I finally got Sleeping Dogs out in time for Halloween! Here’s an excerpt so you can see whether you fancy a slightly spooky low-heat short sapphic short story. It’s $1.99 on Amazon and also in KU.
Sleeping Dogs
Alice doesn’t think she’s ready to start dating again. Or even to make new friends in the village where she’s come to live with her sister’s family. Will a rainy autumn day and an encounter with a mysterious black dog, a beautiful woman, and a fox cub change her mind?
A 10 500-word Halloween short story in the Celtic Myths Collection. With dogs, bats, a camper van with a woodburning stove, and a fox cub.
Excerpt from Sleeping Dogs
As she picked her way down the steep, stony path toward the stream, she was pulled out of her thoughts by a dog barking in the distance. And, perhaps… someone shouting? She stopped and cocked her head as she listened. Where was it coming from? Difficult to say but she thought it was in front of her, down in the valley. It could be echoing around though, bouncing off the hills. She pulled a face and hurried down the path. As she moved forward, both the barking and the shouting got louder and as she rounded the corner that finally took her to the stream, the culprits came in to view. It was a woman, and the barking was coming from a black Labrador. The woman wasn’t shouting any longer, but she was holding the dog’s collar apparently to prevent it from lunging into the water. On the other bank stood a fox, with three fat cubs ranged behind her, snarling back. Between them in the water was a fox cub, struggling against a rock in the middle of the stream, trying to scramble out of the current. It was having problems and was getting weaker as she watched. “Can you help?” the woman gasped, struggling with the dog. “I think it’s hurt. I can’t let the dog go because she’ll go for the vixen.” Alice was already stripping. She didn’t bother to say anything. She ripped off her coat and boots and plunged in up to her hips, gasping at the cold. She could just… just… reach it. She overbalanced and nearly lost her footing as she grasped the struggling cub, but she recovered her balance and backed out as carefully as she could. The fox was limp in her hands. She passed it up to the woman before scrambling out. “I think it’s dead,” she said. The woman had to let go of the dog before she could take the cub and instead of running off after the vixen, it lay down and crossed its paws. Oh! Her memory tumbled into place like a key in a lock. The dog was the one from yesterday. And the woman was Morwenna.
