Free Short Fiction Monday

The Mannequin

 Whenever we landed on a new planet, the ex-tee team were the ones who made first contact. First contact could make or break relations with the United States of Earth (good ole US of E). After the economic fall of the world economies, a group of corporations had banded together to start a capitalist society to better their communities.

They provided education and jobs for those people who wanted to progress and live comfortable lives. After a hundred years these corporations had combined and headed for the stars to find raw materials to mine for the industrialization of space colonization. Earth had thought that it was alone. In its own galaxy it was alone. When USE left the galaxy, they began to find little worlds with people of varying types, which was why they now needed a first contact team.

It saved them a lot of grief after that first world.

Religion, politics, and the dead are the touchy topics in any world. When the first USE team landed on Ako, the native word meaning earth, they didn't know that they would be thrown off a planet.

It started this way. When they finally found a way to communicate with the mayor of the city, he introduced them to a mannequin seated on the couch in his office. How could they know that it was much more significant than a plastic clothes horse?

The first officer who was in charge of the team had looked dumbfounded at the mannequin. It appeared to be made of wood and not the normal plastic he had seen in stores across the USE. "Ummm, hi" he said.

He had turned to the mayor. "Should we be discussing this stuff to an inanimate object?"

When the mayor asked for an explanation of inanimate, his face turned red and he called his officers. The men in the party were escorted to their ship. A jet escorted them off the planet with a torpedo.

"What did you do?" was the classic response of the Captain. The first officer had no idea.

After that every time the USE tried to land, the Akoiets tried to shoot them down. It was decades later when they learned that the first officer had not only insulted a mannequin, but also a religious object of extreme significance. It was the mayor's dead mother.

So now, all first contacts were made by the ex-tee team.


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Panster vs Plotter

Writers are writers so it is very funny when writers, like a lot of other people, divide themselves into different categories. First there is the fiction writers versus the non-fiction writers. In the non-fiction writers they continue to divide themselves into journalists, non-fiction book writers, and bloggers.

The fiction writers are divided into even more genres: romance, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, and adventure. When fiction writers get together they ask each other another question "How do you write? Are you panster or plotter?"

Even stranger, when there is a declaration, the other side wants to convert the writer. It is so much freer to write as a panster. Or you will write better if you plot the book. It adds a note of tension to writer associations and groups.

So what is a panster or plotter? A true panster writes the story as it comes to her. In many ways it is much easier to pants a short story because the plot twists are quicker and easier to keep in mind. Most novelist pansters use a modified form of panster/plotter.

A true plotter is one that plots every scene and every twist to the story. These are the folks who complain that their main character (MC) has a mind of its own or has gone off the reservation. They spend as much time plotting (sometimes using plot sheets) as they do writing. Some of them say that they don't have to edit as much to get to the final product.

I have tried both ways to write. When I plotted it took me twenty years to write the first novel, "Shira: Hero of Corsindor." I used plot sheets, I went back and edited each scene, and I never got past about 30,000 words. I tried using plot sheets for other books and never got to the writing part. I was so bored with the story that I dropped it before I finished the plotting.

I think that a plotter needs to have a mind that must organize everything. Nothing wrong with being an organizer. It works very well for many writers. My mind just doesn't work well that way.

I am a dreamer. I sometimes gets plot points when I am asleep. They pop into my mind as I put them to the page.

I learned the panster approach with NANOWRIMO. I found that when I just powered through the mistakes and errors, I had a decent product. The story was cohesive. I followed a couple of characters and weaved their story together. I would remember that I needed a twist in four places. Also, when I hit about 3/4 of the way through, I needed to start thinking in terms of ending the story.

This approach gave me a lot of leeway towards allowing the characters side trips. I admire stories that have side trips that kind of pull together in the end. Bujold and Phillip K. Dick are some of my favorite writers that knew (and know, Bujold is still alive) how to take random events and make them come together in the end.

