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Riley LaShea

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March 19, 2021 By Riley 4 Comments

Dr. Todson’s Home for Incorrigible Women – Chapters 1 & 2

Excerpt, anyone?

Some of the formatting went wonky or missing. Apologies if I missed putting any of it back in.

~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1

                     Caroline

                     1886

Caroline woke on the edge of memory. All vibrant hues and resentment. Contradictory, the beauty crafted by her mind’s eye and the utter rage that accompanied it. Like a delicate lyric set against a strident melody.

Somewhere, in the far reaches of her consciousness, a thought shivered. Danced and provoked. She almost opened her eyes to see it. Almost raised a hand to reach out.

But the stillness, warm and soft, it coddled her. Sang to her amidst the color and fury. Rolling over and under, Caroline billowed and soared, lifting out of the world. Yet, she could still feel the world beneath her, its silken, downy comforts. Somehow, she was both above and below. In her body and not in it.

“Hello.” She heard her own voice murmur in the darkness. She couldn’t recall opening her mouth.

And no one answered her.

The only sound was the soft hum of a household in use. The only scent spiced honey – her own perfume. Nothing noxious to nose or ears. Only silence. And solitude. Serenity, shimmering slowly around her – seductive and sumptuous – she let it drag her back down into her dreams.

 

The sunswept hills of the English countryside burst with an outlandish display of color – reds, purples, oranges, blues, yellows – stretching in arcs and patterns as far as the eye could see only to be swallowed up in an endless cerulean sky.

It was a deceptively idyllic setting for betrayal.

Watching the puffy, white clouds drift by overhead from the window of the landau, Caroline knew the only souls who traveled this road were either betrayer or betrayed, or those being paid for their services – servants or commissions. Since she was neither servant nor commission, she could only assume she was one of the former, and since none of the day’s events had been planned or promoted by her, she supposed that left her only one possible role in all of this.

Let’s overnight in the country, Dear. I’m told the tulips are not to be missed this year.

Caroline wished she could feel some measure of surprise, a smidgeon, a soupçon, but she wasn’t addle-brained. No doubt she would prove much less problematic for Thomas if she were. She also wouldn’t be in this position, keeping calm and passive through the middle of the rolling landscape, knowing she was headed toward a firing squad. Figurative, of course. Thomas couldn’t really off her. Not without a load of questions. His one lethal plot, he had already used up. He would be a madman himself to try it again.

I’ve told Mack to take us back by a different route.

Dear god, she hated him. She may not have been a skilled navigator, but Caroline could tell which side of the carriage the sun was on as they left the small inn and continued moving in the same direction – away from London, not toward it.

She could also read, and had watched Thomas as they passed the sign warning them they were entering private property. His moment of panic. The quick dart of his eyes her way. As if he feared she might suddenly know. As if it would make any difference if Caroline did know.

Well, she knew. Had known for months. She wasn’t immune to Thomas’s hints, dropped to and for others. To friends, family, neighbors, the vicar, anyone who would listen to him talk really.

She reads all the time. Or has her maid read to her. She doesn’t want to do much else it seems. I think she likes her stories more than real life. Said in jest.

Yes, of course, please come for a visit. But could it wait until next month? Caroline doesn’t always allow the staff to clean. She goes through these phases. Whispered.

If you wouldn’t mind praying a bit extra for my wife, Vicar. I worry sometimes she isn’t well. A plea for sympathy.

‘Setting the stage,’ they called it, from the theater lingo meaning to prepare the set for an actor about to put on a big, heart-wrenching performance. Thomas, no doubt, would emote his insides out onto the floor. He had been rehearsing non-stop for weeks.

“Are you warm? I’ll open another window.”

She could still run, she supposed, leap from the carriage and dash through the wayward impressionist painting that had co-opted the Surrey Hills. But what would that accomplish but to provide further evidence? Assure all those who witnessed it that, indeed, Thomas was a very put-upon man and was doing the only thing he could do given his difficult circumstances.

No, she would not be doing him such a favor. If she had any intention of physically resisting, she would have done so back in London when the carriage pulled up with a hired driver instead of Floyd. But she was tired, frankly, of the wait. The prolonged knowledge of Thomas’s intentions for her was torment. And a bit of an annoyance, really. Like a fly buzzing nonstop around her head. If what was going to happen was going to happen, she wanted to get it over and done with, rather than wait for whatever brute squad her husband might call to drag her from her bed in the middle of the night.

“Is there a problem?”

Thomas was the one who was anxious, sweaty, tense, and fidgeting, demonstrated now by the swipe of his sleeve across his brow and the brisk manner with which he threw open the carriage door, causing it to groan at it hinges, the instant they rolled to a stop.

“Private property, Sir.” The hulking man who halted their carriage stood in Thomas’s open door, and Thomas jerked another glance Caroline’s way.

My, what a razor’s edge he had been on all day. A shame. Truly. He probably hadn’t even noticed the flowers or the sky or that the cucumbers in the sandwiches Mary had made them the morning before were still perfectly crisp and deliciously flavorful. They went in perfect combination with the fresh-baked brown bread and hint of basil oil. If Caroline could say one thing about Thomas’s distant cousin who had come to keep house for them, and for whom her husband had been pining every moment since, it was that she was outstanding in the kitchen.

“Only a precaution. Could I have your name, Sir?”

“Yes, of course. It’s Ajax. Thomas Ajax.”

“Ajax. Yeah, all right. Open the gate! Have a good day, Sir. Miss.” The hulking man stepped away, and with an unsteady nod, Thomas pulled the carriage door closed, glancing to Caroline once more.

Caroline stared back, not sure which was more insulting, that he was doing this to her or that he thought her completely oblivious of it up until this point.

No answers or pleas forthcoming, Thomas’s guilt at last got the better of him and he turned his eyes away.

 

The second time Caroline woke was to a song – a boisterous, spontaneous melody not far beyond the silent sphere in which she had been left.

It’s a party

I’m the party

Dancing in the night so gay

Music, food, a lady new

Banquet, ball, a big soiree

Eruption of laughter trailing after the lyrics, it churned some cognition out of Caroline. Blew some of the cobwebs off her gauzed brain.

Lady new? That had to be her, didn’t it? She was the most recent arrival there. Had to be. But the lyric couldn’t possibly be a literal one. No one would be throwing her a welcome party here, a banquet, ball, or soiree.

It was ridicule, she realized. Ridicule to go along with her confinement. They would ensure, since she wasn’t mad when she arrived, she would be by the time she left. Maybe that was the true meaning of a “madhouse,” a place where one was driven to madness.

That seemed exactly the sort of outcome Thomas would hope to achieve by bringing her to this place.

This institution.

This mansion of illusion.

This palatial country estate that looked like a dream, but could only house nightmares.

It was a thought that required action. A fighting spirit. Whatever vim and vigor she had left inside of her. But, first, Caroline had to open her eyes. And, in trying to do so, she found her will already starting to fade. To break. To kiss her mockingly on the cheek and flit off into the atmosphere.

It was easier to just give in. To the emptiness. To the apathy. To the sleepiness. If only for a short while.

At some point it would wear off, whatever substance they had forced into her veins. The abyss would disappear, the lull would sharpen, and she would feel the full, brutal gravity of her abandonment. It would yank her back down to Earth with an excruciating thud.

Prospect utterly unappealing, Caroline chose to delay it. To allow her muscles to relax and to sink once more into oblivion.

 

A mile or so after the forbidding iron gate opened and closed behind them, a sprawling manor house came into view, nothing at all like Caroline was expecting. Where there should have been drab, dirty stonework and iron bars, the house was as bright as a sunray with its yellow skin and crisp white accents.

Clouds hanging big and unnaturally perky in the blue sky behind it, Caroline waited for the winds to change. Where was England’s signature gray? Its spitting rain? The thunder and lightning that threatened to unleash God’s eternal damnation over the land?

Ominous things should be backed by ominous skies.

This place, with its bright exterior and green-slated dormers and gables, was a picture postcard meant to lure visitors to the Surrey Hills. Caroline could imagine its caption:

Come! See our beauty!

Drop your women off along the way!

On the front lawn, those women worked, the ones who had come before her. Dressed in common, matching frocks, they had to be residents of the place, made to keep the grounds clean and ornamented so the men who rode up to dispose of their wives or mothers or daughters had something pleasant to look at. Whether that pleasant sight was the gardens themselves or so many women down on their knees was up for debate.

“Caroline.” Disembarking from the carriage, Thomas held out a hand in the shadow of the door.

Yes, God forbid I break my ankle on the walk to my own judgment. Caroline brushed past him, stepping onto the hard-packed dirt drive of her own free will.

Sunlight hitting and warming her instantly, she understood the place’s appeal, even as she pulled on her sun hat to shield her eyes. The house presented itself as a retreat. A perfect country getaway. It was designed to make such an impression. An estate so lovely and charming that men like Thomas could garner respect and adoration while doing their very worst.

