*For the previous chapters, please go here. These are posted first draft, as the brain dictates to the fingers which are remarkably stupid. Also there will be inconsistencies because until September or so, the timing on these is wonky, and I’ll forget stuff between posts. Eventually it will be cleaned up and fixed just before page is made secret/taken down and the book is published. At that time I will take lists of typos or volunteers to proof read. For now, it’s written in a hurry, usually an hour before it goes up. And, let me remind you, it’s free – SAH*

Illusion and Fear

Well, he had the measure of Albinia Blackley. Or at least he thought he did.

Michael knew she’d dropped out of a window without knowing that someone had used magic, so it landed in another universe, and to far up to be survivable. She’d dropped into his boat in fine and combative mood. She’d also leapt up to save him from a smog fetch. And she’d stood up to her formidable father.

Not counting the fact he found her quite distractingly pretty, while realizing she was probably not pretty by most other people’s perspective, and certainly not pretty as other people he’d heard referred to as “pretty” at parties, and by Caroline, his twin, when she was telling him about other girls, he knew she was going to be a handful. Impulsive, decided, brave, but a little too foolhardy.

He had not realized she also had a heart soft as butter. But whoever had set this distracting path knew. Oh, they knew. If he remembered — and he had the haziest of memories, magical paths not having figured large in his education, since he’d always thought himself too sensible to walk one — the magical path latched onto whoever the walker was. It felt out the walker’s strength’s and weaknesses. And it–

He barely grabbed Albinia’s ankle, before she stepped off the dark path towards the sound of the crying baby. And she fought him, but he pulled her up by main force, and held her against him, while she fought like a trapped cat.

His brother had once said that Caroline was fine in a fight because was used to fighting with her brothers. Much less a girl with so many brothers. “No,” he shouted. “I beg you, only listen to me. And then if you still think it’s a good idea, I’ll let you go.”

This was another way in which she was unusual. At his words, she stopped completely, and sullenly stepped back, pulling his arms from her and glaring. Then she crossed her arms, tapped her foot and said, “Very well. Tell me.”

“I don’t think that’s a real baby.”

“Oh, and why not?”

“Because Ive read somewhere that haunts that imitate a crying baby are some of the most evil yet.”

“But what if it is a real baby?” she asked. “And what if it is in peril?”

He thought on it. We were supposed to save those who needed saving, or at least help those who needed helping, after all, and the fact was that ignoring a baby was probably pretty awful. Good people protected babies after all.

“I don’t know. Let’s think on it. But please, do not step off the path. I have an idea once we do, we’ll never find it again.”

She smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “So, we’re supposed to help whomever we find without ever leaving the path? I must beg your pardon, Milord, but you must be daft.”

“Michael,” he said. “Not Milord.” It was almost a reflex. “No one calls me milord, or lord, except the servants. Please stop it. And stop glowering. It is distracting. You are right that staying on te path always must be impossible. However, when we go from the path, we must make sure we can come back somehow. I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, on this baby–“

The crying had grown more desperate. “The poor thing is going to die before we get to him, if we’re waiting for you to think about things, milord. I know how it is. When my brothers thought about things, they never happened.”

“The other thing you should know,” he said, noting the Milord and deciding not to fight that battle right then. “Is that the path will adapt and change in order to …. To present a unique challenge to the people walking it. It will target people’s weaknesses.”

“Like your tendency to overthink.”

“Or your tendency to jump into things without thinking.”

She glared at him, and he didn’t glare back. Instead, he put his hand on her harm. “Bickering doesn’t help. But both of us are surely trained in scrying. Maybe it won’t work here, but there’s a chance it will too. I suggest we far see what that baby is, and decide what to do after, shall we?”

“We don’t have anything reflexive to scry upon,” she said, as though reluctant to concede

“We will.” He was already on his knees, feeling around for a smooth rock of likely size. He found one, set it right in front of him, and said, “Now, Miss Blackley, if you’ll give me some of the water we brought. A very little will do.”

She passed him a flask, and a very little did. A mere film of water on the rock. He handed the bottle back, and said the right incantation, then aimed the vision at where the screams came from.

It was the most beautiful baby he’d ever beheld. Something out of a fairytale. And fairytale was appropriate, since the child — rosy pink, with huge blue eyes, and pretty blond hair– had pointy teeth and pointy ears.

“It is a baby,” Albinia said.

“It is a baby placed carefully on a tree stump which is covered in something downy, yes. He doesn’t appear to be in any danger, and despite the crying sounds, he’s smiling and kicking his legs. He’s also an elf, and judging from the teeth, not all that young.” He aimed the vision around the stump.

All around the front, where Albinia would have run through, there was a pit dug, and beneath sharpened stakes. He heard her gasp.

Then he aimed the vision behind the stump, where he saw several pairs of eyes. Not animal or human eyes.

“It is a trap,” she said abashed.

“Indeed, Miss Blackley,” he said, as the crying cut off suddenly, and the scrying rock showed only a smattering of lights, and a sound of laughter and scurrying feet echoed off the path.

“But if it had been a baby,” she said.

“We should have found a way to rescue him, yes,” he sighed. “However, for now, I suggest one of us make a magelight, if we can, and we proceed down the path.”

Albinia, strangely subdued, made a magelight, and they walked a while in silence.

“I think,” he said. “That if we stray off the path we must make a way to come back to it after. But not bread crumbs. Those have a very bad history of not working.”

She didn’t say anything. Except, “What is that?” As she pointed a finger ahead.

And there, glowing in the light of their magelight, trundling down towards them at speed, was something that froze his blood in his veins. It was large, brass-colored, had multiple arms, and had almost killed him last time: It was nothing other than the hair cutter and shaver he had invented and which had had to be destroyed with a shotgun.

He had no shotgun, and the thing didn’t appear destroyed, as it approached at a rapid pace.

He did the only thing he could think of, and stepped in front of Albinia. Not that it made any difference, as the machine had knives and scissors enough for both of them.

I know you guys deserve a better treatment of this, but these are things I intend to touch on later, hopefully, if I can ease up on pain meds, in posts for PJM — which I have NOT quit. September just got eaten by a trip that was supposed to take a week, but got extended because of a death in the family and a funeral, and then dealing with various house-related things that went off the rails while we were gone — in more full detail.

And then October decided to get INTERESTING (it is 2020 after all) and I hurt my back ahem… to quote younger son (who was actually VERY worried and solicitous over me, but of course, well….is me.) “running like a dork” in an attempt to lose the poundage of the lockdown. Which has earned me a week of doing bloody nothing. Which is why I need to get off this blog post and go finish the short story they’re waiting an anthology for. Only between the muscle relaxants and the pain killers it’s been …. difficult. (No, not opiates. I HATE opiates. Just tylenol and ibuprofen. But for some reason the combination makes me sleepy. Also until yesterday I still had breakthrough pain. It just took the edge off.) The good news is that it’s just muscle pain. My fear was of course that like mom I had collapsing vertebrae. And the better news is that today it’s bearable without pain killers. I’m staying on pain killers today, though, because pain makes me cranky, distracted and TIRED.

Which is more or less how the current state of the elections makes me feel, too. More importantly, the state of most people in this country.

First, like the rest of you I am terrified of a democrat win in November.

Note I don’t think there would be any danger of it, not even VAGUELY if it weren’t for the fact that the democrats are promising next-level fraud. How do we know that?