When I realized that I needed to write the story from the beginning to the end and that I needed to follow the main character through until the end, I found that writing became easier to me. It is not extremely easy - writing every day is an effort. I am a procrastinator (which is a reason that a deadline is very good when I am writing).

I write how I read.

A secret? If you are a voracious reader, like I have been most of my life, plot has been pressed in your mind. You may not believe it, but you can tell when you are not doing the right things and the right time. Story is encoded into our bones.

Story is our way of making sense of the world around us.

So whether you are a panster or plotter, know that you are a writer, a writer not divided by categories of fiction or non-fiction. You are a writer who is following a profession that belonged to the storytellers and shamans of the past. Wear the title proudly.

Friday Excerpt - Perchance to Dream Chapter Eight

The weather was unsettling and matched my mood perfectly. The wind blasted through our street and shook the trees. You could see the dust particles in the air as it swirled around the house. The windows banged and the wind moaned as it hit the house. Several of her clients canceled appointments. Those that showed stayed only a few minutes and left.

I was afraid. I checked the windows and the doors every few minutes. I listened carefully for any strange noise. Even Emily and John were unsettled. Emily threw a tantrum, which kept John busy and away from me. Grandma stared at the window.

"Can you hear them?" she kept saying. "They're coming."

If I tried to listen, I could hear the chanting of children under the wind. Something was coming and it wasn't good.

About mid-morning I began to hear the vibrations of a large golem walking down the street to the house. Golems were used in the magical community as energy sources, protection, and sometimes for demolition. Boom. Boom. Boom.

I began to hear the high buzzing of the chanting in my inner ear. "John," I yelled. "Get over here."

The house shook, the windows shook and the trees swayed to the vibrations. John was next to me in minutes. We joined hands as he fed me energy while I check and strengthened the house's defenses. I could feel a black spot racing around the house. The barghest. It was at the front of the house when the golem showed.

It was huge - the size of a giant. I thought about ten feet tall. It was roughly shaped like a man with crude face. Its eyes looked intently at the house. One fist was raised and I knew that its main goal was to demolish the house. I knew in my bones that if we left that house that thee Fed man and his crew waiting to pick us up to god knows who.

I could only assume that the children were the focus of this and the other attacks. I am sure that the fed man was supposed to seduce, but in my mind that was an attack. The golem was a full on assault of my defenses.

I sank to the floor already exhausted from the pull of energy. John stared out the window.

"What are we going to do?" I could hear the panic in his voice. His hand was on my shoulder and the energy drain eased.

"I don't know," I said.

I could hear the murmur of Grandma and Emily. It was at a counterpoint to the children's chant from earlier. Then I heard screaming. John and I rushed to the kitchen where the two women were holding hands and chanting in Latin. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but John put his hands on their shoulders. I could see the energy bleed off of him and into the women.

I ran back to the window to watch the golem. At this point there was nothing I could do. To my amazement, it stopped in mid-step. His eyes glowed red and then went out. I knew that he was not dead, just inactivated.

Then I heard the women stop for just a moment. The Golem's eyes reddened and it stepped on the porch. It cracked. I wanted to scream, but as I watched him, I froze. The light in his eyes went out again. John screamed at me, "For god's sake, take out the paper."

I had learned about golems in school. The Jewish mystics who had first discovered how to make golems would put a piece of paper with letters in the golem's mouth. The letters gave the golems a duty to perform. In this modern day, golems were considered brute force and were usually not needed. Only a few people could even make them.

I would have to climb up this golem to even get to its mouth. I ran out the door and jumped. I put my toes into its thighs and reached for its mouth. Oh please, oh please, oh please, keep him immobile. I reached in and just as I pulled out the paper, its eyes went red and its mouth shut. Then the eyes were blank again.

I jumped down and ran back into the house. John looked relieved as the women slowly stopped their chanting and ended it with an Amen. I looked at the paper in my hand. It was brown with two words: the divine word of god, and kill. The golem had been armed to kill everyone in the house. I could feel the chill run from my stomach to my heart. Whoever had sent this golem had not cared that there were disabled people in the house. This person or persons didn't care that John with so much potential and so young was in my house.

