Mollie Hunt's Blog, page 2
August 20, 2025
August 12, 2025
BOOK REVIEW: “LIFE ADVICE FROM MR. DILL PICKLES”
Even less often do I answer a request for a book review, since my blog is basically for my own pleasure.
I do get a lot of requests from authors, publishers, and promotors wanting me to feature their books. Most are generic. I can guess they googled Cat Bloggers and came up with my site, not even looking to see what it’s about.
The request I got from John Riddle felt different. First of all, it was really from John and not some wild Chinese bot. That’s a big plus. And when he wrote about a recently published work by Mr. Dill Pickles (best cat on the planet!) I knew I needed to take a look.
Move Over, Self-Help Gurus… A Cat Is Taking Over the Advice GameNew Book “Life Advice from Mr. Dill Pickles” Delivers Feline Wisdom with a Side of Sass and SardinesMy thoughts on Life Advice from Mr. Dill Pickles:There’s a new author in town, and he’s got whiskers, attitude, and a lot to say. Meet Mr. Dill Pickles, a distinguished cat with a taste for tuna and truth bombs, whose debut book Life Advice from Mr. Dill Pickles is now available on Amazon. This delightfully quirky read offers 30 laugh-out-loud lessons on living your best (cat) life, whether that means napping like it’s your job or knocking things off tables with flair.
Co-authored by young feline observers Alex and Gavin Podgorski, with a little editorial help from their Pop-Pop, veteran writer John Riddle, the book was inspired by the daily drama, wisdom, and weirdness of one very opinionated housecat.
“I always knew Mr. Dill Pickles was destined for greatness. And he wanted all the other cats out there to know he’s the best,” said co-author Alex.
“Mr. Dill Pickles knows that he is filled with great wisdom. Being a generous cat as he is, he wanted to pass along some advice,” added Gavin.
Inside the book, readers will find gems like “Nap like it’s your job,” “Only cuddle when it’s inconvenient,” and “The laser is never real…but chase it anyway.” Each tip is accompanied by a hilarious explanation and a “cat fun fact,” proving once and for all that feline nonsense is really just misunderstood genius.
Mr. Dill Pickles himself issued a rare quote from atop the fridge:
“Humans are confused creatures. They chase jobs, purpose, and kale. I chase sunbeams and red dots. Clearly, I’m winning.”
Perfect for cat lovers, humor fans, and anyone in desperate need of sarcastic life guidance, Life Advice from Mr. Dill Pickles reminds us that sometimes the best way to face the world is with claws out, tail high, and zero apologies.
Just look at that face!
I have to say, this little book gave, and continues to give me, a lot of pleasure. It’s the type of book I’ll pull out when feeling low or frustrated. A few random pages of dear Mr. Dill Pickles’ advice seem to set me back on the right track. This is not a once and done book. I keep it on my coffee table in case I need a laugh or a pick-me-up. What makes it great is that the authors know cats. Everything Mr. Dill Pickles imparts is totally cat-like. The Cat Fun Facts that accompany each tip also show true cat savviness.
My favorite tip: “Think of hissing as an exclamation point made of teeth.”
Disclosure: I requested a free print copy of Life Advice from Mr. Dill Pickles in exchange for an honest review.
August 10, 2025
TIME BEING: A Few Notes
Spoiler alert: the following reveals details about various parts of the story that may detract from your reading enjoyment if you know them ahead of time.
Author’s secrets revealed!Now that we’ve come to the end of my fantasy journey TIME BEING, I can tell you some secrets, including how it took form and where it led me in my own private journey.
The most common question I get asked as a writer is, “Where do your ideas come from?” That question has a million answers—depending on the story, on the genre, and even on the time of day. The easy answer is that they come from everywhere. All around us are stories just waiting to be written.
The postman delivers the mail. He’s late today. Did he miss the bus? Have trouble at home? Stop on the way to murder someone?
The neighbor’s cat who usually sits in the window has been absent lately. Did he move to a different window or has something happened to him? Did his person give him away? Lose him? Is he a really shape shifter who has taken the form of the apartment dweller himself?
A more complex answer to the origin of ideas is that they are small miracles sent to the writer from God.
Whichever you believe, writing Time Being was an exercise in pure seat-of-the-pants storytelling, and where it led was a journey, not just for the reader but for this author as well.
The scenes in the story were often based on my recurring dreams, many of which revolve around my childhood and family home. The house, from attic to basement is real. Aron is not. Brie is a combination of cats, endowed as a guide with the fantastical nature I needed her to be. Aron’s “old wound” comes from Arthurian legend. The “Work” came from inside me where I suppose I feel to some extent I have work that is never done.
My father was never aloof like Sylvan’s, nor was my mother weak, but the scene with her grandfather’s tragic death is a snippet from a dream I’ve had so many times I’ve wondered if it is a memory.
