Virginia Authors Book Sampler: Spring 2016 (Vol. 2)

Virginia Authors Book Sampler Volume 2  Spring 2016

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W

elcome to the second issue of Virginia Authors Book Sampler (VABS). This issue is packed with a bit of everything: detective, mystery, horror, romance, science fiction, poetry, children’s stories, survival tips, and even how to make herbal teas. Enjoy excerpts from these published books and choose which ones you'd like to read further.

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IN THIS ISSUE: NOLA’S GIFT by JoAnn Meaker ...................................................................................................4 Young Nola is sent on a mission to find beads of the jewelfern. Lady Marika, the village healer, needs them to create a potion that will help heal the children stricken by the strange illness that has swept their village. On her travels, Nola discovers the dangers of the forest and children with unusual abilities. Will she be able to find the jewelfern in time? It will change her life forever.

ON THE WINGS OF EAGLES (Beyond the Blue Horizon Book 2) by Dan Verner ...................8 The saga continues for Wisconsin farm boy Otto Kerchner as he, his sister Mata, and the community of Pioneer Lake make their way in the brave new world of post-World War II America. This sequel to On Wings of the Morning (Otto’s service as a B-17 pilot, a fiery crash, and aftermath) recreates a simpler world in which family and community played a vital role.

TWIST OF FATE by F. Sharon Swope and Genilee Parente .......................................................12 Private investigator Sam Osborne gets a call from young heiress Casey Lewis asking him to investigate several recent attempts on her life. Twenty-year-old Casey is wheelchair-bound, the use of her legs taken in the same wreck that killed her parents after her father changed his will to leave his business and fortune to her. On the eve of full inheritance, someone is trying to kill her.

CRIME SCENE: FAIRFAX COUNTY by Robert F. Dorr.........................................................16 Barbara Stafford and Weldon Trent saw horror during the war. Now they want calm, in a nice community of good people. But times are changing. It's 1947. It's the dawn of the New American Empire—a time of construction, rapid change and sudden wealth. Oakton, Virginia is small, but it's only miles from Capitol Hill—and the dead blond in the river is a member of Congress.

JOURNEYWOMAN by Mary Lou Gediman ...............................................................................20 Margaret Lerner, a.k.a. Maggie, lives a humdrum life—until she meets Native American spiritual guide, Chickahominy Grits. One day she receives a mysterious and foreboding email from the guide encouraging her to take a journey. Running parallel to her travels is the mystery of her father's possible involvement in the murder of two policemen in a church basement in 1964.

BLOOD TIES by J.D. Cunegan .....................................................................................................24 For as long as Jill Andersen could remember, her father was a hero. But heroes don’t commit murder, do they? The state of Maryland said Paul Andersen did just that, three times over, and was set to execute him for it. But Jill and her colleagues at the Baltimore Police Department come across the murder of a law student that leaves her hopeful that she can clear her father’s name.

EVEN IN DEATH by Kristy F. Gillespie......................................................................................28 A collection of ten short stories exploring the thin line between love and hate—extreme emotions even death cannot destroy. In the title story, on the anniversary of his fiancé’s death, Mark realizes that he can see and communicate with spirits, including Amy’s. Can Mark and Amy’s love survive even in death?

DIVINE (Montana Dreams Book 1) by Cait Jarrod .......................................................................32 Matt Carson and Trina Lovett befriend each other during turbulent times at a young age. Over the years their friendship strengthens, building a strong, unbreakable bond. At least that is what they believe. Life choices put an ocean between them, and the depth of their bond is tested. Under the stress of being apart, heart-wrenching events leave them plagued with doubt.

MARIA’S MIXES by Maria Yeager .............................................................................................36 Make gourmet herbal teas in the privacy of your own home and at very low cost. This book contains detailed descriptions of each herb used in each recipe, recommended suppliers of tea products, tea recipes, and important information on herb/drug interactions and the use of herbs in cases of disease or medical disorders.

UNCHARTED TERRITORY (A Mad Max Mystery) by Betsy Ashton .....................................40 After the death of her daughter in the first book of the series, Maxine “Mad Max” Davies’ new role in life, full-time grandparent raising two grandchildren, takes her into post-Katrina Mississippi, nature’s newest wasteland. She must protect her grandchildren as well as help others.

Along the way, she encounters racism, murder, modern-day slavery and child abuse.

26 BASIC LIFE SKILLS (Volume 1) by Liz Long ......................................................................44 26 Basic Life Skills teaches the basic skills other books assume you know including following a recipe, dressing for the weather, food safety, cleaning, basic first aid, and simple sewing. From situational awareness and trusting your instincts to preserving food and safe knife use, the skills 26 Basic Life Skills covers are useful in real life and emergencies.

THE YELLOW SCARF (A Spy Flash Novella) by Phyllis A. Duncan .......................................48 A year after the Serbian warlord Arkan held her captive, U.N. spy Mai Fisher is back in the disintegrating Yugoslavia. This time, she and her partner, Alexei Bukharin, are investigating sniper activity in Sarajevo. On a cold, autumn morning she finds herself at the spot where a young mother was shot dead the day before.

SOMETIMES THE LITTLE TOWN by Sara M. Robinson ......................................................52 Sara Robinson's father, Hobby Robinson, was one of the most important photographers of the Shenandoah Valley of central Virginia. He chronicled over three generations of Elkton townsfolk, compiling and self-publishing nine books. Sara's poetry is a tribute to his photography and to little towns everywhere.

GARAGE SALE DIAMONDS by Suzi Weinert ..........................................................................56 Jennifer Shannon discovers hundreds of diamonds hidden inside an innocent garage sale purchase in McLean, Virginia. Terrorists, furious at their treasure's accidental inclusion at the sale, must wrest the diamonds back in order to fund their explosive plot against America.

SPONSORS .............................................................................................................................. 60-62 BONUS: BOOK TITLE WORD SEARCH ................................................................................64

into Nola’s as the young girl stood in the doorway. “Remember, stay clear of the mudmashers. You must take the path around.”

Although Nola was only ten years old, she had been Lady Marika's apprentice for months and had been helping with the sickness in the village. She was the youngest apprentice. The others were several years older and couldn't be spared to do the searching, so Nola was sent to find the jewelfern. She didn't want to go. Lady Marika needs me, she thought. Why couldn't someone else go fetch the jewelfern? But Lady Marika knew best. She’d been the village healer for many years, guiding the young apprentices in learning the practice.

“You mind me, now. Stay clear of the forest.”

“Yes,'m,” she'd mumbled. Then the path split… the right one going the safe way around… the left going straight through the mudmasher's forest. Staring down both paths, she paused for only a quick breath before taking the one on the left. At first she thought she'd be able to make it through. Maybe the creature was asleep and wouldn't even know I’m here.

But then she'd heard the startled woof, and a roar followed by the sound of hoof-beats pounding.

Nola grew up with tales of this creature.

How it was once gentle and kind, but sometime in the past, it had turned into a monster everyone feared and avoided. She remembered trying to imagine what it looked like - she'd never seen one before today. It was a large creature with the body the size of a rhinoceros, skin like the hard shell of a turtle, and a mouth full of sharp teeth.

She sniffed the air and remembered one more thing. When it moved, the creature smelled awful. That was good because it could usually be avoided. Nola had heard the creature wasn't too smart either, and it could be tricked so you could avoid being

Nola’s Gift

By JoAnn Meaker Genre: Children’s book Pages: 138

Amazon.com and joannmeaker.com

Chapter 1

N

ola ran through the forest as fast as her young legs would go. She could feel the warm breath of the creature blowing on her neck. She'd tried dodging left and right, but nothing helped. The creature was still in hot pursuit. Tears ran down her cheeks. She couldn't help it. She was so afraid of being captured by the stinky mudmasher. She'd known it was a possibility when she'd ventured into the forest.

This was the mudmasher's territory - his home - one that he defended quite viciously.

But she couldn't take the long detour that had been suggested to her. Her destination was so near and time was limited. She needed to travel quickly to the other side of the forest where the herbs grew.

“You need to go fetch the jewelfern, Nola,” Lady Marika told her that morning.

“The young ones need the potion to fight the fever. Do you remember where to find it?”

“Yes, Lady Marika.” she'd said. “It's in the thicket at the edge of the meadow on the far side of the forest.”

Lady Marika nodded, her blue eyes staring 4

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

captured… or worse. She didn’t want to get close enough to try, though.

She ran on. When the path took a sharp bend, Nola stumbled over a branch and fell into a large muddy hole. She lay there, spitting out the dirty water, and listened as the creature came closer.

Maybe - she thought - just maybe... She quickly rolled around in the muddy water covering every inch of her body with the slimy stuff and then lay still - almost completely submerged. She didn't move, closed her eyes, and waited.

The mudmasher came into the clearing and halted. Nola heard it sniff the air huffling, searching. She held her breath, not daring to move a muscle until the creature moved farther along the path - right past where she was hiding. Luckily, it couldn’t see well.

Relief flooded through her. She didn't stir not yet - the creature might decide to turn back. After ten long minutes, Nola slowly moved her arms and legs and sat up. Slimy mud slid off her braided blonde hair and pale skin. She listened for the sounds of the creature moving through the forest, its huffling sounding farther away.

As she slowly eased out of the muddy pond of water she spotted two eyes staring at her. A small porkeypine sat, raised up on its hind legs.

“Quiet,” it whispered. “Wait.”

Nola’s eyes grew wide and she stared at the prickly animal. Its spines sparkled in the sunshine as droplets of water glistened. She couldn't believe her ears. “Did you say something?”

“Shhh... wait,” it repeated. The porkeypine turned its head and listened. It heard the mudmasher ahead, its keen ears picking out the stomping as the creature plodded ahead on the path. After a few minutes, the porkeypine turned to Nola and said, “Fine now. You go

that way.” It pointed to a small path Nola hadn't noticed before, past two spindly trees.

“I must find the jewelfern.” Nola pointed down the path the mudmasher had taken.

“That way.”

“No - not there,” the porkeypine disagreed, shaking his spiny head. He pointed to the small path again. “That way.”

Water splashed at Nola's feet and she spotted a stingleray, its long spine wiggling back and forth in the water. She felt the leathery skin cover her feet and vibrate rhythmically.

The porkeypine tipped his head, listening.

“Ah, Fred say I show you.”

Nola stared. “Fred?” She looked at her feet. “You talk with this critter? Wait… you can talk to me, too!” Nola was certain that she must be dreaming. She had no idea this forest held such magical creatures. She remembered the stories her mother told her, but thought they were just fairy tales.

“Yes, Fred is friend,” the porkeypine said.

“I am Nyck.”

“You live here?”

Nyck pointed to one of the two trees nearby. “That one.”

“And Fred?”

“He lives in water, silly.” The porkeypine settled down to scratch behind its ear.

Nola heard a rustle of the reeds. Could the mudmasher be returning? No. I'd smell it long before it appeared, she thought. Slowly another creature appeared. It was ten inches long, and had a wide face, with lidless eyes.

Two front legs were small, and it had three sets of gill stalks that looked like antenna. She pointed to the creature.

“What is that???”

Nyck turned his head and said, “Ah, it axolotl, my pet.”

“Ax.. o.. lotl..?”

“You call it mexidragon. It not dragon. It like salamander.”

5

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER Nola shook her head. This was turning into an unbelievable conversation. She knew time was running out and she couldn't linger.

Lady Marika was expecting her to be quick and return with the medicine.

Nola eased her feet from under Fred and stood. “I need to go now. To find the jewelfern.”

“We go. Fred say I should take you.” The porkeypine shuffled, shook off the remaining drops of water and waddled quickly down the path. Nola grabbed her backpack, shrugged it on, and ran after the porkeypine.

She was happy to be following… the path turned, barely visible. She had a hard time keeping up with Nyck, leaves hitting her in the face, thorns snagging her pants. Her leather moccasins squished when she stepped. The sound was so loud, Nola was sure the mudmasher would find them.

After a few minutes, they came to a wider path. Nyck stopped, rose on his hind legs, and pointed. “I cannot go more. You go there.

Beware. Mudmasher still near.”

Nola spotted a wider, well-traveled path leading farther into the forest. She turned to thank her new friend, but he was gone.

She shrugged and cautiously continued down the path. The sun was high in the sky when Nola came into the meadow where the herb grew. There it was. The pink and purple petals glistened in the sunshine. She carefully moved aside each petal and found beneath them the small green bead-like medicine ball.

Listening carefully, eyes watching for signs of the mudmasher, she gathered as many of the beads as she could, placing them into the medicine pouch hanging from her belt. She'd have to be cautious on the return trip - she couldn't afford to lose these precious beads.

Her brothers and the other young ones desperately needed the potion Lady Marika would make from them.

Nola slipped her arms into the straps of

her backpack, and adjusted it to rest comfortably. She turned to begin the long trip back to her village and froze. Across the meadow in her path sat three young mudmashers.

They were busy grazing and hadn’t spotted her yet. Nola didn’t know what to do.

If she moved, they might hear her. If she stayed there, they might see her. Time seemed to stand still as Nola’s mind raced through the possibilities.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a whisper in her ear. “Quiet. Don't move,” said the voice.

Nola nodded. She watched as a boy stepped slowly in front of her and took a deep breath. He slowly blew and Nola could see his breath blowing frosty cold toward the three young mudmashers. They lifted their heads and shivered, turned around and lumbered down the path.

The boy turned to Nola. His eyes were a brilliant blue and his long curly hair, frosty silver. He smiled. “It's okay now. They won't be back.”

“But…” “Mudmashers don’t like the freezing cold.” The boy saw that Nola didn’t understand. “Give me your hand.”

Nola slowly reached out and watched as the boy drew in a breath and gently exhaled.

Her hand turned blue. “Yikes, that’s cold.”

She quickly tucked her hand under her arm to warm it.

The boy smiled. “What's your name?”

“Nola.”

“I'm Jack. What are you doing wandering in this forest? Don't you know the danger here?”

Nola put her hands on her hips. “Of course, I know the danger. But I needed to find something. And I have. Thank you for your help and now I'll be going. I have to get back.”

6

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“Back where?”

“To Seaton, my village.” Nola frowned.

“Wait, where do you come from? I never heard of a village in the forest.”

Jack shook his head. “No village. I live here in the forest with my friends. We’re castouts.”

“Cast-outs?”

“Yep. When we turn thirteen and our powers grow, we must leave our homes and come here. We help protect our village. You can see I have freeze-breath and the mudmashers don’t like it.”

Jack pointed to a nearby tree. “My friends are there.”

Nola spotted a girl sitting on one of the lower branches of the tree. She stared at her.

The girl’s long brown braids wound around her head like a crown. On the ground below her lounged a beautiful goldendog, his ears perked up listening.

Jack nodded at the dog. “That’s Tim. He’s three and I’ve trained him to track the mudmashers.” Then Jack looked up. “And that’s Ember. She has a special power too.”

“What can she do?”

“She’s the opposite of me… she can make fire.”

“Oh, that’s easy. I can make a fire.”

“Yeah, but can you do it with your mind?”

Nola stared at Jack in amazement. She remembered the porkeypine, the stingleray, the axolotl and now these kids. This forest is too strange. She glanced back at the girl and the dog and then remembered the jewelferns in her pouch and Lady Marika waiting. “I must go now. My village needs me.”

“I’ll walk with you to be sure you’re safe.”

He gave a gentle whistle and the goldendog hurried to his side. Jack called to Ember, “I’ll be back soon.” He set off down the path, Tim following.

Nola saw Ember nod. She waved to the girl in the tree and then turned to follow Jack.

He led her down a different path – twisting and winding through the thick brush until they came to the edge of the forest. Jack stopped and Nola said, “Thank you.” She patted her pouch. “You kept me safe – and now I can deliver these to our healer.”

“Maybe you can come back sometime.

You helped your village. We help ours. We each have a talent and that’s a good thing.” He turned and ran back into the forest with the goldendog at his heels.

In the distance Nola saw the tops of the village houses and chimney-smoke wafting toward the evening sky. She smiled. Lady Marika and the sick children needed her. She ran through the field as fast as her young legs would go.

Chapter 2

N

ola slowed as she came to the stone bridge and saw her reflection in the slowmoving creek. The sky was clear with a cool breeze swirling around her. She looked down at her mud-covered clothes and ran her hand through her dirty hair. She wanted to stop and take a swim but knew that her mother and Lady Marika were waiting for her. She needed to hurry...

Order on Amazon or joannmeaker.com to continue reading this book.

JoAnn resides with her husband in Glen Allen, Virginia. She is currently the President of Hanover Writers. She has also written historical fiction novels and a book of short stories.

JoAnn Meaker 7

now. There had been his recovery in the burn unit, rehab in the hospital after a hard ocean crossing, the long slow train trip home, and reunion with his sister Mata and, later, with Betty. Dear Betty. He was glad all the flights for M & M were turnarounds and he didn’t have to spend the night away from her. She had pulled him out of the pit his injuries and disfigurement had put him in.

M&M flight 224 rolled out to the first taxiway on the runway. Otto applied the left brake and the aircraft obediently turned onto the taxiway. They proceeded at a walking pace to the terminal where Otto cut the engines. He could see a Northwest ground crewman hustle to chock his wheels as another rolled a portable set of stairs up to the door.

He and Jimmy got up and went to stand by the door to greet the deplaning passengers. Otto nodded to each person, saying, “Thank you for flying with us today.”

Most of the people half smiled and looked away quickly. One young mother holding the hand of a girl about eight years old met his gaze and said, “Thank you for a nice flight, Captain.” As they walked down the steps, Otto heard the child ask, “What is wrong with that man, Mommy?” He couldn’t hear the mother’s answer. He supposed he should be used to reactions like that from children after all this time, but they still made him feel bad.

The last passenger, a man about forty years old, came up the aisle. Otto recognized him from other flights. His name was Waters and he ran an insurance company with offices in Pioneer Lake and Minneapolis.

“Excellent landing, Captain,” he boomed, extending his hand.

Otto shook it and answered, “Thank you Mr. Waters. Always a pleasure to have you fly with us.”

“Well, you have a good service at a good price, Captain! That’s the name of the game in business and you have it figured out! It’s a

On the Wings of Eagles

By Dan Verner Genre: Historical Fiction Pages: 274

Amazon.com and danverner.com

Chapter 1 Flight 224 May, 1946 Otto was flying.

