Shirley offline until tomorrow

Author's Note by Proxy:
Happy New Year, Eclipse Court fans, this is Karen pinch-posting for Shirley to say that she won't be posting a chapter of Minis's tale today due to technical problems.  The power supply on her modem (supplied by the lovely folks at Bell Sympatico) went kablooie on Saturday, and despite an earnest promise on said lovely folks' part to courier her a replacement in 48 hours,