Mollie Hunt's Blog, page 78

How to help a writer…

Little things make a lot of difference.

How to help a writer….

SAYING GOODBYE TO LEONARD NIMOY

 

In the dream, we were doing an interview. I recall stark details: the��nap of the plush velvet couch; the glare of hot spotlights; Mr. Nimoy���s smile for the audience, one last time.

This was his final appearance; time to say goodbye.

The photographer snapped a shot of us, still happy, still together, beaming at the camera as if it were a normal day and not the first in half a century that the famous man would be missed from our lives. Then it was over. Forever.

Though Spock never smiled, Mr. Nimoy smiled all the time. He shook my hand and bowed out. I don���t often cry, in dreams or waking, but I cried then, great heaving, tearing sobs that hurt down to my soul. A door had closed, locked, and vanished in a poof of interdimensional stardust. Leonard Nimoy was gone.

When the photo came back, a grainy black and white 11 x 14, I was ecstatic. There we were, smiling, leaning close. Ironically, in the picture, we were both young. The photographer had captured time times two.

��***

At my computer writing this memory, catching the green of spring leaves in my peripheral vision, I despair at saying goodbye. I���ve been lucky; it���s been a while since I���ve had to face that final parting. But I know it���s only a matter of time:��the life-altering moment when the doctor says cancer;��the time-stopping flash as the Sunday drive turns deadly; the unexplainable��shift when the aging heart says it���s had enough.

How will I face that loss? How will I live when my loved ones pass from my world? How will I continue without them?

I know it has to do with one day at a time, with accepting the things I cannot change; with faith in my Higher Power and the friendship of my fellows. It has to do with miracles and belief in them. Not the miracle of an endless life – there is no such thing – but the miracle of moving on. The death of a loved one changes us forever, but we can still celebrate life by living, by being useful, by appreciating the beauty of an unfurling rose, the softness of fur, the power of love until it���s our own time to go.

Will I see Leonard Nimoy in Heaven? Will I see my mother? My cats? Or will I float in the universe as indestructible energy? To me, they are the same. Nothing can be destroyed, only changed.

Goodbye, Mr. Nimoy. and thank you. Whatever it means where you are now, live long and prosper.

TOO MUCH STUFF

 

 

 

 

Too much stuff.

I write while I drive because

too much stuff to do at home.

Too much stuff on the list.

The reading

The hospice visits

The foster cat

Got to start another list.

Too much tedious stuff.

Taxes and bills

Obligations

Doctor appointments

How can I retire?

Too much good stuff.

The art museum

The Architectural Heritage tour

Rhododendron garden this year?

How do I make the time?

Too much stuff.

House full of knickknacks

Collections

Supplies I might need

Stuff in every corner.

Too

Much

Stuff.

Plant the lavender

All before noon.

Blog of beauty: Winter Inventory

I have really enjoyed the photography and original art from this blog so I thought I’d pass it on.

Winter Inventory.

LUX: ONE YEAR LATER

A year ago today I met Lux. Though I knew it was an important meeting, I had no idea at the time how defining that moment would be for me. Not being clairvoyant, I knew nothing of the bonding, the betrayal, the anxiety, heartbreak and ultimate triumph to come. I couldn���t even have imagined it, since nothing in my life had come close to what happened next.

I have described my journey in my detailed 32-part blog and have nothing new to add. Still, it seems important to mark this anniversary, and what better way than with��poor but heartfelt poetry?

Lux

Ghost cat, into my heart.

Eyes, questioning sorrow.

Fur soft as roses

bristles electric.

Is that what happens inside your loving head?

Can I take back?

Take you back?

Would it be the end of us

or another beginning?

That ship has sailed.

You have moved on.

I will see you again.

Soon.

22 Rules of Storytelling

Yes, I know there are more than the usual “10”, but read on anyway – bonus: there are pictures!

22 Rules of Storytelling.

WOOZY the multifunctional hammock/bed for Cats

This looks like a happy cat. And we all need more places for our cats to sleep – right?

WOOZY the multifunctional hammock/bed for Cats.

