I don’t know, maybe someone could look a woman like this in the eye right off the bat. But it would be a braver person than me.
I wasn’t twenty feet in—just past where Rod could see me through the trees—and she appeared. Not a sound, mind you. Not a twig breaking to warn me. Stealth personified. She’s wild, too. I mean, like, really wild. Like she was born wild. Now she’s sniffing me like an animal. I’m too weirded out to put out my hands, to do anything but wait in my soaking wet pants, trying not to pee them.
I look at the ground while she looks at me. From the glimpse I did get of her face, she doesn’t look like Anna at all. Darker skinned, for one thing. And she’s much, much shorter. Her hair is a mess, matted down in places like there’s gum stuck in it, so that it look even more crazy than I wear mine. To top it off, she smells like goats cheese. Old, moldy, just-throw-it-out-won’t-you-PLEASE goats cheese.
So why is it I’m finding myself feeling exactly what Anna said I would be out here—like I’ve found my true home? I never knew what that felt like, or now that I think of it, even what the word meant until now. But what else could this feeling be? Like if someone said I had to leave, I’d fight. I’d scream ‘you can’t take me’ and be a total nutcase about it. Almost like that is just what happened: Some alien being dragged me from here long ago, took me to a mansion with people who are not my people and behave like everything that does not matter does, and everything that does matter doesn’t, and now finally the aliens have let me come back where I belong.
Okay, so maybe that’s a little dramatic. On the a slightly more realistic side (but only slightly), I really do think I know this Bea. I think she’s the one I see at night. Not because of looks, because I never really see her. Mostly it’s shadows. No, it’s because of how she feels. She hasn’t spoken yet, but I’ll bet my inheritance it’s her voice I’ve heard, too.
But why, if this is home and I know that I know this wild woman, am I shaking in my bare feet? Shouldn’t I feel good?
Maybe because she’s powerful. Seriously, like a blast of something you don’t EVER want to be in the crosswind of. Standing here is like standing in front of someone you never, ever want to disappoint, for a lot of reasons.
She prowls around me, sniffing. Using all the effort I can muster, I turn out my hands, to wave her a bit of Anna’s scent, and drum up the courage to look at her face.
At first she looks confused, then shocked. But then she smiles. Practically toothless, but suddenly not so ugly.
“So, you’ve come,” she says. And yes, yes, yes! It’s that voice. This woman is the one who has been calling to me. Here in the woods, her voice is clear. Not like the kaleidoscope effect it has late at night, or in an empty room or a long hallway. But it’s the same one, I’m sure.
“Yes,” I whisper, as if I know what I’m saying yes to.
“Good. Come on, then,” she says with a curt, satisfied nod, then turns to start walking further into the woods.
But I’m rooted where I stand. Like a deer frozen wide-eyed as she looks into a set of impossibly strong headlights, I’m caught in the rush of all that adrenalin surging. I also notice a bitter taste in my mouth. Like metal or something. For some reason, it reminds me of why I came.
“Mrs. Bayless?” I say, then clear my throat, because it came out a bit shaky.
She turns back in a flash. “How do you know that name?” she accuses, her smile gone.
“Uh, I know Anna,” I stumble, again putting out my hands for her to sniff, in case she didn’t get that part.
“How?” she asks, seemingly amazed.
“She lives at the nursing home my dad owns,” I say. Now I’m confused. Didn’t she recognize me because of Anna?
“And she spoke to you?” Bea seems amazed at the thought. She looks me over again, up and down and to both sides, as if she is looking for something entirely new.
“I… yes… she said…. My cat is sick. She said you would help. She put her scent in my hands so you would help me, and my cat is…”
Instantly, Bea is laughing. This really big, loud, belly laugh so her whole body—which has quite a few layers of roll to it—actually shakes. And then she goes into an all out hooting, bending over in her own delight. Finally, she looks up at me with tears in her eyes and shakes her head, like she just can’t believe it.
Okay, so she’s powerful. But she is also a bit nuts.
“Is that funny?” I ask, though it is totally stupid of me to do so. Obviously it’s hilarious, at least to her.
Bea clasps my hand, and a surge of something goes through us, like white hot lightning.
“Don’t be frightened, child. I’m just happy. I haven’t heard anything from Anna in so long—it’s been too dangerous. But she’s spoken to you, and gifted you, so maybe things are shifting. Oh, my, to hear that she is still speaking…you don’t know what that means to an old woman like me. Come, you have to tell me everything.”
“Okay, but, could I go back and get my cat? Her name is Scottie, and I love her so much, and she’s very sick, maybe close to…”
“Sure!” she says, like the whole town is welcome, though I really doubt that would be the case. “You go fetch her, and while I’m working on her healin’, you can tell me everything about my dear twin.”
I sigh the biggest sigh of relief I think I ever have, in my whole life. I practically want to cry, and Bea hasn’t done a thing yet. But I think she can, and I think she will. And she doesn’t know what THAT means to me.
“Go on,” she insists, waving me off, “I’ll clear things so you can walk right in. Don’t bring your friend, though, you understand.”
“No, I won’t.” I don’t know what it means to have her clear things, because I walked right in before, but it doesn’t matter. Only Scottie matters.