The Avenue, the Patch, and the tiled terrace were pure imagination, though the following quote came to mind:
Then it gets weird.“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” —Rosalynn Carter
Originally, I wrote this story to be published on the now-defunct Kindle Vella. When I decided to put it on my blog, I ran into something totally unexpected. You see, I have a dark streak in me, and every once in a while, it comes out. The final third of the story took Sylvan to a very dismal place indeed, horrific, ingenious, and totally inappropriate for my blog readers. I needed to come up with a new ending.
That turned out to be the greatest inspiration I could have hoped for. Again I took to my reoccurring dreams. The dry riverbed that floods as I watch is a dream I’ve had since I was a child. It was a real place, a cabin on a small Washington river where I spent many summers with my grandmother and mother. The river would flood in the winter, coming nearly to the cabin itself, then drain to a babbling brook in the summer, though the changes were nothing so dramatic as I wrote in the story.
My grandmother loved it on the river, so when I dreamed about asking her forgiveness, it was natural to find her in that place. In my dream, however, I was asking forgiveness for something entirely different than what I wrote about. It was a revelation to me that my real underlying sin was ignoring her in those terrible, final years.
The carnival on the shore is another dream. The reconciliation with Zak is not. That was more of a wish. My son is not estranged, and we see each other regularly, but maybe, like many parents, I wish we would talk more.
I don’t know when I decided that the demons from earlier in the story would morph into demons of my own psyche, but I suppose it was a natural progression. As Sylvan comes away from her experience, she brings the one thing we all search for—hope.
Finally, I want to thank Unsplash and its many talented photographers whose work I used to create my collages:
Photo By Elizabeth
Mikhail Pushkarev
Uros Petrovic
Roman Skrypnyk
Lucasvphotos
Eleni Petrounakou
Ilana Amchi
Cor Gerber
James Craig
Tim Cooper
Bernd Dittrich
Simeon Birkenstock
Artem Kovalev
Juliana Marx
K.T. Francis
Annie Spratt
Laura Matthews
Donald Merrill
Photogon (Warren Valentine)
Bruce Tang
Thank you for reading TIME BEING. You can now read the story in its entirety here.
August 9, 2025
TIME BEING, the Final Chapter. CODA QUASI
A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.
The words flowed onto the paper from a place Sylvan’s consciousness had never accessed before, that she never knew existed. The pages came alive with tales both beautiful and tragic. There seemed no limit to her imagination. She was able to pick the pieces out of the air and combine them perfectly, a writer’s dream.
She was thrilled—blind exaltation, the demons had called it. Now she knew what they meant. Her purpose was clear. She was free to do what she was born for—to chronicle the worlds inside her.
For an unknown time, the inspiration continued. Though she filled page after page in the red journal, there always seemed to be more. Her pen flowed easily, the indigo cursive resplendent in its own right.
A red sheen slid across the sheet, painting it blood-colored and turning the pretty blue words black. As Sylvan pulled herself from her reverie, a deep red beam made a final pass across her vision, then diminished into the distance. The Event was receding.
Sylvan felt the loss with a well of mixed emotions. She couldn’t deny that something had happened to her as a result of the crimson effect. Would the creativity last, or would they vanish again, sucked down under lifelong layers of tradition and norm? Time would tell.
* * *
Sylvan blinked, the tracery of her words on the page still imprinted upon her vision. The phenomenon was gone, as was the dark roadway. Now her sight brought her only the dun-painted plaster of her room in the nursing home. The smell of antiseptic mingled with the scent of the violets in a vase by her bed. The ceiling with its one glass-shielded lightbulb floated above her, as it had for uncounted months since the stroke. She was back—really back in her own time, her own place. She didn’t know whether to weep or laugh.
Sylvan was, of course, paralyzed, but something had changed. The pain was gone—all the pain. Her body flowed with energy that soothed and comforted every nerve, every muscle, every ache. She realized for the first time since her catastrophic debility there was the potential within her to regrow, recover, and even to move again.
Was this insight a gift from the other places? Had she been given a new technique to help her live her best life, even in her final days?
For a moment, she felt the pinprick of fear, sharp as a claw in her flesh, but she drove it back from whence it came. Fear no longer owned her.
Sylvan closed her eyes, thinking of the people she had touched on her journeys through time and space. There had been life-altering revelations. She had learned that despite his aloofness, her father had always loved her. She knew now that the shock of witnessing her grandfather’s death at so young an age had eclipsed the influence of his kind and gentle nature. She had been allowed to finally ask her grandmother’s forgiveness, which her dear Anna granted easily. Most of all, she had made up with her estranged son.
But now she was home. Earth. Twenty-first century.
Had it been a dream after all?
Beside her on the bed, she felt a warm presence press against her thigh. She knew it was Brie. Whether real or ghost, it didn’t matter as long as the cat was there.
She fully expected Aron to pipe up from out of nowhere, “Not a dream,” but the room was silent.
