I stare at the fruit bowl. Today it’s filled with green apples, all perfect and gleaming except for one with a small wormhole near the stem. It’s been turned on its end to hide this imperfection by some zealous receptionist, but I can still see it. The room is quiet, almost muffled-sounding.
“A friend of mine died yesterday,” I say into the silence. It’s horrible to hear the words out loud. In my peripheral vision the psychologist shifts in her chair, but she remains silent. I’m grateful. I don’t want to hear empty platitudes, no matter how much she may mean them. “He was my best friend. I’d known him for so many years. He was best man in my wedding…” My throat closes up and I look to the ceiling, feigning an interest in the crown molding while I focus on keeping the tears in my eyes where they belong. How many more times can I do this? I vowed after Josephine’s death that she was the final woman I would let into my heart. I didn’t anticipate that I would have as much trouble with friends. Am I destined to be alone forever? Is that the only way to keep my splintered heart intact?
“I’m so sorry, Merry,” Dr. Dilleck says, her voice filled with warmth and compassion. She sounds like she really means it. I wonder if she could ever understand the depth of my aloneness. She probably has loving parents, an extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins, friends she grew up with, maybe even a dog. She might have been to a few funerals, perhaps her grandfather’s or a great-aunt’s, but has loss ever really touched her life? Loss, without the safety net of a support network of friends and family that love her? Would she ever understand what it means to be truly alone?
“Everyone I’ve ever loved has left me,” I say to the ceiling. “Sooner or later, they leave me. And I don’t think I can keep doing this. I don’t know how to keep loving and losing over and over again.”
I bring my face into my hands and sit on the edge of the couch, in an attempt to control myself. What am I doing with this woman, this child who knows nothing? What did I think this would accomplish? It feels as if gravity is much heavier than usual.
“Have you ever seen the Grand Canyon? It’s like that. I’m standing on the cliffs and everyone I’ve ever loved is on tiny rafts, a mile below me. I can barely see their faces anymore, and they’re drifting further and further away. And I’m afraid that one day night will fall and I won’t see them ever again. I’ll be all alone in the dark without even my memories to cling to.”
My eyes are closed, and I sense rather than see Dr. Dilleck come around the table to sit next to me on the couch.
“Even now I’m standing at the edge of the darkness. I’m alone. I’m always alone.”
A hand touches my shoulder. Its gentle pressure grounds me. I lean into it slightly without meaning to.
“You’re not alone,” she says. Her voice is quiet in my ear, compassionate and sure.
It should have felt like hollow comfort. Why do I believe her?
EPILOGUE
Time marches forward as it always does. Braulio’s death reminded me of that all too sharply. His last words to me still echo in my ears. You need to let someone else in, Merlo my friend. But how can I do that when they will only leave me again? My relationship with Jen is as fragile as a spiderweb—the bonds are strong, but one sweeping hand of revelation could brush it all away. I’m glad Jen knows one part of me, but I don’t know if I can give any more. I don’t have much left to give, these days.
The crisis at Mt. Linnigan took Jen and me to a whole new level, but it brought with it far more questions than I’m entirely comfortable with. Anna’s actions and her fearful reaction when I thwarted her plan puzzle me. Who is she working for? Drew and the mysterious Potestas promised her power beyond imagining, and gave her the tools to get it. What do they want? I wish I had more to go on, but the name “Drew” isn’t enough to search with. And Potestas handed out three of these lauvan-necklaces like they were candy. How many more do they have, and how are they making them?
Then there is the small matter of the spirit world. All this time, all my long years, I’ve been convinced that no such realm exists. It’s disturbing and unnerving and exciting all at once, and I feel a pang of sympathy and understanding for what Jen must have gone through at my big reveal. My whole perception of the world and how it works is turned on its head, and now I have to figure out what’s up and what’s down all over again.
And then the hints about my father, those tantalizing morsels the spirits let drop. They know something, and anything is a whole lot more than the nothing I know currently. My father may be centuries dead and gone, but if I know more about him then I might know more about myself. I’ve had time to come up with a lot of questions, and I think it’s high time I got some answers.
So I’ll explore the lauvan-cables more, and study what legends, myths, and religions can tell me about the spirit world. I have time to kill before Arthur comes back, after all.
And I will wait. He made me a promise, and I have all the time in the world to hold him to it. Who knows, maybe it is possible. Spirits are real, after all. If he needs me, I’ll be here, waiting. I’m good at that.
Dear reader,
I hope you enjoyed reading Ignition and meeting Merry for the first time. He sprung into my head practically overnight and would not be silenced until I got him out on paper. I’ve noticed he tends to get his way!
You, dear reader, are how books find their way into the world. Your reviews—what you liked, what you didn’t—help other readers with that most important of decisions: what to read next. If you have the time to leave a short review, I would greatly appreciate it. You can find my book list on Amazon (where you’ll also find the sequel Winded).
