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Friday, October 14, 2022

The Guardian The Cities Below Book Five Jen Colly

 


The Guardian
The Cities Below 
Book Five
Jen Colly

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Date of Publication: 10/11/2022
ISBN:9798201144319
Number of pages: 300
Word Count: 97,000
Cover Artist: Ryan Imbrock

Tagline: Prepared to die...fighting to live.

Book Description:

Savard was in a mood to die, but when a human insists on saving his life, death is no longer an immediate option. He knew of no species – human, vampire, or demon – that could see him while in his invisible Spirit form. Unique to this world, this woman's singularity was a danger to the entire vampire race.

Waking behind bars in an underground vampire city was not how Sera envisioned her night drive ending. She has come to expect nothing from those who pass through her life, but this man, dying on the side of the road, proves to be different. Savard fights to free her from tyrannical vampire laws and to hide her unique abilities. What Sera doesn't understand, is why he would fight his growing love for her.

Savard's haunted past threatens to tear them apart. Soon, Sera discovers just how far her guardian is willing to go, and what he's willing to do, to keep her safe.


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Excerpt

Savard watched her delicate jaw drop at the sight of his fangs. Never in his long life had he shown a human what kind of creature lurked behind the visage of a man. He waited for her scream, expected her terrified flight or even a fainting spell. Instead of acting like a normal human, she just sat there, taking it all in, processing, and then out of the blue, the minx slugged him in the shoulder.

He groaned, not so much from her punch, but from stabilizing his core muscles to keep his body upright. Through gritted teeth, Savard asked, “What the hell was that for?”

“Give it a guess,” she huffed, not frightened, and certainly not shying away. “You can speak. Just say what you are. You didn’t need to threaten me with the pointy teeth.”

“Wasn’t a threat…won’t bite,” he mumbled. He knew he was behaving poorly, but his body ached, his hunger beat a heavy cadence against his tongue, and this woman had ruined his plans for a quick death.

His eyelids drifted shut, his head tilted back against the cushion. He was getting worse. The pain was there, but not exactly excruciating, making it easier to speak. His body was numbing out, going cold on the inside. Sensation was slipping away, along with life.

“If you’re what I think you are, then…” her soft voice trailed off, as if redirecting her question.

“What can I do? Be honest.”

“Nothing you’d be willing to do,” Savard said, cracking one eye open to observe her reaction, and when she shifted closer, he suddenly realized she still held his hand. In fact, her grip had never wavered. Even after he’d bared his fangs.

“Like letting you bite me? How can you be sure I wouldn’t?”

“I’m not asking.”

“But if it would help you…” Her delicate eyebrows scrunched together, and she asked in earnest,

“Would it help you? And would it hurt?”

His lips twitched, the beginnings of a smile that never fully formed. For some reason, he found explaining the nuances of a vampire’s bite to this innocent human amusing. “Blood heals. A bite is more pleasure than pain.”

“I wouldn’t turn into a…”

“No.”

“When you bite someone…” Her voice was hesitant, the first subtle hint of trepidation he’d found in her. “Do they die?”

“No. Life is precious,” he said quietly.

Deafening silence surrounded him and he closed his eyes again, the calm lulling him. Several minutes passed, or perhaps more, and then he unexpectedly caught her scent. The soft, delicate flesh of this woman had a scent all its own, and he opened his eyes to see her leaning close to him, her hand pulling that fluffy white-blonde mass of randomly braided hair away from her neck. Savard growled, closing his eyes against the temptation, and turned away from her.

“Why not?” she asked, her steady voice sending shivers through his battered body.

Teeth clenched, he said, “You should have left me there.”


About the Author:
 
Jen Colly is the rare case of an author who rebelled against reading assignments throughout her school years. Now she prefers reading books in a series, which has led her to writing her first paranormal romance series: The Cities Below. She will write about anything that catches her fancy, though truth be told, her weaknesses are pirates and vampires. She lives in Ohio with her supportive husband, two kids, one fluffy dog, and four rescued cats.