It’s not five minutes before I’ve waded back, gotten Scottie, gave a simple Code Lilly to Rod (like I’m going to be able to any of this?) and waded once more to Bea’s shore. Walking in, that wave of “home” rushes at me again. Whatever the bigger picture is here, it will have to wait until we get Scottie some help. But I do plan to find out.
I reach the point where Bea met me before, and for the first time, I notice a trail. I can only assume I’m to take it. Scottie, meows, which is really, really good. Not that she’s upset, but that she’s still alive and strong enough to do so. “It’s okay, baby, we’re going to get you well now. Bea can help us. I’m sure of it.”
“Over here,” I hear Bea bellow from a distance, a little to my left. I step off to the side, and sure enough, there’s a house here. Well, a shack. It’s rundown, rusty, and dirty, like someone has lived here for a few hundred years and never really thought to clean up some of the bigger pieces of junk. I guess that’s not surprising, given the woman who lives here is pretty much a mess. Still, it’s seriously leaning to one side, and there are whole floorboards missing on the porch. You’d think someone would say something. Or do something. I mean, if she’s really eighty-eight, shouldn’t someone help out a bit?
Then again…..Woa, wait a minute…. Woa… Yea, that would be help.
Of all the things I expected to have come out of that shack, the last was a guy that looks like he just stepped out of an boy-babe underwear ad. But there he is.
“Who’s that?” he asks, pointing rudely, like I’m the one whose out of place.
“Our new friend,” Bea says matter-of-factly. “What is your name, dear?”
Now Bea is as sweet and kindly as any old woman ever was. The power seems to have dropped away. She hands me a glass of what looks like lemonade, and takes Scottie from me. I accept it, but there’s no way I’m gonna drink. I can just imagine what the kitchen sink looks like.
“Mayden,” I say, using Anna’s name for me. For reasons I’m not sure of, I want to wait to divulge my full identity.
“Jake, this is Mayden. Mayden, this is Jake. He hasn’t seen a girl in many years, so forgive him if he’s a bit overwhelmed.”
I look at Jake, who is looking at me like he likes what he sees and isn’t afraid to show it. Which is so very not what I’m used to from guys that look like that. Could this be…
“Mayden has news of your Great Granny Anna,” Bea says.
Jakes eyes fly wide. He circles a small area on the porch like a dog, sits, then looks up at me like I’m going to tell him a great story.
I look to Bea, who has taken Scottie onto her arm, putting my weak kitties heart in the palm of her hand. She moves to sit on a old rocking chair, so I pull up a rusted out lounger and make sure none of the legs are near a wobbly porch board. My clothes are still soggy and more than a little uncomfortable, so I angle myself to the sun to dry out a bit.
“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” I ask.
“Yes,” the old woman replies, “but it’s best for her healin’ if you don’t know about it just yet. It would only upset you, and that never helps anything.”
“Okay,” I say. Like that is supposed to make me less upset. “Can you really help her, though?”
“Oh sure,” she says, like it’s nothing. “Now, tell me all about Anna. You said she told you she put her scent in your hands, but I’m afraid she’s taken you for a ride on that one.”
Suddenly I feel stupid. “You can’t really put your scent in someone’s hand, I guess?” Something in me drops, like I’m disappointed to find out there is no real Santa.
“Well, I suppose you could,” Bea says, “but that’s not what she did.”
“What did she do?” I ask.
“She marked you. She gave you her magic. That’s why I invited you through the veil, even before I knew where you got it from.”
“Anna’s magic, in me?”
“All of it, from what I can tell.”
A shudder runs through me like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It’s like some part of me knows what this means, even though I really don’t have a clue.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Means you’re now one of the three most powerful women in the history of the Bayless Clan,” Jake says, in awe.
I look to Bea, whose got Scottie’s ears perking up for the first time in ages. The rocking chair stops as the woman leans in to me and smiles a nearly toothless grin. “The other two being me, who will help you, and Anna’s daughter, Helene, who most assuredly will not.”
faris on 
Audrey Taska Hare on 
Anna on 
Well, Robin, you certainly hve gotten my attention!!! i don’t know if I would like to make comments of continuation i the story, for this IS YOUR STORY!!!! It’s amazingly engaging and i cannot wait for the rest of it!!!!! You are a wonderful writer!!!! keep up with the creative Muse!!!!
Oooooooooooooooooooooooo! Can’t wait to “meet” Helene!!
This chapter is so exciting! I really like the introduction to Bea especially the “just-throw-it-out-won’t-you-PLEASE” part. I really like how your word choice adds humor to the story. (ie “boy-babe underwear ad.”) Including more description of what Mayden sees/hears at night would prevent the reader from feeling clueless when Mayden mentions Bea and the shadows she sees at night. A flash back would be a great way to introduce the chapter. As far as grammar goes: “Jakes eyes fly wide,” should be “Jake’s eyes fly wide.”
Man, wish I had somebody from a boy-babe underwear ad sitting on the floor looking at me with rapture.
