Grizelda Snippets

Scenes from the book:

…

In the end it was the slim man who saw her. He turned his head in her direction, did a double take, and pulled his rat up short.

“Hey, guys, look at this!” He halooed and waved them over.

The other two pulled their rats around and rode back. No sooner had the woman taken a look at her than she turned angrily on the newspaper man.

“I told you! I told you we weren’t supposed to go this way anymore!”

The newspaper man looked chagrined. “They’re not supposed to put people down this far. It’s been safe, all these years…”

“Well, now you’ve really done it, Geddy! She’s seen us! What are we supposed to do now?”

While the newspaper man beat a hasty retreat under the woman’s attacks, the slim man had been stealthily creeping up to the bars of the cell. Grizelda was too caught up in the argument to be aware of him until she felt a light tap on her knee. She turned around just in time to see the little man dancing out of her reach.

“Hey!”

The other two cut off their argument and turned to look at her. She suspected they’d quite forgotten she was there.

“Ah,” said the newspaper man, or Geddy, if that was his name.

There was an awkward silence.

“See, this wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said. After a moment’s hesitation, he gave his hat a quick tip. “You’d probably best just forget this happened and we’ll be on our way.”

“Too right it wasn’t,” said the woman, and she and Geddy started stepping leerily back toward their rats. The woman kept looking back at her, like she was afraid Grizelda was going to hurt them. In her condition, shut up in a prison cell!

That thought brought her back to her senses. Here were these inexplicable people, who had showed up at her door as sudden as a whirlwind, and now, just as suddenly, they were going to leave again.

“Wait! What are you?” she cried, desperately.

“Cool, it talks!” said the slim man.

…

She winced as a bright light splashed down on her. Her march turned into a blind fumble. She couldn’t make out much more than the dim outline of the ramp below her feet, but she kept going. A murmur went up all around her, above and below.

All at once the ramp beneath her turned into empty space. She’d been about to make another step but she checked it, reeling frantically. She stepped backwards a few paces just to get away from that ledge.

Slowly, the light-dazzle faded, and she could make out the rows and rows of faces, all around her. She was standing on a platform in the center of a giant sphere. They must have carved it straight out of the rock, she realized. It was as big as a stadium, with risers below her and balconies above, and every one of those seats was filled with a goblin watching her. Oh, God. She swallowed. She felt terribly exposed up there on a platform in the middle of empty space, all the worse because it was without railings.

She remembered she was supposed to be on trial and put her head back down. Still, she couldn’t help sneaking horrified sidelong glances now and then at all those green upturned faces.

…

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Toby said.

Grizelda could understand his doubt. She’d taken him on a tortuous route through the underground of Lonnes, deeper than he had ever gone before. Abandoned goblin mines, fungus-crusted caverns only two people wide with rickety, sloping floors – she had to admit it didn’t look like they were going anywhere. She just nodded and encouraged him on. When he stumbled, she showed him the good footholds.

When they got to the crevice that was the entrance to the ratriders’ lair, Toby looked highly doubtful.

“You’re skinny, it’ll be fine,” she said. “Watch.”

She pressed her back against the wall, slid herself sideways. After a squeeze, she was out in the grotto.

She was greeted by a chorus of hallooes from every point in the cave. There were ratriders everywhere, more than she remembered the last time she came – swinging from the rope bridges and clinging to the cave rock like brightly colored bugs. There weren’t any real flowers out this time of the year, but the ratriders had done the next best thing by raiding a milliner’s shop: a riot of silk flowers exploded everywhere, crowding together on the ledges and fighting with the ratriders for space. All their green lights had been turned up to full blaze.

Toby struggled in, bent double. As he rose, he stopped midway, awestruck.

The ratriders started a new barrage of greetings in his honor.

“It’s To-bee!”

“Sewer girl’s friend!”

“Do you sew, too?”

