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Though Stella drove them to the funeral, Will, Polly and Becky opted for the long walk home. Will appreciated the opportunity physical movement afforded to make a transition from the unreality of the cemetery back to whatever could be called regular about her life.

As she passed the stately frame houses with their kept lawns and neat flower beds — the occasional porch swinger raising a hand in greeting — she knew her visit soon must end. The town fit her worse than Polly’s dress, and without the excuse of a dying relative, she had no business being there.

“It was nice,” Polly said.

“Yeah,” Will replied.

“Just the way she wanted,” Becky chimed in.

“Did she ever say anything more about your inheritance?” Polly asked, immediately blushing at the question. “I didn’t mean — “

Will laughed. “I know you’re not after my money. God — I’d be happy for something that normal.”

She wondered briefly whether she should spare Polly this last bit of weirdness on their mother’s part and decided there was no point. Polly had lived with the woman her entire life.

“It’s some kind of artifact,” Will said. “A quartz crystal carved like a skull.”

Polly waited for more, as though the bequest of a crystal skull was no surprise and the interesting part was yet to come.

“That’s all. I suppose it might be a museum piece — maybe rare and worth some money — but it’s creepy.”

“Does it do anything?”

“Like what? Wind up and sing ‘I Got Friends in Low Places’?”

Of course it didn’t do anything — that is, unless you were prone to psychotic episodes accompanied by paranoid hallucinations.

“What’s in the envelope?” Will asked.

“Oh,” Polly glanced down. “It’s her writing.”

Will sighed. Something told her she wouldn’t be getting on a plane any time soon.

Polly didn’t want to open the envelope on the walk home, and then she didn’t want to open it in the house. She needed to get out of those clothes, and then eat. After supper, and after settling Becky in bed, a little flushed from her half of a bottle of Cabernet, Polly declared that she didn’t want to open the envelope at all.

“Let’s burn it,” she said, holding it near a candle.

“Suit yourself,” Will replied. Though beset with curiosity, the dynamics of their childhood seemed to be coming into play. She knew the only way she could control the situation was by yielding.

Polly gave her a sly look. Without the wine, she might have been less malleable. She drew the envelope away from the flame.

“I’m afraid to open it,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because she couldn’t tell me in person. Because she waited until she wouldn’t have to answer any questions. What if it’s something disappointing or confusing or terrible?

“Give it to me. If it’s bad, I won’t tell you.”

“I couldn’t do that to you.”

“Maybe it’s good, though. Maybe it’s wonderful. Do you really think she would take a parting shot at you from the grave? The letter is addressed to you — not me.”

“I don’t think she would do that to either of us, but she doesn’t think like us. Didn’t. It might be horrible even if she didn’t mean it to be.”

The image of Cora’s slender fingers caressing the curves of the crystal skull popped into Will’s head.

“We should burn it,” Will decided. “Let’s just do it.”

At that, Polly tore open the envelope. As she read, her face underwent a transformation. The apprehension in her features dissolved, and a smile slowly blossomed.

“Read it out loud,” Will urged. She felt herself smiling too, with relief.

Polly looked at Will with her wide blue trusting eyes. “There’s a lot to explain.”

“Explain, then — I’m not going anywhere.” Will had not seen Polly so animated in years — not since Becky’s birth, she realized.

“Okay.” Polly inhaled deeply. “Here goes.”

My sweet daughter. Polly’s voice caught, but she took a moment to recover and then continued: I know how to bring your strange story to a happy conclusion. I could not risk sharing this secret until I knew for sure. I will soon make a journey to another realm. So must you.

Will’s smile collapsed. “Polly, stop.”

“No — just listen.

My crossing will be spiritual. I will leave this body and this world behind. Yours may seem just as mysterious, but only because of the limitations of human knowledge. Our race is so young and arrogant. We know very little.

Dread grew inside Will.

But I know now how to reunite you with Becky’s father.

Polly stopped to collect herself again, this time checking her barely contained excitement. Her eyes shone brightly, and there were spots of color high on her cheeks. She looked feverish, Will thought.

“Okay, time out. Becky’s father?”

Polly nodded, her smile quivering.

“Not Tom…”

She shook her head.

Somehow, that didn’t come as a shock. The baby came too soon after her marriage to Tom Gilbert, a quiet man unabashedly in love with Polly for as long as Will could remember. She couldn’t believe he ever claimed more than a tiny corner of her sister’s heart.

Will found it hard to believe they were sleeping together before their baffling marriage, but there was no one else — or so she thought at the time. They never even moved into their own home. Tom just joined the family in the house on the lake, and Will always assumed Cora’s craziness put an end to the union.

A few weeks after Becky’s arrival, Tom packed his belongings into his pickup truck and drove off to Ishpeming, where he landed a good job. Polly was supposed to follow when the baby was a little older, but she had never gone.

Of all the peculiar circumstances of their brief marriage, perhaps the strangest was that Polly never stopped wearing her wedding ring. An intricate, beautifully crafted piece of silver, it seemed entirely out of sync with the pallid and unsuccessful union it represented. Polly said they found it in a thrift store. Tom wore no ring of any sort.

“Who, then?” Will asked. “Who is Becky’s father?”

Polly gave Will a helpless look and then turned back to the letter.

I have never made the crossing, but now I believe that you can. Once you get there, you must take care whom you trust. To many people your father was a great hero, but to a misguided few he was the worst traitor in the history of Atlantis.

“Stop — really. This is too nuts — even for Mother,” Will said. “Do not read another word until you tell me in plain English what this is about and why you seem to be all-in on this fractured fairy tale.”

“Just let me finish.”

Will can help you — the mention of her name was the only thing that kept Will from leaving the room at that point — and for her own sake, she must. The reason she is so unhappy here is that she’s not among her own kind. She’s like the lone swan in a duck pond.

Polly glanced up. “I’ve always thought that.”

There are many passages, I’ve been told, but only one that I know of personally. Your father and others used it. It’s in a cave at the bottom of the Bottomless Pool. In the right hands, a powerful crystal illuminates the portal. There is no crystal more powerful than the one I passed on to Will, and hers are the right hands.

Once the portal becomes visible, you simply go through. Tell Becky it’s like Alice going through the looking glass. Courage, Polly. Will can take you and Becky home, and perhaps she will find peace there herself.

The sisters sat silently for a moment.

When Will broke the silence, she spoke softly, calmly. “Don’t look at me that way, Poll. You’re just setting yourself up for a huge disappointment. We’ve had a strange day — not to mention a bizarre life — and this is the capper. I don’t even want to think about why Mother wrote that letter or who Becky’s real father is, or where that grotesque skull came from. It’s too much. Right now, I’m going to open another bottle of wine and then maybe another one after that, and then sleep for as long as it takes for the world to get right side up again.”