• first, past action. They managed to win the house in 2018 by acts of blatant flagrant fraud with the connivance of local authorities. I believe that is ALSO how Obama won in 2012. And possibly in 2008, though that’s considerably murkier, since the Republicans decided to run Senator McCain (and from an etimological point of view, was a surname ever so appropriate) a senator who openly disliked and reviled the GOP base and since a lot of empty heads voted for senator “but he’s black” Obama, to prove that they weren’t racist. (And instead absolutely proved they were racist, as in caring about race above all else. I remember a conversation with someone in my field who kept saying because she was going to vote for him because he was black and so well educated. GAH. This would be like voting for me because I’m Latin and look, my back is dry. Assumptions, anyone?) BUT 2012? At least Colorado was stolen. And I bet other places were too.
• Second, the whole “Will you concede if you lose?” A party that knows they can win HONESTLY doesn’t need to keep trying to get their opponent to lock in to an early concession, without investigation. This is the move of someone trying to lock the opponent into being a good loser. Probably because they suspect — rightly — he’s neither McCain nor Romney.
• THIRD because they TOLD us they intend to steal the election and HOW. The whole “red mirage” thing about how at first it will seem like an overwhelming Trump win. And then ultimately the dems will prevail.
  This is what we know as “The Boulder Victory” here in Colorado, because before the fraud became general by executive order, when they needed to overturn an election, Boulder could be counted on to find however many votes were needed, no matter how many photocopiers needed to be called to serve.
  Note the giveaway there is that never in the history of ever — except apparently in a marginal election, in a small place for something like dogcatcher, which the dems trot out when you mention their history of fraud — have “found votes” that mysteriously appear after the election flip the election for a republican. It’s amazing. must be magic.
  

Something that worries me even more is the right’s propensity to immediately engage the circular firing squad. Already, in response to uncertainty and stupid polls, weak sisters (sorry, yes, even you. I like you, but this is ridiculous) are sobbing out it’s all down to Trump’s abrasive personality and what he said and shouldn’t have said at the debate and sob sob sob.

In the wake of 2012 I watched various conservative sites do this, and tear themselves, the candidate and the whole GOP apart, hand wringing on what they did wrong. At that moment I wished the entire conservative wing had but one head and I had a hand the size of a large dried codfish with which to bitch slap them.

Less so, but I’ve already heard analysis of “why we lost the house” in 2018 on our side. Because, well, of course we should have won, even though all of the Western states except Texas are fraud sh*tshows, and even so the polls in Arizona, Florida, etc. were kept open for days after until the “desired” result was achieved.

Give me a break. We lost because of fraud. Want to do something about it? Study it, highlight it. Point out vote by mail is always prone to fraud. Point out Motor voter is an invitation to fraud. Get in the left’s faces and scream. Do not sit in a corner rocking and asking yourself what you did wrong.

Yes, you did something wrong. You conceded to the Marxists and let them claim moral high ground. Which they do whenever they win. And never concede even when they’re trounced. For heaven’s sake, the USSR, the fascist hell hole called China, Cuba, Venezuela, poor fucked up Africa whose worst colonial oppression came from having their best educated at our Marxist hellholes, and they’re still saying “it will work this time!”

Meanwhile we, proponents of the philosophy and way of life that FED THE WORLD start wondering what we did wrong.

We did nothing wrong.

And btw, dry your noses, and stop snotting into your sleeves. The left is not that great. They’re not efficient and they’re not invincible. Not even at propaganda, which is the only thing they’re semi competent at. AND THAT only if they control ALL means of information, which they keep forgetting they no longer do. IF they were, stuff like this wouldn’t continuously explode in their faces.

Look, yes, the communists were once very very good at agit-prop (agitation and propaganda) partly because they had the full force of the USSR behind them and well….Russia was good at propaganda too.

But there is something to rigid — let alone messianic, which they are — ideological regimes, that allow loyalty to supersede competence. Over time, they decline. It’s ultimately choosing yes men (and yes, women, and in the case of the current left, people who identify as yellow wingless dragons AND ornate buildings at the same time.) Most people who are creative or deep thinkers (to quote my husband to me this morning while I was brushing my teeth “Of course you’re thinking of something. You’ll always be thinking of something so long as you’re alive.”) are not “yes people.” Look at the crazy arguments in this blog. People who think about things and form their opinions, and are capable of thought have the most knock out drag out arguments (often over stupid crap.)

So idealogies that don’t allow disagreement, usually decay over three to four generations. The bad news for the left is that their long crawl was so long and so painfully drawn out by the stubborn …. Americaness of us that they are already in their fourth generation.

Do let’s us take the Jussie Smolleting of Wretched Whitmer. For the love of heaven, neither she nor the FBI trying to to get back at Trump for daring to declassify documents that prove their corrupt and lying bullshit, couldn’t even concoct a credible plot against her. I mean, what the frick sense does it make to kidnap A GOVERNOR? She’s not queen. Kidnapping her doesn’t mean the state is leaderless. It means someone else of her party steps in, and helps find her. “Keeping her in a secure location in” another state? Yeah, because like in old westerns, once you cross the border, you’re safe from extradition. And what WERE they going to do with her once they kidnapped her, precisely? Sell her downriver to Rio? (Snort, giggle.) A credible plot would be to assassinate her, in revenge for the lockdowns, maybe. But of course, for THAT they’d need it to be a credible and present threat not just steam blowing, which I suspect every citizen in her state has done.

Instead the “big plot” they came up with reminds me of a line in a book about plots against Queen Elizabeth. “The only thing that explains this is that everyone at the time must have lived half drunk.” (I think it’s more everyone at the time lived under the boot of a totalitarian regime, so of course, what survives is the regime’s version. And it’s not a good look.)

They’re not competent.

As we found in 2020 they’re not even sane. This entire bullshit of lockdowns and inflating the danger of Winnie the Flu was concocted as (as Jane Fonda would put it) as an answer to their prayers of how to take the economy down. They also got as a bonus, having more people rely on TV for news than ever before. (Though if they were confident of that, they probably would not be talking about Red Mirage.) Which is something they dearly wanted. Oh, and they drove half of the American people completely fricking insane. In interesting, unpredictable ways.

But mostly they made us REALLY angry. And my guess is if they fraud their way to power, that anger, and the sheer orneriness of the US will ultimately defeat them.

Now, whether we can do it in time to save our country, I don’t know.

We might not. And the idea depresses me beyond measure. Yes, I know the ideas will return. You can’t kill ideas, but I became an American because I wanted my kids, my grandkids, world without end to be Americans. Not the same as the rest of the wretched world.

If this is what was going to happen, rationally, I should have stayed in Europe where I had family connections and credentials for a life of ease. And yet, I can’t really regret having come here, having got to be American while there IS an America.

Nor can I be Portuguese enough to emulate the probably apocryphal manner of death of the national poet, who is said to have died as the Spaniards took over Portugal, saying “The country dies and I die with it.”

No. I intend to live and continue working for the restoration of America. Even if that necessitates (well, it’s the “push” I’m getting) retreating into just fiction for a while.

I will not sit down, I will not shut up, I will not engage in self-recrimination.

Our incompetent, half mad Marxist overlords can wait till the end of the world for me to bend the knee to their fraud and lies.

I will however offer their version of events something: these are my middle fingers. They’re very American, and I have a matched set.

One of the first books I read was a book with stories about a mother’s love (being a suspicious little brat, I was convinced this was a plot on the part of all the mothers of the world to instill our minds with propaganda.)

I swear, though most paintings like the one above show no such thing, that the lithograph with that particular story showed the guard holding half a baby, with the other half lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

In the story, for those who just came into western civilization yesterday, two mothers living in the same house (and therefore probably wives of the same man), one of whose sons has died. And both the women lay claim to the surviving son. (This of course in antiquity, particularly in a polygamous family, was not just a son, not just progeny, a baby to love and all that, but status and security for the mother. Part of all the stories starting with Greeks and Romans, and probably earlier (there’s probably prayers for a son written on cave walls) of women who will do anything for a son is that due to the difference in strength and ability to fight and work in unforgiving conditions, the closer a society lives to the “land” and the harsh ways of mother nature, the more important it is for women to have a male who will work and/or fight for them. The old age (which probably started at around 35, given bad nutrition and multiple/continuous pregnancies, not to mention hard work) of a woman with no surviving son was harsh and short. (Or if you prefer short/brutish and nasty.) Her best hope was to be kept as somewhere between a slave or a pet by the family to which she belonged, be that marriage or birth, as long as she could do small tasks of minding the children or menial work. Once she was unable to do that, only a very loving family would care for her in any way we consider humane. And don’t forget long before that, a husband could get rid of a barren wife, and you bet your beepy that “barren” included “can’t have babies that survive.” Which frankly was still true when Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon.

