Thursday, March 29, 2012

Cinders Post #5

Notes:  Success!!!  My massive edits for Changing Worlds are off to the publisher for round two, and I finally got the next Cinders post done.  It's not as long as I had hoped, but still, progress is made.  This isn't the happiest chapter, nor is there any sex, but go on, read it anyway.  The next part should be considerably more upbeat.

Title: Cinders

Part Five: You Missed A Spot




***







Asher’s stepsisters like to talk.  They’re constantly talking, to their mother or to each other or to themselves.  They even talk to him when he’s in the room, as if something is better than nothing at all, as if their conversations with their mirrors palls enough after a while that even Asher’s presence is desirable.  Their preference is to double-team him, to play off of each other’s spiky witticisms and jabs.  Asher puts up with this because a) the satisfaction of mouthing off to them just isn’t worth it, and b) sometimes he actually learns something worth learning.  He’s been in this place for a week, and it’s slowly but surely driving him crazy.  Asher doesn’t really know what this place is or why the fuck he’s here, but if time is passing the same way for Ty that it is for him then he knows the kid is going crazy.  They fight, it’s an inescapable part of basically living in each other’s pockets, but he’s never just run away like this.  It’s the longest stretch of time they’ve been apart since Asher found Ty three years ago, and it feels like he’s missing a limb.

The jerkface part of Asher kind of wonders how much Ty is missing him.  Like, is he heaving a few sighs in the morning before getting on with his day, studying and watching TV and going about his life with just a slightly more hang-dog expression, or is he breaking down?  Is he lying on Asher’s half of the bed and breathing into his pillow and crying big girly tears and fucking losing it?  Does he miss Asher so much that he isn’t eating, isn’t making it to class, can’t even look at all the pretty, hopeful college girls who want to date him because he’s so sunk in remorse he can barely move?  Asher thinks it’s probably the latter, and he kind of likes that.

Then he kind of hates himself for feeling that way, because this is Ty, and no matter how much he wants to be that important to the kid, he doesn’t want him to hurt like that.  In fact, at this point nothing would make Asher happier than for him to show up again and for no time to have passed, for Ty to be asleep or studying or still mad at him or anything, just not missing him.  Ty has missed enough people in his life; Asher doesn’t need to be adding to the list.

This is what he’s thinking about as he cleans out Pinky’s fireplace.  Pinky has a name, he just doesn’t care to use it, and besides it’s something that sounds French and has an accent on the second syllable that he just knows he’s going to fuck up, even if it’s just in his head.  Pinky usually wears pink, so it works for her, plus he likes the fact that she has her own theme song in his mind, the one from the cartoon “Pinky and the Brain.”  She seems about as bright as the lanky animated mouse, but not as funny.

His other stepsister he calls Envy, not just because green is the color of jealousy and she wears it a lot, but because she really is a jealous person.  She’s smarter than Pinky, thinks she’s smarter than everyone, and has a dark word and a searching look for absolutely everything.  She followed Asher from her room into Pinky’s today, and Asher can feel her eyes boring into him as he works, making sure that Pinky’s fireplace isn’t going to get any cleaner than hers.  No one can have more than Envy.

“You work so slowly,” Pinky pouts from where she’s spread on a divan, splitting her time in looking out the window and commenting on everything Asher does.  “Honestly, I’ve seen mud-grubbing little village urchins work faster than you do on your best day.”

“There’s very little difference between the two,” Envy points out dulcetly.  “You missed the back corner, little cinder boy.  You should do it again.”

Asher doesn’t say anything, just scrapes the bundle of sticks that passes for a brush over the back of the fireplace.  Again.  He’s filthy and his back hurts from being bent over all morning and he hasn’t even gotten to his stepmother’s room yet, and that’s a whole new level of being looked down upon, but at least she’s mature enough to prefer ignoring him to talking at him.