She went to the wine rack and pretended to read labels, but her eyes were swimming, and she wondered if she might be about to faint.

“You always took care of me, Will,” Polly said, just as softly. “You’re the strong one. Remember when I said maybe you were destined for another life? This is it. I know you can do this.” She turned and left the room.

We’re painting the roses red, Will thought, choosing a bottle of Shiraz. Then: Off with her head!

________________________________________________________________________

This is Excerpt №10 of The Darkest Eyes by Mick Brady

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“We should have gone with your father, but I was too afraid.”

Will wanted to pull away, but Cora held her in her grip.

“His choice was impossible — betray his family or betray his world. Instead he chose death. He was courageous.” She looked her daughter in the eye. “And you’re just like him.”

Realization swept over Will, cutting through her anger, fear and guilt. It filled the void of her childhood grief like a landslide.

“You’re right, Mom,” she said. “I’m like him, but he didn’t give me courage — he gave me cowardice. I’ve been making a mess of things and then running away all my life. He taught me the fine art of abandonment. Somehow I made it home, though — even if he never did.” She pulled her hand free and then folded it protectively over her mother’s.

There. I said it. I broke the curse, Will thought. She felt elated — almost giddy.

“There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” Cora murmured.

It’s okay, Mother, Will thought. Dream on. I can take it now.

“Willabelle.” Will recognized Cora’s ‘I’m near the end of my patience’ voice.

“Yes, Mom.”

The old woman sighed.

“Go to that mirror.”

Will walked to an ornately framed mirror on the wall opposite the bed. She looked at her reflection and the reflection of her mother behind her. The moment became etched in her soul — a freeze-frame of her last second of clarity before the long dive into the abyss.

“Take it down,” Cora said. Her voice sounded distant.

The mirror hid a wall safe, Will knew. Mechanically, she spun the combination lock and opened the door. She reached inside and lifted the single item within out of the safe — a heavy object in a black velvet bag. Will’s hands trembled as she carried it to her mother’s bed.

Cora no longer seemed old or even sick as she loosened the drawstrings and opened the bag. She seemed hungry. Gently, she pulled back the velvet, revealing a large quartz crystal ground to the precise size and shape of a human skull. Had the thing been enlarged to its size in Will’s nightmare, four people could have walked abreast into its deep black eyes.

Cora raised the skull until it caught the light, creating a fantastic display in the room.

“This is what your father died for, Willabelle. This is your inheritance.”

Will watched with transfixed revulsion as her mother stroked the curves of the crystal skull. No longer held aloft, its light was gone, along with any pretense of beauty. It looked menacing, even deadly.

“The jawbone is missing,” Cora pointed out, her eyes bright. “It still has tremendous power, but if the missing piece were ever found…” Words seemed to fail her. “It would be unspeakable.”

Cora looked at Will uncertainly, then thrust the skull toward her.

“Here,” she said. “Take it.”

Startled, Will took a step back but found her feet would go no further. Hateful as the object was to her, she felt drawn to it — as though it were a musical instrument she just discovered the urge to play.

She cradled it in her hands and looked unflinchingly into its eyes. Bottomless, she thought. Slowly, she moved the skull this way and that, feeling its cool smoothness. She turned it face down and felt herself descending into a state of deep meditation as she stared into the featureless dome. A halo formed around it, casting a golden reflection onto Will’s face. The room, her mother, everything fell away as an image resolved in the crystal.

Will saw Becky standing face to face with a large white dog, staring into its unearthly eyes — the eyes of the owl, the aliens, the skull. She dropped the crystal onto her mother’s bed as though it had become too hot to hold.

“What is it?” Cora demanded. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” Will said. She wheeled around and left the room.

Polly was in the kitchen drinking coffee, her feet propped on a chair, reading a book.

“Where’s Becky?” Will asked. She didn’t attempt to cover her fear.

“Outside.” Then Polly jumped up and raced after Will, who had charged toward the front door.

Will stood in the yard, trying to calm herself enough to form a plan.

“Becky!” she called.

Everywhere she looked, she saw danger. The landscape was no longer familiar — it was vast and shadowed. There were countless opportunities for a child to be hidden or hurt or lost.

“Becky!” Polly screamed, but there was no distant answering reply.

“The pier,” Polly said. They ran, each calling Becky’s name every few steps. As the sisters approached the lake, Will saw with a flood of relief that Becky was standing on the small pier that jutted out into the water, her back turned to them.

“Becky!” Polly called sharply.

The little girl turned slowly, as though hearing a sound in the distance, unsure of where it was coming from. For an instant, her eyes looked blank. Then they registered recognition.

“Why didn’t you answer me?” Polly remonstrated, her voice shaking. “You had to hear us. We called and called.”

Becky looked at her mother, then questioningly, to Will.

“Did you see it?” she asked.

“No,” Will said, refusing to acknowledge the “it” she certainly meant.

“A bad dog was staring at me,” Polly said. “He wanted me to jump in, but I didn’t.”

