Obviously, I’m wagging at the moment. I should be scurrying to finish BoneSong, but I’m blogging instead. For shame! I may even read some of my email before I go back to my book.
Bad writer! Bad! Bad!
Only, it’s summer, and so nice outside. I’ll take me out in a few minutes, and my daughter and I will go scootering around. Brilliant stuff, and the perfect weather for it.
I love living in town!
On the book front: ELF and TROLLS are finally in print! I can’t tell you how much this means to me!
Oh, BTW, if you get a chance hop to one of the websites below and look at the covers. I did the bookcover paintings and design work. What do you think???? Drop me an email, if you have an opinion, but don’t crush me, please (sfnovels@gmail.com)!
Oh, book question! Is $13.95 too much to pay for a 6 in x 9 in book?? That’s what my books are selling for at Lulu. Shipping’s free with purchases between $25 and $100 – but is that a good price? In US dollars? I live in New Zealand, you see… Books that size here frequently cost between $27.95 and $36.95 – even given the exchange rate, there’s no real comparison…
Talk to you soon – as soon as I finish BoneSong (soon, I hope!).
Cheers, and best wishes to y’all,
ND
N. D. Hansen-Hill
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/NDHansen-Hillebooks.htm
http://www.lulu.com/NDHansen-Hill
http://www.NDHansen-Hill.com
http://www.cerridwenpress.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=1-4199-0409-4 (Gilded Folly)
Oh, below is an excerpt from Trees – the first book I ever wrote – just for fun.
Prologue
Unfleshed, he drifted through the trees—dark and massive against the skeletal whiteness of the cold bark. His ragged contours shifted, subject to the fickle breeze, while his dripping remnants fed the Earthen soil.
He had little strength here. His substance was no more than a gelid parody. Still, the sight of him—of his skull-like visage and dangling tissues—was enough to chill the spirit of his would-be prey.
His empty eyeholes stared in uncaring disdain at the glitter of this world. Unseeing of the dew-drenched leaves, or the moonbright pastures, he had vision only for that which would satisfy his needs.
The most important of these was hunger. An insatiable hunger, which made no distinction between domination and dining. For was not consumption the ultimate form of dominance?
A hiss of satisfaction curved his gaping mouth in a caricature of a grin, that was somehow far more frightening than its death-head stillness. The creature’s cravings took him drifting up a slope, to peer in the windows of an empty house. A snarl sliced the night as sharply as his claws could sometimes rend flesh. His purpose had been thwarted by time and distance—a taunting of memory on the breeze, or perhaps, an enigmatic taste of what was to come.
He floated away from the white dwelling, to seek better feeding grounds. Another place where he would have solidity, and mass, and the ability to consume that which he most craved.
But, as he melted into the forest darkness, the black eyeholes cast a backwards glance—a glitter of awareness momentarily brightening them with a silvered-purple glint. The white house, the trees, the promise of future success—all were lodged in the wisps of his memory. And the formidable retentive abilities of his kind were legend. Offend him once, and he would never forget. He would come again, at another time, in another place, to claim you as his own.
Somewhere in this place lay the promise of a rare delicacy. The flavour of a prize that was as difficult to catch, as it was pleasurable to consume.
The creature’s salivation fed the dripping residue of his already leaking tissues. The taint of his brightly-aura’d prize lay on the breeze, on the old wood of the dwelling, on the grass heads that shivered beneath his feet. If its prey had visited here so frequently as to leave its imprint upon this place, then it would come again.
It would come, but it would not leave.
Chapter One
The storm raged, rattling the old glass in its wooden frame. The wind pillaged the grounds, eating the soil and gravel, then flinging them back against the house, to pellet the shivering windows in a harsh staccato beat.
*
Trevor took a long look at the drooping ceiling, the peeling wallpaper, and the downhill cant to the lounge floor. Peter, what have you done? he thought. Turning quickly to hide his expression, he peered out the window at the dark night. “And you say Katy agreed?” Trev forgot to hide the sceptical note in his voice.