END
For the complete story up until now, look here.
August 2, 2025
TIME BEING, Chapter 14. PAIN AND FEAR
Chapter 14. PAIN AND FEAR
A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.
Sylvan was done—she’d had enough. She was happy for Aron, that his quest—whatever it had been—was now complete, but what about her? Her son was gone. Aron, who disappeared into the crowd after his revelation, was gone. She had lost track of the red diary ages ago and supposed it was gone too. But she remained, alone in that odd, unpredictable cacotopia.
She felt a soft presence, then a weight in her lap.
“Brie, I still have you, don’t I?”
“Yes,” the cat purred, “but not for long if we don’t get moving. We need to put this behind us, and fast.”
Sylvan felt a stab of panic. “Why? What now?”
Brie vaulted across the room and pawed furiously at the wood paneled door. “Go now!” was her only answer.
Sylvan rose, but slowly. Her back and legs ached. She seemed to be aging exponentially, her former fifty-year-old body now plagued with seventy-year-old pains.
“Where will we go?” she muttered, shuffling over to open the door.
Again no verbal reply—just a look, and then Brie ran dashing into the carnival throng.
Sylvan’s dread shot up a notch as she realized she’d best follow quickly if she didn’t want to lose her little guide. At first, Brie’s path confused her, but soon she began to understand the intent. Brie had a route in mind that took her out and away from the carnival. Away from the bright lights and into the surroundings, the ominous black.
Brie, as a cat, might be able to see what was out there, but Sylvan’s human eyes gave her no clue. She stumbled as her feet touched gravel and then pavement—a street? She could only make out vague variations, a strip of dark shadow, darker at the edge. Ahead of her, running at an unrelenting pace, was a small dot of gray—Brie.
As they moved away from the lights of the fête, Sylvan’s vision adapted. Sure enough, they were traveling a roadway with a worn dotted line down the middle and deep forest to each side. Briefly she wondered what they would do if a car came, but more to the point was the question of where the road might lead.
Sylvan paused to stare back at the carnival. They had come farther than she’d realized. What had been a blaring brilliance was now just a glow on the horizon, and the calliope music merely a soft serenade wavering on the wind. She hadn’t noticed that wind before. Was she not paying attention, or had it just come up?
Brie had stopped too, sniffing at the air with profound interest.
“What do you smell, little one?” Sylvan whispered, keeping her voice low without knowing why.
“Shadows. Memories. Figments,” Brie hissed back. “They are coming for you, Sylvan. They want to tell you…”
Sylvan spun away from the portentous declaration. Brie had said those words once before, when they were escaping the Patch. She knew what was coming—the demons!
She scanned the deep dark at the side of the road. At first, her puny vision picked up nothing beyond the dense, flat black. No, that was wrong—there was movement within the void. She made out shapes, foul shapes. Twisting and writhing like something in torment, they moved in upon her. In another instant, they surrounded her, whispering in unearthly tones words she couldn’t understand.
Macabre beings pulled at her clothes and plucked at her skin. The more she fought them, the more aggressive their attack. They had the upper hand, and though Sylvan tried to fight, she was no match for the otherworldly denizens.
She sunk to her knees in surrender. Yellow eyes peered down at her. Gaping mouths dripped saliva or blood—she could not tell which. The smell of death hit her, death and, oddly enough, violets.
“You have missed your destiny,” came a cold voice from out of the cluster.
“Have you forgotten?” said another in the same flat tone.
“So little time,” proclaimed a third.
“Embrace your purpose,” several of the demons demanded at once.
“Go away!” Sylvan charged, her voice thick with fear.
“We cannot,” intoned a particularly grotesque fiend. “Do you not see? We are not just any demons—we are yours.”
“The blind exaltation!” they screeched in one long raven’s cry. “The Event! The Event!”
The scene was beginning to lighten, just enough so Sylvan could make out faces, those horrible faces peering down on her. But even as she watched, appearances were changing, morphing into ones that were far more familiar—friends and family, those she had met on her journey across time.
Mother, father, aunts, uncles. Her grandmother, smiling with forgiveness; her grandfather on his deathbed, but love in his eyes. Her son, eighteen and leaving home, and again as he was at the carnival such a short time ago. She even saw herself, as a young woman, a child, a baby.
Then another set of characters asserted themselves upon the rest. The doctor from the Avenue, the crone Sylvan from the Patch. Men and women, people she had seen before but couldn’t place swirled around her like ghosts of memory. The only ones missing in that hodge-podge of recollections were the most important persons of all, Aron and Brie.
The turmoil of faces was both mesmerizing and dizzy-making, and Sylvan covered her eyes with her hands, feeling like she might be sick. As she concentrated on her breathing, slowing it from a fearful pant to a semblance of normality, she noticed the voices were waning. Finally they disappeared altogether, leaving only the sound of the river and the wind. Still, she kept her eyes tight shut, fearing it would all come crashing back if she dared look.
