Tomorrow (May 14th), the book trailer for "Scotch Broom" (Book 2 of Witches of Galdorheim) will be on top of the You Gotta Read book trailer contest. Voting is the 21st-27th. And, of course, Scotch Broom is my featured book for the Summer Teen Read Party going on all through May (schedule in the right-hand sidebar).
Poor "Midnight Oil" is feeling bereft of attention. To remedy that, here's the Midnight Oil book trailer AND its first chapter. Okay, it can quit being jealous now.
Chapter One Company’s Coming
Present Day,
Galdorheim Island in the Barents Sea
Kat scrambled around her room getting
ready for her grandfather’s arrival. More importantly, Andy would
be coming, too. She dwelled a moment on their one kiss, and her
stomach fluttered. Nearly six months had passed since she’d left
him in Siberia, and that was one hundred and eighty days too long.
She took a last
glance in the mirror and jerked the childish red ribbon from her
hair. The black tresses fell loose down her back. Twisting to check
out her jean-clad rear in the mirror, she smiled.
Yes! Tight enough to show off, but not so tight Mom’ll flip out.
She searched for her bunny-familiar and
found Teddy snoozing under the pillow. Kat nudged him. He blinked and
yawned.
“Hey, lazy
butt, want to come along?”
“Cold.”
“Not too cold.
I’ll carry you.”
Teddy tipped his
head. Kat could almost hear the little gears grinding. “Okay.”
She tucked Teddy into the sling and
hurried to the parlor where her family waited.
Rune, her half-brother, yawned. “About
time.”
“I can’t just
throw any old thing on like you do!” Kat stuck out her tongue at
him but had to admit he always looked great. If he’d only wear some
other color than black.
“Let’s go.” Ardyth, her mother,
snapped her fingers. A brown velvet cape leapt from its hook, draping
itself around the statuesque blonde’s shoulders. The dragon clasp
hissed as it snicked shut at her throat. The tall witch glanced in
the mirror hung above the coat hooks and patted her pale hair into
place.
Kat’s family left the house and
walked together down the main street of the village. Other Wiccans
came out of their homes, silently falling into step behind them. They
made their way toward the portal, which served as entrance and exit
to the magic, bubble-like barrier. Without the protective shield,
their village would freeze like the rest of the tiny, icebound island
of Galdorheim. When they passed the Council Hall, the head witch
joined them.
Kat dipped her head in greeting. “Good
morn, Aunt Thordis.”
A tweak of a smile touched Thordis’
upper lip, and she nodded in greeting to her niece. “Ardyth,”
Thordis said to Kat’s mother, “I assume you finished preparing
the cave for the ceremony?”
“Yes. I put out
the black drapery and moved in a small altar. It’s quite charming.
If only Boris looked as good.” Ardyth tsked and shook her head. “I
do wish he’d been, well, in a more, ah, dignified
position when the ice caved in. That broken leg sticking out. The big
hole in his head. Terrible.”
Kat patted her mother’s arm. “Don’t
worry, Mom. I’m sure Dad doesn’t mind. After being stuck in the
ice for fourteen years, that’s the last thing he’d worry about.”
Ardyth raised her
voice. “Well, he might!” Nearby witches glanced their way. She
leaned toward Kat and whispered, “After all, he’s not dead yet! I
don't like people just assuming.”
Thordis stopped and faced her sister.
“And he’s not going to die here if I have anything to say about
it!”
Ardyth winced. “All right, all right.
I won’t thaw him. I’d just like a chance to tell him how much…”
Ardyth’s voice hitched.
Thordis shot her sister a look, but
said nothing more. The older witch walked through what looked like a
simple garden gate, set in a shimmering wall of soap bubble film. The
others followed close behind.
The half-siblings looked at each other.
Rune shrugged with a questioning look. Kat took his arm, leaning
close to his ear.
“Mom wants to say goodbye.”
“I know,”
Rune replied. “Don’t you? Like, he is
your father.”
“Aunt Thordis said it’d be too
painful for him if he thawed. He might live for only a few seconds.
It’s not worth it.”
“So, he’ll just be a popsicle
forever, eh?”
Kat slugged her younger brother’s
bicep and hissed, “That’s awful!”
“I know,”
Rune shot back with a grin, exposing the longer than normal canines
he’d inherited from his vampire father.
Kat pursed her
lips and narrowed her eyes. She elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “If
you act like such a child,
Nadia won’t be interested in you.” The comment stopped him in his
tracks.
Rune hissed out a breath and looked at
his feet. “Okay, you win this one. I hope she came along like she
promised.”
“Oh, she’s
probably forgotten all about you.” Kat suppressed a smirk. “I
think it’ll just be Grandfather Ivansi and Andy. Maybe a few of the
Sami hunters to help.”
With an evil grin, he sang in a
whispering lilt, “Katrina loves Andy. Katrina loves Andy.” Kat
envied her little brother’s knack for flying below the older
witches’ radar. The elders never seemed to see his mischievous side
when he pulled some stunt. They all thought him the perfect little
warlock-slash-vampire.
