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

Her craving blinded her to everything but her need, so much it wasn't until she was running up her front walk she heard Peter yelling her name.


   Alice didn't stop. Or enter the house. She had another goal in mind. The path to the kitchen door led her to the bare earth in the back yard, her heels puncturing the ground. Alice fell on her knees in the dirt, digging with her bare hands, sobbing again, this time in desperate want, the black, oozing soil staining her hands.   She heard Peter pant to a halt next to her, felt him crouch, but ignored him. The strap of the purse slipped through her fingers as, coughing her relief in more tears, she jerked it free of the ground.


The zipper gaped open, the interior full of filth. And the doll...the doll was gone.


   Alice stared at it a long moment, stunned, unable to comprehend the loss. She emptied the purse, letting the soil cascade over her lap, shook the bag.


Chapter 39: Let Us End This