It made Peter squirm. Somewhat defensively, Peter told him, “Of course she would’ve loved to see the place beforehand, but when I told her about the auction, she said okay.” He grinned as he remembered the other, less mentionable, things Katy had whispered. “She trusts my judgement.”
Trevor gave a sarcastic snort. “Judgement has nothing to do with it. She just likes your—”
Another blast of grit hit against the glass. Trevor jumped back, letting the curtain drop. Lowering his voice to a hollow moan, he told Peter, “Someone’s rapping at your window—”
“Someone’s going to rap at the side of your head if you don’t shut up,” Peter said, grinning. It was his turn to move the curtain aside, and stare out the window. His smile faded. “Seriously, Trev—what do you think?”
“I think I hate it when you say, ‘seriously, Trev’. It always means you’re actually going to listen to my opinion—and if I don’t get it right you’ll be worrying about it for days.”
“Bullshit.”
“‘Bullshit’ nothing. You know what your problem is?”
“You?”
Trevor grinned. “Close. But I’m a complication, not a problem.”
Peter hid his amusement behind a snort of disgust. “You’re both. Anyway, I didn’t ask for your opinion—”
“Yes, you did!” Trevor interrupted. “Don’t you remember, ‘Trev, what d’you think’?”
“Of this place, you moron—not me!”
Trevor flopped down in one of Peter’s big wing chairs. Its fraternal twin nestled closer to the smoking fireplace. Trev opted for breathing space over warmth. He sighed. “Okay, Pete—I’m ready. Do your worst. Bring on your questions.” Trevor looked around the room, seeing the moisture marks in the plaster, borer holes in the wood, and numerous small repairs that he knew Peter wouldn’t have noticed. A note of amusement crept back into his voice as he added, “Only one thing—”
“Only what?” Peter asked, raising his eyes to the heavens in a bid for patience. He knew it was a gesture that always annoyed Trevor.
“Only—do I have to tell you the truth?”
Now that Peter was about to get Trevor’s opinion, he wasn’t sure he wanted it. When another blast of grit shuddered the glass, Peter used it as an excuse to look out at the storm. As always, his eyes seemed to wander of their own accord toward that weird stand of trees at the bottom of the slope. Trevor joined him, welcoming anything that would distract Peter from an honest appraisal of his new purchase.
“Those have got to be the ugliest trees I’ve ever seen!” Trevor put his face against the glass, straining to get a better look at the monstrosities in the distance.
“They’re ancient,” Peter told him, his voice mingling a hint of awe with an undertone of proprietorial pride.
Trevor snorted. “So’s my grandmother.” He looked out the window again, frowned and flopped the curtain in Peter’s face. “If they’re half as old as they look, they must’ve been planted by Cro-Magnon man.”
Peter lifted the curtain and wedged the material between the rod and frame, so Trevor couldn’t drop it in his face any more. He didn’t expect Trev to appreciate plants—any more than I’d enjoy fiddling with electronics, Peter thought.
Peter studied the trees, his brain ticking away. Now that he was looking at them—really seeing them, the scientist side of him was drawn by certain features: by the way the trees stood stiff and resolute, even though the rest of their surroundings were being blown to hell and back. By the way they seemed to glow in the black of the rainslick night. By the way the lightning revealed deformed and grotesque contortions in their trunks.
“Uh-oh,” Trevor remarked, seeing the expression on Peter’s face. “Here we go.”
“Huh?” Peter said, not really listening. The trees loomed swollen and misshapen, each one an individual distortion. Moonlight rifted through the shrouding clouds, emphasising abnormalities—pouring lingering pools of shadow into the curvature of a limb or a deformity in the bark. In a flash of lightning, this one was a woman, with great swollen breasts, and that one a pitiable hunched old soul—sexless, but nevertheless potent. In the wet and slick, the flashing and the shadow, they were monstrous, a deviation from the norm that was somehow unacceptable.
What could have caused them to grow like that? The fact that he’d never seen anything like them was enough to stir Peter’s interest. He’d thought he had a fairly good grasp of the regional plant species—but these trees were something new to his experience. They can’t be a new hybrid that I’m not familiar with, he reasoned. They’re too old for that. Could they be some stand that had naturally hybridised years before? Or maybe—the idea made his blood tingle—they’re manifesting some new plant disease.
