The short has a title now! Once it's all done it's going to be called "A Feast of Crows" and I'd like to thank my friend @Neptunes_Net for helping me decide on the title. I'll send you the whole thing once it's all done, Krista :-)
Original
I've been working on a new short story since my car was broken into last month. Short stories come much easier to me than books as I find it hard to keep the necessary focus on a longer story when constantly running around after 3
Nobody ever got the description
of sitting on the beach just right.
Authors had tried and would keep trying, but nothing could match the experience
of actually sitting on the beach on a cool summer morning when the wind was
hitting you just right and the sand was just moist enough to feel like heaven
against your toes. Cat Drake stretched
luxuriously as the children she had accompanied from the elementary school
cavorted in the sand a bit of a ways beside her. As the local school librarian she enjoyed
getting the children into natural conditions while presenting the written word
to them. Today was an ideal day to learn
about literature while reveling in all that Nature had to offer.
An uncomfortable ping
interrupted Cat’s bliss as she felt something push against one of her
wards. This wasn’t a particularly strong
ward, but one that let her know her Jaguar was getting some unwanted
attention. With a disgusted sigh Cat sat
up and directed her thought toward the nearest crow. “Watch and scent whoever is stupid enough to
break my ward,” she directed her animal.
A few minutes passed and Cat was unsurprised to find a helpful citizen
running towards the group of school-children.
“Does someone here have a
Jaguar? A man just broke into it!” the
helpful someone gasped as they stopped running.
The teachers turned troubled
eyes toward Cat as they knew she was the only one in their group who might have
a car such as a Jaguar. She sighed again
and began the unwelcome process of dealing with the Thieves of the real
world. Standing up, Cat brushed the sand
off her legs and bent to push her shoes back on. “Thank you so much, I’ll be right there,” she
called to the someone who was trying to do a good deed. Turning, she smiled at the teachers and
children she had left her beloved library to be with today and told them she’d
see them soon. Then she began the walk
towards a mortal’s payment.
Happily Cat did not have to
call the local police herself as two separate helpful citizens had already done
so. There was even a very nice man who
had seen the thief who broke into her vehicle for the sole purpose of taking
her purse. The witness offered to stay and give the
police officer his statement and description of the thief. Although she did not require the nice man’s
help, Cat accepted so as to have a secondary description of the man who would
soon rue the day he had become greedy. She
had already received a description of the robber from her nearest crow and was
already tracking him. But the police
need not know this as they would follow their traditional methods of forms and
bureaucracy which would inevitably lead them nowhere unless their robber was
foolish enough to strike again in the same place.
Cat dutifully followed all the
necessary pathways – she called her insurance company to file a claim, she
called all her banks to cancel her debit cards, and she made an appointment at
the local DMV to get a new driver’s license.
Thankfully most of her credit cards and her passport were at her home, not
in her purse. She finished the last
requirement and let out a long sigh as she hung up her phone. As she glanced around the library where she
worked at all the different books she read because she loved to, she thought it
had been some time since such an opportunity presented itself.
Because she knew her origins
and respected her freedom, Cat called up The Three before beginning anything
else. She ambled back to her office and
locked the door before unlocking a small wooden cabinet most people would never
notice. Mortals weren’t meant to notice
what was in the cabinet and so most of them didn’t. Cat reverently pulled out the chalice which
served as her method of contacting The Three.
After setting the chalice down on the cloth she also kept in the
cabinet, Cat took a deep breath and concentrated. The chalice filled with liquid and her
conduit to The Three opened.
Brigid, the Morrigan, and Flidais
listened impassively as she told them what had occurred. A long look passed between the three of them
then Brigid spoke as was often the way when The Three were contacted. “Has this person broken other human barriers
before? Has he broken any natural laws
or harmed any of Nature’s denizens? If
so, then you may judge him as you see fit, but if not, if this is his only
transgression, then you must let him pass by Cathbodua. We wish you well on your hunt, dear child”
she added with a warm smile. Cat thanked
them and began her preparations to leave the library.
First she inhaled and exhaled
deeply again to aid in her concentration.
After dismissing the liquid from the chalice, Cat wrapped the chalice in
the cloth she kept with it. She never
had to worry about the cloth getting wet as once the chalice emptied there was
no residual liquid. After re-locking the
sacred cabinet Cat locked her office door and began turning off all the lights
in the library. As she set the alarm and
locked the final door Cat mentally checked the Ward she had set on the library. It was unharmed and hummed happily as it
covered the area above and below the library.
Cat turned and walked briskly to the rental she was using until her
Jaguar was driveable. There was work to
be done once she reached her home, and her dragon partner had missed out on a
good feeding for quite some time.
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