Kill. Kill. Kill… echoed in my head. It was time to go from the defensive to the offensive. I only had one person that I kept in contact from the old days before I started my caretaking duties for my Grandmother. Shadow.

I pulled out my cell phone and called. He answered immediately, "Expecting you."

"You need to come right over."

He assented and hung up. I knew from the old days that he would be there with whatever weapons he had in the back room. I called all of my appointments while I was waiting for Shadow and cancelled them all. It wouldn't do to have clients see the smashed porch and the ten foot golem in my yard. It wouldn't do to scare off too many of my clients.

I knew when Shadow arrived. There was a distinct change in the air that reminded me of a thunderclap. I walked out the door and carefully picked my steps as I tried to get to the ground without hurting myself. He had a small frown on his face as he walked around the golem.

Shadow was a tall dark man that any woman would swoon over. He had had any numbers of women who had tried to get him settled down with a family. He had side-stepped them more than once and now had a reputation of a hard man to pin down. His eyes were a dark brown that reminded me of a large lazy cat. He had numerous mundane and magical tattoos on his body.

There were times I wanted to trace a few of the tattoos, but I had responsibilities. I didn't have time or patience to have a fling. He looked me over and said, "darling, you look positively fagged." I knew what he meant. I needed to recharge and eat after that last battle. He didn't have to say it though.

I was too conscious of him and his words. I turned around and walked into the house. "We have company," I told John and Emily. My grandmother was already taking a nap. The spells had tired her out.

It saddened me that she didn't have the energy any more. Even worse she didn't remember the spells. I was grateful that she had been able to direct the spell and remember at the right moment.

I pulled down a loaf of bread from the cupboard and made sandwiches. I could see that John was ready to wolf down one. Emily was a little more delicate. We needed the meat and vegetables wrapped around carbohydrate to replace the energy we had lost. I added plenty of mustard and mayonnaise. I took the first bite and hummed with relief.

It was good. Shadow was behind me when he heard the first hum and he laughed. "Make me one too," he said with amusement. I had never seen his eyes crinkle like that.

"What's changed?" I couldn't help myself. I wanted to flirt.

"You called me, darling," he said. I put my sandwich down on the counter and started making a new one.

He picked up my sandwich and took a bite. Then he hummed. "Yes, it is good." He finished it up in about two bites. I couldn't help but think about him, and eating. I blushed.

Instead of making one sandwich, I made a few more so that everyone in the kitchen could have another one. I made a stacked sandwich for me and slapped Shadow's hand when he reached for it. "No way, Jose," I said.

I could smell the pheromones and told him, "Not now, lover boy."

John had that mad thunderstruck look on his face. Oh, oh, it could get ugly with two hormonal males in the house. I would have laughed except I was munching down on my sandwich, tasting the textures. It was good.

I sent Emily to her room to take a nap and sent John with her to settle her down. He kept looking back at Shadow and me. I think he thought we would have sex on the kitchen table. Not likely. I needed to talk to Shadow without the little ears.

Shadow crossed his arms and leaned against the door jamb. I could see the tattoos on his arms move and sway. I wondered how alive the tattoos were. We had been at this point before long ago. At that time he kissed me deeply, mouth open. I tasted the inner recesses of his mouth and almost swooned. I was young then.

When I broke up with him, he told me that he would be there, waiting for me. I had not been kind then. He told me that I would make the first move.

This was not the first move.

"What do you make of the golem?"

"Are you sure you want to talk about it?" His smile was so sexy; if I had been younger I would have fallen to my knees.

He knew it too by how his lips twisted into a smirk. My heart skipped a beat.

"The golem," I said. I could see him shift into a more serious mode. He walked towards me, brushed by me, and then sat at one of the kitchen chairs. He leaned against the table. I sat down facing him.