________________________________________________________________________

This is Excerpt №9 of The Darkest Eyes by Mick Brady

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Had her mother not been dying, the visit would have been Will’s best homecoming ever. Although just nine, Becky exhibited a maturity that might have been disquieting in a more ordinary family, and she made an excellent companion on Will’s tramps in the wild. One morning, Will let her niece lead the way, and she chose an old, familiar route.They crossed a wooden bridge and stepped onto a path leading into the trees. They walked in silence as the air grew dark and the path narrowed. Becky stopped frequently to add wildflowers to her basket, but still managed to stay several steps ahead.Will wondered if her niece felt the same pull into the woods that had drawn her as a child. It was sad that she didn’t have a little sister for company — or a cousin, she thought with a stab.Becky clambered down a muddy trail to the stream, and Will followed. They moved swiftly and silently toward their destination and soon found themselves in a clearing where the stream ended in the Bottomless Pool.Will didn’t know if she had actually named the spot or if she’d overheard it from someone else, but decades later, “the Bottomless Pool” was how everyone in the community knew the deep water hole. It was far from picturesque. The grass was a little greener around its perimeter, but no wildflowers grew there, and Will never saw woodland creatures stopping by for a drink — not even birds, in spite of the profusion of insects.Will and Becky stood close to the edge, looking for anything of interest in the murky depths.“If you dove in, would you come out in China?” Becky asked. “That’s what Ryan said.”“It’s not really bottomless,” Will replied. “Just deep. That’s why the water looks so dark. I would have to have my scuba gear to breathe, of course. Even then, I probably would just get tangled up in a bunch of weeds and stuff. I wouldn’t travel very far at all, and there wouldn’t be much to see or do.”“I would like it if it did come out in China,” Becky persisted. “Then, if you were on an expedition there, you could still live with us. Just jump in to go to work, and jump out to come home.”Will idly wondered why Becky wanted to consign her to a future of deep-sea diving in China. Then again, maybe her ruined reputation wouldn’t follow her there. She felt a mosquito on her arm and smacked it. Its plump body popped, leaving a smear of her own blood.“Okay, kiddo, let’s move on before we get eaten alive.”They continued on the path through the forest to a clearing lush with wildflowers — blue gentians, brown-eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s lace. Becky began reciting as she gathered the blooms, her voice high and melodic:“There is a willow that grows by the brook, that shows its leaves in the glassy stream…”“That’s very good, sweetie,” Will interrupted. “I’m impressed. Where did you learn that?” Of course, she knew.“It’s Ophelia — one of Mr. Shakespeare’s girls,” Becky said. “Gran tells me everything,” she added, as though sharing a secret.“Does Gran tell you your future?” Will probed.“Uh uh. Not so much.” Becky’s face clouded. “Just ‘in your darkest hour, you must never give up.’ She says that a lot.”“Oh.” Will saw the strained look on Becky’s face and felt a flash of anger toward her mother. “You don’t have to worry about that, Beck. She’s talking about herself — not you. I guess this is her darkest hour, because she’s so sick.”An uncomfortable silence grew between them.“That’s not right,” Becky finally said. “Gran’s going to the light. It gets brighter every day. Don’t you see it, Aunt Will?”Will did see it, she realized with a jolt. She just refused to believe it — like so many things. She pushed the thought away.“You’re right. Gran’s going to heaven to be an angel,” Will said lightly. “She’s going to the light. So no more talk about darkest hours, okay? No more sad stuff.”Becky’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you get it?” she blurted. “Gran knows stuff. It’s a warning, and it’s for us. It’s important. For cripe’s sake! She knew you wouldn’t listen!”Becky stalked away, leaving Will utterly perplexed. I have to get her out of this place, she thought. She hoped it wasn’t too late.Will’s immediate plan of action was to keep Becky from being alone with her grandmother, ever again. So she joined in the ritual bedecking with flowers that afternoon, waiting apprehensively for Cora to say something unacceptable to the child. Will was ready to pounce with her only weapon — her scientific logic.She was a little deflated when Cora contrived an excuse that sent Becky from the room after a cheerful, giggling fifteen minutes that ended with the young girl all smiles and the old lady working hard to cover up her fatigue. Will felt a moment of tenderness for her mother, and the accompanying flow of guilt over her own stoniness.“Do you remember Copernicus?” Cora asked.“Sure,” Will said.“Your first death. You were inconsolable.” Copernicus was a muscular orange tabby whose favorite sleeping arrangement was on top of Will’s feet. He had kept them toasty warm.“Then your father — ““Please don’t,” Will said. Any guilt she might feel over speaking rudely was overwhelmed by the threatening tidal wave of anger and grief she had been holding at bay for years. She wasn’t about to let it come crashing down now.“You didn’t shed a tear. Not in public, anyway. My guess is not in private, either — am I right?”Will turned away and went to the window, where she could look at anything that would allow her to tune out the conversation. Sunlight glancing through one of the hanging crystals fractured her face into prisms of colored light.“That was when you stopped loving me,” Cora said matter-of-factly.“That’s not true.”“I have been patient with you, daughter, but I’m running out of time,” she said sharply. “I wanted you back, but I’ll settle for you present. Now stop working so hard to shut me out for a minute, and pay attention.”Okay, this is it, Will thought. She’s going to say it anyway, so I might as well get it over with. But she stayed at the window.“You have to take Polly and Becky home,” Cora ordered.That was it? Her dying pronouncement? Will turned toward her mother. Her anxiety evaporated, and she saw her for the confused old woman she was. She walked over to the bed and tentatively picked up her hand and held it in her own. It was an awkward gesture, but it helped Will feel in control again.“They’re here, Mother. We’re all here.”With unaccountable strength, the old lady squeezed Will’s hand until it hurt.“None of us is home,” she hissed.

