(this untitled short story was originally posted May 25, 2011, but due to a ghostly encounter this morning that made my black shard of a heart go ka-thud, I thought I’d re-share …enjoy.– A.A.)

*** 

“What a fucking dump,” Darren said; as soon as it left his lips he knew his sister expected to hear it, because her lips twitched into an oh-here-it-comes smile. “No, I mean it, Kyles. Smells like a crypt. When’s the last time somebody even cracked this door?”

“Dude, hush your face,” she replied, but there was no real force behind it: one of Kindhearted Kylie’s gentle reminders.

Darren answered his own question. “Guess no one’s been here since Gramps kicked it. What’s that, eight years?”

Now Kylie jerked her chin with a meaningful frown at the back door, where Gramma was picking her way down the porch steps. Grams had a few more to clear–was handling them with a spry, eager step Darren hadn’t noticed this morning when they picked her up at the senior’s home in Inverness–and then it was smooth sailing for the old gal across a tiny stretch of grass to the beach, a wide swath of soft beige nestled by a grey-blue Atlantic surf. Neither Kylie or Darren had seen it since before they could ride bikes. Emmy never had.

Darren set his acrylics kit and easel against the kitchen wall, cringed as 5 yr old Emmy did her monkey-leap  up onto the counter top by the back window. “You wanna watch that, kiddo? We’re like a fucking hour to the nearest hospital and I’m not driving on that orgy of potholes again today.”

“Daring said a swear!” Emmy reported dutifully. “I heard the F-swear!”

“I know, sugarplum,” Kylie said. “Why don’t you climb back down and we’ll set the groceries in.”

“I wanna watch Gramma,” Emmy said. “Gramma’s funny.”

Kylie shushed her, but Darren had to laugh.

“Yeah, funny-farm funny, kid.” He shook his head, but his smile was genuinely fond. “Fuckin’ funny farm–”

“Darren,” Kylie sighed, and this time it was her please-don’t-piss-me-off tone. “Could you just bring in the luggage?”

“I don’t even know why we’re here.” His sister, 18 now and every bit the grown up lady with her placid restraint, ignored him. He tried again. “No internet. No TV. No fu–phone. Seriously, I get no signal out here, not one bar, how is that possible?”

“She asked to come,” Kylie explained to the inside of the fridge, unpacking mustard and relish. “It’s the only thing she’s ever asked us for.”

“She might as well have asked us to take her to the moon, she’s out of her mind, now,” Darren insisted, but he dropped his voice to say it. He might be young, and he might be rough around the edges, but Momma didn’t raise no asshole, his memory bank finished the thought, cruelly, in his mother’s voice. She used to say it so flippantly, and their father would tell her to watch her mouth in front of “little ears”. And Mom would laugh, and shrug-wink at Darren, as if to say he was plenty old enough; how fiercely he’d loved her for that.

He brushed aside an unwanted tangle of grief in his chest and said, “OK, I get why we’re here. But you can’t expect me to like it.”

“No, I know you won’t, but you’ll do it for her, Darren,” Kylie said. “She hasn’t got much time left, and she wanted to come one more time. It’s only a weekend. She’s probably thinking about–”

Darren looked away when his sister’s voice broke, and let her have a second to recover.

“About Gramps. And joining him. That’s all.” Kylie unpacked apples and put one on the counter.

Emmy piped, “In heaven, right Daring?”

“Sure, kiddo.” Heaven, right. If you say so.

Darren went back into the sunshine, glad to escape the dreary cottage with its motes of dust clogging the weak beams of light cast by grimy windows. The rental car ticked quietly under the shade of an elm, the hard waxy leaves of which also ticked in a barely-there breeze. The cabin was in rough shape, not ugly enough to be artistically interesting, but the ocean … maybe. He could see the old lady stopped dead in her tracks, one unsteady hand shading eyes that barely worked anymore. Maybe he’d paint her like that: staring out at the old wooden pilings, all that remained of a dock and memories of fishing boats tied off, the water lap-gurgling beneath them, memories of plunging off the end head-first into the salty spray. Grams looked like she was waiting for something. High tide. Low tide. Death, perhaps, he thought morosely. The ghost of her husband, or her daughter Sheila, Darren’s mother. Who knew what was going on inside that head at this point? The doctor said the old lady had weeks left–weeks, not months, now–and she was making less sense when she did talk, which was rare.