"This golem was for killing. It would have killed everyone in the house if you hadn't stopped him."

My stomach clenched. I could feel the fear in my chest. I took a deep breath to clear out the feelings. Shadow watched me intently. I knew he was giving it to me straight. I had seen the piece of paper that had animated the golem.

"On the good side, we have a golem," he said, still watching me intently.

I looked down and picked on a small tag on my finger. "What do you mean?"

"I can animate the golem."

I could see the shock in his face, when I leaned over the table and kissed him on the lips. Before he could hold the back of my head for a better kiss, I slipped away from him. I still had responsibilities. He still was foot-loose and fancy free.

"Darlin'," he drawled. "Do you want a golem?"

"Yes," I said.

He pulled out the paper, asked for a black pen, and then erased the word kill. He used a word that meant protect. I didn't see the word. Golem activators were careful that no one could see the words they had worked so hard to learn. Words were power. Plus words that activated golems were even more powerful.

We went to the porch and looked at the golem. It was tall and huge, plus it looked human, but unfinished. As I looked into the holes that would have been a human's eyes, I felt a chill. At that moment, I wasn't sure if I did want a golem. 

This one, this golem, had tried to kill us.

Shadow could see the indecision in my eyes. He smiled in amusement. I took a deep breath, "Here goes nothing." I mumbled.

He gave me a leg up as I crawled up the ten foot golem. The outside of the golem was rough and felt like cement. It scraped my skin. As I reached its mouth and shoved the paper inside, I remembered that I had a ladder in the garage. It was too late now.

The golem caught me as it opened its eyes. It set me gently on the ground and then started a patrol around the property.

"I guess it worked," said Shadow. He watched the golem walk around and check the corners. With the barguest, g olem, and shield I had a system that would keep almost any supernatural creature out of my property. Ordinary humans would think twice before they knocked on my door. It would ruin business for a time, but I had to cancel all my appointments anyway until I had this business settled.

We were under attack. I needed to know by whom. Then I would know why.

"How do I give the golem instructions?"

"Darlin', he talks."

"Why didn't he talk before?"

"Oh that," Shadow dismissed my concerns. "It was the word kill. It took over its whole mind and it couldn't think of anything else. The command was so strong it would have killed your neighbors too."

I felt a chill start from my heart outwards. This was like using a nuclear weapon instead of a rifle. We were all in danger.

I called the golem over and let him sniff the fed man who had bothered me only the day before. Just the change in instructions made the golem so gentle. I am sure it would be savage if someone or something tried to attack this house again.

It occurred to me that Shadow had showed up at the house pretty fast. He was not speedy; in fact I have accused him of being a lollygagger. He had found it funny, but it was one of the reasons that I didn't depend on him.

"What's the word on the street?" I asked. Shadow, owner of a tattoo artist, would have more on the street knowledge than I would since I dealt with a more law-abiding crowd.

He didn't give me the run around or the "what do you think" flirt. I think it might have shaken him up because for the first time he was serious. "The Church of the Magii" is sending out feelers about you.

I shivered. "The Church of the Magii" had a nasty reputation for their persecution of free magic users. They believed, and had gotten government sanction, that all magic users should be controlled and regulated.

"You knew that chain on John's magic was from the church," I accused him. I could read the lines if they were staring me in the face.

He looked at his feet. I wanted to hit him. "You knew, and you let this happen."

"No," he said "I wasn't sure. There are a lot of magic users out there who have a chain across their powers and are not a part of the church."

He reached for me, but I shrugged him off. Even though he had shown up for one fight, in my opinion he was not there for the long-term. "Kat," he said softly. "I wanted to make sure."

I turned towards him to listen. He continued, "I called one of my informants when I saw John's magical tattoo. He was surprised that I had been able to break the magic. It seems that John is a very strong talent. The word is out that they want him bad."

