Into the Night

   So, I just got back from a trip home to the East Coast, and with every day that passes, I’m more convinced I should never have come back.

   You see, I’m a small-town kind of girl.  I grew up in the world’s back yard, a military brat with all of Europe to explore.  And I loved it.  But I was never one for the tourist traps or large cities.  Give me a small, rural town full of color and character - someplace that still radiates the true history of a nation.  For all the years I lived in Europe, I was surrounded by small towns and rural stretches of field and forest, and I loved it all.

   When I moved back to the US in the late 90s, my first stop was a small town in rural Pennsylvania.  Sure, I had my problems with the town, but that was mostly in the narrow-mindedness of some of its inhabitants.  But I loved the area, with its open fields, forests, and streams.  There’s just something so pure and whole about nature as seen in small towns.

   Several years ago, I got married, and moved from rural PA to urban Arizona.  It’s been a daily struggle for me, here, to adapt to the lack of forests, the lack of grass, and more than that, the lack of everything I call home.  Big cities are far from where I belong.  Too full of noise and bustle, and everyone running around but going nowhere.  My health’s declined since moving into this environment, and I long for the forests and fields - for the nature I left behind when I came here.

   Since my recent visit back East, I’ve decided that’s where I belong.  It may take me a few years to get there, but like Dorothy in Oz, I’m heading home the first chance I get.

copyright 2004 by Esther Mitchell

   The piercing sound of a siren yanked Jaye abruptly from the arms of sleep, and fantasies of a man she wasn’t allowed to want, in her waking hours.  Bolting upright in bed, she scrambled blindly on the nightstand for her cell phone as the siren went on and on.  That sound was her ring-tone for the hospital, guaranteed to wake her no matter how deeply she slept.

     Heart in her throat, she punched talk as she lifted the unit to her ear.  “Dr. Michaels.”

     “Ma’am, it’s Chief James, in Trauma.  Did you have your patient scheduled to be moved, tonight?”

    She didn’t have to ask which patient.  She only had one in Trauma.  Jaye’s chest constricted to the point of pain, and she couldn’t breathe for a long moment, before she managed a hoarse, “No.”

    There was a pause.  “I was afraid of that.  Commander, we’re short one patient - your Mr. Watkins.”

    Jaye bit back her first response - that he wasn’t her anything; not anymore.  But that would be unprofessional, and admit to way more than Jaye was comfortable with, at the moment.  Instead, she focused on the immediate problem.

   “He suffers from mild insomnia.  Have you checked the cafeteria or waiting rooms, yet?”

   “Yes, ma’am.  No one in the hospital’s seen him since last bed check.”

   Jaye’s heart took up residence in her throat, but she forced it back in rhythm.  She refused to panic.  Instead, she drew even breaths against the suffocating fear that closed around her.  Eyes closed, she tried to think.  Where did you go, Trevor?

    A soundless howl reverberated through her body, followed by the rustle of leaves.  Jaye froze.  She sat on the edge of her bed, and yet if she didn’t know better, she’d think she was crouched in the bushes.  She swallowed hard.  Now was the wrong time for hallucinations.

    Grimly, she snapped on the bedside lamp and rose to her feet as she addressed Lydia James over the phone.  “I’ll be there ASAP.  Just keep looking.  And, Chief…”

    “Yes, Ma’am?”

    “If you find him and he’s not fully awake, no one is to go near him until I get there.  Got that?”

    “If we find him, Commander, he’s all yours,” Chief James promised, and the relief in her voice couldn’t be more obvious.  As she hung up the phone, a new grimness tugged at Jaye.  If she was right, Trevor’s problems were far from over.  In fact, she’d wager her life that they were just beginning.

 Like what you read?  Check out these other Project Prometheus titles -

Matt Raleigh… Terrorist hunter, or Demon Slayer? 

 Find out in Project Prometheus’ explosive debut, IN HER NAME … available now at
http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/in-her-name/prod_73.html

When the hunter becomes the hunted, can love show him the way back to life?  

HOPE OF HEAVEN (Book #2 of Project Prometheus), now available at http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/hope-of-heaven/prod_128.html 

And watch for this title, SHADOW WALKER, coming soon!

For now, since I don’t have a guest (wouldn’t be fair to anyone, since May’s almost over), I thought I might talk about how I got started writing (that seems to be a popular question).

To be honest, I can’t remember a time when I WASN’T writing.  When I was about two years old, I can remember getting in trouble because I scribbled lines of loops and swirls through the pages of one of my parents’ books.  I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong, at the time, because in my head, when I was making those squiggles, I was telling myself a story about fantastic creatures and great adventures. 

The hunger for written words was a big spur forward for me.  When I was three, I taught myself the alphabet, and then to read.  It was a painful process (and not just for me…lol… I bugged everyone I could find for help if I couldn’t sound out a word, or it didn’t make sense when I did), but I was determined to learn to read and write.  I had so many stories inside of me, clamoring to get out.

The first full story I ever read was a children’s version of the epic legend of Beowulf.  And I was hooked…lol.  I followed that with the story of Gawain & the Green Knight, and my love of Medieval history and Arthurian Legend took firm root.  But I wasn’t about to stop with reading.  The more I read, the more I wanted to write and create.

By the time I reached Kindergarten, at the age of five, I had a rudimentary understanding of writing (not that my penmanship was any good!).  By the end of that year, however, I’d gleaned enough to be able to string sentences together, and I was in the running.  But I had a problem.  While I had all these stories trapped in my head, I wasn’t sure how to get them out, properly.  I’d never attempted to write more than a few sentences, and none of those strung together.  I was getting frustrated, and fast.  I nearly gave up on the idea of writing after an injury to my left hand (yes, I’m left-handed) prevented me from participating fully in the lessons that would give me a place to start.

The credit for getting me to actually start writing stories goes to my third-grade teacher, to whom I will always be grateful.  He gave me a challenge - choose one inanimate object, and write a paragraph from its Point-Of-View.  *grins* By the time I was done, I had a whole story out, and suddenly, everything clicked open.  I knew exactly what to do. 

The next few years, I wrote a bunch of small, short stories for children (none have ever been published - they were very rough draft, and not great, but they were excellent teaching tools).  Then, in fifth grade, I decided what I really wanted to do was write my own interpretation of Arthurian Legend.  I’d been reading it for years, by then - everything I could get my hands on, from the Mabinogion, to Monmouth, to Mallory and beyond, and everything in between.  So I started researching.  And I started writing.

Is this interpretation complete?  No.  To this day, I’m still working on it.  I hope to someday have it completed and available for publication.  But several years into working on it, I changed gears and started writing another series (actually, it started out as a single book), based in a futuristic world, but with characters and some situations that were drawn out of my own life at the time.  These books would eventually become The Underground, a futuristic series I first had e-published in 2004 (currently, it’s looking for a new home).  And the rest, as they say, is history. 

 For anyone interested in being my Guest Author for a month, there are still a few openings for the late Fall and Winter this year left, and I’m willing to book ahead into next year, as well… please visit
http://www.esthermitchell.com/GuestAuthor.html for more information!

For anyone interested in finding out more about what I have available currently, please visit http://www.esthermitchell.com/Availabletitles.html  or, if you’re interested in buying, visit:
Project Prometheus #1: IN HER NAME
http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/in-her-name/prod_73.html