The Comfort Boy (Part Two) by Carlene Love Flores

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(Mermaid Note: If you haven’t already, please read The Comfort Boy (Part One) first.)

The plan.  That’s what was crazy.  This man’s plan to stay the weekend while observing her unnatural sleeping patterns and questioning her on why they were.

But what choice did she have?  None.

“This first night, I suggest we set up wherever you’re most likely to fall asleep.  Whether it’s your room or the couch or that recliner.  Wherever, your choice.”

My choice, what a joke.  But she had already condemned herself to participating at all cost.

“Okay, I guess Gram’s room.  That’s where I keep my stuff.”  Six months and she still couldn’t bring herself to claim the space as her own.

Alice followed closely behind, his proximity creeping her out a bit, as they walked the short hallway to the last door on the left, passing Alec and Andrew’s room on the way.  Sanden swallowed her sadness at what had become of their little family.  No one to call daddy, no Great-Grammy to sing them to sleep.

Once inside, she flipped up the light switch and made her way to the farthest side of Gram’s tall bed.

Alice stayed propped in the doorframe, his head only inches from skimming the top.  Would he tell her to lie down?  There was no way she’d be able to fall asleep in this strange circumstance with her mother’s confidant hovering in the doorway.  Was he expert enough to recognize if she faked it?  He couldn’t have that many years of practice, couldn’t be much older than her.  His clothes were too stylish, his brown hair a few strands too unruly and his skin too smooth to be past thirty-five.  The very unsettling way he patiently stood there made Sanden want to climb the wall.  But she wouldn’t let that happen.

She lifted herself onto the top mattress with a hop and then sat feeling uncomfortable in her own skin.

“So I didn’t realize shrinks made house calls.”

“I’m not a shrink.  I’m a sleep therapist.”  Alice paused and for the first time bowed his head as if he was the uncertain one.  “Sanden, I’m here as a favor to your Grandmother.”

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The Comfort Boy (Part One) by Carlene Love Flores

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Sanden’s mother had just finished cleaning the house.  With the room straightened, things looked odd and out of place.  The large, clear vase that had been used as a deposit for stray coins or buttons or anything small enough to toss in until they found a better place for it was now empty.  Sanden shrugged and plopped two artificial flowers and a handful of loosened dirt she had brought in from the backyard into the vase.  Thinking better of it, she tucked the marble she was about to toss in with them into her pocket instead.  She looked up and caught her mother frowning.

The silky, once white peonies, covered in a light shadow of dirt and yellowed by the sun, were the only things that looked right in the room at the moment.  It was clear her mother was on a mission to wipe Gram’s memory clean from the house.  Sanden stood nearby the junk vase and waited for her mother to toss the sopping sponge she was wringing into the sink.  Miraculously, she didn’t mention the fake flowers.

“Well, that’s that.”  Mother paused, inspected the sink as if looking for Gram’s reflection, wiped at the stainless steel basin, and then continued on with a doubtful kink knitted into her brow.  “The boys’ packs are in the trunk like I asked you?”

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Victory Garden (Part Two) by Avery Flynn

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(Waterworld Mermaid Note: If you haven’t already, please read Victory Garden (Part One) first.)

“Bloody hell.” Ethan choked down his confusion.

“We don’t have time to figure it out now. Come on.” Amalee dragged him through the shoulder-high maze in Talbot’s garden.

Ethan’s stride was much shorter than in his own body, he stumbled into the prickly greenery. Strands of his – her – long blue hair became tangled in the bushes. Afraid of losing her in the maze, Ethan yanked the hair free, pocketing the bright tufts into the inside pocket of her jacket. Left. Right. Left again. Finally they arrived at the green house at its center.

The humid air inside made the cotton of his shirt stick to his breasts. Fucking hell, her breasts. Hers!

She paused inside the glass door. “Stay here.”

Glancing around, his gaze took in the riotous colors of blooms mixed in with the deep green of ferns. “You took on Talbot’s guard for a flower?”

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Victory Garden (Part One) by Avery Flynn

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The perfectly sculpted, mushroom-shaped shrubbery at the garden’s edge provided just enough cover that Amalee Watts could scope out Fox Talbot’s property without alerting his mercenaries to her presence. Unlike the birds who’d been chirping since shortly after dawn broke, the power hungry despot’s staff seemed to be slow to rise. That made this the perfect moment to slink across the property line and ruin Talbot’s plans for world domination. If she succeeded, October 18, 1888 would go down as a major success for The Resistance, perhaps the seminal victory against Talbot’s dark forces. If not – Amalee’s jaw tightened. She refused to consider any other outcome.