BOOK GIVE-AWAY, COMMENTS WANTED ��� PLACID RIVER RUNS DEEP, Chapter 1

Thanks to those of you who commented on my previous post regarding which novel you would like to see me publish next. Your opinions are very insightful to me. To help you decide, I thought I’d blog the first chapters of both options for you to read. Here are the prologue and chapter 1 of PLACID RIVER RUNS DEEP, a mystery about a summer retreat gone bad. Anyone who comments gets entered in a raffle for a copy of the winning book. (Please excuse the space between paragraphs. I don’t know how to fix that.)

 

PLACID RIVER RUNS DEEP, by Mollie Hunt

PROLOGUE

 

The doe drank in the sounds of the forest: the drone of a blue bottle; the rustle of juncos in the tall firs; the cry of a raven, far off and hollow as the sky itself. All familiar, all correct. With a snort, she lowered her muzzle to the thick moss and grazed.

Scuffing her tiny hooves through the peat, she moved quietly. The summer air blew cool off the river, ruffling her tawny coat. She was content.

Suddenly the velvet head jerked to attention. Something on the wind wasn���t right. She turned her liquid eyes this way and that, ears straining.

Then the wind changed. The danger smell faded.

The danger smell was gone.

Again, delight took her as she nosed through the ferns and wild violets to get at the choicest stems; again she was swept into a sweet, carnal trance so when her soft lips hit something unexpected, her surprise was acute.

It took only a moment to connect the danger with the thing she touched. Instantly she reared back and sprang away as if her life were in peril.

But it wasn���t.

The man stretched out in the damp peat behind the cedar log couldn���t hurt her.

He was stone cold dead.

 

1975

Roy Terry sat in his prison cell and fumed. It had all happened so fast. One day he was a normal eighteen-year-old with a normal eighteen-year-old���s life and a normal eighteen-year-old���s dreams; the next, incarceration! And for no short time, either. The judge had handed down a heavy sentence on the boy, tried as an adult seeing he was of age, though barely.

A travesty of justice! Roy thought to himself, part of the wailing litany that cycled relentlessly through his mind since he���d been a compulsory guest of the Washington State Penitentiary. I was just saving my ass! Any normal kid in my spot would have done the same thing…

But that was a lie. His crime had been abhorrent, and Roy himself realized he was nowhere near normal. Never had been and probably never would be. His strange dreams and nightmare fancies, his perverse likes and ominous dislikes, his mind-numbing phobias and villainous pleasures; even his vision of the world, which he knew for a fact to be steadfastly against him, were morbidly unique.

This temperament had made it hard for Roy to find friends. To his mind, most of the kids at school were unworthy of his notice. A few showed a rebellious streak, and he had hung around with them for lack of anything better to do, but sooner or later even wildest proved too tame for Roy Terry.

Thought they were so tough, he brooded. Cruising the back roads blasting Grand Funk and drinking their dad���s beer because they didn���t have the guts to buy their own. Throw the cans in the river and pelt ���em with rocks till they sink to the murky bottom. What kind of life is that? Roy mused. Where were the kicks? Where, the sweet rewards?

Terry���s days of cruising and drinking and pelting cans were behind him now. He was well to be done with them, he thought arrogantly, arrogance being one of the few freedoms that Roy Terry still retained.

Roy pictured the sanctimonious faces of those who had put him where he was. They wouldn���t get away with it. When he got out – and he would get out, someday – he would find them. He would seek them one by one if he had to search the world over. He wouldn���t rest until they were sorry.

 

CHAPTER 1

��Ember MacKay paced floor of the small rustic cabin. Every so often she would stop and stare through the open door at the beautiful day she was letting go to waste. She should be outside enjoying the sunshine and fresh country air.

After all, she thought mournfully, who knows how many more chances I���ll have? Next summer I may be too sick to come to the river.

Next summer I may be dead…

Whenever her mind circled back to this terrifying reflection, which it did with the regularity of a heartbeat, she would shake her fine head of mink hair and chastise herself for jumping the gun. The tests wouldn���t be back before next week. She would just have to wait. It was the hardest thing she had ever had to do.

The last ten days had been like something out of a made-for-television docudrama. Up until then, she���d figured the tiredness and vague body aches she���d been experiencing weren���thing to worry about. All in her mind, more than one doctor had suggested. Lack of exercise, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, iron-poor blood and PMS had also been proposed by both the private and professional sectors.

