A Good Start to 2014

The dreadful cold was alleviated a bit, in my heart, when the fully-signed contract and check for a short story I wrote arrived in the mail. The publishers plan to launch the anthology at Balticon in May, which is probably too far for me to travel, but I'm still delighted. This anthology has been in the works for quite a while now (long enough that for a while I had the rights back after the first publisher was unable to publish it).

It's a reminder that persistence pays off, and the only guarantee of failure is not continuing to try again.

It's time to start my 2014 tax spreadsheet, I suppose, since I now have something to enter there.

In a Private Corner of the Morgue - #FridayFlash

I'm working on some urban fantasy worldbuilding over here:  http://wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com/229369.html

For this week's #FridayFlash, I'll share a bit I wrote yesterday, but shared first with the person whose comment inspired it.  if you're willing to play along, you can stop at the post I link to above and leave a comment or question.  Happy New Year!

In a Private Corner of the Morgue

The old coroner cleaned the corpse’s face, then wiped the dead woman’s lips clean of the smeared lipstick, leaving the mouth open wide. He crooked his skinny, wrinkled fingers by her mouth. “I can tell you’re still in there, my dear. You really don’t want to stay there while I do your autopsy. It would be quite unpleasant, I’m sure.” He wiggled the fingers of his right hand like a fond cat-owner offering a good scratch, and then waited, humming an old tune. His left hand picked up a tool from a nearby table.

He stood there patiently. After a while, there was a hint of movement in the back of the open mouth. The murdered woman’s body lay quite still on the cold steel table; the movement was only on the spirit-plane.

“That’s right, my dear.” He wiggled his fingers again.

Slowly, hesitantly, a glowing lavender and silver butterfly emerged from the corpse, wings all wrinkled like an earthly butterfly just out of its chrysalis. It climbed onto the grey lips and let its wings slowly stretch.

Very, very gently, the old coroner stroked the butterfly’s insubstantial wings, and the nervous creature slowly relaxed. The wings spread out, wider than the dead woman’s face, and the glow intensified.

“Don’t you worry, my dear, I’ll find your murderer.” He rubbed the tiny, furry head, then picked the butterfly up, placing it on a clean sheet of vellum he had waiting nearby. “Don’t you worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Then he plunged a spell-clad needle through the iridescent soul, securing it to the vellum and paralyzing it in all it’s new-furled beauty.

“Don’t you worry at all. I’ll keep you safe and perfect in my collection.”