________________________________________________________________________

This is Excerpt №8 of The Darkest Eyes by Mick Brady

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Polly pulled onto a long drive leading to a large white frame house, which bore its century-plus existence with stately grace. A porch wrapped around the structure, furnished with a swing, scattered chairs, tubs of geraniums and hanging pots of ivy. Wind chimes tinkled in a light breeze.Nostalgia swept over Will like an illness. A girl was swinging on a tire hung from a maple tree whose silver-backed leaves glittered in the night. She wore an old-fashioned plaid dress, its bow coming loose in the back. For an instant, Will thought she was gazing through a time tunnel at her nine-year-old self. Then the vision jumped from the swing and ran toward her.“Aunt Will!” the child exclaimed, throwing herself into her arms.“Becky!”For the first time in centuries, it seemed, Will felt the delicious warmth of total, unfettered love. No questioning. No judgment. She squeezed Becky tightly, causing laughter to bubble out of her.Polly tousled her daughter’s strawberry blond curls as she passed, carrying Will’s luggage toward the house. Will scooped up the girl and followed.“You’re getting so big — I can hardly lift you,” she laughed.Becky rested her head in the crook of her neck.“Gran’s dying,” she whispered. Her breath was warm and sweet.Will stood outside the front door for a long moment, clutching Becky like a teddy bear, then took a deep breath as she crossed the threshold.She looked dispassionately at the assortment of antique furniture in the perpetually unused living room. It was arranged exactly as in her childhood. She felt no attachment to it and wondered whether the original owners had, or if from the very beginning those pieces were destined to live long and lonely lives, never getting to do the things ordinary chairs and tables got to do.She felt a sharp pinch on her cheek and caught a glimpse of her teenage self winking smartly at her before tearing up the stairs in a mad rush to her bedroom. Will felt a surge of longing.Mentally, she followed her jean jacketed and jelly-shod ghost up the staircase to a room she knew was no longer there. She saw the pale lemon-colored walls, the gauzy chiffon curtains, and her canopied bed, covered in a drift of violets. She saw the portable CD player that had provided the musical accompaniment to some of the most stunning realizations of her youth and once again heard Bonnie singing Total Eclipse of the Heart in the dark.Will wanted to stay in the room — pull out all the drawers and reach deep into the closet for all the bits of herself that had gotten broken or lost between then and now. But she had been standing still too long.Becky felt leaden in her arms — she had fallen asleep. Will carried her into the sitting room and deposited her onto an unfamiliar couch. The room the family used the most had changed the most, having been redecorated since Will’s last visit. Only the habits of the occupants were recognizable: soft yellow lamplight bathing stacks of library books, the always-on but rarely watched TV murmuring and blinking in a vain effort to attract attention.The sliding doors to what once had been a dining room but now was Mother’s bedroom cracked open, releasing a strong whiff of sweet incense. Cranberry light glowed from the interior. A sturdy woman with iron-gray curls and a grim set to her jaw emerged. Will felt her face split into a nervous smile. Stella returned it with a frankly disapproving glare, then quickly averted her eyes as though to take it back.“Good of you to come,” she said. “She’s been asking.”The truth struck Will like a blow. Her mother really was dying, and her presence at the homestead was largely coincidental. Her face burned at the thought, but no one seemed to notice.“I made a casserole,” Stella told Polly. “It’s in the oven. The one Becky likes, with hamburger and rice and chicken soup mix. She ate two helpings.” The woman’s matter-of-fact voice quivered a little.It occurred to Will that although Stella had been caring for Mother for almost fifteen years, she still seemed like a stranger. But I’m the one who’s afraid to walk through those doors, she thought. I’m the one who doesn’t know which room I’ll be sleeping in tonight. I’m the one who ran away from home and never really came back. Stella’s a member of the family now — I’m the one who doesn’t fit in.“Should I wait until morning to say hello?” she asked Polly.“Go in for a minute,” Polly replied. “She’ll rest better knowing you’re here.”Will slid the door open, quelling the impulse to race through the night as far away as she could get. Cora Roan’s room was a lavish affair, papered in red brocade, crowded with ornate, gilt-trimmed furniture. Silk scarves slung over lampshades accounted for the room’s crimson glow. The draperies tied back at the windows were a heavy velvet of dark olive green with a floral pattern embroidered in burgundy and gold threads.The windows were open, letting in the cool night air and a tinkling, tolling, clattering symphony of wind chimes. Photographs stared at Will from every wall — dead ancestors she had never known mingling with innumerable versions of herself, Polly, Becky and other familiar faces — including one man Will couldn’t bear to see.The room overflowed with New Age paraphernalia: crystals, beads, candles, incense holders, books on the occult, Tarot cards, star charts, runes. There were also mundane items that reminded Will with a twinge that her mother was an old, sick woman: boxes of tissues, prescription medications, ointments and lotions, eyeglasses, an open package of disposable underwear.Cora lay on the large four-poster. Her small frame seemed almost to disappear in the downy bedding. Her eyes were closed, and she looked weightless — like a corpse, Will thought. She was dressed in an impractical nightgown — creamy ivory satin trimmed in lace and pale blue ribbons. Her long, yellow-gray hair hung in loose waves, garlands of wildflowers adorning it. Her skin was translucent, almost unlined.“She told Becky about Ophelia a couple of days ago, and now, every day, she goes out and picks flowers for Gran’s hair,” Polly whispered. She grasped Will lightly by the arm and propelled her toward their mother’s bedside.She looked exquisite. Like a child, Will thought, a beautiful dead child. A radiance surrounded her, as though she were bathed in life energy that had been expelled from her body and had no other obvious place to go. Her pale blue eyes fluttered open.“Willabelle,” she said. Her voice was unexpectedly strong. Her dry lips parted in a smile. For the first time in years, the name didn’t sound foreign. The glass wall that stood between them for most of Will’s life dissolved in that instant, and she fought hard against an anguished uprising of tears and regret. The moment didn’t last. Cora’s eyes took on a shrewd expression.“You’ve come to claim your inheritance.”“No, Mother,” Will said. “I just came for a visit.”“Hah.”Batty, Will thought. How could I forget?Cora took a deep breath, as though she were about to launch into a well-prepared speech.“You’re tired,” Will said, pre-empting it. “We can talk in the morning.” She gave her a light kiss on the cheek and hurried out of the room.________________________________________________________________________

This is Excerpt №7 of The Darkest Eyes by Mick Brady

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Will descended the stairs of the small plane and found herself under a lavish sunset. The Upper Peninsula airport that marked the end of her long flight was as different from the Chicago hub as a place where travelers landed could be.
The air felt cool and clean. Small craft were scattered hither and yon like a fleet of toys. A group of skydivers trotted across a grassy field toward a plane waiting anxiously on an airstrip to complete the day’s last haul. Will felt a prickling desire to join them, but she turned, with an air of resignation, toward the tiny terminal.
Polly’s face was a mask of studied nonchalance as she met her sister. Will reflected that the expression must have taken days to achieve. No doubt she had tried on more honest reactions to her dubious homecoming — disappointment, frustration, pity, contempt — and found them too harsh for her delicate features.
The moment that bitter observation crossed her mind, Will realized she was once again projecting her self-loathing on the innocent. Polly’s careful neutrality was a sure sign that she expected it.
The sisters embraced and kissed lightly, each reining in the intense emotions that threatened to bring down the crayon-lit sky. They bustled about, loading luggage and arranging themselves in the car. Once they could look at the road ahead instead of at each other, conversation might be possible.
“You might not recognize her,” Polly said, breaking the silence.
Will tried taking a breath. It worked.
“You mean she’s starting to look normal?” she quipped.
Polly shot her sister a remonstrating look, but Will saw her mouth twitch.
“If anything, she’s more eccentric. She looks like an extremely eccentric, very sick old lady.”
“Eccentric. Hell, you’re eccentric. I’m fucking eccentric. Mother’s lunatic or psychotic, or some other ‘ic’ in a category all her own.”
The silence returned. Will leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
“You know, you don’t have to be so hard around me,” Polly murmured. “I know you.”
The sky’s luster had faded to shades of blue and purple-gray.
“Anyway, she’s dying.”
A sharp pain stabbed deep into Will’s gut. What gave her sister the right to pronounce a death sentence so coolly? To put that idea out into the universe where someone might pick it up and make it so?
“Maybe it will be good for her.” She hadn’t intended that to come out. She struggled to redeem herself.
“I mean, she’s always going on about ‘the other side.’ Maybe she’ll get there and find some kindred souls.” She laughed. I’m sounding manic again, she thought, but the words kept falling out. “Maybe that’s heaven — finding someone who understands where you’re coming from.”
Polly turned onto a road that took them into a pine forest, and they mutually abandoned the effort to speak.
Will savored the peaceful gloom of the darkening woods. She inhaled deeply, and memories filled her. Once she and Polly ruled this territory. Together, they discovered the path that led down a steep bank to the “Silver Stream,” as they named it, and together they followed its twists and turns one fateful day all the way to the “Bottomless Pool.”
They had lost track of time on the journey, and Will’s worry blossomed into alarm. Night was falling, and they were in the middle of the forest. She remembered looking through her twelve-year-old eyes at her sister, and seeing a scrawny, tired, scratched and muddy six-year-old looking back with a wide blue trusting gaze. Polly would have followed Will anywhere.
They couldn’t go back the way they came, Will knew. The stream was tricky enough to negotiate in daylight. Polly might slip and hit her head on a rock. Anyway, it the little girl was worn out, and the air was getting cold.
As Will attempted to think through her mounting trepidation, she caught the flicker of a distant light in the corner of her eye. At first, she thought it was fireflies, but she soon realized there was just one light, and it was moving toward them. With a mixture of mortification and relief, Will realized it must be a flashlight. Mother must have sent a search party after them. She grabbed Polly’s hand and hurried toward the beam.
“Hello?” Will called tentatively. Then, a little louder, “We’re over here.”
No answer came, but in a blur, the light was in their midst: a lacy, glowing orb that seemed to Will like a bit of moonlight that had dashed down to take a closer look at Earth. It danced toward them, then moved away in a repetitious pattern that soon made sense.
“It wants us to follow it,” Polly whispered.
The girls cautiously walked toward the glowing ball. It twirled merrily, changed its shape, and splashed a dazzling display of color onto the night air around them. Polly giggled. She was enchanted, unafraid. The light led the children to a flat trail that widened as the trees thinned. Will heard the unmistakable drone of a car engine.
They emerged from the woods onto a grassy pasture bordering the road that connected their town to the rest of the world. In the dark, Will was uncertain which way to go, but the little light shot ahead encouragingly, turning sharply as it reached the road, as if pointing in the right direction.
Her heart swelled with relief.
“C’mon Polly,” she called.
Silence. Will turned around, suddenly afraid again, and saw her little sister lying in a crumpled heap on the grass.
“Polly!”
Her sister’s lids lifted slightly, but the eyes behind them barely registered. Polly was an inch away from deep sleep. Will struggled to wake her up.
“C’mon, I’ll give you a piggyback ride,” she urged.
Polly rallied long enough to clamber aboard and throw her arms around Will’s neck. Will held tight to her legs and leaned forward a little as she trudged up the road toward home.
The light was gone.
Polly slammed on the brakes and lurched to a halt, jolting Will back to the present. A deer bounded across the road in front of them. Polly cut the engine and waited. After a moment, a fawn scampered across. The silence gradually came alive with bird sounds and the rustle of wind high in the trees. The last bit of daylight tossed dappled shadows across the road before them.
“Polly?” Will said softly.
“Yes?”
“I’m either having a prolonged nervous breakdown, or I’m going crazy like Mother.”
The dusk gathered around them like a cloak.
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” Polly said.
She started the motor and drove.
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m on the goddamn bridge! I lost my job — my life.”
“Maybe the life you lost is one you weren’t meant to have.”
“Oh. So I chose the wrong career? That’s it? Everything I managed to achieve has been an effing big mistake?”
“I’m not saying it’s all been for nothing. I’m just wondering out loud if… if maybe you’re meant to do something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great.”
“Sorry,” Polly snapped. “I’m a little preoccupied. I sort of forgot that the desire to see Mother one last time isn’t what brought you here. I guess I’m thinking a little more about her dying days than your mid-life crisis.”
“I wish you’d quit saying that. You don’t know that she’s dying. Nobody knows.”
“She does. She’s decided.”
The woods melted away, and they drove through open farmland in the evening’s last light. It was fully dark when they reached the outskirts of the sleepy town and veered onto a narrow road that bordered a tree-ringed lake.