They chat about nonsense, fashions that Asher can’t picture and beauty remedies that involve egg whites and a lot of patience.  He finishes with the fireplace and gets up, lifts his ever-present bucket and prepares to get out while the getting’s good.  He’s not fast enough.

“Just a moment.”  Pinky stares at him and wrinkles her perfect nose.  “Lord, just looking at you makes my skin crawl.  I think I need a bath after the experience.  Go and heat me some water, piglet.  But clean your hands before you carry it to my tub.  I don’t want any of your ash falling in and fouling the water.”

“What an excellent thought, sister,” Envy says, her eyes narrowing in a way that Asher knows means she wishes she had thought of having a bath first.  “I think I’ll have one as well.  Go and cut some fresh lavender sprigs to steep in it.  Only put them in once the water is hot, mind.”

The cauldron in the kitchen takes four buckets of water to fill.  It takes three cauldrons of water to fill one bathtub, and each sister has her own, behind a painted screen in her room.  Their rooms are on the second floor.  Not to mention, Cook is undoubtedly working on lunch at the moment, and the last thing she wants to do is give up the fireplace for bathwater, so he’ll get to fight with her about that.  Asher glares at the women and wishes, for about the hundredth time, that this place had running water.  Life was so much easier when you could just turn a tap and…



Asher found Cassie in the bathtub.  He hadn’t walked home with her that day; he had been kept late after school for detention, so she had made her way home alone.  It wasn’t the first time Cassie had done that, so Asher hadn’t been too worried.  His brothers were there, and so was his dad, not that the man was doing anything other than sleeping, probably.  He worked an early shift and usually only saw his kids at the occasional dinner when they were all in the same place at the same time.

Detention was longer than usual, because Asher called the teacher watching him a dick when the man wouldn’t let him use his Gameboy.  So he spent two hours in a stuffy classroom instead of one, and another half an hour getting back home.  It was a Monday, so when he got in he walked to the living room and fully expected to see Cassie in her red and blue swimsuit watching The Little Mermaid with the fishbowl sitting on the table.

The movie was playing, but it was the very end, where a gigantic Ursula was flinging lightning bolts around and about to be run through with a ship.  Asher knew this was his sister’s least favorite part of the movie, it always made her a little scared.  Maybe that was why she wasn’t here for it.  “Cassie?” he called out, putting his backpack on the floor.  “Cassie?”  No answer.  He walked down the hall and checked her bedroom.  Her school clothes were in a heap on the floor, but there was no Cassie.

Howard and Kyle were in the rec room, leaning against the couch and playing Grand Theft Auto 2.  They didn’t even look over when he came in.  “Where’s Cassie?”

“No clue,” Kyle said distractedly, running over a prostitute with his car.

“But she didn’t leave or anything, right?”

“Dude, I don’t fucking know, you’re her babysitter.  Get the gun, get the gun!” he yelled at Howard.  Asher turned and left them alone, going back to the living room with a strange, heavy feeling in his chest.  He looked around.  There were a few wet spots on the carpet, a little darker than the other stains, so probably fresh.  Cassie couldn’t carry the fishbowl very well, it was still a little big for her, but it wasn’t in its usual place so she must have taken it with her, sloshing all the way.  Asher followed the splashes to the bathroom door.

“Cassie?” he said, knocking on the closed door.  “Are you in here?”  There was no answer.  “Cassie, c’mon.”  He turned the handle and went inside.  A few feet into the room, Asher froze.  He knew it was the wrong thing to do, knew he should be moving, but he couldn’t help it.

The fishbowl was sitting on the toilet seat, half-empty.  The gravel and miniature castle were all lumped on one side, like the bowl had been tilted.  Poured out.  The bathtub was full to the brim, with a ring of water spread across the tile almost as far as the sink.  The water was pink, not clear.  Pink.  Cassie was there, in her red and blue bathing suit, face down in the water.  Her head was bleeding.  The cut was as long as Asher’s index finger, but she was bleeding very slowly.

