Vulcan's Kittens (Children of Myth Book 1)

by Cedar Sanderson

  “Of course,” she replied. “I have no idea how to get back there.”

  He laughed, that full belly laugh she hadn’t heard in too long. “Right then. Ready?”

  “Just a minute,” she told him tranquilly. Then she hugged everyone, ending with her mother.

  “Will you come to Sanctuary? Bring Grampa?” she whispered.

  “Of course,” her mother whispered in her ear. “Couldn’t keep me away, love.”

  Linn sniffed and stepped away. “OK, now I’m ready,” she told her companions

  Bes took her hand and Blackie flanked her. They started to run. The moonlit land tunneled out and away. They were back on the high path. Bes didn’t move as fast as Blackie had, before. Linn thought that Blackie must have known Bes was in trouble. Maybe Blackie came here every time he'd disappeared into the fog.

  They landed much more smoothly, as Bes had talked her through how to do it as they jogged along the tunnel. She’d told him where they were going, and he told her how to land with bended knees for more bounce.

  The fog still laid over the landscape like a wet blanket. Linn sucked in a lungful of warm, wet air, catching the exotic scents and sea air. She pulled her compass out and consulted it, looking at the ground. She figured if she found the cattle path that she could get back to camp.

  Bes swept her a little bow. “Lead on!”

  She nodded wanly. All the activity had caught up with her. She really wanted a nap and food, not necessarily in that order. By the time she got them into camp, she was shaking a little.

  Bes sat her down and put her jacket over her. It seemed odd to Linn that nothing had changed here since she'd left. Her pack was all put together and leaning against the pole of the lean-to. The little green fire was still flickering merrily. She held her hands out to it, and then snatched them back, not wanting Bes to see how they were trembling.

  He pulled open the small pouch on her backpack and handed her a protein bar and then the spout of her CamelBak. “Eat and drink. You put a lot of yourself into me...” His eyes softened. “Using that much power means you need to refuel. This will help.”

  Linn just nodded, too tired to speak. She chewed slowly. It tasted delicious, which probably meant she was pretty bad off. Normally the protein bars were disgusting.

  He stood up. “I’m going to go check in with the Coblyns. I will be right back, OK?”

  “I’ll be here.” Which was true, Linn reflected, because she didn’t have the energy to go with him. Once they had gotten safely back to Earth, it was like someone had opened a tap and emptied her out. She took another bite.

  She was half asleep when he came back. She was aware that he was there, but too tired to speak to him.

  He talked to her instead. “They are almost done. It’s ready to launch when Heff sends word. Daffyd wants me to take you straight back to the Sanctuary.”

  “How...?” she managed.

  “Since we don’t know when launch will be, and maybe we’ll never need it at all, they need a stronger look-don’t-see spell. I’m going to send Coyote to them. He can set concealment and get them home.”

  Linn closed her eyes. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She was too tired to move.

  Bes shook her shoulder. “Come on, Linn. Let’s go home.”

  “There’s an offer I can’t refuse...” she muttered. She still didn’t move.

  Bes scooped her up.

  Linn squeaked. “You can’t carry me!”

  “I can and you aren’t moving...” He started to walk, and she knew without opening her eyes they were back on the high path.

  She relaxed and let herself drift into sleep. She felt safe again.

  Linn woke up in her own bed at the Sanctuary. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. She had been undressed and was in a baggy tee and her underwear. She had not been cleaned up, though. She looked at her hands and could see traces of the blood from the battlefield.

  “Ugh.” She rolled out of bed and staggered into the bathroom. She felt like she had been hit with a stick. Several times, by someone who meant it. She stood for a long time under the hot water, washing twice to get off the mud and blood, and that helped. Clean, fresh clothes helped too. Linn decided that food would make everything better.

  The common room was busy. She wasn’t sure what time it was... she’d taken off her watch in disgust and left it in the bathroom until she could stand to clean the yuck off it.

