The Cliff, the Killer, the Talking Dryer, and Morgan Freeman

By Holly Lisle

So …

I was driving through this dense forest — we’re talking medieval forest here, trees with trunks wide as houses, the sky blacked out by branches and leaves. Spooky place, but you don’t mind spooky places so much when you’re in a car. Still, I was driving pretty fast, because in a place like that, you aren’t inclined to dawdle.

Saw light up ahead, and sped up. Hit the light, and suddenly I wasn’t on flat land anymore. I was rocketing around a hairpin turn on the side of a mountain — or rather, if I hadn’t been heading in a straight line for the edge of a cliff, I would have been. Instead, I fought to get control of the car, but it wasn’t happening, and I shot off into the air.

Woke up. I hate that dream. Did some deep breathing, managed to get my heart rate down to something that could pass for normal.

And damned if I didn’t find myself at the bottom of a mountain, driving a car, with people trapped on the other side of a river; they were waving their arms at me, and were surrounded by ruins and wreckage of their car. Guess they missed that hairpin turn, too. I drove over the bridge and stopped to see if I could help.

And then I was on the road, with people in the car. One of those abrupt dream transitions. And the people were telling me about the man who was sitting in the front seat, wearing one handcuff. He’d been a killer, they told me, but he’d reformed. He was a great guy. Salt of the earth. He’d redeemed his serial killing ways and dedicated his life to good works.

I didn’t like his eyes.

Then they were gone, and I was home, fighting with a clothes dryer that was telling me in very clear words that it was about to overheat and explode. I stopped the load of laundry I was trying to do, got down on my hands and knees, and found a little hidden panel there. I gingerly opened it and stuck my hand inside, and pulled out a sock. And then another sock. And then hundreds of socks. I’d found the Nexus of Missing Socks, and I was weirdly happy about this. Also found a mountain of dryer lint, and some wood scraps, and other sundries. I cleared out the mess, bagged everything that wasn’t a missing sock, and took it out to throw in the trash.

Where I was accosted by Morgan Freeman, who apparently not only lived next door, but was one hell of a nosy neighbor. He told me that he’d met my boyfriend. I explained that I didn’t have a boyfriend — that my family arrangements were the same as they’d been for as long as we’d lived there. He then told me that he’d gone over and introduced himself to the man who came out the back door of my house and carefully locked up, and the man said that he was my boyfriend, and was seeing me on the sly, so Morgan shouldn’t say anything to anyone. Morgan said the guy seemed nice enough — but he didn’t like his eyes.

I got him to give me a description of the guy, and it was the description of the “reformed” serial killer, who had found his way not only to my home, but inside it.

So that was my night. Yesterday, I had great breakthroughs on both ISY and HAWKSPAR. I’m excited about where I’m going with both of them today.

Oh, yes. Today’s goals:

— To 30,000 on ISY (2500 words)
— One red-card scene in HAWKSPAR, plus the revision of a fight scene, which I have marked as yellow. So there’s hope.

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