Upon her eyelids, she perceived a growing luminescence. Instinctively her eyes popped open to see a pair of headlights approaching on the road. There was no way she could haul her decrepit body up in time to escape the oncoming car, but the point was moot—she found herself to be completely paralyzed.
Helplessly she watched the twin heralds of her death bear down upon her. The lights were blinding, but that was the least of her problems. Would it hurt? Would she die? Or would she merely be transported to some other place in time and one more torturous trial?
Shimmering, the blaze went from white to crimson, and within the red vortex roiled the radiance of a sun. Sylvan knew this thing, this fierce phenomenon of light. She had run from it in the Patch, urged on by the old crone of herself. What did it want? What did it mean?
Even as she watched, the vortex replicated over and over until it obscured the entire landscape. Thin lines, like veins, snaked throughout the pulsing veil. Then came the sound she remembered, the wailing, keening, rattling, churning song unlike anything made by human voice or hand. The singularity had come for her.
“It is called the Event,” said Brie, returning to Sylvan’s side.
“What should I do?” Sylvan mouthed back, her eyes fixed on the marvel.
“Run or stay, it is your choice. But I caution you…” The cat’s tone lowered to a growl. “…this opportunity will never come again.”
“I can’t…”
“But you can.”
Sylvan breathed deep and let herself be swallowed by the crimson veil. At first, there was only pain and fear. Then she felt an atmospheric shift. Her blood surged hot throughout her body, and she could move again. She went to rise, to run, but a tendril of red broke from its core and reached out to her. As she watched, it became something else, something more—her diary! Suddenly she knew what she was supposed to do.
Taking the book and pen, Sylvan began to write with frenzied inspiration. The pain and fear were gone.
The Final Chapter, CODA QUASI, coming next Saturday.
For the complete story up until now, look here.
July 26, 2025
TIME BEING, Chapter 13. OLD WOUNDS
Chapter 13: OLD WOUNDS
A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.
Sylvan woke, stiff and sore, on the rock step by the old cabin. Though it was full night, bright lights stabbed into her eyeballs like laser beams.
Someone knocked against her as they passed.
“Hey!” she cried out.
“Uh, sorry, lady. But that’s not a great place to sit. The others are coming soon.”
Lady? She was no longer a little girl, though she had no idea exactly where she had landed in the age range of her life. Adult. Older. Maybe her fifties?
“What others?” she charged the man.
He swept his arm across the landscape, then began to scuttle up the path. “The carnival will be starting soon. I hear the cars arriving now.”
Sylvan pulled herself to her feet, noting that pain in her ankle was completely gone, and so were the blue bruises on her elbow. But that wasn’t the only change. The scene had shifted drastically. Though the location remained the same, it was no longer the quiet countryside with its old-growth forest and abundance of summer wildflowers. Lights were strung throughout the trees, some the twinkly fairy kind, but others were big and glaring like roadway lighting. It was one of those that had caught Sylvan in the eye with its cold, green-blue beam. The transitions couldn’t have happened overnight, leading her to wonder how long she’d been asleep.
She could still hear the river flowing in the gorge below, but now its shores were lined with cabanas and swarming with people traipsing in and out. Some wore swimsuits while others were fully dressed . Yet others seemed to be wearing strange costumes. Had the man said something about a carnival?
Sylvan looked around for Brie and found her a little way off sniffing at something on the ground—a cast-off corn dog in oily paper wrapping.
Ewww! she thought angrily. Garbage? Litter? What’s happened to this place?
Glancing over her shoulder, she found her grandmother’s old cabin had deteriorated even further, the roof caved in and the shutters hanging from their hinges. The door was missing, and the light from the streetlamp revealed only desolation—curtains in tatters and debris strewn across the floor. The couch where her beloved Anna had lain was torn and chewed by rats.
For a moment, Sylvan stared in horror; then she turned and ran, vaulting up the path, away from the shocking travesty. A crowd had gathered on the flats at the top of the hill. She pushed through them, running without thought or destination. All she knew was that she had to get away, get out of there. She was fed up with strange encounters, reliving old scenarios, and being cast into impossible new ones. She couldn’t take it anymore. For the first time since she began her strange journey in time, she found herself wishing she were back in the nursing home, where despite her ailments, she had some semblance of peace.
Sylvan shoved her way through the press with Brie alongside her. The throng was becoming more dense, impeding their progress until even her shouted excuse me’s didn’t help to get them by. Finally they could no longer move at all, crushed together like sardines in a tin. A fervor was rising as people turned their attention toward the south, toward the big flatland there. Then the whomp and sizzle of arc lights broke into the night, making Brie flatten her sensitive ears and Sylvan cover hers. But the sound was nothing compared to the brilliance. One lamp stabbed up into the sky, obscuring the stars with its photon glow while two others burned down on the flatland revealing carnival rides—a carousel, a miniature rollercoaster, and a small Ferris wheel—set up and ready to go.
