Nancy Brauer

Time to wake up, Tori.

// January 24th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Blog

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jainsama/5351160288/

Tori and her fellow characters in the paranormal thriller Tori’s Row have had a long, long nap. That’s because life intervened for MCM and me, so the 18 chapters we’d written have been waiting for an ending.

At long last MCM and I are banging out the last nine chapters. We plan to have them ready in early March. For now you may want to check out the first two-thirds of Tori’s Row. It’s free! Here’s the blurb.

Tori McNulty has problems. As she’s putting her life back together, she’s attacked in Boston’s South End. She doesn’t remember much: mostly blood-drenched pavement and the crumpled body of her assailant. The good news is that she’s uninjured and not a murder suspect. The bad news is the obnoxious young man in 18th century dress shadowing her and confusing, violent flashbacks. Tori must figure out what happened that night before her stalker gets to her or she goes completely mad.

If you’d like a little more of a taste, check out this short bit of flash fiction I wrote last year. It’s a teeny bit spoilery.

Since this is just barely Tori’s Row-related, I’ll take this opportunity to pimp the most recent Strandline episode. It’s related because I’m taking a brief break from Strandline to finish up Tori’s Row. Episode 19 of Strandline will go live on February 4th.

Anyhoo, episode 18 of Strandline begins thusly.

The schooner’s patchwork sails marked it as one of the Greenmen’s ships just as much as the green man stenciled on the prow. Although Petra had no idea why Naveen was sprinting straight toward it, letting him get near a crew of witches couldn’t end well. Without breaking stride she hurled a verbal and psychic command at him: “Naveen, sleep!”

Naveen slowed, shook his head, then kept running. He was closing on the ship’s gangplank fast.

Read the rest, or start with episode 1.

Friday Flash: Chosen

// June 5th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Blog

“Mother,” I said, willing a quaver from my voice. My unnaturally low voice. “I don’t want to leave you.”

The ground trembled as on the horizon Mount Trembus belched more fire. Fire shouldn’t come from mountains, yet Mother was unafraid. “You must. Our clan has awaited this day for generations. It is a great honor.” Tears shone in her green eyes, for which I was grateful. She didn’t want me to leave, either.

“I…” I glanced around. Everything seemed so small now: Mother, my siblings, even the gruntar trees. “I can still be useful here.”

Mother twined her tail around my leg. It barely wrapped around once now. “You will be when you return.”

I nodded. We both knew my return was unlikely.

Mount Trembus rumbled its impatience. I stretched my wings, less disturbed by their presence now. They itched, eager for flight. “How will I find him?”

“Have faith. The Great Traveler will guide you.”

Again I nodded. Further delaying the inevitable was pointless. Resigned to my fate, I knelt to rub my face against Mother’s one last time. “Farewell, Mother.”

Mother purred as she returned the gesture. “Farewell, daughter. We shall hold vigil until it is over.”

My powerful hindquarters launched me into the red-stained sky. I closed my eyes, savoring the kiss of the sooty air as I answered the call of the Wheaton.

Friday Flash: Patrick

// May 28th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // Blog

This post was inspired by ErgoFiction’s Friday Freewrite. A picture of the object described below is available there.

I’m not sure where the idea had come from. One day the odd bits of tubing, gears, and whatnot I’d collected over the years begged to be assembled. So every evening I’d look over the bits and bobs pushed to one corner of my workbench. The work-worn wood bore dents and burns from years of personal projects. The scars lent it a wizened look, which I hoped I shared.

It started with a two-inch square block of stainless steel. A steel flange with a two-inch outer diameter suggested that the metal bits belonged together. Welding the flange was tedious because it wasn’t stainless steel, but worth the effort. The block and flange fit somehow.

Although the simple shape was pleasing to the eye, it needed more. During the next few evenings I affixed five steel nozzles, three long and two short. My object d’art–it certainly wasn’t useful–resembled a squat, hollow starfish. I named it Patrick.

I was a little alarmed when Patrick began speaking to me. Not aloud, of course. He was just a few bits of metal. Yet somehow he told me which pieces of him were missing: a thin slice of black iron pipe and articulated metal tubing. His symmetry was in series: four sides of his stainless steel core, five stubby legs, and his six flexible brass arms.

Two months had passed and Patrick still wasn’t complete. Spare gears tipped three of his arms, but none of my other pieces would suffice for the remaining three. A trip to the antique shop across town rectified the situation. I bought a crumbling steamer trunk for its worn brass clasps, as well as two glass baubles.

The clasps became claws, which I imagined Patrick using to assist me with my work. The yellow glass sphere, which I presume had been a lamp finial, was perhaps Patrick’s eye. He didn’t tell me, but seemed pleased with the globe at the end of his sixth arm.

A red and yellow-mottled acrylic hemisphere–formerly a paperweight–was the final piece. It slid easily into the steel flange, yet fit snugly enough to not require glue.

And that was it. Patrick, now whole, was happy, yet I felt oddly let down. Shrugging off the silly notion, I set Patrick down on the far corner of the bench so he could watch me work. I didn’t know if the motherboard I was repairing interested him, but he didn’t have much choice, did he?

Just before midnight I straightened, stretched, and glanced at Patrick as I reached to switch off the bare bulb overhead. Then I froze. A black mark ran down the middle of the red hemisphere. I must have accidentally singed Patrick with my soldering iron.