You must be a saint. Caroline could imagine their society acquaintances patting him on his poor martyr head. To spring for such a lovely place for your crazy wife when Bedlam is right here in the city.

“Mr. Ajax.” Descending the stone stairs outside the house’s tall wooden doors, a sandy-haired man in thick spectacles and a plaid-accented suit shook Thomas’s hand. “Welcome. I’m Dr. Rand.”

“Dr. Rand? I thought I would be meeting with Dr. Todson today.”

Yes, Thomas would think that. He would expect nothing less than to meet with the person whose name was on the plaque next to the front door.

Dr. Todson’s Home for Women

–  the nameplate shown through the ivy in polished and beveled bronze letters. How very quaint it sounded. Not ‘Hospital.’ Not ‘Asylum.’ Not ‘Institution.’ Home. Like a place women might actually choose to be. Caroline supposed ‘Dr. Todson’s House of Torture and Neglect’ simply wasn’t good advertising.

“Oh no, Sir. As you can imagine, Dr. Todson keeps a very busy schedule. I take care of the day-to-day matters in the doctor’s stead, including the welcoming of potential residents. But don’t worry, you’ll still have your two signatures. Dr. Todson trusts my judgment.”

Two signatures. That was all it took. To determine a woman too much of a burden and lock her safely away from polite society. The word of her husband, or any male relation, and two doctors’ names on a slip of paper. The woman, for her part, didn’t have to do anything. Anything, that was, but exist. Caroline could state that fact with some authority, because she had lived for more than thirty-five years doing scarcely more than existing.

“Mrs. Ajax.” Dr. Rand moved past Thomas, and Caroline gave him her full attention. Her calmest, most rational attention. He was handsome, in an offhanded sort of way, as if he worried little about it one way or the other. His gaze surprisingly soft. “I’m Dr. Rand. It’s a pleasure to meet you. How are you?”

Some sort of polite response typically in order, there was nothing typical about this. In fact, a typical response might be considered highly atypical in the moment. Crazy even. What sort of sane person smiled a reply as she was threatened with her own commitment? Realizing there was no good option – she was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t – Caroline huffed a small breath, shaking her head, saying nothing.

“I imagine this must be very difficult for you,” Dr. Rand gleaned from her silence, and it was a fine act, Caroline had to admit. He sounded truly sympathetic. “We’ll try to make it as painless as we can. Please.”

Lifting an arm, he indicated the way – up the stone stairs and through the wooden doors – and, gathering her skirts, Caroline ignored both the men who flanked her, looking up at the enchanting façade of the provincial palace, with its gentle colors and climbing ivy, cursing its deceit.

Three steps up, a small sound commanded her attention, and she glanced to the woman re-potting a plant next to the front door. Hair black, eyes black, the woman’s face, slightly round and prominent of cheekbone, was striking. Soothing, in a strange sort of way. And most uncommon around London, its contours indicated she came from somewhere further to the east.

When it met Caroline’s own, the stranger’s dark gaze seemed to commiserate for a moment. To sympathize and to try to comfort. Before thick pink lips turned up in a subdued smirk, meant for Caroline’s eyes alone, and Caroline felt the sting of her delight. This woman was glad to see her dropped off there, glad to see her marched through the front door of a madhouse to defend her own sanity.

Bruised more by the stranger’s casual malice than by that of Thomas – perhaps, because she expected nothing better of him – Caroline tried to hold her head up. To retain her composure. She could be angry to a point, but she couldn’t let her anger overwhelm her. She had one purpose now and one purpose only, to show them she had no business being there. No business being there at all.

 

“Mrs. Ajax,” Dr. Rand began once they were formally seated in his parlor-like office. No desk, no examination table, just several armchairs and a fainting couch to swoon upon should the threat of her impending incarceration become too much to bear. “Or do you prefer Caroline? May I call you Caroline?”

“Call me whatever you like,” Caroline said, and Dr. Rand’s blue eyes flicked up as a resident of the house, made to serve as assistant, entered the room with tea. Lukewarm, Caroline did hope. They really shouldn’t be arming the crazies with scalding hot beverages.

“Thank you, Margaret.” Dr. Rand smiled as the woman left them, returning his attention to Caroline as the door closed behind her. “Mr. Ajax tells us you’ve been having some difficulties lately.”

“What sort of difficulties?”

“I was hoping you would tell me that.”

“I couldn’t begin to read Thomas’s mind.”

A most proper response. To read Thomas’s mind would be telepathy, and belief in telepathy was almost certainly grounds for immediate commitment. Of course, as a woman, just knowing the word “telepathy” was likely grounds. Even more so if they found out she had read it in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. So, channeling her life’s training, Caroline schooled her expression to look as insipid and clueless as possible.

“Maybe not,” Dr. Rand said. “But you can tell me how you’ve been feeling of late.”

How she’d been feeling? Did people care about such things now?

Sit down, Caroline.

Wear this, Caroline.

Be nice, Caroline.

Don’t look so dour, Caroline.

As far as she could tell, life was about one’s observable actions, not one’s feelings.

Assailed, though, by the question, Caroline couldn’t help but formulate an answer. How did she feel? She felt like a ghost in her own life. Flitting through it. Observing. Having absolutely no impact at all. But that wasn’t just “of late.” She had almost always felt that way. “I feel fine.”

“Ask her about the cleaning.” Evidently dissatisfied with the speed or tack of Dr. Rand’s questions, Thomas shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“What about the cleaning?” Dr. Rand asked.

“What about it?” Caroline said.

“Mr. Ajax says you don’t allow the staff in your home to clean.”

Oh, Dear Thomas. Simplistic, absolute Thomas. That was one very clear-cut way of looking at something nuanced.

“That simply isn’t true.”

“Would you care to explain that to me?”

“The staff cleans when the house needs cleaning. They don’t when it doesn’t. I see no need for them to walk around polishing bookcases and railings each day that have a layer of soot upon them again by the following morning. It’s noisy, it stirs the air, and it’s hopeless.”

Throwing up a hand as if Caroline had just signed her own commitment papers, Thomas looked absurdly pleased with himself. Remarkable really, considering Thomas never looked pleased. Though, if he were to, it would certainly be with himself.

One might say it was he, Thomas, who demanded absolute spotlessness in his home, or perhaps just liked snapping at the servants for finding a speck on a mantle, who behaved in an absurd way. But pointing blame at her husband was certainly no means of talking herself into freedom, so Caroline withheld the recrimination, and Dr. Rand edged forward in his chair as if trying to find it.

“So, what does the staff do all day?” he asked.

“Their jobs. They do have other assignments.”

“Those do not take all day,” Thomas complained.

“You play cards and lose money at horse races! If you believe in leisure time, why shouldn’t they?”

Thomas expelling a sudden, boisterous laugh, Caroline felt the cold melt of regret down her spine. She had made a mistake. Already. Thomas baited her, and she bit. Arguing on behalf of their servants, or even sounding as if she was, was certainly considered a condition of some sort in a woman of means, and Caroline floundered for a way to bring the focus back to herself.

“I get headaches.” Looking to Dr. Rand, she found his eyes had never left her. Watching for her psychosis to reveal itself. “I get them often and they are unbearable. Too much unnecessary noise and dust makes them worse.”

“Yes, your headaches. You take laudanum for those?” Dr. Rand asked.

“It was prescribed for me by my doctor.”

“Mm hm.”

Watching him make the note in his leather-bound book, Caroline felt her solid foundation begin to crack. He knew everything, she realized. Every fact Thomas could possibly use against her, Dr. Rand already had.

“Do you like reality, Caroline?” Dr. Rand stared into her eyes, and Caroline knew the right answer – What else is there? – but it would make no difference if she said it. Even if she executed it flawlessly. Not a flinch. Not an instant’s hesitation. No mistake could put her in this place, and no stream of perfect replies could get her out. She didn’t know why she thought they could. Why she thought it would be different for her. Why she believed, for a single instant, she could talk her way out of this, make anyone hear her reason. All that mattered was her husband said she was mad and was willing to pay this man to believe him.

Thomas giving a tiny scoff of satisfaction, because he had spoon-fed the doctor all the right questions and knew exactly how this was going to play out for him, the fury Caroline had tempered into vague interest all day consumed her. One glance at his smug, satisfied face, and all thoughts of self-preservation went straight out of her head.

“Ahh!”

Flying out of her chair, she saw the surprise on Thomas’s face before she caught him by his shoulders and they tumbled together onto the floor. One knee thrust into his side, she dug her fingernails into his skin, feeling the warm, wet flow of satisfaction as she dragged bloody tracks down his cheeks.

“Mrs. Ajax.” Dr. Rand rose to his feet, but made only a weak man’s attempt to come between them. Or Caroline was just that strong at the moment. She could feel the slight tug at her shoulder, but it wasn’t half the effort it would take to dislodge her. “You must stop this.”

As if a verbal scolding could even begin to contain her wrath.

Thomas fighting back was far more effective, as he restrained one of her wrists, but, even then, Caroline got in another good swipe at him, taking blood and skin away with it.