If you’d like periodic news on new releases and sneak peeks, please subscribe to my newsletter at emmashelford.com. Looking for new books to read? I run a Facebook group called Fantastical Fun Reads where we review books in the fantasy genre. Please join us!
Thanks for reading,
Emma Shelford
SNEAK PEEK OF
WINDED
BOOK TWO IN THE
MUSINGS OF MERLIN SERIES
The smells of hot fat and powdered sugar permeate the air. Punishing sunlight beats down on the crowd milling on black tarmac and excited screams from carnival riders fill my ears. If I half-shut my eyes and breathe deeply, I can almost pretend that I’m at a market of my past. Perhaps in Bavaria—in what is now Germany—to trade silver for a new comb for my wife Gretchen.
But it’s many hundreds of years later across an ocean and a continent, in Vancouver, Canada, and there are no combs to buy. And I’m not with my ninth wife but with Jennifer Chan, my current friend. There are worse places to be.
“I remember as a kid I wanted to win one of those stupid arcade games so badly. Those huge stuffed animals were beyond tantalizing.” Jen gazes wistfully at the long row of game stalls, bright-colored and tawdry in the dusty heat. Discordant music fights with clangs and beeps, assaulting our ears along with the shouts of carnies. Prizes sway above our heads, cheap and fluorescent. I glance at Jen, whose nostalgia is written across her face as longing.
“Oh, come on, then,” I say with mock resignation. “I’ll win you one.” I walk down the row, scouting for a game I can win with ease. A shiny gray lauvan floats across my vision, unattached to any source. Only I can see lauvan, the threads that swirl around each living person and object that has energy. I look around to find the source but no one with gray lauvan is in sight. Jen catches up with me, her own gold-colored lauvan wrapped around her torso and shimmering in her wake.
“They’re all rigged, Merry. Thanks for the thought, truly, but you don’t need to waste your money.”
“Oh, ye of little faith.” I stop in front of a stall and consider the possibilities. It’s an archery game—hit a bull’s eye three times, win the largest prize. The bow has never been my favorite weapon, as hand-to-hand combat offers far more opportunity for lauvan manipulation, but fifteen centuries has afforded me more than enough experience to beat this co
ntest. I dig into my pocket and pass the carnie a five-dollar bill which he accepts with grimy fingers and a lopsided grin.
“Feeling lucky?” he says. “Pick your weapon. You get three shots.” He hands me three arrows.
I examine the bow. I’ve never seen anything so cheaply made. I’m not confident the plastic will withstand the bending it is made to do and when I pluck the string experimentally, there is hardly any give. The arrows are no better—two of them are bent and the third’s feathers are almost completely stripped. I carefully inspect them all to learn how I must shoot for accuracy. Jen bites her lip next to me, her face a war between pity and an attempt to stifle laughter.
“Choose your favorite prize,” I say to her. “This won’t take long. And also,” as Jen purses her lips and raises her eyebrows in skepticism at my words. “Promise me you’ll put this thing to good use.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, perhaps frighten your roommate with it. Put it in her bed before she wakes up. And then toss it in the nearest bin—these stuffed things have been hanging here for who knows how long. They’re disgusting.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?”
“Promise me.”
“Fine! I promise. Now let’s see your amazing shot, Robin Hood.”
I wasn’t in England during the reign of King John, so I never found out if Robin Hood was a real person. It’s often difficult to identify which noteworthy characters will become legends that stand the test of time. Some incredible souls are lost to memory forever and other mediocre people are immortalized. It’s a mystery to me.
Without any further words, I set one of the bent arrows to the bow and pull back to align my sights with the bull’s eye. I aim to the left and a hair’s breadth down to account for the arrow’s bend. I breathe out, and release.
The arrow leaves the bow with a dull twang and pierces the target with a thud, right in the center of the bull’s eye.
Jen laughs incredulously and the carnie whistles.
“You won a prize,” he says, waving a plastic figurine that I don’t bother looking at.
“Keep it. I’m going for the grand prize.”
“Maybe you should quit while you’re ahead,” Jen says.
“What sort of attitude is that?” I notch the other bent arrow in the string and sight, then release. It slots in perfectly snug against the first arrow. Jen gasps.
“I’m almost a believer. Convert me, Merry.”
“Not a problem.” The last arrow, the featherless one, will be tricky, but nothing I can’t handle. With my released breath, it flies in a wobbling line to push aside the first two arrows and slide in smoothly between them. The other arrows end up at drunken angles against the target.
“Well?” I say to Jen, after I place the bow carelessly on the counter and turn to gauge her reaction. She stares at me, a slow smile crawling over her expression of disbelief.
“That was incredible. When did you learn archery?”
When? Is “time beyond reckoning” a helpful answer?
“Oh, a long time ago. What can I say? I’m talented.”
“Yeah, and so modest, too. You know, you were born in the wrong century. If you’d lived a few hundred years ago, you would have been a very dangerous man.”
“Indeed, very dangerous to my enemies, but excellent to my friends. Choose your prize, my lady.” I wave at the dangling animals, then address the carnie. “Which can she pick?”
