Excerpt: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished), Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 4

 

"Hey, Gordon. Who reported us?" I tipped back, pivoted to face him, and balanced on my back wheels for a few seconds.

"Mr. Poldruhy." He stepped over to the railing at the bottom of the ramp and leaned on it. The two-inch pipe groaned in protest.

"He's three blocks over. Man, those dogs have lungs."

"Joyce says she saw somebody creeping around the fence just before the dogs woke up. All this snow reflection, even with the lights out, it's hard to find a dark spot." He hooked his thumb over his shoulder at my neighbor across the street and one door down.

I would have to wheel over to Joyce's place tomorrow with a plate of cookies and thank her. Problem was, I hadn't even started my holiday baking. The combination of my folks being in the vicinity of the Bermuda Triangle and missing their last two check-in phone calls took a lot of the steam out of me.

Harry came outside and retrieved the big spotlight from under the passenger seat of the Jeep. Pop had insisted that I needed to have one, just in case I had car trouble in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. What was I going to do? Turn it into a klieg light and wave it at the sky until the Mounties showed up? Well, Pop would have been laughing now, as Harry helped Gordon look around the perimeter of the fence for footprints.

Problem was, between the melting and freezing of old snow and the blowing of new snow for the last three hours, it was hard to tell what footprints all over the yard were new and what were old, what belonged there and what didn't, and what had been covered up already. Gordon loved to play with his CSI toys, but he didn't even make a half-hearted offer to take footprint casts and try to match the soles with famous brands in the national registry. I knew that had to depress him, so I made sure he took two pieces of pizza when he left. From the boys' meat-lovers box, of course.

"So, who was poking around, do you think?" Pete said, when we finally settled down in the kitchen. He flipped the lid open on the top pizza box and didn't go through his routine of inhaling loudly and smacking his lips. The boy was distracted, for sure.

"If the security cameras Kurt installed in the fence posts were working…" I shook my head. Felicity felt bad enough about breaking Kurt's newest toys. I didn't want to rub it in, even though she wasn't even in the house.

"Whoever it is will come back, eventually." Harry opened his mouth and turned the pizza around so he could devour it crust first. The glitter in his big, dark eyes challenged me.

"Pete, say the blessing this time?"

He hadn't even gotten his pizza onto his plate, let alone lifted it to his mouth. He groaned, let his two slices drop, and licked sauce off his fingers before folding his hands together to pray.

I barely listened to him recite the standard lines he had been using since he was seven. My mind switched back and forth between the rotten turn my day had taken, and the mystery that greeted us when we got home. Sure, we had some weird characters in Neighborlee, but on the whole even the weirdos were friendly, and mostly harmless. Other than the Grandstones, and some of the wackos who ignored the subliminal “go away, we don’t like you” vibe the town gave off.

Save $$ on this month's featured book!

 

This month's featured book in the Visitor's Guide to Neighborlee is ON SALE all month on the YeOldeDragonBooks.com website.

Go over to the storefront and save $$ on the print, ebook or audiobook version.

And remember to check back on April 10 for the quiz, to earn points toward free Neighborlee books. All you have to do is listen to Chapter 1 of LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished) either on the Ye Olde Dragon's Library podcast page on the YeOldeDragonBooks.com website, or on your favorite podcasting app, then answer the questions, and presto! Points toward free books.

Excerpt: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished), Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 4

 

Felicity's dogs were going nuts, or rather, more nuts than usual, when we pulled into the driveway an hour later. (For those joining the confession late in the game, Felicity lived in my three-car garage, which had been turned into an apartment, and had a bunch of dogs. We're talking rescued strays. Big, drooly, smelly mutts. Felicity was a dog person, part of her semi-pseudo-superhero talent, along with uncontrollable EM bursts.) Between the usual letdown after a performance high and the knots of hunger in my stomach from the smell of that heavenly pizza, I wasn't in the sweetest mood. The big fence around my property kept the dogs relatively contained, but it didn't keep them quiet. When they were noisy, it meant someone had tried to break into my property.

Too bad security was often noisy. No lights were coming on in the houses around us, up and down the street. Translation: those dogs had been yammering and throwing themselves at the fence long enough for everyone to go back to whatever they had been doing before the alarm went off. Which meant, oh joy, the cops would show up any time now.

"Save a slice for Gordon," I warned Pete.

He slid out of the back seat and headed for the ramp to the kitchen door, holding the pizza boxes with all the care such treasure deserved. It was more important to get the food inside and keep it hot in this weather, than it was to get me and my wheelchair inside, after all.

