looked at me and then quickly looked away, their eyes flashing with alarm—or was it contempt?— as their steps altered to give me a wide berth. It was as if they knew.

I’d been on the right path. Or I thought I had. Perhaps I’d been a bit too confident in my righteousness. Pride goeth before a fall, after all. But surely the sin of pride didn’t warrant this severe a retribution. Surely it hadn’t been the hand of God that brought me this low.

No. No, God had nothing to do with it, nor Satan himself, but a monster—a creature far more hideous than even Lucifer in all his evil glory could ever be.

For thirteen years I’d been as pure and as holy as I envisioned the very angels to be. From the darkest night of my life—the night my mother had left me at the altar at St. Christopher’s, promising she’d come back for me soon—I had done only good. Though I’d barely been old enough to know good from bad then, a nine-year-old child abandoned by her mother learned quickly enough. If I were only good enough, perhaps she would come back for me.

She hadn’t. But it had only served to convince me that I hadn’t been good enough. It only served to make me strive to be better.

The sisters had raised me well, taught me all they knew of the ways of truth and righteousness for His name’s sake. And I hadn’t left them when I’d come of age, but instead, had clung to the refuge I’d found among them.

My final vows would have been spoken a week from that horrible night. Just one more week. And I wondered, for just a moment, if I’d have been safe from the monster had I taken the veil sooner. Would my devotion have protected me then?

“I am damned,” I muttered again, this time sinking to the steps of a beautiful cathedral. I didn’t gaze up at the spires, or wonder at the beauty of the stained-glass windows. I couldn’t. When I looked at the colors, my monstrous eyes refused to linger on the heavenly blues and greens and golds. They focused instead on the bits of scarlet-colored glass, and on those alone. That color caused a hunger to stir in the depths of my soul, a sinful hunger, one I could not—would not—assuage.

I’d gone out alone that wintry night, despite the sisters’ dire warnings....

My soft-soled shoes made squeaking sounds as I raced down the steep wooden stairs from my cell. I was in a hurry to be off. It was snowing outside! The first snow of the winter, and how I loved it. I’d been pacing my chamber, unable to concentrate on my studies, or much of anything else for that matter. All I seemed able to do was glance at the small, white-faced clock on my wall and scowl at its slow ticking, before turning back to my single window to gaze longingly out at the snow.

We were not a cloistered order, exactly. We did go out among the worldly, but only in service to the Lord or when Mother Mary Ruth saw it as absolutely necessary. Tonight, it was my turn to work at the shelter several blocks away. And while I knew I should be rejoicing at the opportunity to serve God by helping my fellow man in his time of need, I wasn’t. I was rejoicing in the opportunity to go out in the brand-new snow.

I pulled a light shawl over my habit, which was a simplified version of the ones the true sisters wore. I’d have one like theirs soon—in just over a week, when I took my solemn vows.

My steps faltered as I reached the bottom of the staircase and saw Sister Rebecca, who was to accompany me to the shelter, leaning against the newel post and looking sickly.

“Sister, what’s wrong?” I rushed forward, my heart sinking as much at the thought of having to stay in tonight as at the thought of Sister Rebecca being ill. We always worked in pairs at the shelter, always traveled there and back together.

“Stomach virus, or so I suspect,” she replied. She was young, like me. It had been only a year since she’d taken her final vows, and I sometimes thought it was a shame she’d never married or had children, as lovely as she was. And as I thought it a small, niggling doubt tried to creep into my brain, but I shook it off. This was the only life I’d ever known. I remembered almost nothing from before my mother left me here. I wouldn’t know how to live among the worldly. Besides, I wanted to be good. And there wasn’t a better way, was there?

“Don’t worry,” Sister Rebecca said, valiantly lifting her chin and trying to paste a smile over her grimace. “I’m not going to beg off. You’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

Had I been so obvious? I averted my face. “No, Sister Rebecca. I won’t have you going out when you feel so poorly. You should be in bed.” I pressed a hand to her forehead and felt heat there. Then I turned her around and helped her toward the stairs. “Now go on upstairs and rest. I can certainly tend to the needs of the homeless without a partner on the verge of collapse.”