Onyx Webb: The 31 Immutable Matters of Life and Death

 



Onyx Webb: The 31 Immutable Matters of Life and Death
Based on the original 10 book, 31 episode Onyx Webb series. 

Episode 1: 
“Should you one day discover you have both light and darkness inside you, do not despair. We all do. The only thing that matters is which you choose to act on.”

Episode 2
“We do not fear heights, we fear falling. Nor do we fear the darkness… but, rather, what we think may be lurking there. And in matters of life and death, we do not fear dying: only that it may be final.”

Episode 3
 “It is not important to know what fate awaits you beyond the living plane. All that matters is that you know there is a ‘there’ there.”

Episode 4
“The greatest temptation in life is to pursue everything that catches your eye. What matters is: Are you willing to pursue only that which captures your heart.”

Episode 5
“The universe is a blank canvas, and you are the paint. The only thing that matters is how much of yourself you are willing to splash upon it.”

Episode 6
“The universe is impressed when you find the courage to stand with others. What matters more, however, are the times you find the courage to stand alone.”

Episode 7
“Everything in the universe is temporary, yet everything lasts forever. And it does not matter if you believe this—it will be true with or without your consent.”

Episode 8
 “It is not the job of the universe to tell you what your destiny is. For that matter, no one is destined to become anything other than what they choose to become.”

Episode 9
“No matter how unfair the world may seem, the world is perfect just the way it is.”

Episode 10
 “Those filled with hate believe the edge of the universe is surrounded in darkness, while those filled with love believe it to be bathed in light. But what does it matter? Upon their deaths, both will discover they were correct.”

Episode 11
“Your forgiveness may not matter to those who harm you, but it was never intended for them anyway. It is a gift you give yourself.”
Episode 12
 “When you die, one of the following two things must be true. You are dead and gone, or you are dead but not gone. To settle the matter once and for all, as far as the Universe is concerned, we are never gone.”

Episode 13
“The desire to remain young matters most to those who do not realize that growing old is a privilege denied to many.”

Episode 14
 “Your dreams matter to you, but also to the universe. Do not let anyone who has given up on their dreams talk you out of yours.”

Episode 15
 “The world is filled with unspeakable evil, but it is also filled with unstoppable love. The only thing that matters—as long as there is one person with a single ounce of love in their heart—is that evil cannot win.”

Episode 16
“The thing that matters most in your final hours is that you do not find yourself crying and begging for more time. Only those who have failed to live fear death.”

Episode 17
“There is no such thing as a lifetime—only a series of moments strung together that matter to us that we call a lifetime. To miss these moments is to miss your life.

Episode 18
“The universe is not interested in your long list of casual wants. The only thing that matters is your short list of passionate desires.”

Episode 19
“No matter what you think or how you feel when times are tough, life is a precious gift. Just how precious is it? Don’t worry. You know when you’re dead.”

Episode 20
“If knowing every secret in the universe matters to you, your time on earth will be a disappointment. The number of secrets is infinite; the capacity to understand is not.”

Episode 21
“The best way to deal with matters of hate, jealousy, anger, fear, and regret is to be so busy living your life that you simply have no time for any of them.”

Episode 22
“It does not matter that you reach out to the universe. What matters is that you reach inside yourself.”

Episode 23
“The universe does not care if you are beautiful. What matters is that you surround yourself with that which is beautiful to you.”

Episode 24
 “Nothing in the universe is good or bad, big or small, hot or cold, up or down, right or wrong. The only thing that matters is the perspective of the observer.”

Episode 25
“If fulfilling your mission on earth truly matters, why have you yet to even start? And don’t say it is because you don’t know your mission. You have always known.”

Episode 26
“In matters of karma, the universe is excruciatingly fair. What goes around does indeed come around. But you must understand: the universe is under no obligation to ensure it comes around to you.”

Episode 27
“Thoughts don’t just matter. They are matter. In the same way that the moon tugs on the oceans, the gravity of your thoughts have pulled both things and people into your life.”