Sitting in the pilot’s seat of M&M Airlines Flight 224 from Pioneer Lake, Minnesota, to Minneapolis Airport, he turned the silver and white Beechcraft onto the final approach leg, pulling the throttles back as the ship lined up on the runway which seemed to slide toward them.

“Flaps twenty!” he called to Jimmy, his co-pilot, who pulled the flaps lever down. Otto cut the throttles a bit more to compensate for increased lift. Jimmy was a good flier and a good man, Otto thought. He guided the Beech down as if it were on rails, touching the runway smoothly, main gear first, and then letting the aircraft settle gently onto its tail wheel. Lots easier than a big heavy bomber, he thought, even if that bomber was empty of bombs and low on fuel.

Flying still brought back quick mental flashes of his crash landing a year and a half earlier. That seemed so long ago and far away 8

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

pleasure to fly with you! Believe me, I know something about flying. I was on a lot of aircraft during the war and they never made smooth landings. It was bounce bounce bounce all the way down the field. And hard—they landed so hard it’s a wonder they didn’t snap the landing gear off!”

“Well, sir, I’m sure they were doing the best job they could under the circumstances,” Otto replied, trying not to look at Jimmy, who was rolling his eyes.

Waters clapped Otto on the shoulder.

“Sometimes someone’s best is not good enough. I think you understand that, Captain!

See you next week!” He strode off into the terminal.

Jimmy watched him disappear through the double glass doors. “Guess he never tried to land an a/c under combat conditions,” he remarked.

“Maybe so,” Otto said mildly, “but he’s a good customer and entitled to his opinions.”

“He sure likes you, Otto. Or should I call you ‘Captain?’”

At least he takes me for who I am, Otto thought. He waved his hand. “‘Otto’ will do.

C’mon, let’s get something to eat. I’m starved.” Flight 224 left Pioneer Lake at noon and got into Milwaukee about 1:30 PM. Neither Otto nor Jimmy had had lunch.

They pushed through the same set of double doors that Waters had gone through a few seconds earlier. The terminal was bustling with travelers free from wartime restrictions and shortages. They were all going somewhere, and they were all in a hurry.

Otto and Jimmy pushed through the crowds to a small standup hamburger stand. A harried young man in a white uniform with a white hat on his head looked at them. “What’ll it be, fellas?” he asked as his eyes flickered across Otto’s face. It was as if people had been trained to do that. It was a natural reaction to someone who had scar tissue

instead of skin on his face, Otto thought. Still, it was tough to take. He let Jimmy order first.

“I’ll have a hamburger, well done, with everything on it, fries and a Coke to drink.”

The young fellow nodded and looked at Otto as if he expected him not to be able to speak.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger, loaded, with fries and a Coke, please,” Otto said. The young man looked at him about a beat too long and then wrote down his order. He turned to the fry cook at the grill behind him to give him the slip of paper, saying, “You got it, gents!” as he did so. He turned back and called to the next customer in line, “What’ll it be, Mac?” Otto and Jimmy stepped back from the counter and looked for a seat at one of the red-topped tables scattered in front of the hamburger stand. Almost every seat was taken. I’m glad people can afford to travel and have money to travel, Otto thought. There were a few uniforms among the crowd, but everyone had pretty well demobilized—“demobbed” in military parlance—in the nine months since the war had ended.

Jimmy strode over and claimed a couple of seats by putting a hand on each of them. Otto joined him and sat down. They studied the crowd in silence. “Lots of people goin’ places,” Jimmy offered.

“Yes,” Otto said. “Good for business, too.”

A young woman in a white uniform pushed through the crowd carrying their meals and drinks aloft on a tray. Otto marveled at her sense of balance as she did not spill the load although she was jostled several times on her way to them. She set the tray down in front of them. “There you go, guys,” she smiled. “Enjoy.” She winked at Otto and turned away.

Why do women have less trouble than men with my appearance? Otto thought. Then he shrugged and picked up his burger.

“Look at that,” Jimmy said, looking over 9

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER toward the counter. Otto turned and saw a young man about his age. He was looking for a seat, and carried his duffel bag hooked over one arm. Both arms ended halfway down the forearms. His efforts to find seating went unnoticed. Otto jumped up and made his way over to him.

“Hey, fella, you want to sit with us?”

The young man smiled. “I’d be grateful.”

He did not flinch at Otto’s appearance. With half his arms missing, he probably got plenty of stares as well. He followed Otto over to the table, and Jimmy pushed the remains of their lunch aside to give him room. He sat quickly in a chair. “My name is Jones. Jay Jones,” he said, extending his right stump. Jimmy took it without hesitation in his right hand. Otto did the same. “Are you fellas pilots? I don’t recognize the uniforms.”

Otto nodded. “We’re with M&M Airlines out of Pioneer Lake.”

“I’m not familiar with that one. I’m just passing through on my way to Chicago to visit family.” Just then his food arrived. He picked up a knife with his stumps and skillfully used it to cut a piece off his burger. Then he put down the knife and picked up a fork, speared a chunk and put it in his mouth. “These burgers are pretty good, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “We usually grab a quick meal before we fly back to Pioneer Lake.”

Jay nodded. “You’re probably wondering what happened to my arms. Most people do, the ones who don’t stare at me.”

Otto nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“I was aboard the Indianapolis when she was torpedoed and went down. I spent two days in the water. Sharks kept attacking us the whole time. Some guys were eaten. I kept fighting but they got my hands and wrists. The medicos had to amputate further up to save my life. So here I am.”

Jimmy responded, “I flew B-29’s off

Tinian. You guys delivered the A-bomb to Tibbets and his crew.”

Jay nodded. “Yep, we did. And then we went through hell.”

The three men sat silently for a second.

Then Otto said, “After all you’ve been through, I owe you an explanation about my appearance.”

Jones waved his hand. “You don’t owe me anything. It’s nice to find strangers who will talk to me.”

“Nonetheless,” Otto said, “I crashed landed a B-17 and it caught fire. This—” he gestured toward his face—“is the result.”

Jay nodded. “Looks like you’ve done well since then,” he offered.

“Yes,” Otto returned. “It was a struggle, as I’m sure you know.”

Jones looked lost in thought for a moment.

“I spent six months in a VA hospital. When I was released, my girlfriend broke up with me.

She couldn’t stand the thought of life with a cripple, she said.”

Otto flashed back to Alice. “About the same thing happened to me. But then a wonderful woman married me.”

“Good for you,” Jay told him. He finished his meal. “I’d better go catch my flight.

Thanks for your kindness.” He stood, and they shook all around again. He lifted his duffel and made his way through the crowd to his gate.

Otto and Jimmy watched him go. “There goes one brave guy,” Jimmy murmured.

“You bet,” Otto said. They stood and went back out onto the tarmac where the ground crew had finished servicing the aircraft. Otto did a quick walk-around of the airplane after he signed off on the crew chief’s report. All was in order, so he joined Jimmy in the cockpit where he had started the preflight checklist. He slid into the left seat.

“You know, these Beeches have been great to start with, but we’re carrying enough 10

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

passengers I wonder if we ought to upgrade to DC-3’s. There are plenty of surplus C-47’s out there.”

Jimmy shrugged. “You’re the boss. You buy ‘em; I’ll fly ‘em.”

They both laughed. “I’ll have Mata run the figures when we get back. She’ll know if we can swing it.”

The flight attendant stuck her head through cockpit door. “Are we ready to board, Captain?” Mata had hired several young women after they graduated from Pioneer Lake High School and trained them as flight attendants.

Otto flipped a switch. “OK, Polly,” he smiled. She moved out into the cabin and went down the stairs. Otto could feel the aircraft shaking as the passengers came aboard. He heard Polly close and latch the door.

“OK, let’s get this show on the road,” he told Jimmy.

“You got it, boss,” Jimmy answered.

“Number 1 TURNING!” “Number 1 TURNING!” Otto responded.

They rapidly ran through the startup sequence and taxied out to the active runway. “You do the takeoff,” he said to Jimmy.

After clearance from the tower, Jimmy turned the twin engine onto the runway, held on the numbers, and ran up the engines. Otto keyed the intercom that his ground crew had installed on all the Beeches. “Good afternoon, folks, this is Captain Kerchner speaking.

Welcome aboard Flight 225, direct service to Pioneer Lake. We’ll be taking off in just a few seconds. The weather is good all the way to our destination, and our flight time should be just under an hour and a half. So sit back, enjoy the view, and as always, we thank you for flying M&M.” Jimmy released the brakes. Flight 225 sped down the runway and lifted off into the bright sunshine.

Chapter 2 Back Home June, 1946 Otto guided flight 225 on the final approach to Pioneer Lake Airport. Mata had arranged for the runways to be paved and marked in May. She said that a professional airline deserved a professional airfield. Lights had been installed the previous year, so, although they did not have a control tower, they used a Unicom and were able to operate twenty-four hours a day.

M&M Airlines ran four flights a day from Pioneer Lake to Minneapolis, with return flights. Otto was bringing the noon flight back, landing at 3:30. He would take the aircraft back at 5:00 PM, and then return to Pioneer Lake about 7:30. By the end of the day and the fourth round trip, he and Jimmy were ready to call it a day.

The Beechcraft touched down smoothly and taxied to the small terminal building. A full load of passengers deplaned as Otto and Jimmy greeted them and welcomed them to Pioneer Lake. They went down the stairs to the tarmac behind Polly Peters, the flight attendant. All three of them headed for the ops shack next to the terminal.

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Northern Virginia resident and former high school English teacher Dan Verner has written over 3000 essays, articles, columns and poems as well as three novels.

Dan Verner

11

and quickened his pace. He wasn’t afraid of many things—he had discovered he could outrun most dangers in life, including foster fathers, strangers and most people in uniforms—but not the dogs. They had two extra legs that made them faster. The barking seemed far away, though, and the little boy relaxed, peaking into a window long enough to see a mom tossing a child into the air as both of them giggled. The image of a darkhaired woman from when he was very little came to his mind, accompanied by the memory of a sweet smell and a feeling of warmth. Though he often thought of her, the picture never lasted long.

The boy turned his head away from the window and walked straight ahead until he came to a park. His stomach grumbled as he began to search the trash cans. Three cans later, he had no food, and he was so tired he couldn’t go any further. Sighing deeply, he settled his weary body on the end of a bench.

He was almost asleep when a hand touched his shoulder.

The boy’s body tensed, prepared to run, but the hand held him in place. When the youngster looked up at who was holding him, he saw only an old man, wearing ripped clothes dirtier than his own. The man’s face was covered with scraggly gray hair, and only a set of pale blue eyes peeked through.

“You’re on my bench,” the man said. His voice was scratchy and deep.

The boy trembled inside. The man was tall and scowled fiercely. But the boy would not show fear, and he certainly would not give in to the urge to cry. Crying had never gotten the boy anything but a whipping, and besides, only babies cried.

“Have you run away from home, young man?” The man’s voice softened just a little.

The old man withdrew his hand from the boy’s shoulder and sat down a few feet away on the bench.

Twist of Fate

By F. Sharon Swope and Genilee Parente Genre: Detective Series Pages: 322

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PROLOGUE The small boy’s leg muscles ached. His head hurt, and he couldn’t catch his breath. He’d been running for a long time, stumbling occasionally in his blind effort to get away from the policeman.

Finally, his feet simply no longer worked, and he fell hard to the ground.

He lay there for a moment, but could hear no one in pursuit, so he sat up slowly. His pants leg was torn, his knee ached. It was scraped raw where he’d hit the ground, and the boy brushed away small pebbles that had implanted in his flesh when he fell.

The boy got up and looked around. He was lost. He had been running for most of an hour through streets he’d never seen before—first from some rough boys, and then from the policeman. He recognized the stale odor of rotting food and the urine reek that most city alleys held, a smell that got him up off the ground and walking again.

He peeked around a dumpster to make sure he was not being pursued before leaving the foulness behind and walking into the street. The sound of a dog barking startled him 12

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

The boy looked around for the best way to escape.

“Do you need help finding your way home, boy?”

The boy turned his head back toward the old man. “Got no home.”

“Well, boy-with-no-home, what’s your name, then?” Even though the beard covered much of the man’s face, the boy saw the crinkles around his pale eyes that indicated the old man was smiling.

“None of your business, mister.”

“Then I guess you ain’t hungry, youngster.” The boy spotted a sack on the man’s lap. The old man withdrew a long sandwich from the sack.

The boy’s mouth watered at the sight, but he crossed his arms in defiance.

“Why you gotta know my name, mister?”

“Well,” the man answered as he took a bite out of half and held the other half towards the boy. “If I am going to share this here sandwich, I’d like to know who I’m sharing it with.”

hair was neatly trimmed and combed. When he got close to the table, Casey saw blackrimmed glasses that rested gently on the bridge of his nose. They hid a pair of gentle hazel eyes.

He extended his hand to shake hers.

“Thank you for meeting me here in the restaurant, Ms. Lewis. A broken elevator is a bit of an inconvenience when you’re just starting a new business in town.”

Casey waved her hand in dismissal.

“If you’re new here in our neighborhood, Mr. Osborne, you need a slice of Mabel’s pie, anyway. And she makes the best cup of coffee, never mind the Starbucks across the street,” Casey said. “Besides, it’s cozier in the restaurant.” She maneuvered her wheelchair backwards and forwards until she was snug against the table.

“Please call me Sam. Yes, I’ve heard what Mabel’s pie can do to the waistline. Maybe it’s better the elevator is broken—I’ll have to take the stairs,” he joked.

His comment elicited a broad smile from the petite, blond girl, and she relaxed. Sam sat down across from her, and Casey turned to pour them both a cup of coffee from a carafe resting on the table.

“Frankly, Ms. Lewis, your telephone call surprised me. My new phone was just hooked up yesterday.”

Sam took a sip of his coffee, and then set the cup down carefully.

“Do you really think someone is trying to kill you?” he asked.

Casey was blowing on her coffee, and set the cup down without drinking. She glanced side to side in the restaurant, then sighed and sat back.

“I’m pretty certain of it.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “you could tell me why you believe someone is after you?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but believe me, it’s very real, and I’m not the only person who

ONE Casey didn’t know what she expected to see when the detective walked into the restaurant.

When she’d called earlier to make the appointment, she pictured Kojak with a lollypop in his mouth and a frown on his face.

Or the disheveled Colombo with wrinkled trench coat and messy hair. Sam Osborne fit neither of those images. In fact, he was not particularly striking in appearance—he wasn’t large or brawny, and he was crisply dressed.

Casey still noticed him as he moved across the room because he flowed with the ease of a person who knew exactly who and what he was.

Sam’s five-foot-six frame was adorned casually in a neat pair of gray slacks and a navy suit coat. His full head of light brown 13

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER believes this…Joseph?” She turned in her chair and beckoned to a tall, suit-adorned gray-haired gentleman who moved toward the table and sat down in the chair across from Sam. Casey poured him a cup of coffee.

“Detective Osborne—Sam, this is my friend Joseph Lindquist. He and his wife Sarah take care of me. Joseph, tell this gentleman what you believe about the attempts on my life.” She turned towards the man. He appeared to be in his early sixties and his brow was wrinkled with worry. Sam took a small notebook and pen out of his pocket, and set them down in front of him.

“Sarah and I have been with Casey since she was a small child,” Joseph explained.

“When her parents died a little over seven years ago, we moved into the house to care for her. We are very close to her and consider her our daughter. I can tell you, Mr. Osborne, she isn’t given to making up tall tales.”

Sam picked up the notebook then and flipped open the cover.

“Please call me Sam. I have no reason to disbelieve what you’re telling me, so fill me in on the facts.”

Joseph cleared his throat and began.

“The first attempt occurred over six months ago—last summer—though we had no idea at the time it was anything but an accident.”

Sam looked up at Joseph, then Casey for a moment, then he smiled and said, “Go on.”

His eyes returned to the notebook.

“When the weather is nice, Casey is in the habit of talking a stroll on the grounds. She insists on doing it herself without Sarah and me along.” Joseph gave Casey a stern glare, but she simply covered his hand with her own.

“We’ve built a path designed to accommodate her wheelchair,” Joseph continued, the sternness gone. “We’ve also built several walkouts—places where she can wheel out to look at a particularly nice spot.

We’ve got one that hangs over the pond and another in a place on the path where the trees break and you can see a panorama of the surroundings.”

“The panoramic walkout hangs over the edge of a very steep hill, which falls several hundred feet to the next level. We hired a specialist to construct that walkout, someone who assured us it was sturdy enough to hold the weight of at least ten people. On one of Casey’s walks though, it gave out on her.”

Joseph shuddered then, and Casey picked up the conversation.

“I was fortunate, really. The whole thing sort of collapsed below me, but somehow I managed to grab onto the remaining lumber and the roots of a tree. Most of it eventually fell away, but I was able to hold on.”

“When I found her more than an hour later, she was still clinging to one of the remaining supports,” Joseph said. “She’d actually managed to wrap the scarf from her neck around that support as well as some of the roots of the bushes that grow on the side of the hill.” He looked at Casey then, pride evident on his face, but when he turned back to Sam, his expression crumpled.

“If I hadn’t come across her—” Casey squeezed Joseph’s hand.

“You did find me, though, Joseph. And I really wasn’t hurt, just very scared.”

Sam looked up from his notebook and asked, “Did you wonder why the structure would collapse? Did the police check out the site?”

“At that point we had no reason to think that it was anything but an accident—maybe faulty construction or rotted wood,” Joseph said. “And we didn’t think to report it. We took Casey to the hospital, found out she was okay, and then brought her back home. I wouldn’t let her go on the path by herself for a while, and then I made her promise not to use the walkouts when she did. I had all the others 14

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

checked out. There wasn’t enough of the structure left to see what went wrong, though the foundation board is still in one piece. We haven’t replaced the walkout. Casey insisted we put the whole thing out of our minds, and we would have, except for an incident that happened about a month ago, followed two weeks later by an even more bizarre event.”

Joseph took a sip of his own coffee before continuing. Sam had been busily scratching notes.

“The second attempt was January thirteenth. Casey wanted to see a certain show at the theater downtown. She asked me to go with her. I dropped her off at the curb and went to park the car. She waited for me there, and I was almost back to her when I saw an SUV driving straight towards her. She couldn’t see it because she was facing me. I waved and shouted as I ran towards her, but she had no idea what I was doing. The car was coming from behind her, fast. I just managed to get to her in time to push her out of the way; that car missed us both by inches and both of us were pretty shaken up.”

“That’s understandable. You’re sure, though, that it was actually headed for her?