As soon as Toby got over his surprise, he finished standing up. His head ran into some of the rope bridges overhead, and he ducked and batted them away with a strangled noise.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Grizelda said.

“Well, yes, I…”

“Hey, Griz, Toby! Come on, I’ll introduce you to everybody!”

…

“We’ve got to do something,” Toby said. “It’s getting worse and worse. The Committees are taking over the Republic and turning it into a police state. They’re not just targeting sorcerers now, but honest people, too.” Grizelda looked at the floor. “When are we not going to take it anymore?”

Some of the kids shifted noncommittally; Stevry rolled his eyes.

Slowly it dawned on her. People like her had done something terrible; they’d helped the Auks eat people in exchange for not getting eaten themselves. But it hadn’t been her. It had all ended when she was only three years old. She looked at all those kids sitting around on crates in a basement. They weren’t organized, but they could do something. Maybe if she, a witch, did something good for Corvain, maybe she could make it okay.

“Let’s free all the prisoners in Promontory,” Grizelda said quietly.

For a minute, her statement didn’t even sink in. Then they were all staring at her like she was crazy. She wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t crazy either. It felt like she’d been taken under by a spell, one that made her brave. Or maybe it was reckless. But she couldn’t stop talking now.

“Toby, your grandpa’s in there, right? Maybe he’s still alive. And how many of you know someone who’s been arrested?”

Four or five hands rose up.

“Maybe it’s time to take them back.”

“Girl, nobody escapes from Promontory,” said Mitchell.

“I did.” And then pulled off her headscarf, letting her gray hair fall out. She couldn’t tell the truth, not quite, but she could tell them something near to it.

“I got framed as a witch because of this–” She jabbed a finger at it. “I got sent to Promontory, but I escaped. Even they think nobody escapes. But there’s holes in Promontory. I’ve seen them.”

Jamin started pushing together a couple of crates to make a makeshift table. “Have you got any details you can tell us, Grizelda?”

Grizelda Sample Chapter

Chapter 1

Grizelda shot up in bet the moment Elisabet started to shake her. She hadn’t been sleeping very deeply anyway, hadn’t managed to sleep deeply for days. She looked at the face of her friend, pale and seeming disembodied in the half-light, her expression telling everything. It’s happened, hasn’t it? she was about to say, but Elisabet beat her to the words.

“They’re at the door,” Elisabet said in a terrified whisper.

In a moment Grizelda was up and at the dormitory window. Rain trickled down the glass in rivulets, lit gold from the lone streetlamp below. If she stood on her tiptoes and turned her head in an awkward angle, she could just make out the street, where two men in dark greatcoats huddled by the lamp, trying to read a piece of paper. Gendarmes.

“I’ll get you some clothes for the weather.” Elisabet was flying, throwing open dresser drawers and ransacking their contents. “Here!” She threw a coat at Grizelda. Grizelda caught it awkwardly and resumed pulling on her dress and shoes. She was trying to do it standing up and was only getting herself into a tangle, but she couldn’t afford to sit down, she didn’t have time.

Time? She’d had bucketloads of time. Three days ago Meaven Godey the informer had found out her secret. What kind of an idiot stayed home after an incident like that?

The commotion was starting to wake up the other girls in the dormitory. They stirred and lifted their heads to see what was the matter.

“It’s the gendarmes,” Elisabet told them. “For Grizelda.”

Meanwhile Grizelda had managed to get her dress on straight. “Somebody go wake the mistress. I’ll get out the back way.”

With that she threw the coat around herself and made for the door.

“I’ll go with you,” Elisabet declared.

Together they hurried out of the dormitory, past the mistress’s bedroom, and down a darkened stairway. With luck they would be able to get down to the public part of the shop before the gendarmes got inside. After that it was only a short way through some back rooms to the alley.

“I’m so sorry, Liz,” Grizelda said as they stole down quietly in the dark.

“Don’t be.”

“I should have left when it happened. I’ve put you all in danger.”