She stiffened, as I’d feared she would. “You will most certainly not go out alone! You know the mother superior’s rules.”

“Surely she’d make an exception of she knew you were sick. She’d never insist you go with me.”

“She’d insist you stay home.”

“Lucky for me she’s not here, then.”

Sister Rebecca shook her head slowly. “Look at you! Your eyes are sparkling tonight. What has you so excited, Angelica?”

“The snow,” I said, spinning around and stopping when I faced the window and could see the snowflakes pirouetting in the glow of the streetlights outside. “I want to be in it. I want to feel it on my face.”

Her soft hand came down on my shoulder. “There will be other snow.”

“But this is the first,” I said, and I faced her once more. “Please let me go. I’m a grown woman. Grown women traipse about this city by themselves every day.”

‘‘Not women of this order,” she began.

“Well, technically, I’m not of this order...yet. So I can do what I want.”

“Angelica...”

I stopped on my way to the door, and turned to face her.

She smiled, and I saw the fever in her pink cheeks and shining eyes. One strand of golden hair had escaped her wimple and curled against her cheek. “You’re a very strong-willed young woman, Angelica,” she said, but her smile remained. “And adventurous, and more than a little bit mischievous. I often wonder if you’ve given enough thought to the decision you’ve made.”

But I only shrugged. “I’m going to the shelter. Mother superior can lecture me when she returns, but until then. I’m going out in the snow.”

She nodded as if in defeat. “Hurry, then. Don’t miss your bus. If you do, you come straight back here—” But I was already out the door.

Oh, the snow! I’d always loved winter. I tipped my face up to let the icy, wet flakes fall against my cheeks and my nose. And even tasted them the way a small child might do. They coated everything I passed, like powdered sugar on parked cars and sidewalks and windowsills and front stoops. I dawdled, because it enchanted me so. I remember thinking it was like magic, that first snow of the winter—like a fairy tale come true. And I remember telling myself that I was far too old to be so giddy over a simple thing like snow—dancing in it like a little girl. But I couldn’t help myself. I was giddy. 

And wrong, I was wrong to have come out alone, blatantly breaking the rules of the order. But I’d done so often enough in the past that the sisters must surely expect it by now. I disliked rules. I’d probably have to change my rebellious ways and conform a bit better once I took my vows, but I refused to do so until then.

After that...

Again, that shiver of doubt. Again, I shook it away. I’d think about that later. Not now. All I wanted to do right now was walk alone at night, breaking the rules with every step, and enjoy the snow.

And that is precisely what I did. When I finally reached the bus stop on the corner though, it was only to see my transportation rolling away without me.

It threw me, but only for a moment. After all, I was almost a sister of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy. I was good. I lived my life serving God, and surely no one else did so with such enthusiasm as I. Certainly, wherever I went I was walking within the protection of His love. In fact, I’m sure I felt invulnerable, though where I got that idea, I do not know. It was not something the sisters would have taught me, not something I’d read in my studies. But I felt it, all the same. I felt surrounded by a protective shield that would let no harm come to me, and because of it, I foolishly decided to walk the six blocks to the shelter. And that, I later realized, was the foolish pride that led to my downfall.

He was waiting, crouched in the shadows of a garbage-strewn alley. The monster called out to me as I passed, and my steps slowed to a reluctant stop. What a fool I was.

“Sister! Sister, please, help me.”

My beloved snow fell in gentle puffs as I turned to look into the darkness, unable to see the owner of that plaintive voice. I stood a little straighter, feeling a hint of fear for the first time. “Who’s there?” I called. “Come here, where I can see you.”

“I can’t. I’m hurt. Please, Sister. Don’t let me die here in the cold. Help me!”

My fear did not evaporate. It was simply outspoken by my unwavering confidence. I was a servant of the Lord, and I would walk where even His most trusted angels feared to tread, if that were what was necessary. I’d help this poor soul in the alley. But I’d be careful, cautious, wise. Tentatively, I stepped into the blackness, and an icy shiver raced up my nape, chilling me right to my soul. I should have known, oh, I should have known right then not to go a single step farther.

