The Elsewhere Saga continues...

There I was, in the middle of not one, but three new novels, having decided that the plot of Book 2 of The Elsewhere (I didn't even have a title at that point) would never coalesce into a story I could decipher, let alone write, and that my readers would be disappointed that I never returned to the story of Richard, Eliana, the Infernal, the Keepers, or the ALL.

Then...BOOM!

Out of nowhere and without provocation (I'd given up trying to tease that storyline out of whatever dark corner of my mind - or the Multi-verse - such things lie dormant in back in early 2016) the entire plot, storyline, and advancement of this epic tale dropped into my consciousness, lap, head, whatever, all at once.

I equate that sensation to being struck hard in the head with some heavy object. A lamp, perhaps. Or a log.

This is how it happens to me (though it's usually more like being hit upon the noggin with something a bit softer...like a rock in a sock) and I'd been waiting for it for almost two years.

So, for those of you who've read the tale entitled Infernal and asked for more, it is coming. 

Alas, it won't be today. Or tomorrow. (Oh, you bastard, I hear some of you thinking, stop teasing me and get on with it!). Sadly, it's not even likely to be this year (Okay, whoever just threw that mental brick at my head, knock it off. I'm still reeling from the epiphany I mentioned above). But it is coming. And just to prove I'm not a total jerk, here, for those who are interested, is a small excerpt from Chapter One of Revenant:

     Eight-year-old Roo lie awake, staring at the ceiling and marking the minutes as they passed with occasional glances at the Snoopy digital clock at his bedside. Snoopy, frozen in perpetual dance to the left of his doghouse, feet pumping and arms thrown wide in abandon while his pal Woodstock watched this eternal happy dance from the right with a grin that conveyed good times with great friends. Red numbers glowed on the side of the doghouse informing Roo that it was now 2:19 a.m., a time when most other boys his age would be asleep and dreaming of baseball, rocket ships, and that hot new video game that would be released at Christmas, now only three months away.

     Lightning struck somewhere close outside, illuminating the jumble of boxes littering the room and the not quite square against the wall dresser on the far side. Thunder promptly replied as if the two forces of nature were conversing.

     It wasn’t the storm—walking and talking its way up and down the streets and boulevards of Lima, Ohio as if a showy brass band had come to town to give an impromptu performance for this night and this night only—that was keeping Roo awake. He had no fear of storms as others his age might and did not hide beneath the covers or shrink into a corner as one approached, first announcing itself with low rumbles, more felt than heard, before lighting the sky with brilliant flashes of electricity paired with loud peals of thunder.

     Roo was, in fact, fascinated by weather in general and thunderstorms in particular. He lay awake many a night, listening as his father had taught him, counting the seconds between each stroboscopic discharge and its noisy rejoinder in order to mark the distance of the storm from his bed. Be it the calming nature of rain drumming on the roof or the windows or the repetition of counting, he was usually asleep within minutes.

     Nor was it the chaotic stacks of toys and boxes or the haphazardly placed dresser, all of which threw odd and disjointed shadows that might unnerve a person of any age up the walls and across the ceiling in the dim glow of the nightlight—again, Snoopy and his pal smiling joyously lest one forget that life should always be wonderful and full of fun, all play and no work if you’re a cartoon dog and bird, or maybe an eight-year-old boy—plugged into an outlet just above the baseboard. The shadows didn’t bother Roo because his mother had taught him about the interplay between light and solid objects. How angles of a wall and the deflection of a light source could twist a shape so that its shadow appeared to be a tall man, or a witch, or something worse. She did this not only to lessen his fear of the dark and the natural things in it but also so he would know if a shadow belonged where it was.

      Or if it didn’t.

     The closet door was ajar but this didn’t disturb Roo’s slumber either. He knew there was nothing in there but more boxes and a rod with some of his clothes hanging from it. The movers had placed the boxes marked with his name in this room that very afternoon. They’d been polite and smiled at him when he spoke, but had largely ignored his requests to put this box here or that box there. After a time, he’d stopped asking and hadn’t even mentioned the dresser they’d left out of place that was much too large for him to push snug against the wall on his own.

     They were working men. Adults set on a task and much too busy to listen to a small boy no matter how well mannered he was. Roo was used to such things and had busied himself making his bed, hanging his clothes and plugging his clock into the wall.

     The numbers on the clock changed, announcing 2:23 a.m. to Roo, his unfamiliar new room in an equally unfamiliar new house, and the uncaring clutter of boxes.

     The storm, now moving off to grace another town with its discordant melody, gave a final weak flash followed seconds later by a rather tepid growl of thunder in parting.

     Still, Roo did not sleep.

     He was waiting. For mid night. Not midnight, but mid night. The moment exactly halfway between dusk and dawn—roughly 2:29 a.m. at this time of the year in this part of North America—when darkness is at its fullest and the veil between the land of the living and the territory of the dead becomes thinnest. The true beginning of the witching hour.

     What if she doesn’t come? He asked himself for the hundredth time since his father had kissed him goodnight at 8:30. What if she forgets? Or if she’s too busy? We live in a new house now. What if she can’t find my room?

     Six minutes later—an eternity for a small boy—his mother entered the room as she did every night at mid night, her white nightgown flowing out behind her like the gossamer wings of a butterfly. Roo sat up quickly and breathed a sigh of relief.

     “Roo, honey, it’s late. You should be sleeping.” She sat on the edge of the bed so softly she didn’t disturb the bedding beneath her. Then reached out and brushed at his fine blonde hair before placing a kiss near his forehead.

     “I wanted to see you,” he said.

     “And you thought since it’s a new house I might lose my way?”

     She said this with a smile that he happily returned. She knew his thoughts as any mother knows those of her first and only child. “I will always check in on you, my love. So long as I’m able, no matter where you are. You know that. You’re the love of my life, the heart of my heart.”

     Content and now feeling the lateness of the hour, Roo rubbed his tired eyes with the heels of his hands and lay back down. He pulled his blanket up across his chest and looked up into his mother’s eyes.

     “Will you tell me about the thousand-acre wood?” he asked hopefully.

     They were his favorite stories and she knew them by heart, telling them to him at bedtime each and every night for as long as he could remember. One day he’d outgrow them, just as he’d outgrow the nickname given for his favorite character in them. But for now he wanted to hear his mother’s voice and be pulled into sleep by tales of a raggedy ol’ honey loving bear, his silly but well meaning companions, and the little boy Christopher who loved them all.

     Roo’s mother laid her hand upon his as she began the story of how Pooh got his head stuck in a hunnypot and Roo soon drifted away to the land between waking and sleeping where reality holds no sway and time no meaning. Where a heart’s sorrow may be forgotten and dreams might, just might, be answered.

     He didn’t feel his mother’s hand on his. He couldn’t.

     His mother had been dead for over a year.

Just a little something to tide you over, faithful reader. I hope you enjoyed it.

T. Joseph Browder

October 8, 2017