Marsha > Recent Status Updates

The building features a modest entrance, and a small brushed-metal sign hangs above the door. It reads BETTA EFFECTS AND NATURAL PROCESSING, which immediately rings a bell.
Betta is the talk of the town, making history as the ones responsible for Chris Oak's posthumous return in Broken Don.
Jack climbs from his vibrant electric vehicle, but he doesn't head inside.

I finally relent, settling my half-empty pint on the table. "You remember that high school reunion I told you about?"
"Twenty years, right?" Tara confirms. "Fuck, you're old."
"Thanks," I sigh, brushing it off and barreling forward with my admission. "I didn't invite Zeke. That's okay, right? I mean, we've only been seeing each other for a year."
"A year already?! That's a long time!"
I nod.
"And you like him."

Pop! Pop!
The air hisses.
the car sinks.
The engine goes tink tink tink tink.
Miriam turns off the car. Then whoops with laughter.
She's not drunk.
OK, she's been drinking but that doesn't mean drunk.
It's just--she's run away from Mother and has been gone for a couple years now and still doesn't know how to drive. She's almost nineteen. She's not gonna get a license or anything.

Wham.
Her mother drops a cardboard box on the ground in front of her. CD cases rattle within - Social Distortion, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails. Above the CDs: comic books. Batman stares from the top, with Killer Croc in a headlock. Beneath that, a glimpse of Jean Grey from the X-Men. Miriam spies the bindings of paperback books she nabbed from the used bookstore down in Sunbury: Poppy Brite, Stephen King...

By now, Miriam's crying again. She can't believe she has more tears, more spit, more snot, but here it comes, just as the pain of unstoppable grief is again hitting her in the chest like a sledgehammer. She doubles over. "I won't. I won't go back. I won't come back."
"Miriam, I'll do better."
And then she says the final words: "No. You won't. Because I won't give you the chance." She slams the phone down.

The mirror hadn't shown Belle what to do, but Orella's magic still guided her out of the castle and to the stables, which were just about the worst place to be for two people who didn't want to be spotted.
Carriages and horses had arrived in high numbers all throughout the day, ferrying in guests for the welcome ball. Belle was in a daze and didn't care who saw her. She was hell-bent on getting what she had come for.

She took her spot at one end of the table, and Lio took the other. She could smell the feast Mrs. Potts had prepared, even if she couldn't see it yet. Garlands of flowers lined the center of the table. Lilies, lilacs and tulips twined throughout the room, angled hungrily toward the sun shining in through the balcony doors.
Some fifty or so guests had deigned to stay for breakfast, including the margrave of Baden.

Ellery scrambled off the couch and opened the door to accept the pizza. They brought it over to the table and handed Knox one of the paper plates stacked on top.
"It's fine," Knox said, helping himself to a slice of pineapple pizza. "I understand."
"Do you?"
"You've been hurt by people you loved. It's made you wary. That's nothing to apologize for." He gestured toward the TV. "Just like August."

Tapestries adorned three walls, depicting some of Tal's favorite fairy tales: a scene of mermaids near a beach enticing sailors to swim in a tumultuous sea. Tal hadn't noticed that one before or the one that hung behind his mother--a picture of a mage with flames entwining her limbs and fire in her eyes, mouth open in a scream, a sword thrust through her middle from a knight behind her.

This time when I water the wheat, I ask Jane and Rowan to come. I am still afraid to go alone. To walk through the tall grass where I can't see, where there might be something crouching. There are teeth in the grass, Mark said.
After we water, we run. I am free. It is easy out here to pretend Henry isn't real. to pretend he doesn't exist.
Spider chases us, splashing through the Back River, and we run from her.

There was a languor in the air, a sense that people were more willing to please and so be pleased. In the weeks since war had been avoided, Rowan's residents seemed almost giddy. Everyone had a bounce to their step, and that included Hob.
He had reason: Master Montague had offered him a job. The news came 3 days after they discovered the dwimorleech in the Lirlander Vault. Hob's title would be Jr. Research Assistant.

When it was closed, Hazel waved a hand at her little fireplace. Golden witchfire roared up within it, projecting their shadows upon the walls. She paced back and forth, thinking through her options. This was not the time for improvisation. Raw sorcery could yield the most powerful results, but it was too unpredictable, especially with Isabel present.

The carriage rattled onward, parting crowds and stopping only when streetcars trundled past. Government buildings gave way to fancy shops and elegant stone residences with little balconies and gardens. The higher they climbed, the larger the houses until they reached a neighborhood where towering mansions loomed behind gated wall with posted guards.
"Who lives there?" asked Hob.
"Nobles from Houses Minor."

"Take it," he said between his teeth, plowing into her until his ballocks slapped against her tender flesh.
"Yes," she sobbed softly. "Anything. Anything, just don't stop."
He bent lower, reaching between her thighs. He could not get over how much he loved this. Her pleasure was his; she could not deny it him. When he pinched her clitoris between his fingertips, her thighs trembled.

"You don't want to have children with him," he guessed.
"He doesn't want to have children with me either," she insisted. "It isn't anything wrong with him! We're only...I don't know. We aren't right for each other that way. We couldn't raise a child together. We'd quarrel over everything."
Simon sympathized. He himself had always suspected that Clement would be a fair-weather kind of guardian.

