300 “Likes” and That Little Something Special…

Hello! As you see in the title, YOU DID IT! Thank you guys! No, I did not forget what I said, just that pesky thing called “life” happened again and dragged me away from my blog for a bit.

Really quickly: “Ice” is still only £.99 on Amazon.co.uk! TODAY IS THE LAST DAY…so get it! ;)

Wow, I’m really caps-y today. Sorry; everything seems like a big deal to me in this post.

Anywho! Here is the interesting tid-bit I told you guys about. First a little information about it so you understand what the heck you’re reading:

I had started writing the chapters that covered Christine’s birthday and I was thinking, “What on earth would Kavick get her?!”

I was kind of freaking out because I had no idea.  Naturally, I had to think like him.

Then I realized he would think, “What on earth am I going to get her?!”

No wonder I was stumped! He would have to ask someone for help, and who other than Anana, one of his closest childhood friends? So, when I wrote this scene, I knew it would never be in the book, but I needed to know how Kavick came to his decision on Christine’s gift, and I had this little idea in the back of my head that maybe I could publish a second “Ice” book (I had thought there wasn’t going to be a sequel back then) and it could be told from the perspective of the Wolf-People, being specifically Kavick, Tartok, Anana, and Suka. It would be their lives, leading up and through “Ice”. If you guys like that idea, let me know by commenting below.

Note: as I’ve mentioned before, spelling errors are many, and some things are different than in the published novel

Copyright © 2011 Elissa Len Lewallen

 

“What is that?” Anana asked in her small monotone. It didn’t even sound like a question when she said it. Questions always sounded like statements when they came out of her mouth. She was crouched on the floor looking at the item Kavick was savagely wrapping with newspaper and packaging tape, tearing a long strip with his teeth. After he patted the tape into place, he sat up straight and examined it, sitting Indian style on the floor.

“It’s a gift,” he said like he was wondering why she had to ask. He then looked at Anana, realizing that if she had to ask, that was a problem….

He looked back down at it and growled in frustration, ripping the newspaper off.

“What are you giving her?”

When he had it completely unwrapped she moved her head a little closer. There she saw an old rumpled red sweater folded loosely, nestled in the center of the nest of newspaper.

He looked to Anana again, looking worried. “I don’t know what to give her. Do you think she’ll like it?”

“What is it?”

“One of my mom’s sweaters. It’s the only female thing I have,” he said, holding it up to debate over his choice of gift again. He laid it back down on the newspaper, noticing it was pilling. “I can’t give her that,” he groaned helplessly as he dropped his face into his hands.

“Well, I think it’s nice, but is it really appropriate for you to give your friend your mother’s clothes?”

He kept his face in his hands. “Probably not,” he said in a muffled voice.

“Shouldn’t you give her something that means something to both of you?”

“Yeah,” he said in the same hopeless, muffled voice. He then removed his face from his hands, but kept his head low, looking up at the gray haired girl. “I can’t afford to by her jewelry….”

“It doesn’t have to be jewelry.”

“What do you give a girl then? I can’t afford to buy her much of anything….”

“Think about what you give me every year.”

He his eyes went up to the ceiling at he thought for a moment. His eyes then moved back to hers. “A frog?” he asked puzzled.

“That was when we were five.”

He thought again. “A rock?”

“That wasn’t exactly what I was thinking of either, but it’s not bad. You got that rock from the lake we always played at in the summer time. I had so much fun, and every time I look at the rock I remember how much fun we had.”

He looked a little more enlightened, but still worried. “I don’t have a rock to give her, though.”

She shifted her legs around from under her and stood up. “C’mon. I still don’t think you’re getting it.”

He looked up at her. “Where are we going?” he still sounded helpless.

“To my house since you can’t remember the other things you’ve given me.”

He stood up, his faded jeans wrinkled and torn in one knee. He was wearing a gray under shirt in the house, so he grabbed his coat and bear fur on his way out. Anana still had her coat on, so she just gave it a quick zip as she walked down the old, creaking steps where the white paint was peeling off the wood. Kavick didn’t bother locking the door, simply pulling it closed behind him. They tread through the snow and through the trees a few minutes before they emerged on the Miller’s property. The house wasn’t much different on the outside with white peeling paint, but it had gray trim and a second story. She unlocked the door from a little key under the snowy rug on the porch and he followed her in. The house was quiet and empty with no lights on. She headed for the hall and kept walking until they reached her room at the end. Kavick had been in there multiple times over the years so it wasn’t a new sight to him, but it looked a little different than he remembered, haven’t being in there for the last six months or so. There were less stuffed bears and no posters on the walls. It seemed quite bare compared to what he remembered. She walked over to her chest of drawers and pulled out a box. In the box was a very flat, folded piece of paper and a leather key ring he immediately recognized. His eyes widened in realization as she held it up from the metal ring. It was made of brown braided leather strips that hung down to grasp a smooth grayish pink stone that nearly matched her gray and red hair. “See? This is what I’m talking about. You gave it to me last year…”

“…because you had just learned how to drive,” he said, finally sounding optimistic.