And did you see who was at the wheel?”

“You couldn’t really see into the car, or at least I didn’t have time to get a good look. The side and back windows were tinted, so once the car went past, I couldn’t see anything. But to tell you the truth, it happened so quickly, I wasn’t thinking about who was driving. If I had been less shaken up, I would have noted the license plate. I just reacted. Sat on the curb for a while catching my breath. I don’t even know for certain what kind of car it was, but I believe it was a gray or silver SUV of some kind.”

“Did you contact the police?” Sam asked.

“No, we didn’t. Maybe that was foolish on our part, but it happened so fast, and to answer your other question, no, we weren’t really

positive it was intentional. The driver never stopped to see if we were okay, though. The car just sped away down the street.”

Sam interjected, “There isn’t much the police could have done, anyway, unless you’d gotten a license number or maybe it took place where there was a security camera.”

“It might have helped to report it though, because two weeks later, something we are sure was an attempt on Casey’s life occurred, and the police were somewhat skeptical about those first two incidents when we reported the third,” Joseph said.

Sam looked up from his notes then, pen poised above the paper. “So what was this third attempt?”

Joseph knitted his fingers together, and put his joined fists on the table.

“This happened about two weeks later— January twenty-seventh, just last week. It was a lovely winter day, and we’d been trapped in the house for most of January. I took Casey to the park for fresh air. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. I couldn’t spot anyone, so I thought I was probably being paranoid. We were almost back to the car—” He paused for a moment. The fists came apart, and he used one hand to rub his brow…

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F. Sharon Swope (former newspaper columnist) and Genilee Parente (freelance writer) live in the Woodbridge area of Virginia. This is the first book in the Sam Osborne detective series.

F. Sharon Swope & Genilee Parente 15

reached the scene at the same time. Another hour passed before Maroney and Shanker, the two homicide guys, got there. They stood in the rain on a wet, mushy bank and looked out at the facedown body of a woman that had washed up against fallen tree branches that lined the rushing waterway.

Dripping Creek was in every respect a river. In most places it was fifteen to twenty feet wide. Its waters could reach eight feet of depth, especially during the rainy spring. It was a place where kids hunted frogs and toads and adults enjoyed the walk along its banks— in better weather. It passes downhill from the mansions of our town’s elite and near the row houses of those who work for a living. As a geographical feature, Dripping Creek is the only distinctive landmark of the township of Oakton, Virginia, and surrounding farmlands.

It’s not a place where anyone had ever seen a dead person before.

Maroney told me later he was not certain at first that it was a dead person. But he was very sure, immediately, that the police department did not have the resources to find out. He called in a hook-and-ladder from the Fairfax County Fire Department. And before the firefighters could arrive, perhaps because of the strong currents, or perhaps because of some ghostly intervention, the body rolled over.

Now the dead woman was on her back, sightlessly looking up into the rain, the rippling current causing her chin to move; her head appearing to nod in small movements.

No mannequin would do that.

Using firefighters and their equipment to retrieve the remains was “the biggest mess I’ve ever seen,” Maroney told me later. By now, a crowd had gathered and a couple of people were vomiting.

When a firefighter carried the body out of the creek and laid it on the embankment, Maroney looked down at a fully clothed,

Crime Scene: Fairfax County

By Robert F. Dorr Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 218

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Chapter 1 Dripping Creek, Oakton, Virginia, Tuesday, May 27, 1947, 7:30 a.m.: It started with a dead blond in the river.

I wasn’t there.

Maroney filled me in.

Minutes after dawn, when the sun was struggling to poke through a hard drizzle that had begun overnight, a local kid named Bobbie was out on his bicycle with his dog, delivering The Washington Post. Bobbie was pedaling through the rain, trailed by his faithful Labrador retriever, Doggimus, and parallel to the flooded creek that flowed along in an angry torrent. The location was a wooded area bordering the muddy, two-lane Vale Drive and a block of old row houses on the other side of the street. Bobbie looked out at the rushing brown water.

He saw something flesh-colored bobbing on a crest.

A chill suddenly swept over him.

He raced to the nearest house. He pounded on the door.

A pair of uniforms in separate patrol cars 16

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

was, we weren’t. We were violating, and a bit afraid of, the Mann Act, a federal law prohibiting unmarried couples from living together. It must have been only an accident that no one noticed when we applied for a mortgage together, or perhaps we just checked the wrong box. Needless to say, living in sin was seriously frowned upon by society, and we knew we could face all manner of consequences if found out. In my case, I had a fault, a personal streak that relished taking risk. It was unfair to Barbara, but it was real.

It was 9:00 a.m. when I walked in out of the rain and she was there making coffee—a chore she hated. I didn’t usually walk in dripping wet from Dripping Creek.

“So what was that all about?” said Barbara. We’d been in bed exploring interesting ways to wake each other up when Maroney rang.

“You’re not going to believe what I’ve just seen,” I said.

“We’ve got an insurance claim to investigate,” Barbara said while I was still wriggling out of my soaked trench coat. “Oh, and Fortunato wants to see you.”

Barbara and I were both vastly overqualified to be struggling to make a living doing investigations in that prosperous late spring of 1947. I’m a West Point graduate. I was at Pearl Harbor. Barbara has a doctorate in physics from that famous institute in Boston. We were both at the invasion of Sicily. We were in combat, something possible for women only under exceptional circumstances even in the Office of Strategic Services, OSS, where we served. And Barbara was exceptional. Barbara was the boss of a government project and I was her deputy. In the booming, post-war peace of a powerful and prosperous America, both of us had as our first priority to put the war as far behind us as possible.

Oakton seemed the place. It was pastoral.

drenched, blond body.

“Holy shit,” he said in sudden recognition.

Using a combination of means—patching a call from his car radio and eventually borrowing a neighbor’s phone—Maroney ignored the fact that it was Tuesday morning at the start of an abbreviated workweek. He made call after call. He started with the County Secretary in charge of Fairfax County, which was his jurisdiction and was the vast wooded region surrounding our town. He continued with the county’s police chief, our township’s mayor Ranard, the victim’s office and the victim’s husband. He requested backup to scour the area for evidence.

And then he called me.

I arrived in time to see them hauling the body away.

Chapter 2 P. I. Office, Oakton, Virginia, Tuesday, May 27, 1947, 9:00 a.m.: My office is in a nondescript professional building behind a strip mall on Vale Drive.

My secretary, if you want to call her that, is Barbara Stafford, who is the light of my life and lives with me in a small house we’re trying to buy near the town square. Exactly why we haven’t gotten married, I can’t quite say. She is very tall, skinny, awkward and redheaded. She is the smartest person I know.

She has taken a couple of hard hits from life and it shows, but inside is a spirit that refuses to recognize defeat as anything but a temporary setback. She means more to me than life itself.

It’s kind of funny, whenever I think about it, but when we moved to town people automatically assumed we were married. We didn’t wear wedding bands, but at the time enough married couples didn’t so our not having them wasn’t all that unusual. Truth 17

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER We enjoyed socializing with locals. We volunteered to conduct evening classes for slow students. Ranard’s decency and dignity influenced our every moment. The workers, the teachers and most of the business people were kind and upbeat.

Most of them.

people who pay us? Like the insurance company? And Fortunato’s restaurant?”

“Barbara, I remember that we’re trying to make a living here. I also remember the deal we made with each other. But this thing with our Congressperson, it’s enough to shake you to the core. And Maroney thinks I can help with it.”

“You, help? Help the Fairfax County Police Department? What could they possibly need from you, Weldon?”

“Barbara, how many times am I going to ask you to fucking please not call me fucking Weldon?”

I hated my first name. Most people called me Trent. In a moment of weakness—we were tangled together under the sheets at the time— she’d persuaded me to put a small sign on the hard-oak door to our office reading “WELDON TRENT, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.” I’d considered taking it down several times. There was no reason to think we would ever have any walk-in business.

We were here because of Ranard.

He was a quiet, formal, dignified man in his fifties who said he was going to make our community an oasis in the midst of woods and wilds. So they’d created the post of mayor and elected him to it. And when Rotary, the American Legion and the church wanted someone to lead a fundraiser drive or give a speech, they drafted Ranard.

Some people are just there. You may not know their struggles or successes or sorrows, but they’re just there for you He encouraged the best in fine, decent people who were laboring to make this a fine, decent place to live—but Oakton harbored its share, as well, of the vain, the selfish and the dysfunctional. By gathering some of the good people and using quiet persuasion, Ranard had gotten one of the selfish ones, Slade, to donate the construction work on our new, red-brick

Barbara had a reception nook outside the real office where my desk and phone were.

Normally, news of work to be performed would have caused me to erupt with joy. If it were work we’d be paid for, that is.

“Somebody killed Katherine Pilgrim,” I said.

“Somebody did what?”

“Somebody killed Katherine Pilgrim. They just pulled her body out of Dripping Creek. I got a brief glimpse of it. It wasn’t pleasant.”

She bit her lip.

“Who?” she said.

Barbara leaned on a filing cabinet next to the coffee, holding a folder. She was tall with a narrow, slender figure, her face was long and angular and she had a raw sensual beauty on this rainy morning. “‘Who?’ Our congressman, Barbara, our Congressperson, or whatever we call them now that women do it. Our representative from the 11th District, Virginia, to the 80th Congress. You voted for her, remember?”

“I didn’t mean, ‘Who was she?’ I meant, ‘Who did it?’”

“I don’t know.”

“They don’t know yet?”

“I can’t tell whether Maroney knows.”

“That’s really something.”

“Sure is.”

“It’ll make a very big news story but it doesn’t affect us,” said Barbara. What do you know?”

I told her.

“Oh, my,” she said. “But it doesn’t involve us. We work for clients, remember? For 18

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

elementary school, which replaced a clapboard structure left over from the turn of the century.

“I know we’ve got to do the insurance thing but I want to talk to a couple of people about Katherine. I talked to her not long ago at a chamber of commerce thing. Remember I told you?”

“And I talked to her recently about our community youth program. Remember I told you? She has...had...very strong ideas. Most people around here like the federal government’s proposal to fund a new highway around Washington, going around in a circle, sort of like a belt. She hated the idea. She said it would only increase traffic and cause turmoil.” “‘Housing boom or no housing boom, we live in the country.’ That was one of her campaign slogans.”

Barbara nodded a little too vigorously, trying maybe a little too hard to signal agreement. “She opposed growth,” Barbara said. “Which is why she won by the narrowest of margins.”

“She was really on the outs with Slade.”

“So why are we even here talking about her, Weld...er...Trent? If we’re going to do some work today, let’s think about the people who are paying us.”

“Somebody paid us? I thought you borrowed last month’s rent from that little, donothing prick Curphey at the bank.”

“He’s a kind man. Don’t call him that.”

“Okay, that was a little unfair.”

“Clients, Trent. We work for clients.”

The phone rang.

Barbara picked it up, said a few words, and held it out to me.

“Slade,” she said.

“Huh? He probably needs to talk to a lot of people right now, but I’m not—” “I don’t know, but it’s Slade and he—” “No,” I said. “Not now.”

She cupped a hand over the receiver, tilted her head and formed the little pout that was the thing I loved about her best. “He’s pretty insistent,” she said, in a tone that signaled she was only going through the motions.

“Tell Slade I’ll talk to him later. Which doesn’t necessarily mean I will.”

Katherine’s rival in the 1946 congressional race had been a guy at the other end of the district who perceived the contest as a referendum on President Truman, whose approval had sunk to 32 percent. Postwar labor strikes and fears of communist influence were factors. So the Republicans took control for the first time in 16 years.

Paradoxically because our Virginia enclave was so close to the nation’s capital, our voters were focused on local issues.

Wayne McVeer, Katherine’s Republican rival, was into construction and was seen as the endof-the-county equivalent to our local concrete guy, Slade, who enjoyed power of his own, but never made it on any ballot. Locals complained that if McVeer and Slade ever joined forces, our trees, woodlands and horse country would be paved over and replaced with McVeer’s steel and Slade’s concrete.

A campaign slogan of “no steel from…

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Robert lives in Oakton, Virginia. An author, Air Force veteran, and retired diplomat, he writes on military topics.

His books and articles span 60 years. This is his second novel.

Robert F. Dorr 19

Today, on the front cover of newspapers in Dorham, Connecticut, as well as countrywide, big, bold, letters were sprawled across the top of the page. The print read Merry Christmas – December 25, 1964 and headlines boasted of the grand opening of a new movie premiering in theaters everywhere, Goldfinger, starring Sean Connery. As soon as word got out about the motion picture coming to the big screen, almost every child in America wanted to go see it.

Another feature that appeared in the press today was a dismal report alerting die-hard Cheerio Meredith fans of her sudden death at the age of 74. Many dedicated TV viewers followed Cheerio’s life on the Andy Griffith Show ever since she made her debut in 1960.

During her two-year gig on the show, she only appeared in six episodes but, somehow, to the American people, she made a lasting impression.

Indeed, news was a plenty on this dreary New England Christmas day in the mid-1960s.

Also spread out on almost every newspaper nationwide, alarming reports of an attack made on George Harrison’s girlfriend, Patti Boyd, by a crazed female Beatles fan, took up much of the front page of the paper.

Tomorrow’s headlines would read differently, though. In Dorham, as well as nationwide, news of a new movie opening, the obituary of a seventy-four-year-old supporting actor, even attacks surrounding the legendary Beatles would be nothing. Yes, all of these current events would pale in comparison to the front page of tomorrow’s newspapers. The cover story in tomorrow’s newspapers would report two murdered police found locked in a storage room, in the basement of St. John’s Episcopal Church.

St. John’s Episcopal Church was perched smack dab on the top of Federal Hill overlooking Dorham. From the grand tower, the massive stonework now almost completely

Journeywoman

By Mary Lou Gediman Genre: Mystery/Thriller Pages: 254

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Chapter 1 December 25, 1964

N

orman Vincent Peale, the champion of positive thinking, was once quoted as saying, “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold everything is softer and more beautiful.”

Not so, in Dorham, Connecticut, a small town located just twenty miles southeast of Hartford, the state’s capital.

In Dorham, an evil cloud hung low, shadowing the good citizens of the town.

Murder was in the air this Christmas, murder that would inevitably change the lives of many who dwelled in this pocket-sized town. Not all lives would change, mind you. However, for some, the change would be enough to turn their whole world upside down and knock it sideways. Especially after the truth got out about who was lying face down on a table in a church basement, deader than a doornail. For friends and relatives of those poor slobs, and for the murderer too for that matter, life would never be the same again and that was for darned sure.

20

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covered in ivy, one could see the whole city, including the new Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner of Main and Trinity. Man, oh man, how that scenery had changed from its noble beginnings in the year of our Lord 1754. As one peered out over the balusters from the main tower, the rows and rows of two-family homes became visible, all perched there on Federal Hill. All looking near identical to one another, all knit closely together in true New England style, the two-family homes hung there on the side of the hill like pearls strung on a never-ending wire. Each row of homes wound round and round, increasing in diameter with each strand that drew nearer to the bottom of the mount. The large graduated rows of pearl homes were undisturbed, save for the single clasp of road running vertically straight up the middle of them, and the horizontal railroad tracks that lay at the very bottom of the hill. The railroad tracks stretched as far as the eye could see, separating the hill from the surrounding maze of suburbia.

The horizon, the land that reached beyond the tracks, provided a different view altogether. The influx of newcomers, which– in New England terms–meant living in a community for less than twenty years, changed that view from wide-open grassland to one of chopped up plots of land separated by high, solid wood fences. On these parcels of land stood bigger, newer single-family homes with large driveways to accommodate new Buicks or Chevys or an occasional El Camino. These flashy cars were very different from the type of cars parked in pearl house driveways. Those cars typically came in twotone, and not by choice. A rusted door that had fallen off often times necessitated a trip to the junkyard in search of a new one close to the existing make and model. Matching the color was always a plus but not actually required.

There was an occasional two-family house scattered here and there in the valley of greed, but most homes were all on one floor with sprawling yards, encompassing at least a halfacre of land. Each parcel of land sported a tall fence demarcating land borders, a necessity when separating each home from their respective neighbor. All lawns at the bottom of the hill and beyond were lusciously green, and well-manicured, unlike the pearl home lawns, which were mostly full of dandelions and crabgrass. The newcomers in their lavish homes didn’t know a lick about community though. Most of them hardly knew their neighbors’ first names. With such a large tract of land between each home, how could they?

The new homes with their immense yards were simply a byproduct of supply and demand, most likely the result of urban sprawl; probably the same reason why a new Dunkin’ Donuts sprung up right in the middle of town.

No two-family house dweller would ever be caught dead going into a Dunkin’ Donuts.

They made their own coffee every day, every single morning, just as the generations before them had done. When they wanted some company, they’d yell out of their windows to the adjacent house, or merely hold up an empty coffee cup. What with the houses being so close to each other, they could almost pass the cups back and forth through their open windows.

Once they got their neighbor’s attention, it did not take too much convincing to have them come over and sit down for a good cup of Joe and a lively conversation.

Coffee, percolated in a Corning Ware Cornflower stovetop coffee pot, was brewed strong. The old relic of a coffee pot most likely was the same one they got as a wedding gift umpteen years ago. The coffee, steeped on top of a gas burner stove, and served in slightly chipped or cracked cups, always had 21

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER stained saucers to match. The saucers served one purpose only, slurping up leftover coffee.

It was a known requirement, to place the fragile cups and saucers ever so gently on Formica-topped rectangular tables with grooved aluminum rims and chrome-plated legs. The tables were a mainstay in almost every one of those two-family homes, too.

Neighbors consumed their coffee slowly, no time limit, no rush, and always while sitting on vinyl-covered chairs that stuck to bare legs underneath tattered housedresses.

Conversation was friendly and light, though heavy on benign neighborhood gossip.

St. John’s Episcopal Church, by far, was the most impressive structural design still standing in Dorham. Nothing could compare to its beauty. On the outside, each round stone, placed there strategically by skilled and caring hands, lay in near perfect succession.

They were polished smooth over time from the harsh winters of Connecticut.

The unforgiving New England weather had successfully worn off their original auburn color until eventually each stone became a nondescript lackluster shade of tan. The grand and glorious stained glass windows, fashioned in the Middle Ages, told a tale to all those who observed them. The glass art spread the gospel and educated the faithful. Twelve small stained glass windowpanes depicted the life and ministry of Jesus. A large rose window portrayed the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and three windows above the altar confirmed the risen Christ, flanked on either side by St. Peter and St. Paul.