The church was one of my nightmares. When I was a young girl, the church had started out as a refuge for young magic users with disaffected or no family. I had been one of the girls who had come into the church and I had been enamored of the ceremony. They had actually started to help, but when the current Magii Ralph Amalde rose in power, his goal was to organize the power of the youth and use them.

I had found myself in a new Delphi Oracle pool, expected to read the future for the new leaders. I saw enslavement for all magic users under Magii Ralph's rule. He changed his name to Magii Amun, the hidden one.

A name is a name is a name, but in our world of magic, names have power. Even nicknames have power because they describe the outlines of our souls. They must be said in the right way. The more magical the creature, the more powerful his name becomes.

After my vision, I called my grandma and she picked me up in the small garden in the center of the city. I changed my clothes and left the robes of the Delphi Oracle pool in the center of the garden. I didn't want the Magii to know where I had gone. We left to this new place a few hundred miles away from the danger.

Since then I had trained my powers in divination. I had normal neighbors, normal clients, and a normal life. Shadow was my only connection now to the magical community.

As I was shivering at the thought that the church had found me, I felt a cold wind curl around my arms and shoulders. It chilled me. My eyes widened as I turned towards Shadow. "Grandma," I screamed.

I ran through the front doors, through the hallway, and into the kitchen. John was making a sandwich for Emily. They both looked up at me as I asked, "Where is Grandma."

"She was tired," John said. "She went to her bedroom."

I stomped up the stairs, crying her name. Something was very very wrong. When I opened the door to her room, she lay on the bed. Her face was white and I could see the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.

"Grandma," I whispered. I reached over her body and touched her neck. The pulse was gone.

I screamed. It was a howl that filled my soul and shook the house. I felt Shadow touch my back and my scream had information, "Call 9-1-1."

He pulled out his phone and called emergency, I checked Grandma for breathing and for her pulse again. Shadow helped me pull my Grandma from the bed to the ground so it would be easier when I started CPR.

I had taken CPR a couple of years ago when I realized that I needed to be prepared for any emergency when dealing with my Grandma. I also took first aid. It had helped with the bumps and scratches that Grandma got in the course of the day. This was much worse.

I placed my hands, one atop of the other, over her breastbone and started pushing with my strength. One and, two and, three and, I counted until I came to fifteen. I checked her pulse. No pulse. I continued my count, over and over. I could feel the pain in my arms and chest as I pushed and pushed.

It seemed like hours although Shadow told me later that it was between ten to fifteen minutes that the paramedics pushed me aside and continued the CPR. They stopped at one point and shocked her. I could tell from their voices and faces that she would not make it.

At one point as they carried her on the stretcher to the ambulance that I thought I saw her eyelids flutter. The paramedics told me to meet them at Center Street Hospital. I hoped she would make it. I barely felt Shadow as he took my keys. He talked to John and Emily. I was so worried that I don't even remember the conversation. I guessed later that he was telling John how to turn on the guardians. They would need protection while I was at the hospital with my Grandma.

Shadow told me later that he knew Grandma was gone. He had never mentioned it to me before, but he could see essences and hers was gone. My whole world was falling apart. I had invested so much of my time and energy in keeping her safe. I knew that someday she would die in the house she had lived in all of her life.

I knew it. She was healthy. I had taken her for a check-up with her doctor just a few weeks ago. Her heart was good. She had many more years to live was the doctor's opinion. If she had not used magic when the golem had attacked, we would have been hurt and some of us would have died. She couldn't die.

Shadow let me off at the front entrance of the hospital, and then went to park the car. I rushed in looking for my Grandma. At the hospital front desk, they made me fill out paper after paper. Then they sent me to the ICU. My grandma was not there. There had been a mistake. The front desk thought I was related to another older woman.

I ran down the hallways to the emergency room. Nurses tried to stop me as I rushed in, pulling blankets off of patients, but she wasn't there. I wanted to howl. I wanted to scream. My grandma was gone.

