"Black Sea" excerpt

She sat very still and straight in the dingy. Only in her mind was she hunched and curled around herself in fear. Apprehension and dread permeated everything here, in this place between. She had been Summoned to this dark place outside of time, though she knew not why or how. Her eyes darted from the shrouded Boat Keeper to the midnight expanse that ought to have been sky. The emptiness of that sight filled her with dread, her stomach knotted tight and her heart thumping against her ribs. Her gaze flickered to the water that was not water, black as pitch. It held her trapped fast. No reflections or ripples marred its glassy surface, though she knew it ought not be that way. Instinctively she knew its touch would burn with a salted acidity. It was death, this whole place was death. Death of all that was light and good.

She pulled her eyes away, forcing herself to look forward, beyond the Keeper and its long pole... To the island in the too near distance. She did not know how she could see it, that obsidian shore placed in the middle of this unnatural water. Yet she could see the individual shards that was the gravelly sand. It shimmered in the most peculiar way, absorbing what light might have ever been, like uncounted black holes. The void was total and complete and she did not want to go there. But she was Summoned. She had no choice. So very straight and still she sat in the dingy, struggling to stay sane and alive.


All these years later I still wonder at the Black Sea, and its Island... And at the other alive one in the boat behind me...
This is the place of my darkest despair, my deepest fears. The place to which more than one Summons have been given. And each time, I am sent back alive, if not whole. Were it not for the light and beauty of the Grotto and the Tree, I should have been insane and dead long ago.


-Excerpt, a very rough one from the first draft, of "Summons"

It is time

"Take my hand; it is time," he whispered, his voice velvet soft. I knew he could not see my face in this dim light. Could not see the apprehension, the fear, and the confusion contorting my face like soggy cotton candy. My face hurt from it. I knew my tiny hand was reaching for his large bear paw of a hand, but I could not remember directing it to move, perhaps it was the way my breath refused to be caught. Maybe it was soggy cotton candy stuck in my lungs and throat. Soon as my shaking fingers touched his warm palm, the blinding light struck me...

Vulnerable Wolf /Vision

Little needles of pain coalesced where his fist tightened and pulled her head so that she was forced to look into his hard eyes. Had a gasp been possible, she would have. The normally guarded and tempered gates into his soul were gone, replaced with an inner maelstrom that only she could see.

The forest quailed under the lash of hail; lightning split asunder trees at random. Shadowed figures assaulted a weary, wounded wolf with taloned hands. Blood slicked the already rain-soaked ground, bits of fur, flesh, and melting shadows dotted the area. The wolfs claws sunk into the mud, providing little purchase for his weak defenses; he did not even attempt to attack now. Soon, the shadows would overwhelm him. Someone was screaming, she could hear it, but it seemed so far away...

She was falling, she knew this sensation; like falling in a dream and jolting awake as the ground rushes up to meet you. The solid impact of her body awkwardly slamming into the ground brought her fully out of the trance. Next to her lay a wolf, its gray-brown fur matted in places. No blood. There was no blood. The realization slammed into her mind and she choked back a sob. Relief flooded through her. She flung herself at the wolf and buried her hands and face into the fur around his neck. His breath came in ragged, shallow gulps.

A hand on her shoulder made Kala jump nearly out of her skin. She had forgotten the rest of the world existed.