At any rate, in the story, King Solomon, being wise, (that’s why they paid him the big bucks, or at least he had so many concubines that he had to put them on some kind of system of rotation) comes up with a cunning way (and without ever having studied cunningology in Oxford.) to figure out which woman is the true mother.

He orders the baby cut in half and each half given to one woman.

Every woman who has ever carried a child to term and about half of the ones who haven’t just felt her womb contract at the idea. Which is the point. The true mother immediately speaks up and says “no, no, give the baby to that other woman.” And thus Solomon knows who is the baby’s mother.

He was absolutely correct, by the way, even though we can’t know in true fact if the child was the biological son of the mother to whom he was given. No, don’t argue. Yes, I do realize the point of the story is the natural love of a mother for her child. But when it comes to humans “nature” is not the thing, and a lot of people have virtually no instincts (self included) which does not make them bad people. I do know mothers unnatural enough that they’d be happy to have the baby killed if it meant it didn’t go to increase the power and glory of “that woman.” Even if they had birthed it. And I know you do too. And frankly, if I had been the other woman, I might have spoken up first and said “No, no, fine. Give her the child, but don’t hurt it.” Because no matter what it cost me, I …. like humans and believe in life over death.

Solomon CHOSE the woman who would love that child best, and put his welfare above her own. Therefore his “true mother.”

Let’s suppose, however, that Solomon had a little less wisdom, or less power. And therefore gave the baby to the one who was not willing to let the baby go and would rather see him dead.
How good a life do you think that child would have, even if he was zealously kept alive to preserve her status? And how long do you think he’d survive if she’d been able to bear another child who was strong and survived? And supposing he lived to adulthood, how psychologically healthy do you think he’d be?

In what will seem like an abrupt change of subject, but isn’t, 8 years ago I went to a Romney rally near Hoyt Colorado. (Yes, I am mildly embarrassed to admit this, after the insanity that was Pierre Delecto. However, at the time, seeing the fifth “summer of recovery”on the horizon and irreparable evil overtaking our nation and institutions, I’d have voted for Satan himself, and even worked for his campaign because “better the devil you know is the devil. And can’t be accused of being racist against sulphurous Americans for opposing communism.”)

Having seen a lot of more or less open shenanigans played out in 2008, having watched ACORN brag on camera of having “created” 3 million votes for Obama, and then the whole thing memory holed and people deciding that “America really wants socialism” I WANTED to fight against what I was sure was an illegitimate presidency, acquired by force of fraud. I wanted a candidate who would FIGHT.

I ended up standing in line (I didn’t get in, btw. Hell, the line extended to the highway from Denver to Colorado Springs, with every on ramp closed and the highway at a standstill. Yes, Colorado went for Obama. Yes, it was fraud. Insane, galloping fraud. I invite you to imagine the sort of opposition to Obama that made people treat milk toast Romney as they now treat Trump. And yet Obama won. Despite a complete absence of any show of enthusiasm for him in 12. I mean we lived in a college neighborhood and there was not a single sign. Sure. People really wanted to vote for him. And the Democrats’ incoherent attacks of “women in binders” totally worked with the population. Other leg. Pull it. It plays jingle bells.)

As I stood there, in the evening cold, wearing a skirt, because I’m an idiot, a person went up and down the line with a clipboard asking “are you a lawyer?” and taking down names of people willing to fight any fraud in the election. This made me too happy for words.

What didn’t make me happy was poll watching, seeing rampant fraud (a lot through ballot harvesting) and watching my state fall to the dems by a slim margin. (They immediately, and after the ballot initiative was defeated at the polls, btw, by executive order made all the voting in Colorado be by mail only, and also registration be by mail, no …. existence needed. Which is why Colorado went to Hillary, and why we haven’t been bombarded with pollling calls and adds this election even though we’re theoretically a “flip” state. Because, you know, we are in te Democrat bag. They stole us, and they mean to keep us. (It is also why the despicable Polis feels safe in the bullshit he pulls on us, from turning Denver into a vast homeless encampment — and turning the convention center, which cost the state a river of tax payer money into a homeless hostel — to destroying our tourism-economy.)

I called in the irregularities I saw. We all did. I ended up in group calls with poll watchers from all over Colorado, all of us — at once — yelling at campaign staffers. And it will neither surprise my regular readers nor appease them (though it might make them giggle) that I was so furious I went unstable Latina on the campaign headquarters, and end up screaming at Reince Priebus himself.

To no avail. Romney did bloody nothing.

And then I watched everyone on the right go on about how people really, really preferred Obama, and we needed to change ourselves to meet them where they were. We needed to become somewhat socialist, because that’s where the nation was. And if I tried to explain the massive amounts of fraud, everyone would go “well, that’s a conspiracy theory.”

This would be like the mother deciding she REALLY was barren, and her best hope was to endear herself to the chick who was willing to have the baby cut in half.

I come to explain Romney (and the others before him) not to praise him (or condemn him.) It’s easy to call them names, to refer to them as RINOS. Yes, many of them are, but what “Republican” means has also changed. No, not the way the left claims. It has changed AWAY from authoritarianism and towards more individual freedom. Any Republican with Nixon’s positions today would be called a Democrat. But that change in the party had to wait till communism fell and people realized the “scientific” system of governance was no such thing.

And yes, I know about the court ruling preventing republicans from challenging fraud. Those rulings were obviously insane, since apparently the New Black Panthers standing outside the polls in Philladelphia was not “voter intimidation” but asking for ID is “racial discrimination.” I’m convinced (And so was Romney, otherwise why canvas lawyers) that the fraud was blatant enough it could be challenged.

And DEAR LORD the fraud was appallingly blatant. And it got MORE so in 2018 when Arizona kept the polls open till the “right” person won, etc. And it should have been stopped.

The part where I explain Romney is this: It was going to be a horrible fight, and it had an enormous chance of getting us in a civil war. And even if we escaped that, it would destroy the integrity of America and the faith in our election system completely.

He judged it was better if the Republic lived on, even under Obama. Possibly he figured that we’d had horrible presidents before and we’d have them again. We’d survive that, he’d have his shot later, etc. etc. etc.

Look, I’ve said before as horrible as Obama was, and as much as everyone who ever cried out against Nixon over Watergate should go an apologize at his grave, as Obama’s malfeasance comes out, I’m NOT saying Romney was better. Heaven help us, but Obama might have been the best choice that horrible year.

Because Romney might have — in fact probably does — loved America enough to concede a ridiculous, crooked election, but he was no Solomon. (And I leave to your imagination what he would have done if they’d thrown one tenth the bilge they’ve thrown at Trump at him.)

The problem in fact is that there is no Solomon. And that in every election since Clinton put the horrendous “Motor Voter” act as a facilitation for fraud, the democrats have refused to accept defeat, claimed the election was fraudulent (I give you “Tank” Abrahams) and generally behaved like the other party has NO legitimacy.

What we’ve faced since 2000 — yes, Bush got that one, but he never fought against the perception that he’d “stolen” it. Instead he tried to rise above it — is a judgement of Solomon where again and again the baby is given to the woman who demands it be killed if she can’t have it.

And again and again, we’ve seen what that results in. More and more our institutions are corrupted, our children turned against America itself, till we have people on the streets of America screaming “death to America.”

We know the other “mother’s” plans for America too, now.

“No borders, no wall, no America at all.” The other mother, in fact, plans to take the baby out back and slice him and dice him. Or perhaps sell him to slavers. Same dif.

What they plan is to destroy the Republic. Perhaps because they view their status in the “world” is more important and perceive more rewards coming to them from the oligarchs abroad. Or perhaps because they really, would prefer to destroy the last, greatest hope of mankind, if they can’t own it.

Who knows, who cares?