Friday Excerpt - Perchance to Dream Chapter Seven

This time I didn't see the black Mercedes slip away from the curb and follow us home. I was too busy, stopping at the grocery store for the week's food. I left John with Grandma and Emily in the car. It was too hard to take them in the store with me. I also reveled a little at the freedom. It was nice to have time alone. To pretend that grandma was the vital woman she had been years before.

With two hungry mouths in my house, the grocery bill would climb from seventy dollars to almost two hundred dollars a week if I wanted to eat fresh food. I would have to work harder to get some money flowing into my finances. I was standing at the dairy refrigerator, when two men in dark suits and eyeglasses stepped into my space.

It broke my concentration. I had been debating which milk, two-percent or skimmed, would be better for the young adults in my house when one of them touched my elbow.

"Are you Kat Igardson, the psychic?"

I was looking at the back of one of the cartons; put it into my shopping cart. I reached for the butter, when one of the caricatures of a fed man said, "Come with us, ma'am."

"Wait a second." I said, my voice low and controlled. "I have dependents in the car waiting for me. I cannot just up and leave them. If you want to talk to me, you'll have to get an appointment like everyone else."

The men looked at each other and then said in unison, "We will be calling you soon. You will be available."

Their robot-voices made me shivered. And when they did a military turn in unison, I wondered if they were real people. I would have to make sure that my work office had industrial grade charms if I let them onto my property.

I was in a daze during the rest of my shopping spree. I didn't even remember putting in a couple of chocolate covered cereals until I was in the check-out line getting ready to pay for the food. I put the offending boxes of cereal into a basket on the floor and unloaded the rest of my produce. In a few minutes I was outside loading the produce in the van with John helping.

And why, you ask, that I didn't use the self-checkout line? For the same reason that I don't use any services that charge me for doing my own work. If you are going to charge me, then you are going to serve me. Plain and simple. Don't get me on my soapbox please. I have the same reaction when I try to navigate those computer phone lines with the robot-like voice. Give me a person please. I can explain and my problem will be taken care of in a timely fashion.

As for John, I was beginning to like having him around. Even though he was a little sullen, I think most teenagers even ones without problems are sullen, he lent a hand by watching the girls and unloading the groceries. About this time, if he had family, I wouldn't give him back.

There were a few things I needed to do for him though. I couldn't train his powers. I would need to find him a teacher so that he could apprentice to him. Yes, we still did it the old-fashioned way in the magic community. I hadn't been in the community for a long time since Grandma began showing dementia. If I found John a teacher, I would also have to find a good place for Emily.

Or I could keep Emily with me. She was sweet and compatible with Grandma. She kept Grandma busy. But, I might have to hire someone to watch the both of them. It would be something I would talk over with John later.

The girls were tired, so we helped them to bed for a nap. I checked my phone messages and prepared my appointments for the next week. Then, John and I packed the groceries into the cupboards and the refrigerator. I could see that John was hungry, again, so I threw him an apple. He crunched it. The boy really needed to eat more. And with his power level, he would need to eat enough to keep the power from turning him into a scarecrow.

I had some things to do. So I went into my home office. I could hear the TV go on, probably John. When I came back to check on him, he was lightly snoring as the TV continued blaring. I went back to my office satisfied.

THE PHONE RANG AND WHEN I answered it, the voice on the other end was one of the men I nicknamed "fed man." I realized that the man was telepathic when he snorted before speaking.

"Fed man?" he asked.

"Keep out of my head," I said.

"You are so wide-open," he answered. "Why don't you have any blocks?"

"Don't need them."

"Well you need them now. I will be over in the next few minutes."

I didn't answer a long time, but I did flip through my appointment book. "I have an opening tomorrow at 8 a.m. And that is the soonest."

"Kat," he said. "I will be there in five minutes and when I knock, you'll let me in your home. I will stay in your office so if you have those industrial grade charms, you'd better have them out and ready." The phone went click.

And if the man really could read my mind, he would already know that I didn't have one of those charms. I couldn't afford it. I had been trying to keep us under the radar of heavier magic-users so that I wouldn't need one of those things. My mind was in a whirl when he knocked on the door.