“Over here,” he moaned, drawing me closer. Closer, until the lighted, busy street was out of reach. And when I was close enough, still blind in the darkness, he came at me. Bony arms with the strength of Samson closed around me, nearly crushing me, and a hand clapped over my mouth. I struggled. Mightily, I struggled. For though devout, I had never been timid or weak, or cowardly. I kicked him with a force that surely should have broken his shins. And I boxed his ears hard enough to knock him unconscious, I twisted and pulled against his grip, and tried to bite the hand over my mouth. But nothing I did to him seemed to have any noticeable effect. He didn’t flinch, or even draw a harsh breath. My heart pounded so loudly it deafened me as he dragged me deeper into the alley. Silently, I began praying for, salvation from this madman, praying for my life to be spared. Lord, forgive me for that error. I should have been praying for my immortal soul, not the preservation of this life, this body.

He threw me down among the rubbish so hard my breath was taken away when I hit. And then he came down on top of me, as I gasped for air among the fetid garbage. The stench was sickening. I caught my breath, parted my lips to scream, but he covered my mouth again. He sat there, straddling me, and with his free hand he tore the wimple from my head, freeing my hair and grasping handfuls of it. “Black satin,” he whispered as he fingered my hair. “And eyes like onyx. You’re perfect.” I struggled beneath him. “Perfect I won’t be alone anymore.”

I still could not see him well. Only the shape of his face, and the darker wells of his eyes were visible. But I could not escape the feeling that he could see me perfectly.

“I’ve been watching you for so long, you know. I’ve chosen you, of the many I’ve known. You should be grateful, Angelica, for the gift you’re about to receive.”

I shook my head, but to no avail.

“Yes. Grateful,” he went on. “No cloistered order for you, my perfect one. No vows. You’re not meant for that. You’re meant for me.”

The monster bowed over me, lifting me slightly from my bed of refuse. He bent to my throat, and my stomach turned when I felt the touch of his cold mouth on my skin. With one hand, he forced my head back until I thought my neck would break. And then the moment I shall never forget for as long as I live. Indeed, the moment I’d never dreamed of. I thought he would rape me, murder me. I thought many things when the creature bent over me that night. But I never thought this.

There was pain—brief, shocking pain, when his incisors pierced the tender skin of my throat. And then that pain was gone, and I was left instead with the horror of what was happening to me. His mouth sucked at my neck as he drank the lifeblood from my body. I could feel my essence leaving me through those two tiny holes in my throat. My mind swam, faded. Everything faded. The stench of the garbage and the chill of the cold winter night. The feel of those wet snowflakes on my face. The very ground on which I lay. Everything vanished, and I was left with nothing. Every aspect of me was focused on the part of me where this monster had fastened himself. My throat and his mouth drawing the blood from it, were all that remained of the universe.

He lifted his head. I lay still, barely conscious, unable to move or utter a sound. He moved, and there was a glint of silver. I couldn’t even feel alarm when it occurred to me that he held a blade. That he would finish me now. I could hear nothing. The sounds of the city could no longer reach my ears, only his voice.

He lifted me, pressing my face into the crook of his neck, and he whispered, “Drink, Angelica! Drink... and live.”

He forced me closer, his hand on the back of my head. My lips touched warmth, wetness on his throat. I tried to draw away, but my weakness would not allow it. Then the first taste of it touched my tongue, quickening my senses. A jolt, like a blast of icy wind, shot through me. I think my eyes shot wide. My lips parted on a gasp, and more of the thick, salty liquid surged into my mouth. Had I not swallowed. I’d have drowned. And if I’d been as devout as I’d prided myself on being, that’s precisely what I would have done—let myself drown in this cursed elixir and gone willingly into the arms of the Lord rather than surrendering myself to the instinctive need to stay alive. But instead, I swallowed. That was when I first felt the power of this devilish hunger. It shot through me, overwhelming all that I had ever been. It took control, a need I couldn’t even identify. I closed my lips over the wound in his throat...and I drank. Hungrily, greedily, I drank, and as I did, my body came alive with sensations I’d never known. So gluttonous was I, that he had to push me away when the curse was complete—had to push me, his unwilling victim, away from his neck.