Asher broke out of his paralysis and ran to the tub.  He must have made some kind of noise, something loud, because by the time he had pulled Cassie out of the water his brothers were there, and his dad was right behind them, rubbing at his sleep-crusted eyes and shoving past the boys.  Kyle turned pale and puked on the carpet and Howard looked like he wanted to do the same, but Asher didn’t care.  He was holding onto Cassie and she wasn’t moving, her eyes were open but she wasn’t moving, she wasn’t breathing…

His father shoved him back.  “Call 911!” he yelled at Asher, pulling Cassie into his own arms.  Taking her away from Asher.  Asher reached for her again, but then his dad hit him across the face, hard.  The shock of it made tears spring to his eyes.  His father had never hit him before that day.  “Go get the goddamn phone and call 911!” he snarled.

Asher had gotten to his feet, moved past his useless brothers, even more useless and frozen than he was, and went and called 911.



“Are you utterly useless?”

The shrill voice breaks through the memory, pulling Asher out of that other place and back to where he is now, which is to say, in the company of two shrieking harpies.

“Can’t you even follow the simplest instructions?” Envy demands.  “Or is the task we’ve given you too complex for a little piglet?  I told you—”

“A royal carriage!” Pinky breaks in, sitting up abruptly and leaning out the window.  Envy turns at once to her sister and Asher takes a second to get his head right.  Baths.  Right.  No running water, no problem.  He should be leaving, but the way his stepsisters are acting is totally out of characteristic for them.  That is to say, they’re flustered as hell.

“Is it coming this way?” Envy asks, brushing a few strands of hair back from her face.

“No,” Pinky reports with disappointment.  “It’s going on—wait!  A rider is breaking off!  He bears the prince’s standard!  Sister, we must get downstairs at once!”

Asher presses back against the wall as the two tumble past him in a frenzy, checking each other for assurance of their beauty even as they rush towards the stairs.  He puts his bucket down and goes over to the window, watching as the rider draws close.  The horse moves like the wind, as idyllically far from normal as everything seems to be here, but the rider has no problem staying on the thing’s back.  He’s carrying some sort of flag, quartered with fleur-de-lis and stylized dolphins opposite each other.  Asher has no idea what that means, but this is the most interesting thing that’s happened here since he arrived and he craves a distraction, anything to reroute his brain after thinking about Cassie.  He grabs up his stuff and heads downstairs, ready to find out more about what’s going on.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Man, I Know.

Seriously, I know I owe you a Cinders.  I haven't been able to get to it this week, guys, too much editing to go through on Changing Worlds, and I'm trying to finish up my submission for the Goodreads Love is Always Write event so my betas have plenty of time to go over it before the due date.  I will give you a Cinders next week, I swear, a lovely long one.

 In the meantime, I'll share a little part of my LiAW submission.  This part's not rated R, sadly, but it does set things up pretty well with regards to the prompt and the picture.  Don't remember what those are?  Let me help you.



Dear Author,


One angel, one demon. Ancient enemies. Lifetimes of yearning. For millennia the demon Renat has loved the angel Emiel from afar. One kiss was all they ever shared, ages and ages ago. When Emiel is captured and imprisoned in Hell, Renat knows he will risk anything to rescue Emiel and return him to Heaven, even if it means facing the wrath of Satan himself.


Please find a way for this lonely demon to save his angel and get his long-awaited happy ending


Remember, not edited yet, not perfect, but I hope you like it anyway.  Happy Friday, darlins!


***





Farewell, happy fields, Where joy forever dwells! Hail horrors! hail, Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell, Receive thy new possessor! One who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

Milton, Paradise Lost - Book I



ii

                The demon Renat liked to spend what time he had to himself in the Fields of the Damned.  Broken souls were planted there, and it was the responsibility of the demons overseeing the fields to see that they grew as twisted and tormented as their sins merited.  Renat himself was not an overseer of the damned.  He was a powerful demon, one of the original Fallen and a Prince of Hell, but when the mood took him he would fly on ruined wings to the fields, alight on the black, charred ground, and go for a walk. 