He ran a hand through his short spiky hair, regretting the recent black dye job, and wondered how he was going to make it through this weekend.

Emmy was straddling the sink on her knees, watching Gramma on the beach, when Darren came back into the kitchen with their bags. “She’s gonna fall,” he warned, but as usual, neither girl paid him much attention. “At least stop bopping around, Em, eh?”

“But he’s gonna be here soon!” Emmy squealed, and gave a single slap of her hands, clutching them over her heart.

Kylie chuckled. “Who, baby?”

Kylie had gone and pulled out the old stack of photo albums to flip the dusty covers while the tea kettle warmed up. Darren caught a fleeting glimpse of his mother’s dark hair and grit his teeth. With an unpleasant start, he pictured her chopping up that apple on the counter, but for a five year old Darren,  her capable hands making quick work of a simple task of motherhood. Since her passing, the Porter clan had made it through, but Darren hadn’t let a single goddamn person hug him in five years, and today, here, he badly wanted his mother.

He passed his hand through his gelled-stiff hair again. This time he used his nails. “Neighbour droppin’ off the extra key?”

“”Not that I know of,” Kylie murmured, distracted.

“She’s waiting for him. He’ll be here,” Emmy said solomnly over her shoulder at them. “He comes every year. For real.”

Kylie slid a picture out of the album. “You mean this guy, honey? Grampa?”

“Christ,” Darren exhaled hard. “Don’t encourage her I-see-dead-people bullshit, Kyles, c’mon. Gonna be a long weekend.”

Emmy giggled into her palm. “Daring said poo.”

Kylie put the picture in the little one’s hands. “Yeah, he’s a laugh riot.” She shot him a sarcastic grin. “This guy, sugarplum?”

“Nu-uh,” Emmy sang. “Not him.” She shot one chubby finger almost accusingly at the album wedged horiztonally on the bookshelf near the neatly spined back-issues of National Geographic. “Him!”

Darren rolled his eyes and took two strides forward to snag the album before Kylie could touch it. He flipped through the pages, his unease put to rest: the pictures were all essentially the same, and there was no him anywhere to be seen. Gramma standing on the end of that dock, the one that had been reduced to phantom wooden fingers now, bundled in a heavy sweater or cardigan in each shot, one hand on her necklace, the silver one with the square bevelled locket. Gramma at 35, 43, 56, 70. The sea was a fierce backdrop, white-capped and raging behind her, dark and brooding; late autumn, Darren thought. Every photo the same pose, the same smile: beaming and brilliant, warmth to rival the sun. It made Darren think of his mother’s smile and again he was shot in the gut with a bitter-sweet ache.

He said quickly, “There’s no man in these pictures, kiddo, sorry.”

“Well, someone took the pictures, and obviously that someone is Gramps, look at the love in her eyes,” Kylie said, a surprise in that she was so close to his ear and he hadn’t noticed her there. She reached around his shoulder to flip the last few pages, barren of photos but containing folded notes of yellowed paper, and those tiny cards tucked into gifted flowers, always the same note: Hitchin’.

“What do you suppose the old coot meant by hitchin’?” Darren asked, and he could have sworn he felt a draft. His shoulders inched up as his irritation returned. “Is that how they met? Was Gramps a hitchhiker? They were hippies …”

“She’s getting tired,” Emmy said softly, her shoulders falling. “He’s got to come soon. It’s their weekend.”

“Don’t worry, scamp,” Kylie said, and Darren thought he heard his sister’s voice break again. “Gram and Gramps had a lot more than a weekend together.”

“Not him,” Emmy breathed.

