Latest Thoughts

Just wanted to update any of you who subscribed to the authonomy.com site to support my book. I'm thinking I'm going to take it off the site. It basically seems rigged, in that once you join, you get loads of people supporting your book because it makes their rating go up. Then it drops off, as everyone scurries around to support the next new book. So to rise to the "editor's desk," it seems you have to be willing to back/support practically all the books on the site (so those authors will, in turn, back your book), which isn't very selective. Not to mention, it just goes against my morals. Many of the books have profanities or are just plain old bad writing!

Now I realize what a hard job editors have. Basically, if they want to read past the first chapter of a book, it may have a slight chance. I really think that my book has a chance with publishers and I don't want to sit around worrying if it's climbing the ranks on authonomy to garner a few paragraphs from a Harper Collins editor. Think I'm going to look for a shorter way to getting published!

Once again, thank you all for your support and kind words!

--Heather

Otherworld Chapter 11

I've read this chapter and I realize it is very connected to chapter 10, so I'm going to post it! You'll want to re-read chapter 10 if you forgot what just happened. Still checking into options for this book and praying like crazy about it! I love my faithful fans and I promise I will update the blog the minute I get any positive news!

--Heather


Chapter 11

I can tell she’s coming, and I know she’s in the house alone. I think I’ve impressed her with all my abilities. I couldn’t help breaking the doll, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Too bad she didn’t go back into the white bedroom, I’d planned a treat for her there as well.

----------------------------------------

Aurora--

I basically run back down the stairs, and try to compose myself. Is this all him? Or another ghost? What are they trying to tell me? I test the flashlight outside the door of the right hand room. It shoots out a very small, halogen blue light at the door. Okay, well, at least I’m partially ready. Maybe I should just try talking to him. He did talk to me, after all.

I creak open the door and wait for the familiar cold-air blast. Nothing happens. I click on the flashlight and hold it in front of me, pointing it to the sides of the wall. I don’t go in the room yet. Sure enough, there is an old-fashioned light switch, the kind you push the bottom button and the top pops out. That thing has to be 60 years old.

I reach in and push it. It is higher than where you would expect a switch to be, probably why I had no luck last time. The fluorescent blinks on slowly. Saving the environment never looked so bad.

I let my eyes sweep the red walls. All the paintings seem to be rearranged. The one of him and the woman is right next to me. I guess I’ll start dusting. Sure enough, her face is the same one I saw in the water.

I continue to dust all the paintings, with only the slightest feeling of being watched from the painting behind me. It seems he’s not here, or if he is, he’s just laying low.

Maybe I should say something. “Hello,” I say, sort of faintly. “How are you?”

How dumb that sounded. “My name is Aurora, and I was wondering if you are trying to tell me something. I don’t even know your name.”

No answer. I don’t know what I expected, anyway.

I finish dusting and head back toward the light switch and the painting. It seems the fluorescent light has gotten dimmer, so I squint to see it. It looks almost as if the woman in it is standing, and the man is sitting. I get closer. Sure enough, she is standing, with her hand on his shoulder, and he is sitting. They are perfectly posed for the portrait. At this point, I begin to wonder if I have lost my mind.

I go closer. The air gets colder.

I decide to touch it. Maybe that will make him real or something.

I touch the tarnished gold paint on the frame, nothing. I touch the canvas itself, still nothing.

The light flickers. I pull my flashlight out of my pocket, ready for action.

The light goes back on, and it gets warmer. I wait a few minutes, eyes fixated on the picture. It doesn’t change. I realize it must be getting late. I reach for the light and back out of the room, shutting the door behind me.

I bump into someone. It’s Dollie.

“Oh, Dollie,” I say quickly. “I had to get a flashlight so I went upstairs and one of your dolls somehow fell on the floor and broke. I left it on your bed. I couldn’t find the light in the painting room.”

Her hair is looking almost glow-in-the-dark blue, so I’m wondering if she got it done in town. She looks at me strangely, but says, “Oh, that’s alright. I have plenty of other dolls.”

“I need to get going, for Phoebe,” I add, and hand her the flashlight. “See you tomorrow.”

“Alrighty,” she says. As I turn to shut her front door behind me, I can see her heading into the right turret. What is she doing in there?

--copyright Heather Day Gilbert--January 2009--all rights reserved

Update on the Book

Hi, all, just wanted to give you an update on the book. My agent sent it to a couple more publishers, but I'm thinking it might take a miracle to get picked up by one. Not to fear, however. I'm spending most of my waking hours concocting different plans of how to get noticed by all the right people.

