Take a ghost walk with me...

This has become a ghost blog of late...good news, I'm including an excerpt to make amends...so keep reading ;o)

Only fitting, in light of my eerie absence, that we talk of things ghostly and ethereal. Come take a ghost walk with me this weekend... I'm signing in my home town on the 23rd and taking a short weekend getaway with my family to catch up with ghosts of long before and savor as much salt air as I can get down...

Anyone out there wanna guess where we're going?

Savannah, my friends, that lovely grand dame of the deep south exceded in beauty only by Charleston, the place of my birth. Those of you in the lowcountry who have nothing at all to do on the 23rd but wander a bit, come see me and two of my Georgia Romance Writer friends at the Barnes and Nobel ant Oglethorpe Mall (off Abercorn) from 2:00 to 4:00. (Hey Missy/Melissa S.! Looking forward to seeing you there, and at UGA in July ;o)

If you miss out, catch me at one of the local cemetaries later in the day, where I L-O-V-E to write (I head down at least once a year on my own to those lovely, quiet places where the world holds its breath and the breeze speaks to us about years gone by and lives lived either to their fullest or in vain). Here's a look at the civil war cemetary where I sat on a bench and wrote one fine day last December... When the moss sways in the breeze, it's almost like the oak trees themselves are breathing... I was working on finishing up Because of a Boy then...was that really just six months ago!

Of course, it's just as likely I'll be near the water (the river, the ocean or the inter-costal). I grew up surrounded by all three, and sometimes I think it's the humidity that fed my creativity as the child. When the air around you takes on a life of its own, haunting your breath, cloaking you in heat, its nurturing embrace feeding you the same as it does the year-around vegitation that thrives down there, how can you not grow up to write about secret matters of the heart and enchanting worlds that aren't quite real?

Okay, we need a spooky headstone or two to seal the deal. Come to Savannah and enjoy yourselves sometime soon. Come to the signing if you can. But if not, don't miss out on a taste of something truely unique and unbelievably real--a glimpse of the life many of you likely fell in love with in The Prince of Tides (which was set around Charleston, I know, and shot mostly in New York, but when I watch that movie I go back home to where the tides dictate everyone's moods and the sea gulls tell you whether it's time to head out on the water or not).

Now, about that excerpt. I've just finished the rough draft of my '08 Mother's Day novella...tentatively titled, Baby Steps. I'll tell you more what the story's about in the next blog post. For now, enjoy the first scene (can't share too many, since there's only a 100 pages to it to begin with).

A little hint, I'm playing off a theme from a familiar Disney fairytale. The blog faithful might remember which one. I chatted about it earlier this year. Anyone wanna take a guess??? I'm betting there's a prize in it for someone...

****

"Lilly, the chicken's bottoms aren't fat enough. Do you have any more stuffing?"

"If I had a dollar for every time someone's asked me that..." Lilly Brooks looked up from her portable sewing machine and handed over a bag of cotton batting. "And for the last time, Amanda. They're hens. Happy mothers, all."

The stars of her Mother's Day booth for Silent Springs Elementary's upcoming Spring Fling.

"Okay, then." Amanda Lawson crammed a brown, corduroy bottom with more fuzzy, white filling. "I don't think top-heavy hen's toppling over and smothering live chicks is what Ms. Emory had in mind when you volunteered to do something special for the K-3rd grade moms."

"Good point." Lilly grabbed a handful of cotton, plumped the nearest chicken's tush to find the hidden Velcro seam and pried it open. "I'm going for memories the families can look back on and cherish. Not scarring children for life."

She'd pitched the assistant principal an exhibit where carnival attendees could stop and play with baby chicks, then smile for a commemorative Polaroid that the kids would decorate for a Mother's Day present. Another fabulous idea, Annette Emory had cooed. I'm sure you'll pull it

off as effortlessly and successfully as you do everything else.

Lilly stuffed and sighed.

So far she'd lined up a local farmer to provide the chicks, arranged to rent a tent from the same company providing the dunking booth, and she and her best friend Amanda would be spending their lunch hours for the next two weeks effortlessly sewing and painting a picturesque barnyard motif for other women to enjoy with their kids.

A perfect Mother's Day surprise that would take a month to make a success.

She glanced around the cluttered, colorful art room. Amanda put her energy into exploring and enjoying the school day with her students. Getting the most out of each moment. Not so much with the planning and worrying that everything be perfect. Lilly had the corner on that.

She tossed a chicken at her carefree friend.

Amanda giggled and lobbed the lovingly-stuffed bundle onto its growing pile of peers. "So, what's next?"

"Mr. Klein offered to bring enough animals for a petting zoo, if we had a large enough space." Lilly had been his granddaughter's third grade teacher last year, and she'd encouraged little Molly's parents to test her for Dyslexia. Since starting treatment, the formally shy, withdrawn child had blossomed, and the Klein family was convinced Lilly was their angel's fairy godmother. "But I'm not sure—"

"Do it!" Amanda ran her hands over at the bolts of bargain-bin fabric Lilly was morphing into easily controlled replicas of living, breathing, pooping stable inhabitants. "Sewing everything would be a safer solution, especially now that the chickens—hens—are looking less like the bad end of a funhouse mirror. But a little chaos is a good trade-off. Things might get crazy, mixing things up with the kids and real animals, but they'll love it!"

Crazy...mixing things up...

Panic bloomed at the mere suggestion. Lilly was starting to hate that about herself.

"Maybe... Maybe it wouldn't be so out of control," she heard herself agreeing, when she'd promised their very conservative AP a calm, picture-perfect photo op. "As long as we're careful about which animals Mr. Klein brings..."

"Dakota, stop running in the hallway!" a familiar voice boomed, a split second before a whirlwind dressed in jeans, tee-shirt and ball cap blurred through the doorway and ran smack into Lilly and Amanda's poultry assembly line.

"Look out!" Amanda dove left.

Lilly ducked right. "Ah!"

The boy hit his knees and slid beneath the table, catching a table leg with his sneaker. Corduroy and butt stuffing flew into the air. The table clattered to on its side. Their hen-assailant kept on sliding, until he'd crashed into the easel Amanda had set up to teach the second graders coming in after lunch.

"Ow!" he yelped.

The wooden frame collapsed on top of him.

"Are you ladies okay?" His pursuer's emerald gaze connected with Lilly's. Tyler knelt on one knee and helped her to her feet.

His frown warmed to a heart-tugging smile in response to her nod that she was fine. When his touch slid slowly away and he turned toward Amanda, Lilly forced herself to let go and head for the struggling heap of little boy and art supplies in the corner.

"Nice slide into home-plate slide, kiddo." She extricated the easel, then the blank canvas that had been propped on top of it. The kid's shaggy, dark hair partially obscured the dark eyes glowering up at her. "I bet you're a champ on the ball field."

"Baseball's for sissies, stupid!" His insult missed it's mark. His scowl was simply too adorable to pull it off.

"Dakota, you know better than that!" Silent Springs' impossibly tall, impossibly handsome PE teacher corrected. He stepped to her side. "Apologize to Mrs. Brooks for your bad manners."

The child struggled to feet that were covered in unlaced, hole-riddled sneakers that were as black as everything else he wore--except his Atlanta Braves ballcap. Lilly thought she caught a hint of embarrassment, maybe even regret, touch his hostile expression. Then he wiped his hair from his eyes, and everything but anger disappeared.

"Why do you care how I treat to your wife," Dakota demanded. "Everyone in school knows you two aren't even living together anymore?"