________________________________________________________________________

This is Excerpt №6 of The Darkest Eyes by Mick Brady

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If your goal is to write an encyclopedia before you die, then maybe you should write every day. But creative writing isn’t about mass production, and imposing an assembly line type of discipline on it can be counterproductive.

Writers come in all shapes and sizes. So do their lives, and so do their processes.

Some writers are free to fully immerse themselves in creative work without many other responsibilities. Others have a day job — or two. Some have small children to mind, or elderly or disabled family members to care for. Some have people in their lives who need their counsel or companionship. Some choose to participate in volunteer activities, or to engage in political or social activism.

All writers should spend some time tending to their own mental and physical health. Thinking is essential to writing. Sometimes you need to lie in the hammock and listen to the wind chimes. You might want to water your roses, go for a bike ride, or walk around the block. Maybe there’s a day when you’d rather scrub 20 years of tarnish off your antique silver than write. It’s Ok. Go for it.

Real-world experiences enrich a writer’s life in and fuel creativity. But having them takes time. There may be days when you can barely hold the pieces together and get a solid four hours of sleep. The last thought running through your exhausted mind should not be, “I’ll never succeed. I didn’t write today.”

There was a time when I was so overwhelmed with responsibilities that writing every day was about as realistic as climbing a mountain every day. I believed that my creative life was over, and all I could do was mourn the loss. Then someone challenged me to find one hour a week to write something — anything.

That was how I began what eventually became a 500-plus page novel. After a few weeks, I determined to find more minutes and hours.

My job at the time required a 50-mile commute each way. I had to be at my desk at 7am, and I often stayed there until 5 or 6pm. I won’t go into what awaited me when I finally got home, except to say it amounted to another daunting job.

I decided to create more writing time by taking the train to work. It meant getting up even earlier, driving a few miles to the station, riding for about an hour, and then driving the car I’d left overnight at the other station another 20 minutes to work. It cost me precious sleep and extended my commute — and both cars were vandalized in the station lots — but it gave me two solid hours a day to write.

In that way, I managed to complete a draft of my book. Still, even though I was focused and determined, I didn’t write every day. On some of those train rides I slept.

If you’re a writer like me, there will be times when nothing can stop you. You’ll ride the current of your creative energy like you’re shooting the rapids. When the rush subsides you may feel the way Thomas Wolfe did when he famously strolled down the streets of New York City crowing, “I wrote ten thousand words today!”

Unless you’re channeling a mystical inner genius (or perhaps madman), that’s not likely to happen with regularity. If you push yourself to write every day no matter what, you might end up fulfilling a less-famous Wolfe quotation, becoming a writer who “wads up three-hundred thousand words or so, hurls it at a blank page, puts covers on it and says, ‘Here’s my book!’” (For more about Wolfe, see Anne Trubek’s excellent article, “Fading From View.”)

Every writer works differently, and most serious writers develop a process that’s flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances.

You won’t accomplish your writing goals without discipline, but if you adopt an arbitrary rule, you may feel guilty, frustrated and defeated by what you’re not doing instead of growing in your self assurance and your craft. If you’re writing under duress, you may find that you’re generating a lot of words that aren’t very inspired.

Writing shouldn’t be forced labor, but it can’t be something you’ll get around to when the stars align either — not if you really want to publish. First, decide where writing lands on your priority list. If it’s one of the top five things you want to do in your life, make room for it.

Decide how much time you realistically can spend on your writing. Block out that time on your schedule and do your best to stick to it. If it doesn’t work at first, experiment with different time slots until you find your groove.

Choose a writing project that’s compatible with the time you can devote to it. I chose to start work on a novel during my meager one-hour-a-week phase only because I already had an old screenplay to use as a blueprint. If I’d had to start from scratch, a short story or an essay based on a personal experience might have made more sense.

