Sidhe na Daire

mood: awake

Here's something different...I'm featured over on The Far Edge of Normal blog today. It's a special treat, one of my favorite recipes:

http://jaletaclegg.blogspot.com/2012/04/thursday-recipes-guest-chef-danielle.html

Go check it out!

Enjoy,
 

mood: busy

Okay, life and health have been getting in the way, but I've managed to get something posted this week, abet late.

This week's post at the Literary Handyman is about pacing:

http://lit-handyman.livejournal.com/16483.html

Enjoy!

Danielle

mood: excited

No..not a fleecing...Lunacon. Hope to see some of you there. Check out my previous post for where you can find me.

On other notes, the final manuscript for Today's Promise has been passed on to the Production Manager for assignment to an editor! Wheee! Of course, so has Tomorrow's Memories, which means very likely I'm going to receive two sets of revisions at once! Eeek!

Hard to believe how close this is to being done!

Thank you to everyone who has made this possible...Halla Fleischer, David Goldstein, Jeffrey Lyman and L. Jagi Lamplighter for helping beta read, Neal Levin for giving me motivation to finish and all the wonderful fellow authors out there who are helping me promote!

More updates as they come available.

D-

mood: calm

• What's Hot - Anthologies (Panel), Sat 11:00 - 12:00, William Odelle

• Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading (Reading), Sat 14:00 - 15:00, Birch

• Partners and Partners (Panel), Sat 19:00 - 20:00, Westchester Ballroom A3

• New Military Technologies: How They'll Impact SF (Panel), Sun 11:00 - 12:00, Maple

• Reading: Danielle Ackley-McPhail (Reading) (M), Sun 12:30 - 13:00, Bartell

See you there!

Danielle

mood: exhausted

Aí flinched and his jaw worked soundlessly a moment. He blew a breath that might have been half of a bittersweet laugh. For a moment his head dropped, then he glanced up and away, eyes traversing the city as if looking for something that would sway her. He sighed and took a step back. “Where will ye go?”

Kara let her own gaze roam as she considered his question. It wasn’t the city she saw before her, though, but a pair of deep brown eyes in a face that once had shot her through with terror. She had made good on her promise to Rose, technically, but Tony was still prisoner to guilt and fear and half a dozen other corrosive emotions stemming from his time as Olcas’s host. She knew the bite of those relentless feelings, how they damaged and shackled a person inside. Though he was no longer possessed, Kara knew the truth. He was as much a captive now as before Carmán’s Children were banished. Could she help him? Would he let her, or would he shun her attempt?

Did it matter? Either way she would take the Rom up on their offer. Honor would not allow her to do otherwise. She knew his demons, how to root them out, how to fight them. When he was ready, she would be also.

“I don’t know…everywhere, I suspect,” she finally answered with a little laugh, her voice already far off, even to herself. Phantom strains of “Free Bird” teased her ears. She smiled. Despite the heavy weight of her thoughts, she felt the first currents of pleasant excitement she’d experienced in quite some time. Worlds she’d never expected had opened to her. Old joys resurrected, new ones to be learned. Her heart raced at the thought of the literal road ahead of her. But first, she had obligations still to be fulfilled. She did allow herself one selfish pleasure, though. When Aí reached for the torc around his neck to open a gate to take them home, she drew his hand away.

He looked puzzled, but did not object as she linked her fingers with his.

“Let’s take the long way home,” she said to him. Aí smiled.

When she came to her senses Kara found herself curled in a comfortable grotto that reminded her of the shore of the New England coast where she and Grandda had once gone spelunking all summer, or at least what had passed for spelunking when she was five. They would wander in and out of the honeycombed caverns revealed at low tide, a cool breeze tugging at their sweaters and the waves outside swooshing their gentle melody. Grandda always seemed to find the most glorious caves; the ones with ceilings of glittering crystal lit up by sunlight lancing through crevices above, or with deep dark pools full of magical—to a five-year-old—creatures that glowed translucently in the beam from their flashlight. And always there had been a soft bed of moss or a tatty blanket they’d brought with them where they could sit and eat their snacks, making up stories well into the afternoon.

Where she sat now was not in the least rivaled by the wonder of those childhood explorations. Here the glittering ceiling was faceted diamonds, emeralds, and rubies and it was not sunlight that made them sparkle, but some inner glow. The moss she sat on cradled her like the finest velvet and flitting past her were the most amazing creatures. Not faelings, interestingly enough—she could tell—but something other and delightful in their own right, with jewel-bright wings and doe-like eyes set in…flesh that almost appeared faceted. Their singing made her wonder, were the voices of angels any sweeter? The breeze that teased her curls was perfumed with amber and a lighter scent strangely reminiscent of cotton candy.

Distracted in equal parts by her senses and the creatures’ antics, Kara almost didn’t notice the slight weight cozied up against her thigh, between her body and where Quicksilver lay as if slipped from her hands.

Beag Scath was wedged between both of them, positioned as if he could not decide which to press against. Kara laughed, her body relaxed and her nerves calm to the point of being officially laid back, a state foreign to her much longer than the current chaos her life had become. It lasted only briefly, as the memory of her purpose resurfaced.

________________________

Who am I seeing at Mysticon tomorrow?