Today I have the pleasure of being one of two stops on Marilyn Messik’s Witch Dust blog tour! 🙂
Many thanks to Kate Moloney for the opportunity to join in.
Extract…..
I have heard it said, that when you can’t believe your eyes, you don’t. And I didn’t.
My mirror image and I came to a stop, a few paces from each other, while my brain struggled to rationalise. The best-case scenario I could come up with was that the accumulated strain of the last few days had finished me off and I needed sedation, and possibly putting away in a locked room. How long we would have stood there, staring at each other I really couldn’t say, but Roland emerged from the kitchen, not looking his usually laid-back self, as one might expect if Gordon Ramsay was still holding sway in there. He was brushing what looked like flour from his jacket – I wondered what had been thrown at him – when he saw the two of us.
The light in the corridor was dim and I watched as he also struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. The other me, turned slowly on her heel to face him and tilted her head slightly to one side.
“Sandra?” He said. I took a breath and opened my mouth, I wasn’t sure I could get anything out, but thought I should make the effort. A fine shaking had started in my legs and was slowly moving up my body.
“It’s me.” I said urgently, “I mean, this is me.” It didn’t make much sense, so I tried again, “Roland, I don’t know what that is, but this is me.” My voice sounded high and shrill and I didn’t feel as if I’d clarified the situation much, but it’s not really the sort of situation you expect to have to clarify is it?
She/me was wearing exactly what I was wearing, and as she started to move towards the now backing-away Roland, I saw she moved the way I moved. I thought with horror, if she spoke, if she said anything at all, I’d be lost. I did the only thing that made any kind of sense in that moment, I leapt forward and threw both my arms tight round her body. It felt indescribably repulsive, because she/I was completely solid in my grasp and she was wriggling and bucking violently to get away. In that instant, I knew exactly what I had to do, the only thing to do. I reached up to her/my face, clamping my thumb and forefinger bruisingly on her/my lower jaw, turning her face to mine, forcing her mouth wide with the pressure of my fingers. I hauled in a breath, feeling my lungs expand and then I hissed it out, hard, into her. It was a long, sibilant, snake of a hiss, full of the complete revulsion I was feeling and the face, her/my face, so close to mine began to melt, falling away like wax in a flame. And if you’ve never watched your own face melt before your eyes, it’s not something I’d recommend. The progression from drooping misshapen flesh, to bare bone, to bone dripping down a melting neck, was swift and appalling, and then the still wriggling body in my arms, disintegrated and fell away completely. On the uncarpeted floor was a pile of ash, shifting slightly back and forward in the draught and with a shining, unmoving, solid object in the middle – the gold chain and initial necklace I often wore, I put my hand to my throat – was wearing now.
Roland moved forward and caught me as my legs gave way, mercifully pulling me away from what was on the floor and towards him. Wordlessly, he put one arm round my waist and half dragged, half carried me down the corridor, the short distance to the kitchen. I found I was still holding firm to my notebook with my pen hooked into the wire binding, that was good, you just never know when you might need to make a note or two.
Title of Book: Witch Dust
Author name: Marilyn Messik
Genre: Paranormal Thriller
Release Date: 28th August 2017
Publisher: Matador
About the book…..
“A red gash of a mouth rimmed with impossibly tiny, razor-sharp teeth yawned wide, then swift as a snake, she bent and struck . . . “
For Sandra, daughter of illusionists, Adam and Ophelia, life’s never been run of the mill. But when Adam’s wandering eye lights on yet another conquest, it proves a chorus girl too far, and Sandra’s caught in the reverberations of her parents acrimonious parting. Coerced into restoring her depressed Mother to the bosom of a family Sandra never knew existed, she’s sucked into a situation that even for her is unnerving.
From being without a single relative, she suddenly acquires several she’d rather do without, and learns a few home truths she’d prefer not to know. Ophelia it appears, has not been entirely honest about any number of things. There’s no doubt in Sandra’s mind, the sooner she puts as much distance as possible between herself, her newly discovered nearest and dearest, their peculiar tendencies and their failing hotel business, the very much happier she’s going to be.
Dire straits call for desperate measures and Sandra reluctantly rises to the occasion. A hanged housemaid, a fly-on-the-wall documentary, The Psychic Society and a quasi co-operative journalist all handled correctly should, she reckons, get the family business up and running, which will allow her to do the same – as fast as she can, and in the opposite direction. Things unfortunately move swiftly from bad to farce and then get a hell of a lot darker. One moment Sandra’s struggling to save the family’s income, the next, she’s battling to save their lives.
Turns out, some darknesses, once buried, are best left undisturbed.
About the author…..
Marilyn was a regular feature and fiction writer for various national magazines when her children were small. She then set up her first business, selling toys, books and party goods from home, before opening first one shop then another. When she sold both shops she moved into the world of travel, focusing on Bed and Breakfasts and Country Inns in New England, USA. Her advisory, planning and booking service flourished and she concurrently launched a publishing company, producing an annual, full-colour accommodation guide. In 2007 she set up a copywriting consultancy, to help businesses shape their messages to optimum effect.
She’s the author of the Little Black Business Book series and the novels Relatively Strange and Even Stranger. She’s been married to her very patient husband for more years than he deserves and they have two children, five grandchildren and, somewhat to their surprise, several grand-dogs. Her writing style has been described as ‘A cross between Stephen King and Maureen Lipman.’ although, as she points out, she’s not sure either of them would be remotely thrilled to hear that!
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Facebook: marilyn.messik.5
Twitter: @marilyn_messik
Goodreads Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/m29fqod
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Website: http://www.marilynmessik.co.uk/
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