Here we are at last!

By the way, there are thirteen parts in all. . . which would make this the longest story I’ve ever posted!  The Sacrifice will probably beat it though, as I’m on Part 25 right now! 🙂  I think there will be 27 parts–so yes, I’m almost done!!!

Anyways, enough of this!  I’ll let you go:

Amelia opened her eyes and looked around. She was in a small room, with brown walls; lying on a green cushion. Everything was dim and hazy; and she felt dizzy and nauseous. Sitting up was out of the question. She felt pain in both her upper arms as if she had been burned.

Amelia closed her eyes. Even thinking about what had happened was beyond her. She was lying on a soft couch, without any spiders near her. That was enough.

Continue reading The Mushroom Feast #6 →

Sorry it’s so late, guys!  We had Bright Lights today–and company here all morning, so I didn’t have a lot of time.  Anyways, I’ve got time to do it now! 🙂

I almost deliberately waited to post this part until a Thursday, so you would have to wait the whole weekend to figure out what happens next.  (You’ll see why when you get to the end.)  Here we are though–guess I was just too excited about the story to skip any days! 🙂

Ryan and Amelia fluttered up onto the large rocks and joined the crowd of hunters that was gathering there. It seemed every man and boy in the colony had come. Most of them were talking and looking down between the tall (by fairy standards), steep cliffs the rock-sides made.

The web was stretched between the stone sides, Amelia knew. Everyone was talking about it, and Sir Hawthorn and his wife, Cianna, always knew what it was doing and what it had last caught. But she had never seen it for herself. She was brave and determined, but dangerous bugs were her limit. Her father had died of a bee-sting, and Amelia had been terrified of bites and stings since then. She had, with her mother’s gentle guidance, handled his death very well; but she had an unreasonable terror of bug bites. She hung back from the edge while the men talked.

Continue reading The Mushroom Feast #5 →

I am sooo excited about this part–and next part!!!

Amelia sat outside her house cutting chewed holes out of leaves to get what the beetles had left untouched, when Ryan came swooping in. He had his knife and his bow, and there were three pine-needle arrows stuck in his belt, and an quiver-full on his back that were tipped with poisonous wasp-stingers—the most lethal weapon the fairies used. There was a coil of rope made from braided grass hung over his shoulder. He started talking before he hit the ground.

“Such fun, Amelia! Come and see!”

Continue reading The Mushroom Feast #4 →

I was going to schedule this post yesterday to be sure it got up, but I forgot to!  Well, turns out I have time before we go, so here it is:

Amelia walked away from her house, in the opposite direction of the river; slipping between beetle-chewed flower stems (that were as thick as tree trunks to her) without a path. Her steps were light and bouncy—as they always were—regardless of the famine, and she swung a bucket in her hand as she skipped along.

She stopped next to a massive milkweed stalk and fingered the lowest leaf (the only one she could reach). It was punctuated with holes. Amelia carefully held her bucket under it, then snapped it off, and watched the thick, white milk pour down.

Ryan flapped up as she stood holding her container under the rich, milky flow. “There you are!”

Continue reading The Mushroom Feast #3 →

So:

The Sacrifice is coming along very slow, but I finished my science story thing!  I’m really excited about posting it!  It isn’t like my other science stories, at all though.  There’s much less science and much more action.  I mean, don’t gear up for a bunch of battle scenes or anything, because more action than my other science stories is still not much action!  I just mean that it’s more of a story and less of a science lesson.

Disclaimer: there are some things in here that I kind-of just made up.  The only information that is purely scientific is the the part about mushrooms at the end.

And I know that you’re all probably excited about the story, but I have a little scheduling update.  I’ll try to keep it brief:

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not getting much inspiration for book reviews, so I’m going to stop doing those and do story posts on Thursdays.  But this is Tuesday?  That’s the exciting part: I’ll be doing two story parts each week!  I might skip days we have Bright Lights, but normally I’ll be doing two posts a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Once is just not often enough.

Anyway, enough of this!  Enjoy the story:

The sun rose slowly above the tree-tops; and gentle rays of light began to filter through the leaves to the forest floor, where a tiny structure made of mud-bricks stood. Sitting all alone in the shadow of the ferns behind it and thatched with tree-leaves, it stood almost five inches high.

Continue reading The Mushroom Feast #1 →