The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. “You get it now.”

As she placed it back into the little wooden box of trinkets, her hand bumped the paper and a shriveled purple flower fell out. “Oh!” she gasped in a tiny voice.

Kavick carefully picked it up and held it out for her. “Who gave you this?” he asked puzzled, unable to remember anyone giving her such a little flower, or any flower for that matter.

She stared at it, hesitating to answer. For a moment Kavick wondered if she was going to answer at all. He saw how her face became somber and her eyebrows moved downward as if it were a struggle for her to answer. Kavick was completely caught off guard by this and was concerned by the change in her.

“Hey…are you okay? I didn’t mean to…”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes before the tears could leave her lashes. She still wouldn’t look up at him, though. “Tupit…”

Kavick looked at the flower in shock.

“Tupit gave it to me a week before…it…” She sniffed again and wiped her nose, unable to finish the sentence.

Kavick still stared at it in wonder. I never knew…

“We were walking along a cliff over some rocks…we came to a patch of grass that was full of these flowers…he gave one to me.”

She finally looked up at him, clearly knowing that he understood what it meant. Just as she her resolve was starting to crumble again he wrapped his arms around her in a warm hug. “I’m so sorry, Anana. I never knew.”

“I know,” she hiccupped. “I don’t think anyone did.”

 

Okay, so Kavick realized after this, “Hey! I can afford jewelry!” when he was working at the O’Connell’s shop one day, and c’mon. Kavick loves Christine, so even if he doesn’t have much money, he’s going to make it happen. Fortunately, the jewelry in the O’Connell’s shop isn’t expensive, either. It’s just a little gift shop.

Thank you guys again for your awesome support! And if you haven’t read “Ice” you can buy it here, on Amazon. And there’s the trailer below.

 

Talk to you later!

-EL

Deleted Scene: Kavick Detained

Here is another deleted scene from “Ice”! Thank you for 200 likes!

As you guys read, I think you’ll quickly figure out where this scene takes place. This scene explains what happened to Kavick while he was in the Factory.

Warning: spelling and formatting errors are many.

Copyright © 2011 Elissa Len Lewallen

Light burned through my eyelids. It was so hard to open my eyes, though. My eyelids were so heavy…

So was the rest of my body. I couldn’t move. My body felt like it weighed a ton.

I worked harder and seconds ticked by as I finally managed to open my eyes to mere slits. I peeked out and was blinded by a bright light. I quickly clamped my eyes shut. I groaned from the pain…

I groaned again. The pain was intense and all over my body.

“The subject’s waking up.”

“The sedative’s wearing off.”

I felt my ears twitch at that. Subject? I must be dreaming…

My eyes fluttered open and I forced myself to look through the light. I saw the source of it as my vision cleared and my eyes became stronger. It was a lamp over my face. I looked around, suddenly realizing there was more than just a bright light. Where was I…?

“AAAAAHH!!”

            “Hurry! Strap him down!”

There were machines hooked up to me, needles poking into my arms, forcing some kind of fluids into my body, there were people dressed in white suits, like there was some kind of bio-hazardous chemical in the air they didn’t want to be exposed to.

I was terrified. What had happened to me? What were they doing to me? Where the hell was I?

I suddenly realized I was the one screaming. I was screaming at the top of my lungs and I couldn’t stop. I thrashed on the cold table, trying to break away. I was already strapped to an operating table, so why were they panicking about strapping me down?

I couldn’t fight back the people that were trying to shove me down onto the table. Even my ankles were strapped down. I just kept screaming and trying to wiggle out of their grasp. I tried head butting them, since it was the only thing I could do, but they had those big masks over their heads.

“LET GO OF ME!”

Suddenly someone walked over to me and shoved something over my face. I jerked my head around, trying to keep them from me, but it didn’t work. They fiddled with the straps of the thing until it was tight around my head. I looked down at it over my nose and mouth and realized they had actually just put a muzzle on me.

