Aimee Easterling's Blog, page 21

A huge thank you to my awesome beta readers

My crew of hard-working helpers seems to grow larger with every book I publish…and that’s a good thing! Rather than being redundant, I’ll send you back to my acknowledgments for the first book in the series for general thanks. The short version: my cover artist, editor, husband, father, and early readers continue to be the rising tide that floats my boat. (Look, I can mix metaphors on the blog and my editor can’t stop me!)

So what’s new? Three kind readers emailed to ask if they could beta read the second book in my Alpha Underground series, and after some soul-searching I decided to give it a try. I wasn’t a very nice author to beta read for, though. I didn’t write a finished book, send it to the copy editor, then pass the polished manuscript on to my volunteer crew. Instead, I self-edited as I went and sent a quarter at a time their way…ending each installment on a cliffhanger, of course. So each beta reader was forced to read a buggy novel over the course of two months — a recipe for disaster!

Despite the unfriendly format, my beta readers really came through. Two pointed out a problematic pizza parlor scene in which three things were happening at once. (I eventually managed to smooth it down to two.) There were house layout problems, wardrobe problems, and general flow problems. Overall, the book ended up in much better shape due to their hard work and keen eyes.

Which is all a long way of saying — thank you so much, Jen Thuline, Chuck Aylworth, and Sean Cleary for going dramatically above and beyond the call of duty! I hope you’ll give yourselves a pat on the back and a virtual gold star. It was a pleasure working with you.

Lone Wolf Dawn, chapter 1

Lone Wolf Dawn is coming to Amazon very soon. While you wait, here’s the first chapter to pique your interest.

But first, a warning: Reading this chapter will totally spoil book 1 in the series. So if you haven’t read Half Wolf yet, hurry up! Then come back here once you’re done.

***

L is for love.

And for laughable, lost, and—ultimately—lonely.

Twelve years ago, I said the L word one last time…and was promptly tossed to the curb for my efforts. After learning that lesson the hard way, I definitely wasn’t planning to backslide into stupidity anytime soon.

Not even when my mate looked at me with those penetrating amber eyes and murmured: “We make a good team.” Then ignored the fact that we were stalking prey and instead leaned forward as if for a kiss.

I certainly didn’t mind Hunter’s kisses. But something about the set of his shoulders suggested he was looking for more than simple physical pleasure this time around.

Darn Hunter anyway for his overwhelming cuteness, for his thoughtfulness, and for the way he gently but constantly begged me to reciprocate his affections.

The uber-alpha had named himself my mate a month earlier and had since waited on me hand and foot as I recovered from a gunshot wound. He’d been the rock I clung to as I dealt with losing both my small band of shifters and the alpha mantle that had allowed me to lead said pack in the first place.

The charmer had even brought home a wicked set of throwing knives to cheer me up in lieu of flowers. How sweet was that?

Still, there was no reason to descend into mushland. We were mates—we worked together and we played together. Why risk everything with words neither of us actually meant?

So, instead of giving in to my companion’s silent request, I deflected the discussion back onto the hulking warehouse in front of us. “A puppy mill for werewolves. Who exactly thought this was a good idea?”

Once again, Hunter accepted my diversion with only a faint sigh before his lips curled upward into an answering smile. “I assume the human has no clue what he’s gotten himself into.”

Something about Hunter’s tone suggested he wasn’t merely referring to the fact that the cuddly puppies inside the nearby warehouse would abruptly change into human form fourteen years after being sold to unsuspecting new pet owners. Instead, as my companion’s glance flicked to the knife I was absently tossing up into the air and then catching repeatedly, I couldn’t resist grinning in reply.

Hunter was right—the law-breaking human had no idea what he’d gotten himself into.

“Now?” I asked, glancing down at my watch. The puppy-mill owner had been inside for a good ten minutes already and he rarely waited around after feeding time ended. If we wanted to catch our prey as he emerged from the front door, then Hunter and I needed to stop canoodling and start moving into place.

“Sure,” my mate answered, already stripping out of his clothes and stashing them in the brush where we’d been hiding. After dealing with several minor and not-so-minor criminals together, we’d gotten our partnership down to a science. Hunter went in as a wolf, intimidating shifters with his sheer alpha dominance or scaring humans shitless with the size of his tremendous fangs. I stayed human and used my best weapons—words first, edged blades second.

We hadn’t lost a scuffle yet.

Of course, the current job was a little trickier. The puppy-mill owner was a one-body—human only—and thus couldn’t be made aware of Hunter’s and my dual nature. Plus, the security cameras over the door threatened to bust our world wide open if they caught a shift on tape.