Kat sighed. Maybe she was in love. At
almost fifteen, she’d never had a boyfriend before. When Andy
kissed her, it felt…totally awesome. Now he was almost here, she
felt her palms getting damp. She dried first one then the other on
Teddy’s fur, trying to look like she was simply petting her rabbit.
While her mind wandered to thoughts of
Andy, the family reached the portal leading to the ice-bound part of
the island. The glacier that encased the body of Kat’s father
hulked above them a hundred feet to the right of the gate. They
continued down a barely visible path leading to the edge of the
water. Eight months of the year, solid ice surrounded the island,
plus another two months of floe ice. Only during a brief summer
period did the water clear, opening the way for boats to reach them.
During the winter months, the jetty was only a jutting piece of ice.
Now, with it melted, she could see the tiny wooden pier the Wiccans
built to provide a place to tie boats.
Kat searched the horizon. Wondering if
her grandfather would come by kayak, she decided a paddleboat
wouldn’t work if he planned to take back the block of ice
containing her father. No, he would need to bring something bigger.
Rewarding her
vigil, two black dots appeared far out to sea. The older witches
waited patiently as the boats approached, but Kat stood on tiptoe,
leaning forward as if it would help her see better. Did
he come? She pressed her lips
tightly together. No use sweating over it. He would either be with
them, or he wouldn’t.
The two boats finally neared enough to
make out their general outlines, but not close enough for her to see
if Andy was present. Rune’s sharper vampire vision could pick out
details better than Kat’s.
She elbowed him. “What kind of boats?
How many people?”
“Don’t get
all worked up,” he replied. When Kat frowned at him, he relented.
“It looks like a motorboat, maybe a thirty-footer, and a three-man
kayak. The motorboat must be pulling the kayak ‘cause I don’t
think even Sami fishermen can paddle that fast.”
Once Rune told her what he saw, she
could also make out the two boats. “I see them,” she called out,
pointing and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Teddy almost fell out
of the sling.
“Yes, dear,”
Aunt Thordis answered, patting her shoulder. “We all see the boat.
Now calm down.”
Kat’s cheeks reddened, and she
planted her feet flat on the ground. She didn’t want to look too
eager. Andy might have thought the kiss was just between friends.
Maybe she had read too much into it. She jammed her hands into her
pockets to hide their trembling.
Finally, the motorboat eased up to the
little pier. Kat’s grandfather moved to the bow and bent to pick up
a coil of rope lying on the deck. Before he could grasp it, the free
end sprang away from him, tying itself around a piling. Kat glanced
back to see her mother’s upraised hand, directing the rope with a
flick of her wrist. Startled, Ivansi straightened and smiled. He
waved at Ardyth and moved to the back of the motorboat. At the stern,
he picked up the thick cord, holding it up and away from his body.
Ardyth gestured again, and it performed the same trick as the bow
mooring line.
“That’s a
neat spell with the rope. I’d like to learn it,” Kat commented.
“‘Line,’ sis,” Rune replied.
“If it’s on a boat, it’s called a ‘line.’”
Kat shrugged and mumbled, “Whatever.”
She forgot Rune when she saw a head of
black hair through the windshield of the small pilot’s cabin. She
raised her hand halfway but stopped and pressed it to her chest. Her
heart pounded, and cold little fish swam up and down her spine.
The head rose
higher, and Kat recognized Nadia, the girl Rune had become friends
with at the Sami village. Rune trotted forward. Nadia left the cabin
and came out on the open deck. Rune was ready to take her hand. She
emitted a startled squeak and then giggled as he levitated her from
boat to pier.
Meanwhile, the kayak pulled up to the
other side of the pier, and three Sami men hopped out, tying it to
another piling. Kat scanned the small group, but the boy she couldn’t
wait to see wasn’t among them. Shoulders slumping, she turned back
and walked over to her grandfather. He put his hands on her arms and
smiled, showing strong, white teeth in his brown, weather-beaten
face.
“Granddaughter, I greet you,” he
said in heavily accented English and kissed her on both cheeks.
She pecked his cheeks in return.
“Grandfather, I greet you as well.” She stood back, and Ardyth
came forward to meet her father-in-law for the first time. Kat
glanced at the boat, but Andy didn’t appear.
She suppressed a sigh. “My mother,
Ardyth.” She kept it simple. English was one of the few languages
the Samis and the Wiccans had in common, but she knew Ivansi spoke
very little of it. He had probably made a special effort to learn the
greeting.
“Daughter, I greet you.” The older
man kissed Ardyth on each cheek. Ardyth surprised Ivansi by throwing
her arms around him. She’d only been Boris’s wife for a few months
before the tragic cave-in, but the old man looked much like her
deceased husband. Kat could almost feel the wave of love and sorrow
flow between the two. They both lost the same person.
The group gathered to walk back to the
village portal. Tonight, a banquet for the visitors, and then,
tomorrow morning, everyone would gather in the ice cave to say a
final goodbye to Boris.
Kat looked back at the empty boat. She
bowed her head, blinking back tears. Andy obviously wasn’t
interested in seeing her, so that was that. She’d get over
it…sometime.
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