There were so many people crowded around me, pushing me down, it was no use to fight back, but I was going to do everything I could. I suddenly knew what they meant by “strapping” me down, because they put more straps on me. The put two over my torso, over my elbows, shoulders, my legs…I was totally immobile and useless. I couldn’t move any part of my body.

I felt another needle poke into my arm and soon my eyes felt heavy again. I tried to keep them open, but soon I couldn’t anymore.

 

I woke up from the cold. I was shivering. I opened my eyes easier this time. There wasn’t a blinding light in my face, like before. It was dark and dim. I jumped up and looked around the tiny room. It wasn’t a room. It was a cell. I least I wasn’t strapped down anymore…

I suddenly remembered the muzzle and clawed at my face to take it off; but it wasn’t there anymore.

I looked up at the low, concrete ceiling. I could easily touch it. I fought back the urge to duck down from it. It would have been claustrophobic if it weren’t for the caged door that allowed me to look out across the room to see a wall lined with more cells, and even pins that were housing dogs and wolves…

I felt my eyes widen as I suddenly realized where I was. I was in the factory. I had been kidnapped by the hunter. I held my head as I tried to remember how it happened. I couldn’t. I couldn’t remember anything except arguing with Tark about Christine. I had been walking through snow…so much snow, and it was so dark…

I held my shivering body again. I looked down at the white scrubs I was wearing. They were wrinkled. I began to wonder how long I had been here. I took note of the camera in the corner of my cell and looked over at the tiny sink and toilet beneath it. They planned to have me here a long time.

I suddenly got an insane idea…or maybe it was perfectly sane. If I couldn’t get out, I could drown myself in the sink. Maybe it could hold just enough water to cover my face…

I shook my head, telling myself I wasn’t going to give up.

I grabbed the cold bars and stared at the other people and dogs asleep in their cells.

I was getting out.

But, why were they holding me here? The hunters killed my kind…why spare me?

And were the others here like me?

Everyone was asleep except me. Well, the prisoners were asleep; I’m sure there were people watching my every move via the camera in the top corner of my cell. I had to find out if the others stuck in here were like me or not. I whistled, making a few of the animals wake up, the others just stirred in their sleep. Some didn’t even seem phased. They were probably drugged like I had been. One of the dogs, a black Lab, and a couple of the wolves looked at me. I wasn’t an unusual sight to them. They did nothing except watch me from behind their tiny, barred doors, looking as helpless as I was feeling. I could see the defeat in the animals’ eyes. Their spirits had been broken; they were used to living in those little cages; they had no hope.

I stepped away from the bars and looked down at the floor. My feet were bare and cold. I could already feel the courage to break free starting to leave my body as I began to fear if I would become just like them.

I started thinking about Tark. When I had talked to him last we had fought. I couldn’t believe “Leave me alone” were the last words I had said to him…

I held my head, drowning in grief. I was the only family Tark had left. He always was strong, but his biggest strength is being able to hide his feelings. I know how hard it was when it was just Tupit, him and I. The first time we went to school after our other brothers’ death, he had looked both of us sternly in the eye and said, “Now on, we stick together.”

And we did. The three of us spent all of our free time together and began relying on each other. We all had needed that after what happened.

And then after Tupit was killed…

I rubbed my face hard, wishing I could have saved him.

Tark just shut me out after Tupit died. He was unusually silent and his temper flared more often. I know he blamed himself, even though it wasn’t his fault.

Suddenly I saw Christine’s face in my mind. I remembered her laugh and wanted to laugh, too. I wanted to smile, or maybe I wanted to cry because I could never see her or my brother again and I was going to be a guinea pig for God knows what for the rest of my life. I didn’t know how to feel. I struggled to hold on to myself, the free spirited Kavick that would never let anything restrain him, rules or people.

“…Hey…”

I looked up from my hands at the distant voice. One of the people in the cells got up from his tiny bed and rubbed his hair. His was to me. It took me a second to realize the voice was coming from someone out of my sight, and the person standing up in his cell had been awakened by the voice.

“…Looks like they got another one. What’s your name?”

I planted my face to the bars, straining my eyes to move far enough over in their sockets to see the master of the voice, but I couldn’t. The room was too vast, and his cell must have been on the same wall as mine.

I thought for a moment how I should answer. “…Kavick Skarling.”

“…Still usin’ Inuit names, huh? Not too many do that anymore, and for good reason. Inuit are the first ones they check out.”

“Yeah, well, Kevin’s on my birth certificate.”

“Smart, but proud, eh?”

“Very proud.”