  Stopping in the doorway, Linn sniffed. It smelled like lunch.

  She cleared her throat. “Deirdre?” she asked the empty air, feeling awkward. She wondered if that would ever feel normal.

  The little Coblyn appeared at her elbow. Linn jumped. “Good grief! How did you do that?”

  Deirdre chuckled at Linn’s reaction. “I was right here, don’t worry. We can’t teleport.”

  “Oh, that’s good to hear. I was wondering...” Linn stopped and felt awkward. “How long was I asleep?”

  “Bes brought you in last night. It’s a little later than noon, now... Hungry?”

  Linn nodded. “Very. Thank you.”

  Gareth, tail high, romped up to her. Linn bent down and hugged him. Like his brother, he was too big to pick up. Blackie had grown bigger than the grey tabby, though.

  It felt weird to be here, now. She kept thinking about the battlefield and trying to reconcile the cold, dead place with this warm, happy room.

  Deirdre touched her elbow. “You OK?” There was concern in her big, dark green eyes.

  “Not... really,” Linn admitted.

  “Food first, and then let’s talk, OK?” Deirdre took her hand and towed the larger girl toward a table.

  “All right.”

  Linn let Deirdre pick out the food. She really didn’t care what it was. While she was eating, she stopped long enough to ask if Bes and Blackie were at the Sanctuary.

  “Blackie hasn’t come back yet. Bes is in the Library.”

  Linn thought about that while she finished. Blackie must have stayed with the Coblyns, as she didn’t remember him when they came back to the Sanctuary. He would be all right with them. Daffyd would take care of him. Bes... she wanted to talk to Bes.

  Deirdre came around and hugged her. Linn, surprised, wrapped her arms around the tiny Coblyn. She smelled spicy and her hair was soft. “Go on. I’ll take your plate up, and tonight your grandparents and mother will be back.”

  “Great.” Linn sat up. “Is Hypatia in her office?”

  Deirdre rolled her eyes, making Linn smile. “Always. Want to take her lunch to her?”

  “Sure.” The familiar chore would be good, she thought.

  Linn carried a plate down the tunnel hall to Hypatia’s office. Had it really only been three days ago that she'd sat in this office, trying to figure out how to make the Nikes work for the EMP warhead?

  She knocked on the door.

  “Enter.” That papery voice hadn’t changed at all.

  Hypatia didn’t look up from the book she held as Linn placed the plate by her elbow. “Thank you, dear,” she murmured.

  Linn smiled and went back out. She’d talk to Hypatia later, when Linn had Hypatia's attention. The gray tunnel reminded her of the high path. She wondered if the Coblyns had done that on purpose. She pushed open one half of the double door into the library.

  Standing on the threshold, she inhaled the unique scent of old books and other things she couldn’t identify. Hypatia had told her the faint spiciness was myrrh. All Linn knew was that the first time she had come in here, she’d felt at home. She made her way to the center of the library.

  Bes sat on the semi-circular couch with a paperback in his hand. He looked up at her approach. “Here you are... How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” Linn sat down next to him. “I feel weird.”

  He put the book down. “Understandable. You saw a lot. Did a lot. Most of it outside the realm of what you considered reality not too long ago.”

  “Yeah.” She curled up, kicking her sandals off so her
feet could be on the leather, and hugged her knees. “I mean, I like being here. I’m OK with what you are, and Mom, and my grandparents.”

  “Of course. Your family loves you, and it’s getting bigger all the time.”

  Linn thought of Deirdre’s hug. “It is.” She felt herself smile even though she didn’t really feel like it.

  “Life is good,” Bes went on. “You know I’ve seen it all. The bad parts, the happy moments.”

  She nodded. The white fire was back in his eyes. He predated the human race, she knew. She just forgot it from time to time.

  “You look younger,” she blurted. Then she blushed at what she’d just said. But it was true. The old man who’d showed up at Grampa Heff’s farm was now maybe middle-aged.