Stick to your plan long enough to let it become a habit. Then look for ways to build out your writing time, or just keep on trucking if you’re happy with your progress.

Keep writing tools handy. Whether it’s a notebook and a pen or an email draft on your phone, have a place to jot down ideas when they occur to you, for fleshing out during your scheduled sessions.

Give yourself “writing” credit for all the tasks you must do to reach your audience. Your marketing hat may not sit as comfortably on your head as your writing hat, so maybe give yourself even more credit for time spent connecting with readers. Giving your work the best chance possible of making a mark in the world will allow you to approach your next writing project with more enthusiasm.

Finally, wherever you are in your career, think of yourself as a writer. It’s not something you want to be — it’s what you are. If you think “I’m a writer” every day, that affirmation alone will be much more valuable than a few limp paragraphs squeezed out before your head hits the pillow each night.

Don’t try to fit into anyone else’s writer mold. Break the rules — or make them up as you go. There’s never just one way.

I just stumbled upon a post by an author who often gives great advice about blogging, writing, and other important things in life.

What struck me was her passionate disagreement with another writing-advice guru who told a webinar audience that fiction writers should post a book review every month as a way to start blogging. That was terrible advice, she insisted — so terrible she entertained thoughts of virtual strangulation.

In her view, only readers should write book reviews — not other writers. Read whatever you like, but don’t even think about sharing your reactions in public.

I found this particularly germane because I’m an avid reader as well as a novelist, and I recently transitioned from a full-time job to freelancing. I plan to write a lot more in my new role — fiction and nonfiction — and I thought book reviews might be something I’d enjoy posting on occasion.

In fact, I’m nearly finished reading Just Mercy, and I’ve been writing the review in my head. Sure, the book is a few years old, and it’s already highly acclaimed. However, the movie, released in December, has been trending on streaming services, given the recent heightened attention to civil rights. No doubt there’s a resurgence of interest in the book as well, right?

So, my knee-jerk reaction to the advice to not write book reviews was something like, “Don’t tell me what not to write,” and even, “Now I’m definitely going to write a book review.”

Gulp. There’s something embarrassing about that self-realization. There are other words for taking advice only if you already agree with it: “immature,” “narrow-minded,” “lazy,” “stubborn,” “self-defeating,” “useless.” I quickly shifted into reverse. I needed to back up and give the advice the consideration it deserved.

I’ve written quite a few book reviews, both before and after I published my novel. The ones I wrote before — when I was just a reader, not a published author — are far better, if I’m honest.

It’s not because I lost my ability to write insightful commentary. It’s because, as my friendly advisor noted, after you publish your own work the wall between you and other writers thins.

When I became a struggling indie author, I found that I was much more forgiving of the works of other authors sharing my boat. I couldn’t avoid thinking about how they would feel when they read my review. I was less focused on how I might be of service — or disservice — to readers contemplating an investment of their time.

Perhaps needless to say, the wall between successful writers and me is still quite thick, and I have no concerns about inflicting pain on them with poor or lukewarm reviews. Yet who benefits if I add my take to the many reviews already in circulation? Is it really worth my time and energy?

What if I refrained from writing book reviews? I could still mention books in my blog posts. I could still point to passages that influenced me, or comment in general terms about my responses. It wouldn’t ruin my life as a writer if I were to cross book reviews off my list.

If I really wanted to weigh in on a book, I could write an anonymous review. Or in the case of Just Mercy, I could review the film instead of the book. In fact, that’s what I will do. I will take the advice I initially resisted and alter my plans.

This brings me to the promise of my post’s title — how to find the golden nuggets in the mountains of writing advice available on Medium and elsewhere.

Here’s my insight: If what you’re reading is generic information that recycles advice you’ve already internalized, you’re wasting your time. If you’re halfway through a post and you haven’t been challenged to think differently, it’s unlikely you’ll find any golden nuggets there.

What you should search for is advice that makes you squirm — that you instinctively don’t want to follow. That’s the advice you should take most seriously. It has the potential to be a golden nugget if it leads you to a better understanding of what you want to write and how you want to do it. It’s a golden nugget if it helps you grow.

Ultimately you might reject the advice — and for good reason. The key is to do the work to identify the reason. Don’t waste your time on advice that merely confirms what you already know. Don’t summarily reject advice that challenges you.

If you want to change your prospects as a writer, you have to venture into the deep, dark woods and explore. You have to leave the well-worn path, clamber through undergrowth, and look under rocks. It might seem a little scary, but maybe you’ll happen upon a rippling brook, and you might see something shining beneath the surface.

A dark crystal tower dominated the landscape. It sprang from a fracture in the earth in the center of the city, blooming from the soup of energy and elements at the planet's core. It thrust itself upward like a giant metal cancer -- asymmetrical, disorganized. Thunder boomed. Lightning sheared through the violet sky.

As Will walked toward the tower, she saw its shadow begin to move. It formed a canopy over the smaller buildings in its vicinity, shrouding them like a veil. Then the buildings disappeared -- engulfed and absorbed by the darkness. The tower leaped higher into the sky.

The shadow rolled outward in all directions like an inky sea. Whole sections of the city disappeared in the flood as Will watched in dumbstruck horror. The tower's girth grew more massive as it continued its climb toward the heavens. Its shadow became a tidal wave of blackness, rising above her, curling with elemental power, poised in a breathless moment before it would come crashing down.

Suddenly, Will found herself in another time/space -- disembodied, yet complete. The great, jagged tower had ripped itself from the Earth and was circling the sun, its velocity increasing madly as it whirled around and toward the ball of gas. Will saw the life force of millions of lost souls glowing from within the dark crystal. It burned brighter as it careened toward the solar furnace.

This is the way the world ends, she thought. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. With a bang.

The monolith exploded into a tremendous ball of cosmic dust. Like the ashes of a global crematory, Will thought. Like spangled stars on a blanket of night. Like the breath of diamonds.

She awoke to find herself lying next to the stinking corpse of a dolphin. She rolled away from the thing, extricated herself from the sheets and stumbled to the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face and worked hard to calm the beating of her heart, the trembling of her hands. To force back the impulse to start screaming and never stop.

Her mind groped for a plan of action. She needed clothes. She was naked, having scattered her garments in the trail of her inexplicable passion the night before. Girding herself against a wave of nausea, she left the sanctuary of the bathroom.

Adam lay in the bed, sleeping peacefully. Will dressed hurriedly and left without waking him.

A taxi waited at the curb. She got in and said nothing. John Smith drove toward the city, whistling "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," watching her in the rear view mirror, his eyes cold.

He drove toward Willis Tower -- a dark, irregular structure that dominated the city's skyline. It seemed to spring like a great crystal from the earth, Will thought, not for the first time. When they got there, she left the taxi wordlessly. She didn't pay.