With his wings folded away, sword sheathed and eyes half-closed and pensive, he could almost be mistaken for a handsome young man as he drifted through the fields, his arms outstretched towards the blossoming tufts of soul within reach of his fingertips.  Tongueless mouths shrieked as he brushed them, the soul filaments flaming with the fire that burned inside of Renat.  Memories of lost passion and bitter regret flowed through creatures whose only respite was forgetting their transgressions.  One touch and every wicked word, every evil action was brought back to them in full, and the cries of dismay his presence brought were a satisfying melody to Renat’s ears.  If he should suffer the consequences of disobedience, then the human souls consigned to Hell’s thoughtful cruelties should suffer so much more.  After all, they were the ones who had caused this hateful division in the first place.  They should feel the brutal price of their own existence.

The newest souls, those who had no direct experience with him, occasionally begged him for mercy.  From a distance Renat might be thought a mortal, vulnerably nude; up close it was clear he was a celestial being, second only to Satan in terms of his absolute beauty.  Where he who was once the Morning Star was all light, though, Renat’s hair was a stream of darkness that fell in a straight glossy sheet down his back, so clean and pure that each strand gleamed like a mirror, reflecting the twisted faces of the damned back at themselves and filling them with even more misery.  His eyes were reddish-gold, shining with the strength of his dominant presence.  His body was smooth and lissome, and his face was so perfect that it could only have originated in Heaven.

No one saw the hellfire tattoo that burned against the base of his neck, placed there at the founding of Hell by the only angel with more strength and bitterness in him than Renat himself.  No mortal soul saw the tattered remnants of his wings, the physical representation of every angel’s grace.  Very few ever saw the inside of his home, a vast obsidian castle that cut the feet of all who dared to approach it without wings of their own.  Renat held himself apart from the dark revelry of Hell, a pathetic offering to the memory of the one he loved, but a simple ode was better than no recognition at all.  Renat could never forget that he was damned, cut off from God and all of the blessings of his presence, but he could remember why it had seemed worth it at the time, and honor the source of that decision.

Gravel crunched behind him.  Renat turned and received the obeisance of the cloven-hoofed demon that had approached him.  The creature was over twice his height, horned and hairy and fierce, but he knew to show respect for his master.  “Speak, Nergal.”  His voice was as sweet and smooth as honey, mustering up such tender remembrances to the listening souls that they screamed with agony over the eternal loss they suffered.

Nergal lifted his eyes towards Renat.  They were black from edge to edge, and seemed to suck in the light of the hellfire.  “My Prince, an angel has been brought through the Western Gate.”

***

(I know, a horrible place to end a snippet, but I gotta work with what I have, folks.)

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Edit me, baby.

Soooo...

I had no idea what edits really were until today.  That's because my novel, Changing Worlds, came back to me this afternoon and let me say, if my editor hadn't taken a pause in the beginning to let me know she actually really liked the story, I might have cried.  Today, I learned the real difference between a beta reader and an editor.  A beta reader is generally a friend, probably someone who likes my work, and usually limits him or herself to suggesting improvements and notesing grammar/spelling errors.  An editor is someone who is under no contract, friendly or otherwise, to like what I've produced.  This person is being paid to do a job, and a thorough one at that.  This person has studied structure, style and form and would probably hand me my ass in a game of Scrabble.  This person is the one who won't let me defend my plot points or word choices with "I just like it this way."  Madam, I salute you.  You make me feel so adult.  You also make me feel a little childish as well, actually; it's the nature of the beast.