“Go ahead.” Through his pain, Thomas turned venomous, spitting the words in a whisper as Dr. Rand moved for the door. “You’re only proving to them you’re insane.”

“They’re going to put me in here anyway. You should at least feel pain.”

“A little help in here!”

Seconds later, Caroline was wrapped up, arms closing around her waist and plucking her bodily off of Thomas.

“Took you a minute,” Thomas said as Dr. Rand helped him to his feet, and Caroline watched the blood flow from the many wounds on his face with intense pleasure. She may not have saved herself, but at least she knew now how she would spend her next few days, praying some of those scratches would scar. Thomas should have a reminder of this. She certainly would.

“I hope you’ll be well, Caroline.” Thomas played the part of the grieving husband with flair and dramatics, and it set Caroline’s hair on fire.

“I hope you’ll ride off a cliff on your… way… bach… ta…”

Words starting to slur, she glanced down at the syringe that jutted out of her inner elbow. So much cold coursing through her, she hadn’t even felt it go in. The ice in her veins.

Then, the warmth.

Then, nothing.

 

The next sounds that woke her were nearer. Neither voice nor song, they came in the form of thumps, soft but intrusive, not far beyond her feet, and it took Caroline’s debilitated brain several seconds to recognize it as the sounds of someone coming through the door.

Shock bending her upright at the waist, her eyes flashed wide, but unfocused, and she reached out as she swayed, finding a puffy handhold to steady her as she struggled for awareness.

A small room with a door, at last she blinked into view. A cell of some sort? It had to be. The fainting couch she sat on was very much like the one in Dr. Rand’s office, narrow and ornamental, but surprisingly plush, while soft light emanating from somewhere overhead revealed a lack of any additional furnishings.

All she had time to recognize before the door pressed open, Caroline tried to scurry backwards on the couch. Tried. But her compromised strength wouldn’t carry her far, and it wouldn’t matter if it did. There was no place to go. Whichever direction she moved, she had only as far as the four walls, and that would do nothing but prolong whatever was coming to her.

She had heard stories about places like this. One couldn’t help but hear them. Madhouses were ripe sources of sensationalist gossip. Even with the new, gentler personas they were trying to promote. But though she had listened, along with everybody else, it occurred to Caroline now, with a stuttering heart and quivering bowel, she had never had any desire to learn how those stories ended.

“Caroline.”

Nightmare scenarios vying for dominance in her mind, she didn’t expect to hear her name so softly spoken, nor the voice of a woman speaking it.

She certainly didn’t expect to see a woman she recognized, even if only in passing. But she did recognize the woman when she came into view. It was the same woman from the front stoop, the black-eyed, lovely-faced woman who smirked at her bad fortune as she had entered this place.

“It’s all right.” The woman wasn’t smirking now. Crouching next to the fainting couch, she gazed up into Caroline’s face, eyes once again sympathetic. “Are you all right?”

Certainly not all right, not even sure she was all right with the woman asking her that, Caroline stared back, wondering whether she might be hallucinating as the light cast its faint yellow glow down over them, sending golden streaks through the stranger’s black hair, giving her an ethereal look like a displaced angel.

“I’m Lei,” the woman said. “I need you to come with me.”

“I can’t. I’m…” Weak. Caroline was weak. Terribly and cripplingly so. And muddled. But she couldn’t tell this stranger that. Who knew what havoc the woman might wreak with the information? “I’m sick.”

“It’s the serum. Now that you’re awake, it will wear off more quickly. Can you walk?”

“I don’t know. I think so.”

“See if you can get up.”

Searching for the floor with slightly numbed feet, Caroline made an attempt. Or, rather, she thought about making it. She didn’t actually move at all. Not on her first or her second try. On the third, with considerable support, she was able to rise, but was so unsteady she fell instantly into Lei and felt like a puppet being pulled on strings.

“A little unsteady.” Lei’s voice was a breathy whisper against her cheek. “But I think you can make it.”

“Where? Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you out of here.”

Bizarre as the notion sounded, Lei looked perfectly serious, and remarkably calm, as Caroline looked to her in the low light of the room. “You can get out?”

“I can.”

“How?”

“Come with me and I’ll show you.”

“What if they see us?”

“It will be all right. Trust me.”

It was a very strange thing for Lei to say. What reason did Caroline have to trust her? To trust anyone in that place? What choice did she have not to? Too unsteady to walk on her own, she didn’t even have the choice to move without assistance, and staying in that room waiting for whatever might come along next had to be a worse option, so she leaned on Lei all the way out the door of the fainting cell and down the darkened hall.

“This isn’t the right door.” Not entirely conscious of her surroundings or what was happening inside her own body, Caroline did know that. The wood door she had walked through to enter the house was taller with far more elaborate carvings than the wood door Lei led her up to now.

“We can’t go that way,” Lei said as she pulled the door open, and Caroline stared into the depths beyond it. The weakly lit stairs. The smell of earth rising up to tickle her nose.

“I don’t…” Equal parts woozy and trepidatious, she put her hand on the doorframe to stop Lei from maneuvering her through it. “I don’t want to go down there.”

Lei glanced to her in the shadows, dark eyes searching Caroline’s face, a soft smile coming to her lips that was less amusement than comfort. “It will be all right, Caroline. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

Again, Caroline had no cause to believe that. She was in a madhouse. Lei was in the same madhouse. And a complete stranger to her. Caroline knew no more than her name and her face and the words that came out of her mouth. Yet, she did believe her. She did trust Lei when she said it. At least enough to let Lei ease her through the door and down toward the underworld.

“Where are we going?” Chill seeping through her dress from the stone walls, fear bloomed, wild and rapid, inside Caroline’s chest with every downward step. This was how she expected the place to look from the outside. Dank, inhospitable gray. Like a prison. Or a dungeon.

“Not much further,” Lei said when they reached the bottom, and they walked on, passing through several narrow corridors, all with the same half-lit gloom, through a doorway to an empty room.

Empty, that was, but for a second door. Though, it was clear at first glance that door wasn’t a way out. Crafted out of iron, giant gold wheel sitting at its center, an extensive network of levers and dials surrounding it, it was quite obviously the door of a vault.

“What are you doing?” Caroline asked as Lei settled her against a nearby wall to turn to the vault’s switches.

“Just one second.” Lei’s eyes already scanned the levers and dials, tight smile jumping to her lips as she started to flip and to slide them. Mere seconds later, with a gratified spin of the wheel, she pulled the vault door open and light spilled from its interior, quite unexpected, but entirely welcome in the otherwise dreary space.

“Caroline.” Lei held out her hand, and, pushing off the wall, Caroline shuffled unsteadily to her side, relying on Lei’s strength and embrace when her knees gave out as she reached her.

Gold? Jewels? Her only guesses as to what might be inside, Caroline managed to be absolutely stunned by the vault’s contents.

Dressed up like a room, or rather a portion of a room, with an armchair and an oval side table on a red Persian rug, elaborate floor lamp producing the light that filtered from its recesses, the vault held what had to be the most elegant specter Caroline could ever expect to see.

That specter was perched in the armchair, dressed in a dark green coattail jacket over a dusty rose bodice and a lighter green skirt, the absolute picture of grace and civility. The picture of grace and civility with a sly grin and a silver pocket watch clutched in her hand.

“Incredible, Lei. That’s your fastest time yet.” Sliding the watch into her jacket, the specter turned brown eyes on Caroline, and Caroline felt faint and afflicted under their focused attention. “Hello, Caroline,” she said. “I’m Dr. Todson.”

 

 

Chapter 2

                     Eirinn

                     1862

If daggers from the eyes were actual, physical daggers, Paul Browning would be dead in the middle of Tavistock Square. The sniveling little ratbag.

Perched on a bench at the edge of an abnormally balmy London day, Eirinn felt the chill of the shade at her back and the fire of fury upon her face. She knew envy only punished the sufferer, but she couldn’t help but pick at her own wounds. Watching Paul Browning take his praise, the pats on his back, the boys clambering to be in his orbit for managing barely passing marks felt like a direct mockery of her and all that she wanted in the world. Not only was Paul Browning a bully who made a point of reminding Eirinn of her place every opportunity given him, he was also an idiot. An idiot who would succeed. Because polite society dictated that he should. He was simply too well-born, too connected, and too male not to.

“Want me to break any of his limbs for ya? Or all of ‘em maybe?”

Hearing the footsteps approach from behind before they landed at her shoulder, Eirinn wasn’t worried. While she had little doubt any one of these unlicked cubs would stab her in the back if they thought they could get away with it, she knew her back was well-guarded and the punishment for them would be quick and severe.

They knew it too.

Which was good.

Especially now.

This academic season had been a particularly vitriolic one. The new professor, Mr. Hays, recently transferred from King’s College and a proponent of women in higher education, had decided to make an example out of Eirinn. To show the world women could, and should, learn just as well as men. To that end, he had the audacity to call on Eirinn frequently for answers, and, when he did, Eirinn had the audacity to answer correctly. It was a dangerous game with no clear-cut winners when Eirinn wasn’t supposed to be officially playing.