The inside of the church was more spectacular than the outside to those who had seen both. The nave and sanctuary touted the same stonework as the outside of the church.

The ceilings were made of solid mahogany beams placed at near perfect forty-five-degree angles. These beams pointed toward the heavens. In case any parishioner questioned

where they were supposed to go after this life was over, the heavy beams certainly aimed them in the right direction.

Red carpeting adorned the floors. Long crimson padded cushions provided added comfort to the broad pews, and the end of each pew, festooned with hand-carved crosses and freestanding antique candelabras, was truly a remarkable sight. Long, tapered white candles made of half paraffin and half beeswax emerged from each candelabra. The divine smell of alfalfa and clover from the lighted candles wafted through the air.

However, on this particular Christmas morning neither fifty nor a hundred and fifty fine scented candles would be enough to either camouflage or suck the stench of sin out of the air.

At this 10:00 a.m. service, like all other Christmas’s past, St. John’s Episcopal Church had added three classic white roses to each candelabra, each rose symbolizing purity, joy, and hope. The Reverend Dudley S. Session stood at the altar. Behind him hung a large ruby-red velvet curtain draped on a rod as fat around as Popeye’s forearm. The traditional Crucifixion Cross was suspended directly in back of Rev. Session so that it appeared, when the Reverend held his hands out to signify the beginning of the service, that there were two men hanging on that cross, Jesus being on the top and The Rev. Session on the bottom.

Rev. Session examined the contents of each pew, his neighbors, family and friends— his flock. He did not care so much about the number of people that attended church this Christmas morning as he did about who attended. He was actually only in search of three families this morning, three homemakers to be precise. More specifically, he hunted the crowd in pursuit of Doris and Agnes, and Emily, all with their children in tow. He spotted Doris and Agnes first.

The teased-haired, tobacco-smelling 22

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

women sat in the same pew every Sunday, that is unless they arrived late and other parishioners took their normal space. In which case, they had to break up. This was, just by looking at their faces, an obvious nuisance to them both. Doris liked gum chewing, clicking, and popping away at the big wad of Juicy Fruit she had balled up in her mouth. This drove Dudley nuts, especially when he was delivering his sermon. He wanted nothing more than to come down into the aisle, stand right in front her, stuff a Kleenex under her mouth, and tell her to spit.

Doris and Agnes did not look like your typical mothers and homemakers.

They looked more as if they should be standing on the street corner wearing a pair of stilettos and sporting skin-tight clothes, clothes that advertised every part of their bodies, the intimate parts, as well as the parts appropriate for the congregation to view at a church service. Reverend Session supposed these two wives dressed whatever way their husbands wanted them to. Perhaps it was a small price to pay for what they got in return: a nice house, fancy cars, and the ability to shop wherever they wanted.

He knew their husbands made a lot more cash than your standard street cop did, mostly because of all their extracurricular activities. He suspected these two gals were more intrigued with the money their husbands brought home than they were with their husbands. He could be wrong though. Maybe he had been wrong about these things before, although he doubted it.

Doris and Agnes were not two-family house dwellers like the Reverend, but they had been at one time. When the Reverend saw Doris and Agnes, they were sitting side-byside in the same pew. They were lucky to find a spot together today, especially since the church was so crowded, it being Christmas and all. Their children were sprawled across the rest of the bench. The kids appeared

bored.

They fidgeted, squirming around noisily on the pew seat. They wanted the service to end. They wanted to get home to return to their newly opened toys as quickly as possible. The moms kept looking around for their husbands, who usually met them at the church services after their night shift was over.

The women were worried today.

Moreover, the Reverend knew their worries were for good reason.

The moms knew something must have been wrong because their husbands should have been home earlier that morning, Christmas.

To be irresponsible, to put themselves before their families, was like them, but not on this day. No, never on Christmas. They would want to stay home to watch the kids open their gifts. They would not have gone out to breakfast today. They would not have lollygagged with their cop buddies shooting the bull somewhere. Rev. Session felt a deep pang of sorrow, knowing that these men would never show up and their wives, who now took on the title of widows, would have to raise their children alone.

The Rev. Session quickly dismissed his compassionate thoughts, but left in their place was an unmistakable feeling of guilt that swept over his whole body. Dudley quickly‌ Order on Amazon or marylougediman.com to continue reading this book.

Mary Lou lives in Providence Forge, Virginia, with her husband. She has written many short stories and poems.

Journeywoman is her first work of fiction.

Connections is a sequel to this book.

Mary Lou Gediman 23

Daniel Richards, had a case to work, if for no other reason than to have an excuse not to be here. Paul was uncomfortable in his tuxedo, but not as uncomfortable as he felt brownnosing and making small talk with the downtown big wigs.

Those people saw police work in raw numbers: this many cases open, that many cases solved. Murder rates going down, drug arrests going up. It was a black-and-white interpretation of a job that was often anything but, and Paul found himself biting his tongue far too many times throughout the evening.

Setting his empty champagne flute on a black tray, Paul shook his head and leaned in to whisper something to his wife. Janice had attended the gala with him, wearing an elegant floor-length strapless dress, her brown hair done up in a sleek bun. She was as gorgeous as ever, and if nothing else went right for Paul on this admittedly awkward night, he at least got to see his wife in that stunning dress.

“I’m gonna hit the head,” he whispered, palming Janice’s backside and kissing her left temple.

“Don’t be gone too long,” Janice called out to his retreating form. “Otherwise, I might drink your next glass for you.”

With a chuckle, Paul weaved his way through a lot of the other party-goers. At least Janice was enjoying herself. His odd shifts and late hours often left them without much of a social life, and it had been so long since they had a date that she jumped at the chance to go when the invite came in the mail. Paul was initially hesitant, but seeing Janice in that candy apple red dress made up his mind.

People who were probably dressing up for the first time in years, if not their entire lives, surrounded him. Paul eyed most of them as he went by, noting just how many of these people he didn’t know. Many of them were no doubt part of David Gregor’s inner circle and not in any way affiliated with the BPD.

Blood Ties

By J.D. Cunegan Genre: Mystery/Sci-Fi Pages: 348

Amazon.com and jdcuneganbooks. wordpress.com

Chapter 1 Fourteen years ago…

Black-tie functions were not Paul Andersen’s idea of a good time. He would just as soon spend an evening on his back porch with family and friends, knocking back beers and telling jokes. Seats at Camden Yards and a heaping plate of food from Boog’s Barbecue were his idea of a pleasant social outing. But this particular charity ball was for the Baltimore Police Department’s benefit -specifically to establish a fund to help families of fallen officers -- and Paul was told it would behoove him to attend.

It was a noble cause, one that native-born billionaire mogul David Gregor had cooked up three months prior. With his fortieth-story penthouse serving as the venue, Baltimore’s skyline the backdrop, some of the city’s best and brightest came for a night of champagne, elbow-rubbing, and meals that were certainly not going to hold Paul over for the rest of the night.

Part of Paul wished he and his partner, 24

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

Captain Franklin was in the corner, nursing what was at least his fifth glass of champagne while rubbing elbows with the mayor. Paul smirked; his boss was probably going to come in late the next day nursing one hell of a hangover.

“Excuse me?”

Paul cursed and stopped before putting on his best fake smile and turning on the balls of his feet. He saw another man approaching, wearing the same tuxedo as seemingly every other man, holding a glass of something that definitely wasn’t champagne in his left hand and holding out his right.

“Detective Andersen, is it?”

“Yes.” Paul shook the man’s hand with a frown. “I’m sorry, I don’t think…”

“David Gregor,” the other man introduced before slipping his free arm around Paul’s shoulders. “I’m glad you could make it tonight. Good to know the city’s most decorated detective can be so generous with his time.”

“Would you think less of me if I said I’m only here cause I was ordered to show?” That wasn’t the only reason -- even now, Paul couldn’t keep his eyes off of Janice -- but it was close enough to the truth.

Gregor laughed, a genuine, throaty outburst as he slapped Paul on the back. “I guarantee you that’s true for half the people here.”

Paul shared in the laugh, though his wasn’t as boisterous. “I still think it’s great what you’re doing. This is a fantastic cause.”

“Listen, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” Gregor replied, the polite smile on his face disappearing. “A business opportunity, so to speak.”

Paul frowned. He had heard the rumors over the years, hushed whispers that Gregor was paying some of the BPD under the table in exchange for having certain investigations steered away from his business and other

operations. The detective never had any reason to pay the rumors any mind because he worked Homicide and, near as Paul could tell, such indiscretions had never seeped into his work.

“What do you want me for?” Paul asked.

“I’m just a homicide cop.”

“That’s just it,” Gregor smiled. “I think you can be so much more. There are so many other ways for you to make a difference in this city.” Seeing the skepticism on Paul’s face, Gregor smirked and clasped his hand over the detective’s shoulder. “Tell me something, Detective. You catch bad guys, and that’s great, but… doesn’t it bother you that by the time you arrest them, the damage is already done?”

Paul shook his head. “Not sure I follow.”

“You bring down scum after they’ve already killed,” Gregor explained. “I mean, it’s great that they’re off the streets, but the victims are still dead. Their families are still grieving. What if I showed you a way to take down bad guys before they have a chance to inflict any harm on anyone else?”

“My job isn’t just about arresting bad guys,” Paul argued. “No, I can’t bring the victims back, but I can give their families closure. I can give a victim’s loved ones the peace of mind in knowing that justice has been served. You and everyone else will focus on the killers, Mr. Gregor. I focus on those left behind.”

“An admirable trait.” Gregor smiled and produced a business card from the inside of his tuxedo jacket. “The offer stands, Detective. Feel free to call me if you have a change of heart.”

As Gregor walked off, Janice was at her husband’s side again, her hand on the small of his back as she cocked her head to the side.

“What was that all about?”

With a shrug, Paul slipped the business card into his pocket and shook his head. “Not 25

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER really sure,” he admitted, leaning in to kiss his wife. “You wanna get outta here? Think I’ve had my fill of champagne for the night.”

Janice smiled and nodded, her arm slipping into Paul’s as they made their way to the door leading into Gregor’s penthouse.

“Maybe you can help Jill with her homework before going to bed.”

Paul blanched at that and shook his head; to be honest, he was far more occupied with the thought of helping Janice out of her dress.

“Nuh-uh. Have you seen what they teach in math nowadays?”

The fact that they both worked within reasonable proximity to downtown Baltimore made the location even more convenient.

The waiter stopped by to hand Jill a glass of ice water as her phone buzzed. Cursing under her breath, just knowing it would be a new case, Jill swiped her thumb over the touchscreen. She sighed in relief upon realizing it wasn’t work; instead, Brian had texted her saying he was stuck on Pratt Street and would be there as soon as he could.

Jill used that time to queue up the camera built into her smartphone, taking in her digital reflection to check not just her hairline, but to make sure the skin graft she applied to the left side of her face was properly attached. The last thing Jill wanted was for her brother to see her metal eyeplate and the infrared eye that came with it.

Prior to joining the Baltimore Police Department, Jill served in the Army and fought in Iraq. She also took part in a secretive government experiment called Project Fusion, which -- among other things -- fused her entire skeleton with titanium. Her speed, strength, stamina, healing, and overall constitution had also been enhanced, but perhaps the most noticeable part of her transformation was the titanium plate on the left side of her face that ran from her hairline to the bottom of her cheek, as well as the infrared eye and the supercomputer embedded in her brain.

Those upgrades meant eventually cheating at crime scenes -- it was no coincidence that Jill sometimes had one of the city’s highest Homicide closure rates -- but more than anything, they enabled her double life, her alter ego. The one thing she didn’t want her brother, or anyone else, finding out: Jill wasn’t just a cop. She was also the costumed vigilante known as Bounty. A dark avenger in black leather, leaping from rooftop to rooftop while eliminating the scourge of Baltimore that the cops couldn’t -- or wouldn’t -- touch.

Chapter 2 Jill Andersen was nervous, to the point where she was reconsidering her dinner with Brian.

Not because she didn’t want to spend time with him; despite the chill between them in recent years, they were still family. If the next week was to unfold as Jill feared it would, her younger brother would soon be the only family she had left. Despite her nerves, Jill was glad to get a little dressed up for the occasion. There were only so many t-shirts and jeans she could wear to maintain comfort at crime scenes before the whole wardrobe became redundant.

Still, her salary being what it was -- the pitfalls of being a public employee during a fragile economic recovery -- Jill couldn’t get too fancy, so she figured her cleanest solid red button-down and a new pair of jeans would suffice. Her mother’s garnet earrings hung from her earlobes, and Jill couldn’t help but glance at the watch her father bought her after she earned straight A’s as a freshman in high school.

They had decided upon the seafood mecca Phillips -- largely because of its location on the Inner Harbor, but also because it was one of Jill’s favorite spots and it was a place both she and Brian could afford on their salaries.

26

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There might come a time and place where Brian learned that particular truth about her… but this dinner would not be it. Not if she had anything to say about it.

About fifteen minutes later, she heard his wheelchair against the hardwood. Brian was still in his suit, but his tie was gone. Jill couldn’t help but notice he had actually shaved that morning – it was as unusual as the smile he gave when he saw her.

Jill wanted to hug Brian as he approached the table, but she wasn’t sure how wise that idea was, so as awkward as it felt, she simply waved and matched his smile.

“Hey.” “Hey yourself.” Brian flagged down the waiter to ask for a Coke. “I’m actually sort of surprised you came.”

Jill frowned. Were they were really about to start things off like this?

“Relax.” Brian chuckled and shook his head. “I meant it’s a wonder you didn’t get tied up at a crime scene or something.”

She exhaled in relief and giggled before taking a sip of water, giving her nerves a few moments to untangle themselves. He was trying to be funny, using his underrated sense of humor to break the ice. It wasn’t much, but considering so many conversations between them had amounted to little more than shouting matches, the change of pace was welcome. Jill tucked a wisp of hair behind her left ear, an excuse to make sure her skin graft was securely in place.

“Could say the same for you. I know the Watkins case is a pretty big deal.”

“So much so that it’s led the eleven o’clock news for each of the last three nights.”

He chuckled without much humor, the conversation pausing just long enough for the waiter to drop off his drink. “I almost ran over Ted Starnes’ feet yesterday leaving the courthouse. I’d say I feel bad about it, but that would be a lie.”

Jill laughed with a touch more confidence; one thing she and her brother shared was their disdain for Starnes, a rabid and ghastly defense attorney. Also, the fact that Brian was being glib and saying more than three words at a time was a positive sign. They had a long way to go to heal the rift that had grown between them since his accident and her enlisting in the Army, but Jill was willing to take the victories wherever she could get them.

“Could he get workman’s comp for that?”

Brian cringed. “Let’s not find out.”

They gave the waiter their orders when he approached -- she went with her trusty crab cake dinner, while Brian opted for the lobster tail with cheddar mashed potatoes -- before his expression turned serious. Brian leaned forward with his elbows against the table, lowering his voice. “How’s Dad?” Jill shook her head. “More and more withdrawn every time I see him.”

“He’s preparing himself for the inevitable, I’d imagine.” Seeing the look in Jill’s eyes, and knowing she was likely about to once again proclaim his innocence, Brian reached across the table to cradle her hand into his own. “Look, I know… how can someone who’s so clearly innocent just accept being…

Order on jdcuneganbooks.wordpress.com or Amazon to continue reading this book.

J.D. lives in Hampton, Virginia, and has an extensive background in journalism and a lifelong love for writing and reading.

He’s also an avid auto-racing fan. This is his second novel.

J.D. Cunegan 27

you’re already here.” Amy’s spirit rises casually from the earth. She leans her back against the headstone and hugs her knees against her chest. “Nice touch.” She motions to the cigarette arrangement before plucking one. “Got a light?’

“Of course.” I lean in closer to light her cigarette as I’ve done countless times before.

She closes her jet-black eyes, purses her lips, and inhales. Even in death, Amy is beautiful.

Even in death, she’s not a morning person.

Her eyes open lazily like a stoned teenager. “Why so early?”

“Business has really taken off. From now on I’m afraid my visits will either be before sunrise or after sunset.”

She juts out her chin and pouts as if she were seven-years-old instead of twenty-seven.

Forever twenty-seven.

“Amy.” I sigh. “You understand, don’t you?”

She flicks the cigarette butt, hitting an oak tree. “When I died, things stopped making sense, Mark.”

Even in Death

By Kristy F. Gillespie Genre: Short Stories Pages: 140

Amazon.com and kristyfgillespie.com

“Even In Death” Present My knees sink into the red Virginia clay beside Amy’s grave. Usually I prop a pack of Kools against her headstone, but this morning, I feel slightly creative. I slice open the pack and pull out ten cigarettes. I arrange the white sticks so they spell out her name. Then I gaze at the AMY cigarette art and, as usual, wait for her.

“Hi, Mark,” says my favorite undertaker.

He’s leaning out the window of his rusty pickup truck.

“Morning, Billy.”

“Cold enough for you?” Billy is a man of few words but he enjoys bullshitting about the weather.

“It could always be colder, I suppose.”

“Ain’t that the truth? See you later.” The truck kicks up dust and gravel.

As far as I can tell, there are no other live guests at the Columbia Gardens Cemetery because if there were, I’d be hounded.

“Really, Mark? The sun hasn’t woken and

*** Past Amy died two years ago on a Tuesday evening in November. Earlier that day, she was waiting for me directly in front of the Ballston metro. As usual, she seemed oblivious to the people swarming like wasps around her. She was wearing a grey pea coat which matched the sky’s mood. She was puffing on a cigarette and tapping her black boot in time to the loud music blaring from her iPod. It was either the alternative rock band Evanescence or the metal band Lacuna Coil; I could never differentiate the two. I snuck up behind her, wrapped my arms around her tiny waist, and lifted her off the ground. She shrieked and kicked her legs until 28

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

night. I was an accountant who couldn’t draw stick figures straight. And yet Amy loved me anyway.

When we left the restaurant, we were hit with a blast of cold air. Amy’s teeth chattered.

“Can you believe it’s winter already? Where does the time go?”

“Screw it.” I pulled the ring box from my pocket.

“Screw wh—” Amy stopped mid-sentence as I knelt in front of her.

“Amy Elizabeth Parker, you are the most exquisite woman I have ever met in my life.

And you are the woman I want to spend the rest of my life and afterlife with. Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” She squealed and jumped up and down before she offered her left hand. I slipped the ruby ring onto her finger. “Mark, it’s gorgeous.” She knelt down beside me and kissed me hard on the lips.

