CONVERSATIONS WITH THE CHARACTERS: Sister Briona's Prayer

Blessings upon each of you, and may the Good Lord and Our Lady of Perpetual and UndyingMaternal Love watch over you all. This is the prayer of Sister Mary Briona, Mother Superior of the Kognosian Convent..

As Mother Superior of the nunnery on the planet Kognos and head surgical nurse at the hospital there, I was acquainted with Sinbad sh'en Singh in both a professional and a personal capacity. I met him first when he was a 15-year-old cabin boy on Shark Tyvaris' ship, the Celestial Ray, when one of Shark's crewmen got hurt. The man was brought to us and we nearly lost him because we didn't have the right drugs or equipment. Shark made us a deal we couldn't refuse--treat my men when they need it and don't tell the Fed and I'll give you all the medical supplies you need. God forgive me, I agreed! Later, Sin became our supplier and I became friend to that lonesome child. In spite of the Felidan intolerance for other religions, he had been christened Catholic while in that prison, and it was to me that he confided how he'd lost his parents, and of his treatment by the Fed, and how all he really wanted out of life was to have a den and a mate and cubs of his own.

When he crash-landed the Dream Mariner in front of our gate, with that beautiful woman in tow, I thought he'd finally found the mate he'd long sought. That was how he introduced her just before he fainted--"Sister, this is my mate, Andrea." Later, I learned that was merely wishful thinking on his part, what the old doctors used to call a "Freudian Slip." Then, during the surgery to repair his injuries, we discovered the disease which was unknowingly killing him. I was the one to tell Andi and that news, coming directly on the heels of the fact that she was carrying Sin's child, nearly destroyed her. We both knew he'd never tell her his condition; she chose to pretend she didn't know, waiting for him to say the words that never came.

I'll admit I became a little lax for those two, looking the other way as they broke the rules of our little Order--after all, allowing a male in any convent bed-cell was totally against everything--but they loved each other so...Sin spent more than one night out of his hospital bed and sleeping in the single little cot with his Andrea. Andi, bless her!--she did her best to fit in, I'll say that for her--she attended Mass and Prayers and did her share of the gardening...similar to her life with her own people, she told me...but she loved that man with a passion that was totally frightening.

They left here without him ever admitting to her that he was dying. I have a feeling he'll do something drastic, like send her away, and then taunt the Coast Guard and allow himself to be shot down. All I can do is offer prayers for them both, and ask God and Our Lady to keep them under Their protective arms....

Heavenly Mother, please look after that young sinner, for at heart, he's a basically good man and doesn't deserve all that has happen to him!

I hope that, whatever does happens, someone somehow, will let me know...I do care for that young man, just as I cared for the frightened child I met that fateful day....

(Sinbad's Last Voyage is the first novel in the series The Adventures of Sinbad, released as an e-book and paperback by Double Dragon Publishers. It has also been made into an audio book in abridged form by Books in Motion. Sinbad's Wife is scheduled for publication in June, 2008.)

The Magic Mirror (Part four)

Refer to parts one and two in earlier posts.
Part one
Savannah 1700
Cocky, full of himself Jonathan Saint James screwed around on his betrothed, Cassandra one time too many and she shoves him into a mirror where he becomes trapped.

Part 2
Rural Georgia 1875. Sarah tends the family farm alone when her father travels as a bounty hunter. While working in her herb garden she spots something shiny in the woods and investigates, fearing the shine is the sun glinting from a gun. Once in the woods she finds a Cheval mirror and drags it back to her house.

Part 3
Exhausted after a long day working, Sarah has her supper, then washes her sore muscles in the room with the mirror. She sleeps but is awakened by the feeling someone is in the room with her. She grabs her shotgun and rises to an empty room. A glance in the mirror shows a faded image of a man, but he disappears, as she expected. There could be no man in her room or in her house.

Part 4

One eyelid fluttered open a slit to look into her mirror. The image was faint and fading. She opened both eyes to see an even fainter image disappear. Her own ghastly reflection still held her gun at chest level pointing out at her. She lowered the weapon, feeling foolish. She'd go back to bed and sleep away the disturbing memory, for it couldn't be real.

