hELLO, cHAT!

  Just wanted to let you know GOA is going on mini hiatus while the Writathon is active. I’m working hard to get my 55,555 words in ‘Cowbird,’ a Mystery/Thriller. I’d be happy if you went and checked it out!

  I plan on being back to regular updates on GOA sometime before Christmas. Look forward to seeing you then!

  In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from ‘Cowbird’ to fill out the word count on this update chapter xD Enjoy!

  -JS

  Frances

  I wake in a dark room. A seam of light glows above me where thick curtains don’t quite connect. Rolling around, I move one slightly to allow just a bit of sun to enter the room. It’s bright and I wince.

  Another brilliant October day. Where’s the rain the Farmer’s Almanac promised me?

  Dragging myself out of bed, I lumber over to my dresser, and I stop to pet a stuffed raven perched atop it. Then I reach for a pair of thick, round black glasses. I slip them on, and my blurry room comes into focus. Then I look back to the raven.

  There are many such oddities cluttered here; arrowheads I’ve taken from the riverbed behind the property, multicolored gemstones collected in an ashtray, a vase of dusty, black silk roses, a crystal ball. I haven’t tried using it to contact anyone from the other side, yet. I’d be too scared to.

  I’m not a practitioner of the occult so much as I am fascinated by it. I think it’s all real, ghosts, devils, that sort of thing. But I’m terrified of the idea of them walking around my house.

  No, I’m no oculist. I’m simply morbid, delighted by all things macabre. The gruesome, the tragic and the darkly romantic. Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, werewolves, I feel a certain kinship with each of them. Monsters, outcasts, hated, lonely… That’s me.

  The Cowbird.

  The clock on the wall reads 8:50. I slept in. But not too much, I think, to avoid my younger siblings at breakfast. Benjamin and Louise don’t typically roll out of bed until ten. On a Saturday, they might sleep even later.

  Beneath a long, thigh length corset that attempts to quash my oversized breasts and hips into the trendy ‘box’ shape, I wear a gown of navy blue foulard with long sleeves and a drop waist. I belt it low with a sash of the same fabric. In front of the mirror, I stop to brush my short, impossibly straight black bob. My skin is pale and my cheeks are flabby. Black eyes like buttons are hidden behind glasses and sunken beneath a heavy brow, set over a lantern jaw and a too-thick neck.

  Ugly as ever.

  The richly furnished hallway is illuminated by large windows at both ends. Even in this innocuous space all the vast wealth of Stanley Porter, my grandfather and the founder of our sweets empire, Porter Chocolates, is on display. A long, ornate Persian runner in crimson covers the mahogany floor, while the paintings of the great masters, contemporary and long dead, line the walls. I move past them without stopping to appreciate the luxury or consider the cost. To me, they are ordinary trappings. Only what I’ve known all my life.

  Downstairs the long dining room table is empty save for Father’s secretary, Edith Appletree. Hearing my approach, she lowers her paper and rises quickly, bidding me a polite good morning before hurrying off on dainty little feet. I watch her go without any special feeling. Then I take my usual seat.

  Susan appears at my elbow with a silver cart.

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  “Good morning, Miss Frances. Coffee?”

  “Thank you, Susan.”

  The maid prepares it the way I like, a large cup with plenty of hot cream and no sugar, and leaves me alone with the slightly used morning paper, the Solaria Times. The date in the corner reads Saturday October 22, 1927.

  Sipping my coffee, I glance through the headlines.

  Police are still looking for the motorist that ran down an eleven-year-old boy on his bicycle and fled the scene. A tragedy, the story’s gripped our little country for a week now. And it happened just fifteen miles from the Porter mansion, too, on a quiet country road.

  Other than that, there’s not much news. Continents to the east and west remain peaceful, and all’s quiet on the southern border. Recently there have been rumors of another war with Kertzrift looming on the horizon, but for now things are peaceful on our humble, mid-Atlantic island of Zessland.