I stood in the doorway, "Not two of you?" This time I took a closer look at fed-man. He was tall, lanky, in a black suit. His sunglasses were dark. When he took them off, I could see piercing blue eyes with dark eyebrows. His hair was dark and I wanted to slip my fingers through his hair.

He smiled as if he caught that stray thought.

And then his face changed as the barghest shaped like a large black dog with red eyes popped up in front of him. "What's that?" he asked. "It looks like a hell-hound. Is it one of your protections?"

I wasn't about to admit yes or no. So I kept my face and mind quiet. The sexual tension I had been feeling was turned off. I suspect it was a charm to get into my house. I wasn't easy to magic. I usually could feel when someone was trying seduction by magic. This time my only excuse was it had been a long time since I had cuddled against a hard male body. My responsibilities made it too much of a risk especially if I didn't know the said male.

The barghest wasn't about to let this man walk into our house. I wonder if the beast was a guardian of John or Emily. John was peeking out the window and seemed as scared of the beast as he was of the man.

"I guess you aren't coming in here," I said. "Making an appointment won't help you either. And, I am not meeting you at a neutral place. I can tell by the beast's reaction that you don't have good intentions for me and my dependents."

I could tell that the "fed man" was fed up. I noticed that his shadow was getting darker and darker. Lines were whipping out of the shadow and slashing at the barghest. The hell-hound looking creature yawned, showing its sharp teeth and red tongue. It sat on its haunches and batted the sharp whipping lines away.

The shadow and the fed man combined and he grew and grew taller until I could see this bulked up, hulk-like creature. And here I was standing in front of the house, just watching the two of these creatures battle like I was watching a TV show. Not smart in my opinion.

I felt the door handle behind me and then I swung it open and slipped in. I shut the doors and locked it. I could feel the atmosphere around me get darker and darker. I ran into the kitchen, pulled John and Emily to the floor, John pulled Grandma down with him, and we heard a boom.

It was like a sonic boom only louder. We stayed huddled on the floor for awhile. I didn't want to get up. I finally stood up and looked out of the window. The color had bled out of the landscape. It was monochromatic.

I felt better when I realized that the fed man was gone with his car. I could see a shadow of the barghest, but it was there, not-there. John was beside me, "What the heck was that?"

"I don't know."

Then I realized that the color problem was really coming from my own eyes. Soon the land, house, and people started to look the right color. I rubbed my eyes.

"What the hell," I said. John nodded his head.

THAT NIGHT AS I SLEPT, the fed man showed up in my dreams. It had been a late night for me because it took a long time to get Grandma and Emily asleep. One and then the other of them would ask for a drink of water, or want to walk around the house. Grandma would mumble under her breath so I knew that she was trying to remember how to ward the house.

Eventually I gathered her up, and herded her to her bed. Her long nightgown with ruffles along the neck and wrists that made her look like a little girl whirled around her. She went reluctantly to her bed. I read a chapter from a book by her bed. If I had children, it would be like this.

John was having a harder time with Emily. She ran from window to window. When I got Grandma settled, I made a cup of hot chocolate for Emily. John said no to it, I guess chocolate was a drink for children. John wrapped a blanket around Emily and after she drank the chocolate, sipping so that it would take longer to drink, we took her to bed. John slept on a camp bed near her.

He talked to her softly until her soft sighs said she was asleep. He fell asleep soon after.

It took me longer because I was trying to decide what the "fed man" was doing. How did he make his shadow perform that way? I had already looked up the hell-hound and found that the barghest was a harbinger of death. In some cases it could be a guardian. I wasn't sure which.

I couldn't decide until I watched it some more. Unfortunately seeing a barghest three times could mean my death. I had seen it once. I hoped the legends were wrong. I suspected that I would see it many more times.