She wasn���t sure why she had decided to consult a hepatologist, but Dr. Connor had taken her complaints seriously. Before she knew it, she was strapped into the plastic arm chair with a vampire in gray scrubs expertly extruding her blood. Within hours they had a diagnosis, a common virus known to create all sorts ambiguous symptoms including that telltale dullness and pain. Finally she had an answer.

Okay, she had said, much relieved to know her distress wasn���t psychosomatic. How do we fix it?

That was when the nightmare began.

���I���m sorry, Ember,��� Dr. Connor replied as sympathetically as he could without skewing the truth. ���At this time there is no cure for hepatitis C. We can treat the symptoms individually but unless the virus clears by itself early on, which yours didn���t, the disease becomes chronic.���

In that moment, Ember���s world did a flip-flop. To live out her days feeling like a sick puppy was something she had never considered. She was only thirty-four; what would the exhaustion, nausea and general malaise be like when she was old and feeble?

No sooner had she begun to absorb the bad news when the doctor continued. ���Your symptoms are only part of the problem, however. Unfortunately this form of hepatitis is the leading cause of liver damage, cirrhosis and liver cancer.���

Oh great! Not only was her illness incurable��� it was going to get worse. Not enough that she would suffer for the rest of her life; now he was saying that her life might not last that much longer.

The hepatologist had ordered a battery of tests including a CT scan and a liver biopsy. This would show the condition of her liver, and if damage had begun, how far it had progressed.

How far gone, in other words. Cirrhosis of the liver had no good outcome. It was either transplant or death. Or both. She���d seen a friend change from an active, vibrant woman to an invalid in less than a year. Horrible pain, suffering and mental confusion that led to an inevitable end. By the time she died, it was a mercy.

And now the same thing might be happening to Ember.

A tinkling bar of Pachelbel���s Canon insinuated itself into her deliberations. Rats! she swore inwardly. I thought I turned that thing off! She was in no mood for phone calls. Getting away from the day-to-day distractions had been the whole point of coming to the cabin. No one at work knew where she was; she had taken great pains to make sure of that. But cell phones trespassed anyplace with willing reception, even the secluded Placid River in lower Washington State.

Placid River – her family���s summer getaway. Ember had been coming since she was a child. Kool-Aid and fried chicken; bright mornings and long, sun-washed afternoons. Swimming in the frigid mountain waters until she came out shivering, then going back in one more time. Those were days of pleasures no more complicated than picking blackberries, catching crawfish, or watching the evening shadows climb the forested hilltops until the sun winked out and the bats began to soar. Her grandmother had taught her to appreciate the Brown Myotis bats. They ate mosquitoes, sometimes more than their body weight in one night. Thus they were friends.

Placid River had been a place of joy for Ember when she was a child, then as she grew older, a place of tranquility. Now it was to be a place of refuge where she could sort out her mind. She had to think. She had to decide. But how could she make life-altering decisions when she was constantly interrupted by phone calls?

The little phone was unsympathetic, enthusiastically blaring its tinny summons. With a sigh, Ember crossed to her purse which lay on the oak rocker and rummaged until she found the offending instrument. Flipping it open, she glanced at the glow-blue readout to see who was cutting in on her private time.

���Hello, Aunt Syl,��� she said into the diminutive set, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.

���Emmy, dear,��� her aunt began, using the nickname Ember had been tagged with when she was a baby. ���How are you feeling?���

���Fine,��� Ember said defensively. ���How are the cats?��� she added in a softer tone.

���Muffy and Little are fine. Harry���s fine too but unhappy that he���s not allowed outside.���

���He���ll get over it. It���s only for a few days. I miss them already. I probably should have brought them with me.���

���Well, maybe next time, though three cats in that little cabin might be pushing it, dear.���

The voice paused, then asked hesitantly, ���Have you heard anything yet?���

���About the biopsy? No, Syl,��� Ember replied flatly. ���The pathology report won���t be back until next week. I thought I told you that.���

Ember tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She loved Aunt Sylvia, her father���s sister – and all the more because both her parents as well as the grandmother who had raised her were gone now – but the elderly woman had very little clue when it came to life in the modern world. Having had no children of her own, she had never quite learned the lesson of live and let live, and was always poking into Ember���s most private affairs, opinions at the ready, whether invited or not.

