Last week I had a fun, unexpected email from a fellow author who read both Surviving Sue and Slivers. She made the most marvelous observation, telling me she loved the connecting thread, the theme about duplicitous mothers in both books:
“I found it remarkable to see the angst cross over from one book to another, especially moving from memoir to fiction. Surviving Sue captured deeply personal pain points and poignancy, but Slivers surprised me; you addressed the complexity of mothering with a touch of relatable humor and a supernatural spin. Good job!”
Can you imagine my glee? Happy me, happy me!
The recurring theme about maniacal moms was intentional, part of my exploration and what if musings, wondering if I my quest to write for wellness might include a foray into fiction. Writing Surviving Sue was liberating and empowering. But Slivers? It was like taking a flying leap, playing with a fictionalized family inspired by my own, pushing me into new creative territory.
Today, I thought I’d share an excerpt highlighting one of the moms in Slivers, the ever-sneaky Maggie in a scene where she’s hell-bent on hiding supernatural activity from her daughter, Jane.
Chapter 11: When in Doubt…Spackle
Wrestling the attic door open, she sighed and stepped into darkness, reaching for the light switch for the lone 60-watt bulb, dangling from the pitched side of the roof in the windowless space. She hated its unnecessarily long chain—brassy links rocking to peculiar breezes every time she entered. Using the cement bucket as a doorstop, Maggie hoped she could usher in a smidgen of afternoon sunshine from the hallway. Light and bright, the sun will keep me company, she hoped. Fingers trembling, she flipped the light switch and prayed for good news.
They were exactly where she remembered them. No fewer, but no more either. The zippers. James’s word for the diagonal gashes. Entry and exit points. Maggie thought they were vaguely artistic. Like an art installation—each slice three or four feet in length with a textural gray topcoat of cement, some intersecting, some not.
“Looks like someone tried to play tic-tac-toe with Xs alone,” James once said wryly.
Maggie was less than amused. It wasn’t a child’s game. More like a makeshift barricade to prevent further encroachment. The patch jobs were short-term solutions and, as she assessed the walls, ineffective. Faint cracks were emerging…signs she’d waited too long to fortify the perimeter. The recent episodes with Jane, the chaos at Eric’s house, and the nonsense at the pool were her evidence.
Sliding on her work gloves, she paused, thinking about James’s inaccurate perception—seeing himself as the lone defender. Not true. She learned the ropes—and quickly—recalling the one and only time she made the mistake of touching one of the gashes with her bare hand. It looked harmless, beckoning to her, sparkling from within. Inviting her to examine its twinkling, kaleidoscopic show. Gloves were required for zipper duty. Not only to keep her hands clean but to avoid electrocution. The zippers—and the travelers who used them—were pure energy, capable of knocking the living on their keisters.
Ready to work, Maggie knelt in the corner, trowel in hand, and felt a tingle on her ankle. Then she detected their scent. Vaguely metallic, almost sweet. Startled, she jumped and hit her head on the short wall, collapsing on the rough plywood floor.
Rubbing her temple, she scooched to sit upright and watched an innocent-looking wisp float from its entanglement with her ankle toward the ceiling. Undulating and waving like a streamer, moving higher and higher.
Pretty, Maggie thought, taken in by the show. But as the mesmerizing, singular wisp rose and wiggled, every zippered gash opened, flooding the attic with anger. A supernatural mob. The single enchanting, ribbon-like wisp was no longer languid and harmless. It had company. Thousands of sinister, impatient slivers squabbling incoherently at once, demanding Maggie’s attention.
pgs. 61-63
I hope you’re intrigued enough to read more and purchase Slivers…because…guess what? The Kindle e-Book is now available on Amazon!
Thank you to the wonderful readers who’ve already migrated their reviews from Goodreads to Amazon. If you’ve read and wouldn’t mind doing the same, I’d be mighty grateful.
Big smiles,
Vicki 💝
Lagniappe? A little more? My dear friend and talented author and poet, Nigel Byng is featuring promotional inserts about Slivers within his bone-chilling serial fiction, Father Pilgrim. If you’ve missed out and you’re looking for a scary, incredibly well-crafted pre-Halloween story, Nigel’s got you!
Hi – I’m Victoria, Vicki, Dr. Vicki. I hold a doctorate in Adult Education and I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), and author of Surviving Sue and Slivers.
Check out this link to learn more about Surviving Sue – a memoir about resilience and love. Check out this link to order Slivers in paperback, a ghost story with surprising twists. Click here for the e-Book.
Check out my interview with publisher, Rick Kaempfer from Eckhartz Press.
P.S. Are you on Substack? If so, I’d love to connect with you there: Vicki Atkinson, Ed.D | Substack
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