This is my longest publication to date, and definitely the most thoroughly gone over.  I have two weeks to make changes, and I think I'm going to need all of them.  My publisher and I are working on a blurb for the story that I'll share when its readable, and the artist is currently doing sketches for the cover.  Actual sketches, not just beautiful photoshopping.  I admire it all, but I'm really looking forward to a cover drawn just for me *helpless giggle*  God, I need to stop it with the beer.  It's making me silly.

Happy St. Patricks Day, guys!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Lazy weekend, what to do?

It's been a glorious day of power lounging so far. I've been banging on one project or another interminably for a while, so to have a day to power lounge almost makes me feel guilty.  Like I should be hammering out the next part of Cinders (which I should, I know, but that story can be kind of fragile) or writing another novel or something.  Something, surely.  Instead my pressing stuff is off with beta readers, my current stuff is coming at its own pace and I don't have an immediate deadline.  Which I hate.

I was a world-class crammer in college.  I didn't even give all-nighters the dignity of taking all night: I woke up whenever my anxiety forced me out of slumber and burned the test material into my brain in however many hours were left before that class, that day.  It worked for me.  Deadlines work for me now, but giving them to myself just feels facetious.  I mean, if you can't screw your own self over and expect forgiveness, who can you screw over?

What I need is another anthology to submit to.  One with an air of excitement and a pressing deadline.  That tears it, I'm off to look around.  In the meantime, to assuage my guilt, let me assure you that May is absolutely going to be a whirlwind of activity, with at least two new releases.  I'm readying my LiAW story for submission, and getting ready to write a two-parter that revolves around a changeling in the courts of the Winter and Summer fae.  Plus more Cinders should be out this week, with finally, finally, some explicit smut.  I just need it.

Happy weekend, people.  I hope yours are as soothingly languorous as mine.  :)


And btw, to the people who are checking this blog out from other countries: rock on!  Hi, Russian and Romania and Taiwan!  Who the heck are you wonderfully multi-lingual people?

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Cinders Post #3

Notes:  Cinders the third.  I'm going to have to make a separate page for them after this so readers don't have to hop around my site.  More developments, more backstory and more mouthing off!  What's not to like?


Title: Cinders

Part Three:  Psuedo-Siblings



***
 

Asher sucked at the whole concept of brothers.  He just didn’t know how to relate to them.  It was kind of weird, since he had two of them himself, but Howard and Kyle had been born less than a year apart, practically twins for all the likenesses between them.  They had always been happy keeping to each other, and Asher, three years younger and not nearly interesting enough to bother with, grew up mostly alone, rather than running around in their shadows.  It wasn’t until Cassie came along that he actually felt like he had something to contribute.  He didn’t care that Cassie cried, or needed so much of his attention.  At least she wanted it.  His mother appreciated the help with the baby and his dad never said anything at all, which was good as far as Asher was concerned.  Cassie belonged to him, and his older brothers belonged to each other, and the pairs very rarely mixed.
He had been worried at first, getting to know Ty.  Not because he didn’t think Ty was worthwhile; fuck, you just had to look at the kid to see that, but because Asher was so bad with other guys.  Honestly it was amazing he identified as gay, for all the shit he gave his own gender.  He had been thinking at first that he’d just hang out with Ty for a few weeks before the kid went on his own way, but then he found the part of Ty that made everything else about him fade away.  It was the need.  He needed help, he needed Asher’s help, and that outweighed every awkward moment and miscommunication.  Because Ty didn’t have a fucking clue of how to live on his own, and his ignorance was dangerous.
“I could get a job,” he insisted late one night as they stood on a street corner, watching taxis trawl slowly down the four-lane road.  “I could be a busboy or something.”
“You’re too young without your parent’s approval, and they ask for that shit around here,” Asher replied, exhaling a mouthful of smoke.  He didn’t smoke often, but that night he needed something to do with his hands other than put them all over Ty.  Ty wasn’t ready for that yet.
“Couldn’t I just forge it?”
“Can you also forge a cell number and a permanent address for your imaginary parents?  Maybe in a couple of months you could, but that costs money and right now you don’t have any money.  Vicious cycle, man.”
“Isn’t there something other than…than…” Ty flapped his big awkward hands, even then too big for him, a sign of how tall he was going to get.
“Sure, there’re other ways,” Asher said easily.  “You could get into drugs, start selling them.  Hard not to start using them too, but whatever.  You could steal things, there are plenty of guys around here who can teach you how to boost a car.  Fuck, there’s even a lot of money to be made stealing bikes, so if you got in with the right people they could show you that.  Not exactly safe, and you’d probably end up someone’s bitch anyway, but you could try.  Or you could get a normal job and hope they never looked into your background and try to live on minimum wage, which is pretty fucking hard in San Francisco.”  Asher paused for a second, blew another puff of smoke.  “It’s your choice, man.  I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t want to.  I’ve got enough to get by for now, but I can’t carry both of us for too long by myself.”
“I know,” Ty said, everything about him screaming discomfort and guilt as his shoulders hunched up and his arms crossed in front of his chest.
A car slowed down at their corner, not a taxi but a private car.  The passenger side window rolled down.  Asher flicked his cigarette onto the ground and stepped it out, then patted Ty once on the shoulder.  “I’ve got this.  I’ll be back soon.”  He turned and felt the double heat of the shadowy man’s eyes on him from inside the car and Ty’s boring into his back as he walked over to tomorrow’s groceries.
“Hey, man.”  Asher leaned forward against the hood, stretching out his body.  “You lookin’ for someone?”
“Yes.”