“I was, too…” the man’s voice trailed off and I could hear that defeat I saw in the eyes of the animals. “Well, listen; we can’t keep talkin’ like this or they’ll separate us. We have to keep our conversations short and far apart.”

“One question,” I interjected as fast as I can since I knew we needed to end our conversation since the cameras were watching us. It wouldn’t be long until they figured out I was talking to someone. “How long have you been here?”

There was a pause. At first I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, “Long enough to have no idea. You lose all sense of night and day here since there’s no windows.”

I thought that was a strange answer. In the summer the sun never went down, and in the winter the sun never came up. Why would that make any difference? Then it dawned on me; he wasn’t from Alaska. That would explain the bit of accent I heard. “You’re from Canada, near the Lower Forty-eight?”

“Yeah,” he said sounding surprised. “You psychic or somethin’?”

Actually, the the more I heard him talk, the more he sounded like a New Yorker.

I dodged the question since we were short on time. “So, you’ve been here long enough to be familiar with the place.”

He chuckled and said bitterly, “I only see what they let me see, which is this room and their little testing room where they muzzle me and take and me for a walk on their treadmill. Good luck tryin’ to get out. As soon as you try, they’ll poke you with a needle and then its lights out…that is, if they let you live.”

 

You can purchase “Ice” on Amazon.com.

Deleted Scene from “Ice”: the Original Chapter Seven

Okay, here is the first deleted scene from Ice. This is the original chapter seven that is told from Tartok’s point of view to help fill the gap of time when Christine last see’s Kavick to when he is abducted. The final version doesn’t show what it was like when Kavick almost lost all sense of his humanity, and how long it took his body to change back completely. The part where Tartok breaks in Christine’s room, however, is told from Christine’s point of view in the final version. Now you know what Tartok was thinking when he saw Christine for the first time. I decided to chop this scene, and any other told from another character’s point of view, because I thought it would be easier to read if it was all told from one point of view, that being Christine’s.

NOTE: there are many spelling errors. Also, the O’Hara’s in this scene are the O’Connell’s.

Chapter Seven:

Missing

“Stop following me, Tark!” Kavick called back to me. He was stomping through the snow ahead, his black and white hair he so unabashedly displayed swung back and forth with every furious step. But he knew I was right; that was part of the reason why he was so mad. He shouldn’t have been associating with that girl. From his lack of willingness to answer my questions I could tell the girl knew our secret. Ever since we were little I could figure out what he was hiding if he didn’t answer the question. For example…

“Did you tell her about us?” I asked, not bothering to hide how frustrated I was with him. I wanted him to know. He knew better than to tell. No one could be trusted.

“Stop interrogating me!” he shouted, looking up at the dim sky above. There was the faintest wisp of green glowing overhead, the start of yet another Aurora Borealis.

“You told her,” I stated flatly.

“I didn’t say that!”

“You didn’t need to.”

“Whatever,” he huffed, still stomping his way through the ankle deep snow. He had never paused for a second as he avoided my question. He turned around, walking backwards for a moment as he pointed at me. “You think you know everything, but you don’t know her! She’s the kindest, most caring person I’ve ever met, and she’s been helping me for months!”

I wasn’t expecting him to say that. For a second I felt my surprise register on my face, but Kavick caught it. I could tell he thought it only confirmed that he was right and that he knew better.

But he didn’t know better. I was the one always looking out for him and the others. I was as good as the head of our clan. That is, if we had a clan. Just the two of us didn’t feel like much of a clan. It just made us feel like twins instead of the remains of a broken set of quintuplets.

“How is she so much more kind and caring than the others?” I said, once again not bothering to hide my disdain and disbelief. How could she be so different? I heard her talking to Molly. Molly is one of the most annoying people I have ever met. I never understood why Kavick associated with her, and as far as I’m concerned that’s just another of example of Kavick’s poor judgment.

“She’s the one that took me in when I was wounded,” he explained, holding up the arm which used to be injured.

I immediately relived that day for a moment, when Anana had come back panicked, asking for her sister and I to help him against the bear. She was equally worried about the fact Kavick had been spotted in the woods, since Kavick’s presence would look unusual, unlike her appearance.

