Jane Routley's Blog

The new novel of the Archipelago and the Tari.

Coming out April 7

If you're interested in receiving an Advance Review ebook let me know. I've got 10 to give away.

In Print on Demand from Bernarra Press through Amazon and in ebook from Clan Destine Press

The Melded Child
An ancient prophecy has come to pass.

The peace negotiated by the Tari has held firm for ten years, but a new Demon Master is rising.

When Yani the Raven is kidnapped, sorceress Marigoth and her companion Ezratah are drawn into a trap set by a brutal necromancer and his insane sister.

Meanwhile Elena Starchild's daughter Alyx, heir to the throne of the Mori, finds herself wounded and on the run in a forest full of dark magic; and in the company of her bitter enemy.

Can the insular Tari, dreaming in the secret land of Ermora, be awoken before the demon fire consumes them?

And can a Melded Child bring harmony before it is too late?

It was only after the station door swung shut behind me that I realized I’d forgotten to bring either of my sets of keys out with me. Locked out! Not a good start to the day. Since it was still early I thought I’d got back to the Junction and get another set. It’s a lengthy process – ½ an hour out of a 6 hour shift – because the trains don’t meet up. Back at the Junction I couldn’t find the master keys and no one there knew where they were kept, so I looked through the key register and signed out something that was supposed to be the correct key.

Of course when I got back to my station it didn’t open the door. Damn!

I didn’t like to spend another ½ hour getting another set of keys so I thought I’d just hang around for an hour until the cleaner came and let me back in with his key. So I stood around helping people with tickets and directions for the next two trains getting more and more thirsty and in need of a pee, until… Eureka moment! It occurred to me that all trains drivers have the key to stations so that they can pop in and use the toilets if desperate. It’s not really o.k. to do anything that might delay a train, but I thought if I was quick…

The driver of the 1.04 was a kindly woman who was happy to help me re-open my station door and I rushed in and shoved both keys in my pockets before indulging in visit to the toilet, a nice drink of water and a spot of lunch. Adventure over with no one much noticing my inadequacies.

It was a rude shock therefore, when about an hour later Control rang. Apparently at the other end of the 1.04 train, an intoxicated man had been having an argument with his female companion who he’d proceeded to shove out onto the platform at my station. He’d been arrested at Flinders Street later.

That it should be that train of all trains!

The Control man had been viewing the CCTV footage and seen me rushing about. “Had I seen anything of the fight further up the train? Had I been scared by it?” he inquired sympathetically.
He laughed when I told him that I’d been locked out so I assumed I wasn’t in any trouble, but I felt very sorry that I was too involved in my own small drama to help a victim of domestic violence. I fear this may be the way it often happens. I can only hope since she wasn’t there when I’d come out of the station she hadn’t been too badly hurt.

http://www.extasybooks.com/a-shining-...

A Shining Knight


Check out this Gay Time Travel Romance (with hot man on man action) by my Alter-ego
Rebecca Locksley
Ebook just out from eXtasy Books

People are perplexing. One of my regulars drives a motorized wheelchair. He’s a pleasant looking young chap perhaps in his early thirties, neatly dress. He probably has cerebral palsy because he stammers badly and when he gets off his chair, he walks crookedly and with difficulty.

We’ve had some nice chats since he moved into the area. I thought he was down here in respite care while his parents were away on a cruise, but he seemed to be here for ages and ages – always longing to get home to his own place. Then one day he was very excited because he was off to his hearing. That was when he revealed that he was actually living in the area on a court order. An AVO (Apprehended Violence Order) had been issued against him because he’d been stalking a local girl. Maybe he only told me because he was certain the AVO would be lifted. But it wasn’t and still hasn’t been after 6 months.

I realized that I had assumed that a guy in a wheelchair was harmless. So I’m confronted with my own “ableism”. Just because someone is disabled, doesn’t mean they can’t be dangerous or criminal as the next person.

Also as a good paid up member of the feminist sisterhood, should I be chatting pleasantly to someone who has stalked another woman? Isn’t that just normalizing such behaviour? And yet this is a situation that I know nothing about. Who am I to judge without knowing all the facts? Is it indulging in mob behavior to suddenly start snubbing him?

He has told me he’s sorry for the whole situation and that he just wants to go home. I don’t know. I guess in the end you just treat people as you would like them to treat you. I have a very strong belief in hating the sin, not the sinner. Or maybe I just don’t like confrontation.

It’s after midnight on a Sunday night and I’m standing on a freezing station platform wishing the last train would hurry up and come in. I’ve been rostered on to help with the Occupation, but the thrill of earning overtime has well and truly worn off.

This Occupation has nothing to do with the German Army or the Occupy Wall Street movement. Instead the tracks are being “occupied” by construction workers, beginning the long slow process of lowering the train track under a road ahead so that the level crossings can be removed. I suspect in this instance the term "occupation" may spring from the tribalism of the railway workers of yesteryear who regarded construction workers as "outsiders" in their territory.

My part in this great task is to make sure everyone gets off the train and onto the buses that service the stations further up the line. I even get to make announcements through a microphone. As the evening chills and the trains get further and further apart my work mate and I take to walking 7 minutes round to the station house to get warm and eat too many biscuits and 7 minutes back before the train comes in. This trek really helps pass the time. A suburban railway station on a Sunday night is NOT an exciting place.

We are abused by a South American lady who has missed her train by several minutes because there are no signs up. (There are signs everywhere but somehow it’s never enough) But I am also given a little KitKat by a young woman in a veil after I help her locate the husband she’s mislaid on the train. Swings and Roundabouts.