“I can lure Braining around a building with the smell of slop. No one will know it was me who did it.”

Smile quirking her lips – both at the insult and the offer – Eirinn glanced to where Rand stood amused with himself, but ever alert, behind her, like a soldier in service to a queen. A fact that was somewhat humorous in its own right. Were they at home, it would be Rand causing her grief and Eirinn doing the threatening.

“My God, Rand. I appreciate your willingness to take out Braining, but it’s hardly worth the risk to your future. You’re worth ten of him and a million more men.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Coming around the bench’s end, Rand sat down beside her, but at a respectable distance with his hands on his knees where any nosey passersby could see. Not for their own sakes – who cared what others thought? – but for the sake of Eirinn’s parents. It was already a talking point that the Todsons allowed Rand to serve as her chaperone at all.

Can you believe it? A male servant, and a YOUNG man at that, they whispered to each other after church and over tea.

Everyone knew Rand’s mother, Mrs. Ballentine – Bally to those who knew and adored her – would be the far more appropriate choice. But Eirinn’s parents weren’t particularly susceptible to arbitrary rules or idle gossip. Nor were they willing to take a risk. Many of the boys at University College didn’t want Eirinn in their lecture halls, regardless of the fact she was only allowed to sit and listen and not to actually matriculate, but no one was going to make as much of a deal out of it with a six-foot-two pillar of protective muscle close by.

“You ready to head home?” Rand asked after a few quiet minutes.

“I suppose there’s no reason to continue to sit here,” Eirinn said.

That was the brutal truth of the matter. She could sit all day, glaring and brooding, but it wasn’t going to change anything. The young men she had spent the past few weeks with would still continue on in their studies and be awarded their degrees to practice medicine, and Eirinn would be coddled for her shocking interest in human anatomy, given a condescending smile, and be sent back to the home sphere to do womanly things with womanly virtue.

 

Dinner was at seven o’clock. Dinner always endeavored to be at seven o’clock in the Todson household, and Papa always endeavored to be in his chair on time. What point is success, he asked Eirinn once, bopping her on the nose, if one isn’t home to dine with his family? And though she was only a young girl at the time, Eirinn had always remembered it.

Success was nothing, she supposed, to a man like her father if he couldn’t keep to his own schedule. As a boy, he never got to eat dinner with his Ma, Pa, brothers and sisters. Half his family worked the coal mines and the other half the paper mills, each with their appointed jobs to do. Separated from sunup to sundown, they scarcely got a word in passing, let alone full meals together.

If success for Papa wasn’t all that he had accomplished, burrowing his way from that shack outside of Langley Moor to their house in Mayfair through sheer, persistent digging, but eating with his wife and daughter each night, Eirinn and Mama could see to it. No matter how many times he told them to eat without him if he wasn’t there on time. We were playing Hearts and lost track of the hour. Or The roast took longer than expected, Bally would lie for them. There was always some excuse to be found.

Tonight, though, tonight Papa wasn’t just on time, he was home early, coming through the door with a whistle and time enough to change his jacket and comb his hair before he came into the dining room.

“You look nice,” Eirinn said with just a tinge of suspicion. Papa, with his thick dark hair and easy good looks, cleaned up as handsome as just about any man in town, but he was far more likely to toss off his jacket and loosen his cravat around them.

“Thank you very much,” Papa returned, running a hand down his checked jacket front, pleased that she had noticed. “I had to clean up somewhat. We are celebrating.”

“Celebrating? What are we celebrating?” Eirinn asked.

“What are we…?” Glancing to Mama with a bemused expression, Papa seemed to hold the secrets of the universe in his very eyes. Papa often looked like that, on the verge of some great discovery. “You, of course.”

“Me. Why me? What did I do?” Eirinn asked.

“Your last day of advanced medical theory.” Much to her chagrin, he remembered. “We haven’t the day wrong, have we? I was certain it was today.”

“It was today.” Realizing what was happening, and why Mama had been so chipper ever since she returned home from university, Eirinn busied herself with her napkin, taking it from its triangular fold to spread across her lap, wondering how she was supposed to eat with the pressing ache in the cavity of her chest.

“And? How did you fare?” Papa asked her.

“I fared fine,” Eirinn said.

“Only fine?”

She had made it home in one piece with some new knowledge in her head. Given the circumstances, Eirinn wasn’t sure how much better it could have gone. But Papa didn’t just look as if he held secrets. He did have a few tucked up his sleeve. And he loved to do this, needle her about something he already knew and see if she would first confess. Tonight, at least, Eirinn had the luxury of knowing she had nothing worthy of confessing.

“I stopped by the university to speak with Everett on my way home.”

“Ah.” Small sound worrying her throat, Eirinn should have considered that possibility. Papa was friendly with Mr. Hays in a passing fashion, and an expert at getting information in roundabout ways.

“He told me, had you been allowed to test, you surely would have had the highest score in class.”

“Did he?” Eirinn feigned surprise, despite the fact the information wasn’t new to her. Mr. Hays announced it to the class that very afternoon. Eirinn was his shining example, his paradigm of female pupildom. A prototype. So, he slapped her publicly on the back and spread the target already there.

“Oh, Eirinn, that’s wonderful.” Mama smiled. Eirinn didn’t look up to see it, but she could hear it in her voice. The affection. The pride. “And not at all a surprise to us. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Because it doesn’t matter, does it?” Frustration flaring, Eirinn’s voice cracked on a sob, and she felt both of the emotions, the simmering anger and the utter hopelessness. She hated feeling this way, so sorry for herself. Self-pity wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Only hard work and persistence would do that, and, even then, it could only get her as far as women were permitted to go.

“It may not matter now, or feel as if it does,” Papa said, and if he were in less of a position to know, she might not have listened. If Papa had been born into this house, instead of clawing his way into it. But Papa knew exactly what it meant to be told over and over the odds were not in his favor, only to beat them in the end. “You will be a doctor one day, Eir, if that’s what you want. Women in the United States are already being licensed as physicians. If all else fails, we will put you on a ship and educate you there.”

Where I will have to stay if I want to practice, Eirinn thought. Because, degree or not, no hospital in England was going to employ a woman.

But she had no doubt her parents would do just what Papa said. They would spend every last penny they had in pursuit of the life that she wanted. But why should they have to? Why should her parents – her father who worked himself ragged in the mines at five years old, her mother who loved him before she dare should – have to spend all they had worked so hard to build together to get Eirinn exactly the same title as snotty Paul Browning who lived two streets over and was completely unaware of how stupid or lucky he was?

“All right.” Eirinn forced a smile, not feeling it at all. “But, if this is a celebration, where are Bally and Rand? Shouldn’t they be in here?”

“They’ll be in after dinner with the cake,” Mama said. Softly. Disappointed.

For good reason.

There wasn’t a cake baked in their house by Bally alone. Mama was the hostess of many a party and celebration, and she liked to do the work that needed doing with her own two hands. She and Bally had probably spent the better part of their day trying to make this dinner special for Eirinn.

“Thank you, Mama,” Eirinn said, and Mama forced a smile too, but there was a melancholy in her eyes Eirinn felt cruel for putting there.

And spoiled.

And selfish.

Papa grew up on the road and in the underground. He lit streetlamps at dusk and snuffed them in the mornings, working every waking hour between to rise above his meager beginnings.

Mama loved him before it was possible to love him. She waited years to marry, putting off other enthusiastic suitors, until Papa was able to make enough of himself to earn her parents’ approval.

I knew who he was the first time I met him, she always said to Eirinn. I felt like I knew him in another lifetime. And Eirinn believed it.

Her parents had done all the hard work. They had built a life on her father’s shoulders and her mother’s devotion. The least she could do was be grateful.

 

Night fell on the house like a Poe story. Not entirely gloomy, but haunted with the memories of a young girl. Four years old, running half-naked through the halls, perilously curious. Nine years old, nose in a book, vexingly precocious. Fifteen years old, hands folded – quieter, sadder – fading confidence hiding behind perfect poise.

In the light of her lamp, Eirinn watched older versions of herself disappear into the shadows.

On the first-floor landing, she was startled by voices, intimately familiar, but unexpected at this time of night, and the murmured sounds drew her gaze to the soft glow of candlelight that still flickered beneath her parents’ bedroom door. Guilty once more. Not only had she ruined their dinner, she was clearly keeping them awake. She knew of nothing else that could be so occupying her parents’ minds, and, sure enough, the conversation proved out as she drifted toward their door, canting her head closer to listen.

“…to Everett. He has contacts in America. I’m certain some university there will admit her.”

“We cannot send her to America, Simon. For God’s sake. The country is at war with itself.”

“Exactly. All those young men rushing off into battle. With the lack of available students, they should be happy to fill a vacancy.”

“That is not funny,” Mama said, but Eirinn could hear the trace of amusement in her voice.

