Chapter One

Nobody in town much liked West Gate or the Groves who owned it.  Encompassing all of Gate Creek from its source to something the locals called The Plunge, its northern and eastern boundaries were the high water mark of the opposite bank of the North Gate River; its western boundary was the ocean.  The southern perimeter was Highway 138, the only place where you could drive along the estate’s intimidating boundary, your car dwarfed by steep basalt cliffs.

Abigail Nelson lived directly across the highway from the estate’s only known entrance, but, in the two years that she’d lived there with her dad, she’d never once seen the massive metal barricade come open.  Today, that changed.

It was 9:00 A.M. on a bright, cheery June 15th when what sounded like thunder and felt like an earthquake tremor made her, a native Californian, dash to the window.  Her heart pounding in her ears, she was startled to see a white police car parked before West Gate’s entrance.  Within moments, the tremors stopped, even as the rolling sound of thunder got louder.  Amazed, she watched the huge, black, metal barrier began to split in two and was out the door, bounding across the highway with not so much as a glance to check for traffic.

*     *     *

It’s a prison.  We’re taking him to a prison, thought Nancy Rutherford as, wide-eyed, she watched small explosions of dust and pebbles break loose from where black, banded metal seemed welded into stone.  Then the huge metal arch before them began to form a center seam with a deafening crack and rumble.  Her right hand tightened its grip on the passenger door armrest; her left now grabbed the center console.  Next to her, Deputy Mark Sutter’s hands rested lightly on the steering wheel.  He seemed unconcerned.

She took a breath, trying to calm her pounding heart before looking back at her silent charge.  “You okay?” she asked the black-haired boy strapped in the back seat.

The boy’s eyes, as black as his hair, were riveted on the gate.  He ignored her except to nod just slightly.

“We’re almost there,” she said, her voice encouraging.  She hoped he’d finally speak.  He hadn’t said a word-not that she had ever heard in the three months she’d known him, except for the most hesitant ‘yes’ or ‘no.’  He’d read for hours, though, curled up in a chair in her office during his monthly visit for reevaluation.  And he’d write.  But he never wanted her to see what he was writing, so she had to sneak looks when he left to use the bathroom.

Carrick Ainsley wasn’t slow.  In fact, for a mere eight years old, he seemed to far out-flank his age group’s literacy level.  He was also very good at math, testing four full grades above his third grade peers.  What he wouldn’t do was talk.  Not a single sentence had ever passed his lips in all the time he’d been in foster care or public school, a new experience for him.

The thunder abruptly stopped, and Nancy turned back to see the gates now set at almost perpendicular angles.  Before them, the road surface turned from pavement to something akin to a very broad, heavy livestock grate.  Dark water swirled and rippled just beneath it, sparkling where the morning sun touched it’s surface.  Directly in front of that was what appeared to be another wall of stone. That wall curved left, the grate meeting what looked like translucent, rounded black brick.

Mark eased the car forward, the tires rumbling on the grate.  Something squeaked.

“Is it safe?” Nancy whispered.

“Seems to be fine,” he said, glancing over at her.

The road-a tunnel, actually-curved left and upward.  Small light globes anchored to either side winked on as Mark followed the narrow track upward through the pitched darkness.  “This is scary,” Nancy whispered.  “This tunnels right through the cliff?”

“I’d say so,” Mark replied, his voice nonchalant.  “Relax.  This place has been here since before Grant Haven was a town.  The Groves are well-known around these parts, if not particularly well-liked by some.  They’ve never, ever been a problem to local law enforcement.  More the opposite.”

It was an odd statement, Nancy thought, but, when he didn’t say more, she didn’t pursue it.  Turning her attention back to the boy she was assigned to protect, her eye caught the barest glimpse of shadow dart past the backend of the car.  “Mark!  What’s that?”

“What?” he asked.

But it was gone now.  “There was a shadow.”

She heard him chuckle.