Episode 28
“The true wonders of the universe can be seen in three ways: through the lens of a telescope, the lens of a microscope, and—when it matters most—the lens of human understanding.”

Episode 29
“Every choice, large or small, matters more than you’ll ever know. In the end, your life will have been nothing more than a collection of your choices.”

Episode 30
“Show the universe what matters most to you, and the universe will show you… you.”

Episode 31
“The differences between us matter less than the ways in which we are the same, for in the end we come to understand we were all connected by the same frail web called life.”


The Ghost Circus: An Onyx Webb Supernatural Thriller
Diandra Archer

Genre: Paranormal Thriller
Publisher: Lust for Living
Date of Publication: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1947814226 
ASIN: B0B7QVRLYK
Number of pages: 280
Word Count: 64,000
Cover Artist: Alex at https://www.nessgraphica.com/

Tagline: If You Think Life is Precious, Just Wait Until You’re Dead

Book Description: 

A ragtag traveling circus sits outside a small California town. Two hundred miles north, the rumors of Onyx Webb, a legendary ghost, are "alive and well" in the seaside hamlet of Crimson Cove, Oregon.

After mysterious deaths occur in both places, the FBI gets involved. By the time the circus travels to Crimson Cove, the little town is starting to unravel. It's one thing to stop people from committing crimes, but how do you stop ghosts?



Onyx existed in a constant state of guilt over what she considered to be stealing the best years of Noah’s life. What some would call robbing the cradle or being what was currently called a cougar.

It was the opposite of the norm, in which men had a tendency to date and marry younger women.

When Onyx brought up the topic, Noah pointed out how it was no longer a big deal for couples to have differences in their age. “Age is just a number,” Noah would say, having pointed out the age difference between Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. “She’s like 15 years older than he is.”

First, Onyx had absolutely no idea who these people were since she never watched television. And the 15-year age difference paled in comparison to their ages since Onyx was 114 and Noah was still in his 30s.

The thing that made the age difference livable, no pun intended, was that ghosts appeared as the age they were on the day they died and returned as their perfect selves. No scars or blemishes or wrinkles. Even severed limbs reappeared.

She may have been 114 years old, but in terms of appearance, Onyx looked 39.

And as a ghost, she would be 39 forever.

Assuming she could get the energy.

Onyx watched as Noah took advantage of the last bit of daylight, shirt off—sweating and swearing when the rocks wouldn’t fit together—his skin glistening with sweat and red with color.

Onyx held up her hand and examined it. Unlike Noah’s, her skin was gray. Transparent.

When she held the hand up to her face, she could see right through it.

Unacceptable.

Tonight, she would go to the hospital and see if there was anyone whose time had come. If there wasn’t, she would go into town and look for an addict shooting up in a dark alley—the kind that could be found in all towns, even small ones like Crimson Cove.

She had no problem taking drug addicts. They were killing themselves, anyway. If they wanted to die, she was happy to help them along.

Those who were young and healthy? No. Onyx’s code would not allow it. They were off-limits.

And children? Never.

Onyx walked to the opposite side of the lighthouse and peered out toward the water, seeing thin red lines of red forming as the sun was being slowly swallowed by the ocean.

Soon it would be dark. It was time.





About the Author:


Diandra Archer is the pen name for professional speakers and best-selling authors, Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz. Richard and Andrea have been entrepreneurs, writing and publishing non-fiction business books for over twenty years. Onyx Webb is their first fiction book series. They live in Central Florida with their cat Storey, and newly adopted senior dog, Peppers. Diandra Archer is a combination of both of their first names. 