I lay there in the garbage and my eyes cleared. I could see everything. Every aspect of his white face, and black eyes, and bloodstained lips. Every grain of sand in the bricks of the building beside me. Every star in the sky. My skin tingled with new life, new awareness. I felt in a way I’d never felt before; the shape of each snowflake as it hit my skin, every molecule of chilly air that caressed my face, every pebble and piece of trash that lay beneath me. I could identify each vile smell. And my hearing...I could hear the conversations of people passing on the street. The roll of tires on the wet pavement. The squeaking of snow-dampened brakes.

I heard the traffic light turn green.

“What is this?” I cried, and my own voice was so shockingly different, so vivid and rich and clear, that I pressed my hands to my ears and squeezed my eyes shut tight.

“You’ll learn to control it,” he told me. “You can close it out, hear only what you wish to hear. You’ll learn. I’ll teach you.” He removed my hands from my ears, pressed them to the rubbish at my sides. ‘‘I’ll teach you. You’ll live forever, Angelica. You’re not mortal anymore. You’re like me now.”

I opened my eyes. ‘‘Like you?” I was horrified.

“Yes.”

My heart turned to ice as I realized what he had done, what I had allowed him to do. “I’m damned,” I whispered.

“Come. Your first lesson awaits.” He hauled me to my feet, dragged me toward the mouth of the alley, though I pulled against him. My habit was torn as he grabbed at me. “Strong,” he said. “Already, you’re very strong. You’ll be even stronger, Angelica, after we feed." He stopped, holding me there at the mouth of the alley, and I watched his odd, black eyes scan the passersby.

“Feed?” I whispered, terrified.

“Yes,” he said, and he smiled. I saw his teeth then, his fangs, razor sharp and glistening. “On them.” He nodded toward the people who passed.

Horror enveloped my heart. He was a monster! A demon. A vampire. I shivered as the word whispered in my mind. He’d made of me another creature just like him. And I’d allowed it I’d even taken part in it. I’d—

He caught me up in his arms, though I fought, and he carried me back into the alley. Slinging me over his shoulder, he clutched the side of the building and began to climb. Like a spider, he made his way to the very top, and I stopped my struggling for fear I would fall. Higher and higher he went. The wind blew stronger up so high. My beloved snowflakes became weapons, tiny arrows slung by the Angel of the Lord to punish me, cutting my face with their biting touch. And yet I did not shiver or suffer from the cold, only felt it more acutely than I ever had.

He climbed onto the roof, and then raced over rooftops, leaping from one to the next. I think I screamed as we seemed to sail through the night sky like true demons. I think I screamed. If so, the sound of it is only a vague memory now.

We made our way to the ground again, to the streets, and I knew where we were. Not far from the shelter where I’d been so arrogantly going this night. Oh, why had I been so rebellious? Why?

He pointed, and I looked. A handful of the city’s homeless stood around a fire barrel, warming their hands near the dancing flames. Red-orange light painted their haggard faces and illuminated their tattered clothes.

“There,” he said. “Our victims...ours for the taking, Angelica. Their lives will be no great loss.”

The people I’d spent years trying to help. This man intended to feed on them, to use them in order to sustain his own cursed life. “No,” I begged him. “No, please, we mustn’t. It’s a sin to kill!” For I knew that murder was exactly what he had on his mind.

He left me free to run if I chose. He must have known, animal that he was, that I could not. Like a great, stalking wolf, he approached them in absolute silence. He moved quickly, so quickly there was no time for me to shout a warning. And then, without hesitation, he grabbed one. There was a shout of alarm, and then the others scattered, vanishing in the night. He held the man he’d chosen. I looked at the terror-stricken, aged face that I knew I had seen before, in the shelter. He’d come to the soup kitchen where I’d worked. I’d given him blankets, and that very sweater he wore. I’d prayed with him.

