Thursday, March 8, 2018

Author Laura Bickle

One of the places that I’ve loved since I was a little girl is Serpent Mound, in Adams County, Ohio. My grandfather took my brother and I there. He took us to all the magical places he knew in Ohio and West Virginia, and Serpent Mound is one of the most magical.

Serpent Mound is an ancient effigy mound in the shape of a serpent devouring an egg. It’s more than nine hundred years old, and was built by either the Adena or Fort Ancient peoples. It’s huge…more than a thousand feet long. It stretches over the most perfectly-silent meadow I’ve ever seen. And it’s always this way, whenever I’ve been here. There aren’t many people, and it’s the perfect place to pause and wonder at the world.

Various parts of the mound correspond to celestial points in the sky, including the constellation Draco and equinoxes and solstices. There’s a lot of speculation about its purpose, but no one knows for certain what it was built for. Two burial mounds are also on the property, but as far as we know, there were no people buried under the great serpent. 

I’ve written about Serpent Mound a little bit. As a child, I imagined that there was a great dragon sleeping beneath the earth. And who knows? There might be.

It had been many years since I’ve been to Serpent Mound. I went back there on a rainy October afternoon to meet a friend this past fall. It was as I had remembered it: serene, green, mysterious.

I don’t know what the Serpent Mount means, but I’m grateful to have the opportunity to pace around it, to feel its presence and imagine what it was, is, and could yet be.




*** 


Witch Creek
The Wildlands Series
Book Two
Laura Bickle

Genre: Dark Fantasy 

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Date of Publication: Feb. 27, 2018

ISBN: 978-0062567314
ASIN: B071VBHPW7

Number of pages: 384
Word Count: 88,160

Book Description:

In the backcountry of Yellowstone, evil moves below the surface . . .

Following Nine of Stars comes the next chapter in Laura Bickle's critically acclaimed Wildlands series.

As the daughter of an alchemist, Petra Dee has battled supernatural horrors and experienced astonishing wonders. But there’s no magic on earth that can defeat her recent cancer diagnosis, or help find her missing husband, Gabriel. Still, she would bet all her remaining days that the answer to his disappearance lies in the dark subterranean world beneath the Rutherford Ranch on the outskirts of Temperance, Wyoming.

Gabe is being held prisoner by the sheriff and heir to the ranch, Owen Rutherford. Owen is determined to harness the power of the Tree of Life—and he needs Gabe to reveal its magic. Secretly, the sheriff has also made a pact to free a creature of the underground, a flesh-devouring mermaid. Muirenn has vowed to exact vengeance on Gabe, who helped imprison her, but first . . . she's hungry. Once freed, she will swim into Yellowstone—to feed.

With her coyote sidekick Sig, Petra must descend into the underworld to rescue Gabe before it's too late . . . for both of them.

HarperVoyager       Amazon      Kindle      

 BN     Books a Million      Indiebound


Excerpt:

Peering through the cattails, she saw a man with a fishing pole, standing on an outcropping. He seemed alone, caught in a bit of reverie, gazing at his line skipping along the surface of the water.
She dipped below the surface of the water, toward the shiver of the fishing line. With green-spotted fingers, she lifted the struggling fish from the hook. The line jerked away.
The man swore.
Muirenn lifted her head above the water.
“Holy shit.” The man stumbled backward. “I didn’t realize you were swimming there . . . I . . .”
His expression changed from embarrassment to curiosity as he looked at her. The pupils of his eyes dilated. “Who . . . are you?”
Muirenn gripped the fish close to her chest, giving a small smile.
The fisherman crouched on the rock, setting his pole beside him. “Wow. You’re uh . . . green? Is that real?”
Muirenn cocked her head and slipped forward a bit in the water. The edge of her tail skimmed above the surface.
“Is that like . . . one of those tails that the girls have at that park in Florida? For a movie or something?” His suntanned brow wrinkled. “No. That’s real,” he decided. “You, um . . . want the fish? You can have it.”
She was within arm’s length of him. She released the squirming fish into the water.
“You wanted to let it go? Look, I . . .”
The man talked too much. She swam closer, tentatively.
The fisherman looked at her, at her dappled skin and the dark rust hair spreading into the water. She wouldn’t ordinarily have been so bold. The weight off her tail was going to her head. She let him take in the black of her eyes, the gills on her throat. He gazed in wonder, and his fingers twitched to a small square piece of plastic on top of his tackle box.
“Can I take your picture? What . . . are you?”
A smile played across her lips, and she spoke to him in a silvery voice. “I’m the Mermaid.”
“Wow. I . . . wow. I’m, uh, Norm. Do I, like, make a wish or something?”
“You can, if you want. I’ll listen.”
She reached up with delicate fingers to touch him. Her fingers brushed the pockets of his fishing vest, playing with wonder over the bits and baubles there meant to lure the attention of fish. The man forgot about his camera and stared, transfixed.
Muirenn reached up for his collar . . .
. . . and dragged him down into the water.
He splashed and flailed. She brought him down—down to the bottom of the creek. It wasn’t so far, but it was far enough for a land dweller. He couldn’t fight her for long. He thrashed until his lungs grew heavy with creek water. He convulsed as the lack of oxygen reached his heart and filtered up to his brain. And then he stopped.
Muirenn grinned, showing row upon row of shark-like teeth. She ripped off his arm and began to chew. It had been so long since she’d had anything but the errant fish that wandered into her realm . . . this was a meal worth waiting for.
The creek ran red.

Red as the idle red-and-white bobber drifting on the surface of the water.

About the Author:

Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology – Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs, also writing contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams.

Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.


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3 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for hosting me today!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome. I've never heard of this place, Serpent Mound. It sounds VERY intriguing. Who put it there, and why? Neat. :-)

      Delete
  2. I'd love to visit Serpent Mound. It sounds so peaceful.

    ReplyDelete