The dog clamor meant Felicity hadn't come home yet. Big surprise. As soon as Harry swung my wheelchair out of the back of the Jeep and unfolded it, they shut up. For all their noise and smell, those dogs were smart. They knew I was the boss. It was my house, and they knew who was the alpha when Felicity wasn't there. Too bad my brothers hadn't learned that lesson yet.

I got to the top of the ramp and paused to use the towel hanging by the door to wipe the ice-melt grit off my wheels before going inside. The big black-and-white truck belonging to Neighborlee PD pulled up before I could go in. The dogs yapped once, then slunk around the side of the house to their kennels. They understood what police were for.

"Hey, Lanie." Gordon unfolded himself from the cab. There was a reason why the PD kept the truck they'd confiscated from some idiots who thought they'd set up a meth lab on the outskirts of Neighborlee. Gordon didn't fit into regular issue vehicles. In fact, he made this heavy-duty machine look a little delicate when he stood beside it. And over it. One of these days, I knew I had to ask him who made his uniforms. Had to be special order.

Firsty Freebie Day!

 

The April Freebie Firsty is JAX. A short story from the AFV Defender series, taking place after HERE THERE WERE DRAGONS.

 Only a Talent can establish communication with the Castitaran dragons, known as numenjax. But when the communication short-circuits Confri and knocks her out cold, she thinks her part in the project is over. Until the numenjax come up with a much more creative plan!

 Use these links to claim your free short story – only good through Wednesday, April 2:

 Ebook: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/wojxtz6lc0

Audiobook:  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/rr5gf10iuv

 

Excerpt: VIRTUALLY LONDON, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 3

 Doni slipped her little hand into mine as we sat around the white wrought iron café table in the main room of Divine's. We sipped pineapple sherbet floats while I talked about my dreams. Angela didn't react. Her expression didn't change, except maybe that funny little smile, indicating she knew more than anyone else about what was going on... Well, it didn't quite fade, but it wasn't as strong as usual. She didn't ask me any questions, just focused her big blue eyes on me and listened until I ran out of words. Angela had a way of listening that made me think she heard more than anyone said. It would have been a relief not to say some of the things I had experienced in my nightmares, just picture them in my mind and have them go directly to hers.

I finished my story. We sat sipping in comfortable silence, for a few more minutes. I felt a lot better, like some pressure had been removed. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that having told Angela, I had fulfilled a responsibility I didn't know I had.

That made sense, I realized. Angela and Divine's Emporium were there in Neighborlee to protect it, or us, or maybe... Well, to be honest, sometimes I was sure there were things in our town that had to be contained in our town. So maybe Divine's protected the world from Neighborlee, instead of just the special people, the oddness, being hidden from the world? By telling Angela about my dream, I was helping her to guard us, or guard something else?

"Guardians," Angela murmured. Her little superior smile edged toward a smirk when I flinched at her word, coming so soon on the heels of my thoughts.

Yeah, I could definitely believe Angela read minds.

"Bethany, would you and Doni go upstairs and get one of my moonlight journals from the chest in my bedroom?" Angela reached inside the neck of her dress and drew out a thin silver chain with a long, crystalline skeleton key hanging from it, and handed chain and key to Bethany.

As the two of them held hands and hurried out of the room, heading for the stairs, Angela's smile faded entirely.

"It's real, isn't it?" I whispered. "The things in my dreams." I swallowed hard. "And you don't want Doni to hear what you're going to tell me about fighting it."

"Right, and yet not entirely." Angela took hold of my hand. "My dear Athena... How I wish you weren't so perceptive, that you hadn't inherited your grandfather's gifts and the responsibilities that come with them. And yet I know, from long years of experience, we are born to duties and burdens. We destroy our souls if we refuse them." She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, all the while gazing into my eyes. "First, I sent them away because there are things I don't want Bethany to hear. I made a promise to her mother to protect her from the very things you must face because you are Ford Longfellow’s granddaughter. Until Doni starts dreaming too … why worry her?”

"Why don't you want Bethany to know?"

"Her bloodline has done enough already for Neighborlee. Her mother was another foundling, just like your grandfather, like Lanie Zephyr and her friends."

"Her mom?" I shivered, the cold coming from deep inside, as I remembered when Bethany's mother died. We were only nine. Sometimes being young helped to make the heavy sadness fade, but other times it just made the impact worse, and last longer.

Then I knew. I understood. Fragments of those sad, confusing days bobbed up to the surface of my memories.

"There was that weird storm. Mrs. Miller... She didn't die of a heart attack, did she?" I whispered.

Angela gripped my hand tighter and shook her head.