Still, I wasn’t worried. Two werewolves against one weak human? The one-body’s chances were laughable.

Well, I wasn’t worried until I caught the reek of urine, feces, and unwashed mutt oozing out through the cracks between sheet-metal walls. Three werewolf pups, my inner wolf informed me, using our shared nostrils to gather sensory data that my human brain wouldn’t have been able to decipher on its own. And dozens of dogs.

I didn’t bother passing the information along to Hunter. My mate’s growl proved that he was well aware of the contents of the metal building.

Aware and thoroughly displeased about the matter. The wolf pups were bloodlings, born in wolf rather than human form and often cast out of their clans as a result. But even though they looked like animals, the puppies possessed two-legger brains within those four-legger bodies.

Hunter knew very well what that scenario felt like since he’d begun life as a bloodling himself.

The two of us were now crouched behind a row of shrubs on the left side of the front door, and I took advantage of being out of camera range to drop a hand onto Hunter’s head in a silent show of solidarity. But there was no time to soothe my mate further because heavy footsteps quickly approached the opposite side of the metal barrier. With a screech, the garage-type door rolled upward and our opponent came into view between the leaves that shielded our faces.

The owner looked like an ordinary, middle-aged guy with a receding hairline, slight paunch, and unshaven jawline. But my wolf snarled within my belly as we took in his odor. It was subtly off, reeking of greed and sadistic pleasure with just a hint of madness swirling deep down underneath.

So I didn’t hesitate to pull my second knife out of its boot sheath and step up behind our mark. Then I crossed both blades over the human’s Adam’s apple and pulled in so tightly that they indented the skin.

“Not so fast,” I whisper-growled as the man tried to jerk free.

My inner wolf begged me to let the sharp edges bite deeper, to draw a little blood. But I shushed her and merely shoved the human back through the doorway he’d been about to draw closed.

“It’s time for us to have a little chat,” I informed him.

***

The interior of the warehouse was in an even more disreputable state than I’d initially imagined. The building was small and windowless, with barely enough space for me to walk between two rows of cages. And the stench now that we’d entered was overwhelming. I actually had to ask my wolf to turn off our nose for a moment to prevent myself from gagging.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

An emaciated female dog hovered against the back wall of one cage, her lip curling upwards into a snarl as she strove to protect her litter. Above her head, a frightened puppy released his bladder. Liquid splattered down to land on offspring and mother alike.

There were dogs everywhere. Half a dozen crammed into a cage too small to house a single beast. Others with matted fur and open sores where animals had been left to fight over the bare minimum daily ration.

The air filled with coughs every bit as loud as the growls and barks. And then there were the eyes. Dark, begging eyes. Liquid, terrified eyes. Crusted, infected eyes.

Amber, sparkling eyes so much like my mate’s that I gasped and released the proprietor before I realized what I was doing. I only came to myself when the first bloodling pup licked my hand, his tiny teeth following up with a bite to my thumb. Pay attention, he seemed to be saying. Your job here isn’t done quite yet.

I rose from my knees with murder on my mind. The puppy-mill owner was standing in one corner, a large, adult wolf growling in front of him as Hunter made up for my lapse by keeping the offender in line. “This is private property…” the human began.

“This,” I said, waving my hands to encompass the two rows of reeking cages, “is a travesty. You’re breaking so many laws you could spend the rest of your life in prison.”

I expected the man to cower in the face of Hunter’s teeth even if my rage made little impact. But, instead, he smirked. “And who are you to pass judgment?” he demanded.

“We’re with the…” I paused, trying to remember the name of the human organization that dealt with puppy mills. “We’re with the, um, AARP?”

I closed my eyes for a split second in frustration. I hated that my sentence had risen at the end into a question, our cover story abruptly forgotten in the face of the bloodlings’ eyes.

Worse, the puppy-mill owner laughed at me. “I think you mean the ASPCA,” he offered, side-stepping Hunter as if he knew my companion possessed a human intellect within that lupine body and wouldn’t lunge forward instinctively the way a real wolf might.

“But you aren’t really affiliated with any organization at all, are you?” the man purred, stepping into my personal space and forcing me to backpedal until my spine settled against the metal bars of the closest cages. “You have secrets of your own to keep and you can’t afford to harm a human, hmm?”