  Bes threw his head back and roared with laughter. “I can look whatever age I want to,” he managed after a moment. “You told me once before it was silly for me to pretend to be old.”

  “Yeah... I’d forgotten, actually,” Linn admitted.

  “Want me to change back?”

  “No...” She looked at him. Dark hair looked better on him than the salt and pepper.

  “So, tomorrow everyone comes back here,” he commented, picking his book up. The same author as the dragon book he’d been reading before, she noted.

  “Yeah... What about the missile?”

  “That’s Heff’s backup plan if they should come for us here. We don’t think so, usually the battle soothes their blood lust, but they have been acting out of character in places. Like the attack on the children.”

  Linn shivered, suddenly picturing the little ones as they lay, limp and scattered, on the battlefield. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to them.”

  “Nothing will happen to them,” he assured her.

  “Something happened to you...” She bit her lip.

  “I’m an immortal.”

  “Bad things happen to immortals, too. The twins taught me that.” The thought of the children and their mother trapped in a living hell bothered her. She’d asked again and again if there was anything that could be done. Pele and Hypatia had both told her that there was nothing...

  She shivered again. “This weapon could easily hurt my family, not just my enemies,” she said slowly.

  Bes reached over and put his fingertip on her nose. “I think...” he started.

  “What?” Linn wriggled her nose. His fingertip was callused, but not too rough.

  “You should go let the Naiads teach you how to surf.”

  “I don’t feel like it,” she protested, her mind still caught on the impact of what she had done with helping create the EMP.

  “Ah!” He raised the finger to stop her. “Go on, have fun, wear yourself out. It will help. And then we can talk later, or you can talk to your mother when she gets here.”

  Linn sighed. “OK. I’ll do it.”

  He picked his book up again. “Such a hardship,” he murmured into it with a grin.

  Linn stuck her tongue out at him and went back to her room for her suit.

  She was face-down on a surfboard, letting the sun soak into her skin when he mother called her name. She had been up on it several times, and fallen, and tried again... Surfing wasn’t as easy as it looked, but it had been fun and she had forgotten to think for a while.

  “Mom!” Linn waved, and started to paddle toward shore. Her mother dropped her wrap-around and waded out into the water. Linn met her when she was waist deep and straddled the board, hugging Theta.

  “I have missed you so much,” Theta told her.

  “Me, too.” Linn sighed. “Mom?”

  “Yeah, honey?” Theta smiled at her, brilliant in the sunshine.

  “Can we stay here?”

  “Well, I think our toes would get all pruny after a while. And I’m hungry. I was hoping you’d join me for dinner.”

  “Mom! That’s not what I meant!” Linn laughed. This felt so good, her mom here, her family all in one place for the first time.

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t live here as well as in Seattle.” Theta’s eyes sparkled.

  “Oh, yay!” Linn threw her arms back around her mother, squeezing hard.

  “I love you too, punkin.” Her mother bent her head over her and kissed her on the forehead, then let go.

  Theta dove into the waves. Linn slipped off the board and swam with her for a while. The naiads splashed in the waves. Linn realized when they were wading out that she hadn’t thought about the battlefield all afternoon.

  Pele was waiting on the sand for them, holding towels. She hugged them both at the same time, heedless of the water. “I am so happy to have both my girls here at once,” she crowed.

  Linn guessed that she knew, but blurted it out anyway. “Mom says we can live in Hawaii!” Linn bounced a little.

  Pele laughed. “Oh, that makes me so happy! Theta...” She hugged her daughter again. “Will you stay here, in the Sanctuary?”

  “For now, at least, mother.”

  “Where is Grampa?” Linn asked. Pele pointed up at the terrace. Linn saw him standing there, dressed in an eye-bleeding Hawaiian shirt and baggy shorts. She waved and started to run to him.

  He met her on the path, hugging and holding her fiercely. “Linnaea. I’m so sorry... I wanted to keep you safe and...” he trailed off.

