The Saturday Issue, vol. 2

Missed the first volume? Find episode one here.
Mockin’bird stood absolutely still; watching the circle of animals around her, mind flicking desperately through the spells she might be able to use. 'I haven’t been trained for this – heck, I’ve never even been to Faerie before! What can I do, what can I do?!' Spells of protection she knew by heart only that morning were now disjointed shreds on the pressroom floor of her brain. The leader of the pack circled in closer than the others, testing the air with his nose. He opened his enormous mouth, ringed with yellowed teeth.
“Passport, please,” Mockin’bird blinked.
“What?” she asked faintly. The wolf eyed her severely. At least, Mockin’bird got the impression he was being severe, and not – at least not intentionally – terrifying.
“No passport, huh? Well, that’s unlucky for you.” Mockin’bird gulped as she saw the other wolves licking their chops. Their manner was downright suggestive.
“Wait,” she tried, going up on her toes in an effort to get the words out fast enough to keep the lead wolf’s attention. “I’m not here of myownfreewill!” The wolf looked at her again and his nose twitched. “My cousin was tricked into accepting a dampener short-circuit charm, and when I tried to stop him, I was sucked in, too; we came here together,” she looked around helplessly. Ending rather weakly, she said, “Except he doesn’t seem to be here now.”
Mockin’bird tried not to flinch as another wolf, smaller than the first one but, oh goodness, still large enough, came up and sniffed her hand. It turned and said, “I smell it on her, Captain; she’s telling the truth. Also, I have the scent of the other human fixed.”
The Captain nodded. “Then all of you begin searching; it will be dark soon. If you need me, I’ll be escorting this one to Dyre Hollow.” Without a word, the other wolves turned and left, leaving nothing but the sound of their paws beating on the snow, soon fading into the wind. “Come on,” said the Captain, wheeling and heading off at a purposeful trot. Mockin’bird hurled herself through the snow drifts to catch up and blurted out, “What was that? Wh-who are you?”
“Border Patrol.” The wolf glanced sideways at her and asked, “Is that the new Sigil mach IV you’re wearing?” Mockin’bird touched her dampener, which was disguised as a choker necklace. She was already out of breath from trudging through the snow, so she just nodded.
Taking a few quick, short breaths, she added, “Gully… wasn’t, though. His is still… on order.”
The wolf nodded. “That’s why you got separated. The short-circuit charm wasn’t nearly as effective on the mach IV – in fact, if you had accepted it instead of your cousin – Gully, was it? – the charm probably wouldn’t have gone off at all.”
“So he was sent further in than I was?” Nodding curtly, the Captain said, “That’s enough talk; we need to make faster tracks. Get behind me and walk in the path I make.” Not daring to disobey, Mockin’bird did as she was told. It seemed like forever before she finally decided to pause and invoke a dry sock charm she had stored ready to use in her dampener. After she again hurried to catch up, it seemed like another forever until they finally got to what the wolf had called Dyre Hollow. Snow was once again beginning to dump itself all over the landscape as they entered the clearing, and Mockin’bird had to squint to see. Lining a path that crossed the open space were snow covered garden beds, visible by their outlines, and some small livestock sheds off to one side. At the other end of the hollow was a house that sat on two long poles. It was surrounded by a white picket fence. The wolf waited for her by the gate. At first she hurried, thinking of the warm things waiting for her inside the house, but halfway Mockin’bird slowed to stop. There was something wrong about the fence – and come to think of it, the poles of… the house…
“That’s Baba Yaga’s house! You brought me to a witch who eats babies?!” Mockin’bird turned and tried to stumble off into the woods, but the wolf was too fast for her.
“Listen! She does not eat babies. She could be persuaded to eat a little girl, even an agent of AAPIF, if she got angry enough, but the wolves out there that aren’t bound by the oath of the Border Patrol; they won’t need to be angry enough, just hungry enough. They’re – always – hungry.”
Mockin’bird stood still, thinking. The wolf paused, too. The wind and snow swirled between them. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that as dusk was falling the lights in the window of the house began to seem even more welcome than they had before - if you could just forget the bone fence in between. “And you’re sure she doesn’t eat babies?”
The wolf laughed, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. “Come on, little one,” he said as he trotted toward the house. Reluctantly, Mockin’bird followed. TO BE CONTINUED…

Notes on Openings

A few notes on yesterday’s serial… I’m leaving it to stand as it is (call it posterity), but if I were to do it again, I think I’d cut out the opening 1st person segment. It seemed funny when I was writing it, but all those acronyms were hard to keep up with and looked a lot more off-putting in blog form than they did in Microsoft Word. There were also a few wording issues I would change in the later portion, but all in all, I’m pretty happy with it. I was thinking about where I chose to start the story, both narrative-wise and sequentially; because actually, that opening was the third one I wrote. Also I’ve been looking at how I’ve chosen to open some of my other WIPs, and I’ve been studying the various blogs that post reviews of people’s opening page. It’s interesting how many people want to start off with a calm, almost ruminative sequence, sometimes one where the MC is waiting for something to happen (as in the first opening I wrote featured Mockin’bird sitting on the front porch waiting for the arrival of Gully, whom she had never met) and then pick up the action from there. One of the other opening habits I have is to start off with an unknown person saying something, usually to the MC. Now, I’ve read a lot of the articles out there saying, “Show, not tell,” and admonishing the beginning writer to start off with strong action – one article complained about books that start off with a summary of the MC’s life, and to a certain extent I agree; but I have to say, I’ve read several stories that follow the basic template I’m interested in that have a charming “Part One,” so to speak; they paint beautiful pictures and really ground the readers and gives them a vested interest. These stories include “The Goose Girl” by Shannon Hale, “Spindle’s End” by Robin McKinley, and to a lesser extent “Dealing with Dragons” by Patricia C. Wrede. If you can pull it off, I don’t see any reason not to do it. So. There’s my two-cents worth.