There came the clamor of a calliope, competing against the roar of the crowd with its raucous, whistling tunes. There was far too much light and sound assaulting Sylvan’s senses. Loud and brash, it was no longer the countryside Sylvan had loved. She had to escape—her sanity depended on it. Picking up Brie and holding her close, she elbowed her way in the opposite direction from the fête.
Moving with her head down, she only made it a little way before she ran squarely into someone.
“Sorry,” she and the man both said at the same time.
“Mom?” the man exclaimed, grabbing Sylvan by the shoulders. “Mom, what are you doing here?”
Sylvan let her gaze focus on the tall man before her. As recognition bloomed, she studied her son: the muscular physique, a little on the thin side but healthy; the neatly trimmed hair with just a bit of curl; those piercing eyes, so like her own back in the day before cataracts.
“Zak?”
“Yeah, Mom, it’s me.” He wrapped her in a bear hug embrace, sending Brie leaping to the ground so as not the get squished between them. “I don’t know how this is happening, but I don’t care. Boy, am I glad to see you.”
After a time, he let her go, and mother and son stared questioningly at each other.
Sylvan was the one to break the silence. “It’s been a long time.”
“That’s an understatement,” Zak harrumphed, a little of the old animosity creeping into his expression. They’d had problems, Sylvan and Zak—disagreements that finally drove Zak to leave home when he was barely eighteen. That was—how many years ago? In Sylvan’s real life, it had become forever. In this iteration, the man in front of her looked to be in his early thirties. Maybe there was still time to resolve their differences before the opportunity was lost.
A pair of laughing women nudged into Sylvan, then a man in a swimsuit far too small for his rounded torso slammed into Zak. When a group of kids tried to push between them, Zak took Sylvan’s arm.
“Let’s get out of here. I know a place.”
Deftly, he guided her through the crush and up the hill toward a small cottage she’d not noticed before. Unlike the neglected cabin by the river, this place looked to be brand new.
He opened the door and led her into a single square room. As he went to shut it, Brie dashed through, sliding across the tile floor and alighting on a plush divan by a window overlooking the river.
“You have a cat?” Zak commented. “But of course you do.”
Sylvan smiled. “That’s Brie.” She was about to explain how Brie was the cat from her childhood, but that would sound ludicrous. She settled on saying, “She’s been with me a long time.”
“She seems to have picked out the best spot in the place.” He gestured to the couch. “Shall we join her?”
Once seated, he placed his hand on Sylvan’s and looked her in the eyes. She stared back, still not quite believing he was really there.
“I’m sorry,” they both said, again echoing each other’s thoughts.
Sylvan smiled. “I’ve wanted to say that for such a long time.”
Zak forced a smile of his own, but it didn’t convey the warmth of his mother’s. “Then why didn’t you?”
She turned away. “You’d been gone for years, I didn’t know what would happen. I suppose I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me, that we’d fight again. We’re not going to do that, are we?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Zak asserted. “I’ve learned a lot since I left home. Traveling does that.”
“Life does that,” said Sylvan. “So what have you learned?”
“First of all, that things aren’t nearly as simple as I thought they were back when I was eighteen. Nor are they as complicated. I made my own trouble. I was a victim of myself.”
Sylvan looked away, her gaze settling on the river below. Its reflected sparkle was almost mesmerizing. “I should have done better. I was the grown-up, the mom. I should have understood what you were going through. And even if I didn’t know then, I should have reached out later on. I guess I was my own victim as well.”
“Can it be that simple? Can we just stop hurting ourselves and each other and start again, here and now?”
A tear rolled down Sylvan’s cheek. “I hope so.” Before it’s too late…
Then he was crying too, throwing himself into her arms as he had done when he was little. She held him, murmuring soothing nothings as he sobbed on her shoulder.
She went to stroke his hair, but as she did, she felt something thick and sticky. Drawing a sharp breath, her eyes focused only to find blood on her fingers. She pulled away to stare at her son, but it was no longer Zak she held in her embrace. Aron had taken his place, the gash running through his curls dripping red. The old wound.
Sylvan gasped, her heart breaking with the loss of her son so soon after she had finally found him. Another illusion! Just another fever dream.
“Not a dream,” Aron said with a smile that held only love in it.
Something was happening to the cut on his head. As he took a cloth from his pocket and wiped away the blood, she could see the wound itself was changing, healing. A moment later it was completely gone as if it had never been.
Brie hopped up next to him and touched the place with her soft paw. Aron gazed at the cat, then looked up at Sylvan with elation.
“The Work,” he said slowly. “The Work is done.”
Chapter 14. PAIN AND FEAR, coming next Saturday.
Only two chapters to go!
For the complete story up until now, look here.