I gasped, shaking my head in negation. This money-grubbing two-legger couldn’t really know that he was trafficking in werewolves, could he? Hunter’s job as Tribunal enforcer had set us on the one-body’s trail, but the rules were clear—we couldn’t out shifter-kind to the larger human world and we didn’t have the authority to punish a human the way we might want to.

But if the human already knew about werewolves? That was a gray area I didn’t know how to navigate.

Hunter, apparently, lacked my scruples. Despite the security cameras I’d seen in each corner of the room, he shifted without warning and strode toward my assailant two-legged. “Stay away from my mate,” he growled, an unconscious alpha compulsion turning his words into daggers of command.

Of course, alpha compulsions only worked on werewolves. Still, the human’s eyes widened with the first faint inkling of fear as he took in Hunter’s massive, muscular, form. “Shit,” he muttered. “I didn’t think they were really real.”

Then, slowly, the one-body’s brain caught up with his eyes and his scent morphed into the terror I’d expected from the get-go. But the puppy-mill owner still tried to tough his way out of what he must have realized was an increasingly hairy situation.

No pun intended. Okay, maybe I did intend that pun just a little bit after all.

“You know more than you should know,” Hunter whispered into the man’s ear, his words so deep they resonated in my belly. Even when he’d fought by my side against serial-killing shifters, I’d never heard the uber-alpha sound quite so wolf-like.

In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure his human brain was involved in determining his current actions at all anymore. So I set one hand on Hunter’s bare forearm in hopes a simple touch would prevent my mate from doing something he’d later regret.

Amber eyes the exact same shade as those of the caged bloodling puppies flicked over to meet mine before darting away. The tiniest dimple formed on Hunter’s right cheek and I released my pent-up breath. No, my mate was still in there. He was just doing his job—making sure this puppy-mill owner didn’t turn into a repeat offender.

“Human law believes in three strikes you’re out,” my mate continued, his voice becoming even quieter as he leaned in closer. On the final word, his teeth snapped together a millimeter away from the puppy-mill owner’s ear and, to my satisfaction, the man jerked away as if he’d been struck. The human wasn’t so brave after all.

Smirking, Hunter finished his train of thought more loudly. “Our law believes in one strike you’re dead.”

The bloodling paused to let his words sink in. Then he stepped back, releasing the human from his over-powering presence. Abruptly, Hunter became the epitome of a cordial—if naked—businessman sealing a deal, and immediately the human’s tension eased.

“We’re taking the puppies, plus your records about any other ‘dogs’ you’ve rehomed. Then we’re burning the building,” my mate continued, his light tone suggesting that he was talking about baking cookies rather than planning arson. “In the future, I’ll be checking up on you at intervals. If you even think about bringing home a goldfish, you’re out of the realm of human law and into the realm of our law. Do you understand?”

The puppy-mill owner gulped, then nodded. Hunter clearly had everything under control, so I took advantage of our opponent’s stunned silence to snatch the cage-keys out of his hands and head toward the kennel that housed the bloodling pups. We’d save all of the residents of this reeking shed, of course, but the shifters came first.

Especially the biggest male with the dash of white fur on his forehead who had nibbled on my fingers a moment earlier. I’d bonded with him instantly and was already starting to call him by a pet name within my mind—Star.

But to my surprise, the bloodling in question bared his tiny teeth when I reached forward to pull him out. Only when Star began nudging his weaker companions toward the front of the cage did I realize that he wasn’t resisting my advances. He was merely making sure his less able cage mates were rescued first.

And wasn’t that all werewolf?

Shooting one last glance toward the one-body who considered shifters and dogs alike unworthy of his compassion, I once again thanked my lucky stars that I’d been abandoned by my parents. After all, I’d lost that easy familial love at a far too tender age but had gained something unimaginably more valuable in the process.

Despite my half-human heritage, I’d enjoyed the distinct advantage of being raised by wolves.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Alpha Ascendant is now wide!

Those of you who have been waiting to finish up my Wolf Rampant series on your nook, ipad, etc., will be pleased to know that Alpha Ascendant has finally dropped out of its Amazon Select period and is now available everywhere ebooks are sold.

Not sure if you want to make the leap? Here are a few reviews to pique your interest:

“The best book in the series”

“Heart-pounding suspense, true love and affection (no graphic sex), family conflicts, … just about everything you could ask for”

“I read this in a single night”

And here are the buy links:

 

And now to ask you for a huge favor…. Are you one of my super-readers who picked up Alpha Ascendant already and left a review on Amazon? If so, you would make my day if you copied and pasted that review onto any or all of the retailers above. Please don’t create new accounts if you don’t already have one, and if you’ve only got time for one or two retailers my best sellers (beyond Amazon) appear to be Nook and Apple. No matter how much or how little you’re able to do, I sincerely appreciate it!