Darren didn’t like her tone, not one bit. His irritation shot through the roof, but he couldn’t imagine why. He tossed the album on the table, noted unhappily when Kylie sat down to pour over it some more.  “What’s say we drop the bull– the poo, eh Ems? Kettle’s hot. How about some hot chocolate with little marshmallows?”

“Daring almost said a swear,” Emmy said numbly, barely aware of them now.

Kylie looked up from the album with another card, this one the distinctive blue ofTiffany’s. “Maybe this is from when he bought her that locket she’s been wearing forever. She kept it. She kept all this stuff.”

“He won’t miss it,” Emmy said.

“Wait a minute,” Kylie’s brow furrowed. “1998, isn’t that the year Gramps took that post in the Yukon and didn’t come back until after Christmas? He sent us each money, told us he was getting a fat cheque for isolation pay, remember?”

“So?” Darren folded his arms across his chest.

“So, how could he have taken this picture dated October 1998 if he was in the fu–in the Yukon? Or this one, in 2003, when he took us to Montana?” Kylie wanted to know, and her smile had vanished. “Darren, who took this picture? And this one! Who took these?”

“He wouldn’t miss it,” Emmy insisted. “He just couldn’t. They’re connected.”

“OK, enough,” Darren snapped. “No one’s there, no one’s coming. Get down before you crack your head.” He came at her fast, maybe too fast, hauling the girl by the armpits and setting her with a flat-footed jolt on the floor.  When her little face crumpled and the tears sprang up, Darren’s temper flared. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“He promised!” Emmy shouted, and kicked him hard in the ankle.

“Emily Anne Porter!” he roared, though it had startled him rather than hurt. “We don’t hit in this family!”

“And there’s no fucking swearing, either, Daring Porter! Momma didn’t raise no assholes!” the five-year-old shouted back. She couldn’t have sent her siblings reeling any further if she’d pulled out a ray gun and claimed the kitchen for the alien overlords.

“Holy shit,” Darren breathed, and started to laugh; he wasn’t sure whether it delighted or devestated him, but he was pretty sure he just heard his mother’s voice in Emmy’s mouth. He looked over to see Kylie stammering and blinking, equally at a loss.

Emmy took off, pelting out the back door in her little red sandals with Kylie scrambling after her. Darren followed at his own pace, favouring his ankle, which was starting to throb. Kiddo wouldn’t get far. She wouldn’t go in the ocean, not at this temperature. It was October, and this was Cape Breton Island, not Cuba. Kylie had caught Emmy easily, had one hand on her slim shoulder, and they stood completely still, as though he’d taken out his canvas and painted them: Kylie’s artificial auburn hair swept up off her neck, matching nearly to the shade Emmy’s bright red romper, and Emmy’s dark hair like Mom’s, that true-black hair that had crested into this world like Death’s black cowl while their mother bled out in the back of an ambulance. How morbid his thoughts had become, he chided. It was this place. And Gramma.

And that’s when he saw her. Grams was in the water. She’d hiked her pants up, those easy-on cotton pants in old-lady pastel blue, hiked them up past the knees that had been giving her nothing but trouble for thirty years, and she was dancing. Dancing in the ocean. Darren felt his jaw go slack until the cold air fingered down his throat, but he couldn’t have drawn breath if he tried.

Though the water was calm, all around her splashed the results of her graceful movement, and ripples did the Charleston at her side. Darren’s feet never stopped. He had to see. His gut told him to run, and his heart hammered to a stop, but his eyes … an artist’s eyes must always see. Gramma’s head rocked back and she laughed with delight, the kittenish giggle of a young woman, a sound they’d never heard her make, a sound that made Kylie’s hand fly out to quest for him. Kylie caught him in the midrif, a watchman’s armbar. That’s where he stopped, rooted in place. Because the old lady spun then–fuckin’ spun, how did she do that?–and his traitor eyes could not have missed, down low on her back, the clear wet cupping handprint on Gramma’s shirt.

“Darren …” Kylie choked. For the first time since they were kids, Darren let his big sister hold his hand. It shook as badly as his did. “How?”