July 19, 2025
TIME BEING Chapter 12. HIGHER GROUND
A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.
Trigger warning and spoiler: This chapter was written long before the recent tragic flood in Texas. I promise the floodwaters in these pages, though dramatic, will not turn out to be life-threatening.
Chapter 12. HIGHER GROUNDSylvan raced down the steep path, slipping on the incline, then rising again only to slip once more. Finally she made it to the rocky outcrops of the river shore. Sure enough, there was Brie sitting in a loaf position on a small protuberance of rock beside a stunted alder tree. How could she have forgotten her beloved cat?
Brie looked up with trusting eyes, and Sylvan felt a sob rise in her throat. As she pitched across the rough stones, the roar of the approaching waters grew louder. If she didn’t hurry, Brie wouldn’t be the only one to get swept away.
She was almost there when she stumbled, catching her left foot in a crack in the granite. She went down hard, hitting her elbow and twisting her ankle. Her cry of pain cut short as she realized the implications of what she had done. The ankle was sprained—she knew that without moving. Yet she had to move. Brie’s life depended on it.
White lightning danced across her inner eyes in rhythm to her heartbeat, the pain hot and pounding. Through it, she saw Brie advancing toward her.
“You were supposed to save me,” said the cat. “Not the other way around.”
“I’m sorry,” Sylvan panted. “I don’t think I can walk. You go…”
“Get off your ass,” Brie commanded with an added yowl to make her point. “Do you want to die before the Work is finished?”
Sylvan remembered Aron saying something about work, that his wound wouldn’t heal until the work was done. But what did that have to do with her? Aron was long gone.
What work? she wanted to ask the know-it-all cat, but the thunder of the oncoming deluge now rivaled that of a volcanic eruption, the explosion of bombs. Sylvan knew she had little time. Certainly none for conversation.
She pushed herself up, favoring the twisted ankle but could put no weight on it. The torrent was nearly upon them, the deafening whitewater shunting down the gorge with the ferocity of an avalanche. She felt a sharp pain in her good ankle and looked down to see ribbons of red where Brie’s needle claws had swiped her.
“Brie?” But the cat was already bounding away, up the hill to safety.
Then Sylvan was behind her, the ankle forgotten. No, she didn’t want to die.
The two made it to high ground just as the torrent hit. At its forefront, shaped like feline kelpies, were blue-white billows of froth. Sylvan paused to watch with awe as the phenomenon passed.
The roar dwindled and was gone, leaving only natural sounds—the liquid warble of swallows darting across the sky for their evening meal, the whisper of the wind in the tops of the firs. The water settled into a sweet little stream with rapids in the shallows and azure pools where it ran deep. A frog chirped. Chipmunks chittered back and forth. A school of rainbow trout darted upstream. It was as if the odd dry spell had never happened.
The pain was returning to Sylvan’s ankle, and her elbow was swollen and throbbing. Despite the serenity, she felt miserable, the in-the-moment desolation of a lost child. But she was a child, wasn’t she? Another of those pesky time transformations had returned her body to that of an eight-year-old. Her mind, however, remained the same, and she muttered under her breath, “Hoh, boy.” Then she began to cry.
“Come on,” said Brie. “We need to go.”
“I want to see Anna,” Sylvan whimpered. She picked up the cat and began to hobble toward the cabin. “Anna will make it all better.”
But there was something wrong with that plan. She couldn’t put a finger on it until she came around the corner of the old cottage and saw the green door. The place, so warm and open a moment ago, was now shut tight and padlocked. Spider webs hung from the hinges as if no one had been there for a very long time.
“No!” she whimpered, sinking down onto the steps.
“Your Anna’s gone,” said Brie. “As we must be.”
Chapter 13. OLD WOUNDS, coming next Saturday.
Only three chapters to go!
For the complete story up until now, look here.
July 17, 2025
MOTIVES FOR MURDER
For any mystery writer, one of the first things we need to learn are the things that motivate someone to kill someone else. In many cases, motives for murder are condensed into what writers call the Four L’s: Lust; Love; Loathing; and Loot. I prefer to work from a more expanded list.
I’m not sure where the list originally came from, and I’ve added my own notes to the author’s, but I find this group of twelve motives basically covers every provocation I’ve featured in my stories.
1. To hide a secret.
2. Greed.
3. Revenge.
4. Obsession, frustration, hate.
5. Love, sex, jealousy.
6. Crime of Passion.
7. Psychosis and mental disorders.
8. To protect personal status.
9. To protect a loved one, including a pet.
10. Empathy, sympathy (mercy).
11. Self-defense.
12. Accident
To hide a secret: In Cat Call, the murderer needs to hide a secret that they believe would harm them if it came out.
Revenge: In Cat’s Paw, Cat Café, and Cat Conundrum, the underlying motive is revenge.
Obsession, frustration, and hate play a big part in the Cats’ Eyes murders and also in an unintended death in Cat House.