Werewolf genetics

One of my readers ended up scratching his head over werewolf dominance in my Alpha Underground series. And while I don’t want to add an infodump within the book (since, let’s face it, 95% of readers don’t care why Hunter is so dominant as long as he is), I figured I’d share my answer here for anyone who wants to delve in deeper.

The astute reader of Shiftless will recall that werewolfism itself is a dominant, X-linked trait. That’s part of why halfies give the patriarchal culture shivers — a male child of a female halfie has a 50/50 chance of being a normal werewolf…or of being entirely human. Not a good deal if, like Chief Wilder, you were hoping your wife would spit out a male heir who could carry on the family name.

While halfies are relatively easy to understand if you’re fond of punnet squares, the factors that decide a werewolf’s alpha stature aren’t quite so simple. There’s an element of genetics to it, but also a bit of epigenetics and some plain old environmental effects (aka nurture instead of nature). Bloodlings are more likely to be alphas because they spent their childhood in lupine form, and alpha shifters do tend to be more connected to their wolves. Males are more likely to be alphas because testosterone works into the equation, and so does being raised to be bold rather than submissive.

That said, there’s also an element of chance in the equation. You know how some families have a blond mother, father, sister, and brother…then one last kid who’s raven-locked? No, he’s not necessarily the milk man’s son. Genes are complicated things, and sometimes strange combinations or mutations pop up and create the unexpected.

So while my reader thought that the 75%-human heritage of someone like Hunter should water down the bloodling half of his nature and create a more mild form of alpha dominance, you can probably gather by now that the uber-alpha in question is 100% shifter genetically (having inherited the dominant werewolfism gene from his halfie mother — see punnet square above).

But he’s not a plain old werewolf, even by bloodling standards. Instead, hybrid vigor is also coming into play. (If you don’t remember that term from Bio 101, I’ll wait while you look it up.) For an example within my Wolf Rampant world, do you remember that oddly powerful halfie from Feint of Heart (one of the episodes in the Bloodling Serial)? She got dealt some lucky cards in the way her human and werewolf genes aligned, so she ended up more powerful than both parents combined. Not necessarily more dominant…but as Hunter shows, that can happen as well.

And then there’s the semi-magical element that I don’t want to ruin if you haven’t read Alpha Ascendant. Plus the fact that alpha dominance is something you can nurture just like you can rewire your brain with cognitive-behavioral therapy (more relevant to Fen’s own adventures).

But I probably already lost most of you at epigenetics, so I won’t ramble on further. Still, if you were grumping at your kindle and trying to understand why Hunter is an uber-alpha instead of a milksop, perhaps this post will make the complications of werewolf dominance a little more palatable. Thanks for reading!

(Yes, I was a very geeky biology major in college. Why do you ask?)

Salamander in the Basement, part 6

If you missed the beginning of the story, just follow the links for parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

I told Mom that the ex-leprechaun was a friend from college come to visit for the day, and such was her opinion of my college friends that she accepted the tale without question. The two of us spent all morning and afternoon in the woods, wading through mud puddles and peering at cardinals and mushrooms.

Perhaps it was my imagination, but I could feel a shadow trailing us just beyond the scope of my vision. It came no closer, though, and the leprechaun was safe with me.

We parted at dusk at the basement door, he on the inside, I on the outside. At the end, we were oddly formal despite a day of fun and games.

“Thank you for saving me,” I said, and on impulse I gave the dwarf my hand.

“Thank you for the day above ground,” he replied and raised my hand delicately to his lips.

From the earthworms falling out of his hair previously, I would have expected to be repelled by the gesture. But, instead, a shiver of excitement trilled through my body not much different from the one I got when I caught sight of the first returning waterthrush of the year. It was excitement, it was anticipation, it was the cusp of change.

Then the ex-leprechaun grinned at me impishly and I grinned back, already cobbling together my story for the Goodwill clerks in the morning. Because there was one part of this vacation that had gone entirely wrong. I hadn’t meant to put L’Morte D’Arthur in with the other books, I’d tell the storekeepers. It had just tumbled in there by mistake.

If worst came to worst, I supposed I could always buy the book back.

I hope you enjoyed this flight of fancy! Want more fun world-building with a light side of romance? Then check out some of my novels. Thanks for reading.

