#where shadows fall

[trippingdownthecobblestone]

where shadows fall

I received word yesterday that my manuscript for Where Shadows Fall has been accepted by my publisher.  This means it should be ready for release in time for holiday sales.  Where Shadows Fall will serve as the ending of the Shades and Shadows trilogy, though not likely the end of stories in that world.

I have at least two short stories I want to write with these characters, possibly more, so I…

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[hazel-janes-books-galore]

1987 edition of Where Shadows Fall by Judith Kelman.

[little-pisces-dreaming]

Where Shadows Fall #2

note: Heads up. I love these two. Love their dysfunctionality. Love their toxicity. Where Shadows Fall leans farther into that aspect.

1

TW: abuse (referenced)

Starlight and clouds. She can see the girl dreaming of a dark night through his distorted into a body. Small. Pretty. The girl’s longing stings with a bittersweet ache. The halls she’s arranged the world into shimmer and shiver. A door rattles on its hinges, threatens to open against a barrage of remembered abuse but she slams it back into place so violently the wall fades for a split second. Just long enough for the tremor of sobs to melt through her own imagined body for the briefest of moments.

Then the walls are gone. The doors too.

The admonishment is silent but thunderous. Fingers curling, she twists the dark, grasping at summer picnics and crepuscular rays, sunsets over oceans and rainforest emeralds. All the things that he is not, yet is. That tug of resistance has her licking her lips. The taste of him. He’s no more real than these dreams; is no more corporeal than an unpleasant thought with an aftertaste that lingers only just as long.

She could take him. Twist him. Mould him into a body more to her liking. Give him a thousand limbs and send him off, the ever obedient soldier, to silence all the minds that buzz in the back of hers. She thinks she might. A feather touch skims his substance. Then the ooze of slurry runs over her skin, sinks deep. Exhaustion.

It is a slow decay. A rotting of the whole. And then his power is in hers, draining, hollowing out with ease even as she begins her resistance. Even as the scream builds in her chest.

Then nothing.

Her strength drains. The body she has imagined flickers out of existence but the thread remains. It tugs, strains and aches but holds firm. Instinctively, she tries to reach for it, to pull it back to herself but without a form, is useless. Helpless.

He stares at it. Entranced. Fades into physicality. So real she can feel it. Too big. Too real for a world of thoughts and nightmares. A young, gaunt face flickers into focus. His skin is shades of grey. Fingers coil around her, wind it around, bring it close to his too small lips almost as if to press a kiss to this thread, this most real and true her.

His plea is soft. Barely there. Barely mattering.

stay

[little-pisces-dreaming]

Where Shadows Fall

note: A mini! Well, not technically. Unlike standard minis I’m not working from a prompt list though it was crypticdatesuggestions that really got me thinking about Vahash and Noir. So many suggestions relate to shadows recently that I just couldn’t help myself! As per standard minis, however, they are going to be uploaded without foreplanning and largely without editing so take that how you will.

TW: death, body horror

Closing her eyes, she felt the world warp around her like a cool breeze before a distant howl rose and petered out. When she opened them again it was to darkness. Silence. Exhaling slowly, shallowly, the world expanded, space stretching out to infinity before a garble of voices started up in earnest. A barrage of filth and degeneracy swarmed her - as vermin to a carcass. She closed her eyes and brought the world to silence.

It had been eleven years since she had woken with a scream that had rattled through the halls of her foster home. Eleven years of medication and hospitals and being more trouble than she was worth. They had tried everything to control her, to calm her. But in the end it was only the monster under her bed that had done anything for her at all. Noir was his name. The first he had given. Others called him differently. Some were easier to tell apart - Hei, Dubh or Kuro. Some the differences she had only learned later - Noire and Sombra. Though never why. Why. Why had he come to her as he had? Why did she come to others as she had? Why present as a human or the tangle of leaking, mummified limbs that it had the first time she had peaked under her bed? She had seen him otherwise as well - a black wolf barely silhouetted against the night, a demon of billowing smoke, a miasmic hand rising from the shadow of her teacher. She had seen him when her classmate collapsed, clawed hand rising from her chest as he broke every one of her ribs to enter her world. Eleven years of pursuit had led her here, to the day of a classmate’s funeral in the pouring rain, to the darkest, quietest corner of her mind where she felt the tug of limitation. He had come. The darkness eased from her unresisting grip, retracting back to its centre. To her. Her eyes stayed closed. She didn’t summon up the image of him or turn. She didn’t call to him to come or go. She only stood and felt him approach, felt the distance shrink and the crackle over her skin begin to pull them together like magnets. He wanted. Even mouth closed, she could taste the hunger. But she had a hunger of her own now too. And she would be sated.

[trippingdownthecobblestone]

new book coming

We’re in the final stages of getting Where Shadows Fall out into the world.  Just yesterday I got the final version of the cover. 

I am very pleased with the way it incorporates bits from the first two covers.

Blurb:

As the world descends into ever darker chaos, Alaric Lambrecht seems set to follow it, seeking vengeance no matter the cost. His path will take him deep into 8th Battalion territory…

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