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The Memory of Water

by Catherine Cardiff; co-published with Off-Kilter Productions

35 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); chapbook, with black and white photographs; catalogue #03-2440; ISBN 1-4120-1962-1; US$11.50, C$12.95, EUR9.50, £6.50

Short stories and photos provide brief, enchanting glimpses of life from a slightly off-kilter perspective.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts or Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book Chasing the Moon... An artist searches for her art ... Her Brother's Keeper ... A sister braves the unknown to find her brother ... Ending ... A writer looks for the perfect ending ... The Memory of Water ... A woman seeks meaning beyond her lost love ... Four stories written over the last fourteen years, each a unique view of an unexpected rite of passage. The photos, shot in British Columbia, New York City, and Cornwall, England, link thematically with the stories.

Cover design by Lydia del Bianco of Momentum Productions. Contact her at mpdesigns@telus.net

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About the Author Born on the east coast of Canada, Catherine Cardiff has lived in Victoria, British Columbia, for 23 years. A writer, photographer and sometime-musician, she worked as a bookseller for 12 years before moving on to publishing. She has published articles in local and national magazines; this is her first chapbook. Author photo by Barry Chapple, 2003.

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Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

Her Brother's Keeper

She came through the shadows disoriented, struggling to find her balance. Mirielle waited as the now-familiar vertigo passed and her senses lost their blindness. Slowly, she became aware of rough fabric beneath her fingertips and the musty smell of old wood mingled with a sharp, unknown scent. She realized she was crouching, her arms outstretched in front of herself the only thing that had stopped her from falling forward as she came through. Though she knelt in darkness, light spilled from a doorway several feet away. The roaring in her ears subsided, replaced by a muted rumble that resolved into strange words, voices coming from the bright doorway ahead of her.

Mirielle glanced around quickly. She was alone and inside, in a place that was warm and stuffy after the woods she had left behind. A broad hallway stretched ahead and behind her, the only object along its length an improbable, spindly legged table that stood against one of the walls. Several doorways and what had to be a huge window broke up the walls, the opened doorway ahead of her letting a bright, oddly steady light into the corridor. She could hear two different voices, both male. She began to make her way warily toward them, anxiously hoping that the wordspell she'd cast would work on this world. She had moved a few stealthy footsteps when something shifted in her mind and she could understand the voices that floated out of that golden doorway.

"...don't know what I'll do with him yet. I think his death may be more effective later on." She froze in the shadows by the window, fingers tightening around the hilt of her sword. Mirielle had followed the thread of her brother's life to this dark place, and she did not doubt that it was his murder being planned by that calm, disembodied voice. She began to edge toward the open door, soft leather boots muffled by the thick fabric spread along the floor. Shedding her cloak, she made ready to fight.

She started as twin lights danced along the wall, cast by something on the other side of the window. She crouched low, but they disappeared just as quickly. The pounding of her heart almost drowned out the second voice.

"You've grown rather fond of him, haven't you?" There was silence for a moment. "Well, if you're sure he has to die, you could set a band of thieves on him in the forest. Or you could have the Duke kill him. That should get things moving." Alarm raced through Mirielle's veins. Stay calm, she warned herself. Find out where he's being held. Don't lose control now.

"That won't work," the first voice replied. "There are no thieves in that forest, it's too close to the castle. As for the Duke..." There was a long pause. In the shadows, Mirielle banished the image that had sprung to mind, of her brother lying dead at the Duke's feet. That will not happen, she promised herself. The Duke would never dare to antagonize me.

"No..." The first speaker's voice was slow and thoughtful. "Not the Duke. Besides, I don't want to kill him and then discover I need him after all." Cold fury at the matter-of-fact way they discussed Roland's fate drew her to her feet. Staying close to the wall as she crept closer to the door, she thought, I've got to find out where he is and get him back to the safety of Tyons. Something nagged at the back of her mind, but she forced it away as the second voice spoke.

"You're probably right. You may need to have someone close to the main character show up just before the crisis." She heard a faint grunt of agreement.

"Maybe I should send him off to Tyons after the wedding. He can be the one who comes in with news of the trial in the fourth chapter."

Mirielle frowned in frustration. The wordspell she had cast before setting out to track her brother must be failing. She thought she understood the words, but they made no sense. Did these unknown bandits mean to release her brother after a wedding? After her wedding? They must know she wouldn't go through with the ceremony while he was missing. Would they really send him home if she did? Sudden hope made her clumsy. As she moved around the tiny table, she stumbled, knocking an unlit candle out of its holder.