Salamander in the Basement, part 5

If you missed the beginning of the story, just follow the links for parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

And work I did. All that long morning and even longer afternoon, I worked up a sweat, running up and down the slope from basement to car with Goodwill boxes in my arms, or to the house for trash bags. Mom looked on with worried eyes, but I paid her little heed—there was no time for it. I was beginning to realize what my rash words had wrought.

Even the one-block drive to the Goodwill was becoming increasingly difficult as the salamander slowly drew me closer and closer into his heart. If I didn’t finish soon, I realized, I might not even be able to leave the dank basement and retreat to the house above for the night.

I was haunted by the vision of the little man standing in shadows by the open doorway. He hadn’t been looking at me, had he? He’d been peering out into the green world, but had been unable to put so much as a finger in the sunlight. I shivered and worked harder.

At supper time, I could hardly hold my head up long enough to chew, and I fell into bed dreaming of the two-thirds of the basement still untouched. I woke after a scant three hours and returned to my lair, where the dim bulb now seemed a welcome beacon against the night.

I sorted for a while, but I knew I had no chance. What did the ex-leprechaun want from me?, I wondered. My sight? A year of my life? At this point, I was willing to trade either to be released from his lair.

I found that I had crept back up under the eaves and was peering down at the salamander. It was a beautiful beast, though terrible—awful in the original sense of the word, perhaps.

The mythologists had gotten it wrong, of course. Salamanders were not beasts of fire. Any naturalist could tell you that salamanders are denizens of damp earth. This one curled around itself in sleep, its glistening black hide spotted with silver and blue specks shining in the light of the overhead bulb. I guessed it to be twice as long as I in total length, and I marveled that none of us had noticed the monster before.

But I suppose we wouldn’t, I mused, unless the salamander wished it.

For a moment only, I considered slaying the beast. How thick could salamander hide be? But the monster had no need even to open an eye in its defense—I knew I wouldn’t make an attempt. After a lifetime spent protecting plants and animals, I had finally found a species new to science. For all I knew, this salamander was the only one of its kind left in the entire world. Killing the beast would be as bad as cutting down the tropical rain forests for toilet paper.

Instead, I knelt down and placed a hand on its shoulder, feeling the sluggish beat of its heart. I was helpless to fight the monster.

“I’ll never get out of this mess,” I whispered. “I wish…”

“Don’t, lassie.”

I shot up, but not so fast that I forgot to keep my head bowed away from the floorboards above. The ex-leprechaun was perched on a pile of winter clothes this time around and he looked a bit tousled as if recently roused from slumber. His words confirmed my surmise.

“I might have known I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep tonight,” he complained, and I noticed an earthworm or two dropping out of his hair as if he hadn’t quite decided what appearance he meant to wear. “Are you ready to accept my offer?”

I caught myself an instant before nodding mutely. “Maybe I will, if the price isn’t too high. I’ll ask you again—what do you want from me?”

“Well now, that’s not an easy matter,” answered the dwarf, back in his element and cheerful now. “There’s not much you have that I want, now is there? No husband, no child, no pet even. Plenty of student loans and no assets. I could take your knowledge.”

His eyes gleamed, but my glare was enough to head him off that particular topic. “Though what I’d do with it down here I have no idea. Ah, I know!” It was obvious that the idea was no epiphany but one he’d thought out days in advance. “You can give me a day in the outside world.”

“You mean take my memory?” I squirmed uncomfortably at the thought, desperate enough nonetheless that I was at least considering the idea.

But he only laughed at me. “Your memory? You read too many fantasy stories. No, all I want is your escort in the world above.”

“For a day?”

“For a day.”

I must have looked confused because he condescended to explain. “I’ve got deep-earth magics, you’ve got magic of the sunlight. I don’t dare go out there,” he pointed through the wall, “for fear of being eaten alive and spat back out. But with you around, I’d be safe, especially if you foiled the salamander for long enough to let me escape without it noticing. It’d be no skin off your teeth. Just a day of your time.”

“And for that you’d get me free of this?” I couldn’t believe my ears. There had to be a catch.

“Simple as that.”

“You clean the basement with magic and I take you outside for a day?”

“Yes, yes, and yes again!” I could tell that he was getting annoyed with my persistence. “Do you want it in writing?”

I did, but I also didn’t want to push him too far. So we shook on it instead.

“Do I get to watch?” I asked. He impatiently set me in a corner out of the way, but acceded to my request.