I didn’t know that would be the last time we’d ever kiss.

We hugged each other so tightly we had trouble breathing, and when we let go, we laughed. I stood, helped her up, and clasped her left hand, enjoying the way the ring pressed against my palm. The walk light flashed and we stepped into the crosswalk.

The bright lights from the black Escalade shined over us, like a harsh wave pounding against the shore. It was the strangest thing— to be kissing on the street corner one minute, and laying on stretchers the next. It felt like a poorly written action flick except that the main actress didn’t survive; the white sheet remained.

Even though my counselor says that it’s an irrational belief, I blame myself. No, I wasn’t the drunk elderly driver; and no, I’m not a fortune teller; but even so, I was the one who proposed on a street corner, for Christ’s sake!

If I had only been more creative, perhaps Amy would still be alive. Perhaps she’d be my wife.

I released her. She spun around and clenched her fists before she realized it was me.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Beaming, she flung her arms around my neck and pulled me close. Her jet-black hair smelled, of course, like cigarettes but also of lavender, my favorite flower. When Amy stepped back, I noticed a few purple streaks outlining her face.

“When did you do that?” I asked.

“You like? During my lunch break. Leigh helped.”

“I do like.”

She smirked. “Good because it’s permanent.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” I laced my fingers through hers as we waited to cross the street. Her fingers felt cold and her nose was slightly pink. She was beautiful but not in a girl-next-door kind of way. When Amy and I first met, I described her to my friends as, ‘More like Angelina Jolie, less like Jennifer Aniston.’”

When we reached Wilson Boulevard, I asked if she wanted to grab dinner and drinks at Rock Bottom.

“Of course I do. It’s trivia night!”

We shared Ball Park pretzels with spinach dip, Mini Street tacos, and of course a few I.P.A. ales. Amy kicked my ass at trivia. At ten o’clock, Amy yawned.

“And I’m supposed to be the night owl,” she said.

As I was putting on my jacket, my hand brushed a little box which had been traveling with me for a few weeks. It wasn’t that I was indecisive. In fact, when I met Amy, my first thought was, ‘I wish we would have met sooner.’ Because I knew that even with the future laid out like a red carpet, there would never be enough time with her.

I just couldn’t think of any proposal that was unique enough for Amy. She was the creative one; hair stylist by day, painter by 29

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER abilities. And unlike Amy, I didn’t believe in horoscopes, or psychics, or anything out of the realm of normalcy. But then on the one-year anniversary of Amy’s death, that all changed.

I had spent the entire day slouching on a bench near her grave. Her parents were serving dinner at their home for all of Amy’s friends, but I felt compelled to remain right where I was.

Leigh, Amy’s coworker that I never liked, tried to persuade me to attend the dinner.

“Don’t you want to, uh, remember Amy by like sharing memories of her life?” She resembled a mouse with blonde hair and a nose ring. As usual she looked as high as Amy Winehouse in her heyday.

“Believe me, every memory of Amy is forever etched in my heart. I don’t need to talk to people who thought they knew her, but really didn’t,” I snapped.

Before I could apologize, she scurried away.

At eight o’clock, when the cemetery technically closed, I rested against Amy’s headstone and shivered. When it got so cold that my fingers stung, I buried my hands in my coat pockets. In my right pocket, I found a pack of Kools. On a whim, I had bought them that morning at a gas station. Not for me, for Amy. I placed the pack among yellow carnation flowers tied with hot pink ribbon, oversized teddy bears that looked like carnival game prizes, and other ridiculous things people brought. Clearly they didn’t know Amy very well. She never wanted flowers because her cat Pollock used to desecrate them. And any stuffed animal instantly became a chew toy for her dog, Warhol.

“What the hell.” I mumbled as I lifted a cigarette from the pack. I lit it and took a small puff. I immediately started coughing.

“Easy tiger, those things will kill you.”

Amy’s spirit was floating next to me, whispering in my ear.

Doctors say it was a miracle I survived. I say it’s a curse. *** Present “I’m sorry I’ve been acting like such a shit,” Amy says. “It’s just hard seeing you move on without me.”

“But Amy, I’m not moving on. I’m merely existing. Do you know how often I contemplate jumping in front of the metro?

Every single day.”

“I’m sorry.” She places her hand on my shoulder but I don’t feel it. We haven’t figured out why she’s able to hold objects but not people. It’s cruel to be able to see but not touch each other.

“Helping people is the only thing that keeps me going. Well, that and seeing a shrink twice a month.”

A ghost tear slips down Amy’s cheek.

“Bertha, isn’t that the fellow that communicates with the dead? Maybe he can speak to Harry.” I look up to find two elderly women ogling me.

Behind them, a redheaded woman emerges. “Don’t bother. He’s a fake.” Her icy blue eyes narrow.

“Then who’s he talking to?” One of the women asks her.

“If I had to guess? Satan,” she replies.

The elderly women gasp and shuffle away.

“What a nut job.” Amy sighs. “You better go. Goodbye for today, Mark.”

“I’ll be back soon, baby. Goodbye for today, Amy.” *** Past Before the accident, I had zero supernatural 30

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

“Amy! “You can see me?” Her eyes grew round.

“How?” “I don’t know. Baby, is it really you?” I reached out to touch her cheek but all I felt was air. That’s when my eyes filled with tears.

“It’s really me. Mark, I’ve been trying to communicate with you from day one. Why can you see me now, all of a sudden?”

“Is it because this is the day that…” I didn’t want to say it.

She nodded. “That must be it.”

“Baby, I miss you so much.” Again, I tried to touch her.

In response, Amy cried so hard her body shook.

I tried to wrap my arms around her to no avail. “God, Amy, it’s not fair! I should be lying next to you.” I point to the soft earth.

She plucked the cigarette and lighter from my fingers. “If you keep smoking these, you just might be. But they won’t harm me anymore, will they?” She puffed away.

My lips formed a small smile.

The next four hours passed quickly.

Suffice it to say, I had a lot of questions.

“What’s it like? The afterlife, I mean.”

She tilted her face to the sky. “It’s paradise and yet it’s not home. Like the time we vacationed in Cancun but missed Arlington.”

She dropped her head. She picked up dirt and crumbled it between her fingers. “Does that make sense?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Speaking of home, how are my mom and dad? How’s Scott?”

“They miss you, of course. But they’re doing as well as can be expected.”

She bobbed her head like a pigeon. “Will you look after them?”

“I still have dinner with them every Sunday.”

Amy’s smile lit up her face. “I knew you were a keeper.”

For a moment we don’t speak but it’s a comfortable silence, the kind you can only have with someone who knows you inside and out. It reminded me of the time I went skydiving and had five glorious minutes of complete silence. Most people prefer the oneminute free fall—the whoosh of air screaming in your ears—but not me. How amazing it would be to skydive at night among the stars, light years away from the Earth. I gazed at the sky but it was hard to see the stars through the canopy of oak trees.

Amy glanced at my cell phone. “Mark, it’s well after midnight…”

“And I can still see you.” I tried to kiss her but my lips met only air.

I stayed with her until dawn and only left because Amy noticed that my lips were blue.

“Goodbye for today, Mark.”

“Goodbye for today, Amy. I’ll see you soon.” I prayed this was true.

I came back the next day but Amy didn’t appear. At least I couldn’t see her. After two weeks straight, I was convinced I wouldn’t see her until next November, on the second anniversary of her death. I slumped against her grave. I thought about giving up on life because life without Amy was shit. I shoved my hands in my pockets and discovered a…

Order on Amazon or kristyfgillespie.com to continue reading this book.

Kristy lives in Warrenton, Virginia, with her husband and daughter. She is a school librarian, blogger, short story and Young Adult novel writer. This is her first book of short stories.

Kristy F. Gillespie 31

Trees went by in a blur. A car honked.

Honked! The nerve! Didn’t they know he lost his mom? The horn sounded again. He wheezed and shifted further to the road’s shoulder. The car sped past, leaving him in an exhaust fog.

“Asshole!” He wheezed. This sucks! He wanted to escape the pain gnawing at his stomach, his chest.

The run didn’t do what he wanted. On any other day, it would have given him peace and cleared his head. Not today. Today, his muscles bunched in tight knots. His mind flashed on pictures of his Mom’s accident.

He swiped at the moisture on his cheek and focused on the path ahead: his oasis from the world, his spot along the Potomac River.

The hot summer sun heated his skin through his funeral suit. The road’s pavement burned the soles of his feet. Stupid dress shoes.

The acidic taste that had resided in his mouth since he learned of Mom’s accident intensified. His legs grew tired. At this rate, he’d drop from the heat. Collapsing would rid him of his troubles. The pain.

A red bandana, tied on a branch to mark the entrance to the path, danced from the draft of a passing car. He hurried through the field grass and slowed at the entrance to lift a small branch. A musty, decaying scent swamped him as he headed toward the river. It tasted nasty, like dirt, but it replaced the sourness in his mouth.

He ran the short, muddy path and ignored the sloshing sound his shoes made. Travis would kill him for ruining his good clothes.

Crickets chirping and frogs ribbitting redirected his attention to the river. Water flowed over the rocks. Whitecaps rolled, powerful and threatening. Yet it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, his hideaway.

When life grew tough, he came here to this spot. Alone.

Passing by a “no swimming” sign, he

Divine

By Cait Jarrod Genre: New Adult Romance Pages: 132

Amazon.com and caitjarrod.com

Chapter One Twelve years ago…

Matthew Carson demanded his legs to move faster, ordered his arms to pump back and forth as quickly as they could go. No matter how hard he pushed, how much effort he put into digging his dress shoes into the pavement, he couldn’t get enough traction. He couldn’t outrun the trapped feeling that threatened to suffocate him.

His mom died. Dead! A frightening emptiness overcame him. His body smarted in a way he couldn’t begin to describe. Concerns and worries he never considered jumped into his mind.

How would he eat? Where would he and his brother live? Who would make sure he went to school? His brother, five years his senior, said he had it covered. Had a plan all worked out. But at eighteen, how would Travis manage?

He dug deep, pushed harder. The tightness in his chest increased. He had to outrun the hellacious feeling. Had to. He couldn’t live like this.

32

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

“Jeez, I miss her. Fuck!”

A branch snapped behind him.

He flinched. Who found me? No one knew this spot. No one, except for Travis. One afternoon Mom and Dad left his big brother in charge. As soon as his parents left, they got into a fight, and he escaped out the basement door to the river. Travis followed. After he checked the area and told him to be careful, he left. It had to be him. The way he fled the funeral service without a word, Travis was probably going ballistic.

Since their father died, Travis had tried to take on the role of the man of the house. He strived to be the perfect brother and a good role model. It drove Matt nuts, but he understood and appreciated him.

Without parents, how would Travis act? “I probably can’t even take a crap without permission.” He tensed. He didn’t want a lecture for swearing. Not today, not on any day, but darn if Travis didn’t give him one whenever he had half a chance. It didn’t make sense. Travis used cuss words like a freaking companion, like drinking a glass of milk with cookies. The two went together.

Forget that. Matt wouldn’t deal with a tongue-lashing today. He stiffened his upper lip so Travis didn’t see his chin quivering.

Again, why did it matter? He’d cried right along with Matt.

Inside the tree line, a skinny, pale leg emerged. Not Travis. An even skinnier arm and hand moved a branch out of their way.

The tree limbs parted. Red hair flashed.

White, pale skin contrasted against the layers of blue covering her torso and orange shorts. A girl?

His neck stiffened. Who was she to come to his hiding spot? The girl about his age didn’t walk out of the woods but ran. He jumped to his feet and eyed the trees.

Branches didn’t shake. The leaves didn’t sway. Only the noise of rushing water and the

slumped onto a patch of running cedar. The bittersweet memory of his mother calling the vine crow’s foot, echoed in his mind. The yearly event when she insisted they created real Christmas wreaths and dragged him and Travis into the woods to gather the vine pinched his heart. Doing that, instead of collecting bugs with his friend, had been a nuisance.

The ache escalated to unbearable. A hot tear slapped his cheek. He’d give up his entire bug collection to help her collect crow’s foot.

Heat flushed his body. It wasn’t right.

Wasn’t fair. Not one parent taken from him, but both! His father had died of a heart attack when he’d turned ten. Back then he didn’t think he’d survive with one parent. One! Hell!

He had none. All because someone texted while driving! I’m an orphan!

“An orphan at thirteen!”

He snatched a pebble from beside him, tossed it into the air, and caught it. With rage powering him, he slung it sidearm at a floating stick. The rock skipped two times before dropping out of sight in front of an abandoned footbridge.

Hell, he couldn’t even skip a damn rock.

The necktie Travis insisted he wear tightened. It had to be its fault. It obstructed his range of motion. Clawing at the tie, he slipped the knot and tossed it to a nearby rock.

The suit jacket came next. Travis would have his hide for leaving the funeral reception. Not only did he leave without telling anyone, he hadn’t changed his clothes.

He shrugged. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Not anymore. He unbuttoned the shirt cuffs, shoved the sleeves up his arm, and threw another stone. Four skips. “Not bad.”

He pitched another. Six. Skipping rocks didn’t lessen the bonecrushing heaviness inside him. His mind too crowded with memories to think, he rested his forearms on his bent knees and hung his head.

33

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER girl’s feet crunching sticks. Even the crickets and frogs quieted.

She jolted to a stop a foot away, and her hands smacked her cheeks. Eyes, the shade of the forest, widened as they fixed on his. If it weren’t for their bright coloring, she’d have the deer-in-the-headlight resemblance pegged.

Her hair stuck out in all directions.

He stretched out a hand to tuck the wayward strands behind her ear when she shot him a don’t-touch-me-glare. What am I doing?

Scratches marred her arms and legs. Black lines streaked her face, and dirt smeared her clothes.

Matt didn’t know anything about girls’ clothing. Judging by the material, he would say expensive. He’d guessed her shorts and shirt cost more than anything his parents had bought him, times two.

“Are you okay?” he asked, stepping back.

While the scared expression stayed, her pupils contracted. “Why are you here?”

Her indignant tone lit a fire into him. “It’s my spot,” he snapped, without regard to the fact that he didn’t own the area. Folding his arms over his chest, he dug his fingers into his ribs to deflect his emotions and not lash out again.

She studied his face far too long before taking in his shirt, mud-splotched pants, and muddy shoes. Her attention drifted to his discarded jacket and tie and then darted to him.

Uncomfortable with the scrutiny, his shirt collar grew tight. Goose bumps broke out across his skin. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, he slid a hand under his shirt collar and tugged. The button flew.

She cocked her head and observed him like he was a specimen and she the scientist.

Then he saw it. The skin on her forehead crinkled as if in recognition. She’d heard about his mom. Everyone asked about the accident. The more people asked, the worse he

felt. He didn’t want questions, didn’t want sympathy. He wanted to be left alone.

“Don’t pity me,” he gruffed out.

She dismissed his comment. “Why would I? What happened?”

Her soft tone brought feelings of doom— the type of awareness that if he didn’t watch it, he’d tell her everything. Not something he did with his buddies, and definitely not something he wanted to do with some girl.

He dropped his arms to his sides, rubbed his fingertips over the imaginary itch on the outside of his thighs. Knowing what to do with his hands had never been a problem. He shoved them into his pockets so the restrictive lining would keep them still.

Putting himself on guard, he muffled a groan and went for a joke to bring life to his pity party. “I dressed to play my violin.”

She scrubbed her cheeks. “You play?”

So self-involved, he hadn’t noticed her splotchy face and the eye-to-chin black streaks on her cheeks from her makeup. Mentally, he kicked his butt. In the face of what he experienced, he paid attention to others.

Living by this philosophy kept him grounded, so said Dad. He had enforced it on him and Travis. Don’t ever be so self-absorbed, you don’t see another’s pain.

“Sure do,” he said, liking how she distracted him from his worries. “It’s right here.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and rubbed his thumb over the tip of his forefinger.

Silence. A long moment passed. Afraid his joke didn’t work and would backfire, he tried to recall a funny story from the book he kept on his nightstand. His memory failed. He couldn’t draw on any of the tales he usually dumped on his friends.

She let out an odd noise. The corners of her lips twitched and a full out laugh exploded. A sound so striking, he lost his footing and braced a foot behind him to regain 34

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

balance. Darn, if something odd didn’t hitch inside him. Weird. And scary!

She plopped on the bank where he’d sat and flung a rock across the water.

Six hops! Admiration filled him. “Wow, you’re pretty good.”

“Thank you. I’ve had lots of practice. I’m the best.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Skipping a rock six times on the first throw put her on his awesome list, yet he wouldn’t concede to her being the best. “Let me try.”

“Try?” She laughed. “Please, you’re a guy.

You’ve been out here in your Sunday best for hours practicing. I bet you’ll skip the rock across the river.”

Matt’s chest swelled. He’d sure like to carry out what she said. “I’ve never done it.”

“You will today.”

Long, flowing hair, more the color of the setting sun than a blazing red, danced around her shoulders. She smiled, and her eyes twinkled.

He tapped the pad of his finger on her perky nose. “I like the way you think.”

“I’m glad someone does,” she said on a half giggle and sniffles.

An awkward quietness ensued. He didn’t know whether to pat her on the back or run.

“Let’s see what you got,” she teased, removing the thick-aired tension.

He pulled his arm back, ready to impress the girl—where’d that come from?—and slung.

Two hops. He dropped his chin. “It’s not my day.”

“Well…” She picked up a rock and stood.

“For one, you didn’t hold your mouth right.”

She stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth. “And, you didn’t angle your shoulder in the direction you wanted it to go.” She twisted her body, her hair bouncing around her neck, making all kinds of unusual fantasies pop into his mind. “Then sling it.”

She slanted her head, reared her elbow back, and rolled her wrist. The rock leapt from her hand and skipped the water’s surface.

Eight hops. Envy hit him square between the eyes. “Amazing!”

“Your turn.” She jerked her head around, searching the ground. “I’ll find you a rock.”

He grabbed a stick and jabbed it into the dirt. Getting beat by a girl. What has this day come to?

“There’s a pile of them.” She pointed to the edge of the water to the pebbles he wouldn’t touch because reaching for them would put his life in danger. With no branches to use as a safety line, one misstep could end deadly.

Again she topped him, not letting the risk scare her off.