���You did, dear,��� Syl declared, ���but it just seems like something that important could be sped up a bit. This is the twenty-first century, after all.���

���It���s taking a little longer because of the Fourth of July holiday. Dr. Connor said Tuesday or Wednesday.���

���Well, try not to worry. I���m sure everything will be fine. One of the cousins had a bout with hepatitis some years back. He was quite sick for a while but he made a complete recovery.��� Ember could almost see the forced smile on her aunt���s round face. ���He figured he must have caught it at that Hot Meal in Beaverton, you know – that shoddy little place he used to go to when he was working out there? Needless to say he hasn���t been back since.

���You never ate there, did you?��� she added in sudden alarm.

���This is a different form of hepatitis, Aunt Syl. You don���t get it from poor hygiene. And this type is chronic. That means it never goes away.���

���I know what ���chronic��� means. But Emmy, where could you possibly have picked up such a thing? I thought only…��� Ember���s aunt paused searching for a word less harsh than drug addict or degenerate. ���…only reckless people contracted diseases like that.���

Ember didn���t answer; she had no idea where her Hep C had originated. Dr. Connor had asked her all the usual questions for a blood-borne virus: Had she used intravenous drugs? Had she had a transfusion? Was she in the health-care profession, where the possibility of exposure to contaminated medical equipment is high? She had said no to them all. A statistically less likely source was sexual promiscuity, but Ember, though no saint, had been far too busy in college to mess around much, and after a short and not-so-sweet failed marriage, she had steered clear of relationships, turning her energy toward her job instead. She loved being a journalist for the Oregonian, Portland���s daily newspaper, so her lack of a social life hadn���t seemed much of a hardship.

It had been difficult to recall her exact actions ten to fifteen years previous – the amount of time Dr. Connor figured she had been carrying the virus – but for a while when she was going to Portland State, she had lived in a group house. The bathrooms were communal and disorganized to say the least. She supposed someone could have grabbed her razor by mistake. A toothbrush? Yuck! but it could have happened. Or a nail file, a sewing needle, a pair of cuticle scissors, a pen knife – anything that could have drawn blood, first from the carrier and then from her. Ember couldn���t imagine any of those vibrant young ladies doing anything reckless, as Aunt Sly put it, but you never knew.

Ember���s little phone gave out a loud warning beep. Ember pulled it away from her ear and checked the screen.

���Oh-oh,��� she said when she saw her battery icon registering zero.

���Emmy? Are you still there?���

���I���m here, but my phone���s about to die. Let me call you back when I get it recharged.���

The obnoxious blast sounded again.

���Okay, dear. Just remember I���m here for you. And don���t spend this beautiful day worrying. Worry isn���t going to solve anything. Call me when you can. I love you.���

���I love you too, Aunt Syl. I���ll call. Bye.���

Ember flipped the dying phone closed and dug in her bag for the charger. When she didn���t find it and suddenly visualized the thin two-headed cord lying on the kitchen table at home – where it obviously still remained – she was surprised how little she cared. Actually she liked the idea of being incommunicado for the next few days. No more unexpected disruptions and no more compulsion to check in with the doctor���s office one more time!

Still, it had been nice to talk with Aunt Syl. And her aunt was right about one thing: worry was futile. What will be, will be. She would find out soon enough what the remainder of her life held for her. Whether she would live or die; be healthy or an invalid. Whether she was going to have the bright and fulfilling future she had been working toward, or be adding her name to the liver transplant list.

As she stuffed her phone back in her bag, she caught her reflection in the full length mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door. Though she had past the dreaded thirty-mark, she had managed to keep the same weight she was in college. The proportions may have shifted a little with gravity, but she was still lovely. Five-foot-six and curvaceous, she struck an imposing figure when she put her mind to it. She didn���t look sick – maybe a little tired around the eyes. She peered closer. There was none of that tell-tale yellow tinge detracting from the azure blue, but with Hep C, the symptoms of liver failure were often hard to define.

Until it was too late, that is.

With a brutal sigh, Ember tore her eyes from the deceitful image. She picked up a nubby sweater and dove for the door. She was going out for a nice healthy walk in the woods, even if it killed her!

