Prepping for My First Book Launch Party

Not sure if this is the very beginning, but it’s definitely in the first chapter.

The rub of metal around her wrists was what bothered Shyra the most. Not the standing with the others, chained on the back deck, exposed to wind and cold. Or the catcalls of the sailors, appraising each Dryad in terms of beauty and body. Or the pull of her home grove, dwindling with each mile of river the boat achieved. She wouldn’t die of that, at least until she rooted and became vulnerable. THe lack of food didn’t’ bother her either, as long as there was plenty of sunshine and water.

The boy would come with machete and apologies to hack away their hair. It didn’t hurt, any more than cutting his own hair would have hurt, but they pretended that it did, in order to use their reproachful cries to make him wince.

They had little enough to amuse them. The Dryads knew they were as good as dead. Dryads and Naiads captured and taken to Tabat never returned. If they wanted to escape, they all agreed in their whispered conversation, relying on the great engine’s noise to mask what they were saying, it would be best to get away before the boat reached the city.

She suspected that the Captain, if not all the crew, knew exactly what the Dryads chained there were plotting. They were not the first Dryads the Swan had carried. The railing was matted with fine, greenish root-hairs, layers upon layers of them in the spots where the boys were too lazy to scrub.

And all along the side of the boat, on the inside of the railing, were pictograms scratched by former prisoners. Some were easy to decipher: Six Flowers, Sun and Rain, Riverfern. Others were harder, lacking an established alphabet. A clamshell might be that, or some other concept, or food, or the sea, and coupled with what could have been a candle or eel or sprout, who was to know the precise name of the former prisoner, fate as unknown as Shyra’s, who had scratched that, in letters no more than a fingernail high, in the space beside the hasp to which Shyra had been secured for the duration of the journey?

Still revamping this, since it insists on struggling from novelette length towards novella. Here you go.

Friendly Village loops and winds, tiny roads scattered among the trailers. Every patch of landscaping is different ““ cacti surrounded one mobile home, followed by a forest of rhododendrons, then dahlias that might have originated in my own garden.

Up along the creek ran a little road, unlined with homes. It led to a trailer of a peculiar pearly hue that might have been mistaken for grime at first. It was a Nordic style, almost, simulated white pine beams, rough wrought ironwork on the walls. Its landscaping was bare: a line of rocks, two tiny fir trees, one slightly larger than the other.

Outside, a massive rock crouched beside the mailbox.

In Greek mythology, such stones were sacred to Aphrodite. But I didn’t think a Greek God lurked within.

A man stood on the front porch, watching me approach. His attitude was expectant, perhaps even impatient, as though my visit was overdue. His gray beard hung down to his belly: woolly as a blanket. His eyes were blue and a few golden strands showed among the silver on his scalp to attest to his Nordic heritage.

I stopped a few feet away, looking at him.

“You’ve come of your own accord,” he said. “It would’ve been easier if you just let them bring you.”

I acted unsurprised, and maybe I was. Occam’s razor again. One) move to a new place. Two) be attacked by a powerful magical adversary. More than time connected that chain.

“I’m Forseti,” he said.

I searched through crumbs of mythology. My knowledge might have only the depth of a Wikipedia article, but it was wide. You learn the names of all the gods, once you realize most still exist in our act in acting out their own plans, few of which are constructed to dance humanity. Or even take into account, really.

“Justice, right?” I said.

He dropped a slow nod.

“What justice is there in killing me?” I asked.

He said, “Perhaps you should come inside for tea.”

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Reminder – both the Electronic Publishing class and the first Editing 101 online class run this Sunday. You’ve still got time to sign up! To find out more, click on “Take an Online Class with Cat”.