As she approached the tower, John Smith's whistling reached "one, two, three strikes you're out," and abruptly stopped. Will knew his mocking eyes were following her, but she didn't turn around.

She walked into the tower with a mixture of dread and resignation. She had been there many times before. Every time her travel plans had been interfered with and she had found herself unwillingly hitting the tarmac in Chicago, the tower had pulled her like a magnet into its cold clutches.

She didn't know exactly what to expect as she rode the elevator to the Skydeck, but her heart raced. Each previous experience had been different in the details, but predictably terrifying.

She didn't notice the shift when it took place, just that she was sure the elevator was full when she got on, and somehow, while speeding up the shaft, it emptied without her noticing. This is impossible, she thought. As usual. The elevator doors opened, and Will stepped into a waking nightmare.

The Skydeck was crowded. Everywhere Will looked, she saw them -- walking and chatting in little groups, gazing out of coin-operated telescopes, snapping photos. Small grays. Not a human in sight.

The aliens ignored her at first, but the screeching white owls seemed angry and impatient. They swooped toward her from all directions, skimming just over her head.

When Will tried to raise her arms to protect herself, she found that her hands were gripped by two taller aliens. How had they taken her without a fight? All at once, she was at the center of a mob of grays, and they were moving her in their current.

She felt a sudden surge of defiance, but it was quelled in an instant when they turned a corner, and she got her first look at an object that took her breath away. Will had never seen anything so beautiful or so threatening.

A huge crystal skull rested on a large platform with twin sets of steps leading up to the thing's eyes. They were dark and liquid, and large enough for people to walk through, four abreast. The eyes pulled Will like a magnet, and the thought came to her that if she entered their recesses, she would find unimaginable suffering on the other side.

Will tried to halt the progress of the alien escort pushing her toward the skull, but she was swept along, the owls harassing the mob like dogs herding sheep. Struggling seemed pointless, but she would not go passively to her doom. She managed to wrench one hand out of the alien's grip and raise it high, in the gesture of a drowning victim's final plea.

There was some scuffling ahead -- Will craned her neck to see. Something had broken the ranks of the alien troops. She felt their confusion and dismay as an interloper made its way toward her. What she saw next topped all the other bizarre sights around her.

The rescuer carving a path through the alien mob was a large dolphin, lurching impossibly on its tail. The thing should have looked crazy -- even comical -- but to Will, the beast looked heroic. It held her in its gaze, telepathically conveying reassurance. Her heart leaped with hope.

Then she watched in horror as the white owls swooped down on the great dolphin, homing in on it with ferocity, taking great chunks of its flesh in their beaks and claws.

The creature wobbled and swayed, and its ragged breathing filled the air, but it continued its stalwart march. Blood poured from gaping wounds. As it reached Will, the aliens encircled her, but the dolphin simply pushed the whole knot of them back until Will found herself slammed against the doors of the elevator, which mercifully opened.

She stumbled backward, and felt the sensation of moving through a gauzy veil. As the elevator doors closed, she caught the dolphin's eyes, deep and sorrowful, and hoped the creature read her gratitude.

Will struggled for calm as she found herself once again in the company of an ordinary group of tourists making the usual mundane observations about the city sights. No crystal skull, aliens or owls for them. No magical dolphin.

The elevator doors opened on the lobby, and Will sensed that all was not right even before she saw the small crowd gathered near the entrance. She elbowed her way through the onlookers and saw a man lying lifeless on the floor.

Adam wore his gray suit and an expression of sorrow in his dead gray eyes.

"He just fell like a stone," someone murmured.

Now, Will knew, she would be able to go home.

This is Excerpt No. 5 of The Darkest Eyes by Mick Brady

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The clouds looked like huge puffs of popcorn. Will pressed her forehead to the cool window of the jet and peered at the earth below through the clear blue space between. She saw large, perfect circles cut into the ground, clustered at the feet of barren mountains. They were brown and featureless, some overlapping -- like crop circles without the crops.

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round. Nothing looked familiar, but Will felt she had strapped into this ride many times before.

The plane shook, and a large woman working her way down the aisle let out an involuntary yelp as she lurched sideways. A soft chime sounded and the seatbelt light flashed on. The pilot announced they were heading into some turbulence. The woman appeared stricken with indecision for a moment, a mere dozen feet away from the bathroom.

It's starting, Will thought.

The only time she had navigated Midwestern airspace without some abnormal event interfering with her flight was on the single occasion when her itinerary included a layover in Chicago. The things that happened on the ground there made her determined never to go back, but back she had gone -- time and time again -- every time she tried to go home.

Will always booked her connecting flight through Detroit, but she had yet to catch a glimpse of that city. Inevitably -- no matter what direction she came from -- something would happen to force her plane to land at O'Hare. A faulty cockpit light. An airport security alert. Tornadoes in Kansas. Once a passenger suffered a heart attack.

Something always brought her down, down from the breathless uncertainty of skimming over a field of popcorn in a tin can full of anxious, smelly travelers to the dreadful certainty of tires slamming into pavement, giant bird riding its brakes, suffocating march into the terminal, ticket clerk saying, "Sorry, no more flights to Sault Ste. Marie tonight."

Will knew that the big lady would not make it to the bathroom just as surely as she knew that she would not make it to Detroit. A storm was brewing. Almost as soon as the thought took form, the jet became engulfed in a torrent of lashing sideways rain with thunder drumming and lightning strobing.

The pilot announced they would be making an unscheduled landing in Chicago due to the freak weather. For most of the passengers, hitting the runway ended the terror. For Will, it was the beginning.

She sat in the waiting area near the gate for almost an hour, trying to form a plan that would keep her from leaving the airport. It was only when she caught the sympathetic glance of an airline employee as he shut down the desk and prepared to leave her completely alone that she felt the impulse to get up and walk. Airline employees were rivaled only by hospital nurses for their steely, uncaring demeanors, in Will's experience. That one would look at her with so much unguarded pity was unsettling.

"Watch your step," a disembodied voice warned, as Will rode the moving walkway ever closer to a confrontation with the outside world. Neon sculptures glowed menacingly above her. She rode slowly toward the exit she had been determined to avoid. The rain was falling vertically when Will stepped outside. The sound was steady and hypnotic. Under the protective overhang, the air felt hot and stale. A taxi pulled up, and the driver beckoned.

She slid into the back seat. "The nearest hotel, please."

He sat motionless behind the wheel. The man was small and slight. He didn't look at all like a cab driver -- he wore a black suit and fedora. Will glanced at his ID photo and saw a swarthy complexion and a beaky nose. His name was John Smith.

"The nearest hotel?" she repeated.

The driver's head whipped around. "There are no rooms!"

Will stared at him, unflinching. He glared back. He blinked once, slowly.