“Yeah.  It’s pretty dark in here.”

The boy was watching her, his eyes glinting, almost predatory, and, though unnerved, she smiled.  “Are you okay about this, Carrick?”

His eyes, suddenly neutral once again, moved to the windshield, but, this time, he didn’t nod or shake his head.  This time he spoke-”West Gate.  I remember.”

Nonplussed, Nancy stared at him.  He’d spoken.   Gathering her wits, she asked, “You’ve been here?”

“Not this side.  The other.”

He’s talking.  Finally. “What other?”

“The other side“-anger.

“The river?” Sutter asked.”

“Uh-huh.  Across it is the place where Mom and Dad went when those men attacked them.  That’s where I come from.”

Beside her, Deputy Sutter gave a short, strangled chuckle.  Despite the boy’s fantasy concerning his parents’ murder, Nancy was thrilled that Carrick had finally found his voice.  Maybe the damage wasn’t as bad as the psychologists originally thought.

*     *     *

Rowan watched them from her balcony, her green eyes steady on the car as it emerged from the entrance tunnel.  She heard the ravens call alert and saw a great horned owl take flight.  Within moments, tires screeched, and the car come to an abrupt halt as both the ravens and the owl swooped down to challenge the intruders.  “They’re here,” she said, though no one stood near.  “So is the newsome.”

A breeze shifted the delicate, white voile curtains behind her.  Leaves rustled, scent rising from the wild honeysuckle that grew on the railing and around the double eyebrow balcony doors, new tendrils reaching upward toward the roof.  With a sigh, Rowan retreated backwards through the curtains, her eyes never leaving the car.  Moments later, the balcony doors closed.

*     *     *

The woman screamed and ducked; the car swerved and stopped.  Awestruck, Carrick just stared in wonder at the huge birds that dove down and seemed to stare in at him for longer than it took to blink.   The woman was still screaming when the birds angled off to disappear into the big trees.  Carrick wished she’d stop.  Moments later, she did, but it wasn’t soon enough.

Carrick Ainsley didn’t like the woman called Nancy.  She asked too many questions.  He liked the policeman okay.  But not her.  She was fluttery, not solid.  She was blinky.  She wasn’t really real, and Carrick had decided that the only things he wanted near him were the things that lasted, not the things that didn’t.  If he couldn’t treasure them forever, he didn’t want to see or know them.  That included Mom and Dad.

The car started up again, and he watched out the window now that there was something interesting to see-big trees and boulders, moss and giant ferns.  He really liked the places in between where he could peek through to see that the big trees went on and on.  Just like home.

“Oh, no!”-the woman again.

Carrick looked up to see what she was upset about now.  Ahead was another tunnel, only this one you could see through to the other side.  Even bigger rocks and huge, gnarled tree roots made the opening.  He grinned.  Neat.

“It’s all right,” the cop said.  “This one is short and level.”

The car slowed down, and, just for a second, they were inside a really old archway whose insides were covered with dripping moss and shiny, sparkling things.  Then they came out the other side into a rock-paved oval that had a fountain with a dragon in the middle.  He couldn’t help himself.  “Cool!”  He didn’t notice the house until the woman said something, and, again, he couldn’t help himself.  “It’s a tree house!”

The cop turned around to grin at him.  “Sure looks like one, doesn’t it?”

Carrick grinned back.  He liked Mark.  A lot.  He would remember him.  Not Nancy, though.

End Rant

Please note that this all but raw and unedited.

North Idaho Diary, Entry 1-14-2009

Yesterday my five-year-old and I went to Johnson’s to cut firewood and remove the snow off the Quonset hut. Simple task, noooo!! The firewood part required digging a tunnel through the snow to the buried pile of logs. Then shoveling the snow off the pile, making enough room for me and a chainsaw (Chainsaw is small, luckily.), then dislodging a log to cut.

Sure!