“You know, Trev—I bet there’s some potyvirus at work here.”
The thought obviously didn’t thrill Trevor the way it did Peter. “Judging from the look of them, it’s working overtime.”
“No—I’m serious. You’re looking at some fantastic examples of distortions caused by cell proliferation. Some fungi can cause distortions, too, but these are so extensive, I’ll bet they’re viral,” he added, half to himself.
“I’m sure this is all very interesting—to someone else,” Trevor told him impatiently. “You can’t get around the fact they’re creepy, Pete,” he added, glad to be able to criticise something other than the house.
The distraction worked. Peter tried to reason with him. “Granted, they’re not your picture window view, but think of them as viral hosts, Trev. That’ll make you feel better.”
“They look like hosts for ghosts to me,” Trev told him jokingly. “I wonder what Katy will think.”
A blinding flash of lightning made Peter flinch. For the first time, he saw the trees as Trevor did—and as Katy would. He frowned. “She’ll probably think I’ve lost my mind,” he said unhappily. “Or, worse, that I bought this place because of those trees.”
“Maybe she’ll find some artsy-fartsy value in them, Pete.”
The next lightning flash left Peter with a residual picture of black contortions on screaming white. “Now you’ve got me seeing them the Katy’s going to,” he complained. “I just hope it’s not raining the night she arrives.”
“Don’t take this wrong, Pete,” Trevor told him. “But it’s kind of like having a graveyard on your front lawn.”
“Is there a way to take that right?” Peter said, exasperated. “Here, I’m all worried about making a good impression on Katy, and you come up with that.”
“Okay, tell me I’m tactless, tell me I’m insensitive. I can take it.”
“Yeah, but can I take you?” Peter muttered.
Trevor flopped down in the chair again. “All right. I’ll be practical. Cut ’em down.”
Peter was appalled. Whatever the cause of the aberrant growth patterns, it had made these trees unique—at least different from anything in Peter’s experience, which, in the area of plant science, was pretty extensive. And that singularity was worth studying before any decision about destroying them could be made. “Cut them down?! Are you serious?”
“No. But that’s your alternative.” He snickered. “Unless you think you can hide them somehow.” Trevor patted Peter on the back.
“I guess I’m just worried Katy won’t like it here.”
“What’s not to like? Just because you bought a derelict house in the suburbs—of the ends of the earth, that is—”
“Nothing like boosting my confidence, you fool.” Peter hesitated, and the expression of disappointment on his face made Trevor wish he could take back his remark. “It’s just that I was so sure—”
“Pete, this place is great. Katy’ll be crazy about it.” Trevor could tell Peter wasn’t buying his attempt at sincerity. He tried again, this time throwing in a little humour in hopes that Peter would believe it. The last thing he wanted was to burst Peter’s bubble. “It’s old enough to have character, or whatever it is people like in crumbling ruins. And it’s got three-quarters of a great view.”
Peter smiled.
Good, Trevor thought, relieved. “Think of it like this: the artistic side of her will go ape over the thought of living in a garret.”
“How would you know, Trev? You’re about as artistic as good old Morty.” The dog looked up from the hearth rug and wagged his tail.
Trevor snorted. “Yeah, if I’m as artistic as Morty, then I’m one up on you.”
“A garret?” Peter recalled Trevor’s comment. He looked confused. “I thought that was an attic-type thing.”
Trevor looked slightly smug. It wasn’t often that he had to explain a reference to Peter. Slowly, as though speaking to someone with limited understanding, he explained. “It’s symbolic, Pete. The starving artist syndrome. It’s supposed to liberate your artistic side or something.”
In another flash of lightning, Trevor’s eyes were once again drawn to the spectre of the trees against the landscape. He stared at one which boasted an astonishingly well-endowed distortion resembling human breasts. “Hey, Pete! Your trees may have some redeeming features—”
Peter took a look and grinned. “I call her Delilah.” Trev chuckled. “I don’t think, Trev, that Katy’ll be as appreciative as we are.”