Love/Greed: Cat’s Play, after weaving through a twisted plot, comes down to a mix of both greed and love.
Psychosis and mental disorders: We might assume most murders are committed by humans with a warped mind. For a person to kill another is more than most people are willing to do. But there are psychological states and mental disorders that block out empathy, where the killer finds nothing wrong with what they are doing. My criminal in Cat House and even more so, the serial killer in Copy Cats, are two such examples.
To protect personal status: Some people will go to great lengths to protect their personal status. I explore that scenario in the soon-to-be-published Ghost Cat and the Haunted House.
To protect a loved one, etc: I think we all can relate to the desire to protect a loved one, a beloved pet, or even a stranger in trouble. Again, how far we would go to do that depends on many things. In Crafty Cat and Ghost Cat of Ocean Cove, the killer is willing to go all the way.
Accident: Last of all, there is the accidental death. Two people tussle and one falls backward, hitting their head on the glass tabletop or the fireplace hearth. A gun accidently goes off, killing someone instantly. Instead of going to the police and admitting the crime, the inadvertent killer tries to hide what they have done. This was a factor for murders in Cats’ Eyes, Cat House, and Adventure Cat.
There are three of the twelve motives on the list I haven’t explored in any of my series yet: Self-defense; Crime of Passion; and Empathy/sympathy/(mercy killing). I suppose my next challenge will be to write stories that include those I’ve overlooked.
July 12, 2025
TIME BEING Chapter 11. THE RIVER
Chapter 11. THE RIVER
A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.
Before she opened her eyes, Sylvan noticed the scent, enticing and repellant at the same time. Wildflowers, yes, but and something else, something musky. She blinked, wondering where she had got to now. Last she recalled, she was sitting on the stairs of her childhood home. She’d been reading over her diary, but something was not right. Her drawing had changed, transformed. A small, countryside river, much like where she was now. But that river had been clear and abundant. This one was…
Her eyes went wide.
This river was a mere muddy trickle, winding its meager way down the center of the bed. The sides were gummy, indicating that the water was usually much higher. What could have happened to decrease the flow like that? A dam? A disaster?
There was something about the absent waterway that spoke of abomination. Sylvan’s sudden fear—greater than her trip into the basement; greater than when she was in the Patch; greater even than the presence of the strange red vortex—froze her in place. In that moment, she became hyperaware of everything around her. The fresh smell of the trees contrasting that of the dirty stream. A dragonfly skimming what remained of the brook. The angle of the sunlight as it cast long shadows—the approach of twilight.
Up the hill above her was a small, rustic cabin she hadn’t noticed before. Something about the dark cedar siding and peeked roof touched her memory, but not enough for her to place it.
Then she was running, scrabbling over the rocks and up a rootbound path toward the cottage. Without bothering to knock, she flung open the green door and stepped inside, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
The room was dark, the curtains drawn. The shift from bright sun to the dusky murk made her nearly blind, but her eyes were adjusting. As her breath eased, she began to make out shapes, furnishings: a dropleaf table and chairs; a hanging lamp; a door, presumably to an outside deck overlooking the lost river; a brick fireplace. Then she heard a sound. Breathing.
Spinning around, she saw the dark shape bunched upon a small couch. At first it reminded her of the other Sylvan, the woman who had guided her through the Patch. But this one felt different. Again Sylvan was informed by a scent. Roses.
“Anna?” Her voice choked as she uttered the pet name she’d given her grandmother when she was a baby.
The shape groaned and dragged herself into a sitting position. Now Sylvan could see the face, the beloved face she had missed for more years than she could count.
“I’m sorry!” Sylvan blurted before she could even think. Sorry for what?
But she knew. When Anna was dying in the nursing home, Sylvan had been remiss about visiting. She hated the sterile, cloying smell of the place. She hated seeing her poor Anna in the sickbed, her long hair chopped off, her eyes red with tears. But there had been something else that kept Sylvan from Anna. To be honest, the teenager had been too self-obsessed to bother, never realizing what she was missing until it was too late.
“I’m sorry,” Sylvan repeated. “I should have come. I was selfish.”
Anna reached out a hand and uttered three words only: “I forgive you.”
Without hesitation, Sylvan threw herself on the little bed and hugged the beloved grandmother she had lost so long ago. Anna hugged back, and as Sylvan wallowed in the embrace, she remembered everything.
Anna had been the rock in Sylvan’s traumatic childhood. When Sylvan had those debilitating nightmares, it was Anna she ran to. When her father was off on his business trips, Anna vowed he loved her still. And when she got hurt—a bee sting, a cut finger, a skinned knee—Anna always had the cure.
There were good times too, Christmases around the holly tree, shopping trips to town, a symphony, a play, a pottery class. It all came back like a raging river. Sylvan could almost hear the thundering floodwaters.