Sarah crawled back between the sheets and tried to settle into a comfortable position and sleep. She tossed and turned but sleep alluded her, so she was awake to see the earliest morning daylight creep in through her windows.

Giving up on sleep she rose to do her morning chores and forget the foolish imaginings.

Sarah worked from dawn 'til dusk, as she did every day but her thoughts were often on the treasure in her bedroom and the strange dream. The face in the mirror had to be a dream or a trick of the moonlight reflecting in it. Maybe tonight she would have time to read a few pages in one of the treasured books her daddy brought last month.

Sweat trickled down Sarah's face, pooling between her breasts, but she pulled weeds between the rows of herbs. After her noon break she would move to the vegetable garden.

"Seems like my work is never done," she muttered to hear her own voice. Some days she spoke not at all. She hadn't seen anyone for at least a week. "Maybe that's why I thought I saw a man in the mirror," she said.

Each time she straightened to ease the pain in her back she shaded her eyes and stared out at the wooded area to her north, where she had found her mirror. Of course she was just being cautious, so she turned slowly in a circle to study the pasture and hills and every place any one could approach her land or hide and watch her.

When the sun shone straight overhead in a cloudless blue sky she stopped working and stood to survey her efforts. Her herb garden looked neat and clean. Stiff, she ambled to the well and drew a bucket of water. As was her habit, she poured a dipper of water over her sore hands, then her kerchief to wash her face. Just yesterday she had found her mirror. No flashes of light indicated metal or glass in the distance. She hadn't expected either.

Hungry, she pulled a second rope from the well and drew a bucket holding blackberries and a jar of milk. After a light lunch she returned to her work, this time using a hoe to weed the vegetable garden. Soon she'd have fresh vegetables and could stop rummaging in the bins in the root cellar for dried up carrots and potatoes for her stews.

As dusk approached, she made her way up her front steps to the wraparound porch.

#####
After supper Sarah took a bucket of water to her room to fill the pitcher on her washstand and the basin so she could wash up. After last night's restless sleep, she'd need a good rest. Maybe she wouldn't take the time to read.

In the light of an oil lamp she removed everything but her shift. She dipped a bathing rag in the basin and washed her face and hands. Lord, that felt good. She made a point to avoid the big mirror as she washed her arms and shoulders. From the books she'd read she knew she should feel be ashamed of the tanned skin of her large hands and forearms. She had seen her brown skinned reflection in the glass window panes and knew the women in town looked away from her when she shopped at the dry goods store or dared to attend a church service. Well, if they had to work outside all the time, they wouldn't have the milky skin of the women in her books.

Glorious Spring in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

Our meadow is as lush as I’ve ever seen it. Thick grass reaches past my knees and spreads in a green swathe from fence row to fence row, sparkling with buttercups. The elusive meadowlark, my favorite songbird, trills sweetly from secret places hidden in the green. Rarely, I catch a flash of yellow as it flies, just before it tucks down again. Sandy brown killdeer dart around the edges of the pond on long legs, sounding that wild funny cry peculiar to them.

Green-blue water fills the banks of the pond, painfully parched last summer. Migrating mallards and ruddy ducks ripple over the surface, bobbing bottoms up. The air fills with gossipy quacks. Ducks are contented creatures. Not so our plump gray and white barnyard geese. Their honking clash and chatter punctuates life on the farm, more or less, depending on their current level of hysteria.

Some of these geese have been here time out of mind, waddling about with broken useless wings. They remind me of nervous old ladies who can’t find their glasses and are forever misplacing their grandchildren. More than once we’ve rescued a frantic gosling inadvertently left behind by its addled elders in a hole wallowed by the cows. Silly, silly geese. I chide the dogs when they’re tempted to chase and annoy them--too easy and it doesn’t seem fair. Our dogs aren't nearly as bold around the Canadian geese that also nest here. The gander fiercely defends his young and doesn't accept excuses.