I raced forward, but too late. The beast had plunged his wretched teeth into the neck of the innocent old man. I beat the monster about his head, clawed at his face, but he only released his victim when he’d taken his fill. He lifted his head, and he smiled at me, and his lips gleamed scarlet in the firelight. I backed away, shaking my head, working my mouth but unable to speak.

The man whose name I could not recall slumped to the ground, eyes wide, but already glazing over. His face was the face of death, bathed in the dancing glow of the fire in the barrel beside him.

The monster licked his lips, and then with the speed of a striking cobra, snatched a handful of my hair and pulled, making me cry out in pain. “You shall never fight me again, Angelica. You’re mine now. Mine, do you understand? All your life I’ve watched you, waited for you. You’ll go where I go. Do as I say. Feed when I feed.’’ He glanced past me, into the shadows, and that evil smile returned. “Even now your first victim waits. There, quivering in the night, thinking we cannot see him in the darkness.’’ He stared down into my face. “I’ll bring him to you, and you will take him, Angelica. You will drain him dry, or suffer my wrath.” And then he released me and started forward.

I turned and saw a boy dressed in tattered rags, crouching in the darkness, shivering and wide-eyed with fear. And I could not let that creature take his life. I could not.

My hand closed around a piece of wood that protruded from the fire barrel. The end I grasped was not burning, but as I pulled it out, I saw that the other end was aflame. With a low growl, one I could not believe came from me, I lunged forward, swinging my torch-like weapon with all of my newfound strength.

But it wasn’t the force of my blow that did the deed. The flaming end of the club crashed against the vampire’s head, knocking him to his knees. But I’m sure the damage it did was minimal. It was the flame. The blaze seemed to leap at him, fire licking at his hair, and then at his clothes. He surged to his feet, his lips parting in a snarl as he came at me. But the fire...I crossed myself as I watched it engulf him. It seemed as if he’d been doused in gasoline, the way the flames spread. I backed away when he reached for me. And that was all. He fell to the ground, and there was a surge of white-hot flames. And then nothing.

The flames died away as if they'd never been. Tiny sparks and embers sailed into the night and blinked out, one by one and not even ashes remained to soil the perfect white snow at my feet.

The boy in the shadows was gone, his fleeing footsteps still reaching my ears as he ran. I staggered away, shocked, terrified, appalled. I had killed. I had been transformed. I was a creature like the one I had murdered. I was damned. Damned.

Young Rhiannon in the Temple of Isis Part 1

Hello dear readers. As you know, the entire Wings in the Night Series is re-launching with a book every two weeks and a brand new bonus story in the back of every one. These, taken as a whole, will tell Rhiannon's origin story,

Life being fun, and never dull, we had a snafu right off the bat. (Pun intended!) Book 1, TWILIGHT PHANTASIES was missing its bonus story for the first day or two it was on sale. We quickly uploaded the correct file, with the bonus story, which you can get by re-downloading the book. But that's a pain in the butt, so I'm posting it here.

To be clear, the other bonus stories will not be posted or free anywhere. They WILL be released on their own once they are all done. But that could take some time because I'm writing them as I go along (one-handed because, did I mention, I broke my wrist?)

Releasing 25 or so stories at two-week intervals will take about a year, and that's when the stories of Rhiannon's childhood will be completed. After that they might become a book of their own.

And now, with apologies for our opening day snafu, here is...

YOUNG RHIANNON IN THE TEMPLE OF ISIS1: JEWELS OF THE GODDESSByMAGGIE SHAYNECOPYRIGHT 2022 BY MS LEWIS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Rhianikki stood in a straight line with the other five-year-old girls, and not even at the front of the line. They were all dressed the same, too, in white linen dresses with straps over both shoulders. No apron, no gold adornment, no precious stones. Our sandals were woven papyrus with long, pointed toes that curled up and back around—every pair, just the same.

I hated it!

We’d been told to line up here, in the temple garden, which was rife with fruit trees, fragrant herbs, and flowers of all sorts. There were twisting stone paths all through it, with wider stone floors for gathering. It was was open to the summer sky above, but surrounded all all sides by the gleaming Temple of Isis. Walls made white stone blocks bigger than I, blazed like the sun itself when the rays of Ra hit it just before sunset.