I fell asleep with that thought in my head. In my dream I was sitting on the couch in my living room with a huge encyclopedia on my lap. I could hear someone in my home office. It sounded like someone was either rampaging through my office, or ripping through my files.

I pulled a Taser from my pocket and walked to the door that separated the home office from my main living areas. The Taser was pink and was heavy in my hand. I made sure that it was on before opening the door.

The fed man was standing there, caught pulling open my filing cabinet. He gave me a charming smile. "Interesting stuff you have in here."

His clothing changed to leather that molded into his muscles. He moved towards me like a cat, who had found a lovely mouse to eat.

He had been riffling through my brain. When he reached me I still had the pink Taser in my hand. I pressed the Taser into his stomach and turned it on. Rack. Rack. Rack. His face turned white and he started to go transparent.

I pressed it again and he was gone.

I hadn't realized that my mind was wide open. I would need to get some training. As a psychic, being open is a good thing. However, when someone or something, I acknowledged that the fed man could be inhuman, was riffling through my brain and when I needed to protect John and Emily, maybe I should take up Shadow's offer.

Unfortunately Shadow's offer came with dinner and other wants. I was not ready for that type of pressure. I had too many responsibilities. The last time we had tried to make it work, I had thrown him out of the house. Shadow was a little more careful with me since then. I don't like my brain riffled whether it is from a fed man or a shadow.

I like my privacy.

Tomorrow. The darkness fell over me and I slept heavily until morning. Morning always makes things better after a good cup of coffee.

If you liked this chapter, please use the tip jar. It pays for my medications and the time to write. Thank you for reading.

July 1/2 sale on Smashwords

For the rest of this month, my novels, short story collections, and biography are 50 percent off at Smashwords.

You can find the sale here.

An excerpt from one of the on-sale items:

Conjure Man

Prologue

Maureen faced the kitchen window, her hands in the dishwater. Fall had erupted and splashed the landscape in red, orange, and yellow. One small tear trickled down her cheek. This brilliance signaled the coming winter, signaled the time of cyclical death.

“Jack, I’m pregnant,” she said to her husband in low tones. He slumped at the kitchen table with a butter knife clenched in his hand. In his other hand the toast crumbled. She turned. He looked at her. The silence of betrayal spread through the room.

Through the doorway, Tessa watched. The scene in front of her had all the reality of a play—each character in place and each ready to say their lines. Jack, her father, sat at the table. A look of weariness and disbelief radiated from him.

His shoulders slumped.

“When?” he asked, a defeated tone in his voice.

Enter stage right, Tessa thought. “The baby is not yours, Dad.” She walked into the kitchen.

“What are you doing Tessa?” Jack rubbed his head, the wrinkles becoming more pronounced around his mouth.

“Dad,” Tessa said. Maybe he would understand that she was right. She was his daughter. She loved him. He didn’t need Maureen. Stepmother. He needed his kin.

“This is a private conversation," said Jack.

Tessa noticed that gray hairs were sprinkled in his dark hair. Dad had been a superman to her. For the first time she noticed how old he looked.

“I want you to know the truth,” Tessa said, her voice hardened. “She would deceive you into believing that. . .” She pointed at Maureen’s stomach. “is your child. I want you to know it’s not.”

An emotion swelled—maybe it was righteousness or malice, but it was strong. “I saw them. They were naked. I saw them this summer . . . Manuel and Maureen. I don’t care he’s gone. I don’t care. But, the baby is not yours.”

Harsh lines deepened around Dad’s eyes. He looked carefully at her. “Young lady, go outside.”

“But, Dad . . .”

“There are chores to do . . . outside. Go. I’ll talk to you later.”

 He took her arm and pulled her out the door.

Tessa leaned against the door. She had been told that you shouldn’t eavesdrop at doors. So what she heard should not have surprised her. It was a knife strike to the heart.

“I love you Maureen. Don’t leave me.”

Tessa legs shivered and weakened. She fell to the porch and then wrapped her arms around her stomach.

The coyotes howled.