What if she didn’t know about the river’s threat? Didn’t know about the instability of a river’s edge? The ground could give when you least expected. Worse, the changing undertow played tricks, gentle as a kitten one minute, rough as a lion the next. “You shouldn’t—” Her body tipped forward. A blood-curling scream blasted the air.

Matt froze a beat before a sudden burst of energy blasted him to his feet. He toed off his shoes, bolted past the no swimming signs…

Order on Amazon or caitjarrod.com to continue reading this book.

Cait, aka Deb Acors, lives in Spotsylvania, Virginia, with her husband. She has three daughters. This is the first of three books in the Montana Dreams series.

Cait Jarrod 35

Maria’s Mixes

as boxes of 50 tea bags. Once you have these products, you are ready to make your own teas.

By Maria Yeager Genre: How-To

You will notice in my recipes that I refer to the amounts of the herbs needed in “parts”.

This can mean any measurement, depending on the quantity of tea you want to make. For example, if you want to make just one tea bag and the recipe calls for 1 part Chamomile and ½ part Rose Hips, you can use 1 teaspoon Chamomile and ½ teaspoon Rose Hips. If you want to make enough to last for several weeks, you can use 1 cup Chamomile and ½ cup Rose Hips. It all has to do with how much you would like to make at the time.

Pages: 134

Amazon.com and mariayeager.com

Tips on How to Make Herbal Teas

aking your own herbal teas is probably a lot easier than you might think. The biggest issue is finding the right supplies. I’ve done all that work for you! The following is an easy step by step guide on how to make the teas, along with a list of good companies to contact for your tea supplies!

Once the herbs have been combined and mixed, put about 1-2 tsp. of the herbal mixture into a tea bag. These bags from Monterey Bay Spice Company are designed to close by the use of heat. At first, I used an iron and that works well, but I found it more convenient to use a flat iron that is normally used on hair. Of course, the flat iron should only be used for sealing the tea bags and not be used interchangeably with your hair styling! I bought one of the cheapest flat irons available, and I store it in my kitchen when not in use. It is much more convenient for me to do this than drag out the iron and ironing board! Hold the tea bag in the flat iron for 510 seconds and it should seal. It is a good idea to check for a good seal as I have been surprised on several occasions where the bag didn’t seal because I either did not wait long enough for the flat iron to heat up or didn’t heat the bag long enough for a good seal.

The first thing you need to do is get some high quality herbs and tea bags. I have been buying from Monterey Bay Spice Company in San Francisco, CA for many years. They sell herbs in bulk at very reasonable prices as well

Once the bag is sealed, you have your herbal tea! Heat up a cup of water, put the tea bag in the cup, let it steep for 3-5 minutes and enjoy!

If you like a little sweet flavor in your tea, feel free to add a little honey!

Photo by Kamil Porembinski via Flickr/Creative Commons

M

36

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

Oils and other active constituents: Essential oils, volatile oils, resins, inulin, betaine, sesquiterpene, glycoside, polysaccharides, polyacetylenes, alkylamides, echinosides, flavonoids, caffeoyl, phenols including cichoric acid and caftaric acid

Sample description of herbs/foods used in the recipes: Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea, also Echinacea augustifolia, Rudbeckia purpurea)

Type of herb: Blood cleanser, antibacterial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, alterative, bitter, antioxidant Parts used: Root, rhizome Internal medicinal uses: Colds and other viral infections, sore throat, coughs, fever, ear infections, acne and other skin problems, yeast infections, parasitic infections, fungal infections Photo by Jordan Meeter via Flickr/Creative Commons

External medicinal uses: Acne, psoriasis, herpes infections, gargle for sore throats

Plant family: Asteraceae Cautions: Use of Echinacea purpurea over a long period of time can deplete vitamin E. If using this herb over an extended period of time, it would be wise to supplement with vitamin E. Avoid use in children under 1 year of age or if taking immunosuppressant drugs.

Use with caution during pregnancy. Possible allergic reactions include rash, asthma, abdominal pain, nausea, dizziness and anaphylaxis. This herb may interfere with anesthesia.

Also known as: Purple coneflower, Black Samson, Missouri Snakeroot, Rudbeckia Native country: Eastern United States General information: This drought-tolerant plant was highly valued by the North American Indians and was used commonly for snake bites and wounds. The name comes from the Greek word “echinos” which means “hedgehog”.

Known or possible drug interactions: Methotrexate, Chemotherapy drugs, Cyclophosphamide, Fluorouracil, Paclitaxel, Econazole, Cisplatin, Docetaxel, immunosuppressants, general anesthesia

Growth requirements: This plant prefers sandy soil in full sun and is drought resistant.

Plant characteristics: Echinacea grows up to 20 inches tall.

It has purple flowers resembling daisies with orange brown centers and leaves with coarse hairs.

37

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER Teas”). Heat up a cup of water, place the diffuser or tea bag in the cup and let steep for 2 to 5 minutes. Remove and enjoy! A little bit of honey will help to sweeten this blend.

Enjoy three of the many tea recipes within the book: Cranberry/Allspice Autumn Blend

Echinacea and Cinnamon

Photo by Rene Schwietzke via Fllickr/Creative Commons

In my desire to come up with a blend that would be delicious in the fall, I decided to also create a tea that would support the urinary tract.

Uva ursi, cornsilk, parsley and cranberries are all diuretics and work on the urinary tract to help support its function.

Marshmallow is added for its soothing properties due to the high mucilage properties, and allspice is added for taste and nutritive benefits.

Photo by Randy OHC via Flickr/Creative Commons

This tasty blend is great to drink when recovering from a cold or the flu. Echinacea helps to boost the immune system, and peppermint and ginger are great at calming an upset stomach. Cinnamon was added to this blend for flavor, but it also has its own health benefits!

1 Part Echinacea 1 Part Cinnamon 1 Part Peppermint 1 Part Crystallized Ginger

Note: This blend should not be used as a treatment for a urinary tract infection. If signs of an infection are present, a physician should always be consulted.

Mix all of the herbs together and place about a tablespoon of the mixture into a diffuser or tea bag (see “Tips on How to Make Herbal Teas”). Heat up a cup of water, place the diffuser or tea bag into the cup and let steep for 2 to 5 minutes. Remove and enjoy!

Additional sweetening of this blend may not be necessary due to the crystallized ginger.

1 Part Marshmallow 1 Part Uva Ursi 1 Part Cornsilk ¼ Part Parsley ¼ Part Allspice Several minced cranberries per tea bag Mix all of the herbs and cranberries together and place about a tablespoon in a diffuser or tea bag (see “Tips on How to Make Herbal 38

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

Refreshing Mint Sun Tea

Herbs vs. Disease/Disorder Charts Maria’s Mixes includes several charts that illustrate the benefits of herbs with various diseases and disorders. Here is one of them:

Photo by Rupert Ganzer via Flickr/Creative Commons

I wanted to develop a nice and refreshing iced tea to serve on hot, sunny, summer days. Mint flavor is always refreshing, so I included peppermint and spearmint for the main flavor of the tea. Passion flower was added for its relaxant properties while gingko was included for its adaptogenic properties. I finished the blend off with goldenseal as it is a great tonic herb.

Stroke



Poor circulation



Intermittent claudication

High cholesterol

Heart attack



High blood pressure

Cayenne Chamomile Cinnamon Cleavers Cornsilk Cramp bark Cranberry Fennel Ginger Gingko Ginseng Goji Berry Hibiscus Lemon Grass Milk Thistle Nettle Orange Peel Passion Flower Rosemary

Cardiovascular disease

Atherosclerosis

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES/DISORDERS

   







 

    









     

Order on Amazon or mariayeager.com to continue reading this book.

Maria lives in Haymarket, Virginia.

She has a degree in Microbiology and has worked in the field for nearly 25 years.

The idea for this book came about from her own personal desire for a healthy lifestyle.

1 Part Goldenseal 1 Part Gingko 1 Part Passionflower 1 Part Spearmint 1 Part Peppermint Maria Yeager

Mix all of the herbs together and place into a large tea container. Fill the container with water and let the mixture steep all day in full sun. Strain off the herbs and refrigerate the tea for several hours. Serve over ice.

39

he was ready for work.

“Good morning, funny man.” I tilted my face for a kiss.

“Back atcha, pretty lady.” He kissed my cheek.

“Do you see those birds?” I pointed.

“More of them today than yesterday.”

“Yes. Something’s dying over there.”

“Dying?”

“Yes.” Johnny tugged my left earlobe.

“Not dead?”

“Buzzards circle until an animal dies.

Then they land.”

“Whatever it is sure has attracted a crowd.” I hugged Johnny but kept staring at the birds. Day one, and I was already spooked by the alien landscape.

More flocks formed near the unseen bayou. Birds landed and rose.

“That’s not all that’s attracting crowds.”

What did he mean by that cryptic remark?

Johnny clapped a ball cap on his head and walked to the cook tent for breakfast before leaving for the job site, kicking up tiny puffs of dust.

Before I came down to Mississippi, I hadn’t expected such unbroken flatness, such a lack of color. Nothing taller than a car or trailer or pile of rubble. No flowers. In fact, nothing green except a few battered live oak trees. Had Charles Dickens written about spoiled lands instead of broken people, this landscape would have made a perfect subject.

When I reflected back over the past few months, I could never have foreseen the changes I would make in my life. I never figured I’d be taking my grandchildren into a war zone.

At least it seemed like one to me.

Uncharted Territory

By Betsy Ashton Genre: Mystery/Suspense Pages: 333 (Kindle)

Amazon.com and betsy-ashton.com

CHAPTER ONE Mississippi, September 21 In pre-dawn darkness, I eased the RV door open and tiptoed down four steps to bare earth. Coffee cup in hand, I turned three hundred and sixty degrees. A strong northern front had blown through overnight, sweeping the humidity out to sea and leaving a crystalline sky behind.

An underlying stench of death and decay, however, lingered.

Johnny, Emilie, and I settled into our new home the day before. While we waited for the rest of the family to arrive, I watched large birds ride thermals in lazy circles over a distant bayou west of our compound. I didn’t know what kind they were, but they were always in the same place. Black and large, they added to the ominous emptiness. I hadn’t had time to drive across the gray wasteland to find out what was going on.

A slamming trailer door and boot steps on packed earth announced Johnny’s arrival from the other side of my RV. He walked up, smiled and stared at the rising column of birds. Clad in jeans, boots, and a clean T-shirt,

CHAPTER TWO New York City, week of August 15 Who’d have thought Queen Elizabeth and I 40

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

would have anything in common. I mean, we both endured totally sucky years. Her annus horribilis in 1992 brought public humiliation to the Royal family when both of her sons divorced their wives. In the past twelve months, my only daughter, Merry, suffered a severe brain injury, which altered her personality. The grandchildren and I were learning to cope with her new behavior when she was murdered. Her husband, Whip, was arrested for the crime.

No Royal eloquence for me. No annus horribilis but, without a doubt, mine was a shit-eating year.

Was it any wonder I fled my son-in-law’s house in Richmond for my apartment in New York City? Time spent with my closest friends, the Great Dames, would help me heal enough to keep my promise to my grandchildren and return to full-time child rearing.

“To Maxine Davies, our dear friend and fellow life traveler.” Eleanor, the alpha Great Dame, began the now-familiar toast.

“We’ll miss you and think of you often.”

Grace held her stemmed glass high.

“You understand, dear, we don’t associate with—” Rose added.

“— trailer trash!” Raney finished.

Five well-manicured hands raised crystal glasses and clinked rims.

I rolled the tartness of the pomegranate martini around on my tongue. “How many times do I have to tell you? We won’t be living in trailers. They’re RVs.” My friends didn’t approve of my plans.

They understood why I had to be involved in raising my grandkids, but they believed we’d all be better off if we weren’t road warriors. A huge chunk of me agreed.

“They have aluminum siding and wheels, don’t they?” Raney knew the answer.

“Yes.” “They move. They’re trailers.” Raney

thrust her chin out in a comic imitation of me when I was being bullheaded.

I shook my short, highlighted hair and gave up. Time to quit when I couldn’t win.

“I am sorry you could not convince Whip to be sensible and change his mind about where he works.” Eleanor raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Life would be so much easier if he would work in Richmond.”

“What does Whip have against putting down roots and living at home?” Grace peered at me over her reading glasses. She glanced back at her cards and twisted a lock of newly hennaed hair. A classic tell, as poker players would say. She held a good hand.

After my son-in-law was exonerated of Merry’s murder, we argued long and hard about his pigheadedness about living in Richmond. I wanted him to work close to home where the kids could continue in their schools. He could be home every night to help with homework and be the dominant influence in their lives. Nothing Emilie or I said changed his mind.

We quit the battle after Emilie asked me to stay with her and her brother, Alex, to help them grow up. I accepted the fact Whip was happiest living in some remote area building roads or tunnels or bridges. I dragged two concessions from him.

One, he had to accept jobs in the States, because I wasn’t about to haul two kids to a series of foreign countries. I had to be able to return to New York City monthly to fulfill a myriad of obligations.

Two, I chose how we lived. Not wanting to set up house in a series of tents, cheap motel rooms or crummy rental houses led to my current solution: RVs. Trailer trash or not, this was the most sensible solution.

“If you brought the kids here to New York, we’d see you all the time.” Rose gnawed at her lower lip, removing her lipstick, something she did when she wasn’t getting her 41

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER be living in RVs.” “I don’t understand why you choose them over us.” Rose was ever the center of her own universe. “We’re your best friends, after all.

Besides, if you don’t stay here, how will you find an acceptable husband?”

way.

“I have to stay with the kids, no matter where they are. Besides, I need to be needed.”

“We need you too.” Rose had the last word for a while.

Eleanor topped off our glasses. The Great Dames, five friends who met once a week at one of our apartments for bridge and ’tinis, ranged in age from Eleanor at around seventy to me in my mid-fifties. Well, late fifties. We were half plastered. No wonder. We’d been playing cards in Rose’s apartment in the Dakota and sipping all afternoon. I’d had enough to drink but held out my glass anyway.

I found it nearly impossible to think I wouldn’t be seeing these close friends all the time. All widows, we enjoyed disposable time and income, not the least of which we poured into our apartments.

Rose’s made my mind itch. I’d been sitting in this embodiment of formal decorating for a dozen years without acknowledging its elegance. French, mostly Louis XIV, and not a reproduction. Though Rose’s apartment was spotless, a whiff of decay wafted on the air-conditioning. Far too many objects in too small a space. Lemon furniture oil, Chanel and martinis couldn’t mask centuries-old musk.

Grace dealt a new hand. I missed the next bid.

“Earth to Max.” I made a stupid bid, and Raney and I ended up losing the hand.

“Pollygees, Raney, pollygees.”

“Seriously, Max, are you going ahead with this crazy scheme? After last year, I thought you’d stay home.” Grace handed the deck to Rose, who shuffled with gusto.

“I hoped to, but I promised Em and Alex.

After all those years of being a road warrior and leaving the family management to Merry, Whip wants to be a more hands-on father.

Since he can’t do it without my help, we’ll all

CHAPTER THREE New York, week of August 15 Around six, Eleanor, Raney, and I wobbled off to our favorite Thai restaurant a few blocks away. Rose and Grace, who had apartments in the Dakota, were in for the night. Eleanor lived over on Sutton Place, and Raney and I were in the lower eighties on Park.

“You are changing, Maxine. I was surprised when you did not rise to Rose’s comment about finding an acceptable husband.” Eleanor’s elegant diction set her apart from the rest of us Dames. She never lost her aristocratic British accent, even though she’d lived almost sixty years in the States. “In the past, you would have torn her apart.”

“I wanted to. She’s been riding me for a year, ever since I told her my friend, Johnny Medina, wasn’t Spanish royalty but a Mexican-American from Albuquerque.”

We dodged a group of mothers with strollers the size of condos rolling four abreast in front of the Plaza Hotel. Raney glared at them when they forced her to step into the gutter. She glanced up at the mounted policeman who shrugged.

“When she made her latest snarky remark, I bit my lip. She can be so opinionated, but I didn’t want to get into it today.”

“I doubt she would agree.”

“About being opinionated?”

“Yes. She craves excitement. If you married Spanish royalty, she would have a year’s worth of gossip to share.” Eleanor waved her hand and scattered Rose’s words on 42

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the sidewalk where we walked over them.

“Well, I’m not marrying anyone.”

“Does she believe everything that comes from her mouth?” Raney asked.

“Her prejudices are deeply ingrained. I doubt she knows how she sounds to others.”

Eleanor linked her arm through mine. She steered me around two elderly men arguing in Yiddish at the corner.

“I doubt she cares.” Raney, who loved Rose as much as I did, had no illusions about our friend’s opinions.

“I don’t get it. She keeps harping on me to remarry, yet we’re all widows. She isn’t on your backs all the time.” I’d given up trying to understand Rose’s motivation. Except when she was hounding me, I enjoyed her company.

She played a wicked good bridge game.

“She used to be. You’re her latest target,” Raney said.

“I wish she’d stop. I’m weary of her nagging.”

“She does not want to see your point of view.” Eleanor squeezed my arm. Slender and elegant, she was inches taller than me.

“I’m happy as I am.” I shrugged off Rose’s barbs as I’d done often. “I may be bad luck for husbands. After all, I’ve buried three.

I don’t want to go through that again.”

“You care a lot for John.” Eleanor refused to use a nickname for anyone.

“I do, indeed.”

My granddaughter, Emilie, called Johnny a friend with privileges. I wasn’t sure she understood what the phrase meant, but I did. It fit. Johnny and I surprised ourselves at how comfortable we were with each other.

Opposites in many ways, we nonetheless had a great deal in common. We came together to solve my daughter’s murder and stayed together because we had fun.

“Why is he special?” Eleanor had listened to me talk about Johnny for a year.

“He makes me laugh.”

I pulled open the door to Thai Palace.

Steamy warmth carried the aroma of curry, hot pepper sauce, and fresh basil onto the sidewalk. We sat at the only open table.

“I haven’t seen you this excited in a long time.” Raney glanced at the menu.

“I can’t wait for Em and Alex to come home. Peru is too far away.” I didn’t look at the menu. I knew it by heart.

“I am pleased Whip wants to be more involved in their lives, although his stubbornness compels you to make the life choices he is unwilling to make.” Eleanor unwrapped her napkin and separated fork and knife into soldier-straight lines beside her small appetizer plate.

“He’s missed too much of their childhood already. His work and travel are out of sync with raising children. Being in jail for months.

He’s never stayed home with the kids, has he?” Raney scattered her silverware on one side of her plate.