And then began the cleaning. The first few boxes to open raised such a cloud of dust that I didn’t see much, just heard whizzes and bangs as objects flew past me in every direction. I spared a thought for Mom, sleeping above us, and hoped that she had her deaf ear up. She must have, because when the dust cleared I was still alone with the leprechaun, now in a strangely pristine basement evironment.

The shelves were straight and full of carefully organized tools. Odds and ends were either absent or filed away in such a manner that they’d be easy to find again. Watering cans were with trowels, hammers with nails. Even the books appeared to be arranged in accordance with the Dewey decimal system.

We were ecstatic, both of us. I think my dwarf hadn’t been aware he had quite so much magic in him, and we danced a little jig there on the now-clear floor.

Our dance woke the salamander, of course. And I’ll admit it was my own fault—the wakening was inevitable, but was sped by me treading on the beast’s tail.

We stilled as the beast lifted its massive, slimy head to peer around its rearranged den. Its golden eyes lit on me at last, and I was glad that lack of experience left me incapable of reading salamander facial expressions.

“What a surprise,” it said dryly, and closed one brilliant orb. I must have cleared my throat in annoyance, though I didn’t mean to, and the salamander turned the still-open eye to face me. “You’re off the hook. You can go,” it added, dismissing me as simply as a teacher might turn her pupils out onto the playground.

I grinned at the dwarf, then we skipped to the door and out, locking the salamander into its now-clean domain. The two of us leaned against the pile of trash bags overflowing from the can, and we couldn’t resist one last, gasping giggle.

Behind us, the basement shook and I could hear the carefully-labeled boxes spilling into a jumble worse than ever before. I didn’t care. Mom hadn’t really expected me to clean the basement anyway, and as the salamander had said, I was off the hook.

Stay tuned for the grand finale, coming soon!

Salamander in the Basement, part 4

If you missed the beginning of the story, just follow the links for parts 1, 2, and 3.

Our minds are quite adept at dismissing perceptions that have no place in the expected world. Brown basement spirits and tremendous salamanders surely had no place in my recent science-based curriculum, so by the time Mom and I joined up with my brother and sister at a local waterfall, I had completely forgotten the strangeness of the morning. We walked through clumps of purple hepatica flowers pushing up through last autumn’s leaf litter, then we waded through the frigid creek and climbed up the wet rocks to frolic in the dry space behind the falls. Our hooting laughter even awoke a dozing peeper who joined in the odd daytime chorus.

Back at home, though, I became increasingly irritated. But I figured the emotion was due to dehydration, dosing myself with several glasses of water before tucking myself in for an early night.

I woke suddenly in total darkness, feeling the bed shiver beneath me. I often wake like that, thinking I must be feeling a slight earthquake, although usually it’s just a dream. This time the bed shook again, gently, but I turned over anyway and went back to sleep.

***

“It certainly took you long enough.”

He was waiting inside the basement door, leaning nonchalantly against the wall where the outside daylight streamed harmlessly past, leaving him in shadow. I’d taken my time that morning, reading the newspaper over breakfast and brushing my teeth slowly with book in hand. All because I had felt the basement tugging at me more strongly than ever before. I’d held back as long as I could, until my head was pounding and my stomach queasy, and it had put me in a piss-poor mood.

“It’s no business of yours,” I brushed him off, and turned away to see what sense I could make of the camping supplies.

But he persisted, leaping atop a cooler as I lifted a sleeping bag off the floor. “I was going to offer to help,” he said, and I couldn’t tell from his voice whether the offer was still open. Well, it must be, or he wouldn’t be peering down at me. Unless, of course, he just enjoyed gloating.

“If you want to help, you can start by sorting out that rope,” I told him, pointing to a tangled mess of twine and string of various thicknesses.

The ex-leprechaun snorted, but began, absentmindedly, to pick at the tangle. “You’ll never get it done like this, you know. And the longer you spend down here, the more hold the salamander will have over you.”

Surveying the basement, I was forced to agree. This was a job for ten people, not for a vacationing biologist and an argumentative dwarf. Even so, his words drove me crazy. “And I suppose you have a better solution?”

“As I said, I could help.” He snapped his fingers and a grinding noise prompted me to spin around in time to see a mass of carpentry tools reorganize themselves, becoming clean and shiny before my very eyes even as a host of bent and rusty nails leaped for the trash box.

“And in exchange you want my firstborn child, I assume,” I said waspishly, turning back to the little man and doing my best to raise one eyebrow. “I’m not planning on having children any time soon, so that wouldn’t do you much good.”

“I’d think of something,” the ex-leprechaun said contentedly.