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Friday, October 7, 2022

At Half Past Two

 



At Half Past Two

Our movie broke at half past two.
I begged Time to return to the black and white film
We lived in, with you by my side;
But the grand drapes stayed shut in silence and shock.
I closed my eyes and opened my mouth,
Mad about your sudden absence, with unrestrained outbursts
To a greedy God adored by millions. Only one adored me!
Had He really just snatched you away?
My mind kept restarting the movie before half past two.
Each time I waited for the roll to resume play
With you and me in high-definition color,
But tears blurred my vision and I couldn’t see you.
I kept moving your souvenirs back and forth,
With eyes unaware they should blink.
I struggled to savor each memory of you in my mind,
Flashing every second until my gut retched.
I followed your scent aimlessly through the house,
Before strength left my knees and I curled on the floor.
Then I saw my arms dance, caressing the air
Where you lay last night — I thought I heard you laugh.
Enough of this cruel joke. Stop it.
Come back. Please.


Unusual Light
J. Elizaga

Genre: Young Adult fantasy
Date of Publication: July 31, 2022 
ASIN: B0B85ZRPSZ
Number of pages: 86
Word Count: 20,000

Cover Artist: The Book Cover Designer

Tagline: A young engineer, a ghost, and a mystery at the morgue

Book Description:

How does one keep a promise to a ghost? Engineering student Ana Juliet (AJ) Diwa takes a summer job as a swing-shift security guard at a hospital morgue—the same morgue once investigated by the police for unusual calls received during full moons. And the calls happen only when Matt, a guard assigned to the overnight shift, is on duty.

AJ scoffs at the idea of otherworldly activities. But soon after, she witnesses a mysterious orb at the morgue. The orb reveals itself to be the ghost of Binni Almond, a teenager who went missing thirty years ago. Despite AJ’s shock, she befriends the entity. She vows to use her problem-solving abilities to find Binni’s family and solve the mystery of the young girl’s disappearance. But darker spirits are afoot.

As AJ descends to the morgue’s basement to capture evidence of Binni’s remains, Matt’s visions worsen. Evil spirits surge around the premises. And AJ is in danger of getting caught in the middle of a paranormal showdown.



Chapter 1: An Unusual Call

AT half past midnight, a public safety dispatcher received a familiar but unsettling call. Amid the static and crackle, a voice uttered, “Send help.”

The strange calls started nine months ago, and they always occurred on or near the full moon. The voice supplied only their first name and location. The caller’s name changed every month, but the location stayed the same—Shoreline Hospital morgue. The police officer who responded to the first dispatch spoke with Matt Faulson, the morgue’s overnight security guard. He denied dialing for assistance. The officer walked around the perimeter of the building and witnessed nothing out of the ordinary.

But after three monthly calls involving the same person on duty, the department assigned Officer David Jackson to patrol around the time of the full moon, when they estimated a call would occur. They suspected the twenty-seven-year-old Matt to be the prankster.

Police interviews failed to pin him. Instead, the detectives saw video footage of stationary objects moving randomly in various rooms in the morgue late at night.

The young man admitted to seeing strange activity during his shifts. Adding to the mystery, the city’s emergency dispatch system saved the calls, but the hospital had no record of any of their phones being used.

David arrived at the parking lot with another patrol car at 12:25 a.m. He saw a lone figure sitting on a bench near the morgue’s main entrance.

“Matt.” He approached the security guard with friendly caution. As the guard greeted him, the officer couldn’t help but notice the dark shadows under the young man’s eyes and the ruffled hair. “Man, you look terrible.”

Matt sighed. “There’s not a lot of sleep with the graveyard shift, as you know. I don’t like walking the floors between midnight and one a.m., but I took too long answering an email, and I forgot the time. I rushed through the hallways, and let me tell you, I had more than one sighting,” Matt said. “I guess you received a call?”

David nodded. “You have to get me in there one of these nights. I want to see for myself.”

“I’ll call next time. But I didn’t make the call tonight,” Matt replied. He stood up and prepared to go back in the morgue, but froze. “Oh.”

“What is it?” David asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the second officer took a defensive stance.

“A gray entity floated out of the wall to my left,” Matt said softly as he kept his head very still.

David looked as soon as Matt spoke. “I don’t see anything.” He glanced at the other officer.

“I don’t see anything either.”

“Really?” Matt asked as his shoulders dropped. He gingerly turned his head and looked. “Am I the only one who sees ghosts?”