“I tole you he wouldn’t miss it,” Emmy said, with relief that bordered on bliss. She nodded once, and turned her tiny face up them smugly. “They’re connected.”

Darren, throat gone thick and heart roaring, could only stare as his grandmother spun in the ocean and laughed once more.

Her feet never touched the ground.

The media has nicknames for Marnie Baranuik, though she’d rather they didn’t; twice-Touched by the Blue Sense, a rare dual-talented psychic with a doctorate in preternatural biology and a working knowledge of the dark arts, she was considered without peer in the psychic community.

Her first big FBI case ended with a bullet in one shoulder and a chip on the other, a queasy heart and a serial killer in the wind, leaving her a public flop and a private wreck. When the FBI’s preternatural crimes unit tracks her down at her remote mountain lodge in Ten Springs, Colorado for her insight on a local case, she isn’t particularly eager to stick her neck out again, but her quiet retirement is promptly besieged by a stab-happy starlet, a rampaging ghoul, and a vampire hunting jackass in tight Wranglers. Marnie figures the only real mystery is which one will kill her first.

Too mean to die young, backed up by friends in cold places, and running with a mouth as demure as a cannon’s blast, Marnie Baranuik is about to discover that there’s no such thing as quitting time when you’re Touched.

Touched, Book 1 of the Marnie Baranuik Files, is available here:

Via Amazon.com for your Kindle eReader (or iPad with Kindle software).

Trade paperback versions are available online from Amazon and Barnes & Noble .

And for my local (Niagara Region) readers, trade paperback versions are also waiting for you at Coles in the Pen Center (St. Catharines, Ontario), Chapters in the New Fairview Mall (St. Catharines, Ontario), and Booksmart on Scott Street (St. Catharines, Ontario). Limited hardcover editions are available at Chapters. You can also contact me at aj@ajaalto.com with any questions you might have about future signings, events, appearances, upcoming novels or “super-important projects”**

<**Disclaimer: “super-important projects” may include levelling various World of Warcraft characters>

Follow me on Twitter @AJAalto or Facebook. Also, please note, I’m doing these link thingies because I’m all impressed that I can actually do them now without help from my husband, who usually has to show me ten times while grumbling from within a facepalm.

(editor’s note: AJ Aalto is afraid of clowns, team mascots, Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, the Tooth Fairy, centipedes, millipedes–and any other critter with too many “pedes”–maggots, hornets, red ants, propane tanks, dental pain, being late, being early, being noticed, being edited by a smug bastard, being abducted by aliens (they’re real, I tellzya) being seen in a bathing suit, and other people’s basements … also: being seen in a bathing suit, by an alien dentist, in someone else’s basement, late! *big breath* That would be bad. All bad. AJ Aalto is NOT afraid of snakes. Not even big-big snakes, like this beautiful baby.)

Step One: Beg, Borrow, Steal

You: “I’ve always wanted to write a book.”

Me: “And you haven’t because ….?”

If your answer to me sounds anything like I have no time or Everyone needs me or I’m so busy beheading these damn squirrels, I will put you in a headlock. BUT I’ll do it with love–probably I’ll even give you a little cheek-to-boobie time (everyone likes that)–because I feel your pain. Writing does require time, that can’t be argued. Words don’t fly directly from your third eye into the computer unless you’ve sacrificed eight drunk moose to Belphegor, demon Lord of–never mind. You didn’t hear that. That’s not my secret, Crazyass Canadian Chick process at all. Nope.

<Belphegor digs on booze & moose meat: trufax> 

Yes, writing takes time, but maybe not as much as you think. If you’ve been putting it off, thinking you shouldn’t bother because you don’t have the requisite hours and hours of uninterrupted desk time (or time to wander through a wildflower-strewn meadow, or a cobblestone street in Paris, or wherever you think “real” writers create) maybe you need to make a deal with your muse: show up for a half hour every day. That’s not ideal, granted, but it’s certainly better than mooning over your unfinished scrap of an idea and diddling your bottom lip like a ninny. Let’s be honest: no one has time. Time doesn’t appear magically. No one is going to deliver time to you in a pretty package with a big, purple bow. If they do, don’t take it, it’s a trick. You can carve out time, but it’s going to hurt a little.