“It’s not part of his DNA.” I stared out the window for a moment. “Yet, when you see him with the kids, he’s an amazing father.”

Eleanor twitched her fork into better alignment. “He is not a good-time parent, is he?”

“Good-time parent?” Raney asked.

Order on Amazon or betsy-ashton.com to continue reading this book.

Betsy lives at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia. When not writing, she is the president of The Virginia Writers Club. This is the second book in the Mad Max series.

Betsy Ashton 43

barely know. You are expected to trust teachers from the first day of school, without knowing them at all. Scout leaders, youth pastors, coaches, and other adults all also expect a fair amount of trust immediately, without having done anything more than volunteer to earn it. They will also tell you not to trust people they don't know or they don't trust, even if you do know them and they have established trust with you.

26 Basic Life Skills

By Liz Long Genre: Survival/Parenting Pages: 260

Develop your situational awareness. We are all guilty of it to some degree. Our focus is on our tablet, book, conversation, or whatever and we have no idea what is happening around us. "Situational awareness" simply means being aware of what is going on around you so you can respond appropriately.

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Part One: Basic Survival

Problem Solving. The very first step in problem solving is figuring out what your problem is. It is virtually impossible to solve a problem if you don't correctly identify the cause. Handling the aftermath of an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) would be very different than handling a power outage caused by falling trees.

S

urvival teaching often focuses too much on outdoor skills like fishing and purifying water. As great as they are, there are other basic skills that are often overlooked, some of which are even more critical to survival.

That's what this section focuses on.

Trust your instincts. The truth is, kids are often told, in so very many ways, not to trust their instincts until finally, they don't. Once you stop trusting your own instincts, reversing that can be very hard, even as an adult.

Plan ahead. It sounds easy, but doing it routinely isn't always easy. Letting things slide and rushing around at the last minute to do whatever (science project, eat breakfast, pack for vacation) is more the norm. But rushing around often leads to forgetting things and making mistakes, and there isn't enough time to correct things if you haven't planned ahead.

No one deliberately tells another person not to trust their instincts, but every time you are forced to greet someone you don't trust, it chips away just a tiny bit more of your instincts about who to trust, and instincts can be critical to surviving in a true disaster.

Dress for the weather. No matter how good you are at survival skills, if it's now -4°F with wind-chill and you are dressed for 40°F, you are in trouble. Some parts of this are obvious.

Most people know which coat and gloves they wear when it is cool, cold, or very cold, for

Know who to trust. Even as an adult, it can be hard to know who to trust. For kids, it's even harder because adults often force you – with the best of intentions – to give a lot of trust to people you either don't know at all or 44

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example. But there are ways to dress more effectively for the weather. Layering is the prime example. If you do this well, your body will stay warm but you can adjust to fluctuations in both the outside temperature and your body temperature (exercise heats humans up) by adding and removing layers.

matter.

It's hard because sometimes people just don't wanna, no matter how old or young they are.

It's not a "stranger danger" feeling or anything like that, they just don't wanna, and parents really can't just go along with that all the time.

Part of a parent's job is helping their kids, especially shy ones, learn how to interact with others, including strangers.

Be physically fit. Hopefully this is fairly selfevident, but if you need to hike a distance or squeeze through a small space to get to safety, being physically fit is critical. There are so many ways to get fit that everyone can find something they enjoy. Even an 80+ year old virtual-hermit I know exercises along with a TV show!

Note to Parents: Parents know our own children. If your child is acting out of character, it's OK to humor them and ask later (in private) what happened. If they just didn't feel like it, talk to them so they know that next time they will be expected to shake hands, say hi, dance a jig, or whatever was asked of them, within reason.

Chapter One: Trust Your Instincts

T

his is first because it is the most important thing: No matter what your age, you need to recognize and trust your instincts.

Parents can't always follow, or possibly understand, what their kids tell them, but knowing what your instincts are telling you and explaining that to your parents is important.

But if their answer shows that their gut was screaming "stranger danger" for some reason, let them know that's OK and maybe even that you are proud of them for noticing what their body was saying.

Recognize Your Instincts I lost track of how many times my son complained in the morning that he didn't want to go to school because they were going to have a fire drill (never announced in advance) and they did, in fact, have a fire drill that day.

At this point, if he said he was sure "something bad" was going to happen at school, I would keep him home that day.

As a little baby, your instincts tell you to stay with Mommy and Daddy pretty much every instant of your life. That makes sense because babies can't defend themselves, so of course we feel a need to be with bigger people who can do it for us.

As we grow into toddlers, some kids feel safe going up to virtually anyone, but most feel at least some stranger anxiety. Some are very shy and hide behind someone they know and trust rather than even show their faces to a stranger. Since we can't hide behind Mommy and Daddy forever, at some point adults start dragging us out and making us greet these other people, no matter how we feel about the

It is a very rare person to be that certain of their instincts, or that accurate. I have no idea how he knew. Most likely, there was some pattern his subconscious noted of how the principal or vice-principal behaved or a weather pattern that tipped him off. (They do them once or twice a month in nice weather; if 45

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER it had been rainy all month and it was a nice day near the end of the month, it would be logical to expect a fire drill.)

inner voice almost always starts out whispering, so if it's screaming, it's probably important.

For most of us, unlike my son, our instincts are a quiet little voice we need to learn to listen to. Whenever your instincts do kick in, don't ignore them. Take a minute to think about how you recognized them and what they were telling you. After years of ignoring their instincts, many people don't notice their body sending messages until they begin getting headaches or stomachaches as a result of too much stress. Stress can be caused by ignoring our instincts.

Most of the time, it tells us small things that don't make sense, like "put the library book in the outside pocket" instead of the big pocket of your backpack. If you don't and your water bottle leaks all over the inside of your backpack later that day, you'll know why.

Your subconscious may have noticed the bottle wasn't sealed the whole way, or the way that specific bottle always leaks. If you just do what that voice says, you may never know why.

If I am doing something I shouldn't, I start feeling very frustrated all the time, even when everything is seemingly going well, and then I start getting angry very easily. This is a clear sign (for me) that I need to change what I am doing. This usually happens because I ignore my instincts about what I should be doing and am instead doing what I think I should be doing instead of what I feel I should be doing.

Our instincts are often responding to small clues our subconscious notices that our conscious does not. The subconscious simply has better situational awareness (Chapter 3).

Our instincts are a good guide, but that doesn't mean they are always right. Our instincts, brains, experiences, and more work together to form our PGS (Personal Guidance System). Like a GPS, it helps us navigate our way through life.

Whatever it is that happens to you, make a note of it, maybe even in a notebook, to see if there is a pattern. Over time, as you become more and more aware of your instincts, the signals will probably get more subtle because you will notice them more quickly. I knew – simply knew – when I saw an email about a meeting that I needed to attend, so I did.

Attending set me on a path to help others in my community that would have been more difficult and time-consuming to reach if I hadn't trusted my instincts.

Sometimes when we use a GPS, it suddenly tells us there is traffic ahead and re-routes.

Sometimes, it chooses a route that we know isn't the fastest. And most annoyingly, it is all too easy to find roads that are right in front of us that the GPS doesn't know exist. And of course, sometimes they just plain break and we can't use them at all. None of this makes the GPS wrong or bad, it just means that we need to know where we are going, too.

In the same way, our PGS can give us bad directions, but it can also recognize dangers we don't see ahead of us and redirect us. If we ignore that little voice saying "recalculating" in our head, we may end up stalled in traffic or

Practice Listen to the little voice in your head. It can be very, very quiet, or so loud you feel like someone is screaming inside your head. Your 46

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

at a dead-end.

With my fear of water, I started by dunking myself under so my whole head was under water. Then I dunked myself so I sat (briefly) on the bottom of the pool with a lot more water over my head. I also learned to swim properly both on the surface and under water so that I became used to having my face submerged for longer periods of time. Unless I tell them, most people would never know that I have a fear of water because I have taken baby steps that were not overwhelming to make it manageable. But I still avoid water slides.

At the same time, you may know something it doesn't. A GPS never knows when a school is about to dismiss or a movie let out and the roads near there will become clogged. It also doesn't know which ones become an icy, dangerous mess as soon as a little snow falls.

We need to rely on our brains as well as our instincts. If your gut is saying "cross that creek here and we'll get to help faster" but your brain looks at the rain-swollen creek and knows you will probably drown, go with your brain. That's what it's there for. Your gut may be right that it's closer to the creek, but it isn't seeing all the factors.

It's important to remember that an emergency is not the time to override your instincts about what you can and can't handle. Even if you are initially OK, it's all too easy to freeze up when faced with a fear and mid-emergency is a really bad time for that to happen.

Think About Why I have a heck of a time trusting one of my kids' principals. The man has done nothing wrong, but he looks like someone I had a bad experience with in the past. Recognizing why my gut is responding negatively to him helps me sort through how I should respond to certain situations.

Activity Think about how you felt when you met your best friend or someone else that you trust. If you have had more than one, think about your favorite one first, and repeat it if you want.

Fear

Order on Amazon or lizlongauthor.com to continue reading this book.

Sometimes, the "why" is a fear so deeply ingrained in our subconscious that all we know is that we are afraid. I have a life-long fear of deep water for no discernible reason. I find it quite annoying, but conquering something with no cause is very difficult. Not impossible, but much more difficult.

Liz Long, aka Bethanne Kim, lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, sons, and cats. Her life-long Scouting skills have been a help in becoming a prepper.

The best way to work on conquering a deeply ingrained fear is by pushing the boundaries in smaller ways that are easier to handle. Over time, even deep fears can become manageable in this way, even if they don't go away entirely.

Liz Long

47

could be Kolya’s commander had had his ass chewed and now wanted to ensure the shit rolled downhill.

But the commander of the U.N. Protection Force, UNPROFOR, wasn’t Russian and wasn’t likely to discipline Kolya with a truncheon. His commanding officer, Captain Ruslan Sokolov, was another matter.

Kolya removed his cover and stepped inside the air-conditioned prefab, savoring air free of the smells of rotting garbage, human effluvia, and death.

A corporal rose from his seat at a desk next to the prefab’s window, and Kolya looked him over, indulging his right as a sergeant to find some fault with a lower rank.

This young boy, no more than eighteen, surely, was kitted well, and Kolya could find nothing to criticize. A disappointment because if Kolya were going to get his ass chewed, taking it out on someone else was almost an army tradition.

“Sergeant Antonov reporting as ordered,” Kolya said.

“Yes, sergeant. You are to go in,” the corporal replied, his eyes on a point across the room.

Kolya folded the blue U.N. beret and tucked it beneath his right shoulder strap before he went to the door. The corporal had said to go in, but Kolya wasn’t certain if he should knock. He gave a slight shrug and opened the door.

The man waiting for him was tall and older than Kolya remembered him, but Kolya had been a boy then. The man’s longish hair was too gray to be called blond anymore, and his eyes looked like blue flints in dark holes, sure signs of lack of sleep. Kolya looked around his commander’s office. He and his uncle, Alexei Bukharin, were alone.

“Master Sergeant, I see.” Alexei spoke in Russian.

“Promoted in Afghanistan,” Kolya replied.

The Yellow Scarf

By Phyllis A. Duncan Genre: Historical Thriller Pages: 120

Amazon.com

1: Russian Small Talk Sarajevo, Yugoslavia o matter what army you served in, any soldier knew being summoned before an officer never boded well. Considering the Russian penchant for pessimism, Sergeant Nicholai “Kolya” Antonov wished he’d taken the daytime patrol. Now, after rumbling about all night in a U.N. armored personnel carrier and instead of going to his bunk, he was headed for who knew what kind of a dressing down.

Kolya knew being a soldier in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation was never an easy task, what with enduring the brutal and sadistic boot camp, serving with incompetent and venal officers, and wondering whether he’d be paid with any consistency. This billet with the U.N. had gone smoothly for Kolya, but he reviewed his last few patrols on his way to his commander’s office, trying to isolate any breach of protocol. Nothing came to mind.

However, it could simply be an officer who got up on the wrong side of his bunk that morning and who needed a scapegoat. Or it

N

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“How is your mother?”

Kolya allowed some surprise to show in a raised eyebrow.

“Your sister is well. My grandmother hardly moves from her bed, but she is ninetyone, after all,” Kolya said.

Kolya thought his uncle’s stolid expression wavered a little but decided it was a trick of the light.

“How is your son, Pyotor? Has he recovered from the car accident?” Kolya asked.

“Physically recovered, though that took most of the past three years since.”

“His wife died, yes? What of his daughter?”

“Without his wife, Pyotor has found it difficult to be a father. His daughter, Natalia, lives with— With me.”

That was difficult for Kolya to imagine, given his uncle’s profession. “I do not think I am here for either of us to catch up on family news,” Kolya said.

This time his uncle’s jaw clenched. “No, you’re not, and I’m well aware of the status of my family,” he said. “There is that overwhelming Russian need for small talk.”

“We are Ukrainian. Or have you forgotten that?”

His uncle’s eyes lightened, a marker of anger. “You’ve been assigned to me indefinitely,” Alexei said.

“Assigned to you?”

“Yes. I’m working in humanitarian relief.”

“And you need me for what? To hand out supplies the Serbs, the Croats, or the Muslims will turn around and sell on the black market?”

Alexei said, “I’m not working in humanitarian relief. I’m, shall we say, a U.N. observer.”

“Is that what you call U.N. spies now?”

His uncle ignored this gibe as well and continued, “Almost three months ago, one of

my—” A pause and then, “One of my assets traveled with some French peacekeepers into the countryside. A Serbian paramilitary unit surrounded them and took everyone hostage.”

“Yes,” Kolya said, “we were briefed about the incident. The paramilitary unit led by Arkan, The Tigers, chained them to Serb tanks to stop any close air support. Their captain negotiated their release.”

“The French peacekeepers’ release, yes.

My asset is still in Arkan’s custody because the French captain betrayed my asset’s status as an...observer.”

“Then, your asset is rotting in a shallow grave somewhere. Arkan is not forgiving of anyone he considers a spy.”

“No, the asset is alive.”

“How do you know that?” Kolya asked.

“Because I’ve been negotiating with Arkan to pay ransom. Every time I think we have a deal, he ups the amount, adds a new condition. I have been all over the countryside pursuing him, only to arrive days or hours after he’s laid waste to village after village.”

For the first time, his uncle’s unwavering gaze moved down to stare at the floor. The man’s chest expanded with a deep breath before he looked at Kolya again. “However,” Alexei said, “I have an informant among the police in Belgrade who has advised me where Arkan is hiding my asset.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

Kolya asked.

“I need your help.”

“For what?”

“To go to Belgrade with me and extract my asset from Arkan’s house there.”

“Why should I help you?”

“Because you are my blood, and I trust you.”

“You barely know me, and that was your choice,” Kolya said. He pulled his beret free and turned to the door. “You defected. I stayed and served my country.”

49

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER “The asset I’m speaking of is my wife,” Alexei said.

Hand on the doorknob, Kolya stopped, eyes looking heavenward. Damn. Family ties were sometimes a straight-jacket. If he did not help an uncle some considered izmyennik, a traitor, he would never hear the end of it from his mother and grandmother.

“You have proof of life?” Kolya asked.

His uncle nodded.

“Is your informant to be trusted?” Another nod. Kolya shook his head. “It is not like Arkan to negotiate for a spy, even if ransom is in play.”

His uncle’s mouth went from a straight line to dipping down at the corners. “There is an added factor,” he said.

Kolya waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, Kolya said, “I will not agree to anything unless I know what you know.”

“Arkan is infatuated with a young mistress. Like most besotted men, he gives her whatever she wants. She wants a child, but she doesn’t want to ruin her figure,” Alexei said.

“As a result, Arkan has informed me he no longer wants a ransom. When my wife’s child, when our child, is far enough along to survive outside the womb, he will have it cut out and given to his mistress. We have to move soon.

By a doctor’s calculation, she’s seven and a half months gone.”

“Bog na nebesakh!”

“There is no god or heaven in this. Are you with me?”

Kolya thought his voice might fail him. He nodded and followed his uncle from the room.

modeling jobs.

Nada carried a tray with a mug of tea and a thick slice of whole-grain toast smeared with ajvar. Mai’s stomach clenched with nausea.

The red pepper paste on the bread was a Serbian food she’d enjoyed, until she’d had to eat it every morning for the past six weeks.

“Good morning!” Nada said, all smiles, her artificially white teeth bright against her spray tan. “Here is lovely tea, yes, and healthy breakfast, yes, for baby. How is baby today?”

Mai said nothing, and Nada set the tray on the small table next to the bed. Mai picked up the tea and began to sip.

“Look, bitch,” Nada said, smile gone, “I ask question, yes, you answer or no food. How is baby today?” She jerked the mug of tea from Mai, splashing Mai’s legs with some of the hot liquid.

Mai showed no pain. “Fuck you,” she said.

Nada’s face twisted into a wrathful frown; then, the woman smiled again.

“I know what you do. You think, I not answer Nada’s questions, and she hit me, beat me, but no. I never do that. There will be no hurting our baby, yes. Drink. Eat.” Nada gave Mai the mug of tea again, plopped herself in a chair, and lit a cigarette.

“How is my English?” Nada asked. “I have been the watching of American movies.

English is better, yes?”

Mai said, “Your English sucks.”

“Sucks? This is good?”

“Yes, I’m certain Arkan loves your sucking.”

“Yes, Arkan is loving me. Eat.” Mai ate the bread and picked up the tea again.

“Is good you have the eating healthy,” Nada said. “Baby will be strong, and he is being true son of Arkan.”

Not if I strangle it first, Mai thought. She put the empty mug and plate back on the tray.

Nada said, “Good! Baby has the happiness

2: Sharpening the Knife Belgrade, Yugoslavia ai Fisher heard the key in the door. It opened to reveal the rail-thin Nada, who fancied herself a supermodel. The truth was, her lover Arkan bought most of her

M

50

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you finish all food. Now brush teeth and wash.”

Nada picked up a French fashion magazine, which Mai had ignored when Nada brought it to her. Mai got up and brushed her teeth with the foul-tasting German toothpaste.

She removed her sweatshirt and sports bra and lowered her underwear and sweat pants to her ankles. The shackle cuff on her ankle was chained to the corresponding cuff on the metal bed frame, bolted to the floor. They kept her from removing anything from the waist down.