Their whispered conversation was cut off abruptly. A glare of candlelight lanced upward through the balusters along with the sound of voices. They froze, listening.

“We take unfortunate girls off the streets and put them to good use. We’re all upstanding citizens of Corvain. I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

That was Miss Hesslehamer, the mistress, already awake and downstairs. Another voice, a male one, answered her. “We’ve got here a letter of cachet. You can’t stop us doing a search upstairs.”

Elisabet squeezed Grizelda’s hand. “Quick! Use your power and hide us!”

“Liz, you know I can’t when I’m under pressure–”

She lost her chance when Miss Hesslehamer and the two gendarmes came to the foot of the stairs and spotted the two of them. Miss Hesslehamer looked terrible, with her glasses askew and a wrap clumsily thrown over her nightdress. When she saw Grizelda standing there in her coat, for a moment it looked like she would speak. Instead she turned back to the gendarmes.

“What is it you’re going to search, sirs?” she said. It was clear in her voice she was frightened. It was the first time in her life Grizelda had ever heard Miss Hesslehamer frightened, and that scared her more than even the gendarmes did.

But the gendarmes pushed past her without speaking. Grizelda tried to bolt for it. She almost thought she was going to make it past them, but one of them snatched her by the collar.

“Not you, miss. You’ve got gray hair. You’re the one we’re here to search for.”

She tried to sneak in a bite, but the gendarme clouted her across the head and forced her to walk back upstairs and back into the dormitory. Elisabet followed them, wringing her hands, and Miss Hesslehamer bore the candle.

They made her stand in one corner where they could keep an eye on her. Like a nightmare, she could watch the whole scene play out but could do nothing about it. The girls were all sitting up in bed now, terrified but silent.

The taller one pointed at Grizelda. “Ma’am, where does that one keep her personal belongings?”

“What are you investigating her for? How do you know it was even her?”

“Under her bed, I’ll rate,” said the other, and he went to the nearest empty bed and tipped out the mattress. Elisabet’s bedding landed on the floor in a snarl. The gendarme pawed through it, not caring that his boots were treading street-grease on them.

“She’s under arrest for sorcery,” said the first to Miss Hesslehamer.

“I’m training these girls to be law-abiding citizens!”

The gendarme gave up his search and went for the other empty bed in the dormitory.

“No!” Grizelda ran forward to stop him, though Elisabet tried to hold her back. The gendarme knocked her down and heaved over the mattress.

A flurry of brightly-colored papers spilled out onto the floor.

Grizelda still lay dazed, half on her side on the floor, but when she saw these she knew she was in for it. She dropped her head.

“That’s enough!” cried Miss Hesslehamer. “I won’t have people treated this way in my own home!” There was a noise like Miss Hesslehamer struggling, then a thud as the light went out. Somebody screamed. Grizelda felt a sharp twist of her arm behind her back, then she was dragged to her feet and made to march out of the room.

…

Lonnes’s skyline was dominated by the massive constructions of the Auks. They had been birds. Great intelligent black birds from across the sea. They’d built their fortresses here and tried to rule Corvain and for two hundred years they’d nearly succeeded. Greater than man-sized, they must have been, for those high, broad doors were far too big for mere humans to pass in and out of. The smaller, human dwellings of Lonnes clustered together in their shadow. But the relics of the old Aukish domination were crumbling now, painted over with the slogans of the Republic. They were reduced to not much more than a charcoal-colored smudge, blurred by the rain and light of predawn.

Most of the streetlamps had long since gone out, but a few still made wavering pools of yellow here and there against the late November gray. The rain fell in a steady, insistent mist, hissing against the cobblestones and pouring off of roofs in sheets. Sogged liberty bows hung limply against citizens’ doors.

Grizelda screamed and struggled at first. She kicked them in the shins as much as she was able, and cursed them for wrongly arresting her and acting against the values of the Revolution. What was this government coming to anyway, when it dragged innocent citizens out of their homes in the middle of the night in the name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity?

