Today is Imbolc, the ancient Celtic holiday in honor of the goddess Brigid, who, over time, morphed into St. Brigid, with this day becoming known as Candlemas. In the US, we still carry it over as the earliest possible indication of spring (yeah, right; I've still got 2 feet of icy snow in my yard!) with the celebration of Ground Hog Day.
Spring or not, Brigid is very important in my nearing-release-readiness YA novel,
Becoming Brigid. Thus, in honor of Brigid's holiday, I thought I'd post a brief teaser -- with photos! (Yes, the actual photos that inspired the opening scenes of the book. Max, you'll remember these.)
Here we go, then:
Chapter One
“Dad,” I said, poking at the cracked orange and green plastic blinds under the table, “has it ever occurred to you that the term ‘ghost town’ might not be literal? That there might not actually be ghosts here?”
“Just a minute, honey,” he called from behind the broken door. “I’m picking up really high EMF levels in here.”
I kicked a tumbleweed across the patterned carpet -- which must’ve clashed horribly with the blinds when they were still hanging in the window -- and went into the next room. It was a kitchen. Or it used to be one, anyway. Now it was mostly just a mess; beer cans, old silverware, and chunks of plaster from the water-damaged ceiling lay strewn all over the peeling linoleum floor, and cabinets and drawers gaped open like mouths.
Dad was waving his electromagnetic meter -- a gadget that looked like a black-and-orange deodorant stick embarrassingly emblazoned with “The Ghost Meter” across the front -- along the edges of a refrigerator. His dark eyebrows were all crunched up in concentration, and he was smoothing the ends of his mustache with his free hand, leaving it streaked with tiny bits of white plaster.
“Dad --”
“In a minute, Pepper.”
“Dad, it’s an old appliance. It’s probably leaking all kinds of chemicals and radioactive crap into the air. But it’s not a haunted fridge; trust me.”
Dad didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at me. He just took a pencil and notebook out of his shirt pocket and began writing notes about his fantastic discovery of an electric fridge.
I sighed and went back through the office room, where the walls had been graffitied with hundreds of white hand prints and spray-painted phrases like “Be aware: I will haunt you” and “I died here.” It’d be tons easier to find evidence of drug use in this place than of any supernatural phenomena. Honestly, what kind of ghost goes tagging in old motels?
There you go! That's page one -- with photos!
Martin at
fromsandtoglass has agreed to do a cover reveal of the new cover when I'm ready to release it, but I'm still hoping to get a few more folks who are willing to do that as well. Anyone interested? Just add a comment below if you are.
I've got
Becoming Brigid out to the first copy editor (read: fellow English teacher; they work cheap) right now, so I hope to have this book ready to publish by summer. But in the meantime, happy Imbolc!
