Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
In addition, now and again I will provide some of my fiction to read, for free, on this newsletter. Everything is available to anyone who subscribes, but I am always pleased when someone shows their appreciation for the newsletter by upgrading to paid, and I particularly enjoy getting likes and comments at the bottom of posts.
Daily Diary, Day 1478:
Today, I’ve included the fourth scene in Aelwyd: Home, my short story in the Caelestis series set in the Paradisi Chronicles universe. I am publishing a new scene every Tuesday and Thursday. If you haven’t read the first two introductory posts yet, I strongly suggest you do so before you start on the short story itself. To find the first of these two posts, or the earlier scenes, click HERE.
Aelwyd: Home
By Louisa Locke, copyright 2016
Scene 4:
Later Kammie would remember this next bit of time as a living nightmare. She ran and ran, calling out Stewart’s name, bouncing off trees, tripping and falling, lying on the ground among the leaves, trying to catch her breath until fear drove her back up on her feet again, to run and run and run. She had no idea where she was going, whether she was even headed in the direction her stepbrother had been going. She just knew she had to move forward.
Her final fall landed her sprawled in cold slimy water. She scrabbled backward, strands of hair plastered across her face, water dripping out of her eyes, nose, and mouth. When she’d backed herself up onto dry land, bumping up against the trunk of a huge tree, she sat back on her heels and angrily wiped water and tears out of her eyes.
She began to take stock of her surroundings.
The forest was darkening around her, but there was enough light left to see that she’d fallen into the edge of a body of water similar in size to the reservoir in the main hydroponics dome on the Nautilus. Mabel called it a pond. Soon even that light would be gone, and she couldn’t remember if or when either of New Eden’s moons would rise. She had to accept there was no chance of finding Stewart now; he could be miles away. She only hoped he had the sense to use the mobile to call for help, so at least he would be safe.
Meanwhile, she had to take care of herself.
She could feel her soaked sweater leeching the warmth from her, and it was only when she started to take it off that she remembered she still had her pack. She gratefully pulled out the long-sleeved jersey she kept there, pulling it over her t-shirt, which was only slightly damp. She took one of the disinfectant wipes and carefully scrubbed every cut and scratch she found on her hands and face, wishing she could use it to wash out her mouth. But she did have the canteen, so she took some water from it, swished thoroughly around her mouth, and then spat the water out, hoping that any nasty organisms that had taken up residence would be expelled as well. She eyed one of the protein bars but decided to save it until she was really hungry.
Now that she’d stopped mindlessly running, she faced the fact that there was one very good reason that the electric charge in the invisible fence had failed. Something had interfered with the electronics that regulated it, and Mabel confided to her last night at dinner that her father was concerned that a series of strong solar flares from Paradisi, their new world’s sun, might disrupt electronic communications on the planet until they had the proper shielding in place.
What if not just the fence, but my mobile, the hovers, and infrared drones, and whatever tech they used to track IDs isn’t working as well? How will they find us?
As if these panicked thoughts sent her senses into overdrive, she suddenly noticed how noisy the forest had become. In addition to the rattle of the bare branches above and dead leaves below, she heard rustlings in the bushes on either side of her, and loud croaking and thunking sounds echoing across the pond. She told herself that she had nothing to fear from whatever small creatures were hiding in the bushes, picturing the small innocent furry thing whose imminent demise had woken her this afternoon. And the pond sounds were no doubt from something amphibian because she’d heard a similar chorus from frogs when she and Mabel stayed late one night in the hydroponics lab on the space station. Common sense said that small animals like these wouldn’t be making any noises at all if dangerous predators were anywhere near. So maybe she should just stay put, her back against the tree, listening to the sounds of the night.
If only the smell wasn’t so strong.
Like the time on board the SS Nightingale when the waste disposal system in the cafeteria failed because of the overcrowded conditions on board. Decaying dead things.
She peered out at the pond, half expecting to see some animal carcass floating there. Instead, she saw something about two meters long traveling towards the bank, leaving a string of letter s’s in its wake.
Snake . . . huge snake . . . or whatever its equivalent was on New Eden.
Kammie slung her pack over her shoulder and leaped up to grab a low branch, swinging herself off of the ground. Driven by the vision of a particularly realistic viper in one of the holographic games she played as a kid, she began to climb from branch to branch, not stopping until she was far up the tree, hugging the trunk.
Running she wasn’t good at, but climbing was something she’d done a lot of over the years. Hiding from Thorndike and Gunther cousins on the Nautilus by climbing into the access tunnels and vents, climbing up the ladders on the Nightingale that connected one passenger deck to the other to get some time alone. Kammie told herself that spending time high up in a tree on New Eden wouldn’t be that much different from spending an afternoon on the small platform between decks 60 and 61 on the SS Nightingale. Assuring herself that the snake wasn’t winding its way up the tree, she turned carefully around to put the trunk at her back and gripped the branch with her legs. She then pulled the rain slicker out of the pack to provide some warmth, opened up the first of the two protein bars, and settled down for what she feared would be a very, very long night.
To be continued…
Brief check-in: I am one paragraph away from completing the first edit of the incomplete manuscript for In Ddaera’s Embrace. Today is the usual busy Thursday, a friend coming over in the morning, then preparing for the zoom meeting, hosting the zoom meeting, then a scheduled phone call after the noon meeting. Followed by second walk before dinner. If I have time to edit that last paragraph at the end of the day, that would be great. Then I can start the new writing on Friday! Very cloudy yesterday, high of 72, pretty much the same forecast for today. Check out the rays of sun breaking through clouds after dinner last night.
If you enjoy my daily posts and would like to subscribe for free or become a patron (where you will get the pleasure of giving me the resources to spend more time writing and less time marketing) click the little button below. In addition, please do click on the heart so I know you’ve been to visit and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments! Thanks!
I’m hooked!!