It was fascinating, she had always thought, how differently people spoke to each other behind closed doors. The jokes they shared. The improprieties they indulged in. Millions of things that should never be said had to have been said between two people in intimate confidence.

“I know,” Papa admitted, and it was followed by a long spell of silence.

Wondering if they were finished, knowing she should stop listening in regardless, that she should either knock or leave, Eirinn was just on the verge of sneaking off when Mama spoke again.

“I do wish you wouldn’t get her hopes up like that.”

Statement gluing her to the spot, she wished for a second that she had left. That was the problem with listening in on other people’s conversations. One never knew what she might hear.

“I just want her to believe she can have anything she wants.”

“Why, when it isn’t true?”

Words striking her with the venom of a snake, Eirinn had to remind herself she was never meant to be in their path. She was the one with her ear to the serpent’s mouth. Mama would never say these things in front of her.

“One day, it will be.”

“Will it? I’ve been waiting more than forty years and it hasn’t happened yet,” Mama said, and there was a longing in it. A sorrow. Like some long forlorn acceptance. “You have done everything in the world to make this life for us.” Her voice growing softer, Eirinn had to press recklessly close to the door to hear. “You have given Eir every opportunity. Do you know how helpless it feels that there is nothing I can do to open them up for her?”

Pained sob and shuffle of linens coming from behind the door, Eirinn knew Papa was embracing Mama as she cried. She shouldn’t be listening to this. If her mother wanted her to know her concerns, her torment, she would tell her.

But it was also good she had heard it. Because she forgot sometimes. She forgot that all Papa had done, his personal glory, their family’s great success story, he had done only because he had the right to do it. Mama was born into a far better life than him – all her needs provided for, no cause to work or scrap to survive – but was it a better life? Papa could drag himself through the grime of a coal mine into a lovely home and a gentleman’s station, but what if their places had been reversed? Where would Mama be right now if she had been the one born into poverty? There was very little room for men to climb through the cracks of caste. For women, there was none.

I should leave. The thought went through Eirinn’s mind again, but hearing Mama weeping through the door, she couldn’t. She couldn’t just let Mama cry on her behalf, and, almost reflexively, she raised her hand to knock.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“It’s me, Papa.”

“Eir, come in.”

Putting on a brave face so they wouldn’t know she had heard anything – everything – Eirinn pressed open the door to her parents’ bedroom, revealing them just as she expected to find them, side by side in bed, separated just enough not to make her blush.

“Are you all right?” Mama looked much too worried, tears still shining in her eyes, like dew through a greenhouse window, and it struck Eirinn with inspiration.

Mama used to smile more too, it occurred to her. All their smiles were so much easier to come by when Eirinn was young.

“I’m fine. I was just wondering, could we go to Kew Gardens tomorrow?”

Joy instantly appearing on Mama’s face, like a rainbow through the storm, it was everything Eirinn hoped it would be. Mama was so surprised, so instantly eager, it wiped out all traces of despair.

“I can’t remember the last time we rode out there.”

“I know. I think it’s high time we did. My memories of our days there are so good. I think it would make me feel better.”

“Yes. Of course, we can. I would love that,” Mama breathed.

“Sorry, Papa. Since you do have work to do, maybe you can join us next time. After all, the museum is terribly behind shed-jule.” Eirinn overemphasized the word as she had heard it from the mouths of Papa’s stuffy fellow investors. He would always be a risk for them, the man who came from nothing managing their precious fortunes, and they reminded him of it, in small, petty ways, as often as they could.

“I am quite all right with that. You should have time alone with your mother. But I would love to see you on your way back through the city. You can route right through Chelsea. We’ll have tea and I can show you the progress on the museum.”

“That sounds nice too.” Hand wrapping around Papa’s arm, Mama gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Eir?”

“That sounds perfect,” Eirinn agreed, and, watching her parents go from sorrow to delight in an instant, she realized she felt better already.

Filed Under: Writing stuff

March 12, 2021 By Riley 5 Comments

Dr. Todson’s Home for Incorrigible Women – Release Date: April 13, 2021

Well, now. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? Though, since everyone seems to be agreeing 2020 never happened, I suppose I’m ahead of schedule.

Seriously, what’s there to say? This has been an unprecedented (in most of our lifetimes) and hellacious year for everyone, and Shawna and I just happened to be in a terrible place for it.

A. TERRIBLE. PLACE.

Along with all the obvious brain distractions, we were living in the Netherlands all of last year, first in Amsterdam, then in The Hague. We moved to The Hague to escape the constant construction and far-too-frequent 3 a.m. (or 4 a.m. or 5 a.m.) wakings we were dealing with at our apartment in Amsterdam only to find ourselves in a building where they started a construction project that blasted upwards of 80 decibels into our apartment every day for hours at a time. During a pandemic. When we couldn’t leave the apartment.

And it was about to get worse.

After enduring nearly five months of this utter ridiculousness (you know, because no one wanted to fly across the ocean during a pandemic), we finally surrendered and escaped back to Las Vegas, where I have been reacquainted with a full night’s sleep and there have been actual quiet moments throughout our days. Three cheers for noise ordinance laws, amirite?

Anyway, it was a fucking nightmare on top of a nightmare and my mental health was… let’s just call it “precarious.”

So, it wasn’t just the pandemic, the slow destruction of democracy, or the many other horrific things going on around the world that was making it nearly impossible for me to finish my book. There were things from micro to macro that combined to make it a real swirly of a year.

Side question: Is a swirly just a mild version of waterboarding?

The point is, this book has had a difficult journey. It had a largely cantankerous, only occasionally functional human companion. We chopped our way through thick, grabby overgrowth and clambered over a lot of obstacles together. But every story takes on the struggles and mindset of its author. Under different circumstances, I might have written a completely different book. I love the book I wrote, and was glad to have this strong, beautiful group of women with whom to endure the past year.

And wine. Copious amounts of wine.

I’m proud. I’m excited. I’m really fucking glad it’s finished.

A gentle Victorian tale of women’s passions and power, with a sprinkle of romance, a trifle of steampunk, and heaps and heaps of quiet revolution.

Caroline Ajax is an inconvenient woman. Unwell. Hot-tempered. Harboring a tragic secret she can’t share with another living soul. Dropped at an institution in the Surrey Hills by her husband, Thomas, her only objective is to survive, to endure, to make it back to what little there is of her life as soon as she possibly can. But it doesn’t take her long to discover there is something unusual about this house and its eclectic group of inhabitants. Not to mention its unconventional proprietor.

Eirinn Todson is an untameable woman. Brilliant. Determined. Forging her way through the world of men as brazenly as she knows how. Her dream of becoming a doctor leads her to Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and her clinic for women and children in London, then onto Paris with her best friend and quasi-brother Rand. But an unexpected encounter and personal tragedy will change the course of Eirinn’s life and future forever.

In the spring of 1886, Eirinn is now Dr. Todson, proprietor of Dr. Todson’s Home for Women. When Caroline Ajax is admitted into her care, Eirinn has every reason to believe Caroline is just another resident. Caroline has every reason to believe Dr. Todson’s is just another sadistic madhouse. But Dr. Todson’s Home harbors a treasure trove of secrets, some deeper and more dangerous than others, and Caroline’s and Eirinn’s past tragedies share a common thread. Together, they may find a sliver of justice neither of them ever thought to get.

Release Date: April 13, 2021

Filed Under: Writing stuff

November 6, 2019 By Riley 2 Comments

2020 Release Dates

Fuck plans.

Why bother?

See here for an actual release date:

Dr. Todson’s Home for Incorrigible Women

Filed Under: Writing stuff

July 21, 2017 By Riley Leave a Comment

Black Forest: Stories End Out Now

Black Forest: Stories End, the final book in The Black Forest Trilogy, is out now at Smashwords and Amazon.

To celebrate, Rainbow Award finalist Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall and Black Forest: Magicks Rise are currently 50% off on Smashwords.

But there’s a sweeter deal for blog readers: 75% off Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall and Black Forest: Magicks Rise if you use the coupon codes below (just apply the new code at checkout).

Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall 75% off code: CD83M

Black Forest: Magicks Rise 75% off code: WS25A

For those who have already purchased Stories End, and those who plan to, thank you for sticking with me through the delays and political upheaval. Hope you enjoy spending time with these characters as much as I have.

Filed Under: Writing stuff

April 15, 2017 By Riley 7 Comments

Night Falls on the Piazza: Cover and First Chapter

Venice

On many streets of Venice, people cast shadows only a few, fleeting hours each day. Buildings so close, and ways so narrow, only the highest midday light penetrates its passages, bursting color in the masks and molded crystals displayed in shop windows.

The rest of the time, Venice spends lost in its own shadow, obstruction of the sun producing a sort of prolonged twilight throughout its winding vias, and tinging the lesser-traveled parts of the city in muted blues and grays. Far from dampening its beauty, the indistinct colorscape brings Venice more vibrantly to life, casting its Gothic and Byzantine architecture in matching old light, and indulging the spirits and fervency of life ever on the air.