"What was that?" The second voice sounded surprised and a little nervous. She eyed the remaining distance to the doorway and dropped into a defensive stance, adrenaline pushing back the fatigue and hunger that had been hounding her for days.

"Probably one of the cats has come in from the rain. If you could see your face! You're not spooked by a little storm, are you?"

"It's not the storm, it's this house! Why did you have to buy such a creepy house in the first place?"

"I like it. There's a certain energy to the place that helps me think. You said yourself that you think my writing has improved since I moved here. I think the setting helps me connect with my characters more." He paused. "I don't know."

"It hasn't helped you much lately, has it? Sorry, that was rude, even for me."

"It's okay. You're right. Poor Roland has been in limbo for a week while I've tried to decide what to do with him. At the end of the last chapter he rode out into the forest alone. I just can't decide whether to have him captured by Argon's Finders so they can use his "confession" against his sister, or to let him go and use him to warn his sister later. What happens next depends upon whether or not he returns."

More gibberish, she thought to herself, and who was Argon? A memory of a thin, pale clerk with too-large hands came back to her. He had been a part of the King's retinue during the royal visit to her lands last summer. She had thought then that he was some kind of minor advisor, though later rumour had placed him at the head of the King's new religion with a cadre of armed fanatics at his command. Dangerous fanatics, who were charged with burning out everything that did not agree with the religion the King had brought back with him from the war.

Were the Finders responsible for the power she had sensed around her brother's disappearance, hanging like a cloying mist over the area where his trail had ended? He had vanished without a trace for human eyes to see or hounds' noses follow, but Mirielle had found a recent path through the shifting veils of the worlds. When the path disappeared she had reached out and faintly, so faintly could feel the pull of her brother's soul...somewhere.

She had sought it for days, hunting through lands that at first were echoes of the ones she knew. With each sunrise, she crossed into a world less familiar than the one before and she was sometimes chased by dangers she only half-understood. She was no longer sure she could find her way home again, and was terrified of losing that fragile connection to her brother. She had clung to the dim pulse of his life, following it at last to this darkened hall where she crouched while strange voices plotted his death.

This makes no sense! She would bet her life that no Finder could have made the path she followed. From what she had heard of their religion, they would never even acknowledge that such a path could exist. Whoever had taken her brother had power enough to send any of their ilk scurrying behind the robes of those they served. Yet whoever was in that room talked of handing her brother over to their torture, and even if she silenced both of those voices, was there someone else who might give the order?

Far from home, drained by passing through veil after veil to world after world, fatigue made her thoughts into a tangled mess. Her brother felt no closer here than he had in the last world, the spark of his soul pulling at her only faintly. Where was this limbo he'd been imprisoned in? Could she beat the knowledge out of these two who talked so casually of his fate, or would he die before she could find him? She didn't know what to do. The image of her brother riding safely to his home, hale and whole as he was when he left her lands, rose in her mind. The guilt she'd always felt at involving him in her troubles flared through her. All the emotion she had kept carefully under control during her long search, her fear and love and terrified hope, poured through her. Don't hurt him...

"Didn't you suggest in your outline..."

"I won't have him captured in the forest," the first voice interrupted. "He should reach Tyons. Mirielle would be forced to do something to save him otherwise, and that would start the main action too soon." The speaker sounded decisive. The next words came more softly through the doorway. "I won't let them have him."

Relief sang through Mirielle. She sank quietly to her knees, beginning to shake as her fear and desperation abruptly left her. She had heard the ring of truth in the stranger's voice and had no doubt that her brother would be safe. They could both go home. Something tugged at her awareness again, and silently she turned around to behold two small bright eyes watching her from down the hallway. This was the presence she had felt earlier, though it had pressed only lightly on her mind. Slowly, she raised a hand toward it. The next moment she gasped as the room began to fade away and the shadows rose around her again.

The black cat meowed as the figure in front of it disappeared. A large shape blocked the light from the doorway, and the cat blinked up at the human who stood silhouetted there. It meowed sharply, and flicked its tail.

"So that was you, Piowhacket. Have you been chasing ghosts again?" The cat yawned, stretched and led its human towards the kitchen and a late-night snack.

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Catalogue Information

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