Womb

Womb Cover

Now Available from Howling Unicorn Press

The bond between mother and child is supposed to be sacred, but what happens when it becomes something else? Some mothers will do anything to for their children…even give (or take) their lives.

Featuring the stories:
Rising Waters
Mother’s Milk
Over Hill
The Killing Point
A Cheap Gold Chain
Cockles and Mussels
The Annual Grandchild Reunion
Blood Born

Now available in ebook:

Read an Excerpt:

A Cheap Gold Chain
 I am the box of candy on February 15. I am the hair ball found under the bed three weeks after the cat has died. I am the last piece of Thanksgiving turkey that did not make it into a sandwich or a casserole. The last final bits that no one can quite stomach, but no one wants to throw away.

Do you what you want about it. I don’t want it, and I don’t want you.

Today, a man came into the bank through the delivery door. We all assumed he was there to deliver some bottled water for the cooler in the break room, but we were wrong. He had a gun. He made the big-assed leggings girl put all the money she had into a bag, and while he threatened and shouted, he held his arm around my body and his gun to my head.

He was very warm, probably from excitement, and I leaned against him. I enjoyed the warmth. The bank is always too cold for my tastes. His arm was strong. He was only a little taller than I, and my head rested in the hollow where his shoulder meets his neck. He smelled of some cologne I could not place. I enjoyed being held. No one holds me anymore.

“No one move, and I’ll let her go,” he shouted. His voice was harsh and loud above my head.

He was going to let me go.

Did I mention I am a cat? I like to be stroked and petted. I like to curl up next to someone warm.

I left it in a box on his kitchen table so he’d see it as soon as he got home. It left a stain with ragged edges. The stink of it was terrible.

I like to write with the sharp-tipped fountain pen I stole from Jonah’s desk drawer. It has a smooth, fine line and is luxuriously heavy in my hand. I have written letters with this pen. Not love letters, not when I’ve had nobody in my life to love and the only thing that ever might have was left to rot in a cardboard box in the kitchen of the man who did not want me or it.

The bank robber was going to let me go. Someone is always letting me go. No one ever stays. I did not want him to let me go. The pen went straight and true into his left eye, and he cried out. His blood was warm, and it coated my hair like honey.