Are we going to see that again? I don’t know. Trump IS a fighter, but he has lost his footing a couple of times. Sure, perhaps the engineered crisis over the “pandemic” was something he couldn’t dodge. But he also didn’t dispute the 18 elections. He did a Romney on them, and let them take the house on fake “victories” and turn the next two years into the hell we’ve gone through. Including and up to the “pandemic” response. Is he going to think his judicial nominations are enough? And step aside, and let the insanity continue after the dems use their fake polls, their “all vote by mail” fraud, their news media, to browbeat the American people into accepting that America really, really, really wants a “zombie win.” Who knows? Heave knows the man has to be tired. Bone-weary.

But the problem is saying “I love America too much to want to see her rent by a civil war, or destroyed by loss of confidence in elections” is no longer an option.

If we lose this one, we’re going down for the long count. The long, long count. Sure, the left can’t keep what they take. But they can do enough to see America divided and parceled out to foreign powers, all of whom behave more like China than anything in Western Civilization.

It’s not that I don’t understand the temptation. Fighting, in courts, first, might be more risky. On the other hand it has SOME chance of winning. For the other…. (opens hand) America shall be nothing but a glimmer in the wind.

And you know, this is America, so there is a Solomon. There is a judge.

We the People of the United States of America. Now. Always. We THE PEOPLE.

There is no option for sitting this one out. And no, I don’t want to hear any whining about how third party is the only way. There is no choice between cake or death.Your choice is, do you want America to live or not? If you do, vote for Trump. He’s flesh and blood, and heaven knows he’s flawed, but he’s trying to keep the Republic to allude to a musical on other “In conditions that a Merciful G-d should scruple to impose.”

Vote as if your life depended on it. Given the crazy Green New Deal and their lust for reeducation camps, it probably does. But more importantly, the Republic depends on it. We are flesh and blood. Dying was always baked in. But the republic needs not die.

And if it fails in the face of what promises to be an unprecedented tsunami of fraud. Then fight. In the courts, in the public square, in ANY WAY YOU HAVE TO.

You are Solomon. You are the king and judge of this land. Don’t give it to those who would destroy it.

Fight to the extent you can, as hard as you can. And in the aftermath get rid of the corruption and those who view America as a toy to control or destroy.

Let not government for the people by the people perish from this Earth.

Be not afraid. Our purpose is bigger than our lives. Fear is besides the point.

*Okay, I have a confession: when I wrote this, I THOUGHT the left had hit the limits of how crazy they could go. And then 2020 happened and they said “hold our pinot grigio and watch this….
May the good Lord in his infinite mercy send them some sanity, so that in 2021 we don’t say “2020 was adorable….” – SAH*

Resolved: The Higher The Fewer- A Blast From the Past From September 2019

Guys, pssst?  Can someone check on the left? Because something is seriously, bizarrely wrong.  I mean, wrong enough that if the left, collectively, tripped into a hospital’s ER, they’d be slapped with a psychiatric hold.  These people — collectively — are not well.

Look, when I was growing up, one of our merry band was schizophrenic.  When he felt his insanity coming on, he’d go and commit himself, because he didn’t want to hurt anyone.  We can only hope (in vain) that the left could have that kind of insight into their mental processes.

Recently, I heard of someone also suffering from mental illness, who removed every electrical wire from his house, bashed his laptop, the radio, the TV and his telephone, sent in his own obituary and generally posed a danger to himself and others because the aliens/CIA/someone was spying on him through all of those.  He might be saner than the left.

No, seriously. I was texting to Bill (Reader) yesterday and I said something like “the left is so crazy it’s starting to scare me.  What kind of rational human being thinks we should reorganize our entire economy because an indoctrinated SWEDISH teen needs to allay her anxiety?”  And then he said, “Or for instance, that Biden is corrupt, therefore impeach Trump.”

And then I realized there were a ton of other things just as insane from that side of the isle, and I had to think, and then…

Okay, we’ll ignore people like Rashida Tlaib going on about how black market vaping cartridges have coffee and alcohol and other things that can’t be digested by the lungs, and Alexandria Occasional Cortex going on about filming the poisonous effluvia of fracking at a place where no fracking was happening and therefore it was just heat waves from drilling machinery.  We’ll ignore this, because stupid is as stupid does, and the concentrated stupidity in the “squad” is denser and harder than the core of some stars. On the other hand, consider, ladies and gentlemen, that the democrats and the press (but I repeat myself) think that creatures of such impressive density, whose stupidity is even now influencing the orbit of distant galaxies, are worthy not just of being in congress (I mean, the Romans, famously put a horse in the Senate. Who are we to complain about mere donkeys?) but are people we should listen to, and give any type of attention to and/or look to for the future of this country.  No, think about it for a moment. It will prepare you for what is to come.

As I sat there, staring at my phone screen, I realized some of the crazy is so crazy that the mind has attempted to erase it. I always said that the Obama administration had the interesting strategy of covering scandal with scandal, but I swear the democrats/progressives/ happy face socialists, (whatever the hell they call themselves this week. They keep changing names like a bad Chinese restaurant that cooks the neighborhood pets) these days cover crazy with crazy, until your mind rebels at the sheer amount of insanity and regurgitates it, like a cat that has swallowed half a bag of marshmallows (I’m looking at you, Havelock.)

The crazy has been so, you’ll pardon the allusion, fast and furious that I forgot one of the incidents first time through, and probably am forgetting some now.  We won’t even go back till the Mueller investigation was revealed as utterly hollow and probably fraudulent from the beginning.  Mostly because in the aftermath the NYT admitted it was trying to distract us with “racism, racism, racism” and such poor scholarship that even other leftists called them on it.

But somehow, somewhere along the line, the dime dropped that these days you can put the American people to sleep with “racist!” or its new hip variant “white supremacist.”

In between there, sometime, there was the bizarre obsession with “children in cages” which they never seemed to comprehend were ALSO from Obama’s tenure. (And we got the picture of Occasional Cortex staring forlornly into a parking lot, and a lot of other nuttery) And also somehow this morphed into “detention of people trying to illegally cross our border is like German death camps.”  Because you know, the problem Nazi Germany had was all those Jews trying to cross the border to come in.  WHAT?  Yes, it’s exactly like it, except where it’s not like it at all, which is all over.

But the left has minds so completely virgin of history that they make virgin olive oil look like promiscuous olive oil, and so from this bizarre a-historical comparison, they jumped not only to attacking ICE facilities and defacing American flags (question for the audience, what flag do they think they would prefer? Do they really think an invader would put them in charge? Don’t answer that. “Think” is a misnomer for what passes for their mental processes at this point. It’s like the random firing of defective, partially wet fireworks) but also to thinking that “free health care for illegal aliens” and “abolish ICE” is a winning point for their 2020 platform.

Look, guys, can thorazine be made into tranq darts? I think we’re going to need them.

But somehow, this fail-safe way to win American hearts and minds failed (save for a few empty heads in the suburbs who kept bleating “but the children” as though it were kind to encourage unscrupulous parents and kidnapping strangers to grab the kids and drag them the length of the Americas getting raped along the way by making “but the children” a get out of jail card to walk dry shod onto American soil.) I know, un-possible. And yet it failed. Possibly because as the fiercely heterosexual Cory Booker says, so many of us are “despicable.”

And so — because, as I read somewhere (might have been the NYT) they’re counting on (I swear I’m not making this up) scandal fatigue (attached to Trump!) to win them the 2020 election, the left decided to go completely, pants on head, writing obscene words on your naked bods with indelible marker, dancing a jig in subzero weather nuts.  We’re not talking the gentle madness of planning a transatlantic bridge made entirely out of soap. No, in retrospect that was the Mueller inquiry.  This… this is something completely … well, crazier.

So, what have  we seen:

Well we saw Beto O’Rourke not only saying that damn the second amendment, full speed ahead, if he won the election he was coming for our guns, but — mark my words about this, please — having T-shirts printed up with this, as though he thought, nay, was SURE this would be the making of his campaign.  No, seriously.

It is as some liberal but still sane guy said recently as if “The left thinks it’s campaigning in a country slightly to the left of Sweden.”