“Well, it’s raised my opinion of the place.”
“Is that all it’s raised?”
“And you call me crass.” Trevor tuned in to the growling of his stomach. “Hear that? Those are my organs screaming. Didn’t you promise me a five-course meal?”
Peter gave him a shove in the direction of the hall. “No—only a coarse meal. Let’s eat.”
*
The kitchen was a large, dark monstrosity five steps lower than the rest of the house, with three heavy block walls. Looking around, Trevor remarked, “You could always rent cell space to the local prison, Pete. This room is not one of your house’s redeeming features.” It was cheerless, bizarre and out of sync with the rest of the house.
“What are you saying, Richmond? That it wouldn’t make the cover of ‘Better Homes and Gardens’?” Peter gripped Trevor’s shoulders with false menace and practically growled in his face, as though daring him to dispute his words. “The real estate lady told me this room has potential.”
Trevor pushed him away. “It’s potentially dangerous. If that door sticks, how are you going to get out of here?” He moved the door on its squeaky hinges. “You better get that guy—what’s his name? Henry—to fix it for you. Or, better still, I will.”
“What do you mean, you’ll fix it? I’ll fix it. I don’t need Henry to do a little job like this.”
Trevor just stared at him. Peter might be great with a microscope, but his fix-it skills were nil.
Peter didn’t notice Trevor’s expression. His own was excited. “That’s one of the reasons I bought this place, Trev! This is my chance to develop all those skills you claim I don’t possess.” He moved the door back and forth, gritting his teeth as it groaned in protest. “A little soap, and I’ll have this thing moving smooth as silk,” Peter said happily.
Trev shook his head in dismay. A plane to take off the swollen, bulgy wood would have been more appropriate. But the eagerness in Peter’s face stopped him. “Sounds good, Pete,” he said amiably. “Just do it soon, okay?”
“Afraid I’ll get stuck in here with one of my culinary masterpieces?” Peter grinned.
“Or, worse still, one of Katy’s.”
Peter elbowed him. “Since I’m about to feed your face, maybe you’d better close the lower half of it. Otherwise, I might be tempted to experiment.”
“Say no more. Remember, I know how much you love playing with fungus.” Trevor looked down at the darkened walls, the heavy wooden table and the feeble attempts at modernisation. He shivered, feeling the cold in the large, dank room.
A massive old iron cookstove had been left “decoratively” along one wall. Trevor pointed to it. “There’s the perfect stove to take on those trees,” he said jokingly. “Bring one of those mothers in here, chuck one end into the fire, and let that sucker eat ’em alive. They suit each other, don’t they?”
“Too well.” Peter was looking down at the cold iron of the stove. He said, “Somehow, I prefer it if that thing stays cold, Trev.” Then, feeling foolish, he grinned. “For the moment, anyway. Tackling that monster is even less my speed than fixing that squeaky door.” Peter slapped his friend on the back. “C’mon, I’m starved. Let’s see what haute cuisine Peter the Great can rustle up.”
*
After they’d eaten, Peter looked over at Trevor, who’d decorated the surrounding tables with the leftovers from his meal. There was one of Katy’s fine porcelain dinner plates still sprinkled with nacho crumbs, a plastic bowl dripping the remains of a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream, and a nearly empty mixing bowl of popcorn. “I think you only visit me, Trev, for the quantity of my cooking,” Peter said.
Thinking of cooking reminded Peter of the state of his kitchen. “Y’know, the trouble with the kitchen is the lighting. No windows to let in the daylight. It’d be one hell of a job to knock a window into that heavy block, but lots of basements are made to look light and airy with bright paint and extra lighting.”
He stood up, grabbed his plates, and nudged Trevor’s feet where they rested on his coffee table. “Cleanliness may be foreign to your nature, but I’m going to be a good influence on you. Get your butt up and clear your plates so I can keep it nice for when Katy gets home.”