Suddenly realizing that the sound was real, she pulled back to listen. Anna heard it too. The tortured river was flowing again. closing in upon them.
Sylvan ran to the window and pulled back the curtain. Sure enough, the water was rising, growing from a trickle to a stream. The roar was getting louder as the deluge neared.
“Brie!” Sylvan shouted. “Where is Brie?”
“You left her on the riverbed,” said Anna in that gentle, loving voice. “You forgot her, just as you forgot me. You must not repeat your mistake. Go get her before she is swept away.”
Sylvan’s heart fell. “Will I see you again?”
“Perhaps,” Anna said as she slipped down into the couch. “Perhaps.”
Chapter 12. HIGHER GROUND, coming next Saturday.
Only four chapters to go!
For the complete story up until now, look here.
July 9, 2025
New Grant Program for Community Cats
I was asked to pass this press release along to my cat people by the United Spay Alliance and Feline Fix By Five:
United Spay Alliance launches holistic initiative to strengthen community cat management efforts nationwide, with support from the Summerlee Foundation
Dallas, TX (July 1, 2025) — United Spay Alliance has launched the Summerlee Sustainable Solutions Grant Program, a new national initiative designed to strengthen and expand humane community cat programming across the United States. With generous support from the Summerlee Foundation, the program offers a holistic approach that combines targeted financial support with expert training, mentorship, and practical tools to help organizations build sustainable, high-impact TNR programs.
Applications will be accepted July 1-15, and organizations are encouraged to apply early to secure their spot. To learn more or apply, visit unitedspayalliance.org/summerlee-grants.
This program reflects United Spay Alliance’s mission to increase access to affordable spay/neuter and proactively prevent animal suffering. It offers a unique opportunity for organizations to build capacity, reduce burnout, and enhance long-term impact – all while continuing to serve cats and communities more effectively.
“By combining targeted funding with hands-on education and mentorship, this program has the power to transform how community cat programs operate,” said Brianna Lovell Myers, Executive Director at United Spay Alliance. “It’s an exciting opportunity to help organizations grow while reducing suffering and saving more lives.”
This grant program is made possible through the visionary support of the Summerlee Foundation, a long-time advocate for free-roaming cats and humane population control. The initiative builds on the Foundation’s decades-long Animal Protection Program and is informed by Free-Roaming Cat Management: A Funder’s Guide to Better Impact, a report commissioned by the Summerlee Foundation and released in early 2025, which calls for more strategic, systems-level investment in community cat management.
“We’ve funded community cat efforts for years, but this program reflects what we’ve learned about what it truly takes to create lasting change,” said Mitchell Fox, Director of the Animal Protection Program at the Summerlee Foundation. “By combining funding with support, training, and accountability, we’re helping organizations build not just programs, but sustainable solutions. We hope this approach will inspire other funders to think differently about how they invest in animal welfare.”
Eligible applicants include 501(c)(3) nonprofits, municipal agencies, or those with a fiscal sponsor. Applicants must have an existing or planned community cat program and be willing to participate in both an 8-week certification course and a collaborative learning cohort.
Grant awards will typically range from $4,000–$8,000, tailored to meet each organization’s size, goals, and proposed impact. In addition to funding, grantees will receive a scholarship for a nationally recognized certification program through University of the Pacific-Benerd College, along with peer mentorship, and ongoing technical support.
Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis until July 15, and space is limited.
The Summerlee Foundation is a mission-driven, private charitable foundation based in Texas, dedicated to the well-being of animals and the advancement of historical preservation. Since its founding in 1988, the Foundation has been a leading supporter of humane, science-based approaches to animal welfare, with a particular emphasis on advancing the care and protection of free-roaming and companion animals. By investing in innovative programs, policy change, and capacity-building, the Summerlee Foundation seeks to create a more compassionate and sustainable world for all animals. Learn more at www.summerlee.org.
About United Spay AllianceUnited Spay Alliance (USA) envisions a future where every cat and dog has a loving home. We work to make this a reality by championing affordable, accessible, and timely spay/neuter services. Through proactive prevention, we aim to stop animal suffering before it begins. USA maintains a nationwide directory of low-cost spay/neuter services , fosters collaboration through the State Leader Network, and empowers veterinarians with programs like HQHVSN wet labs and Feline Fix by Five. In 2024, USA launched United We Spay, a monthly podcast sharing inspiring stories from the spay/neuter movement. Learn more at unitedspayalliance.org or follow @UnitedSpayAlliance on Facebook and Instagram.
Brianna Lovell Myers (she/her)Executive Director | United Spay AllianceEmail: brianna@unitedspayalliance.org
Work: (240) 415-8852 | Cell: (301) 592-7132Websites: unitedspayalliance.org | felinefixbyfive.orgPodcast: United We Spay — Inspiring stories from the s/n movement. *** Fix For Life. Because fixing is more than a procedure — it’s a promise.