I’d say more than that. I’d say they think they’re campaigning in a country as disarmed as England.  Let me assure them we still have not just our knives, our screwdrivers, our sharpened spoons, but also our guns.  And saying “you’ll let me take them because I say so” doesn’t sit too well with us Americans. I suppose it’s not Beto’s fault that he never met any of us. I’m going to assume he landed, the day before that debate, from some other parallel world where there are no Americans.

Maybe in that world, the Swedes rule America.

Then there was Kavanaugh thing.  You’re going to say “Oh, old news.” Oh, au contraire, mon frere in suffering through this craziness.
No. Kavanaugh was brought up again, and the left wanted to impeach him — yes, impeach him — because some book recently published said he’d wagged his penis in someone’s face when he was eighteen. The book also said, mind you, that the woman denied and said she didn’t remember any such thing.

And when the supposed victim of this crime said “never happened.” they said that just because she couldn’t remember it, it didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Yes. The left, ladies and gentlemen, small dragons, wingless birds and feathered mammals, the political side that #believeallwomen, even people who suddenly remember things that supposedly happened forty years ago in a house that doesn’t seem to exist, when a designated victim says she doesn’t remember anything of the kind and it never happened says, “Forget the drunken slut. She doesn’t remember but that don’t mean nothing. Wouldn’t remember her own name if it weren’t tattooed on her butt. Listen to us. We must impeach a supreme court justice because we say so and will stomp our little feet and scream till you do what we say.”

Which funnily enough, between Sweden and tantrums brings us to the next item: Turns out the left believes that the best way to treat a child’s anxiety is to rearrange the entire economy of the world.  No, seriously.

I was on a forum where a woman said we shouldn’t discount the opinions of Greta Thunberg just because she’s mentally ill.

Okay, then. I suppose the guy who ripped out all the wiring of his house should be listened to. I mean, perhaps there were in fact aliens spying on him through the wires.  I’m sorry, if you’re merely depressed, your opinion might have some validity.  Distorted, maybe, but there might be something there.

But if you’re a child who suffers from both a cognitive disorder that makes it impossible to identify irony, hyperbole and lying AND from depression, why would anyone in their right mind pay attention to what you have to say?  Worse, note the CHILD in the last sentence. Greta Thunberg is a child who has not, in fact, finished the equivalent of high school.

Now, I know that children can be geniuses. I am the mother of a diagnosed “profoundly gifted” son, and another who is “at least one standard deviation above him.”  I’m here to tell you that both of them can be very knowledgeable about whatever their field of specialty is.  Which at sixteen was…  Do you know how many bizarre arguments I endured over the best way of making ME a body replacement robot, so I wouldn’t have auto-immune attacks? Or the life history of various comic book heroes, with and without retconning?  I would absolutely listen to them, then, on those subjects. Because they were probably the greatest living authorities on them, and also on various convolutions of Asterix the Gaul. Or in the case of one of them, the economic policies of ancient Rome.

You know what they weren’t authorities on? What international policy and economics should be. You know why not? Because they were sixteen.

Even adults can’t grasp how one could change world economics without killing most of the population, to avert global warming if it were a problem (hint, it doesn’t seem to be. Or at least not within foreseeable future. Or at least none of the people who claim to believe in it actually act like it is a problem.)

But, oh, dear Lord, the left, and Europeans — WTF really is the Monaco Royal Family thinking? Have they reached the level of inbreeding where they’re as dumb as Occasional Cortex? — and the press, think that this girl, because she’s sincere and angry is somehow worthy of talking in front of our congress and the UN (as if the UN needed to further beclown itself) on how we must all change things because we Faiiiiiiiiled her.

I realize that throwing tantrums has got her parents to structure their entire lives around her dictates, but what no one has explained is how and why they expect the rest of the world to do so.

Look, any of my kids when they were young and living with us, telling us we needed to change something like our dinner time because we’d faillllllled them and were ruining their childhood would be told “Tough. Also shut up child the adults are talking.”

But the world is supposed to stop for Greta Thunberg, because she’s disabled and really, really indoctrinated? Oh, and has pigtails.  Well, then. Neither of my boys had pigtails. Must be the difference.

And of course, just in case this failed, the left organized a massive, all out tantrum by giving the kids time off to leave school and demonstrate, stomping their feet and demanding we stop everything because they’re scared.

I guess because they don’t have kids, the left exaggerates the power of children tantruming?  because for us parents, that’s called “Wednesday.”  We used to look at our kids, throwing themselves to the grocery store floor, pumping arms and legs and go “Cute.  Okay. We’re leaving. Call us when you have a job.”  This usually stopped the tantrum and got them walking sheepishly beside us.

Metaphorically speaking, that’s the only response Greta, who comes from a country as far left (in fact) as Sweden deserves from the United States. I don’t care how “sincere” she is. If her fears really were of man-made global warming, she’d be lecturing India and China, not us.

So, take her away from her horrible, insane parents.  Give her to human beings to raise. Whipping the parents in the public square till the blood runs freely is probably not practical, and besides they might enjoy it.

But wait, wait, “You must give us socialism because this Swedish kid is upset and besides we have all these other kids who will take a day off school and hold up signs” isn’t the sum total of the left’s madness… Oh, no.

No. Possibly the best part of the last two weeks is the left demanding that we impeach Trump because Joe Biden is corrupt.

Sure, there’s other stuff there, but already the wheels are coming off, between Trump releasing the transcript of the call, and apparently the “whistleblower” not actually having heard the call to Ukraine, so he’s blowing his little whistle on … hearsay? and… Oh, yeah, this guy works for the Clintons, seems like, or at least that’s what I got from the convoluted chain of who is paying whom…

Is your head hurting yet?  Mine is.

Guys, in my misspent youth, I looked after friends who were suffering through bad acid trips and who were more rational than the left has become.

I fully expect sometime next week they’ll start an inquiry in the House on “Why is a mouse when he spins?” and return a resolution of “The higher, the fewer.”

Which would be hilarious, if these people didn’t have the power of the purse, if (through their press branch) they didn’t manipulate the perception of the US abroad, and if we were absolutely sure that we can beat the margin of fraud.

As is, though, it’s like being locked in a small room with someone who has gone completely and utterly insane.

Any minute now, they’re going to swagger over, wave something in our face and say “See, see? I told you the US is evil and Trump is a dictator. I have proof. Proof, I tell you.”
And we won’t know how to break it to them what they’re holding is a fistful of their own excrement.

Ellen realized for the first time how much her husband had changed when she took the tea into his office.\This story is now part of a collection for sale here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W3WBJYJ

I was very hopeless over the weekend. I’m still hopeless in a way, but I think I zeroed in on the situation, and though I still don’t but I think I figured out a particular mechanism of what’s happening and I want to share, because someone else might have a solution.

I was reading a mystery on Friday evening, while doing other things, as usual, when suddenly there was the scene when the character, investigating a case involving the murder of a gay person, walks in on a suspect watching Fox news, and of course, immediately decides he must be guilty, because he’s obviously conservative and therefore homophobic.

This both made me grind my teeth, and made me think of all my friends who are otherwise conservative, and frankly fed up with the dem shenanigans they know about, like #metoo or the “gender of the week allows me to compete in women’s sports”, or with oh, the governor of Colorado destroying public property and attracting multitudes of homeless to Colorado by making the giant, newish, expensive convention center into a homeless shelter. (And you know, following the things that happened in hotels and such that were converted, it will be cheaper to have it demolished and rebuilt than to make it useable again.) Thereby also laying waste to the most expensive area of town, to all the businesses that paid a premium to rent or buy near the convention center, to–

They see this stuff as wrong. They don’t see it as coordinated, nor the campaign behind the curtains. Like #metoo was a desperate attempt to get Trump and it’s bitterly funny it snagged mostly their own guys. Along the way it also destroyed many people’s lives and makes it almost impossible for the women who want a level playing field and who actually want to compete in the work place to do so, because men are now officially scared of employing women, promoting women and/or working with women, and frankly would rather isolate women into their own little pods than have them as useful co-workers (not everywhere, of course, but in a lot more places.) And that doesn’t count women with histories of being abused (many of them by family) who were “activated” by metoo and its assumption that everyone with a penis is out to get you.