Steal a bit from your regular TV-time. Beg off from one social gathering. Put your video game on pause–don’t worry, you’ll still suck when you get back to it, unless you’re me; I melt face. Enlist the help of a spouse (Hey, think you could manage to keep your son off the roof for thirty minutes or so? Kthnxawesome) or family member, then remember to thank them in the front of your book where you beg forgiveness for being an antisocial dickbin. (<–is that even a thing? Where are my pills …)  

I’m going to propose something that usually makes people slapchop me in the throat; my proposal is a dreadful, butt-puckering prospect, but I’m not saying it to hurt you. Ready? Why are you already making a fist? *glares* Set your alarm … *deftly dodges first punch* … an hour earlier … and get your hairy ass (apologies if you wax yours, how am I supposed to know unless you send me pictures? Jeez)…out of bed…and write. Okay, get the horrified shudder out of the way. Nice. Now go ahead and say it:

You: “Eeeeuuuw. I can’t! I just can’t! I. Need. My. Sleep.”

Me: “Which do you want more? Sleep? Or a finished novel?”

I cannot name one writer-type friend who gets both sleep AND writing done. Most of them have day jobs, and families, and friends, and lives. We squeeze our writing in while other people sleep. That might be why we’re prone to acting like nutbars. You can keep your sleep and sanity, and write “some other time”, whenever that might come. That’s totally your call, I can’t make it for you. I can tell you that since I started getting up at 4 A.M. every day for work, my output has skyrocketed, and not only when I’m ass-to-chair. My brain is churning by 4:05 A.M.–pre-tea, even–and I’m usually doing the ole “writing in the head” business while I cruise the empty streets (sounds like I’m up to something nefarious. Kinda wish I was.) While I’m at work, I’m brainstorming about what I’m going to write next. By the time I’m home, my muse has his hip propped on my desk and is smoking one of my Cuban cigars, demanding to know where I’ve been.

<‘member this guy? He’s a mean, mean muse. He clobbers me with stuff>

Step 2: Change Your Self-Portrait

In addition to time, I have come to understand that writing a book requires perseverence, determination, organization, and faith. That last one’s kind of a deal-breaker.

When do you start calling yourself a “writer”? Some people do it before they’ve written a word. Some people feel weird about calling themselves a writer, even after they’ve churned out tons. My mum called me a writer early. My English teacher, Mr. Schulman, called me a writer (in a “sorry to inform you, but”-style letter to my folks) when I was in high school. I think I started calling myself a writer after I had a pile of papers on my desk that, when strung together, could almost make sense as a story.

If you don’t think of yourself as a writer, and have faith that you can learn the skills needed to go forward, then you won’t give yourself permission to skip that football game or staff meeting (*cough* I never miss those accidentally on purpose to write, never)or movie night out, or family function, in order to devote a mind-melting session to your muse.  Other people won’t understand, other people won’t have faith in you, until you do. If your book is a hobby to you, people will take your lead and also see it as your hobby. If you’re serious about it, then fix the way you see yourself. You’re not someone who likes the idea of writing a book anymore … you’re WRITING a book, and therefore you are a WRITER, and when you finish it, you’ll be The Book’s AUTHOR *cue sexy music, cuz you’ve earned it*.

<If your coffee table regularly looks like this, you should go ahead and call yourself a writer. Also, you should call a good head-shrinker; sooner or later, you’re gonna need one) 

No more stalling. Time to kick your own ass, my friend. Beg, borrow, steal the time. See yourself as a writer, and your project as important.

And consider sending me that picture of your ass, so I know whether or not to keep callin’ it hairy.  

Whaaaaaaat? *cheeky grin*

(editor’s note: AJ Aalto is inspired today by a fortune cookie slip which reads “Luck is the by-product of busting your fanny”, a sentiment she whole-heartedly agrees with. She’s also not joking about wanting to see your ass. Not even kidding a little bit.)