Sun above as Sabine sat down at the two-top outside the trattoria door, it passed the western buildings as she lingered over lunch. No shadows left to fall, and no footsteps that she heard, she couldn’t say exactly what drew her attention over the top of the tiny white cup she held to the corner of the street, largely untrodden by all but locals, but she did know what held it there.

A woman – it was always a woman – dressed in a pageboy cap and sweater coat that brushed the ankles of light jeans. Dirty blonde hair swinging past her shoulder, it concealed most of the woman’s face as she leaned on the stone wall of one vacant shop, map open in her hands.

Smile flickering to Sabine’s lips, it was a rather common sight – and a not entirely common one – and she hesitated for only an instant before rising from the table, knowing Marco would know she was good for it, even if she didn’t make it back to pay.

“Lost?”

Head lifting, the woman’s light eyes met with Sabine’s, and Sabine was halted, for a moment, by the expression of consternation, so pouty, yet so endearing, on the stranger’s face. She could tell from a distance the woman was attractive – it was one of the few things that could lure Sabine away from one of her last moments of respite and good espresso – but, until she could fully see her, Sabine couldn’t tell how attractive she was, or make out any of the details that made her truly noteworthy.

Her eyes, slightly darkened by the premature twilight, were blue and gray and green. Sabine didn’t have to decide which, because, in them, she saw all three, blending in unusual starbursts, soft gray at their centers, giving way to deep blue at the outer rings, green streaks flashing through them, like bolts of lightning in a galactic storm.

“Do I look lost?”

Never appreciating more the likening of one’s eyes to the cosmos, Sabine’s gaze sank to full lips, bottom even thicker than their ample top, down past a narrow chin, and over the crocheted scarf bunched at the stranger’s neck, to where its ends touched the ‘V’ of her buttoned sweater coat.

“Yes, you do.”

It wasn’t the only thing the woman looked, though. Interest pressing, it was much like standing at the base of a mountain. Sabine could tell it was worth the hike, but she had no idea just how magnificent it could be until she got close. Only to find parts of it barricaded off from her, and suffering the instant regret of what she might be missing out on.

“Then, I guess I must be,” the stranger said.

American, like her, Sabine was almost certain. Though, it was difficult to tell in so few words. She had an accent, but it was slight, more a faint inflection than a specific annunciation.

“It happens here. A lot,” Sabine said.

“Yes, I heard that.”

“It’s like the rabbit hole of Italy. You never know what’s coming around the next corner. Might be a canal. Might be a dead-end. It might be Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Do you know how you ended up over here?”

“Well, I thought I was taking a shortcut. Clearly, that was a mistake.”

“Or not.” Cosmic eyes rising, once again, to hers, Sabine took a small, deliberate step. “There aren’t many places in Venice not worth seeing. So, maybe you ended up right where you’re supposed to be. Besides, those maps are awful. I think they print them just to screw with the tourists.”

“I’d believe it.” The stranger’s gaze dipped to the useless guide in her hands.

“Don’t worry.” Another step, and, blocked from the cool wind that whistled, with some frequency, down the narrow street, the air warmed between them. “Until the Queen of Hearts has your head, there’s still time to escape. Do you have your cell phone?”

“Not on me,” the stranger returned. “I left it in my room. I’m trying to stay away from all technology.”

“Lofty goal,” Sabine said.

“Yeah. We’ll see how long it lasts.”

“Well, I spend a lot of time in Venice. Maybe I can help you get where you want to go.”

It was questionable, perhaps, coming onto a woman in an, arguably, vulnerable position. But Sabine could hardly pass up the opportunity just because the woman was lost either. And she wasn’t lying. She had been in Venice many, many times, and, though its allure still grabbed her each and every visit, and didn’t let go until long after she left, there was nothing in the city she hadn’t already seen. Venice held a familiar sort of appeal for her now. A known beauty. It was comfortable. Always gratifying, but no longer exhilarating. Everything she’d experienced since her arrival, Sabine had experienced before. She had all but given up on finding something truly, newly fascinating.

“So, where do you want to go?”

Pause in the stranger’s response, it was as if the question was loaded. And maybe it was, but only as loaded as she wanted it to be.

“St. Mark’s Square.”

Hardly a surprise, the woman looked almost embarrassed at being so obvious.

“First time in the city?” Sabine asked her.

“First time in Italy,” the stranger said.

“Well, that is the place to start.”

“So, can you get me there?”

“Absolutely.” Sabine made her interest in the task clear. She wouldn’t, after all, want to leave it open to interpretation she was just being nice. While the beautiful stranger may or may not respond to her true motives for walking over there, Sabine did, at least, want them known. “I’m staying over that way anyway, so you’ll actually be walking me back the way I need to go.”

“How sweet am I?” the woman responded, and Sabine couldn’t say she wasn’t extremely curious about that as the stranger commenced a feat she had literally never witnessed, not once, in all of her many visits to Venice. Nor to any other city that attracted tourists by the droves, Sabine realized. She quickly, and without a single mis-fold, returned the tourist shop map to its original rectangular state, dropping it into the multi-patterned slouch bag that swung across her body. Given the thing was designed more like a paper puzzle than a usable reference, the simple deed was far more impressive than it probably should have been.

Or, maybe, Sabine was just looking to be impressed.

“Which way do we go?”

Reaching for her coat pocket when cosmic eyes seized hers again, Sabine found her cell, but managed only to swipe her thumb across its screen before a partially-gloved hand covered hers.

“I thought you said you knew your way around.”

“I do. For the most part. I just want to see where we are.”

“You’re kind of making me lose faith here.”

Losing the woman’s faith not on her agenda, Sabine let the phone slip down in her hand, returning it, with some reluctance, to her pocket. Though she told the truth about her time spent in Venice, that didn’t mean she didn’t exaggerate how well she knew her way from one place to the next. It was Sabine’s belief one could live a hundred years in Venice, and still find herself lost amidst its labyrinthine passageways on occasion. That, and the action required pulling her hand out of the woman’s touch, which lingered, in a cold press of fingertips, on the back of her hand.

“Well, we don’t want that.” Glancing to the buildings that surrounded them, Sabine could tell east from west by which structures had slightly more gleam upon their facades, and, having been in this part of the city several times this trip, she knew most of the landmarks by heart. “I know it’s this way.”

“Sounds like a good first step.”

Trace of a grin on the woman’s lips as she turned to walk beside her, Sabine smiled a near-farcical smile toward a shopkeeper standing outside her store, not sure why being challenged to walk by memory alone in one of the most convoluted cities in the world was putting such satisfaction on her face.

“I’m Sabine, by the way.” Expression nearly tempered, she glanced as the woman tossed dirty blonde hair back over her shoulder.

“Callista,” the woman said, and, to the smallest of measures, they were strangers no more.

“How long are you in Venice?”

“Four days,” Callista said.

“Well, that should give you time to see most everything,” Sabine reasoned. Not to linger maybe, but to see. Venice was, after all, a relatively small city.

It should also give Sabine time.

“I hope to,” Callista declared.

“Then what? After you see everything in Venice? Do you go back home?”

“No. I just got here. After this, I go to Florence and then to Rome.”

“That sounds perfect.”

It did. Sabine wasn’t just saying it. A nearly ideal itinerary for one’s first trip to Italy, it was more than that. Something quirky, and not exactly of the real world, about the woman who walked beside her, Callista seemed to blend into the Venetian backdrop, looking less like a tourist than an old soul. As if she was meant to exist in such grand, vintage places.

“How about you?”

“How about me?” Shaken out of her reverie, Sabine smiled.

“You said you spend a lot of time here. What does that mean? Do you have a place?”

“Not of my own. But I may as well. Two of my closest friends live here, so I come every year.”

“Wow. That’s a perk.”

“It is.” Sabine could hardly disagree.

“I assume you’ve been to other places in Italy, then?”

“I’ve been to all the high points,” Sabine said. “I studied in Rome for a year, but my mother is half Italian, so we made multiple trips when I was a kid. Most of them to the south, though.”

“Do you still have family here?”

“Some. Cousins. In Palermo.”

“Mafia?” Callista didn’t miss a beat.

“That is a horrendous stereotype,” Sabine declared, before a flash of reasonable acceptance broke through her straight face. “Though, not entirely unlikely. As a whole, my family does have a rather entrepreneurial spirit.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling it?”

Statement carried on a soft wave of laughter, the warmth flickering in Sabine’s chest dripped down her torso. Settling low in her abdomen, it was wholly surprising. She was an old pro at this, chatting up attractive strangers, convincing them she was well worth their time. She didn’t get adolescent thrills when a pretty girl paid attention to her. Not anymore.

“So, if you don’t live here, where’s home?” Callista asked.

“New York.” Taking a second to recover her senses, Sabine rejoined the conversation. “But I grew up in Connecticut. My parents still live there. And you? Where do you live?”

“Savannah.”

“Georgia?”

“Yeah, that’s where it is,” Callista said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, why? You don’t think there are people from Savannah?”