***

Asher is a quick study, he always has been.  He was programming the VCR before either of his older brothers could, he learned the times tables before anyone else in his third grade class, and he fucked his gag reflex right out of his throat in under a month.  He picks things up fast.  So he figures out very quickly that the best way to get along on this strange new world is to be quiet, to do as he’s told and, above all, to observe and learn everything that he can about this place.  He learns very quickly that there are three stories to this enormous house, and that he’s supposed to use the dark, cramped stairs at the very end of the building instead of the wide, beautiful set off the main hall.  He learns that there are no toilets, but there are chamber pots, and those need to be emptied twice a day.  His gag reflex kind of comes back when he sees those, but Asher has a strong stomach.  He avoids seeing the ladies of the house for most of the day, entering their rooms after they’ve already left them to clean out the grates and lay in wood for a new fire in the evening.
He comes to understand, from the few comments these painting-people address to him, that they think he’s related to the women who run this joint.  His “father” is spoken of in hushed tones, often wistfully, and Asher gathers that the man is dead, and has been for some time.  His stepmother is apparently of the evil kind, and his stepsisters are beautiful and correspondingly cruel.  None of them seem to like to acknowledge his existence, and the only time that Asher is supposed exposed to them is when he serves them at dinner, which is kind of a shocker to him.  He hasn’t seen them all day; why start now?  But the cook is insistent, and so he mentally shrugs and brings them their damn bread, which smells fucking amazing and which he hasn’t had a chance to eat.
“There he is at last,” one of the younger women drawls from where she lounges in her chair.  Asher has no idea how you can lounge in a high-backed wooden chair; it must be a learned skill.  “And filthy as ever.  Honestly, you’re nothing but soot and cinders, you dirty little pig.”
“Piglet,” the other girl corrects with a giggle.  “The runt of the litter.”  Both of the young women are bright against the dark wood furniture of the room, their dresses pink and green respectively.  Their skin is unnaturally luminous, their features have the kind of doll-like perfection that Cassie aspired to, and their hair is huge and fluffy and piled on top of their heads.  Asher kind of expects a bird to poke its head out of there at any moment.  He sets down the bread and turns to leave.
“Just a moment, child,” the women at the head of the table says.  Asher turns to face her.  She’s skinny, almost bony, and her features have that sharp attractiveness to them that you see in movie stars, hollow but still lovely.  Her hair is gray, her nose is slightly hooked and her eyes are hawkish.  If she had been a man beckoning Asher into his car on a street corner, he would have walked the other way, fast.  She motions him closer with one hand.  Asher goes, reluctantly.
When he’s close enough she grabs him, pulling him towards her with one overly-strong claw of a hand.  Her skin feels cool and waxy, like a new apple.  He pulls away reflexively, but she has him tight.  “You are looking rather pitiful,” she observes in a voice as dry as dust.  “Where are your new shoes?”
“I…I lost one of them,” Asher says after a moment.
“What did I tell you, Mother?” one of the girls exclaims, slamming her slender hand down on the wooden tabletop.  “You cannot give this ungrateful little pig anything, he ruins everything he touches.  All your kind gestures accomplish nothing except throwing your money away when it comes to him.”