Frozen logs come apart like grape juice comes off your white shirt. Pry pry pry kick kick kick curse curse curse, and, when all else fails, chainsaw in place, then repeat process–pry pry pry kick kick kick curse louder curse louder curse even louder…pop.  That is for just one piece!!!  Who needs wood heat when I get hot and sweaty getting one measly log.

So I decide it’s time for a break. I’ll work on the Quonset hut with the glacier embedded in the sagging top.

Smart man that I am, I hook up the propane heater inside and close the front flap. Theory; snow will melt and slide off the top, end of problem. If only…  

I go back and cut two more pieces of firewood repeating process as described earlier, with the exception of being more tired and using more abusive vernacular. (Maybe I can scare the ice off of the logs.)

I return to hut to see the progress.  …Yeah progress!  It’s a humid, dripping mess inside with the snow stuck on top, still. …Except now it’s getting heavier as the roof sags inward even more.

Okay.  I grab a 10 foot piece of 4×4 and begin smacking the snow from underneath.

Hooray! It’s coming off.  …Oh.  And I’m getting soaked by the waterfall leaking through the roof as it melts. Another problem is that, after about ten smacks with the 4×4, my muscles go “nooo, we’re tired. Please stop.” I respond, letting my muscles know that this must get done, and they have to help. I swear they whisper, “You’ll be ’sorey’.”  So now I’m smacking snow–smack smack smack–and getting drenched–drip drip kawoosh–and, of course, cursing–curse curse curse.

Hours pass, and I’ve gotten almost all the snow off the hut except one spot.  But I’m hungry, tired, and feel like I could swim in my clothes. So I shut the heater off and figure I’ll get it with next load of firewood.

Oh firewood!  Shit!!!

Back to cutting firewood. Repeat process only now it’s in slow motion. But I manage to fill the truck, and we leave for home. 5-year-old, luckily, played with the dog the whole time and hopefully won’t be repeating Daddy’s words of encouragement to others…like Mom!

Lunch, water (to drink), and a change of clothes, and it’s back to work: Unload firewood. But now I have the kids to help so it goes twice as fast, the bonus of the day.

Back in the truck and off for more wood and the dreaded hut of hell!! I start with the firewood, and I’ve cleared enough that it actually is going smooth. Fill the truck, and now it’s time for the last piece of the glacier on the quanset.

Smack smack smack.

Won’t budge.  In fact, it’s sagging towards me even more!! So I climb on top of an off balance barrel and put one foot on a stack of boxes.

Push push push,  drip drip drip curse curse curse.

A little piece rolls off.  Yeah!  …But the bulk is still there, and now I’m soaked, again.

I push-smack-curse all at ounce and, boom, it slides off…at the same time the barrel falls over and the boxes sway–oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!

…I survived without injury, and no damage to anything.  (Amazing, I thought.)

That was yesterday.  Needless to say I’m tired and sore today, and now I am going to unload the firewood left from yesterday, but Ithought you’d get a kick out of my Tuesday adventure.

Have a great day,

Max

I was invited and went to an author’s party. This was a kind of a combination wine-tasting/book-reading/book-signing/talk-a-lot kind of thing put on for the author’s benefit. I drank too much wine; I dutifully purchased a book, had the author sign it, and pretty much spent the evening suppressing yawns. …So did everybody else, listening to the conversations in the washroom. We all put on a good face, though…for the author’s benefit.

My, my. We authors are a boring lot. Just check out any writer’s forum if you doubt me on this.  Anyway, my reaction to this author’s party wasn’t much different than my reaction to most of them. There are few of these socials that I find stimulating unless the author has a knack for engaging his or her audience.

Let’s face it. Nobody I know, especially me, is much interested in how much work it was for the author to write the book, get it into publishable form, la-da-da-da-da. Likewise, the quips and the cutes don’t go very far.