“No, it’s just…” Brow furrowing, Sabine tried to pinpoint why the fact came as such surprise. “You have such a weak accent. I mean, it’s there, but it’s not like a southern drawl.”

“Weird,” Callista uttered. “I suppose it must be that dagnabbited contraption you Yankees call a television bringing proper speech to the South.”

“Oh my God. I really did not mean to insult you.” Apparently turning into an adolescent in more ways than one, Sabine felt a blush crawl onto her cheeks.

“You didn’t.” Callista glanced her way with a teasing grin, and, blush deepening, Sabine was immensely grateful for her highly forgiving skin tone that made it difficult to detect. “You know, you have an accent too.”

“I do?”

“Abso-lo-ute-ly. You abso-lo-ute-ly have an accent.”

“I do not say it like that,” Sabine said.

“Okay.” Glancing off with a smirk, Callista wasn’t sarcastic, nor arrogant, nor cruel. She was just mildly amused, and needed no concurrence to be sure of what she’d heard.

“Do I really say it like that?” Sabine asked her.

“You turn British with every ‘u’,” Callista said. “It’s like you’re possessed by Mary Poppins, and she keeps trying to break free.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. No one’s ever told you that?”

“No.”

“So, does everyone from Connecticut have a British ‘u,’ then?” Callista questioned.

“Not that I’ve ever noticed. Maybe they do.” Lips pursing with uncertainty, Sabine shook her head. “Huh. That’s bizarre.”

“I think it’s nice. I like it,” Callista said, and, glancing her way, Sabine met Callista’s cosmic gaze, smile returning to her face as she realized she wasn’t the only one flirting. Though, it did take her long enough to notice.

“So, did you grow up in Savannah?” Door open, Sabine didn’t want to let it close.

“No.” Eyes trailing away, Callista looked to a couple struggling to choose between the many tempting flavors of gelato that filled the case under a bright green awning. “I grew up in a one-stoplight town in southeast Georgia.”

“What was that like?”

There was a moment – cursory, but Sabine was paying her every possible attention – when Callista’s good humor blinked out completely, before she put on a concealing smile and looked Sabine’s way again. “Like any small town. Boring. Uniform. A lot backward in a lot of ways.”

“They can’t all be like that,” Sabine was certain. Not that she’d had a lot of experience in the subject.

“All the ones I know are,” Callista returned, and Sabine could hardly argue against personal experience. Plus, the subject had dampened the tenor of Callista’s voice considerably.

“So, what do you do in Savannah?” Feeling it going off the rails, Sabine attempted to pull the conversation back into more neutral territory.

“I’m an artist,” Callista said.

“Really.” A good answer, as far as her intrigue was concerned, it made far more sense to Sabine why Callista didn’t seem to quite fit into the world. Society built so rigidly on enterprise and financial success, many of the artists Sabine knew didn’t.

“What kind of art? Are you a painter?”

“That’s typically what sells,” Callista said.

“This must be heaven for you,” Sabine realized. “Italy.”

“I hope so. I went back and forth trying to decide between here and France, but this won out in the end.”

“Why not go to both?” Sabine asked, and, eyes that turned her way slightly bewildered, as if they couldn’t begin to rationalize the question, a weak huff of laughter blew past Callista’s lips.

“It’s not exactly in the budget.”

“Right.” Sabine realized only then it was a stupid question. As spoiled as it sounded, and she knew it sounded spoiled, she forgot sometimes that other people couldn’t simply do as they liked. That was the thing about growing up with money. It was always there to spend. She never learned what it was like to have to make difficult decisions because of it, and it made an ass out of her sometimes.

Like right now.

“What do you do in New York?”

Worried she might have undone all the forward progress they’d made in one thoughtless question, Sabine was relieved when there was no trace of anger, or even irritation, in Callista’s voice.

“I run an events and promotions company,” she said.

“Like weddings and corporate parties?”

“More like music festivals, boxing matches, conventions, that sort of thing.”

“Oh. You’re talking big-league event planning,” Callista uttered.

“I guess you could call it that.”

“And when you say you ‘run’ the company, what does that mean? Are you like the CEO?”

“Just an EO,” Sabine said. “I own the company with two of my friends. We all share the same title.”

“Okay.” Callista’s nod slow and circumspect, her smile looked pinned in place for a second. “So, when you say you run an events and promotions company, you mean your events and promotions company.”

“Yeah. I mean, it is partially mine.” Sabine wasn’t sure why she felt so awkward about the fact at the moment.

“That’s impressive.” Callista sounded sincere as she looked back to the narrow passage ahead. “Do you like it?”

“I like it well enough,” Sabine said. And she did. Most of the time. There were certainly aspects of what she did to like. She was never without something interesting to do. She met more than her share of celebrities. She could get favors from almost anyone in town in exchange for a discount or tickets. Then, there was the financial incentive. Sabine couldn’t forget that.

“Good.” Callista sounded as if she meant that too.

“So, what made you decide on Italy?” Distanced enough from her earlier bungling of the conversation, Sabine was too curious not to circle back to it.

“In France, the art, it’s almost all in museums.” Callista’s voice turned gently melodic as it swept the empty, graying passage. “It’s display art. At least, it is now. Here, the world is the art. It’s everywhere. In the churches, and on the bridges. That’s far more me. Renaissance and Baroque and Neoclassicism aren’t my favorite movements by any means, but I do love the way they live in the world.”

Steps slowing with each word, Sabine puttered to a stop without conscious intent. She knew a lot of art lovers and world travelers, but not once had she heard that particular argument for the Italian art world versus the French.

It was truly, newly fascinating.

“Which way now?”

Enlightened to Callista’s other thoughts – evidently, the thought they should be getting somewhere by now – Sabine realized, with some chagrin, it was a thought she hadn’t had herself in quite some time. Looking to the stucco walls that lined the sides of the passage, she searched for any clues upon them, recognizing nothing. Apparently, Callista was far too much of a distraction to try to do two things at once.

“I honestly have no idea.” She didn’t bother to lie. Having walked down a number of streets over the past few minutes, without crossing a single canal, they had to have taken a very wrong turn at some point. Or several. Indeed, Sabine couldn’t be entirely sure they hadn’t walked the same rectangle a dozen times. It wasn’t like she was paying attention to anything but Callista. Reaching, once again, for her cell, she just had to accept her effort to impress this beautiful, beguiling stranger had come to an abrupt, rather lackluster, end.

Hand on her wrist as she swiped the screen again, Sabine looked up as Callista came closer and the fabric of Callista’s sweater coat brushed her leg.

“No cheating.”

“I literally have no idea where we are right now,” Sabine was forced to confess. “And I have been lost in Venice before. You don’t just find your way. This place isn’t a maze. It’s a riddle.”

“I love riddles,” Callista said.

“Don’t you want to get to Saint Mark’s Square before dark?”

“So, let’s get there. If we just keep walking, we have to find something you recognize eventually, right?”

“Don’t count on it,” Sabine warned.

“I’ll take my chances.” Gaze lingering, along with her touch, Callista at last shrugged and turned back down the passage.

Given the opportunity to cheat a glance at her cell without getting caught, Sabine’s thumb hovered above the screen, before she dropped the device back into her pocket, choosing to embrace Callista’s hopeful mentality. If they just kept pressing forward, eyes open and thoughts on where they wanted to go, eventually they would have to find their way.

*****

Famous last thoughts.

Feet aching, back starting to feel the hours of aimless wandering too, Sabine had to face the fact that, every time she walked these winding streets, she was a little older than the last, and poor decisions made in her youth were going to take a real toll in the later years of her life. There was only so much juicing and yoga could undo.

A dozen times, she thought they were headed the right direction, only to end up somewhere entirely off-course. They even had to stop for panini and gelato when dinnertime came and went, and, when the sun finally faded, with the moon not set to rise for several more hours, there was nothing with which to orient themselves but the poorly-marked street names and landmarks, which had already proven insufficient to the cause.

“Honestly, you should let me use my cell.” Turning to Callista when she gave up and conceded the situation hopeless, Sabine was distracted, for a moment, by the soft candle-like glow that fell over Callista from the streetlights as she looked through the window of a closed bakery, and recognized, inwardly, that was the problem. All day, she had been so caught up by Callista, she was scarcely aware of the turns they took. She didn’t even notice they were getting more and more lost until they were already somewhere less traveled and unfamiliar to both of them. “Or, I could get us a water taxi. If we can find our way to a canal. I’m sure you can tell, but a lot of this city becomes completely unnavigable in the dark. I know it won’t be the same, but St. Mark’s is even more beautiful at night. I can still get you there.”

“I’m sure that you can.” Callista was exceedingly gracious, given Sabine had given her absolutely no indication of her ability to do that thus far. “But, to be honest, I’m getting kind of tired. I thought I was going to be able to beat this whole jet lag thing, but apparently not.”

“No. Are you serious?” Sabine felt instantly like a jerk. “I wasted your entire first day here?”