My friends would absolutely agree these are bad things. They would not, however, agree that it was a dem move behind the scenes that started the whole thing. That it was at what the dems thought was a convenient time, doesn’t help.

But some of them are smart enough to suspect that Biden would be very bad, and Kamala very, very bad. And they hate the warbling stylings of Occasional Cortex.

They will still vote democrat, without thinking.

Because the Republicans are racist, sexist and homophobic. They know that Trump has never condemned white supremacists, because the news media has never reported on the many times he has, or all the transcripts, recordings, etc. showing he did.

They know because everyone from college on has told them, that the republicans are racist, sexist and homophobic. They know because teachers, professors, the media and elected officials tell them so.

Surely not everyone could be lying to them!

Because if everyone is lying to them, the world is completely different from the solid world beneath their feet, and then they have to re-examine everything including how things work, everyone around them, and their own place in the world.

One of the things I do when profoundly depressed — not since early 2019 — is read true crime books. There is a mini-explosion in them, as indie has allowed reporters and people involved in even minor cases to compile their notes into a book and throw it out there to be read.

The excuse, for me, is that I read them because I write mysteries. Okay, it’s not an excuse, it’s true. But the other side is that I also like to know…. the trends of human character, as it were. I like to know the mechanisms by which other people find their way into the world.

And as someone of relatively healthy psyche, I have trouble understanding the criminal or even the shady. It’s been my endeavor since I was aware of the possibility of hurting others to do as little harm as possible. What violence I’ve engaged in was always in self defense or defense of others who couldn’t defend themselves.

The whole point is, I don’t want to hurt anyone just going about their life without any detriment to other people. And I hate the thought of returning good with evil. To me — though I know that makes no sense — that has always been the central, cardinal sin. And the level doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you shoot someone who was breaking into your house to leave a gift (yes, unlikely, I know, it’s an example, bear with me) or you kick a puppy who was running up to you to greet you with joy and lick you, it is horribly, horribly wrong. (Though the first has worse consequences.)

Given that, it’s really hard for me to understand anything from grifters to murderers. And it’s always important to know these people do exist, and the harm they can and will do.

So– I read these books. That I only read them when I’m depressed is something else.

But one of the things that breaks your heart in these books is the number of people who help murderers, hide them, give them things, and enable them to commit more harm.

What breaks your heart worse is understanding how many of these people are doing it, not because they love or trust the murderer, but because the murderer has convinced them that if they don’t the people out there will do them worse harm.

Yes, the term for that is gaslighting, but the movies make it seem like it’s all this smooth narrative. It’s not. It’s disjointed, doesn’t make sense and changes all the time. And at some level the victim (in this case meaning the person conned/coerced into helping the murderer) is aware it doesn’t make sense. But they’ve been so convincingly scared of everyone outside their little menage, that they can’t bear to go to them. Because to them, if the murderer is bad, these people are way way worse.

It is worse for children caught in this situation or for women who were first caught into this situation as children.

They are so terrified of anything outside their psychological prison that they don’t dare escape, even given the option.

And this is what’s happening to the decent people caught/gaslit by the left. They were captured as children, in schools that — often unbeknownst to the parents — taught them a distorted view of reality up to and including the massively hilarious — to anyone on the outside — “the parties changed sides” version of US history. (Something that COULD NOT happen without both parties agreeing, and seriously, where did the meeting take place? who was the last president before they switched? and precisely why didn’t all politicians on either side also immediately quit and change? and also, while at it why switch and not just change name to something completely different?)

And the narrative is sustained, all over, by media, entertainment the loud chatter at work (conservatives never talk loudly or in public.)

So– They’re inside the bubble and they believe this. They have to, because everyone has always told them how scary the non-left side is, and how it will hurt and torture everyone they know. Even while the left side is destroying the economy, bankrupting the country, calling for insane lockdowns, taking away their freedoms and businesses, and generally trying to remake us into Cuba, while shouting “Death to America.” Oh, but they KNOW the other side is worse.

This is the only thing that explains, recently, an otherwise not mentally retarded journalist going undercover with antifa because he (different from the other one) totally believed it was white supremacists doing the looting. It’s the only thing that explains otherwise sane people believing that everyone who opposes the socialists is somehow racist, or sexist, or homophobic. Even when the people are of another race or women or gay. It’s also the only thing that explains their all believing that we’re all going to die of Winnie the Flu, because — obviously — the republicans want everyone to die. They’re just moustache-twirling villains. Even though, btw, and much to my disappointment, no, Trump never called Winnie the Flu a hoax (well, it’s not, it’s Chinese psy-ops, with JUST enough lethality to lend it some credence), nor does he call for everyone to just go back to living normally, (I wish he would) and he lent the whole nonsense way more credence than he should.

But in their minds Winnie the Flu is super-lethal and Trump wants them to die.

Because the other side must be utter devils.

The way you find this, btw, is that they buy into “never listen to anything that makes you doubt the gaslighting.” We’re getting people on facebook calling the anodine (and fast going left) fox news ultra far right. The same for every other site to the right of Lenin. Or CNN. Same thing. You’d think they wouldn’t be scared of reading different versions of this stuff, but they believe reading/watching this stuff will somehow MAKE you be racist/sexist/homophobic. Which is insanity, or the result of gaslighting.

Those of us who still have friends (or relatives) on the other side, also know the “begs.” So, for instance a friend of mine who knows I’m none of those things but also knows I’m way to the right of Lenin, assumes I am this because I am religious.

And while he’s right that I am religious — or try to be — that’s a growth misunderstanding of how my mind (or my belief) works. In fact, because I AM religious I wouldnt’ support anyone who wants to discriminate on the basis of characteristics that people can’t help having.

Also, weirdly, he seems to believe that because I am religious, I will of course want the installation of a theocracy. And that the Republicans promiss that. Which is somewhere beyond bizarre, since none of this works. No, I don’t believe in theocracy, and I think churches should keep their noses off secular matters they know nothing about (glares balefully at Monsigneur D’Avignon and his repeated condemnation of Capitalism) and the idea of establishing a theocracy in the US is laughable, since all the Christian churches are more opposed to each other than to secularists.

But it’s the “make it fit” patch the gaslighters have handed him, and he uses it, because otherwise his view of the world and of himself would shatter.

As I (having been raised in Europe, I was soft left, at least, even though I always hated communnism) and others who’ve realized the sham can tell you, it’s not a comfortable position. And it leaves you unable to respect and enjoy things you used to.

But the thing is, while the dems used this gaslighting to keep themselves in power, and engage in more than a bit of mild corruption, and act all important, it was one thing. The problem, however, is that unpunished this sort of stuff grows.

Because the left has no checks, and the mere fact of being left means being given a pass, they started attracting outright stone cold psychopaths, many of whom are now their leaders. And their aim, the place they’re going for and dragging everyone they hold captive is nothing less than the destruction of civilization. Partly because not only would rather reign in hell. As we know from Winnie the Xi and his ilk, they LIKE ruling in hell, and frankly would prefer it to ruling in heaven.

2020 has shown anyone who is not under their spell just how dangerous the left has become.

But not their captives. It hasn’t shown their captives anything because they’re locked in terror screaming “the other side is worse.” A good example would be the sermon I endured at the many times vandalized Denver Cathedral, where we were told that “no justice, no peace” and if we don’t send more money to Africa (!) and treat the homeless better (than letting them camp all over the sidewalks, wherever they please, and look after all their needs, for free, and hand over public property for them to destroy) the violence with continue.

This makes absolutely no sense, because saying “help me, or I f*ck you up” is not a cry for help, it’s an hostage situation. And the problem of the homeless is not, and never was “they don’t have enough stuff.” In fact, the problem MIGHT be a society so wealthy that they can afford to live without structure, without addressing their mental issues, and able to indulge in all sorts of substances, while free of consequences. As for Africa, if there’s something we learned in the 20th century is that hitting economies and cultures with massive bags of money doesn’t help them. It only distorts them. Oh, and the best thing we could do for Africa right now would be remove China’s colonial boot from their necks.