The three of us had raced to where Anana had left him, only to find him walking naked and wounded in the cold, and not as a dog. He had explained to us about how he had tried to save a girl from a bear and she had taken him in her house and tended to his wounds. However, in order to escape, he had to change back into his human form. Never had I seen Kavick look so disheveled, so uncertain, so dirty, and so cold. There was a time when he was used to the moments of being naked in the freezing temperatures just after a shift. But that day he had been shivering, holding his arms, and there was a strange look in his eyes. I couldn’t quite describe it, but his footsteps did. His walk didn’t seem right. It seemed awkward. I could tell it was unnatural to him. He had already become accustomed to walking on all fours and the warmth of his fur. He stared at everything in wonder as if he were seeing it all in a new light. His eyes were big the whole walk home.

I had told Anana and Suka to go back home as soon as we had spotted him. They had quickly taken off to give Kavick some privacy. I had shifted back into human form and put an arm around him. We tried to keep each other warm as we walked back home since Kavick said he couldn’t walk on his leg. I had then looked at his wounded arm he referred to as a leg. He kept making comments about how pretty the colors of things were and his words were low and hoarse. It had been a week since he had last spoken.

“Why are you doing this, Tark?” he had asked in a shaky voice with chattering teeth.

“It’s only right I suffer with you and give you what warmth I can. I’m your brother. You would do the same for me.”

I had been a little frightened by the state he was in, but I hid it well. I had to be strong. Even though it felt like I had almost lost my brother, living as a wolf was the surest way of staying hidden. To my relief he was back to his old self by the time we got home. He had eagerly run into the bathroom, speaking about how badly he wanted to take a hot shower.

I’ve lived as a wolf for several days before, as well, but not for a whole week straight. There was usually a few brief moments where I had to shift back into a human for some reason. Apparently Kavick hadn’t had those moments. I had spoken to Suka soon after, asking how Anana was after they had gotten home. She had said Anana seemed a little awkward and very happy to be human again. I asked if she had inquired about her time with Kavick when they had been wolves, and she had said that her younger sister had told her they had done a lot of running and playing, sleeping, and only a little hunting.

“I thought Kavick looked a little thin,” Suka had commented from the roof of her house. It was late at night and everyone was asleep. Whenever we spoke about our siblings to each other, it was usually at this hour on her roof. Waiting to talk until so late was about the only way it was sure to stay just between the two of us.

“And that also explains why he ate the whole fridge when he got home,” I had said with a frown.

She grinned slightly and had a knowing look in her yellow eyes. “Anana did the same thing.”

            I brought myself out of my memories a second later, strangely feeling a little grateful for this girl who had helped my brother. Because of her treatment Kavick’s wounds weren’t infected when I had found him. Kavick recovered well, but he didn’t shift into a wolf again until his gashes were reduced to just mere scratches on his arm and side.

Kavick turned his back on me again. “Now leave me alone!”

I stood still then, not wanting to fight with him anymore. I decided to let him be for a bit. “Be back in time for the Lights.” It was all I would say.

He just waved a hand up in the air, letting me know he heard me through the rush of wind that suddenly hammered us. It sent his long hair flying and it made me remember how my father was proud that he wasn’t afraid to display his heritage. An outsider wouldn’t know what it meant, but all of our kind would. He was even picked on by our own people for his Husky ancestry, and it showed more strongly in him than any other of my brothers. I was a black wolf, like Father. So was Maguyuk. Anuun was a Husky, but he was solid black. Tupit had a little, such as on his face, but he had many of those long streaks of black patterning his face like tattoos. Kavick’s face on the other hand was full white, framed by dark black. He had much more white than Tupit, just like our mother. Half his body was in white. Mother always felt guilty, though, like it was her fault, always saying she was sorry she had placed such a burden on her children.

I turned around, feeling conflicted feelings. I felt a bit of that same pride like Father had spoke of, but I was still frustrated with my last remaining brother. I didn’t want to lose him like Tupit. Tupit’s death was still fresh in my mind. I had been a witness to him being shot down in his Husky form, lying still that cold, snowy night during that unusual cold snap we had in the summer. I had been injured by gunfire, and Kavick was with the others trying to free Suka and Anana’s father from a trap in the distance. I had been made useless, forced to watch the hunter drag my brother away. I was surprised the hunter hadn’t tried to take me, as well. Perhaps he couldn’t manage dragging two wolves in the snow. The hunter placed Tupit on the front of his snowmobile, and took off. Kavick had come to my aid then, turning into a human in his worry. He was so busy checking on me he didn’t realize the hunter had killed Tupit.

“Stay with me!” he pleaded with me. He then whipped his head around, noticing our brother wasn’t there. “Where’s Tupit?!” I could hear the panic in his voice.

I finally managed to shift into a human and pointed to the snowmobile that was quickly growing distant. “He’s got Tupit!”