Bounding down the plank steps into the soft grass, a late-afternoon sunbeam fell across her face, momentarily blinding her with its warm brilliance. It felt good. Suddenly she knew she was lucky to be there.

Because after all, next summer I may be too sick… the voice in her head began all over again.

 

BOOK GIVE-AWAY, COMMENTS WANTED – CAT SUMMER, Chapter 1

Thanks to those of you who commented on my previous post regarding which novel you would like to see me publish next. Your opinions are very insightful to me. To help you decide, I thought I’d blog the first chapters of both options for you to read. Here is chapter 1 of CAT SUMMER, a sci-fantasy fiction where cats save the world. Anyone who comments gets entered in a raffle for a copy of the winning book. (Please excuse the space between paragraphs. I don’t know how to fix that.)

 

 

CAT SUMMER, by Mollie Hunt

Chapter 1

The room was dark when Lise woke. For a moment, she was still in her dreams. The swirling not-quite-there impressions seeped over from the other side. Their content was with her, just out of reach, behind a wind-blown blanket of night.

Rolling fields with a stage-prop sky. No dimensions, flat, matte black, like a backdrop for a play.

A wind passing through dry grass with the sound of insect wings.

A soft, black presence, oozing across the scene like oil, leaving adoration and terror in its wake.

But it was nothing.

Sitting up in bed, Lise shook off her sleep-filled wanderings. Her mind was clear now, completely cognizant. She felt strong and alive, free from daytime distraction and acutely aware of things she would ordinarily have let pass by.

She sighed, inhaling the clear summer breeze that floated in through the open window. Sleep was out of the question. Tossing off the quilt, she got out of bed. Her feet touched the silky carpet near where her slippers lay, but she ignored them. The night was warm; her body was comfortable just the way it was.

For some reason, she did not find it strange to walk naked from the room. She was alone in the big house; no one to see. But these thoughts never entered her mind. Her bathrobe remained at the foot of the bed, forgotten.

Lise paused at the open window, feeling the air brush across her body, smelling it as if it held clues, hints and secrets of the hidden universe outside. She breathed deeply, allowing the delicious, life-giving vapor fill her lungs. Things were going on out there in the wide, night world; she could feel it on the tip of her tongue.

Didn’t snakes sense with their tongues? she considered briefly. And cats and dogs had a special gland for scent. People got the short end of the stick when it came to smell.

It was a passing contemplation and it slipped away unresolved, leaving Lise staring, quiet-minded, down at the garden below. In the moonlight, she could pick out the luminescent spikes of Oriental lilies against the shadowed garage and the tiny pinpoints of daisies in the edging. It was one of those rare and glorious nights when everything was perfect: temperature, texture, even the silent sky with its occasional sparkling planet. All this called to her soul; she knew she had to go out in it.

Down the narrow staircase she skipped, feeling lean and light as a thistle seed. This seemed totally natural though somewhere in the back of her mind lurked the vague remembrance of heaviness and discomfort, anxiety and tension, all the misery standard in the human machine. But that was another place and time; this was the real girl, the soul inside the trap of humanity, strong, quick, and blissfully unafraid.

The living room was veiled in darkness as she opened the paneled hall door, but in spite of the murk, she could see. Of course, it was her house – she had designed it, arranged it, maintained it. She could have navigated it with her eyes closed. But whether it was the moonlight falling in glimmering shafts from the high, narrow windows or something more elusive, there was no need. Objects stood out bright as crystal, radiating in sparkling white. This was not light as Lise knew it��� the clear, harsh rays that blaze down from outside��� but something more subtle. An inner glow, as if each article had a light of its own.

Without giving this phenomenon a second thought, Lise started toward the back door but paused as she realized she was not alone. On the overstuffed couch, wedged in between the cabbage rose throw pillows, sat Percy, a round-bodied black and white tuxedo cat whose ice-green eyes and luxuriant fur spoke of his roots in the forests of Norway. The elderly feline liked that place and often slept there when he was not on the prowl. Finding him like that was nothing new.

But on the carpet nearby stood someone else, a great orange tabby Lise had never seen before. He stalked toward her and halted at her feet, peering up. His eyes were like yellow lamp globes quizzing her innermost soul.