In the garden’s center was a fountain with a pool at its base. A golden statue of Isis stood on a raised stone dais as tall as a person, her wings spread wide. Her face, arms, and flowing skirt were carved of smooth black onxy. Her glorious wings, skirt, arm bands and headpiece, pure gold. Water flowed upward, as if by magic, bubbling out around her feet, tumbling down into the circular pool below.

Priestess Elana, a beautiful, dark-skinned woman with long black hair that hung in a thousand braids, stood before us. She wore white linen too, but the front of her dress was pleated. Over one shoulder, she wore the red sash of the temple, and around her waist, the girdle of her station, a black cord with shot through with threads of silver and gold.

Priestess Elana walked slowly in front of us, pausing to examine each of our faces for long moments. When she came to me, I gazed right back into her eyes and did not blink. She did, though, and then she moved on.

“You have been given by your families in service to Isis, and to this, her temple. How you serve here reflects upon your family’s honor.”

My family. I seethed at the word. I was firstborn to Pharaoh, but my mother died. My father said that tainted me. He had taken a new queen, who had born him twin sons. At first, I had adored the babies, despite their incessant squalling. But soon, my father had sent me away from the palace to serve in the temple. His heirs, he said, would be the new Queen’s sons, in order of their birth.

A breeze stirred the air, and I heard the ringing of chimes as the beautiful priestess went on.

“You must not be angry with your families for sending you here,” she said, and her words caught my attention despite my rage. “Gifts to the Goddess must be the finest and the best we have to offer. The first fruits. Anything less would offend the goddess and invite Her wrath.”

I tilted my head and listened more closely.

“Only the best, the most gifted girls and boys are sent to serve the gods. You are special, each and every one of you.”

Some more than others, I thought, looking at the girls around me. None of them had divine blood. I was born of Pharaoh, a god himself, if a cruel and shortsighted one. I would be ten times the leader those mewling runts could ever be.

“Here you will learn of the gods, their stories and their history. You’ll learn how to properly serve them, and you will learn the secrets of magic.”

My head swiveled toward her and I blurted, “Magic?” Then I clapped a hand over my mouth. My father would have slapped me interrupting, had he been the one speaking.

But Priestesss Elana smiled at me. “Yes. Magic.”

Something in her eyes spoke to something in mine, but only for a moment. It was as if she recognized my greatness already. “That is all for now. You may enjoy your breakfast here in the garden and then we will begin your lessons.

I saw servants carrying trays laden with fruits and breads into the garden. These, they placed on flat topped onyx pedestals.

The girls around me scattered, rushing to gather all they could carry. Some even used their skirts to carry more. Each went to the fountain, to offer the very best piece to the goddess before finding a spot to sit and eat their own. I alone stayed behind, watching them.

“You are pensive, Rhianikki?”

I was stunned at Priestess Elena’s familiarity. “I am called ‘my lady, my sun, my princess,’ or ‘my goddess.'”

“Yes, by those who served you in the palace. But here, you serve. In that way, you are equal to the rest of us here.”

I blinked very slowly, because her words made no sense to me. None of the people here was my equal. Not Priestess Elana—not the High Priestess herself. I was no longer convinced that even my father was my superior, having made the sand-headed decision to send me here.

To serve. Ha!

“You are only five years old. You will come to understand, in time.”

Oh no I would not. But maybe she would. “I will eat now.”

“Yes, you may get some breakfast.

“I was not asking.” I lifted my chin as I went toward the nearest tray of food, the ridiculous sandals slapping the stone as I walked. A mountain of fruits and breads made from the grains grown along the banks of the Nile awaited me. I took the very biggest, most moist looking slice of bread and brought it to my mouth.

“Rhiannikki wait!”

I froze, thinking there must be a wasp about to sting or a cobra about to strike.