But these people aren’t thinking. Not in any sense of the word. They just don’t want to get hit again. And they can’t go to anyone outside for help, because those are bad people who will hurt them.

Does this make them less culpable? Sure. Does this make them less dangerous, while they cooperate in the destruction of our nation and the West? No.

What do we do about it? I don’t know. For the individuals caught in this type of situation, it usually takes something happening that FINALLY makes them have to admit everything they think and think they “know” is wrong. I shudder to think of the event that would break through the mass delusion, when the whole Covidiocy lockdowns didn’t.

Yeah, some of the more suspicious are seeing through. The majority still isn’t.

And I don’t know what to do about it. As we found in the collapse of communist societies, many people cling to the lie even after.

I don’t know what to do about it. I presume there is a large number of people caught in this (though due to fraud, it’s hard to figure out how many) and I don’t know how to pull them out. We must almost rely on a miracle. And I don’t like relying on miracles.

But barring that, I don’t know what to do.

We’re not the ones being gaslit. We’re the bystanders being dragged through hell because those we love are collaborating with evil, are increasingly more and more unhappy (since they know what they’re doing is wrong but they can’t see an alternative) and we don’t know how to save them. Worse, they’re actions are taking us to hell too.

We’re the bystanders. And there’s very little we can do.

*For the previous chapters, please go here. These are posted first draft, as the brain dictates to the fingers which are remarkably stupid. Also there will be inconsistencies because until September or so, the timing on these is wonky, and I’ll forget stuff between posts. Eventually it will be cleaned up and fixed just before page is made secret/taken down and the book is published. At that time I will take lists of typos or volunteers to proof read. For now, it’s written in a hurry, usually an hour before it goes up. And, let me remind you, it’s free – SAH*

The Morning After

Al woke up grumpy. Before she left her room in the morning, she looked inn the packet Geoffrey had given her, which was supposed to protect her virtue, and found five seeds. She couldn’t sense any magic from them and wondered if they were the kind of joke that Geoffrey used to play on her when they were both much younger.

But he had seemed so serious–

Shaking her head, she dressed in the gown she’d been given at the Darkwater townhouse and then, on a whim, rummaged at the bottom of the wardrobe till she found a sack, into which she put a male suit of clothing which was hanging in the wardrobe, plus two additional pairs of trousers.

She had no idea what a magical road of challenges would entail, but her time with Michael had taught her that she was as likely as not to end up soaked or in torn clothes. And besides, Michael wasn’t any better at staying clean and dry shod. And one of the few things mama had said that rang true to Al’s experience was that one always felt better for having her feet dry and clean clothes on. Besides, there was just so much more freedom of movement to male clothing.

The thought that perhaps Geoffrey would object to her carrying the bag worried her, until she realized that likely Father would want to be in human form to give them instructions, and therefore Geoffrey would of necessity be a swan.

She would never have wished such a curse on her brothers — only perhaps when they were tossing her dolly above the height she could reach, once or twice, but they weren’t wont to do it to often — but since it had happened, Al had to admit it was rather more convenient to have her brother only capable of trumpeting and not of speaking. Trumpeting was much easier to ignore.

But all the same, and though she was right about Papa being the one in human form, it was a very strange breakfast.

Having left the room, shortly after daybreak, fully prepared to throw a fire ball at Papa’s nose — she must be a most unnatural daughter, for the idea didn’t disturb her at all — she was comforted by finding Michael waiting for her in the hallway. All else being the same she was far more likely to be able to fend off a werewolf with his help, and she could tell by his smile that he was similarly relieved. But neither mentioned the possibility of this cloudless morning offering an incidence of werewolves.

At any rate, they heard Papa call out almost immediately, “Good morning,” and they came down the stairs at a trot, and sat at the dining table, which was set with all the essentials of an elaborate breakfast, from kidneys to stewed fish.

Al, who woke slowly and was never enthusiastic about breakfast, had poured herself tea, and observed that Michael took only toast, butter, and tea.

Not sure about the protocol of this whole quest, she wondered if they’d regret not having food later. They should perhaps ask for a picnic basket.

“I presume,” Papa said, in the sort of voice older men used when they were sure they were stating the obvious, even though it might only be obvious to them, “that you know the rules of a magical path, Lord Michael.”

Michael had to his credit, taken a moment to answer, and then answered with perfect equanimity, “Not as such, no.”

Albinia could have sank. Where had Papa come by the idea that such arcane knowledge was common. And yet he looked surprised at the response.

He opened his mouth, closed it, then looked about to speak, when he instead hiccuped in a most appalling way.

Lord Michael raised his eyebrows. “Voles?”

“No… a…. a chicken.”

And if at that moment Geoffrey hadn’t come down the stairs trumpeting indignantly, Albinia would have run screaming out the door. But Geoffrey didn’t seem to be what Papa was referring to as a chicken. However, well, she had other brothers who were missing, so she asked, in a demanding voice, “Are chickens part of the design of this world?”

At this point papa had frowned, then shaken his head. “No. I have wondered if it was an intrusion by your mama.”

Albinia didn’t know if he meant her mama was the chicken — why would she be? but then hadn’t the boys turned to swans here? — of if he meant mama had sent a chicken, which was probably no more insane than the other thought. Instead of asking, she took advantage of dad pouring himself a large cup of tea, while Geoffrey trumpeted insistently at him, to take five slices of cake onto her plate. And then, while Lord Michael watched her with fascinated gazed, and Papa and Geoffrey held an argument that presupposed papa could understand the trumpeting as words, Albinia wrapped the cake in a napkin and dropped it into her sack. She was amazed, but gratified by seeing Michael’s lips curl up in a smile.

Papa and Geoff kept arguing.

“Of course I will give them all the instructions.”

Geoffrey trumpeted.

“I don’t know what you mean by that, I am not either a head in the clouds academician with no understanding for other people’s limited knowledge.”

Angrier trumpeting.

“Honestly, it’s like someone else taught you magic. I mean, if I didn’t teach you, who did?”

Al saw Michael raise his eyebrows, just before he pushed a small bundle towards her. It was a napkin, and from the feel of it it was filled with some boiled eggs and apples. She grinned back and secreted the food in her bag.

She didn’t know why not ask for a picnic basket, except of course, she had a feeling she shouldn’t. And having lived with mother a long time, she was somewhat respectful of her own feelings in this.

And then Papa answered one of Geoff’s protests with, “But he has spent time in fairyland.”

“I remember nothing of it,” Michael said, definitely.

“Oh. Well, then,” Papa said. “The truth of the magical path is this: we don’t know what this particular one will be, nor what it will consist of. We cannot, since the challenge was set by my lady wife, and presumably altered, consciously or not by each of my sons as they walked it, but I do know that everything you do on the magical path has a reward or a punishment.”

Geoff made an annoyed sound.

“So, much like real life sir?” Michael asked.

Papa glared. “Well, I suppose so, except that….” He paused. “Except that everything you do will be returned to you a hundred fold.”

“I see, sir,” Michael said. And getting up went to the buffet where some additional dishes were laid out. Since Al hadn’t seen him eat much, she wondered what he was doing until, on passing casually by her sack on his way to his seat with a different kind of cake on his plate, he dropped five candles in her bag. Looking at the sideboard she realized the silver chandeliers were now bare. She also realized they’d never get away with this if Geoff weren’t distracting Papa, and wondered if he were doing it on purpose.

“So, don’t kill anyone or anything unless you absolutely have to,” Papa said. “And try to help anyone you meet.”

“Very well, sir.”

Albinia had no idea what Michael passed her during the next round of squabbling between her brother and father, except that it was very large and wrapped in two napkins.

“And stay alert for intrusions. That chicken means my lady wife is up to something.”

Which Al would take to mean that the chicken wasn’t mama. Maybe.

Lord Michael stood up, “I believe we must go now, sir,” he said. “The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll return.