Six years ago, there were strange buzzing sensations in the ground for a day or two. Other people didn't seem to notice the electrical tingles in the soil, but Granddad let me curl up on the couch with him, where we both kept our feet off the ground. That day, Bethany and I were at soccer practice with Miss Lanie. Mrs. Miller had left the diner on an errand before lunch and didn't come back. A freak storm had struck, sending people diving for cover, driving rain horizontally. When it cleared up, she was found collapsed in an alley between two stores on the Mall, drenched, cold and dead.

Part of me wanted to yank my hand free of Angela's and run away. If I tried, she probably wouldn't hold onto me, keep me there. Not with her hand, anyway.

"Where are the dreams coming from? There's someone--no, something trying to come up, come out, break through a wall." I shook my head and pressed my free hand against my forehead. "I remember hearing things. You and Miss Lanie and Granddad talking. Mrs. Miller stopped something." For a second, it was like I couldn’t catch my breath. “Something that tried to happen before.” 

"Yes, our enemy tries periodically to shatter the barriers we hold up to protect the world. Stephanie was part of that defense. Neighborlee has many guardians, each of us picking up clues, warning signs, in different ways.”

Excerpt: VIRTUALLY LONDON, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 3

 

Like I said, I had nightmares. Those really nebulous, misty, disjointed nightmares where I knew I was being chased. I had to keep moving, because if I slowed down or looked behind myself, whatever it was would catch me. Plus, the nightmares weren't letting me go. As soon as I fell asleep again, I was right back to the point in the dream where I had managed to yank myself awake.

"What's bothering you?" Bethany asked, one morning after some wake-me-up-six-times-during-the-night nightmares.

That was the great thing about having Bethany for my closest friend. We could tell when things were wrong with each other, or when one of us had an incredible secret. I lost count of the times, growing up, when one of us would be thinking about the other, wanting to talk, and the other one would call, or come by the house. Angela encouraged our friendship and said we were good for each other. As we got older, I grew more sure that she somehow helped our link or whatever-it-was grow stronger.

So when Bethany asked me, before I even finished sitting down next to her in homeroom, I tapped my ear, then my wristwatch, our signal for "tell you later--when the mundanes aren't listening."

We went outside at lunch and walked around the high school instead of sitting in our favorite spot under the trees next to the agriculture class's experimental garden plot. It was the only way we could guarantee someone wouldn't eavesdrop. When I finished describing the nightmares, the solid sense of threat but no other details, Bethany didn’t even pause before telling me what was only common sense.

"You need to talk to Angela. Have you told your folks?"

"I would have, but you know how crazy it is in the mornings at our house."

Bethany just rolled her eyes and grinned. She had slept over enough times to know that no matter what time of the year, whether it was the weekend or weekday, Longfellows couldn't seem to get our acts together in the morning. We were always rushing around and snatching up things, hurtling out the door and coming back a few times. Usually we raced out the door half-dressed, running late for work or shopping or appointments or school or wherever we had to be that morning.

Honestly, I wanted to talk to Gram and Granddad about my dreams before anyone else. They would listen and understand. They weren't the kind of grownups who listened to psychology books that contradicted what their children knew was going on. I planned on going to them that night, probably after dinner, when all our day's craziness had calmed down.

Going to Angela, however... That might be a better first step.

So we went right after school, Doni and Bethany and me.

Newest release: ENCHANTING THE PRINCE, Enchanted Castle Archives Book 3

 

Go to Ye Olde Dragon Books to get your copy, in ebook or audiobook, and get a free short story in the Enchanted Castle Archives too!

https://yeoldedragonbooks.com/want-to-be-enchanted/

What's it about?

Zair was thirteen when he was kidnapped and trained to be a Shadow -- to stand in for Crown Prince Anwir in dangerous situations. Magicians broke the rules of magic when they wove illusion spells around him, so he would walk and talk and sound and look like Anwir, The two boys were meant to be friends, companions, perhaps the only true friend either one would ever have.

Magic in the kingdom of Dorwain was broken, the old ways purged, forgotten, or warped. The magicians made mistakes. Some fatal. However, when they used the dust of a shattered magic mirror as the base of their spells, that proved to be Zair's only hope for survival and escape.

Despite the destruction of her physical body, Viza the magic mirror was alive in her dust. Zair could hear her, proving the strength of his sleeping, inborn magic. She became his friend and teacher. Together, they sought a way to escape. The magic awakening in Zair proved he had royal blood, with a claim to the throne. That made him a threat to the current king. He needed to break the growing web of spells that imprisoned him, and reclaim his own face before time ran out.