���Who are you?” Lise asked as she bent down to pet the stranger.

���I am Evermore Artair Eckx,” the tabby replied. He rubbed his blunt head briefly against Lise’s proffered hand, then retreating to arm���s length, just out of reach. ���But you can call me Tom.” That stated, he plopped down on the floor with a thud and busily chased an itch on his flank.

Lise was aghast; she had heard him speak as clearly as anyone. But that could not be- cats don’t talk!

At least they had never talked to her before.

���What did you say?” she uttered in amazement.

Tom just looked back at her, blinking innocently.

Lise turned her questioning eyes on her own companion, Percy, but he was no longer watching her. Utterly the opposite��� he seemed to be napping.

She must have been mistaken. Both animals were thoroughly cat-like now. What did she expect, wandering around in the middle of the night when she should have been safe in bed?

���Okay, kitties,” she said for her own satisfaction. ���If you’re going to ignore me, I’m leaving.” The chirp of crickets was irresistibly calling her outside. Once again, she started for the back door, then turned. ���And I think you should come too,” she said to the tabby stranger. ���You don’t live here, you know.”

���Soon. Soon,” the orange cat purred back, and she could swear she saw him wink.

This time there was no doubt in her mind that he had spoken. Both animals were staring at Lise with an intensity that could bore through walls.

���What’s going on? What’s with you?” she asked, rather too loudly, as if the sound of her own voice could exorcize whatever demons were creating this hallucinatory chat. It must have worked, because again the felines were silent as space.

Finally Tom rose and stretched, first his front legs, then his back, one at a time. Lise recognized the familiar cat-aerobic: it was what cats did before they went away.

Suddenly Lise had a horrible, sinking feeling, as if she were letting something very important pass her by.

���Wait, kitty!” she called, running to the kitchen for the little tin of treats. She shook the can, rattling the hard bits inside. The tactic worked and before she knew it, both cats were at her feet.

Percy meowed his request; Tom was quiet although eager for the goodies. Lise tipped the can onto the floor and received purrs of appreciation. She knelt and stroked them as they ate. The warmth of their fur was comforting, and the strange feeling of loss began to ebb.

���Is that good?” she cooed.

���Yes, very,” and ���Thank you so much,” came the polite responses.

���You’re welcome,” she began, then caught herself. ���Hey, wait a minute!”

But the cats��� attentions were elsewhere. They spoke to each other now, sometimes in throaty mews and murmurs, and sometimes Lise could swear they used human words. Either way, she seemed to be able to understand everything they said.

���So what do you think?” Percy was posing.

���Good eats,” Tom answered, chowing down a few more morsels.

���I mean about her,” Percy insisted. ���I have come to believe she is the one.”

���Of course you would feel that way��� she���s your person. We of the Higher Order often develop strong feelings for our cohabitors. To treat them without a modicum of devotion would be rude. But you could be mistaken. Or possibly just a bit… predisposed?���

���I don’t think so,” Percy denied. ���I have been watching her for some time now. She is perfect.”

���Too big,” Tom said to Percy. ���And too clumsy. She will never make her way in our World. Why, I bet she can’t even catch a mouse.” Having made sure the food was all gone, he stalked away, tail slashing back and forth, slicing the air.

���She will learn,” Percy argued. ���She���s smart. And if her resolve is strong, the size can adjust.”

���What if her resolve isn���t strong enough? We only have one chance. What if she quits or fails half way through? We have to know if she can complete the task.”

Percy moved to join the tabby. They sat like mirrored statues, scrutinizing the girl.

Lise’s mind was flying. The pair had spoken like people, but even though she was looking right at them, she could not see their sly cat lips move, could not detect any sign that they used their mouths to create the sounds she heard. Was it telepathy? Intuition? Her own personal hallucination?

And what were they talking about? Size and strength and tasks to be fulfilled? It sounded like something out of a fairy tale. What could it mean?

���Unless we���re sure, we should wait,” Tom declared. ���Wait till the next Tri-Night. We can���t risk taking a gamble on this furless hulk.”

���Hey!” Lise protested but her objection was ignored.