“Any of the big ones,” he says, examining the target with its three arrows as if looking for a trick. “Congrats, mister. I’ve never seen anyone shoot like that.”
Jen peers up, and then points to a dusty stuffed bear in the corner.
“That one, please.”
I follow her gaze as the carnie grabs a pole and unhooks the bear from the rafters. It’s quite hideous, with fluorescent blue and green fur and beady black eyes atop a too-wide grin. My jaw drops.
“You have to be joking. That’s the ugliest mockery of an animal I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“I think it’s cute. And you told me to choose.”
“Only because I thought you had better taste than that.”
Jen thanks the carnie and we walk away. When we’re out of earshot Jen clucks at me.
“Did you do that using your—you know, the lauvan thing?”
“What? No!” I protest vehemently, briefly annoyed that she thought I had to rely on lauvan manipulation instead of my own physical skills. Then I kick myself—that would have been a perfect excuse for my archery proficiency.
“When did you pick up competitive archery? Seriously, Merry, that was ridiculously good. Especially with that cheap equipment from the forties.”
“I’m a man of mystery and multitudinous talents.” A cop-out, but also true.
“I’m surprised, but I shouldn’t be. That’s exactly something I could see you being good at. It matches your neo-pagan tattoo job.” She grabs my arm and flips it over to expose the blue oak leaf on my inner forearm, then drops it again. “Are you going to tell me you can ride a horse, now?”
“Can’t everyone?”
Jen laughs and pushes my arm playfully.
“I think we’ve done the fair. Let’s head back and grab a drink. My treat for you winning me the bear.”
As we turn for the exit, a single unattached lauvan floats across my vision, not an arm-span distant. It’s the gray lauvan again, shiny and gleaming in the intense summer sun. I look around but no one nearby has lauvan of that description. Free-floating lauvan without a visible source? It can mean someone is hiding, feeling anxious or fearful or vengeful in order to shed lauvan with enough frequency that I can spot them. And if I keep seeing the same source-less lauvan, it’s possible that someone is following me.
Few people follow me with goodwill in their hearts. I should stay vigilant.
ALSO BY EMMA SHELFORD
Musings of Merlin Series
Ignition
Winded
Breenan Series
Mark of the Breenan
Garden of Last Hope
Realm of the Forgotten
HISTORICAL NOTE
King Arthur is one of the best-known legends in the English-speaking world. Centuries of storytelling have turned what may or may not have been a historical figure—or possibly two figures—into the myths that ground so many books and movies and cultural references. But is there any truth behind the stories?
During my research for Ignition, I read many books about King Arthur, Merlin, and the knights of the round table, both fictional stories as well as anthropological and archaeological texts. At the end of the day, however, I concluded that King Arthur is the ultimate enigma, and hardly anyone knows anything for sure. Even the time period he may or may not have lived in, 5th century Britain, is often referred to as “the Dark Ages” mainly because the historical records of the era are so sparse. The decades after the Romans pulled their forces out of Britain were tumultuous and full of upheaval, and record-keeping was likely the last thing on most people’s minds.
I wanted to give a real flavor to Merlin’s backstory, and to follow the “truth” as much as possible. All this historical uncertainty left me bewildered, until it dawned on me that I had been given an opportunity. If nobody knew anything concrete, I could make up my own story, just the way I wanted to. I used this freedom to take what parts of the legends I wanted to take, morph the fantastical into something approaching reality, and ground everything in as much historical context as I could find about life in 5th century Wales. The result, I hope, is a realistic source from which our modern-day legends could have arisen, given enough time and creative storytellers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A lot of people came when I called for help, and magnificently rose to the challenge. Editors I relied on include Gillian Brownlee, Judith Powell, Wendy and Chris Callendar, Diana Monks, Linda Powell, and Kathryn Humphries. Their fresh eyes and diverse perspectives wer
e invaluable. Help with foreign languages was graciously provided by Kathryn Humphries, Kirsten Kooijman, Danielle Baines, Mathias Middelboe, and Selim Dost. Christien Gilston undertook the glorious cover design for the book, and Melissa Bowles contributed to logo design. Maggie Claydon generously reviewed Merry’s therapy sessions for authenticity. Duncan Johannessen kindly discussed volcanology with me, which I interpreted in the context of the story—any transgressions against science are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emma Shelford enjoys experiencing different countries and cultures. She has traveled widely, including crossing the high seas of the Atlantic during her doctorate in earth and ocean sciences. Her inspiration for Ignition came from her abiding love of English literature and Arthurian legends, which she has cultivated over the years with extensive reading and far too many literature courses for a science major.
When she sat down to write Ignition, Merlin practically scrambled to get out of her brain, so eager was he to make his voice heard. He will be returning, as Ignition is the first book in the Musings of Merlin series.
Emma is also the author of Mark of the Breenan, the first in the Breenan series for young adults, published in 2014.
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