My favorite author events are those where the author might read a passage of the book, then stop, look up, and say something like: “You know, the morning I wrote this particular section was right after I spent a night shoveling water.”  [[Author looks around.]] “That’s right–water. My basement flooded…waterline broke…plumber wouldn’t be there for two hours.

“Did you know? Shoveling water has its tricks. You have to sort of sneak the shovel into it, slow and gentle… .”

Or maybe: “This scene in the book where Tess gets woken by a mouse falling into her tea cup really happened.  At my aunt’s house.  Except we weren’t asleep. I was sitting in her parlor while she read to me and my cousin from her favorite book–the Bible–when this mouse surprised us by sliding off a pile of her letters right into her tea cup. The rest is in the book, and, yes, said mouse got away!”

Those are the sorts of things that will make an enjoyable author’s event for me. Unfortunately, most of the time there’s just a lot of questions from other writers in the audience about “how it feels to be published, how difficult was it to get an agent,” and so on. Then there are the “personal interest” questions from some quarters. Questions like: “Is the main protagonist someone you know?” (No.) “How about the bad guy?”(No.)  ”Do you have kids of your own?” (No questions that could compromise the lives of loved ones, please.)  or “How can you write about something so appalling/sad/intimate?” (Because it’s part of the story.)

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t care a whit’s damn about most of the stuff that gets asked or answered at the majority of these get-togethers. Let me in on the inside scoops behind the scenes–the horrors and humors that sparked incidents in the book. Or tell me about the time you were supposed to meet an agent and overslept the alarm by two hours…about tripping all over yourself getting ready, breaking a shoelace and having to use one of your kid’s, only to barge into the agent’s office and have her look startled, then nod and say, “You didn’t get my message?”

“What message?”

“I had to postpone our meeting till next week.”

*chagrin*

Show me life in action, please.  Just like you do in your book.  Don’t bore me with your angst or your travails…unless they’re intriguing, action-filled, and lip or eyebrow twitchers.

So I sit in my writing den, oblivious to the world, listening to tunes, watching the fish in my display tank when I get stumped (or lazy-brained).  I’m all alone, without anyone else around, not even a cat…because those ladies and gentleman are more content lounging on plush carpets and chittering out windows at feathered flutters.  And, all alone, lost in “writer’s trance,” there comes a jolt!

It’s like a knock on the wall, but a quick peek out the window in the door that’s but three strides east shows no one is there…not that they could get through the side gate without the my watch-birds sounding Hell’s alarm.  Frowning, I return to my desk.  Again, I become lost in my work…only for two knocks to jolt me out of reverie just about the time I lose track of reality.

I look under the desk for some surreptitious presence of cat, mouse…something.  But nothing’s there.  There’s nothing outside, no one around, at all.  So I sit there dwelling in wonder.  And again it knocks, one sharp rap!

Bounding out of my chair, I launch myself out the door, intent on catching my mischievous other half up to no-good.  But, yet, there’s no one there.  

My frown is deeper now.  

The knocking stops…for the rest of the week.

Next week it isn’t knocking.  It’s squeaking…like an old desk chair, only it is IN the wall.  It keeps up even when I explore outside to find no cause.  It keeps up when I pull manuscript boxes out from their storage cubby under the desk.  It keeps up. For an hour. And there’s no one, nothing, there.

I call the telephone company.  They send someone out.  There’s nothing wrong with the wiring.

I call the gas and electric companies.  Same result.

I get the plumber.  I call a contractor.  They dig into the wall.  Nope. Nothing there.  No plumping in that wall.  No mice nested in there.  Nothing in the wall that could knock or squeak.

Am I going nuts? They certainly think so by the looks they give me (humoring).

And this week?  It’s a moan.  It’s making me grumble under my breath now.  I’ve actually video recorded it, loud, live audio, with the clock on, because I’m calling all of them back, scheduling them all–telephone man, gas man and electrician, plumber and contractor–to come at the same time of day it happened–around 2pm.  It has to be something to do with temperature changes or something.  There used to be a hot tub out and down the path a ways.  Gotta be pipes or something. …Right?