  Susan returns with breakfast, Mrs. Agate’s famous apple fritters with spiced syrup and eggs Benedict with Hollandaise. I tuck in with relish. Then I become aware of movement at the other end of the room.

  Louise.

  My sister is wearing a pink satin dressing gown, with her golden curls tucked into a crochet lace boudoir cap, and a clay mask meticulously smeared over her face. Her eyes stand out from the big circles, practically glowing a deep turquoise blue.

  She scoffs when she lays eyes on me.

  “Just look how she eats,” she remarks to no one in particular. “What a slob.”

  I wipe my mouth with a napkin and consider my breakfast. Then I glance down at my breast to see a drop of Hollandaise sauce on my dress. I mop it up quickly with a finger and return with a shrug to my meal.

  “You’re up early,” I remark as Louise sits a few chairs down from me.

  “Yes, well, it’s a big day. Or did you forget?”

  I blink questioningly and she rolls her eyes dramatically. I do seem to recall the servants have been rather busy this last week. What was it for again?

  Just then my brother, the middle child, appears. He’s looking a bit unkempt in brown plus fours and a beige and green argyle sweater over his shirt and tie. His blonde hair is messy, his face is haggard with dark circles beneath his eyes that otherwise resemble my sister’s in every way. Really, they might be male and female version of the same person, and not just in looks.

  “God, the Cowbird’s having breakfast,” he grumbles the moment he sees me.

  “Good morning, Ben,” I reply.

  “Shut up.”

  He takes the seat across from me and swears at Susan when she starts to make his usual coffee. “No, just black, can’t you see I have a hangover?”

  “Out drinking with Jackson again last night?” Louise smirks unkindly at our brother.

  “None of your business,” he glowers in response.

  “And now you’re off to play golf with your model friends. You know none of them like you.”

  “They don’t have to like me. So long as they smile for the camera. Bought a new one just last week. Roll film camera, high quality lens with diaphragm leaf shutters and aperture blades, fits right in my pocket…” he trails off when he realizes no one is listening to him.

  At twenty-three years old, Ben’s a photographer of growing notoriety, and he’s always looking for opportunities to expand his portfolio. This, I have examined at great length unbeknownst to him, and was properly scandalized by his so-called ‘art.’ Until that day I had never seen anyone’s naked body other than my own. I’ll confess I studied the male subjects in particular with intense interest, only to return to my room and pray for forgiveness later. Sadly, my virgin eyes will never be the same.

  I chew on an apple fritter and my gaze flits between my siblings while Susan hurries around the room, serving them breakfast. Across from me, the hungover Ben tucks into his meal hesitantly while to my right, Louise makes a disgusted sound.

  “Ugh. How can you sit across from the Cowbird? If I had to watch her eat, I’d puke.”

  Ben ignores her jibe. I pretend to. I’ve heard their name for me so many times it shouldn’t bother me anymore. But even now, at the age of twenty-six, these childish barbs still sting.

  Cowbird. A brood parasite, the females lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, tricking other species into raising their chick for them. Big, evil and ugly, a misfit from birth by no fault of her own, gobbling up her step-sibling’s food all while looking nothing like her nestmates. She doesn’t belong. Shouldn’t be there at all…

  My siblings are beautiful golden creatures, slender, perfectly proportioned with angelic faces. But I am dark haired, big and ungainly. At five foot nine, I’m taller than many of the men I meet, and probably just as heavy. What’s more, I am graceless, too strong and awkward in my movements beside my naturally athletic siblings. Like a cowbird raised beside sparrows, I may as well be a different species altogether.

  People say I am the child of my father’s mistress, a woman he kept in the early years of his marriage to Mother. Probably, they are right, though my parents never speak of it. As for me, all my life I’ve taken consolation and even a private delight in imagining I’m the child of a secret lover. I sometimes lie awake at night and imagine what my real mother might have been like. I wonder if she’s still alive, if I’ll ever meet her one day.

  Perhaps, to such a mother, even a daughter like me might have been just a little… lovable.