It was the High Priestess herself who’d shouted, I realized as I found her with my eyes. She had come out into the garden, and stood near the fountain that splashed endlessly by whatever magic lived in this place. Her hair was long and jet black, shot through with white as if she’d walked through a forest of spiderwebs. She wore it in a single braid that fell across her right shoulder. Her skin was sun-bronzed and wrinkled. She was making her way toward me. Both red and gold sashes crossed over her linen dress, one over each shoulder, draping well past her knees, and her corded girdle looked to be mostly made of gold threads. In spite of it all, she still wore the stupid papyrus sandals. Apparently there was no hope of graduating past them here.

“What?”

She raised her eyebrows where light and dark seemed to be at war, maybe due to the note of impatience in my tone. “We give offerings and thanks before we eat. The gods must always be fed first. No doubt you chose the very best slice of bread. Bring it along, over here.”

She turned, pointing. The statue of the great goddess stood there, wing and arms open wide. She looked like me, I thought. There was a basket on the dais above the water, for offerings.

As soon as High Priestess Naiya turned and started toward the Goddess, I swapped my bread for a different slice.

She looked behind her. I held the bread in my palms in front of me, and looked up at her with as much innocence as I could fake. Her eyebrows bent low, but turned around again and kept walking, and I followed.

We stopped before Isis. High Priestess Naiya bowed deeply. “Accept this offering, O great goddess Isis, lady of the dog star, eye of Ra, adored by men, envied by women, I offer you the finest part of my meal. Thank you for providing for your people, oh great Isis.” Turning her head slightly, she said, “Repeat.”

“Oh mighty Isis—”

“Oh great Isis,” the high priestess corrected.

“Mighty is a far superior word to great.”

She blinked down at me, then lifting her eyes slightly, looked past me. I glanced over my shoulder in time to to see Priestess Elana, her hands over her lips in an effort to hide her smile, but I could see it clearly in her eyes.

“Nonetheless, child—”

“Princess,” I corrected. And then I repeated her stupid words verbatim, mostly, just to show her I was not stupid. “Accept this offering, o great Isis, Lady of the Dog Star, eye of Ra, adored by men, envied by women. I, Rhiannikki, Daughter of Pharaoh, adored by all and rightful heir to the throne of Egypt, offer you the finest part of my meal. Thank you for providing for my people, o great and mighty Isis.”

I looked at the high priestess, who was watching me with one eyebrow crooked up higher than the other. I was thinking only about getting back to that tray before someone stole my perfect, wonderful slice of bread.

“Bless all who serve in this temple and teach them of your ways. So be it.”

“So be it,” I repeated. “I will eat now.”

As I turned away, I heard the High Priestess mutter,

“Forgive her, o Isis. She is… well she is Rhianikki.”

I looked back at her, in case I wasn’t supposed to go, but she nodded and waved me away. I sped the food table, and snatched my bread just as another hand reached for it.

The little girl I’d beaten sent me a surprised look, but when I glared, she backed away. I helped myself to a handful of dates and looked around the garden for a place to sit.

There were other girls gathered and talking as if they knew each other, or were beginning to. I had no need for friendship, however. I had noticed something of interest back at the fountain, so I carried my food that way, and found a wide spot to sit atop its short stone wall. I gazed into the pool at the fountain’s base as I ate.

There were jewels in there, gemstone beads and pieces that gleamed like gold. I took a bite of my bread as I studied them. Oh, it tasted even better than it looked!

“When people come here, they leave offerings in the Goddess’s pool to win her favor.” Priestess Elana had come to join me. She sat on the stone wall, nibbling her own slice of bread.

“What does the Goddess do with them?” I looked at the statue. Isis wore no jewelry at all, except that which was carved into her stone and engraved in her gold.

“If I were her, I would not like that one bit—all those gifts at her feet and she can’t even pick them up and put them on.”

“It is the value of the gift, the sacrifice of giving it that the goddess imbibes, not its physical form. Like when we eat the nut, but leave the shell.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.” I continued eating my bread, having finished the conversation.

