I’m an international, multiple award-winning author with a passion for the voices in my head. As a singer, songwriter, independent filmmaker and improv teacher and performer, my life has always been about creating and sharing what I create with others. Now that my dream to write for a living is a reality, with over a hundred titles in happy publication and no end in sight, I live in beautiful Prince Edward Island, Canada, with my giant cats, pug overlord and overlady and my Gypsy Vanner gelding, Fynn.

Début

The world struggles around It, a back and forth seesaw of demand and denial. It flops inside its box as the world spins, turned upside down. One of the shining, pearl-topped pins jabs Its leg. The pain is a shock. But It is unable to do anything about the agony. Gravity lets go and It floats for what seems an eternity before crashing into something hard.

The box remains intact, at least. Its home, Its safe haven.

Still, It has no fear, only confusion and need. Where is the girl in whose image It was created?

Silence. Darkness. Waiting.

All the while, the pin. And the pain. On and on forever.

Alice isn't popular. Alice isn't pretty. Alice isn't likable--at least, that's what she's been told most of her life. Moving to a new town hasn't helped any, not with her nasty brother torturing her almost daily and her too-cool, uber-popular cousin making her life miserable. When Alice finds an old doll in her grandmother's attic, she feels an unusual connection to it. She just can't bring herself to feel bad when horrible things start happening to the people who are cruel to her...

Pins and Needles

Alice slunk behind the practice field, her book bag bumping against her hip as she settled behind a tree leaning over the chain-link fence. The group of cheerleaders shouted and danced and chanted their cheers, shaking pom poms and piling on top of each other to create formations.


   Resentment burned in Alice's chest as she spotted Kourtney. Claire stood to one side, critical eye sweeping over her squad. Of course she was captain. Alice expected no less from her cousin.


   Alice ignored Claire, focusing on Kourtney as she fished in the bag for the doll. She winced and shook her hand as she jabbed herself on a pin, sucking at the blood even as she reached with her other hand instead.


   The doll slid free, the pin-cushion Alice made of a wadded-up piece of denim already coming apart. Thus the prick of her finger. But Alice didn't care.


Not when she felt the hum of power begin to build the moment she freed the doll.


Chapter 30: Vengeance