Sandra Hults
Author
Steampunk Sleeping Beauty
Current Reading: Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd, 1917 – A World on Edge by Helen Rappaport
Current Listening: One More Light – Linkin Park
I have fiction fun for all of you. Tomorrow, there will be updates. Promise. Last month, I participated in something called attic journaling. Let me tell you, dear readers, it has been an experience. I have been trying to creatively find my footing in the next series. This process has helped me do that. What you see next will be a glimpse into the next Maeselorian universe. Enjoy! The prompt, in case you were wondering, is the title of this blog post.
Her front porch was wet when Rhys Larkin came to her door to tell her of her husband’s murder. At best, Kaylen thought, I’m surviving. Her eyes, sea shaded and typically full of laughter, could find nothing to laugh about these days. The woman, a tiny five foot five pixie on a good day, a witch on the worst was just trying to survive. Her short, cropped black hair was skewed and in disarray. Kaylen’s appearance was the last thing on her mind right now.
Her gaze shifted to the mantle with a sad smile. Brad always was a gearhead. On their first anniversary, Brad created the metal rose sculpture from gears and bits of metal. He may have been a boring stock broker by day but he loved his metal work on his off time. Her inheritance had helped fund his passion. Is this all that is left of our life together? A scattered apartment sprawled around her. History books and her notes littered tabletops. Across the coffee table, his art magazines were scattered.
In fact, he was on his way home from the little studio he kept uptown the night he was murdered. His projects, she thought on absent tones. I will have to decide what to do with them. Detective Larkin, a kind but suspicious man, had just departed. She agreed to come down to the morgue in the morning to identify the body. He said listing Brad’s personal effects were not enough in this case. She drew in a shuddering breath.
Anger boiled within her veins. She wanted to destroy something, anything to ease the suffering within. No, Kayebird, that is not how we deal with pain. Of all the times for her mother’s words to come back to her. Still, the advice was sound even now. It was raining again. Torrents battered her windows. “Fate damn it.” As she stepped away from the mantle, her mother’s words came again. You cannot sleep forever, little love. As much as we both would want you to. You are more than this moment.
When she asked after his cause of death, the detective was reluctant to answer her. Slumbering intuition stirred. Larkin was with-holding information from her. Did they even know what killed her husband? The idea puzzled her. The morning, and the more heartbreaking task, would come in time. For tonight, Kaylen curled up on the couch and tugged a heavy quilt around her. She could not stand to sleep in their bed or find the energy to weep over her loss. The ideas were too intimate for her to contemplate and would add a reality to the current state of affairs she was not ready to contemplate. Perhaps she would sleep tonight or, perhaps, she would greet the dawn. Fate only knew.
Sandra Hults 