Between customers we chat to the train/drivers, the casual customer service staff and the flagman whose job it is to stand by the tracks holding a red lantern to prevent the trains accidentally going further and hitting the workers. I had a friend who was a flagman and used to wax lyrical about how romantic and magical the still early morning hours were.

The clear starry night sky with its half lemon of a moon is indeed magical but even the romance of the midnight hour cannot disguise the ugliness of this suburban station with its asphalt platforms, its rubbish strewn gravel car park, and the barbed wire fence hung with shreds of plastic. Twice we see rats scurrying around on the tracks.

At long last, its 12.45. The last train has gone and it’s time to pack up the buses and signs. But the flag man is still there standing by the tracks with his lantern. This is because of “ghost trains” – unscheduled empty trains that are moved about the system in order to be in place for Monday morning's rush hour. He will be there standing by there until the workers finish at 3 am.

On a freezing day of sheeting rain, a dark-haired young woman without shoes gets off the 1.44 train. Not only are her feet bare but so are her legs. I can’t tell if she’s wearing anything on her bottom half. The shirt and hoodies she’s wearing covers her down to the top of her thighs.
I greet her thinking she might be one of the clients of the youth mental health service nearby and in need of directions.
“I’m hungry,” is all she says.
Figuring she needs it more than me, I give her the chocolate bar I have squirrelled away for my afternoon treat. I can think of a number of reasons why a young woman would be out in cold rain with no pants or shoes on and none of them are good. She eats it and proceeds to wander around outside the station. After a while she comes back with a cigarette butt she’s picked up outside and asks me for a light which I can’t give her. She tells me she is off to another youth health service in the city at which I am much relieved. Hopefully she can get the care she clearly needs there.
If she gets there ok.
The train is late and for a long time she stands on the edge of the platform staring grimly into the pit. She’s calm - not agitated. Stoned? In shock? The Boss is visiting and she starts to get worried. So do a number of the other people on the platform, many of whom have children in tow. Everyone is watching as the Boss approaches the girl asks her to come away from the edge and is told, “Don’t treat me like a Fucking Child!”
At this the Boss goes inside and rings Control. The driver is told to come in slow and on the lookout.
As the train creeps in the young woman leaves the coping and walks away down the platform. I shadow her.
But the train stops without incident and she gets calmly into it. To go where? I wish I knew.
Later that day I ring the place she said she was going, but I only get answering machines. I hope she’s alright. I wish there was more I could have done.

On Friday one of the zoo volunteers told me she’d been working in animal enrichment all day – making popcorn for the elephants. Apparently they’re not allowed any sugar or fat on their popcorn. She left on the train before I could find out more - leaving me with a vision of elephants frolicking through vats and vats of popcorn.
That was the charming thing.
Then I listened with great pleasure to the HooDoo Guru’s tuning up for their evening concert inside the zoo. I remember going to see them when I was in my mid-twenties. They still sounded good. Then someone told me that their current tour is being sponsored by APIA – Australian Pensioners Insurance. OMG!!! I’m 54!!! How did that happen????
Disturbing!

Those who know me, know I will read anything. Even the back of plastic water bottles found while tidying up the platform. This particular one assured me it didn’t just look good, it “had ancient wisdom” as well. That made me stop and take a closer look.

Apparently this is because it is “infused with native flower essences”. “Handpicked native flower essences” no less. Apparently Northern Australian indigenous people are involved in this process. I couldn’t resist taking a quick sniff of the remaining water, but I can’t smell anything floral. Perhaps that is because it is “refreshingly non-flavoured”

But I can smell something.

Ahh! The scent of male bovine manure.


P.S. School's back and I had my first train surfers yesterday. They even wore balaclavas as they rode on the rear coupling. Guess the summer holidays are over.

D is studiedly bogan. He shakes my hand with an iron grip, tells me he’s from Gippsland and that in his depressed country town every third street has an ice-lab. Shades of “Winters Bone”. He describes getting drunk and driving down the main drag yelling at the shards (ice addicts.) Then he tells me he’s joined the local medieval re-enactment society and how much he likes fighting with the rattan canes. (thus exploding the whole bogan persona in my eyes.)

A pleasant young man. I’m not sure why he’s in Melbourne, but I haven’t pressed him in case he’s here with the Mental Health Service or the Juvenile Detention Service both of which have flats in the area. He may just be here to go to University. What I’d really like to know is his relationship with the two different young women he took the zoo the week before Christmas both of whom he seemed to be on arms-around-waist relations with. (Watch out for your station staff. They notice things.)
Today he looks a bit rough. Apparently, he drank too much on New Year’s Eve.
“I don’t remember much but my mates say I was wandering round Elizabeth Street in a man-kini singing and playing the guitar.

“Did people tuck money into your man-kini?” I ask.
“No,” he says, “But I do remember getting smacked on the arse a lot.”

So on the last day of the year a little old man potters into the waiting room – carrying a pick. I’m so curious and just a tiny bit concerned. What sort of person carries a pick on the train? Is he a miner? A madman? An assassin? .

The old guy looks rather sweet. He seems to know me – we must have spoken before.

“They making you work even now,” he says sympathetically.

“I see you are too,” I say, hoping for more information.

“Oh I’m still working on that primary school. But I’m a volunteer and can stop whenever I like,” he says and potters off down the platform.

WITHOUT GIVING ANY EXPLINATION OF THE PICK! ARGGHH!

I hope the primary school is still there when the children get back from holidays.

Happy New Year to you All.