One of my efforts was to join authonomy.com, a place for authors to publish the first few (or sometimes, all) of their chapters. As more and more members "back" your book, it rises on the booklist. If it makes it to the top five, editors from Harper Collins will check it out and comment.

You're welcome to check out my page at this link:

http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=18144

Not sure if it actually works, or if you have to have a member ID to get there. If so, you're welcome to setup an account. You don't have to post a book to read them and give feedback. There are MYRIADS of books on this site, some good, some bad, and some ugly, but you can usually tell by the first chapter if something looks good to you.

Enjoy this gorgeous weather!

--Heather

Otherworld Chapter 10

Here we go! Not sure how many more I'm going to post, but you know I love you all for reading and staying with me!


Chapter 10

I am not happy with her absence. I fill the days with rearranging things. I think about throwing them, but that is pointless. She’s not here. Maybe I scared her too badly. I need to tempt her back into the house.


--------------------------------

Aurora--

After the last couple of days, I feel I have to get out of my house. I decide to do some more research at the library. I put on my cream V-neck sweater, an orange scarf, and some khakis. I’m always shocked I can wear orange with my hair, but somehow it works. I actually take the time to wash and straighten it before I put on my makeup, too.

At the library, the grand puba librarian is not there. It is a mere minion, and she is very timid and quiet. She signs me up for a library card so that I can use the computers. She makes some small talk, then I notice a charm on her necklace.

“How pretty,” I say. “Where did you find that?”

She looks embarrassed. “It’s actually for my religion,” she says.

“Do you go to a church around here?” I ask. He has been asking about churches, since he grew up Baptist and can’t bear to be away for long.

“Not a church,” she says, and looks up sort of guiltily. “I’m Wiccan.”

“Oh,” I say, and visions of a goth party I got invited to in the city flood into my head. She looks nothing like a goth. I don’t see any black on her.

“It’s basically paganism,” she explains. “Women, really. The power of women, the power of nature, you know.”

“Really?” I say again. I cannot fathom where in this little town of West Virginia the Wiccans meet.

As if she reads my mind, she says, “It’s sort of an independent religion, but we get together for new moons and other holidays.” She says “holidays,” but I gather she’s saying “holy days.”

“There are a lot of woods around here,” she says, more quietly. “We really have to meet in nature to get the full power of it all.” She looks at me again, taking in the scarf, the nice outfit, and the makeup. I must look like a possible pagan. “You can call me anytime at this number,” she says, and presses a business card into my hand. It looks like the card for a psychic, with a giant eyeball surrounded by a crystal ball in the middle. I almost lose it right there. A Wiccan pagan in the woods of Wood Knob, with a kitschy business card! “Melody Spears,” her name reads. I wonder if it’s an assumed name, for business purposes.

“Thank you,” I say, as seriously as possible.

As I get online at the library, I think about telling him I found a Wiccan church for us! Something tells me that business card would not make him laugh, though.

I look up séances again. I wonder if Melody Spears ever conducts séances in any pagan ceremonies. I wonder if she could make a house call to the purple house. I wonder if I am going mad, with all these kooky thoughts.

I feel someone looking at me from behind. I figure it’s Melody, so I ignore it. Awhile later, as I read about the ins and outs of séances for amateurs, I peek out of my peripheral vision and see Rick, just gawking at me.

I hastily turn around, but it’s too late. He walks over, body odor reaching me before he does. I actually feel embarrassed for anyone to think we are in any way connected.

“Hello there, ma‘am,” he says with a half grin. “You still wonderin’ about that purple house?”

“Not so much,” I lie, without turning from the computer.

“I got something I forgot to tell ye,” he says.

“Okay,” I say quietly. “Go ahead.”

“Well, one time my wife went up to meet the new owner--that was when Miss Dollie moved in.”

It takes a minute for it to sink in that Rick actually has a wife.

“She was going to take one of her ramp casseroles. Those will melt in your mouth, yes sirree.”

Ramps? What on earth are ramps?

“Anyway, she went up toward the evening. I parked down by the lake and watched her walk all the way up them steps. The woods looked totally still, not a bit of wind in them. Well, my wife come back down and she said, ‘Rick, I saw a haint,’ just as plain as you please. ‘What?’ I said, because I saw her go all the way up and back. ‘There in that tree out front,’ she said. ‘I felt the wind pick up something fierce and then I saw a black man hanging in that tree with his head all goggly.’ Yes, she said all goggly, just like that. Now, what do you make of that?” he says, and gets closer to me. His eyes look a bit more crossed as he tries to focus on me.