“Don’t be so harsh, sister,” the other girl, the one in pink, declares languidly.  “The piglet is simple-minded, we’ve always known that.  Idiots can hardly be held responsible for all their actions, or their possessions.  In the future his things must be given into the care of the cook, and she can guard them for him.”  She purses her lips and clucks at Asher like a hen.  “That way you won’t go naked in the middle of winter for wondering where you left your jacket, poor simpleton.”
“He’d deserve to freeze, if he was that stupid,” the green girl says dismissively.  The stepmother has let go of him at this point, and Asher has had more than enough.  When his temper gains the upper hand there’s no gainsaying it, and so he doesn’t even think twice about grabbing up the silver pitcher of water on the table and dumping it over the head of the green girl.  Her shrieks are like music to his ears.
The direct consequences of Asher’s actions become no dinner, no sandals and no shirt until the next morning, and he is to sleep outside in the open air until morning.  It might be spring but there’s still a significant chill in the air, and Asher is shivering violently in his body’s bid to stay warm.  The house is closed off to him, as is the granary, so in the end he huddles on the back door’s stoop, where at least there’s no mud and the depth of the doorway protects him from the wind.  He holds himself tightly and squeezes his eyes shut, utterly exhausted but unable to sleep.  Fucking bitches.  But, he admits, fucking bitches who really mean it when they say they’ll make him pay. 
Now would be a really, really great time to snap out of this whatever-it-is, he thinks hopefully, but nothing happens.  Asher rolls his eyes and stares out through slitted eyelids into the darkness.  It’s so dark here, even with the moonlight, so much more so than in the city.  Asher’s never been surrounded by so much nothing before, and it’s disconcerting to be alone in it.
There’s a tiny shuffle out in the backyard.  Asher focuses his eyes and sees a dark shadow creep across the ground, pounce on something, then sit and wait for a moment before lunging forward again.  He looks a little closer.  The shadow seems to be a cat, as black as the shadow it resembles, and it’s playing with something small, maybe a mouse.  It’s drawing out the torment, being cruel, and Asher moves before he really knows why.  He runs at a shuffle-step towards the cat, the best he can do as cold as he is, and the cat bolts when he’s within five feet of it.  Asher bends down awkwardly, looking to see if whatever the cat was toying with is dead. 
It turns out to be a mouse, and it isn’t dead, just sitting there like a quivering little ball of fluff.  Asher reaches out and picks it up, and the mouse doesn’t struggle or bite him or anything, just sits there shaking.  Asher can relate.  He retreats to the stoop, holds the little critter close to his chest and strokes its tiny head until the shivers die down.  Strangely, his own shivers die a little at the same time, and he feels, if not warm, at least not so miserably cold anymore. 
“You wanna hang with me tonight?” Asher asks the mouse.  A thought strikes him and, suddenly horrified, he quickly adds, “Jesus, don’t actually answer that, okay?  I don’t think I can deal with talking rodents right now on top of everything else.”  The mouse’s ears twitch.  “Good, I’ll take that as a yes.”
The rest of the night passes.  Not quickly, but it does eventually pass.