“Peter,” Trevor complained, “you’ve got a week at least. Plenty of time to clear these plates.” At the look on Peter’s face, he quickly gathered up the remains of his dinner. “Okay, okay, make me a slave to cleanliness. Is this how you treat all your guests? Don’t you even clear for them, offer them coffee and after-dinner cognacs and stuff? How about those little wrapped after-dinner mints—got any of those?” They reached the kitchen, and Peter shook his head as he once again took in the grimness of the room.
Trevor realised it was bothering him, and forced himself to sound enthusiastic. “You’re right about what you said earlier, Pete. This place has definite possibilities. And wrecking it would cost heaps, what with all this block. I would say,” as he used an empty beer bottle to gesture, “that you need something to brighten the corners, and,” the bottle pointed toward the heavy wooden door, “that door should be replaced—maybe with an archway.” He looked at Peter. “Was this room built as a bomb shelter, do you think?”
Peter glanced around and said, “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. It’s too old for that.” He walked over and slapped his hand against the wall. “This is actually stone, not block. My guess is that someone was trying to keep the cooking area both separated, and cooler than, the rest of the house.” He gestured up the small flight of stairs, toward the more habitable regions. “The remainder of this place is what Katy would call ‘charming’.” Tilting his head back to glance at the heavy timbers overhead, he chuckled, admitting, “Katy is really going to hate this room.”
Peter rummaged in the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of beer, which he tossed at Trev. “Your brewski.” Then he opened a jug of chocolate milk and took a long gulp. “Ah-h! The drink of champions!” As Trevor was unscrewing the cap on his beer, Peter snatched a bag of plastic-wrapped sourballs out of the cupboard and chucked them in Trevor’s direction. “Your after-dinner mints. Who says I’m not the perfect host?”
Trevor grabbed the candy bag off the floor and eyed Peter sourly. “Juggling is not in my resumé.” He looked with distaste at the hard candies. “Did you expect me to eat these?”
Peter smiled. “Of course. Nobody else will. I think we’ve had those things since the last time we moved—” Trevor threw them back at him, and Peter ducked, then raced up the stairs.
*
Later, in the lounge, Trevor stared at the top of his beer, obviously deep in thought. When he spoke, it was with uncustomary sincerity. “You know, Pete—you’re right.”
“It must be the first time. What did I do now?”
“You are the perfect host.” Peter looked amused. Trevor, seeing it, told him, “I’m serious. Look at this.” He waved his hand to indicate their surroundings. “You’re all worried about it, but this really is a nice house, Pete—and Katy’ll love it.”
“Don’t get maudlin on me, Trev. You haven’t had that much beer.”
“If maudlin means sappy, then I won’t. It’s just that I realise how together your life is now. You’ve got Katy—though I still can’t figure out how you managed that one—and now, you’ve bought yourself a house.” He hesitated. “And then there’s me. I’ve been so busy mingling that I’m beginning to feel lost in a crowd. Do you think I have a sheep complex?”
“Sheepish? Never.”
“No, you fool! Sheep complex—one of the herd. Run-of-the-mill.” Smiling, he added, “Worse. A sheepskin rug. For people to walk on.”
Peter laughed. “No one would dare walk on a rug with a mouth as big as yours. And it’s your mouth, Trev—among other things—that’ll always keep you from getting lost in a crowd. I don’t think you should worry about it.”
Trevor grinned. “You don’t worry about it because half the time you don’t even notice the crowd is there.” He looked at his watch and stood up. “Time for me to go. Otherwise, I’ll be so tired my car will have to drive itself home.”
Peter looked worried. “Did you want to stay, Trev?”
They’d reached the porch, and Trevor took a long look at the distorted trees, then said jokingly, “No, thanks. You may see those critters as viral hosts, but I still see them as haunts. I’m going home where it’s safe.” He climbed into his car. “You should get your plant pathologist’s ass out there tomorrow and see what ails them.”
Now that the storm had passed, Trevor could see Peter’s smile in the moonlight. “How’d you guess?”
“Because I know you. You’re too damn curious.” He started the engine. “See ya, Pete! Have fun with your fungus—”
“G’night, Trev.” Peter was still smiling as he watched Trevor’s taillights turn the corner of the driveway.
***
Let me know if you’d like to read a few more chapters…