…And, yes, this is just the sort of thing that winds up tucked into one of my novels.  But not until I’ve chased down the cause.  Can’t write about something I don’t know the answer’s end to, now can I?

I don’t overtly make any “hay” that it’s real.  I only suggest that it might be.  And that’s the only thing I can do, because there’s no way to prove something to the five empirical senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell that exists beyond the range of their pragmatic ability to experience.

What’s especially fun is to watch a complete skeptic turn white, eyes bulging, hair on the arms erect, lips quivering, when you take them to visit a friend’s house known to be “haunted.”

Take the time an old friend of mine dropped in for a visit right as I was about to go exploring an old run-down house.  He came along, laughing and jibing me about gooey goblins and lumps that go bump in the silence.  Walking into the old place, he only hesitated and turned to look when, upon walking through the sprung gate hanging crooked on its old hinges, the thing decided then was the perfect time to release an excruciating metal chatter, though we’d not touched it.  

Ascending the house, the steps creaked.  Out loud, my friend wondered if they were sound.  

“They’re cement,” I said.  

Disbelieving me, he knelt down and ran his hands over them.  ”They are,” he said, a frown on his brow.  ”Then what creaked?”

“I don’t know.”

He gave me an odd look.

We went on to explore the old place, me taking pictures and notes.  Unlikely sounds and equally unlikely movements from various quarters made him absolutely jumpy, quelling any more scoffing and teasing.  He was very quiet on the return trip home.

Me?  I don’t know.  I just know that my experiences when I visit these old places make for good story elements. 

I suppose one of these days I should write up some of these episodes as a short story or two.  Maybe, better, a novel.  But, right now, I’ve got way too much on my plate to pursue new projects.  What’s fun, though, is the possibility that ghosties are watching and nodding as skeptics turn pale.

“Different” — that’s a word that stood out in my “private and confidential” school records.  Private and confidential?  Not when they tell you…and everybody else what’s in there when pointing out the whys and wherefores of being passed over for something you very much want to do.  I’ve been stuck with that label my whole life.  It used to hurt.  Now it’s an honor, since “everyday Joe” and “everyday Sally” seems to mean no common sense, no rational judgement, no logic, no cognitive excellence, and no propensity for deductive, never mind inductive reasoning, and certainly no synthesis.

So, yes, I’m different — well-adjusted, happy, independent-minded.  Different in that I like people, one on one anyway, though mobs throw me off completely.  (Avoid mobs like the plague, I do.)  Different in that I’m not afraid of spiders, mice, or snakes.  Different in that I don’t mind what religion you embrace, so long as you don’t expect or demand me to embrace it, too.  Different in that I could care less what race you are, how old you are, what gender you are, what your sexual preferences are, or what medications you down on a frequent (or infrequent) basis…until and unless your impairment endangers, not yourself, but others.

Different, they said and still say.  Why?  I’m not sure.  I think I’m not so different…or shouldn’t be.  And I expect that how I am is much similar to how you…or anyone is — good on the inside through and through, always striving with the best intentions, not the worst.

–

Here’s another one used on me a lot: Over-achiever.

That one just really makes my mind stir.  Huh?  Over-achieve?  How is that possible?  You either achieve or you don’t achieve.  How in the world does one over-achieve?

Someone sighs and explains.

Oh. You mean I try very sincerely and to the best of my ability to actually do something.  …Ah…well, yes.  I do that.  One thing I don’t do is “half-baked, half-assed, half-hearted.”  I’m never lazy…well, almost never.  I admit that I’ll plop down in a chair and sip a cool drink on a broiling hot day instead of ensure that my lawn is manicured, but manicured lawns just aren’t my thing.  Grass is good; green carpets that look like putting greens are for…putting greens, not a useful ground cover where I can play badminton or work through my daily martial art regimen. 

–

There.  Enough about me for one day.