"Let's try this one last time," Brayton said. "We're going to search the house and you'll be helping. It'll be for the best if none of you do anything foolish." He looked directly at Velma. "I'm warning you."
Velma could only glower at Brayton. She wasn't sure how this abomination of a pistol would work, but the quelling continued to be well in effect. She still couldn't do any magic.

"Three articles," Marjorie said. "A history, an overview of the offerings here, and a promotional piece for an upcoming event. In exchange you'll pay half price for the rooms, no charge to borrow my car, and I need to see the articles before publication."
"Deal," Dillon said. "I should warn you, though: I don't write fluff. If I write about your ranch, it'll be the whole story, including warts and buried skeletons."

FOLLOWING HER LAST DELIVERY, VELMA GUIDED HER PLANE BACK INTO Sacramento, grateful as always that the lights of the city were bright enough to guide her even on a moonless night. As she made her approach, however, Velma realized that the light she'd spotted from a distance had been coming from the river this whole time. Up this high, the fire seem so small, but she knew it had to be much larger.

For all his annoyance, Jackson tried to give the extra back, but Velma refused, as she'd arrived without warning and was borrowing his bicycle--a fact he learned as she hopped on it.
Evening was rapidly arriving as Velma pedaled to her grandparents' home, the only place she could get to in the dark without fail.
Well, that and the local cemetery.
She was quite proud of herself for that.

I race through the corridors, trying my best to avoid colliding with other students strolling down the halls like they're taking a walk on the beach. IT's hard to process that they're still children leading normal lives, only stressing about homework because they've never been attacked by gasping zombie fish.
I slide to a stop before reaching the end of the building: there's an exposed space ahead.

"You've been so brave, but now is the greatest challenge you'll face."
"You'd better not say the sixth or seventh floor," said Ophelia.
so the boy didn't say anything. Ophelia watched his eye watching the floor.
"Which?"
"The seventh. Room 707. I have been told by Mrs. V. and Mr. Pushkinova both. You must go soon, for the misery birds have just been fed and they'll be drowsy."
Ophelia looked at the windows.

When you learn the way I have, you have many teachers to thank for many lessons. In the interest of space, I won't list all that I learned from my agent and dear friend Kathy Robbins, or from my exceptional editor and coach, Bill Phillips. I'll say only that what they've taught me is certainly apparent to the people who read and commented on my early drafts: the passionate Erika Holzer, the logical Ted Calhoun, etc.

Amazingly, both men reported that they took special notice of assailant Gunter Parche prior to the stabbing. Henry pegged the attacker quite accurately: "Call it a sixth sense or whatever, I cannot explain it, but I noticed the man. Something told me that something was not quite right with this man. He was swaying instead of walking. I cannot explain it in more detail."

Instead of simply informing an employee that the decision to fire him has been made, some employers sidle up to the issue so delicately that the person doesn't fully realize he has just been fired. After listening, he might say he understands he has to improve his performance, to which the employer responds, "No, you don't understand; we're firing you." This can make the fired employee feel foolish.

Note the sinister nature of his references. They continued in Taylor's next complaint to the FAA, which was that Hicklin had buzzed his home in what he called a "strafing mission": "Is there a more barbaric, mindless, obscene act than a pilot who would aim an aircraft at defenseless humans for the sole purpose of harassment; by a pilot whose sole sick mission is to establish his dominance over his victims?"

The toast popped up, but Alice wasn't hungry anymore. As her mother continued to dig through the kitchen drawers, Alice went to the cupboard and, unable to find any tuna fish, settled on a can of clam chowder instead. With a heavy heart, she carried it upstairs. Aunt Polly had always been so kind to her--how could Alice let her down by allowing Lardo to end up at the pound?

Polly was delighted that the committee had enjoyed her pie, but the idea of winning a prize for it made her feel very uncomfortable, so much so that she tried to turn it down.
"The Blueberry is the most coveted award in the field of pie baking, Miss Portman. You have no idea how many people would kill to be in your shoes," Harriet Melcher told her.
"What an awful thought!" Polly exclaimed.

Three decades before Lozen and Eclode's harrowing journey, the United States had acquired a big chunk of land from Mexico after a war, in what is now known as the southwestern United States. The US government sent American soldiers to the area with orders to force all the Native people onto reservations.
By 1874 about four thousand Apache people, including Lozen and her brother, had been driven off their homelands.

"I missed you," Mindy admitted, and means it. Hanna had not changed much by way of appearance--same willowy figure, same bangs, same long ropelike braid down her back. Her bones jutting against her skin, delicate and light, her subtle scent of rose hip oil. But something had shifted. There was a glow about Hanna, an easy confidence she must have honed since they'd last seen each other.

Foxhunting is a ceremonial sport that dates back to 15th-century England, with evidence of its practice going even further back to the days of Alexander the Great, around 400 BC. In most parts of the U.K., foxes were considered vermin. Since 2004, when the British parliament passed the Hunting Act, the sport has been banned in England and Wales.
The game went like this: Huntsmen on horseback searched for the fox.