Okay, I'm getting scared now.
I'm very nearly done with my final chapter. Yeah, first draft only, I know. It's still scary. A novel is a big thing to finish. What do I do when it's all over? (besides start the next one).
One of my teachers for an Industrial Design elective is a short story author, so I'm hoping she can give me some advice on the editing and publishing process. Gahd, now I need a new goal. Second draft finished by 2009?
Also, Boilerboys should be going to print soon in the PAX Steampunk magazine. My first published (kinda) short story. I'm reigning in the anxiety by drinking a lot of tea.
--------------------------- Weathermen, Ch 6 ------------------
Aus mumbled as he walked. The others kept their distance, as if his grief was contagious and fatal. Only Alix stuck by his side through the days, speaking to him in hopeful tones of times to come. They could not avoid him at night, so they spoke to him as much as he spoke to them, which was very little.
He was often the first to fall asleep, so Marissa would lead Pal and Rei off a distance and they would whisper to one another of their plans. Sometimes Alix would join them, and sometimes not. Many nights she chose to curl up beside Aus, brushing his hair from his eyes or offering him her tummy as a pillow. They kissed every night and every morning, and as far as the others knew that was as far as they went in expressing their love. Marissa had used to raise an eyebrow or drop a snide comment when they brushed lips; now she simply looked away.
“How much longer?” Pal asked every night. Marissa always gave the same answer: “I don’t know. Not too long now.” After the fourth or fifth rebuttal, he began to press. “We should be able to see it by now, right?”
“Perhaps. We couldn’t see Seventeen until we were right on top of it.”
“Yeah, because it had fallen down. And we were in a forest. And it was foggy.”
“You’ll see it soon.”
Pal rolled onto his side, trying to find the most comfortable position in which to sleep. “You keep saying that. Maybe we’re going the wrong way.”
“I’m not going the wrong way,” Marissa insisted. “I’ve done all the calculations.”
“Still,” said Rei, leaping to Pal’s defense. “We got pretty turned around going through the hills… the city. What if that threw us off course? You said, sometimes…”
“We’d still be able to see it,” Pal muttered. “If we were going the right way.” He curled up and closed his eyes, trying to ignore how the midnight wind raised hairs along his forearms. “I really hope we are. I really do.”
They all slept restlessly, but only Marissa awoke in the early hours, blinking away nightmares of being buried in maps upon maps upon maps. She held herself tight, scraping away layers of dirt and terrified sweat, rocking back and forth until the skies lightened and the sun rose to keep watch over her dreams.
Two more days they walked, and two more nights Marissa woke with her throat so tight she could barely breathe, flailing in the darkness for her blankets or the lamp beside her bed. Every time she had to remind herself that they were long gone, and she would sit and think on all the things and people she had lost. She listed the names of Gods she had never believed in, and prayed to them all.
Please let me be going the right way. Please don’t let us be lost. Please.
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