“No thank you,” I snapped. “I don’t need your help. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”

Stay tuned for part 5, coming soon….

Salamander in the Basement, part 3

If you missed the beginning of the story, just follow the links for parts 1 and 2.

Friday morning, I could almost feel the basement pulling at me, so I dove in without delay. I drove boxes to the Goodwill and forced Mom to sort through mementos and books. We cleared shelves and ditched discards. As we labored, the basement was still, tamed either by my ruthless disposal of its goods or by Mom’s familiar presence.

After an hour, though, Mom disappeared. “I can hear that the washing machine stopped,” she observed. “I’d better hang up those pants before they wrinkle. Don’t you need a break?”

“No thanks,” I called as she clambered out. A sudden breeze whipped the door closed behind her, and as if in echo, the bookcase behind me creaked. I turned to find it tilting precariously, a box of books slowly inching its way toward my head.

“Stop it!” I demanded, shoving the carton back into place and nudging the bookcase erect. “It’s almost as if the place is haunted,” I muttered under my breath.

Half an hour later I’d worked my way up under what would have been the eaves if the basement had been an attic. Here, the ground sloped toward the ceiling so I had to walk crouched over for fear of grazing my head on nail ends sticking through from the floor above. In this shallow workspace, I made some small headway, organizing Mason jars and labeling boxes of Christmas tree ornaments.

At last, I stood, a box of discards in my arms, and straightened too far. My head banged painfully against the floor joists, making me swear and drop back down into a crouch so I could feel through my thick hair for the liquid signs of blood.

“He doesna like it when you take his things, lassie,” came a voice from behind me, and my head spun around to take in a most unusual sight. Perched atop a wicker picnic basket in one corner was what can only be described as a leprechaun—a small, cheery, red-bearded man dressed solely in green and decked out with four-leafed clovers. I blinked, but the image didn’t fade and I was forced to conclude the man was not a result of my recent head-banging.

“What are you doing here?” or “Who are you?” would have been more scientific responses to this intruder into my basement, but I found myself saying, instead, “You can drop the accent. Leprechauns don’t live in dirt basements. What are you—a gnome? A dwarf?”

The pseudo-leprechaun frowned, and before my eyes his clothes faded to a dusty olive, his beard to curly brown. The clovers, I could have sworn, turned into camel crickets and hopped away, but I wasn’t close enough to be sure. Despite the transformation, he only shrugged and smiled again.

“I thought you liked Celtic legends, figured you’d be more likely to believe in me if I looked a bit stereotypical,” he said, and his eyes twinkled mischievously.

“I did like Celtic legends, but English ones, not Irish. And that was when I was twelve. I’ve changed. Didn’t you see me put L’Morte D’Arthur in the Goodwill box?” I demanded, feeling petulant since I had to forcibly restrain myself from stamping one foot in impatience. And why assume he knows any of this? my logical mind asked. What am I doing talking to a total stranger in my mother’s basement?

“Well, you haven’t been around much lately,” the ex-leprechaun said in his own defense. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You’ve seen through my disguise. Are you willing to take my advice?”

“Advice on what?” I asked defensively.

“On this.” He spread his arms wide, encompassing the piles of life’s debris. “Leave it be. Didn’t you notice the warnings?”

“So it’s you who’s been throwing things at me!” I exclaimed. Abruptly, my sense of childish wonder fled and I was angry. Trust a mythological figure to make it hard to get stuff done. “I might have known. No, I’m not going to leave it be. Why should I give up when I’ve got two and a half more days to make some headway? I…”

He waved his hands furiously and began to object, but I raised my voice and overrode him.

“I’m going to make sense of this place…” I began—

“Don’t!” he yelled—

“…if I have to spend every waking hour. I’ll…”

“No! You’re standing on the…”

“…clean this place up if it kills me!”

“Salamander,” he finished lamely, his voice now meek and resigned. Despite myself, I looked down at what should have been dirt floor. The ground wiggled a little, and a rock mound slid aside to reveal one golden eye.

“Challenge accepted,” it intoned, and went back to sleep.

Stay tuned for part 4, coming soon….

Salamander in the Basement, part 2

If you missed the beginning of this short story, you can read it here.

“You don’t have to go down there today,” Mom urged at breakfast. I frowned at her over a slice of cold apple pie. What had I come home for if not to tackle the laden basement?

“We could go to the park instead. See what frogs are there in daylight….” she tempted.

“This afternoon, maybe,” I replied, attracted by the reprise of the cold-blooded singers but unwilling to forgo my task. “I want to see what I can get done this morning.”