  “Grampa... this isn’t bad. I’m OK... almost everyone is OK. The children are safe. Mom says we can live here. Will you stay here?” She blurted everything that was on her mind out all at once.

  He grinned. “Well, Bes tells me my cabin is toothpicks. I guess I don’t have anywhere else for a while.”

  Linn whooped and tore down the path back to Pele and Theta.

  “Mom! Mom! Guess what!” She felt like she had wings as she ran to tell them that the family was whole again.

  Heff stared after her. He wished it would be so easy for him to feel as happy. There were too many threats still looming, though. And the curious power of Coyote’s monster, the great Dragon who was dead and yet spoke, tickled at the back of his brain. An umber cloud seemed to pass in front of his eyes.

  “Home... I desssire... Home,” an echo of power in the Dragon’s sibilant voice.

  Heff whispered it aloud, knowing that he was privileged to be in a state the monster desired. “I’m home.”

  He headed down the path to the beach, wanting nothing more than to hold his family all in his arms at once. Tomorrow, or the next day, he’d worry.

  Story Behind the Story

  Sometime in 2011, I recall, my oldest daughter Gladiana read a book she really, really liked. Being a dutiful mother-librarian, I helped her find the next one in the series. She absorbed every one of the books by this author she could find. And, because she loves me, and knows I love to read and write science fiction and fantasy, she forced me to read the first book in the series.

  Confession time: I rarely read young adult novels. I haven’t read juvenile literature since I convinced the librarian in Tok, Alaska, to let me get books out of the adult collection when I was twelve. I loved some children’s books and have fond memories, but it’s been a very long time since I read any. I’ve written a few children’s stories to amuse my four kids with, but that’s all.

  I sat down and read this book about demi-gods and children who found out who they really were, with all the mythological creatures hiding out from the real world, and it took me about an hour. First, I thought, "Yay! Finally, a way to get kids interested in mythology and history." Then I thought, “You know, I could write something better.”

  I don’t know if I have succeeded in better, I gave up on that concept pretty quickly and just went for “different” which I believe I’ve succeeded in. I was inspired to mix and match my mythologies by Dave Freer’s Pyramid Power, which I highly recommend. While the daughter who made me read the book was at camp for two weeks, I wrote and sent a short story about Linn and the kittens to her in several sections. She loved it.

  I had all but forgotten about the sto
ry, moving on to my other tales that are older, darker, and more science fiction. But in October of that year, she came home from school bubbling over with excitement. A teacher had told her about National Novel Writing Month, and she had an idea. She wanted me to take the story and do NaNoWriMo, and make her story into a full novel, and publish it.

  I was dubious about this, fifty thousand words in only a month? I’d never tackled anything of that length before, I am a short story writer. Also, fifty thousand words wasn’t enough for a novel, I thought. She was so eager... so I did it. I won NaNo, and a little more. And I had a manuscript for my first novel, thanks to my daughter’s belief in me.

  So I hope you’ve enjoyed this story about Linn, who is a lot like the author at that age - not a normal girl at all - and the kittens, who live because of Gladiana. There is more story coming, because like your life, Linn’s life is going to be messy for a while before she figures it, and herself, out.

  Author Bio

  Cedar Sanderson, mother of four and aspiring author, grew up without television in the Alaskan bush. This and learning to read at age four have skewed her world toward books. A house full of books and a part-time librarian job keep that going to this very day. She writes what she wants to read herself, and hopes someday her children will like her books. Until then, they all live together on a farm in New Hampshire and read late into the night. She writes because she can’t help it, gets a story stuck in her head and has to write it out or it bothers her. Which led to enjoying the crafting of stories over the years, but she didn’t seek to become published for a long time – she was content just to write. Now, she’s sharing some of her work.

  Other Titles by Author

  Short Stories

  Stargazer

  The Twisted Breath of God

  Little Red-Hood and the Wolf-Man

  Poor Gregory

  Plant Life