She untangled her goggles from her electric blue hair and lowered them to cover her eyes, then wound the clockwork gear near the clasp until the temperature gauge blinked. Holding her breath to avoid fogging up the lenses, she scanned the lush green hedgerow maze leading to the garden surrounding Talbot’s country estate. When she zeroed in on the courtyard, five red shadows appeared. One guard per shadow, her kind of odds – if the gauge wasn’t acting up. Again.

“Okay, this is as far as I can go.” Her partner, professor Henry Mogg, twitched, his red nose wrinkling. “You understand your instructions?”

Amalee drew her four-barrel pistol and checked the sights. “Cross the twenty feet of open space without being seen. Hurdle the security fence. Disable the private militia. Sneak into Talbot’s garden. Find the one-inch by one-inch Thurston gear hidden in the conservatory under some flowers and return it to you so you can fix the War Bird. Then, we fly out of here and bomb the train before all hell breaks loose. Easy-peasy.”

“Orchids, it’s under the orchids.”

Gaze locked on the gun, she flicked open the chamber and confirmed the twenty bullets were loaded properly then flicked it closed. “I’m going to kill you after this.”

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Semantics by Alethea Kontis

Alethea Kontis, Free Read, , ,

“What are you doing out here?”

It had taken him long enough to find her. Holly felt Jacob’s touch on her shoulder but did not turn around. Time was too fleeting. She wanted to revel a little longer in the chill of the dark Spring night, the giggle of the creek below her, the crunch of the grass under her feet. Charlie’s mind hadn’t gotten the grass quite right yet.

“I was scolded for talking to the children,” she said. “So I came out to catch fireflies by the water.” She scooped up a lightning bug that had rested on the branch beside her, serenely blinking like an empty street on the day after Christmas. Holly remembered Christmas, and the little girl who had dreamed about it once. Holly had taken her name.

“Technically it’s not catching when you don’t chase them,” said Jacob.

“Technically it’s not chasing when they wait to be found.” Even after so long, it was ever the argument with them.

“It’s not really a creek,” he said.

“It’s not really night either, but you don’t hear me complaining.” Holly opened her palm and let the firefly escape, leaving nothing on her fingertips but wishes and dew.

“I’m not complaining,” he said. “Just stating the facts.”

“Facts have no business here,” said Holly.

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Come Inside Our Garden

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The true beauty of a story is that through the written word we can travel anywhere, be anyone and experience anything.

As Waterworld Mermaids, we don’t normally find ourselves in a garden, unless it’s of the seaweed and coral variety; so, for our first anthology of short stories, we decided to tie each tale together by location and an exotic one to us – a garden.

What will you find in our garden during the next few weeks?

Alethea Kontis brings you a fantasy story of two ethereal beings who live only in dreams, without any of their own, emboldened by love to take the biggest risk of all.

Avery Flynn takes you on a steampunk journey to Victoria City. When the fate of the word is at stake, a freedom fighter and the man hunting her must work together to foil a would-be tyrant.

Carlene Love Flores will envelope you inside a moody thriller. A grief-stricken and sleep-deprived mother struggles against the family who thinks she’s gone mad until a mysterious man comes to her aid.

Dana Rodgers spins a paranormal tale of a lonely girl who discovers her family harbors dark secrets and finds salvation in a knight’s garden.

Denny S. Bryce ratchets up the tension, in the romantic suspense tale of an FBI agent in a post-apocalyptical world hunting an orchid thief who has stolen her heart.

Kerri Carpenter brings you the contemporary world of two long-lost lovers who find themselves together again surrounded by nature’s beauty, wondering if they can find nature’s greatest gift – love.

Robin Covington heats up the garden when lust and the promise of love collide in this steamy tale of when opposites attract.

The Come Inside Our Garden anthology of free reads will last from Oct. 3 to Oct. 26 with something new each day. Please enjoy your time in the Waterworld Mermaid garden and tell your friends about the new worlds you discover.

Colors of Fall

Dana Rodgers, mermaids, Motivation, Writing

For some fall is about buying a new backpack or lunchbox, sharpening those pencils and sending your children back to school. For others fall is symbolized with tailgating and crowding into stands to cheer on your favorite football team.

While the pools have closed, fall sports have begun and school has been back in session for a few weeks now, fall did not in fact officially begin until yesterday, September 23rd.