"You don't scare me," she lied.

She opened the door and tumbled to the pavement as the taxi sped away.

Will lay on the wet concrete for a moment, seemingly invisible to the crowd milling around. As she scrambled to her knees, she felt a shadow looming over her. Will looked up and met the sad eyes of the man, possibly a lawyer, who lately had appeared on an Australian talk show.

"I can help you," he said.

"I need to go home," she whispered.

"I know."

He held out his hand, and Will grasped it. He guided her back into the terminal with a light touch under her elbow, which Will found oddly comforting.

"I'm Will Roan," she said softly.

"Adam Fort," he replied.

They entered an airport restaurant, and Adam ordered large steak dinners for both of them. Will ordered a pitcher of martinis.

"I have to warn you -- I'm not quite in touch with reality," she said, as if joking. "In fact, I don't know if you're who you say you are or just a figment of my latest psychotic break. Don't suppose you can clear that up."

In truth, she was beginning to relax in the man's presence, and it occurred to her that he was handsome in an unobtrusive way. His gray eyes were clear and intelligent.

"I can see that you're alone and afraid."

"And you just go around rescuing people? Like Batman?" "Something like that." He smiled. "I don't quite have his flair, though."

Will forgot the strangeness of their encounter when the food arrived. She hadn't realized until then that she was famished. She dove in. Adam ate slowly, carefully -- as though working through a difficult math problem between bites. They shared a bottle of wine with the meal and sipped brandy afterward. Whether due to Adam Fort's reassuring presence or the effects of the alcohol, Will's nerves at last calmed.

"What now?" she asked. Though the meal had used up a good two hours, Will still had an entire night to get through. Adam's eyes met hers, and it occurred to her that she might be on her own again. She felt a tingle of apprehension shoot to her fingertips.

"I have a room nearby," he said. "There are two beds."

"I'm not afraid of you," Will said. This time she meant it.

Will didn't wait to reach Adam's room, instead flinging herself at him in the elevator on the way up. She whispered a suggestion into his ear and followed it with a prolonged kiss, burrowing into him as though she might freeze to death without his heat.

Although her onslaught must have taken him by surprise, he didn't resist. He held her as though she was someone he cherished, rather than a brazen woman he just met. Will would always remember the tender expression in his gray eyes.

This is Excerpt No. 4 of The Darkest Eyes by Mick Brady

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No. 1 : January 20, 2019 ~

I'm going to break a cardinal rule of storytelling and begin in the middle. That's where I am on my journey, after all. As a writer, I'm no beginner -- I've been writing pretty much all my life. Nor am I closing in on the end of my career. Several future novels are already incubating, and unlimited possibilities are floating around in the cosmos, waiting for me to snatch them out of oblivion.

I'm in the middle of my life too, although that assertion might provoke some eye-rolling. I don't care. I've decided to embrace the possibility that I have just as much time ahead of me as behind. It's no use throwing a bunch of statistics at me or chiding me to be realistic. I'm a teller of fantastic tales. I believe in magic. And I know that science sometimes seems like magic.

So I am in the middle, with plenty of time ahead -- I've decided that's a given. I do not intend to write fast and desperately just to get as much as possible out there before the coffin lid falls down. I want to enjoy writing my stories as much as I want others to enjoy reading them.

I am in the middle. I'm in the flow -- I'm not preparing, planning or wishing. I'm not tying up loose ends. I'm doing.

It strikes me that this is a great place to be in my life. I used to be forward-thinking, but I've shifted to present-thinking. I'm not dwelling on past pleasures or pain -- I'm carpe diem-ing.

There are two things I need to do while I'm here in the middle (which, in case you haven't caught my drift yet, is where I intend to stay).

The first is to blast The Darkest Eyes to the world. I haven't quite figured out how to do that, but I've struck a bunch of matches, and I'm randomly lighting fuses, optimistically expecting that one or more of them eventually will burn strong and sure. I would do this methodically and correctly, if I knew how, but since I don't, I'll do it any way I can. That's my marketing strategy: Try everything. Take every suggestion. Go for it.

The second is to write my next story. I thought I would have to put that off, because I don't have a lot of free time, and I need to do No. 1 first, right? Well, no. I just realized that I need to do both at the same time, because I'm in the middle, not at the beginning, and I need to spend at least some of this great, rich middle time doing the thing I love best.

This is an exciting realization. I've begun many stories, and I intend to begin many more, but the one I will finish next is the story of my witch girl. Orphaned and untrained in her art, she's adopted by a motley group of magical nonhuman creatures who have banded together to fight the forces bent on eradicating all magic from the world. It's not meant for young children, though it seems to start out that way:

***

"Long, long ago, before time followed rules, there was a village of rough people. The women were stout and whiskered, and the men had fierce red eyes. They were usually too angry to speak, but when they did, their words came out in guttural grunts like 'gak' and 'frah.' They often misunderstood one another, which only made them angrier. 

"On the outskirts of the village, quite near the edge of a deep, dark forest, there stood a hovel more ramshackle than the rest. It might once have provided decent shelter for its occupants, but many of the slim branches that formed its walls were brittle and broken, leaving gaping holes that the wind whistled through. Mud had been daubed over some of the gaps, but it had caked and crumbled, giving the cottage a scabby appearance. Still, there was always a cheerful ribbon of smoke curling from its chimney. 

"Within lived a woman named Maita, who was unlike the other villagers: She was slight and pretty, and she sang. Maita had a small daughter named Breeze. Both had deep blue eyes and creamy skin, but Maita's hair was a cascade of golden curls, while the child's fell in dark, glossy waves. 

"Each day, a cohort of village men passed near the little shack on their way to the forest. They usually started out in good spirits (for them), as they loved hunting. Maita would hear the men ack-ing and ugh-ing from a distance. Wishing to please, she would burst into song, which always had the effect of enraging them into silence. Maita interpreted their hush as appreciation, and she would trill all the louder, urging little Breeze to join in. When the hunters heard the child's sweet, piping voice, they would invariably cover their ears and run at top speed to the woods, more eager than ever to wield their axes, knives and clubs on the first hapless creatures to cross their path.

"Maita kept a poor garden that produced hot radishes and onions in the spring and a few stunted potatoes and turnips in the fall. In fair weather, she took Breeze into the fringe of the forest, where they collected armloads of wood for their fires, filled buckets with juicy berries, or loaded their aprons with nuts that fell from the trees. Despite their poverty, Breeze was always pink-cheeked and warmly dressed, though her clothing was odd and colorful -- not at all like the coarse, dark woolens the other children wore. That was because at night, when the villagers' snores rattled their windows, Maita practiced her magic."

***

I will have to live several lives simultaneously to bring my girl's story out of my head and onto the page, but now that I've got one novel to my name, I'm eager to embark on another adventure. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

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Onward!