“I’m beginning to believe that,” David replied.



About the Author:

J. ELIZAGA is a fan of science fiction and science mysteries. Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, she peered over her father’s shoulders as he watched TV shows such as In Search Of, and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos during the 1970s. 

J. lives in California. She wrote stories in high school but had set aside her hobby for college and career…until she attended a writer's conference in San Francisco in 2010. The experience unsealed a door in her mind that she thought had long closed.

J. works in information technology by day, and makes time to write stories about humans who face extraordinary circumstances and discover their superhuman abilities. 











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Wednesday, October 5, 2022

The Ghosts We Carry and How to Banish Them

 



The Ghosts We Carry and How to Banish Them

Have you ever noticed how in haunted house stories or an occult detective tale, there’s always an object that keeps a spirit anchored to a place?  It could be a keepsake from when the ghost was a living being or a terrible artifact use to summon darker entities.  Sometimes it’s a whole room or house, the energy of the people who have lived in it soaking into the very walls.  Other times it’s the memory of a horrific incident that has bled into the earth.

In order to banish the ghost, of course, we have to destroy the object—set it on fire, break it, or, to be less dramatic, let it go or move on from it. 

Move out of the haunted house.  

Contain the dark occult artifact that can’t be destroyed so that no one will find it (until the inevitable sequel, of course….this is dramatic fiction after all!). 

These stories remind us, in one way or another, that the things we carry with us absorb the energy of our experiences.  And that, sometimes, the only way we can move forward is to let those objects go.  Otherwise, we keep that old energy—sometimes toxic energy—around and get stuck, finding ourselves in a time loop of the same draining experiences that first tainted the objects in question.


The Ghosts We Carry 

Take, for instance, the story of The Sad Birthday Dress.  It goes like this:  There once was a woman who wanted to feel beautiful.  All day long she was asked to be nothing but a talking head.  But this woman knew she had a heart and hips and a juicy center.  So she bought herself a dress to remind herself that she could be a whole person and not just a shriveled head sitting in someone’s cabinet of curiosities.  And what a dress it was!  It was stunning, with finely spun organic lilac cotton and loud bouncy yellow and white polka dots that told her that she was allowed to have color in her life—that she was allowed to be of color, no need to pass as another kind of pale specter.   The skirt was flouncy and feminine and begged to be flipped up for illicit romance or at least a lively dance.

It was the perfect birthday dress.  So she did what any woman who wanted to feel alive did—she wore it out and ate cake and drank champagne and danced until the weight of the pale city bore down on her and her loud pretty dress didn’t make her feel pretty anymore.  Just sad.  Unspeakably so.  Because, she realized, this dress didn’t make her feel pretty.  It only reminded her that she lived in a place that didn’t want her to be a flesh and blood woman.  A city that was uncomfortable with her long wild hair and her rounded hips and the way the bodice of her dress clung to her breasts.   She knew shame in that dress.  And a sadness that welled up inside her until it became heartbreak.  That heartbreak spread from her body and into the dress as surely as the bubbly drink had spread through her body only moments before.

The woman learned a hard lesson that night:  A dress couldn’t fix a city that treated her like a brown stain on a white shirt.  And cake couldn’t disguise the fact that there was no sweetness for her there. Only loneliness and a bone-deep cold.  The solution was to leave in search of warmer hands and beating hearts.

Eventually, the dress came off.  But the heartbreak stayed.  And every time the woman tried to wear her I Am Beautiful Dress, she inevitably took it off and rehung in her closet, until one day she stopped trying to wear it all together.  It moved to the back of her closet, limp and half-forgotten, like a mediocre date or half-baked wish.  It was no longer her I Am Beautiful Dress.  It was stained with the experience of that night, which is how it became The Sad Birthday Dress.