The Saturday Issue, vol. 1

My name is Isabella Avery. Most people call me Mockin’bird. Don’t ask, trust me. I am an agent of AAPIF, the American Association for the Preservation of Immigrant Faeries. I’ve got a new partner these days: my cousin Gully. His real name’s Gilbert, but don’t hold that against him. He came to live with my family a while back; his parents are with the AAPIf (the Association for the Preservation of Immigrant fairies; believe me there’s a difference) just like my parents and I are with Immigrant Faeries, and Gully preferred faeries to fairies – who could blame him? There are a whole slew of organizations beginning with AAPI; the only thing that really means anything is the last letter – G for giants, O for ogres, D for dragons, FG and fG for faerie and fairy godmothers, respectively… you get the idea. Our family has belonged to one or other of them for generations. That’s ’cause we have the gift. The gift of duality of sight. We can see the immigrants from Faerie as well as Faerie itself. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re actually allowed into Faerie, not without a passport; it is an international border, of sorts. But then, accidents do happen, especially when the equation goes something like this: Faeries + fairies + humans + Faerie + continent of North America. The particular accident I had in mind was… … “Good Morning Young Lady of the House!” Mockin’bird cringed. She hated the Cheerful Demon doorstep-fairy. That was at the best of times. At 7:30 in the morning, she loathed the little creature. Hugging her coat tighter, she tried to lock the front door faster, but her fingers were cold. Then she dropped her key, and went after it muttering bitterly. “How Pleasant It Is To Have Someone Step Over The Threshold On This Glorious Morning!” the fairy trilled, hovering over Mockin’bird’s head as she scrabbled around in the snow. Once her fingers grasped the key, she straightened abruptly, half hoping to bat the demon out of the park with a head on collision. It didn’t happen. So Mockin’bird just hurried away down the street, hugging the hood of her coat around her ears to block out the noise of the professional doorstep keeper, who yelled messages of good cheer after her all the way until she rounded the corner at the end of the block. When she reached the financial district, she looked around to find a registered pigeon (actually a variety of hobgoblin in disguise). She soon found the one she was looking for and paid the toll required for passage, sprinkling a few bread crumbs onto the sidewalk. The bird eyed her morosely. It shook its feathers out and began eating. A moment later her cousin stood next to her, looking a little green. He didn’t handle pigeon passage very well. “Those birds get dirtier every time I fly,” he complained. “Never mind that; did you get the evidence or not?” she asked, tucking her hands under her arms for warmth. She never could keep track of mittens or gloves. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. But let’s get back to the house where it’s warm, OK?” They were about to walk back the way Mockin’bird had come when the pigeon squawked indignantly. When they turned back, they saw that the bird had once again shaken its feathers, and a small, cloth wrapped bundle had fallen out. “You forget something?” Mockin’bird asked. Gully shook his head. “Huh-uh, it isn’t mine,” they stared at the bird who stared back. Finally it seemed to sigh. Disgustedly, it looked over each shoulder to see if anyone was around. It was a Saturday morning after a fresh snow fall, so no one was. The pigeon’s beak slowly and painfully morphed out of shape and into something more like a human mouth. “‘All passengers must dismount carrying every item they came aboard with,’ that’s regulations, that is.” “Look,” Mockin’bird tried, “it’s not hi-” “No exceptions!” screeched the bird-shaped hobgoblin. It glared at them one last time, shook its wings and flew off. Gully looked after the bird with distaste while Mockin’bird watched the parcel as if it might bite. She pulled at the corners of her eyes in a special way to try and see through the wrapping. She was pretty good at that spell, but hadn’t practiced it in a while. Her concentration taken up she didn’t notice Gully reaching for the package until it was too late. “Gully! No!” She grabbed his arm, just as the rift began to open. One moment in a normal, if deserted, city street in the US, the next sucked into Faerie. If Mockin’bird had thought it was cold in America, it was nothing compared to where they were now, and the snow was a lot deeper; it was up to her knees at least. The wind was busy scouring the faces of some large rocks off to the left, but it gladly took time to bestow its attentions on Mockin’bird. Gully was not beside her. As she swung round to see where he’d gotten too, she saw something else that was, oh, so much less welcome: a pack of hungry, yellow-eyed wolves. Well, this was Faerie after all, what had she been expecting? “Oh, fudge,” she murmured. TO BE CONTINUED…