���If we wait, we will remain bonded to Seh. How many of us will suffer, even die the final death and cross Beyond at the hands of its minions? I don’t know about you, but that prospect definitely has its down side.”

Tom was silent.

���Besides,” Percy went on, ���what if Seh fulfills the prophecy? Then we will be ensnared forever.”

Tom frowned. ���But can she do it?” he finally asked with quiet coldness.

���She is here,” Percy replied cryptically. ���Isn’t that enough?”

Lise stood rigid as a tree. Her mind was clicking off reasons why this could not be happening, but in her heart, she knew it was real. Her sanity told her to flee but she could not; she was too curious. Curiosity? A feline addiction. As much as she wanted to run right back up to bed and wake the next morning knowing it was all a dream, something non-human was at work here. She was already hooked.

���Who’s Seh?” she put to the pair.

Percy turned his head toward Evermore Tom and squeezed his eyes in a cat smile. ���See? She is already taking interest.���

Tom refused to commit himself on the matter.

Through the open window came the far-off whistle of a train. Tom’s soft, marmalade ears swiveled like radar scopes.

���We do not have much time, Parsifal. This is the Commencement of Tri-Night and the hours are short.”

���Yes, we must go.” Percy got to his four feet and came over to Lise. ���You must be brave, cohabitor. We are depending on you.” That said, he sauntered to the cat door under the sink with his usual leisurely swagger, giving only a momentary glance toward his food bowl on the mat by the stove. Tom followed, tail raised like a banner. As he was about to nose his way through the plastic flap, he turned and skewered Lise with his golden gaze.

���Are you coming, person?” he asked.

���Coming?”

The cat pranced on light feet. ���The way has been cleared and all is in order.”

���But,” Lise sputtered. ���Where? How?”

The big cat disappeared through the door. ���Just listen,” she heard him call back, ���and follow.”

Listen? she mused. Listen to what? But in spite of her doubts and better judgment, she tuned her ears and tried.

At first all she heard was the hum of the city��� the distant crash of garbage trucks; the passing of an occasional car��� but soon she began to pick out other noises��� the flutter of moth wings; the rasp of a wood-boring beetle in the old stump by the gate; the yowl of a stray cat.

Then another.

And another.

The meowing chorus crescendoed into a wild cry that called to Lise���s pagan soul.

Taking a deep breath, she dropped to all fours as effortlessly as if she were born to it. She gave a guttural, inhuman yowl and without further reflection, followed through the cat door and out into the living night.

 

HELP ME DECIDE WHAT TO PUBLISH NEXT

I am in a quandary. Since I���ve had so much fun publishing my Crazy Cat Lady cozy mystery series, I would like to step back in time and publish��one of my yet-to-be-discovered books. I have 2 in mind, but can���t decide between them. I hope��you can help.

 

CAT SUMMER is one of a science-fantasy fiction tetralogy where cats save the world. Twice!

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Lise has a special destiny: to help a clowder of sentient cats save the world from an evil older than history, itself. It is a terrible battle but Lise and her comrades prevail, putting an end to war, poverty, ignorance and want. The world is a better place.

���������������������������� Or is it?

���������������������������� A century later, it���s become clear that something has been lost. The new civilization produces no artists, no musicians, no scientists, no philosophers. Instead of peace, inertia has taken hold. Lise, now at the end of her life, must join her cat-friends once more to restore the Spark of the Human Spirit, but the goal cannot be reached without hard sacrifice.

 

PLACID RIVER RUNS DEEP is another mystery. No cats though.

When Ember MacKay learns she has a life-threatening illness, she runs away to the old family cabin on the bucolic Placid River, but instead of solace, she finds mayhem, murder, and a revenge plot that spans the generations.

���������������������������� Grayson Tanner hasn���t seen Ember since they were kids but he knows about hepatitis C, the chronic disease responsible for thousands of deaths each year. He is sympathetic to Ember���s plight, but when three members of the close-knit Placid River community are murdered, the pair put personal concerns aside to collaborate on finding a��motive. Their discovery is so unthinkable they pass it off as pure fancy until Gray realizes Ember��may be��next to die.

 

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Please comment and I promise to answer. I would appreciate your thoughts. Commenters will be entered into a contest to win whichever book gets published.