Years later, when the woman had figured how to be a breathing, living woman and not someone else’s curiosity, she pulled the dress from her closet and her heart broke all over again.  She knew there was no reclaiming the original power of the beautiful bouncy fabric.  Of cake and champagne and moonlight.  In the dress, she saw the pain of her past welling up inside of her.  Its presence was like a ghost reminding her of all the broken things she could never fix. Of the hopeless realization that the thing she wanted—thought she wanted—wasn’t for her and, in fact, had never existed at all. She had been chasing phantoms and, in the process, almost become one herself.

So she packed it up and gave it away in the hopes that it might become what it was meant to be—that I Am Beautiful Dress—for someone else who was ready to pay the price to reclaim that joy in the way she hadn’t been when she had first purchased it.  The weight of that terrible time lifted from her shoulders and the energy in her home felt lighter. 

Now the woman has a closet full of I Am Beautiful Dresses.  They are loud.  And they sparkle.  And they have hems ready to be tossed above the knee for dancing and more dancing and things that would make you blush for me to write.   And they all radiate joy.  All because she let go of the thing that was holding her back.  All because she chose to feel the pain of the past and let it go.  All because she chose to be a loud woman with a beating heart in a sun-kissed land and not a phantom shade. 

Banishing Ghosts

Lovely little story, isn’t it?  And it’s all true.  I once had an I Am Beautiful Dress that became The Sad Birthday Dress.  And when I gave it away, I was giving myself permission to be more than that sad story.  I could learn from my past and create space for joy in my present.  The truth is, we all have a proverbial Sad Birthday Dress or something that was once a profound piece of armor in our lives that became stained by experience.  Other times, we change—becoming someone that certain objects no longer feel attached to, can no longer nourish.  And in order to keep growing, transforming, evolving, we must let them go.  If we don’t, what once was beautiful or nourishing becomes toxic.  The spirit that won’t move on becomes the ghost that terrorizes the living.

Having recently completed a massive house cleansing—saying goodbye to old ghosts and old selves—I found myself thinking about one of my pieces from Everyday Enchantments, “Letting Go of Past Lives, “ about the things you hold on to even when you are ready to let go of the person you used to be.  It can be scary to let go of the past because, as stagnant as it can make us, it’s also familiar and comforting. That’s why we hold on to so much unnecessary stuff. It keeps us feeling safe—but it also keeps us stuck.  In the end, it’s better to let go and know that you are creating space for new, positive vibes to enter your life (but not necessarily more stuff!).

The first part of banishing ghosts or old selves?  Let go of the objects they are attached to.  Say goodbye to things that don’t bring you joy or that you haven’t used in over a year.   Be conscious of the energy you want in your home and life.  Then be ruthless about protecting it—get rid of anything that doesn’t contribute to your overall sense of well-being.  Ghosts hide behind sentiment and guilt to keep you trapped under their spell.  Low-level spirits are a lot like low-level people: They want you to feel as trapped and miserable as they are, so they’ll do anything to stay in your life.  Best to see them for what they are and move on.

The second part of ghostbusting?  Let go of the troubling energy you’ve been holding onto psychically.  That last one will take a little more time, but letting go of the object that keeps constellating that energy will go a long way to dispersing its psychic impact.  Give yourself permission to heal and move on from sad or seemingly unfinished histories. 

The rest will follow.

This post originally appeared on Enchantment Learning and Living, home of professor, writer, and bruja Maria DeBlassie, where true magic is in the everyday!


Weep, Woman, Weep
A Gothic Fairytale about Ancestral Hauntings 
Maria DeBlassie

Genre: Gothic Fairytale, Occult, Supernatural
Publisher: Kitchen Witch Press
Date of Publication: August 25, 2021
ISBN:978-0-578-97464-4
ASIN: B09CV9P9SH
Number of pages:150 pages
Word Count: 37,935
Cover Artist: Rachel Ross

Tagline: Nothing makes a woman brave except getting on with the business of daily life.


Book Description:


A compelling gothic fairytale by bruja and award-winning writer Maria DeBlassie.

The women of SueƱo, New Mexico don't know how to live a life without sorrows.

