Zenn Scarlett Part 25

As the ferry hurtled skyward, Zenn told herself she also had still another unspoken, but crucial reason to follow her abductor. She had no clue what the skirni meant by the term "nexus." But it had to be connected with her sudden capacity for linking her mind to the minds of others. It meant she hadn't imagined it all, dreamed it up, that she wasn't losing her grip on reality. There was a logical, real-world explanation for what was going on inside her. And the skirni knew what it was. If nothing else, she would make him tell. If she survived.

A knot of doubt materialized and tightened within her. Would she survive? Would any of them? Maybe she should've gotten herself and Katie out the crate when she had the chance. Maybe she should've listened to Liam.

Too late now. She tried to lift her hands, to comfort the rikkaset, to stroke her and make the sign that it would be alright. No, that would be a lie. But she could sign she was sorry. Her hands weighed too much to raise them more than an inch or two. She gave up.

Her helplessness sp.a.w.ned a fresh wave of fear, and the fear grew quickly, like a dark blossom opening. She saw her younger self, terrified beneath a flapping canvas tarp, breathing in dust and fumes in the back of Otha's speeding truck, saw herself boarding the ferry that would bear her aloft to witness the inconceivable wonder of a living Indra, to witness her mother's final moments within the creature's impossible body.

As the rapidly mounting g-forces of the ferry's violent ascent threatened to tip her into unconsciousness, an unbidden memory rose up through Zenn's fear and doubt: the honeyed scent of apricot blossoms, laced with just a whiff of antiseptic. She heard her mother's voice, the words spoken years ago, ages ago, in another lifetime: asometimes Zenn, doing the right thinga is the scariest thing of all.

Something brushed her fingertips: Liam's hand, fighting gravity to edge its way slowly onto hers. With her entire world reduced to shuddering chaos and noise, it came as a sudden, almost refres.h.i.+ng shock: the touch of another, at this moment, in this place, was something, maybe the one thing, she needed to feel more than anything else. Liam's fingers closed around hers. She allowed her fingers to tighten in reply.

Then, the rus.h.i.+ng, black oblivion pressing in on her faltering awareness pushed its way beyond her final measure of will power. She had no choice. She let it in. And in her last instant of knowing, one last thought: Nevera leavea the cloister.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Thanks to: amy mother Betty and sister Sue, the former an English teacher who simply expected all her children to love books, so we did; the latter a sibling who helped me appreciate the power and magic in language and art.

aevery teacher or professor I've ever had. Teachers. They rock.

aDr Jenni Doll, DVM, who let me look over her shoulder and ask many, many questions as she ministered to our farm-full of animals or worked on her own menagerie of domestic and exotic beasts. The same goes for her husband Torben, whose extensive herpetological knowledge I also mined. Any mistakes or questionable extrapolations in this book are, however, mine alone.

aAdam Schear of DeFiore & Co, the genre-savvy agent who rescued the book's ma.n.u.script from oblivion while cleaning out his Kindle files, and then dove into the story to help me polish the novel until it was ready to be exposed to the light of day.

aAmanda Rutter, my editor at Strange Chemistry Books, who thought the book might be worth publis.h.i.+ng and, following its acquisition, immersed herself in Zenn's world, then applied her formidable expertise to ensure that world was prepared for visitors.

amy wise and patient wife, s.h.i.+eld-maiden and best friend Kathleen, whose encouragement, willingness to listen and deep affection for all creatures great and small made her both an inspiration and the ideal companion as I wrote Zenn Scarlett.

a.and all the dozens of animals who have ever shared, brightened, saddened and/or complicated my life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Christian Schoon grew up in Minnesota, and worked his way through college in a succession of rock bands before earning his degree from the U of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Journalism.

Following a stint as an in-house copywriter/scriptwriter at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, he supplied freelance copy for the entertainment industry and scriptwriting for live-action and animated TV.

Currently, he writes from his 150-year-old farmstead in Iowa which he shares with a fluctuating number of horses (generally less than a dozen, but not always), 30 or so cats, a dog, three ferrets and a surprisingly tolerant wife.

The Zenn Scarlett books are his first novels, however he admits to being an unrepentant fan of science fiction and fantasy ever since discovering the tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs in the fifth grade. He can be found at his blog: www.christianschoon.com and on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjschoon STRANGE CHEMISTRY.

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