Now her eyes widened. “You could see that from such a distance? Could you see what the drawing looked like?”
Green squares, surrounded by smaller squares of red and blue. What looked like little pine trees sticking out of the squares. I nodded.
The lady smiled again, looking like an old mother pig when it’s found a nice puddle to wallow in. Somehow the smile was even more frightening.
At that moment, we met up with the main road. I was certain that we would turn right, back toward the village, to my house, my mother, and that some explanation for this peculiar line of questions would present itself.
Instead, the palanquin turned smoothly left.
Confused, I stopped in my tracks.
“Stop!” the lady yelled. Little Brother and the winking one came to a halt. “Come along, girl!”
“But...?”
“I told you to keep up with me, child.” She wasn’t even looking at me.
“But... the village is...?” I pointed back down the road I had been walking most of my life, to the bridge I could see just behind the spur of trees that led to my house.
“Silly Risuko. Down!” The two men lowered her to the crossroad. Now she looked at me. “You are not going back there. Your mother sold you to me this morning.” She leaned out the window and barked at the carriers, “Go!”
To be Continued in
Risuko
A Kunoichi Tale
Seasons of the Sword #1
and a Girl Who Likes to Climb
Though Japan has been devastated by a century of civil war, Risuko just wants to climb trees. Growing up far from the battlefields and court intrigues, the fatherless girl finds herself pulled into a plot that may reunite Japan -- or may destroy it. She is torn from her home and what is left of her family, but finds new friends at a school that may not be what it seems.
Magical but historical, Risuko follows her along the first dangerous steps to discovering who she truly is.
(Teen historical adventure novel)
Available wherever you buy books!
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Find out more on Risuko.Net
Follow on:
twitter.com/RisukoKunoichi • risuko-chan.tumblr.com
facebook.com/risuko.books • instagram.com/RisukoKunoichi
risuko.livejournal.com
Also from Stillpoint/Atalanta
Winter Tales
by
The Seven Gods of Luck
Shlomo Travels to Warsaw
How Raven Brought Back the Light
From Stillpoint/Prometheus
Science Fiction & Fantasy
The Law and the Heart by Kenneth Schneyer
Exploring the seams where humanity and technology, society and individuality intersect, thirteen tales of near and far futures that will amuse, amaze, and unsettle
—
The Keeping Time Trilogy by Heather Albano
Timepiece • Timekeeper • Timebound
Mindbending steampunk where time travel meets Waterloo meets Jane Austen meets Frankestein meets the law of unintended consequences
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
—
Into the Mystic — edited by Deadwoodpecker
David Kudler is not afraid of heights. He just has a healthy respect for depths. “I’m as surprised as anyone,” he says, “that I’ve written a book featuring a girl who loves to be as high up in the air as possible.”
An editor and author, he lives just north of the Golden Gate Bridge with his wife, actor/teacher/author Maura Vaughn, their author-to-be daughters, and their (apparently) non-literary cats.
He is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief for Stillpoint Digital Press. Since 1999, he has overseen the publications program of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, for which he has edited three posthumous volumes of Campbell’s previously unpublished work (Pathways to Bliss, Myths of Light and Sake & Satori) and managed the publication of over sixty print, ebook, print, audio, and video titles, including the third edition of the seminal Hero with a Thousand Faces. He is honored to serve the board of the Bay Area Independent Publisher’s Association (BAIPA). He also blogs on books and publishing for Huffington Post.
Risuko is his first novel. His children’s picture books The Seven Gods of Luck, Shlomo Travels to Warsaw, and How Raven Brought Back the Light (all co-written with his wife Maura Vaughn) are available as the Winter Tales. He is currently at work on Bright-Eyes, the second book in the Seasons of the Sword series, as well as six Kunoichi Companion Tales.
For more information about David Kudler and his writing, visit
Risuko.Net
You can also follow him on social media:
twitter.com/dkudler • davidkudler.tumblr.com
facebook.com/risuko.books • davidkudler.pinterest.com
davidkudler.livejournal.com