Kavick had jumped to his feet and ran after the hunter, shifting mid-run. But he couldn’t catch up with it.

He didn’t return to us, either.

Anana and Suka took me to their home that night with their father where we could tend to our injuries. I could hear Kavick wailing away at the moon in the forest somewhere until I finally fell asleep. Part of me wondered if he was hoping Tupit was still alive and would be able to escape and come back at his call. He was probably blaming himself, like our mother he took after. I could hear Anana crying, too, but she wasn’t howling like Kavick. I could hear it through the walls of the old house. Suka was trying to comfort her little sister in the living room. Anana had been just as close to Tupit as she was to Kavick, maybe even slightly more.

But it wasn’t Kavick’s fault. It was mine. I had been standing next to Tupit when it had happened. I should have been able to save him. It was my fault.

“Where’s Kavick?” I asked as I met up with the others at the bonfire. There was Suka, Anana, their father Tunerk, and their grandfather whom Kavick and I refer to in our private conversations as “Old Man Miller”.  And then there were the O’haras, a family of six which had the exceptional good luck of not losing anyone to the hunter. However, we all have our suspicions if there is actually more than one hunter and if they had grown to such a large number that they were building that “factory” as a cover for some kind of base. Our suspicions have been growing stronger and stronger over time. Why would anyone want to build a factory out in this tiny, dying town?

“I don’t know. He’s your brother,” Suka said with that sarcasm I knew all too well. I should have known better than to ask her that.

I looked out toward the trees, feeling worried. Knowing him, he probably went to see that girl, putting himself in danger. I was so certain; I knew that had to be where he was. He was skipping the meeting just to send a message to me. And it just happened to be one of the most crucial meetings. The oldest O’hara boy, who was seventeen, was supposed to have been tailing a person we suspected of being a hunter. But Kavick doesn’t even know what that person looks like because he was with that girl the last time we spoke of it.

“Go ahead, start,” I said as I sat down alone on the empty log. Kavick was supposed to be sitting beside me on it. I was incredibly annoyed at my brother for skipping this meeting. Jonathan O’hara (the O’haras preferred to not use native names unlike the Millers and my family) was going to tell us what he had found out from trailing the suspected hunter. He stood then, looking a little uncomfortable at starting without Kavick. Most of us didn’t look Inuit anymore from all the breeding with white people, except the Millers. The O’haras were almost as pale as Kavick and I, and they all had brown hair since they had a lot of brown mixed in with their gray coat, unlike the Millers who had virtually no brown in their gray coats. They bred with only other wolf people, and used to only breed with other Inuits. Old Man Miller had dark skin and you could see some of his Inuit heritage in his facial features. His son Tunerk carried on the skin color to his daughter’s, but it was much lighter since their mother had been white. They all had gray hair and yellow eyes, except for the old man whose hair had turned white. Suka’s hair was cut incredibly short, almost like a boys’, and Anana’s hair was a little longer, hanging down just to the middle of her neck.

Jonathan cleared his throat and addressed us all. “I’ve been tailing the human who we saw the night of the fire at the factory. I wasn’t able to look around in his house for long, so I only have a last name. I was not able to find any concrete evidence that he is the hunter, but he did have a yellow snowmobile like the one the hunter who killed Tupit Skarling used.”

I felt anger and pain surge through me at those words. Everyone was locked on the oldest O’hara boy as he continued on with what he learned. He told us the last name he had discovered and said he was going to keep following this factory worker, along with another one of his brothers, and wait for another opportunity to search his house.

That’s where the meeting ended. It was short, as were most meetings anymore. We no longer played music since we had already reflected on the dead during the first few nights of the Lights. However, I remained long after the others had walked away, still reflecting on the dead of my family. I don’t know how long I sat there, staring into the fire until I finally left.

 

“Where’s Kavick?” I asked yet again on the following night. I looked around at everyone who was seated around the fire just as before. There was only silence and awkward stares. Tunerk Miller sighed loudly from beside Suka, showing his unhappiness. He raised an irritated eyebrow at me that spoke volumes. I could imagine what our next conversation would be like. I could hear his voice in my mind. “Get him in line.”

            Tunerk didn’t like how Kavick was spending so much time away where nobody seemed to know what he was doing, and skipping meetings, at that. He had always had little respect for Kavick until Kavick helped him out of a bear trap the hunter had set the night Tupit was killed and taken. Despite Kavick not being a “true wolf” as he had said before in the past, he was suddenly polite to Kavick after that incident and soon asked him to marry Anana to carry on the wolf bloodline. Tunerk felt like we were a dying breed and needed to change that quickly before we were extinct. However, in his conversations with me, Tunerk still showed his unhappiness with Kavick’s relaxed, carefree attitude, saying he had no sense of duty for not wanting to marry his daughter. And now he had added “wild” to that list of traits he didn’t like about Kavick. I knew I would be hearing more of his complaints about my brother in the very near future.