Back in the basement, I decided to go about it scientifically. A box for Goodwill donations, another for trash. A box for Mom to go through, full of lone wooden clogs, cracked doll heads, and other items with less than obvious personal significance. Boxes for books and fabric and yarn. My own old boxes I sifted through ferociously, pulling out old paperwork and odds and ends to feed the trash bin.

The job was easy at first. Lone socks hit the discard pile, empty jars and bottles of all sorts were set aside to be recycled. I held up an old pair of my own underpants with holes large enough to pass my fist through, and decided that Mom had plenty of rags without this ignoble contribution.

But as time passed, the dim basement light began to get to me and the hoarding instinct trickled in. What lovely cloth! I thought, spreading a sparkling bolt of fabric between outstretched hands. Surely I’ll use that someday….

Shocked by my own mental meanderings, I dropped the fabric into the dust of the floor. All of those empty shampoo bottles could come in handy someday too, I berated myself. When pigs fly!

The bolt of linen safely stowed in the Goodwill box, I clambered over the raised lip of the door and squinted up into the sunlight. Once my eyes adjusted and my head felt clearer, I headed for the house.

“Alright, Mom, I’m ready for a break!” I called. “We can go as soon as I grab my binoculars.”

Stay tuned for part three, coming soon!

Salamander in the Basement, part 1

I’m deep in editing-brain this week. Rather than leave you blogless, I thought I’d regale you with an old, semi-autobiographical short story that I wrote when I was first getting my fantasy legs under me. Without further ado, here’s the beginning of Salamander in the Basement (unedited, so I apologize in advance for any typos).

There was little to recommend the long drive home. “Come home for Easter,” Mom said. “I need you to clean out the basement.” Perhaps she’d known the task would attract me as the fetid odor of skunk cabbage blossoms attracts carrion-hunting flies.

The dark, moldering depths of the basement were below the house but accessible only through the outdoors. The dirt floor was more dust than dirt. Inside were boxes of mildewed books, discarded garments, garden tools, ice skates—who knew what I’d find down there.

When I was younger, the basement had been a cool refuge from the heat of Tennessee summers. I would step outside and the humid air would surround me like the fog it almost was. But the basement was a rare refuge. Only on the hottest days would I trade grass for dust, sun for the dim, uncovered bulb with its dangling metal bead string. Mostly, the basement was Mom’s domain.

Oh, we’d keep things there—winter clothes would be engulfed in black plastic trash bags and would descend to the depths where Mom stashed them away in some odd corner, stacked on wooden pallets to be off the dirt. Bushel boxes of apples and oranges were carried down by grudging children to chill in the cool, bowls of the fruit carried back up to the house even more grudgingly.

Only Mom would go there to putter, to shift the bags and boxes. “Do you have a copy of The Plague?” I’d say, “I need it for school.” “Of course,” she’d answer. “Do you need it right away?” Invariably, the answer would be yes, and down she’d go to rummage, returning an hour or more later, dirt-smudged but triumphant. The book would release its basement mold slowly, missing the dark.

Once or twice we got hints of the basement’s malevolence. A cat would disappear for hours, only to be discovered at meal time meowing at the inside of the locked door. And I would dream about the deep, dark space sometimes. About the walk down the hill outside the house to the raised doorway, so hard to lift a lawn mower through. In my dream I’d descend as I’ve done a thousand times…but this time when I stepped off that last stone I wouldn’t hit bottom. Falling, I’d wake.

But everyone dreams of falling sometimes.

“I can’t come down for Easter,” I told my mother, standing at an open window and eying a phoebe newly flown north from Florida. It bobbed its tail on the branch just outside my window and I strengthened my resolve. “The wildflowers will be at their peak, the frogs are already calling. Bird migration…” my voice trailed off. I thought of the basement—Mom’s mysterious domain—and I breathed out gently through my nose. “Can I come earlier? Next week before spring gets too far along?”

Five days later I was home. “I can only stay until Monday,” I told her. Only four days. I wouldn’t be able to clean the entire basement in that time, but at least I could make a start at it, shift a few boxes to make room for more, throw out this and that.

I descended that first afternoon, but the piles were daunting and precarious to my tired hands’ touch. After a bag of winter clothes fell on me from behind, I gave it up and spent the evening frogging instead. We drove to a nearby pond and shone my flashlight on courting amphibians, their neck pouches ballooning as they floated and called from the center of the green, virile pond. The basement was forgotten.

Stay tuned for part two, coming in a couple of days….