So what does it mean the first official day of fall? Well it’s more than the beginning of a new season. It is the autumnal equinox. Equinox derives from Latin’s aquaeus meaning equal and nox meaning night, and is appropriate since this is the time of year when night and day are almost equal in length. This happens twice a year, once in the spring (March 21-22) and again in the fall (September 22-23), when the earth’s tilt is neither toward nor away from the sun.

The autumnal equinox has always been a time to mark change as we move from summer’s bounty to the colder, darker days ahead. Throughout the world and throughout history festivals have been held to celebrate the bounty of the harvest.While many people mourn summer’s passing, I always look forward to fall. It is probably my favorite time of year. I plant pansies and chrysanthemums, put out my scarecrow and some pumpkins. My family picks apples and enjoys exploring a local farm’s wagon rides and Maize Maze. We take walks in the woods, soaking up the reds, yellows and oranges that blaze festively from every tree, and go kayaking. I love the low hanging fog over the river in my backyard, the honk of geese and nothing says fall to me like the smell of a fire.

With the cooler temperatures I also feel revitalized, ready to get back into a more regimented routine and undertake those tough projects that may have been set aside while my kids were out of school. This year I’m tackling a historical that I set aside back in May.

So what about you? Is there a special way you and your family mark the changing of the seasons? And do you find you are more productive during the cooler months or the warmer part of the year?

Synchronicity?

mermaids

As you may know, I’m a big fan of Julia Cameron’s book, THE ARTIST’S WAY (10th edition, 2002). In it, she discusses the concept of “synchronicity”: “we change and the universe furthers and expands that change.” (2). More specifically, “when we move out on faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance. It is a little like opening the gate at the top of a field irrigation system. Once we remove the blocks, the flow moves in.” (2).

Cameron doesn’t ask us to “believe” this concept. Rather, she simply asks us to “observe and note this process as it unfolds.” (2). Several times in my life, I’ve noticed that as soon as I place my attention on something, the universe responds. Maybe it’s coincidence. Maybe it’s Cameron’s concept of synchronicity. But here is an example of something that’s happened to me:

Several years ago, I wrote my first “real” novel and went through the query process. I was not successful, so I laid the manuscript to rest and got pregnant with my first child. About a month before my child was born, I decided to dust this novel off and give it one last try. I started revising the story. Within a week, an agent whom I had queried a year before responded to request the full manuscript.

Nothing ultimately came of this request, but the timing of it struck me as bizarre.

What do you think? Random coincidence? Or an example of synchronicity? Has anything like this ever happened to you? If so, what was it?

It’s Written in the Streets

mermaids,

Are you suited to be a writer?

 Of course you are!  That’s the thing about this job, whatever you bring to the table, it can be used, explored, torn apart and bettered.

 For this post I asked myself that question even though I think it’s a little dangerous because it’s so wide open.  You could go in so many different directions with it.  There is what you perceive of yourself, what others think about you, and then the mish-mash area where it all collides leaving us either without any doubts or completely unsure.  For me, I see writers as being the most accepting of others but on the other hand, we know a villain when we see one.  Because we have to deal with our character’s personality types, shouldn’t we be the best at dealing with the good and the bad? 

 That led me to the answer of whether I’m suited to be a writer or not.  Yes.  I am.

 I am very…Cest la vie.  Meaning I can deal with just about anything happening.  This past December, I was walking the streets of Philadelphia on my way to dinner with family while it was cold, dark and damp out.  A car went gleaming past and ran right through a puddle close to the sidewalk I was on.  Yep, I got splashed with yucky, dirty street water.  In my hair, all over my outfit.  That was when I flipped the script from laid-back Cali girl and went crazy in the street, cursing and putting on a great show of supreme pissed-offed-ness.  Just kidding.  That’s not me.  (Although as a writer, I can appreciate someone who would react like that.)  I just laughed it off.  It really was kind of funny if you think about it. 

 I fall in love with everything but am keenly aware of what could hurt me.  Yes, I do mean everything.  I feel a connection to trees, my car whose name is Fancy, songs, struggling worms about to dry out if they don’t make it to the grass in time, rappers cursing out their demons.  If you have a heart, I feel you.  I love interactions most of all because they are my fuel for writing stories.  You can bet if I have met you even once, I’ll have pulled something from it and have held on to the moment.   

 Those two things are what suit me most as a writer.  What makes you great for this job?