I huffed and turned around. “Go on.”

“Without both of you?” Suka inquired in a surprised voice as I walked away.

“I’m fetching Kavick.” I stopped then, realizing there was a much faster way of hunting him down. Instead of sniffing him out, I could use Anana’s directions, since she was the one who had been spying on him, wondering where he was gone to so much instead of trying to get adjusted as living as wolf. He and Anana were supposed to be spending more time together, hunting and such, as wolves, because I thought he should marry Anana, as well, and soon. Even though Kavick didn’t to marry her, Anana was his friend so he didn’t mind spending time with her.

At least, until recently he didn’t mind. He had been spending less and less time with her. His excuse had been he was spending more time helping the O’hara’s with their store, but she didn’t believe him. She had told Suka she could smell a different scent on him and was curious to know where he had actually been spending so much time. She had carefully followed far behind him one evening and discovered him climbing through the window of a house. She could hear a girl’s voice talking to him.

I turned around and looked at Anana. She slowly tipped her head up at me, her yellow eyes growing bigger. I could tell she was figuring out what I wanted and she didn’t want to do it. But she would do what I asked. She hardly ever said no to anyone. That’s why she wasn’t protesting her father’s marriage proposal to Kavick. She was eighteen, but she did everything he said like she was a little child still with no free will. I then looked at Suka who was staring at me, wondering what I wanted. “Can I borrow your sister?”

Suka’s eyes grew a little larger then and she looked at Anana. Anana and her exchanged stares. Anana knew then that Suka had told me what she had told her in confidence about Kavick. Nothing was said and it only lasted a second. Suka looked down at her feet in a guilty way and said, “Ask her, not me.”

I looked at Anana again. She hesitantly stood, holding her side for a second, and then followed me into the trees. I stopped after a moment of walking and then turned to her. She wasn’t holding her side anymore where she had been shot, but she still looked frail. She always looked frail and delicate to me, because she was short and bony. She kind of did still look like a little girl. “Do you think you can show me where Kavick’s been seeing that girl?” I glanced at her side then to let her know she could say no if she didn’t feel like she could do it.

She was quiet a moment, mulling it over, and then gave a tiny nod. “Yeah, I can do it.”

I stepped aside and motioned for her to take the lead. She went over behind a large pine tree and came back a second later as a Timber wolf. I walked up to her and she stared at me. “I’m not shifting. I don’t want to frighten the girl.”

She let out a whine as she started walking ahead of me, clearly regretting her decision. She probably felt like she was betraying Kavick. We both knew he wasn’t going to be happy.

Anana led the way at a leisurely pace, making it easy for me to keep up with her. During the long walk to the girl’s house it seemed to get even darker and the Aurora Borealis grew even brighter even though it was already night when we headed out. The white snow stood out in the darkness. Moonlight filtered through the trees now and then, but I could make out Anana just fine without it. Once we finally reached the edge of the forest where there was a little light blue house in a clearing, Anana darted away, back to the meeting, not wanting Kavick to see her.

I looked down in the snow and could just faintly see tracks leading to the house. However, they looked old. They were have filled with this morning’s snowfall. Had Kavick actually taken the front door?

I walked around the tree line, staying hidden behind the trees. I could see the window the tracks led to. The blinds were up and it was the only room in the house that appeared to have a light on. I ran up to the window then as fast I could in the deep snow, ready to give Kavick the worst scolding and lecturing of his life. I couldn’t believe he had made himself known to the other person this girl lived with whom Suka had also told me about. Anana assumed he was probably the girl’s father. What if he was one of the hunters?

I forced the window up, making a bit of a racket, but not too bad. If her father was asleep then it probably didn’t wake him. I climbed through to see the girl sitting on the bed, staring at me with big gray eyes. For a second I nearly sighed out loud. I could see why Kavick had spent so much time with her in the past. She was pretty. He was being a typical, thoughtless, hormonal teenage boy. She had long straight brown hair that went down to her waist like curtains. She was a bit pale, but not nearly as bad as Kavick and I. Really, though, was there anyone here that wasn’t pale who was white? Summers are short and usually cloudy in this part of the world.

