A preview of Home to Pickleberry

Introduction:

Hi there. I’m glad to see you. I’m sharing with you a sneak peek into Home to Pickleberry. Below is the opening scene for the novel. While I don’t think it completely encompasses the story it gives you a good idea of the world you’re about to dive into. Setting the stage, so to speak. I hope you enjoy!

A demon and a child sat at a table. 

The demon didn’t look like a demon. His face was familiar and comforting to the little girl with the dark ponytail. He appeared to her as someone who provided love and protection. The little girl, who had never known love, would have gladly accepted the demon in any form he chose to appear to her. But life was a little easier when he smiled at her wearing the face of a kind, elderly man. 

Scattered upon the table before them was an array of colored papers and crayons. They’d already worked through a stack of papers, building stories and creating creatures and monsters. The demon worked strategically to help the child create a world where these creatures could live—a red-tinted world where they were free to play any sort of game they wanted, no matter how much it disappointed their mothers. 

The child loved this. She loved telling stories and she loved having someone listen to them. 

By the time she’d used the last of her colored paper and was left with only white sheets, her heart was swelling so full it seemed to spill from her face in the form of a contagious smile. 

She took a sheet of paper and a red crayon. With care and consideration, she drew one curved line, then another, and then filled the space in with red. She presented to the demon a crudely colored heart as large as her head. 

“Is this for me?” he asked. His voice was raspy, like air being pressed through an opening too small.  

“Because I love you!” 

“Oh,” the demon said, holding the paper appreciatively and then crumbling it into a ball and tossing it over his shoulder. He leaned close to the child and pinched her cheek. “I think you can do better than that.” 

***

The child knelt in the grass looking at the ground. Her knees were red and itchy, but she paid them no mind. The grass was just tall enough to hide her from prying eyes and easy enough to be pressed down so she could have a clear view of the work she was doing. With her demon standing to the side so as to not block the light, she set to work. 

She’d stolen her mother’s sharpest knife and tucked it in the sleeve of her jacket. After a tiring chase, she held it ready in her hand.  

Before her lay a dead rabbit. She was lucky that something so small had taken such little force to kill, but now she was unsure about taking the next step. 

The knife trembled in her little hand. 

“Go on, dear,” said the demon. “It’s only a small cut here.” His long fingernail traced an imaginary line for her to follow. 

The child nodded but didn’t move. 

“You do love me, don’t you?” asked the demon. 

She met his face with tearful eyes. “I do love you,” she said. 

He gestured to the dead animal. 

With a shaking hand, she pushed the knife into the soft body and cut. It took several tries to cut deep enough as she had no experience dissecting animals. After a few cuts, she set the knife aside and plunged her fingers into the rabbit’s inner cavity. Her hand emerged holding a tiny heart. She turned, eyes red, and presented the heart to her demon. 

The demon placed his hand over his own empty chest and with the other he petted her coarse hair flat. “That’s my girl.” He smiled. 

***

“Haven’t I collected enough for you?” the child asked her demon during recess. She was older now and a few years into school. She’d been sitting under her usual tree with a notebook and a red pencil. None of the other students or the teachers seemed to notice when she wandered off. 

Her demon settled next to her under the tree, enjoying the shade. “You know I value the collection you’ve started for me more than anything. I just think it’s missing something,” he said. 

He pulled a rabbit from the inside of his trench coat like a magician would from a black top hat. Unlike the soft white rabbits known to accompany magicians, this rabbit looked like its body had been twisted and encased in bark. He gave it a scratch under its chin and placed it in the grass, where it thumped around stiffly. It didn’t move like a rabbit. It moved like a dried branch that had fallen from an oak years ago and was better suited to be kindling rather than a pet kept in a demon’s pocket. 

“What kind of something?” she asked, scribbling mindlessly at her paper and not acknowledging the rabbit that hopped awkwardly around her legs. 

“Something… bigger?” 

“Bigger?” 

Her demon nodded. 

“Like… a dog? I’ve done that,” she thought aloud. 

“No. No, bigger than that.”  

She pondered, not looking up from her notebook. “A horse?” 

“Mmm, not quite.” His eyes seemed fixed across the playground to a group of kids playing Four Square. 

When she couldn’t guess anymore, she looked to the demon and followed his gaze. Her grip tightened on the pencil and she swallowed hard. 

“You’re scared,” he said. 

She lowered her eyes. 

“You have no reason to be.” 

She didn’t speak and made no motion to move. 

“Dear,” he said, pulling her gaze to him. “Don’t you love me?” 

She felt her eyes go misty. She allowed herself a mere nod. 

“Excellent,” he said with an excited smile. He waved his hand at the children and their game, and the ball flew from its original path and diverted completely off course to the tall grass at the back of the playground. 

“I’ve got it!” yelled a blond boy. 

Her demon lowered his reach to the rabbit, which jumped into his sleeve and disappeared. Once his sleeve stopped twitching, he looked to her expectantly and the child pushed herself to her feet. 

She followed the boy deep into the grass far from the sight of the teachers and other students. The ball was nowhere to be found, but the boy continued to look. 

She found a rock, small enough to fit in her hand but large enough to land a solid blow to the back of the boy’s head. 

As she stood over his still body, blood oozing from the wound on the back of his head, the demon appeared over her shoulder. He presented her with a knife. 

She didn’t move. 

“No one loves you like I do, dear. Remember that. If you love me, you will make me happy.” He pushed the knife toward her. 

She watched the blood fall from the back of the boy’s head and trickle over the ground. 

“You do love me, don’t you?”  

She took the knife into her trembling hand. She rolled the boy onto his back. His chest rose and fell steadily. She lifted his shirt and the knife shook harder in her hand. 

“His chest will be stronger than that of a dog or rabbit. You will have to strike hard,” said the demon. 

She nodded. She raised the knife over her head but held it there, trembling. 

“Do it,” he said. “For me.” 

She squeezed her eyes shut tight and swung her arm all the way back to gain momentum. As she began her thrust something grasped her wrist, stopping her mid-swing. 

Her demon pulled the knife from her hand and pulled her into a tight embrace. “There, there,” he comforted her. “I know. I know. Now go tell your teachers he fell and needs help.” 

The child ran off to get help, wiping tears from her eyes. 

The demon loomed over the boy, smiling at what could have been. This wasn’t the time. Still, in his heart he knew there was nothing this child wouldn’t do for him. Utter devotion. Willingness to go to the end of the earth for his desires. A demon could only be so lucky to call that unconditional love.