That's La Llorona's doing.  She roams the waterways looking for the next generation of girls to baptize, filling them with more tears than any woman should have to hold. And there's not much they can do about the Weeping Woman except to avoid walking along the riverbank at night and to try to keep their sadness in check.  That's what attracts her to them: the pain and heartache that gets passed down from one generation of women to the next.  

Mercy knows this, probably better than anyone.  She lost her best friend to La Llorona and almost found a watery grave herself.  But she survived. Only she didn't come back quite right and she knows La Llorona won't be satisfied until she drags the one soul that got away back to the bottom of the river.

In a battle for her life, Mercy fights to break the chains of generational trauma and reclaim her soul free from ancestral hauntings by turning to the only things that she knows can save her: plant medicine, pulp books, and the promise of a love so strong not even La Llorona can stop it from happening.  What unfolds is a stunning tale of one woman's journey into magic, healing, and rebirth.

CW: assault, domestic violence, racism, colorism


Excerpt:

One time, I was feeling mighty fine and thought I’d try something different. I saw this ad in a magazine where a woman was in an obscenely large bathtub and covered up to the neck in bubbles. This was in a room with a marble floor, and there were candles everywhere, and she had her hair up all nice and a face mask on. Well, I got to thinking a nice long soak after a hard day’s work would be nice.

This was a few months after my run-in with Sherry, and I was trying hard to let myself enjoy things more. It occurred to me after seeing her that her fatal flaw was not believing that her future was right in front of her. Or maybe she was too afraid to take it with both hands. I began to wonder if we didn’t hold back and do half the work for La Llorona with all that we ran from life.

So I bought some bubble bath and made more beeswax candles and set about having myself a spa night. I mean, my bathroom was nowhere near as nice as the one in the picture. My tub was only long enough for me to sit upright and was right next to the toilet, but I made do.

It was lovely. I mean, divine! I could see why fancy women liked this. I put on the radio, and the music was soft and sweet, like the candlelight against the fading day. I was so relaxed, that I was about to fall asleep in that tub.

That was when I felt cold hands grip the soles of my feet and pull me under.
I should have seen it coming. Why willingly linger in a body of water? But I didn’t, and that was how I found myself drowning in bubbles and thrashing around in my tub. It’s also how I learned that evil woman could find me anywhere—and I mean anywhere—so I could never let my guard down.

Her grip was strong. Seemed like the harder I fought, the stronger she got. I was flailing about, my arms searching for anything and everything to hold on to, when I knocked one of those beeswax candles into the tub. To this day, I have no idea why that scared her, but it did. She recoiled something quick at the hiss of the flame when the wax hit water.

I didn’t waste a second—I hoisted myself out of the tub and collapsed on the bathroom floor, choking and sputtering and sopping wet. Took me forever to clean up the mess and cough up all those flower-scented bubbles. My feet were cold and sore for days, with claw marks where her bony fingers hooked into my skin.

Whoever said bubble baths were relaxing was a big fat liar.

 

About the Author:

Maria DeBlassie, Ph.D. is a native New Mexican mestiza blogger, award-winning writer, and award-winning educator living in the Land of Enchantment. Her first book, Everyday Enchantments: Musings on Ordinary Magic and Daily Conjurings (Moon Books 2018), and her ongoing blog, Enchantment Learning and Living are about everyday magic, ordinary gothic, and the life of a kitchen witch. When she is not practicing her own brand of brujeria, she's reading, teaching, and writing about bodice rippers and things that go bump in the night. She is forever looking for magic in her life and somehow always finding more than she thought was there.


Find out more about Maria and conjuring everyday magic at https://mariadeblassie.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/enchantmentll

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/enchantmentll

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mdeblassie.writer

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7rY-gLkSH-w8uuVyrhVALA








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War of the Sea - Kickstarter Olympian Wars Book One Dana Claire

  War of the Sea - Kickstarter Olympian Wars Book One Dana Claire Genre: Fantasy Romance Publisher: Chamberlain Publishing House ISBN: 97989...