She was dressed warmly in a gray turtleneck that brought out the color of her eyes even more, blue jeans, and she was wearing boots, as if she were ready to head out into the snow. And then I noticed the coat and gloves beside her. She was planning on going out, and probably with him.

However, I was surprised to see that Kavick wasn’t there. Now I had exposed myself to the girl. Kavick was making me even more furious than before, and he wasn’t even present. I stood my full height and stared the girl down. “Where is my brother?”

Strike a Pose! My Photo Shoot with Photographer Micheal Lowther

Hello, everyone!

New and exciting things are happening with Ice. Other than drawing closer to the end of the sequel, I am giving the first Ice book a makeover (and hopefully this blog, too, in the near future). As you may have figured by the lackluster, and just downright dull cover of Ice, I did it myself. I am by no means a photographer, and creating the cover was a long and agonizing process. I had a few different visions, only one of them was within my capability, and because I could never seem to get the text clear, I wasn’t even able to do that right in the end! I had to settle for a design in Create Space’s Cover Creator and have my vision diced down to a letterbox and my font chosen for me. For a cover absolutely free of charge, it wasn’t terrible. (Doing this did however mess with the quality of my image in a way I still haven’t figured out. I just know Kavick wasn’t pixel-y until I did the Cover Creator). I knew that I wanted a better cover in the future…future being hopefully in time for the holiday shopping season.

Enter Micheal Lowther, the savior of my book cover!

I met Micheal Lowther at my book launch party. She was very excited to read my book, which made me worry that my writing would be a let down. So I warned her Ice might seem slow, but that I like to think of it as a “slow burner”. ;)

Despite Misha’s busy schedule, she liked it enough to find time to read it through to the end! I was shocked. She messaged me personally to ask me when the sequel was coming out. So, it was after that I asked her if she wouldn’t mind helping me with the cover. She had told me at my launch party that she would love to work with me on any future books. I wanted help with Ice first, and I had been worried about asking her before to work on a book she might not even like!

Misha, as she likes to be called, is very professional, and also very friendly. I wanted a new photo for my author bio, so we did that first. She chose Downtown Tulsa, where there are many great places to shoot. Misha’s not afraid to think out of the box. In fact, she’s a genius at it. We were just walkin’ along, her camera in her hand, and she said, “Since they have the sprinklers on in the park, why don’t we go over to this mural?” She explained the mural to me just as we were coming up on it, and it blew me away. It was awesome, and we got some amazing shots, of course. There were several Day of the Dead murals all connected to each other. And one of them was in the style of Alice in Wonderland in the scene of the Mad Hatter’s tea party! It even had a quote by Lewis Carrol next to it! It took all my strength not to squeal at it…which I still did, just a little, in the form of, “OH MY GOSH!”

Here’s the photos from that:

Ice: by Elissa Lewallen Ice: by Elissa Lewallen Ice: by Elissa Lewallen

We shot in front of a mural of the Blue Dome district, which was cool since the Blue Dome district is, you know, cool. And blue, my favorite color.

Ice: by Elissa Lewallen

We shot in front of windows and water for cool reflection effects. In front of beaten old buildings, and newer buildings, and even on some train tracks. At last, we rounded it up at the park, where we had originally intended.  When she announced that she had about a hundred photos to work with, I was blown away. It hadn’t felt that long, and if memory serves me right, it had only been about an hour. Everything had been within walking distance, and Misha made it such an enjoyable experience. It didn’t feel like work, or like a stuffy old photo shoot; it was actually FUN!

Ice: by Elissa Lewallen Ice: by Elissa Lewallen Ice: by Elissa Lewallen

Later—that same day— she already had my photos ready for me to select ten for her to burn on a CD-ROM for me. They were all amazing. She blew me away again. She even gave me some extra photos, too.

Here is a link to Misha’s website, and her blog. She is wonderful to work with. You will not be disappointed. As you’ve gathered, I highly recommend her. I’ll include photos at the end of the post, of course. And soon, I will unveil the new cover for Ice! I am so excited for everyone to see it! And soon, I will be back to working on the trailer for Ice. I really want to amp up Ice’s exposure. So, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment! It would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thank you so much, guys, for reading!

EL

 

Here are all the many places you can buy Ice: Create Space, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and you can always order it from your local book store. :)

Also, I noticed the Kindle version of Ice is free right now if you have Amazon Prime!

 

Commence more photos!

Ice: by Elissa LewallenIce: by Elissa LewallenIce: by Elissa LewallenIce: by Elissa Lewallen