#

The next morning, when we lined up as we must every morning in the temple garden, before the statue of Isis and her sacred fountain, I wore my white linen dress just like all the others. Around my waist, I’d tied a strand of precious gemstone lapis lazuli and golden topaz beads all strung on twine. Around my neck hung a strand of onyx beads, and around my wrist, four silver bracelets, and holding my dress across my left shoulder, a golden buckle.

I still had no headpiece depicting my station, so I’d woven together blossoms from the hibiscus plants to create my own.

The Priestess Elana stood before us, and when she saw me, her eyes widened. She kept opening her mouth and then closing it again.

The High Priestess Naiya, noticing the silence as she passed the open archway between the temple and the garden, came out to join us, looked at me, and then clapped a hand over her mouth and turned away. Her shoulders were shaking. I thought she might be crying, and broke ranks to run to her, and put my hand on her back.

“Do not weep, High Priestess Naiya. I gave the finest to the Goddess first! Look!”

I pointed to the statue.

Priestess Elana came to stand on my right. High Priestess Naiya was on my left, both of them facing the statue of Isis, which was now draped in jewels I had rescued from the pool. I had strung amber with jet, and moonstone with blue topaz, and I’d draped strands all up and down her wings. I’d dangled golden cuffs from her headpiece and piled more at her feet.

“Isis is pleased,” I said.

Both women looked at me sharply. “What makes you say so, Rhianikki?”

I shrugged. My jewels clattered. “Look at her. She’s smiling, can’t you see it?”

They looked at the statue, then at each other, and then they looked at me.

“Well, maybe you can’t see it, but I can. Probably because I am part Goddess myself, as you know.” I turned to the other girls, who’d stayed in line waiting, because I wanted to make sure they had heard me clearly. “I am the daughter of Pharaoh, who is Divine, which makes me Divine, too,” I said. Then I added, “Divine means of the gods,” for the little girl who was frowning hardest.

I turned back to my teachers and my necklaces jangled. “I am ready for the day’s lessons now.”

The two women were still staring at the statue. The High Priestess frowned, tilting her head to one side and squinting. “Elana, do you think she is smiling?” She whispered as I walked away.

“I think… she might be, at that,” Priestess Elana replied. “I think… yes. I think she is.”

A Book Every Two Weeks?!

Here it is, the great Wings in the Night rebirth! (Or should I say resurrection?)

TWILIGHT PHANTASIES is going live today (Tuesday, 28 June) worldwide. In two weeks, July 12th, TWILIGHT MEMORIES will follow. It's up for pre-order now. And even as we speak, Book 3, TWILIGHT ILLUSIONS is being readied to drop on July 26th.

Bonus Stories!

Every book in the series will include a never-before-published story plucked from Rhiannon's childhood. Young Rhiannon in the Temple of Isis will fill in the years between Rhiannikki, as she was called then, being sent away from her father's palace to be raised by the priestesses. Now we will get the inside story of why that happened and what our intrepid heroine did about it.

These stories will be connected, forming a larger tale, and they should come in between 10 and 20 pages each.

The Release Plan

My plan right now is to release one book every two weeks. This should give me time to write the short stories for each one, and to continue working on my other books in progress. (Brown and de Luca and Fatal series.) We'll be getting pre-orders up just as fast as humanly possible.

Watch the Site!

As soon as a cover is completed, it will be added to the Wings in the Night page, which is easy to find here on the site-- it's just MaggieShayne.com/wings As soon as pre-order links are hot, those will be added too. And of course, I'll continue my habit of posting updates on Facebook and Twitter. (And I'll try to do better on Insta. Promise.)

In Between

When I finish a new release in the Fatal Series, The Brown and de Luca Series, or anywhere else, we'll drop its release date into a week when there's not a Wings release. This huge Wings re-launch will not seriously impact my plans for new releases. We'll have a couple of weeks of complete Wings-immersion, but after that, I should be right back on schedule. For me, I can only produce so many original new pages of any given story at a time before I run out of juice. More hours in the day wouldn't help that. I actually tend to produce more when I'm busy than when I'm not, and this summer will probably be my busiest one ever.

So that's the plan!

Wish me luck. And hey, do a friend a favor--share Wings in the Night with the readers you know would love it. They'll love you for it!

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