I’m loving the deep truth-knowing of the soul, ALONG WITH the unknowing of the mind that Mayden narrates. So true; meeting someone i’ve never met yet I KNWO them. Walking on a new path in a forest, hugging a tree that I’m sure I’ve met before… speaking to the ancientness of oursleves, and yet the non-awareness.
Keep it coming Robin- you’re rockin!
Hey Robin – note sure if I should comment here, or in the “editing” section – I just watched your ch 4 editing video. for the record, I was CERTAIN that BEA was going to meet Mayden as a great cat. maybe because of my dream. I could see/sense Bea-The-Black-Panther stalking Mayden, sniffing her, MAyden feeling her whiskers brush against her wet jeans… but alas. just a goat smelling old wild lady.
But my questions are actually about editing. process. how often do you go back, and re-do, vs move forward. I can imagine I could spend WAY MORE TIME editing than writing new material. What % of your time do you spend on each process? How do you decide to edit-as-you-go, as opposed to letting more of the story unfold (you say “now you know MAyden, so you can hear more of her, and sense more of her) before going back to edit.
Hi Tiffany! Good questions… This process is different, because I’m writing it real time on the blog. So it needs to be reasonably coherent to everyone.
This is a good chapter to talk about it, because this chapter five really went too fast, and Nadene found something about that in her comment too (not enough info on the hearing voices and seeing things at night). So this is the first chapter I know I’ll have to do some hefty changes to.
In most of my novels, the editing is a huge process, but I get better with each book I write, so it is less. The first novel I wrote had thirty edit run throughs per chapter, at least! This one, I think (and don’t hold me to this, because writing in real time is in evolution), I will write a few chapters, do a second draft, write a few more, and so on. But this one, as I said, needs to have some revision right away… I want to tone a few things down. I’ll post a video on editing this one this week, which will say more.
Bottom line on editing is…it is a dance. Write, edit, edit, write, write, edit… and you have to feel into what really needs to happen right now vs. have a formula. Don’t be afraid to just get words down, and spend plenty of time crafting later. I find crafting is more fun (first drafts are kind of like slow blood-letting for me) so to get the story down in ANY form is the real work, then the play begins!
This is reminding me a little bit of another series I’ve read, about endangered shapeshifters…but your writing is much more alive and immersive! There’s no sense of ‘formula’, only ‘life’ and the creative spark in the making. This chapter seems more fragmented than the other four, but I like it, although it jarred me at first. It echoes the subject itself and lets us see a little bit of magic. Who says magic has to make sense or conform to our ‘reality’? Reading it again, I wonder if Mayden is asleep or awake; the line is a bit blurred. Just like dreams.
Thanks, Maya… yes, I think it is more fragmented to! There is a lot trying to happen at once, and I’ll be doing more editing on this than the others so far. Glad it does not feel like a formula, because I sure don’t have one. Look for video edits coming soon!
LOVE that Julie is calling herself Mayden now! That magic sure is in her hands….
Think ‘explain’ is missing after the Code Lily part.
I’m with Cathy…can’t wait to meet Helene…and Tiffany, someone to look at me with rapture wouldn’t be bad either!!
Oh, I love Bea!!! She and Chief are probably my two favorite characters you’ve written so far!
I agree with some of the others that this chapter feels the least coherent to me which leads me to wonder if the parts that aren’t explained yet will just be explained in the next few chapters.
Some technical stuff – goats cheese should probably be either goat’s cheese or goat cheese. This section – “Some alien being dragged me from here long ago, took me to a mansion with people who are not my people and WHO behave like everything that does not matter does…” feels like it would flow better semantically if there were a ‘Who’ where I inserted it in caps. In the next paragraph, the second sentence has both an ‘a’ and a ‘the’ right next to each other (On the a slightly more realistic side …), and I think ‘the’ is the one you want.
Mayden suddenly talking about what she sees at night when she’s never mentioned that before now feels a bit awkward to me. Perhaps mentioning that somewhere in one of the four previous chapters would help it to flow smoother.
I’m intrigued by the boy! And I love that Anna took Mayden “for a ride” – those little twists just make me happy. Can’t wait to read the next chapter
ok–check out the new video on editing the choppy chapter five!
A few notes… thank you all for sending edits… I’m TERRIBLE at edits, and don’t even look at problems in that light till the end of the book writing process, so this is a great help to have now. When I write a book, I send it out to about 30 early readers who do this very work for me, because it is not my strong suit. Which is to say… first, don’t worry if it is not yours, and second, get help where you need it. No one can do everything…
Finally, for those wondering who “Chief” is from Jessica’s comment, he’s from my novel A Hundred Ways To Sunday.
Great comments. Yes…choppy. Somehow I cannot connect why she has the feeling of home here? even as there was a previous reference by Anna stating that she would have that feeling. Feels to me that there needs to be something to ground that feeling…to associate it otherwise feels flat. Yet I know first draft and all…the editing may blossom that as well as other bits…main idea down as bones…set up and all. And my mind too was trying to reference back to what voice in the night? Hehe! Look forward to view the editing video later…now onward to read next chapter. Cheers mate.
I dont think a litle diverted words wood harm the crafting and editing proces of writing, what ever that means.
also I think, this does not need editing.
p.s. This is good teaching proces’. I admire