“Sorry, Patrick,” I said, my hand on the string dangling from the porcelain socket. Movement from Patrick’s corner of the workbench stilled my hand. Had he…?

Ignoring the shiver running up my spine, I turned to Patrick.

He did it again.

He blinked, and I knew I was in trouble.

Friday(ish) Flash: Irreconcilable Differences

// May 23rd, 2010 // 7 Comments » // Blog

At first I thought she was laughing. Her shoulders shook as she sat on the guard rail near the traffic light, seemingly oblivious to the traffic speeding past. Odd place for a phone conversation, I thought.

I continued along the sidewalk, casting furtive glances at the young woman. She leaned forward, head down, resting her forearms on her thighs. There was no sign of a cell phone, not that it mattered. Her body language was all wrong. The redhead was curled in on herself, keeping the world at bay.

Her sobs prompted me to stop. I scuffed my feet in the grass as I approached. “Hey,” I ventured, “are you okay?”

The girl lifted her head. Tears streaked her unlined face, and her eyes were red and puffy. “Fine,” she sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of one hand. Her attempt at a smile was unconvincing.

I bit my lip. What could have happened for her to have a breakdown here of all places? “I could call someone. A friend? The police?”

The girl’s red hair swayed as she shook her head. “No. It’s okay.” She bowed her head and her shoulders shook. A passing truck drowned her sobs.

I looked down the street at my office building, then back at the young woman. I was already running late. A few more minutes wouldn’t hurt, so I sat on the guard rail a respectful distance away. The girl kept crying, and commuters rubbernecked as they drove past.

After a long minute had passed I tried again. “My office is just up the road, if you want to–”

“Bastard!” she muttered.

“Pardon?”

She sat up straight, heaving a sigh. “Simon,” she said as though that explained everything.

“Boyfriend?” I asked.

The girl barked a laugh. “Ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh.” I didn’t really want to know more, but at least she’d stopped crying.

After wiping the tears from her face with her sleeve, the redhead turned to face me. “You know what he said? What he insists?”

I shook my head.

“You put a comma before ‘which.’”

I blinked. “Which?”

She threw her hands in the air, exasperated. “I know!”

I frowned at the girl. Maybe she was drunk or high or something. The impatient look the young woman gave me didn’t help her case any. “Which,” she repeated. “The relative pronoun.”

“‘Which’ is a pronoun?” I blurted.

The girl’s eyes narrowed, and she sighed again. “Never mind.”

I quickly replayed the conversation in my head. “Maybe you should talk to Simon about his, uh, comma usage.”

The girl looked at me as though I were an idiot. “Yeah,” she drawled. “I’ll do that.”

I stared incredulously for I don’t know how long, then stomped away. That’ll show me to be nice to someone in a college town.

This is loosely based on a real-life experience. I never did find out what the girl was crying about. I hope she’s okay. Anyhoo, kudos to @IsaKft for the which/comma suggestion.

Friday Flash: Too Much Information

// May 14th, 2010 // 17 Comments » // Blog

The best thing about Lauren was that she didn’t like to dance. No, that was the second best thing. The best was that she was a girl who’d actually talk to him.

Lauren stood beside Shane in the balloon and streamer-decorated school gym, swaying to Sting’s “Fields of Gold.” Her mid-calf-length dress swayed with her. Although the flowered dress looked good on her, he wished it were shorter. Lauren was skinny, but had nice legs.

“I wish I could dance,” Lauren sighed, watching the other students slow-dance in the middle of the room. She flashed a grin at him. The colored lights glinted off her braces. “Funny how we kick ass at soccer, but suck at that.” She tilted her head toward the not rhythmically impaired.

Shane smiled back. “Yeah, funny.”

He wanted to touch her, no matter how weird it might be. So he mustered his courage and turned to Lauren, taking her hands in his. Information flooded into him: Lauren’s happy-nervousness, her heart rate, and more that he couldn’t yet quantify. It took effort to ignore and focus on his date instead. She’d tilted her head in surprise but didn’t pull back. Encouraged, Shane said, “We could try it without the moving part.”

Lauren giggled. “I guess. It’ll look funny.”

“That’s okay,” he shrugged. He’d long since stopped caring what other people thought of him. It was that or be permanently mortified.

“All right.” She faced him fully and moved in close. On instinct his hands moved to her waist. They hovered there for a moment before settling on her narrow hips, with his–or maybe her–pulse pounding in his ears. Her pupils all but swallowed her blue eyes as she draped her arms on his shoulders. God, it felt good, but there was so much to process. She smelled like apples and hairspray and adrenaline and he wanted more and so did she so he leaned in and down, opening his lips a little, and bumped into her nose.

Shane jerked back, his face flaming as Lauren giggled. “It’s okay,” she said. “Like this.” Her hand moved to the back of his head, tilting his face down and to one side. The feel of her fingers in his hair alone was heavenly, but then she stood on her toes and pressed in and oh god so much of them touched, even her breasts, and then their lips, igniting nerve endings and pulsing hormones so he could hardly breathe.

Some time later Lauren broke the kiss. She smiled, which was good because Shane couldn’t stop grinning if he tried. “First kiss?” she asked.

He blushed some more. “Yeah.”

Her smile turned playful. “You need more practice.”

Shane nodded enthusiastically.

Shane is a character from my and Vanessa Brooks’ sci-fi/romance Strange Little Band.

For what it’s worth, I can dance… albeit not very well.