Birthday blog

I had a wonderful birthday. When my daughter called saying she didn't feel up to having our birthday dinner, I wondered if this would be a quiet day. Well, two friends called to suggest getting together. I met one and asked for a rain check with the other. They don't now each other.

My friend June and I had fun and laughed a lot. I missed my kid but was grateful for my friends. Several email greetings made me feel loved, though some were automatic from loops. Hey, I have friends in cyberspace.

As I was leaving supper with my friend June, I got a call from Jamaica, my first call from Jamaica! I am sooo bragging! My young friend, multi-published author Kayla Perrin, and Una, her mama, called me to wish me a happy birthday. Too cool! The three of us share May birthdays within a few days of each other. They are my Gemini soul sisters, even if one is my daughter's age. They usually call from Canada. I saved the numbers on Caller ID to prove I got the calls from there.

Want to know more about the Magic mirror?
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Come back for that!

THREE MOON STATION: Runaway Witness, Unexpected Hideaway, New and Very Present Danger!

An employer asks his secretary to stay late and copy some disks for him. It's not an unusual request so she complies. He goes into his office.... Five minutes later, the secretary is running for her life as she sees her boss murdered.

That's the beginning of my new novel, Three Moon Station. It's a straight romance, albeit a futuristic one, a departure from my other stories which border on fantasy/horror, so I employ a pseudonym--Icy Snow Blackstone. The origin of that name has a story all its own, but that's for another day. For now, Three Moon Station and the people who live there have the spotlight.

Katy Rawls is a shy, compliant orphan raised by a domineering uncle who's a successful business man because he plays dirty and has even dirtier friends. His partner, Karel Andrews, is his exact opposite, loved by everyone in the office. Katy's witnessing of Andrews' murder sets her feet on a path that sends her to another planet. With the disks containing the evidence that got her boss killed, she heads for the shuttle terminal, intending to go to the police. Because the killers are in hot pursuit, however, and she left purse and identification behind in the office, her destination turns out to be entirely different.

At first, Katy thinks this is the best idea. Getting included in a transportation of Domestics to the pioneering planet Tritomis-2--where females are at a minimum and each passenger will be bid for by a man who'll take her to his ranch--Katy figures she can tolerate being a housekeeper for a year, then when things on Earth cool down, she'll go to the local Federation Marshal and turn over the evidence and live Happily Ever After, as well as Safe from Harm.

Almost immediately, things don't go as she plans. She's noticed by Alwin Marsten, a rancher whose Domestics mysteriously die within a year of going to his ranch. A woman who befriends her on the voyage to Tritomis-2 gets caught in a bidding-duel between Marsten and Abel, a handsome, young farmer who desperately wants her. Only the intervention of a mysterious redheaded station owner enables Abel to win over Marsten, an event that erupts into a fist fight between the rancher and the redhead. When Marsten attempts to buy Katy, the stranger bids four times as much for her and again the rancher loses, leaving the auction with anger and threats.

Katy finds her new employer, Sarkin Trant, a gentle, humorous, and surprisingly shy man, the son of an Arcanian Exile and a schoolteacher from the Scottish colony on Mars. Though still in his thirties, he has a son two years younger than Katy, and she believes he'll be easy to work for--as well as easy to leave when the year's up. When they arrive at Three Moon Station, his ranch, only then does she learn the truth: the Contract she signed with Sar wasn't an Employment Agreement as she thought but a Marriage License, and she's now wed to a total stranger who expects to receive full marital benefits from his new wife!

Katy has exchanged one danger for another of a very, very different kind...and the Terran hit men are still on her trail!

(The release date for Three Moon Station is still to be announced by The Wild Rose Press. It is the second book written by Icy Snow Blackstone, the other being The Irish Lady's Spanish Lover, a paranormal romance.)

Dose of Wilde for Memorial Day

The canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.

Oscar Wilde

(The young man and woman are Charlotte and Andrea Casiraghi, son and daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco. posted on a romance blog to showcase the handsome Andrea.)