“Um, I guess that would fit in with the stories,” I say.

“You better believe it,” he says triumphantly, and strides back over to his table.

The smell of Rick is so overpowering that I really have to logout and go outside. I whisper goodbye to Melody, minding my library etiquette. Once I get out, I actually wish I were a smoker so I could rid my lungs of the awful smell. It seems to linger around me.

What on earth? Now there’s a wandering black ghost as well? I could care less about that. I haven’t seen him. I decide I need to get back to the house on some kind of pretense. What if my ghost has been active? I realize I’m calling him that now, “my ghost.”

I get in the car and roll the window down, even though it’s pretty brisk out. I pop in a CD of his and some song comes on about how I’m drowning in a flood or something. I shut that off.

I park at the bottom again and decide to really look at the pond. It is a murky green colour, sort of frog green. I can’t see any fish or anything in there, but no lily pads or weeds either. Just thick greenish water. The day is sunny, but the water is still opaque.

I walk out on the dock. I lean over to look in. Surprisingly, I can see my red hair reflected like a halo around my head. But my face is sort of warbly. I squat to look closer. It is not my face. It’s the woman in the painting. She is not smiling.

I turn quickly and book it from the pond up to the stairs. I go up the left set of stairs, as fast as I can. What is her problem? Why am I seeing her? It bugs me. I need to look at that painting again.

I get to the door and ring the bell, not even bothering to look in the glass. For all I care, there’s a whole zoo walking on the ceiling.

Dollie answers at once. She is dressed up, in a burgundy dress with some stylish heels--they seem way too high for an old woman who has to walk down a hill. She has a purse tucked under her arm.

“Oh, dear, I was just going into town,” she says. “I need to meet with my lawyer. I’ve switched life insurance,” she explains.

Okay. “I was thinking about dusting some today so I could just clean the bathrooms tomorrow,” I say.

“Yes, yes, go right ahead,” she says distractedly. Apparently she forgot my little fainting debacle the last time.

“Just lock up when you’re done,” she says. “I’ll give you my extra key. You may as well keep it, since the last cleaning girl won’t be coming back.”

She fishes around in her fashionable brown clutch and pulls out a rustic looking key. “You have to turn it completely around two times,” she says. “I really need to get a new one made sometime.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll get to work.”

“Yes, I imagine you need to get home to meet your Phoebe from the bus,” she says cheerily. I had forgotten that, actually.

“Bye,” I say to her back, as she heads out the door.

I can’t resist peeking out the skinny window to see her walking down all those steps in her heels. How on earth does she do it?

It seems she does it just fine. If I just saw her from the back, I could swear she was only in her 40s. She must work out, somehow.

I go straight to the bathroom and grab some dustcloths. I think about starting in the dining room, wondering if I’ll see him in the mirror again. But I’m strongly drawn to the room on the right, with the pictures. This time I decide to find a flashlight first, then figure out where the light switch is.

I search all around the kitchen and living room, with no luck for a flashlight. Not even in the pantry. I decide to go upstairs for a look.

The stairs are very narrow and very steep. I hit my shin a couple times on the metal strip running along the outside of each one. There seems to be only one bathroom up here, and two bedrooms.

One bedroom is entirely pink. I think it must be Dollie’s. It happens to be filled with dolls. She must collect those fancy porcelain ones. They are all in two china cabinets. They must be worth something, because the cabinets actually have little padlocks on them.

I look over by the bed, and debate checking in the nightstand. I feel like a horrible snoop, but I really need that flashlight. I pull open the drawer, and am shocked to see a big black handgun, just sitting there! Right next to it is a tiny flashlight. I pick it up very carefully, like I’m playing Phoebe’s “Operation” game.

I quickly turn to head downstairs. I’m curious about the other room, though--must be the guest bedroom she keeps for her elusive sister’s visits. I decide to just peep in the cracked door.

I open it and see a lovely dark four-poster bed, with curtains around it. It has the loveliest ruffly white bedspread I‘ve ever seen, and I’m really not the ruffly type.

Suddenly, I hear a crash from Dollie’s room. It sounds like glass breaking. Blast, did I knock something on the way out?

I run back in. There, in the middle of the floor, lying faceup, is one of the dolls from inside a cabinet. Her unnaturally bright red hair is all over her cracked face. And there, on the floor, looking right at me, is an eyeball from that doll’s head. I could swear it follows me as I go over to pick up the white piece nearby. I quick grab the eye and put all the stuff on her bed. She’s just going to have to fix it herself.

copyright Heather Day Gilbert--January 2009--all rights reserved