“I would hardly call it wasted.”

Response not what she was expecting, nor one she could hope to expect, it eased the very real guilt weighing on Sabine at the moment, and a small smile of relief flicked across her face in response to Callista’s smile.

“Like you said, there’s not a lot of Venice not worth seeing. And I feel like you really did show me most of the city. Just not the parts I intended to see. It was like my own personal off-the-beaten-path tour.”

Laughter breaking past her lips, Sabine was just grateful for the clemency. Though, she still felt bad. Like really, really bad.

“Where’s your hotel? You should let me get you back there, at least.”

“On the other side of the water.”

“You’re staying in Giudecca?”

“No. Mestre.”

Right. The mainland side. Of course, Callista was staying on the mainland side. She already said she was on a budget, and the Venetian islands weren’t exactly known for their budget-friendliness. “Did you take the train in?”

“I did,” Callista said.

“Well, I can get you back to the station.”

When she slipped out her cell, it was indicative of how truly tired Callista was, or how little faith she had left in Sabine’s navigational abilities, that she didn’t try to stop her again.

“Are we anywhere close?” Callista asked.

Small grimace tugging her face, Sabine almost didn’t have the heart to tell her. “I would ask if you meant to the train station or St. Mark’s, but, honestly, we’re about equidistant from both of them. On a plus note, we actually did make it to the other side of the city somehow. So, you were right, you did see most of Venice.”

Callista laughing in response, she was, apparently, more amused by than bitter about the fact, and Sabine’s guilt flared again.

“It’s almost a mile. Do you want me to see if I can find us a water taxi?”

“No. It’s fine. I can walk it,” Callista said.

“All right. I’ll walk with you. But, this time, we’ll use a little technological guidance.”

“No, that’s silly.” Callista’s head shook as Sabine brandished her cell in the air. “I know you have to be tired too. I don’t want you walking out of your way.”

“I’m the one who got you lost,” Sabine said.

“I’m the one who let you.”

Thought not occurring to her, not until the soft admission put it into her head, it sent a warm, consoling vibration through Sabine as she glanced up into cosmic eyes. “How will you find your way?” Not ready for the night to end, she searched for a reason it shouldn’t, no matter how many more miles she had to walk to make it last. “You can’t use that map.”

Turning away from her, Callista headed to the via’s end, and Sabine followed, wondering what Callista thought she might see that could possibly show her the way.

“Mi scusi, Signore. Buona notte.” Older man walking past, with a ring of keys suggesting he was the owner of one of the neighborhood’s recently-shuttered shops, Callista went up to him. “Dov’e il treno, per favore?” Where is the train, please?

The old shopkeeper rattling off the answer in Italian, he gave Callista the first few turns to take, suggesting she stop to ask again along the convoluted route, and Callista could keep up with the rapid-fire response enough to nod along.

“Grazie. Arrivederci,” she said when the man finished.

“Buona notte.” The man continued on his way, and Callista rotated back to Sabine with a slight, almost apologetic smile.

“You speak Italian.”

“Enough,” Callista said.

“Why on Earth would you let me lead you all over creation, if you could have just asked the way?”

Or she could have, Sabine realized. Because she too spoke Italian. More and better than Callista, if Callista’s pronunciation and the look of rapt attention on her face as the old man provided her direction were any indications. Cell phone or no, Sabine could have asked how to get to St. Mark’s at any time. Why didn’t the thought even occur to her?

“I’ve got plenty of time,” Callista said. “St. Mark’s Square will still be here tomorrow. I didn’t know if you would be or not.”

Gratification curving her lips, Sabine could finally, privately, acknowledge that was her reasoning too, selfish as it might have been. She knew she had Callista for as long as it took to get to where they were going. She didn’t know what would happen once they were there. With that in mind, Sabine could no longer say, with any real certainty, how many of the wrong turns they had taken were actual wrong turns, and how many of them were subconsciously intentional.

“Well, now you have to let me buy you dinner tomorrow,” she said. “I have to do something to assuage my guilt.”

“What time?” Callista asked.

“Around eight?” Sabine suggested.

“Eight, it is. Should we meet in front of St. Mark’s?”

“If you think I can find my way there.”

“I trust that you can,” Callista said, and the five syllables tickled down Sabine’s spine.

When Callista didn’t turn and go right away, Sabine hoped there might be more to the goodbye. Though, she didn’t expect it, and could never say she was disappointed with the way her night turned out.

“Goodnight,” Callista murmured at last.

“Goodnight.”

Watching her turn and walk away, it felt better than anticipated. Because it felt impermanent. Even if they hadn’t made plans, Sabine knew she would see Callista again. The way one knew she would wake up the next morning. It felt like a given. And it made it painless, pleasant even, to watch Callista move down the narrow passage, dipping in and out of the streetlights, until she made it to the first turn the old man told her to take and vanished into the night.

Filed Under: Writing stuff

November 30, 2016 By Riley Leave a Comment

If George R.R. Martin Can Do It, So Can I

-OR –

The Election of a Thin-Skinned, Racist, Sexually-Predatory Toddler Has Addled My Writing Brain (And, Oh Yeah! He’s Crazy Too!)

We could have had it all, couldn’t we have?

Human decency. The embracing of diversity. The embracing of each other. Truth. Kindness. Compassion.

Instead, we have Russia meddling in our election, America’s racist, misogynist underbelly slithering out of the spaces they inhabit to shout “Hallelujah! Our savior has come,” and a bunch of well-meaning, but ignorant white men telling us all to just “wait and see if anything happens,” though things are already happening in the form of moron-elect-inspired hate crimes, and it’s an easy thing to say when you know those things that happen will never happen to you.

I have had a LOT to say about this election over the past weeks, and I have said it, quite vociferously, in my own home, but I’m not going to repeat it right here, right now. I’m much too tired.

What I do need to tell you is that I’m not going to have a book out by the end of this year. Yes, that means Black Forest: Stories End has been postponed… again.

I know. I really do. No one wishes it was coming out next month more than me.

Because I feel the urge to explain myself, I am going to give a brief walk-through of my writing process below, but, for those of you who are already tired of reading this rambling nonsense, just know the new release date for Black Forest: Stories End is –

July 21, 2017

Yes, July. Yes, I know. And, to those of you who have been waiting for the final chapter in Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, and friends’ story for quite some time, I truly am sorry.

A Word About Flow

Here’s how I write.

Four drafts-ish

Draft one: free writing/plot formation

I sit down with a general idea of the story I want to tell, and let the ideas come. If I have the right starting point, one plot point leads to another, and so on. Characters behave as their personalities would have them behave, and the choices they make/how they react to a situation leads through the story to the inevitable outcome. Sometimes I know what that outcome will be. Sometimes I don’t.

Draft two: making it pretty

There is nothing pretty about just getting it all down. It’s a lawless, often chaotic process that frees the mind, but also makes me wonder WTF when I start reading back through that half-workable, half-nonsense scrawl.

Characters might say clever things, and they know their intentions, but I don’t know them yet. Not well. By the time we reach the end of the first draft, though, it’s like, “Oh, that’s why you did that. I get you now.”

Draft two is where I fix voices, think in analogies, and worry… and worry… and worry about style.

Draft three: fixing what’s broken/finding the rhythm

So, we’ve got a plot, a deep understanding of our characters, and style. Hopefully, by this point.

That doesn’t necessarily mean all is well.

Now, it’s time to check the story’s rhythm.

One of the best compliments I ever get is that my writing is somewhat “poetic.” That matters to me when I write, because it matters to me when I read. The right word is always essential, and the right word isn’t just about meaning. It’s also about syllables and sound. When you read aloud as much as I do, melody is as important as plot.

Draft three is also when I do the most whittling down. Those asides that seemed so interesting in draft two often prove superfluous and out of sync in draft three, and they have to go.

Draft four: last edits/proofreading

Plot, style, and rhythm in place, all that remains is the proofreading. By this point, I’ve been through the story three times, once to plot it, once to write it, and once to make it melodic… I hope. I edit throughout the process. Now, I just have to read it. In reading it, I usually find any last errors. Most of them, at least.

Now, I said this was about flow, and it is. Flow, for me, is absolutely essential. While it is not necessary to write, it is key to writing well.

There is no style without flow. No rhythm. No enjoyment. And I need it for drafts two through four. When I can’t get there during the reading/proofreading process, everything I have already written sounds out of sync. I want to change it all, and, when I do change it, I am usually making it wrong, instead of right. I could force myself to write through that. I could finish an entire novel that way – just plot, plod through, and proofread. But it wouldn’t feel “right,” and there would be no satisfaction.

So, I’m not going to do that. This book series, and these characters, are important to me, and I want to get back to a place where I do them justice. So, I am going to put Black Forest aside, take some time to regroup, and come back to it later. By giving myself such a long window, I know I will not have to change the release date again, which I hate doing.

And, once again, I apologize.

In summation:

Black Forest: Stories End
Released July 21, 2017

Filed Under: Writing stuff

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