The gendarmes were not at all interested in her speeches, though, and they were too strong for her. One held her arms twisted tightly behind her back while the other clamped his arm over her face so that her screams wouldn’t wake any citizens. The fight was exhausting. By the time dawn had broken, she was so drained that she mutely allowed them to drag her through the streets, head bent. The rain ran down her head and soaked through her clothing, coat and all, so that it clung heavily to her body. She felt ashamed of herself, too. Not only had she sinned against the ideals of the Republic, but her stupid mistake had gotten all the shop tainted with guilt by association. What would happen to them now? She would face the Committee with dignity, though, and not look like a coward. Just after she had rested.

Oh, Corvain! she thought. The Revolution wasn’t supposed to be like this!

The timber of the rain’s hiss changed, deepening to a roar. The river Sarny was nearby. Grizelda looked up in fresh terror. There was a low, dark mass out where the land jutted into the river and the river took a sharp turn around it. Promontory. It had been a fort in the feudal days of the Auks and the sorcerers, but when the Republic took over, they had not abandoned it like the other buildings. They had converted it to a prison.

Grizelda’s steps faltered a little when she got to the bridge. Promontory was separated from the mainland by a moat and this bridge was the sole way in and out. It was a narrow arc of stone spanning the gap, without railings – part of the old fort’s defenses. The gendarme gave her a warning nudge in the back. She swallowed and walked forward. Early risers were just beginning to show on the streets now. Some of them stared at her as she passed but most of them hunched themselves against the wet and hurried on their way.

“Long live the Revolution!” somebody yelled. She looked around, but she couldn’t tell who it had been.

She made the perilous journey over the bridge, stumbling every few steps, then the gendarmes stopped to haggle with the gatekeeper at Promontory’s outer wall. One gendarme kept a firm grip on her while the other did the talking, until finally the gatekeeper opened up the door and let them into the courtyard.

There was a scattering of buildings inside looking sorry for themselves, separated from each other by swaths of sodden turf. But what dominated the view, even drawing her attention away from the firing range, was the bone clock. She had heard the stories about it, but she never thought she would be within the walls of Promontory to see it. They said it had been a sick joke of the Auks. The bone clock was a sort of sundial, with a gnomon of stone set at an angle in the middle of the courtyard. But the uprights, marking the twelve positions of the clock, were human femurs. Another reminder of who was predator and who was prey.

Grizelda wanted to retch, but she bit down on her lip, hard. Courage, Grizelda.

The gendarmes took her inside to be searched. Not by themselves, thank God. They led her to a small, brightly-lit room where they had a woman for these sorts of situations. Expressionless, she ordered Grizelda to take off her coat, her shoes, her dress and lay them on a bench. She was allowed to keep her undergarments on.

The woman picked up each garment and rubbed it, looking like she’d been asked to handle old seaweed.

“What’s this?” she said, holding up the sleeve of Grizelda’s dress.

There were spools running down the length of the sleeve in a line, attached by delicate leather thongs so they would wind freely when the thread was pulled. It had been Grizelda’s own idea to sew the spools on, so she could keep the thread handy in Miss Hesslehamer’s shop. She clenched her fists, wanting to snatch it back from her, but she did not.

“It’s just so I could have my thread,” she muttered.

“Hm.”

The woman removed a pair of scissors from the dress pocket and dropped them into an envelope. There was nothing else offending, so after she had patted Grizelda down, she was allowed to have her clothes back.

Grizelda pulled her dress back on, inwardly relieved. The woman hadn’t found her little packet of needles, in the inside pocket of the bodice. So she had something sharp on her. She had no idea what she might do with them, though.

“Write your name here.” The woman handed her the envelope, all folded up and sealed.

Grizelda took the pen. “Why?”

“To identify you. You can have this back when you’ve served your term.”