The long chain allowed Mai to move to the toilet and sink on her own, even to get a bit of exercise, pacing the length of the room and back. Every other day, Nada brought clean towels, nice ones, ones you’d find in a five-star hotel. Every three days, Nada brought clean underwear and a new jogging suit. Nada would unlock the cuff on Mai’s ankle for the clothing change, but only when a man with a gun stood in the room. Nada would hold up a sheet, but Mai didn’t care who saw her, even if she were glad Alexei couldn’t. Once a week, Nada brought clean sheets and watched Mai as she changed the bedding.

For a prison, it was livable and far more comfortable than the six weeks Arkan had dragged Mai around the countryside as he and the Tigers had pillaged and raped and ethnically cleansed. Every day, she listed the names of those villages in her head, a mantra for her captivity and a mnemonic for the debrief when she got out of here.

And she would get out of here.

As she washed, Mai thought, as she did most days, the chain or the bed sheets would have made a perfect noose for Nada. Or for herself. Sometimes the image of strangling Nada with either gave Mai the will to get through another day. That, and the certainty Alexei would never give up on her, that he would do anything to find her.

Mai dried off, and Nada walked over to her. “Today, we will wash hair, yes,” Nada said. She pointed to a page in the magazine showing a woman with an elaborate, braided hairstyle. “I will fix hair this way. Very attractive, yes.”

Mai re-dressed but left off the sweatshirt.

When she bent to put her head in the sink, the baby—she’d only started thinking of it that way a few days ago—shifted, not in discomfort, but the movement served as a reminder why suicide or escape was not an option to be casually pursued.

Despite the fact she’d dispensed with the IUD months ago when it was time for a new one, she was surprised when the doctor from Medecins sans Frontieres had told her she was between four and five months pregnant.

“I have erratic periods,” Mai had said.

“Are you sure?”

The ultrasound had convinced her.

The print of the ultrasound had stopped Arkan from shooting her as a spy. Nada, along because she wanted to see the “fun” of a battlefield, was the one who had suggested Arkan keep Mai alive long enough for the fetus to be viable.

“Then, we take from her, yes,” Nada had said, “and it will be ours.”

To continue reading, order on Amazon or phyllisduncan52.wix.com/phyllisaduncanauthor

Phyllis is a retired aviation safety official who writes historical thrillers and short fiction from her home in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Phyllis A. Duncan 51

Sometimes the Little Town what was it you were supposed to say?

New oracles of places yet to be seen.

Maybe you would share some

By Sara M. Robinson Genre: Poetry

of this wisdom with us. Or must we pry the truth from your gentle hands as if we were thirsting to know.

Pages: 132

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Tannery Men, ca. 1912 Likely it was no accident men assembled on a summer day for a picture. It is quiet.

No one speaks or smiles.

They are not sure what the picture will mean. Perhaps John Gochenour Philosophy According to John

a documentation of one day’s toil or an accounting of who was present that

Who are our philosophers, John?

When did they speak to you, in low voices rising from creek beds

particular day when rough necks and shirts coupled with mustaches and skin.

or perhaps from the floors of our town stores? Did they tell you to go and speak great truths? To us,

In other countries they might be mistaken for Mexican border bandits.

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But with faces thinned by exposure to acid, worry, and some sorrow, they find a rest from the hides, to meet under a large oak. Black ones and white ones standing still, looking right at the photographer, who was adjusting his films and focus: a start of some history.

C. C. Housh, Sr. In My Home I wrote their stories in my government-issue records book. Inside water-stained family bibles, proof of

Field Day, 1908

their truths penciled in archaic script bore witness. I took them at their word. I knew this was hard. I had to note each

Find a man or woman: any good man or woman set them in the village amongst flowers and curbs.

member as part of their resettlement from the mountains. They could not take transplants of their prized laurel or ginseng with them. Only their bodies would leave–their spirits and their ghosts would remain on the slopes.

Watch as they parade through stores and dwell in company of their choosing. These are the folks we know and these are the ones who last after sunset in long shadows of purity on horizon’s edge.

Now I stand here before you a man who has seen much including suffering. The lines on my face, these indentations

53

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER of my life are merged with theirs. We are not separate and I know we breathe the same air.

mountain and streams meet the lawns. All these

My children and their children and so on will know someday that while I saw changes I felt the steadfastness of place.

wonderful things I can see from the lawn chair on my porch among iris blossoms. I can speak to anyone I meet. If I left for America I would miss

I wept sometimes for what I wrote but still I wrote. We all yearn for home.

too much here. If I left my town and my beloved home, what would I have, but a memory? I need more than that: I need the ground. My family is from valley clay and my blood is the river.

I can take only what I can hold in my eyes.

I am not so tired to see what you see, too.

Charlie Powell A Good Look at Life I’ve listened to a thousand stories.

Most of them are mine and when I think of this great America I recall the best of this town. I talk from my heart and I say I am of this town and all that I can hold is this town.

Jesse Deal The Oak is a Big Deal I am of the Bur Oak: our grand tree which suffers many blows but does not fall.

I can travel away from this town. But I won’t.

I can ride to the edges where pasture meets the

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VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

Crowd me not with lesser species but love me more with gentler spirits.

him proud with the sublime justice that he deserved. Will he stand again as he did in the picture? Will he give us once more a chance to love him?

There are so few gentlemen

Caress me with spring tassels as I smile knowing what I know and doing what I do.

and he would be so welcomed in our parlor where we could hang his coat and brush his shoes. A quick once-over just as the moment ends and we have to go back to before: before there was that suit.

Sara’s father, photographer Hobby Robinson Epp Eaton

Order on Amazon or saramrobinson.com to continue reading this book.

Clothes Define Us

Sara lives in Albemarle County, Virginia. This is latest of five published books. She writes for Southern Writers Magazine, teaches for UVA/OLLI, and is active in the local writing scene.

Good money was paid for that suit, the dark gray that he wore for the one formal photograph ever to be taken. He saved a week’s pay for the barber who groomed his mustache and his black wavy hair to the perfection desired for such an important pose. His serious face with just a light hint of self-satisfaction did

Sara M. Robinson

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style.

What happened to all those missing forks and spoons remained a mystery.

She’d rescued two from the trash where table-clearing “helpers” mistakenly scraped them along with uneaten food. But could that account for eleven disappearing?

The siren again, a little closer this time.

Only last week Replacements, Ltd, the magic source for discontinued china, silverware and crystal patterns, charged more for these eleven missing forks and spoons than she originally paid for eight place settings many years ago. And now ten place-settings glinted in the box beside her—fifty pieces for only $20! Even husband Jason should salute this fortuitous coup!

But that wasn’t all. She’d also found the 20-lb exercise weight he’d asked for only yesterday. She filled many requests from family, friends and neighbors who knew about her regular treks to weekend sales, but finding this improbable item so fast beat all odds. Maybe now he’d stop irreverent references to her “garage sale mania.”

The siren pierced the air again, triggering an automatic wish for the safety of her five grown children and their families. All lived within a two-hour drive of the McLean home she and Jason bought twenty-five years ago, their proximity to parents seeming a gift in today’s mobile society. This nearness allowed frequent family gatherings, which she cherished.

She marveled that a marriage of two such different personalities could last forty-one years, but in the process she and Jason had morphed into a team. At sixtyone, she enjoyed good health, a close family, a loving husband, many friends and a financially comfortable life in upscale

Garage Sale Diamonds

By Suzi Weinert Genre: Thriller/Suspense Pages: 378

Amazon.com and suziweinert.com

CHAPTER ONE THURSDAY, 9:31 AM

J

ennifer Shannon grinned with triumph as she drove from the estate sale at the sprawling Rotunda condo complex toward her home in McLean, Virginia. Reaching that sale early, she stood third in line when they handed out numbers controlling how many shoppers entered the apartment at one time. Had she really bagged this unlikely treasure? A quick glance at the shiny contents in the shoebox nestled beside her on the passenger seat confirmed she had.

Was that a siren whining in the distance? She turned off the radio and lowered her window an inch to gauge the emergency vehicle’s closeness. No, it sounded far away.

As she browsed this morning’s estate sale in a spacious apartment, nothing caught her eye until she spotted the very silverware she needed—a stainless steel pattern she started years ago with four packages of eight place-settings, long before Oneida discontinued this Bancroft 56

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

McLean.

With their child-rearing responsibilities largely behind them, these recent years seemed the best ever. Well, except for her major foible: succumbing to the irresistible weekend lure of garage and estate sales. If Jason grumbled, comparing her “sport” to his golf and tennis brought silence.

She drove into her cul-de-sac, pressed a button to open the iron driveway gates and another to lift the garage door. As she climbed out of her car, the siren whine wafted even closer.

Fire?

Police?

Ambulance? Trouble for someone, she thought, but at least help was on the way.

She shelved newly bought under-thepillow gifts in a garage cupboard as later surprises for Grands who spent the night.

Then she carried her remaining items into the house. As she loaded the sale silverware into the dishwasher to be sanitized, the siren sounded louder. Must be on her side of Dolley Madison Boulevard, the major road cutting through the center of McLean from the George Washington Parkway through Tyson Corner and into Vienna where it became Maple Avenue.

As she pulled clothes from the laundry room dryer, the siren wailed insistently.

Was the engine hurtling past her neighborhood?

She stacked the laundry to carry upstairs but the siren’s shriek stopped her.

Looking out the front door’s glass sidelights, she checked for tell-tale smoke somewhere in the neighborhood.

Now deafening, the sound penetrated the walls of her house as it roared into her community and, screaming louder yet, arrived on her street!

Was her house on fire? With a gasp she jerked open the basement door, sniffing for burn odors. She dashed through the house,

fearing the acrid smell or billow of smoke.

Detecting neither, she rushed out the front door. Covering her ears at the siren’s shrillness, she stared open-mouthed at the sleek red-cream-and-silver fire truck and EMS ambulance circling the cul-de-sac in front of her house. They parked opposite her. The piercing siren stopped. Four firefighters poured from the big truck and two from the ambulance, disappearing around the other side of the engine.

After a final anxious glance to assure her own home wasn’t in flames, she peered nervously at neighbors’ houses around the circle and as far down the road as she could see. No smoke or flames. What was going on? She ran outside and skirted around the truck to find out.

CHAPTER TWO THURSDAY, 9:46 AM

T

he firefighters strode straight to the Donnegan house directly across the circle. She and Jason had known Kirsten and Tony Donnegan for at least twenty years. Their children grew up together, they shared family camping trips, the men went deer hunting each year and the two couples dined often at local restaurants. A practicing veterinarian, Tony was the kindly go-to person for neighborhood kids who found injured or orphaned animals.

What had happened here? Maybe a false alarm like the time their son burned microwave popcorn? The smoke had triggered their security system’s fire alarm, alerting the fire department. The big engine had pulled into the cul-de-sac that day just as now. Those fire fighters had insisted on coming inside to assure themselves popcorn was the only smoke issue. Bless ’em.

Jennifer paused on the sidewalk. Her 57

Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER police detective son-in-law had warned their family that bystanders and gawkers often interfered with professional emergency work. But if her good friends had a problem, shouldn’t she offer help?

She raced across the Donnegans’ yard to their front door.

Speaking to the first uniformed man she saw inside the doorway, she said, “I’m the Donnegans’ neighbor and good friend from across the street. May I...?”

The fire fighter hesitated, but Tony saw her and called, “Jennifer, thank God you’re here. Come in quick.” She rushed to his side and he gripped her in a desperate hug.

“It’s Kirsten. She can’t breathe.” Jennifer’s eyes followed his pointing finger to her friend lying on the floor. Kirsten’s face looked ashen as several medics tried to revive her. One attached a heart monitor and took her blood pressure. Another listened to her lungs before starting an IV. Each reported aloud to a third man who stood aside, writing on a clipboard and giving periodic instructions.

Tony clutched Jennifer as the lead medic asked, “Sir, have you a list of her medications?”

Tony’s bewildered expression showed he did not.

Jennifer answered. “Yes, in her wallet.

She and I each keep a list there. Where’s her purse?”

Tony shrugged. He seemed confused.

“I...I have no idea.”

“Then I’ll look.” Jennifer found the purse in the kitchen, hurried to the living room and gave it to Tony. He fumbled inside before handing it back to her.

“Jen, could you please find it for them?” he asked in a thin voice. He turned to answer more questions from the lead medic.

“Please describe her symptoms.”

“She felt tired the last few days and

today woke up weak. When she finally came down for breakfast, she looked pale and said she felt clammy and cold. So I bundled her up here on the couch. When her chest hurt and she couldn’t breathe, I...” his voice caught, “I called 911.”

“Has she a history of heart trouble?”

“High blood pressure but controlled with medication. Isn’t it on the list Jen gave you?”

A medic kneeling beside Kirsten said to the lead provider. “Uh-oh, she’s going into V-fib.”

“Start CPR,” the lead medic directed, triggering a flurry of treatment activity. The one who identified ventricular fibrillation began CPR. A second medic applied two hand-sized stickers with wires attached to the heart monitor and injected epinephrine.

“Prepare to shock.”

“Step away from the patient,” the lead medic warned. “The electric current could transfer the same cardiac shock to anyone touching the patient.”

Tony clutched Jennifer as the shock jolted his wife’s heart. The monitor recorded several audible beeps before the sound changed to an even tone.

“Asystole?” the lead medic asked and got a positive nod from the other techs. The lead radioed Dispatch. “This is now a CPR call. We’re going to Fairfax ER.” One technician continued administering CPR, stopping compressions for only a few seconds as they placed Kirsten on the collapsible stretcher.

Tony cried out, “Is she going to be all right?”

The lead medic touched his arm to calm him. “The hospital is equipped for the care she needs right now, so we’re taking her there.”

“Can I ride with her?”

“Sorry, Sir, we don’t have room. But 58

VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

we’ll give your wife our best professional care, and Fairfax Hospital’s ER is the only level-one trauma center in northern Virginia. She’ll be in good hands.”

“I can drive you to the emergency room, Tony,” Jennifer offered.

This quieted him, as did the apparent reassurance of Jennifer holding his hand tightly. “All right.”

“By the way, I’m Lt. Sommer. A captain who’s the EMS Supervisor may come by later to talk with you or he may send a policeman to gather all the facts.”

Tony frowned, “Why...why police involvement?”

“Just routine, Sir. Don’t be surprised if you see one or both of them.”

Jennifer hurried across the circle to get her car as Tony watched the crew wheel the stretcher to the ambulance and collect their equipment. She stopped behind the ambulance. Tony climbed in.

The ambulance pulled out first, lights flashing, siren shrieking. The fire truck’s powerful motor revved to life, preparing to return to the McLean station house.

Jennifer followed closely as the ambulance swept through the neighborhood, but when it hurtled through a red light at the first intersection, she knew she couldn’t keep up. Though she drove in the same direction as fast as she safely could, the shrill siren gradually faded and evaporated as if it hadn’t existed at all.

response. Anxiety gripped Ahmed as he grabbed his weapon and hurried to the big tent. Little good could come from this.

“Permission to enter, Great Leader?”

“Come in, Ahmed.”

Complying, he stepped in upon the worn Oriental carpet and stood at attention before a tall, thin bearded man with steely eyes.

“At ease, Ahmed,” the leader said as the soldier before him tried to imagine what rule he’d unintentionally broken. “How would you like to command a secret operation in the United States?”

Ahmed hoped his jaw hadn’t dropped open in surprise. “It is an honor that you even consider me for such a mission, Great Leader.”

“Your excellent martial skills, quick mind, unquestioned devotion to our cause and obedient submission to Allah, peace be unto His name, have not gone unnoticed. I think these qualities qualify you as the operative for this critical assignment. I chose you among others similarly adept because of my faith in your abilities plus your allegiance to me personally. Don’t disappoint me.”

Order on Amazon or suziweinert.com to continue reading this book.

Suzi lives in Ashburn, Virginia, with her husband. Garage Sale Stalker, the first book in the Garage Sale Mystery Series, has been turned into several Hallmark TV movies. This is Book 2 of the series.

CHAPTER THREE THURSDAY, 10:31 AM

I

n the Middle-East, before his arduous journey began, Ahmed remembered looking up sharply when a skinny, rifletoting soldier rushed into his tent.

“The Great Leader wants you, now.”

Such commands required instant

Suzi Weinert

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Virginia Authors BOOK SAMPLER

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VOLUME 2  SPRING 2016

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BOOK TITLE WORD SEARCH (Vol. 2) A O C N O L A S G I F T R H X X G L S P O Y E D H

B E N B M H Z A E V S P D E N W Y D F T S V D K D

E V D T K A I M M D O F Y A Z V N F W I L R C O V

Y E E I H O R T T G M A M S P O X I K P L R N Z C

P N X L J E C I X O E C T T M S S G R O I J A V M

D I F F Y H W G A J T H N A U T N M S M K R P E B

T N U R M C E I D S I R I N O A E L E W S B T B A

J D X V A O B L N B M D A F S D V S U E E H E J H

H E M R U C Q I E G E I F A E R C S I C F A B Q F

N A M T X W S F A L S A X X V E Q T V Z I P T L S

M T E N N L X W A F T O S E N P D U H T L Q T L Z

Q H N H E W D S O E H F F E S O Q H O S C L C U P

H W I G M Z E F B L E I F E O R C F J N I Z Q X S

NOLAS GIFT ON THE WINGS OF EAGLES TWIST OF FATE CRIME SCENE FAIRFAX COUNTY JOURNEYWOMAN BLOOD TIES EVEN IN DEATH

J V V G X G K V B S L A B L A M L D B U S O C F A

Q Q I J A U A V S C I E B B D G W M U H A J Q O T

K E D R S H R E U R T R Y F Z R L L S M B S T G K

T U A S P O J H F N T M X E W I Y E H K S E B A B

B G Z B S M K A Z A L Y D E H G Q K S Z Z D D L S

O R D P X P X R W X E Q X W U T A Y O H L M D J Q

U L S H S C G X Q A T K E A M N T B X P Z B T Q C

H T F T O B R A K R O U P B M N L E R U K K Y T I

O C V U S B I N J D W U C Y W D W X O S E D C Y L

A U N C E X S B I J N A D Y J Z K Q J Q F S O H G

V T M U N C H A R T E D T E R R I T O R Y E X C B

Y N A M O W Y E N R U O J Y F Z S D O I V X K W D

DIVINE MARIAS MIXES UNCHARTED TERRITORY BASIC LIFE SKILLS THE YELLOW SCARF SOMETIMES THE LITTLE TOWN GARAGE SALE DIAMONDS

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