They headed out the back door, and there was a gate at the end of the garden and a clear path through the woods.

At the gate Papa wished them the best of luck, and Geoff trumpeted something that Albinia wished she could understand. She bent down and kissed the swan’s head, “You take good care of Papa, and thank you. We’ll come back soon and restore you.”

His trumpeting was the sort of half-embarrassed thank you of an older brother who did not wish to be beholden.

And then they opened the gate and stepped through. All of a sudden they were in the middle of an impenetrable forest. There were trees in every direction save for a path that led into the deeper darkness ahead.

Somewhere nearby a baby was crying.

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

THIS IS A RE-EDITION (THOUGH CONSIDERABLY PROOREAD AND EDITED FOR COHERENT TIMELINE) OF AN EARLIER WORK, NOW CHANGED TO MY P&P PENNAME:

FROM ALYX SILVER AND SOFIE SKAPSKI: A Touch Of Night: Pride, Prejudice, Werewolves and Dragons, Oh, My!

A Pride and Prejudice Variation.
In a world that puts shape shifters to death, Mr. Darcy was unfortunate enough to be born as a were-dragon.
But the cruel laws don’t always find their victims. Mr. Darcy has survived and protected Mr. Bingley who is a werewolf.
Meanwhile, in Hertfordshire, Lizzy has been protecting her sister Jane who turns into a beautiful hunting dog.
When Mr. Bingley rents Netherfield, the Were-Laws and the shape shifting of three of them add extra complications to the flowering of romance between the well-loved couples. And Mr. Wickham. joining the Royal Were Hunters, lends additional danger to the situation.
Will they get together despite the danger, Lizzy’s active imagination and Mr. Darcy’s excessive nobility of character?

(This book was previously published with Sarah A. Hoyt and Sofie Skapski as the authors. Sarah’s name has been changed to match her other published Austen fanfic.)

FROM MARY CATELLI: Where There Is Smoke.

Who but her old master can tell Marisa what secrets lie in the spellbook that even the Nameless Necromancer kept hidden away?

FROM J. L. CURTIS: Tales Around the Supper Table: -An Anthology of Texas Writers.

This collection is from ten different Texas authors. There was no ‘world’ or set up for the stories. It was up to the individual authors to write their stories, so you get a wide variety! Vampires, dragons, werewolves, enchanted swords, runaways, SciFi, and cowboys… Stories for everyone in this collection of Texas authors!

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Judiciously Familiar: Familiar Tales Book Fifteen.

“By the Pricking of my thumbs/ Something wicked this way comes!”

“Caw! Caw!”

A raven the size of an eagle appears in Riverton. When it begins haunting Familiars, Lelia and André Lestrang have to decide if it needs their special attention. Lelia, battling fatigue and postpartum depression, juggles family, magic, and working at Belle, Book, and Blacklight. Her employer, Arthur Saldovado, too wonders about the raven and its meaning.

Something from the past stirs, something dark and deep. A new sorceress and the raven hint at dangers hiding in the shadows. Shadows perhaps too dark even for shadow mages to master.

FROM MARGARET BALL: Tangled Magic

After waiting ten long years for Richart Dalkey to realize she’s no longer the awkward young girl he grew up with, Elspet is thrilled when he finally comes to pay her court . . . until he divulges the true reason for his visit. His proposition? A sham engagement to discourage debutante Dorothea Turvoll, who’s infatuated with Richart and whom his mother wants him to marry. Elspet convinces him to pretend he’s desperately in love with her and actually court her instead, certain that with time—and a little bit of magic—he’ll see they’re meant to be together.
But another woman in Din Eidyn has her sights set on Richert, as well as some dark magic of her own, and she’ll stop at nothing to win the one man who can give her the social standing she desperately desires. Before long, the charade gets out of hand, and as scandal engulfs the ton, Elspet must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the love she’s always wanted.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: PIG

Sorry, since today is Hun’s dinner at Pete’s, and I have to finish cleaning, I probably can’t write before around 9.

However, we’ve come up with a problem. Paypal has suspended my donation account and insists that I’m “selling goods” which is frankly insane as they have absolutely no proof of this.

So I presume it’s the usual paypal tricks of demonetizing sites they dislike.

What other services are there that I might use? I have used Paypal despite its corporate stupidity due to my lack of time to research alternatives.

Anyone have alternatives they can suggest?

UPDATE: CHAPTER TOMORROW. I’m tired.

Give a Warm ATH welcome (which does not mean start talking advarks and dragons, guys!) to comedic genius Frank Fleming, who is here to teach us how to write fake news. And you know he knows how to, since he keeps getting fact checked* by Snopes, Facebook, and other organizations which have had their sense of humor ablated at formation (*But not on Occasional Cortex getting her head stuck in a bucket. That’s self-obviously true. She wsa probably looking for her brain.)- SAH

How to Generate Fake News by Frank J. Fleming

Hi, it’s me, Frank J. Fleming from The Babylon Bee (and writer of novels such as Superego: Fathom, now available on Audible. Since I write for a Christian, conservative satire site and Christians and conservatives don’t know how to be funny, the main point of our satire is to trick people into thinking it’s real, i.e., to make fake news.

Fake news is great! It helps you get traffic for your website or tilt an election at the behest of the Russians who are funding you. But you’re probably wondering: How can I make fake news? Being an expert, I am here to share some tips that will trick everyone.

TIPS FOR MAKING FAKE NEWS

Include real details. One of the important features of fake news is that it sounds real. That means you include details that are true. For instance, let’s say you start an article this way:

President Trump today set fire to a…

People will read that and say to themselves, “The president is Trump! This could be a real story!”

Or if you start a story with:

Today in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, escaped llamas...

People will google that and say, “Hey, Washington, D.C., is the capital of the United States. The rest of this story could be true as well!”

But if you get a detail wrong that people know, that could ruin the whole ruse. For example, if you wrote:

Boron, which has a melting point of 2,113 degrees Kelvin…

Someone could say, “Hey, Boron has a melting point of 2,349 degrees Kelvin! What is this guy trying to pull? Maybe the rest of this article about Russians putting a mind-control device in Kamala Harris is wrong as well.”

Write to people’s biases. A key to fake news is to have it be something people would like to be true based on what they already think about certain political figures. Let’s say you’re writing for people who think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is stupid. Then you could write some fake news like:

Today, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got her head stuck inside a bucket and ran into a wall.

And the people who don’t like Ocasio-Cortez will say to themselves, “That does sound like something she would do, as she is very brain-stupid. This news checks out, and I will not doubt it.”

On the other hand, people who like Ocasio-Cortez will say, “This can’t be true! She is the world’s smartest socialist. Something seems awry with this news. And if it is true, I’m certain Ocasio-Cortez had a very smart reason for putting her head inside a bucket so it would get stuck. I’m going to research this and look for other verification.”

This partisan divide is why it’s hard to trick all the people all the time with fake news. I dream of a day when this nation is less divided and I can constantly fool everyone.

Be sensational but not too sensational. One of the main reasons for fake news is to generate lots of buzz and traffic, and thus it has to be something people will want to share and write angry tweets about. For instance, I could write this:

Today, President Trump bought a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

And that’s total fake news. I just made that up. I don’t even know if that’s his favorite flavor of Doritos. But no one is going to share that fake news, because who cares.

But you can go too far in the other direction. Let’s say I wrote fake news like this:

Today, President Trump nuked France.

Now, that’s some sensational news people will want to share. But they’ll also think to themselves, “Hey, that’s pretty big news. Shouldn’t everyone be talking about this and I didn’t just find out about it on some news site I’ve never heard of before?”

So you have to tone it down some. Like:

Today, President Trump nuked Micronesia.

No one even knows where that is. Could be true!

Don’t have the letters “CNN” above your news. That is now a dead giveaway for being fake news. You need to come up with some other made-up news organization name, like “Totally Real News.”

—

Well, those are my tips for making fake news to generate lots of traffic. So go out there and tilt an election or cause chaos. And check out my science fiction novel Superego: Fathom, now on Audible. It’s totally true, and none of it is made up.