Not likely, Grizelda thought. It was only under exceptional circumstances that someone ever came out of Promontory alive. Somebody with connections, with a powerful or a rich family to buy them out of jail. Not like her. Still, she signed her name on the packet and handed it back over.

…

Somewhere in the Fish District, three rats were trotting down the pitch of a rooftop. It was midmorning by now, and the rain had still not let up. But it had softened to a steady patter, and out in the street the light would have been strong enough to read by. On the rooftop, shielded by heavy foliage, it was as good as night. Any rain that managed to filter through the tree’s leaves collected into heavy, fat raindrops that exploded on impact. The rats didn’t give the water a moment’s notice as they cleared the gutter and landed on the top of a wall. From the wall it was a quick scurry downward to the surface of the street.

They stood there a moment, sniffing the air. It was only an instant – they were just checking that the coast was clear. Then as if on a cue, they all three slipped into a storm drain one after the other.

One would have to be sharp-eyed indeed to have even seen the rats. But if anyone was watching, in that brief moment when they were exposed at street level, they might have sworn they’d seen somebody riding them.

About This Site

Steam Trains and Ghosts was born in the spring of 2009 when I was marketing around my first novel, Grizelda. It didn’t get any nibbles from agents I’d read went in for that sort of thing. Not to be deterred, I podcasted Grizelda for free on Podiobooks. It’s been a great experience. The feedback it’s getting from the community there is constantly teaching me how to be a better writer and marketer. I’m still trying to crack into the traditional publishing market, but for the time being I’m an author in new media.

The purpose of this blog is to get the word out about upcoming and current work of mine and to connect with other e-writers. I like to point out the great work getting done out there by people more creative than myself. Here you can find book reviews, commentary, cartoons, recipes, and other miscellany about issues near and dear to my heart.

As for the author, I’m a more or less tech-savvy millennial, though I don’t know how to write code and I still don’t own a cell phone. In real life I’m a biochemistry major at Carleton College in the itty bitty town of Northfield, MN. It’s where Jesse James was finally captured and arrested – probably because he was freezing his butt off. I like slime molds, cats, underbaked brownies, the incompleteness paradox, really old graveyards, and the color green.

About Grizelda

Grizelda is a 14-year-old seamstress who’s been accused by the revolutionary government of harboring magical tendencies. Her people have just thrown off centuries of magical oppression, so now they make people like her “disappear” in the wee hours of the morning.

She escapes, but now that she’s wanted, she has to hide out in the city underneath the city. That means adapting to the ways of the goblins, a cheerless bunch who storm about muttering about the dictatorship of the proletariat. It’s damp, dark, the goblins hate her, she hates her new job, she misses the sun, and she can’t decide if the pixies are on her side or not. Soon enough she’s tempted to do the one thing she’s not supposed to do – get mixed up in events on the surface. She joins a group of young revolutionaries who think the new republic has gone too far. But they don’t trust her connection to magic either…

Grizelda is available as a free podcast here. I have plans in the works to put out an e-book version, but I’m still shopping around for the best platform to do that on. In the meanwhile, check out the sample chapter.

About The Confederacy of Heaven

Nasan, exiled warrior of the Rattlingbones clan, wanders alone in the wasteland that was once part of Canada. Two centuries ago, the Stars who rule the universe condemned our world to eternal drought.

In the wasteland she meets Oscar, a strange bird-sprite who claims to be her spirit-guide but can’t quite prove it. He’s up to something. For one thing, he gets her tangled up in the affairs of the city people, the rich ones who’ve walled themselves in around the last remaining reservoirs.

There may be a chance to send one person to plead before the Stars to end the drought-curse that’s sucking dry all life on Earth. The cities are at war with each other over who to send. If Nasan can avoid getting herself shot, or sucked into the heavenly conspiracy that’s out to get her, she may just have to save the world.

This novel is coming soon – I’m currently seeking an agent for it.